How Avatar the Last Airbender Went From Good to Great

if you feel like you've seen this video before that's probably because you have Viacom conveniently decided to leave it up and steal as much ad revenue as possible from us before blocking it in every country outside of Canada so I decided to blur out some of the footage and re-upload it anyways if you enjoy the video please consider supporting us at patreon.com slash qit to free us from the constraints and bindings of our Lord YouTube's terrible copyright system previously on Avatar these are three simple words but the weight they carry is monumental in a sense they are responsible for taking this Nickelodeon cartoon from surprisingly good to permanently etched into the conversation of Best television of all time ok that's a bit dramatic these words aren't really the reason why avatar is great rather they're not the cause but they are the product avatar was always good in fact to a surprising degree my rose tinted glasses have become dull and this has led me to finding a lot of old classics from my childhood to actually be somewhat underwhelming as much as I want to be nostalgic about certain cartoons it's hard to infilling the incredible gaps of quality with that sentiment alone luckily with avatar the need to do that is often rare from the first 10 minutes of the first episode the level of characterization given to our cast is impressive to say the least it's not getting away from me this time watch and learn Katara this is how you catch a fish this is sokka's first line in the series and already we get the impression that he's a bit of a fool incapable of catching a fish yet despite that he remains confident to perhaps unreasonably so the way he speaks to his sister Katara gives the idea that he sees himself as above her but then immediately we see Katara grab a fish out of the water with her waterbending lending credit to the opposite idea ultimately it fails and she loses concentration giving us a glimpse into the extent and capabilities of her powers every time you play with magic water I get so from the inflection and sokka's voice we are told that he looks down upon Katara's abilities demeaning them reasonably this would imply that he lacks those same abilities by using the term magic we could then infer that Sokka is a bit of a skeptic the two then go on to bicker back and forth reinforcing the previous ideas but also establishing the two as fairly immature when trouble strikes Sokka is quick to act taking control of their boats though ultimately proves to be quite bad at it combine that demonstration with the earlier narration of the episode saying that their father went off to war and we could gleam that Sokka was never taught to do these things he's attempting we also see Katara not helping but instead just shouting commands at Sokka playing into the commanding nature that we see explored of her character throughout the rest of the show in the aftermath the two continue to argue in Sokka says even to a girl to screw things up this tells us that Sokka has some to put it bluntly sexist tendencies something that gets explored further soon after with the Kyoshi Island episode Katara reacts aggressively and as her emotions start to rile we see that her waterbending is actually much stronger than previously gathered this establishes an emotional connection to the power of one spending and gives the idea that Katara's capabilities are quite high big drops here but I'm gonna call it quits on these two for now because I've talked about them in a previous video let's jump forward to the boy in the ice given the nature of his condition the glowing tattoos in the subsequent light beam that shoots off into the sky on his release we are given quite the idea that whoever this is is extremely powerful we know that the boy is not a victim of circumstance and just happened to freeze over luckily because the meditation position he remains in shows intent we learn later that this is more reflex than direct intent but the point remains nonetheless on cue from that light beam we cut to a metal ship much more advanced to the likes of Sokka and Katara's this is the introduction of Zuko and his first word is finally obviously this gives the idea that he's been looking for whoever this boy is for a long time and to contrast that we see that Zuko's uncle is quite casual about the situation we've been down this road before Prince Zuko I don't want you to get too excited over nothing this tells us one of two things either Zuko is naive and is quick to think that any show of light could be the thing he's searching for or he's incredibly driven and is willing to turn over every rock to get what he wants I need to capture the avatar all right so it's the second one desperation cut back to the boy in the ice and we hear the music swell dramatically playing into the previous notion of power the boy lays there near lifeless as Katara hovers over him but to contrast with this notion we've built in our head of who this character is we learned that he is nothing but a child an incredibly powerful child's seven minutes in 19 seconds this is how long it took to establish all of the basis of the main cast for avatar the last airbender each moment is used to build on something new or to develop a previously established trait further and that is why I think the first episode is so good but in recognizing its talents I have to recognize the show's downfalls the fandom is quick to point fingers to an episode like the Great Divide as one of if not the worst episode of the entire series and I'd probably agree however I don't think it's that bad if I were to guess why we've all grown to hate it so much I would say it has a lot more to do with the sheer volume of times we've been forced to watch it to take us back to its time of airing there were no options of streaming the show on Netflix in 2005 we the audience were basically subject to just watching the episodes as they aired or whatever episodes they maybe and said episode tended to be the Great Divide any sort of flaw with the episode became magnified due to repeated viewing but this poses an interesting question why the Great Divide why was that episode specifically played so often well it is entirely a standalone episode while our main cast is a part of its plot heavy focus is given to two new tribes and specifically two new characters these characters are introduced at the beginning and disposed of by the end the conflict is manufactured at the beginning and settled at the end so for all intents and purposes this episode could be taken out without affecting too much of the viewing experience likewise it could be watched in isolation without feeling like you're missing anything therefore a solid candidate for random and constant airing on Nickelodeon however it's to be noted that this isn't the only episode like this in fact a fair amount of season 1 could be considered along these lines some more than others mostly towards the middle of the season this is because season 1 took a very episodic approach and while that's not inherently bad it does come with its own set of downfalls namely that any topic you wanna broach has to be established settled within 20 minutes which is why my actual least favorite episode would probably be episode 6 imprisoned but let's put a pin in that and flash-forward to season 2 of course one of the greatest additions to come to Avatar The Last Airbender would have to be the character of Azula I've talked about her in a previous video in regards to becoming the show sorely needed antagonist but she wasn't the show's only source of villainy I'm less inclined to look at Zuko in this way preferring instead to think of him as a deuteragonist but we also got Wan Shi Tong from the spirit library Mayon tighly Chou and of course Ozai however one of my favorite villains would have to be longfang ranking just below Azula right where he belongs you were introduced to this character in season 2 episode 14 the gang had just found themselves in the city of Ba Sing se with urgent news of a plan to defeat the Fire Lord all they need to do was get this information to the earth King however upon arrival they're met with some serious red tape that is government obstacles standing between them in a meeting with the king we're introduced to a character by the name of Judy who acts as the group's caretaker but on the low mostly service as a babysitter making sure that the group never gets too close to their goal through a series of events the gang finds themselves just short of meeting the king and instead all get dragged into a room to have a meeting with longfang this is where we learn the true secret behind bossing says-- success no mention of the war is permitted within the city walls in the king is merely a figurehead as Long Fangs secretly holds control of the government and in my favorite moment of the episode judy is brought back into the room but she's not Judy she's another Judy and we come to understand the lengths at which long thing will go to remain in total control rest in peace jet this is the show at its strongest in my opinion it does three things one it tackles a very serious issue the idea of totalitarianism longfang uses his power to manipulate those beneath him he tricks the masses through censorship and those who he can't trick are instead brainwashed and he rules with a stone fist utilizing his secret police aka the Dai Li to crush any troublesome individuals - it's scary now it's not the puppet master levels of scary but it is certainly unnerving longfang is not a joke seeing jet get brainwashed is really creepy I don't think avatar should be a horror show but what I like about these types of episodes is the level of gravitas allotted to their characters it doesn't put a character like longfang as the punchline which allows us to fully buy into his premise as an individual to be feared and three it's not one episode everything I just described happens in one episode but that's not the end of the story it's just the beginning this art class another four episodes and then ends on a cliffhanger with the reveal of azula's infiltration because it warrants a longer runtime and it's due to these qualities that I find myself disliking an episode like season 1 episode 6 for those unfamiliar that episode is the introduction of Haru the earthbender it takes place in an earth Kingdom village where the Fire Nation has arrested all earth benders and bullies the remaining citizens into giving up their money under the fear of having their property burned down to tap back into the idea of gravitas I actually do think this episode starts off fairly well the scene in which the Fire Nation soldiers threaten Haru his mom for taxes actually does seem serious you understand why this woman would want her uu to follow the rules because clearly as demonstrated these soldiers are no joke well these ones aren't but we'll get back to that in a second going forward we see Haru and Katara get into a situation where Haru decides to Earthbend to save an elderly man's life in action that would then result in his arrest and imprisonment this is the way I think more time being allotted would be useful I'm not so cold-hearted as to say I don't care at all about haru's arrest but I will say that it's pretty heavily carried by the scene of his mom crying as it stands I'd called these series of events passable but could certainly be improved upon through an extra episode or two any amount of time developing Haru further than already given would have made this moment more meaningful and thus leaving the viewer more invested into his well-being as a counterpoint one could make the argument that we do care about Katara and as long as Katara cares about Haru that's all we need which would perhaps give reason as to why I think the scene with her whose mom crying is decent because it's immediately followed up by Katara dropping her clay pot in surprise that argument would hold up more if it weren't for the utter ridiculousness that is Katara's plan to get Haru out it's simple just get into a laughably unrealistic argument with a person that is totally not your own brother then have this large boulder sit on a conveniently placed vent where your avatar friend will airbending the sky assuming he's not distracted for whatever reason hope the Fire Nation soldiers don't recognize your Water Tribe garments and then arrest you instead of the lemur monkey standing behind set vents the problem is not that this plan is bad though it is the problem is that this plan is a joke it plays off as almost parity with even in show characters such as Aang not giving it a care in the world how am I supposed to take this situation at all serious when even the characters won't cut to the prison ship we are introduced to a Fire Nation general or something now I could just say think about longfang and compare the two and I think you would see the downfalls of execution in this character but let's get even more specific in the scene two soldiers approached the boss to report a sighting of a flying buffalo or a bison one of the two which was it a buffalo or a bison I'm not sure what the difference is but that's not really the point is it sir so as you can see here this scene doesn't really play out all that seriously the boss gets caught up and they'd rather minut detail of the report and is correctly called out from missing the point this lends to the idea that he is incompetent he then lashes out childishly and overthrows his soldier now that in itself could be seen as intimidating if not for the soldiers comical scream as he plummets overboard that's basically one level above a Wilhelm he then demands that the captain be woken up only to be informed that that was the captain again proving his incompetence so how could this scene be improved well let's take a look at an incredibly similar scene from the next season here we see a Zula being informed that the tides will not allow for their ship to continue Azula threatens the captain reminding him the tides are not in charge that she is and if I were to have you thrown overboard with the tides think twice about smashing you against the rocky shore well then maybe you should worry less about the tides have already made up their mind about killing you I'm worried more about me who's still mulling it over first thing of note is the inclusion of music the original scene played out silently with only a single musical cue at the moment before the boss does the soldier overboard the music added to Azula scene as a consistent sense of unease and while as ULA's commands are almost as nonsensical as the original Fire Nation bosses were in her situation it lends to the idea of her incredible position of power with scene one we concluded the is an idiot unaware of his surroundings an incapable of digesting proper information in seen to azula's roundabout way of threatening shows a certain level of intelligence and that intelligence is never undermined by her seen partner who instead perceives a threat for what it is and knowingly follows her command without addressing its lack of logic as the alternative would surely be much worse all in all in prison gives us a rushed premise with a lacking antagonist I could go on to explain how the rest of the episode is as hurried as its first half but that mostly just be recycling earlier points while an episode like the Great Divide is annoying in its own right I find episodes like this to be much harder to get through simply due to knowing how much better the show can be so much of season 1 is dedicated to getting in and then getting out very few of the plot lines established result in long term arcs until we find ourselves in the Northern Water Tribe which coincidentally is also my favorite finale of the show avatar the last airbender was always good but the bridge into carefully written long-term narratives made the show great it's what solidified it as one of the best television shows to exist of all time hey if you enjoyed the video leave a like and subscribe I want to thank our patrons over at patreon.com slash Cato whitey woods on a Monday page monitor the hunter hundred 2011 dick writing associations danny de donkey gauge lambert doji tempest nyx and h2 mass [Music]

Channel: Kato

Views: 2,195,829

Rating: 4.9098406 out of 5

Keywords: Kato, Anime, Analysis, Zero, and, Hoodie, Avatar Analysis, Avatar the Last Airbender, Legend of Korra vs Avatar the Last Airbender, Dai Li, Azula, Jet Death, Ba Sing Se, Best Avatar the Last Airbender Episode, Best Avatar Episode, Avatar Season 2, Katara, The Puppet Master, Long Feng

Id: 0AbWGAzbis8

Length: 14min 25sec (865 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 10 2018

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The original post was removed so this is not a repost.