Book Two: Earth – Enneagram and Encaustic

Appa’s Lost Days

This is a long episode. Appa doesn’t speak, so the entire story must be show rather than tell. No shortcuts with language.

LEFTOVER NINE

Four Weeks Ago. It’s a flashback to the dunes and the sinking library. Appa fights against the sandbenders tying him up. Toph, holding the turret, can’t properly defend him. When the benders anchor themselves in the sand, Appa isn’t strong enough to fly free of their ropes. They ride away on their sandsailers, towing Appa behind.

ONE

Dissolve from Appa’s eye to the sun in the sky. Time has passed. The benders, sending little dust devils into the sails, pause. The leader, the self-important son, tells his gang to raid Appa’s saddlebags for treasure. When they jump on him, sand swirls up into Appa’s nose. He sneezes, blowing one of the boats into a sand dune. Leader Boy doesn’t care, though, because it’s a boat they stole.

THREE

Goods from the saddlebags are tossed onto the sand, including Sokka’s club. The gang considers it all garbage and leaves it behind.

Tales of Ba Sing Se

Each tale, amazingly, has a mini-Enneagram. How charming!

The Tale of Toph and Katara

ONE

Aang shaves his head, Sokka shaves his meager mustache, and Katara arranges her hair loops.

TWO

Cut to Toph in bed, her hair like a wild animal pelt.

THREE

Katara suggests a girl’s day out.

FOUR

At the Fancy Lady’s Day Spa, the girls are pampered. (A pedicure for Toph, whose feet are her connection to seeing the world, does not go well.)

City of Walls and Secrets

ONE

Our group rides the train from the outer wall into Ba Sing Se. Sokka jokes about their bad luck, and Katara reassures Aang that they’ll find Appa. As the train passes through the inner wall, the city stretches before them for miles in each direction. Even a giant bison might be hard to find in such a dense metropolis.

They disembark at the train depot. Aang blows his bison whistle with no result.

TWO

An overly-smiling woman approaches. It’s Joo Dee, come to show the Avatar the city. She knows all their names. When Sokka interrupts, insisting they tell the Earth King about the coming invasion, Joo Dee ignores him. He tries again. The camera goes close on Joo Dee’s smiling face: the city is perfectly safe.

THREE

They tour the city in a carriage. Joo Dee explains that the city has many walls to help maintain order. Katara asks why all the poor people are blocked off into this part of the city?

The Drill

Although this is a stand alone episode of the animated Avatar: The Last Airbender, it’s also a continuation — a second part — of the last episode. I’ll look at the Story Enneagrams of both. Let’s start easy, though, with the episode in front of us.

ONE

Fire Nation tanks and the immense drill, looking like a Dune sand worm, drive across the cracked plain toward the wall of Ba Sing Se. Hissing, the drill expands with a steam mechanism.

TWO

In an overlook tower on the drill are Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee. The War Minister in charge of the drill is unimpressed that earth benders prepare to attack, but Azula sends her gang out to take care of them.

THREE

In a small canyon, Sokka, Katara, Toph, and the refugees approach the wall. Aang and Momo fly up to meet them. He and Toph earth bend a rock platform with everyone on it up the side of the wall. When they get to the top, the gang gets a good view of the drill.

The Serpent’s Pass

Wow. It’s been almost two years since my previous Avatar: The Last Airbender post. I definitely intend to finish this second season no matter how long it takes, lol.

Since my last look, the live action version of Airbender has dropped. Of course I watched it immediately. Some day I may write an Enneagram Story Breakdown for the season. I would love to compare the two versions, including Character Enneagrams. What changed from animation to live action? And — spoiler — what was lost in the reboot that kept it from being as enjoyable?

For now, though, the guilty weight of the unfinished animation review takes precedence. Let’s go! The next two episodes run together under the title: “The Secret of the Fire Nation”. Will they each have an Enneagram, or are they one complete story?

ONE

The gang — Aang, Sokka, Toph, and Katara — rest and swim at a pool formed at the base of a waterfall. They seem congenial. Sokka looks at the map he stole from the Owl’s library that shows the location of Ba Sing Se. The only path through a series of lakes is “The Serpent’s Pass”, a thin bridge of land.

Sokka mentions that, without Appa’s flying, this is their only option. Katara shushes him, but Aang calmly says he’s okay. He just wants to get to Ba Sing Se and tell the king about the solar eclipse.

TWO

As they prepare to pack up, three “fellow refugees”, including a pregnant woman, greet them.

The Desert

This is the episode I wish I could just skip. It’s too sad.

ONE

Desolate, vast, and sandy. Each of our team faces out on the desert, looking in a different direction. Turning around, Aang yells at Toph for letting Appa be taken. She defends herself with reasonable explanations, and Aang explodes, accusing her of not caring. Katara intervenes, supporting Toph. Sokka gives a pessimistic view of the entire situation.

TWO

Aang won’t hear any of it. He goes airborne to look for Appa.

THREE

Katara assumes leadership. They must get the information about the solar eclipse to Ba Sing Se. They start walking.

The Library

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.

Bitter Work

Critical Notes, as always, follow the breakdown.

ONE

The gang camps in a rocky canyon.

TWO

Aang wakes before everyone else, excited that he will finally begin to learn earth bending.

Sokka grumbles and rolls over in his sleeping bag.

THREE

A rock explosion, and Toph cheerfully bursts from her stone tent, ready to teach. Sokka moans, and Toph earth bends his bag into the air. Mumble-cursing, Sokka hops away.

The Chase

See my Critical Notes after the breakdown for how I would fix a mistaken Three in an otherwise smoothly-structured episode.

ONE

Appa and the gang rest at a campsite.

TWO

Appa’s fur covers the ground. Aang blames the spring season as Appa shakes loose more of his coat.

THREE

From the fur Sokka makes a silly wig and Aang a beard. Rolling her eyes, Katara says she’s glad there’s now another girl in the group. Toph steps between the guys and lifts her arms to show off her “hairy” pits. A beat, and then Katara joins in the laughter.

Zuko Alone

We have a problem, lol. See my Critical Notes after the breakdown.

ONE

We see Zuko riding his ostrich-horse across a ravine bridge in a desertscape. (The Western theme is set right away.) His stomach rumbles as he smells meat cooking. Grasping his knife, he considers killing the man tending the fire.

THREE

The man turns to attend to his pregnant wife. (This is a couple we will see again in a later episode.) Zuko continues on, drinking the last of his water.

TWO

Now woozy and faint, Zuko dreams of his mother as she walks away from him.