Hey guys welcome back to the weekly blog! I’m glad to hear you guys loved Avatar as much as I did, so I hope I don’t bore you with recapping some of the exposition! Anyways, I’ll first begin with recapping some basic details about season 1 before jumping into some fun facts and analysis stuff.

Season one as a whole introduces us to the world the audience will be spending a lot of time getting to know. Despite so much information being thrust into your face, it surprisingly is absorbed pretty quickly and easily. From just episode one, we learn the major world conflict, introduction to protagonists and antagonists, the effects of war on the Southern Water Tribe, and the (seemingly) typical hero’s journey. Aang very quickly teams up with Katara and Sokka, they establish their lighthearted dynamic (with some pretty dark scenes in-between), and finally get to the goal they were longing for– the North Pole.

Zuko saving the helmsman

When most shows begin a storyline, it isn’t often that we are shown a lot of gray characters (at least in the beginning). Because as a storyteller, one of the most important things to keeping an audience engaged is to have them connect to the protagonist and their cause. The easiest way to do so is to show that these characters are good. The good are good, the bad are bad, this is how the world is. Yet despite this common occurrence, season one if anything has some of the most diverse characters and backgrounds despite coming from the “good side” or the “bad side”.

Let’s start with the Fire Nation. From the beginning we know it is their fault for the war, they are the ones that are actively killing and attacking the other three nations, they are the ones to be feared and neutralized. Yet, we are introduced to characters that don’t exactly fit the extremist lens we should have of them. Take General Iroh. Despite being Fire Nation, he has a degree of kindness and empathy that is able to be seen clearly in how he treats not just his nephew, but the ship’s crew, the Avatar, and all people he encounters throughout season 1. Even Zuko, a seemingly ruthless hothead that doesn’t listen to anyone but himself, has multiple moments which reveal he does have respectable morals and standards that can almost be paralleled to that of the Avatar himself.

Jet being pinned to a tree after betraying Team Avatar

Even characters outside of the Fire Nation are called into question on their morality. Jet is the prime example of this. He’s projected as a Robin-hood figure, a small-time rebel who takes in those who lost their families to the Fire Nation and builds a force to make some real change. But then it’s revealed that he’s going to brutally drown innocent Fire Nation citizens, even hurting a defenseless old man, all in order to get the revenge he wants. Jet is supposed to be someone on “our” side. The “good” side. His dark plans come off as a betrayal to not just the audience, but Katara, Sokka, and Aang. 

Season one does an impeccable job at standardizing this as one of the main messages of this show– each person, no matter their background, is capable of extreme good or evil. No one is born one way or another. 

Okay, that was a lot of analysis so here’s some quick facts in no particular order!

• Notice how the art style of season one is very different from other seasons? That’s because this show had 3 different animation studios that worked on it!
• Zuko almost wasn’t a character! He was added in late in development because they wanted an immediate villain aside from the Fire Lord
• Momo was almost supposed to represent Monk Gyatso
• Speaking of, the name Gyatso is taken from the Dalai Lama

All in all, peak show from the jump. They knew what they were doing. Thanks for reading, let me know what your favorite episode from season 1 was! (Mine was The Fortuneteller).