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[jazzfish]

Based on the advice of an overwhelming majority of the people I know, plus seeing the first few episodes courtesy tam_nonlinear, we started watching the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender back in May. (Elevator pitch: Aang, the twelve-year-old titular Last Airbender, journeys across the world in the company of his friends, learning to master the four elements so he can stop the Fire Nation from taking over the world.) The first season is deeply episodic: it's got hints of backstory and overarching plot, but for the most part each episode is a self-contained story of the "Aang and company stop off at an island on their way to the North Pole to learn waterbending; hilarity ensues" variety.

For most of the first season, my reaction was "okay, this is pretty decent. Entertaining, light, I'm glad I'm watching it and would watch it again, but nothing earth-shattering." All the snark and wackiness in season 1 made the characters feel less like teenagers and more like people playing teenagers in a role-playing game. Which isn't bad, just... not deep. My opinion started changing around the two-part (three-part, really) season finale, which successfully juggled at least three plot lines, added some complexity to the already complex villain, and generally made for Good Television.

The first several episodes of the second season are like most of the first season, only with the crazy dial turned up to eleven. This includes not only the travelling hippies of "The Cave of Two Lovers, and the strange detective story "Avatar Day" which would have felt at home in Due South, but what's possibly my favorite hijinks episode so far, "The Blind Bandit." Because of course earthbending can be taught in a martial-arts-style academy, and of course there are earthbending tournaments, and of course those tournaments end up looking like professional wrestling. (They even got Mick Foley to do the voice of The Boulder, resulting in my favorite bit with neither Iroh nor Appa the flying bison: "The Boulder is conflicted about fighting a young blind girl...")

We're now about halfway through the second season, and the tone's shifted for the darker. Some of this is due to just having a more competent and scary villain at work, because "deranged psychopath who will stop at nothing" ramps up the tension faster and harder than "honorable prince driven to prove his worth to his father." Some of it's that the stakes are genuinely higher now: the episode of nonstop pursuit, or the recent kidnapping of my favorite character. Whatever the reason, recent episodes have had a lot more "holy cow, they did that in a kids' show?" moments than I'd ever expected.

Good stuff. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all turns out.

Also, Zuko's total incompetence when he tries to "help" with putting a new roof on a barn? Hilariously adorable.

Comments

[tam_nonlinear]

Oops, I thought I was logged in.

[jazzfish]

Toph's second and third episodes ("why should i bother helping you losers set up camp" and "now you learn earthbending MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY") rubbed me about as wrong as she possibly could have. Since then she's grown enough, and quickly enough, as a human being that I'm no longer rolling my eyes or tensing up every time she opens her mouth.

[tam_nonlinear]

Part of it is that Toph's character arc is starting out in a very different place than that of the other characters- they came into their journeys through tragedies, whereas she's the only one that has truly chosen to join the group, and had a viable alternative. The option of choice is a vital one to her, and I don't think she's ever learned how to have both freedom and interaction with people; her sense of freedom, up to that point, was specifically tied to being hidden and concealed. It's how she learned earthbending and it's how she gained prowess as the blind bandit. So her journey in the story isn't like anyone else's. For her, a lot of it is learning about how to be part of a group, including learning how to let people close, how to be known without it making her less herself, and how to truly tie her fortune in to that of other people.

Of course, I could be entirely wrong, but that's what I got from her, and one of the reasons I like her. Your mileage may, of course, vary.

(don't forget escape from the spirit world as a short between seasons 2 and 3)