Avatar: Or the Post-Immersion Blues

[formendacil]

I spent the last few weeks watching all of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I've known about it for years and known that it was supposed to be good for quite a few of them, but I never really had any interest in knowing more about it. My initial exposure to the existence of the show was a couple of LEGO sets (clearly from the first season) that, not

Comments

[estelyn_strider]

Interesting thoughts! I like the idea of a built-in mourning experience at the end of a story. Tolkien isn't the only one who ends his tale in a bitter-sweet manner - one of my very favourite TV series, Babylon 5, does it too. The (sub-)creator of the show, J. M. Straczynski, was an excellent writer of the story arc (inspiring many current shows that use the same principle!), and the last episode of the 5-year series brings me to tears every time I see it - that's been several times, but it's so profoundly moving that I can't repeat the experience randomly.

[hukbillgoomba]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! It is certainly a wonderful series in so many ways.
I think one of Avatar's great strengths is that it is very re-watchable, though, like you say, it's never quite the same. Watching stories as a story-teller is, I think, a very different experience to simply watching them as a story-hearer (if that's an appropriate word).

When watching The Legend of Korra (the sequel series) I got the feeling the creators were playing a lot on the feelings you describe. We miss the characters and want to see our babies alive, even though, in cannon, they're dead at this point. Flashbacks and so on give a little jolt of excitement, but ultimately only increase the sense of loss. We could have had so many more adventures with Aang and the gAang!