L.J. Writes

Phyllis Ann Karr's Frostflower and Thorn and Frostflower and Windbourne were published in 1980 and 1982 respectively. The sorceress Frostflower and warrior Thorn hail from the Tanglelands, the kind of gritty, dangerous pseudo-Medieval European fantasy setting that is very much at home in the eighties and which is seeing a resurgence in the aughts and teens of this century. (If the descriptors "gritty," "dangerous," and "pseudo-Medieval" remind you of anything, Frostflower and Thorn begins with a note that it was first written during George R. R. Martin's Clarke College workshop in 1977.)

( Worldbuilding, pacing, feministing )

I discussed in my last post how the Avatar world probably uses a combination of elemental and animal years to have a cyclical system, much like the traditional Chinese sexagenary cycle. In that post I also argued that the fan theory of the elemental years standing for Avatar eras is unworkable, due to the difficulty of coding historical events (like Avatar birth and death years) into a mathematical and astronomical calendar,.and due to the notation of the years in writing.

( My theory has problems, though. Here's why. )

The easiest way to get around this difficulty is to say that "Cultivated Commanding Dragon year" is a mistake. The creative team was on a schedule, after all, while fans have years and years to analyze this stuff, assuming a show that is not quickly forgotten and/or fans with enough time on their hands.

Still, I'd like to eschew the easy way out in this particular case because there is something else I don't like about the system I've assumed. I like it a lot better than the Avatar epoch-animal year system hypothesized by the Avatar Wiki, for all the reasons I've stated in my previous post on the subject. However, I don't like that the years cycle back in only 48 years. In a 48-year cycle, living until your birth year comes around again can't be anything very rare, nor does it denote as much wisdom and experience as a 60-year cycle. The cultured commanding dragon year business is just an additional reason to seek an alternative.

Therefore my next post on the subject (yes, I'm writing three posts about the calendar of a fictional world. Go me!) I'll talk about ways to fix the calendar system.

Part I: A Genocide in Four Easy Steps and As Many or More Decades

So I've been blowing my top over fun things like fictional genocide, and the Air Nomads were on my mind a lot. Together with arguments that Sozin might not necessarily have hated the Air Nomads, plus the evidence from the show, I've started speculating that the destruction of the Air Nomads wasn't industrial-strength massacres like the German Third Reich perpetuated. Maybe the process was more akin to the reduction of the American native peoples, a combination of very real atrocity and oppression with population issues, social and economic change, and loss of culture. It even culminated with little Airbenders growing up in Air Nomad Reservation Air Temple Island.

( Why are your words so big, Grandma? The better to crush you with, dear. )