Welcome back for another weekly review of Avatar! This week, we meet join the Zhangs and the Gan Jins and the as they cross the Great Divide. How does the episode hold up? Here are my thoughts.
1. “The Worst Episode Of The Show.”
We’ve finally reached it: the episode considered by many fans to be “the worst” of the show. As the rest of the points will show, it definitely misses the mark in a few key areas. This was likely a filler episode when the creators had only had 13 episodes ordered, trying to cover this topic in a single episode instead of the large-scale story they would attempt later. Even being far below the quality of the fan-favorite episode just before (“Jet”) or those just after (“The Storm” and “The Blue Spirit”), though, I still find the episode far from unwatchable. As the old adage goes, the worst episode of a high-quality batch will still be better than the average episode of an average show.
2. Con: Oversimplification Of ‘Two Warring States’ Conflict.
“The Great Divide” attempts to cover the two warring states concept, introducing us to a pair of tribes who have a 100-year-old feud that has permeated each of their cultures. However, we don’t see much about their actual cultures and instead see basic traits of how each of the tribes work. One tribe is neat all the time, one is messy all the time. They hate each other for reasons they don’t fully understand. They have separate stories that can be done away with by a simple overriding story told by Aang. And, in the end, the entirety of each tribe agrees to not hate each other after a quick story.
It’s all too simple.
I like the fact that Avatar tried to cover this concept so early, but trying to distill the entire thing into 20 minutes, from establishing the feud to completely concluding it, was an impossible task.
3. Pro: Differing Animation Styles During Stories.
In order to display the different stories of each tribe, each adopted a different animation style. For the Gan Jin tribe, we get an epic portrayal of their story reminiscent of samurai films, placing the emphasis on realism, place, and pacing. The Zhangs, on the other hand, get a completely wild animation style reminiscent of the Gainax anime studio, particularly around the FLCL era, with characters frantically throwing their limbs around and overexaggerating everything in a completely subjective way. Aang’s story gets the chibi treatment, also fitting since it portrays the characters as children. These bits stand out as the highlight of the episode for me.
4. Con: Comedic Focus Distracts From The Reality Of The Situation.
John O’Bryan, who wrote this episode, has written some of my favorites of the series, including “The King of Omashu” and “The Headband.” He tends to focus on comedy, and most of the time it works. Here, though, the comedy ends up further simplifying the complex situation he’s trying to cover. The differences of the tribes are further simplified so they can be played for laughs, as is the (mega-important) solution at the end. There are some genuinely some funny exchanges, but that overall direction for the episode’s tone ended up doing more harm than good.
5. Pro: Soundtrack To The Rescue.
A lot of my actual enjoyment, even through the eye-rolling moments, came from the cues The Track Team cooked up for each tribe. The Gan Jins get a prim, haughty set of string cues, while the Zhangs get a discordant cluster of horns. The sound effects follow suit: Everything clean and crisp for the Gan Jins, yet messy and harsh for the Zhangs. Each of the different retellings of history also has a different quality matching up with the animation style mentioned in the third point. It’s all very exaggerated, yet Zuckerman and Wynn managed to make the negatives of the writing far more enjoyable through creative use of that exaggeration.
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Do you think “The Great Divide” is beyond redemption? Or do you disagree with popular opinion? Let me know in the comments!
