How Can I Convince You to Watch This?

Avatar: The Last Airbender

I recently re-watched the entire run of this show through Netflix instant viewing. Avatar: The Last Airbender, also known as Avatar: The Legend of Aang (not to be confused with the misguided attempt at live-action-adaptation The Last Airbender, by M. Night Shyamalan or Avatar, the 3D epic by James Cameron) had its initial run on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008. I watched every episode I could then and I loved it.

For my money, it’s the best animated television show. Ever. Bold statement, eh? Well that’s how this show makes me feel; emboldened. The epic adventures of Aang and “Team Avatar” have made me laugh, gasp, and even shed a few tears (not least of which when the show ended).

“So get on here and write about something you love,” they say. Sounds easy enough, but I now find myself hesitant; afraid I will not be able to give it the treatment it deserves. So after thinking about it for a bit, I’ve decided not to try to give this epic masterpiece a full treatment. That would not only take a lot of time and space, but would deprive those few geeks living in a cave who haven’t seen it the pleasure of discovering this amazing work.

Instead I’m going to give some arguments to support my “best cartoon ever” opinion. Earlier I was reading Rob’s entry on Disney’s Adventures of the Gummi Bears and he mentioned a few of the reasons that show resonated with him. It was well animated for it’s time, it occasionally dealt with adult-themed issues, and it had an actual ending to the storyline. Avatar: The Last Airbender has these things in common with it, and they are equally resonant to me.

It is overall a kids show, but at times had some pretty scary moments. In the episode The Siege of the North, Part 2, Aang finds himself in the spirit world, a parallel plane of existence in the world of Avatar that is home to immortal supernatural entities that embody different aspects of life and nature. While seeking vital information, his path leads him to what looks like a giant dead mangled tree with a hole in the trunk, leading to a cavern inhabited by Koh, the Face Stealer. Geez, just writing about it kind of gives me the shivers. This thing was full on creepy. While approaching the cave, Aang encounters a monkey and when it turns around…Ah! No face! Shit! Yeah, Koh steals people faces and monkey faces? Messed up. He apparently can only steal your face if you show him any emotion. I guess the monkey didn’t have the steely resolve that the Avatar did. Aang does get the information he needs without showing any emotion, but just barely. My daughter became genuinely scared during the episode and we had to take a little break. Of course five minutes later, she was begging to turn it back on, but it was still pretty scary stuff for a kids show. So as my daughter says, “it’s okay to keep watching ‘cause Aang got out just fine.”

Meeting Koh the Face Stealer

That was one of the things that made me love the show. I never expected to see a scary scene in a children’s adventure show. The show tried to be more than “just a kid’s show” throughout its run. It often tried to stir emotions in the viewer (in my case successfully). In the episode The Library, Team Avatar find themselves separated from a kidnapped Appa (Aang’s loyal Sky Bison). As Aang searches for Appa in the subsequent episode The Desert, his frustration builds, culminating in a furious rage-induced Avatar-state. Aang destroys some desert-style sailboats and nearly loses control. Before Katara is able to calm him, you get the distinct feeling that he was about to kill anyone who got between him and his bison. Who hasn’t been frustrated to the point of tears before? If you had the Avatar’s powers, could you turn back when you reached that breaking point? When a kid’s show asks important questions like these, it becomes more compelling.

The Avatar enraged

It wasn’t always rainbows and lollipops for Team Avatar. The hardships faced by the characters give credibility to the story and a more adult feel, sometimes very adult. In fact, at the end of season two, the Fire Nation has conquered the last Earth Kingdom stronghold, Ba Sing Se, and Azula nearly kills Aang dead. And I don’t mean like “Oh I went to the strip club and my wife found out” dead. I mean like “struck-by-lightening-heart-has-stopped-oh-shit-he’s-dead-what-do-we-do-oh-yeah-maybe-this-spirit-water-will-help-last-ditch-effort” dead. We the audience are like, “Wha? The bad guys won? That sucks!” Yeah, there is another chapter to the story, but ending a season on such a down note is definitely not done often in kids programming.

Badass Katara saves Aang

The show also showed the awkward and confusing feelings all teenagers experience with love. In the first season, Sokka falls in love with the northern water tribe princess, Yue. He is tasked with protecting her from harm when the fire nation attacks. The repercussions of the events that follow haunt him throughout the series. In the penultimate series episode The Ember Island Players, he is seen sitting with his current girlfriend, thinking of Princess Yue, and weeping. In the episode The Boiling Rock, Part 2 we see Mai’s love of Zuko make her betray Azula. And lets not forget the burgeoning romance between Aang and Katara.

The show often dealt with the concept of death. At the outset of the show, Katara and Sokka’s mother is dead, Iroh’s son is dead, the Avatar is thought to be dead, hell, the fire nation committed genocide against the Air Nomads! Not to give anything away, but not all the deaths in the series occur off-screen. In the series finale, everyone, and I mean everyone is trying to convince Aang to just kill the Firelord to end the war. The Air Nomads are pacifists and raised Aang to not believe in killing. He searches for an alternate solution, but even when the time has come to face the Firelord, no solution has been found. Aang perseveres and although it isn’t the easiest solution, he finds one that doesn’t involve the death of the Firelord. He showed that even though it may not always be easy, there is always a choice. Now if it were me, I would’ve just killed the bastard. But that’s just me.

The final showdown with the Firelord

The show also tried to evolve their characters over time. The villain from the first season eventually becomes one of the Avatar’s greatest allies. In the pilot episode, we see Katara struggling to barely bend a small amount of water. In the final season, she is one of the most powerful benders in the world. The fat, lazy, tea-swilling Uncle Iroh (my all time favorite character by the way) is gradually shown to be one of the wisest, most caring, and most dangerous characters of the series.

On a side note, Uncle Iroh was voiced in season one and two by the Japanese character actor Mako, who died between seasons two and three. There is an episode called The Tales of Ba Sing Se that is a mostly lighthearted episode filled with mini-stories of the various characters. The Tale of Iroh segment is different though. He is shown preparing for a picnic for a “very special occasion.” We find out toward the end that the special occasion is the birthday of his deceased son. Throughout the segment, you can hear Mako pouring his soul into his voice performance. You can tell he genuinely cared about his art. At the end of this very touching segment, Iroh is singing a hauntingly beautiful song about a little soldier boy, and then this placard appears to end the sequence.

In a two-and-a-half-minute segment, I was made to weep.

Love. Death. Hate. Revenge. Forgiveness. Mercy. All these things were explored in the world of Avatar. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all heady melodrama. In fact, the majority of the show was fairly straightforward kid’s adventure fare with some comedy thrown in. But it had that perfect combination of light-hearted adventure and universal life-lessons that made me love it.

How do you make something you love even better? Share it with someone you love. My four-year-old daughter and I watched it together this time and it was an amazingly fulfilling experience. We watched an episode or two every day after she got home from school. The feelings of excitement and joy I got from watching these adventures of Aang and his friends were amplified by my daughter’s excitement and joy. When she heard the familiar opening sequence playing, she would immediately jump up and pantomime the kung fu actions she saw on screen. Hell, I felt like joining her. She has had dreams about being a water-bender and “all the cool magic stuff you could do” if you were one. If you’ve never seen this show, you should. But even if you have seen it, share Avatar: The Last Airbender with a loved one. You’ll enjoy it more the second time around.

Finally, a few links to videos. The first is of a clip of what may be my favorite moment in the entire run of the show where Team Avatar breaks into the Earth Kingdom palace to speak with the Earth King. Watch how badass the team can be, especially Katara. Love it. The second is a video of my daughter Belle watching the Avatar opening show credits. Cheers.