Oh my lord, it’s a fire!

Book 1: Water

Chapter 14

The Fortunetller

WHAT HAPPENED?

The group comes across a town that lives life by the telling of a fortuneteller, Aunt Wu. Sokka spends the episode even more skeptical than usual, trying to disprove her, but he constantly makes a fool of himself. Aang continuously tries to impress Katara, but to no avail, but when a nearby volcano erupts, Aang displays powerful bending to save the town and give Katara a reason to look at him differently.

WHAT TO TAKE AWAY

This is the first episode that truly establishes Aang’s affection for Katara. Through their visit to this town, one thing I noticed is that it’s mainly focused on Aang realizing that he is attracted to Katara. I think that the jokes involving Sokka were funny, but this episode could have added something to the main story instead of establishing this pre-teen crush. I’m not opposed to Aang and Katara growing in a romantic sense, but it should have been woven into a narrative around them encountering the horrors of this war that’s going on around them.

Katara isn’t wearing that necklace, is she?

As an aside, we are 14 episodes into this series. It took 8 to establish the main objective of the hero (and the show), and it’s going to take another 3 episodes for us to even get a taste of this war that’s happening worldwide. This isn’t Friends where is has the flexibility to have a bunch of throwaway episodes for us to enjoy. Avatar: The Last Airbender is more akin to the first season of Heroes: “Stop the Firelord. Save the World.” But I don’t get the sense that the focus is on stopping the Firelord in this season. It will pick up eventually, but it’s annoying that we’ve had a bunch of throwaway episodes so far in a show about saving the world.

And when Aang finally goes to receive his fortune, the writers purposefully throw the main story in your face, then brush it away to further this romantic sublot between Aang and Katara. It was a slap in the face to me because that’s what I was more interested in seeing. I say this while remembering that it’s a show meant for kids, however, the first season had many bumps. I mean to say that this is one episode out of a few that give the impression that they weren’t sure which direction to take with the show. Well, I’m here to say that it’s okay to have humor and romance, but don’t get so muddled in that stuff that you lose sight of the story.

The volcanic eruption is used to cement the lesson that we need to take our lives in our own hands sometimes. But it also serves as a way for Katara to possibly see that Aang is a powerful bender just like the one described in her fortune. This is confusing since she already should have known that Aang is powerful because she’s seen him in action. But maybe she’s so used to it that she needed to be reminded of his power.

It’s unnecessary, like this entire episode. Like “The Great Divide,” this episode does nothing to advance the main story except to further a romance that wasn’t needed in the first place. It’s been 6 episodes since Aang talked to Roku and they haven’t made ANY progress in terms of figuring out how they will stop the Firelord before the comet arrives. And the episode is immediately downgraded, in my humble opinion, because Zuko isn’t present.

And there is a subplot where a goofy local girl has a crush on Aang, but he unintentionally (but blatantly at one point) ignores her in favor for Katara. Mae is the Aunt Wu’s assistant, and she helps Aang trick the village into worrying about the volcano. This character won’t return, but the voice actress will.

Mind the gap!

Also, why did the three of them wait at the edge of the trench where the lava flowed? And why does Katara take off the necklace Aang made her in the beginning of the episode? She was wearing it, but then she wasn’t when they got to the town and for the rest of the episode. Actually, we don’t see that necklace ever again. At any rate, there isn’t much else I can say about this episode. It revolved mainly around building a romance between Aang and Katara, which could have been done better. I guess you could say that this episode focuses on choosing one’s own destiny.

If I had to describe this episode in one word, it would be ‘contained’. Following the pattern, this episode remains contained within the group of three youngster in their very long camping trip. It reminds of “The Deathly Hollows Part 1” and all of it’s camping glory. A romance, although welcome, isn’t what this show needs when it’s 14 episodes deep. Will the romance be enough to calm the trouble waters ahead? We’ll find out when they meet Bato of the Water Tribe.

Until then, enjoy a little Momo comedy!

And unlimited unwrapping!

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