Long Essay is long
Jul. 22nd, 2008 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesSO, I just had this realization, brought to you by reading the comments of Mem's rant on why she loves Aang from Avatar and hates Avatar fandom.
Aang from Avatar is so Luke Skywalker, and this actually makes the Star Wars prequels make sense. (Also, dead Joseph Campbell can just shut up)
So, we have Aang. Normal kid, except for the fact he was raised by monks and is the Avatar, the once-per-generation Chosen One that is supposed to keep the balance. Except, he seals himself in an iceberg for 100 years, which lets things get out of balance (well, part of that was that his past life didn't want to hurt his BFF the Firelord, which left Aang born into a bit of a situation, that didn't get better with 100 years of no one paying attention). So, now he has to restore the balance to the world.
End of the second part of three, he finds a master, who promises to teach him the secrets to unlocking his full power -- part of that is detaching himself from the world. As part of that, he gets a vision that his friends are in danger, so goes storming off, says 'to heck with detachment', and nearly gets killed. (Well, or does, and gets brought back by the Chekov's Water Katara was hauling around for the entire season. Good thing she forgot about it (or actually believed the, 'I'll be fine, really') when Jet was dying (or whatveer Jet was doing -- 'Did Jet die?' 'You know, it was really unclear'.) )
Yeah, starting to sound familiar?
Anyhoo, Aang spends half of the finale trying to come to terms with going afterFirelord Phoenix King Big Bad Evil Fire Guy Ozai (who is also voiced by Mark Hamill), since everyone (his friends, his enemies, his past lives), assumes that he is gonna kill Ozai. And, well, Aang is non-violent -- short of when he flips out and his past lives' defense mechanism triggers, he goes for the disable in fights. Heck, he even has problems learning how to manipulate earth and fire because his own style is more about avoiding things, rather than facing them head-on (and he couldn't firebend until he realized that fire wasn't inherently destructive). Eventually, he goes into the Avatar State (aforementioned uber-powerful self-defense mechanism), nearly kills Ozai despite himself, and then pulls himself out of it long enough to tell Ozai that he wasn't going to kill him -- instead, he would try to take away Ozai's firebending, which requires him to not only be the Avatar, but be incredibly strong and pure of spirit.
So, anyway, Mem in her essay/squeefest mentions that Aang has two traits in his favor. One is compassion -- he doesn't want to kill even a deserving scumbag like Ozai. More than that, his friends anchor him in the world, and his past lives made the point that the Avatar cannot seek personal enlightenment at the expense of his duty to the world. Basically, while most Airbenders can detach themselves from worldly concern, the Avatar has to be involved with the world to balance it -- I'd make some quantum physics joke here, but it's not necessary. Aang's devotion to his friends is the microcosm of his devotion to the entire world. Yeah, it's one of those stories where love (plus a lot of hard work, kickass allies, and a convenient lion-turtle) helps triumph over competent, powerful, and evil.
Anyway, aside from Luke doing the same damn thing with his own training, I could argue that Luke was the chosen one. In order to not only break the Emperor but break the Empire, and reclaim the Jedi, Luke needed to do what he did -- not kill the Emperor, but win over his dad. And that took caring -- I mean, if Luke was able to forgive Vader for his crimes against Luke*, it helped give Vader the one link back to the Light Side.
* Don't think Luke can forgive him for Alderaan, or killing Jedi younglings or any of that. Not because Luke is incapable, but because Luke wasn't a victim of those, so has no ability to forgive for them. He could forgive for the hand, and killing his aunt and uncle, and those kind of things.
Which in its own way, was restoring balance to the force. If you argue that maybe the Jedi were wrong to detach themselves from the rest of the universe, since you can't study the Force without studying life (which creates the Force, and the Force creates life). So, we have a Jedi that is unable to do this (Anakin), and then ends up destroying the system because of it. And, Luke brings it back to what it should be -- Jedi who love the world because they love the things and people in it. Which probably prevents another Vader. So, the entire Star Wars story becomes a discussion about how to live in the world, and shows that one cannot both be the guardians of Good and live detached from the world -- one either has to live and love in the world and be able to affect it, or detach from the world and seek enlightenment. One cannot detach only to rain down judgement with light-sabers. (Or fiery death -- one of the things Iroh says in Avatar is that he or Zuko couldn't kill Ozai. Not just because they probably couldn't win, but because that wouldn't change anything. And one of Aang's points was that Ozai was a danger to the balance of the world, but Aang didn't feel like he should decide who deserved to died, just because he was the Avatar, when there was another method to restore the balance*)
* Besides just asking him to give it up, I mean.
Yeah, this probably goes against EU canon, but I kinda like it.
Aang from Avatar is so Luke Skywalker, and this actually makes the Star Wars prequels make sense. (Also, dead Joseph Campbell can just shut up)
So, we have Aang. Normal kid, except for the fact he was raised by monks and is the Avatar, the once-per-generation Chosen One that is supposed to keep the balance. Except, he seals himself in an iceberg for 100 years, which lets things get out of balance (well, part of that was that his past life didn't want to hurt his BFF the Firelord, which left Aang born into a bit of a situation, that didn't get better with 100 years of no one paying attention). So, now he has to restore the balance to the world.
End of the second part of three, he finds a master, who promises to teach him the secrets to unlocking his full power -- part of that is detaching himself from the world. As part of that, he gets a vision that his friends are in danger, so goes storming off, says 'to heck with detachment', and nearly gets killed. (Well, or does, and gets brought back by the Chekov's Water Katara was hauling around for the entire season. Good thing she forgot about it (or actually believed the, 'I'll be fine, really') when Jet was dying (or whatveer Jet was doing -- 'Did Jet die?' 'You know, it was really unclear'.) )
Yeah, starting to sound familiar?
Anyhoo, Aang spends half of the finale trying to come to terms with going after
So, anyway, Mem in her essay/squeefest mentions that Aang has two traits in his favor. One is compassion -- he doesn't want to kill even a deserving scumbag like Ozai. More than that, his friends anchor him in the world, and his past lives made the point that the Avatar cannot seek personal enlightenment at the expense of his duty to the world. Basically, while most Airbenders can detach themselves from worldly concern, the Avatar has to be involved with the world to balance it -- I'd make some quantum physics joke here, but it's not necessary. Aang's devotion to his friends is the microcosm of his devotion to the entire world. Yeah, it's one of those stories where love (plus a lot of hard work, kickass allies, and a convenient lion-turtle) helps triumph over competent, powerful, and evil.
Anyway, aside from Luke doing the same damn thing with his own training, I could argue that Luke was the chosen one. In order to not only break the Emperor but break the Empire, and reclaim the Jedi, Luke needed to do what he did -- not kill the Emperor, but win over his dad. And that took caring -- I mean, if Luke was able to forgive Vader for his crimes against Luke*, it helped give Vader the one link back to the Light Side.
* Don't think Luke can forgive him for Alderaan, or killing Jedi younglings or any of that. Not because Luke is incapable, but because Luke wasn't a victim of those, so has no ability to forgive for them. He could forgive for the hand, and killing his aunt and uncle, and those kind of things.
Which in its own way, was restoring balance to the force. If you argue that maybe the Jedi were wrong to detach themselves from the rest of the universe, since you can't study the Force without studying life (which creates the Force, and the Force creates life). So, we have a Jedi that is unable to do this (Anakin), and then ends up destroying the system because of it. And, Luke brings it back to what it should be -- Jedi who love the world because they love the things and people in it. Which probably prevents another Vader. So, the entire Star Wars story becomes a discussion about how to live in the world, and shows that one cannot both be the guardians of Good and live detached from the world -- one either has to live and love in the world and be able to affect it, or detach from the world and seek enlightenment. One cannot detach only to rain down judgement with light-sabers. (Or fiery death -- one of the things Iroh says in Avatar is that he or Zuko couldn't kill Ozai. Not just because they probably couldn't win, but because that wouldn't change anything. And one of Aang's points was that Ozai was a danger to the balance of the world, but Aang didn't feel like he should decide who deserved to died, just because he was the Avatar, when there was another method to restore the balance*)
* Besides just asking him to give it up, I mean.
Yeah, this probably goes against EU canon, but I kinda like it.
