ATLA novels & values
Welcome to GT Radio on the Geek Therapy Network where we believe that the media you care about is important to who you are as a person and how you understand the other people in your lives. I don't think I'll ever get that right. That's fine. You all understood what I was talking about because you're invested. You're listeners.
Link:You care. You also think media matters. And, so today, hi. One of your hosts, Link. Am joined by my two cohosts, Marc
Marc:Yellow. And Lara.
Link:Hey. And we are gonna be talking about the Avatar, the last airbender books of which I am just finding out right now, there are five.
Lara:I thought I just found out.
Link:I thought that there were two. There are four in my brain.
Lara:So They're all wrong except for Mark.
Link:We have we have the first one is The Rise of Kiyoshi, which came out in 2019. And then The Shadow of Kiyoshi, which came out 2020. And then we have two Yang Chen books, and then most recently, The Reckoning of Roku. So these are five books that are covering previous avatars from before Korra and Aang from the TV shows, the two shows. Avatar Last Airbender and Avatar colon Legend of Korra.
Link:So this is prequel stuff, which I think is always very interesting to see how you can fill in a story like that without, mucking up your world building too much. Starting with a fair amount of time, time space in between, is definitely beneficial. But I guess we are going down the line of avatars towards Aang and Korra. So the closer you get, the more familiar characters start to show up, which is pretty cool. But, yeah, I know, Lara, you have read at least the Kiyoshi books.
Link:And then Mark has apparently read
Lara:books.
Link:Oh, and the ancient books. So just not the the Roku, the most recent one. Yeah. And then Mark has read all of them, including finishing the Roku one earlier today.
Lara:That just came out like two weeks ago. Very nice.
Link:Oh, yeah. And then I haven't read any of them.
Marc:But it's okay because you know the Avatar world. You've seen the show.
Link:I do. I I have seen I have both I've seen both shows. I watched I watched Avatar the Last Airbender after it had already finished airing on Cartoon Network. Oh. Nickelodeon?
Lara:Shake a
Link:lotion. Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon. And then I did watch the first season of Korra as it aired, and I got very annoyed with some of the plot choices they made in that first season. So I stopped watching it until several years.
Link:Actually, I think in 2020. I was like, know what, screw it. I'm gonna rewatch all of this because it's a pandemic time and why not? So I rewatched all of all of the Avatar shows. I did enjoy Korra more on the second viewing.
Link:But still very annoyed by a lot of the plot choices in that first season.
Marc:Yeah.
Lara:They I'm telling you, the comics, the Cora comics are the best part
Link:of that. And the Cora comics take place after the show. Right? Yeah. Almost immediately after the of happy ending after the experiences of the show, which is pretty cool.
Link:But anyways, we're talking about, I guess, mostly Kiyoshi today or the books in general? Is there something specifically you wanted to start with, or should I just start asking questions?
Marc:Well, I mean, I think the reason why, like, I kinda brought this up, one, again, like I mentioned, it's it became the hyper fixation of the over the last, like, couple of months as I, I had, the rise of Kyoshi in hardcover. I took that with me when I went on my, cruise. I had pretty much finished it by the time, I was done with the cruise, and then I was like, well, I wanna keep reading, and I don't also don't wanna go to the store right now. So I started downloading the audiobooks, and that just became my my avenue to then binge read these things. But throughout my like, throughout reading all of these, a couple of big things kinda stood up to me that I know I mentioned to you guys as you were kinda setting up the topic and deciding what we how exactly we wanted to approach this.
Marc:And so for me, reading through these books and and kinda seeing the different perspectives of these avatars, really, Yang Shen and and Kiyoshi, I was kind of, like, interested in exploring, like, the idea of roles because in Kyoshi's case, you know, there there's a whole dynamic shift that happens in the first book, you know, where, you know, people the the world believes one thing and then ends up being, nope. That's not it. And now it's Kiyoshi trying to figure out how to navigate the world and navigate herself as now she's thrust into the spotlight as the avatar. And then that kinda continues into the second book too because now it's like she's now coming to turn like, it's it's a whole, like, spiritual thing where she's trying to commune with Kuruk and to try to, like, talk to her her past selves. And it's just like, again, just like that that idea of, like, role identity that I was like, okay.
Marc:That's really interesting. And then I saw it kind of build up more with Yang Chen's story in the two books. But then also the biggest thing too with both of these characters is their values and what that means to a person and how far you're willing to go to maintain your values. And at what point do you have to sacrifice your values if you have to sacrifice them? So I was kind of curious to hearing what your guys' thoughts are on these two things that I brought up.
Marc:And since, Laura, I know you've read the books, kind of interested to hear what your take is on some of the things that I've mentioned and then kinda go from there and see see where it takes us. Go with the flow.
Lara:One thing that came to mind when you were talking about roles as kind of the topic is, like, the pressures of being the avatar. Right? And, like Mhmm. Each person taking like, some of the stories are very similar, but each person taking their own each avatar has their own relationship to the role of being the avatar. Like, our first experience with this, if we're going, like, chronologically from how it was get given to us is Aang, who runs away from it.
Lara:Right? And Mhmm. He's a he's a 12 year old kid. He's not supposed to find out he's the avatar till he's a little older. And he finds out and he runs away from it and he's scared.
Lara:And so his story is all about trying to reckon with that and take responsibility and be who he was meant to be. And there's a lot of pressure to put on somebody who like, the master of the elements is someone born as a baby, and they are the master of the elements as they're a child. And so with Kiyoshi's story, it's anyone who wants to read the book, you get very confused in the first few chapters of the book because they're talking about a completely different avatar. And you're like, wait. Who's this guy?
Lara:Who's this guy?
Link:You you flip back to the cover like, that's not the name on here. Is this a misprint? And the whole time, I'm like, wait. Wait. This is Who are you?
Lara:This is Kiyoshi's book. I know she's the avatar. Like, what is going on here? Right? Which is a cool take, and it gets you thinking.
Lara:And it's a lot of fun. But it also is that, like Mark was saying, she's, like, thrown away and, like, cast aside and then is thrust into this role very quickly where the other avatar has been trained even though he's not the avatar and her trying to grapple with that. Yang Chen, I think I think in general, the theme with air nomads as avatars are, like, that values piece, but, like, they are peaceful people and yet they have this immense power. And so everybody wants a piece of them and there's that balance of those things. I
Link:think balance is probably, like, the main thrust of of the Avatar world. All of it.
Lara:What it
Link:is engaging with is obviously the most baseline balance between the elements, but also between political powers and between, you know, relations you have to other people in your family and friendships and romantic relationships, the balance of power in those spaces.
Lara:Mhmm. Yeah. And it for a lot of these avatars, it causes this, like, reluctance. I mean, balance is one of the most important things. The avatar role playing game, that's one of the game mechanics for each playbook and each, like, stereotype or archetype.
Lara:It's like the balance of this character and where do they fall on their values and how do they they move too closely to this. It knocks the other piece out of play for a while and makes it harder to do things with that. Then we get to Korra who's like, hell yeah. I'm the Avatar. I'm the best.
Lara:And, like, from a very young age. But then she finds it harder and that there's this
Link:pressure conflict and balance is balanced in between the the technological society that she exists within as a political figure versus the spiritual superhero with that that has its own responsibilities and requirements and history and her having to balance between those aspects. Yeah. Which is further reflected in that of well, I don't know about, Kiyoshi or Yang Shen or Sozu even. But with Aang versus Korra, Aang is very much he has his one air air bending is his strength and then he builds out into the other ones and then Cora is the reflection of that where she is good at three of them and only has to really work at one. It's that that other side of the balance whereas she is more in tune with her ability to bend, but that is being anti balanced against the position she holds politically, as a teen, which is fucked up to think about.
Lara:Right. Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Lara:And when we get back to the books thinking about, like, the balance of when we look at roles and, like, our expectations of what being the Avatar like, if we were the Avatar, if they are the Avatar, what do they want their legacy to be? What do they want their role to be in this world? And what is the world that they're in? What does the world want them to be? What do the people want them to be?
Lara:What do the leaders want them
Link:to be? And avatars have to, like, further balance that they are existing within this spiritual realm where they are able to communicate in some form to past avatars. There is that whole extra z access there where it's not just the people in the nations that you are surrounded by currently. It's also like, well, I've got a big long line of dudes with baggage and they're all always here.
Lara:And and some of them have a harder time connecting with them. Like like, Cora has a hard time connecting with those past lives. And there's also Yang Chen who has issues with those past lives taking over. At, like, almost like what we would consider what stereotypically people would look at as, a dissociative identity disorder. It's not anything like that, but it's just like someone else is there.
Lara:Like the memories there anymore.
Marc:The memories themselves kinda take over because the the the boundaries she has between her own self identity and the identity of all of her previous selves is very thin and very loose. So in in in in moments of, like, intense emotions or intense distress, it can kinda shift for her, and then she ends up becoming and taking on this identity of one of her previous selves. And, like, to your point where, like, with Korra, like, Korra had a really hard time with connecting to, you know, her spiritual her spiritual side and communing with her previous selves until she hit basically rock bottom. And on the other side, you know, we have Kiyoshi who as well had a very hard time with communing with her past selves. Like, she couldn't she couldn't do that.
Marc:She couldn't access that. But to her, and this is something that gets touched on more in the second book of Kiyoshi, it it became more of a refusal. Like, she refused to tap into that. She didn't want to access her past selves. Or if she wanted to, she wanted to kinda, like, jump ahead and talk to all these other past selves without looking at the most recent one.
Marc:Mhmm.
Link:Like she wanted to try
Marc:and keep the shortcut to get more
Link:additional We see that desire to skip the like, hard spiritual work. Aang does that a couple of times too. I mean, obviously the most obvious one being the oh, I'm the avatar I'm bouncing. This is just the straight up refusal of the call. But I do I do like in that way it is also very much part of the Avatar identity is that internal conflict of having to connect to your past selves, including the one that that just happened.
Link:It's like, oh, not a lot of distance there. That one's raw.
Lara:One with Kiyoshi, it's about, like, nobody Kuruk's reputation is not great. He's not the greatest avatar. Most people don't respect him in a way other than, like, he was the avatar. And so what does she have to learn from him? Right?
Marc:Mhmm.
Lara:She wants to go to Yang Chen, who is the greatest Avatar they've had as as far as she can remember. So Mhmm. There's there's that piece. But, like, the avatar has many aspects to being there's so much to juggle and so much to balance. People, leaders, the world, the elements, the spirits, yourself, your friends, your companions.
Lara:And I think it's really funny that when Mark brought this topic up, my brain went to my I've been watching a lot of the Olympics. And I think about Simone Biles and the pressure that she was under in Tokyo and how her mental health just said, nope. We're not doing this. I can't do this. And she checked out and didn't know whether she was gonna be able to go do another Olympics, and she did and has done amazing and brought a lot of a lot of attention to mental health.
Lara:I mean, she's there's pictures of her sitting and, like, having a breathing exercise before perform before one of her routines. And this idea of the pressure of the people, the pressure of the outside world and the expectations of yourself and what you want for yourself and the expectations of what other people want and how those things don't necessarily line up with what we're actually doing. It's very Rogerian, like, congruence kind of thing. Mhmm.
Marc:Yeah. And, you know, you're you bring that up, and my mind's going to this quote in this is going a little far because I just finished the Roku book, it's really fresh But in my there's a quote in that book that I think like really kinda solidifies kinda what we've been talking about a little bit. The quote is like, the world had its Kiyoshi, and now it needs its Roku. And in that sense, the the point of this is like, you know, the world like, Kiyoshi was a great avatar. She brought a lot of peace.
Marc:She brought justice, and she did all these things. And her era is done, and it's done for a reason. So whatever Roku brings, that's what the world needs right now. And so it's stop trying to act like, you know, your predecessors and and your previous selves and instead be confident and be and find strength within who you are currently. Mhmm.
Marc:And this is, like, basically, the whole journey for Kiyoshi, I think, is her finding herself throughout, like, the first book, is her finding herself and and starting to realize who she is as an individual rather than who she is as the avatar. And then we start we don't really start seeing then that transition happen until the second book. Like, yes, we know that we find out, yes, she's the actually the avatar. Whole lot of stuff happens in in the first book. But, really, the idea of her being the avatar, at least to me, that didn't really seem like the main purpose of the story.
Marc:Like, yes, it's the plot. It's a central plot point, and, yes, they talk about it all the time. But to me, it's like, no. No. No.
Marc:No. This isn't really about Kiyoshi being the avatar. This is about Kiyoshi finding out who is Kiyoshi, like, who she is at at at at her center. And in this iteration of the cycle, it's like, what who is she, and what is she gonna represent? What is she going to bring to the table as now this new spiritual leader and and central political figure that people are constantly gonna be out to try to manipulate and to try and coerce so that way they gain favor in her eyes and so on and so forth.
Marc:And and Kyoshi's like, I don't want any of this. Peace out.
Lara:And she's in a unique place to be able to do that having not been raised. Like, even if the kids don't know they're the Avatar yet, they are raised and protected and, like, the people around them know. That wasn't the case with her. The Avatar was missing for, like, sixteen years. So she had no idea.
Lara:And so she's built up who she is over this time and then has to reckon with, like, this is who I am, but now I have this whole other piece of who I am. And all these people want everything from me. And I just I don't want that. I wanna do my thing.
Marc:Mhmm. And it's also even that, like, there were a lot of people that kinda, like, brushed her aside, pay her no attention, and now all of a sudden, now she's the center of their attention. And now all they wanna do is be around her. And she's like, you literally did not care about me two days ago, and now all of a sudden, I'm the most important person in your life. Like, sorry.
Marc:No. Thanks. I don't wanna deal with that. Yeah.
Lara:Yeah.
Link:Something you said sort of got me thinking. I think there's something really special about having there's sort of this relationship between, like, prescriptive role versus descriptive role, wherein the avatar has all of this political baggage of being a leader of very distinct groups of people and working as sort of a mediator. But because it it is it's magic. It is a magic system. It's not the the idea of you you're not becoming the avatar as in that is the role you're moving into.
Link:You're becoming the principal of the school or whatever. No, you are Avatar. That is what you are. And so whatever you do is what Avatar does. Whatever you believe in this moment is what Avatar believes.
Link:And so I I like that there's that you can sort of reflect that into other things in our lives, right? We have all this social baggage about like what it means to be a parent, right? There is there is a distinction in the prescriptive role of parent and the descriptive role of parent when you are doing the parenting. It's it's something you are doing. It's not a a hat that you've put on.
Lara:Mhmm.
Link:I think that's really interesting. It's really interesting stuff.
Marc:Yeah. And I think that really gets touched like that kind of idea. I feel like it's really explored with the Ying Chen books. Because with Ying Chen, it's not so much as an I mean, there is that identity piece here and there, but for the most part, like, we know who Yang Chen is and we know that she I I mean, the books say she's 17 and she's basically already a fully realized avatar because she can do she she knows all the bending
Lara:All the elements.
Marc:Already, which is anyway, like but a lot of it kinda boils down to, like, her values. And, you know, you have the values that she grew up with as an air nomad and the idea of peace and tranquility and detachment. But then and this is something that gets mentioned in the show when Aang does talk to Yang Chen is that as the avatar, you cannot be fully detached because your sole duty is to the world. And when I think about what she said during in the show in that little conversation, I feel like a lot of that got built off of the her experiences that she had within those two books of her trying to navigate the political scene in the world between the Earth Kingdom, the Water Tribes, the Fire Nation. She's trying to play the system and she's incorporating all these different tactics and things that to her, she questions a lot of it.
Marc:She's like, why am I doing this? Like Mhmm. Why do I have to do this? But at the same time, she's like, but in order to try and work towards peace and safety throughout the world. Like, I have to do this even though, like, in some cases, like, she really doesn't wanna do it.
Marc:But then she has to steal herself and play it off like, nope. This is all going according to plan.
Lara:Right. And, like, she these things she has to do are the world she's in is completely the opposite of the teaching she had as an air nomad. Like, there's greed and corruption and and, I mean, that's the whole that's her balance is being caught between her her values, her training, her her life experience, her culture, and the culture of the rest of the world. But then there's also the piece where she does a lot of things that most people wouldn't want that wouldn't want wouldn't feel good about their avatar doing. She does a lot of backroom sneaky stuff, all for the good of the people, and she has a hard time with it.
Lara:Right? She like you said, Mark, she doesn't wanna be doing it. She wants to be and I think that's that idea of, like, what kind of avatar do you wanna be? What kind of avatar are you? What kind of Kyoshi or Yang Chen or Aang or Korra or Roku are you?
Lara:Right? And how do you reflect that in the world around you? There's so many these books are so good, and they still only cover these these characters when they're in their teenage years. And I wanna see the rest of what happens after they hit adulthood and, like Mhmm. Reality sets in, like and maturity sets in.
Marc:Yeah.
Lara:Even though Yang Shen gained some maturity. Kiyoshi, toward the end of her second book, gets some maturity too. But they're still, like, 17, 18, 19, like Yeah.
Link:I mean, I get I get why they they focus on teens because there's so much space to do coming age and and big earth shattering realizations about the way the world works and everything. But I agree. I do wish that because there are still, you know, as an older adult, there are still lots of times that you are grappling with identity and with your role within, your social groups and everything. I think that there's still plenty of really good juicy meaty stuff in there. But I I do get why they focus on young adults.
Link:Oh, yeah.
Lara:I mean, young adult books are very popular for a reason. Right? And I think some of I mean, my favorite parts.
Link:I think it's all books are
Lara:the girlfriend, you know. So
Link:Yeah, brother. I do. I also think a lot of the content is can be really dark. And having it focused on younger people allows you to slide back into levity and humor and light heartedness and joy and stuff like that. More easily than with adult characters.
Link:Oh, yeah. I mean, we saw that. Their
Lara:experiences. We saw that in the difference between Aang I mean, don't get me wrong. Avatar the Last Airbender touched on some dark things. But like, Aang was 12 and Cora grew up and ended up the show ended with her in her, like, early twenties. So there was a room for some more darkness.
Lara:And I think some of the books
Link:get pretty dang dark. Yeah.
Lara:Pretty dang dark. There's some murders.
Marc:Mhmm.
Lara:Mhmm. Not good.
Marc:Well, it's okay. Even in these books, there's plenty of murder.
Link:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Marc:But I I think yeah. I think I'd be interested to see, especially with Kiyoshi, like, that more, like, adult stuff because I think she is, like, the longest living avatar because she lived for, like, over two hundred years. Mhmm. So I would be really interested to see, like, what Kyoshi later in life was like. Or even, like, like, we we get touched on, like, in the show of, like, her creating the Kyoshi Island.
Marc:But I'd be like, I'd be interested to hear, like, how she why, like, how she decides to create her Kyoshi warriors. Like, that'd be that'd be a pretty cool little side story to explore. Or, like, yeah, taking a look at how things are at towards the end of her life because in Roku, like, there you know, you see the criticisms of of Kiyoshi a little bit, especially towards the end. But, I mean, yeah, going back to, like, Yang Chen and, like, these ideas of of values and things like that, like, we know, like, with Kiyoshi, her values are pretty set in stone. Like, I wanted to say, like, maybe, like, halfway towards the second half of the first book, like, you get a pretty good sense of, like, what she's standing for.
Marc:And then that just gets more solidified throughout the whole second book. And then we know in the shows and everything that Kiyoshi was very firm on justice, willing to do whatever is necessary to create to to bring justice and balance to the world. And with Ying Chen, like, yeah, we we see of, like, her sacrificing her own personal values and the values of her culture for the sake of the world being the avatar and trying to show the world that she can be just as good of a political figure as her predecessor, Saito, I think it is. But at the same time, it begs the question of how much is too much? How much exactly is she willing to sacrifice?
Marc:How much is too much to sacrifice? Because there's some pretty big stuff that happens towards her towards the end of her books. And it's like, that's pretty significant for her. But she has to brush it off and pretend like it's no big deal because this is just part of that being in the avatar. And her companions are like, yo, what?
Marc:Like, why would you do that? Like, this is this is this is really important to you. And then we take a look at Aang and everything, and he's trying so hard to stick to his values. And, like, that's the whole point. Like, he really has to try to come to terms with it.
Marc:But then when you have you have, like, this majority of your own self and other selves telling you, hey, man. You gotta you just gotta yeet the fire lord. And he's like, but I don't want to.
Lara:And like about him, like, being pissed off because none of his past lives gave him a vegan enough answer.
Marc:It's like, you guys didn't give me the answer I wanted. Yeah. Exactly. Like like, that's that's a whole a whole part of the show. It's like, he has that whole internal conflict of trying to create this balance within himself of trying to hold himself true to who he is while also trying to emulate and and step into the role that the world needs him to step into if they want to restore peace and everything to the world.
Marc:I mean, with Cora. Cora goes through that. Like, it I think that that struggle with values is something that every single avatar has to deal with and go through, and it just manifests itself in different ways. I think some avatars have it easier. It's just a matter of then it's like, okay, then what are you gonna do about it?
Marc:Because then it's like, hey, you gotta you gotta ease up or, you say you're doing this, but you're not doing enough.
Link:Mhmm.
Lara:Yeah. I think you're right that and even in the Avatar RPG, like, each era has its own like, each like I said, each playbook has its own balance, but the era doesn't necessarily have its own balance, but it there are main conflicts and and, like, pieces that you have to work on, like political intrigue and all of that is in the core book, the core era. And with Aang, it's about fascism and imperialism. And with Kyoshi, it's about, like, smaller mob groups, gangs. And then they didn't create a Yangchen one, but the Yangchen era is a lot about corruption.
Lara:And, I mean, they're all about corruption, but it's about corruption and another missing piece of the balance because we're used to seeing the fire nation being the bad guys. Right? They're the the ones pushing everyone out. And in Yang Shen's era, it's the earth kingdom that is in charge of, like, everything and has the most power. So I do think Every avatar's got their own problems.
Lara:Yeah.
Link:I do I do think as what I'm reflecting on this, Mark, as you're you're talking about oh, no. Oh, no. The thread. I dropped it. Values.
Link:Values. Thank you. Yes. Talking about the the struggle with balancing their own their own values and what they believe their their role needs to do action wise. And I think that that reflects very nicely into our own world as a basic human conflict is is when we come in into an issue where we have to decide if we're going to maintain the values that we believe that we hold or if we're going to do the the action that we think, I'm doing air quotes, should happen.
Link:And so I think, you know, we've got this piece of fantasy media, but it does very, very nicely reflect into real world experiences of of having to you know, being a human is that, you know, you are a social creature. We all have our own internal value systems, and we have a social group value system, and they do not always mesh perfectly.
Marc:And I and I think that gets even more complicated when you have to deal with individuals who know you both from your like, both in your current self and from your previous self. And so on top of trying to maintain the balance of all these different areas, right, and and the values in each of these different systems. But now you also have to deal with the values that you had in your past life that everybody then projects onto you as an expectation that you have to maintain those previous values or they're then comparing your values to your previous sales values. And that in turn to them is a way to gauge your own effectiveness as the current avatar, which is something that Ying Chen really, like, struggles with because everybody sees her as the 17 year old air nomad and doesn't know the way of the politics, doesn't know the way the world works. Like, people talk down to her.
Marc:They mock her, and they try to take advantage of the fact that she's so naive. And that's why then she throws herself even more into the political fray because she wants to show them that she can be just as good, if not better than her past self. It's just that yeah, then then it's like, okay, you can do that. But at what cost?
Link:Are you doing that because you value that or because you're doing it out of spite? Oh, fuck. Wait. Oh, no. No.
Link:It's fine, everybody. Spite is one of my values.
Lara:Well, it's interesting because sometimes she plays that, like, she plays up the the naivete and, like, she plays into that role to to get away with things and play people. And, like, so she knows they think she doesn't know how to work a room, but she knows how to work a room and she can be very sneaky. But that judgment on people versus their past selves or past lives is something that comes up in, like, Star Trek Deep Space Nine instantly made me think of Jed Zia Dax, the symbiote who she's she's the host. She got a symbiote. She's got all these lives behind her, and people judge her.
Lara:Even there's episodes where she's, like, literally taken to, like, court or something because of something her symbiote did in a past life. And so these pieces of judgment. And if we bring it into the world of, like, us now, like, I don't know about you, but I don't remember my past lives. But I think there is some reflection on, like, people judging us based on our past actions and who we were when we were a different age, in a different place in our life, a different stage of life, be it high school or, a job you did or what they put these values on you because of the things, the role that you had at that time. And you may be a totally different person that have done growth and learning and changed.
Lara:And the people will still hold you to those past things because they haven't seen it. They don't know you, the you you. They know the old you.
Marc:Yeah. And I I think about that in, like, my own life. And I think about, like, all, like, these different, like masks or facades that I put on, whether that was at school, whether it was just, you know, out in socials, social gatherings or even in previous jobs. Usually when I start kind of either shifting or like, especially when I was in therapy and, you know, doing my own growth and making a lot of these changes, like people, some people would get caught off guard. They'd be like, that what what's happening?
Marc:I don't I don't know this you, and I don't know how to feel about it. And then those comparisons then come into play. It's like, oh, well, you used to be like this before. Like, why aren't you like this now? And it's like, well, that's because I'm not that person anymore.
Marc:Like, I've I've changed. I've grown. And in in some cases, like, I've been reborn as a different person. Like, I've gone through my growth, I've gone through my healing. Through that process, I have changed to become a different person.
Marc:And so it's not fair. I don't think it's fair with it necessarily to me to then judge me based on how I was before. Instead, look at me and how I am now and, you know, go from there and see how and and just see what changes. I mean, usually, my values haven't changed a whole lot. But, yeah, I I can see how, like, that kind of all that stuff kinda goes in in play throughout all these avatars, really.
Lara:Well, and your values might not have changed that much, but maybe they shift a little bit. Like Mhmm. I do work with clients on, like, values work and figuring out what are your top five values. Right? And maybe they shift places a little bit.
Lara:Or, like, what do you do when two of your most important values come up against each other? Right? And so your your values might not have changed, but the way you look at them and the way you interact with them in that stage of life do change over time.
Link:Yeah. Yeah.
Marc:And it's interesting because when I look at Kiyoshi and we see like this idea of justice being solidified in like these, like in her like late adolescent, early adulthood era in the books. But then, like, basically in, like, the Roku book and in the the the show, we hear so many things about Kiyoshi and all these great accomplishments she did. And while the idea of justice in and of itself, like that value didn't really change. I think the method of how she went about enacting that justice and trying to bring that balance and that peace to the world, that's what shifted. And a lot of that then kind of became a more of a testament to who Kiyoshi was and why she became so revered to most of the world.
Marc:However, we also saw in one episode in particular where she's villainized. And Mhmm. They have the whole Avatar day to then absolutely, just roast Kiyoshi and just throw rotten boot at her, basically. And they try to help clear it up so that way she can be revered, but that that's when you kinda see that like, hey, you have these values and on like, when you're looking at it in a certain way, it's like, okay. Or like objectively, it's like, yeah.
Marc:Justice? Absolutely. That's a most people would agree that that's a pretty good value. You want justice. But when you get into the more nuanced, behaviors and the way she would go about enacting what her idea of justice is, it's like not everybody's going to agree with that.
Marc:And just because the majority of the world will you know, praise her and think she's the greatest, not everybody's gonna think that. And so in this case, it's like, yeah, she she did something. And even though it wasn't really her fault, she's like, I I'm gonna take accountability for that because, hey. They were doing something and I wasn't cool with it, and I saw that as injustice. So I took action.
Marc:And I and then when she talks to Ang, she's like, I don't see the difference. I don't really care what happened because I would have done anything. And then in in Roku's book, they talk about how, like, in her later life where it's like, they feel like towards the end of her time, she kinda got lost in, like, the small little bits and pieces of the world. Like, stopped seeing individuals as individuals and kinda got lost in the big picture of it. Because we know from Kiyoshi from the beginning, like, she's all about looking after the the less fortunate because she She was knew what it was like to go hunger.
Marc:She knew what it was like to have to fend for yourself and protect yourself using any means necessary. But then they're like, oh, well, later in life, towards her end, we feel like maybe she kind of lost sight of that because she got so caught up and so enamored with these other grand ideas of justice and what that meant.
Lara:And that comes down to, like, yeah, different interpretations of values and, like, who's justice? And, like, who are the collateral who's the collateral damage when we're enacting justice? Not everyone is gonna see the same act the same way. Mhmm. So
Marc:yeah. Yeah. Like, just because to you that was justice and to you, you feel like you brought about this great era of peace, not everybody's gonna think that. Some people thinks like, no. Actually, you really goofed things up for us, and we're not happy about it.
Marc:You really just you really peeved us off, Kiyoshi. But then it's like but it's Kiyoshi. Can't really do a whole lot
Lara:with that.
Marc:Mhmm. Not with those fans.
Lara:No. You don't wanna catch those fans.
Marc:You really don't.
Link:I think that sort of feeds into, like, an in universe conflict of having the Avatar, that the Avatar exists at all, that there is a singular person with access to so much power and information that may not be available to anybody else through their ability to talk with their past lives. Is is it possible for a person in that position within a society to provide justice? Or is that is that a thing that can't coexist with your position of power within the social hierarchy?
Marc:You know, I I don't think I don't think that's possible because if I'm looking at it, if I'm thinking about this, right, and this is a great philosophical question.
Link:Love it. Yummy. No. No. No.
Link:No.
Marc:This this is what I feed off of. This is what gives me the
Link:this for you.
Marc:I I do not think it quite frankly is possible even though she has access to or any of the avatars have access to their previous incarnations and their previous lives, and they're able to commune depending on how attuned they are spiritually. If anything, like, you're you're it's still a subjective viewpoint of justice. Right? If we're looking at it from Kiyoshi standpoint, like, you're still trying to enact then Kiyoshi's view of justice. If you're looking at Kuruk or Yang Chen or any of the other avatars, you're looking at what their idea of justice is, which is in and of itself an object subjective viewpoint.
Marc:And so if you're trying to look at those past selves and trying to then develop a semblance of justice, well, in reality, like, it's still you. It's just, you're just hearing it based on how you came to that conclusion over and over and over again. But at the end of the day, it's still you and it's still what your idea of it is. Then you're trying to enforce that onto the entire world, which I don't think because of the cultural nuances and how things play out in the Avatar universe, I don't think it's quite fair to say, like, just because she has access to all this power and the ability to commune with her past selves, it doesn't mean that she's any closer to creating like a more objective idea or or concept of justice. Like, it's still Yeah.
Marc:Always going to be
Link:She has a
Marc:bias in some way.
Link:Yeah. She has a unique perspective that gives her a broader perspective than the average person in that. Mhmm. She can straight up ask her past life like, hey, when all of the crops failed in your time, like, what happened? What did you do?
Link:Like, you get more you get a broader perspective, but it is still from a central focal point that that perspective is coming from. And so, yeah, I just I really I think it's very interesting. That is something that they grappled with in Legend of Korra, the idea of this one person having this much power is maybe actually bad. Being being the judge,
Lara:being the warrior, being the spiritual leader, being a political figure, being
Link:Yeah.
Lara:All these things. And for the most part, what we see in these shows and books and comics are their teenagers. I know they get to be older and adults, but we see these, like, teenagers having to step into these roles that are huge. This idea of justice, I think about it brings me back to, well, who's justice? Because someone is going to see what she did as just.
Lara:Right? Who sees it as just? And Mark kept bringing up, like, her values being justice and peace. Well, you can have justice without peace. Like, she can bring justice for somebody with and slaughter a whole bunch of people who then slaughter more people.
Lara:Not saying that she did that because Well,
Link:I have those stories. With those as your values. That is certainly a route one could take in your actions to realize those values. And then other people who hold those same values in name are like, actually, how could you possibly have done it that way that undermines every value? It's like, oh, right.
Link:This is all made up.
Lara:We're all just doing our best. If she her focus is on peace, if it were on peace, I mean, we get into the Star Wars war wars world of, like, looking at order and chaos. And peace can be a I don't wanna say it. A fascist society where, like, nobody can do anything against this one person. Right?
Lara:It becomes They say everything.
Link:Justice and peace but in a very narrow band. Right? Fascism fascism. Sure. Fascism has a lot of justice and peace in a very narrow band.
Link:And if you fall outside of that, you get stomped under the boot. Yeah. But yes, that
Lara:is then absolutely the average person
Link:that back into it, is when you have this one person with a ton of power is like, well, yes, the the like, the outcome is meeting what our belief system of justice is, but the actions taken to get there really showcase how much power that you have. And that if you just decided to use it differently, we couldn't do anything about that. It's like, oh Yeah. That's kind of a little bit scary.
Lara:Well and that ends up bringing us back to the whole concept of what kind of avatar do they wanna be versus what kind of avatar do the people want and need and how even though it it's unfair, sometimes they have to give up what they want and need to give them the people what they want and need. Right? And these people who are babies and then teenagers and then adult people don't have an option. They are the avatar, and the only way to not be the avatar is to die or go freeze yourself in a block of ice for a hundred years.
Marc:Or you could also abandon all your responsibilities and, be. Exactly.
Lara:Exactly.
Link:But Which from a perspective would absolutely be the value of peace and justice would be the avatar fully stepping back and being like, I cannot exist in a way in this world that creates the kind of fairness that I value. And so therefore I must separate myself. I don't agree with that. But that the logic does apply there where it would be that one avatar being like, this is the kind of avatar I want to be still peace, still justice. But from the perspective of my involvement can only create more conflict, I will uninvolve.
Link:It's like, that doesn't really work either, but I see I see the thought process. I see it.
Lara:Which it real which it really doesn't work because when he It does not. When he steps back and Kiyoshi is missing as an avatar, there is no avatar, they don't know where the avatar is for sixteen years, on top of the years that Kuruk was not around, the world falls into chaos Mhmm. Because their spiritual leader, their arbitrator, their judge, and jury is not there to give guidance.
Marc:And we also have to think too that, like, like, what throughout this whole conversation, we've been really focusing on, like, the foreign nations and and the human world. But we also have to consider the fact that, like, for the Avatar, like, all we talked about all this responsibility, all these pressures, and all these things that the Avatar has to deal with on the human realm of things. We haven't even bothered discussing, like, the spiritual world and, like And
Lara:having to tame and calm the spirits. Yeah. Exactly.
Marc:Like, now it's like all that responsibility that you have, and now you have to double that because not only do you have to worry about the concerns of the human realm, but you have to consider the spiritual the spirit realm. Mhmm. And you have to take a look at what their needs are. And, like, that's another thing that comes up in, the Kiyoshi books is that, you know, the what each avatar decides to focus on ends up having these dire consequences on the other world. So, like, for Ying Chen, she focuses a lot on the human world and trying to bring peace among the four nations, but then ends up neglecting the spiritual realm or short selling them, which then creates a lot of angry spirits.
Marc:And Kuruk ends up deciding to neglect the human world because he's like, oh, well, it's this great era of peace. Yang Chen did all this stuff. And then he goes in and tries to mitigate things in the spirit world, which more or less I mean, we don't know obviously the full story, but more or less, can you really even say that he did he did I mean, he did do work and he did do his best, but, like, we saw, like, you hear the toll that it takes on him trying to then do these things, which ends up impacting what he can do. And to him, I you even hear a little bit of how, like, that goes against that went against all of his values and what he kinda stood for. But at the same time, he's like, as the avatar, like, I have to do something, and so I have to keep doing this even if it means that I have to sacrifice pieces of myself, either in a spiritual sense, a metaphorical sense, or a literal sense.
Marc:And that's just on the little tidbits we know of Kuruk. And then Kiyoshi is I mean, we only see the little bit of of what happens in the beginning as she kinda establishes herself as the avatar, but we don't see what she does so much in the spirit world. Like, don't see Yeah. That much interaction because all of it's focused on the humans and and the four nations. And then we go to Aang who we see is a bit more of that balance between the two.
Marc:And then we have Cora who at first kinda struggles with it and then Who
Lara:just destroys the barriers between it.
Marc:Yeah. She she she goes she's like does a complete one eighty where she goes from absolutely struggling to connect and to be in tune with her spiritual side to blasting down the doors. And it's like, actually, guys, we're gonna coexist together and we're gonna like it.
Link:Mhmm.
Lara:Now I want the story of the next Avatar after Quora.
Marc:I think I thought they were talking about wanting to do that.
Lara:Is it Is it a I mean, I need a
Link:Is it a fire guy next?
Marc:Earth.
Link:Earth. Earth. Earth next.
Lara:I need I need another Earth
Link:Earth bender. Earth air Mhmm. Earth earth bender. Earth vatar. Stupid.
Link:I hate it. Why did I say that out loud? Why the hell
Lara:did you say that? Why did I repeat it?
Marc:Don't worry. I'm gonna cut that out.
Link:Oh, man. This has been a dope conversation. Do you guys have any final thoughts before we bounce?
Lara:Read these books. They're so good. Fill out libraries. That's where I got the Kiyoshi books.
Link:Are apparently very good audiobook versions.
Marc:Yep. Yep. And so
Lara:And then you could learn to pronounce the names so that you don't read the books. You don't read the books and screw up the pronunciation of Kiyoshi's girlfriend's name for the entire time you've been reading the books. Just yeah. Mhmm.
Marc:Yeah. Yeah. No. Audiobooks are nice. You can definite like, you know, play out of that one and a half time speed.
Marc:You you breeze through these books. You breeze right through them.
Lara:I would not remember most of the books if I did that.
Marc:I think it's because I consumed them so rapidly that, like, I'm just chock full of Avatar. Like, that's all my brain is right now. So I I can pull a lot of these details. And I tried and and the other thing too is that, like, something for me that I I would love to see. Right?
Marc:And this this kinda goes out to toward the viewers and listeners is for those of you guys that do decide to read these books or, have read these books, I'd be really interested to kinda hear what you guys have to think or or say about kind of what we've been talking about Because there are a lot of things that I know that Laura and I could really go into, but then we get into spoilers. We've been trying really hard to not provide too many spoilers as to what goes on in these books. But when we get into more detail, there's so much more you can talk about. So, yeah, I'd be I'd be really interested to hear what everybody has to say. You guys can Link, do you have any final thoughts?
Link:No. I'm just please post on our our social spaces. They're in the show notes and, hit us up on Discord. Tell us what you think of the Avatar books, what you think about Kiyoshi specifically, what you think about the roles that avatars are, required to fill, and, remember to geek out and do good.
Lara:We'll be
Link:back next week.
Marc:Bye. Geek Therapy is a five zero one C three nonprofit organization dedicated to making the world a better place through geek culture. To learn more about our mission and become a supporter visit geektherapy.org.
