Mark Watches ‘Avatar’: S01E12 – The Storm

In the twelfth episode of the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, ;A;AKSJD A;SKLDFJ A;KH ,A ;ASLDKHF ;ASDFIY A;KDSJF ;AASDFHA;KDJF;SKL A;KDF;KLAJDSF  F;D DF;AKDSJF. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Avatar.

I DIDN’T EXPECT ANY OF THIS TO HAPPEN SO SOON. OH MY GOD.

I imagine that “The Storm” is a fan favorite, as I cannot believe what a gigantic slab of the mythology popped up so early into the series, and it’s told BEAUTIFULLY. What a gorgeous, heartbreaking story that parallels hope and disappointment, that deals with two young boys having to face the brutal reality of the world they live in, both of them refusing to accept to become a part of it.

This episode is seriously one of the most fantastic things I have ever seen. HYPERBOLE INTENDED.

In a large way, “The Storm” eschews a lot of the situational and dialogue-based humor to tell a very necessary story steeped in a lot of bleak, gut-wrenching imagery. The capacity this how has to pull my heart strings just twelve episodes in is unbelievable to me. I actually didn’t doubt that I’d enjoy Avatar at all, as I was looking forward to doing something very different for me, and many people I trust about television swore how good this show was. But I already feel comfortable saying that I’m outright addicted to this show and I’m starting to get those painful inklings to just sit and binge-watch Avatar and not tell anyone and it’ll be my beautiful, beautiful secret.

I MEAN….WHAT. (For the record, I only “cheated” once, at the end of Deathly Hallows, but I still took notes between chapters to try and preserve my reactions at the time. I do not plan to do that again with anything else.)

“The Storm” opens with a foreboding and haunting dream sequence, setting the tone for the entire story. I knew the show would have to deal with Aang’s disappearance, but I never anticipated it this early and I never anticipated how much the story would make my heart hurt. Aang’s dream was a manifestation of that pain, of the guilt he feels for disappearing for 100 years. Though, at the time, I didn’t understand exactly why he felt that way because I didn’t know the details. Thus, this episode plunges straight into a situation that highlights why Aang’s guilt has been so present since the first episode.

After realizing they’re out of money (I LOVE SHOWS THAT ACKNOWLEDGE THIS REALITY SO MUCH), the trio head to a local harbor town, where Sokka manages to secure a job. (I do love that we still get some of Sokka’s signature sarcasm in this episode, despite that it’s such a serious episode. It’s stopped feeling like comedic relief and more like it’s simply his character. That is a wonderful thing.)

Upon securing a job, though, the fisherman who hires Sokka finds out that Aang is the Avatar, and immediately begins to heap scorn upon him. It’s particularly brutal, so much so that it actually shocked me how precisely mean it felt. On the one hand, I get why the fisherman was angry, and I would understand why anyone would feel betrayed by Aang, but what I adore so much about “The Storm” is that it shows us all that context is important. Learning the context of a person’s life helps explain their motivations and their choices.

From this point of the episode until the end, “The Storm” becomes a set of dual flashbacks, each told by a main character sitting around a fire to an interested party: Aang explains what happened 100 years ago to Katara, and Uncle Iroh explains to his crew what happened to Prince Zuko to make him such a raging asshole with a narrow vision.

It was hard for me not to immediately go to LOST, because there’s never been a show that had flashbacks so intrinsic to its narrative. Not only that, though: the writers of LOST used the flashbacks to provide parallels to the present time, to provide those crucial explanations for a situation or a behavior that may have seemed completely absurd without context. I don’t think I consciously do that with my writing because of LOST, but maybe there’s a part of my brain that really enjoys that kind of storytelling. I think, for me, I just like these sort of things to have a very specific, detailed context, and it’s why I have opened up and told such ridiculous stories to explain ONE CHAPTER OF A BOOK or ONE EPISODE OF A SHOW. If you can understand where I am coming from, perhaps you can understand why I loved (or hated) something I saw or read. (There will be some of this later in the review. OMG SPOILERS.)

While the episode had bits of Zuko/Iroh in it, I was convinced that we’d be devoted entirely to Aang’s backstory. Most of it is, but once the story switched over to Uncle Iroh’s campfire party, I literally threw my hands in the air and yelled YES YES YES YES YES.

I didn’t really want to discuss the details here in the space of the review because I wanted to talk about how the time Zuko’s flashback came to an end, I WAS COMPLETELY IN TEARS. As I’ve spoken about quite openly before, I did not have the most pleasant childhood. I don’t think I need to rehash a lot of those details, as I devoted a lot of Mark Reads Harry Potter to the subject, but for those who are new to this: I was ruthlessly bullied and abused and it led to me trying to commit suicide twice. It started fairly young, and now, looking back on it with a lot more insight and knowledge about what happened to me, I don’t think I had much of a childhood. I don’t necessarily mean that I grew up too fast, which sometimes sounds very cliche or pointless without context (THERE’S THAT WORD AGAIN). I had to grow up fast once I ran away from home when I was sixteen, but what I mean is that I lived in an environment that didn’t provide me with much joy. It did not provide me with some of the same stories and archetypes and stereotypes of American family living that I saw in nearly all of my friends.

Again, I’ll stay away from much of the triggery shit, since it’s particularly bad, but as “The Storm” moved through Aang’s story about how he was forced into being the Avatar at a very young age, I could not help but feel so intrinsically tied to that story in a deeply personal way. Aang’s flashback shows how who he was separated him from his friends and his mentor. It shows how the adults in his life made decisions for him. It shows how this disconnect from the life he wanted hurt him so deeply that he chose to run away, to leave it all behind because it felt so inherently wrong.

I’M SORRY, THAT IS BASICALLY MY FUCKING LIFE!!!! I felt that the disconnect my parents forced on me, the abuse, the bullying, all of that made me realize that my life wasn’t mine anymore. And even if I tried to kill myself or run away, I needed to do something to make it mine.

Prince Zuko starts out “The Storm” acting a a complete fool. Sorry! He does. He puts his ship in danger, he speaks to everyone with a tone of utter disrespect, and his egotistical viewpoint is…well, it’s rude. I think that was probably how most people felt at the opening of this episode. I SURE DID. As much as I loved Aang’s story and his depressing reason for why he froze himself and Appa for 100 years, I feel that Zuko’s story is a billion times more heartbreaking and revelatory.

I mean….PRINCE ZUKO’S OWN FATHER BURNED HIS FACE FOR STANDING UP FOR WHAT WAS RIGHT. It explains why Zuko is so intent on capturing the Avatar and why he’s so reckless about it, why he’s always talking about gaining back his “honor.” AND FIRE LORD OZAI IS PRINCE ZUKO’S FATHER.

But honestly, that moment when Zuko is on all fours, looking up at his father and begging him to show mercy, is when the waterworks hit. I think that, for a long time, all I wanted was approval from my parents, a sign of affection that would make me feel wanted. I did eventually get that, long after I left home, but when Zuko looked up to his father with tears in his eyes, it wasn’t hard to imagine a time when I felt the same way.

The brilliance of this episode, though, is the way that it ends with such an unsettling, touching parallel: Aang’s existence is a sign of hope for two opposing ends. Aang gives the people of the world hope that they can escape the oppression of the Fire Nation. It also gives Prince Zuko the hope that he might one day earn the respect of his father.

I AM SO DEEPLY CONFLICTED, Y’ALL. I cannot believe how this episode made me feel so genuinely for both sides of this conflict. That is a magical thing, and I am so impressed that Avatar is able to do this to me.

THOUGHTS

• “I meant you no disrespect! I am your loyal son!” MY GOD, ALL THE TEARS IN THE WORLD.
• UNCLE IROH CONTROLLED LIGHTNING. Holy shit, WHAT A BAMF.
• “You guys want to hear about my dream?” [Silence.] “That’s ok, I don’t want to talk about it anyway.”
• “I’m too young to die!” “I’m not, but I still don’t wanna!” BRILLIANCE.
• I am glad that Uncle Iroh says that things will never return to normal for Prince Zuko. You cannot erase the past.
• SERIOUSLY, THIS SHOW. I am so excited.