Overanalyzing Avatar: The Serpent's Pass

remember what i mentioned that the previously on avatar segments sometimes use different voice takes well holy [ __ ] here's how aang sounds in this line originally and then this is the same line in the recap it's subtle but there is a difference in the second one it sounds just like ang and a demonic voice talking but the one from the actual episode actually sounds like three or four voices talking at the same time to me at least [Music] i don't know why it took me so many watch throughs to notice this but you can actually see ango flying and land here like it's so obvious but i just noticed that on my last watch there's a bunch of stuff like that for me actually sure 5 000 year old maps from the spirit library just splash some water on them sorry would this be how this works wouldn't katara naturally take some of the ink out of the maps too or like a lot of the ink toff over here pissed off she can't partake in the map looking activities it looks like the only passage connecting the south to the north is this sliver of land called the serpent's pass how does saka know this is called the serpent's past he says it as if he didn't already know and there's like no text on this map so how does he know the debossing say we go no more distractions hello there fellow refugees perfect distraction timing classic avatar and yes this is the very family that zuko was about to rob for food in the episode zuko alone come on guys you think i'm gonna miss something big like that what's interesting though is that they have this other girl with them who i've heard is actually this guy's sister i don't know if that's true but it's interesting that she wasn't around with zuko was about to mess them up and that wasn't too too long ago and it seems like a really really unnecessary addition since she has no lines and does literally nothing the entire episode what is this thing is that a dog with a rat's head what is this i can't believe how many people's lives have been uprooted by the fire nation we're all looking for a better life safe behind the walls of boston say wow yeah refugees avatar really doesn't pull its punches with how war affects the ones not fighting we've seen countless villages raised and attacked and destroyed but because of how those episodes were set up as kind of self-contained stories the viewer can kind of forget that those people's lives have to carry on so seeing this and seeing that the wars had lasting ramifications on countless everyday people shows us that this war isn't something to be joked about people die and get hurt in wars all the time everyone knows that but here we get to see that this show takes its story and world very seriously and knows about the people that get trampled under the constant march of war it's not just a show that has fighting for fighting's sake and having battles on being cool there are lasting awful effects to the events that take place who would have thought after all these years i'd returned to the scene of my greatest military disgrace as a tourist you think ira sniped this nice flower hat from the flower shop before they left last episode i bet he did this also really speaks to arrow's character some of the best advice i ever got is that you have to be able to laugh at yourself so this really endears ira to me ugh i'm sick of eating rotten food sleeping in the dirt i'm tired of living like this aren't we all my name's jett and these are my freedom fighters jet introduces himself in the exact same way as he did to the gang back in season one my name is jet and these are my freedom fighters i told you already no vegetables on the ferry one cabbage slug could destroy the entire ecosystem of bossing said security this is a super weird little cutaway gag i guess this guy's cabbages get messed up i guess that's funny i don't know we've never seen him before and we'll never see him again so this joke just seems really weird um four tickets for the ferry to boston say please passport uh no one told us we had to have passports there's actually this little low-key line in the last episode that tells us the white lotus actually got passports made up for zuko and ira i have the passports for our guests which explains how they got on the ferry without any trouble don't you know who this is he's the avatar ah i see 50 avatars a day and by the way not a very impressive costume wait these two are holding hands did they come as an ang duo i can kind of see how their plan failed oh nice flat jpeg of shelves you put in here guys looks looks really good what did toff just hand to ang seriously i have no idea and look at you sleeveless guy been working out i'll grab a tree branch and do a few chin touches every now and then nothing major this is funny because soccer is an idiot and doing pull-ups wouldn't grow your arms at all no passports no tickets you can actually see aang wipe off the mark that the staff made really quickly here you'll get to the city safely i'll lead you through the serpent's pass [Music] i can't believe we gave up our tickets and now we're going through the serpent's pass yes saka that actually is what we just discussed right before the commercial break thank you for keeping me updated what does it say it says abandon hope how could we abandon hope that's all we have i don't know the monks used to say that hope is just a distraction so maybe we do need to abandon it what are you talking about hope isn't going to get us into bossing say and it's not gonna find oppa we need to focus on what we're doing right now and that's getting across this pass i mean i kind of vibe with this outlook honestly like the show delivers it as this backward way of thinking but i mean he's right right no one's gonna do it for them is that really all that unhealthy of a viewpoint i don't think so aang's going through a hard time right now so this mindset is tied in with that but i don't think it's all that bad of a way to think especially in a situation like this the fire nation controls the western lake rumor has it they're working on something big on the other side and they don't want anyone to find out what it is so that's got to be the drill right this is just a low-key little line to make it seem like the fire nation didn't pull the drill out of absolutely nowhere i like the little detail that this guy's taking the outer side towards the cliff and keeping his pregnant wife on the inside away from the drop good job they spotted us let's go let's go so wait does the fire nation just make a habit of trying to kill everyone they see civilian or not like no way they could have known it was ang and company at this distance and even if they could there's no way that someone could put an order in this quickly to attack but still these guys just fired immediately suki you shouldn't sleep there who knows how stable this ledge is it could give way at any moment saka i'm fine stop worrying i mean they're both right suki can take care of herself but it is a pretty stupid idea to sleep like right next to a cliff especially after you just watched this happen whoa they did it it's not a full moon rejoice by the gods but seriously the one time you're not gonna have a full moon it's where your characters are literally on a body of water called full moon bay i've always hated back sheaths they don't make any sense right unless you're sort of super short you just wouldn't be able to put your sword back into them right like your arm wouldn't be long enough to get the point of your sword back into the top of the sheath in actually the same shot here we can see zuko's sword shrink from this length which looked longer than his outstretched arm would be on its own down to this size just so the sheath on his back can actually physically make sense seriously it looks like the swords get dramatically shorter in this one second of animation i was zuko hooked on here no way that would have worked right what's going on with you in the desert all you cared about was finding oppa and now it's like you don't care about him at all you saw what i did out there i was so angry about losing oppa i couldn't control myself i hated feeling like that but now you're not letting yourself feel anything i think this is a really realistic response from man it's very human to see yourself do something you don't like and then dial it way back too far back and then it's still an unhealthy way of doing things just in the opposite direction i think this isn't really an emotional state that's explored very often either so it's cool that they give this kind of feeling an entire episode for ang to feel out it's a beautiful moon yeah it really is this is a cute little conversation but it's also sad i like that saka can clearly still have feelings for someone even though he's still hurting over you that's a very real situation that someone could find themselves in and that probably makes him feel even worse because he obviously still has strong feelings for ua and having feelings for zuki too would feel like he's betraying her like we're in this fantastical world but the characters deal with very human emotions that's why you fall in love with these characters these are real situations that real people deal with they feel like real people struggling with grief and loss like we all do [Music] i can't i've done some things in my past that i'm not proud of but that's why i'm going to bossing say for a new beginning a second chance i like this conversation it's very earnest and jet's being very genuine he's actually going to boston say to start a new life so why do they choose to do this sinister zoom in with the menacing strings along with it [Music] it makes it seem like jets lying here do they want people to think jets lying here everyone's single file [Music] i'm usually not one to complain about how they choose to solve problems with bending but this one is one of the more egregious ones katara could just as easily make an icebridge and even if you didn't want to do that because you would a pregnant lady toff could seemingly raise the ground pretty easily and maybe toff couldn't have done it all at once and it might have been pretty time consuming or something but it probably would have made a lot more sense right i could have mentioned this at any point i guess but did the gang get in new sleeping bags since last episode because they definitely weren't lugging them through the desert okay looking at the size of this thing and the size of the air pocket that they were all huddled in how didn't the serpent completely devour at least most of the group on its first drive by this may seem convenient that the serpent is right here right now as the gang passes this one submerged section but i think it makes perfect sense this one little gap seems like it's the only way that the serpent could pass from the eastern and western sides so to me it makes sense that he would spend a lot of time there maybe even make that little area his home did momo really just run closer to it oh never mind he's back on top shoulder oh never mind again he's back in front of soccer if you slow this way down you can actually see the katara probably lost a little bit of control here and didn't mean to do that spin tough come on it's just ice actually i'm gonna stay on my little island where i can see this brings up a really weird thing with top's abilities actually so the surface she's standing on has to be earther and for her to feel the vibrations throw it and see so like she wouldn't be able to see if she was standing on wood or some other surface despite vibrations traveling across and through those surfaces just as easily oh saka you saved me actually it's me oh well you can go ahead and let me drown now you know it sucks i've said it before people are gonna get mad if i don't leave their favorite jokes in but i can't be funny or analytical over top of this this is just funny i can't be funnier than this i guess this is a hint of tough liking saka but that's never really pursued or talked about at all so you know it's just funny this is the perfect way to beat this thing right like a really meaty hit that would make it [ __ ] off but not kill it and it plays to the surrounding of the characters and an interesting new move that katara and teamed up on pretty much genius from an action and storytelling standpoint i like that top doesn't react here because she doesn't see ang and katara go flying by i help grand grand deliver lots of babies back home this isn't the same as delivering an arctic seal this is a real human thing i'm a soccer this is forbidden eldritch science i'd be freaking out too i've realized lately that being on your own isn't always the best path that's a very nice sentiment zuko you did have a pretty rough go on that one episode so it's satisfying here to see zuko say this and give ira some credit for once see i'm telling you little by little he's opening up it's not just all at once aang get some rags saka water saka actually used katara's pouch to go get water which makes sense what's weird is that he ran off without it in the last scene since we see katara with it right as she enters the tent what should we name her i want her daughter's name to be unique i want it to mean something i've been going through a really hard time lately but you've made me hopeful again i know what i want to name our baby now hope ah come on no matter how many times i've watched this show i can never really get around how corny naming their daughter hope is it was bordering on corny when aang had a breakthrough when seeing a newborn baby but them actually naming her hope is just jumping the corn shark do you think if ying had her baby a day earlier she still would have named it hope and then when they rocked up on the serpent's pass and it was all like abandoned hope she would have freaked out i would have if i was the dad i'd have been like nah man that's bad mojo we gotta get the hell out of here i thought i was trying to be strong but really i was just running away from my feelings seeing this family together so full of happiness and love it's reminding me how i feel about oppa [Music] and how i feel about you it's good that they gave aang two full episodes to be messed up over oppa so now it actually feels like a real big loss frank any less would have felt weird and any more probably would have felt like it was dragging on two full episodes for him to reckon with his emotions isn't short though so him having his breakthrough works even if the reasoning is a little corny like i said saka it's been really great to see you again whoa hold on why does it sound like you're saying goodbye i came along because i wanted to make sure you got through the serpent's pass safely but now i need to get back to the other kyoshi warriors suzuki has to go back over the surface pass on her own now right so she's gotta go past that underwater section on her own that's gotta be a pretty stressful swim listen i'm really sorry about last night we were talking and saying things i just got carried away and before i knew it let's go you gotta love when soccer gets a w baby this is him coming over an emotional hurdle as well with a little less reasoning behind it but it still works he had that night and most of the day to think about it so i think it's fine immediately the scale of bossing say is set up visually not only with this shot of it towering over rang but with the earlier shot of it being the entire horizon we've only heard about the city at this point usually in reverence so the wall surrounding it being so strikingly large only enforces the idea of its importance [Music] sorry momo oppa's gonna have to wait and this line really drives home the fact that aang has emotionally come to terms with the fact that he's not gonna find oppa right away which softens the blow of the next episode not having anything to do with finding off at all really smart writing all the way around this episode's really good it's so emotionally driven pretty much the entire run time is the cast dealing with things they've done or failed to do or had happened to them if you remove the serpent scene this entire episode is basically just talking i don't think the episode is any weaker for it though they're all really strong conversations about the various internal struggles that our characters are having and none of them fall flat saka aang airo and zuko even get introspective moments and they all land well the episode itself is actually built around these emotional scenes much more than any action or comedy the action scene with the serpent isn't even that close to the finale moment what we get instead is an emotional finale with aang having his breakthrough like i said these characters don't feel like cartoon characters they feel like real people who have to deal with things just like we do and that's part of what makes this show so special and this episode really highlights that kind of stuff patron shadows if you want to be two full episodes ahead of the youtube releases for over analyzing avatar you can support me on patreon for just a few bucks link as always is in the description below the video towering shout outs go to my top patrons frit sullivan who reached enlightenment in four different religions a world record keegan scott who was immune to conventional weapons skylos the one true heir to the neptunian throne and zoopy who can light people who aren't named terrance on fire with his mind so if your name is not terence you know watch out for that guy other huge shout outs go to my other top patrons be my valentine code cannot derrick cornwell dj jack stew mutual aide eleonora rose garmer glintlock nicholas abbott praker gas the most super of snippers and thiago nacimento next up is the drill you can tell because of the giant drill in the episode

Channel: Overanalyzing Avatar

Views: 801,870

Keywords: avatar the last airbender, react to avatar the last airbender, react to the serpents pass, avatar the legend of aang, Avatar serpent, The Serpent's Pass, Avat the serpents pass, Avatar the last airbender the serpents pass, Avatar video essay, Avatar the last airbender video essay, avatar netflix, netflix avatar, netflix avatar the last airbender, avatar studios, netflix avatar review, avatar netflix trailer, avatar studios trailer, minecraft, avatar minecraft

Id: 023Tt-4PIrw

Length: 15min 38sec (938 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 27 2021