Broken Promise 3: Catastrophes in Threes

[loopy777]

Broken Promise 3: Catastrophes in Threes

When Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Promise Part 1 came out, the Avatar franchise was ascendant. The fanbase was growing and glowing with the anticipated release of the sequel cartoon The Legend of Korra, Dark Horse had already published both a popular Art Book for the original cartoon and the non-canon

Comments

[loopy777]

Well, Suki helps a little with the Elite syndrome in ATLA. From the looks of things, she's a nobody whose backstory is so unimportant it didn't even merit a mention (we're not counting those hypothetical fanfics where she's Bumi's secret granddaughter), who attained a bit of rank through experience and ability and gets to finish the ride with the heroes and even save two of them from certain defeat and death. Although, I would argue that Sokka being the Chieftain's son is fairly inconsequential. If he and Katara were Bato's kids instead, I don't think anything would have changed for Sokka's storyline, except he would have had to meet another non-relative in Bato's place. Sokka's clearly meant to represent a kind of everyman who ascends to the status of Legendary Hero. Not quite C-3PO and R2-D2 or the corresponding bumbling sidekicks from Hidden Fortress, but I can see the nod

[sith_droideka]

On the other hand, about the high-quality steel, steel is used in a LOT of things. Sure, originally the steel might've been for use in weapons of war, but after the war it could go to building buildings, making vehicles (though not cars yet), making ships, making all sorts of consumer goods and appliances. The fact is about our real-world technology is that almost all of it is in some way touched by war. The Internet came from the United States needing a way to have its government communicate in the wake of a nuclear attack. Food canning came from Napoleon needing a quick way to transport preserved food across his conquests and all the way to Russia. Microwaves were developed from war-time radar devices during WW2. The first electronic computers were designed to break Nazi Germany's code

[chordatesrock]

Is there some reason why they couldn't have simply declared that the territory was going to pay its taxes to the Earth King and obey any Earth Kingdom federal laws (if such exist), and offered a free boat ride to anyone who would rather go back to the Fire Nation than stay?

[loopy777]

That's a very good question, and was even posed in a subtle manner in the first volume of The Promise, but it was definitely lost by the finale. Kori went from outright identifying as Fire Nation, and refusing to both leave her home and swear allegiance to a government she didn't identify with, to wanting complete sovereignty from any nation. I touched on this odd shift when I mentioned Sokka's talking about there being three sides in the fighting.

Sadly, I think this story was in too much of a rush to connect to the United Republic of "Legend of Korra" that it glossed over its own subject matter.

The answer, though, is that the people of Yu Dao are not thinking about this rationally. It's a good argument that Zuko isn't the only one overly concerned with Honor. (Or, at least, the Zuko in the cartoon. promise!Zuko has no honor and doesn't care.)