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The Significance of Avatar: The Last Airbender || Avatar Month
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Planning. Recording. Editing. Marketing. Long ago, these four skills lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the podcast bots attacked. Only Chatsunami, master of all four skills, could stop them. But when the world needed them most they vanished...
In this episode, Satsunami and Andrew take on the iconic series Avatar: The Last Airbender. During its run from 2005-2008, the show has sparked a large fanbase. But the real question is, what makes this show so iconic 20 years later? How did the podcasting duo bond over it in university? And will we ever get our coffee warm?! Find out in this exciting episode of Avatar Month!
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Transcript
Introduction and Avatar Month
00:00:12
Speaker
skills lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the podcast bots attacked. Only Chatsunami, master of all four skills, could stop them. But when the world needed them most, they vanished.
00:00:25
Speaker
A hundred years passed. Andrew, are you going to do this every time I'm late for a recording? We found a red panda willing to help, but he would need a lot more training in order to deliver my coffee warm next time. Hey! Welcome to Avatar Month.
00:00:44
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to the very first episode of Avatar Month. My name's Satsunami and joining me today is none other than the master Avatar himself, it is Andrew. Andrew, welcome back from the iceberg. How are you doing? I'm just back and ready to restore my honour. Very true and it's very important for Satsunami to restore your honour. I mean that is a catchphrase. Stay safe, stay awesome, stay hydrated and most importantly, restore your honour. It's true. I was there.
00:01:13
Speaker
but I was there when the dark words were written.
Significance of Avatar Series
00:01:16
Speaker
Do not repeat those words to me, Red Panda. But yeah, how are you doing tonight? I'm good, thank you. I'm very excited about the topic we're about to discuss. I've been rewatching the entire series, so I feel more prepared to discuss than ever. Not that I needed to. My wife had commented, don't you already have it all memorized? And then I think you said the exact same thing to me on a text.
00:01:33
Speaker
i mean that is true if anybody knows anything about avatar war avatar scenes avatar top ten compilations and the nvs it's going to be you and ah ah to say well it's funny this has been a long episode coming that we've been able to make a whole month out of it because this is probably my favorite media franchise
00:01:58
Speaker
I mean is true, if anybody knows anything about Avatar lore, Avatar scenes, Avatar it for such a long time. I mean that is completely true because I remember ages ago thinking okay we really need to do an Avatar episode, let's do one and then of course the more prevalent the theme months became on Chatsunami. I thought you know what this series cannot be contained for just one episode it would not do it justice. So, I am so glad that we've finally got the opportunity to come together and actually discuss this absolutely fantastic
Andrew's Avatar Journey
00:02:32
Speaker
series. But before we discuss Avatar the Last Airbender, and for all those fans out there listening closely, no, no, no, this isn't the M. Night Shyamalan episode. so That's two weeks on. So,
00:02:44
Speaker
You're gonna have to wait just a wee bit longer. Back in your icebergs. Shoo, shoo. Yeah, let's talk about, first of all, before we say how amazing this series is, let's talk about our backstory as it were, how we got into it. Because I remember growing up and seeing this being advertised on places like Nickelodeon, and I always remember the character of Anne being advertised. You saw the wee bald monk child going about with the blue arrow on his head. I don't know, I was never really interested in actually watching it at the time and I have no idea why, it just it never came on at a time where I was able to watch it or if it did then I'd be watching other things like Dragon Ball Z or whatever was on Cartoon Network and said, so I never really got into this until you and I had that fateful meeting with my mate in university, and I always remember this vividly. i challenged you to an agne guy You did, I've still got the scars. That patch of fur, it won't come back. of course. No, it jokes aside, in university, and this is something I always say, that if I said to you, oh, I hadn't watched a particular film, movie, game, then you would do your best to make sure that I experienced it, which i after that I am grateful for it in hindsight. That being said, I remember one time I was working on an a essay, or I don't know, I was doing something, and I heard a knock at my door. So I thought, what the heck is that? So I went to the door, there was nobody there, and all that was sitting just at the door was the box set of Avatar the Last Airbender. And I think he did the same thing for Game of Thrones as well at one point. Yeah, it was just it was really weird. It was like an out-of-season Santa Claus. It was very magical. And I remember I put it off for the longest while, and I started the first couple of episodes, I thought,
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's all right. I'm going to be honest, it took a while. It's a bit like Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood, which ironically enough was another show that we watched together. It took me a while to actually push through the barrier. And then as soon as I got those first couple of episodes out of the way, I fell in love with the show.
Rewatching and Rediscovery
00:04:46
Speaker
It was amazing. But flipping it back on to you, how did you get into this? Were you always a fan when it first came out? Or yeah, what's the script there?
00:04:54
Speaker
Well, it was quite an odd one where when it first aired, I was living in Singapore at the time. We were just about to leave, if I'm remembering correctly, like it wasn't long after that we were going to be leaving. And so I saw the first two episodes, I think, and then nothing else from the show. And I saw them, it was syndicated quite often, just those first two episodes.
00:05:15
Speaker
And I was really, really interested in the show. I was like, this is really cool. I love this. I love the comedy of it. And then when I moved back to the UK a few months later, the show was nowhere. It hadn't aired in the UK yet at that point. I guess the American release and the Southeast Asian release was a lot earlier than in Europe or the UK. And so there was nothing for maybe a year even, I want to say. And then eventually it came out and it started properly being syndicated on television in the UK. And I watched it every time a new episode came out. I was so hooked to the series.
00:05:45
Speaker
I was into it in season one and then season two had this clause right into me. I was so absorbed with it. I used to have basketball practice on the same day that season two was airing. And so I remember I used to have to videotape it on a VHS tape in my parents' room that was playing the whatever was playing in the living room. And so if anyone had changed the channel while I was at basketball when Avatar was on, then it didn't record and I got very upset.
00:06:12
Speaker
I have this at the age of a really dramatic moment. It's like, oh, what's I'm going to do? Is he going to defeat the fire ward? And then it just cuts the standards. It's cut to like Gardner's question time. And I'm like, no. Oh, an earth vendor. God damn you, Monty Don.
00:06:29
Speaker
And then I discovered that it was releasing much sooner in America than it was in the UK. And so I remember all the kind of the hype for season three, this was just pretty early internet age for me. So YouTube wasn't really a big thing at that point. So you couldn't like easily get a trailer that way. But I just remember the video was kind of circulating on different other places for like the trailer for season three. And then I remember watching the first couple episodes or this episode or something on season three, while I was on holiday in the Isle of Arran, they had like a computer in the lobby of the hotel because there wasn't like wifi was in the then. And I remember finding the season three star of Avatar in this little cubby in the lobby of the hotel in Aran. Yeah, it's every episode just had me absolutely hooked. And what was wild was that I'd watched the entire series and then managed to get a DVD box set of season three before it even aired in the UK, the official season three box set that was our
Impact on Andrew's Life
00:07:20
Speaker
region. It wasn't even like the wrong region or anything like that. But for some reason, just the syndication for the UK was just so garbage. It was like months after that that it eventually aired the finale of season three. But everything around that age for me was Avatar. I remember doing an IT t project in high school where we had to make a website from scratch just on anything we wanted to make it on. And mine was on Avatar The Last Airbender. And just everything was Avatar for me. It was very consuming in my life. I was going to say short of shaving your head and putting the big arrow. I've cosplayed Azuko before at a con. I think it might have been the very first time I went to Fan Expo in Toronto. I went to Azuko and my now wife went as Katara. I can confirm I have seen the picture of Spandalurians.
00:08:02
Speaker
That's what I'm here for, just the fact check and to be like, did you know? no I think I posted it in the discord forever ago. Oh yeah. If people want to check out the discord and scroll back to, I think it was like a, there might be like a cosplay or like a showing off section or something like that. Yeah. On the score that I posted in, you can see my costume there.
00:08:20
Speaker
Honestly it is so good to hear that you had such a positive experience with this show because it's one of the best animated shows I think I've ever seen and obviously there's loads of amazing animations out there but I don't think there's anything quite like this that overlaps between appearing to all ages, having serious stories but then still having that levity attached It is genuinely no pun intended for all the firebenders out there, but it's like lightning in a bottle. And see without any further ado, while we just dive in and see why this show is so impactful to both of us, why you went to Arden to watch Season 3, clearly for no other reason just to watch us. Yeah, exactly. So I think we should pop the reins, yell yip yip and jump straight into this. And of course, as we bend these audio waves into the right positions, we will be right back after these messages. Welcome to Chatsunami, a variety podcast that discusses topics from gaming and films to anime in general interest.
Podcast Overview
00:09:22
Speaker
Previously on Chatsunami, we've analysed what makes a good horror game, conducted a retrospective on Pierce Brosnan's runs James Bond, and listened to us take deep dives into both the Sonic and Halo franchises. Also, if you're an anime fan, then don't forget to check us out on our sub-series, Chatsunani, where we dive into the world of anime. So far, we've reviewed things like Death Note, Princess Mononoke, and the hit Beyblade series. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can check us out on Spotify, iTunes, and all big podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:10:01
Speaker
Fancy taking the humorous trip down a random topic each week? You do while you're in luck. Casting Views presented by me Dan and a host of guests bring you just that. With topics from the world of entertainment, science, sport and everyday life, there's bound to be a topic that's going to inform on the news. Catch Casting Views every Sunday on all listening platforms now.
Creation of Avatar Series
00:10:26
Speaker
So before I came on to this episode tonight, I actually went away and surprise, surprise did a bit of research. I know it's unheard of in chat tsunami. For wee gurus, is that a joke please? like We don't do that anymore. We just vaguely touch upon something and just like look up the Wikipedia page. Yeah, you can't see it. I just kind of vaguely and this audio-only video. But I was watching a documentary from, I'm assuming, the mid to late 2000s and it was following the two showrunners at the time called Michael Dante DiMartino and Brian Canetsco who both of them came up with this idea. And what? What I thought was really interesting was that they said that they were told by whoever was in charge at the time at the particular division for Nickelodeon. Mr Nickelodeon. Mr Nickelodeon, yes. The Bigfoot. The splot. Yeah, the big splot. Top 10 facts a big splot doesn't want you to know. The Big Slime. That's actually what was trying to remember, thank you for that. But yeah, it was one of the people in the animation department, they wanted a show that had some kind of myth and legend and mysticism to it. They wanted that kind of show, so they went away, they put their heads together to see what they could come up with, which, spoilers, was eventually Avatar the Last Airbender. And Apparently what I found really funny was they had not a PowerPoint, but they had a presentation that they gave him saying, oh, this is Aang, he's a fire bender. And then it's season two. What can they do this season three? And apparently even the guy in the interview was like, guys, guys, you've already solved me. I never go. Please stop talking about Avatar. like all of it, this and that, and they were just so passionate, and I absolutely love that, seeing that passion. For anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about at this point, Avatar the Last Airbender is a fictional land that's composed of four nations that are made up of, and I'm going to specify this because there's a lot of East Asian elements that are attached to this show, but ironically enough, the four elements that they talk about are not
World of Avatar
00:12:35
Speaker
one of them. So they have four nations, the air nation, fire, water, and of course, air. I say that because apparently in China there's five elements. In fact, it's like wood, metal, air, fire and water. There's no air. That's silly.
00:12:52
Speaker
ah Well, I guess I won't be publishing this episode to write note. Oh, you beat me too. I was going to make a red man joke. How dare you. How timely of you to age this podcast oh yeah to a platform that definitely will not be used in six weeks time. Woman, I need men.
00:13:08
Speaker
but sheo fonghu Now, jokes aside, the main story of Avatar takes place where these four nations are, well, one nation in particular, the Fire Nation, has decided to conquer most of the known world in this universe, and the only person that could stop them, of course, the Avatar, the suggest ends up going missing and then appears in the very first episode and so goes his journey with his two friends, which we will get onto the characters in particular later on, but they go on an adventure to try and stop the evil Fire Lord and the Fire Nation as a whole, essentially subjugating the whole world. And it's something that initially you kind of think, alright, it's quite a basic premise, you've got your evil empire, you've got your plotty band of kids and things. What did you think? See when you first heard the story, because we did a parody of course at the very beginning of this episode, but they always summarise it, don't they, really well at the start of each episode. What were your thoughts on the story as a whole?
00:14:08
Speaker
It's very iconic. It's quite interesting because it could quite easily be something that's quite an annoying intro, but it's captivating. There's cool music. There's cool imagery happening. And it very concisely explains everything you need to know going into the show. Like it's not giving away really anything about the show itself. It kind of just gives you some exposition of this is what happened prior to the show starting and go. It does have that sort of line about he's got a lot to learn, but I believe he could save the world, which it does kind of give an idea that is happening concurrent to the story. But for the most part is just setting up what you can kind of expect from the show. And I think it does it in a very concise and interesting way, because it's definitely sets the tone of what you're going into.
Element Bending
00:14:50
Speaker
You know there's no ambiguity of what were these like super power kids which you know we'll be onto that in a second but what's going on in this world and that leaders on to of course talking about the main draw of the show which is the element bending aspect
00:15:05
Speaker
So for those of you who don't know, there are four elements in this show in particular and in the universe that Avatars set in, there are several people who can control the different elements, like there are people who can control air and fly about, there's people who can stomp on the ground and create mountains, there's people who can shoot fire and lightning from the hands which is terrifying and then there's people who can control water. And before I go on and ask you what you thought about this, what type of element bender do you think you would be in real life? I've always been curious to ask this. So there's a difference between what I want and what I think I am. I would like to be an earth bender because I think, for one thing, I think it's the most useful in a day to day context.
00:15:48
Speaker
I think I'm probably more likely to be an airbender, to be honest. What do you see me as? I'm curious. Maybe the Zuko cosplay is thrown me off to be like, yeah, totally firebender. You think fire, that's interesting. No, well, I would say fire on Earth. It's funny because I thought the exact same for myself, that practically, Earthbending would be the most useful. But I feel as if I definitely would be an Earthbender because I don't feel as if in real life I have the finesse or, you know, the grace to be an airbender? Probably not as aggressive to be a firebender. What would you see me as? I don't know, I'm coming ahead a little bit, but if you get to Korra, not every airbender is particularly graceful. Well, yeah, yeah, we'll get to that next week, don't you worry.
00:16:32
Speaker
Yeah, true. I mean, they got it on day one. They got the day one patch. I think you're an airbender, to be honest. I think you give off airbender. Oh, thank you. It's a hard one. This is the avatar equivalent of what Hogwarts house you are, isn't it? I was thinking just that, to be honest. A lot of those like, what Percy Jackson got? Are you like, how should we sort into all those kind of things? You can kind of attribute people into those kind of boxes, but it doesn't quite work. I do think that there are certainly elements of the four nations that do suit people's personalities. But yeah, not everyone can be fit into like a neat little box. And again, even within the show, they do paint the fact that not everyone from that nation is the same. There are very chill firebenders, there are more aggressive airbenders, that
Complex Themes and Storytelling
00:17:14
Speaker
kind of thing.
00:17:14
Speaker
I absolutely love that about the show because it could have been so, so easy for the showrunners and the writers just to say all Firebenders, they're terrible, they're evil, the other ones that shoot fire, therefore fire is this horrible, horrible element and they do dive into that later on in the story when Aang actually picks up Firebenders. ending and he's too scared to use it and being the main character and he's too afraid to use it because he's hurt people with it and then he learns how to control it and it's not a destructive force that something they can control when harmed. It really approaches these types of things in such a mature way because I have to say when you first get into it you think all right it's a bunch of super powered people going about and oh they're shooting fire and water and you know this and that and you think yeah
00:18:04
Speaker
yes Okay, I guess. But when you look at the behind the scenes, of course, a lot of these fighting styles, and it shows through brilliantly in the animation, that a lot of the way that they do bend is based on Chinese martial arts. And I say that in a broad sense because they take a lot of inspiration from loads of places. Just jumping in, this is very important to the showrunners that they kind of had legitimate martial arts styles that represented each of the four nations and that they were represented correctly through the animation. On staff they had a martial arts teacher, Sifu Kisu, Sifu meaning teacher in Chinese I believe, And he decided based on what he was learning about each of the nations, what their martial arts style would be and how, so if when someone is earthbending, it looks like the Hungar style, waterbenders look like they're doing Tai Chi. Firebending is the sort of Northern Shaolin style and Bagua for airbending.
00:19:00
Speaker
and they do have variations of that and there's some slightly different styles for different characters, just to kind of give them a little bit more of their own style in addition to that. But they kind of followed that style of martial arts given to each of the nations when they're doing their different bending style. And honestly, as I said before, they could have easily just had them flailing their arms and doing random movements. Like the Shyamalan movie. Yeah. We will get on to that. Two weeks, guys. Two weeks. a Two weeks old Judgment Day. But something that I don't think a lot of the other representations of Avatar will briefly touch on that later on. But I think it's something that a lot of the different adaptations didn't really pin down correctly. I mean, the newest Avatar show kind of did, the Netflix live action adaptation. But again, it's something that is so important and that is such an identifier of this show because it's weird to say that you would think that all of this show is built purely off of the backs of the characters like Aang and of course his two companions, Katara and Sokka. Yeah, you would think that, oh, the show was purely on their backs, but I mean, don't get me wrong, it partly is, but the fact that it is such an appealing show to look at, isn't it? I mean, that is touching on the animation, which I think is probably a good stepping off point before we go back on to talking about the story again, but how gorgeous does this show look, even now? I mean, it ages so beautifully. I think that's kind of the magic of 2D animation, that it does age a fair bit better than 3D. The colors that they utilize, the movements of the characters are so much more heightened than what you would typically see from Western animation. It just gets progressively better as the seasons go on. If you look at the very start of the show, it's so much more rough around the edges. It's not nearly as detailed as when you go to season three, especially when you watch all the way through in quick succession like I recently did. You can see a huge difference, especially with the character animation, but also like the landscaping. They put so much effort into sort of these beautiful landscapes and intricate kind of designs of different homes and cities and that kind of thing. It still looks beautiful in the first season, but is head and shoulders above it in the later seasons. Because one of the things that a lot of anime fans as well who haven't watched this show will definitely see right away is there are a lot of kind of anime-esque influences in the show, you know, like the way the characters express themselves with the big eyes and everything. It was kind of a mixture of
00:21:32
Speaker
Western animators and so the Korean animation team, I believe, in the Ever Tell the Last Airbender series. I know it was definitely Korea, but I wasn't sure whether and it was season one and then they moved it somewhere else. or No, it is. It just that looks absolutely gorgeous. And every single city and every single nation has such a distinct identity. You've got the Air Nation, which the Air Nomads... well, the Air Nomads used to, let's just say. There's a reason he's called the last yearbender here, but they live down the temples which reside at the top of mountains. Or under them. True, true. The western air temple is like in a weird under the cliff kind of situation. Is that the one where they kill combustion man? It is. It's a grab though because it's got the hi Zuko here. Yeah, do you know, funny enough, I actually got that episode mixed up with the combustion person from Kora. Ah, the woman combustion person. Yeah, we are without spoiling it, she meets a very grisly end. holds aim. Oh, there's some messed up death in that show. Oh yeah. Cora much more so than Avatar the Last Airbender. Avatar the Last Airbender has like a few. We are like, oh, but like it's a lot more watered down than what we get from Cora. Because going back to the story, one of the things that I absolutely adore about this show, especially going back and rewatching it, and I have to admit, there were many days and nights that I was watching it because it is a long series. I actually think it ran for
00:22:56
Speaker
three years, I want to say. It was from 2005 to 2008, so although there are 20-minute episodes, there are a lot of them over 20 per season or sort pair book, I should say. But yeah, something that I love about it is that they don't really shy away from serious topics, but at the same time they do it in a way that is just so damn good that can be explained to people of all ages. You know, it's something that kind of ticked me off when I watched, and this is a moment to you, about that I didn't like the presentation of the live-action Avatar The Last Airbender because it was quite gruesome and violent at times. The TV series, you mean? Yeah, oh yeah, not the other one, because it was just, it was horrible. You had that problem where they were showing you everything, they just wanted to show that brutality. I don't know if it's just because they thought, oh it's a live action, it's a lot more adult, which ironically enough the TV show, the 2005 animated one, that was a lot more serious and poignant I felt without having to show a man getting his face burned off or someone getting drowned or neck snaps and things like that. Really horrible stuff. And again, as we said, we'll talk about that more next week with Cora, but there was a lot of really horrible stuff especially when Aang realises that he is the Last Airbender. And the way they show it, they don't tell you. People do say in the background that he is the Last Airbender, but he doesn't know that. And then when he goes to the temple, he sees all the bodies of the Fire Nation troops, and then he sees his old friend and mentor, which causes him to have a breakdown. There's a lot of really clever writing in this, isn't there? There is, and what it does so well, which is something that I feel a lot of media lacks these days, is showing us and not telling us, letting us reach conclusions without outright saying them. I talk about this in a different context, for example, recent Simpsons, that an old Simpsons episode would hint at a joke and let you piece together the punch line. And now modern Simpsons, it has to hold your hand and walk you to the punch line. It was very similar with how they did discuss themes in Avatar and other similar to kind of children's shows back in the 90s or 2000s versus what you see a lot of in media these days. So I think so discussions on war, genocide, on oppression and gender discrimination, there's lots there about who you are as a person. It's done in such a brilliant way in this show. I was watching a season two episode the other day where Ang meets
00:25:33
Speaker
this monk is trying to help him get into the avatar state, which is this sort of heightened form of the avatar. And he has to unlock his chakras, which is also it's a term within the Hindu religion, which I was not familiar with until I watched the show. And I learned it was years afterwards, I learned that it was not just a show thing that that's actually part of the Hindu religion. Hey, that's a thing from Avatar. Yeah. Like reincarnation. What are you doing here? I had one of those kind of moments there, but he was talking about different themes of like how to unlock your chakras and what each chakra represents. And one of the chakras was essentially blocked by your own guilt of the mistakes you've made throughout your life and that you need to learn to forgive yourself.
00:26:12
Speaker
everyone can kind of sympathize with that, that they've made mistakes in their life that sometimes some people struggle to move past, they still kind of linger on them. And I cried a little bit watching it. I think it was the first time in the many times I've watched that show that that got me. It just, I don't know if I was just feeling particularly in that kind of mood at at the time, but I cried at that scene. I thought that that was said so beautifully.
00:26:33
Speaker
because you bring up a fantastic point, and it's something that I didn't touch on earlier, are talking about the identity, and that is the perfect word that you brought up there. The identity of each nation, the the based on particular cultures and pretty much philosophies. Going back to that, you know you've got stuff from Hinduism, of course, with the avatar. The avatar is a being that reincarnates a lot like Buddhism. they heavily reference that as well, where are every generation that avatar will reincarnate into a different body, into a different nation, and it's kind of like a wheel that just goes round. As I was saying, for the Fire Nation, that's kind of based on Japanese culture. For the Airbenders, so that's Tibetan. For the Earth Kingdom, that is ancient China. And last but not least, we've got the Inuit community who are represented through the water tribes. in the north and southern poles. It is so amazing as well to take those real life influences and as well show how well they work together because throughout the story, Aang is the last airbender, he joins Katara who is a waterbender and Sokka, who has no powers whatsoever, he just throws a boomerang and eventually gets a sword. And along the way they collect friends, along the way and they meet people. and One thing we've not really discussed about Avatar and about the Avatar is the idea is that they are the being that can master all four of these elements.
00:28:07
Speaker
The connection the avatar has to all four nations is that they are born into a specific nation, but they have the ability to learn the bending art forms of each of the four nations. And they are also like a spiritual bridge between the human world and the spirit world, which is where the avatar kind of gets its power. from. Kind of touching on the Avatar, one of the things I love about both Aang and the Avatar concept as a whole is, one, the spirituality of all. I think that is so important because, I mean, we grew up with shows like Dragon Ball Z, and don't get me wrong, there is some kind of spirituality there, but compared to Avatar, it's just a bunch of muscly men screaming at one another. Well Dragon Ball kind of abandons the spirituality aspect. Yeah. By the time they hit Z. Yeah, pretty much.
00:28:53
Speaker
But with Avatar, they could have easily made all of the avatars very similar to one another, and we get the lumps into Aang's past lives. In particular, we have two avatars that are primarily earthbenders and firebinder and that is of course Kyoshi who is a woman and Roku who is a man. Just something you said there when you referred to the avatar as they it's the fact that the avatar can be anybody. It can be male or female. It it's like a really lovely thing
Character Depth and Development
00:29:27
Speaker
to see. It's not just saying oh the Avatar is going to be like this manly man or whatever, because the thing as well with that is the fact that Aang is this poor child, well I say child, he's technically over 100 because at the very beginning of the story, and again that's something we can touch on, but he ends up freezing himself in ice because the pressure of being the Avatar is too overwhelming, which leads to this domino effect of the Fire Nation taking over. It's like absolutely horrific the consequences and then he has to kind of make things right. And I love the fact that although he's kind of immature, we as the audience are learning about the world and learning about the different backgrounds of these cities and cultures through his eyes. Do you think that the story works really well because I'm so young in comparison to what they could have gone for? Yeah, I think his playfulness allows the story which could otherwise go down a very kind of dark route with this war theme that's happening that they're trying to end a hundred years war. He's able to kind of alleviate the overall dark energy and themes that could otherwise be happening in this. And you're able to sort of be like, this is just a child and you can appreciate
00:30:41
Speaker
why he was so scared to fulfill his destiny because he doesn't want that. He was happy being a goofy child and then had this thrown upon him. He fled because he was told that he was going to be pulled away from his mentor and friend and then ended up plummeting into the ocean. And I mentioned earlier, the avatar states this kind of spiritual enhancement that he has through all his past lives kind of coming together, protected him by freezing him in an iceberg, which was broken a hundred years later when our other characters encounter him. And so he acts as a good bridge for the audience to kind of excuse itself from getting too concerned around the plot that this person has been imprisoned in essentially a prisoner of war camp.
00:31:24
Speaker
But don't worry, he's here to save the day and be goofy about it. It doesn't go too far. It's not like a lot of Nickelodeon shows, which are episodic and just kind of goofy like a SpongeBob kind of show. It does hold itself to a standard of we're not going to trivialise this, but we aren't going to get bogged down by it. Because as I think one of the rolling themes over as the idea of moving on and trying to move forward towards a better future and a better resolution as a whole because it could have been so easy to cop out and be like, oh, we got to defeat the fire lord. Oh, we got to do this. We got to do that. And the fact that the characters as well are so strong. One of the things that I think that people don't really draw attention to much is the fact that unlike subsequent series like Quora. The events that are happening happen around the Avatar, if that makes sense. Although the Avatar is the one going on this journey and whatnot, he's going from place to place trying to help people, trying to resolve issues like the Gap and Omashu and things like that. The Great Divide, that's what it's called. The Great Divide, that's the one. Thank you.
00:32:34
Speaker
That classic that everybody loves. He's just trying to do his best in the world, but these things would be happening with or without him, if that makes sense. To an extent, the scenarios and situations would be happening, but the resolution of them, he's very key to that. it's not like Indiana Jones where even if he wasn't there the same thing would happen kind of thing. It highlights how well the characters shine in this story is what I mean because as they go through they encounter a lot of very horrible situations especially for a child to go through and especially for one who has this pressure to take down the fire ward and everything and restore peace and make everything wonderful when realising that this is a fractured
00:33:17
Speaker
world old because we've got Aang who as we talked about in depth there that he is. At the end of the day although he is trying to be the spiritual figure and avatar he is still a child. He hasn't matured in that iceberg for all these reasons. Then we've got Kitara who is a very motherly figure and they do kind of poke fun at that later on that she is always trying to look out for the group. We've got Sokka that he's essentially the comic relief and initially when you first watch the series is a bit much but I never felt as if the other series welcomed as the series goes on. They start to be an integral part of the group. They all do. They're all part of the quote-unquote, is it the gang they call them? but to Yeah, the gang with two A's. I understand what you mean. Soccer starts out as just being kind of like a misogynistic, sarcastic, cynical character that's just kind of there. And you don't really see much benefit to having him as part of the group. But as the series goes on, he matures, he kind of learns error of of his ways, he learns his ignorance in his, how some of his views were quite bigoted and he gets humbled and also kind of learns what his strengths are as well, because there's a, we'll kind of get into it later, but there's an episode where he feels like, what do I add to the group? Everyone everyone else is a bender. I'm not, how can I benefit the group? And that episode kind of explores what he does and what he can do and how he can better himself. because one of the things that I do a love about the group as a whole, and later on it's not until book two where we get introduced to the fourth member of the gang, technically sixth if you include Tomomo who is a flying lemur. Yeah it's like a mixture of flying squirrel and a lemur. Yeah and that is again one of the cool world building things that there's a lot of animals that are combined that you've got flying bison and later on you've got a very cute fire ferret which comes in corner which we'll get on to. No, there's something great well built in there but we are introduced to a character called Toph who is an instant fan favourite and the reason being of course because she is just so charismatic with the rest of the group despite being blind. Everybody underestimates her and there's a particularly amazing episode that is kind of a parody of wrestling I want to say, you know, with the boulder. It's Mick Foley voicing him and he's supposed to be a parody of The Rock
00:35:33
Speaker
ah just I just love that line where he says he doesn't want to hurt a young girl and Toph says oh funny I was going to say the same thing and he goes the boulder no longer feels conflicted and he just attacks her. So great. Yeah the fact that she is such a talented earthbender that eventually she learns to metalbend later on in which is a never before seen thing and she is so capable and everybody in the group has their pros and cons that they bring to the table even with newcomers and antagonists as it were with the Fire Nation. On the flip side we've also got Zuko who initially he gets a bit annoying because he's like I have to find the avatar, I gotta restore my honor which is something you kind of alluded to and joked about at the beginning and he's accompanied by his uncle who is very
00:36:23
Speaker
you know. Initially he's always a wise old man, he's there to give counsel to his nephew and then you realise they are two of the most complex characters in this damn show and they are so damn good. Iroh is one of my favourites I have to say, like I don't know about you.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah, Iroh is probably my favorite character. I think he is one of the most interesting characters both in the show and I think in at least children's media. I think he comes across in the early seasons as very silly old man. He's just kind of there as like a a lackey to Zuko, but then you kind of realize later why he's with Zuko, what his history was and both his history as a person and his familial history where he lost his own son and so he kind of sees his nephew who has been ostracized from the Fire Nation by his own father as a surrogate son and so he wants to sort of see him do well and what's the best for him and becomes essentially his father as it progresses. There's some beautiful kind of scenes with them. Oh no it's so heartbreaking especially at the very end of Book 2, where they go their separate ways, Zuko wants to please his father. I nearly teared up, I have to say. See, when they reunite later on, and I think it's Book 3, it's something that is so clever and subtle in the writing that throughout the entire run, Zuko wants the approval of his father. He wants him to be proud of him because the reason why, if you look at his design, he has the big mark on his face is because he was challenged to what is known as an agnikai, which is a Well sometimes I fight to the death but it's like a really brutal brutal fight and his father had challenged him for challenging his views on what they should be doing with the army and whatnot. It's horrific you would do that to your own child but he then banishes him and his uncle and says no go away find the avatar I'm sure there's nothing out there and then he becomes obsessed with finding the avatar and then eventually through book 2, I love his character progression. There's an episode where he ends up in this village in the Earth Kingdom and he protects them but they all hate and fear him because he's a firebender and obviously that's a product of what the Fire Nation have done to this country. What ends up happening is he ends up running a tea shop of all things in the capital of the Earth Kingdom of Ba Sing Se. Hashtag there was no tea shop in Ba Sing Se. Yeah, they end up
00:38:45
Speaker
having a very, very peaceful life together and then Zuko betrays his uncle. Well, not betrays, but he has an opportunity to go back and beg for his father's forgiveness to say, oh, we have destroyed the Avatar, he's gone. It's such a horrible thing where from a psychology point of view that he is so traumatised that despite going through all of this, it's not until later on where he confronts his father during the eclipse that takes out the powers Yes, a solar eclipse. Yeah, it's not until later where his father can't physically fire Ben Datton, he goes to confront him and say that he's no longer beholden to him, and it's such a powerful moment, but the other powerful moment I was alluding to earlier is just when he's talking to his Uncle Iroh, and Iroh basically breaks down as well, and he says, I was never mad at you, and you can see some moments where he always tried to be nice to Iroh because he was like oh I'm bringing any food and things when he was locked up and you can see him crying that Zuko's going through this and again it's such an amazing philosophy I cannot stress this enough that the show does not teach hatred and anger as being this past and that it's okay to take time to, you know, find yourself to be able to come to terms with this past trauma, with this difficult journey. And there's a whole spectrum of that. You know, there's some that aren't as serious. For example, going back to Toph, because of her blindness, she has been babied and, you know, she's got practically helicopter pain. that just that they monitor out her every move, they want to make sure that she does what they say and then of course when she breaks free of that and shows that she's capable they do not want to accept that. It's amazing how you look through each character who have got their own kind of backstory, their own trauma like for example with Sokka and Katara, they've got the Fire Nation who attack their home, kill their mother, but they're still putting their bad life at risk because he's still fighting against them. So everybody's got a stake in this story, but it's already, again, I don't want to say good grounded because of the fantastical elements, but everybody's got a stake in this story and they are so endearing to watch throughout. yeah definitely, as you said, each character has their own motivation and their very understandable motivations. I didn't necessarily see that way when I watched it when I was younger. But now looking at Zuko's path, you can understand why he made the decisions he made. It makes sense given where his psychology is at, why he would choose to betray his uncle and go back home with his sister and his father. And then It shows how much of a bigger man he is, how much of a better person he has become as a result of his time with his uncle and his time among people whom the war has affected, that he says, this isn't right. This is not the path that I should be going on. And I recognize that what we as a nation have done over the last hundred years has been evil.
00:41:41
Speaker
They paint this kind of propaganda that was very kind of was utilized in like so Nazi Germany and other kind of places where you're painting the enemy in a certain way. Or if you're a colonizer, that you're kind of painting how you're bettering the lives of the people that you're colonizing. He's kind of learned that that's not the case, that these people aren't thankful for all that the Fire Nation is giving them by taking over their lands, that they hate them. because I mean you even see that later on in book 3 where they manage to infiltrate the Fire Nation and Aang ends up going to one of the schools and because obviously he's not accustomed to what they do there, how they're supposed to act, they assume he's from the colonies and they really look down on them for it that always not as cultured as Fire Nation children, he's not as, well good essentially, is what they're thinking probably that he's not as of high standing as they are. And again you're completely right, it's such an interesting thing to, and again I know I keep saying to introduce to children, but these are very important things to teach children about that there are these types of societies and there are these types of things that have occurred in history and there are severe parallels that you can draw. ah I mean the propaganda in passing say is probably the major one where, although don't get me wrong they do brainwash people, there is the secret police that go around and they end up rounding up people who are dissidents of the state as it were. They have their own secret lair which I know technically that's maybe a ah OTT but even still it is quite chilling to be honest and again I feel as if when you watch this as a child you kind of think oh it's a big battle between X and Y and whatnot but when you rewatch it as an adult you see these parallels so so clearly it is quite horrible.
00:43:35
Speaker
Well, yeah, it's interesting because they're certainly able to sort of add an eeriness to certain elements of different storylines in the show. This sort of brainwashing and propaganda aspect is a very kind of eerie thing that they're able to include. And like the whole line were one of the brainwashed guides in the city that's kind of looking after the gang while they're in the city, the kind of leader of this secret police says the words, I think it's time you took a trip to Lake Lao Gai. And it's kind of like the Manchurian candidate, and she gets kind of triggered. And she goes back to essentially this reeducation camp that is out in fact under a Lake. And yeah, it seems like that there's the puppet master episode, which is very kind of scary. It's like the closest thing they get to like a horror story, very kind of Halloween themed.
00:44:19
Speaker
Yeah, can we talk about bloodbending for a second? Because something that I mentioned earlier, I was talking about the four nations, they've got four elements, and it's not really until the latter half of the series where they start to expand on it, and they expand on it even more in Quora, but around maybe book two, book three is where they particularly dive into
Advanced Bending Techniques
00:44:43
Speaker
these. So within these elements, there's subcategories, your builds, as it were skill trees exactly yeah you've got firebenders who if they're skilled enough they can fire lightning out their fingers which is terrifying airbenders don't really have a secondary thing to be honest they can fly is the thing in kora that they do that is stripped just like flying because like an can't do that he uses glider and has funnel air and that kind of thing for the earth kingdom although Toph is the only one who can do it in The Last Airbender, she learns how to metalbend, taking the minerals and all that out of the ground. But the one that is terrifying, the puppet master episode as you said, is the concept that you can take someone who is a water bender and they can essentially bend in a particular condition. I think it's during like a full moon or something like that. Yeah, they're most powerful during a full moon. Yeah, they can basically control people and that's the whole point of the puppet master episode that there's this monster
00:45:43
Speaker
quote-unquote, we find out later it's a waterbender that is guiding them and kidnapping these Fire Nation people because of what they did to them. Oh my god, it it's just so freaky, especially the noises that it makes. It's almost like cracking of bones that that you're hearing. They don't actually break bones while doing it, but it it sounds like they are being marionette-puppeted when their limbs are just kind of contorting. It also just shows how much that the showrunners thought about the quote-unquote magic system, that's the way of this that they thought, right, what's the natural evolution of, for example, for fire, it would be yeah electricity, for earthbending, it would be metalbending, and for this, water in your body could easily be transferred to bloodbending, and that is absolutely horrific. But speaking of bloodbending, speaking of creepy antagonists as it were, will we look at the antagonists of this show, in particular the Fire Nation?
Fire Nation and Antagonists
00:46:39
Speaker
And don't get me wrong, there are loads of minor antagonists. You know, as we mentioned before, you've got like the boulder.
00:46:46
Speaker
ah with thought I think he's very much a minor antagonist. He's a villain for half an episode. Because obviously you've got minor antagonists like him and other ones that pop up to help the fire nation. like Remember that hunter that flirts with Iroh? I can never remember her name. june june that's it. Yeah, I mean, you've got them, and as we mentioned, combustion man. Can we talk about to the most iconic, maybe a pro and con here, where we've got the Fire Lord himself, Ozai, and Azula, who is of course the Fire Lord's daughter and Zuko's sister. So I'm going to hand it over to you first. What did you think about these particular villains, like the main core villains of the series? So what's quite interesting about both of them is that we don't actually get to really see or hear from them in the first season of the show. We aren't really even that aware of Zuko having a sister until season two. And for the most part, our antagonist of season one is Zuko with his uncle. And then you also have some of the Fire Nation generals like Shao, I think his name is general General Shao or Admiral Shao. And so you're introduced with those initially, and then you kind of are told about the Fire Lord throughout, so you're kind of getting this kind of idea of who he is as a person, the fact that he banished his son, and the Ira tells fellow sailors about the story of how Zuko got his scar from his own father. Ozai as a character isn't particularly developed
00:48:15
Speaker
He's kind of a cookie cutter villain, just like this brand arching villain figure. You don't really get to see any of his intelligence. He's able to sort of gaslight his family, and he utilizes his former wife, Zuko's mother, to enact regicide, essentially. So he gets her to kill his father in order to spare Zuko. It's a very kind of complicated story. Read the comics!
00:48:37
Speaker
but And so Ozai himself, who's voiced as of the thing you hear him in the second season, but most of the time you hear him in the third season, he's voiced by Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker himself, and he does a decent job. It's like a less maniacal version of his Joker that he does. It's like a serious Joker, which sounds a bit like an oxymoron, but if you understand my meaning from Batman the Animated Series, he plays it decently well. It's a decent voice acting job, but the character himself is a bit one note. The only thing you really see from him is at the very end when he is utilizing the power of a comet that's come as kind of like the a large kind of impetus in the show is that they have to be defeated before the comet comes that ends up not really happening and the the end of having to defeat him while the comet is there so he's actually at his most powerful and he is utilizing some sort of incredibly powerful firebending. That's when you kind of see Ozai at that point and in a villainy kind of sense he's cool but otherwise he's not really that interesting. However, that's not to be said for Azula, who is a very interesting mirror of Zuko. It's a case of Azula was not actually raised by her father, but very much by his ideals. She is daddy's perfect girl and is a prodigy of firebending. So she excels at everything that Zuko does not. Zuko always had to fight for everything. and was always trying to fight for his father's kind of love and approval that he never gained. He instead had his mother who taught him strong life lessons and then later in life, Uncle Iroh, who kind of helped set him on the right path. Azula did not have that. Azula was very much by her father's side, trying to please him in the ways that she knows would please him and developing very toxic social relationships with her friends, Mei and Tai Lee, because she did not learn what was and was not appropriate as a human being. Her moral compass was severely skewed because of that. she seems aware of that, but not willing to change. They do at times kind of toy with the idea that Azula and her two friends are kind of mean girls, like Regina George, Gretchen, and Tylee is Karen. You kind of have that kind of archetype there, which I don't think I've ever actually heard the creators say it, but it does seem very much the case that that is the basis of those characters. Of course, May is a bit more emo moody than you get from Gretchen, but otherwise there's a lot of similarities in the kind of relationship there. out of that trio of characters because I have to say I thought they were a lot of fun to watch with their dynamics with one another. Azula being the absolute toxic friend that you don't want in any friend group as it were. and Manipulate entirely in May and everything. I thought out the three of them though, me was very boring. and Well maybe not boring, that is too strong a word but I felt as if she was maybe the least interesting out the three of them and I think maybe that's a testament to Azula seeing how maniacal she is and what she's gonna do next because it's that kind of character where she's like
00:51:31
Speaker
well you know if you don't want to do that that's fine you do your own thing and then you know she's gonna burn your house down. If you don't do what she wants you to later she's an absolute driven to this horrible psychosis out of there. Something that I did laugh at thinking about what you were saying about Ozai because we get a flashback episode which is really well done where we look at one of Ang's past lives as the Avatar as Avatar Roku. In that flashback episode, we see the relationship between Roku and then Fire Lord Sozin, who the comments named after, I'm assuming. But you see that relationship and everything and it's like a really interesting dynamic that they have and you want to know more about them. And again, it's going back to something you were saying about this idea of teaching kids about their very first exposure to colonialism.
00:52:22
Speaker
were so as in saying that all the world would be better, I want to share the prosperity and all the inventions, bla bla blah blah blah, and we all know how that goes 100 years later. But when we get to Ozai, it's something that I actually don't think other interpretations of The Last Airbender get right, because in the 2024 live-action version we see the Fire Lord right away and he burns a person's face off as I said and it's very no pun intended in your face and oh look he's brutal and it's the same with the Shyamalan film where they show him right off the bat and it's like oh look here's the Fire Lord. In book one they definitely build him up as this menace and I think that was the best way to build him up but when you actually see him, do you know he reminds me of and I don't think you're gonna agree with this at all but you know Dragon Ball Z's version of Broly where it's like someone who is simultaneously cool but at the same time there's nothing much going on with the character. Well I don't get me wrong there are things in this background and I do think Ozai is more developed but I'm just thinking of more of the scene where, and that I completely forgot about this, I don't know if you forgot about it, where it's just before the finale where Ozai takes to the zeppelin that he flies and he says to Zula, you're the new fire lord now, I'm gonna be in the phoenix king! And I was like, my god that is so cool and so dumb!
00:53:49
Speaker
You can have your pitiful little Fire Lord name, I gotta to be something much cooler. I'm Grand Cool Guy. You know he was workshop and that he's like super duper Fire Lord, burning hot Nova Fire Lord, Phoenix King, yeah. I will rise from the ashes, nailed it. What I love is he's also got his own branding and everything, like he's It's like, were you going to plant them? Was I? Were you going to put them back? This is how you serve the Fire Nation? Oh, honestly. So much to unpack there. But I do agree with you. I think he's a good villain. But here's the question though. Do you think he's not as strong of a villain because of the strong cast that surround him?
00:54:31
Speaker
No, I think he's not a stronger villain because we don't really get to see much of him. And what we do see is just kind of like he's a bad guy. There's not really much personality to him. You can say that that's the personality in itself, that he's like a sociopath and he raised Azula herself as a sociopath, not a psychopath.
00:54:51
Speaker
but he's isn't a very interesting character. I still enjoy the good versus evil fight that we get and I and do enjoy what we have there for him and like his final fight was very cool but I just don't think that there was much kind of developed about him. One thing and we'll get into this next week, Korra has a lot of negatives but I feel like they develop their villains much better because they spend a lot of time with them Ozai doesn't seem like the main villain of the series because we never really spent any time with him. First whole season it was Zuko slash Admiral Zhao. Second season it was pretty much entirely either Azula or Long Feng, the leader of the Dai Li. Oh yeah, Mr. Krabs was a propaganda minister, yeah. Yeah, it was Clancy Brown, is his name, isn't it? Love his voice, by the way. Anything he's in, genuinely. Do you know that way you can tell it's him right away? That's just so distinctive. I've been rewatching Justice League recently, the animated Justice League series it's on our Netflix here. And every time Lex Luthor is speaking, I'm like, hey, I know that voice. His long fang and his Lex Luthor are indistinguishable. He doesn't really change his voice much for that, whereas his Mr. Krabs is absolutely bonkers. It's completely different. I'm not even going to attempt. topest
00:56:02
Speaker
impersonation. I leave me boys. There is no crummy patties in Ba Sing Se. It's kind of similar to his performance and I don't know if you've seen that Gen V show where he's kind of in it for one episode. Oh yeah he's like a teacher isn't he? Again it's that kind of stoic, serious, even when he's lost he's very but relatively humble. bother realising that Azula's taking over the diary. Yeah, it's quite funny. But actually that brings us on to an interesting point, and it's something that you raised with me when we we're talking about this show about the voice
Voice Acting Excellence
00:56:37
Speaker
actors. I'm gonna be honest, Barr may be one or
00:56:40
Speaker
Two minor examples, I would say. I think. And again, it's not because of the actors themselves, but we'll get on to that. I genuinely think that everybody does a fantastic job in this show. I completely agree. I think that they do do a wonderful full job. The only one. I bet you're curious to hear which one I'm kind of... I am curious to hear who you're not a fan of. It's the swamp benders, okay? Why do they sound like hillbillies, is what I'm saying?
00:57:05
Speaker
That's interesting that you you didn't like that one. The ones I actually took issue with was, i was because I was watching the episode last night, was Haru, the earthbender who gets it put in prison in season one and then comes back and has a mustache. Oh yeah. His voice actors just seems pretty one note, not very good. And I didn't really like, I think his name's like Tao or something, the kid in the wheelchair. Oh yeah. I didn't think his voice acting was particularly strong either. Otherwise I thought it was very good.
00:57:28
Speaker
I always say this even if a lavator comes up but I still can't get over the Dante Basco. The voice actor for Zuko was also the same guy who was in Hook. As Rufio. Rufio, yeah. I remember watching that film so many times and it never clocked with me, it was the same voice. And then I think it might have been you that told me or somebody said online, if not, and I was like, what? Is that the same guy? Oh my God. His social tag is, I think, Rufio Zuko. I think that's, he's like, ah, Rufio Zuko.
00:57:57
Speaker
That's quite cool to be fair. I do think the main core cast do a fantastic job. In terms of the actors, I don't think there are any that really stand out as being terrible. As I said, I'm half joking there when I say, oh my god, swamp benders. It's not that I think they're bad. They're not bad, but I just find it weird, annoying. My wife doesn't like them either. She finds them annoying.
00:58:19
Speaker
I think the idea is cool. Same with the sandbenders. I thought that was a cool idea, but when they appear from the quote-unquote final fight when it's the eclipse, yeah, they just annoyed me. I think it's quite interesting seeing sub-sect bending communities that aren't in the traditional kind of areas. Waterbenders traditionally are the North and South Pole, which you kind of understand makes sense given they're surrounded by water at all times.
00:58:43
Speaker
and so it makes sense they're literally in their element but having them in other places where that abundance of water exists like a swamp is quite an interesting idea and the fact that they kind of learned that they can control the water in the plants to kind of use the vines and the seaweed and all that kind of stuff as part of their own bending, which I think is what helps Katara to learn that she can manipulate water from other sources. And then you get the traditional people from the Fire Nation, who typically all kind of dress the same, live the same lifestyle. And then you have the Sun Warriors, who are like an Aztec kind of people.
00:59:16
Speaker
I don't even know where in the world of Avatar they're supposed to be located. It's sometimes quite hard in this world to sort of know where they are. Just touching on that point, there's some really annoying bits where it's like it takes them a whole season to get from like one place to the other. And then I remember hearing, I think it was Katara or something, being like, we need to go to Willtale Island, or we need to go to the South Pole. And I was like, oh my god, that's going to be a few episodes, isn't it? And then literally two seconds later, they're there. In defense. So no i know i know in that situation, they're actually got a whale tail island. They're told wrong information and they're like, Oh no, that's two weeks away. I used to be like, why is that two weeks away? You guys travel around so easily otherwise, but I was like, Oh yeah, they don't have Appa at that point. They didn't have Appa. So they couldn't travel any quicker. There is a bit of inconsistency. I feel at times with.
01:00:02
Speaker
them just like popping over to places because as you say it takes them forever to go from the south to the North Pole in season one and like they keep popping over different places in the meantime which may have been a reason within the story that they were doing that I can't recall they were kind of stopping off at various places but it seems like and ah at other times they just very quickly fly from the Fire Nation to the Earth Kingdom or they popped over to Kyoshi Island just because they needed to get some information about
Geography and Spirituality
01:00:25
Speaker
something. Jokes aside, I can see why they do it, because it would be like a very boring show, otherwise that they'd have to travel all the way there, then travel all the way back, and yeah, you can kind of understand that. I also want to know the shape of this world. I mean, to have the map at the beginning, man. Come on.
01:00:43
Speaker
But like what happens if you keep going west? This isn't like Hunter, Hunter. They go to the dark ones. Well, I'm wondering if it's like Discworld. What, on top of a lion turtle? like I was exactly thinking on top of a lion turtle. I mean, maybe they just go around the world and then come back again. I guess it might be that it's globe-shaped and that's kind of what it looks like, but it feels hard to picture that for some reason. Yeah, I know what you mean because it's so... this all sounds like a really weird criticism, but it's almost like you've got the four nations, but then that's it. But you know, it'd take days for people to go from one country to the other, unless you were obviously on the border or whatever. But yeah, it seems like that's it. Everything's been discovered almost.
01:01:27
Speaker
except for certain areas and the spiritual aspect of it, which is actually something we haven't touched on overly. We talked about the spirituality of Aang as the last yearbender, talking about his chakras and reincarnation and things, but something that's quite interesting, and you said it exactly at the very beginning where you talked about him being the bridge between worlds, which of course means that he is a bridge between the quote-unquote real world, old human world, versus the spirit world, and we get a a lot of really interesting creatures from that, and by creatures I of course mean the spirits. And what I love about this, I don't know if this is something you picked up on when you were younger, because I know I probably wouldn't have picked it up, but it's the kind of moral other than that one that turned into a moonfish of course. A lot of the spirits are quite morally great, they're not good or bad for the most part. There's obviously some standouts that are villainous and horrible like the one that steals faces, that one creeps me out something awful. But the owl for example, who is very neutral and just wants to 20s library, which I love that. I love that owl so much. One shetongue. One shetongue. Yeah, that's the one. Thank you. Yeah, what are your thoughts and see the spirits in this and how they're portrayed. So yeah, you touched on it. The spirits in the spirit world, there isn't a good and evil side to them. It's like a chaos in an order aspect.
01:02:56
Speaker
And so there's a lot of the spirits are just chaotic in no particular leaning. They have their own motivations and their own kind of desires in their spirit kind of community. And all the time, that's the preservation of their forest or their own lives and each other. In the end of season one, we're introduced to the ocean and moon spirit who very briefly take on a mortal form. And they're represented as Ying and Yang, a push and pull of the moon and the ocean and their fish.
01:03:22
Speaker
when one of those fish is killed by the villain of season one, the other one bonds with Ang as the Avatar to seek vengeance upon the Fire Nation for killing its kin. And so they have their own motivations, but there isn't an inherent good or evil quality to the majority of them. You can argue, as you mentioned, as Poe the face-stealer as to whether or not they have a morally good or bad quality to them, but they do just kind of seem to be the neutral party to most things.
01:03:49
Speaker
The Korra series and the comics and the books do go much further into the spiritual world in discussing the relationship that spirits have with humans and with each other and with the Avatar. It's very interesting, so I do recommend for those who have so checked out Avatar and once have learned more about that, then there's some fantastic books that have come out about that. And a very particular book that you kindly gifted me as well over Christmas.
01:04:15
Speaker
but I'm getting through it, I have to say that deals with a lot of this spirituality, that of course being the rise of Kyoshi, which again absolutely love her character by the way, especially in The Last Airbender, because there's a particular episode where Aang gets put on trial for killing a particular conqueror and usually in any other cartoon this would be the bit where his past self ends up appearing as Kiyoshi and you're expecting her to defend herself to be like, no, was it like this? Blah, blah, blah. But Kiyoshi just stands there like a boss and goes, yeah, I did it. So what? And then I do it again. Come at me, bro. Come at me. I love that. I was howling because I completely forgot about that episode. I was like, this is amazing. She didn't even really on purpose do it, but she had no qualms about the fact that she did.
01:05:04
Speaker
like she like separated her village area from the rest of the mainland she like broke off and like pushed it away to make it into an island and he just stubbornly just stood there as the land below him crumbled and he fell into the abyss and like if he moved he would have been fine but he was just stubborn and so he essentially died because of himself but she's like I recognize I broke apart the land he fell under it I killed him so what I love Kyoshi and my wife is a huge fan of the Kyoshi books and we both read those. It gets quite dark with some of the things that it discusses in the books, they go a bit more in depth with the violence and the bending and that kind of stuff because it isn't restricted by the TV standards for kids shows, which again is something that I had said to my partner just the other day when we were watching, was watching Avatar, I was like, You can tell there are certain standards that have to be met where they were doing the invasion and they were going by these turrets and they were throwing bombs into the windows of the turrets. And every time you have to see the Fire Nation people who were inside like run out as the thing exploded, you can't see them actually get hurt. They would crush the tank with a big seaweed monster and you'd see the soldiers get out of the tank before they got crushed. Yeah, or they do that thing where they poke out the window and go, oh, that kind of thing. I can see why they did it. I think for the most part, although obviously not to be the anime moment of, oh, it's not realistic. But you can probably tell why they did it, as you said, because of standards and things. But I think
01:06:24
Speaker
those restrictions overall worked in favour for the show because see when the show does get dark, it really gets dark but it's in such a way that it's so clever that it's all that implied darkness.
Standalone Episodes and Horror Elements
01:06:40
Speaker
I keep going back to the Puppet Master episode with that, where it's about a water bender who has basically, and spoilers for this episode, I know we've covered all the spoilers, but especially for this episode if you haven't seen it, but it's about a water bender who essentially spends most of her time fighting off the Fire Nation until she gets captured by them, she gets put in a prison that she can't use her bending, and then eventually she taps into blood bender It's horrific because they build her up as this utter monster. She goes as far as to steal the moisture from living organisms like rats. Well, yeah, the rats and flowers around her and things like that. And you know they would have gone darker if this was in Cora. Do you know that's what insanely darker. But even for a kid show, and it's the same as well with I think it's a couple episodes later where the whole point of the Puppet Master episode was she was trying to find someone to pass this skill on to. And of course, Katara reluctantly ends up picking up this skill and she tries to use it later where she finds the guy who killed our mum
01:07:48
Speaker
And that is such an important episode. This is kind of touching on our favourite episodes here, so apologies. But I find that such an important episode because again, the whole lesson of that is forgiveness and being able to move past your previous trauma, especially when she's so consumed with rage and revenge. And ironically enough, they get the best character. I know they obviously did it on purpose but they get the best character to accompany her in that mission, which of course is Zuko having his own trauma and emotional baggage, and she ends up letting this very old and frail Fire Nation soldier go because she realises it's not the right way. It is something that is so interesting because a lot of the episodes, other than the overarching theme of it, and there's like an overarching story going through the episodes, but there's a lot of episodes that are quite episodic. You know, not all of them have to link up, but it's quite interesting to see that they took that thread from the puppet master and then took it to that to see how far she would go to be exactly like the woman that taught her bloodbending. Again, it goes back to that idea that it's all implied horror. Obviously, you know, they say, oh, she's dead. They don't sugarcoat it and say she's gone to the dungeon, the One Piece dungeon, as it were. But I think the polite order for the most part is definitely far stronger than, as I said, having bones getting broken and necks getting stabbed and whatnot. I think it's a lot better or a lot more impactful. Yeah, I think that's the fair point. I think that less can be more in these kinds of circumstances. The show does very well at balancing that. I've just been aware of that recently because, again, I was talking about watching the Justice League. There's an episode where they go back in time to World War II.
01:09:30
Speaker
And they're fighting Nazis, but they can't say they're Nazis. They can't show swastikas. So the symbol is, you know, it's a swastika, but it's not a swastika. Superman was lasting through Luftwaffe airplanes and, like, breaking their wings apart, laser beaming the planes and that kind of stuff. And every time they did, you see a little guy in a parachute just sailing down. It's like, even for the Nazis, eh? You're watching that way, they could engulf one. Finish them!
01:09:51
Speaker
The heart, Superman, aim for the heart. That weird fan fiction aside, yeah, know they have to have that somewhat levity in there as well, which I think for the most part works. There's one or two episodes and I think that's more at the very beginning in book one where there's some scenes where it's just too much levity at times and you're like, yeah, I'm not saying again, I'm not saying it needs to be dark all the time, but I mean look at The Great Divide where it's very much a nothing episode. The Great Divide is an interesting one because it is very episodic. Yeah, it was made because Nickelodeon wanted more episodic content. They wanted one that they knew they could just cycle and syndication on a regular basis, which is why another reason why people got for it because there's nothing that wrong with that episode, to be honest, but people saw it a lot. And so they got quite frustrated by it because Nickelodeon wanted an episode that they could show that would introduce the characters and kind of the ideas of this world without needing to know any other background to the story. And so that was the episode they decided would be a good one to just continuously repeat. And so it's probably the best example of an episodic, I've told this episode, I was trying to think of some others that were like standalone. I mean, there's the recap episodes at the very end of the series. Oh, the Ember Island players. I like that episode on Reeboch. I thought, OK, this is pretty funny, but I always find it quite a weird position of episodes, you know what I mean? Like it's relatively near the end of the show. And I know that's probably why they put it there. Yeah, it acts as a fun kind of recap and gives them a chance to kind of parody themselves. That episode has loads of celebrities voicing the characters. Really? Yeah. Iroh is voiced by John DiMaggio in that episode. Zuko is voiced by Zuko's brother, Dante Vasco's brother. That is quite funny. And then you have Grey Delisle who voices Azula normally. She voices Katara in the play and I think Tara is Strong voices Azula in the play. There's loads of other very famous voice actors that are brought in for just that episode, which is quite funny.
01:12:06
Speaker
It's an interesting episode. Like I wouldn't say it's the strongest, but it's definitely the most memorable one. There's some episodes that genuinely, not that they don't go anywhere, but again it's that idea of they're just episodic. Even in Book 3, as we're saying, that there is the paint- is it the painted lady one? I thought you were going to mention Painted Lady because that's often people's least favourite episodes and I really don't like that episode either. I usually skip it. I did rewatch it, and I think it's alright. I like it in terms of Katara being the protector and not turning her back on people. But from a logistics point of view, it was a very, very poor choice. And they are just lucky there was a real spirit there, keeping watch. And they're just very lucky that it went to plan, which I know is pretty much all episodes, but it's not the strongest one I have to say. I was quickly looking at
01:13:00
Speaker
Anyone else famous from the Ember Island players? The person that voices Sokka is the voice of Robin in like a bunch of Teen Titans kind of stuff. Oh, truly. And then the voice actor for Aang, who is a woman in that, which is kind of a parody of the fact that usually boys are played by girls in lots of plays and in voice acting and that kind of stuff. Aang is voiced by Rachel Dratch, who you'd very much recognize her face, but the name is not one that you're probably too familiar with. But she's quite an iconic character as well. I'm just having a look at the voice cast as well, because as we were talking about earlier, they are absolutely fantastic. But I didn't realise Dee Bradley Baker was in the show. Oh yeah, Dee voices all the animals. Anytime you hear an animal, it's Dee Bradley Baker. I was Roku, or adult Roku anyway. Really? Oh, that's interesting.
01:13:49
Speaker
Oh, that guy gets around, honestly. he said Oh yeah, he's like the most prolific voice actor. I think he might be considered the best voice actor in the world. His range of voices is just fantastic. I've not mentioned it so far in the episode, but one thing that I was listening to for the last two plus years, I want to say, is braving the elements, which is Nickelodeon's Avatar Last Airbender podcast.
01:14:10
Speaker
And they have Dante Basco and Janet Varney. So the voice of Zuko and Cora post the show and they kind of go through the episodes and they talk to the creators and the voice actors from the show. And so you kind of get a lot of insight into the making of the show. So I do recommend listening to that is very good. You get lots of kind of tidbits into the acting world. And they had Dee Bradley Baker on to kind of discuss how he does what he does with his voice. I actually was, when I was at a con a couple of years back, Janet, Dante and Dee were all there. And so he was doing some of his voice acting work there. He was showing us how he does love his animal noises. Oh, that's cool. well What was quite great. And we haven't really spoken that much about the the voice actors. It's just.
01:14:50
Speaker
that they hired a lot of very young actors for the young roles. There were some kind of experienced voice actors who were kind of a little bit older that they cast in kind of young roles. But for a lot of the characters, like particularly Aang, who was voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen, he was, I think, around 12 years old when he was recording the show, and he was a 12 year old. And so his voice does start to kind of mature as the show was going, because I don't think a year passes in the show. So I think he's still 12 throughout the show. About 112.
01:15:20
Speaker
ah three, four years have passed. A 12 year old's boy's voice is going to change by the time he's 16. But it isn't particularly noticeable. I think he does a very good job of kind of maintaining that voice. And he does not sound like that at all now. He can't do that voice anymore either. He left the business as though he doesn't do any acting work anymore. I'm looking up his previous work here. And the last thing he did apparently was a 2023 game called The Lost Odyssey Shadows of
Voice Acting Industry Insights
01:15:49
Speaker
Destiny. But before that, he was in a video called Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. Whatever that is, I'm not familiar. And apologies to any stands of that particular time. I've got no idea what that is, apologies. But even before that, he was in the Avatar The Last Airbender video game, and that was 2008. So that was exactly around the same time as the show ended. So yeah, he's not really done a lot. No, I mean, even as a child actor, the only two things he really did was Avatar and The Ant Bully. The Ant Bully was a decently large children's movie when it came out. It doesn't really maintain any kind of following. It's not really in the zeitgeist anymore, but I remember it coming out and like the ads being everywhere for it. What's funny is the voice actress for Toph, who went by Jesse Flowers at the time, but now is Michaela Murphy, I think. she actually was also in that movie in a more minor role. And they met for the first time in the red carpet for that. And she very awkward was like, I'm in the Avatar show as well. And he was like, Oh, cool, who are you? Because like, none of the actors like ever met each other. And it apparently it wasn't until like a few years ago that a bunch of them met in person for the first time. Wow.
01:16:58
Speaker
That's crazy though, isn't it? I mean, it's a bit like whenever you see these animated projects and it's like, oh, what was it like working with Celebrity X and Celebrity Y and they're like, well, I don't know because we're in a recording booth for so many hours a day. It wouldn't be the same as obviously being face to face. It sounds like a lot of the voice acting was actually done remotely from the team. I think Jack De Senna stayed on the east side of the country and I think Zach stayed on the east side of the country. Dante was in the LA scene. I think he came into Nickelodeon for recording so he did interact with some of the other cast members that were also doing that but a bunch of the actors did not go in for their lines. They just would submit them with the tutelage of the, they have like ah a person assigned to get the lines out of them. It's like a voice acting director almost. I was going to say you made that sound very sinister.
01:17:50
Speaker
We're gonna do this the easy way or we're gonna do this the hard way. Apparently, she was very lovely. Apparently, she's like an absolute pro in the field because she was on the podcast as well. And when she wasn't, there was actors who'd sort of talk about her in such glowing terms. Unfortunately, I can't remember her name, but she apparently was very good. and I learned so much about that kind of industry from that podcast, actually, because I wasn't very familiar. The voice acting cast is fantastic. They were very young for a lot of them when they did it. Zach, I think, was fantastic as a child actor in that role. I think he did it very well. When you hear other child actors, you can hear that there's a certain quality that he's able to produce that they were not. It's a very unique skill. I think certain child actors can absolutely do it, no problem. But there's been a lot, hasn't there, film-wise, where you've just watched it or listen to it and you're like, yeah, is that the director's son or daughter?
01:18:38
Speaker
ah yeah It is easier in many ways, voice acting as a child pulling across that way. The worst child actors are always the live action ones. They're the ones that just don't quite know where they should be looking, what they should be doing with their faces, and how best to deliver the lines. And so it comes out very monotone. Generally, generally, I think that voice acting for child actors is better, but there are certainly some that aren't as good. And I think that the voice acting cast and avatar were very good. Mae Whitman, who played Katara, was a kind of a regular pro. She's done lots of things. And she was actually in Jake Long American Dragon with Dante Basco. They were like a love interest. So people who ship
01:19:15
Speaker
Zuko and Katara, Zutara shippers, often like to cling to Jake Long American Dragon, where the two voice actors are together in that. And then Sokka is played by Jack De Senna, who's absolutely fantastic. I love Jack De Senna's line readings. And it's what's so funny is that he sounds like a teenager. And then if he's mid thirties, maybe even even older now, and he still sounds like that, like that's just his voice. He's very funny. He has a sketch comedy show that he does with his friend on YouTube. And he is Callum in The Dragon Prince.
01:19:43
Speaker
So my partner, she absolutely loves the Dragon Prince and loves Callum. And she was saying to me yesterday how it's funny that Jack essentially has one voice, but Callum and Sokka sound completely different. The way he uses an inflection and the way those characters are written certainly helps it, the dialogue they're providing, but they sound, they wouldn't be related. It's very funny.
01:20:04
Speaker
Overall, and I know I sound like a broken record here but genuinely, I think they all did an absolutely fantastic job. And there's no denying that even when you go back to a new look at it and say, oh well, what if it doesn't hold up in that regard? And it definitely does to
Favorite Episodes and Moments
01:20:21
Speaker
be honest. And before we wrap up and give our final thoughts about this series, do you want to tell me about your favourite episodes Andrew? Because I get the feeling with you're itching to talk about these. I very much struggle to pin down a favourite episode. It does change quite frequently for me, but there's certainly some ones that stick out to me and I'm curious the overlap for you and I on these. So I'll go chronologically with mine, the Cave of Two Lovers. Love that. is such a fun episode. You're introduced to this kind of hippie group who's very kind of like chill, go with the flow. And they with the gang pre-Toph, Toph isn't there yet. This is in season two, but just prior to Toph gets stuck in this labyrinth in this like cave network. And soccer is just being driven mad by their stupidity and carefree attitude. I love the ending to that. It culminates at the end where Sokka has been slapping his head in frustration so much and leader of the hippie guys says, I don't mean to alarm anyone, but I think that guy might be the avatar from the episode you get to Secret Tunnel song, which became a bit of a meme in TikTok. Sorry, I think you mean Secret Tunnel.
01:21:25
Speaker
in the mountains. So that's a really great one. Also from season two, the introduction of Toph, you mentioned it earlier, the blind bandit is such a fun episode. You're introduced to this earthbending wrestling kind of scene where you have very much a mirroring of our own kind of WWE WWF era wrestling with there's a character that pretends to be he's from the Fire Nation. He's but like the Soviet Union character from WWF era and there's the Iron Sheik from the early 2000s, I think is was his name, kind of like the heel in wrestling. So the bad guy, you have the boulder who we mentioned earlier, who's just a reference to the rock and is voiced by the rocks wrestling nemesis, Mick Foley, which is great. You're introduced to this kind of idea of this small blind girl who is able to sense through the earth, people's movements and users are spending to take advantage of that. And it's such an interesting concept. that is dealt with in such a sensitive and brilliant way. Tough as a character, we've not really really touched on her that much, the character, but that there's interaction to this real mean girl, a real tough as nails, but she's small and she's blind. And you learn later, she comes from a very privileged kind of fancy household where her parents protect her and wrap her in cotton wool, but they don't realize she has this secret lifestyle and then she runs off with them. So that's a really good episode. Then you mentioned it earlier, Zuko Alone, which is the only episode in the entire series, which it doesn't feature any of the Avatar gang at all, is just Zuko. There's no gang, nothing. So that's really, really cool. And you've already sort of talked about the kind of plot of it. He's defending, it's like a Western story. He's defending this small town against these kind of ruffians. And then they discover that he's Fire Nation and they hate him. And Tales of Ba Sing Se. I don't like most of the stories from Tales of Ba Sing Se. I find the episode generally kind of a bit man as's cross of the uncle iro robot isn't it io story is so good it is such a clever story that you're kind of getting an insight into who io is you've had that previously but you're kind of understanding this kind of story that's told over five minutes that kind of leads up to it being his dead son's birthday or the anniversary is death. I can't remember which it was. And you kind of realize just how much Zuko is the surrogate son that replaces his child that passed and that he sings leaves on the vine, which is about like a soldier going off to war. So like brave little soldier boy, and it's his own boy who died in the war. So that's very powerful. And it's also a tribute at the end to the voice actor of Iroh, who at that point once it was released. He'd recorded, I think, all of season two. His name was Mako. He unfortunately passed away. And Greg Baldwin, who was kind of an understudy of his, kind of stepped into the role and took over from that point and did a very good job. You can't really tell much of a difference.
01:24:07
Speaker
no you really can't That's an absolutely gorgeous episode. Some more from season two that are very nice, but that's just it from season two. Then season three, Soccer's Master is so, so beautiful. The background design is gorgeous. They went over to, I think Iceland to get some images to sort of copy from. They just went to this like beautiful area in Iceland to sort of get like a reference for. And it's just like one scene that they're using it for and it's gorgeous. And you're having Sokka learn sword fighting from this old master that is up from the Fire Nation. And he's working hard, like he builds his own sword. He's learning different kinds of techniques of like how he has his own personality, develops those skills. And you're also sort of seeing the rest of the gang kind of be like, what do we do without Sokka? how fundamental he is to the group. So that's really fun. And then just the second from last episode, I think it is, or it might be the last episode, those two together, we get the fight both with Aang and Ozai and also Azula and Zuko. The animation for the Azula and Zuko fight is gorgeous. There is nothing like that. I think that there is one of the most beautiful, beautifully animated episodes of any cartoon that I've seen. but I yield my time. What are some of your highlight episodes and why? I'm about to go through Ba Sing Se now. No, seeing all seriousness, I think the overlap is very apparent here. I totally agree with you. I think that all of those episodes you mentioned were absolutely they're fantastic episodes. The only ones that I would add probably are the Great Divinable Kitchen.
01:25:40
Speaker
ah season some one wise I can't remember the episode off the top of my head but I do like the one with is it pulled the face stealer oh yeah yeah probably face dealer with in when they're in the forest yeah it's just purely because I'm creeped out by it but I love the design I think it's the only time in the show I've genuinely been really unsettled that I thought, what the hell is this thing? I think it's because for the most part season one's very much a, oh, let's run from Zuko, you know, kind of format. And then we get to that thing that has the creepy smile on the faces. And yeah, that really stood out for me. I was like, what the hell is that? Probably Winter Sol's just part one in the spirit world. i think you're right. That's the first time you get like a part one, part two episode. The other one in season one that I would draw attention to is The Warriors of Kyoshi, purely because, and I think this is the first time the the world building is really starting to take hold of this show because obviously we get it in the episode before which I really like as well, the Southern Air Temple where Aang has to deal with the loss of his mentor and we never see that brutal death, we just see the aftermath of it in him absolutely having a break down in the Avatar state. I think that is such a good scene and I think it's just so powerful to see that. But then with the Kyoshi Warriors when we get introduced, it's something you brought up earlier where we challenge Sokka's belief system being part of this very isolated water tribe where a lot of the, let's face it, a lot of the male role models in his life are relatively gone. You know, his father's off to war and everything, he's considering himself as the quote-unquote protector of the village even though they're quite defenseless, all things considered. And then of course he meets Suki who is an amazing character as well, I know we haven't really touched on her but we meet her friends. Her being a Kyoshi warrior who are a group of women who follow the teachings of Avatar Kyoshi. I think that's amazing, that's so cool. And of course we get that very famous meme scene of, remember the guy? He's like frothing his mouth. Yeah, he's like, oh! We also forgot to mention the cabbage guy, but that's another.
01:27:58
Speaker
There's another thing. There's a separate entire episode for the Cabbage Guy. Go to patreon.com forward slash chat tsunami for the full Cabbage Man to retrospect. My Cabbage is retrospective. Yeah, going back to the episodes. Again, there's so many you already mentioned. Kaver2 lovers love that.
01:28:14
Speaker
Avatar Day, I just love it for Kyoshi's, yeah I did it, so what? The Zuko alone, love that. The Library, I have to say I really liked. I think that is such an interesting lesson that they bring into that, where Sokka says very clearly that they're trying to find a way to defeat the Fire Nation, and Lon Chiton says is in response. Do you think you're the first people to feel as if they're justified in your side of a war? Lying obviously that there's been countless wars over the years is such a great lesson. And again, it goes to that idea that Avatar as in this black and white world is very much a world of grey and shades in between. It's just brilliant. I can't praise it enough. I do like the stories in Ba Sing Se, just in general, kind of as an overarching thing. I know that's a bit of a cop-out, but I like the kind of world building that they do in there. I like the headband. I think that's, is that the same one where the school gang goes to school? Yeah, because as I was saying before, I like the storytelling there that, you know, there are people who come from Fire Nation colonies that look down the poll and he obviously and then does the footless thing to teach them to dance and lighten up and whatnot but at the same time it's quite an interesting look into Fire Nation society and that is the best place to look at it, the room what they're teaching the kids because that is what they're trying to raise with the next generation of firebenders they're not just regular people walking about these are the people that you can see they're trying to indoctrinate and say oh you're the best and even I nearly get some self into hot water so great sort again. My favorite bit of that episode, though, I enjoy it. But what's the highlight for me is soccer at the parent teacher conference. Yeah, he invents Wang fire. And then Katara, who is just the master of just playing along with the bit immediately goes like Sapphire fire here, she plays along so well, like immediately. She does that in other scenes, like I think they go to when they go to Amashu for the first time and and creates this personas old man called Pippinpuddle-Upsicopolis III and she immediately a b goes, yeah, I'm doing Pippinpuddle-Upsicopolis. The only other two I really want to bring attention to is the flashback episodes, the Avatar and the Fire Lord, where we get to see the relationship between Roku and Susan and that actually leads on to the final episodes and in particular for the last episodes or rather part four because there's like four parts all over the finale. Just quickly going back to the Avatar and the Fire Lord, are you aware within the Avatar community of the meme of shipping Roku and Sozin together? You know I'm not surprised.
01:31:02
Speaker
Like I don't know that but I'm not surprised. People love to reference that they're actually gay for each other. I quite enjoy this headcanon of whoever the avatar is in love with, the kind of facial features of that person is who is what the next avatar looks like. And so people have looked at previous avatars and like how their love interest, the next avatar in the cycle looks.
01:31:24
Speaker
quite similar. And you do see Roku's wife does have a very similar facial features to Aang. So it does actually line up, but people are joking like, what are you talking about? Aang doesn't look like Sozin at all. And just like constantly like imply, no, very he silly. His true love is Sozin. And they were roommates.
01:31:39
Speaker
And they were roommates. Yeah, I genuinely do love the Light Guy episode. I think it's such a fascinating look into the past for but the previous Avatar, as opposed to Kyoshi rocking up and saying, yeah, I'm guilty, I'm a murder demand, indirectly but a murder demand. Whereas Roku is very much the almost pink Kenobi figure from comparison.
01:32:01
Speaker
He is quite Obi-Wan Kenobi, isn't he? Yeah, he just appears and he gives like really sage wisdom. He's ghostly. Yeah, well, yeah, I would hope so after dying up a volcano. I actually nearly teared up. Do you know what bit? And I think it was because I was watching it with my dog at the time. It sounded like a really weird thing to say, but you know the scene where he ends up unfortunately perishing because that arsehole, Susan, ends up leaving him for dead on the volcano? And it's the scene, see when these dragon goes back for him and wraps itself around him. Obviously I was watching with my dog and my dog was kind of looking at me as if, what are you doing? Why are you tearing up that magical box over there? I don't know. I thought that was just so heartbreaking that the dragon comes back for him and protects him in the last moments. And yeah, that was just really tugged at your heart. But I like Turoku's character because I thought he was such an interesting avatar and the advice that he passed on to Aang and taught him about taking away the power and that's why I love the finale of this show because we get the best of both worlds for everything.
Moral Themes and Legacy
01:33:07
Speaker
We get the big action set pieces, the beautiful animation, we get the characters coming back, we get Toph kicking ass on top of the zeppelins, we get the big showdown between Aang and And Ozai is beautiful, is brilliant, is fantastic, and I love, love, love how this could have easily been a dragon ball fight. I am so used to these heroes going in, kicking their ass at the bad guy, blowing them up, never have to worry about them again unless they're rewritten into the story. But Aang, in his very much philosophical and spiritual teachings, doesn't want to take the life of Ozai, and that is a big running theme in book 3, that he doesn't want to kill him. He could easily. several times he could have killed him outright, but he chooses to spare his life because he sees the value of preserving life rather than being like Ozai where he would just take a life without thinking about it as he takes away the one thing that defines him. Defines the Phoenix King, never gets old, but he takes away his bending and he becomes what he considers as useless and I don't know if that's changed in the comics or the books or whatnot but I think it's such a good ending for that and it fits A with the character so much and B with the morals of the show that it shows you there's another way, there's another path, you don't always have to meet violence with violence, you don't always have to meet destruction with destruction, you have to try and step back and find the best possible alternative and if it comes to that destructive process then unfortunately that's the way it has to be whereas if there is another way then by all means go for it and I think that is so important and it's a kind of closing point. I think what makes this show special to me and especially when I re-watched it, totally not building up furniture but that's the story, it's a very good show for that, I was also building furniture while watching Avatar recently. That's so funny. It's such a good show for that. Because I've seen it a million times. I know what's going to happen, so I don't need to pay full attention to it. But I definitely was three to maybe four episodes of Avatar while I was building an IKEA furniture. But what I love about this show And again, I can go back to the animation being beautiful, the story being well crafted. But I think the main thing I love about this is the characters. I think that every character in this show plays a part. I think there is such a huge emotional core. And what I love as well is purely the diversity of the characters. And what I mean by that is everyone in this show, whether they're a villain or anti-hero or whatnot, they're shown to have they are pros and cons, but they all feel very realistic that you've got Aang dealing with the way of this guilt that his absences cost, the world being gone for a hundred years, and you've got Katara trying to hold everyone together, be motherly, you've got Sokka trying to be, you know, oh, upbeat and funny, and then triumphing over his shortcomings as someone who isn't a bender, he is just a regular a guy in this universe, but I love that episode as you were mentioning before that he has to learn to stand up for himself. Sordman, the Boomerang enthusiast, Toph as well, being someone who isn't as able-bodied as other people yet she absolutely kicks ass.
01:36:29
Speaker
and something that I found quite beautiful as well was in that documentary I was telling you about about the behind the scenes and everything was that the two showrunners at the very end they go to this comic-con and there are so many people both kids and adults they are all dressed up as their favorite characters and it's a bunch of different characters You know, it's not just a lot of Aangs running around, there's a lot of Zukos, there's actually one of Sokka's not cosplay but he's disguise when he's pretending to be Aang's dad, which I love. There's all these clear fans of the show and they go up to them and they say, I love this show, this show means so much to me. And it's just such a testament that nowadays, even in 2025, you and I are talking about the show in such depth because there's so much to talk about. And honestly, we could go for a full hour or two more probably, which we won't be going through. because my editing alone for this episode is going to be monumental. But I genuinely do think that this is a fantastic show. It's got fantastic morals, it's got fantastic plot, the characters are great, the animation, everything about the show still holds up in 2025. 20 years on from when it was first released, and I cannot believe that. I cannot believe that this show 20 years on, there is little to no cons about this show that I can think of. As we said, we joked about The Great Divide, about maybe the blandness of Ozai, but at the end of the day, these are very minor nitpicks. It's not going to stop you from enjoying the show overall. What do you think about this show, Andrew? I said a little bit at the start, but the show means so much to me. It was a really fundamental part of my childhood. I have very key memories associated with the show from my childhood. And it is one of the few television programs that I consistently come back to. And the, upon hearing that they're going to be making more, and there's going to be movies and stuff coming out animated, not the live action stuff. I got excited and I am still excited.
01:38:34
Speaker
There's a lot there that can still be told. I love the world. We'll be getting into it next week when we talk about Korra. I don't think Korra is as strong a series as The Last Airbender, but the world is so interesting that I would watch pretty much any kind of story told in it. I think that they are so good at doing that. And as long as the animation kind of follows that, because the animation is such a key part of it, I think that it's worth telling. I'm not a big fan of the kind of desire to do live action stuff, but just the legacy of this show is so important. I really do admire the creators of the show for all they've done. When I did meet Dante and Janet, I'm not someone who struggles to talk, as listeners will know and Satsu will know especially, but I very much could not get words out when I was meeting him because it was the first time, and I've met some celebrities previously, but that was the first time that I felt starstruck.
01:39:24
Speaker
and that I couldn't articulate in a way that made me sound like a crazy person, how much the show meant to me. And so it is very important, crucial, important in my life. And I'm going to be having a child later this year. And I hope that when he is old enough that he'll be receptive to watching the show and will enjoy it as well. And hopefully by the time he's old enough, there'll be brand new content that we can watch together. And that's why you're calling him Aang.
01:39:48
Speaker
and my Jokes aside, honestly, you could definitely pass this show down easily to the next generation and they would still probably enjoy it just as much as us. As you said, next week we'll of course be diving into the wide and wonderful world would of The Legend of Quora, which it'll be an interesting one because I feel as if we're maybe going to be a little bit more... radical Yeah, again, we're going to be fair. We're always fair in these episodes. Be fair to yourself. but Yeah, okay, okay. They're starting episodes. We're definitely going to be equalizing, let's just say. um Still the best arc. Anyway, until next time, Andrew, thank you so much for joining me and talking about one of your most favourite, if not favourite, franchises in the world. Thank you. No, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed coming on. As I said earlier, it's a long time coming and I'm glad that we were able to finally do it. Before we wrap up, where can these lovely listeners find your content?
01:40:45
Speaker
The listeners can find me on lots of other episodes of Chat Tsunami, the podcast Chat Tsunami, where all the podcasts can be found. And you can also find me on our D and&D podcast, Stop, Drop, and Roll Initiative with myself, Sat Tsunami, wrestler Martin McAllister, and streamer Robotic Battle Toaster. And that is Stop, Drop, and Roll Initiative, SDRI Pod on Twitter. And yeah, hopefully you can listen to some of that. Honestly, go check it out. Fantastic show. I'm not biased.
01:41:13
Speaker
And you get, as Andrea was saying there, if you would like to check out more episodes from ourselves, then you can check us out on our website, chatsanami.com, as well as all good podcast apps. I also want to thank our amazing Pandalorian patrons, Robotic BattleToaster, Sonya, Ghosty, Encryptic1991. Thank you so, so much for supporting the show. But if you would like early access to our episodes, as well as list of episodes behind the scenes, bloopers and Andrew's Tips on how to talk to Dante Basco, then you can indeed check us out on our Patreon page patreon.com forward slash chat tsunami. This podcast is also a proud member of the Podpack Collective, for more information check out our twitter slash x handle Podpack Collect. But as always thank you so so much for listening to this episode of Avatar Month.
01:42:03
Speaker
Stay safe, stay awesome and most importantly, go find that owner. What have been to stay hydrated?