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Reasons I Love Avatar 3: War
The central subject matter of Avatar is a world-wide war. It is also a show rated for children. Therefor the show is replete spectacular battles with elements and technology where no one is shown dying or even getting hurt, people slamming hard enough into walls to break them down and bouncing back up to fight, and fireballs flung all over the place with remarkably few people getting actually burned.
(I don't fault the creators for the cartoon violence, by the way. There's nothing wrong with working within the rating while bringing important issues to younger audiences. And I realize I'm the weird one here for expecting those otter-penguins to suffer abdominal ruptures every time I watch the penguin-sledding scene from "The Boy in the Iceberg." You're welcome for the mental image.)
But when I think of the treatment of war in Avatar, I don't think of any of those flashy scenes. I think of this guy:
Oh look, it's the hammer and blocks toy set man!
The Earthbending thug leader, Gow, from the Book 2 episode "Zuko Alone." To me this guy more than anyone else epitomizes the way war is written in the show, and summarizes my reasons for counting the subject as one of my reasons for loving Avatar. Why is that? Well, let's take it from the top.
There's a good reason why war is such a timeless subject in fiction. Many good reasons, in fact. Stories are made of conflict, and war creates intense conflicts on so many levels. The first and most obvious of these conflicts is large-scale conflict in the form of armed combat. We saw these kinds of large-scale battles in the show, with the assault on the Northern Water Tribe ("The Siege on the North"), on Ba Sing Se (in flashback in "Zuko Alone" and in real-time in "The Drill"), and on the Fire Nation capital ("The Day of Black Sun"). We saw the aftermath of such a large-scale battle in the Southern Air Temple as well ("The Southern Air Temple").
Less flashy but just as interesting are the operations that support this military action, including psychological warfare, espionage, engineering, and diplomacy. Avatar gives these aspects of war their due as well. Zuko's and later Azula's mission to capture the Avatar in Books 1 and 2 are arguably a hugely important support operations, akin (from the Fire Nation's point of view) to taking out a nuclear weapons base. Azula took over Ba Sing Se through a brilliant covert operation ("The Crossroads of Destiny"), and The Mechanist's weapons work, first shown in "The Northern Air Temple," is used by both sides of the war in both that episode and "The Day of Black Sun." Technology--not to mention figuring out technology--also features prominently in "The Drill."
But conflict between countries is only the beginning. War creates new conflicts or intensifies existing conflicts within polities In Book 2 we witness the internal power struggles between the Dai Li (Earth Kingdom secret police) and the Earth King which resulted in the conquest of Ba Sing Se. All the Books deal with Prince Zuko's conflict with other factions of the Fire Nation - his enemy Admiral Zhao in Book 1, his sister the Princess Azula in Book 2, and both Azula and his father Firelord Ozai in Book 3. These conflicts will be dealt with in more depth in the fourth essay on politics, because the war in Avatar is as much about Fire Nation versus Fire Nation as it is about Fire Nation versus Rest of the World. This is a sensitive and realistic way to deal with the subject matter, and deserves a post of its own.
War not only brings about or intensifies intergroup conflicts, it does the same for interpersonal conflicts as well. Zuko's pursuit of the Avatar and the other wrongs he did Aang and his friends resulted, quite understandably, in animosity and resentment on their part. These conflicts are brought to a head in "The Western Air Temple" episode and resolved one by one with Toph ("The Western Air Temple"), Aang ("The Firebending Masters"), Sokka ("The Burning Rock, Parts 1 and 2"), and, lastly, with Katara ("The Southern Raiders"). That process of alienation and rapprochement is a testimony to the power of relationships, and foreshadows the possibility of peace between the Fire Nation and the rest of the world. Again, I'll give a more detailed treatment of this in the politics essay.
In addition to interpersonal conflicts, war causes or worsens internal conflicts as well. Zuko, the king of teenaged angst, is a good example here as well: I've discussed his character arc in the first essay in the series, and dealt more with his turmoil and recovery in the second essay on relationships. But other characters have felt such internal conflict within themselves as well. Aang had to come to terms with his own fears of being the Avatar and later reconciled his code of mercy with the need to win the war. Sokka grappled with his insecurities about living up to his father, and Katara overcame her anger toward Zuko and the Fire Nation.
All these are interesting conflicts that I found gripping and well-told. However, what was most interesting to me was the conflict between ideas. The internal Fire Nation conflict mentioned above was one example, with the idea of peace and coexistence on the one hand and war and conquest on the other. Another is Aang's internal conflict over what to do with Ozai, with idea of expedience and harsh justice on one side and the belief in the sanctity of life and personal principle on the other.
But more than anything else, the conflict of ideas that captures the essence of war for me is that between order and chaos, or civil society and the law of the jungle. Which brings us back to the hammer-and-rocks guy pictured above, the leader of the small band of thugs who terrorize the Earth Kingdom village in the episode "Zuko Alone." Gow doesn't fit into any of the above categories of conflicts. He is not playing a role in the larger war; in fact as Zuko tells him he's no soldier but a sick coward preying on the defenseless. Hammer Man is also not engaged in any kind of internal political struggle that we know of, and shows no signs of internal conflict. How does he fit into the overall story of the war?
If Gow the Earthbending Thug is an agent of anything he is an agent of chaos, a breakdown of civil society where only the will of the strongest rules. In contrast, the family he messes with are hard-working, generous, and civil. They have principles and social consciousness to guide them, a sense that there is a standard of behavior beyond a show of strength. Look at the younger son Lee's friendliness towards a stranger and his insistence on repaying a good deed, the delicate way his mother disguises her offer of food to a starving but proud Zuko by framing it as compensation ("we can eat after you help us fix the roof!"), and how the father Gonsu dissuades his son from intrusive questions. Gow and his amoral kind thrive in a vacuum left by a broken social order and fleece off others; Gonsu and his family are solid members of society with their firm moral compass and caring for others, a sense of community and stability.
Solid. And buff.
The conflict of Gow and Gonsu, in other words, is about the idea of war itself. It's not about armed conflict, or politics, or inner conflict, but about the very essence of war in a nutshell and why it is inimical to a good society. That is why, when I think of war in the Avatar universe, I think of Gow's mug way up there. It's why I think of Gonsu and his family when I think of the world that must be rebuilt after the war.
Let's leave aside the question of whether the war made Gow the two-bit tyrant we saw in "Zuko Alone." He stepped into a vacuum of power and order, and that vacuum could have been created by war or any number of factors. We see his ilk sprout up in peacetime as well in the cracks of civil society, when order breaks down due to, say, economic depression, lack of government resources, a weakening of community cohesion, etc. etc. Considering that the Avatar world is in a hundred-year war it's reasonable to suppose that the war at least contributed to the disorder, but that's not important for my analysis.
The important thing about the character of Gow is that on a more fundamental level, he represents war itself. Because what is war other than the very heart of the jungle, where might makes right and the strong take what they want? This is what Thomas Hobbes meant when he called the society without order a state of war of everyone against everyone. Because war is chaos, it is immorality, and it feeds on the space vacated by normal society. War is, in other words, men like Gow.
This is what I see as the genius of Avatar in dealing with war. It captured not only the outer forms of war in things like big battles and cool covert ops but also the nature of war, and did it so a personification that the protagonist of the episode could struggle against. Zuko wasn't just fighting a thug when he fought Gow, he fought the kind of mindset that creates war, and also the mindset that war creates. In that episode Zuko was fighting alone not in a war, but against war itself.
Another stroke of genius was making these ideas universal by showing it's not just an Earth Kingdom thing. Throughout that episode Gow had a mirror image in the Fire Nation; the same pattern, the same conflict of ideas, was shown happening in the Fire Nation as well. Can you guess who Gow's Fire Nation counterpart was?
See the resemblance?
Yes, it's our favorite pint-sized psycho, the child who, in the scene captured above, called her uncle who had recently lost his son a "quitter" and "loser." In the episode she and Ozai are the might = right people who don't care a whit about basic decency or the bonds of family in their quest for the throne. Zuko and Ursa are the ones who make a stand with kindness and empathy, although the cruel irony is that Ursa ends up committing terrible crimes (at least according to Ozai, later in "The Day of Black Sun, Part 2") to save her son. The same conflict that plays out between Gow and Gonsu in their Earth Kingdom village also plays out in the Fire Nation palace, parallel to each other through Zuko's recollections.
Zuko himself is caught between these two forces of chaos/immorality and social order/decency at the start of the episode. His life was already turned upside down three years ago when he was banished, and he has lost all semblance of guidance or order in his life now that he is labeled traitor and on the run from his own country. Unable to tell right from wrong anymore, he turns to chaos and the rule of might, simply taking things he wants. His uncle attempts to set him right and offers another path, that of becoming free of his father's hold altogether and finding his own way. Zuko, not ready to accept the choice and responsibility of thinking for himself, sets out alone instead ("Avatar Day").
At the start of "Zuko Alone," Zuko is hungry and likely hasn't had a decent meal in days when he catches sight of food and considers robbery. He's certainly no stranger to it at this point, yet abandons the idea at the sight of a pregnant woman and her husband (the same couple Aang and his friends will run into later on). When push comes to shove Zuko refuses to be a complete jackal, though his decision at this point is passive at best.
However, as he is shown kindness by Gonsu and his family and sees the parallel between his own childhood and the situation in the village, Zuko goes beyond passively not doing heinous things. He actively sides with Gonsu's family to fight the thugs, even if it means revealing himself and being rejected by the very people he defended. He finds his own moral direction after the confusion of his life being upended yet again, and learns more about the reality of war. I believe this paved the way for his acceptance of Iroh back into his life after "The Chase," and became an early step of his complex and difficult journey toward his destiny and the end of the war.
I have said in the previous essay in this series that war is simply relationships on a larger scale. It is, in the end, a question of how people relate to each other, whether they will live in principled order or violent chaos. That dynamic was, I believe, explored in its various dimensions throughout the show and dramatized especially effectively in the Book 2 episode "Zuko Alone."* This nuanced and intelligent, yet dramatic treatment of war is another reason why I love Avatar: The Last Airbender.
* The Book 3 episode "The Painted Lady" covers some of the same ground, but "Zuko Alone" has a clearer focus and works better as a story than "The Painted Lady" for several reasons. "Zuko Alone" has visible antagonists who become an escalating threat, while the soldiers/thugs in "The Painted Lady" are invisible for most of the episode until they show up to get their asses kicked. "The Painted Lady" also has no sympathetic protagonists like Gonsu and his family, just grateful victims and a caricature (or is that three caricatures?). With no antagonist and no protagonist there isn't much drama. The Gaang are the protagonists, sure, but they're not the principals who have an actual stake, just the do-gooders of the week, and this dilutes the conflict.
But what if the social order is not moral, but rather oppressive and unjust? What happens when the current order itself becomes a means of repression and violence? That is the question I will turn to in the next essay when I talk about politics in Avatar.
(I don't fault the creators for the cartoon violence, by the way. There's nothing wrong with working within the rating while bringing important issues to younger audiences. And I realize I'm the weird one here for expecting those otter-penguins to suffer abdominal ruptures every time I watch the penguin-sledding scene from "The Boy in the Iceberg." You're welcome for the mental image.)
But when I think of the treatment of war in Avatar, I don't think of any of those flashy scenes. I think of this guy:
Oh look, it's the hammer and blocks toy set man!
The Earthbending thug leader, Gow, from the Book 2 episode "Zuko Alone." To me this guy more than anyone else epitomizes the way war is written in the show, and summarizes my reasons for counting the subject as one of my reasons for loving Avatar. Why is that? Well, let's take it from the top.
There's a good reason why war is such a timeless subject in fiction. Many good reasons, in fact. Stories are made of conflict, and war creates intense conflicts on so many levels. The first and most obvious of these conflicts is large-scale conflict in the form of armed combat. We saw these kinds of large-scale battles in the show, with the assault on the Northern Water Tribe ("The Siege on the North"), on Ba Sing Se (in flashback in "Zuko Alone" and in real-time in "The Drill"), and on the Fire Nation capital ("The Day of Black Sun"). We saw the aftermath of such a large-scale battle in the Southern Air Temple as well ("The Southern Air Temple").
Less flashy but just as interesting are the operations that support this military action, including psychological warfare, espionage, engineering, and diplomacy. Avatar gives these aspects of war their due as well. Zuko's and later Azula's mission to capture the Avatar in Books 1 and 2 are arguably a hugely important support operations, akin (from the Fire Nation's point of view) to taking out a nuclear weapons base. Azula took over Ba Sing Se through a brilliant covert operation ("The Crossroads of Destiny"), and The Mechanist's weapons work, first shown in "The Northern Air Temple," is used by both sides of the war in both that episode and "The Day of Black Sun." Technology--not to mention figuring out technology--also features prominently in "The Drill."
But conflict between countries is only the beginning. War creates new conflicts or intensifies existing conflicts within polities In Book 2 we witness the internal power struggles between the Dai Li (Earth Kingdom secret police) and the Earth King which resulted in the conquest of Ba Sing Se. All the Books deal with Prince Zuko's conflict with other factions of the Fire Nation - his enemy Admiral Zhao in Book 1, his sister the Princess Azula in Book 2, and both Azula and his father Firelord Ozai in Book 3. These conflicts will be dealt with in more depth in the fourth essay on politics, because the war in Avatar is as much about Fire Nation versus Fire Nation as it is about Fire Nation versus Rest of the World. This is a sensitive and realistic way to deal with the subject matter, and deserves a post of its own.
War not only brings about or intensifies intergroup conflicts, it does the same for interpersonal conflicts as well. Zuko's pursuit of the Avatar and the other wrongs he did Aang and his friends resulted, quite understandably, in animosity and resentment on their part. These conflicts are brought to a head in "The Western Air Temple" episode and resolved one by one with Toph ("The Western Air Temple"), Aang ("The Firebending Masters"), Sokka ("The Burning Rock, Parts 1 and 2"), and, lastly, with Katara ("The Southern Raiders"). That process of alienation and rapprochement is a testimony to the power of relationships, and foreshadows the possibility of peace between the Fire Nation and the rest of the world. Again, I'll give a more detailed treatment of this in the politics essay.
In addition to interpersonal conflicts, war causes or worsens internal conflicts as well. Zuko, the king of teenaged angst, is a good example here as well: I've discussed his character arc in the first essay in the series, and dealt more with his turmoil and recovery in the second essay on relationships. But other characters have felt such internal conflict within themselves as well. Aang had to come to terms with his own fears of being the Avatar and later reconciled his code of mercy with the need to win the war. Sokka grappled with his insecurities about living up to his father, and Katara overcame her anger toward Zuko and the Fire Nation.
All these are interesting conflicts that I found gripping and well-told. However, what was most interesting to me was the conflict between ideas. The internal Fire Nation conflict mentioned above was one example, with the idea of peace and coexistence on the one hand and war and conquest on the other. Another is Aang's internal conflict over what to do with Ozai, with idea of expedience and harsh justice on one side and the belief in the sanctity of life and personal principle on the other.
But more than anything else, the conflict of ideas that captures the essence of war for me is that between order and chaos, or civil society and the law of the jungle. Which brings us back to the hammer-and-rocks guy pictured above, the leader of the small band of thugs who terrorize the Earth Kingdom village in the episode "Zuko Alone." Gow doesn't fit into any of the above categories of conflicts. He is not playing a role in the larger war; in fact as Zuko tells him he's no soldier but a sick coward preying on the defenseless. Hammer Man is also not engaged in any kind of internal political struggle that we know of, and shows no signs of internal conflict. How does he fit into the overall story of the war?
If Gow the Earthbending Thug is an agent of anything he is an agent of chaos, a breakdown of civil society where only the will of the strongest rules. In contrast, the family he messes with are hard-working, generous, and civil. They have principles and social consciousness to guide them, a sense that there is a standard of behavior beyond a show of strength. Look at the younger son Lee's friendliness towards a stranger and his insistence on repaying a good deed, the delicate way his mother disguises her offer of food to a starving but proud Zuko by framing it as compensation ("we can eat after you help us fix the roof!"), and how the father Gonsu dissuades his son from intrusive questions. Gow and his amoral kind thrive in a vacuum left by a broken social order and fleece off others; Gonsu and his family are solid members of society with their firm moral compass and caring for others, a sense of community and stability.
Solid. And buff.
The conflict of Gow and Gonsu, in other words, is about the idea of war itself. It's not about armed conflict, or politics, or inner conflict, but about the very essence of war in a nutshell and why it is inimical to a good society. That is why, when I think of war in the Avatar universe, I think of Gow's mug way up there. It's why I think of Gonsu and his family when I think of the world that must be rebuilt after the war.
Let's leave aside the question of whether the war made Gow the two-bit tyrant we saw in "Zuko Alone." He stepped into a vacuum of power and order, and that vacuum could have been created by war or any number of factors. We see his ilk sprout up in peacetime as well in the cracks of civil society, when order breaks down due to, say, economic depression, lack of government resources, a weakening of community cohesion, etc. etc. Considering that the Avatar world is in a hundred-year war it's reasonable to suppose that the war at least contributed to the disorder, but that's not important for my analysis.
The important thing about the character of Gow is that on a more fundamental level, he represents war itself. Because what is war other than the very heart of the jungle, where might makes right and the strong take what they want? This is what Thomas Hobbes meant when he called the society without order a state of war of everyone against everyone. Because war is chaos, it is immorality, and it feeds on the space vacated by normal society. War is, in other words, men like Gow.
This is what I see as the genius of Avatar in dealing with war. It captured not only the outer forms of war in things like big battles and cool covert ops but also the nature of war, and did it so a personification that the protagonist of the episode could struggle against. Zuko wasn't just fighting a thug when he fought Gow, he fought the kind of mindset that creates war, and also the mindset that war creates. In that episode Zuko was fighting alone not in a war, but against war itself.
Another stroke of genius was making these ideas universal by showing it's not just an Earth Kingdom thing. Throughout that episode Gow had a mirror image in the Fire Nation; the same pattern, the same conflict of ideas, was shown happening in the Fire Nation as well. Can you guess who Gow's Fire Nation counterpart was?
See the resemblance?
Yes, it's our favorite pint-sized psycho, the child who, in the scene captured above, called her uncle who had recently lost his son a "quitter" and "loser." In the episode she and Ozai are the might = right people who don't care a whit about basic decency or the bonds of family in their quest for the throne. Zuko and Ursa are the ones who make a stand with kindness and empathy, although the cruel irony is that Ursa ends up committing terrible crimes (at least according to Ozai, later in "The Day of Black Sun, Part 2") to save her son. The same conflict that plays out between Gow and Gonsu in their Earth Kingdom village also plays out in the Fire Nation palace, parallel to each other through Zuko's recollections.
Zuko himself is caught between these two forces of chaos/immorality and social order/decency at the start of the episode. His life was already turned upside down three years ago when he was banished, and he has lost all semblance of guidance or order in his life now that he is labeled traitor and on the run from his own country. Unable to tell right from wrong anymore, he turns to chaos and the rule of might, simply taking things he wants. His uncle attempts to set him right and offers another path, that of becoming free of his father's hold altogether and finding his own way. Zuko, not ready to accept the choice and responsibility of thinking for himself, sets out alone instead ("Avatar Day").
At the start of "Zuko Alone," Zuko is hungry and likely hasn't had a decent meal in days when he catches sight of food and considers robbery. He's certainly no stranger to it at this point, yet abandons the idea at the sight of a pregnant woman and her husband (the same couple Aang and his friends will run into later on). When push comes to shove Zuko refuses to be a complete jackal, though his decision at this point is passive at best.
However, as he is shown kindness by Gonsu and his family and sees the parallel between his own childhood and the situation in the village, Zuko goes beyond passively not doing heinous things. He actively sides with Gonsu's family to fight the thugs, even if it means revealing himself and being rejected by the very people he defended. He finds his own moral direction after the confusion of his life being upended yet again, and learns more about the reality of war. I believe this paved the way for his acceptance of Iroh back into his life after "The Chase," and became an early step of his complex and difficult journey toward his destiny and the end of the war.
I have said in the previous essay in this series that war is simply relationships on a larger scale. It is, in the end, a question of how people relate to each other, whether they will live in principled order or violent chaos. That dynamic was, I believe, explored in its various dimensions throughout the show and dramatized especially effectively in the Book 2 episode "Zuko Alone."* This nuanced and intelligent, yet dramatic treatment of war is another reason why I love Avatar: The Last Airbender.
* The Book 3 episode "The Painted Lady" covers some of the same ground, but "Zuko Alone" has a clearer focus and works better as a story than "The Painted Lady" for several reasons. "Zuko Alone" has visible antagonists who become an escalating threat, while the soldiers/thugs in "The Painted Lady" are invisible for most of the episode until they show up to get their asses kicked. "The Painted Lady" also has no sympathetic protagonists like Gonsu and his family, just grateful victims and a caricature (or is that three caricatures?). With no antagonist and no protagonist there isn't much drama. The Gaang are the protagonists, sure, but they're not the principals who have an actual stake, just the do-gooders of the week, and this dilutes the conflict.
But what if the social order is not moral, but rather oppressive and unjust? What happens when the current order itself becomes a means of repression and violence? That is the question I will turn to in the next essay when I talk about politics in Avatar.