Spirit Bomb!

Book 1: Water

Chapter 16

The Deserter

WHAT HAPPENED?

Aang wants to visit a Fire Nation festival to see if he can study firebending up close. The group cautiously agrees, but decides to disguise themselves. However, Aang winds up blowing their cover, and Aang and his gang rescued by a mysterious man who says he knows of a firebending master, Jeong Jeong the Deserter. Unfortunately, after being led back to their camp, the group is told that they must leave and that Jeong Jeong knows that Aang isn’t ready. Aang persists and Jeong Jeong the Deserter, after receiving a spiritual tongue lashing from Roku, agrees. However, Aang is too impatient with his training and burns Katara. At the same time, the group is attacked by Admiral Zhao and Jeong Jeong the Deserter disappears. Katara unlocks a new aspect of her powers and heals herself, while Aang uses Zhao’s anger against him, causing him to sink his own boats.

WHAT TO TAKE AWAY

I enjoyed this episode because it touches on an ideal that doesn’t seem to be embraced in a world of technology and digital information. One cannot learn anything without discipline and practice. It also pushes the notion that actions have consequences, but I think the first is a much better lesson to learn. Aang believes that because he is the Avatar, he is entitled to whatever training he needs. However, because he is the Avatar does not mean that he deserves anything. Like any form of martial art, your skill and wisdom must be earned through hard work and persistence. Rushing head on into something is what gets Zuko into so much trouble, and it’s what causes Aang to burn Katara. He wanted to play with fire and she got burned. It’s what caused them to be discovered at the festival.

During the ‘Taming the Dragon’ show, all Aang had to do was watch. It was clearly a show for entertainment and I’m not sure what gave Aang the impression that Katara was in danger during this act. I guess they needed to progress the episode somehow. And it brings me to something that I find even more interesting than that. We are now 16  episodes in and we are focusing on a topic that should have been focused on instead of some of the throwaway material we’ve had. Aang is eager to learn firebending, and that would be great if the show set him up to be eager to learn the other elements.

The story demands that he learns all four disciplines on a deadline, and yet the only one he is remotely excited/impatient about learning is firebending.In fact, he’s not even freaking out or feeling self-conscious like he was during The Waterbending Scroll. He has had two opportunities to learn some earthbending techniques from King Bumi and the earthbender guide from The Great Divide. He is even working with Katara to learn waterbending, but they are barely shown training together. It is clear that time is passing, and that they are getting better, but we don’t see them improving. There are no training scenes, no montages and nothing to show that Aang is even trying to learn what he needs to learn 16 episodes into the show. Since the story begins in Winter, we can only  assume that he has a little over two seasons (Spring and Summer) before Sozin’s Comet arrives.

Imma let you finish, but…

Why are they going to festivals and getting in crazy adventures? Why are they getting their fortunes told and stopping volcanoes? We don’t have time for this! They are in the middle of a war, and the first season basically gives us an adventure of the week scenario instead of actually nose-to-the-grindstone training. In order to advance the story properly, the narrative has to at least give us snippets of progress. We already know what the goal is, and now we need to know how the hero is doing in their training. We need to see them interact with elements of the war that aren’t even discussed until season 2. We get a lot of filler that distracts from what seems like lack of direction from the production side of things. To defend it by saying that it’s just a kid’s show is very lazy and presumptuous. That comments makes it seem like kids can only understand ‘simple’ and ‘under complicated’.

It assumes that anyone under a certain age bracket won’t understand why training is so important even though I’ve explained why it’s so important already. It’s not becoming a master that’s exciting, but training to become a master sends a more powerful message. And becoming a master is more rewarding as a result of that training and hard work. To assume that there is a need for a romantic sub-plot to keep your audience interested is insulting. Again, why are we just now getting enthusiasm from the main character about training after 16 episodes? Aang has spent his whole life training to become an airbender. He is a master at his craft, and that didn’t come lightly, so where is that determination to learn the other elements?

I’m going to compare this to the first season of Heroes once again. The characters learn more about themselves by watching their powers grow and interacting with other characters. Hiro and Peter know that something is coming. Something bad is going to happen and they take it among themselves to train and explore the limits of their powers. Aang, on the other hand, has spent entire episodes doing things that have nothing to do with training or the main story. It doesn’t matter that it is a kid’s show. The story shouldn’t be this bogged down with unnecessary side plots that ultimately have no effect on the main story arc.

It’s also interesting that people in this show has varying levels of spiritual connections. Iroh saw the spirit of Aang riding Roku’s dragon when it was clear that no one else did. And now, Roku can just appear to whomever. How does this work? So far, we’ve had two instances where people have such spiritual connections that they literally see ghosts, and the show doesn’t explain it at all up to this point. Next, Jeong Jeong the Deserter taught Zhao, but the student was more interested in using his ability to dominate. It’s the obvious parallel between Aang and Zhao that the episode goes on to showcase. Seeing Aang use that to his advantage was a brilliant move, writing-wise. This shows that he is learning through experience, and no matter what, he is improving. This is what I want to see more of!

The text speaks for itself.

As an aside, Katara’s healing comes out of nowhere, although it makes sense that waterbenders would be able to heal. Water symbolizes cleansing and healing, with everything else a waterbender can do, I don’t oppose this new power of hers. Also, I do think it’s interesting that we briefly explore the notion that not all firebenders are bad people. Some even left the Fire Nation because they couldn’t deal with the slaughter of innocents. Iroh is a great guy with a terrible past, and Zuko… we’ll get more into that side of Zuko when the time is right.

However, he has shown that he isn’t a totally bad person. He’s very conflicted about how he should live his life. It’s a concept we’ll run into again and again, particularly with some known characters. Jeong Jeong the Deserter will have to do for now, but it’s a good example of something Jet didn’t understand. To be fair, he says that he hates the Fire Nation, but not firebenders. He was willing to wipe out an entire town to drive the Fire Nation out, but there were a lot of innocent people there. Fire Nation or not, they had nothing to do with what happened to Jet’s parents, and yet he perceived them all as evil. It’s something that feeds into the hatred that a lot of folks in this world share toward the Fire Nation AND firebenders in general. There is a particular episode of this series that explains why folks should think that way, so I’ll continue my rant then.

For now, I’ll say that this is the episode I was waiting for. Aang needs to master patience if he is going to succeed, and he still has a long way to go. The Mr. Miyagi training regiment is exactly what I want to see. However, this episode came too little, too late. There are four episodes left in this season and we have squandered most of them on side quests that barely amount to anything important later on. After trying some luck with an old master, it’s time to stand up and fight for the Northern Air Temple.

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