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.
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