ATLA Book One: Water
Chapter Twelve: The Storm
In which Katara browses for fruit, Sokka goes fishing, and Iroh offers noodles for dinner.
In many ways, this is just as much a filler episode as “The Great Divide”, but unlike “The Great Divide”, this episode introduces many elements that are crucial to the series’ DNA, and in many ways feels more significant than anything that has come before. This paradox stems from the fact that the episode does nothing to move the overall narrative forward, but does much to deepen our understanding of the story, and the characters within it. Also, it’s really good. At the show’s best, the episodes of Avatar we’ve had so far are good, surprisingly thoughtful television set in a fascinating world. This is the episode where it becomes apparent that ATLA is a show capable of giving us great television
The chapter is a pause for breath in the middle of Book One:
we stop and take stock with the characters, learning more about where they’ve
come from in a story filled with literary foils and parallels between
characters. The storm allows for this pause, as the episode creates the sense
of nature trapping Aang and Zuko, to make them confront their own past.
The episode is wonderfully clear in the way it is written,
with one of the most distinct three act structures of any story so far. As a
result, it feels like the best way to analyse it is to break it down and
comment on the story one act at a time.
Act One – The Calm Before the Storm
The episode opens with Aang’s Nightmare, with Aang seemingly
contently as he dreams of flying with Katara, Sokka, Appa, and Momo. He hears
them say “We need you Aang”, and responds happily with “I need you too”: he
loves them, and needs the friendship and companionship they provide. But then
he sees a storm ahead, a reminder of his greatest shame, and an image of Gyatzo
appears, saying “We needed you”, and melting away at Aang’s touch, a reminder
of his loss and guilt. The “We need you” gets louder, with Katara, Sokka, and
Gyatzo’s voices merging together: while Aang needs companionship, he is weighed
down by the world needing him to be the Avatar, a thing Aang feels denies him
love and friendship. Katara notices he is upset, asking about his nightmares,
but he rejects her help, currently unable to talk about his complex emotions.
Just as Aang rejects Katara’s help, Zuko pushes away Iroh
and his crew. His claim that “No Man’s life is more important than finding the
Avatar” shows him rejecting human needs just as Aang does, of both himself and
the crew: it is quite probable that Zuko includes his own life in that statement.
The suggestion he doesn’t care for his crew and is just a spoiled prince brings
him into tension with his crewmembers, until Iroh defuses the situation.
As they reject their human needs in search of a higher goal,
both Aang and Zuko are brought back to earth with food. Just he distracts Zuko
from training with roast duck in “The Boy in the Iceberg”, Iroh once again
tries to relieve Zuko, and the crew’s, stress with the offer of noodles to eat.
Iroh reminds his nephew of his human needs so he doesn’t become consumed by his
perceived duty of capturing the Avatar. Katara inadvertently does a similar
thing for Aang, making him focus on his material need for food by pointing out
the Gaang have run out of supplies, the first of many such parallels between
Iroh and Katara in this episode. The importance of food is a motif that recurs
many times in the Avatar world, with mealtimes repeatedly being a source of
bonding and togetherness, and in moments like this, a reminder of the basic
needs of the characters.
The act ends on a significant moment in Aang’s character
arc, as for the first time he is greeted with hostility for being the Avatar,
not by a Fire Nation Soldier, but by an ordinary citizen. The old fisherman
becomes the first person to blame Aang for vanishing from the world, and the
world descending into war. While the words “When the world needed him most, he
vanished”, are Katara’s, from her narration in the title sequence, she defends
Aang, only for, in one of the most deft pieces of character animation in the
series so far, Aang’s shoulders to slump, and his eyes to cast down, before he
backs away, and flies off on his glider. The act ends on Aang’s sense of shame,
as he runs away instead of confronting that shame, and the audience are left to
realise that he does, unfairly, blame himself for the huge weight of the
hundred year war.
Act Two – Two Campfires, Two Tales
This section makes up the bulk of the episode, with Aang and
Katara, and Iroh and the crew, gathering around two campfires, telling two
interwoven tales that flashback to Zuko and Aang’s backstories, as the parallels
between the two boys become increasingly clear.
The nature of the flashbacks is an instructive demonstration
of the differences in Aang and Zuko’s stories. Aang’s story is told through his
own flashback, Zuko’s story is told through Iroh’s flashback, reflecting the
fact that Aang is learning to open up about his problems, whereas Zuko is still
not ready to discuss his past. But we see the similarities too, as the two
stories show how both boys are forced to grow up too quickly, and shouldered
with impossible burdens.
Particularly interesting is the way Ozai is framed in these
flashbacks: the show’s depiction of Ozai reflects how Zuko sees him, in this
episode depicting him as a shadowy, barely remembered monster, wreathed in
fire. Tellingly, we only see Ozai’s face when Zuko meets him again at the start
of Book Three. Ozai is framed that way even when Zuko isn’t in the scene
(consider his commandment for Azula in the finale of Book one an example of
this). In this case the memories are Iroh’s, but the shots of the scene where
Zuko realises he is fighting his father are directed from his POV, or focus on
his facial reactions and expressions as he begs his father not to fight him,
with the camera angled up to show Ozai towering over him, reflecting how small Zuko’s
father makes him feel. As a result, the audience’s perception of Ozai is one
that directly mirrors Zuko’s.
The flashbacks also both link Aang and Zuko burdens to their
father figures, Gyatzo and Ozai. Aang’s relationship is a positive one, with
Gyatzo providing him with the fun and childhood he so needs, but his burden
comes from the Monks deciding to tear that relationship away from him, and
force him to grow up too quickly to end the war. His anger about this leads to
him almost burning Katara with the embers of the fire, a subtle moment of
foreshadowing for “The Deserter”, a moment that also sets up that episode’s
linking of fire to uncontrollable rage. Separation from Gyatzo also threatens
to remove the only remaining companionship Aang has, as the other boys no longer
want to play with him after he is told he is the Avatar, and as we know from
Aang’s dream, it is friendship and companionship he desperately needs. In
contrast to the threat of Aang losing a positive relationship with his father
figure, Zuko’s burden comes from Ozai’s abuse. Just as we get a glimpse of
burden free Aang when he teaches the other boys the air scooter, we see a burden
free Zuko, idealistic and hopeful as he wants to learn how to be a good fire
lord. And his defence of the worth of the new recruits’ lives shows he is,
beneath the damaged exterior, a good person at heart. But his idealism is
something his father has corrupted with abuse: we get confirmation Zuko’s scar
came from an Agni Kai with his father, something that has been carefully set up
and alluded to, but is only made explicit now.
The Campfire sequence also deepens the parallels between Katara
and Iroh. Both are carers for Aang and Zuko, the people looking after them in
the wake of their trauma. However, the differences between their methods reflects
the differing needs of Aang and Zuko, and the different things Katara and Iroh
are able to do for them. Katara listens to Aang’s stories, offering Aang
support through his trauma, whereas Iroh explains Zuko’s faults, being a buffer
between Zuko and the crew. Katara encourages Aang to talk, learning about his past
so she can understand what he’s been through, whereas Iroh speaks for Zuko,
teaching the crew about his nephew. In this Act, we deepen the understanding of
our two boys, seeing that in spite of being on opposite sides of the war, they
share a past of pain and loss.
Act Three – Riding Out the Storm
The final act sees the Storm pass, with Aang and Zuko both
saving the lives of people endangered by the storm, and as the do so, taking
tentative but positive steps towards moving on from their trauma and burdens.
Zuko’s conclusion completes the episode’s task of making him
a more sympathetic character. By saving his helmsman, he does easily the most selfless
thing he has done so far in the show, showing the respect for his crew after
the questioning of said respect at the start of the episode. This respect
contrasts with the way Ozai treated him, a sign that Zuko is ultimately a
better man than his father. It is also confirmation that the goodness he showed
in his protest in the war room, which came from concern for the well-being of
new troops and a desire to be just in deployment of military tactics, is still
a part of his character. Between this and his rescue of Iroh in “The Spirit
World” Zuko is being positioned as a character on a redemption arc because he
is shown as being capable of selflessness, as well as being framed in
opposition to most other villains.
Similarly, Aang’s rescue of Sokka and the fisherman sees him
reconcile with the shame of falling out of the world: he saves them with a
version of the technique he used to freeze himself in the glacier, this time
using the technique to return to the world and his duties, instead of running
away from them and cutting himself off.
And then we come to the ending, which for me is probably the
best final scene of any episode so far.
Aang and Zuko catch a glimpse of each
other in the eye of the storm, and drift away from each other, not fighting for
once, not knowing the similarities between the two of them. Then, Aang
reconciles with the fisherman, and makes peace with his past as the storm ends.
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