From the South Pole Iceberg to the Republic City Portal: A Critical Study of the Avatar Franchise: Part Twenty Four

ATLA Book Two: Earth

Chapter Six: The Blind Bandit

 

In Which Sokka goes shopping for a nice bag, the Hippo eats a rock, and Aang is a terrible dinner guest.

In my post on “The Storm”, we talked about how that episode was easily the best of the show so far, and how it represented a vast step forward in the show’s quality. “The Blind Bandit” is, for my money, the first episode to top “The Storm”, and represents a similar leap forward. While “The Storm” showed that The Last Airbender, which at that point was already very good, was capable of being great, “The Blind Bandit” marks the point where the show starts being consistently great. Seriously, the run of four episodes starting here was what convinced me this project was something I had to try and do. From now on, most episodes are at or around this level of quality. This leap forward in quality can, of course, be attributed in no small part to the addition of Toph to the main cast. It can be tricky for successful shows (and make no mistake, Avatar was a successful show at this point) to introduce a new member to their ensemble: there’s always a risk of ruining the winning dynamic of the current cast. But Toph works because she doesn’t feel shoehorned in, but instead actively adds to the group’s dynamic: she fills a hole that the audience doesn’t realise existed until she arrives.

But discussion of what Toph adds to the Gaang’s dynamic can wait for another post. For now, it’s worth talking about the way the show introduces her, and as with “The Storm”, the best way to discuss the episode seems to be breaking down its story in detail, key scene by key scene.

We begin with Aang continuing to search for his Earthbending teacher. It is worth noting here that “The Blind Bandit” plays a crucial structural role in Aang’s hero’s journey, being the episode where he finds his second peer to teach him, with Toph replacing Bumi just as Katara replaced Paku. In his search to learn Earthbending, he takes a free Earthbending lesson, only for that lesson to be unsuccessful. It demonstrates the difficulty Aang experiences with the element, as we get a first witness of his fear at facing Earthbending head on. We also see how hard it is for Aang to find a good enough teacher: Yu seems to have a reasonable understanding of Earthbending, but he is ultimately a character driven by greed, more concerned with bribing pupils to pay extra than with actually teaching his element. So the Gaang decide to go to the Earth rumble, finding the arena through Katara’s fantastic “Oh, a girl has her ways” moment, which is a delightful subversion of the “Girl gets what she wants through her feminine wiles” trope. But the early fights further demonstrates the issue in Aang’s search: that even the best, most powerful Earthbenders aren’t masters of the element, and don’t seek to understand it by waiting and listening as Bumi said they would have to, instead relying on raw power and brute force.

But then we see a more refined, complex form of Earthbending in Toph’s fight with the boulder. The scene serves as the introduction to her character, and demonstrates why she is the ideal candidate to become Aang’s Earthbending teacher. The shots of the Boulder moving in slow motion as Toph figures out his every move indicate that she is in a different league to the other Earth Rumble fighters: she is thinking and operating at a different speed when she fights. The sequence is also a successful introduction because, for all I talked about what she brings to the group dynamic, she really works from the get go because she’s a great character. We see just how much fun she can be, with her incredibly cool and unusual fighting style allowing for some breath-taking animation in the form of the seismic sense shots, and her delightful one liners show that she she can entertain as a character as well as a fighter. The sequence focuses on the superficial thrill of her as an immediately appealing, entertaining, and likeable character, quickly establishing her as a character the audience want to see more of.

Aang immediately recognises her as the ideal teacher for him, so he takes up the challenge of fighting her so that he can speak to her. But this plan goes wrong, as we see the limitations of Toph’s abilities through her struggles to sense Aang’s movement: Toph is not impossibly capable, and is still realistically restricted by her blindness. As a result, Aang’s attempt to approach her fails, as he accidentally beats her and takes her title while attempting to avoid conflict and strike up a conversation. In doing so, Aang inadvertently takes the one good thing she had carved out for herself through her own agency and talents, so naturally Toph wants nothing to do with him, or his request that that she teach him how she bends.

So the Gaang search for Toph, and learn some fascinating details about Toph through a delightful return to Katara’s intimidation of the two asshole Earthbending students. We discover, through a throwaway comment from one of the students, that the Beifongs are keeping Toph a secret from the world. No one knows she exists: The Blind Bandit is the only identity she can have around anyone outside of the Beifong estate. And when the Gaang sneak into the garden of the estate, they find that Toph is still angry at Aang for beating her, as she feels cheated out of the one thing that allowed her to truly express herself, so she chases them off by acting out her parents’ image of her as a fragile and helpless victim.

The scene where the Gaang have dinner with the Beifongs is another example of the Avatar franchise’s gift for dinner scenes. It’s a lovely scene where each character has a different agenda and understanding of the situation, and the conflicts between these agendas are made clear by the subtext of the conversation. Toph’s parents see their daughter as fragile and helpless, and want to protect her. Aang knows she isn’t helpless, but doesn’t understand her family situation, so fails to encourage her to become his teacher. And Toph knows how her parents would react if they found out about her earthbending title, so she wants to keep them in the dark. The scene displays the tension between Toph’s identity as a Beifong and her identity as The Blind Bandit: we see her performing the role of the Beifong’s privileged but fragile daughter, which is very much a role, not who she is at all.

Yet for all she is playing a role that isn’t really her true self around her parents, it is worth pointing out that The Blind Bandit is just as much of a role that Toph plays, even if it’s one she’s happier playing. Her true self lies somewhere between the two identities, and the task of the episode is to find a place where she can openly be both people. We see her true self for the first time in the garden scene, where she talks with Aang about her disability, and how she sees with Earthbending:

“Even though I was born blind, I've never had a problem seeing. I see with earthbending. It's kind of like seeing with my feet. I feel the vibrations in the Earth, and I can see where everything is. You, that tree … even those ants.”

There’s a quiet beauty to the scene with simple yet beautiful animation taking us through the way Toph’s perception of the world as she describes each object that she sees. Each shot slowly pans out to take in the whole garden, before zooming in on the ants, emphasizing the way her earthbending “sight” is both far reaching and takes in the tiniest of details through the juxtaposition of images. It  is a moment that truly emphasizes the importance of the representation Toph provides. There is a popular Tumblr post that tells the story of a little girl who used Toph’s story as a source of strength for herself and her father as she was turning blind, and it really is proof that characters like her appearing in media, particularly for children, matters: her place in Avatar actively makes our world a better place. This is in no small part because her blindness is sensitively handled in this episode and throughout the series. It is acknowledged, and the real difficulties it causes for her are shown, but she is still capable of being powerful, uniquely so due to the way she utilises her disability, and most importantly, it is not everything about her character, not the sole thing that defines her. She is Blind. She is funny. She is tomboy who rejects the role of rich girl, but is still remarkably good at playing the part. Most of all, she is the greatest earthbender in the world.

Then, after a brief sequence of kidnap and ransom that necessitates Aang’s rescue, we get the next key scene in Toph’s fight with the Earthbenders. It is the most spectacular set piece in an episode filled with spectacular sequences, and is a moment satisfyingly rooted in the character threads of the episode. Toph prompted into helping save Aang when her father belittles her one time too many, in the arena where she has repeatedly proven her worth, and unleashes a fearsome display of bending that takes out all the contest’s most powerful opponents single-handedly, leaving even her master astonished at her prowess.

The fight is a sequence filled with fantastic animation details and fighting styles, really showing off the range of things that can be done with Earthbending. Toph’s approach to the fight is ingenious: she knows her opponents won’t be able to deal with losing their vision, whereas her fighting style is made to compensate for her lack of sight, so she kicks up a dust cloud, instantly giving herself an advantage, even though she is outnumbered six to one. There are multiple ingenious moments of Earthbending, such as the rotating disc she uses to take out three of the Earthbenders at once, and the shield she uses to protect herself and then attack and throw Xin Fu off balance, so that she can once again use her seismic sensing to take him out. It is a very methodical, tactical, fighting style that is distinct from and far outstrips the other Earthbenders, and more than meets Bumi’s “wait and listen” requirements. But arguably the best, and definitely most telling, moment is the lovely touch of her little grin when taking out the Hippo and Xin Fu: she loves fighting, and she loves the chance she gets to show the other Earthbenders just how much better than them she is. And so, in the only scene where she fights in her Beifong clothes, she reveals her true self to her parents.

But seeing his daughter’s true self is too much for Toph’s father, who rationalises what he has just seen to a ridiculous extent to try and justify further over protecting and infantilising her. It is a heartbreaking moment for Toph, who has just bared her soul to him by showing him who she is and what her abilities mean to her. It is this moment where it becomes clear that Toph’s story, at least for now, is about breaking free of the restriction her parents placed on her.

Katara and Aang’s exchange of “Don't worry, we'll find you a teacher. There are plenty of amazing earthbenders out there.”/ “Not like her” reflects not just Aang’s feelings at losing Toph, but also those of the audience. Toph’s over protective parents will be the key to her unlocking her metalbending in the long run, but for the short term of this episode, their actions are used to show how empty the series would be without Toph, and how we genuinely want her to be a part of the show. The episode has been structured to showcase Toph as a character, and so before recruiting her as a regular, it takes an important moment to dwell on the empty space that would be left if she didn’t join the show.

So it is particularly joyous when we see she has gone against her father’s wishes, and run away to join the Gaang. And she’s obviously lying when she says she’s talked him round: Sokka and Katara’s shared glance before Sokka promptly suggests they leave quickly suggest the Gaang know she’s lying too. It’s interesting that Toph’s lie is left at that: not a cause of conflict within the group, but Toph’s own choice for her story that the others quietly accept. Her addition to the Gaang is better for the show, and better for Toph: her father tells Yu and Xin Fu to take Toph home, but the shot of her smiling that closes out the episode shows that she has found a better place to be. The Gaang live with no fixed location to tie them down, an environment in which Toph doesn’t need to disguise herself as The Blind Bandit: she can be the greatest earthbender ever, and still be known as Toph Beifong.

End of Part Twenty Four.

From the South Pole Iceberg to the Republic City Portal: A Critical Study of the Avatar Franchise: Part Twenty Three

ATLA Book Two: Earth

Chapter One: Avatar Day

In which Sokka becomes ponytail guy, some prisoners admire Aang’s Tattoos, and the Gaang eat some unsatisfying biscuits.

First, as it is completely removed from the episode’s main plot, it is necessary to talk about Zuko’s B plot. In contrast to his previous scene as the Blue Spirit, Zuko engages in increasingly troubling behaviour. The Avatar Wiki’s episode description is relatively kind to Zuko, describing him almost as a Robin Hood figure, stealing from the wealthy, though in this case it is to feed himself, not the poor. But while he does steal from a rich man so he can buy Iroh’s nice tea set, we also see him steal food from a relatively ordinary looking couple who don’t seem particularly well off: as Iroh says, he is giving in to his worst instincts, stealing from those who are struggling just as much as he is due to a war his father is waging on the world. It is being called out for the troubling implications of his actions that causes Zuko to leave Iroh. Rather than accept his uncle’s advice and take responsibility for the hurtful behaviour he is engaging in, Zuko separates himself from Iroh and the challenge to his ideology that his uncle brings about.

Leaving Iroh is another example of the way Zuko has been pushed increasingly to the margins of the plot this season. He and Iroh share only twelve lines in three short scenes between them this episode, and unlike in “The Swamp”, where Zuko’s scenes framed the episode, they don’t have any structural significance within the wider episode. He has lost almost everything that gives him agency and power within the narrative since “The Waterbending Master” in the form of his crew, his name and title, and his change in status from banished prince to enemy of the Fire Nation. Finally, he pushes away Iroh, his one remaining source of support and connection to the main story. It is a scene that brings about a particularly lovely Iroh moment, as he gives Zuko the Ostrich horse even though Zuko is leaving him, another moment that highlights the unconditional support of his nephew that Iroh displays throughout the series, and will be the key to his ultimate absolution of Zuko. The next logical step in Zuko’s steady marginalisation from the narrative is to drift away from the show completely, and in the next episode, he will be absent from the show for the first time since “The Northern Air Temple”.

The main plot of the episode gives us the last original trio story, and suitably gives us the staple book one episode type of the “Gaang visits a village” plot. It is a last hurrah for Book One style before the last puzzle piece for the core of Book Two slots into place in “The Blind Bandit”. And it is worth acknowledging that this is an episode type the creators can do in their sleep by now: it is very well constructed, with the jokes flowing well into one another, and being well tied to the main plot: the water tribe money, the surprisingly friendly prisoners, and Katara repeatedly figuring out the meaning of the clues before Sokka, are all jokes that are well set up and structured, building in humour as the story progresses.

Another example of the episode’s confidence is the way “Avatar Day” pretty much perfectly executes the structure of the “Gaang visits a village” episode type, where the Gaang discovers something is wrong in a small community and do what they can to set it right.  It’s so confidently done that the writers find a unique twist on the formula: Aang (or at least his past life) is what is wrong with the community.

And so, in an episode that is light on Zuko, we are given a main plot where Aang is keen to defend his honour, an honour Katara explicitly says the town of Chin the conqueror claim is wrong headed to question. Aang doesn’t want people thinking of him as a murderer, even if that potential murder was committed in a past life, by someone with a different personality and consciousness to him, so he accepts a trial by the standards of the town so that he can truly redeem himself in their eyes. Aang’s actions in this episode further establish his pacifist nature, and the importance of maintaining that pacifism in the face of war that becomes one of his main internal struggles throughout the narrative.

The Mystery surrounding Chin’s death allows for a more detailed look at the history of Avatar Kyoshi. As in “Return to Omashu”, we revisit a Book One location and return to Kyoshi island, getting an origin story for the island just as we got an origin story for Omashu in “The Cave of Two Lovers”. As in “Return to Omashu”, we see how the revisited city has changed since its appearance in Book One, with the Kyoshi warriors no longer around, having been inspired by the Gang to travel around the world and help out in the war, in contrast to their previously detached approach to the conflict.

We also learn the most specific details about Kyoshi’s life as the Avatar, getting a brief glimpse of one of the conflicts she had to deal with: once again, before we learn about Roku in similar depth. This gives us a glimpse into Kyoshi’s personality, as we see her ruthlessness and pragmatism through her lack of guilt about her part in Chin’s death. It is particularly significant that Kyoshi owns responsibility for Chin’s death, even though he definitely had time to escape and survive. She accepts that she would have killed him if he had to, so doesn’t try to sugar coat the fact that her actions led to his death, and what’s more, she doesn’t regret killing him, seeing him as a ruthless dictator that had to be stopped. It’s an attitude that contrasts to Aang, who is desperate to make sure his culture survives, and so strives to maintain his pacifism as clearly as possible. And while it’s fair to say Bryke probably sympathise more with Aang’s worldview (it is crucial to the resolution of the War and the Series), they don’t condemn Kyoshi for hers, presenting her as making an understandable choice that was shaped by her own personality and worldview, just as Aang’s actions are shaped by his.

Ultimately, however, for all that this is a funny and well-structured execution of a classic type of Avatar episode, Sokka’s closing remark that “this is by far the worst town we’ve been to” provides a sentiment that seems oddly appropriate for this episode. Because it doesn’t stand as anything other than reasonably well made: it doesn’t really add enough to the show to justify carrying on using this episode type, at least for the near future. “Avatar Day” is a good episode that nonetheless demonstrates most of all why the “Gaang visits a village” type of episode is a format will need a rest for a while, at least until the show has had a major shake-up. This episode’s A plot has one last showcase for Book One, finally making room for Book Two to truly emerge.

End of Part Twenty Three.

From the South Pole Iceberg to the Republic City Portal: A Critical Study of the Avatar Franchise: Part Twenty Two

ATLA Book Two: Earth

Chapter Four: The Swamp

In which Sokka gets an elbow leech, Iroh sings a song, and Momo throws away Sokka’s shirt.

“The Swamp” takes us to a mystical setting for a story that plays with horror tropes for the first time since Koh scared the living daylights out of us in “The Siege of the North”. It is a mystical setting that draws power out of the unknown, of the tension between past and future that allows for a further exploration of the tension between season one and season two that has informed the first section of the second book.

The tension is most clearly apparent through the visions of people close to the Gaang from the past and future that appear throughout the swamp, visions that echo key parts of the first and second seasons. Sokka’s vision of Yue in particular emphasises the continued presence of book one in this part of Book Two. Seeing Yue softens her fridging to a point, as it reminds us that she has level of consciousness after her death, but in other ways it deepens the extent to which her death is a fridging. The scenes are not so much about what becoming a spirit means for her as much as they are about losing her means to Sokka. The focus of her sole line of dialogue is to emphasise Sokka’s guilt at failing to protect her, and beyond her physical appearance, we are given nothing to emphasise any retention of her human self now she is a spirit. That said, discussion of fridging aside, the scene shows that the series is willing to deal with grief in a way that acknowledges its lasting effect, with a reminder that Yue’s death was not a moment for cheap drama, but something that has a profound effect on the people who cared for her.

Where Sokka and Yue represent the past of the show, Aang’s glimpse of Toph hints at the future of it. Toph is introduced through her laughter, immediately a teasing figure, with her running as Aang chases after her serving as a slight foreshadowing of Aang’s struggle to track her down and persuade her to teach him in “The Blind Bandit”. Interestingly, she is seen in her Beifong robes, not the “Blind Bandit” outfit that will become her iconic look for the show. This choice is partly plot purposed, as Aang seeing her robes and the family crest enable him to find her in “The Blind Bandit”. The choice of Toph’s costume is also an act misdirection: with Aang searching for one at this point in the series, the obvious candidate for the person from Aang’s future for her to be is his Earthbending teacher. But as she isn’t in her fighting outfit, she looks like a slight rich girl, not the Earthbending master we will learn she is. Her introduction highlights the tension central to her character: the episode’s theme about things not always being what they seem is embodied in the introduction of Toph, a character whose appearance is made to defy expectations.

If Sokka and Aang’s plots represent the past and future, then Katara’s glimpse of her mother represent the present of her internal journey. Her bond with her mother has been a part of her character, and a crucial part of the show from the beginning, informing multiple aspects of her character in Book One, but it is a bond that stays through to the ending of the show, always being a part of her character: it is something the show always has the capacity to bring back and expand upon.  

The tension between the first two Books is also evident in Zuko and Iroh’s plot, a b plot that sees them pushed right on to the fringes of the narrative, with only two brief scenes that nonetheless take on a great deal of structural weight by serving as the framing of the episode, beginning and closing this chapter of book two. We see Zuko struggling to adjust to having fallen to the sidelines of the world and the story, begging for money on the streets of the Earth Kingdom, and watching Iroh be bullied by a swordsman. This further develops Zuko’s position from the previous episode. There, he met a person who had suffered from the Fire Nation’s war, now he spends some time living the life of someone on the fringes of society. Iroh is trying to help him adjust to this setting, once again attempting to placate Zuko by spinning thir situation in the most positive light possible, even smiling after the swordsman gives him the gold piece. And Iroh’s song “It’s a long long way to Ba Sing Se” also provides a key statement of the series’ structure: all the main characters are slowly making their way to Ba Sing Se. The shape of Book Two’s narrative is slowly beginning to emerge.

The transition between Book One and Book Two is further evident in the final reappearance of the Blue Spirit, as Zuko re-adopts the persona he used to steal Aang from Zhao. Here, he takes on a new role for the persona, as it becomes his way of surviving in the Earth Kingdom, and keeping his sense of self-worth, whereas for most of “The Blue Spirit”, he seemed like a potential ally for Aang, and the Blue Spirit’s identity was at least framed as a mystery. Now we know it is Zuko’s adopted persona, it becomes a way of exploring his double identity, a sign of his fractured state of mind. The Blue Spirit is a part of who Zuko is this season in a way it wasn’t in Book One. This transformation also furthers the sense of Zuko as an anti-hero: he fights genuinely loathsome bully of a swordsman, and gives him his comeuppance, taking the swords to reclaim the persona of his anti-hero alter ego. Now he’s not a threat to Aang, we genuinely root for Zuko to do well in his plot thread.

Ultimately, the episode is very much about its main location. The story is about understanding the nature of the swamp, a mystical, spiritual space, episode full of binary oppositions: rational and irrational, nature and humanity, mundane and the spiritual. The task of the protagonists is discovers what parts of these oppositions truly apply to the Swamp.

This task is carried out in the episode’s debate between the rational and the irrational. Once again, Sokka takes on the rationalist stance, rejecting the sense anything strange could be going on, while Aang and Katara are more readily accepting and unnerved by the swamp’s mystical nature. And again, Sokka’s stance is out of place in the Avatar world, where strange and irrational things dwell in abundance. In this case his rationalism isn’t merely ineffective but understandable, as it was in “The Fortuneteller”, but is instead completely out of place in this episode, making the Gaang’s situation worse while shining very little light on the nature of the swamp.

While the swamp is clearly a mystical space, it is also defined by its human population. The plot thread of the swampies attacking Appa and Momo provides a further example of the tension between nature and humanity, with humanity being shown as a threat, something dangerous and scary, and we are asked to sympathise with the animals Appa and Momo, who are characters we have followed and grown to love: it is a plot thread that asks us to sympathise with the other. It is also a plot strand that emphasises the bond between Appa and Momo, which will be crucial to later arcs in the season. It is a bond that is naturally explored without dialogue, but also through the unique animal behaviour of the two. We see them bicker, assist and protect each other, and with no attempt to anthropomorphise them, the story successfully conveys their feelings and bond.

The central mystery of the episode revolves around these binary tensions, which are built up through the episode’s use of horror tropes, such as the slowly growing dread, and the Gaang being split up by an unknown force to face the terrors of the swamp. And while the nature of their attacker, and the threat from the swamp, is revealed to be a human, not some force of nature, a sense of the mystical underpins the episode. The Gaang’s unknown summons to the swamp remain unknown: the inexplicable nature of the swamp is never truly diminished.

The Banyan Grove Tree at the centre of the swamp holds the key to the nature of the episode, with Huu’s statement everything is connected providing the episode’s second key line for the season. The interconnectedness of the world is a key theme that holds the many interweaving plot strands and threads of the season together. The interconnectedness of the world is particularly evident in this episode, as the rational and irrational, past and future, and the scary and familiar all exist in the same location, not in opposition to one another, but happily occupying the same space.

End of Part Twenty Two.