ATLA Book Two: Earth
Chapter Twelve: The Serpent’s Pass
In which Longshot is
understanding and silent, Iroh wears a funny hat, and Sokka, Suki, and The Moon
form the most sensible love triangle in the franchise.
“It’s a long, long way to Ba Sing Se” are the words Iroh
sang back in “The Swamp”, words that established a key narrative for the
season: the meandering, diverging, and parallel journeys of the main cast
towards the Earth Kingdom Capital. And that narrative plays out most clearly in
this episode, with the parallel plot structure helping us see the Gaang and
Zuko travelling along different parts of the Serpent’s Pass to get to different
parts of Ba Sing Se. Aang is looking to meet the King to discuss the War, while
also searching for Appa, whereas Zuko is looking to hide in plain sight as a
refugee amongst the ordinary citizen. The parallel in the direction they are
travelling highlights the different places they are at in their journeys: the
Gaang are concerned with the larger fate of the war, and are working with those
highest up in society. By contrast, Zuko has been brought lower in social
standing than he has ever been, taking on the guise of a refugee and losing all
of the things that identify him as a royal heir to the throne to avoid being
pursued.
It is first worth focussing on Zuko’s plot, which sees him
join up with Jet and his Gaang. There’s some nice fleshing out of Smeller Bee
and Longshot, an effect achieved by cutting Pipsqueak and the Duke out of the
freedom fighters. As a result, there is room for a little more focus on those
two characters, as we get hints of Smeller Bee’s insecurity and Longshot’s
silent support of her. “You always know what to say” is a funny line, but also
hints at a genuine and supportive friendship between the two characters.
Zuko’s part in this plot sees him trying to get fairer food
for the passengers, although not for solely philanthropic reasons. His anger at
having to eat scraps like a commoner at the start of the episode, and the shame
and self-hate with which he acknowledges his status as a refugee shows that
Zuko is doing this to increase his sense of self-worth, to stop feeling like an
(in his eyes) ordinary, insignificant person, not because he’s angry at
inequality. And the dynamic between him and Jet is an interesting one: Zuko is
experiencing the plight of those who were born in a lower class than him, while
Jet is seeking to redeem his past mistakes by doing freedom fighting right,
leaving a lot of potential in a possible teaming up of the two characters. But
while Zuko says “lately I’ve realised it’s not always best to be alone”, he
doesn’t want Jet’s companionship, and he represents everything Jet despises:
they meet at a point where their narratives are almost on the same course, but
they are inevitably drawn into conflict. No wonder people ship it.
These tensions and parallels become even clearer over the
course of Zuko, Jet and Iroh’s dinnertime conversation: in an episode where the
importance of keeping hope is the key theme, they are all hoping for redemption.
Iroh seeks to redeem himself now he realises his approach to fighting in the
war was wrong, Jet does so because he realises he let his hatred of the Fire
Nation turn him into what he hated, and Zuko because there’s still a part of
him that hopes his honour can be restored in the eyes of his nation. All three
hope to find that redemption in Ba sing Se, but Iroh will not find that redemption
on this visit to the City, Jet will but with tragic consequences, and Zuko will
find what he is looking for, only to discover what he hopes for is not the
redemption he needs.
This episode is also the heart of the arc that sees the main
cast travel to Ba Sing Se, an arc that makes up the core of the middle act of
Book Two ( an act that runs from “The chase” through to “The Drill”). It is an
arc that is introduced in “The Library”, and is most obvious in this episode
and “The Desert”, both of which focus in detail on the Gaang travels and the
direction they are heading. It is the first time since Book One that multiple
episodes in a show have been driven by the main characters heading towards a
specific location, and is another way of highlighting Appa’s importance, and
the magnitude of his disappearance. A focus on travel is not used for worldbuilding
and showing the size of the Avatar world as it was in Book One, but for
character work, for showing the effect losing Appa has on Aang and the rest of
the Gaang. This effect is shown through the way the others are nervous about
discussing the way losing Appa changes their ability to travel around Aang, the
way Aang refuses to be mollycoddled, and has shut himself down emotionally, the
key internal conflict he needs to overcome in this episode.
Also interesting is the episode’s use of Toph. We see her
making use of her status as a Beifong, showing her discomfort in water, as well
as seeing the first example of her little crush on Sokka making an appearance.
The latter is a funny moment with Suki that quietly dismisses the “all women
are catty” trope, as Suki lets the moment slide, and Toph is more embarrassed
than jealous. These moments also highlight the way Book two is constantly
giving her character focus: this isn’t an episode where she is a particularly
central character, but the show is constantly looking for a way of expanding on
her character, or finding new and interesting things to do with her abilities
in the scenes she does get.
The role of Suki and the (unseen) Kyoshi Warriors is also
worth noting, as it has changed since their first appearance. They are now travelling
the world seeking to help wherever they can, having been inspired by the Gaang
to stop separating themselves from the war and to start helping the world, becoming
less insular in their focus and in their way of engaging with the war: they may
not approve of joining fighting, but they will help in nonviolent ways wherever
they can.
Both Toph and Suki’s roles in this episode reflect the
improved roles for female characters throughout this season. In fact, here
seems as good a place as any to lay out the case for my argument that Book two
is better in this regard than Book Three, where Toph’s arc is much less prominent
(basically dropped after “The Runaway”) and Suki is more Sokka’s love interest
than anything else. In Suki’s case, her duty as a Kyoshi Warrior not explored
in the way it is here, even though she becomes a more prominent member of the
main cast (which is still a good thing in and of itself). Book Three still
finds plenty of time for good moments for female characters like Suki and Toph,
and has particularly strong material for Katara and Azula, but on the whole,
I’d argue Book Two is the ATLA book where the writers put in the most effort
into giving complex material or as much character depth as possible to all its
female characters. Smeller Bee’s part in this episode is also indicative of
this: the writers flesh her out from someone who is just a character design and
a little banter with other members of Jet’s crew to being a character who we
know little about, but can see the wants and insecurities of. Also, the “That’s
because I’m a Girl!” scene, as well as being a significant character moment for
her, draws attention to the increased number of female characters the season
has shown in the wake of Book One (I do wonder how many viewers assumed, Like
Iroh, that she was male first time around). After Book one gave strong material
for Katara but had very few female characters surrounding her, there are a
greater number of female members of the main cast. Furthermore, the show now
has more background characters and one off characters of note who are women or
girls, and all are treated with respect and are given depth of character by the
writers.
Suki’s scenes with Sokka also add to his running
characterisation for this season. His grief for and guilt over Yue’s death
manifest themselves throughout this episode, a grief that gets in the way of his
and Suki’s romance just as it starts, the most literal example of this is the
shot of Sokka and Suki almost, but not quite, kissing, with the moon in between
them. Ultimately, Suki reminds Sokka that she can look after herself by saving
Toph, and in doing so, arguably helps him realise Yue’s death wasn’t something
to blame himself for: it was a choice Yue made to save her people. It’s a
subtle note, but it could be argued that this character note retroactively
increases the agency Yue had in her death while decreasing the emphasis on
Sokka’s man pain, lessening the extent to which her death was a fridging.
Sokka and Suki’s plotline culminates in the delightful
reveal that Suki came to protect Sokka, and that even though this and their
opening up to one another allows them to be together, Suki has duties beyond
Sokka, is still committed to her work with the Kyoshi warriors. They are able
to work through the difficulties of Sokka’s grief to start a relationship, but
are also allowed to have things going on independently of one another: it’s a
satisfying dynamic for a relationship, and another example of the show’s
refreshing and improving attitude to gender dynamics that appears in this
episode.
Aang and Katara’s sees her encouraging him to open up about
his grief for Appa. As in “The Warriors of Kyoshi”, there are loose parallels
between Katara and Aang’s plotline and Suki and Sokka’s, with a particularly
blatant example of this being the late night scene next to Suki and Sokka’s
almost-kiss where Katara almost, but doesn’t succeed in getting Aang to open up
emotionally, and he rejects her offer of a hug: in this episode, both Suki and
Katara struggle to get Sokka and Aang to open up about their grief.
This plot comes to a head in the birthing scene. Sokka’s freak-out
and Katara’s calm handling of the situation is a lovely character moment, as
well as being a remarkably frank and honest handling of childbirth for a
nickelodeon cartoon. With that said, it seems to have been a remarkably clean
birth, though, and there is something incredibly unsubtle about “Hope” being
the parent’s name choice for new born baby hope, and the birth of a new born
baby softening Aang’s heart is perhaps a little cliché, but the aforementioned
frankness of most of the sequence and the fact that the scene fits a character
like Aang helps the episode get away with it.
So Aang rediscovers his sense of hope. Just as Suki and
Sokka acknowledge their feelings for one another, Aang opens up to Katara,
accepting her message of hope and acknowledging his feelings for her. In doing
so, he accepts those feelings are a good thing, even if they can lead to the
kind of hurt he feels after losing Appa. Love and hope are worth the risk of
grief and pain.
And oh yeah, there’s a giant drill at the end of this one.
We’ll get to that next time.
End of Part Thirty.
No comments:
Post a Comment