Streaming In Place: ATLA S02E01–02, “The Avatar State” and “The Cave of Two Lovers”

I am really concerned about Aang and his nightmares. Not only are they a clear sign that everything most certainly is NOT alright. He also shuts people, and by people I mean Katara, out. That being said: I read the reason for his trauma a bit differently: I thought it was about him feeling violated and not so much about him killing all those people. That the “bluey eye mode” comes and takes over, making him do things he has absolutely no control over. Not only that, but he also doesn’t know how to stop it.

Concerning Azula: How powerful really is Iro? He obviously could use her lightning or at least channel it through him and kind of deplete her electrical potential. Is that something all firebenders are able to do, can Iro himself create lightning or is he somewhere in the middle between an “ordinary” firebender and Azula?
[Nagging] Also, while we are speaking of lightning: I think it is kind of misplaced being associated with fire benders. Scientifically, it should be more a function of air and/or water bending as it is an electric current that is the result of a charge separation in clouds and its resulting potential created by friction. While lightning is able to create fire, the opposite direction doesn’t really work.
Also: To direct lightning, one would need to create a charge separation between oneself and one’s target. Basically the fire bender would need to be able to manipulate the electrical field a significant distance away. So it really wouldn’t work as shown here.[/nagging] I usually wouldn’t bother pointing it out because “magic”. But in my gut it feels like it goes against the rules of the show itself.
That being said: Lightning could have been a potential escalation of Aangs power, being able to create lightning by being the only living being controlling both air and water. So it does feel like a missed opportunity.

What you said about Zuko trying to hurt Iro in that scene: Being able to hurt the people you love most is something that should be part of Spider-Man’s uncle Ben arc “With great power comes great responsibility.” In the end, you have that power because people give it to you, because they let you in and tell you stuff they won’t just tell everyone. But apart from your family (who usually has a lot more patience when putting up with your shit) that power is something that can, should and WILL be taken away from you if you abuse it. It is probably one of the most important lessons people can learn while in their teens so I am not so sure how I feel about Iro just forgiving him.

I am also not sure how much the woman helping Zuka and Iro knew. Hindsight, that look out of the window watching Zuko stealing the giant bird, changed my reading of that whole day. It felt like she realized who they were pretty early on and maybe thought “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” and so she tried to convince them to go against the fire nation.
Equally, I read Zuko stealing the bird as an act of defiance. Like he held on to his legacy as his father’s son and being part of the fire nation and to basically burn the bridge to those nice people and the connection that woman (and also he himself) has felt towards him. An action to tell her “Our situations are nothing alike, you have scars cause you are a victim and I was just taught an important lesson. Like he declines the notion of them both being victims in general and him being a victim of abuse in particular.
(Sorry if I sometimes seem to meander a bit in my thoughts. This whole paragraph would probably only have been one sentence in my native language but it’s hard sometimes to put my thoughts into words in a foreign language.)

Also, while I am not a big fan of that shipping (for the same reason Allison mentioned and we discussed before) I really felt for Aang tanking his chance of kissing his crush. Poor little buddy.
And did they really kiss in the end? Because it felt like the torch went out and then they didn’t need to kiss anymore as they saw the glowing crystals right then. If they did end up kissing, we will probably find out in the next episode or so.