Cartoon Corner- Avatar: The Last Airbender (Book 2: Earth)

Originally posted at the DL May 2015

"It's time to ask yourself the big questions.  Who are you, and what do you want!"



Though less obvious in season 1, like most modern american fiction Avatar draws a great deal from Star Wars.  So unsurprisingly season 2 is really more about the villains than the heroes.  Season 1 had a hero-driven goal and the villain had to react to them.  Here, the actions of the villains change the landscape and our heroes are constantly amending their plans to work around them.

Also of course the heroes fundamentally lose.  Pretty badly.

Season 2 is notably more consistent than the other two in general.  Both season 1 and season 3 start off with a string of episodes that largely meander.  While some casual misadventures are to be had here (Avatar Day and The Cave of Two Lovers mostly), I find myself appreciating the random lore elements of those episodes a lot more than equivalent episodes in season 1.  In part, Aang/Katara/Sokka have a much better group dynamic at this point, meaning that they react more enjoyably to outsiders and their concerns.  But also I think the writers just have a better sense of what sorts of stories are actually interesting to the audience compared to which ones are interesting to the writers.  Backstory on a previous Avatar is much more engaging than backstory on a one-off village.

But of course the bigger factor here is that we've got two more major characters in the cast.  Four if you want to think of Ty Lee and Mai as major.  At this point in the show, it's clear that Zuko is as much the main character as Aang a lot of the time, and so Azula fulfills the role of being an antagonist to both of them, generally pretty successfully.  "Pretty and poetic, but also scary in a good way", y'know.  Toph meanwhile is basically the best.  She brings something the group just hasn't had: a) actual confidence and b) blunt honesty.  We don't have to pussyfoot around anymore, Toph's got this one.

Best Episode:

"Leaves on the vine falling so slow
Like fragile tiny shells drifting in the foam
 Little soldier boy come marching home
Brave soldier boy comes marching home."

Weakest Episode: "You're in Ba Sing Se now. Everyone is safe here."

Now, City of Walls and Secrets is supposed to be seriously frustrating.  But even without that element, there's a serious flaw in this episode: Long Feng is just not a credible villain.  To an extent this is also intentional, he's supposed to be a petty tyrant who's out of his depth against the real villains.  The trouble I have is how BADLY he handles the gang.  They come into the city to talk to the King about the war that Long Feng knows damn well the Earth Kingdom is losing.  He's self-absorbed, not delusional.  And instead of shuffling the Avatar and his very capable escort out of the city to talk to, y'know, fucking Generals or something, he essentially holds him hostage in the heart of the city.  The thing of it all is that all they had to do was give Long Feng a reason to want the war not to end.  He could frankly have been a conspirator with some Fire Nation interest without altering the actual plot, but it doesn't even need to be that.  We see later that the heads of the Earth Kingdom military are personally loyal to the king.  So the war keeps them scattered lest they defy him and the Dai Li.  Shit, this plausibly IS the reason he needs to keep the Avatar silent on his own terms, in Ba Sing Se where he can watch him.  But you have to SHOW ME that.  Or at least give a clear implication of it, not just leave me hanging four episodes to speculate while I sit there thinking "You know that Aang could, AT ANY TIME, fight his way past all your Dai Li and force the truth to light.  Y'know, that thing that actually happens in three episodes?"


Rating: 9/10. Beyond all that though, there's just a lot more episodes that are willing to play with the audience's feelings rather than just being straight action-comedy.  Zuko Alone, Bitter Work, Lake Laogai (see quote at start of post, this almost got the best episode nod almost entirely for it), The Guru, and of course Crossroads of Destiny all have moments suitable for tearbending.  And as you may have noticed, CK rating scale is actually based almost wholly on feels.