Avatar S1E16: "The Deserter"
Aang plays with fire | Grade: A-
Thanks for tuning in to my sixteenth of 61 daily reviews of Avatar: The Last Airbender! Yesterday, we watched S1E15: Bato of the Water Tribe.
Aang gets his first taste of firebending in The Deserter, which focuses on the relationship between firebenders and their art. After the Gaang gets caught at a festival in a colonial Fire Nation town, they escape thanks to the help of the fugitive Chey, a former Fire Nation soldier who deserted the military. He brings them to the encampment of the first man to defect and survive, the eponymous Jeong Jeong.
Aang begs Jeong Jeong to teach him firebending, but the former general refuses. Aang must follow the order of the Avatar cycle and first master water, and then earth. Also, the deserter explains, the young airbender lacks the necessary discipline to safely control fire.
Water is cool and soothing, earth is steady and stable, but fire, fire is alive! It breathes, it grows. Without the bender, a rock will not throw itself! But fire will spread and destroy everything in its path if one does not have the will to control it!
In Avatar, fire is distinguished as a unique element that behaves differently from the other three. Firebending is the only type of bending that actually manifests the element from within, rather than just manipulating it where it already exists. And fire is destructive in a way that the other elements are not, which makes the Fire Nation a natural choice for the antagonists of the series.
In the end, Jeong Jeong is forced to teach Aang by Avatar Roku, who appears to him in a vision. We get a mild Karate Kid reference: the aging master forces Aang to practice his concentration and breathing, but the Avatar grows impatient and complains that he’s not learning to fight. But left unsupervised, Aang decides to take a shortcut and manages to summon fire, which he flings with reckless abandon.
Aang’s accidental blast burns Katara, who runs away crying. A shocked and ashamed Aang vows later that he’s “never going to firebend again.” He’ll have to, Katara tells him. As if to emphasize water’s soothing nature compared to fire’s destructiveness, she unlocks a new waterbending ability: the power to heal her burns, and other wounds, with water. But is Jeong Jeong right? Is fire just a dangerous and destructive element? If not, what else is it good for?
The question is left unsettled. But danger and destruction is certainly the answer for Ozai’s Fire Nation, who use fire to inflict death and suffering upon others. The only difference for Jeong Jeong is that he now views this as a terrible thing, rather than a source of power and pride. But it’s still a source of pride for Admiral Zhao, who is revealed to be Jeong Jeong’s former student.
I had a pupil once who had no interest in learning discipline. He was only concerned with the power of fire — how he could use it to destroy his opponents and wipe out the obstacles in his path.
Student and teacher are soon reunited when Zhao tracks down and attacks Jeong Jeong’s camp. His onetime master holds off the assault with an astonishing wall of fire over the river, before vanishing into the forest. But instead of running away, Aang applies Jeong Jeong’s teachings and uses the admiral’s lack of control against him. Blinded by rage, Zhao fires blast after blast at Aang, who taunts him while dodging all the attacks. By the end, Zhao has set all three of his riverboats ablaze.
Aang: You've lost this battle.
Zhao: Are you crazy? You haven't thrown a single blow!
Aang: No, but you have.
The Deserter is an important look into how the Fire Nation has corrupted its own element, and it leaves the audience to speculate on whether a better way exists.
See you tomorrow for Episode 17: The Northern Air Temple! Share your own thoughts on this episode in the comments.
Spare observations
Katara switches Sokka and Aang’s masks, so that Aang’s is happy and her brother’s is sad.
“Even that oaf knows to concentrate on what he’s doing.” “Hey!”
“I’ve been breathing for hours!” “You want to stop breathing?”
Aang says “I promise I'll be more patient,” and then immediately acts impatiently.
Jeong Jeong’s fire wall is arguably the most powerful feat of firebending we’ve seen so far in the show. He also has a pretty neat disappearing trick. Iroh redirecting lightning in The Storm is another contender, but it’s not firebending in the traditional sense.
Friends of the White Lotus [SPOILERS]
Why does Roku force Jeong Jeong to teach Aang? It’s interesting that the old Avatar disregards the traditional order of elements. At the time, the deserter appears to be Aang’s only option to learn firebending, and Aang’s past lives do not know his future.
Aang’s burning of Katara is a source of shame for him, and his statement that he’ll never firebend again illustrates his struggle to choose between his duties as an Avatar and the people who keep him attached to the world. In The Guru, he will be forced to reckon with this choice.
Much later, in The Firebending Masters, the ancient Sun Warriors teach that “fire is life, not just destruction.” Jeong Jeong doesn’t seem to understand this yet. It’s interesting that after abandoning the Fire Nation, he doesn’t lose his bending as Zuko will in that episode. Jeong Jeong’s fire seems to still be powered by rage, but it’s directed at himself, rather than externally.
Jeong Jeong is a member of the Order of the White Lotus, and he later returns in that capacity.