Avatar end
I don't know if anyone on my flist watches Avatar: The Last Airbender. The series finale was tonight.
No spoilers here...but it seems to me that there are a couple of major threads which weren't cleared up by the finale.
One is the issue of Prince Zukko's mother. The other, far more major issue in terms of the world of the show, is a problem that has seemed obvious to me since I first started watching the show:
The world of Avatar is one in which there were four great nations, each following a different element: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The Avatar had the power of all four elements, and was reborn as a member of each nation in turn. The Avatar's role is to keep the world in balance.
But 100 years before the show begins, a comet passes through the sky. It temporarily empowers the Fire Nation, and under the Firelord they conquer most of the rest of the world. The Avatar disappears at this time, his fate unknown.
The Firelord, knowing that the next incarnation of the Avatar will be as an Airbender (i.e. a magician of the Air Nation) proceed to exterminate the entire population of the Air Nation. And he succeeds! Every member of the Air Nation is killed. That's why the show is called Avatar: The Last Airbender, after all!
Aang, the Avatar and last Airbender, is found frozen in an iceberg. He's thawed and begins the task of bringing peace and balance to the world throughout the show. But - and this is the problem - even assuming he succeeds (and I'm being careful not to do any spoilers here), he'll still have a world in which the Air Nation no longer exists! In which case, how can there be balance in the long run? And since the Avatar will be due to be reborn as an Airbender again in four incarnations, doesn't that mean that the Avatar cycle is broken?
Now, there were some people living in the ruins of the old Airbender temples in the lands of the old Air Nation. But as Aang said on first seeing them, they weren't Airbenders. They'd been living in that place for a long time, and none of them were Airbenders. Nor was there any hint that Aang could train them to become Airbenders (it seems that you really need to be born as one). So it would seem that Aang has a real problem: how to restore the missing 1/4 of the population of his world, along with their culture and powers. There's no sign that that's within the powers of the Avatar.
While I'm at it, it's a pity that Mako died before the third season was filmed. The replacement voice actor did a good job (as the former Fire Nation general, Iroh), but it just wasn't the same. Even the words themselves didn't seem as well-written.
By the way, if you haven't seen Avatar and would like to, all episodes including the series finale are now available to view online over at AvatarChapters.com. It's not the greatest show in the world, but it's very well done and more intelligent then most TV shows.
No spoilers here...but it seems to me that there are a couple of major threads which weren't cleared up by the finale.
One is the issue of Prince Zukko's mother. The other, far more major issue in terms of the world of the show, is a problem that has seemed obvious to me since I first started watching the show:
The world of Avatar is one in which there were four great nations, each following a different element: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The Avatar had the power of all four elements, and was reborn as a member of each nation in turn. The Avatar's role is to keep the world in balance.
But 100 years before the show begins, a comet passes through the sky. It temporarily empowers the Fire Nation, and under the Firelord they conquer most of the rest of the world. The Avatar disappears at this time, his fate unknown.
The Firelord, knowing that the next incarnation of the Avatar will be as an Airbender (i.e. a magician of the Air Nation) proceed to exterminate the entire population of the Air Nation. And he succeeds! Every member of the Air Nation is killed. That's why the show is called Avatar: The Last Airbender, after all!
Aang, the Avatar and last Airbender, is found frozen in an iceberg. He's thawed and begins the task of bringing peace and balance to the world throughout the show. But - and this is the problem - even assuming he succeeds (and I'm being careful not to do any spoilers here), he'll still have a world in which the Air Nation no longer exists! In which case, how can there be balance in the long run? And since the Avatar will be due to be reborn as an Airbender again in four incarnations, doesn't that mean that the Avatar cycle is broken?
Now, there were some people living in the ruins of the old Airbender temples in the lands of the old Air Nation. But as Aang said on first seeing them, they weren't Airbenders. They'd been living in that place for a long time, and none of them were Airbenders. Nor was there any hint that Aang could train them to become Airbenders (it seems that you really need to be born as one). So it would seem that Aang has a real problem: how to restore the missing 1/4 of the population of his world, along with their culture and powers. There's no sign that that's within the powers of the Avatar.
While I'm at it, it's a pity that Mako died before the third season was filmed. The replacement voice actor did a good job (as the former Fire Nation general, Iroh), but it just wasn't the same. Even the words themselves didn't seem as well-written.
By the way, if you haven't seen Avatar and would like to, all episodes including the series finale are now available to view online over at AvatarChapters.com. It's not the greatest show in the world, but it's very well done and more intelligent then most TV shows.