Book 1: The Boy in The Iceberg / The Avatar Returns

This is Avatar; The Last Airbender, one of the greatest shows Nickelodeon has ever produced.

And it's time to rewatch it.

Since these are twenty minute shows with an overarching plot and story, I'm aiming for two posts a week. I'm using the fan-remastered HD look that looks kind of funny for the first few episodes but straightens out, but you can buy an official HD version on Amazon and iTunes!

No, I will not touch that 'movie'.

If you don't know the iconic opening, I don't know how to help you. Well, you could look it up on youtube.

"It was all good until the Fire Nation popped off." 

 Seeing as this is the series premiere, it's a little more extended than normal, but it's still basically the same thing. Our narrator, Katara, outlines how the Fire Nation started a war to take over the world, and they're very nearly accomplished, and that a being called The Avatar, one who can bend all four elements, could stop them - but he vanished.


Sokka is trying to catch a fish with a spear - and his sister, Katara, is the catching a fish with water itself.

Katara is a Waterbender, the only one we see - until the last story arc of the season. She's pretty much the last one in the Northern Water Tribe, and has had no one to teach her in her fourteen years.

Soon, they're caught up in a rush of water between dangerous icebergs. Later in the series, this ain't no thing to Katara, but for now, she can't maneuver around the icebergs crush their boat and leave them stranded on an iceberg, where Sokka goes "Leave it to a girl to mess things up!"

 Katara rightfully tells him off, her emotions and arm gestures causing her to whip up water - and to crack up a large iceberg behind them that pushes them to the titular iceberg, that starts to glow beneath the surface.

Oh yeah - the world of Avatar has a lot of hybrid-animals. Not all of them, but there's things like these tiger-sea-lions and platypus bears, it's really cool. The only one I truly remember off the top of my head are wolfbats.

"I need to capture the Avatar!" yeah get used to hearing that.

Someone who sees the light is one Prince Zuko, and for now, he is not good news. He's yelling at his tea-loving uncle, Iroh, about finding the source of the light.

There's a boy in an iceberg, who stops glowing and falls into Katara's arms and instantly in love with he. He wakes up from a long sleep in a damn iceberg, not knowing how he got there and flirts.

"Wanna go penguin-sledding with me?"

This is Aang, the titular Last Airbender, and his flying bison, Appa. Who offers them a ride home because now they're lost.

Katara asks Aang if he knew the avatar, and he lies. Because he never wanted to be. And we get a flashback of Aang and Appa becoming trapped in the sea...

The village is pretty small and populated with parents and very young children, who are all wary, because, in the words of Gramma Kana, "No one has seen an Airbender in a hundred years - we thought they were all extinct.", which rightfully surprises the boy.

Sokka keeps being totally dismissive of Aang as if this boy didn't just bust out of an iceberg. I want to say, Be impressed, damn it!, but really, he's a sixteen year old kid trying to defend his home in a war, with no help. There's even a sequence where he's teaching toddlers how to wield weapons and fight. It's sad.

Katara is very impressed that she's found a bender to teach her, element be damned, because at this point she doesn't know that he's The Avatar.

Meanwhile, Zuko is training with his guards and uncles in firebending and fighting. Firefighting.

It's a real pity I can't actually show you the fight scenes, I'll have to rig something up, there are some beautiful ones coming up. Maybe some three-minute long gifs.

 There's a lot of punches and jumping, swooping kicks, and fire generates internally, unlike the other elements. Iroh even says, "Firebending comes from the breath!" and tells Zuko all the shit he got wrong.

Arguably, even in the image above, Aang pushed the water away from him to generate an air bubble to freeze himself in.

All of the fighting styles are based upon real martial arts, the research is great.

Penguin-otters.

Katara and Aang go penguin sledding, and they talk about going to the North Pole for Katara to learn Waterbending. They find themselves at the ruins of an old Fire Nation ship, where Aang is still confused because he hasn't realized yet that he was trapped for a hundred years in the ice.

But now they're trapped! Because the Fire Nation didn't let these traps fall into repair over a hundred years. #Dedication.

But for now, a flare has gone up. What if no one was in the area to apprehend the trespassers? Don't worry, because Zuko is here, and he's found the Avatar.

This was a two parter, so we keep trucking.

I really have to work on streamlining this - there's no real thing as a filler episode in this series, but there's a lot of moving from one place to another that doesn't really contribute to the story but add bits of character. Consider these earlier ones a work in progress.

Aang and Katara return to the village - who have also seen the flare and are rightfully upset that the Fire Nation would show up and probably kill them all.

When Sokka banishes Aang, Katara with zero hesitation, says she's going with him, and that they're going to the North Pole, but he doesn't want to make her choose between him and her family.

Surprisingly enough, still, no one has realized he's the Avatar. Then again, when Aang disappeared, he didn't have much training in the other elements.

I wonder what would have happened if Katara and Sokka hadn't decided to go with him. He probably would have returned to the Air Temples and immediately killed. Series over. Or, we'd move onto the next bender in the cycle, a Waterbender. Which we do 70 years later but a Legend of Korra watch is far, far in the future.

The Fire Navy is en route to the village, and Aang alone doubles back to warn them, while Sokka dons himself some traditional Wolf-Warrior garb to fight them singlehandedly, which I like.

There's a very strong element of tradition in this series, off the top of my head, very little of it is noted as something positive.

• There's The Northern Water Tribe and their rules of training female Waterbenders to be healers instead of fighters. 
• Toph's parents want her to be a proper lady but that's more out of fear for her safety because she's blind than strict adherence to social norms.
• The class system of Ba Sing Se which does have roots in reality, no one's interested in abolishing it. Besides a comment by Aang, Even the heroes are mildly inconvenienced by the bureaucracy instead of dismayed by it.

Most of the positive traditions come from the Southern Water Tribe, and are mostly gone after season 1.

Of course,  these are thoughts pulled from a murky memory. We'll see what happens!

There's also a parallel scene with Zuko being suited up in Samurai-looking armor.

A wide belief is that the Fire Nation was modeled after Japan, which I see, but in recent years I have seen some contesting to that.

The village is anxiously awaiting the Fire Nation's arrival - which I point out because it parallels a scene that we'll learn about in Season 3.

Actually, seeing how easily the ship nearly crushes their entire village, sailing away probably wouldn't have been a bad choice.

I never realized before now that Zuko's helmet is a stylized Fire Nation symbol. Nice.

Aang returns and Zuko is the only person who has realized that an Airbender shouldn't be here a hundred years later and outright says that he's the Avatar after being shocked that he's not old, which Aang doesn't disputes, but instead sacrifices himself.

Katara and Sokka go after him, finally getting this series on the road. For some reason, the line "What was it that kid said? Wahoo? Hup-hup? Uh, yip yip?" is my favorite line in the series. I'm not sure why.

Aang is now running through the halls of the ship looking for his staff.

First (?) appearance of the air scooter. This fight temporarily concludes with Aang just whacking Zuko against the wall and ceiling with air and it's honestly funny.

They take the battle out onto the top where the others have arrived with Appa - but Aang falls into the water, having fainted, and Katara brings him back once again.

Well, she calls out to him.

 He returns because the Avatar Spirit was not about to wait another hundred years to take action, and he Waterbends himself back to the surface and soundly splashes around Zuko and his minions.

Swish, swish, bitch.

 Then, exiting what will be called The Avatar State, he collapes from the effort. He won't be wiped out for long, as he comes to quickly and defeats the Fire Nation more soundly, by reverting a fireball into a glacier and having it crash onto the boat.

Rewatching that particular instance, you can see how, with knowledge of the rest of the series, how that's Aang as his least knowledgeable of Waterbending, against Zuko, who was fairly competent, and Iroh, who is probably the best Firebender in the world (on screen).

Now, our heroes are on their way to the Northern Water Tribe...but not before some sightseeing. The world has been at war for a hundred years already, what's another week?

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As you can see, this is far different to review than something with Negative Continuity like Ever After High. I'm going to work on parsing it down to pointing out plot-relevant things (and the occasional cool scene or funny moment).

But I am very excited to revisit this series! Stick around! Feel free to comment, I have zero problem being corrected on a cultural element or fact.