The Bibliography
is an Avatar: The Last Airbender fan fiction written as an in-universe historical document chronicling the life of the show's main character, Avatar Aang.
It's packed with references to Canon, Fanon, Word of God and Word of Dante, and some fantastic Worldbuilding (though a lot of it is Outdated by Canon because of The Legend of Korra, which the fic predates) as the Bibliography was published years after Aang is gone. It makes you want to read the works it references, and the author's notes at the end lovingly layout Rocky Eye's inspirations and let you in on some of the references.
This Worthy Scholarly Work of History provides examples of:
- Ascended Fanboy: Avatar Hong for Aang — upon discovering he can communicate with his past lives, he is ecstatic to discover his most admired Avatar is also the one most willing to talk to him.
- Author Appeal: The Big Rocky Eye is a big opera fan, as evidenced by many of the works listed in here being plays. In fact, TBRE even attempted to write the libretto for "The Avatar Returns"!
- Cassandra Truth: A lot of the Gaang's exploits are treated with scepticism. Such as Aang's final battle with Ozai
- Comically Serious: Most of the humour derives from the dry, scholarly way in which ridiculous events and books are related.
- Emperor Scientist: Downplayed. Zuko and Sokka both dabble in mathematics about a decade after the war. See entry below on Serious Business.
- Food Fight: Somehow Aang manages to defeat Sokka and Zuko in one.
- Heroic BSoD: Aang has one when his first child is born a waterbender; he realises just how difficult a task it will be to rebuild the Air Nomad civilization.
- Leitmotif: The theme tune of Avatar: The Last Airbender is written for the opera "The Avatar Returns", and is immensely popular in-universe.
- Noodle Incident: Many of the works listed herein are not elaborated on. Honourable mention goes to the play "Ta Min: Seductress", which was meant to have been scandalous In-Universe.
- Original Flavor: Carried rather well via the choice of format.
- Purple Prose: Justified in-universe: this is a work of academia and the professionalism on which its author prides themselves adds to the humour.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The Cabbage Merchant devotes ten pages of his autobiography to ranting about how much he hates Omashu.
- Self-Insert Fic: Not The Big Rocky Eye. Bizarrely enough, it's Katara. Unless the work is a forgery, she seems to have used her life as a starting point for a lewd Real-Person Fic, which she hid very carefully. Unfortunately, it was found after her death, and published. The Appendix/Author's Note confirms forgery. Someone posing as Katara wrote a
Possession Sue Self-Insert RPF that was mistaken for autobiographical. - Serious Business: Sokka and Zuko fall out over their simultaneous discovery of calculus (paralleling a similar dispute between Newton and Leibniz in Real Life).
- Shout-Out: To every aspect of the show and its fandom:
- One cited reference is Avatar: The Last Airbender by Riko and Dimar (Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino).
- Avatar's Wife, Firelord's Concubine leading to a "wave of fictional works which some have aptly named 'Zutara.'"
- Chapters as written by the cabbage merchant and a former pirate.
- In-universe disdain for The Boy in the Iceberg, with a later author writing a response.
- The Infinitesimals Priority dispute. One wonders if Rocky Eye has read The Baroque Cycle...
- ''The Adventures of Pvt. Wang Fire. An in-universe humorous fictional account of Sokka's persona: To Wang Fire!
- One cited reference is Avatar: The Last Airbender
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Even those who dislike Zuko's sister may find the way history treats her rather sad.
- Speculative Documentary: Probably the best fit for a genre.
- Take That!: To a few of the fandom's less... shining moments...
- Tearjerker: Some of the Gaang... don't get a long and happy life.From Remembering Toph Beifong: "She died early, at about the age of fifty, due to an unknown disease... She died clinging to Chief Sokka's hands."
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Aang is given the news posthumously by one of his reincarnations that the Air Nomads are thriving, and is immensely pleased about it.
- Vindicated by History: In-universe Firelord Zuko "The Great" was so unpopular for most of his reign that people were calling for Ozai's return.
