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| Thursday, December 11, 2008 07:35 PM |
| On the Viewer - Avatar: The Last Airbender (Book One, Chapters 1-4) |
 by Fëanor |
Some years ago, I saw part of an early episode of the Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender and thought it looked pretty cool. Then I just kind of forgot about it - until a few weeks ago, when I caught a good portion of a marathon of the series on TV. I was really impressed by how smart and funny the show was, how cool the action was, how complex and interesting the characters were, how engaging the story was. Poppy enjoyed it, too. I was tempted to watch the marathon through to the last episode (the series came to an end earlier this year), but I'd seen enough at that point to know I wanted to see the whole thing, so I decided not to spoil the end for myself, and added the first season (or "book," as they call it) of the series to our Netflix queue. Poppy and I watched the first disc the other night. The show introduces you to a world divided into four nations named after each of the four elements. Some people in those nations are born able to channel, or bend, one of the four elements, and use this power as part of a deadly form of martial arts. Every generation, a special person known as the Avatar is reborn into one of the tribes, and this person is able to channel all four elements at once.
But no Avatar has appeared in 100 years, and in the meantime the war-like Fire Nation, under the command of the evil Fire Lord, has practically taken over the world. Katara, a young, untrained waterbender in a remote village, still hopes that one day the Avatar will return and save everyone. Her brother Sokka is more skeptical. Then one day they inadvertently break open a block of ice and find a young airbender named Aang inside. Airbenders also haven't been seen in about 100 years, ever since the Fire Nation attacked their temples and seemingly wiped them out. Has Aang really been trapped inside the ice all that time? And can he be the long-awaited Avatar?
Duh. Just check the title of the series!
Also trapped in the ice with Aang was his flying bison, Appa, whom you cannot help but love immediately, especially since his design was based on the Catbus in My Neighbor Totoro. Desperately seeking Aang is Zuko, the young banished prince of the Fire Nation. He's certain if he can deliver the Avatar to his father, he will be accepted back into the family and regain his honor.
That's the setup for Book One - Zuko chasing Aang and his friends across the world while Aang tries to figure out how to be an Avatar - but the series was crafted as one long story (thus the "chapters" and "books") with a beginning and ending, so the premise and basic setup changes quite a bit as it goes on; new characters are introduced, and all of them grow and change a great deal.
In this first handful of episodes, we're only just getting introduced to some of the central characters, but the show's high quality and its wonderful sense of humor are already evident. We're already getting to see how fantastic and imaginative this world is, how fascinating and complex and lovable these characters are, how powerful and exciting the action sequences are. I can't wait to see the rest of it! |
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