Line #8 Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheNorthernAirTemple


1	[[quoteright:333:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/avatar_northern_air_temple.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:333:The Earth Kingdom civilians glide around the temple.]]
3
4	->''"I laugh at gravity all the time. Heh heh, gravity."''
5	-->-- '''Aang'''
6
7	As our heroes approach the North Pole, they hear rumors of flying people--not from the past, but still living, over at the Northern Air Temple. However, upon arriving, they discover not airbenders, but ordinary refugees who have used technology invented by their leader, the Mechanist, to fly and do other amazing things. All this invention comes at a cost, however, often damaging the original artwork and architecture of the temple, and Aang finds himself distressed to see his heritage being destroyed. As he tries to come to terms with how much things have changed, the Fire Nation continue to advance, seeking out the refugees' technology.
8	----
9	!!Tropes in this episode include:
10	* AcousticLicense: Aang and Teo can easily understand each other talking from glider to glider in mid-air.
11	* ArmorPiercingQuestion: Teo gives his father one that clearly lands hard.
12	-->'''Teo:''' How can I be proud of you when your inventions are being used for murder?
13	* BittersweetEnding: Heavier on the bitter. The heroes manage to drive the Fire Nation troops away from the Northern Air Temple, but the Fire Nation now has a working prototype of a war balloon, which in time allowed the invention of the airships, which enabled a much more efficient environment destruction method for the Fire Nation during the arrival of Sozin's comet. Judging by the Mechanist's worried expression at the end of the episode, he seems to have realized the implications of this.
14	-->'''Qin:''' This defeat is the gateway to many victories.
15	* BothSidesHaveAPoint: Aang is justified in being upset about the destruction of so much of his cultural heritage, especially considering how little of the Air Nomads or their history and culture is left by this point in time, but the refugees are also justified in trying to survive after their previous homes were wiped out, and the temple ''had'' been abandoned for almost a hundred years.
16	* BrokenPedestal: Teo is devastated upon finding out that his father had been making weapons for the Fire Nation.
17	* ChekhovsGun: The war balloon. The Mechanist has a small prototype of it in his study, but later it becomes key to driving off the invading troops.
18	* EurekaMoment: How Sokka gets his idea to use rotten eggs as an alarm system.
19	* {{Fingore}}: At one point, the Mechanist mentions how it only took him three tries to get his finger-safe knife sharpener right. He then pulls out his left hand's three prosthetic fingers and throws them at Sokka.
20	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Take a good look at [[Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheDrill the plans that the Mechanist is working on]]. Also take note of the War Minister Qin's interest in the balloon wreck.
21	* ForTheEvulz: According to the Mechanist, some Fire Nation soldiers found them shortly after they moved to the Air Temple and decided to destroy it despite it being of no real benefit to them at the time, so it can be assumed that they were going to do so out of malice.
22	* GadgeteerGenius: The Mechanist is an eccentric and talented inventor of steam- and gas-powered devices. We also get to see some of Sokka's talent for devices.
23	* GoodVersusGood: Aang, who is angry about one of the few remaining traces of his nearly-extinct culture having been almost completely destroyed, versus the refugees, who have been driven from their homes by the Fire Nation and are trying to survive in the only place they could retreat to. It's a morally complex situation where no one is really right or wrong.
24	* GunshipRescue: The ending battle is won when Sokka and the Mechanist arrive in their newly-completed balloon to drop off their load of entangling bombs and then light up a huge natural gas leak.
25	* InnocentlyInsensitive: The Mechanist didn't mean to insult Aang when he said they were clearing out one area of the Northern Temple for a bath house. But regardless, Aang is incensed that someone would desecrate one of the most sacred parts of the temple for a ''bath house''.
26	* InspiredBy: Sokka and the Mechanist's idea of adding the scent of rotten eggs to the gas to identify the source of the leak is similar to the real-world process of [[TheCoconutEffect adding ethanethiol to otherwise odorless LPG to make it detectable for humans]]. In fact, many of the Mechanist's inventions are inspired by real life. People told time with grooved candles before clocks (albeit not ones with gunpowder spaced along the fuse); hot air balloons have similar vents to those proposed by Sokka.
27	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: After Sokka and the Mechanist perform their bombing run and have to abandon their wrecked craft, the Fire Nation troops find the wreck of the war balloon and are implied to use it to create new war machines of their own.
28	* PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy: Aang is infuriated by the refugees' appropriation of the nearly extinct Air Nomads' culture.
29	* ProtectThisHouse: This episode is about protecting a temple slash refugee camp from invading troops.
30	* RageBreakingPoint: Aang clearly isn't happy with the refugees' treatment of the temple, but he seems to be on his way to accepting it... until a wrecking ball destroys a sculpture of a monk right in front of him. Aang's response is to destroy their equipment and call them out for desecrating a temple.
31	* ReluctantMadScientist: The Mechanist has been forced to create war machines by the Fire Nation under threat of his community being wiped out if he doesn't comply.
32	* {{Steampunk}}: This aspect of the show is really amped up in this episode. It first features a repurposed temple home to a refugee community that flies around in personal gliders and powers their home using a huge system of boilers and a harnessed deposit of natural gas. Later, the battle against the Fire Nation sees a division of armored tanks go against a war balloon.
33	* StuffBlowingUp: The mountain is full of methane pockets. One of them is right beneath the Fire Nation's forces. Guess what happens?
34	* SwallowedAFly: When Katara tries out a glider, Aang warns her to keep her mouth closed unless she wants to swallow an insect. She keeps talking afterward and, sure enough, a bug goes down the hatch.
35	-->'''Katara:''' How do I land this— Ackk! Bug! BUG! That was a BUG!
36	* TemptingFate: After their victory, Sokka declares that so long as they own the skies, the Fire Nation will be helpless. [[DidntThinkThisThrough Unfortunately, they neglected to destroy the war balloon]], [[FromBadToWorse which proves to be a]] ''[[FromBadToWorse major]]'' [[FromBadToWorse problem much later on]].
37	* ThoseMagnificentFlyingMachines: The refugees' flying machines are small single-person aircraft made out of wood and supported by ribbed canvas sails, evoking the pseudo-da Vincian aesthetics common to this trope.
38	* WhamLine: Sokka's "You make weapons for the Fire Nation?"
39	* WizardBeard: The air monk whose statue gets destroyed had quite an impressive one. A few other monk statues have them as well.
40	* YankTheDogsChain: After hearing about flying people at the temple, Aang is briefly hopeful that a group of Air Nomads survived the Fire Nation's genocide and is naturally crushed to learn that they are Earth Kingdom natives and that all their flying is done with mechanical assistance.

Context Recap / AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheNorthernAirTemple