The Fire Nation vs. Ocean Spirit Aang.
Fire Nation forces under Zhao's command lay siege to the Northern Water Tribe, but Zhao's true goal is far more sinister.
Episodes adapted from the original series:
Tropes:
- Action Girl: Turns out Katara standing up to Pakku has lit a fire in the Northern Water Tribe women; every waterbending gal shows up to take part in the siege.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: For both Aang and the Ocean Spirit. It's made clear Aang's pain over his situation means he'll be hard pressed to come back from the merge, and the Ocean Spirit is so consumed with grief that even once it's destroyed the Fire Nation fleet it's just going to keep on going forever.
- Adaptational Context Change:
- In the cartoon, Bumi gave up Omashu without a fight once he realized he couldn't win. Here, Azula led the army to take it by force.
- Pakku relented and started training Katara because he was once engaged to her grandmother, who left for the Southern Tribe because of the sexist attitudes of the Northern Tribe. Here Katara refuses to stand down against the siege and other female waterbenders stand up with a desire to fight and protect their home, and afterward he offered to help train her.
- Adaptational Dumbass: Downplayed. In the original, after possessing Aang, the Ocean Spirit is shown to be very deliberate in its actions, only attacking Fire Nation forces, while being careful to avoid attacking any Water Tribespeople or buildings. While the same is true here to a large extent, the monster Kaiju form it takes is more wrath incarnate, and does destroy a few buildings due to circumstance of being in the way so it can get to the sea. The formal waterbending motions are also gone, instead lashing out at everything in its path. According to Yue, it's searching for its lost partner in the ocean in a blind rage, and because it'll obviously never find it, will continue on forever.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Balloon ships were first introduced in "The Northern Air Temple" but the Fire Nation mass producing war balloons weren't revealed until "The Day of Black Sun" in Book 3, Fire. In this show a small balloon ship is used by Zhao to bypass the battlefield and access the Spirit Oasis. They do clarify it's nothing fancy and can only transport a small team, a direct translation of the Machinist designs.
- Adaptational Explanation: It's never explained in the cartoon why the Moon and Ocean Spirits came to the mortal realm and permanently took vulnerable, physical forms. Here, they are indicated to only come once a year on a specific date, and only remain for a single night before withdrawing to the Spirit World. Yue explains that they do this to understand how it feels to be mortal.
- Adaptation Origin Connection: Zhao reveals that almost everything he has been doing this season was set up by Azula, not Ozai. He uses this as a taunt against Zuko, saying Ozai had no further interest in him.
- Adaptational Wimp: The way Bumi is hauled before Azula battered and exhausted implies that he was legitimately defeated in battle, unlike his animated counterpart who willingly surrendered when the invasion began so he could bide his time for an opportunity to liberate Omashu later.
- Adapted Out: Since the interaction with Koh was moved up, Zuko doesn't abduct an unconscious Aang by running out into the tundra, nor does he have multiple duels with Katara.
- All for Nothing: After three years of searching the world for the Avatar, coming so close to capturing him and earning back his place at his father's side, Zuko learns this entire "mission" was all his father's plan to inspire Azula to become his true heir. He never expected Zuko to ever find the Avatar and even if Zuko succeeded, his father would still think him too weak to ever take back.
- Almighty Idiot: The Ocean Spirit's "Koizilla" form is depicted as a raging, mindless force of nature driven by grief. It will destroy everything in its path to find the Moon Spirit again, which means the destruction of the entire world since the Moon Spirit is dead. And since Aang allowed himself to be used as a vessel for the Ocean Spirit, the Avatar has essentially ceased to exist since the Ocean Spirit will not let go of Aang until the Moon Spirit is revived.
- Always a Bigger Fish: No pun intended, but Tui and La are far more powerful even than the Avatar.
- Bittersweet Ending: Aang is able to protect the Northern Water Tribe from destruction and the Moon Spirit is restored. Unfortunately, Yue gave up her life for her people and the Northern Water Tribe suffered from severe casualties, including Hahn and Katara’s pupil. While Zuko and Iroh are alive and escaped from the city, Zuko now knows that his father was more concerned about playing cruel games with him and his sister, and he's now branded as a traitor to the Fire Nation, with no hope of returning home. Not to mention that Ozai managed to seize Omashu during the siege of the Northern Water Tribe, meaning that he’s closer to conquering the Earth Kingdom.
- Bookends:
- Season One begins and ends with the Fire Lord revealing that the big attack on a nation was merely a distraction from the real military campaign. In the first episode, it was an attack on the Earth Kingdom to distract the world from the Air Nomad genocide. In this episode, it was an siege on the Northern Water Tribe to distract the world from the fall of Omashu.
- Aang was frozen into the iceberg because of the Avatar State. When Aang merges with the Ocean Spirit he first manifests as a swirl of water in a very similar manner. He also unmerges the same way.
- Brought Down to Badass: Zhao cuts off the waterbenders access to the Moon, which opens them up for direct Fire Navy invasion. Despite this many soldiers grab spears and face them head on, even though suffering added casualties in the process.
- Chekhov's Gun: Kyoshi being able to channel the Avatar State through Aang and both Roku and Kuruk talking about the dangers of elemental spirits leads to Aang merging with the Ocean Spirit to fend off the Fire Nation armada.
- Cosmic Deadline: The final scene is one of the Fire Sages informing Ozai that they have managed to work out that Sozin's Comet is returning soon, a fact Aang remains unaware of.
- Death by Adaptation:
- Hahn. In the original, his last scene had him thrown overboard into the Artic water never to be heard from again, and no-one would care about him either way. Here, he's a definite casualty of the siege. It’s also significantly more tragic due to him being an Adaptational Nice Guy.
- Zhao is explicitly killed when he's blasted with by Iroh, rather than getting dragged off to a Fate Worse than Death, with his charred corpse seen floating down the canal.
- Deliberately Monochrome: When the Moon Spirit is dead, the entire world fluctuates in and out of monochrome.
- Did You Actually Believe...?: Invoked by Zhao in Zuko thinking for one minute that this entire thing has been proving himself to end his exile, when it's all been his father's long-scale test to push Azula as his true heir.Zhao: Your mission? Your "mission" was a sham. Did you really think the Fire Lord was going to take you back? Ozai was playing with you. It was all a game. And the winner is the one without the scar from Daddy.
- Dies Differently In The Adaptation:
- The Moon Spirit is fatally stabbed with a special knife, rather than scorched by Zhao's firebending.
- Originally Zhao was dragged into the ocean by the vengeful Ocean spirit, interrupting his duel with Zuko and refusing his offer of aid. Here he is beaten by Zuko in a duel but distracts him by revealing Azula's involvement with these events. He attempts to attack Zuko from behind but is killed by Iroh as he is hit by fire and knocked off a ledge.
- Distinction Without a Difference: When Iroh presses Zhao on his plans to kill the Ocean and Moon Spirits, Zhao quickly clarifies that he'd never kill the Ocean Spirit, noting that would lead to the deaths of the entire Water Tribe, which he claims he'd never do. He then states he intends on only killing the Moon Spirit, even though this would have the same devastating effect on the Water Tribe (and the world at large). He even boasts about potentially wiping out an entire race of benders, implying even he understands the lack of difference on a certain level.
- Dramatic Irony:
- As the episode ends, Team Avatar figures they can head back to Omashu and get Bumi to teach Aang some earthbending. Cut to the now occupied city of Omashu.
- Zhao taunts Zuko that his mission is a sham and that Ozai was only using him as motivation to make Azula his true heir to the throne. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that Zhao's military siege against the North is actually a sham that Ozai didn't expect to succeed, being nothing more than a diversion from Azula's successful conquest of Omashu. To add insult to Zhao's actual importance, Ozai hasn't fully given up on Zuko's survival since he still wants competition between the two siblings to make them into perfect weapons for his goals.
- Emergency Trainee Battle Deployment: The younger waterbenders sent to assist Katara are explicitly still in training, but the situation definitely warrants deploying them, as well.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Iroh figures that even Ozai would draw the line at killing the Moon Spirit, if only for the sheer chaos it would cause.
- Evil Versus Oblivion: Iroh warns Zhao that his plan to kill the Moon Spirit will draw wrath from Ozai himself since Ozai wants a world to rule over and killing the Moon Spirit will most likely destroy the world. Zhao ignores Iroh's reasoning and simply resolves to overthrow Ozai himself and become the new Fire Lord.
- Heroic Sacrifice:
- When a fireball hits a building and knocks a piece of debris, Momo pushes a child out of the way and gets crushed as a result. He gets better thanks to Yue.
- Yue gives her life to restore the Moon Spirit, thus easing the rage of the Ocean Spirit and allowing the Avatar to de-merge from it.
- Hollywood Darkness: Most of the episode takes place at night and there is a uniformity to the lighting despite on having the Moon, torches and firebending for light. When the Moon spirit is killed and all moonlight is gone, this is mostly represented through Deliberate Monochrome.
- Hypocrite: Zhao calls Zuko a traitor not five minutes after declaring his intent to usurp the throne of the Fire Lord.
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Sokka blames himself for Yue's death, and not being able to do anything thanks to her freezing his feet to the ground. Her father is astonishingly understanding about the whole thing, reassuring Sokka that he did everything he could, and at least his presence meant Yue had someone with her when she sacrificed herself.
- Internal Reveal: Zuko finds out from Zhao that Azula was backing the admiral. He takes it about as well as could be expected.
- Irony: As the Fire Nation's navy approaches the walls, Pakku finally admits to Katara that water is supposed to be the element of change and that by rigidly enforcing tradition, the Northern Water Tribe has been going against the very nature of their element.
- Motive Misidentification: Zuko assumes Zhao has taken command of an entire fleet and plans to lay siege to the Northern Water tribe solely to get Aang and rob him of his glory.
- Mythology Gag:
- Instead of incinerating the Moon Spirit, Zhao stabs it with a knife. This is actually how he killed it in the Shyamalan film.
- Zuko and Zhao's duel in the climax is direct nod to their animated counterparts Agni Kai from "The Southern Air Temple". When Zuko spares Zhao's life and turns his back on him, the arrogant admiral tries to attack the prince from behind, only for Iroh to once again intervene.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: On more than one front.
- Kuruk forged a knife capable of killing spirits, which is what Zhao uses to kill the Moon Spirit, and he only found that because Shyu had preserved it in his hidden shrine.
- Zhao is only able to get into the Spirit Oasis because of a war balloon based on designs Sokka had given to the Mechanist, a fact he is keenly aware of.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: While everyone was busy with the siege, Azula managed to take the city of Omashu, possibly defeating Bumi in the process.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: While Aang is on his spirit-induced rampage, Katara begs him to come back because everyone still needs him. She then adds that she still needs him.
- Prophecy Twist: The vision Kyoshi gave Aang does come true, but with fuller details. Yes, the North Pole is laid siege to, and the buildings destroyed, but it's not the death of everyone.
- Revenge Before Reason: With an angry Ocean Spirit on the rampage and the siege all but lost, Zhao runs for it. Despite Iroh telling Zuko he'll probably get his either way, Zuko insists on attacking him regardless.
- Sequel Hook: Sozin's Comet is drawing near, and Fire Lord Ozai is ready to use its power to dominate the other nations. In the meantime, he sends his army (led by the newly-recruited Azula) to occupy Omashu, where Team Avatar plans to return for Aang's training.
- The Starscream: Zhao reveals to Iroh that he intends to supplant Ozai himself after killing the Moon Spirit and conquering the North Pole, believing Ozai to lack imagination and resolve to rule the world. This is in reply to Iroh's argument that not even Ozai would dare kill the Moon Spirit, if only for the sake of having a world to rule.
- Summon Bigger Fish: After the moon is killed and the battle seems to be lost, Aang gives himself over to the ocean spirit and creates a massive, incredibly destructive water Kaiju that Iroh describes as "wrath incarnate".
- Uncertain Doom: It's left unclear if Lieutenant Jee and the rest of Zuko's ship survived the events of the siege, but Iroh is pretty confident they did.
- We Can Rule Together: Zhao offers Iroh a place as his right hand after he overthrows Ozai, if only to have the backing of the former crown prince to legitimize his rule.
- Weapon of X-Slaying: Avatar Kuruk had devised a dagger capable of killing spirits. Somehow over centuries it ended up in the possession of Fire Sages, and is given to Zhao as a means to kill the corporeal Moon spirit.
- We Have Reserves: Ozai is unbothered by the near complete loss of the Fire Navy at the North Pole, stating that it's a pity but not unexpected. When the Fire Sage asks why even attack the North if it was an unlikely victory from the start, Ozai reveals that the Siege was always meant to be a distraction from Omashu, which Azula successfully conquered. The fact he's willing to sacrifice an entire naval fleet for a diversion showcases the size of the Fire Nation's military and Ozai's disregard for the soldiers' lives since he always has more in reserves.
- Xanatos Gambit: Zhao's siege of the Northern Water Tribe was in part a smoke screen for Azula to catch Omashu by surprise. Actual success would be preferable, but for the Fire Nation Omashu was a better foothold into the Earth Kingdom.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Aang's reaction to seeing the assembled Fire Nation fleet, given the effort the Gaang has had just taking down one ship.
