ATLA Book Two: Earth
Chapter Two: The Cave of Two Lovers
In which Sokka gets very annoyed by some hippies, Iroh eats some more roast duck, and Aang wears a flower crown.
“The Cave of Two Lovers” is arguably the most brazenly comic
episode of The Last Airbender to date. It contains one of the series most
iconic jokes in the form of the “Secret Tunnel” song, and has a number of
lovely punchlines dotted throughout, such as Iroh poisoning himself with the
berries, or Sokka repeatedly slapping his face when he is frustrated with the
hippies. In spite of this openly comic nature, it is an episode with some dark
undertones, and is important to the series, deepening our understanding of the
world and its characters.
The comic side of the serial is particularly evident in the
way Sokka interacts with the hippies, interactions that play against the way
comic relief characters such as Sokka are played. The hippies work as a comic
foil to Sokka, who plays the role of the frustrated straight man responding
with exasperation to the ridiculous actions of the hippies, while he tries to
find a logical way out of the cave, repeatedly being hindered by them. Once
again, Sokka is at his funniest when played as an ordinary guy expressing his
frustration at the fantastical nature of the world around him: his humour is
just as rooted in being the straight man reacting to the wacky hijinks of other
characters as it is in his own wacky hijinks.
Once again, the episode gives us a Zuko B plot that runs
alongside the Gaang’s main plot. On this occasion, there is no clear thematic
link to the Gaang’s plotline, a fact that speaks to the occasionally
thematically disjointed nature of episodes that follow multiple plot threads
that don’t obviously interact. In this episode, the plot is ultimately about
establishing how Zuko and Iroh will operate in their new role as faux Earth
Kingdom refugees. Iroh is trying to guide Zuko to approach his lower standing
with dignity, while Zuko struggles to cope with how far down he’s been brought,
claiming he “wasn’t meant to be a fugitive”. While it isn’t clearly linked to
the Gaang’s plot, it provides a good counterpoint in tone: with the exception
of the joke about the berries, this a considerably darker storyline than the
light hearted A plot, with the final scene from this plot being a particularly
brilliantly cruel and shameful moment, as Zuko and Iroh stealing from a low
standing family who kindly took them in and helped them at their most
desperate.
Also important to Zuko’s plot in this episode are his scenes
with Song. For the first time, Zuko has to interact with the human level of the
war his nation has been waging, as Song tells him about the affect the war has
had on her family through her captured father, and on her through the scars of
her own. This connection to the personal affect the war has on ordinary
civilians is only possible because of Zuko’s new status as a survivor refugee
in hiding: ordinary people from the Earth Kingdom wouldn’t trust him with their
stories if they knew he was the banished prince of the Fire Nation, as we will
see later on in this book. Also notable is the moment she tries to touch his
scar, and Zuko pulls away as with his goodbye scene with Iroh in the Book One
finale, he is uncomfortable with people openly showing him kindness and
affection. It is a particularly significant moment because this is a story
about romance, and it could read as a moment that briefly teases a romantic
connection between the two characters, before shutting down any potential of
that being a storyline that this episode does. However, there is an argument to
be made that Zuko being played as a potentially romantic character starts here.
Zuko the romantic character is explored more in his storyline with Mai and his
vignette in “The Tales of Ba Sing Se”, but this is the first time we see him truly
bonding with anyone his own age, a fact that makes the final kick in his and
Iroh’s plot for this episode all the more cruel.
In a story about love, the episode is unsurprisingly heavy
on Kataang development. The episode starts with Katara teaching Aang: her role
as his waterbending master is firmly established, but we also see how she
teaches him, with gentle encouragement and constructive criticism. and It is an
approach Aang works well with, a useful counterpoint to both his struggles with
Toph’s methods later on, and Paku, whose stricter approach to teaching
waterbending seems to have worked less well for Aang. Just as Zuko rejects
Song’s gentle gesture of affection, these two struggle to broach the issue of
their growing feelings towards one another. Particularly telling is the scene
where Katara suggests they try kissing, and Aang clearly likes the idea, but
both contrive to talk their way out of it. There are some particularly lovely
animation touches throughout that scene, such as the brief flash of
disappointment on Aang’s face when Katara starts to say it was a ridiculous
idea, before his expression turns to one of forced and ill-advised nonchalance.
It is particularly significant that Katara is the one to ask Aang if they
should kiss, providing a step forward from her developing feelings in “The
Fortuneteller”: she first acknowledges her potential romantic interest in Aang
in that episode, if only internally, and here she decides to explore that
interest. And it’s quite clear by the end of this episode that the two have
feelings for one another, even if they aren’t quite sure what to do with this
fact.
Also crucial to this episode’s portrayal of love is the Oma
and Shu legend, which provides a backstory for Omashu, and gives us an
exploration of the origins of bending that are a key part of the show’s mythos.
These origins will be revisited in later episodes such as “The Firebending
Masters” and Legend of Korra’s “Beginnings”, an episode that does not, for what
it’s worth, actually contradict the mythos established in this episode, just
expands on it. An interesting note is that the legend is technically a tale
that invokes the fridging trope, but in a story that flips the usual genders of
that kind of story so that the man dies tragically for the woman’s development.
Arguably the use of this trope just alters a negative story type that isn’t
worth telling regardless of the genders portrayed, but it could be read as a
part of the way this season alters the way women work in the hero’s journey
story type The Last Airbender is telling. The two lovers also have loose
parallels to Katara and Aang: Oma and Shu’s love is one that competes with
conflict between two tribes at war, while Katara and Aang’s love story is born
out of war and loss. More than anything, though, the legend is an instruction
for Katara and Aang: they have to understand what the legend means for them
personally in order to get out of the cave. Coming to this understanding leads
to another example of the contrast between their idealism and Sokka’s
practicality in the “We let love lead the way”/ “Really? We let ferocious
beasts lead our way” exchange: both Sokka’s logic and Katara and Aang’s ability
to love help save the Gaang.
The focus on Omashu’s history brings into focus the fact
that the opening three episodes for book two are, in fact, a mini arc about the
Gaang getting to Omashu So that Bumi can train Aang. This speaks to the larger
narrative of the start of the season: the way Book Two is being defined in
contrast to Book one. Book one is ultimately just one major arc: Aang taking
Katara to the North pole, with this arc serving as the framing device to a
season that is made up of more standalone stories than any other season in the
franchise. By contrast, Book Two is deeply serialised, being made up of a
series of interweaving arcs of various lengths; Aang searching for an Earthbending
teacher; the Gaang losing and searching for Appa; trying to get in contact with
the Earth King to recruit the Earth Kingdom army to fight on the day of Black
sun; the Ba Sing Se conspiracy, and Aang unlocking the Avatar State. These arcs
flow into one another, run alongside each other, and on occasions, intersect
throughout the season. It is a season structure that is a marked departure from
its predecessor.
“The Cave of Two Lovers” is an episode that is, at its
heart, about three different couples: the non-romance of Zuko and Song, the
tragic lovers Oma and Shu, and Katara and Aang, as they tentatively drift
towards one another. It is particularly important that this episode is so
significant to the development of Katara and Aang’s romance, as the episode’s
major thematic statement describes their romance rather well. After all, it is
a romance based on two children from the cultures most damaged by a terrible
war finding one another through caring and healing: true love really does shine
brightest in the dark.
End of Part Twenty.
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