Three wonderful moments in Avatar The Last Airbender canon
From my January Talking Meme.
You can still ask a lot of questions!
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shadowscast asked for Three wonderful moments in Avatar canon that you'd like to draw attention to, and why
1) The Southern Air Temple and value of rewatching. First moment is when Aang, the titular Avatar, a 12 years old boy, sees the skeleton of Monk Gyatso, who was his friend, teacher and a father figure. The skeleton is surrounded by the skeletons in remnants of Fire Nation uniform. It looks like Monk Gyatso killed them all, and was killed himself. It is a horrible and tragic moment when we watch it the first time, this is the moment when Aang believes that he truly is the last one of his people, the last airbender…
But when we re-watch the series, with the knowledge of the world and bits of Air Nomad culture, and we know how big of a deal was pacifism and avoidance of violence in Aang’s culture, his shock and horror at seeing that a man who basically was his parent had killed a lot of people is so much stronger. And his choice to hold on to those values is much more profound.
2) The Boiling Rock, part 2. Well, both parts of it are very good, but by the end of part 2 there is “Everything seems lost, when the last minute rescue happens” moment that’s the result of two seasons of character development of Azula, Mai, Ty Lee and Zuko, and it is so very good and satisfying. It’s amazing when you don’t know what will happen, and it’s just as good to watch every time after that. The look on Zuko’s face, Mai’s precisely calculated words that cut deeper than her knives, Ty Lee’s shock… everything is perfect.
3) Sokka and shopping. If was probably a one time throwaway joke, but with repetitions it grew into something more. So, Sokka, a 16 year old boy, delights in the process of shopping, especially for things he doesn’t really need. And his friends and his sister know that and happily indulge him, and even suggest “shopping therapy” when he is feeling low. On the surface, it is a deconstruction of our ideas of masculinity and femininity. It’s not inherently feminine to love shopping, and it doesn’t make anyone manly to sneer at love for pretty things. But why does Sokka love shopping so much? He grew up in a tiny South pole Water Tribe village. If he needed food, he had to hunt for it. If he needed weapons – he had to make them himself. If he needed clothes – womenfolk provided him with clothes they made. Occasionally, I guess, the merchant ship could show up with other necessary stuff to be bartered. There was no shopping. There were hardly any cool unnecessary things at all. So, traveling through Earth kingdom and Fire nation towns and seeing shops with random stuff was indeed pretty revelatory and exciting. I mean, I remember myself in the beginning of 90s, when we suddenly had shops with crazy random stuff. I would just go in and stare. I didn’t need dried sea urchins or giant plushies, but knowing that one can just buy them was pretty exciting... So: from a random joke to a meaningful character trait! One of the reasons I love Avatar the Last Airbender.
You can still ask a lot of questions!
shadowscast asked for Three wonderful moments in Avatar canon that you'd like to draw attention to, and why1) The Southern Air Temple and value of rewatching. First moment is when Aang, the titular Avatar, a 12 years old boy, sees the skeleton of Monk Gyatso, who was his friend, teacher and a father figure. The skeleton is surrounded by the skeletons in remnants of Fire Nation uniform. It looks like Monk Gyatso killed them all, and was killed himself. It is a horrible and tragic moment when we watch it the first time, this is the moment when Aang believes that he truly is the last one of his people, the last airbender…
But when we re-watch the series, with the knowledge of the world and bits of Air Nomad culture, and we know how big of a deal was pacifism and avoidance of violence in Aang’s culture, his shock and horror at seeing that a man who basically was his parent had killed a lot of people is so much stronger. And his choice to hold on to those values is much more profound.
2) The Boiling Rock, part 2. Well, both parts of it are very good, but by the end of part 2 there is “Everything seems lost, when the last minute rescue happens” moment that’s the result of two seasons of character development of Azula, Mai, Ty Lee and Zuko, and it is so very good and satisfying. It’s amazing when you don’t know what will happen, and it’s just as good to watch every time after that. The look on Zuko’s face, Mai’s precisely calculated words that cut deeper than her knives, Ty Lee’s shock… everything is perfect.
3) Sokka and shopping. If was probably a one time throwaway joke, but with repetitions it grew into something more. So, Sokka, a 16 year old boy, delights in the process of shopping, especially for things he doesn’t really need. And his friends and his sister know that and happily indulge him, and even suggest “shopping therapy” when he is feeling low. On the surface, it is a deconstruction of our ideas of masculinity and femininity. It’s not inherently feminine to love shopping, and it doesn’t make anyone manly to sneer at love for pretty things. But why does Sokka love shopping so much? He grew up in a tiny South pole Water Tribe village. If he needed food, he had to hunt for it. If he needed weapons – he had to make them himself. If he needed clothes – womenfolk provided him with clothes they made. Occasionally, I guess, the merchant ship could show up with other necessary stuff to be bartered. There was no shopping. There were hardly any cool unnecessary things at all. So, traveling through Earth kingdom and Fire nation towns and seeing shops with random stuff was indeed pretty revelatory and exciting. I mean, I remember myself in the beginning of 90s, when we suddenly had shops with crazy random stuff. I would just go in and stare. I didn’t need dried sea urchins or giant plushies, but knowing that one can just buy them was pretty exciting... So: from a random joke to a meaningful character trait! One of the reasons I love Avatar the Last Airbender.
no subject
I confess, it never occurred to me that the fact that there were dead Fire Nation soldiers there in the temple meant that someone must have killed them, and that someone was probably Monk Gyatso. Oh my god.
I love that moment in Boiling Rock too! It's such a rich moment for showing the complexity of the relationship between all those characters.
And I super duper love your analysis of Sokka's shopping! I never thought of that, and it makes so much sense. It's really cool how you're able to connect to that through your own life experiences.
PS: I'm "shadowscast" with an extra 's' in the middle; "shadowcast" is somebody else!
no subject
AtLA is such a rich ground for little details that make up the world and characters! One of the reason it's so interesting to analyze, same as Buffy. You just keep noticing things and then more things.
I keep thinking that monk Gyatso was covering the escape of the kids, and that what could drive him to kill people on such massive scale, because, I don't think they had any hope to actually repel the FN forces...