Brace yourselves. Anyone at all familiar with Avatar, knows what happens in this episode just from the title.
ONE
The gang stops in a rocky wilderness.
Toph, touching the ground, says that actually a lot is out here. Aang shushes her: Don’t ruin the surprise. Sitting, he plays a flute that causes prairie dogs to pop up out of their holes and sing. (Sing is a generous term. Ouch.)
Plugging the flute end, Sokka stops him. “We should be making plans.”
Ah. They’re each picking mini vacations, regardless of Sokka’s protests. Well, Aang trains hard every day. On their down time they’ll do something fun. Sokka still argues. “We don’t even have a map of the Fire Nation.”
They’ll worry about it when they’re done. Katara’s turn to pick! (The singing prairie dogs must have been Aang’s choice?)
TWO
She chooses a pristine natural wonder that turns out to be a dried up water hole with raiders hanging about. At the bar they run into a man who recognizes Aang as an air nomad, a living relic. The Professor, very excited, questions Aang about air temple life. Jumping in, Sokka asks if the Professor has a more current map.
He does, but it’s mostly of the desert where’s he’s been searching for a lost library. As he extols the wonders of this library and its clever fox workers, he unrolls a drawing of the building with its domes and spires. Sokka wonders if this fabulous place would have information about the Fire Nation. Of course!
That settles it. Sokka wants his vacation to be at the library. Sadly, the Professor says, the desert is impossible to cross.
Perhaps the Professor would like to see our sky bison?
THREE
When they go outside, the raiders are too close to Appa. The Professor shoos away the “sand benders,” who jump on gliders with runners, earth bending little dust devils to power the sails.
FOUR
Up in the air the team goes to search for the library. The Professor is delighted, petting Appa. They fly all day in the heat, spotting nothing. The drawing shows a large, ornate building. Using a spyglass, Sokka finally sees something. It’s just a crooked tower rising out of the desert.
Then they see a fox carrying a scroll. It scampers up the tower and into a window. Sokka realizes that this lone tower is actually the tallest spire from the picture. The rest of the library is under the sand.
As the Professor starts digging with a spade, Toph touches the spire. The building is intact and huge, she says. She’ll stay outside, though. (Books not being of much interest to a blind person.) The rest of the gang tosses a rope and enters through the window.
They descend into an enormous gallery. Owl mosaics and relief carvings cover the stonework. And then a real owl, more than human-sized, enters. Even though the gang hides, the Owl sees them. Although calm, he’s not particularly friendly. Humans are no longer allowed in his library.
We go into a sepia-toned memory of a fire bender who used the books for information on how to destroy his enemy. Sokka immediately must lie, since he wants the same thing.
Aang as the Avatar vouches for the gang, and the Owl grants them access if they can each produce knowledge to add to the library. The Professor, Katara, and Aang provide a tome or scrolls; Sokka produces a knotted string. Well, it counts.
Meanwhile, outside, Toph and Appa sit in the tower’s shade. Toph babbles, passing the time. She says that the sand makes her view of the world fuzzy. Appa growls. “Not that there’s anything wrong with fuzzy!”
Back to the library. A fox shelves a book near the gang, who peruse. Sokka is the only one moving with a purpose, sticking scrolls in his rucksack. He finds a parchment under glass that describes the darkest day in Fire Nation history. Peeling it out, Sokka takes it and looks for more. When they get to the section of the library dedicated to the Fire Nation, they see it’s all been burnt and destroyed.
SWITCH
A fox overhears Sokka’s rant about how he’ll never know about the darkest day. It whimpers and strikes a point pose. The gang follows.
FIVE
The fox leads them to a round golden doorway. Inside is a giant astrolabe. Sokka sets the parchment’s date on the mechanism and throws the lever. It shows a solar eclipse. Literally, the darkest day. Sokka understands. He explains how they’ll take the information to the Earth King so they can invade the Fire Nation on the eclipse. In his excitement he misses the Owl standing behind him.
Sokka tries to justify his actions, but the Owl won’t accept his excuse. Flapping his wings, the Owl “takes his knowledge back”. Sand starts to sift onto them. He’s sinking the building. As they run to escape, he chases, a terrifying black and white flying spirit.
Outside, the tower starts to sink. Appa moans and rises. Toph, catching on, drives her fists into the tower’s stone, trying to arrest its slide. The sand won’t give her feet purchase. She lets go long enough to bend the sand into a firmer platform, then grabs the tower again.
The gang runs while the Owl chases. Aang bends an air blast that knocks the Owl aside, giving them a break. Sokka says he needs to know when the next eclipse will happen. He and Aang head back to the planetarium while Katara and the Professor continue to the exit, the Owl chasing.
SIX
While Toph struggles to hold the tower, Appa groans. He sees a dust whirl coming. It’s the raiders. They surround him.
SEVEN
In the planetarium, Sokka checks every date before Sozin’s Comet arrives. It’s a tedious process, but they finally find the day, a few months away.
EIGHT
Raiders throw ropes over Appa, tying him down. They bend sand around their ankles so they can pull harder. Toph tries to bend to rescue him, but the tower sinks too fast when she lets go. In one of the most upsetting shots of the series, Appa is dragged away behind the raiders’ sand runners. Toph, holding the tower, is devastated.
Katara runs through the stacks, the Owl chasing. At the rope, Katara turns to defend herself. Dropping from overhead on Aang’s glider, Sokka raps the Owl on the head with a book, knocking him out. Up the rope they go, although the Professor chooses to stay behind. The Owl pulls down the rope, and Aang must now glide everyone up and out. They fly through the window just as the tower becomes too much for Toph. She’s knocked backwards, and the library disappears under the sand.
NINE
Sokka celebrates. Aang walks over to Toph to ask where’s Appa. Unable to speak, Toph just shakes her head. Close on Aang as he realizes. The camera tilts up to the sun in the sky, and credits roll.
CRITICAL NOTES
Well, it’s a bad episode, and the next is worse. That doesn’t mean they aren’t well told! They’re just depressing. Appppppaaaa!
Look how tidy this is, though. The Three — raiders surround Appa — hits so hard when it mirrors at the Six with fuller context. The Switch divides the Four, when Sokka is randomly searching, from the Five, when Sokka seeks a specific answer. This points right into the Seven when Sokka insists on pursuing his question, not knowing that his extra time underground allows the raiders to take Appa.
Throughout, unspoken, is the theme of Aang twiddling his thumbs, going on mini vacays, procrastinating his purpose. The loss of Appa is an agonizing result. Aang is a boy who must carry the world on his shoulders. It’s a great conflict, and I suspect that this moment is the Switch for the entire trilogy. Don’t let bad things happen to Appa! It’s a motivation we can all support.