I have a strong memory of watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on the Wii that my family had set up in our dining-room-turned-play-room when I was around ten years old. I watched it with my brother, who was six at the time. Besides the memories of sitting in front of the TV and eating goldfish, I didn’t remember a lot of the actual content of the show. I remember learning about how war and other political issues affect people and how they view the world ― specifically the episodes set in Ba Sing Se (but we will get to that later). Bits and pieces stuck with me, but for the most part, I watched it, had fun, and moved on.
Then, in March of this year, my school went into lockdown due to COVID-19, and I was suddenly back home. Like most other people, I had a lot of time on my hands. In May, Avatar: The Last Airbender was put back on Netflix and experienced a resurgence of sorts. Everyone who had watched the show when they were younger was rewatching it once again, and people who had never seen it before were viewing it with fresh eyes. I watched it again, and it was mind-blowing how relevant the show was and still is. Despite coming out 15 years ago, and being a children’s cartoon, it had an almost prophetic insight into this year.
Other people have observed these themes, especially Avatar’s ideology surrounding war. From the beginning of the show, the audience is shown how the war affects every character: Sokka and Katara lost their mother, and haven’t seen their father in years because he is battling the Fire Nation; Avatar Aang’s entire culture and people have been destroyed ― and he feels directly responsible; Even Zuko, the Fire Nation prince, was banished because he didn’t want to sacrifice soldiers for a plan his father proposed. In Avatar, even the winners of war still lose.
These are surface level details that the audience learns within the first few episodes, and as the show develops its critiques of war, violence, and imperialism develop as well. One episode that stands out to me as relevant right now is “City of Walls and Secrets.”
In this episode, Aang, Katara, Toph, and Sokka arrive in an Earth Kingdom city called Ba Sing Se. They are there to both look for Aang’s missing bison, Appa, and to tell the Earth King that there is an upcoming solar eclipse that will render all Firebenders incapable of bending ― creating a perfect opportunity to attack the Fire Nation. However, as they begin to try and contact the Earth King, they are barred from seeing him. The liaison assigned to help them around the city, Joo Dee, tells them (albeit indirectly) that mentioning the war going on outside the city walls is forbidden. As they look around the city for Appa, they face more obstacles: if anything is illegal or uncomfortable, whoever they’re questioning evades their queries and all but runs away. Appa was stolen by Sand-benders, so they try to ask a student at Ba Sing Se University if they know anything about sand-bending or the war with the Fire Nation. In response to this, Joo Dee actually shakes her head at the student; forbidding him from answering the questions.
By this point, the group notices something is off, and they sneak into a royal party to try and talk to the Earth King. While there, the guests find out that Aang is the Avatar, and the Dai Li (the police force of Ba Sing Se) captures them. The head of the Dai Li, Long Feng, explains that “What’s most important to his royal majesty is maintaining the cultural heritage of Ba Sing Se.” The king doesn’t even have a lot of responsibility; he’s just a “figurehead,” as Katara puts it. Long Feng says that any mention of the war within the walls will send the citizens into a panic, so they don’t mention it. Anyone who does mention the war is crazy, and they are taken away to be brainwashed into believing the war isn’t happening. There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
In “Lake Laogai,” the story of the group in Ba Sing Se continues. In this episode, Aang keeps searching for Appa, despite Joo Dee telling him he is not allowed to post flyers in the city. Aang and the rest of the group have never been in a situation like this ― everywhere else they’ve been, the war is extremely apparent. Whether it be poverty and loss of life, or the crushing fear of another Fire Nation attack, no one else has the luxury of ignoring what is happening. The group later finds out that Long Feng had kept the war a secret from the king in the first place, to make sure the truth about the war wouldn’t be revealed.
I think these episodes are interesting for many reasons. For one, Ba Sing Se is an Earth Kingdom city, not Fire Nation, which makes the ”bad guy” a little less clear in these episodes. There is a pervasive feeling that the citizens are being lied to, and that they deserve to know what’s going on, no matter how distressing it is. On the other hand, the city is a safe-haven for these people. It’s protecting them from a war they don’t know is happening. The main characters are convinced that the citizens need to know what is happening, and that the city needs to use their resources to help defeat the Fire Nation, and I think the audience usually comes to this same conclusion (unless you’re, like, a big fan of propaganda), but there is a period of time where the audience has to think about Long Feng’s point of view.
Watching these episodes as a child was jarring ― I didn’t understand the deeper meanings these storylines have, but I still somewhat understood the severity of what I was watching. Just seeing the anger and disbelief on the main character’s faces helped get that across. To me, then, it was just something scary that happened on a TV show. It wasn’t real life.
Then, I watched the show this year. As I am writing this (July 29th), the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in America have reached 4.5 million, with 153,000 deaths. Trump stated in the July 28th COVID briefing that large portions of the U.S. were “corona-free,” despite this not being true at all. Cases are continuing to rise, yet Trump wants to reopen schools, and he continues to pat himself, and his administration, on the back for how they are handling things. Not to mention citizens are being kidnapped in Portland right now, which parallels the actions of the Dai Li.
While watching “City of Walls and Secrets,” and “Lake Laogai,” I couldn’t help but see the similarities. What happens in Ba Sing Se is an extreme example, of course, but at the root, it’s the same idea: lying and spreading misinformation in order to save face, and to keep people from panicking. As other countries follow CDC protocol, their cases go down. Our cases go up because our president is opting to ignore them and spread false claims (although in our world, we have the luxury of fact checking, unlike in Ba Sing Se). This is not the only time a government (specifically American) has lied to and misinformed its citizens, and I think that’s part of what Avatar is trying to communicate with these episodes. This happens, has happened, and most likely will happen again in the real world. Avatar is a mirror of sorts, and sometimes the reflection we see is quite ugly.
I don’t think 10-year-old me could have ever imagined something like this happening in my lifetime. I do remember feeling passionately that what was happening in Ba Sing Se was wrong, and the group was right for trying to tell the truth. On the whole, Avatar deftly shows both sides to every story, these episodes included. In a weird way, I understood (and still understand) why Long Feng was lying to the citizens and to the king. He believed he was doing the right thing. He wanted as many people as possible to be comfortable, and ignorance is bliss. Naivety may be comforting, but if Avatar has taught me anything, it’s that naivety is dangerous.
