Mark Watches ‘Avatar’: S02E04 – The Swamp

In the fourth episode of the second season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Team Avatar get trapped in a swamp as Zuko and Iroh are forced to deal with living a non-luxurious life. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Avatar.

I think it’s pretty funny that this episode comes after “The Rebel Flesh” in terms of what gets reviewed for Mark Watches, as I sort of feel the same way about this episode of Avatar as I do that episode of Doctor Who. I enjoyed it in my own way and I would not defend my like of it to anyone else.

That’s sort of a rare thing to come by, and I certainly had to learn to stop being defensive about things I enjoyed, lest I wanted to, like, have friends. When you enjoy something, it’s pretty natural for you flail about and then tell all your friends and then post about it obsessively and then sometimes even take that thing to your friend and maybe you sit alongside that person and you try to pay attention and you’re mouthing the words to all the lines of dialogue because maybe you’ve seen it a trillion times and you could probably recite the whole thing with your eyes closed and then you start trying to make subtle glances over to your friend to see if their face is showing the same emotion yours did the first time you watched it and you’re hoping they laugh at the right parts and jump and squeal at the others and maybe you are hinging far too much of your own happiness by hoping that every person in your life has the exact same taste as you do.

Taste. That’s what it all comes down to, doesn’t it? Hell, that’s most of what comprises these reviews: thoughts of mine that relate to what my personal taste is. This is not an unspoken topic ’round these parts, as that’s pretty much what a lot of what our conversations center around, too. I actually find that fascinating, and it’s why I make it a point to read the comments. Something that makes me giggle with joy can make another person wince, and I love that. I love that that is a thing! Of course, what excites me more is when something is universally loved or reviled by fandom; that’s much more fascinating to me because it is like seeing a rare wild animal in the forest or something. And what sort of things can a show do that are so openly loved or hated?

Well, we’ve seen some of that here on Mark Watches. “The Doctor’s Wife” is a great recent example, so apparently Neil Gaiman needs to write more television episodes! I jest. There’s much more to that episode than just the fact that Gaiman wrote it. But even things like the finale of season one of Avatar or “Objects in Space” during Firefly or quite a few episodes of LOST and The X-Files become revered by the fandom, and yet none of them have anything in common. (Unless I’m wrong? omg did i just give someone an idea for a thesis or, better yet, a really good post on Tumblr.)

So why does this happen? And how does a fandom become an almost collective conscious about certain issues when it normally is a splintered, fractured entity of almost innumerable variables?

With that in mind, I’ll repeat myself and begin again. I liked “The Swamp.” I don’t feel any desire to defend that, either. By the time it was over, though, I could already imagine some of the comments:

• MEH
• FILLER
• WASTE
• GO BACK TO THE MAIN STORY
• OH MY FUCKING GOD IROH SINGING FOR MONEY I WILL PAY FOR THAT SHIT

Well, that last one might just be me, but I suspect there are others of you in the Avatar fandom who greatly enjoy that man’s beautiful musical talent as much as I do.

We’re dealt another dual story in “The Swamp,” despite that Iroh and Zuko’s story is remarkably brief. That singing is featured rather wonderfully here in the opening scene as the writers continue to explore how the two of them deal with being fugitives. I was absolutely fascinated with how this show deals with the issue of class, and how complicated and intersecting it is. Zuko is absolutely incensed at the concept of groveling and asking for money, and he makes a comment about how he is trying to keep his dignity, a concept that I think the writers do a great job of contrasting with the utter joy on Iroh’s face as he dances for the swordsman. If begging denotes a lack of dignity, then why does Iroh seem to have so much of it?

On top of that, this is all paralleled with the way that the swordsman treats the two of them: as beggars, they are lesser beings than he is, and they deserved to be treated as such. Zuko internalizes that message and chooses to act out violently in a way that, to him, inherently supports the message. If this man treats them as inferior humans, then they must be, right?

UGH THIS WAS ON NICKELODEON AND CHILDREN SAW IT AND MAYBE LIKE ONE OF THEM TOTALLY REALIZED HOW AMAZING THIS WAS AND MY HEART IS FULL OF SO MUCH JOY. This show, y’all, it’s doing wonderful things to my heart.

Of course, this side plot, which doesn’t get any screen time until the very end of the episode, culminates with the return of the Blue Spirit, whereupon my brain did this:

;KKSDJF A;SKLDFJ LAS;DFSD;FKU AS;LFDDFS;;L ASF;KDLJ A;AKSDJF ;;KAJSDF;LK ASKL ;J

Oh god, are we going to see more of Zuko as the Blue Spirit? In no world will I complain about this.

I think that I’ll be able to look back on “The Swamp” and appreciate it even more when I realize how much of a part it played in the larger narrative. The reason I say that is because two fairly important questions are not answered at all within this specific episode, and I imagine that later detail will provide context for the events that got Team Avatar separated and trapped inside the swamp.

That first detail is in regards to the “call” that Aang gets from the swamp below as Appa continues flying to….wait, where are they going? Did I miss that in a past episode? We know that King Bumi can’t help out Aang, so they must find a new earth bending master, but we don’t know where or who they are, so are they just….wandering?

Ok, anyway, that doesn’t really matter right now! Appa flies on as Sokka and Katara (mostly Sokka, ever the skepticist) both aren’t really sure that Aang is actually feeling something at all. Which…look, Sokka, the dude is the Avatar. As you admitted later in the story, Avatar stuff happens to him. Surely this could have been one of those incidents, right? Regardless, they all don’t get much of a choice at this point, as an unbelievably gigantic tornado descends on them and Aang is unable to hold it off. It separates Momo and Appa from the three humans in the group. Which is actually a really interesting dynamic, when you think about it. It’s another sign that the writers treat the animals in this story as actual characters, not just fodder for humor or a means to accelerate the plot. We can all surmise about what sort of personalities they have at this point, even though neither of them have had much of a backstory at all. That’s actually a pretty spectacular thing when you think about it, no?

This is when Question Number One is not answered:

WHO CREATED THE TORNADO THAT BROUGHT DOWN TEAM AVATAR?

I mean, Sokka and Aang sort of talk about it, but I refuse to believe that this is a plot hole, as it would be a rather egregious one. I mean….right? Oh god, I’m teasing you all again with my ~Innocence Privilege~ , aren’t I? OH GOD PLEASE DON’T ANSWER THIS.

While I’m not going to pretend that we all haven’t seen this exact story told before (group gets split up in ~nature~ and each sees a specific vision/hallucination catered to them), I still can’t help but feel, at the very least, quite intrigued at how this all happens. This is certainly the most confusing episode of Avatar so far, and part of that is because so much of it feels unresolved, as if this is a set up for another part of the story to be told.

As the humans are split off format he animals, the initial dynamic sets Sokka against Katara and Aang, who are both convinced that they did not fall into this swamp entirely by accident. Sokka, always committed to being the skeptic, ignores both of their warnings to stop hacking down vines. Surely there’s nothing else in this swamp? I find Sokka’s skepticism totally fascinating, both because I can see a twenty-year-old version of myself in him, when I was committed to being the most irritating cynic of all time, and because….ok, seriously, I can’t help but think that Aang lives in a world where bison can fly and people can bend the elements to control them and that there is a parallel world existing side-by-side with this one where spirits go to live. Is it really that out of the realm of possibility that there’s some sort of creature or spirit or entity in a swamp that is affecting them? Oh, Sokka, you are so adorable.

And while I wasn’t the least bit surprised that the “monster” that lived in the swamp further split up the group, as it’s a familiar story telling device, I was shocked at exactly how depressing the visions were that the three of them experienced. We’re shown Katara’s vision of her dead mother. Hello, show on Nickelodeon, what the hell are you doing to my heart. I could not believe how raw the moment was. While I thought I knew what I was getting into when the scene changed over to Sokka’s perspective and we saw Princess Zue, I was not prepared for this:

“You didn’t protect me.”

WHAT THE FUCK THAT IS BELOW THE BELT YOU MYSTICAL SWAMP MONSTER. Was the point of these visions to make these people feel like awful human beings?

And that’s when the second unanswered question is dropped on our laps:

WHO WAS THE LITTLE GIRL THAT AANG SAW?

We know from what Huu says at the end that the swamp will manifest those we’ve lost as a reminder of the spiritual world, so of course the question then concerns itself with who was in Aang’s vision. Oh god, how awful is that going to be when we see her and then we know she’s going to die? That’s going to be SUPER FUN AND AWESOME FOR EVERYONE.

“The Swamp” is also intriguing to me because it’s the first chance to meet water benders that are not living at either one of the poles. It expands the world we know in terms of the show itself, but it’s great to watch Sokka and Katara’s world expand as well, since they previously thought that water benders only lived on the poles. It helped explained something I wondered aloud about to my friends whilst watching this: how the hell are those natives making their boats move?

I definitely liked the goofy natives, but I think that, ultimately, I’m a bit more impartial to the nomads from “The Cave of Two Lovers.” I think part of that is because they were developed a lot further than these ones, who mostly existed to provide some (great) humor and to chase around Momo and Appa. (Seriously, why would you want to eat Appa when you could fly all over the world on his back?)

All in all, this was a neat episode, not particularly my favorite, but one that I think is part of a larger story. Well, at least I hope so, as it still feels largely incomplete, which is part of the reason I think others in the fandom may not care for it that much. I mean, I do understand that the pacing and information we got was just weird as shit, but come on. I LIKE WEIRD SHIT. Now I just want to know what the hell just happened. I SHALL PRESS ON.

THOUGHTS

• “Didn’t know there was Waterbenders anywhere but here. They got a nice swamp there, do they?” “No, it’s all ice and snow.” “Mmm. No wonder you left.”
• “Time is an illusion and so is death.” OMG AANG IS A TIME LORD.
• I’m seriously ok with the ongoing joke that nearly everything that causes Sokka pain is his own fault. Including his war with the vines in this episode.
• “Bet he tastes a lot like possum chicken.” “You think everything tastes like possum chicken.”
• “You have an elbow leech.” “Where?” “Where do you think?”
• I will say that part of the reason I did end up liking Tho and Due so much was the unbelievable homage they paid to Dukes of Hazzard.