YMMV / The Rise of Kyoshi

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Jianzhu, in spades. Never before have we seen a former companion of the Avatar fall so far, up to and including murdering one of his own friends, another former companion of the Avatar! Was he always such a power-hungry monster, hiding behind a skin of affability? Did his guilt of failing to properly guide Kuruk (guilt shared by all of Kuruk's former companions) eat at him too much? Was the stress of fighting a neverending wave of criminals, insane warlords, and corrupt politicians all over the world for over a decade in the place of an Avatar get to him? Or even his self-loathing for misidentifying Yun as the Avatar (it was his rash judgment after all that led to the situation the story started in)?
• Complete Monster: Xu Ping An is a Firebender warlord with a finely-honed, superficial sense of charisma he uses to reign in a loyal gathering of marauders with which he pledges to overthrow the law and let anarchy reign. Xu put entire villages of "abiders" to the sword, leaving countless corpses stacked behind him until his rampage was finally stopped by Jianzhu. When inadvertently broken out eight years later by the Avatar, Kyoshi, Xu muses that the land has forgotten his name and pledges to scar his name into history in a way they will never forget. To begin his new wave of bloodshed, Xu captures a family and forces them to watch as he dunks the father in and out of a pot of boiling water, gleefully intending to move on to slaughter the nearest town. Xu even uses his rare ability to bend lightning to savagely torture Kyoshi, proclaiming himself absolute and that all anyone can ever hope to do against him is obey.
• Magnificent Bastard: Jianzhu was the mentor and friend to the deceased Avatar Kuruk. When the Yellow Neck rebellion rises, a rebellion headed by bandits, Jianzhu tricks them into digging their own graves and then buries them alive. Jianzhu then becomes the mentor to Yun, the supposed new Avatar. Having his doubts about the true identity of the Avatar, he leads Kyoshi and Yun to a cave and leaves Yun to die at the hands of a dark spirit. Afterwards to cover his tracks, he poisons his rival politicians and sages, dosing himself in order to avoid suspicions. Upon achieving this, he uses his ties to track down Kyoshi. Once he finds her, he drugs both Kyoshi and her girlfriend Rangi, kidnapping the latter. When confronted by Kyoshi, he puts up a formidable fight only to die at the hands of the unpredictably resurrected Yun.
• Moral Event Horizon: See here.
• Narm: During their confrontation in "The Spirit", Kyoshi's tall height means that Jianzhu has to earthbend the ground beneath himself in order to stand at eye level with her. It's a moment that can come off as him having a Napoleon complex, and can also look silly in an otherwise very serious scene.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: A couple of cases involving Waterbenders.
  • Master Amak is introduced as a cool-headed, affable Water Tribe assassin and a Master of Disguise. All signs point to him being just an important adult figure as Avatar Kuruk's companions, and one might think he'd make a badass and intriguing ally or enemy for Kyoshi as the book progresses. Tagaka sees right through his disguise and kills him before her battle with Team Avatar even begins. Shadow of Kyoshi gives us more about him, however, and also introduces his sister Atuat.
  • Tagaka the Pirate Queen, who turned out to be so sly and powerful that she managed to kill Master Amak mentioned above. After it became clear Kyoshi would need a Waterbending teacher out of the scope of Jianzhu's influence, and after having a bit of interaction in the early parts of the book, you'd think the story was building up to Kyoshi having to learn from Tagaka in a sort of uneasy relationship. Granted, Kyoshi'd have to break Tagaka out of prison but Kyoshi did later get herself involved in a prison break! Alas, Tagaka is neither seen nor heard from again, and Kirima the smuggler ended up as the Avatar's primary Waterbending teacher.

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