"To remember the events of a single life was painful enough. Reliving dozens of lives would be... well, it would be like getting caught by a tsunami. Swept away by forces beyond your control."
— Jetsun, nun of the Western Air Temple
The Dawn of Yangchen is a 2022 novel written by F. C. Yee chronicling the life of Avatar Yangchen, taking place hundreds of years prior to the events of Avatar: The Last Airbender. The book largely follows Yangchen through her teenage and young adult years, mapping her journey from a girl traumatized by her own power to the revered leader and diplomat still remembered centuries later.
Yangchen has been plagued by spirits for as long as she can remember. She is the Avatar, and her past lives do not let her rest. She often finds herself trapped in memories not her own, reliving ancient glories or tragedies.
Unfortunately, the world can't wait for her to calm her reincarnations. In an era of no loyalty but to coin, she must navigate through a complex political landscape and discover the solution that will save everyone.
In the Earth Kingdom city of Bin-Er, the corrupt shang merchants have grown tired of the Earth King's whims. They come upon a weapon of mass destruction that will grant them the power they always wanted—no matter the cost.
A sequel, The Legacy of Yangchen, was published on July 18, 2023.
This novel provides examples of:
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Yangchen and Kavik are immediately attracted to each other upon their first meeting, but because of the circumstances of said meetings, their interactions are heavily dosed with Snark-to-Snark Combat.
- Bittersweet Ending: Yangchen, Kavik and their allies have foiled the shangs' attempt to use Unanimity to break away from the Four Nations, and Yangchen finds herself in a position to actually improve things for the downtrodden people of Bin-Er. But combustionbending now exists within the world, and despite Yangchen's attempts to keep it secret, it'll inevitably become known to those who would exploit it for the sake of their goals. Yangchen has been forced to deal with Unanimity by imprisoning the three combustionbenders within the Northern Air Temple's domain while having the monks there serve as their guards, an act that very much goes against the tenets of the Air Nomads. As for Kavik, his betrayal of Yangchen means that she and her friends no longer consider him one of their own, he's become disillusioned with Kalyaan, and his last scene features him being hunted down by an agent of the Water Tribe over his involvement with Unanimity. The one saving grace for him is that The White Lotus have reached out to him with an offer of recruitment.
- Blessed with Suck: Yangchen's heightened spirituality allows her to easily connect with her past lives, giving her a near-limitless fountain of knowledge and wisdom that she can access at any given moment. It also leaves her susceptible to possession by said past lives, to the point that she lives in constant fear of Death of Personality and doesn't know where they end and she begins, and a desperate desire to help the world in any way she can as much as she can because she doesn't want to live with any of the regrets her predecessors had.
- Broken Pedestal: When Kavik meets Kalyaan again, you can pinpoint the exact moment Kavik's idolization of his older brother dies. It doesn't stop him from initially siding with Kalyaan anyway.
- The Caligula: The current Earth King is known for being vengeful and petty, which is why the Fire Nation and the Water Tribe quietly backed a rebellion against him. Unfortunately, he also turned out to be far more dangerous than anticipated; once he crushed the rebellion, he cut off all international ties in retaliation, killing the international economy. This is what led to the shang system, little more than a monopoly under the guise of fairness. Interestingly, he seems to be genuinely afraid of how unstable he is, as when he speaks with Yangchen near the end of the book he says he fears what his reaction will be when he discovers the truth about Unanimity.
- Call-Back: The novel takes place after the flashbacks in Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Rift, and Yangchen's battle and agreement with General Old Iron are mentioned a few times.
- Call-Forward:
- Unanimity, the one thing that can bring nations to their knees and threaten even the Avatar's power, is three combustionbenders. It seems like combustionbending has always been a thorn in the Avatar's side, no matter the era.
- In the Kyoshi novels, it's mentioned that many of the deals Yangchen brokered with the spirits on the behalf of humans were eventually broken, leading to Kuruk constantly having to fight — and kill — angry spirits to protect humanity. We see one such deal in the novel, which she brokered on the behalf of the Saowon clan. Yangchen is only able to save the clan by changing the terms of the punishment, including prolonging their dishonor by not allowing them to grow back their hair for fifty years. It is strongly implied that this incident is why the clan became so obsessed with elevating their status and power in Kyoshi's time.
- Jujinta, Kavik's partner in the association during his mission in Jonduri, is a disgraced Yuyan archer.
- The soul of Yangchen's sister Jetsun is trapped in the Fog of Lost Souls.
- Yangchen manages to defeat Unaminity by using airbending to remove the air from the room to suffocate the combustionbenders, a larger scale version of the same technique Zaheer would use to kill the Earth Queen and almost kill Korra.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Due to political tensions, the shang merchants are the only ones who are allowed to control international trade, but there are almost no regulations on their activities. They are fully within their rights to just not pay their workers, and no one can do anything about it because they also control who can leave the city. Even then, they still break the few laws they are operating under, risking the mercurial wrath of the Earth King.Henshe: They feigned enterprise and risk-taking when all they were doing was drinking from a river no one else was allowed to approach.
- Cover-Blowing Superpower: Lampshaded and consciously averted by Yangchen when forced into a confrontation while undercover. She instantly realizes that she not only absolutely has to stick with bending one element, but should avoid airbending as well because a disguised air nun this far afield would raise too many suspicions.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Although they're working for the zongdus and the shangs, it's made very clear that the three combustionbenders hold the real power. They even force Zongdu Henshe to increase their payment twentyfold or else they'll sell him out to the Earth King.Thapa: I bet you thought you held all the tiles. Funny thing about that. Once you play your tiles, you no longer hold them.
- Et Tu, Brute?: After the crisis with Unamity is resolved Yangchen confronts Kavik, who had revealed in the letter he had send her to Port Tuugaq that he had betrayed her for his brother. She is clearly devastated that someone she trusted stabbed her in the back like that and, while acknowledging that he did reveal the truth to her, it is also possible that he may have only done so to further manipulate her to save Kalyaan, something Kavik privately notes is a possibility. After all is said and done Yangchen tells Kavik that, while she still has use for him, she no longer considers him one of her companions.
- Foregone Conclusion: The story's end has Yangchen continuing to try and cover up the truth about Unanimity, i.e. the existence of combustionbending. As shown in both Last Airbender and Legend Of Korra, she only delayed the inevitable.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: The Platinum Affair - a major incident in the past that shapes no small part of the story's events - came about from one such example of this trope. Annoyed about an Earth Kingdom civil war being prolonged by the reluctance of the two sides to engage in battle, the Fire Lord and Chief of the Water Tribes began funding the rebels with ingots of platinum, the idea being that Earth King Feishan's loyalists would be swayed by the more valuable currency. Instead, Feishan suddenly and unexpectedly crushed the rebels in a singe decisive battle, found the platinum his fellow world leaders had been using to fund his enemy, and retaliated by closing his borders to foreign traders and expelling foreign ambassadors. This led to the Fire Nation and Water Tribes adopting similar isolationist policies, which led to a halt in international trade until the shang system was established.
- Irony: Yangchen has trouble living up to the ideal set by her predecessor, Szeto. Yangchen becomes even more legendary by the time of her death, to the point that people still swear by her name in Kyoshi's time.
- King Incognito: Near the end of the novel, Earth King Feishan meets Yangchen on an unimportant Ba Sing Se street while wearing laborers’ clothes. This is apparently a regular occurrence for him, since he doesn’t want potential spies in the palace learning secrets.
- MacGuffin: The plot of the book is driven by the main cast's attempts to claim Unanimity, a mysterious object that can apparently bring even the Earth King and other heads of states to their knees. Interestingly, for most of the story the cast is left in the dark as to what Unanimity is, so they're also trying to figure out the identity of the very thing they're trying to find and hide. It isn't until the last act of the story that it's revealed that Unanimity is a Living MacGuffin — to be more specific, three very well-trained and very powerful combustionbenders.
- Merchant City: The shang cities - Bin-Er, Jonduri, Port Tuugaq and Taku - are these, being the only places where international trade is permitted following the Platinum Affair. The former two serve as the main settings of the story.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: During her meeting with the shangs of Bin-Er, Yangchen reveals she's aware that they've been trading beyond the limits permitted by Earth King Feishan and keeping the profits for themselves, in order to try and coerce them into behaving more charitably towards their workers. Instead, she ends up driving Henshe to initiate his scheme to use Unanimity to make Bin-Er independent from the Four Nations.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: When Kavik tries to refuse Yangchen's job offer, she responds by offering him a position as one of her companions, in front of his parents (who practically worship her). Refusal would be tantamount to telling them "please disown me."
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Yangchen badgers the White Lotus into accepting her using the same Trust Password that Iroh uses several centuries later, even outlining both parts of the game of Pai Sho they would normally play. The White Lotus are mostly annoyed that some past Avatar learned their codes and thus they are now eternally compromised.
- Past-Life Memories: The White Lotus complain that Yangchen has the ability to delve deeper into her past lives than any other Avatar, and she should be seeking their wisdom instead of rushing in all the time, that she could bring about a new gilded age because she remembers all the old ones. Yangchen counters that she did exactly that, which is why she is always quick to act: Every Avatar, without exception, regrets not acting fast enough."I have felt the shame of Avatars gone by," she said. "Lived through failures not recorded in history. And I can tell you with absolute certainty—not a single one of my past selves that I've connected with wishes they waited longer to solve a problem."
Acting only in moments of generational import. Who decided which moments were important? And how many people suffered in between? There had never been any gilded ages, as far as Yangchen had seen. - Realpolitik: In full force in this novel, as Yangchen is far more politically active and astute than Kyoshi was. One of the reasons why she wants to find Unanimity and make it "go away" is because she knows that, no matter how well-intentioned they may be, there's not a head of state in the world that won't use it to forward their nation's agenda if it really is as powerful/influential as it's implied to be.
- Sequel Hook: The book ends with Kavik being saved by a member of the White Lotus, who claims he should join them as the truth about Unanimity is close to reaching the light of day.
- These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: At the novel, Yangchen declares the art of combustionbending this, due to its potential to make any firebender a Person of Mass Destruction that could rival the Avatar in power. As history shows, however, her attempt to suppress the knowledge will eventually be for naught.
- Training from Hell: Turning a firebender into a combustionbender is apparently a hellish process. According to Thapa, most of the aspirants drowned, which raises quite a few questions.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Yangchen's spiritual power is so great that even as a child she can easily connect to her past lives. Too easily—she is often possessed by them at random moments.
- We Are Everywhere: Played more sinister than usual for the Benevolent Conspiracy of the White Lotus. Yangchen is horrified when she learns that the White Lotus has at least one member among the elders of her home Air Temple, the only place she's ever felt was protected from the lies and manipulation of the rest of the world, who provided them information on her childhood struggles.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: Deconstructed. Yes, Yangchen has incredible wisdom and intelligence, often knowing the best solution to every problem and usually the best way to convince other people of it... but she's still just seventeen. She is easily dismissed by adults, which annoys her and causes her to lash out.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Yangchen realizes this when the White Lotus inadvertently reveal their knowledge of her struggle with her Past-Life Memories: it means that there's at least one agent among the elders of the Western Air Temple who she'd trusted implicitly, and forever destroys the place of safety she'd had during her childhood.Her childhood in the Western Temple was supposed to be the part of her that was real. The part free of manipulations and ulterior motives. And it was gone now.
