Welcome back for another weekly review of Avatar! This week, we return to Omashu and things aren’t quite as happy as the first time we visited. How does the episode hold up? Here are my thoughts.
1. “Omashu always seemed… untouchable.”
For the first time in the show, we return to a previous location, and things in Omashu have visibly changed. The Fire Nation occupation has literally cast a shadow on the city, with a large part of the episode taking place either at night or on the industrial scaffolding that now covers many of the city’s distinguishing features.
My favorite part of this is that as much as things have changed, underneath they’re still the same. We still have the chutes, but now they’re used for fight scenes and runaway Fire Nation babies instead of transporting goods and joyrides. We still have Bumi’s pet Flopsie, but now he’s chained up and made to work. This is how you do a sequel: Take the familiar elements and give them a new context that reflects an updated status quo.
2. “The universe has given me strong hints that it’s time for a career change.”
Azula’s second major appearance is spent gathering a team, childhood friends Ty Lee and Mai, and I’m surprised at how shaky their ground is for following her. Ty Lee doesn’t want to leave her circus at first, so Azula essentially threatens her in a backhanded way. Ty Lee acts like she’s going with the flow of the universe, but look any deeper and you realize the decision was mostly made out of fear. Likewise, while Mai is mainly going along with Azula out of boredom (itself a somewhat flimsy, if acceptable, motivation), there’s also that element of fear. Note how she respectfully refers to her as “Princess Azula” during the Bumi/Tom-Tom trade-off, even though they’re old friends in a tense moment. Azula has a team that is both scared enough to follow her and that knows her just well enough to believe they’re rekindling old friendships while on a noble mission.
3. “Everything is so clever, so tricky… Just like their King Bumi.”
Bumi’s back! He’s one of my favorite supporting characters because he’s the one person Aang knew 100 years ago who is still alive. And he truly is, as Aang said way back when we first met him, “a mad genius” — both a genius and completely mad. He’s old and wise, and at the same time he understands that life should be fun and can sometimes be completely absurd. His actions don’t always make sense in the moment, but if it’s important, he knows what he’s doing.
He shares these qualities with Aang’s previous mentor, monk Gyatso. He also shares these qualities with Iroh. Balance is one of the biggest themes in Avatar, and I think it’s telling that all of the most balanced and well-adjusted characters in the show understand the contrasting necessity for both wisdom and absurdity.
4. “There are three jings?”
The concept of jings, the flow of energy, is only ever mentioned in this episode, but I find it fascinating and relevant to the mechanics and personality of all bending. Most people who have seen Avatar have wondered what element they’d bend if they were in the world of the show, and anyone who knows me would immediately be able to guess that I’d be earth. Given that, I love what Bumi says after breaking down the concept of positive, negative, and neutral energies: “Neutral jing is the key to earthbending. It involves listening and waiting for the right moment to strike.”
First off, damn if that ain’t me. Second, you can see from this why earthbending would be such a challenge for Aang. Air is always moving, and airbenders are always on their toes, typically retreating or in offensive stances using the opponent’s energy against them — negative jing. Water was fairly easy for him to learn, as it’s also always moving, focusing on the push and pull — the interplay between positive and negative jing. He even had early success with creating fire back in “The Deserter,” as fire creation is all about expending energy — positive jing. But neutral jing? Aang didn’t even realize it existed until Bumi told him.
Continued below5. “Does that look like the face of a killer to you?”
Mai’s baby brother, Tom-Tom, eventually ends up in the hands of our protagonists, and the Omashu resistance citizens are hesitant about him. He may be a baby, but, as one man says, “Sure he’s cute now, but when he’s older, he’ll join the Fire Nation army. You won’t think he’s so cute then. He’ll be a killer.” Textually, this moment hammers home how a society shapes its inhabitants. Subtextually, it explores how deep someone’s prejudice can be against an oppressive society’s citizens, even if those individual citizens may be innocent. Further, when Tom-Tom becomes barter material, the situation turns into a physical example of how societies train their people from birth to be pawns in their system.
Ultimately, though, the sweet and innocent Tom-Tom becomes a symbol of hope for the future, an icon for gradual societal change. So it’s fitting that the last shot of the episode shows Aang returning him to his parents. As the Avatar, he has a deep respect for life and knows that Tom-Tom can lead a future where none of this would happen.
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What did you think of the episode? Thoughts on Azula’s new squad or Omashu’s remodel? How about that bending philosophy? Let me know in the comments!
