Avatar Book One “The Blue Spirit”
06 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
in Project Avatar, TV Shows Tags: Aang, Avatar, Katara, Sokka, The Last Airbender, Zhang, Zuko
This episode is an excellent follow-up to the last episode, “The Storm”.
In this episode, Aang and Zuko work together, without ever knowing it — well, without Aang knowing it. After Aang is captured by the Fire Nation (while bringing back some frozen frogs for Katara and Sokka), a man in a blue mask sneaks into the fortress and frees him. This man doesn’t speak, but he works with Aang to escape from the Fire Nation. Right at the last second, though, they don’t make it over the last wall, and they’re trapped by soldiers. The blue-masked man brings his swords to Aang’s neck, prompting Zhang to let them both go. After being hit by an arrow, the blue-masked man passes out. Aang goes to help him, and he sees a scar underneath the right eye socket. He lifts off the mask and discovers that it’s Prince Zuko!
Aang could run and save himself, or he could also save Zuko. He almost leaves alone — this is the villain who has been chasing him all over the place. But he thinks about how he just saved him from the Fire Nation fortress, and Aang does the right thing and brings Zuko to safety.
When Zuko wakes up, Aang tells a story about how he loved playing with one of his best friends, who was from the Fire Nation — and he wonders if he and Zuko would have been friends had they been given the chance. This scene foreshadows a possible friendship between the two. Building upon the stories from the last episode, it provides even more depth to Zuko’s character, making him even less the heartless villain. Zuko’s last scene in the episode is genius for this cause. He’s resting on his ship and he looks at the Fire Nation flag, and he bitterly turns away. One must infer what he was thinking, but I think it’s pretty obvious that he may have been resentful at his people — thinking about how a Fire Nation boy a hundred years ago could be friends with an Airbender.
The content of this and the last episode is what I love about this show. The show could have kept a predictable and boring trajectory of the hero and the villain, always fighting against each other. Everyone does that. But in this show, they’ve started weaving the two together, showing their similarities, showing their depth, making you feel for both the hero and the villain — changing the perceptions of the words “hero” and “villain”. As I concluded the last episode, it starts showing how everyone has their own backstory; everyone is not who they appear to be.
Avatar Book One “The Storm”
06 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
in Project Avatar, TV Shows Tags: Aang, Avatar, Katara, Sokka, The Last Airbender, Zuko
This is a beautifully crafted episode — full of character development (and I’m all about character development!)
The episode alternates between Aang’s and Zuko’s pasts.
The clever thing about this episode is that through the flashbacks, Zuko is the one who is the more noble one — even though he is the “villain” of the show. Aang’s backstory is that he was told he was the Avatar. At a young age, he was thrust with immense responsibility into a world of burgeoning war. His friends started treating him differently, and he overheard the decision to separate him from his guardian, Gyatso. Aang, overcome with fear and hopelessness, ran away.
Zuko’s backstory is that he, eager to learn as much about his future kingdom as possible, convinces his uncle, Iroh, to allow him into a war meeting. He’s told not to speak, but when he hears the general’s plan to sacrifice a battalion of soldiers, Zuko speaks out against injustice. As a punishment for his disrespect, he’s to participate in a duel — the kicker is that the Fire Lord was ultimately the one disrespected, so he is to battle his own father. His outburst, while out of place, was a noble thing for him to do. Then, when he’s standing before his father in battle, he again does the noble thing and refuses to fight. His father does not accept his unwillingness to duel, and he “teaches” him respect by unleashing his fiery wrath on his face — giving him the hideous scar he forever bears.
These two different stories show these two characters in different lights. It brings sympathy to Zuko, and it brings some disappointment towards Aang. Aang, the hero, the Avatar, ran away from his duty. His punishment is coming back to the world, 100 years later, only to find that his entire nation has been destroyed. Zuko, the villain, actually is a righteous man, albeit with a fiery temper, but he’s been punished for his good qualities.
The episode meshes their stories together via a storm. This storm resembles the storm that overtook Aang when he tried to run away, where he instinctively saved himself in a ball of ice. While he tries to save Katara, Sokka, and the fisherman, a giant tidal wave pushes them into the sea. This time Aang isn’t alone; he’s with the people that he loves, and that motivates him to escape the sea and continue his mission. He could have escaped into another ball of ice, away from the responsibility to save the world, but he redeems himself by surging out of the sea (which could be interpreted as his mental/dream state) and into the air (consciousness). As flees the storm, Zuko and Aang exchange glances — sharing an unknown bond. Their relationship is more complicated than hero-villain.
I love this episode, because I love character development. I love this episode also because it shows Zuko in a different light. Sure, he can be a real jerk, but if you begin to understand his past and his motivations, he’s a lot more accessible than anticipated. The lesson with this episode is that so is everyone in the world. Don’t judge so quickly.
Avatar Book One “The Great Divide”
02 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
in Project Avatar, TV Shows Tags: Aang, Appa, Avatar, Gan Jin, Katara, Sokka, The Last Airbender, Zhang
Quote of the Episode:
Aang: “Harsh words won’t solve problems. Actions will.”
Aang and the gang arrive at The Great Divide, the world’s largest canyon. They are about to just fly over on Appa, but right before they leave, a man runs up, telling them that they better not be taking his tour guide. The tribes then appear, the Zhangs and the Gan Jins, feuding over the tour guide — and fighting about pretty much anything else. Aang, who settled an argument between Katara and Sokka this morning, tries to settle this feud, too, and suggests (well, commands) that the two tribes share the tour guide and cross the canyon together.
Things are going decently until a Canyon Crawler attacks the tour guide and breaks his arms. Aang successfully gets rid of the beast, but with the tour guide neutralized, the leaders of the tribes begin arguing again. Aang splits them up, hoping that Katara and Sokka can find out why they’re fighting.
The events of this episode are definitely nothing new. Parables have told about feuding families and the ridiculous reverence to some event, far in the past, that keeps the families angry at each other. Even when Katara and Sokka are split up, they relate to the tribes’ stories, making them argue with each other when they finally rejoin again.
Seeing that it’s just that story that makes the families fight, Aang retells the story, saying that he was actually there (since he is 112 years old). As the tribes believe his story, they can finally move past the past and establish a friendship for the future. However, Aang lied. I’m not sure that this is the best message for kids, lying to solve the problem, but Aang saw the pettiness in their feuds and now that they’ve forgiven the past, they can respect each other as they are presently — which is a good message.
Avatar Book One “Jet”
02 Apr 2011 Leave a Comment
in Project Avatar, TV Shows Tags: Aang, Appa, Avatar, Katara, Sokka, The Last Airbender, Zuko
This episode focuses on Sokka.
The backdrops in this episode are quite beautiful. It must be autumn, because the leaves are all bright red — giving a nice contrast with the golden light of the sun.
As the gang prepares to leave for the next leg of their journey, Sokka expresses that they probably shouldn’t fly anymore. Zuko tends to find them, because he thinks that Appa is really easy to track. He brings up his instincts and that he really feels like following them.
The gang follows Sokka’s lead, and they end up walking into a Fire Nation camp. Trapped, the gang is prepared to fight the 20+ group of Fire Nation soldiers, when suddenly a group of rogues arrive and neutralize the soldiers. Jet, the leader of the group, mesmerizes Katara and impresses Aang. Sokka isn’t entirely taken by him.
This episode focuses on Sokka’s leadership and warrior skills. Katara and Aang follow his lead in the beginning just to humor him; they don’t really believe that his instincts are correct. The truth of the matter, though, is that Sokka’s warrior skills are very impressive in this episode. He cuts down the monkey-trapping cages down with his boomerang; he uses his knife to detect the footsteps of an approaching stranger; and he stealthily follows Jet and his gang in the dark. Sokka, for the most part, is comic relief and he is depicted merely as an adequate warrior — but this episode proves that he is good at what he does. What really pains Sokka is that Katara and Aang don’t trust him entirely; they stick up for Jet, whom they have only just met.
Jet, who does have good intentions, proves to be a very flawed character. His hatred towards the Fire Nation has skewed his perspective. He used to fight against the Fire Nation and protect the innocent, but he’s reached a place where he’s willing to sacrifice innocent people in order to hurt the Fire Nation. Katara and Aang finally break out of their hero-worshiping bubble and realize that Sokka is the one they should have trusted the entire time — and it’s Sokka who saves the day.
This episode shows that there’s more to Sokka then comic relief; he’s a crucial part of the team.
This episode also shows some of Katara’s new moves. She can bend water out of her canteen and use it as a whip. She can also freeze water with her breath — which is pretty badass. Katara’s skills are improving!
Avatar Book One “The Waterbending Scroll”
27 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in Project Avatar, TV Shows Tags: Aang, Avatar, Katara, The Last Airbender
This episode brings some conflict between Aang and Katara. After last episode’s revelation that Aang is going to need to learn to master the other three elements in a very short amount of time, he’s anxious to start learning Waterbending (the next element in the cycle) — but they’re still weeks away from the North Pole. Katara offers to teach him what she’s learned, and Aang enthusiastically accepts.
Katara shows him some moves, commenting about how long it took her to learn them, but Aang (being the Avatar) is a natural. It’s as if he’s not even trying, and that really gets under Katara’s skin. She worked so hard to do the little that she can do, with no one to teach her, and his lack of effort is incredibly irritating.
The gang stumbles upon a Waterbending scroll, and Katara steals it (from pirates, her justification). She claims that it can help Aang learn some more Waterbending, but, actually, she wants to learn some more. This action goes against the trait associated with Waterbending: 善 (shan), meaning benevolence and adaptivity. Benevolence implies a sense of charity and selflessness. In this episode, Katara acts selfishly, taking the scroll for herself and trying to learn so that she may look good compared to Aang. That’s why she struggles so much to learn more Waterbending — she’s doing it for the wrong reasons and therefore cannot manipulate the pure essence of water. It’s when she is trying to save the life of her companions that she can finally perform a good water whip, because she is then acting selflessly. I will take this lesson whenever I work on my “Water” piece for my recital. It’s not about me, it’s about the music.
Avatar Book One “Winter Solstice: Parts 1 & 2″
27 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in Project Avatar, TV Shows Tags: Aang, Appa, Avatar, Iroh, Katara, Roku, Sokka, Sozin's Comet, The Last Airbender, Zuko
I didn’t use my time very wisely last quarter, and I’m going to now try to cram in the rest of the series in the next 8 weeks — in preparation to recital-theme research.
These two episodes revolve around the ability of the Avatar to access the spirit world. As the Avatar, he/she acts as a bridge between the earthly world and the spirit world. In Part 1, Aang is asked by a village to help them get rid of a spirit that kidnaps villagers every night. Aang struggles with something that he’s had to struggle with before — and something he will struggle with in the future — which is his lack of training. People around the world have grown up with the stories of the past Avatars and the various abilities that they have, but Aang is only 12 — and he’s been frozen in an iceberg for 100 years, so he’s out of the loop. He genuinely wants to help, but he’s not sure how he can. He encounters the spirit and finds himself stuck in the spirit world, but his time there gives him some insight on how to speak with Avatar Roku.
An interesting juxtaposition occurs in this first part. It opens with Aang being childlike and silly, jumping off of a flying Appa for fun. The next scene cuts to Zuko, urging his uncle to get out of the hot springs so they can go. Iroh tries to persuade Zuko to relax a little bit in the water, but Zuko is stubborn in his plans. These two scenes show the opposite ends of the spectrum. Aang still has some maturing to do; he indulges in his childish desires. Zuko is too serious, and he doesn’t give himself a break. It’s important to note this comparison, because it shows how both characters must learn a little about the other character’s personality in order to be a well-rounded warrior for success.
The second part takes the gang to the Fire Nation. This is the first time we hear about an important comet. The gang heads to a crescent island, and Zuko’s ship closely follows. They run into a Fire Nation barricade; Aang’s group maneuvers past it and Zhao allows Zuko to pass through so he can follow him to the Avatar. When Aang and the gang arrive, they are stopped by 5 Fire Sages who used to support the Avatar (whomever he/she may be) but now support the Fire Lord. Aang, Katara, and Sokka run, trying to find the place where Aang can speak with Avatar Roku, but one of the Sages finds them and tells them that he still supports the Avatar and pledges to help Aang. They find their way to a locked door that can only be opened by Firebending. They trick the other Sages and Zuko to open the door, and Aang dashes inside. Once the sun of the Solstice shines on Roku’s statue, Aang and Roku talk about Sozin’s Comet — that which gives the Fire Nation even more power than they already possess. It was at the comet’s first coming that gave the Fire Nation enough power to start the war, and it’s at the comet’s next coming — the end of the summer — when the Fire Nation will be able to win the war for good. Roku gives Aang a very hurried mission: to master the other three elements before then, so he can stop the Fire Lord before the comet’s next coming.
Then, to help Aang escape from the Fire Nation ambush that awaits him, Roku performs an impressive display of Firebending that helps Aang and the gang escape. Roku had tremendous power, and it shows the kind of power that Aang can have as his powers grow.
Avatar Book One “Imprisoned”
12 Jan 2011 1 Comment
in Project Avatar Tags: Aang, George Takei, Haru, Katara, Michael Dow, Sokka, The Last Airbender
This episode brings up the idea of self-worth. The gang’s travels take them to an Earth Kingdom village, where the Fire Nation has banned all Earthbending. Upon arriving, the gang sees a young man, Haru (Michael Dow), Earthbending, but he soon explains how the Fire Nation takes away Earthbenders — like his father.
What follows is a scene where an old man is trapped underneath a pile of rocks. Katara and Haru rush over to try to help him, but mere strength alone won’t do it. Katara, ever the strong-willed character, convinces Haru to Earthbend in order to save the old man. Because they were the only people around, Katara and Haru felt confident that his Earthbending would go unnoticed — but they were betrayed by the old man, who turned Haru over to the authorities that night.
Katara feels responsible for what happened, so she decides to be captured by the Fire Nation in order to locate the imprisoned Earthbenders. Once she arrives, she gives a rousing speech to the Earthbenders, which was my favorite part of the episode.
Here is an excerpt of Katara’s speech, which is eloquently written and delivered:
“It is the strength of your hearts that make you who you are, hearts that will remain unbroken when all rock and stone has eroded away. The time to fight back is now!“
The speech is supported by majestic music, rising in pitch and grandeur as her voice strengthens in intensity, and as she delivers the last word of her message, the music also cuts off, leaving a stark silence — a silence filled with anxiety about whether or not the Earthbenders will act. Even though this speech doesn’t move the Earthbenders into action, this is telling about the kind of person Katara is. Growing up without a mother, she learned to be strong and fend for herself. Now, as a young teenager, her conviction is an incredible asset to her character, and it will help motivate the rest of her team to go forward.
After Aang, Sokka, and Katara cook up a plan to provide the Earthbenders with coal, the Warden (voiced by the great George Takei) and his army are overtaken by the Earthbenders, who finally believe in themselves again, and in their abilities. This episode provides another side adventure to the overall mission to the North Pole, and this time focuses on Katara and shows off her strengths.
Avatar Book One “The King of Omashu”
27 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in Project Avatar Tags: Aang, Avatar, Katara, Sokka, The Last Airbender, Zuko
First off, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays all! I hope you had a nice day and I hope you have a great New Year.
This post will be pretty short; this is a pretty straightforward episode.
This episode is unique because it’s the first episode of the series where Prince Zuko and his side of the story hasn’t been included. This episode focused solely on Aang and a lesson he has to learn, as the Avatar.
Aang detours to Omashu, an Earth Nation city. The city is an elaborate labyrinth of shoots and slides, used as a mailing system, but Aang comes to Omashu just to ride them. After losing control and creating a ruckus, the gang is escorted to the King of Omashu, who, instead of punishes them, throws them a feast.
Upon seeing Aang, the king tricks him into showing his Airbending power, outing him as the Avatar. The king then challenges Aang to 3 challenges, and he puts creeping crystal on Katara and Sokka so that Aang has to accept his challenge.
The three challenges make Aang think outside the box. Aang is physically capable of a lot, but these challenges show that physicality is not everything. Once he completes the three challenges, the king asks Aang what his name is. Recalling a memory he had of a childhood friend in the city of Omashu, he realizes that the old king is Bumi (André Sogliuzzo). The lesson that he teaches Aang in this episode is to “think like a mad genius”.
Avatar Book One “The Warriors of Kyoshi”
23 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in Project Avatar Tags: Aang, Avatar, Jennie Kwan, Katara, Sokka, Suki, The Last Airbender, Zuko
I was looking back on my earlier Project Avatar posts, and I noticed that they were more summary than analysis, which I’ve tried to stay away from on my blog, so I’m going to be focusing more on the analysis found in each episode instead.
This episode is a great episode, and it’s full of interesting talking points.
This episode is all about gender roles, focusing mainly on Sokka. It all begins with an exchange between Sokka and Katara on Appa’s back. Sokka says that girls are better at sewing and guys are better at hunting and fighting and etc, and that it’s the natural order of the world. Katara obviously gets offended and she throws his pants back at him, still ripped. With Katara’s defiance, it shows a subtle tilt of power in her favor. While he feels that he’s better at fighting/etc naturally, he’s still the one with ripped pants — and he isn’t capable of fixing them himself.
Then the gang finds themselves on Kyoshi Island, an island of female Kyoshi warriors. The warriors incapacitated and captured them, and when Sokka realizes that the warriors are girls, he becomes very upset — so upset that when the village is offering them unlimited food, he sulks in the corner, hungry and embarrassed.
It does make sense that Sokka would feel this way. His father was the warrior leader of his village, and when he left, he appointed Sokka as his successor. From then on, Sokka had to struggle with being just as good as his father was at hunting, fighting, and leading. These are all traits that he identifies with masculinity and being a successful man. When he sees others, especially girls, who seem to have a better grasp at these things than he does, he becomes frustrated — and confused internally. He has a mental idea of what a man is, and of what a woman is, and it takes time for him to understand that there isn’t one universal male and female role. It even becomes more difficult for him having Katara for a sister; she is a strong, defiant girl who is a Waterbender. She has this gift that he doesn’t possess; as the series progresses, it will seem like he’s not the most capable member of the team, which will be frustrating for him.
He tries to build up his masculinity by confronting the Kyoshi warriors again, but Suki (Jennie Kwan) shames him miserably. He then comes back, but this time, he’s learned a valuable lesson. He’s pushed past his mental gender roles staples, because he respectfully asks Suki to train him as a warrior. At first Suki doesn’t believe him, but its apparent from his body language and the tone of his voice that he’s clearly serious; his voice is soft and submissive, and he kneels in respect to her. Suki makes the exception and teaches him, but she makes him follow all her traditions — which includes wearing their traditional dress and make-up. He does it, but he’s still not comfortable with it, especially with Aang walks by and compliments his “nice dress”.
But when outside influences, which can be seen as society in general, are omitted, and he and Suki are training alone, he learns from her and he becomes a better warrior. When the Zuko’s ship lands on the shores, and an elder yells for all the “girls” to come fight, Sokka at first tries to correct him, but then shrugs it off, because there are more pressing matters.
His developmental journey completes when Aang and Katara decide to leave the island, and Sokka tries to say goodbye to Suki. She says there isn’t any time for goodbyes, but he persists and then tries to apologize. He says that he’s sorry for treating her like a girl, when he should have treated her like a warrior. That’s a big deal for him, and I appreciate this growth from him. Then Suki says that she’s also a girl, and she kisses him — which may have been Sokka’s first romantic interest, which is now a very sweet story.
To conclude with gender roles in this episode, it’s important to consider that Kyoshi, the heralded past Avatar from that village, was a woman. Avatars are not solely men; they reincarnate in different elements and in different genders. So this world should be one where women can be as strong as men, since there are women Avatars who can master all 4 elements.
The last thing from this episode to talk about is the budding romance between Aang and Katara. On Appa, Aang tries to impress Katara with his new airbending trick, and he’s disappointed when she doesn’t even pay attention. On Kyoshi island, he tries to impress her by riding the elephant koi, but he’s disappointed when he sees her leaving the beach. Then there’s the back and forth jealousy as Katara gets jealous from Aang’s Bierber-esque fanclub and Aang gets upset that he still doesn’t seem to get her attention at all. At the end of the episode, though, they reconcile and speak pretty openly and honestly, which is healthy in this friendship.
This is a great episode! I like episodes that develop these characters, and these are fantastic characters.
Avatar Book One “The Southern Air Temple”
21 Dec 2010 Leave a Comment
in Project Avatar Tags: Aang, Avatar, Gyatso, Iroh, Jason Isaacs, Katara, Sab Simono, Sokka, The Last Airbender, Zhao, Zuko
In this episode, Aang, Katara, and Sokka journey to the Southern Air Temple. This was Aang’s home 100 years ago. Katara is conflicted about whether or not to tell Aang about the Fire Nation’s genocide of the Airbenders. She tries to warn him that things may have changed in 100 years, but Aang doesn’t really accept that. It’s not until he accidentally discovers remains of Fire Nation soldiers and his master, Gyatso (Sab Simono), that he truly understands the ruthlessness of the Fire Nation and that stakes of the war. He is on the last Airbender in the world — he is truly alone.
At the Southern Air Temple, Aang recalls a memory he had when he was younger. His master, Gyatso, told him that he shouldn’t worry about the past and to enjoy the present. He also told Aang that, once he’s old enough and ready, he will enter the Air Temple Sanctuary and meet someone. After remembering all of this, he decides to go to the Sanctuary. He opens it with Airbending, and the gang sees a myriad of statues — all in Water, Earth, Fire, Air Nation order. This scene shows the audience that the Avatar is reincarnated into the next nation in the cycle, the same cycle seen in the opening sequence of the show.
When Aang sees his master dead, he’s overcome by so much sorrow that his emotions take over his body and he enters into the Avatar State. His eyes and his tattoos glow white, and he floats up into the air, almost creating this storm of high winds and sadness. By entering this Avatar State at the Air Temple, he triggered Avatar shrines around the world, indicating that the Avatar has returned. He no longer has the element of surprise on his side now.
Meanwhile, things with Prince Zuko aren’t going so well. He takes his ship to a Fire Nation station to get repaired, and he tries to hide the fact that he’s found the Avatar. Commander Zhao (Jason Isaacs) interrogates Prince Zuko, taunting him during the process. Zuko gets so angry easily; his temper is extremely fire-y, which is hard to relate to — but during his scenes of the episode, we find out that he has a troubled past. His father, the Fire Lord, has exiled him from the Fire Nation and will welcome him back only if he brings back the Avatar to him. Also, it was during a duel where Zuko got his terrible scars. Zuko’s heated temper makes him challenge Zhao to a duel, and Iroh tries to guide him to success. At first Zhao has the upper hand, but once Zuko listens to Iroh’s advice, he finally defeats Zhao. Though, instead of giving Zhao a set of scars, like he threatened to, Zuko spars him this one time. As he walks away, Zhao then attacks him from behind, but Iroh stops the attack. This scene shows that Zuko has a moral code — which most of the Fire Nation doesn’t seem to have. As Iroh’s pupil, Zuko is an honorable man, despite his hot temper.
During Aang’s emotional breakdown, Katara calms him down, saying that he, Katara, and Sokka are a family now. As Aang calmed down, Katara and Sokka stood behind him, and this image showed them to be very parental to him. They’re going to take care of him and help him, very much like family members do. After finding a lemur in the temple, Aang takes the critter under his wing, adding another member to the family — Momo.
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