One thing I forgot to mention from the last episode is the fact that Katara and Sokka go after Aang, but don’t return to their village. Yes, they do say goodbye to Gran Gran, but wouldn’t they return after rescuing Aang just to let her know they’re okay? It’s clear that the Fire Nation is bad, so what if they were captured and tortured? Or what if they were outright killed? They could have at least flown over to say they were okay since email isn’t a thing in this universe. I understand that we have to start the adventure, but it was just something I thought about.

Book 1: Water

Chapter 3

The Southern Air Temple

WHAT HAPPENED? (I will mix my notes in with the episode summary for this one)

Aang leads his friends to the Southern Air Temple. It was his home 100 years ago, but it seems like he’s looking for some semblance of life. Aang may even be in denail at this point that all the airbenders are gone considering what he says toward the end of the episode. He finds a flying lemur, and he chases through the temple.

Dark stuff for a kid’s show, right?

However, he is led to the bones of Monk Gyatso among Fire-bender remains. His eyes and tattoos glow as Aang loses control and Avatar sanctuaries all over the world begin to glow. This apparently alerts the world that the Avatar has returned. Although, wouldn’t that have happened when he was released from the iceberg and that beam of light shot into the sky? Or when it was activated on Zuko’s ship out of plot convenience? Does that chain reaction happen all the time when that occurrence happens? I’m going with the possibility that because he was near a sanctuary (which is a spiritual hub), it acted as a beacon to the others.

Arise, Rodimus Prime…

In terms of the sanctuaries, take a look at the air temple sanctuary for a moment. Because of the amount of statues in this spiraling tower, we can assume that it’s hundreds of years old. It seems that there are hundreds of Avatar statues in order, but from top to bottom. We can also assume that the very first Avatar is at the top of the tower because the last few Avatars, including Roku (the Avatar before Aang), is conveniently at the bottom. Who would design something like this? I understand that it was probably made to worship and immortalize past Avatars, but the design is completely inefficient. You mean to tell me that whoever designed this knew to build the tower so high and so wide as to fit all those Avatar statues conveniently so that the most recent Avatar statue (Roku) would be there for our heroes to find so Aang could make a slight spiritual connection with it? And do the other sanctuaries have every Avatar statue, or are air-benders just that committed to fanboy-ing out over past Avatars?

I’ll never let go, Aang!

A touching moment arises when the siblings tell Aang that he’s part of their family now. In a world where Aang is alone spiritually, as well as the familial sense, the notion of family is hammered home here when Katara and Sokka display that they not only care for him, but have accepted him as one of their own when he comes to grips with the grim truth. If the Fire Nation reached this temple and the others, then he truly is the last air-bender. The flying lemur returns and forms and attachment to Aang, who then names him Momo. With Appa, they are the last remnants of that air temple.

Cute can’t even describe this creature…

I’d like to point out that this was made more powerful because we saw Gyatso’s bones. If the characters had only alluded to the fact that all the air benders were dead, it wouldn’t have had as much of an impact. But with that image burned into our minds, the stakes are raised a bit because Aang, Appa, and Momo are presumably the last of their kinds. Even though Aang doesn’t have his main mission yet, viewers get the sense that if Aang dies, that’s it for the show, and the world. It also introduces death into the show and tells the audience that the writers aren’t afraid to throw death in occasionally. Other shows wouldn’t have crossed this line, but I appreciate that this one did. Will other characters die? It’s very possible.

It’s very strange that Katara tries to hide the remains of a Fire Nation soldier from Aang. I understand that the truth must be harsh, but had Aang saw those remains, he wouldn’t have been so carefree around the temple. It’s possible that he might not have gone semi-nuclear when he found Gyatso’s bones.

We also learn that Zuko was banished by his father (the Fire Lord), but we don’t know why. Commander Zhao exposits that Zuko can’t return until he captures the Avatar, and he will have regained his honor… somehow. Zuko loses his cool and challenges Zhao to an Agni Ki (fire duel). It hasn’t been explained what the Fire Lord’s meaning of honor is up to this point.

Is this how the Hadoken began?

For that matter, think about the Fire Lord. The Avatar has been missing for 100 years; Iroh mentioned in the pilot that three generations of Fire Lords tried and died trying. Now, the current Fire lord banishes his son and will only allow him to return if he returns with the Avatar. One could take this to mean that whatever Zuko did was so bad that his father wanted him to die in exile by giving him an impossible task.

The Agni Ki is also interesting because it seem to be a fight to the death between two firebenders. Zuko is losing at first, but turns it around with epic breakdancing.

THIS is how you do it!

And instead of killing Zhao, he lets him live with his defeat. However, didn’t Zuko lose the Agni Ki? As in, didn’t he forfeit the battle by choosing not to kill his opponent? Yes, Zuko won in a moral and honor-bound sense, but he didn’t actually win the match, right?

Because I’m a gigantic nerd, I looked up the rules and found that if one participant gets burned, they lose. No one got burned here even though Zuko overpowered Zhao, so no one came out victorious under the rules of an Agni Ki. Zuko showed mercy by not killing Zhao, which does harken back to the old ways in which an Agni Kai would be conducted. The show doesn’t explain the objective behind an Agni Ki, and leave it up to the audience to assume that it’s a fight to the death. Interesting.

Blocked!

I should also mention that this is a point of development for Iroh and Zuko. Iroh blocking Zhao is a display of how much he has his nephew’s back. Through everything that they’ve been through and everything they will go through, this relationship has been built up over the years and we, the audience get to reap the benefits. However, I won’t spoil it just yet. Also, did Zhao really try to murder Zuko? Holy cow!

Now that we’ve seen the old places, it’s time to meet some new faces next time when we meet the Warriors of Kyoshi.

If you want to discuss this show, stop by our dedicated discussion thread on this show!