ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE

[lebateleur]

Today, the seal was broken. I have now viewed through episode 13, and will probably manage the other seven tomorrow. What will follow presently is my write-up of eps 1.07-8 from last night, but before that, may I just say:

EPISODE 1.13 OMG OMG OMG I KNEW IT WAS HIM, I KNEW IT WAS HIM AND IT WAS STILL WONDERFUL AND JUST. BARRELFULS OF YAY.

And with that out of the way:

Yesterday's speculation based on the six episodes I'd viewed thus far.

So. Four elements. Right now we have Katara, who waterbends, Zuko, who firebends, the dude from episode six who earthbends, and of course Aang, who airbends. Aang has to learn all four of these skills. We also have four books in the series. Is Aang going to learn from each of these people? (And does that mean Zuko is going to be forced into an alliance, however grudging or temporary?) Or are we going to have an equal gender divide between the main chara benders? And even more intriguingly (but less likely), will each of the books focus primarily on the bender of its title? Cause, if so, cool.

(And, having watched watched episodes 1.09 and 1.13, I'm really tickled because I could so be right on some of this.)

Episode 1.07

Episode seven opens with Our Heroes encountering a scene of Mononoke-hime-esque ecological disaster. Luckily, Katara is there to pull an Eleusinian Mystery moment of revelation on Aang, who cheers up. They then head to a local village, which is being terrorized by Kao-nashi some weird spirit-thingy that Aang's got to put a stop to. He tries admirably, but alas! cannot prevent the angry hollow angry spirit-thingy from abducting Sokka. Meanwhile, Uncle Iroh takes it upon himself to make me all kinds of nostalgic for my favorite sulfuric hot spring baths. Then he gets abducted by earth benders and hauled away on the back of their trusted chocobo steeds...chocobo steeds. (And can I mention here how much I'm digging all these little references the show makes?)

Meanwhile meanwhile, Hyaku some dragon transports out-of-body!Aang to the temple of Pachu Mama the previous Avatar, where on the eve of the winter solstice the gates will finally open to the Mysterious Cities of Gold he'll finally be able to contact his predecessor. Here Aang is eventually to discover that oh noes! Sephiroth is going to call Meteor down to devastate the Planet the Firelord is going to call a comet down to devastate the planet and only he can stop it. But he's not even a real Soldier Avatar!

Meanwhile meanwhile meanwhile Uncle Iroh's made a general nuisance of himself, and Zuko is forced to waste valuable time tracking him because the doofy old fogey forgot to pack his clothes. And thus posited, we break for intermission.

Episode 1.08

In which Our Heroes are making haste toward their destination courtesy of their living ship Moya Appa. But what's this? The renegade Captain Bialar Crais Prince Zuko is in hot pursuit in his command carrier fire ship, with all of Peacekeeper high command Fire Nation high command on his tail.

The ever-brutal Commander Scorpious Zhou gives orders to the Peacekeeper armada Fire Nation blockade to fire at will, but both sets of renegades escape, making toward their destination, a Fire Nation temple. And...I could keep going, but all that would accomplish is to make me miserable that the best show on TV EVER was so heartlessly cancelled. So.

I dug Sokka's little MacGyver bit all the more because it didn't work. Luckily, he needn't feel too bad, because Zuka's little ruse didn't work out all that well either. The three-way showdown between all the principle agendas and their representatives was very sweet indeed, and Zuko is now fast on his way to becoming my Character of Choice. (I've had a thing for moral grey area loose cannon characters for as long as anyone can remember. I blame Mendoza.) Anyway, Tidus Aang has fun in the land of the dead before he's called back and goes all Demon King!Yuri on everyone's asses for their affront to his sense of propriety, destroying the temple in the process. Luckily, the Avatarverse's version of Tolkien's eagles ex machina arrives in the form of Appa to bear them all to safety.

And this wasn't even the season finale. Hell, it wasn't even the freakin' midway point. Avatar, my soul. My soul, Avatar. So happy to introduce you two.

これで以上です