What It Is to Be Free: Aang and the Spirituality of the Air Nomads (2 of 2)

[ljlee]

In Part 1 of this essay I have discussed the contours and contradictions of Air Nomad culture and how it influenced Aang and other air Nomad characters. Now I continue with a more in-depth discussion of their cultural values through Aang's story.

Comments

[amanda_violet]

I didn't even realize that people didn't like the Lion Turtle until I went online after watching the series. I thought it was a perfectly satisfying way to wrap up the plot, but hey, different strokes for different folks.

All the stuff you've written about it is why I like it so much. Also, the more I think about how the Lion Turtle/Energybending affects/supports/reinforces the end of the war, Aang's character development, the themes of the story, etc., the more I like it. I don't think "inappropriately foreshadowed" means "total cop-out" like some people say.

So anyway, I really love what you've written here. It says it so much better than I could have. Also, the last bit = ;__;

[ljlee]

Heh yeah, the LT gets a bad rap, don't he. He wasn't foreshadowed that well, but that's kind of in the nature of the beast (literally), too. He's a sentient monster from beyond the boundaries of space-time, sort of like Cthulhu except much more benign. He may be the closest thing the Avatar world has to a god, and will pop out of nowhere if that's what he damn well pleases, you know? In a way I like the fact that he makes sense, because he's not really intelligible to our severely limited human reason. So yeah, both frustrating and fascinating.

And Gyatso...T_T Such a cool character, and we barely knew him. I try to comfort myself that his lessons and his love were implicit in everything Aang said and did, but it's still so sad.

[amanda_violet]

That's always what I thought of him too, almost like a god. Gods don't need to be foreshadowed, they'll help whenever and whoever they want. :P I think it was on TV Tropes, someone compared the Lion Turtle's assistance of Aang to a human helping a squirrel out of a window well. Maybe kind of like a less-neutral Dr. Manhattan, acting out of compassion for a tiny being that is so inconsequential when compared to everything that has happened and will happen. Damn, now I want fic.

I have this crazy theory that Gyatso was actually Aang's grandfather, but neither of them made much of it since the Air Nomads don't believe in blood ties (in my headcanon). Maybe I'll put this into my tentative-future-Air-Nomad-oneshot.

[amyraine]

"There is going to be no one after Aang to remember the Air Nomad way of life and thought in its original form, and to grapple with its central question: how can a person remain free in spirit and compassionate in a world of cruelty and violence

[ljlee]

That's one of the things i love about your Tenzin stories--because it's such a personal, intimate, and concrete way to examine the implications of an entire culture vanishing from the face of the earth. The issue is more real when seen as a personal struggle of a boy, and later man, who grew up in the arms one culture and in the shadow of another, alternately struggling with and against the currents that define his own life. So yes to all your points! :D

The moral dilemma surrounding energybending was never explored in the show, but that's what fanfic is for, right? I quite liked the way you handled it.

[amiraelizabeth]

How did I miss this???? I will comment later, but yay a whole essay on Aang!

[ljlee]

Haha, I was actually thinking about you when I wrote the essay, and wondered in the back of my mind why you weren't commenting. I don't think I've ever fully appreciated the complexity and richness of the character until I thought of him in the context of his vanished culture, so writing this was an eye-opener for me.