PART TWO of "Avatar Through the Eyes of a 7 Year Old"
I confess. I got lazy really quickly. I didn't write down any more comments that Jen and Drew made during Avatar.
Our watching has also been extremely sporadic. Some weeks we haven't watched it at ALL. Or today, we got to watch SEVEN episodes!
They're going back out of the country for the UN on Monday, and they'll be gone a long time. :(
We had started on January 18th, and we just finished today's at "The Serpent's Pass." SO... there's a chance we might finish season 2 before they leave. We definitely won't finish season 3, which is a big tragedy, but I am still really happy and proud to have introduced Jen to this magnificent story that I love so much.
Jen has generally been super quiet. She gets VERY absorbed in it. She doesn't even really laugh much at the jokes, because she's so into it. But after we watch it, you'll see her twirling around and making vague shaolin or tai chi stances and she's looking off into the distance as if lost in thought. Then she'll bring up Avatar much later randomly, like during meal time.
She'll talk about pretty random things. Like even after we started season 2, she (out of the blue) started telling me that Aang told Zuko, "You have something that I want!" And then described how Aang got the necklace back by making all those funny positions in the well.
Pretty much the only time she speaks up during the episode is when she doesn't understand something. Sometimes "What does [xyz vocabulary] mean?" Sometimes questions about the plot.
The most intriguing things about her engagement with the narrative, in no particular order:
1) She DESPERATELY wants Aang and Zuko to be friends. (She has since... guess when? "The Blue Spirit.") One of her favorite conversation topics to bring up randomly is how kind Aang is to everyone.
2) "Why does Toph keep punching everyone?" LOL.
3) She definitely remembers stuff well. When Jet showed up on the boat with Zuko and Iroh, she immediately said, "UH OH!" (With adorably GRAVE CONCERN).
4) I'm fairly certain she has a bit of a crush on Sokka right now. And of course she finds him hilarious. When we first started, she didn't really laugh at anything because she was so focused on absorbing the show. Now she giggles at ANYTHING Sokka says or does.
5) She generally trusts adult characters to a fault if they aren't obvious "villains." She doesn't really understand the Toph + parents situation at all. HOWEVER, she's very much picking up on shades of gray. She very quickly abandoned her immediate "Fire Nation = bad" and "Earth Kingdom = good" assumption. And much later, when Ursa showed up for the first time, she said (more or less rhetorically, with a lot of warmth in her voice), "Was she a good mother?" And she could gauge Ursa because she was fully engaged with Zuko's arc at that point. She worries about him with as much concern as she does for the Gaang. She really wants him to stop thieving and worrying about his dad and trying to capture the Avatar... so THEY CAN BE FRIENDS. ♥ I think the ending of "Zuko Alone" impacted her the most; she anticipated that he would have to hide his firebending if he was going to fight the soldiers, and then when they all rejected him at the end, she commented on Zuko's kindness (comparing it to Aang's kindness in saving Zuko's life in "Siege of the North," which is one her favorite story moments to bring up).
6) She's a huge fan of Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee. She gets really excited when they show up. She sometimes asks if Azula is going to appear.
7) She has made exactly four shippy comments:
Oh, kiddos. ♥
Our watching has also been extremely sporadic. Some weeks we haven't watched it at ALL. Or today, we got to watch SEVEN episodes!
They're going back out of the country for the UN on Monday, and they'll be gone a long time. :(
We had started on January 18th, and we just finished today's at "The Serpent's Pass." SO... there's a chance we might finish season 2 before they leave. We definitely won't finish season 3, which is a big tragedy, but I am still really happy and proud to have introduced Jen to this magnificent story that I love so much.
Jen has generally been super quiet. She gets VERY absorbed in it. She doesn't even really laugh much at the jokes, because she's so into it. But after we watch it, you'll see her twirling around and making vague shaolin or tai chi stances and she's looking off into the distance as if lost in thought. Then she'll bring up Avatar much later randomly, like during meal time.
She'll talk about pretty random things. Like even after we started season 2, she (out of the blue) started telling me that Aang told Zuko, "You have something that I want!" And then described how Aang got the necklace back by making all those funny positions in the well.
Pretty much the only time she speaks up during the episode is when she doesn't understand something. Sometimes "What does [xyz vocabulary] mean?" Sometimes questions about the plot.
The most intriguing things about her engagement with the narrative, in no particular order:
1) She DESPERATELY wants Aang and Zuko to be friends. (She has since... guess when? "The Blue Spirit.") One of her favorite conversation topics to bring up randomly is how kind Aang is to everyone.
2) "Why does Toph keep punching everyone?" LOL.
3) She definitely remembers stuff well. When Jet showed up on the boat with Zuko and Iroh, she immediately said, "UH OH!" (With adorably GRAVE CONCERN).
4) I'm fairly certain she has a bit of a crush on Sokka right now. And of course she finds him hilarious. When we first started, she didn't really laugh at anything because she was so focused on absorbing the show. Now she giggles at ANYTHING Sokka says or does.
5) She generally trusts adult characters to a fault if they aren't obvious "villains." She doesn't really understand the Toph + parents situation at all. HOWEVER, she's very much picking up on shades of gray. She very quickly abandoned her immediate "Fire Nation = bad" and "Earth Kingdom = good" assumption. And much later, when Ursa showed up for the first time, she said (more or less rhetorically, with a lot of warmth in her voice), "Was she a good mother?" And she could gauge Ursa because she was fully engaged with Zuko's arc at that point. She worries about him with as much concern as she does for the Gaang. She really wants him to stop thieving and worrying about his dad and trying to capture the Avatar... so THEY CAN BE FRIENDS. ♥ I think the ending of "Zuko Alone" impacted her the most; she anticipated that he would have to hide his firebending if he was going to fight the soldiers, and then when they all rejected him at the end, she commented on Zuko's kindness (comparing it to Aang's kindness in saving Zuko's life in "Siege of the North," which is one her favorite story moments to bring up).
6) She's a huge fan of Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee. She gets really excited when they show up. She sometimes asks if Azula is going to appear.
7) She has made exactly four shippy comments:
- Zuko/Song - so Song shows Zuko her scar, right? And Zuko looks back at her with sudden understanding and compassion. Jen got this huge grin and said with some excitement, "He's looking at her like he loves her." Hahaha.
- Aang/Katara - she didn't say a word about Aang/Katara until "The Desert." About midway through the episode, when Aang was fuming about Appa (and Katara was acting concerned), she asked me with big concern, "But she still loves him, right?" Think about the implications of that statement. NO SERIOUSLY. THINK ABOUT THE IMPLICATIONS OF THAT QUESTION. Think about how it might reflect her perception of the episode, and the overall story. JUST SAYING.
- And later she asked about why Aang didn't hug Katara (on the moonlit ledge in "The Serpent's Pass"). Because they love each other asdkasdfjkasdf.
- Mai/Zuko - Well AFTER watching the episodes, she asked me why Mai would join Azula if she loved Zuko. THIS IS PUZZLING AND ON HER MIND YOU SEE. These questions MUST BE ANSWERED. ♥
Oh, kiddos. ♥