2/1/21 - Book 3: Chapters 1-4
Book 3: Fire
Part 1 - One Last Ride
From the outset of their pitch to Nickelodeon, ATLA creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino only wanted Avatar to run three seasons; and honestly, I feel like that is one of the strongest singular creative choices made over the course of making ATLA.
With the first season, the Avatar team found their footing and their voice; with the second they refined and built upon what they’d established in the first; and with the third they were primed to fire (heh) on all cylinders and create a singularly excellent season of television.
At the time, Nickelodeon truly knew what it had on its hands and rolled out the carpet to make the closing chapters of one of its most ambitious shows really special. While I might’ve despised the wait at the time (I was twelve), the network gave the ATLA team the better part of a full year to rollout all of the final book - premiering in the fall of 2007 and concluding in the summer of 2008 (providing the crew much more time to work on the epic scale of Sozin’s Comet).
A regularly overlooked element of the road to the final season was the online game Escape from the Spirit World; bridging Book 2 and Book 3, the game chronicled Aang’s journey to heal his Avatar spirit after falling into a coma following the Coup of Ba Sing Se. The game featured engaging new history for previous Avatars we had gotten to know onscreen - Roku and Kyoshi; as well as introducing the audience to Avatar Kuruk and Avatar Yangchen for the first time, including Yangchen’s stirring wisdom for Aang going into the final season:
“The Avatar must be compassionate towards all people… and the only way to do that is to live with them. The Avatar must experience sadness, anger, joy, and happiness. By feeling all these emotions it helps you understand how precious human life is… so you will do anything to protect it. ...With each life [the Avatar] learns what it means to be human.”
That was dialogue written for a flash game that was going to be played by who knows how tiny a fraction of the Avatar audience - and yet it is both resonant with the show’s themes as well as giving a fanbase of (admittedly at the time, mostly children) some compelling philosophy to chew on.
ATLA’s creative team pulled out all the stops to make a truly impressive season of television with Book 3, and I’m excited to revisit it now - let’s get going.
3.1 - The Awakening
Book 3 concludes the tradition of opening each season on a boat - Book 1 opens on Katara and Sokka in their canoe, Book 2 opens with the group en route to the Earth Kingdom on a Northern Water Tribe ship, and Book 3 opens with Aang waking aboard the captured Fire Nation battleship.
For me it’s interesting to note that Aang immediately recognizes that he wasn’t just hurt but “went down”/died at Ba Sing Se. Additionally, he and the rest of Team Avatar dance around the “d word,” but Azula has no problem stating the “fact” that the Avatar is dead.
On the note of the Fire Nation - Lo and Li’s fascist speech to the rally at the Royal Plaza is one of the more chilling moments of the premiere for me; the paradigm shift of finally seeing the Fire Nation Capital onscreen in addition to seeing the fallout of last season’s finale is a powerful signifier that we are truly in the endgame.
While I know for a fact he makes a return in the sequel comics, following this episode, the long built up Earth King is a non-factor for the rest of the show.
Lest you forget the queen we’re dealing with, Toph displays both refinement of her newfound metalbending, and earthbending on par with a Fire Nation trebuchet once the group comes under attack (“Load the Toph!”).
The refined character designs in this episode - namely the rich reds and golds on Azula and Zuko - just look incredible.
While we do get the brief action scenes of ship to ship combat and Aang slipping past the Fire Nation blockade, to me this feels like a much quieter, character-driven season opener than the previous two; we’ve reached the point in the show where character dynamics are just as important if not more so than cool bending sequences.
“Why did you do it?” “...You’ll have to be more specific.” - GOD Azula rules.
Especially in this season, Avatar Roku becomes the Obi-Wan Kenobi-esque mentor that owns up to his failings. Roku is a complicated figure in the fandom, and I know for a fact he has a larger role to play in the sequel comics, which I’m excited to see play out.
I don’t really have thoughts, but the sequence of Moon Spirit Yue assisting Aang in surfing back to land is excellent.
Minor plot convenience - even with Appa to fly it’s rather incredible the rest of Team Avatar was able to locate Aang with expediency following his running away.
Finally - the destruction of Aang’s original glider is a somber indicator in this opening episode that we are thoroughly “not in Kansas anymore.”
3.2 - The Headband
The look of the Fire Nation Capital, namely the city around the palace - Royal Caldera City - is just such a unique and instantly iconic design. The Capital City Prison, where Iroh is held, is located in a volcanic crater northwest of the city.
They use the maneuver a few times throughout Book 3, but I appreciate that Team Avatar’s “official” arrival in the Fire Nation is under literal cloud cover.
The clothes stealing sequence is an excellent showcase of the diverse array of reds that make up Fire Nation dress - props to the creatives for doing so much with different shades of one primary color.
Aang is apprehended by the Fire Nation’s Domestic Forces - the FN’s rough equivalent to the US National Guard. Bryke points out in the art book that the Domestic Forces have a larger percentage of female soldiers as women are less often fielded to the front lines. While this underscores a degree of sexism in the Nation’s military hierarchy the Domestic Forces train new recruits for the army infantry, and as such many of the front line soldiers are trained by elite women firebenders. Rangi (Avatar Kyoshi’s girlfriend) and her mother, Hei-Ran, were both members of the Fire Army.
“Is this a new mind ready for molding?” - That is just, such an unsettling line.
Aang is invited to play “hide and explode” with a group of Fire Nation kids after school; the rules to this game have never been explored in any Avatar media, so I appreciate it as a throwaway line to add Fire Nation spice to real world games.
The Fire Nation Oath, which Aang bumbles through, goes as such;
“My life I give to my country, with my hands I fight for Fire Lord Ozai and our forefathers before him. With my mind I seek ways to better my country, and with my feet may our March of Civilization continue.”
There is a pretty straight line between the Fire Nation Oath and various Hitler Oaths; the Fire Nation is a composite of many fascist movements and much more than a 1-1 of Imperial Japan. I am not personally equipped to delineate where the line is between an oath of national pride and an oath of cultish allegiance, but I for one usually find children being made to recite pledges (yes, up to and including America’s), at best, unsettling.
It is only mentioned in passing, but it can be inferred that the “March to Civilization” is the domestic term for the Fire Nation’s imperialism.
He’s in literally one scene, but what on earth is the deal with the school’s music teacher? His head too big for he damn body.
There’s an Ozai statue in the school’s courtyard, one of many we will see throughout this season - Ozai only ascended the throne five years before the start of the series (95 AG); for me, the rapid turnover of national icon from one Fire Lord to the next is reminiscent of the succession of North Korean Supreme Leader - as soon as the leader passes, his heir becomes the national icon seemingly (at least to me, an American) overnight. I wonder whether this is the status quo for the Fire Nation or if Ozai personally saw to accelerating the process of transition to solidify his shady transition of power.
Just when you thought the Fire Nation school was unsettling enough; turns out the Headmaster can send children to work coal mines at his discretion. In fairness, we never actually see this play out, so it could possibly be an empty threat, but it is sadly on brand for the Fire Nation’s brand of discipline.
In just a quiet sideye of irritation at being disturbed, we see the cracks start to form in Mai’s relationship with Azula.
“No, you did, just now.”
Rolling with Aang’s refusal to abandon century-old slang, the band he assembles to play at the cave party are called the “Flamey-O’s.”
As someone who hated middle school dances, I deeply vibe with the stereotypical crowds of boys and girls across the room from each other.
Aang showcases an array of pre-war dance styles, including the Phoenix Flight, the Camelephant Strut, and the Ba Sing Se waltz.
A quiet but fun detail; it appears Aang & Katara used waterbending to create ice cups for the punch at the party.
There is fan speculation that Aang and Katara danced with modified waterbending forms, hence how they were able to stay in sync.
The titular “headband” Aang wears throughout this episode is actually the school’s belt; hence how the rest of the students are able to handily pull off their “I am Spartacus” moment at the end of the episode to cover the team’s escape.
Sparky-Sparky Boom Man!
3.3 - The Painted Lady
It wasn’t until this episode that I noticed Appa has acquired a replacement saddle after losing his original to the sandbenders in the desert; and it wasn’t until checking the wiki that I learned this is in fact his third saddle since the pilot.
The first was the one Appa had on during his time in the iceberg, and was in use throughout most of Book 1.
While not explicitly referenced in the show, Appa’s second saddle was acquired at the Northern Water Tribe - perhaps because the original was at the point an antique. It was discarded as junk by the sandbenders when they captured Appa.
The third saddle was created - presumably by Team Avatar and Co. - sometime between the Fall of Ba Sing Se and Aang’s awakening.
While never seen up close, the design of Sokka’s “master schedule” for the invasion is based off of the production schedule for the final season of the show.
This is perhaps the most unsubtle pro-environmental episode of the show, but I still find “The Painted Lady” to be a nice bit of character growth for Katara and I like the unique setting of the fishing town of Jang Hui.
Dock/Xu/Bushi - the eccentric boatman, merchant, and river cleaner the group encounters is made a little less comedic and a little more tragic upon learning that his split personalities are a result of him drinking the polluted river water. This character always kind of rubbed me the wrong way, perhaps for apparently making light of mental illness; sadly, mental disorders are a real world documented reaction to toxic drinking water.
There is a nice bit of foreshadowing of the eventual river cleaning when Katara and Toph use their bending to separate gunk from the river water while they prepare water for the group’s dinner.
As if the army’s presence wasn’t already harmful enough, they lay claim all medicine the village has access to, despite no apparent lack of resources within the Fire Nation military machine.
Quiet props to Katara’s arts and crafts skills - she fabricates her Painted Lady costume in less than a day.
Sokka is skeptical of the Painted Lady’s existence in spite of literally having met and/or been kidnapped by spirits. God loves a skeptic.
When trying to get the “Painted Lady’s” attention, Aang name drops Hei Bei - the panda bear spirit not seen since the Book 1 finale (in the show - he’s also in Escape from the Spirit World!).
Katara and Aang’s destruction of the factory is… eco-terrorism? While the general in charge of the factory is later shown to be an unrepentant bastard, they still presumably destroy the livelihoods of dozens if not hundreds of people.
Furthermore - while obviously none are seen onscreen, who’s to say how many poor souls on the night shift were injured if not killed during Katara and Aang’s assault? Direct action can have consequences.
“No. I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me!” - Props to Mae Whitman for taking a pretty clunky line and making it work.
Speaking of clunky lines: “We’re going to cure the world of this wretched village.” - General Mung. See, now you can go and kill the bastard and his factory.
Mung is voiced by Daniel Riordan, who also voices High General Bujing - one of Ozai’s war council both before and after Zuko’s banishment.
Additionally - you need the rank of general to oversee a factory?
This is hardly Team Avatar’s first foray into putting on dramatics for the Fire Nation - we can trace that history all the way back to episode six when they created a setup of Katara “earthbending,” to go after Haru.
“It doesn’t matter if the Painted Lady is real or not. Because your problems are real, and this river is real. You can’t wait around for someone to help you - you have to help yourselves.”
“Maybe we can clean the riverrrrr.” - Michaela Jill Murphy (the actress formerly known as Jessie Flower) deserves more cred for her comedic chops.
Avatar Kyoshi’s girlfriend and firebending teacher Rangi was known to wear makeup reminiscent of the Painted Lady’s into battle.
Additionally, the true Painted Lady is among a short list of humans known to have transcended their mortal existence to go on to become spirits. She lived as a human at least three hundred years before the events of the show.
3.4 - Sokka’s Master
So this episode opens on a meteor shower - between eclipses, solstices, and of course Sozin’s Comet; astronomy plays a significant role in the worldbuilding of Avatar. Since Team Avatar seems to know that the meteorite they recover in this episode is made of bendable “earth” and enough alloys for Sokka to forge his sword, I’m curious as to just how advanced astronomy is in the ATLA world.
It also occurs to me Toph could probably have done a “reading” of the meteorite at some point offscreen, seeing as how she can control both earth and metal.
The warden of the Capital City Prison where Iroh is held is named Poon. Something tells me he’s charging some negative karma for himself abusing Iroh as he does.
I for one find Sokka’s love of shopping a delightful rejection of toxic masculine stereotypes.
The town near Piandao’s castle where the gang gets breakfast and goes shopping is Shu Jing.
The armor Aang tries on in the shop is a dig at Nickelodeon toy producers who repeatedly pitched over the top, overly aggressive Avatar action figures to the showrunners. One rejected design in particular - “Battle Armor Aang” - apparently featured the “air sword” like the one Aang described in this episode.
Sokka plays around with, in order; a guan dao, a kanabo (a feudal Japanese war club, lit. “metal stick”); dao swords (a la Zuko); a chain weapon I couldn’t clearly identify, and a sai before his eyes fall on a Piandao sword.
“Everyone needs a teacher.” - Simple, but excellent Katara advice.
Piandao’s butler is named Fat (which is a common enough Southeast Asian name and not a comment on the man’s stature); along with Sokka, Fat is one of Piandao’s few known apprentices.
Speaking of apprentices; according to the old official Avatar encyclopedia (now defunct but saved by the wiki); it was Piandao who trained a young Prince Zuko in the way of dual broadswords.
And speaking of the master himself - let me simp of Piandao for a second.
Piandao’s character design is inspired by Sifu Kisu, the principal martial arts consultant for Avatar. He is voiced by Robert Patrick, best known for his role as the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
Piandao was abandoned by his parents, a pair of prodigious firebenders, who were ashamed of his lack of bending ability. He learned his love for the arts at an early age, and was discovered to be talented with a sword before being taken into the Fire Army as a soldier. He was an extremely accomplished warrior, but, growing disillusioned with the Fire Nation’s role in the war, deserted, much like Jeong Jeong.
He eventually settled in Shu Jing where the army eventually came to arrest him for desertion, but Piandao legendarily defeated a hundred soldiers that day, after which the army never bothered him again. It was after this he settled into his role as a reclusive swordmaster hermit.
“Pian Dao” is a “slashing sabre,” - a rare, curved, Chinese sword. Despite the name, Master Piandao is only seen to use the Chinese straight sword, or “jian.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly the internet has concocted a few “Iroh Prison Workouts,” which I’ve always been interested to try; the first one I ever found is linked below: https://www.realanimetraining.com/avatar-the-last-airbender-irohs-prison-workout/
On the note of Iroh, Piandao’s dedication to a diversity of arts - calligraphy, painting, and rock gardening - is reminiscent of Iroh’s Book 2 line; “It is important to draw wisdom from many places. If you take it from only one place,it becomes rigid and stale.”
The waterfall Piandao has Sokka paint from memory is modeled after Gulfloss (lit. “Golden Falls”) in Iceland.
While I don’t think Piandao is nearly as rigid as Pakku, Sokka’s training serves as a nice thematic mirror to Katara’s under Pakku - a young, unorthodox mind from the Southern Water Tribe who comes to refresh and energize the practice of an old master.
Since everything this season is on a time limit - due to both the impending eclipse and Sozin’s Comet - Sokka only trains under Piandao for three days (the better part of the second working the bellows to forge his sword).
Warden Poon to Iroh: “Look what you’ve become…”; **Iroh disrobes to unveil a newly jacked physique**; Me: “A DILF.”
Piandao keeps his cards close to the chest, but the fact that he doesn’t strike down Sokka on the spot for being Water Tribe is a pretty good indicator he’s on the level.
“Knowledge of the arts belongs to us all.”
Finally, among the shapes Toph turns her meteorite shard into is the classic Nickelodeon splat logo.
- -
History & Culture Corner: Fire and Ice - The Visuals of the Fire Nation
The landscapes of the Fire Nation are left almost wholly unseen throughout the first two books of Avatar. We see glimpses of the Royal Palace in flashbacks from Zuko; then Aang, Sokka, and Katara briefly visit Crescent Island on the extremity of Fire Nation so Aang can commune with Roku on the Winter Solstice - but that’s it.
As a ten and eleven year old watching the early seasons, I imagined most of the Fire Nation would look akin to Crescent Island - volcanic hellscapes that forged violent and cruel people like Azula and Admiral Zhao.
So I was just a bit surprised to discover a verdant, tropical island chain was in fact the homeland of our series villains.
As per most of the components of Avatar, the fictional Fire Nation is an amalgam of many influences - most obviously perhaps, Imperial Japan - but it also draws a lot of inspiration from another island nation - one which the creators toured before the final season - Iceland.
In notable contrast to the Fire Nation, Iceland is a far cry from a major player in international politics, let alone war - in point of fact having no standing army. However, Iceland is particularly notable for its unique geographical features, which I’d like to take a closer look at today.
Iceland sits at a juncture of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, brushing up against the Arctic Circle itself. The majority of the island is marked by tundra landscape; the interior highlands of the island feature an inhospitable array of sand, lava fields, and mountains. Many fjords dot the coastline of Iceland, where most of the country’s settlements are.
Like the Fire Islands it inspired, Iceland is volcanically active - home to hundreds of volcanoes, thirty of which are active. The island itself is a “younger” landmass formed from volcanic activity along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge - the massive underwater mountain range formed along the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean at the meeting of different tectonic plates. The volcanic activity provides Iceland with a massive source of geothermal energy, which bolstered with hydroelectric power from the nation’s rivers and waterfalls, citizens are provided inexpensive electricity utilities.
The North Atlantic current provides swaths of Iceland with a relatively temperate climate despite its proximity to the Arctic; it is rare for ice to form along Iceland’s coast - as of 2021, it hasn’t happened since 1969. While once extensively forested during its initial settlements in the 9th to 11th centuries CE, extensive deforestation has led to the majority of Iceland’s vegetation becoming grassland for livestock, with the rare stand of birch trees cultivated on special reserves.
Akin to its sparse human population (of less than half a million); Iceland’s fauna are relatively sparse and largely imported. Arctic foxes are notably the only indigenous mammal on the island; thought to have walked across the seas towards the end of the Ice Age. European settlers brought with them standard livestock animals that have since developed into Icelandic subspecies, such as the Icelandic horse and the Icelandic sheepdog.
Fish and seabirds are an important part of Iceland’s coastal ecosystem. Grey seals and harbor seals also make their homes along Iceland’s coast. Commercial whaling is an infrequent practice in Iceland, but in contrast whale-watching has become an important part of Iceland’s tourism industry since the 1990s. Additionally, the odd polar bear is known to find its way to Iceland from Greenland aboard stray icebergs.
Iceland is a land of diversity and extremes - one that, as per usual, cannot be done justice in an amateur blog post. However it is easy to see how such a unique place could inspire a full season’s worth of memorable locales and landscapes. One of these days (in a post pandemic world) I would love to visit the real world locations that inspire such a unique and gorgeous fictional counterpart.
- -
Finally back!
After a nice sabbatical to get my affairs in order for the New Year, I am excited to be back writing about Avatar, and I’m looking forward to digging more into Book 3 because - as I’ve expressed - ATLA is one of those rare shows that finishes with its best stuff.
Next week we’re trekking deeper into the Fire Nation with a beach episode, compelling worldbuilding, gambling hijinks, and the terror that is this Avatar’s “Halloween” episode.
Until then, be well, be safe, and may the Force be with you,
- JMC