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.
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