8/31/20 - Book 1: Chapters 9-12
Book 1: Water
Part 3 - A Friendly Reminder; Aang F*cked Up
Besides the world of Avatar, another one of my favorite fictional universes is Star Wars.
The modern Disney-era Star Wars films are a powder keg of hot takes, political interpretations and storytelling issues - but one element I really appreciate about them (The Last Jedi in particular) is their examination of their cast’s relationships to failure. Arguably, the linchpin of the whole new trilogy - Kylo Ren - is the direct result of real world cultural icon Luke Skywalker failing to control his instincts, and drawing his blade on a child.
Luke doomed his galaxy to another bloody war; Aang doomed his world to a century of conflict.
A century.
The line from the intro; “A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar,” is thoroughly burned into the memory of fans of the show; enough so that we as fans have likely simply accepted the reality of Aang’s decisions, and don’t question what might have been.
But Aang’s own impulse - to flee the Southern Air Temple when he learned he was going to be separated from his mentor, Monk Gyatso - did its part in condemning the world to the Hundred Years War. As we learn later in “The Avatar and the Firelord,” if we are to assign blame, the war is the fault of two successive Avatars - Roku, who didn’t stop Fire Lord Sozin’s designs for conquest when he had the chance; and Aang, whose flight from the Air Temple trapped him in ice and took him off the board for 100 years.
A refrain of mine has been that Book 1: Water is the rockiest of the three seasons of Avatar; however I do think “The Storm,” - in which Aang explains the details of his last days in the Air Temple - is one of the most powerful episodes across the show. In confessing his failings to Katara, and reflecting on his path forward, Aang reaches a level of peace in deciding to try and accept the past and to put his best foot forward to helping the world (note: the writer’s don’t let Aang have a one and done with his guilt - we revisit these feelings at the end of Book 2 in “The Guru”).
In The Last Jedi, the iconic, ancient muppet, Yoda has the line “The greatest teacher failure is.”
In both TLJ and Avatar there is repeated emphasis paid to the themes of grappling with both your personal screw-ups (ex: Aang) as well as the failings of your culture (ex: Zuko grappling with the legacy of the Fire Nation). Picking yourself up and trying to move forward is an excellent and important message to teach our children (at least the initial primary audience for ATLA) but I rarely see it so simply distilled as it is in Aang’s line:
“I can’t make guesses about how things might have turned out… I’m here now and I’m going to make the most of it.”
We need to learn from our mistakes, but we can’t wallow in them. No matter the size of your fuck-ups, at the end of the day, there’s little that can stop you from accepting your guilt, lacing up your shoes, and trying to make the world a little better.
...Anyway, you know what makes my world better? Pirates.
1.9 - The Waterbending Scroll
Our “Previously on Avatar…” lets us know that after three episodes we’re finally going to get payoff to Zuko finding Katara’s necklace
Though it’s much, much more played up in Book 3’s “Nightmares and Daydreams,” Aang’s crippling anxiety after Roku tells him about the comet is relatable; once again, since the show aired over four years, I have to actively remind myself that Aang & Co. have about nine months from the iceberg to save the world.
Growing up I never appreciated the diverse ragtag group that crews Zuko’s ship; save Lieutenant Jee (the gray haired officer who nearly throws hands with Zuko in “The Storm”) I don’t think any of them get names, but they’re creative and fun.
Iroh’s hunt for a new white lotus tile is hysterical; he redirects a warship’s course to effectively go buy a rare YuGiOh card I’m-
**Zuko breathes fire in outrage**; “I’m lucky to have such an understanding nephew.”
Waterbending has its basis in the Chinese martial art of tai chi, which emphasizes a lot of slow flowing movements and balance control. I’ve had the chance to practice tai chi a bit over the years (woefully inconsistently - I’m out of practice as I write this); it’s cool to see the fundamentals I’ve learned reflected back on screen.
The port where the Team encounters the pirates has big Mos Eisley energy - anything can happen at a port.
“Who’s brave enough to look into this bag?” - Just a delightfully bizarre mood-setting line
You can see it in the establishing shots - the port has a massive pyramidal fortress-like structure that reminds me big time of Meereen in Game of Thrones.
The green-outfitted pirate with the hoop earring is identified in the Art of the Animated Series and on the wiki as “Pirate Barker Oh”; extremely minor character in a very rich story, but his energy and his line readings have always been memorable to me:
“What’re curios?” “...I’m not entirely sure. But we got ‘em!”
Speaking of diverse motley crews - the pirates (save the captain) are all inspired by Avatar’s animators at JM Studios in Seoul, South Korea.
The Earth Kingdom noble who reserved the waterbending scroll always quietly fascinated me - what do they want with a relic of another culture during wartime?
Second appearance of the Cabbage Merchant!
Iroh compulsively buying trunkloads of nonsense while looking for his lotus tile is fabulous.
Katara’s outburst at Aang oversteps and is surprisingly mean coming from the mom-friend; but friendly reminder she’s a child (14) and has just been outdone easily by someone with mere hours of waterbending training.
“What about Momo? He’s the real victim here!... And what about me-” “No more apologies!”
“I’ll save you from the pirates,” - The line that launched the Zutara ship.
In truth though, this is perhaps the most one-on-one time Zuko gets with Katara personally before their spars in the north. The way they play off each other is definitely emotionally charged, though I’d contend it's definitely not romantic.
“No Katara, it isn’t [your fault].” “Yeah, it kinda is.”
Sokka playing the pirates off Zuko’s crew is actually rather brilliant.
There is one heavyset pirate extra with belly armor and his tits out and honey that is a lewk.
The Pirate Captain uses a jian sword - the same blade type as Master Piandao and later Sokka.
“Maybe it should be a proverb,” - God bless Iroh
If you blink you’ll miss it, but these a moment after Momo escapes the iguana-parrot where one of the buff pirates yeets Sokka into a sail and Oh says, almost to himself, “Thas good,” before being blindsided by Aang - it’s a line reading I’ve always found hysterical for some reason.
The resolution to the lotus tile subplot has me cackling everytime.
“Stealing is wrong, unless it’s from pirates.” - Hot take: Katara rules
1.10 - Jet
Since the timeline of the show spans one year from winter to summer, we never get to see autumn and the leaves changing in Avatar; but Jet’s forest with all the red and orange foliage has big autumnal energy.
“Why do boys think someone alway has to be the leader?”
“I’ve kissed a girl! You just haven’t met her.” “Who? Gran-Gran? I’ve met Gran-Gran.” - Katara is just reading Sokka for filth in this opening scene.
In the interval between this episode and the last, Katara has upgraded to using a “water skin” to carry ready-to-bend water with her on the go.
Jet is… cute enough for baby’s first Robin Hood. That or discount Spike Spiegel
One can only assume that Longshot has seen some shit.
How… how old is Pipsqueak? Like he’s massive by adult standards let alone children.
To the note of scale - the trees in this ep are explicitly huge - Dave Filoni, who would go on to be a powerhouse in Star Wars storytelling, directed this ep, and in production labeled the middle layer of the trees where the Freedom Fighters lived the “Ewok level.”
Smellerbee has such a cool husky voice (she’s voiced by Nika Futterman, who, (on the note of Star Wars) went on to portray Asajj Ventress in The Clone Wars. Between Nika and Grey DeLisle as Azula - ATLA features both of Ventress’ major voice actors!)
“Fire Nation swine,” “Dead wrong” - Read the room Katara you’re crushing on a baby radical.
After all these years I’m still not sure if Jet was lying about the old man’s knife. It doesn’t seem outside the realm for the Fire Nation to try and assassinate a rebel leader like that - even if they are a child.
I appreciate the show gives Aang and Katara time to become competent waterbenders; like coaxing the water out of the vents is an easy enough task for the pair of them, and they were able to pull of some impressive feats in the last ep fighting the pirates, but the pair have to work for their skills. When Katara (albeit briefly) holds her own against Pakku at the end of the season, the audience can believe her growth.
Katara, for all her verbal jabs at Sokka, doesn’t hesitate to attack Jet when she learns that Jet might’ve attacked her brother.
“Jet” is something of a middling episode compared to the heights reached by the later seasons - but Aang’s duel with Jet is a gorgeous and memorable display of the animation team’s skill.
Katara freezing Jet to a tree is not the first time the audience sees Katara use waterbending to freeze; but it was such a cool use of that maneuver it blew my mind as a kid.
“You’re sick, and I trusted you!” - Considering this is a plot point on (ostensibly) a kid’s show… showing this early on that terrorism and indiscriminate mass destruction are unacceptable is actually a powerful statement.
“Who would be free? Everyone would be dead.”
Closing note on the subplot of Sokka’s Instincts: “Sometimes they’re right… **Turns the car around**... and sometimes they’re wrong.”
General Note - with the subtitles on, the credits music is simply captioned “Men chanting rhythmically,” and that gave me a sensible chuckle.
1.11 - The Great Divide
Alrighty - we’ve reached the pretty universally agreed upon worst ep of the series. It’s only better from here on so let’s get through this - **Rolls up sleeves**
“Ooh Canyon Guide? Sounds informative.” - Bless you, Katara you dork.
The douchey Gan Jin man the team initially runs into is another of the few people to namedrop Ba Sing Se in Book 1.
For all the Diplomacy 101 of this episode, perhaps one of the better storytelling choices was to make the Gan Jin leader male and the Zhang leader female - a prim man and a sloppy woman help to reinforce that it is philosophy, not gender that govern people’s lifestyles (at least in America, the opposite gender roles are usually enforced).
The Canyon Guide is a fun, goofy minor character.
The Canyon Crawlers are a nightmarish blend of crocodiles and spiders - and while they’re easily enough overcome at the end of the episode - that hybridization is truly horrific.
The Gan Jin and Zhang’s food smuggling ensures mutually assured destruction by Canyon Crawlers were it not for Aang.
The brief flashback animations of the conflicting stories of Jin Wei and Wei Jin are… at least an opportunity for the animators to try something more out there.
Also I can’t imagine not trying to make peace after a century of nonsensical feuding.
The Zhang leader uses a massive sickle-blade; the Gan Jin leader also uses a jian.
Aang’s reaction face re: egg custard tart is hands down the best element (*heh*) of this episode.
This episode just feels aggressively exhausting to me - but we’re almost there kids.
“Maybe we’re not so different after all,” - UGH
It’s immensely out of character for Aang to lie to get out of a jam, but tbh, considering the nonsense of this tribal feud, I’d’ve done the same.
We done, thank goodness - onto a stellar ep.
1.12 - The Storm
This is the first episode where we actually start to explore the hierarchies of the Fire Nation and Air Nomads; on a technical level -
The Fire Nation is an “autocratic absolute monarchy” - all of its political power resides with the Fire Lord; interestingly, the ruling body used to be the Fire Sages before the advent of Fire Lords
The Air Nomads (before their extermination) were ruled by four Councils of Elders - one for each of the directional Air Temples. The five monks (including Gyatso) who reveal Aang’s identity to him are the Council of the Southern Air Temple.
Aang’s nightmare at the outset of this ep is properly unsettling, and features a brief subliminal flash of a shadowed Ozai at its conclusion
The old lady at the port claims to sense the oncoming storm in her joints; Iroh on the other hand… considering his ability to generate and redirect lightning, is it far fetched of me to have the headcanon that he can broadly sense electrical fluctuations in the atmosphere?
“The safety of the crew doesn’t matter!” - Who… why does a sixteen-year-old command a warship?
For all I call him out above, and for all the sailor calls him out in this ep - Aang was twelve when he ran away. He’s a child who made a catastrophic mistake but still a child; furthermore, seeing the devastation of the Southern Temple - even bolstered by the Avatar State… I’m not sure Aang wouldn’t have been killed during the siege.
So - it is extremely significant Aang was twelve when he got his airbender tattoos (you can distinctly see his fellow younger airbenders aren’t tattooed); to achieve formal airbending mastery, there are 36 levels levels of the art to perfect; Aang only personally mastered 35 of the 36, but his invention of a new technique - the air scooter - earned him his tattoos.
Aang was the youngest airbending master on record until his grandaughter Jinora became a master at age eleven.
The “toy test” the airbender elders used to identify Aang as the Avatar is inspired by the real world methods of identifying the reincarnated Dalai Lama.
Each nation apparently has a different method of seeking out the reincarnated Avatar - for example in the Earth Kingdom, they employ “directional geomancy.”
“Storm clouds are gathering,” - Gyatso; this whole episode is a swansong to the halcyon days before Aang and Zuko were caught in the storm of this war.
This episode marks our first look at Zuko sans scar; aged thirteen.
I’d contend the Fire Nation Throne Room is one of the most iconic setpieces of the entire show; it’s a dragon’s den for our shadowed, ultimate big bad final boss and is just gorgeously designed and implicitly threatening
In Art of the Animated Series, Bryke praise Else Garagarza for her design of the throne room - saying she was given the prompt of “Egyptian, Chinese, scary,” and that she definitely “passed the test.”
For me personally, being raised Catholic - the canopy over the Fire Lord’s throne amidst a wall of flames is reminiscent of St. Peter’s Baldachin in the Vatican; the Fire Lord’s seat is a (literally) infernal inversion of the papacy.
On an in-universe historical note; as we later see in “The Avatar and the Firelord,” the Throne Room was formerly a much brighter, open space as opposed to the scary, shadowed nightmare it is now.
To um, state the obvious - Zuko is entirely justified in his outburst at the war meeting, in perhaps the most explicit example of his compassion so far; radical I know, but maybe don’t actively sacrifice soldiers’ lives in a war games gambit.
There is a headcanon among the fandom that Gyatso was in the White Lotus; in my view, the man is much more worldly than many of the other airbender elders so that idea fits pretty well.
God bless Gyatso for trying to keep Aang safe and sane as the world around them snowballed toward war; to that end - considering Aang was twelve and the Fire Nation attacked the Air Temples apparently immediately after Aang left; the leaves the gap of Aang’s young childhood (twelve years) for Sozin to have built up his military before he struck.
Furthermore - especially as the world spiraled toward open war - it seems strange the air elders didn’t assemble a team of water-, earth-, and firebending masters to come to train Aang at the temple
To again state the obvious - the act of challenging a thirteen-year-old child to a duel is explicit, hideous cruelty.
The wooden necklaces worn by the airbender elders are reminiscent of prayer beads used by practitioners of Hinduism and Buddhism.
The window for Aang’s world traveling (presumably on Appa) before the War seems particularly small - he achieved his tattoos at twelve; traveled to the other Air Temples, Omashu, and the Fire Nation all before he was told he was the Avatar - and was still twelve (technically) when he awoke from the iceberg.
We get our first speaking lines from Ozai in this episode. Sup’ Mark <3
“You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher.” (BAD DAD)
Both Zhao and our very first easter egg look at Azula are in the crowd with Iroh watching the Agni Kai.
Jee claims he thought Zuko had been in a “training accident,”; Fire Nation propaganda is a hell of a drug.
The quiet beat of Zuko meditating in his chambers with brief flashes of what we later learn is Ember Island is both chilling and heartbreaking. He’s just a kid too.
“I’m going to find them.” “I’m going with you.” “I’m staying here!”
Iroh gives us our first example of lightning redirection in this ep; lightning generation is not explored until Book 2; and the implications of lightning redirection are not explored until halfway through that book.
In a quiet moment of growth Aang exhibits tenuous control of the Avatar State in using it to save his friends as opposed to mere self-preservation and defense.
“Fish ain’t meat!”
“I’m here now and I’m going to make the most of it,” :’)
“It stopped raining.” :’’)
History & Culture Corner: (Some of) The Weapons of Avatar
One of my favorite components of the Avatar world is its diversity of cultural inspiration and creative inclusion of different historical elements. In addition to the bending arts which I will no doubt explore more thoroughly down the road - the diversity of weapons employed by benders and nonbenders alike is truly impressive.
I repeatedly made note of the jian sword this week - a Chinese straight sword that has been in use in our world for 2500 years - and the sword favored by Master Piandao and Sokka. The jian is frequently incorporated into tai chi practice, and is therefore to me a fitting blade for a Water Tribe national like Sokka and a White Lotus like Piandao.
The jian is among the four major weapons of Chinese folklore, which include:
Jian - Double-edged straightsword - “The Gentleman of Weapons”
Qiang - Spear - “The King of Weapons”
Dao - Single-edged sword - “The Marshal of Weapons” (ex: Zuko’s)
Gun - Stick/staff - “The Grandfather of Weapons”
Additionally in this batch of episodes we see Jet’s rather unique hook swords; as in the show, these weapons are particularly rare, and historically in our world appear to have been primarily a training tool and less a practical combat weapon (they do later appear in the Korra comics as the signature weapon of Tokuga).
- - - -
And like that we’re already over halfway done with Book 1! Next post will cover the Blue Spirit, the Fortuneteller, and Jeong Jeong - we’re moving into thoroughly excellent show now!!
Until then, be well, be safe, and May the Force be with you.
- JMC