![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI realize everyone else in the world has already seen this but I have not. So, we're wrapping up season 1 and here is my feeling on how this is going to sort itself out.
(I have not read spoilers for this series but I have some idea of how stories work.)
The Avatar is supposed to "save the world" by way of restoring Balance, like in the hundred years ago thing when the four tribes lived in peace yadda yadda yadda.
One can think of this show as a hero's journey wherein Ang does his shit and learns his skillz and things and Saves The World. And that's fairly straightforward and what you'd expect of it, maybe, if it were not as good as it has thus far been. I think it can do better. I think, judging from the popularity of the show when it aired, that it DID do better.
A better, more thoughtful, more useful journey would be one wherein Fire Nation Guy grows beyond his nation's destructive tendencies and works to heal what his father has destroyed. Sort of a villain journey to goodness. Or at least respectability and responsible leadership what does not harm his own people.
They have made a concerted effort to humanize our young banished prince fire dude. (The first season.) He's not a GREAT person, but he's not a monster, either. He's young and hotheaded (lol) and banished but he is the child of a completely worthless asshole so there's that. He has a reasonable, supportive, humane uncle who provides fairly reasonable leadership and parenting. Young banished prince fire dude is shown beginning to make some decent choices (like not drowning his crew in pursuit of the Avatar in the midst of the storm, like trying to save dude he was JUST FIGHTING at end of Season One, of being tired of his singleminded quest) and he's been branded a traitor back home. We have two more seasons. I think they'll get him there. Can't throw away the game just yet, after all.
In order to broker a peace and restore balance to the world, the other tribes are going to have to negotiate a peace with the fire tribe. Balance not elimination, is the end goal, here. This means you're going to need someone on the Fire Throne (or whatever) who is ready for the fighting to be done, ready to come to the table with a reasonable settlement that allows for coexistence. The single-minded ambition of current Fire Nation Leader is not gonna Git-R-Done for peace. It's going to have to be someone else, someone with a Claim to Legitimacy that the people can get behind.
I feel like our banished Fire Prince Dude is gonna be that guy.
Further, the opposing forces are water-fire and earth-air. Like, that's how they are. You can't make this shit up. The water tribe girl, whom we are (Checkov's Gun in the fortune-teller episode) told will marry a "powerful bender" is going to marry the fire tribe prince guy, possibly as part of the brokered peace. Possibly fire tribe guy is going to determine that his father's destructiveness is not good for the fire tribe, for the world as a whole, yadda yadda yadda. And in helping overthrow that regime, he makes a peace with water tribe girl. Don't know how they are going to run this, but this is my prediction for how things wrap up.
In my mental conception of how this shit OUGHT to work, fire + water = steam (or, well, air) and then they can make there be more airbenders. :) And restore balance to the world. I do not think it works like that, but this is my hope.
The Avatar, who is reincarnated and (effectively) immortal, cannot really lead a human life that is entirely normal once he rises to his full power. If he married our water tribe girl, like at the end, it would... unbalance things. He's got to stand apart. He has no happy married life that the fortune teller can divine. Maybe he ascends somewhere. I don't know. He doesn't get to marry Water Tribe Girl, though. That is not the ending I see. I mean, we're wrapping season 1 and Fire Nation Guy is fighting his father's own admiral person. Also Ang makes a water-godzilla. He is not marrying any human woman at the end of this show.
Anyway, that's my take, here. Maybe I am wrong.
(I have not read spoilers for this series but I have some idea of how stories work.)
The Avatar is supposed to "save the world" by way of restoring Balance, like in the hundred years ago thing when the four tribes lived in peace yadda yadda yadda.
One can think of this show as a hero's journey wherein Ang does his shit and learns his skillz and things and Saves The World. And that's fairly straightforward and what you'd expect of it, maybe, if it were not as good as it has thus far been. I think it can do better. I think, judging from the popularity of the show when it aired, that it DID do better.
A better, more thoughtful, more useful journey would be one wherein Fire Nation Guy grows beyond his nation's destructive tendencies and works to heal what his father has destroyed. Sort of a villain journey to goodness. Or at least respectability and responsible leadership what does not harm his own people.
They have made a concerted effort to humanize our young banished prince fire dude. (The first season.) He's not a GREAT person, but he's not a monster, either. He's young and hotheaded (lol) and banished but he is the child of a completely worthless asshole so there's that. He has a reasonable, supportive, humane uncle who provides fairly reasonable leadership and parenting. Young banished prince fire dude is shown beginning to make some decent choices (like not drowning his crew in pursuit of the Avatar in the midst of the storm, like trying to save dude he was JUST FIGHTING at end of Season One, of being tired of his singleminded quest) and he's been branded a traitor back home. We have two more seasons. I think they'll get him there. Can't throw away the game just yet, after all.
In order to broker a peace and restore balance to the world, the other tribes are going to have to negotiate a peace with the fire tribe. Balance not elimination, is the end goal, here. This means you're going to need someone on the Fire Throne (or whatever) who is ready for the fighting to be done, ready to come to the table with a reasonable settlement that allows for coexistence. The single-minded ambition of current Fire Nation Leader is not gonna Git-R-Done for peace. It's going to have to be someone else, someone with a Claim to Legitimacy that the people can get behind.
I feel like our banished Fire Prince Dude is gonna be that guy.
Further, the opposing forces are water-fire and earth-air. Like, that's how they are. You can't make this shit up. The water tribe girl, whom we are (Checkov's Gun in the fortune-teller episode) told will marry a "powerful bender" is going to marry the fire tribe prince guy, possibly as part of the brokered peace. Possibly fire tribe guy is going to determine that his father's destructiveness is not good for the fire tribe, for the world as a whole, yadda yadda yadda. And in helping overthrow that regime, he makes a peace with water tribe girl. Don't know how they are going to run this, but this is my prediction for how things wrap up.
In my mental conception of how this shit OUGHT to work, fire + water = steam (or, well, air) and then they can make there be more airbenders. :) And restore balance to the world. I do not think it works like that, but this is my hope.
The Avatar, who is reincarnated and (effectively) immortal, cannot really lead a human life that is entirely normal once he rises to his full power. If he married our water tribe girl, like at the end, it would... unbalance things. He's got to stand apart. He has no happy married life that the fortune teller can divine. Maybe he ascends somewhere. I don't know. He doesn't get to marry Water Tribe Girl, though. That is not the ending I see. I mean, we're wrapping season 1 and Fire Nation Guy is fighting his father's own admiral person. Also Ang makes a water-godzilla. He is not marrying any human woman at the end of this show.
Anyway, that's my take, here. Maybe I am wrong.
