AtLA Rewatch: The Waterbending Scroll & Jet

[frith_in_thorns]

Apologies, this is extremely late!

Book 1 (Water), Episode 9: The Waterbending Scroll & 10: Jet

Comments

Spoiler-Free Thread

[frith_in_thorns]

No spoilers beyond these episodes, please! :)

[frith_in_thorns]

That joke deserves to be overused to eternity.

And I love Katara always!

[hukbillgoomba]

A tad ill so my thoughts may be kind of shoddy today. I mean, shoddier than usua

[frith_in_thorns]

the message that this isn't about ability to lead, it's about what they are being led to.

Yes, I think this is it exactly! And also, as the show goes on to prove, you can learn leadership skills, and it's not a bad thing to be in the place of having to learn.

I do think Jet is a very interesting character. He's another child badly damaged by the war, leading children who are in the same boat. It's very easy to see how he's reached this point of wanting to believe that everyone Fire Nation is irredeemably evil. As you say, Sokka was willing at the beginning of the series to give no shelter or aid to a twelve-year-old boy because of the suspicion of being Fire Nation, but his strength is that he learns, and believes in second chances (for other people and himself) -- Jet doesn't. We can see this in the Ba Sing Se arc, with him pursuing Iroh and Zuko.

On a less serious note, I also love the pirates. And Iroh buying up all their stuff XD

[hukbillgoomba]

All the main characters LEARN so much in this show. And yet they remain recognisably the same people. I like that it's also gradual and you see the pieces falling into place. This is the episode where I think Sokka starts to think about how to be a leader, where before he just wanted to be one.

Good point. It's so great that the war isn't just a set piece for the big bad in the background, it actually has legit effects on real characters. Jet's return in Ba Sing Se has a lot going on with it. We can tell that, though he says he's reformed, we can see that he's still damaged by the war and his hatred for the fire-nation. His thing seems to be making a show of being a liberator, a freedom fighter, and a 'good' guy, but underneath it he's got a violent streak that leads him on questionable pahs.

I also love their parrot bird thing. :D