Avatar S1E9: "The Waterbending Scroll"
Katara faces the consequences of her ego | Grade: B
Thanks for tuning in to my ninth of 61 daily reviews of Avatar: The Last Airbender! Yesterday, we watched S1E8: Avatar Roku.
Another Katara episode. Here, we finally get to see Aang learn some waterbending, under the supervision of Katara. To her chagrin, his innate bending prowess as the Avatar allows him to very quickly pick up moves that took her months to learn. From Katara’s perspective, waterbending is the main skill she brings to the team and a core part of her identity, so the realization that Aang might surpass her leaves her feeling jealous and threatened.
Of course, Katara’s ability to hold everyone together and provide emotional support for Aang may be just as important. However, that’s a traditionally feminine role, and Katara is a strong and determined character who refuses to put herself into that box. She’s happy to act as “glue” for the Gaang, but she also dreams of becoming a formidable fighter, and that requires her to understand herself as the waterbender of the group.
Katara’s competitiveness leads her to get Team Avatar into a series of dangerous situations. She steals the eponymous scroll from a band of dangerous pirates (who despite their limited screentime are fun, uniquely-designed characters, complete with an iguana-parrot hybrid). And then she gets them all caught by Zuko when she sneaks out at night with the scroll after berating Aang to tears.
It’s actually Sokka who saves the Gaang with his quick thinking when he pipes up about the bounty on Aang’s head, turning the avaricious pirates against Zuko’s men. I think it’s his first successful plan, unless you count Imprisoned (where it was Aang’s idea to bend the coal) or Avatar Roku (where his plan to open the door didn’t work, and Katara had the idea to make it look like it did).
Ultimately, Katara apologizes and hopefully learns a lesson about controlling her emotions and not judging herself in comparison to others. It doesn’t make for the most memorable or significant episode, but it does have some hilarious lines. I’ve collected a few of them below.
See you tomorrow for Episode 10: Jet! Share your own thoughts on this episode in the comments.
Spare observations
“You guys are pirates!” “We prefer to think of ourselves as high-risk traders.”
The second occurrence of “MY CABBAGES!”
Zuko sums up his Season 1 arc: “I need to capture [the Avatar] to restore something I've lost, my honor."
Zuko goads Katara with her mother’s necklace, which he picked up in Episode 6. Funnily, he clarifies, “I didn't steal it, if that's what you're wondering.” Is that supposed to make her feel better? Or soothe his own conscience (even though he’s currently abducting her)?
“Oh, what? I'm not good enough to kidnap?”
“Aang, this is all my fault.” “No, Katara, it isn’t.” Iroh: “Yeah, it kind of is.”
During the big brawl, Aang disperses the dust cloud only to find himself surrounded by enemies, and then brings the dust back. “Never mind, I’ll find you!”
“Are you so busy fighting you cannot see your own ship has set sail?” “We have no time for your proverbs, Uncle!” “It’s no proverb…”
Avatar overall pays a lot of attention to continuity, especially when it comes to items. Both Team Avatar and Team Zuko pick up several items in this episode. Aang’s bison whistle already comes in handy. It’s a fun exercise to track these items into future episodes.
Zuko’s ship that gets destroyed in this episode seems to be a smaller riverboat, not his main ship. I’m not really sure where this came from — maybe it was somehow attached to the larger ship? Avatar might be the sloppiest with its details when it comes to ships, especially the relative sizes of ships.
Of course, the pirates survive going over the waterfall just fine, thanks to Avatar’s rules about impact injuries, which I mentioned in my review of Episode 2.
Friends of the White Lotus [SPOILERS]
Iroh forces their ship to change course since he has lost his Pai Sho lotus tile, which “most people think [is] insignificant, but it is essential for the unusual strategy that I employ.” Of course, this is an early reference to the international Order of the White Lotus.
The waterbending scroll will stay with Katara for a while until she eventually gives it up in exchange for entry into Wan Shi Tong’s library.