Mark Watches ‘Avatar’: S01E11 – The Great Divide

In the eleventh episode of the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the trio arrive at the Great Divide, the largest canyon in the world and what will soon become the most over-extended metaphor of all time. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Avatar.

Ok. So. This episode. Well. So. Ok.

I have some thoughts. They are there. I know what some of them are. I also know that this episode wasn’t that bad, but…ok. So. Let me organize this.

THINGS IN THIS EPISODE THAT I ENJOYED OR OTHERWISE LIKED

• The colors! I mean, I like that in general about this show, but this episode in particular  was such a jarring change from “Jet” that it was hard not to notice.
• The gigantic reference to the fantastic film Rashomon. It’s generally a fun technique to watch unfold (check out “Bad Blood” in season 5 of The X-Files for another AMAZING example of this), but it’s used for a less-humorous purpose here. The two tribes, the Gan Jin and the Zhang, have a bitter, violent rivalry based entirely on their perception of this event that happened long, long ago. That perception has allowed prejudiced to run unchecked, since both groups accept their own version of history and use that to act off of it. The irony is that both sides will continue to act as the other expects precisely because this loop of assumption is self-fulfilling. That made my brain hurt to think about, but that’s the general idea.
• We don’t ever find out what actually happened! That’s awesome. Kinda says that it’s not really the point.
• I’m only putting this here because I like that they were so creepy and terrifying, but I don’t necessarily mean that that’s a good thing to experience all the time, but: The Canyon Crawlers. Absolutely scared the piss out of me. No, seriously, I was watching “The Great Divide” on my laptop and I had to pee and I was sitting way too close and that first one came out of the dust and I came so close to just letting go that I had to pause and go relieve myself. Bravo, Avatar. Also…TMI? WHATEVER, WHO CARES.
• That moment when both Katara and Sokka realize they’re with people who agree with them about their camping techniques…yeah, that made me smile.
• Conversely, though expected, I did laugh when the two of them also totally bought into the Gan Jin and Zhang stories and started fighting.
• Aang’s eyes when he spotted the egg custard tart. YES. MORE OF THIS.
• I totally did not expect all the variations in animations. I didn’t know if I’d like it at first, but by the time we got to Aang’s version of the story, I loved that the perspective changed the animation. Nice effect!
• Poor Aang. He tried so hard to make these people get along!
• Appa has five stomachs!

THINGS IN THIS EPISODE THAT MADE ME GRIMACE OR SCRATCH MY HEAD OR GENERALLY CAUSED A MILD MALAISE

• HOW. COULD. ANIMATED. CHARACTERS. BE. SO. IRRITATING. I know that they are supposed to be, but there was a point near the end of “The Great Divide” where I honestly wanted to reach through the screen and crush everyone who wasn’t the Tour Guide or the trio. Oh, and Appa and Momo, of course. Holy god, just SHUT UP. Maybe that is a good thing? I don’t know, it made me SO MAD.
• It was clear that “The Great Divide” was a double meaning of a title. I didn’t include that up above because this neat extended metaphor reached the capacity of being called a “metaphor” and suddenly became “why are you you beating this into my skull.” This show isn’t particularly subtle, and I actually like that, but this was TOO MUCH. Get it they are “divided” let’s also physically divide them, too, in case you don’t understand this metaphor we’ve spelled out for you.
• What does this episode have to do with anything in the story? Unless I’m mistaken, you could literally remove “The Great Divide” from season one and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t break continuity. And I haven’t seen the next episode! But it’s so completely detached from the serial nature of the story and that was kind of distracting.
• Not enough Uncle Iroh. Sorry!
• Ok, some nitpicking, but aren’t they coming up on winter? How is it the dry season? Where are they that it’s dry season near the end of the year?
• HOW DID THE TOUR GUIDE CLIMB UP THAT CLIFF IF HIS ARMS WERE BROKEN. He is a dirty, dirty liar.
• Ok, so this final complaint is a bit more subtle than the others. The message this episode sent confused me. At base, it seemed to be a commentary on prejudice, and how basing judgments on the way a person looked, or their lifestyle, was a bad thing. But once you add in each tribes “story” about the origin of their feud, NOTHING MAKES SENSE ANYMORE. Each side’s story makes it appear that their anger is justified, so now my feelings weren’t as certain. And then, it all ends up not being true? Or maybe one side is true, but we’ll never know. MY BRAIN HURTS. So where does that leave the moral message here? I would have liked something a little more definitive, like, “STOP BEING ASSHOLES TO EACH OTHER, THE END.”

Ok, this review is admittedly very, very short. I understand that, but I can’t force much more out of this episode. There’s just not that much to talk about, you know?

I’ll get the liveblogs up later today for tomorrow’s Fringe liveblog and for Saturday’s liveblog of Doctor Who in the meantime, and begin working on the next episode, WHOSE NAME I DON’T EVEN KNOW. Oh god, so excite.