From the South Pole Iceberg to the Republic City Portal: Part Thirty Three

ATLA Book Two: Earth

Chapter Fifteen: Tales of Ba Sing Se

In which Iroh’s tale makes everyone cry. A lot.

Once again, Book Two: Earth brings us a high point of the show in the form of “The Tales of Ba Sing Se”. It is, of course, most notable for its unique structure, being presented as a series of vignettes that do little to advance the main plot of the series, instead showing a series of uneventful days the main cast spend in Ba Sing Se. The uneventful nature of the story is important because it helps build a sense of the time the cast spend in Ba Sing Se, for the first time in the series being properly rooted in one location instead of traversing the Avatar world. Moreover, the rooted nature of the story gets at the heart of what makes the Avatar franchise: the way it is willing to spend quiet moments with its characters, making each of them distinct and unique. As a result, it seems best to break down my analysis of this episode into each individual tale, exploring what each one tells us about its titular character(s).

The Tale of Katara and Toph

The series’ focus on female friendship has become increasingly prominent throughout this season, with the relationship of these two characters being the main example of this, and so this tale makes perfect sense, considering where the characters are at this point in the series. The vignette works as an exploration of their friendship, highlighting how they get along in spite of their incredibly obvious differences.

These differences are on display from the beginning, with the early juxtaposition of Toph and Katara’s morning routines highlighting Toph’s “tomboy” characterisation and Katara’s  more feminine nature. In spite of these differences, Katara persuades Toph to go on a girl’s day out at a spa: she is determined to be friends with Toph in spite of their superficial differences.

The things the girls share in common become more apparent when Toph starts to enjoy the day. This enjoyment comes first on Toph’s terms, as she freaks out the staff by making the “alien” face with her mudbending, which Katara laughs along with: the two girls share a sense of fun and humour. Then she begins to enjoy the day on Katara’s terms, enjoying relaxing in the sauna, and actually liking how she feels after having some make up put on: while Toph is most comfortable not conforming to gender roles, she is happy exploring her more feminine side, especially in the company of a girl like Katara.

This bonding pays off in the tale’s final scene, where Katara and Toph send a group of mean spirited girls down the river after they insult Toph: in spite of their differences, Katara and Toph’s friendship is strog because they have each other’s back, and wouldn’t let anyone hurt the other. They also offer one another mutual support, with Katara’s comforting of Toph being noticeably maternal. She doesn’t question Toph’s not entirely true claim that she doesn’t care what other people think, instead expressing admiration for Toph’s attitude and quietly giving her the boost in confidence she needs anyway. In showing this maternal edge to their relationship the show acknowledges that Katara is older and in some ways more self-assured than Toph, who in some ways is incredibly confident in her abilities, but also frequently masks her insecurities (in this case around her appearance) with false displays of bravado. While they are different people, Toph and Katara balance one another out and support each other in a relationship that improves the show vastly.

The Tale of Iroh

This is the tale that everyone talks about, and as a result it can be somewhat surprising that it is placed right at the start of the episode, a structural point that speaks to the true nature of this vignette. It is not placed as the big emotional gut punch at the end of the episode, but is instead framed as just another story, highlighting the way Lu Ten’s death affects Iroh. Iroh’s grief for his son is a constant part of his character that informs everything he has become, but it is not something big and flashy that is drawn out in high-stakes parts of the story for angsty and overdramatic moments. Instead, it is a quiet grief, constantly in the background if the story.

So, why is this tale such a famous part of the show? Largely because it’s so impeccably written ad structured. Iroh helping the group of young boys run from the man whose window they break provides the emotional set up: we see how he would have been with young Lu Ten, laying the groundwork for the emotional reveal. Similarly, his helping the mugger who’s down on his luck shows how Iroh’s loss has turned him into the kind of man who wants to help people to atone for his failure to help his son. Meanwhile, his shopping in the market place lays out the plot elements necessary to peel away the layers to reveal he is celebrating his son’s birthday. The first time we hear him sing “brave soldier boy”, meanwhile, serves as emotional and plot set up, as it is used to show him comforting a crying boy, once again highlighting his paternal nature, while also setting the key element of the final gut punch in the tale, namely, the song’s reprise.

Ultimately, what this tale really gets at is the nature of Iroh as a character, highlighting the way his development works. From the moment we met him, Iroh was a character who has mostly changed his ways and been through most of his redemption story before the series begins, so he doesn’t change that much. What makes him a dynamic character is the way the audience’s understanding of him changes: we are first introduced to him as a comic relief character who balances out Zuko’s angst, but by this point in the series, we know enough about him to see the depth, shades of grey, and tragedy that informs his story.

The Tale of Aang

As with Iroh, the help Aang provides here reflects the grief that is currently driving him at this point in the series, namely his grief for Appa. He begins the tale looking through the Zoo, sad at the confinement of the animals, quite possibly having come to the zoo because he was looking for, or thinking of, Appa. It is particularly notable that before “Appa’s Lost Days”, the two characters most connected to Appa (Momo and Aang) have taes that heavily evoke his absence. As a result, helping the animals can be read as Aang trying to make up for the fact that, at the moment, there is nothing he can do to help his bison.

The juxtaposition of the animals in the zoo at the start of the tale compared to the enclosure at the end also draws out a key theme of the season, as we once again explore the mistreatment of animals by humanity: they are deeply unhappy in their cramped conditions at the start of the tale, and are clearly much more comfortable in the enclosure at the end. Once again, the series takes the time to emphasize the needs of animals and the need for humanity to respect for nature, setting up the themes of the next episode.

The Tale of Sokka

As with Iroh, Sokka gets a tale that really breaks down how he works as a character. In this case, the tale does this breakdown through the perspective of the comic relief aspect of his character.

The first thing worth noting is that Sokka is prompted into action after being called an “oaf”, providing a hint of the insecurity that will drive his actions in “Sokka’s Master”. The woman leading the Haiku class only sees him as a blundering comic relief character, so Sokka responds by seeking to prove he is worth more, only doing so because he fears that he is just comic relief, and isn’t worth anything else.

This insecurity is a part of Sokka even though he demonstrably is much more than a comic relief character. He’s the inventive, intelligent member of the Gaang who organises and plans for the group and improvises ideas to help fight back where his status as a non-bender limits his combat abilities. And his ability to improvise is in evidence here as he adapts to the haikiu-battle, creating poems on the spot. In this instance, his ingenuity combines with the comic relief aspect of his character, allow him to be a funny in a showboating way that is very different to main source of humour for his character, namely his everyman frustration at the fantastical elements of the Avatar world. As a result, the tale shows how the comic side of his character extends from the serious parts of his characterisation.

However, his showboating comedy is punctured with the “That’s one syllable too many” joke, returning him to the “everyman frustration” humour that drives his character. This is a fitting reflection of the fact that Sokka is still driven by his insecurities at this point in the show: Book Three will finally see him making peace with the person he is, but that’s a little way off for now.

The Tale of Zuko

Let’s look behind the scenes of the show for the first time. This tale is Katie Mattila’s first writing credit, and while she’s only a minor creative figure for the show, her contribution to the series is interesting. She is the only writer from this episode to write more scripts for the franchise, and is also the only person who wasn’t a staff writer to write more than one script for ATLA. She’s also the only non staff writer from ATLA to go on to write for LOK, where she was, for what it’s worth, the only female writer to contribute a full script, with writing credits for three episodes from Books three and four of the sequel series.

Mattila contributes a sweet and thoughtful vignette that explores Zuko as a romantic figure for the first real time in the series, as we see him go on a date with an Earth Kingdom girl. And it’s a date that successfully expands the things the show can do with his character, breaking down the angsty, brooding side of his character to get at the dorkier, funnier side of him. This dorkier side, which we have seen before comes out in full by setting his overdramatic angst against the mundane, and from his extreme discomfort with the ordinary. In a way, this humour is a reversal of the “ordinary man’s frustration with the fantastical” humour provided by Sokka, making this the perfect vignette to follow on from and contrast to Sokka’s tale.

The ending of the tale, where leaves the date because, in his words “it’s complicated”, shows that Zuko’s backstory means he is still closed off from being someone who can fit into an ordinary life. But notably, this is a moment of progress for Zuko, being the first time he appreciates an aspect of this life, ending the tale by admitting to Iroh that he had a nice time.

The Tale of Momo

It may seem strange that this is the tale that concludes the episode, focussing as it does on Momo, the least fleshed out character in the ensemble of “The Last Airbender”. However, this positioning within the episode makes sense when we consider what is to come. “The Tale of Momo” is placed at the end of the episode to lead into “Appa’s Lost Days”, with Momo searching for Appa before finding the footprint that will be a key plot point in the next episode.  As a result, this tale is the natural conclusion to the episode, leading into the next story.

Thematically, it is also the perfect lead in to the next episode. We explore animal agency in the most direct way the series has managed so far, as Momo is the subject of his own story, rather than an object in the Gaang’s narrative. We get to see Momo’s perspective on the loss of Appa: he is sad to have lost his friend, searching for him every time he sees a sign of Appa. We understand how he sees predatory animals, first running from the cats that try to eat him, before helping rescue them from the humans who want to capture and cook them: this tale becomes a story about animals banding together and saving one another from the threat humanity poses.

Animal Agency, environmentalism, and interconnectedness are themes that run through the season, and are all woven together in this tale. This provides the ideal set up for the equally experimental “Appa’s lost days”, which will take these themes and explore them at even greater length. Book Two: Earth is rapidly moving towards its endgame.

End of Part Thirty Three.

From the South Pole Iceberg to the Republic City Portal: Part Thirty Two

ATLA Book Two: Earth

Chapter Fourteen: City of Walls and Secrets

In Which Momo becomes the ruler of a dynasty, Aang and Sokka pose as Bus Boys, and everyone’s weirded out by a bear.

Back in the post on “Avatar Day”, we looked at how the “Gaang visits a Village” episode structure was left out of season two after that episode. We should also, by now, be very familiar with the basic structure of a “Gaang visits a village” episode. To recap, the Gaang visit a village or settlement in the Avatar world, and have a relatively self-contained adventure there, where they discover a problem in the community they visit, and help solve that problem. And in many ways, “City of walls and secrets” resembles that episode structure. Or, more specifically, the beginning of that episode structure, as it we are introduced to a settlement so vast and complex, it is too big for a “Gaang Visits a Village” episode, and instead requires a “The Gaang Visits a City” story arc.

The first hint of this comes in the introduction shot of lower Ba Sing Se from the train. First, we get the following exchange from the Gaang:

“Katara: Don't worry Aang, we'll find Appa.

Aang: It's such a big city.

Sokka: He's a giant bison! Where could someone possibly hide him?

[The scene shows the monorail entering the Inner Wall. Cut to Sokka, Katara, and Aang viewing the giant city through the windows.]

Sokka: Oh.”

The one shot revealing the sheer vastness of the city reveals the scope of the Gaang’s task in searching for Appa: it’s not a search that can be completed in an episode. And the glimpses we get of the lower ring reveal the city’s problems, as would be the case in an ordinary “Gaang visits a village episode”, but it is immediately apparent that these problems are far more complicated than those faced by previous settlements than the Gaang have previously faced: the shots from the carriage hint at deep set poverty and criminal activity in the lower ring, problems that point to a deep rooted systemic injustice driving the city. It’s not the sort of issue the Gaang can solve in an episode, and it is an issue that merits a longer story arc.

As the Gaang’s story moves from the lower ring to the Upper Ring, we are further exposed to the conspiracies that drive the city, most notably in the following conversation with government official Pong:

“Pong: You're the Avatar! I heard you were in town. I'm Pong.

Aang: Nice to meet you, Pong.

Sokka: So, Pong, what's goin' on with this city? Why is everyone here so scared here to talk about the war?

Pong: War? Scared? What do you mean?

Toph: I can feel you shaking.

Pong: Look, I'm just a minor government official. [Looks to the sides to confirm that no one is present except them.] I've waited three years to get this house. I don't want go get into trouble.

Katara: in trouble with who?!

Pong: Shh, listen, you can't mention the War here. And whatever you do, stay away from the Dai Li.”

As an interesting side note, we get the first hints of Toph’s ability to sense lies as she points out to Pong that she can feel him shaking, a hint towards her role in “Lake Laogai”. It is a hushed scene, with pong glancing around, terrified that he will be overheard and lose the comfortable place in the upper ring he has only just gained. We also get the first mention of the Dai Li, who at this point in the episode are still unknown figures, the mystery haunting the story before the final reveal of their true nature. The people who are best off in Ba Sing Se are afraid to speak out against the government, not wanting to be moved back down to a lower place than they have gained: it is a city where social status overrides the need for honesty.

As above, so below. The Gaang provide a window into the secrets and conspiracies that drive the upper ring of Ba Sing Se, while Zuko and Iroh provide a look at what it is like to live in the lower ring of Ba Sing Se, as we see how the lower ring is also kept silent by the secrets of the Dai Li. When Zuko calls the city a “prison”, he’s right in multiple ways. We can see how ordinary shopkeepers are pressed into not talking about the war, or anything bad going on in Ba Sing Se, while Zuko and Iroh live amongst visible poverty and inequality (the shopkeeper is almost certainly lying to the Gaang when he says there is no Black market): the people of the city are coerced into pretending they live in a perfect city, when that is demonstrably not the case. It is also a personal Prison for Zuko, who has to hide his identity to live in peace. The people of the city have to keep their dissatisfaction and fear hidden, just as Zuko has to keep his identity a secret. Zuko and Iroh’s living quarters provide a further contrast between the upper and lower rings: where the Gaang live in a large bungalow with big, open rooms, Zuko and Iroh live in a cramped apartment where it only takes Iroh a few moments to get spark rocks from their neighbours. The material divide in wealth between the lower and upper ring is evident throughout every aspect of the episode.

Iroh and Zuko’s secret is at risk due to Jet’s attempts to prove their true identities as members of the Fire Nation, a plot thread that gives the viewer a glimpse of the Dai Li, and the sinister nature of their operation. The glimpse of them kidnapping Jet just before the episode’s conclusion is a part of the steady reveal of their nature throughout the episode, a nature hinted at in Pong’s dialogue earlier, before they emerge now, the link between Zuko and Iroh’s story in the lower ring to the Gaang’s plot in the Upper ring party.

The party in the upper ring also provides a useful role for Toph in the episode. We are given a glimpse into her role as the daughter of a wealthy family, as she takes on the role her parents taught her to play to help herself and Katara sneak into the party. Toph explains that while she is hardly naturally “ladylike”, she learned how to play the part her family expected her to by years of training, highlighting the false, acted nature of high society. This is an episode that is all about masks and disguises, with Zuko and Iroh disguising themselves as refugees, and the city of Ba Sing Se disuising itself as a peaceful utopia, a theme that perfectly fits Toph’s backstory. We see how her class, and role as an upper class girl, was something that forced her to disguise her true self.

The performed, false nature of high society is further explored through Katara, who, being a teenage girl from a society that has been crippled in both size and wealth by the hundred year war, is arguably the least privileged member of the Gaang. In spite of position as a marginalised character, she takes to playing the role of an upper class girl like a duck to water, persuading Long Feng to escort them into the party, showing that class is something that can be faked, as long as successfully act like someone who has been trained to be a part of high society. The party is constantly demonstrating the false, performed nature of the upper ring: the guests who sit next to Bosco do so for nothing more than a sense of status. It is quite clear that there is nothing special, or desirable, about getting to sit near the King’s exotic pet, beyond being able to say they have done so: this is a society driven by ideas of status and pretending to be respectable and secure.   

The ending reflects the deep rooted problems of Ba Sing Se that have been explored throughout the episode through the lack of resolution for the Gaang’s storyline. We’ve had cliffhangers before this season, most notably in “The Library” and “The Serpent’s Pass”, but those give the episodes a defined sense of dramatic conclusion, whereas this episode just fades out to the following menacing speech from Long Feng:

“Enough, I don't want to hear your ridiculous plan. It is the strict policy of Ba Sing Se that the War not be mentioned within the walls. Constant news of an escalating war will throw the citizens of Ba Sing Se into a state of panic. Our economy would be ruined. Our peaceful way of life, our traditions would disappear. In silencing talk of conflict, Ba Sing Se remains a peaceful, orderly utopia. The last one on Earth.”

It is a speech that finally lays bare the true nature of Ba Sing Se: the city is a false utopia, a seemingly safe refuge that is actually a police state, run by officials who are not allies to the Gaang but instead actively obstruct their attempt to move the plot forwards and fight the Fire Nation. Long Feng’s speech plays out over the footage of Jet being brainwashed, which is technically a cliffhanger, but more in a conceptual sense than those mentioned from “The Library” and “The Serpent’s Pass”. In those episodes, the cliffhanger comes in the form of a direct threat that needs to be dealt with, whereas here, the cliffhanger comes in the form of a question, as the audience is left to ponder the depth of the Dai Li’s conspiracy, and what can be done to unravel it. The lack of any real resolution reflects, arguably more strongly than any other episode, the heavily serialised nature of Book Two. However, “City of Walls and Secrets” uses the unresolved ending in a way that really ties the strands of this episode together to make a very thematically coherent and consistent piece of television: it is an episode that uses its serialised structure to lay bare just why this particular city needs more attention than any previous location in the show. There any many problems in this city that will take time to solved, if indeed they can be solved at all.

End of Part Thirty Two.

From the South Pole Iceberg to the Republic City Portal: Part Thirty One

ATLA Book Two: Earth

Chapter Thirteen: The Drill

In which Iroh loses some tea, some Earthbenders throw some rocks at Aang, and Mai refuses to go down a slurry pipe.

The parody recap of this episode in “The Ember Island Players” has a point. This is not a bad episode, but it is slightly boring: that drill takes forever to reach the wall. As a result, the central conflict lacks a little drive, but ultimately, it speaks to the confidence levels the show has reached by this point that this is an ordinary episode of the show. It’s still filled with the interesting themes, solid action and great character moments that are the show’s bread and butter by this point.

Zuko and Iroh’s and Iroh’s B plot reflects the episode’s central problem. It is a plot that, like the drill itself, lays some important groundwork for episodes, but for the most part spins its wheels without seeming to go anywhere much. It sets out Jet’s suspicions of Zuko and Iroh’s nationality, but doesn’t push that beyond a couple of suspicious glances and his brief insistence to Longshot and Smeller Bee that Zuko is hiding his true identity. Furthermore, while Zuko’s reasoning for not joining the Freedom Fighters makes sense for his character, is also not a moment that received any real set up. For all that ATLA is often described as being a show with a lot of (often brilliant) padding, this is one of those rare times a plot doesn’t really tie into the episode’s wider themes, or significantly advance said storyline or our understanding of the characters.

Better served by her role in this episode is Azula whose role as a villain is expanded significantly. Interestingly, her attack on Ba Sing Se has nothing to do with her original task for Ozai, which was just to hunt down Zuko and Iroh, or for her revised task of hunting down Aang. However, showing her taking on a key role in the war on the Earth Kingdom doesn’t feel inconsistent with her previous characterisation, but instead adds to the list of things she is capable of doing, and shows she has other concerns as a villain. It further highlights the way she has Zhao’s role, but is a better villain for the part: Zhao had a personal rivalry with Zuko while hunting down Aang in Book One, but he also took part in the Fire Nation’s wider military campaign, waging war on the North Pole. As a result, Azula’s parallel role to Zhao shows how the show has grown since Book One: even a relatively ordinary episode demonstrates improvements on the lesser aspects of Book One (In this case that Book’s main villain).

Speaking of Zhao’s siege on the North Pole, it is worth looking at this episode’s portrayal of Ba Sing Se: as in “The Siege of the North”, we see the Gaang defending a major capital city from a Fire Nation siege. It’s a story that marks the end of the “Travel to Ba Sing Se” segment of season, being the only episode with officials from Ba Sing Se presented as straightforward allies to the Gaang: after this, we will be exploring the corruption in the power structures of Ba Sing Se. With that said, though, the military commander’s instruction to throw rocks at Aang and Azula could be seen as foreshadowing the way the people in charge of the Earth Kingdom repeatedly obstruct his attempts to help them throughout the Ba Sing Se arc. Finally, the Gaang and the Ba Sing Se army’s counter to the Fire Nation’s attack seems to open up a conflict between technology and tradition that runs throughout the episode.

The dualism between technology and tradition is set up in the early scenes, as the commander of Ba Sing Se’s army proudly declares that the city he is defending is unconquerable, while the captain of the drill’s crew assures Azula that they are certain to win, as the drill is a triumph of modern engineering. And so, for the first few minutes of the episode, we see ordinary military benders try to take down the drill, in a simple cash between tradition and modernity. However, the traditional Earthbending Style, used by Bumi and Toph, is not what’s used by the Earthbending army: they use the effective form of Earthbending that has become typical of Earthbenders from the show’s present: their style is direct, rooted, and powerful, but it lacks the, patience, listening, and improvisation of Toph and Bumi’s styles. The dualism of the initial conflict has been troubled by the style of the Earthbenders taking part in it, whose fighting style is rooted in the modern.

The dualistic conflict is then completely broken down when the Earthbenders are taken down by Ty Lee, who doesn’t represent the technology of the Drill at all. Being a non-bender, she doesn’t have a traditional style of fighting, but her chi-blocking is rooted in a core understanding of the spiritual nature of chi, and the connection of bodily pressure points to the spiritual side of bending. Indeed, the way she methodically dismantles her opponents is reminiscent of Toph’s style of Earthbending.

From one non bender to another, as Sokka becomes the next key figure in the episode’s conflict. Sokka constructs the plan to dismantle the drill from the inside, leading to some nice character moments that showcase the more spontaneous and quick thinking side to his ingenuity, as well as a nice lampshading of his role as the “Ideas guy”. Most significantly, the plan comes from Ty Lee’s fighting method, which as has already been noted, loosely resembles the tactic’s of Toph’s Earthbending

Sokka’s plan is refined by Aang, who decides to utilise Toph’s earthbending instructions about using a series of small blows to lead up to a bigger blow: a decision that ties in to, and builds nicely from, Iroh’s speech about learning from other nations, and makes explicit the way most of the key fighters in this episode use Earthbending tactics. Aang only saves himself in his confrontation with Azula with the help of some last – minute Earthbending. This explication captures the heart of what this episode has been about: breaking down the nature of Earthbending, and showing the way members of other nations can learn. Aang, Sokka, and Ty Lee are from the Air Nation, the Water Tribe, and the Fire Nation respectively, and all three utilise Earthbending techniques better than all bar one of the Earthbenders seen in this episode.

And that Earthbender is Toph, one of the few Earthbenders who does have an understanding of the element’s traditions and true nature. We duly see her slowing up the drill with the strength of her bending, but it is notable that tradition on its own cannot halt the progress represented by the Drill. In an episode that further shows the way the nations are linked, we get her and Katara bending the slurry together to fight off Ty Lee together, further demonstrating the way all nations are linked to the elements, and people, of the other nations. And in an episode that is heavily engaged in laying the groundwork for the statement that “Separation is an illusion” in “The Guru”, there’s also some vital foreshadowing Toph refuses to go on the metal drill, and Aang makes the statement “what I’d give to be a metalbender”, setting up Toph’s metalbending in that episode. And that theme of interconnectedness is ultimately the key to the resolution: tradition cannot stop progress just as progress cannot erase tradition, but the Gaang coming together and understanding one another’s true natures can save the city.

And so, an episode that starts out by presenting a binary conflict ultimately dismantles that binary divide as methodically as the Gaang dismantle the titular drill. What starts out as a battle between technological warfare and traditional Earthbending ultimately sees the Fire Nation, who represent technology employing a mix of traditional and modern methods to dismantle the Earthbenders who no longer understand the tradtion of their native element. These events lead to the Gaang, a group who connect the nations together, saving the day with that true understanding of Earthbending. Modern technology mixes with, and leads to a better understanding of, tradition. For all the flaws I laid out at the start of this essay, the drill’s methodical nature allows it to set out its themes and argument carefully, so that we better understand how the idea set out in “The Swamp” that “everything is connected” works. As we further our understanding of the way separation is an illusion, we move one step further to “The Guru”.

End of Part Thirty One.