the moment AVATAR came into its own
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- Опубліковано 28 чер 2024
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People don't discuss this episode enough when ranking the best episode from Avatar The Last Airbender season 1. This videoessay breaks down my favourite episode from book 1, why it works so well, what writing lessons we can learn, and analyzing the ways a magic system can enhance meaning in your worldbuilding.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro
01:11 Destruction
10:49 World Anvil
12:31 Harmony
18:39 Extra Thoughts
MUSIC (in order)
Leaflet - Prince Zuko lofi
Ryoga - Lovely
Mandala Dreams - Shade Of The Sunflower
Mandala Dreams - Spirit of Fukushima
Mandala Dreams - Cherry Blossom
Alan Ellis - Sea Terms
Avatar TLA playlist: • Avatar: The Last Airbe...
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#avatar #avatarthelastairbender #analysis - Фільми й анімація
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Side note, I really love how the Avatar has to master not only the elements, but the mentality that it takes to weild them. It matures them as people, and allows them to truly be a representative to all nations.
i also like how that's the same thing. mastering the elements is mastering the philosophy it takes to wield them. mastering the elements makes you become a more mature person in and of itself
This is also why Korra is cringe
@@rowandunning6877And as Iroh in turn points out, even if you can't physically master all the elements, mastering their philosophies will still make you a wiser and stronger person.
I also find it interesting how jeong jeong basically tells katara “fire bad, water good”. When in fact waterbending has a few of the darkest bending technics in the show, that being bloodbending, which is arguably far more evil than anything a firebender can do.
To be fair fire bending isn't inherently evil, it's just the traditional style of the fire nation.
You might mention this, but whats even more interesting about the show pushing the fire is danger and chaos view in our faces, in the background, we often see it used for life, such as Iroh lighting camps, heating up food and tea, his bath...little stuff like that. I find that interesting.
Yeah, that's what I love about it so much. Fire may represent danger and destruction but it also represents light, warmth, and nourishment. It is the hearth around which families sit. I love the set up and pay off with that because the show demonstrates one half, then waits two seasons to explore the other side, it's so cool!
People wonder why Avatar Roku would willingly push Aang to learn the elements out of order when he should know Aang wouldn't be mentally ready for something like Firebending. I think this is down to a few things.
Roku is a past life. He was his 70s when he died. He had DECADES to master the elements. He knows how things are done properly via how he learned and how he learned what it is to be the Avatar. It's something he said in the comics that sticks with me on this "we can only help you from OUR OWN perspectives. You need to find balance in yourself to balance the world." That's paraphrased but still.
The second is Roku was a parent. We don't know what he was like as a father, but given his relationship to Aang, he feels like he would've been a great one. He has faith in Aang, who is essentially his child. Let's be honest lol. He totally took Aang in under his wing. "I know you can do it, Aang. For you have done it before." Roku has total faith in Aang as shown in multiple interactions they have. He legitimately thought Aang was ready, so he said, "Aang put me on the phone." When Jeong Jeong insulted him.
A third option is maybe Roku also wanted to impart a lesson in the dangers of Firebending to Aang. Aang was too impulsive and needed to take things down a notch.
A fourth option is that Roku knew of the deadline. Aang couldn't afford to learn bending the traditional way. Roku had to step in because if Aang didn't learn Fire, he wouldn't be fully realized. And he's screwed.
Those are just my guesses, though. Roku most likely had the best intentions, at the very least.
Same as with Kyoshi and Yangchen's advice later on, when Aang faced the probability of having to kill the Fire Lord. They had their experiences that told them that killing in this situation was the only step toward balance. They didn't have a Lion-Turtle ex Machina to tell them otherwise at the crucial moment. The past Avatars aren't gods, they're still people, still flawed.
I always interpreted it as a combination of 2 and 4. He knew there would be few opportunities because of the deadline and he really thought Aang could do it.
@@groofaynot only that, but neither one of them-not even Yangchen, the other airbender-is the _last_ of their kind. They don’t feel the weight that Aang carries by being the only airbender alive, they just see a warlord who needs to be taken out. They haven’t considered that Aang killing Ozai would also be the dying act of the air nation.
I imagine also that there definitely is the element of not knowing how much the order helps, and not understanding what it's like for a non fire bender to learn fire bending
Roku also felt guilt for basically causing the current situation in the world (indirectly). Even Roku may feel there might not be another opportunity to learn from anyone else
One look at that thumbnail and I was immediately like "Oh, it's The Deserter!" Which I think speaks a lot to how distinctive a lot of the one-off environments in the series are, if just seeing one still from one part of the scenery allows them to easily be recognized
It's kind of weird that the kid who grow up with the monks doesn't want to meditate and has zero patience... But then you remember that it's a child, who happens to be the Avatar, and who wants to keep being a child.
Anyways, this might be the first time I noticed that the reason why probably Aang has problems in the future is because there is some generational trauma (not blood related, but old mentor-young student bond). In fact, I think that Zuko also have this situation: his father thinks that he is not good enough and he abuses him, which lead him to think that fire = rage and evil, and he has to learn the beauty of fire again *along with Aang*. It's like poetry, it rhymes.
This has one of my favorite martial arts teaching scenes in anything, because most shows or movies will only show a montage with the highlights of mainly the flashy stuff. But in reality when you're learning the fundamentals a lot of it is repetitive and monotonous. You need to get those drills down so you can get used to the basics before you can do the cool stuff. A lot of students will try to skip the boring stuff and end up hurting themselves or someone else.
It's important to show the boring stuff because it's a fundamental part of learning anything.
People are so excited to read Tolkien they try to skip learning the alphabet
ATLA seems to handle this pretty well across the board. I remember Bitter Work to have been a very similar episode, with Aang’s lessons being pretty repetitive and frustrating for him especially when he wasn’t understanding/mastering things right away.
One of my favorite fanfics, Bringing Out the Blue by maguena1, features a scene where Jeong Jeong and Iroh are at a White Lotus meeting together. After Jeong Jeong declares his philosophy of fire as destruction, Iroh shows him some of the fire he learned from the dragons in the hopes that he’d start to see that fire can be life too. I’d like to think that something like that happened in canon offscreen too.
Does an episode on Avatar and casually drops one of the best critiques of how magic is portrayed in Harry Potter I've ever heard...
I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT WAS THE GREAT DIV--oh. So I spent days practicing a frothing mouth trick for nothing, then.
I need to rewatch this episode (shoot, I need to rewatch the whole show). I always feel like this episode sets up things that are done better later on, but Jeong Jeong's trauma and how it affects his teaching is such a fascinating subject. And correct me if I'm wrong, but Jeong Jeong and Iroh are the only Fire Nation veterans of the war that are shown to be traumatized by their experiences, for different reasons and to very different ends; one obsessed with destruction be it actual or imagined, one with life and the reality of what is.
Jeong Jeong is a foil for Iroh, in that both were masters who rose to the top of the hierarchy, only to suffer unimaginable heartbreak, and realize the devastation they and their country had inflicted upon the world (and themselves). Their paths split from there though, as Jeong Jeong lost hope and hid away from the world, while Iroh decided to try again, and hopefully be a better father to Zuko than he was to the son he’d lost.
Having a kid with fire bending would be like having a kid when you have firearms in your home. You need to teach them that the same tool that can protect you from rattlesnakes and provide organic food for your family, can also do a great deal of harm in the wrong hands. Like fire bending it is all down to the education, intention and discipline of the user. Neither should ever be used when emotional or angry. There could be a lot of parallels.
i just miss the original avatar. nothing else has come close imo
yeah, I Will be watching this later today.
if you want another great animated show, arcane is one more good season away from passing up tla as the greatest animated show ever made
@@wholockedholmes5600 there was some animated show on HBO max my fiancé and I watched on a whim.
It was called “Scavengers Reign”.
She thought it was kinda trippy but by the end liked it, I enjoyed the whole show. It was pretty cool imo. Takes place on an alien planet so there’s lots of possibilities.
For it's mixed bag of introductions to canon, I think Korra did a good one with adding Firebending style healing as an equal opposite to Waterbending. Fire doesn't heal your physical wounds, they learned a spiritual healing technique with fire instead, that helped Korra find Rava. One that Jeong Jeong might have discovered too if he wasn't so retreated into his own fear.
That's a cool point! One of the ways we regard fire irl is cleansing. For humans, and for nature, fire can be great! Several species of trees benefit from fires, like the Ponderosa Pines where I live, and there's an entire phenomenon(?)(idk the word I want here) for plants that thrive after major disturbances like fires.
Fire and heat are such critical tools for transformation, it's the whole reason the fire nation spiked in power the way it did, but the propaganda focuses so much on innate ability and goodness that the reason for their 'prosperity that they need to share with the world' is rarely given tangible words
That one joke where they put on the masks at the festival and Katara switches them is one of the best from the show. Always gets me to laugh.
If anyone was a fish who cannot see the end of the river, it is Roku. It is interesting that Roku confronts Jeong-Jeong and convinces him that, despite our myopic view, the Avatar 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 learn firebending - because, I think, it is Aang's duty to discipline the Fire Nation so that they cannot continue to do what Jeong-Jeong fears.
At the same time, the Avatar is uniquely equipped to better imagine the full length of the river than anyone else.
I absolutely love this episode and i think one of my favorite things about the magic system is exactly what you point out in this video that it means so much the the characters/world
This, and it shows how similar but different the magic system works when they all intersect. Air works very similarly to Fire in this world, and Aang has always been very free in how he uses it around him. He is constantly airbending. If he was using fire instead of air, the amount of destruction he would cause would be horrible. Air feeds fire, and Aang hasn’t realized that he would have to alter his bending style while Jung Jung likely saw waves of fire around him. And Katara having healing powers being compared to fires burning and airs freedom, it’s all beautiful storytelling as far as magic system set ups are. Every element is different, but they all blend together in unique ways.
Something I ended up doing a lot of thinking about was the varying effectiveness of the different teachers Aang has on this show. Jeong Jeong and Pakku in particular struggle to get through to him, and in both their cases it stems from not really taking into account who they're trying to teach, and how Aang learns best - both have a very "my way or the highway" approach, and neither really directly engages with him particularly well. In Pakku's case, it results in Aang just struggling to learn from him and even going backwards with his waterbending to a degree (contrast with Katara, who thrives under Pakku because her motivation is strong enough (both intrinsically and to prove him wrong about girls) that she can learn from him despite him not being a very engaging mentor). And, as, you say, Jeong Jeong ends up teaching Aang so poorly that Aang ultimately takes the wrong lesson away from the episode, something that doesn't get fixed for nearly two seasons.
This has been a cool little series of videos: I do feel like book 1 is underrated, and admittedly a lot of that stems from books 2 and 3 being kinda insanely good (with the entirety of book 2 from The Blind Bandit onwards in particular being close to Peak Fiction), so it's been fun to see you discuss it here - and in particular having two of your top three episodes be rather surprising choices for most people!
e: even the weak points of the episode you point out bring up something interesting about ATLA as a whole: due to the constraints of its tiny
I actually really loved this episode back when i last watched the series as an adult!
Just regarding The Great Divide, a recent episode of the official Avatar podcast (Avatar: Braving the Elements), an episode entitled "Bookbending! with F.C. Yee & Nancy Wu", the interviewees (author & audiobook narrator of novels set in the Avatar universe including the Yangchen and Kyoshi novels) actually had some very good things to say about the episode for its cultural meaning and how they took inspiration from it when expanding the lore around Yangchen. If you do make an episode talking about The Great Divide, I highly recommend checking out that episode of the podcast, and possibly reading Yee's novel, first.
Avatar was always great in it's storytelling because it always came back to the characters, weather it's the element bending, social tensions, or moral dilemma, Avatar uses what vexes every Dungeon Master: "It's what's my(the) character would have done" effectively and cleverly.
This episode made me think that if I had to choose an over philosophical stance of Avatar, and, while it certainly have many elements of different philosophies, I would always come back to Humanism. People maybe flawed and some are even wicked, but their is always potential, value, and basic goodness in people. The old cliché of keeping balance could be seen as humans working together to proved basic human needs, much like how Team Avatar work and the kind of world they are fighting for.
I remember watching this episode when it came out and I was really impressed by it's depth and complexity. I always liked that the takeaway was that perhaps your teachers can be human too; flawed, with their own hangups and issues, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're bad people or that you can't learn anything from them. It just means that you as a person need to hold fast to the core beliefs of what you know are right, or at least keep an open mind to the idea that no one teacher has all the 'right' answers, and it's important to consider and weigh everything as it comes to you while also standing up for what you know to be right. Everyone needs a combination of a strong foundation and room to grow to succeed as people, and I think this episode perfectly encapsulates that ~ with a million other interesting aspects of learning about Fire Bending and how it relates to the other elements and the individuals using it, and how it can impact them and their choices / how they deal with conflict.
1:35, how was it not The Blue Spirit?
Magic is not a tangible or familiar experience in most people's lives, so yeah tying parts of your magic system into characters and themes outside of it really helps our brains understand it on an innate level. (A lot of the time. And even when it fails to do that, it still adds other layers to the scene which can be appreciated.)
This is one of my favorite season 1 episodes as well, and one I think is underrated! Jeong Jeong is such an interesting character due to all his complexity, contradictions and flaws. It’s a shame he couldn’t get more to do in the show and disappointing that adaptations don’t even want to acknowledge him or this episode, let alone expound on it like I think would be incredibly rewarding to do. He fits so well in this role for Aang and in the trajectory Aang has with firebending. It serves as great communication with the viewers, too. It further shows us the complexity of the fire nation being more than just “pure evil”, promising that there will be a payoff for it (Aang’s mastering fire bending as well as Zuko’s redemption), but reminding us of that while we can see these things developing, we’ll need to have patience before getting there. That there’s still a long journey to go.
Also, a spin-off series revolving around Jeong Jeong would honestly be very interesting to see from a storytelling perspective!
1:11, how dare you get me hyped, I love that episode. Everyone just hates on it because they are mad.
Oh don't mistake me, I have positive things to say about that episode. It's not my favourite no, but it's still a good episode
Def didn't predict this as the top, but I appreciate the unexpectedness. It's always nice to get a newfound appreciation for art
@My Little Thought Tree, my sole problem with this episode is that (even though I find Zhao works well as antagonist of Zuko) I don’t find him to work well as an antagonist of Aang. (Also, even if he were saying it to taunt, Aang is right about Zhao not being as competent a villain as Zuko.)
For the longest time, this was my favourite episode in the series. Eventually (and possibly for nostalgia reasons), the Western Air Temple overtook it.
(With the context that I'm much more about vibes than absolutes:) I never thought of Jeong Jeong as being wrong, just being wise within his context. If fire nation navy is represented by common mooks, Zhao, and the Southern Raiders, then Jeong Jeong is very wise to turn away from that kind of firepower. It's a shame he didn't search for additional context (like Iroh did).
There's also this implication that JJ believes that Aang could be a responsible wielder of fire but not yet. It's repeated twice that he thinks Aang should learn water and earthbending first, which would teach him more control. And I think he's basically right. Airbending is so much about play and light-heartedness (e.g. Gyatso teaching Aang by pulling pranks), that giving fire to someone like that is, well, playing with fire.
I can go on more about justifying his concerns, but I also think he should take his own advice - he shouldn't behave like he knows his (or Aang's) destiny either.
Anyway, it's a fantastic episode, it pays a loving homage to Heart of Darkness / Apocalypse Now, and it strikes that perfect ATLA balance between light and dark.
Hugely missed opportunity for world building a subsection of pirate/sailor water bender cultures that had stories of the overwhelming power of the ocean for another avatar’s story
5th nation?
@@aevenova9780 RIP Chin the Conqueror
I'm binging on the original series right now (skipping the live action) & Deserter definitely was a good episode. My personal favorite though is The Northern Air Temple. From showing a differently abled Theo in an inspiring light (in 2005!) to how immigration can be part of progress, this episode is so mature and relevant even today. Still, the best part was the inventor dad. He ain't a bad guy, but what he did to protect his people was evil. It just show how war can led people to make decisions that are wrong. Gave me chills.
20:04, Fair, though I find that that makes him an underwhelming antagonist of Aang (especially in comparison to Zuko.)
Your thumbnail did in fact give it away lol.
Seeing someone teach unsuccessfully always makes me think about what would be more successful. Jeon Jeon couldn't have taught better because of his worldview, but we see later how Zuko's unique (but extremely disciplined) experiences teach discipline. We don't get to see Iroh teaching Aang, but it probably would have gone well.
I have trouble reconciling the recurring idea that Aang is impatient, when realistically...what 11 year old do you know that can sit still for hours on end focused on one thing (not their special interest/game lol)? He's incredibly capable of exercising patience and self control pretty much on command in many cases. Idk, he does also have issues with patience, like in this episode, but that seems more informed by stress and miscommunication, not his nature as a person. He's being so unwillingly trained by someone who insists this stuff isn't in his character when his entire cultural background is focused on discipline and understanding the self (in a different way but still). He's able to focus on trying to connect to the spirit world or unblocking chakras when he can disconnect from the pressure and stress, but this episode is so centered on this being His Only Chance To Learn Firebending and such. I don't necessarily consider it a writing flaw, but we know what impatience looks like (cough cough Korra) and sometimes he gets treated so much like an adult because of his responsibilities that people seem to misattribute the cause of behaviors that make perfect sense.
Yeah I get that. Maybe impatient isn't the right word. He's definitely got a childlike wealth of enthusiasm for firebending that is at odds with the fear and (almost anxiety) Jeong Jeong is keen to instill. Jeong Jeong takes this for a lack of discipline in Aang but I think that's more a sign of his own fears causing him to misunderstand
@@mylittlethoughttree I definitely agree that he's a really enthusiastic kid. I guess the reason 'impatient' rubs me the wrong way is that the word describes who you are as a person, like...children are usually less patient than adults, so using the word impatient to describe Aang implies he's impatient ...relative to other children? Relative to other adults? his peers?? air bending masters??? a fully realized avatar???? He might be impatient relative to an airbending master, but calling him impatient for a child is like calling Zuko edgy for a teenager. Those traits aren't things I'd define their adult selves or personalities by even if they show them more than their peers (although I'd say their peers do show those traits too)
It sounds pedantic to care about such a minor thing, but I guess I think looking for better words or considering why a word doesn't fit perfectly seems like a way to get insight about a character
You deserve so much more views
I'm curious how you would compare this episode to the episode 'The Firebending Masters'. Two different philosophies on firebending, both with their own merits, but almost complete opposites.
was thinking The Great Divide as a joke and then it was The Great Divide 😐
I wonder if I should keep flying
1:21 I've been bamboozled
This is an excellent episode. I always think of it when considering my fave episodes of the season. It probably is not a top three for me, but it is easily a top six.
1:15 Called it
Lol I literally reacted out loud in disbelief and outrage when you said "the great divide" was the ep you were hyping up, good fake out 😅😂
Indeed.
I do think it's a great episode and really struck me for how complex it is at the time but I just have to rank episodes like The Storm, The Blue Spirit and The Waterbending Master higher in this season for what they do with characters I love more than even Aang such as Zuko and Katara, while still developing Aang most of those, actually. It's not that the episode lacks quality by any means, it's that the show brims with it.
I've only seen the thumbnail and will watch the video later but my guess is the episode "The Storm". Am I right?
I’ll be a guaranteed view of you do decide to make a ranking video
good video
I thought you were going to be serious about The Great Divide and I felt equal parts torn between wanting to hear you out but also genuinely offended lmao! *pun intended*
I watched another video about how the creators wanted to separate bending from magic -so much so 'magic' is said only [twice?] during the whole series. A rough metaphor, I think it's supposed to be more like empathy...
Ive seen show soooo many times, i could guess it from the thumbnail. Lol the deserter. Im curious to hear whatbu say bout it :)
This is a bit off topic but I just wanted to say something about you as a creator- I've been having a very hard time recently, battling mental health issues, grieving the loss of the most important person in my life and graduating school, which takes away a lot of stability I need. Your videos offer me so much comfort because of your deeply understanding, non-judgemental and sincere nature. You are such an amazing creator and I think it's tragic that some of your best videos don't reach as many people as they should. Thank you for your platform and for offering such a safe space. I hope this comment doesn't come off too sobby, I just wanted to share how much I and many others appreciate what you do. You're a huge part in why I'm willing to seek professional help-because you show me that tgere are such amazing therapists as you out there, who really take the time to care and understand. I wish you all the best and am excited for your future videos!
Thank you, that's really nice to hear and kind of you to say! I know what you mean about some of my videos, it is a shame how the algorithm stifles a lot of the topics I'd like to discuss but who knows? If I'm lucky I'll get big enough to be able to afford making niche videos without it damaging my income too much. It's all a work in progress and, in the meantime, I'm still making videos I love, and just fitting in the bigger passion projects more pragmatically.
I'm glad I could offer you something positive at a really hard time in your life. Well, not always positive exactly, because sometimes life is shit and I don't want my videos to shy away from that fact, but something empathetic and helpful anyway. Grief and graduating school around the same time must be a hell of an upheaval but I hope you can find your way forwards
Jet is my fave of season 1 but the blue spirit and the deserter are way up there
I have only seen episode one BUT I find it interesting how Aang can fly seemingly unassisted and am wondering if after visiting the air temple he has to use his glider now because he isn't carefree or whatever anymore. Idk I have only seen one episode and watched only Korra once too sooo...
He cant fly unassisted, only boost his jumps and soften his fall.
Also, it’s a sign of what a poor leader Ozai is: when two of his greatest military leaders, one of whom was his own brother and rightful heir to the throne, both defect in such a major way. Ozai should at least be aware of the optics and how fire citizens might think it’s weird that the leader of their country can’t even keep his own household together.
The day of black sun
It's the great divide!
What, seriously?
Ok It's not the great divide
Oh thank god😂
Apocalypse now
Missed the hole point expressed in the very first episode.
Yeah, they went to great pains to stress it isn't magic, and that fact is very important to its power in the show, but it is still technically a magic system and, from a writing perspective, it makes sense to discuss it as one
the caviat of season 1 is kind of important here. I mean book 2 and 3 just have the more amazing episodes.
It's not magic it's air bending
Not magic it's bending!!!!!!!!!!
To be honest this is why I feel like season 3 is actually avatars weakest season. It felt like the philosophical nature of bending got toned down and also felt like Aang was just given firebending by the dragons.
I still love avatar even if season 3 was bad lol