Goal: Write 1 thought every day re: why I love ATLA (until I finish rewatching the series)
#41: Aang energybends Ozai in “Sozin’s Comet Part 4: Avatar Aang.”
The ending of ATLA is controversial (apparently). Deus Ex Lion Turtle. I personally loved it (and still love it), and have even fewer problems with the energybending than with the Rock.
True, the lion turtle itself could have been set up much better – for example, the show could have slipped a few extra lines when the lion turtle appeared in the book in “The Library” and revealed that lion turtles used to give people the elements. The show could have dropped a few more references to how lion turtles used to protect humans in other episodes here and there. So yes, the mechanism could have had better set up.
But the theme has been consistent and present throughout the show. The show explored the theme of Aang being afraid and out of control in the avatar state as early “The Avatar Returns”: the very first time we see him enter the avatar state, Aang emerges confused and not quite knowing what happened.
And “The Avatar State” directly confronts this idea, including with this line from Katara:
Katara: I’m not saying the Avatar state doesn’t have incredible—and helpful power. But you have to understand, for the people who love you, watching you be in that much rage and pain is really scary.
Aang is always in pain, or rage, when he enters the avatar state. See, e.g., “The Southern Air Temple”; “The Desert.” And it’s something that he must be brought out of to return to himself.
The animation in the final Aang v. Ozai sequence confirms this idea that the avatar state is frightening: Aang in the avatar state is alien, beastly, otherworldly, a vessel for the avatar spirit and the spirits of those that came before him. Just look at how un-Aang these images are:
So when Aang gains control of the avatar state, it’s a relief. This is the kid we’ve gotten to know over three seasons of television: the one that values human life, the one that redirects lightning elsewhere in the middle of a battle:
This is the kid who learned seismic sense from the greatest earthbender of all time:
Okay, so he gained a new crazy spirity skill from a giant lion turtle. It’s a bit out of left field:
But the result is fitting, and beautiful:
Thematically, it ties in with ideas that have been seeded and explored throughout the whole show. So although the mechanism seemed to come out of nowhere, the ending felt … right. It felt like the right one for this show, and the right one for Aang’s character.
Haters gonna hate, but I love the ending.
I wanted to tack on another thought to why I found Aang’s energybending to be so thematically fitting. Aang choosing to forge his own path — in the face of seemingly countervailing advice from everyone (including his own past lives) to kill the Fire Lord — fits in perfectly with the theme of actively shaping your own destiny.
The show has seeded that idea throughout, including in “The Fortuneteller,” where Aunt Wu tells Aang, “Just as you reshaped those clouds, you have the power to shape your own destiny.” Avatar Kuruk’s advice echoes this.
We also see that same idea reflected in Zuko’s story arc, as he has to choose his own way at the crossroads of destiny, and forge his own path after making the wrong choice. So putting Aang in that same position once again draws the parallels between the two protagonists.
“This is Ainulindale, the music of the Gods who created the world spiritually through song before its material formation. That’s Eru in the middle and Varda, Manwe, Ulmo, Aule, Yavanna and Melkor, left to right. I found Tolkien’s creation scene both unpaintable and irresistible. And because I’m a craven, I chose not to depict the other Ainur such as Mandos, Tulkas, etc. Please forgive me. The watermark made the whole thing look like Eru was presenting a Doritos logo so I removed it. I mean, I really do love Doritos–every crunchy triangle is sacred– but it felt a little blasphemous compared to The Flame Imperishable. Anyway, feel free to use the image with attribution. Thanks.”
my fave bit of black dog folklore is that in some folklore there is a belief that the first person buried in a cemetery stays there and doesn’t cross over and helps other spirits move on and protects them from evil spirits, now naturally people want to avoid this fate for their loved ones and themselves so they would sometimes bury a dog first and it would return in the shape of a big black dog and protect the newly dead from evil spirits and occasionally the living as well
person: *once again wonders how Legolas couldn’t figure out the password to the Doors of Durin*
me: why would Legolas, someone who grew up in a time when elves lived mostly isolated, didn’t get along with dwarves at all and unknowingly lived around two thousand years next door to Sauron, ever consider that there could be enough trust between the races to just put the password right onto the god damn door itself?
Also, why Legolas?
Aragorn probably speaks better Quenya and more dialects of Sindarin, grew up in the sanctuary to which the last refugees of Eregion fled, knows Galadriel (who has definitely been through before and used to live in Eregion) and he has been through Moria before himself.
Gimli is descended from the kings of Khazad Dum.
Gandalf actually says he used to know every possible password, but has forgotten most of them (I feel this).
Frodo speaks Quenya and at least one dialect of Sindarin, and was taught by Bilbo, who knows Gildor Inglorion, who is someone who may well have visited Eregion in its heyday, and comes from a culture known for riddle-games.
Even Boromir might know something from the old lore of Gondor.
Whereas Legolas has never been to Moria or Lorien, possibly doesn’t speak Quenya or any dialect of Sindarin apart from his own, and knows nothing about Dwarves! He’s the least likely person to know, apart from Merry, Pippin, Sam and maybe Bill the Pony. (I say maybe, because Bill the Pony may have hidden depths, given that he seems to have worked for someone who knew the Nazgul and was able to outrun wolves and get back to Rivendell.)
And! When Sauron rose before, and destroyed Celebrimbor’s beautiful city where the different Free Peoples worked together in friendship, and murdered Celebrimbor and took the rings, and the doors of Khazad-dum were shut …
It would have fulfilled every distrust that the Wood Elves ever had, all the traumatized commitment to private, guarded forests that the Sindar brought away from Beleriand, all the determination to depend on none but themselves that the Silvans had always maintained.
All their sourness about the last Noldorin exiles like Celebrimbor and Galadriel.
“See what a ruin Eregion came to the end!” they said. Though they wept, too.
And Gil-Galad and Elendil might have made things better, showing how such a friendship among different kinds might work, if they lived, but they didn’t.
Gil-galad had no heir.
And Isildur never made it back to Rivendell, as he purposed, to get Elrond’s help with the Ring (and apologize for the way he was on the day on Mount Doom, which hurt his heart to think of).
After the Dagorlad slaughter, Thranduil searched the marshes for his father Oropher’s body, I think, but he never found it.
And so he rode home again to his woods in the North. And there he stayed.
He made his peace with Elrond, because who could keep themselves from being friends with Elrond, if he was set on it? But Thranduil never spoke to Galadriel again, till they met after the destruction of Dol Guldur at the end of the War of the Ring.
Legolas grew up hearing of the world outside the Woodland Realm: but not good things.
(I imagine Galadriel and Celeborn were shocked when Thranduil’s child showed up with the Fellowship, looking like a softer copy of his father–if it were possible to be shocked amid all the other disasters and perils. And when Gimli of Durin’s line began trading gallantries with Galadriel, Legolas glanced at him with wonder … )
I love this discussion! But I do think it was in Quenya. In LOTR, in the chapter Journey in the Dark, Gandalf speaks of the writing on the doors–he says “The words are in the eleven-tongue of the West of Middle-Earth in the Elder days.”
Frodo says just before this that he “thought I knew Elf-letters but I cannot read these.” He was familiar with Sindarin, from Bilbo.
I actually wrote a fic about this moment about a year ago.
It’s definitely Sindarin, both the language and the script.
Frodo’s problem is that it’s written in the Beleriandic mode, which is inherently different from both the Quenya and the “modern” Sindarin usage of Tengwar. In the Mode of Beleriand, (most) vowels are not written as diacritics either on top of the preceding (Quenya) or subsequent (Sindarin) consonant, but rather as individual signs.
What Frodo and Legolas would have been able to read:
What the Doors of Dúrin said instead:
As you can see, these look quite different. To Frodo, the latter would read “pidy willyr 0 w[stem without vowel]ny” if he approaches it as Sindarin, or “p[-i]ndȝ v[-i]llȝr 0 v[stem without vowel]nȝ” if he approaches it as Quenya, neither of which makes any sense.
Hence Frodo’s confusion. Hence also Gandalf’s “tongue of the West of Middle-earth in the elder days” (note that it’s the west of ME, not the West in the sense of Valinor). The Mode of Beleriand survived the sinking of same and was used throughout Beleriand in the Second Age, but after that, it fell out of use and was replaced with the “general” mode, which is what Frodo and Leggy are familiar with.
In Quenya, “Speak friend and enter” (either with or without commas ;)) would be roughly “á quetë
you know what trend needs to come back? those fancy old french dresses with the giant hips. the ones that are so wide they look like someone stuck a table in there. i want a dress so big people have to shout casual conversation at me from ten feet away. what kind of love letter to the concept of personal space
perfect. don’t touch me
back the fuck off jean pierre!!!!
See they’re wide at the hips, but not so much at the back and front. A good crinoline would solve that problem. And top it off with a wide brim hat armed with a pin for good measure.
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