The world is divided into four nations – the Water Tribe, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation and and the Air Nomads – each represented by a natural element for which the nation is named. Benders have the ability to control and manipulate the element from their nation. Only the Avatar is the master of all four elements. The ruthless Fire Nation wants to conquer the world but the only bender who has enough power, the Avatar, has disappeared … until now. His tribe soon discovers that Aang is the long-lost Avatar. Now Katara and Sokka must safeguard Aang on his journey to master all four elements and save the world from the Fire Nation.
Joe and I spent a little too much money on the beautiful 15-year anniversary blu-ray collection of ATLA. He watched the show regularly as a kid, but I only ran through it for the first time maybe two years ago. We’re watching through now again in celebration of the anniversary; it’s now my third time through. I know we have a lot of fans here and there’s an upcoming Netflix adaptation, so I figured I’d open up a thread.
We’re still in Book 1; the last episode we watched was The Deserter, where Aang first learns firebending. So far I was really struck by The Storm, as it provides our first dimensions to Aang and Zuko. It’d be really easy for the series to make Aang a cocky kid who loves being the Avatar and believes he can do anything. We get shades of that from him at times, but learning about how he never wanted to be the Avatar and how it’s a responsibility he reluctantly accepts is powerful for the viewer, and it underscores a lot of the themes that will later be explored more explicitly in the narrative.
Likewise, we learn in The Storm that there’s a pathos to Zuko; he’s not just an early morning cartoon villain. He has his own motivations (which really have nothing to do with Aang himself, only what he represents to the Fire Nation) for hunting Aang and a pathos to him that is obviously central to his character arc. Aang and Zuko have so far been posed as foils, but this episode blurs that line a bit. And they do all of this in an engaging, ~30 minute episode!