Warning: This installment, and most of the next few ones that involve Aang in any way, will contain a fair bit of ranting. We're getting close to Sozin's Comet, which means that the author will second-guess every decision Aang makes, not just not killing Ozai.
Zuko and Katara return home. They find a note from Sokka announcing their return and informing them that Suki's somewhat drunk. Zuko and Katara go to bed in their separate beds, much to Katara's disappointment.
Katara's eating breakfast and watching the morning firebending practice when she's joined by Suki and Sokka. Suki's fairly hung over, to the point at which she can barely stand and is advising a melon not to drink plonk.
Sokka believes it's for the best if Suki gets up and gets some fluids, although Katara believes that Suki should probably have "luxuriated" in bed quietly.
They then share what they learned at the party. Katara, as might be expected, didn't learn much that wasn't about Zuko (which she doesn't want to share with Sokka), save for the bit about their father. Katara tells about her father's exploits against the fire nation transportation infrastructure, his earning the moniker "The Blue Wolf". Katara infers that there are troop movements and many new conscripts in the Fire Nation army.
Suki insists that none of them chose to be in the war (oddly enough, not in response to Katara trying to express sympathy for the Fire Nation rank and file troops). Suki mentions that she was getting drunk, and met a lot of people, including the daughters of two promoted airship pilots, who were once elite tank drivers. Suki infers that said airships will be guarding the capital, unaware of how they will be used to incinerate the Earth Kingdom.
Sokka, however, had less success, and only learned about various disputes between individuals and branches of the military, giving off a litany of minor disputes and complaints.
Sokka concludes that the Fire Nation war machine isn't as well oiled as he thought, but he didn't learn anything about how to defeat it, so he decides to research in the library, taking into account Suki's possible tip about airships.
Suki complains that she's "dying," so Katara, despite not believing her hyperbole, gives her another melon and some hangover tea. As Katara watches Zuko while fantasizing about him, Suki asks about the previous night, slyly trying to get information out of Katara, and mentioning that Sokka saw them on the beach. Katara knows Suki's sultry tone reveals what she thinks happens and vigorously denies it; this time, she's actually right.
Toph is the last to wake up despite not having drunk any alcohol. As she struggles to decide what to have for breakfast, she asks about the party, with Katara saying it was "fine," and Suki vowing never to drink again. Toph then goes off to heckle Aang.
Zuko and Aang take a break, and Aang "babbles enthusiastically" about his progress and rate of improvement, in spite of how little time they have left. Surprisingly, Zuko agrees with Aang's self-assessment.
The four benders have a four-way spar, during which Katara gets distracted by Zuko (yet again)
Zuko and Katara make lunch for everyone together. Katara notices that Zuko seems extra nice and attentive, but tries to treat him the way she always does, but is tempted to do things not conduciv ot making lunch. They're initially a bit awkwardly quiet, since it's their first time alone together after an emotional conversation, but grow a little more comfortable with their silence. They eventually make accidental eye contact, resulting in a conversation about how they're cutting things and water splashing.
Suki forgoes curry lunch in favor of ginger tea, while Sokka brings his work to lunch and Toph feeds Momo her sprouts. Aang is talking cheerfully, and eagerly looks for them to praise him for his performance (This goes back to Aang's desire to hear what he wants to hear), and they do, with caveats. Aang's confident that he can defeat the Fire Lord without the Avatar State.
Katara's pleased that Aang's confident in himself (finally, someone treats his confidence as well founded and a good thing), recalling Pakku's teachings that confidence fuels one's waterbending prowess. Toph agrees, but Zuko's stumped by one part- why is Aang attempting to fight the Fire Lord without Avatar State?
Katara soon realizes that Zuko was not informed about what happened in "Crossroads of Destiny Part 2". Aang, without any idea of what Zuko's reaction will be, nonchalantly says he can't use the Avatar State anymore, and asks if that will be a problem. Zuko laughs, which is quite uncharacteristic of him, assuming that Aang's joking before he realizes that he's telling the truth.
Zuko then gives a Big "WHAT?!" and demands more information, resulting in Aang making excuses and Zuko more or less repeating what he's saying as questions, all of which is too loud for the hung-over Suki. . Aang tries to explain chakras, but the Gaang doesn't understand, in part because he uses ponds with weeds in them as an analogy. That doesn't stop them from suggesting how they could "unblock" Aang, such as with prunes and a balanced diet, much to Aang's irritation. Apparently, this isn't the first time Aang tried to explain, and back then, Sokka, Toph and Katara had assumed it was a matter of confidence, given that his confidence had taken a huge blow when Azula shot him with lightning, and he'd struggled with other things after coming out of his coma.
Katara helped him with his food and trained him in easier waterbending forms, which succeeded in improving his mood and his confidence, but the Avatar State remained locked. Katara corresponded with Yugoda (it's quite a wonder that she managed to get a reply from all the way in the North Pole), who tells her about how people can convince themselves that they can't do something, and how they have to shift their thinking to regain this ability. Yugoda recommended positive encouragement, which was something Katara was doing already, and Katara proceeded with it, hoping that Aang would be able to go into the Avatar State if necessary; Katara doesn't like seeing Aang in the state, but she also doesn't want him to get hurt.
This doesn't completely make sense, for a few reasons. First, Aang had only recently started trying to voluntarily enter Avatar State, so it's hard to say how well he could do with it. Second, if he tries and fails, that will also damage his confidence, and create a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts; if his confidence is low, he can't succeed, and because he can't succeed, he can't be confident
It does, however, explain why Katara does, at times, seem to be keeping her feelings pent up and walking on eggshells around Aang. While her concern for Aang's well-being is commendable, it does make one wonder if Katara's main goal is to get Aang back to 100% fighting capability so the good guys can win the war.
Whatever her motivations may be, Katara takes a different tack and asks Aang (in a gentle, encouraging and non-sarcastic way) to explain what he thinks the best way to unblock his chakra is, prompting Aang to explain the seven chakras, including how he got stuck on earthly attachments.
Zuko tries to emulate Katara's tone, and asks whether Aang had tried again without the guru. Aang says no, and Zuko angrily declares that he's not even trying. Aang counters that he doesn't need to try to know that he couldn't do it; apart from his probably making a few futile attempts to know that he can't do it, after he gets struck by lightning, you can see a visual of him being cut off from the Avatar State; it's possible that at that very moment, he felt the change happening.
But that isn't an argument Aang made; rather than say that being shot with lightning when he tried unblocking his chakra stopped him from doing it, he does it backwards and says that the last time he tried unblocking his chakras, he got shot with lightning. Zuko says that won't happen right here, and Sokka encourages him to let go of his earthly attachments and "get his glowy mojo on"(I wonder how Sokka- admittedly someone who isn't even a bender, much less the Avatar- would feel if he believed that in order to accomplish something important to him, he'd have to give up Yue, Suki, Azula or whoever he was in love with).
Considering this is a Zutara fic, I'm a bit surprised, and pleasantly so, that the author and characters didn't more fervently push the idea that Aang's feelings for Katara were the impediment to Aang activating the Avatar State saving the world thus far. It would have been the perfect chance to paint Aang in a less than admirable light and sink the Kataang ship.
Aang, however, starts to feel as though he's been ganged up upon (considering that hardly anyone sides with him, this is understandable). He then says more or less that Iroh told him he doesn't need to let go of earthly attachments, resulting in Zuko being unwilling to argue with his uncle's words of wisdom. Zuko instead goes back to the root of the problem, and says that they need Aang's Avatar State to win the war, resulting in Aang taking umbrage by saying that it's not fair for him to have to give up his earthly attachments and how he never gets what he wants.
Aang is probably supposed to come off as selfish and immature, but he speaks to a somewhat troubling implication of the entire "The Avatar must go into Avatar State and kill the Fire Lord" argument that I heard from the canon characters in the early part of the Grand Finale, and from some fans. Zuko and the others may not be sitting around during the Final Battle, but they are counting on Aang to defeat the Fire Lord, even if it involves making sacrifices- giving up earthly attachments and violating a belief that he holds dear- that they will not have to make. Avatar or not, it doesn't seem terribly responsible to thrust all the burden of victory onto Aang, give him no help apart from impressing upon him what is at stake and assume that he'll do what is right.
But that's what Zuko does, and when Aang asks why he is always the one who has to step up (another question we're meant to see as immature and irresponsible), Zuko says Aang has a responsibility, and preemptively shuts down his next rebuttal by saying that if he doesn't fulfill that responsibility, all of them could die.
Katara notices that the mood turned somber. She has acknowledged the possibility of that happening, even if she tries not to think about it. She also knows that the final battle will also be harder without the Avatar State.
Aang and Zuko's argument resumes, with Aang asking whether he has to kill Ozai, and Zuko saying that the fight against the Fire Lord will be one that is to the death. Incidentally, I've noticed that heroes tend to win their fights against villains in fiction because villains will kill them if they lose; the only alternatives are to have the heroes flee, get captured and escape, or get saved by contrived villain stupidity, if not some combination of the three. What the heroes do to defeated villains depends on the tone of the work, the type of characters involved and often, the circumstances. As such, it's completely viable for Aang to defeat Ozai and take him as a prisoner of war.
Aang says that none of them realize what they're asking of them, and I have to agree with him. Katara and Sokka try to chime in, saying no one is asking him to do that, but don't do a very good job of getting that point across, since that was what Zuko was asking of him.
Aang says that according to the Air Nomads, violence is never the answer, and Zuko sarcastically says that their pacifism got them wiped out (which is a fairly cruel thing to say to Aang). It doesn't seem as though violence necessarily precludes self-defense, as it's implied that Monk Gyatso went down in a Last Stand against the invading Fire Nation attackers. But apparently, Aang in this fic does, and he goes so far as to say that Ozai should be forgiven.
Let's have a word about Aang and forgiveness. In the course of the show, since emerging from the iceberg, he's seen and heard of many terrible deeds, ones committed against his people and against others in the name of revenge. The monks whom he grew up with were massacred by the Fire Nation. He saw Jet flood an entire town full of innocent civilians- and his fellow countrymen, at that- to kill Fire Nation soldiers. Sandbenders stole the only friend he had from 100 years ago. He met Hama, who kidnapped Fire Nation civilians after being held in a hellish Fire Nation prison. He knows that the root of the problem is the Fire Nation, and he's determined to defeat them, but he doesn't intend to sink to the level of Jet or Hama. He doesn't hate or want to kill Ozai, but doesn't have much sympathy for him, and is unwilling to allow him to succeed.
Clearly, this nuance is lost on the author, and given that she's willing to explore other characters' personalities in appropriate depth while taking into account the various subtleties, I can only assume that this is deliberate, an attempt to bash Aang for his idealism while also reducing his stock as a possible suitor for Katara.
Katara gets quite upset at hearing the F word again, and assumes that Aang should know better than to say such a thing without understanding Zuko and his relationship with his father. For Aang "knowing" that the F word is verboten, Katara was relatively uncommunicative about how upset Aang was making her. As for Zuko's relationship with his father, nobody in the Gaang knows it the same way Katara and Zuko do, and Katara, for Zuko's sake, does nothing to change that, even if it means that a serious argument is more or less inevitable.
Zuko's eyes go wide again and he tries to find out if Aang was kidding. As soon as he realizes that he isn't, he unleashes a Cluster F-Bomb (rendered as a "Cluster P Bomb" in Katara's description), against Aang, his Air Nomad teachings and Ozai. Zuko storms off, and after Aang says that he knew Zuko wouldn't understand, he storms off as well.
As the others are stunned, Suki observes that there's too much shouting, which I believe would be true for people who aren't hung over. Sokka takes her up to their room, and advises Toph and Katara to give Zuko and Aang some space. Toph refuses, going off to find Aang, while leaving Zuko to Katara.
Katara spends half an hour searching for Zuko, and does not find him, getting increasingly worried in the process. Toph, however, is more successful with Aang, and gets him to smash rocks. Katara's glad for that, believing that he needs her "blunt crazy wisdom," and she'd be tempted to beat him up with the commonsense stick. It's unfortunate that Katara's opinion of Aang in this fic tends to run the gamut from humoring him because it's expedient to their overall mission to keeping her rage pent up because it's not expedient to their overall mission.
Two and a half hours after that, Katara can't find Zuko, in spite of looking in all his favorite spots, and frustration sets in. Katara considers enlisting Toph, but she's busy, having trained Aang into exhaustion and succeeded in getting him to talk to her.
Yet again, Katara chooses to eavesdrop, choosing to hide herself even though Toph can't see her (although she can possibly "see" her in the ground") and Aang isn't looking for her. It's probably out of force of habit, an instinctive reaction to when one does not want to be found. It reminds me about how Superman, on one TV version, deflects a clip full of bullets with his bulletproof chest, but reflexively ducks under the thrown gun, even though he knows it won't hurt him.
Aang asks Toph whether she agrees with Zuko, and Toph, surprisingly diplomatically, says Aang should at least try. She says Aang is free and unattached, possibly from some stereotype about Airbenders, and asks why it's so hard for Aang to let go of his attachments. Aang says, quite simply, that Katara's the reason.
And there you have it. Kataang's relationship is brought up as a plot element, as the obstruction for Aang letting go in order to unlock the Avatar State, and that, along with his beliefs, are impediments to him killing Ozai. Canonically, it was proven that he could satisfy the requirement without giving up Katara and could defeat Ozai without killing him. Avatar is an idealistic series, all about finding new solutions and taking third options, so this outcome of the final battle is actually in keeping with the series.
As one might expect, Katara is not happy to hear this. She initially wonders if her reluctance to have Aang go into the Avatar State, when he couldn't control it, back at the start of Season 2 was the cause, but she realizes that it has been essential to their survival and will be in the future. She's quite frustrated, believing that all the drama relating to Aang's crush on her had blown over, an she had made it clear that she did not reciprocate his feelings. I personally don't think that she went far enough; accepting one's feelings can be implicit, but when you reject them, you have to be a little more open. The latter is what Katara plans to do, and plans to sink the Kataang ship herself.
Katara says that she believes Aang can save the world (as she says at the beginning of every episode), and is willing to help him do it (although that amounts to sitting back and letting him fight Ozai). As such, she thinks it's a bad joke if Aang has grown attached to her and can't do what he must.
Naturally, Toph seems to be reading Katara's mind, saying Katara wants to save the world and would be mad if Aang's crush on her put the world in jeopardy, and would whack him into submission with the commonsense stick. Aang is horrified and pleads with Toph not to tell on him, and Toph says she won't so long as he tries to unblock that chakra.
Of course, Katara heard everything, including that, so the ball is in her court. She's tempted to give Aang a beating with the commonsense stick, but she realizes that Toph achieved the most desirable result, so she goes back to her old strategy of not talking about it.
Aang asks Toph if he can win, and while Toph can't say with complete confidence that he can, nor can she assuage his fears, she says it's about going forward in spite of his fear. They hug and she tells him he owes Zuko an apology, before they resume training.
Katara finds Zuko on the roof, "his Avatar related shenanigans moping spot." She fails to approach him completely silently, but he's receptive to her, and they sit in "companionable silence." He's not in the mood to talk, though, so Katara sympathizes with him and takes his side regarding Aang.
Zuko nods for a while, but asks how Aang's doing, and is glad that Toph got through to him. Zuko admits he still doesn't know what a chakra is and Katara jokes about Aang's chakras.
Zuko desperately hopes the chakra unblocking works and that Aang gets Avatar State back. Zuko realizes that Aang's just a kid, realizes that he's been too aggressive and says he's tired of playing "bad cop" with him to get him to stick to his training, but says it's all for Aang's own good, a sentiment Katara agrees with.
Katara asks Zuko what Toph asked Aang and, after some beating around the bush, Zuko says that Aang most likely will not be able to win without Avatar State. Aang is "nowhere near" mastering Firebending, so without the Avatar State, he's no match for a "brilliant and ruthless" firebender like Ozai.
They hear a crash, and find Aang. After they defuse the tension, Aang climbs on the roof and awkwardly begins small talk. Katara, despite admitting she has no room to talk (quite the Understatement, given that her eavesdropping is necessary to show us any conversation that doesn't involve her), says she doesn't like being eavesdropped upon, and her mind wanders to something perverse again.
Aang admits he eavesdropped, but only a little. He'd come looking for Zuko, to apologize for him for bringing up forgiveness again, because he knows how they feel about forgiveness (an unusually sardonic tone for Aang). Katara, not wanting to get into another argument, doesn't respond, but she thinks that Aang doesn't realize that there are a few people she and Zuko can't forgive.
Zuko apologizes, too, and Aang asks if they're friends again, resulting in Zuko saying yes and another moment in which they stand around awkwardly. They then decide to get off the "roof of awkward," with a small nonverbal exchange between Zuko and Katara.
Another author's note follows. The author apologizes for the delay, saying that there were things in her life and it was hard to "get right.
The author starts off by saying that the Fire Nation military is plagued by bickering and one-upsmanship, such as the dispute between Zhao and the Yu Yan Archers' commander.
Of course, that's beside the point, and the author says the main point is Aang's inability to access the Avatar State, and the author bemoans the rock and the lion turtle as deus ex machinae. She says that it would be more empowering for him to do it himself (fair enough), and that she'd "like to think" that he understands what's at stake to try. Honestly, can't the author say with some confidence that Aang actually cares about this?
The author's answer is, more or less, not entirely. She says that he oscillates between liking and hating being Avatar, and never fully resolved this to her satisfaction, and will address this more in the coming chapters.
The author says Aang should have tried to activate his chakra on his own, saying that his not trying to do so outside of the battle in the catacombs was "deficient" (the ellipses before it make it seem as though she was forgoing using a stronger word on this).
The author suggests that Aang's "lack of Avatar State-ness" was psychosomatic, and uses this to conclude that Guru Pathik was wrong. It seems more likely that Guru Pathik was wrong about what "letting go" meant.
The author says that Guru Pathik knows human nature in general and Aang in particular, and that he's the ideal person to walk him through unlocking the Avatar State and control it, something that the author believes Aang hasn't mastered, even at the end of the series. The author briefly compares Guru Pathik to Yoda, as an old hermit who teaches the protagonist while speaking in riddles, while giving him a choice not unlike the one Luke Skywalker had (which the author reminds us is to rescue his sister, which clearly is meant to reflect what the author thinks of Aang and Katara's relationship).
The author then brings us to what happened in the catacombs, and believes that Aang would not recover so quickly after his coma, especially after the "spiritual parachute" that he relies on as a safety measure when all else fails ends up failing, as well, which ends up causing him to convince himself that he can't use the Avatar State anymore.
The author suggests that Katara's "sketchy" diagnosis of it being a self-confidence issue is closer to the truth than the blocked chakra issue (which seems to be blatantly disregarding the mechanics of how the Avatar State works). She concludes that chakras aren't the be-all and end all, and that even if they are, Aang should be trying to open them himself.
That bit about chakras comprised most of the author's note, and even at the end of it, it still does very little to support the ideas the author puts forth, which seems to be overwriting what was established in canon with her own theories.
A word about fanfic writers trying to fix plot holes and inconsistencies from canon. It's a bit like trying to take a piece from another puzzle and shove it in to fill a gap in a jigsaw puzzle. When that piece doesn't fit, the fault lies with both the original author (for leaving the hole in the first place), and the fanfic writer (for choosing poorly and/or trying too hard to shove it in). How large of a share each party has depends on the situation; it might be more that the author has too glaring of an inconsistency to be resolved by any means, or more that the fanfic writer simply chose the wrong approach to handle it. In this case, I think it's the latter. There was an explanation, a reasonably good one, at that, and the author twisted it around to try to resolve what she believed to be a plot hole, and I'm especially tempted to assume that it's all a way of making Aang look worse. This is still more proof that the author is not up to Bryke's level as a writer.
But enough about why Aang's chakra is blocked. The fact is that it is blocked, and the author then goes on to explain how Zuko finds out, since no one told him. Somewhat standard to form, this doesn't just involve one conversation, but includes an entire scene regarding their strategy against Ozai. They assume that they'll fight Ozai together (which would be nice, instead of their pinning all their hopes on Aang), and don't think they'll be separated on the day of the comet.
Aang, however, is resigned to the belief that he can't activate the Avatar State and has given up on trying to do so. He's once again looking for validation (Again, can't he get an honest and wholehearted answer in his favor, for once? Can't he be motivated to do anything apart from his own desire for validation here?) which results in him letting slip that he can't use the Avatar State.
Going back to the point about the author's position toward Aang for a moment, this isn't helped by the author's notes. At times, I'm starting to think that Aang has a valid point, one that the author acknowledges as such, but then the author's notes tells us that it's motivated by a desire for validation/instant gratification/Katara's love/whatever else Aang wants, and makes the author come off as all the more biased against Aang, with the story bing shaped her biases.
The author goes back to Aang and Zuko's positions on responsibility. Zuko is one who takes on a lot of responsibility, while Aang hopes someone else will do the less pleasant aspects of his job for him. Naturally, this is inappropriate for a situation like Sozin's Comet, and the realization that Aang's loved ones could die gets driven home now (even if Aang is unaware why he has to deal with Ozai before the comet). And, of course, the author says that Aang put his own spiritual needs ahead of the entire world, completely disregarding how he ALSO defeated Ozai and saved the entire Earth Kingdom and countless lives, solving the crisis with a happy medium.
The author points out that Katara tried to stay calm and keep the others calm, but Zuko would have been set off by Aang's attitude toward his responsibilities.
The author brings up Aang having to kill Ozai, simply because she doesn't believe that it was never brought up before, and the same goes for what she believes is Aang not willing to kill at the expense of letting down the entire world. She says that she wants to believe the Gaang had some idea that this would happen, and to an extent, I agree; it should be clear all along that Aang is not about killing. The author says that naturally, the not killing Ozai issue will be explored again.
The author mentions the F word again, and brings it up as Aang's way of poking Zuko in the eye with a sharp stick; he may not be malicious, but he knows what Zuko's sore spot (something the author says is true of family and close friends) is and wants to end the argument. He thus makes this decision, albeit mainly on a subconscious level.
So it leads to Aang and Zuko storming off, and Toph saying that Aang should at least try to access the Avatar State. The author says that Toph would be more of a confidante to Aang, since Aang's crush on Katara hinders communication (I have to admit that at least this is consistent with the fic; the author has essentially denied Katara and Aang any meaningful conversations), and Aang needs "tough love" more than encouragement.
A while ago, I mentioned two types of character bashing. One is the more traditional and straightforward kind, while the other is the supposedly "benevolent" kind, in which characters repeatedly undergo humiliation and indignities as a form of Character Development, which consists of them discarding the aspects of their personalities that the author doesn't like. Essentially, they could be called Hell and Purgatory, respectively.
Aang seems to be in Purgatory here, with the author believing that he hasn't been challenged enough in canon and shouldn't get together with Katara. For the former problem, she has him struggle with bending training and make mistakes, such as (supposedly) doing the wrong bending and letting Katara get bitten. For the latter, she has Katara make very clear that she does not return Aang's feelings at all.
However, not only does this seem to be unnecessarily vindictive toward Aang, but there's an even more significant problem. Purgatory is supposed to bring characters to an entirely new destination in terms of development, but this fic follows canon for the duration of the story.
To give you an idea of that, picture a triangle, ABC(which I will call the Canon Station Triangle), with AB being the process of moving from one canon event from another, AC being taking a detour for a fanfic-only scene, and CB taking the fic back to canon. For an example, let's go all the way back to Stalking Zuko; A is the scene in which warns Zuko that she'll kill him if he betrays Aang (or as close as they can get on a kids' show), B is shortly before the Southern Raiders, in which Katara is still cold to Zuko even after he's won everyone else's trust and C is the various events of the first half of Stalking Zuko. Essentially, despite all the experiences Katara and Zuko shared, she ended up the same place she was in canon.
The problem is quite simple. Purgatory assumes that putting the character through suffering will make them into a character that the author likes more, but the Canon Station Triangle means that regardless of whatever happens to a character at Point C, their development will be the same as if they passed from Point A to Point B, but they will continue to undergo humiliation. It's a bit like whacking your horse with a riding crop when it's unable to move. It's painful for the subject in question, and doesn't do any good in the end.
Back to Aang and Toph. The author says that Aang feels comfortable being open about Toph, so that he can tell her about his crush on Katara and his fears. Toph does her best to comfort him, but also says Katara would be furious about his using her as an excuse not to unblock his chakras. Aang also begins to doubt himself and his abilities, and with Toph and Zuko doing nothing to help his confidence (It's honestly unfortunate that the author doesn't believe his confidence is well-founded, but believes that his doubt is), he decides to wait until after the comet.
Katara and Zuko talk, but not about the F word, but it does calm him down, long enough to... realize that Aang is quite naive to expect him to forgive Ozai, still isn't ready for the comet and all the world's hopes are riding on quite an unreliable Avatar. Yes, I'm serious; this is essentially what the author said about Katara's conversation with Zuko. When discussed this way, Zuko really doesn't seem so conciliatory after all.
To make matters worse, the reconciliation is catalyzed by Aang hearing of Zuko's good intentions about him, and Zuko (whom the author describes as "the bigger person") doesn't consider Aang's perspective.
They reconcile, but it's still a little awkward, especially with Sozin's Comet approaching.
Updates may be somewhat less regular after this. I'm getting up to the point at which the author gets even harder on Aang, and according to the author's notes, it'll continue well into Not Stalking Firelord Zuko, with much of that installment being devoted to forcing Aang to accept that he made a mistake.
What I liked
- Some amusing bits about chakra.
What I didn't like
- The portrayal of Aang regarding earthly attachments.
- Everyone else ganging up on Aang, giving his feelings virtually no weight.
- Aang being second-guessed once again.
- Aang's motivations and commitments being called into question.
- Katara once again ignoring Aang's feelings.
Next Installment: Sozin's comet is FINALLY approaching.
