Phillip Thorne
comcast.net> wa:>The series finale to Nickelodeon's "Avatar: The Last Airbender" was
>the four-part story "Sozin's Comet" (episodes 3.18-3.21), which aired
>last night, 19jul08, on U.S. TV.
>Wow.
Indeed
>SPOILERS
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It was nice to see Iroh again. And Bumi! Bumi is a riot! "All old people
know each other." Haha!
>Even in a very serious tetrad of episodes, the scripts find moments of
>levity.
Zuko: "I'm never happy"
>"Lee, you're banished. Lu, you stay."
>"But -- *I'm* Lu. So which of us is banished?"
>(Lee shrugs.)
IIRC, the credits said Li and Lo.
>"Have I told you how much I love that you invented metalbending?"
>"You could stand to say it some more."
Toph with a mecha suit. I loved it.
>Yes, Azula goes crazy, as the S3H2 trailer and prior eps have implied.
>Controlling people by fear has its limits (apologies to Machiavelli),
>and Azula has hit them. Mai and Ty Lee betray her, and she starts
>banishing everybody else who might, including lowly personal servants.
>Then she has a vision of her mother.
This was perhaps the most gratifying thing (to me) in the entire
"movie"/finale. ( Especially the scene where she was trying to do her
hair by herself... :o )
>It did *not* end up, as I suspected, Everybody versus Azula and Ozai.
>The parties were split, and Mai and Ty Lee remained in prison.
Given Aang's very explicit distaste for "needing" to kill the firelord,
I was pretty sure he wouldn't do it despite what his previous
incarnations *seemed* to imply. I figured he'd go for stopping the
comet somehow, not what his actual solution turned out to be.
>Apparently hot air and/or hydrogen are rather more buoyant on this
>world, if they can support dirigibles with metal-clad skins and
>coal-fired boilers. Also, airships aren't quite that nimble (the word
>"lumbering" comes to mind). Also, if two airships of equal mass
>collide, the impactor probably isn't going to conveniently stay on
>course to impact the next target.
>If Sokka's contingent evicts all the engine-stokers, the ship isn't
>going to travel very much further.
I'm totally fine with them bending what we consider reality a little for
the sake of dramatic license.
>We get names for more prior Avatars. Fire/Roku, Earth/Kyoshi,
>Water/Kuruk (it was his girlfriend taken by Koh the Face-Stealer), and
>Air/Yangchen.
Advice to Aang by each (w/a suitable anecdote):
Roku (fire): be decisive
Kyoshi (earth): justice
Kuruk (water): be an active participant, not a passive one
Yangchen (air): your duty as the balance-keeper trumphs all personal
needs/aversions
>The official SD short "Schooltime Shipping" aside, it looks like there
>won't be any more love-triangle problems. Zuko ends up with Mai,
>Sokka with Suki, Aang with Katara. Ty Lee is now a member of the
>Kyoshi Warriors, but is showing no signs of fancying Sokka. (That's
>where the inevitable fanfic will go.)
Too bad; I always liked the idea of Katara/Zuko, given their opposing
elements and Katara's inauspicious history with the fire nation. But,
I will admit that Mai put up quite a moving (and ballsy) display in the
last few episodes, so I'm okay with it.
Never disliked Aang/Katara per-se, but Aang always came across to me as
too young for Katara (at their current ages) to seem really all that
viable a pairing. Maybe in 5 years when Aang is "of age" (honestly, I
know he's 111-112 years old, but I don't consider 100 years of frozen
icecube to include much social development).
I felt like Toph got a little bit shafted in these last several episodes
(including the few just prior to the "movie"/4-parter). Even though her
character (in this series) didn't seem to be heading anywhere in
particular, it still seemed to me like the finale lacked closure for
her. I hope, if there is more of this (and apparently the creators have
implied as much), that Toph gets a little more fleshing out (perhaps in
more ways than one, heh). I would like to see what she finally ended up
doing in life, at least just a glimpse.
So now my question is, given events in the movie, can Aang restore the
Airbenders by imbuing already-existing people with Airbending abilities?
Or maybe "will he" is a better question.
--
"Care must be exorcised when handring Opiticar System as it is apts to
be sticked by dusts and hand-fat." --Japanese Translators
"Keep your fingers off the lens." --Elton Byington, English Translator
