So, we left off with Aang, an Airbender and potentially the Avatar, potentially screwing up the peaceful life of the Southern Water Tribe.  So, where do we go from here?  Um… in the most predictable path possible, I suppose.

Day 2

Aang and Katara return to the village knowing they’ve totally fucked up, and to punish them for most certainly bringing the Fire Nation to destroy their village, they decide to banish Aang from the village.  Katara says she’ll banish herself as well and have Aang take her to the Northern Water Tribe, but Aang doesn’t want to put her into a position where she has to choose between him and her family.  So he goes off by himself to… maybe half a mile away from the village.

With the Fire Nation on its way, Sokka prepares for war.  Which would be impressive if he had any sort of support, but as it turns out, he’s the only warrior in the entire village.

Aang sees Fire Nation approaching and rushes to rescue the village… which is weird because he left the village because the Fire Nation was almost certainly going to attack.  It’s like whoever was in charge of plotting this out knew they had to hit all the important steps of a generic first act, but forgot the whole making sense thing.

Prince Zuko lands on the village, and Sokka gets effortlessly curbstomped, but not before landing a single boomerang hit in.  Way to go, you avoided a Flawless Victory!

Aggravatingly, the ease with which Sokka is defeated is accented by goofy “wow what a loser” musical cues, which is just a heinous misstep.  A village is on the verge of destruction, but THIS IS A CARTOON FOR KIDS, LET’S KEEP IT LIGHT.  Now I’m not saying you can’t make jokes, but keep the mood appropriate!  I mean honestly, Pirates of Dark Water showed us how to do it 15 years before Avatar.  It’s not that hard!

What makes this worse is that this SHOULD be a defining character moment for Sokka.  He’s completely outclassed, outgunned, and outnumbered, but when push comes to shove, even if he’s the only one left to fight, he’ll do what he can to protect the people he loves.  I’m sure there are some children out there who watched this scene and manged to pick up just how ballsy this guy is, but I’m also sure many more thought “wow, what an idiot; he should just step back and let Aang handle it.”  Of course, this is just a guess.  Who knows, maybe I’m not giving kids enough credit nowadays, but when you frame the scene like that, what else am I supposed to believe?

So, Aang arrives, and he’s far and away more useful than Sokka.

Aang notices that the villagers might get hurt from the flames, so he decides to turn himself in so the village will be safe.  Okay.

Katara decides to save Aang, and Sokka unexpectedly has the same idea, and they even get Appa the flying bison to fly.  I can already tell we are going to be hearing a LOT of “yip yip!”

However, it seems Aang is perfectly capable of handling things himself, as he breaks free and completely humiliates Zuko and his… hell, let’s just go with “henchmen.”  Katara and Sokka catch up, and Aang seemingly gets defeated, only to use Waterbending to almost literally mop the floor with Zuko and the Firebenders.

So from now on, the three are on a journey to the Northern Water Tribe so Aang and Katara can both learn Waterbending.  And Sokka is okay with his only motivation being the opportunity to beat up some Fire Nation along the way.

Yeah, that’s pretty terrible.

It’s around this time that I think if I were in charge, I would end up pairing Sokka up with a Fire Nation girl to maximize character development.

In the next episode, Zuko tries (unsuccessfully) to hide the existence of the Avatar, presumably because he wants to rein him in personally and doesn’t want competition.

The episode cuts in and out between the Air Temple and Zuko’s story, but I want to get Zuko’s story out of the way: His father, the Firelord, is a bit of an asshole and sent his Zuko away.  Zuko wants to prove his worth by capturing the Avatar.  The old Commander finds out the Avatar is out there, so he has Zuko tied up while he prepares to hunt the Avatar down himself, but Zuko challenges him to some BS traditional formal challenge, which Zuko eventually wins.  We take notice of how skilled a fighter Zuko is, since he just beat an older high-ranking official by himself.  We’re supposed to be impressed by this guy, even though he kinda has no patience for learning the basics of Firebending.

Now on to the main course: the Air Temple.

We learn that Aang lived here way back when under the tutelage of the monk Gyatso, and it was once a very paradise-looking place.

But, the place is totally silent.  No one’s around having fun or, well, living.  Aang didn’t think the Fire Nation stood any chance of even setting foot on the Southern Air Temple because, according to him, the only way to reach it is by flying bison.

Well, obviously, they must have had some flying bison.  That, or maybe the Earth Kingdom loaned them some airplanes because why the fuck not.  Why?  Because Sokka and Katara  spot a Fire Nation helmet in the snow.  Katara decides not to let Aang know right away since it would devastate him, while Sokka says he needs to know eventually.  How about that.  Sokka’s the reasonable one this episode.

They also enter a hidden chamber with statues of all the previous Avatars.  We learn that the Avatar is reborn in the same cycle of Air, Water, Earth, Fire, and, naturally, the previous Avatar was a Firebender, and all of the previous Avatars are essentially Aang’s previous lives.

Eventually, Aang does end up finding out the Fire Nation attacked, but in a far worse way than they ever imagined.

Wow.  Was NOT expecting that.  Yes, that is the corpse of Gyatso surrounded by a huge pile of Fire Nation soldiers.  DAYUM.

Understandably, Aang FREAKS THE FUCK OUT, awakening his Avatar-ness or whatever, and causing crystals throughout the world to light up, signaling that yes, the Avatar is alive, and he’s pissed.

But then Katara manages to bring Aang back under control, and they gain a new pet named Momo.  Well, the tiny lemur showed up earlier, but it honestly didn’t matter when I mentioned it; it’s still pretty random.

Overall this was a pretty heavy episode with the humor in the right places.  Honestly, I’d rather start the series off right here since this was the first episode to get both my attention and respect.

Next episode starts off with Katara sewing.

Katara and Sokka have an argument about what a girl should be good at and what a guy should be good at.  Yeah.  It’s gonna be one of THOSE episodes.

Aang decides to make a stop at an island because he wants to ride a giant fish.  Priorities.

While fish-riding, a gigantic eel (which we learn is named Unagi) shows up and nearly has Aang for a snack.  Aang gets away, but soon afterward all three get ambushed and taken away.

Turns out they were ambushed by girls.  Specifically, the Kyoshi Warriors of Kyoshi Island, named after the Avatar, Kyoshi.  Yes, you read that right.

It doesn’t take long before Aang proves he’s an Airbender and the Avatar.  I should mention that all he REALLY proves, both here and at the Southern Water Tribe, is that he’s an Airbender, but I suppose that’s enough to prove he’s the Avatar by process of elimination.

Everyone is all impressed by Aang, and he quickly gains his own groupies.

Meanwhile, Sokka shows up at the Kyoshi Warriors’ um… dojo? and makes an ass of himself, basically proving that being the strongest warrior in his village amounts to nothing.  He later comes by to apologize and asks for training.  The girls reluctantly accept, but…

Unbelievably, Sokka picks up the fighting technique quite rapidly and becomes more than a match for the leader, Suki.  And, by the laws of fiction, the two kinda become a short-lived couple because the guy beat the tough girl.

Meanwhile, Aang let all the attention get to his head, and he doesn’t want to leave Kiyoshi Island despite Katara repeatedly saying that staying in one place too long will make that place a target.  The two also kinda bicker in a way that makes it obvious that they have a thing going on between them, which is kinda hilarious considering how much we’ve already been beaten over the head with it in three and a half episodes.  Anyway, Aang doesn’t believe her until, well, the Fire Nation arrives in Kiyoshi Island.

Prince Zuko kinda easily beats Sokka and the Kiyoshi Warriors, but Sokka actually manages to get a few hits in, which is a huge improvement over their first encounter, where he got a lucky boomerang strike in.

However, Aang arrives and… totally one-shots Zuko, making him look like a fucking joke.

This is starting to become a trend.  Sokka trains hard and gets turned into a joke by Zuko.  Zuko trains hard and gets turned into a joke by Aang.  It’s like Aang is on a completely different level, and any serious warriors should just not even bother trying to compete.  At this rate, it makes no sense to think of Zuko even being a potential rival for Aang.  Might as well just make Zuko and Sokka rivals.  At least that’s more even and has more potential at the moment.

So Aang realizes he needs to depart Kiyoshi Island in order to save it, but not before putting out the fires by riding the Unagi and making in spray water on the village.

Oh, by the way, Suki kisses Sokka before he has to leave.  Which, y’know, could be a pretty great scene if not for the fact that this entire episode took place over the span of two days.  Which of course means that the rumors of the Avatar appearing at Kiyoshi Island spread fast enough for Zuko to hear of it, sail to Kiyoshi Island, and arrive in less than two days.

Is it wrong that I’m not okay with this, but would easily accept four, maybe even three days?

Well, that’s the end of disc 1 of five discs in Book 1.  Seems like the series is starting to find its stride, but it could take a while before it rids itself of its more annoying bad habits.