Avatar S1E14: "The Fortuneteller"
Grappling with destiny | Grade: B-
Thanks for tuning in to my fourteenth of 61 daily reviews of Avatar: The Last Airbender! Yesterday, we watched S1E13: The Blue Spirit.
In The Fortuneteller, the oft-repeated motif of destiny is front and center. The Gaang arrives at Makapu Village, where local fortuneteller Aunt Wu is worshipped for her accurate predictions. There’s a classic rift between the skeptical, science-minded Sokka and Katara, who’s so taken in by the divination that she asks Aunt Wu what she should eat for breakfast tomorrow. (The answer: papaya. But she hates papaya!)
Aunt Wu does seem to have some fortunetelling ability, but true to form, Avatar leaves it vague. The key plot point revolves around the nearby volcano, which Aunt Wu predicts “will not destroy the village this year!” But when Aang and Sokka climb the volcano to pick a rare flower, its crater is bubbling over with of lava. Since the villagers won’t believe their warnings over Aunt Wu’s prediction, they need to bend the clouds into an auspicious form that portends volcanic doom.
Now sufficiently alarmed, Team Avatar and the villagers work together to dig trenches around the town to hold the lava. It’s not enough, though, and in an impressive display of airbending, Aang uses a massive wave of air to cool the lava into a wall around the town. The village is saved, technically making Aunt Wu’s prediction come true, as a villager points out to Sokka’s immense frustration.
But Aang doesn’t buy it anymore, asking the fortuneteller if she just told him what he wanted to hear. Her reply is an important clue into the significance of fate in Avatar, answering questions that the show was already asking in The Avatar Returns. Destiny, she tells him, isn’t something you sit back and wait for. You need to accept it, and then go out and make it happen.
I'll tell you a little secret, young airbender. Just as you reshaped those clouds, you have the power to shape your own destiny.
This episode also brings a greater focus on our characters’ love life than we’ve seen so far. If Aang’s crush on Katara wasn’t explicitly confirmed before, it certainly is here. He weaves her a necklace, spies on her fortunetelling session (he does a triumphant jig when Aunt Wu tells Katara she’ll marry a “powerful bender”), and then spends the rest of the episode trying to impress her. But she doesn’t seem to feel the same way, only seeing Aang as a little kid (he’s physically two years younger than her).
Meanwhile, Aunt Wu’s frizzy-haired assistant Meng has an unrequited crush of her own on Aang, who at one point literally shoves her away. Kids are mean! Meng eventually confesses her feelings to him anyway, admitting “it’s just really hard when you like someone, but they don't think of you that way.” Aang can empathize, but hopefully he’ll learn a lesson about treating people kindly even when you’re not interested. At the end of the episode, it looks like the Avatar may have a shot after all when Sokka remarks what a powerful bender Aang is. Eyes wide in realization, she supposes he is.
Overall, in this episode, Aang’s battle with the volcano is cool but all-too-brief. The fortuneteller’s advice lines up well with the show’s philosophy, but it’s a little twee. Besides that, the love triangle subplot is banal, and for an episode containing only filler, it’s not exceptionally touching or funny.
See you tomorrow for Episode 15: Bato of the Water Tribe! Share your own thoughts on this episode in the comments.
Spare observations
"You will be involved in a great battle, an awesome conflict between the forces of good and evil. A battle whose outcome will determine the fate of the whole world!" “Yeah, yeah, I knew that already! But did it say anything about a girl?"
"The number one mistake nice guys like you make: being too nice.” Maybe Sokka has a point, but his romantic guidance is just the kind of terrible advice you might expect from a teenage boy. “If you want to keep her interested, you have to act aloof, like you don't really care one way or the other.”
It’s convenient that the volcano waits to erupt until they finish digging.
“Can your science explain why it rains?” “Yes! Yes, it can!”
“I’ve kind of been stalking you. Heh…” “Oh, thanks… I guess.”
Meng seemed so understanding only to call Katara a floozy. Damn!
Friends of the White Lotus [SPOILERS]
Aang’s battle with the volcano is reminiscent of the eruption that ultimately killed Avatar Roku. Luckily for our heroes, The Fortuneteller isn’t set on an island, and there’s some advance warning before the volcano blows.