Today’s title card was a close battle between that and “Katara is Adorable.”  I fear I may have picked the wrong one.

Day 4

We don’t waste any time as we start the episode by looking at some badass Fire Nation archers.

Commander Zhao wants them to aid in his capture of the Avatar, but he gets denied.  Until he gets promoted, and Admiral Zhao orders that the archer unit be placed under his control.

Meanwhile, Sokka’s suffering from a fever.

Katara catches the fever while treating Sokka, and it’s up to Aang to find a remedy.  Luckily, he just so happens to come across a map saying there’s an herbalist nearby.

While Aang is busy, Katara asks Momo to fill her bottle with water.  Momo does not understand speech.

The herbalist tells Aang to go find some frozen frogs and let his friends suck on them.

Uh, pretty sure he didn’t need those kind of drugs.

Aang goes looking for frozen frogs, which, apparently, are a naturally occurring thing, but gets ambushed by the badass archers.

Now, arrows vs. wind-users is just element magic 101.  There should be no way they’re a match… but they are.

Turns out, all you need to beat Aang are some really sweet archers.  Aang gets captured and tied up in a Fire Nation tower.

Aang gets rescued by a masked fighter dual wielding swords, and together they fight through the tower, covering each others’ asses in the process, proving they’re a formidable team.

One of the archers manages to knock out the masked fighter while they’re escaping, and Aang is shocked at the masked fighter’s identity.

Aang offhandedly talks about a Fire Nation friend he had once (y’know, 100 years ago) named Kuzon and wonders if in another time, Aang and Zuko could have been friends.  Zuko responds by trying to burn him.

I have to say, I was actually surprised that the warrior was Zuko.  There were no hints or foreshadowing that it would be him, and yet at the same time it makes perfect sense that he would save Aang.  Surprisingly smart writing and character development payoffs resulting in one of my favorite episodes thus far.

Oh, and Sokka and Katara get cured in time to find out they’ve been sucking on toad.

Next episode, Aang makes Katara a flower necklace and out of the blue realizes what we’ve known since forever: Katara is adorable.

The gang then spots an old man in danger: he’s being attacked by a Platypusbear.  So they come to his rescue.

They scare the Platypusbear off, but the old man wasn’t worried because he was given a fortune saying he would have a safe trip.  The gang (minus Sokka because Sokka) are intrigued by the fortune teller and decide to pay her a visit.

At the house of the fortune teller, Aunt Wu, the gang are greeted by Meng, a little girl that instantly gets a crush on Aang.

Just to get it out of the way, Meng is into Aang at least partially because of his big ears, and Aunt Wu told her her true love would have big ears.

This leads us to the core of the situation: everyone believes Aunt Wu’s prediction and can’t bring themselves to do anything themselves without her consultation.

That in itself would make a pretty good episode, but a large portion of this episode is also pointless love talk.  It starts with Katara asking for a love reading and finding out she’ll marry “a powerful bender.”  Aang foolishly asks Sokka about love advice to get Katara’s attention (and Sokka thinks Aang is trying to get Meng’s attention).

Anyway, Aunt Wu makes her annual cloud reading and says the volcano won’t destroy the village, but Aang and Sokka find out the volcano is pretty much guaranteed to erupt.  Even though the volcano starts making a whole bunch of noise, the people aren’t worried because of the prediction.  So Aang and Katara change the clouds and get Aunt Wu to make a second reading, which convinces the villagers to get the fuck out.

In the end, the village is saved, ironically making Aunt Wu’s former prediction of the village not being destroyed true.  Sokka offhandedly mentions Aang is a powerful bender, and Katara realizes she may be destined to be with Aang, confirming the same shit we’ve known since forever.

It’s a pretty simple episode, but I ended up laughing a lot during it.  Really fun, but I actually might end up never revisiting it.  Weird how that works out.

In the next episode, the gang encounters a beached ship that belongs to the Southern Water Tribe.  It looks a lot like Katara and Sokka’s father’s ship, but they determine it’s just one from the same fleet, and take it as a sign that their father could be nearby.

Meanwhile, a hunter named June arrives on Zuko’s ship, tracking down a stowaway.  Her strange beast has unmatched tracking abilities due to a super-honed sense of smell.

Meanwhile, the gang encounters Bato, an old friend of Katara and Sokka’s father, and he reveals that he’s waiting for a message from him.

The two siblings are inquisitive about old stories, while Aang feels left out and jealous that the two will leave him to go after their father.  Aang meets a messenger who hands him a map to the siblings’ father, and Aang decides to crumple the map up and hide it.

Words cannot express just how horrible Aang is acting.  Only a massive facepalm can express just how little sense this makes.  Yes, you want them to go with you to learn Waterbending at the Northern Water Tribe, but goddamn how uncharacteristically selfish can you be?

Meanwhile, June is being badass.

Zuko finds June to hire her in tracking Aang using Katara’s necklace that he picked up way back when.

The next day, Bato takes Sokka “ice dodging,” which is a coming-of-age ceremony involving navigating a small ship through a treacherous rocky course.

Let us not mull over how many youths lost their lives trying to become adults.

Sokka passes the test with flying colors, but Aang refuses to accept Bato’s anointing of him as a trustworthy individual.  Why can’t Aang be trusted?  Oh right, because he hid that communication from Sokka and Katara’s father for no good reason.  Also note, Aang is 112 years old, so technically he is an old man.

Sokka and Katara are disgusted by Aang’s actions, as they should, and they end up separating.  At least until they decide they should be with Aang after all.  But then Zuko and June arrive, Aang arrives, and there’s big ol’ battle.

June proves to be a huge factor in the battle, as her giant lizard has the ability to paralyze a target with one flick of its tongue.

It’s at this point I have to mention we have a girl with a poisonous lizard and a guy who can control fire.  I’m not trying to imply anything, and if anything I would be in the wrong if I did.  I’m just saying this is the first time I’ve seen this episode.

June alone seems to fend off everyone who isn’t Aang.  Meanwhile, Aang and Zuko go one on one, and Zuko is actually an equal match for Aang for once.

To combat June’s lizard, Katara decides to overload its sense of smell with perfume.  That’s right: Perfumebending!

The lizard goes crazy and turns on June and Zuko, leaving them paralyzed.  Not Iroh though, but no one needs to know.

By the way, during the fight, Aang spots Katara’s necklace and takes it away from Zuko, and Aang gets a kiss from Katara as a reward.  Yay, progress!

In the next episode, Aang decides to visit a Fire Nation cultural festival, hoping to learn Firebending.  I am obligated to again mention he had no desire to learn Earthbending while in the Earth Kingdom from one of the strongest Earthbenders in the land who also happens to be possibly his last living friend from 100 years ago.

Naturally, everyone in Fire Nation is looking for the Avatar, so they need disguises.

Aang quickly gets discovered when he breaks up a fire show because Katara appeared to be in danger.  Clearly, Aang had no idea the performer was just playing to the crowd.

Aang and co. flee and are rescued by a Fire Nation deserter who tells Aang about his master, Jeong Jeong, also a deserter and a powerful Firebender.  Aang goes to see Jeong Jeong to learn Firebending, but Jeong Jeong refuses… until the spirit of Roku tells him to.

Jeong tries to teach Aang the basics, but much like Zuko way back in the beginning of this series, Aang has no patience and wants to learn how to burn things.

Jeong warns Aang about his former pupil, who had no patience and developed a technique that was powerful but had no control.  It’s painfully obvious he’s talking about Admiral Zhao, based on how Zhao lost to Zuko, but let’s pretend we don’t know that.

Aang completely ignores Aang’s warnings and has no time for his Miyagi-style lessons and works on shooting fire.  However, he goes overboard and ends up burning Katara.

Seriously, what’s the point in seeking out a master if you’re not going to listen to him?

On the upside, Katara learns that she can heal wounds using Waterbending, so she’s got that going for her.

While Aang is feeling bad about losing control, Admiral Zhao shows up and reveals that he was Jeong’s former pupil, naturally.  However, Aang uses Zhao’s bad habits against him and gets Zhao to destroy his fleet due to his lack of control.

Jeong and his followers manage to flee, and Aang is without a Firebender teacher for the time being, but he learned an important lesson about control.  Presumably.

In the next episode, the gang hears about people flying in the sky near the Northern Air Temple.

Turns out, the people there use gliders and are NOT a clan of hidden Airbenders.  One of the gliders is Teo, a hotshot in a wheelchair.  That’s right.  He has a wheelchair glider.

Turns out everyone at the temple are actually refugees who used the empty temple for, well, refuge.  Also, they made some changes.

Almost none of the temple is the same, and Aang is pretty pissed.  The person responsible is Teo’s father, a mad scientist whose name is never said in the entire episode, so I can only assume his name is Bumi.

Sokka ends up helping out the inventor, and his ideas actually help the inventor improve on some problems he’s been having.

Meanwhile, the gang find that there’s one room that has been left untouched since the refugees came since it’s behind a room that only the Avatar can open.

Aang eventually likes Teo enough to open the door for him, but behind the door is an armory of Fire Nation weapons.

Turns out, Teo’s father has been developing weapons for Fire Nation, making him, like, a freaking terrible person.  His excuse is that if he didn’t do it, the Fire Nation would kill them, but… actually no, I understand him.  Fire Nation literally talks about genocide and annihilating cultures, not conquering.  They totally sound like they would be into slaughtering defenseless people for no reason.

When a Fire Nation broker arrives to take some weapons he commissioned, Aang chases him away.  You realize, of course, this means war.

As it turns out, the Fire Nation have self-balancing tanks that have grapplehooks to climb up mountains.  Holy crap, I take back what I said about them not being able to reach the Southern Air Temple.

Aang and Katara’s bending plus glider bombs help slow down the assault, but the Fire Nation keeps it up.  That is, until Sokka and Mr. Mad Scientist bring out their war balloon.

Ultimately, Fire Nation is forced to flee when they drop the war balloon’s engine into a gas leak.  Unfortunately, Sokka and Teo’s dad are forced to flee the balloon, and they foolishly allow the balloon to reach Fire Nation hands, allowing them to duplicate the design and finally have an air force.

GOOD JOB, HEROES.

Aang and company leave, happy with their success today.  They have almost assuredly left the temple wide open to another assault in the future.

In the next episode, the crew FINALLY arrive at the north pole and the Northern Water Tribe.

Sokka wastes no time forgetting about any girls he may have been involved in and falls for Princess Yue, who, admittedly, is pretty freaking hot.

Aang and Katara try to learn Waterbending from the master Pakku, but it is tribe custom to NOT teach women Waterbending for offensive purposes and tells Katara to instead seek out healing lessons.  Sounds like a good deal to me, actually, but Katara ain’t having none of that.  She’s a strong, independent woman who needs no ma- wait, she actually kinda needs him.

Meanwhile, Admiral Zhao prepares his fleet to attack the north pole.  Before he does so, he sees twin swords in Zuko’s quarters and realizes he’s the “Blue Spirit,” the warrior who freed the Avatar and is an enemy of the Fire Nation.  So he hires pirates to assassinate Zuko.

Back at the Water Tribe, Katara has had enough of Pakku and she challenges him to a duel to prove her worth.  And… she does surprisingly well in what is easily the best fight in the entire series so far.

Pakku eventually defeats Katara, but then he notices her necklace and recognizes it as the same one he crafted for his one true love, Katara’s grandmother who left the Northern Water Tribe because of its customs.

And I guess that somehow gets Pakku to realize he needs to change his outlook and train Katara even though it sounds like Gram-gram never had any interest in Pakku, custom or no custom.

Iroh decides to follow Zhao in his invasion and laments the loss of Zuko to pirates… though we later learn it’s a ploy as Zuko is actually alive and disguised, waiting for his opportunity to take the Avatar himself.

Meanwhile, Sokka and Yue go on dates even though Yue is engaged, which technically makes this an affair.  During one of their dates, Sokka notices the soot in the air and realizes Fire Nation is on its way.

In the final episode, the king or chief or whatever they have in the Northern Water Tribe calls on able young men for an operation against the Fire Nation,  and Sokka volunteers.

Meanwhile, Aang takes on the entire fleet by himself, but there are too many for him to sink.

Sokka proves to have invaluable information on the Fire Nation since the Water Tribe’s information is woefully out of date.  But he screws that all up by getting in a fight with Yue’s betrothed, who, naturally, is a total jerk because convenient lazy writing.

Aang decides he needs to see the spirits of the moon and ocean if the Waterbenders are to have a chance against the Fire Nation invasion, and Yue shows Aang to the most spiritual place in the… uh… kingdom?  Tribe…place?

Yue also mentions that she was born sick and was given life by the spirit of the moon, resulting in her hair turning white.  This also establishes her death flag.

Aang is defenseless while he meditates, and Zuko takes the opportunity to capture him.  Or so he would, except Katara totally beats the crap out of him with her improved Waterbending skills.

Turns out, Waterbenders get a power boost during full moons, but once the sun’s up… the tide (lol) shifts to the Firebenders’ side.

Zuko gets away with Aang in tow, but he does so by traveling above some high cliffs where there’s a constant blizzard going on.  Unable to keep going, he decides to take shelter in a cave.

Here, Zuko talks about how he was always an unwanted child while his sister was a prodigy and loved from the very start.  There’s no reason he has to say this to an unconscious Aang.  Probably payback for Aang talking about Kuzon.

Meanwhile, Aang is in the spirit realm talking to a face-stealing demon to find out where the spirits of the ocean and moon are.

Turns out, the two spirits are fish in the northern water palace.  Also, turns out Zhao knew this, and he immediately goes to capture said fish.

Aang gets saved by Sokka and Katara, but he decides to save Zuko because, hell, why not?

As soon as the fish are captured, the Waterbenders lose all their power and are utterly crushed.  Then he’s warned by Iroh not to harm the fish because of the effect it would have on nature.  Zhao, complete dick that he is, ignores this warning and kills one of the fish.

Aang decides this isn’t the end and summons the dead fish and becomes a host for it, resulting in the complete destruction of the invading Fire Nation in one of the most impressive feats of animation for the series.

In order to save the moon spirit, Yue returns her life to it, sacrificing herself and totally cockblocking Sokka.

The Fire Nation are routed, and the Water Tribe is safe.  Sucks about Yue, but eh, we’ll call this a win.

However, Zuko and Iroh are officially branded as traitors, and Zuko’s sister is now placed in charge of capturing the Avatar.

So that’s the end of Book 1.  Glad I stuck through it because it ended on a really high note.

The world-building is definitely Avatar’s biggest high point.  It just does it so well.  It’s easy to get a handle of each region’s culture and traits.

A close second is how expressive each character is.  That was the focus of the animation from the start, and even though the rest of the animation slowly caught up, it was always the expressions that stood out.

The character development is kind of hit and miss.  Aang and Katara both have a tendency to act a little inconsistently depending on the episode, and Sokka is often written shallowly enough that even though we know about his character, it rarely comes into play.  Even when he gets an important role, he still feels like an afterthought.

Zuko was consistently the most fleshed out (lol) character, and it was both appreciated and really strange.  It was especially noticeable in the episode where Aang and Zuko have flashbacks, and Zuko’s portion was far and away the more intriguing story.  And it’s characters like Zuko, Jeong, and Iroh who make the Fire Nation seem more interesting than a pointlessly destructive force of evil.

Perhaps its the fact that Fire Nation is painted as such a force that I want to hang on to anything to make it seem not that shallow.  Jeong’s speech about water, air, and earth being stable and fire being a living force used only for destruction also leads me to believe that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the element of fire in play and has unexpected far-reaching consequences.  After all, in nature, fire burns away the stagnant and paves the way for new growth. This is, like, elements 101.  Iroh talked about fire’s strength coming from the breath, and Jeong tried to teach Aang about control, but they never touched upon this aspect, and I can only hope it gets addressed later.

Well, that’s it for now.  I’ll be taking it easy the next couple of days, then it’s on to Book 2.