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for-i-am-dying-of-such-love · 4 years

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that time I watched Antony + Cleopatra

I don’t even know where to start with this one. Please don’t mistake my criticism of the episode with my hating it, because I actually think there’s a lot going on here with Xena (and Gabrielle too, but I am less focused on her arc) that’s quite nuanced and compelling. I love that Xena’s role in orchestrating Marc Antony’s downfall contributes to her moral and emotional conflict. What I abhor (and refuse to accept) is the suggestion that it’s born out of her falling in *love* with him, especially when there are far more consequential things in Xena’s life, past and present, fueling her angst in this moment. I have my own reading of what’s causing Xena’s uneasiness here, but more on that in a bit.

First: I think my greatest frustration is with the show itself. Like, THE FUCKING AUDACITY to foist a Boyfriend of the Week on us with just a handful of episodes left in season five. After everything, *everything*, that Xena & Gabrielle have suffered through (actual, literal HELL), and the continued devotion they show for one another, it’s just not believable that Xena would fall in love with someone else, let alone a ROMAN GENERAL. The emphasis here is important, but patience grasshopper, I’ll get to that.

Now, here’s where we start to get into the weeds with this notion of ‘Xena falling in love’ and there’s a lot to unpack around it, but before I do, let me just finish unspooling the threads of frustration I have with the show and it’s AUDACITY. Because it’s important to note that the show’s intention *was* to frame Xena’s attraction for Marc Antony as romantic - on top of whatever else she may have initially felt (indifference, intrigue, lust) - and not just sexual. And while I’ll concede that a story where Xena is forced to sacrifice her heart for the greater good by killing the man she loves is intriguing, it’s one we’ve already seen (Immortal Beloved). More than that, it’s a story that doesn’t fit with the Xena we know now, and the show, better than anyone, should have recognized this.

I know I’m being hard on the show runners here, so allow me this small tangent to give a little contextual understanding before furthering my arguments. As much fun as it is wrestling with the internal logic of this show (a surprisingly uphill battle all the time), I understand the unfortunate truth is that character motivations don’t always drive the story in the ways you would expect. Sometimes external factors complicate the stories XWP wants to tell and the ways it’s *allowed* to tell them. I get that.

I also get that Xena: Warrior Princess - both the show and the character - was expected to be sexy (hello, an easy win because Xena & Gabrielle). And that means, from time to time, it had to tease the audience with sex and seduction and romance (I guess fighting demons in Hell for the soul of your SOULMATE is not romantic enough, but I DIGRESS). What that often translated as on screen was a parade of Boyfriends of the Week for our two favourite Gal Pals, and by this point in the show, well, frankly it had been a while since Xena had had her a boyfriend (the Ares arc in season 5 doesn’t count). Simply put: a Marc Antony type was past due.

In this case, he wasn’t just past due, he served a dual purpose - fulfilling their Boyfriend of the Week quota, but also helping to re-establish Xena’s sexuality after she’d had her baby. I happen to think the latter take is overly simplistic and misguided (because, what, pregnant women are not also capable of being sexual creatures?), but it’s something Rob Tapert has commented on. So, ok, sure, fine whatever.

To be fair, I’m not sure if the show was deliberately signalling the return of Sexualized!Xena, or if it was simply a byproduct of the chemistry between the characters, and the inherent sensuality of the story’s setting. Regardless, the end result was certainly titillating. And I get it. I get why they want Boyfriends of the Week sometimes. Sex sells, and this episode was a blockbuster.

And before I return again to being hard on the show runners about dumb boyfriends, I just want to point out that my specific problem isn’t that Xena has been given a *boy*friend. Xena is bisexual, so men are always going to be an option when she’s considering a romantic or sexual partner. My issue is that she’s considering *any* romantic partner at all! By the gods, she’s essentially married to Gabrielle at this point.

Ay, but there’s the rub. Because the same expectation that dictated XWP should be sexy, also dictated that it should be heteronormative. The show can repeatedly double down on Xena’s & Gabrielle’s emotional and spiritual fidelity but it can never be seen explicitly to be sexual too (just a reminder, I haven’t seen S6 yet). That’s the unfortunate and uncomfortable reality of television in the late 90s and early 00s.

But this is where I take umbrage: XWP may’ve been limited (by studio notes) to giving us a chalk outline of what Xena’s & Gabrielle’s relationship really looked like, but they most definitely had the ability to control how they coloured the relationships Xena & Gabrielle had with their Boyfriends of the Week. And again, in ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ the show chose to frame it as a love story, a romance, when simply playing it off as Xena’s libido run amok would have satisfied the episode’s need for sex appeal, while also honouring the fact that her heart has long been spoken for (don’t worry: taking Xena’s heart out of the equation won’t lessen her moral or emotional conflict any - I’m getting there!).

Because here’s the thing: Xena getting caught up in the heady thrill of a seduction play, especially with a man as attractive and powerful as Marc Antony is totally believable. And really, Xena taken in by *lust* makes sense, especially at this point in her life. I mean, it’s been a while since she’s had to play this seductive cat-and-mouse game (Ares doesn’t count) and maybe she’s forgotten how easy it is to slip into this character, how much fun it can be. Maybe it’s even a little liberating - this return to form from when she was wild and free - because a lot has changed since she last had to do this; she’s changed and in ways she never anticipated. She’s settled down, even if she’s still travelling the known world. Made a commitment to Gabrielle to share a life together, had a baby, and now the three of them are carving out their own little domestic sphere. And all of this is happening while she’s still reconciling the person she was before with the person she is now. Maybe she’s a little itchy.

Because this… this tension, the cadence of a feint and parry charm offensive, it’s familiar. Comfortable in a way she didn’t know she missed until she felt it again. It would be easy to see her drunk with dark delight, to momentarily lose sight of her head. It would be believable. What’s not believable is that she - a pragmatist - would ever lose sight of her heart. Because the stakes of the game are so high, for Egypt but also for her. (And for you in the back who’s clearly read ahead on the syllabus and is about to point out Xena’s checkered romantic history and her self-proclaimed soft spot for Bad Boys Who Love Like Fools - don’t worry, we’ll get there too.)

What I’m taking a generous amount of time to say is this: if they simply wanted to give us a lush and sexy episode, they could have delivered on the sexiness without attaching it to a love story! We are long past believing Xena only kisses people she’s in love with, or that she’s in love with all the people she kisses. There’s no need to pretend her sexual agency is only relevant or operational within the confines of a romantic plot line. But more than that, throwing an unbelievable romance into the mix really only serves to threaten the integrity of Xena’s motivations, because it risks reducing the entirety of her turmoil to: Xena loses another boyfriend, how le sad. And that is absolutely not the point.

Because the point is this: Rome fucking corrupts and perverts everything it touches. And Xena’s motivations are built from her (and now Gabrielle’s) tortured history with the empire and the men who run it. And if you’ll permit me, like 4,000 words, we can get into it and, hopefully, you’ll agree that shit is heavy enough on Xena’s mind without a ‘star-crossed lovers’ storyline. Remember, it was only a year ago that they both were nailed up by Romans and left to die under a cold, grey sky at the foot of Mount Amaro. That cross alone, and the long shadow it casts, is more than capable of supporting the dramatic weight of this episode, never mind the crosses that came before it.

So, I can’t overstate the importance of Xena’s past connection with Caesar and Rome. It informed so much of who Xena was to become, as a cruel and bloodthirsty warlord, and then later, as a warrior fighting for good. Even now, after Caesar’s death, that connection is still informing her. It will never stop. And, Rome will never be absolved of its sins against Xena & Gabrielle. There’s simply too much trauma in that shared past. Trauma that‘s telegraphed onto every interaction Xena has with Rome and its strongmen going forward.

And it’s exactly the reason Xena would never fall in love with Marc Antony. She might well lust after his body, but she will never pine for his devotion. Because, even in that moment under the stars when he is just a man with his chest cracked open, offering up to her his heart, beating strong and hungry in want of her affection, she can’t help but see the hardened, black veins where the love of Rome - like a creeping scourge - has left its vile mark. Of course she recognizes it, her own heart bore the same disease. A gift from Caesar. The pretty boy with his pretty words and his pretty promises, who so subtly disarmed Xena and then skillfully stripped away her defences until she had bared her heart to him. Who didn’t hesitate to flay it with a knife of her own making, it’s blade poisoned with his love for Rome.

He did not take her heart - sometimes she wished he had - but left it to rot in her chest, slow and angry. And it nearly destroyed her. Nearly drained her of every ounce of humanity she had left, as hatred and spite and cold brutality filled her up instead. He had weaponized Xena’s affection for him and used it against her and she was forever changed. In that singular moment she saw Caesar, and Rome - because Caesar was Rome and Rome was Caesar and they were one and the same - for what they truly were: insidious and unrepentant in their calculated villainy. And she hated - not just the man who betrayed her, but the monster who nursed him with poisoned milk, and all the other strongmen who nursed at the same teat. Because in that moment too, Xena learned that all the men who kneeled before Rome and lusted after her glory were the same.

But she didn’t let her hatred go unproductive. She had been careless and imprudent in her dealings with Caesar, and nearly paid for it with her life. Except she survived and then thrived, in her own insidious, unrepentant, calculated villainy. And she never forgot what Caesar had done to her, how he had done it. She turned it over and over and over again in her mind. Studied it from every angle. Studied *him*. Until she knew how he thought, how he moved, where he was weak and unsuspecting. Until she knew every single one of his plays, and how best to counter them. Where and when to lay siege. A secret weapon she cultivated, not just to destroy the man who destroyed her heart, but to lay waste to all the fools who followed in his footsteps. She wouldn’t be taken in by Rome again.

And, to be fair, the episode doesn’t try to run from this history. It just doesn’t linger in it any longer than is necessary to give a brief nod to Brutus and the crucifixion (which is a shame, because it informs so much of both Xena’s & Gabrielle’s psychology, but we’re getting there!!!). Even still, Gabrielle’s first words are loaded with its legacy, if not also quiet resignation: “Are we really going to do this?” Because: Fuck! Rome, again? They’re only willing to go another round with Rome because of Cleopatra, only willing to embrace the ghosts this will stir up because they feel they owe it to a friend.

So, of course they’re going to do this. Only, it’s no longer about vengeance, at least not the white fury that once burned hot in Xena’s veins. This is different. Xena’s ire still seethes, but she doesn’t plan to wield it like a mighty sword, rather she’ll channel it with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel poised to excise a tumour, deliberate and clinical. The plotting is easy - Xena has a library of schemes stored away in the vast reserves of her grey matter - but made easier by the fact that she knows Caesar’s playbook so intimately. The man may be dead but he lives on in Rome and the hearts of all the faithful men who love her - proud and predictable. Puppets whose strings she knows she can deftly manoeuvre. The problem is that Xena’s too comfortable in her self-assuredness. Her plan and her assumptions of how Roman strongmen operate and her ability to manage everything is founded on her understanding of Caesar. And none of these men are the next Caesar. And it’s a problem, because this was supposed to be a quick and straightforward trip up the Nile to Memphis to do a little housekeeping on behalf of a friend and it’s been complicated by the fact that her pawns are not being cooperative.

This entire endeavour is not what she was expecting, Antony is not at all what she was expecting. He’s disarmingly handsome and charming, like many of Rome’s great strongmen, and their chemistry is electric - a bonus when you’re really trying to sell your part in a seduction play - but she realizes a little too late that the game she plays with him is not the one she had planned on. It’s actually much more dangerous.

And, I get that many fans believe Xena’s sexual attraction to Marc Antony is meant to telegraph an underlying romantic attraction as well. That as their physical encounters become more intimate and intense, so too must Xena’s feelings for him. And it’s easy to read it this way because Gabrielle’s own jealousy seems to reinforce the very idea, and Xena, herself, looks increasingly unsettled after each interaction. But I think it’s too simplistic an answer. Xena’s unease about Antony is growing because her plan has been frustrated by unforeseen hurdles, none of which include her falling in love with him. And Xena is frustrated in return.

We totally see this play out in Xena’s treatment of Gabrielle. She is curt and cool and dismissive (at least until their balcony talk), especially after Gabrielle puts a spectacular halt to Xena’s picnic with Marc Antony. But Xena’s distance here is not because she’s being defensive (at Gabrielle’s continued suggestions that she’s lost the plot), or because she’s angry for the interruption (ok, I’m sure there’s a very base part of Xena that *was* disappointed), or because she’s hurt (how could Gabrielle not have faith in her?). It may come across that way, but, really, Xena’s just acting out her frustrations.

Because this whole situation with Marc Antony, if a little intriguing at first, is irritating. And Xena’s frustrated. On many levels. The most obvious, and least surprising, being that Antony’s attentions have left her itchy and it’s distracting. And not because the chemistry between them has set off a chain reaction of romantic feelings for him - Xena is not spending her free time daydreaming about the man behind the General. It’s simply because there’s a kind of fire in her veins now that she wasn’t expecting to deal with this time out and it has the tendency to keep her on edge. And it’s not that she can’t handle it - spontaneous combustion is sometimes an occupational hazard when she’s playing at desire - it’s just that this particular element was not part of her plan.

That’s the real frustration: Xena’s not used to her plans being stymied. Her opening move - rolling herself, naked and chained, out from a carpet - though, brazen, should have been the perfect lure, should have painted her Cleopatra as an easy, if not unwilling, target for Antony’s ambitions. Because all Roman strongmen are the same: pretty boys with pretty words and pretty promises and pretty predictable tastes for cunning and seduction that they weaponize for the glory of Rome; heartless but for their love of res publica.

And so, this exact play is one Xena is confident any ambitious Roman would pounce on - remember: she knows their playbook, was once herself on the near-losing end of such a gambit, back when she was still a little naive and the right words could soften her heart; before her legs and her psyche endured the full force of Rome’s wrath. Except Antony doesn’t take the bait, like she expects, and it catches Xena flat-footed, a position she rarely finds herself in and one she isn’t particularly fond of. And so now she finds herself having to regroup and change tactics on the fly, which is fine - she’s used to that too - it’s just that her forward momentum is frustrated by the fact that she can’t get a good read on Marc Antony, doesn’t quite know his angle. He’s an unknown and unpredictable variable in a plot that already has a lot of moving parts and it introduces just the tiniest element of doubt into the equation.

Which is why it doesn’t help that Gabrielle is dubious of Xena’s motivations surrounding Antony. Not that Xena blames her for her concerns. She knows they aren’t really meant to provoke - that they come from a place of genuine anxiety, born from Gabrielle’s intimate understanding of Xena’s unhappy past with both bad-boy types and the ravages of Rome. Knows that Gabrielle, whose heart has traced all the scars of that past and let her love be a salve, is steadfast in her belief in Xena, even when the wheels are falling off. But Gabrielle’s questions do provoke. They pique Xena’s frustrations. It leaves her feeling cagey - like her back is up - and she hates it because it means she’s dangerously close to being on the defensive.

And really, by the time Marc Antony invites her to meet him under the pyramids, Xena is running out of options. Her back isn’t just up, it feels dangerously close to being backed up against a wall. She’s only playing this game because she’s confident she’ll win - that’s why she led with such a shameless opening bid, presenting herself to Antony as she did - but with each round Antony’ coyishness has forced her to up the ante while she waits for him to play his hand. Once upon a time she might have enjoyed and encouraged this slow, deliberate back-and-forth - would have been willing to play it out until she was out of chips (and her clothes) - but she no longer has the patience. Not that she’s entirely immune now to the thrill of what they’re doing - Xena has always enjoyed the hunt and then playing with her food - it’s just that she needs him to reveal his hand before he can call her bluff because there aren’t anymore chips to spare and she has too much on the line to go all in.

But Xena’s emotional conflict isn’t just being driven by her frustrations with the way her plan is playing out - it’s priming the engine, to be sure - there are other feelings at work here too. And chief among them is a deep and growing unease with the roles she and Gabrielle have cast themselves in and the very real consequences that will come from their interference. It doesn’t sit well with Xena, the way they’re toying with the futures of Egypt and Rome - as if they are just prizes to be won and Brutus, Antony and Octavius are the game pieces that need to be maneuvered around the board until a winner appears. As if there aren’t millions of lives at stake. She hates it. Hates that she has been somehow cast above it all, to dabble, like some unworthy god, in the lives of so many, and yet also stuck in the thick of it, an unwitting pawn herself.

And the longer Xena’s game is in play, the murkier everything becomes. What seems like a straightforward plan on paper, is actually a mess of competing interests, each as cold and ruthless as the next. And right at the heart of it all: Xena (and Gabrielle too), judge, jury & executioner. Because despite her business-like approach when they arrived in Egypt, Xena’s ability to remain detached and objective is under pressure, especially as all the players in her game reveal themselves and their motivations resolve into finer focus.

And there’s something about Marc Antony. He’s truly unnerved Xena. Because he didn’t play by her rules, the rules she owed to Rome - and he, a Roman no less. Maybe there would have been a time in her past when this would have endeared him to her, but now it’s left her uneasy. He needles at her resolve, the confidence she has in her plan. There’s a part of her that starts to wonder if she’s mis-read him completely, and that’s the start of a slippery slope into thinking she has mis-read this entire situation. And she doesn’t have the time for back-sliding.

But the problem is this: no matter how she looks at it there’s no clear answer, only devastating consequences if she’s wrong. For herself, for the lives she’s playing with, and probably for most of the known world. Because Rome and her strongmen will stop at nothing to take it all. And that thought never leaves her. Rome is a constant drum beat in her mind: Rome Rome Rome. Xena knows what Rome is capable of, what these three men jockeying for her power are capable of, even if Xena doesn’t know *them*. It echoes in her mind every time one of them is before her - even as Marc Antony’s kisses leave behind a fever in her blood - Rome Rome Rome.

And while her mind whirls constantly, turning over strategy and tactics, she’s tried to keep her heart mostly out of this affair. Left it unburdened by the machinations of statecraft and violent political intrigue. Except for a dull ache - when she thinks about Eve downriver in Alexandria, or when her eye catches Gabrielle in an unguarded moment - Xena could almost believe the desert sun had turned her heart to dust. Almost. Except that ache is there and, like her frustration and unease, it’s been growing more persistent.

Because Xena has more than herself to consider now. Sure, she’s spent the last five years dedicated to preserving the greater good - whether fighting for her closest friends or the nameless, faceless masses - but it’s different now, she’s different, and not just because she has a daughter who needs her to come home. She has Gabrielle too. They have a little family. And even though Xena has loved Gabrielle for years, she feels fiercely protective of Gabrielle’s heart and love now, in a way she’s never felt before, with anyone. But then, maybe it’s not surprising: they did battle demons in hell for each other’s soul. That sort of thing changes everything.

And Xena can see how this is affecting Gabrielle, even if she doesn’t say it out loud. Remembers the pierce of iron through the flesh of Gabrielle’s hands as surely as she remembers it through her own. Rome has robbed them both and Xena sees the weight of it in Gabrielle’s gaze. Sees, too, the way Gabrielle traps her bottom lip in her teeth as Xena smiles seductively at Antony. Watches the flush creep across Gabrielle’s pale skin when Antony’s kisses become more emboldened. Catches the dangerous flash in Gabrielle’s green eyes. The one that hasn’t gone away since they arrived in Egypt. Xena sees and it makes her heart lurch. To watch her beloved watch her take delight in the charms of another. And to know the sight of it is a white hot grip on Gabrielle’s heart. Xena feels the burning clench around hers too.

And this is the Xena we see when she meets Marc Antony under the pyramids. Frustrated and uneasy, heart aching. Tired. Tired of this game and her role in it. Tired of Rome, but mostly tired of all the horrible things that happen by her hand because of Rome. And then there is Marc Antony waiting for her. Disarmingly handsome and charming, unnerving in his refusal to play into her hands, a Roman above all: a pretty boy with pretty words and pretty promises. And like all Romans, she expects the promises to be lies. Except, there’s something in the way he’s played his hand, the way he’s held back all this time, that tells her there might be truth in his words when he tells her he wants her love.

She can sense his confession even before the words are out. Maybe on some level she always knew, had seen the inevitability of this moment even as she refused to believe in the possibility. But his words pierce the haze that has kept her from seeing her own folly. And it’s like lightning in a bottle. The way every frayed nerve snaps and jumps and arcs all at once - the rain of sparks illuminating everything that had left her mind and heart unsettled - in an instant of sudden, total understanding. It steals her breath and slices at her heart, this clear and unbearable realization. What she’s done and what she still has to do to bring this absurd game to a close.

See, she’s made a terrible miscalculation. Because in her mind Roman brutes are heartless. Capable of loving only Rome. And her seduction of Marc Antony was only ever meant to be a power play. How could it be anything more? She had weaponized lust and sex in the past to get the things she wanted, this was to be no different. Except that it was. And her hubris - her prideful overconfidence in her infallible, little plan, coupled with her resolute belief that all Roman men are Caesar at their core - has led her to overplay her hand. Not that she won’t still find a way to win. It’s just the cost will be much higher than she could have anticipated.

Because she has unwittingly weaponized Marc Antony’s affection for her and now she is going to have to deliberately use it against him. It is devastating. To see his chest bared to her so willingly, and to know that she must flay his heart with a knife of his own making. It shakes her resolve. It brings tears to her eyes.

But of course it brings tears to her eyes. She has done the unthinkable: she herself has become Caesar. The thing she hated most. The man who won her trust and her love and then betrayed her. Cold and hard and heartless. Brutal and ruthless and willingly so. In this moment she is Caesar. And soon she will become Rome, sacrificing another man, who might yet have been good, in the name of her unrequited love.

This moment under the pyramids is so important. Everything hangs on this declaration from Marc Antony, on Xena’s tears. I know people see it as confirmation of Xena’s feelings for him - and she has feelings to be sure - but they’re not romantic. Xena’s emotional reaction, and the genuine unease she wears thereafter do not hinge on her being in love with him. Xena’s humanity is enough to soften both her heart and her regard for Antony in this moment. Her compassion and regret are not dependent on attraction or attachment. And so the story doesn’t need to frame her tears for Marc Antony as a lover’s heartbreak, because her heart was always going to break for him, as it breaks for herself and Gabrielle and the ruin left in their wake.

And there will be ruin. Xena is certain of it. Although, for a moment, she might have held a glimmer of hope for Antony. This Roman who’s willing to give up his army for love. For love. Not that she wants what he’s offering. She just wants to believe he could be different. Not for her. For Rome. But then his sword is hilt deep in the belly of one of Brutus’ men and then slicing through the throat of another. And Xena knows - even as she and Gabrielle dance around the subject hours later, bathed in moonlight and disquiet - that any hope for him is misplaced. Knows exactly what he will do with Brutus’ army and Octavius if he prevails. Is keenly aware of what awaits if he learns of her deception and is allowed to live.

Because once upon a time she was the one who trusted and loved and was betrayed and lived. And thousands paid the price at the end of her sword for Caesar’s treachery. Xena can’t even imagine what Marc Antony, favoured son of Rome, might do. Can’t risk the chance. So he must pay the price at the end of her sword too. Xena wishes it weren’t so, tries to avoid the fight that will take his life - because now that she’s seen the humanity in her enemy she wants no further part in this madness she’s helped to orchestrate - only she doesn’t have a choice now. Alea iacta est - the die is cast, and her blade and her betrayal find Antony’s heart all the same. And when the end comes, there’s Xena, soaked in blood and rain and tears, in the middle of this fucking mess, the dead and wounded scattered about her. She can’t escape the truth of it then: she did this.

And it’s this! All of this - the many layers of trauma in need of reckoning and Xena’s tangled heart, twisted further by the part she is forced to play in Egypt and the goddamn fucking senselessness of it all - that carries the emotional weight of the episode. Who needs a Boyfriend of the Week when there’s already all this angst?

And, ok, I hear you say: Pattie, you’ve made some valid points about Xena’s state of mind, but why can’t Xena’s emotional and moral conflict be born from this fraught personal history AND from the fact that she *was* falling in love with Antony? Wouldn’t that make it an EVEN MORE dramatic and powerful story? Because she was specifically falling in love with a ROMAN GENERAL, the very epitome of the thing she has spent most of her adult life hating?

I would like to agree with you, dear skeptical reader, but the simple truth is that there isn’t room for both in *this* story. The reality is this: a 44-minute-long, action-focused show like XWP just doesn’t always have a lot of extra time to linger on the emotional beats. And this episode, in particular, already so busy with all the palace and political intrigue, has even less. So much of what we’re able to read of Xena’s psychological state - and *why* it’s so deeply fraught - doesn’t even come from this episode. It relies on past emotional beats to inform our understanding of her behaviour. (And, I don’t know, perhaps this is why a casual viewer might pass off Xena’s and Marc Antony’s interplay as romantic - because most of the horrible things that have happened to Xena by Roman hands are left unsaid, and surely, if we’d been reminded of them we would never accept that Xena would fall in love with a golden boy of the empire.)

As it is, there’s barely space for any kind of meditation on how either Xena or Gabrielle are feeling about the roles they are being forced to play and the seemingly callous and ruthless tactics they increasingly use to do so, let alone a tenuous romance. And the former is what this episode should be actively engaging with: the moral ambiguity that has been driving season five and will continue on through the end of the series.

Further complicating things with a love story, doesn’t make the episode more dramatic, it just takes up emotional bandwidth that could be better served elsewhere. Because, yes, Marc Antony is the epitome of the thing Xena has spent more than a decade hating! Xena’s history with Caesar and Rome (and everything they both stand for) is richly layered and devastating. It cannot be erased or ignored. To suggest that she is capable of falling in love with Antony (and to ask us to then believe it) without also deliberately exploring the tension inherent in that act is obtuse.

Those kinds of emotional beats need room to fucking breathe. And the episode doesn’t do this because there’s just too much happening. It tries - in broad, moody strokes - to capture the tenor of Xena’s emotional landscape, and it succeeds in wrapping us up in the same angst that drapes Xena, but the source is nebulous. Her haunted looks and tears - under the sphinx and when her sword finds Antony’s belly - can only telegraph so much, especially when we have been given very little reason to feel invested in her supposed affection towards him.

And here’s where we finally touch on Xena’s checkered romantic history - and her self-proclaimed soft spot for Bad Boys Who Love Like Fools (10 points to Ravenclaw for your patience) - because I’m sure you’re about to suggest that Marc Antony’s air of a Bad Boy is itself cause enough to garner Xena’s affection. Powerful, disarmingly handsome, and charming? Check, check, check. Capable with his ‘sword’? Bonus: super check. But just because her past is littered with dysfunctional relationships and Bad Boys - though I’m sure not all were bad, and some were definitely women - doesn’t mean she’s interested in repeating her mistakes. The Xena of old is vastly different from the one we know by season five, even if there are parts of her that are very much the same.

The principal driving force in her early adult life and formative romantic relationships was lust. It ruled over every part of her. Lust for: power and for violence and for blood and for riches and for infamy, and, of course, for sexual gratification. And so, she sought out partners - themselves driven by the same hunger - who could satisfy all of her desires, not just her (very) carnal appetite. She fell hard and fast and burned white hot until something, or someone, else came along and made her feel even more incandescent. In those early days, Xena wasn’t looking for *love*, she was looking for a good time.

Now, that’s not to say Xena’s past romantic entanglements were frivolous or lacking in genuine sentiment. At the very least, I suspect many were sustained by the warm affection that comes naturally from the intimacy of sharing your life with someone, whether they’re riding into battle alongside you or just warming your bed over a long winter. Nor is it meant to be dismissive of whatever fondness she felt for her lovers. Because: not all love looks the same. There are different kinds of love and different ways to love.

For Xena, though, whose heart had been so thoroughly and devastatingly mangled by Caesar’s betrayal, love was immaterial. At best, it was the unintended, if pleasurable, byproduct of a mutually beneficial arrangement. At worst it was a weakness that her enemies could exploit. Mostly, it was just a silly notion to scoff at. And the feeling Xena would come to associate with love - whether she acknowledged it as such, or not - was informed by both the dynamics of her relationships with Bad Boys and her own dark, irrepressible designs. It was selfish, and often cruel. Grounded in hot blooded impulses and savage desire, rather than growing out of an honest and patient connection.

And it became so thoroughly ingrained in her psyche. It was her overriding view of love. Even after she came to recognize how different love could be - and look and feel - once it was no longer centred in selfishness, when it was open and giving and kind, it was a struggle for Xena to undo her conditioning, to rewrite her love language. Because: first, she had to accept that she was worthy of this new kind of love, and then she had to actually accept it once it was offered.

But, old habits die hard, even for Xena, and I’m sure there were times - when she was just beginning to reframe how she viewed love and was learning how to reopen her heart - that she slipped back into her outmoded ways of thinking. Conflating lust with something else; allowing herself to be tempted by dalliances with partners who stoked her selfish desires, instead of tempering them. And maybe if Xena had crossed paths with Marc Antony then - back at the beginning of the series when her history with Rome was still messy but not nearly as tortuous as it is by the end of season five (you know after Britannia and its fallout which was the beginning of The Rift, and the deaths of Crassus and Ephiny and Pompy and the countless others who were the collateral damage surrounding those events, and, of course, Xena’s & Gabrielle’s own death on the cross) - I’d be willing to believe that she could love him.

Because, at one time Xena might have been interested in a man like Antony, might have been able to look past the Roman tunic and pursued him, taken in by his magnetism and allure. But by this point in the series Xena just isn’t interested, and not because her duplicity has made it impossible for her to be, but because by now her entire understanding of love - of being loved and giving love and nurturing it and making room for it to grow - has fundamentally changed. It’s been re-centred in selflessness, and everything that Marc Antony represents is antithetical to this new appreciation.

And I get that there’s an argument in here somewhere, that suggests Xena’s new approach to love might have softened her heart in such a way that she’s both able and willing to see the man behind the General, and be open to loving him too. But I would argue that the very things, the very people, whose love has transformed Xena’s heart are also the very things that would stop her from ever letting her heart go there. It’s not just that her point of reference on love has changed, it’s that she’s had years now of lived experience to break that cognitive dissonance between her attitude - knowing the kind of love she wants, the kind of love that’s *good* for her - and her behaviour - choosing that reaffirming, selfless love instead of the tempestuous, selfish one. She’s not blind to her past weaknesses, she knows exactly the sort of temptation Marc Antony offers - as surely as Gabrielle does the moment she lays eyes on him - but recognizing it is not akin to considering it. Because: Xena’s already found the love she needs and wants (and knows she’s earned and deserves).

Ok, but what of Xena’s admission on the balcony, when she cops to having a soft spot for Bad Boys Who Love Like Fools? I think it’s less about admitting (to herself as much as Gabrielle) that she’s developed romantic feelings for Marc Antony, as it is about Xena acknowledging a certain sort of fondness she feels for these ‘Bad Boys’. A fondness that’s born from a mutual understanding. Because: I think Xena sees herself in these men - at least an earlier version of herself - when she was ‘bad’ and foolhardy at love, and her heart tugs at the memory of it. Some curious mix of nostalgia and empathy, that softens her regard for them.

And she certainly sees herself in Marc Antony. The parallels between her story with Caesar and the story she’s now playing out with Antony are unavoidable, and if she’s cast herself as Caesar in this shadow play then Marc Antony is her younger self. Of course she would have a soft spot for him, she knows how this story ends. Knows, specifically, what it’s like to be willing to give your trust and your love only to be betrayed in return. And, of course, it’s made only more complicated with the knowledge that she’s the one who will ultimately be his ruin.

So, finally, exhausted and exasperated and, like 7,000 words into this, I hear you ask: what does it really matter? Xena doesn’t choose Marc Antony in the end, so what does it matter if it was lust or love or guilt or a fucking mid-life crisis that was driving her in this episode? Well, dear, patient reader: it matters because Gabrielle deserves better (THIS IS A BOLD STATEMENT, I KNOW, AND IT’S NOT AN INDICTMENT ON XENA’S CHARACTER EITHER, IT’S JUST THAT I FEEL VERY PROTECTIVE OF GABRIELLE’S HEART, OK! AND THE ONE THING THIS EPISODE DOES IS GIVE GABRIELLE THOSE LITTLE BEATS WHERE WE LINGER ON HER VISIBLE REACTIONS TO XENA’S TETE A TETE WITH ANTONY AND SHE’S CLEARLY JEALOUS AND HURT AND WORRIED AND SO, LET’S NOT LOSE SIGHT OF THE FACT THAT HER EMOTIONAL STAKES ARE ALSO INCREDIBLY HIGH IN THIS EPISODE, NOT JUST BECAUSE HER LIFE PARTNER IS SEDUCING SOME DUDE, BUT ALSO BECAUSE THE LEVELS OF BRUTALITY SHE’S INCREASINGLY HAVING TO EMPLOY ARE ALARMING. AND SO, SOMEONE IN THE WRITER’S ROOM WAS THINKING ABOUT THIS WHEN THEY WERE OUTLINING THE STORY - UNDERSTANDING THAT THERE’S AN UNDERCURRENT IN XENA’S & GABRIELLE’S RELATIONSHIP THAT WOULD MAKE SEEING XENA WITH ANTONY UNCOMFORTABLE, BUT THEN NOT ALSO RECOGNIZING THAT THAT SAME UNDERCURRENT WOULD MAKE IT EQUALLY UNCOMFORTABLE FOR XENA. AND IT’S JUST LIKE: TEAM, WHY DO YOU HAVE TO DO THAT TO GABRIELLE? HER HEART MUST HAVE BEEN IN A TERRIBLE STATE. AND WHY DID YOU HAVE TO MAKE XENA COMPLICIT IN THIS?)

But, seriously, I’ve spent all this time diving deep into this episode and the ways it comes up short and why, and while I’ve alluded to it, I’ve mostly avoided the elephant in the room.

We need to talk about Gabrielle.

Because: Gabrielle is at the heart of why a romance between Xena and Marc Antony feels contrived and unconvincing. At this point in the show, it’s clear Xena & Gabrielle are fully and completely committed to each other (and, yes, I know that doesn’t necessarily preclude either of them from also seeking romantic or sexual partners elsewhere... I just don’t think they’re the sharing types, but I DIGRESS) - I mean, we *just* had ‘Kindred Spirits’ where they were nesting and talking about domestic bliss and privately teasing each other about their sex life in the most blatant way possible and failing miserably at breaking up but winning at being cute and married and adoringly in love. And I think it’s important to acknowledge the weight of Xena’s decision to very clearly have Gabrielle as her *life* partner - because implicit in the act of choosing to commit yourself to another person is a vow of fidelity, a bond that would be near-holy to Xena, whose word means everything.

But more to the point: Xena loves Gabrielle and Gabrielle loves Xena, and their love has been the beating heart of this show from the beginning. Gabrielle’s care and tenderness has been transformative - everything that Xena has come to understand about love, everything that she does to honour and protect it, is because of Gabrielle and the heart she’s so selflessly given of. And it’s this love story - and how the show has framed its slow and beautiful unravelling - that becomes the bench mark, the gold standard, for how all other love stories in this universe should be viewed, for how Xena, herself, now views love.

So, I guess what I’ve been saying all along is this: Xena can’t possibly be falling in love with Marc Antony because she’s already in love. Deeply, profoundly, bound-for-all-eternity in love. And no one, in this life (or any other, let’s be real) will ever compare. Not pretty boys with pretty words and pretty promises. Not Bad Boys Who Love Like Fools. Not even a god himself. There is only Gabrielle.

#xena #xena warrior princess #xwp #otp: for i am dying of such love #xena and gabrielle #S05E18: Antony + Cleopatra #pattie has some thoughts #the fucking audacity #i still cannot even

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tfw-no-tennis · 3 years

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mtmte liveblog issue 19

it’s 2021 now!! time for more transformers

we start off w/a flashback showing tyrest retrieving ultra magnus’s body from the ship - and we get a look at magnus’s spark, which is the green color of a 0.1%er [eyes emoji]

tyrest punching magnus..... grrrrr leave my dad alone bastard man

‘the divided self’ what a good title

rodimus is like listen man this is a lot for my poor thot brain to take in

in flashback land, we see tyrest immediately launch into a crazy person spiel about how he can and will edit the law as he sees fit to conform to the situation, because that doesn't seem like a blatant abuse of power or a huge conflict of interest or anything

oooh the screen in the corner that says ‘thought warfare,’ I see that

oof, poor magnus. its gotta be rough to hear your boss rant about how bad at your job you are....especially bc this is right after overlord called magnus a joke and nearly killed him

its especially brutal bc as magnus says, his job is his life

augh, I love the panel where the armor is falling off around minimus, and then the one where he’s holding the ultra magnus head...poetic

its fascinating that there was an ‘original’ magnus who was an actual guy, and then tyrest chose to make him into this legacy symbol - I'm assuming the OG magnus had no say in this, and probably didn't even know that he was gonna become this lawman legacy figure

I do wanna know though - obviously everyone thought that ultra magnus was one dude, but how did the different guys wearing the armor deal w/that? like, did minimus have people coming up to him like ‘hey ultra magnus old buddy! remember when we fought those guys in that one place? good times!’ like, do they have to study up on the lives of the past armor wearers to prepare for the role of ultra magnus?

augh poor minimus, of course he’s been wondering about what happened with overlord after he was KO’d

oof, drift...I feel like minimus looks surprised and a little skeptical at the idea that drift was the one behind the entire overlord thing - which is interesting bc as we saw at the beginning of the story, he doesn't exactly trust drift, but it’s still pretty far-fetched that one person orchestrated the entire thing

tailgate :(

the concept of a load-bearer is SUPER cool, I love it so much

it also puts a much-needed limit on things - as in, there IS a limit to how much weight/mass a normal cybertronian frame can carry, which is why you don't see everybody upgrading to be Massive - bc they actually CANT

oof, the worst part is that tyrest is RIGHT, minimus essentially DID have a nervous breakdown after the war ended bc of the rigid way he views the world

mental health support is clearly in shambles for cybertronians, yikes. they literally have 1 therapist for their entire race, and he’s not even licensed anymore due to hipaa violations. what a mess

the ‘attention deflectors’ thing is so cool and clever and also a great explanation as to why ratchet or anyone else never said ‘hey wait a minute, you're actually a much smaller dude in a trench coat’

I love tailgate knowing all the stuff about the autobot code bc of magnus...my BOY

and THATS why minimus was asking about skids specifically earlier!

oh minimus, please don't put so much stock in tyrest being stable and resonable...

aaaand there's skids and swerve! brainstorm says it best - ‘because something unexpected hasn't happened for at least nine seconds.’ lmao ily brainstorm

finally checking in w/whirl and cyclonus - god I love that. whirl asking cyclonus how many cons he killed and cyc is like psh I wasn't keeping count....................ok it was six

hhhhh cyclonus IS looking for a cure for tailgate, even though he told tg that there wasn’t anything to hope for....excuse me as I go be emo

and now we flash over to the unethical medical conduct hell zone, where pharma is being weird and horny and ratchet is appropriately horrified

I seriously love how unhinged pharma looks, the art & colors do such a good job conveying his feral energy

ratchet has some massive dick energy for taunting pharma when he’s currently just a head and pharma has dual chainsaws for hands

ugh, I love whirls speech about anger...and I feel like he really does see cyclonus as a peer, despite cyclonus wanting to kill him, which is why he tells cyclonus all of this

I fuckgin love that cyclonus’s reaction to very suddenly getting stabbed thru the abdomen is to just glance down at the sword, looking mildly inconvenienced

back over to ratchet - and at first its like oh wow I can’t believe pharma was stupid enough to let ratchet goad him into this contest....but then you see first aid and ambulon and its like UH OH this is gonna be BAD

the idea that getting sliced in half is no big deal for a cybertronian is wild

‘you're gonna let doctor djd cut us in half?’ yeahhhh that's an appropriate reaction, yikes

FUCKING LENGTHWAYS GOD

pharma you piece of shit

poor ambulon :( :( :( that's fucking brutal. amazing panel but....jesus

and like, to further my point from last issue’s liveblog - the fact that this very gore-y panel is okay, but swearing isn't...that's really funny honestly. I guess robo-gore is acceptable, while I'm guessing regular ole run of the mill human gore wouldn't be

then back to cyclonus, who is still looking only vaguely put out by the sword stuck right thru him

and then cyclonus just pulls it right out, which is a very bad idea for humans but probably not as big of a deal for big near-immortal alien robots

circle of light stuck in capitalistic urban hellscape cubicals

poor skids, being asked to stand trial while having no idea what his crime is due to Big Amnesia

OH SHITTTT I totally forgot that getaway shows up here

that is super clever though, with chromedome confusing the name ‘getaway’ with the concept ‘needing to escape’

cant believe tyrest is really dumb enough to tell minimus all his evil plans

BUT that means its time for some very important forged vs constructed cold lore

jro spelling ‘program’ as ‘programme’ made me remember when he said that he considers everyone on the lost light to be british, which is perhaps the least valid thing he’s ever said vhbghjsdbfjkhasbjk

the idea that they used the matrix - which is portrayed as kind of a holy object - in reproductive experiments is really interesting

AUGHHHHH this is all so good and interesting...im really fascinated w/this particular brand of like, alien robot racism/constructism/whatever you wanna call it - I feel like it does such a good job as a plot device, where many other ‘fantasy racism’ concepts from other franchises fail, bc there's not really a ‘human metaphor’ being used here (as far as I know/can tell) - as in, this isn't a thinly veiled metaphor for something that happened/could happen in human history

in fact, this type of bigotry (or w/e you wanna call it) isn't something that is even really possible in humans - I guess if there was a stigma against being born via ivf or something...? but there isn't, so there's no obvious real-world equivalent, which I take as a sign of good writing and worldbuilding - it makes the cybertronians feel more Real, bc of course they would have their own types of bigotry based off of completely different things than humans

additionally - and this is crucial - tyrest is wrong: there’s no like, inherent moral corruption in cold constructed bots. there's no difference at all, other than method of construction. fantasy racism plotlines often flounder here, with the oppressors having a ‘valid reason’ for oppressing the oppressed, but tyrest is just operated on religious zealot bs and some biased science

like, dude, did you ever think that maybe there are other reasons why your trials only condemned cold constructed bots? like, maybe the trial itself was biased? or societal conditions were to blame? correlation is not causation, my dude, especially when the conclusion is ‘cold constructed bots are inherently SINNERS’ lmao

like, tyrest rlly said ‘FUCK separation of church and state,’ huh

anyways I just think the whole cold construction vs forged thing is really interesting and well-done, and serves as a good precursor to the more fleshed-out functionism stuff we see later

so tyrest is clearly off his rockers w/the whole drilling thing - dude, you accidentally gave yourself a lobotomy, okay - but I find it kinda funny that he’s right about a lot of that stuff he said at the end, about primus and the guiding hand and stuff being real

cyclonus saying ‘tailgate and the others’...I see you, man, I see you

also cyclonus looks fine now??? didn't he just get stabbed???

ah, tyrest sprinkling a little light genocide onto his plan to find salvation. nice, dude!

MINIMUS NOOOOOOOOO

‘fully deserved’ SHUT UP BIIIIITCH

poor minimus is taking a lot of Ls this arc, geez

oof, great issue! again, as usual....I loved the lore we got this issue, its so interesting...and some good character stuff too. I love minimus, I feel like he’s gonna be my fav this readthru; my first read my fav was brainstorm, second readthru was whirl, and I feel like its minimus/magnus this time. I just love his character arc...

hype af for more B)

#lj rereads mtmte

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dlamp-dictator · 5 years

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Allen’s Rambles about Magical Girl Spec Ops

Well folks, since the second half of MGRP: Limited isn’t going to come out for likely another 4 months I’ll have to talk about different Edgy Magical Girl series for awhile. Thankfully, I’ve been reading for a while that’s finally got enough material for me to talk about, Magical Girl Spec Ops -Asuka-, or MGSO as I’m going to be calling it. I was originally going to talk about this one in another Seinen Adventure, but... I won’t have enough material for that part of my blog for at least another few months, and I want to talk about this manga now before the anime of it comes out in a few weeks.

But moving on, MGSO is about Asuka Otori, a retired magical girl that fought in a war against the Disas Beasts three years before the story the begins. She’s in high school now and wishes to just live a normal life after the horrors of war she saw during the Disas War.

As for why such a war was trauma... well, the the Disas Beasts in question are basically...

This... So I think the horrors of a war with them explains itself. They also explain how Magical Girls and magical items are used as tools of wars, some stuff about global politics, things like that.

Eventually, Asuka is forced back onto the frontlines as Magical Girls and magical world items start to be traded around by criminal organizations and terrorist groups around the world, with said groups finally coming to Japan. And...

Well, that’s the main reason I’ve been hesitating on writing about this series for so long folks. There’s only 4 volumes of the manga out as of the time I’m writing this. Through those 4 volumes have so far shown us how the world works now that Magical Girls are essential super soldiers working for their countries with all the political nonsense that goes with it, but that’s all it’s done.There’s an overarching plot of the Disas Beasts being artificially made and sold by a secret organization called the Babel Brigade that’s been drip-fed to us, but there’s not enough concrete stuff about them to say what their main goal is, nor the big players within it. I really wouldn’t expect much in terms of actual plot development until the next volume coming out in late January. So far it’s just been Call of Duty: Black Ops featuring Magical Girls.

That said, this series has gripped me with what it’s shown. I was originally going to have those plus sides in paragraph form, but... again, with no streamlined plot as of yet and not enough information on anyone aside from Asuka to talk about, I’ll just stick it all in list form. There will be some spoilers ahead, but I’ll try and keep them brief and vague.

Asuka is treated less as a traditional magical girl and more as a soldier coming back to service after a big war and I love that. She even has some PTSD flashbacks at times that make her want to back out of most military operations, but trudges on for the sake of her friends and former teammates. Her struggle to keep a normal life while doing secret military operations and the mental toll it takes on her just makes me want her to succeed even more.

As for as much as politics move the plot and the girls we’re thankfully not subjected to seeing a bunch of suits sitting in a room and debating politics. There’s enough of a political aspect is there enough to show that these girls and these soldiers are political tools, but not so much that there’s more talking than shooting.

The fact that all of Asuka’s original squad was ethnically diverse was a pleasant surprise, with the main group of survivors being her, a former classmate of hers, an American, a Russian, and... a Hong Kong magical girl. Among the original girl there was also a French and Mexican magical too, but going any further is spoiler territory.

Yes, the American and Russian magical girls are petty as hell with each other and it’s hilarious.

“Yo, Russkie!”

“Long time no see, Yankee. Are you still hotheaded and stupid as always?”

“Oh, says you! Your cold-fish robot vibe hasn’t changed one bit.”

This is my favorite exchange in the manga yet.

The side characters are pretty good as well. Asuka’s non-magical girl friends provide some levity to the tenser moments, and you really feel worried for their safety when Asuka’s soldier life intertwines and interferes with her student life and puts her friends in danger. That balance between the two feels a lot more serious than most magical girl series.

I’m also excited to see the newest magical girl villian, Chisato. Her rise to villainy makes her pretty sympathetic to me. She chose to work for the bad guys, but let out of spite and more to show appreciation for how they helped her despite their evil deeds.

There are some other points I found interesting as well, but those would really spoiler the series. Overall, I’m excited to read more of this manga in the coming weeks, and for the anime that’ll be coming out soon, but like usual I’ll probably stick with the manga unless some cool fight scenes get animated.

Actually... I think I’ll explain this now since it’s second time I’ve done something like this and for the same reason I didn’t watch the Goblin Slayer anime.

I’ve said this several times before, but for me, between my Ramblings, my digital drawings, my video game habits, I frankly stare at enough screens in my day. I like to use manga and books as a way to give my eyes a break from all the lights. I usually don’t watch anime adaptations of manga I’m actively reading because I already know what happens, and I already have certain expectations of how certain characters sound and deliver lines. Even the Japanese dub tends to irk me at times when something isn’t what I expected, and I don’t want to turn into a venomous fanboy constantly making comparisons between the two sources. I don’t think it’s good to compare an adaptation to the original too heavily, and when I’m so invested in a series both emotionally and financially I tend to get a little... rabid. Besides, as I said before the real plot of the manga with the Babel Brigade hasn’t kicked off yet, and I don’t want to be spoiled on that by the anime, so I’ll wait a few months after the winter season ends to binge it. I know that sounds a bit arrogant, but in this way I won’t start whining about every little difference like a fanboy, so... make of that what you will.

In any case, I think that’s it for this Rambling. Still not up to my preference in terms of quality, but MGSO is still drip-feeding it’s main plot, so maybe my next essay will be better. I’ve got... some plans for these next few essays.

#magical girl spec ops asuka #mahou shoujo tokushusen asuka #your dictator is speaking

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consmcchill · 5 years

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Avatar the Last Airbender movie FIXED

I did it. TLDR: I fixed the movie The Last Airbender. Feel free to skip this rambling intro and scroll down to the good stuff.

For the rest of you, my name is Conor McCahill, I’m an actor and wannabee screenwriter living in Chicago.

I wanted to post this on the internet for three reasons:

One: Avatar the Last Airbender means a lot to me. My high school friends would meet every week at my house to watch each premier live. Those memories are among my happiest. I was beyond excited for the movie, but, everything I found out about it pushed me further from it and when it finally came out I resolved never to see it. And I didn’t, until I was in a show with Francis Guinan, who played Master Pakku, and when he told me he was in it, I thought, “Hey, why not?” Watching this movie was one of the most disappointing experiences of my life. Fast forward to now and I’m reading Save The Cat, which is a book about screenwriting and one of the homework pieces is to fix a bad movie and make it a good movie. Obviously, the worst movie I can think of is The Last Airbender, so I chose it to fix it.

Two: Fans scare me. True deeply loving fans are like tiger mothers. You have high standards, and good for you! I can’t think of anyone who would enjoy this project more than a diehard fan and my goal is to impress you.

Three: Though I started this before the Netflix announcement of the Avatar the Last Airbender live action series, I’d still like to think that this could help get the movie remade. However, even if it doesn’t, maybe this can help you find closure that in some universe, a better movie exists.

I wrote this as if it was a wikipedia article describing the movie. I tried to avoid dialogue as much as possible, but sometimes, it’s just clearer. I used screenshots from the show to aid the reader though sometimes the pictures aren’t perfect, and other times I used real pictures or art. I linked to the websites where I did that.

The process:

I watched all of season one again, with an eye for character and story development. It was a real treat and I graphed each character’s development over the season, who was the main character of each episode, and how they grew in each episode. I painted a picture of tracking information about the characters, which characters know it, and when it is revealed to a character or the audience. I also tracked tokens, my word for props of importance like Aang’s staff and the water scroll. Adapting this cartoon to a movie was a huge challenge that I was not fully prepared for. The biggest challenge faced is reduction of the source material into roughly an hour and a half to two hours. Season one is very filler heavy, we get to meet our characters and watch them interact, and the first season takes its time and lets the characters be kids in a really nice way. Each episode is roughly twenty-two minutes long, making the season about seven and a half hours long which means inevitably something is going to be lost in translation because we’re losing six hours of content. Episodically is a great way to tell a story with lots of characters with multiple plot lines and over longer periods of time. Movies are better equipped to tell stories as an immediate chronological sequence of events with few characters. This just comes down to time and how much we have to tell the story and how the audience processes a story in “real time.” If you want the movie to be exactly the same story, well, that’s impossible and you should just watch the cartoon. It’s gonna change, there’s no way around it. After finishing the cartoon, I decided it would be a good idea to at least watch the movie again.

Overall and if you squint, Shyamalan got the story of the first season in the movie pretty accurately. His movie goes, southern water tribe, southern air temple, earth kingdom, northern air temple, and northern water tribe. The problem is that we don’t really get to enjoy any one thing for too long because we’re being whisked off to the next one. I didn’t want to make the same mistake, so I chose to limit my main settings to the number of my acts, for simplicity. I picked the southern water tribe, the southern air temple, and the northern water tribe capital.

Shyamalan decided to write each movie one at a time and I really think that doomed the project. I think he decided to do it that way, Nickelodeon went along with it, and by the time he realized his mistake, production has already started, and he couldn’t hold it up because it’s millions of dollars and our young actors are rapidly aging. Any kind of delay will hurt a project starring kids more than other movies. If you want to do it right, you need to be ready to pump out each movie so the kids can age naturally and not suddenly be adults, (see: Harry Potter.) Keeping his decision in mind, I decided to approach this project as if it were a trilogy. That helped me eliminate characters and plotlines for movie one, because they can appear later. I whittled my main characters down to seven, which is more than plenty; Aang, Katara, Sokka, Zhao, Zuko, Iroh, and Yue.

Let’s talk about Yue. Her sacrifice is the emotional apex of the first season of ATLA and is therefore the most important part of the movie. We need to care about Yue because the more we care, the more effective her sacrifice is and the more satisfying the emotional catharsis. In visual media, the way we make you care is we give you screen time. In the show, she gets three full episodes, but the development of her relationship with Sokka feels rushed. It still feels better than the Shyamalan movie, where she comes in at the last thirty minutes, and by all accounts gets half as much time as the cartoon. Considering her sacrifice, Yue needs to come into the movie early. Save the Cat talks about act two as the love act. Often in movies, it is when our protagonists meet a new character(s) who will nurture them through the end. It does not have to be true love or romantic love, it is often friend love. That seems like a perfect place for Yue.

I didn’t want to change the canon, but I had to get Yue into contact with Katara, Sokka, and Aang. I decided that the most important thing, at least in adapting, is not necessarily what happens to our characters, but that they grow in the same way. That freed me up to consider other, more exciting possibilities. Like, what if we bring Yue to the south, on a quest? Aside from Yue, the most necessary element of the north is the spirit oasis, so Zhao can kill the moon. So, I thought to place the spirit oasis in the ruins of the southern tribe capital, so we’re not suddenly robbed of a whole world crossing adventure where lots of stuff must happen. We can grow with our characters (Aang, Katara, and Sokka) in the illusion of real time, and not cut to weeks later at the northern tribe. That evolved into a portal to the northern water tribe, something heavily plot relevant, canon from The Legend of Korra, and it gives something new to longtime fans.

The Yue I came up with differs from the show Yue in very exciting ways. I develop her relationships with Aang and Katara and give Sokka a stronger interest, a love that could actually be returned and is hopeful. The best part is, I make her more active instead of passive. Since this will be her only movie, she should be there more, not to mention there are five main males and only one main female without her. All my own changes made me sympathetic to the way Shyamalan had to alter the plot and characters and it was the choice to boost Yue’s role that really lead to this entire piece.

Thanks to Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino for their work that continues to inspire me to this day. Thank you to all the long-time fans who run the Avatar the Last Airbender wiki. Your work was essential. I lifted some passages directly from the episode descriptions that match what I see as the movie, but where I did, I tried to mark with a *. Also, I used some art and photos and I provided a link to those artists. And, I dunno, thanks to Jim Henson who thought it was important and healthy for children to feel fear.

How I would open the movie:

Open on the fire nation palace: an imposing tower of red crowned with gold spires slices a sunny blue sky in two and looms over a vast courtyard. The front doors are open and we zoom into the darkness. Inside the palace, the air is thick and stuffy and ornate tapestries line every wall lit by braziers that fume and pop and crackle.

In a gallery filled with portraits of proud and angry men and women cloaked in red and holding fire in their bare hands, a teenage boy sits at a table, playing a tile game with an older man.

The boy squirms, agonizing over his next move. The older man is toying with him, but plants seeds of wisdom on how defeat a superior opponent. The boy tentatively places a tile, lingering his finger on the it before whipping it away. The old man examines the board.

With one decisive move, he places a lotus tile in the center of the field, winning the game leaving the young man in disbelief. The older man laughs as the younger man passionately demands a rematch, but they are interrupted by the sound of footsteps and they stiffen. A messenger comes. He bows low, and begs forgiveness from Prince Zuko for interrupting him, but he has come to escort General Iroh to a war meeting. The older man smirks and asks the younger man if he forgives the messenger. Zuko rolls his eyes and says he does but asks his uncle if he can join him in the war meeting. His uncle denies him, but the young prince pleads. He wants to be a good king someday, why not learn as soon as possible? Iroh relents and warns Zuko not to speak out of turn.

Iroh leads Zuko into the hall before the throne room. As the firebending generals go in, each makes a flame in their hand and adds it to a fiery bowl on a pedestal in the center of the hall. Iroh explains to Zuko, as he follows suit, that the ritual serves to show that no firebender will use fire bending in the throne room or face extreme consequences. Even the fire lord is honor bound to uphold his promise, he just never has to symbolically prove himself. Iroh puts his fire in the bowl. Zuko steps up after him and does the same, his face lit up by the flames.

The inside of the throne room is darker than the rest of the palace. Zuko is both frightened and exhilarated. As a particularly old and decrepit general drones on, Zuko admires the long war table, painted to display the entire world and littered with pieces that make war seem like a big game. This will all be his someday. His eyes draw him down past the far end of the table, to the wall of fire beyond which a dark figure, the fire lord, sits on an ornate throne obscured by the dancing smoke.

Zuko stares at the man beyond the flames and their crackle fills his ears. He feels the eyes of his father staring back. Zuko snaps to attention, just as the old infirm general outlines a plan to send fresh recruits into combat against a heavily garrisoned earth kingdom fort. The prince asks the general how he expects the recruits to survive, his interruption sending a wave of murmurs down the table. The general clarifies, he doesn’t. Their sacrifice will be enough to weaken the earth kingdom army, so they can be wiped out by a second wave of more seasoned elite fire nation soldiers. The mutters of agreement wash over the room. The prince is horrified. He cannot believe what he is hearing and stands and speaks, in defense of the new recruits and their lives. To send loyal soldiers to their doom is nothing short of treasonous. The color drains from Iroh’s face as the wall of flames flares up. He clutches Zuko’s robes and advises Zuko to apologize or be honor bound to settle the matter in an Agni Kai.

Zuko sizes up the old general. What could this old man, so near to death, possibly do to him? His uncle hisses at him to be quick, but Zuko is not afraid and accepts the fire duel. The wall of fire burns high beyond him.

High above the Agni Kai arena, the crowd that lines the stands chant ceremoniously. Zuko kneels, his back to his opponent and the chanting ends. He breathes deep, spins and rises, and throws off his cloak to face… his father, the fire lord.

Zuko doesn’t understand, the general he spoke against is in the audience, smirking, next to a teenage girl and his uncle.

The Firelord fumes at him, it was his plan Zuko spoke against and it was he, the fire lord, Zuko disrespected. His booming voice echoes in the vast chamber. Zuko falls to his knees, he won’t fight his father. The fire lord demands that he stand and fight, but Zuko refuses. The fire lord will give him one more chance but Zuko bows further, touching his forehead to the hard stone floor. The Firelord calls upon the crowd to witness his son’s cowardly refusal to fight. Only a permanent lesson is appropriate for such shameful weakness, he growls as he approaches his grovelling son.

Slowly, Zuko lifts his head and begs his father for mercy, but there is none.

In the reflection of his left eye, a fireball heads towards Zuko��s tear-stricken face. A girl’s voiceover begins. “Long ago the four nations lived together in harmony, then, everything changed when the fire nation attacked.” The fireball grows larger and larger in his eye until the whole frame is filled with fire.

https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-illustration-yurt-vector-drawing-portable-round-tent-covered-skins-felt-isolated-white-backdrop-freehand-outline-black-ink-hand-image80545151

The fire in Zuko’s eyes becomes a campfire in a yurt. “Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished.”

Reveal, a pretty and bright water tribe girl, Katara, telling the story of the Avatar to the young children she babysits.

The kids beg Katara to waterbend for them. She’s not supposed to, and they moan and whine. To appease them, she waterbends the soup in the pot in a swirl. They beg for more and, though it is difficult for her, she manages to suspend an undulating ball of steaming water in the air. It is a magical moment, even for Katara, and they all watch in awe until she lowers it back down. The kids go nuts and all take turns trying to waterbend the soup, but it soon becomes clear that she’s the only one who can. As she watches them all around her, there is a sense of how lonely and isolated she really is.

The flaps fly open and a teenage boy on the brink of manhood barges in and asks what the ruckus is about. Katara blurts out Sokka’s name in surprise and passes the commotion off as just childish playing. She turns the conversation to his hunt. He pretends to be downcast, then reveals three small fish triumphantly. Katara squeals with joy and embraces him.

https://itadakimasuanime.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/seafood-shellfish-hitsugi-no-chaika-avenging-battle-06.png

Later, as the sun sets, the fish roast over the fire. Katara, Sokka, and an older woman, their grandmother, eat with appreciation as if a feast as meager as this is rare. Sokka finishes first and as he gets up, he rips his pants, again. He criticizes Katara, her stitching is still terrible, and since Grangran can’t do it anymore, it’s up to her. He reaches for his other pair of pants but stops when Katara admits that she hasn’t mended them yet. Sokka gets cross with her for not finishing her chores. Katara retorts that if he wasn’t so clumsy, he wouldn’t tear his pants. Sokka scolds Katara for just playing around and waterbending. Their grandmother drops her bowl. Quickly, Katara denies waterbending, but Sokka saw her. Grangran comes down on Katara: It is forbidden, but Katara can’t forbid who she is! Grangran snaps that waterbending will get them all killed. There is silence. Sokka brings the pants over to Katara. He puts food on the table, the least she could do is contribute. Defeated, Katara fetches her needle and thread but hesitates before she begins to work. She’s about to speak when Sokka pushes that his pants aren’t going to mend themselves.

Katara pops off that he can repair his own stupid pants and throws them in Sokka’s face and storms out into the night. Sokka sticks his head out and calls after her but Katara breaks into a sprint. She runs past her neighbors, out of the village and runs and runs and runs until she can run no more, collapsing at the top of a snow-white cliff, overlooking a frozen bay.

The cold light of the nearly full moon beams down upon her. She looks up, with tears in her eyes and screams out her frustration. She pounds her fists to the ground. The ice cracks inches from her fists and shatter the side of the icy cliff down down down into the middle of the bay. The ground shakes and Katara is avalanched over with the side of the cliff and is buried in the ice and snow.

She pushes a mound of snow off her with her waterbending. As she cleans herself off, she notices a soft glow emanating from the fissure in the ice. As she investigates, the light intensifies, rising, until the source, a glowing ice sphere, bursts through the floe before her.

Cracks splinter throughout the sphere causing the light inside to escape. The light is too much and Katara shields her eyes. The sphere goes dark for a second then a pillar of light erupts out the top.

Back in the village, Sokka mutters to himself as he struggles with a needle and thread. The light rips through the night sky and through the flap of the tent. His eyes widen. He whispers Katara’s name and grabs his spear.

A dazzling aurora fills the sky. The broken bay has frozen again by some mysterious power, leaving the landscape jagged and strange. A cloud of snow and swirling mists ebb and flow about the remains of the sphere. Katara approaches and sees in the remains a boy tattooed with arrows and a white six-legged bison, both fast asleep. She kneels beside the tattooed boy and touches his face. He dreamily opens his eyes and then closes them again as he mutters about how beautiful she is.

Katara is amused. The boy snaps awake, he’s not dreaming. He jumps out of Katara’s arms and admires his surroundings. With his hands on his hips, he announces that he has made it to the south pole as planned and immediately requests a snowball fight and before Katara can protest she’s pelted as he laughs. She pulls the snow off as the boy exclaims that she’s a waterbender, and that it is officially on! Katara puts on her game face and snowballs begin to fly back and forth. Katara hides behind a snowbank. She peeks out and sees the boy scooping snow into a ball, she turns back and uses her bending to mold her own. She peeks out again, but he has disappeared. Out of nowhere he lands behind her and unleashes an impossible number of snowballs. Katara screams as she’s hit. Sokka hears her scream and breaks into a sprint. He yells her name and runs towards the boy with his spear who dodges the thrust and the following swing. Katara, covered in snow, tries in vain to stop Sokka. Sokka thrusts again. The boy lands on the spearhead, faceplanting Sokka into the snow and bringing him to his knees. Katara, wipes the snow from her eyes and gets a full view of Sokka’s undercarriage. She shrieks, “Where are your pants!?” The boy helps him up. Sokka didn’t have time to put on pants, he thought she was in trouble. Katara is touched.

https://www.deviantart.com/akreon/art/Appa-132703919

A low grumble escapes the large, furry, six-legged creature lying motionless nearby. The boy climbs onto it and enthusiastically rouses it. Sokka asks, unsure, what the thing is, and the boy replies that it is Appa, his flying bison. Sokka expresses disbelief over the purported ability of the large bison to fly. The boy, looking around at his surroundings, asks if they live nearby, which triggers Sokka to tell Katara not to answer, as he is convinced that the mystery boy is a Fire Nation spy, a notion that Katara rejects sarcastically. The boy introduces himself as Aang, an airbender. Sokka tells him no one has seen an airbender in a hundred years. Aang laughs, they are very good at hiding. *

Aang offers to fly them back to their village if he can get shelter for the night. Katara happily agrees and climbs on with Aang, while Sokka refuses, convinced that Aang and Katara are crazy. Aang says, "Yip-yip!", and Appa leaps into the air, though immediately comes crashing down, while Sokka crows sarcastically about Appa's inability to fly, Aang decides Appa is still too tired to fly just yet. He looks over his shoulder and leans out to stare at Katara with a huge smile on his face, causing her, after a few long, awkward seconds, to ask, "Why are you smiling at me like that?" He replies, "Oh, I was smiling?" Sokka lifts his head back, groaning, while Katara, at first smiling at Aang's response, frowns back at Sokka. *

In the moonlight, they walk back to the village. A curious Katara asks Aang if he knows the fate of the Avatar; being an airbender, she knows that the Avatar was supposed to be an Air Nomad. Aang awkwardly states that he knew people that knew the Avatar but did not know the actual Avatar himself. A disappointed Katara drops the subject, leaving Aang looking guilty. *

Underneath the setting sun, a scout blows a horn atop a fire nation fort located at the foot of the southern air temple mount. The commander of the base, a fierce looking full-grown man, greets Iroh and Zuko in the courtyard, he makes sure to highlight Zuko’s scar to confirm that it’s him. Iroh shows his respect to Admiral Zhao, who asks what brings the exiled prince and his uncle before him.

Zuko demands access south, to the Antarctic seas, Zhao’s domain. This amuses Zhao and arouses his interest. Even if he had seen or heard any sign of the Avatar, he wouldn’t tell Zuko. Iroh reasons with him, then, that there would be no harm in letting them search. Zhao deflects and muses if Zuko’s quest to restore his honor will ever truly end. He continues that when he marries Zuko’s sister, Princess Azula, they will let him come live in the palace dungeon. Zuko retorts that Zhao is a fool if he thinks he can ask the fire lord for Azula’s hand in marriage. Zhao is confident, that when his mission is complete, the fire lord will offer his daughter’s hand. He denies Zuko’s request, his mission is too important, and sends Zuko back to his ship.

Later that night, Iroh finds Zuko glowering over the vast southern sea. He presses the prince to sleep, telling him that if he doesn't rest, he will, like his ancestors, fail to capture the Avatar even if they do find him. The prince refuses to his uncle’s wisdom, he will succeed because he seeks to regain his honor through the endeavor, a trait none of his ancestors shared with him. Iroh casts doubt on Zuko’s assumption that the avatar is in the southern water tribe. Zuko reveals his logic, that the old airbender has likely died, and a young waterbender would be next in line to be the avatar. If it was a northern child, the proud northerners would have announced it, like they did their runaway princess. Iroh still doubts, Zuko snaps at him if he has a better idea. The night sky lights up, the same pillar of light from when Aang was released, and the aurora casts a green glow all on the southern hemisphere. *

Zuko observes it through the end of his telescope, his eyes narrow.

From high above the fire nation fort, on a cliff side, a mysterious figure in leather armor watches Zuko’s ship leave and turn south in the dead of night. The figure stands, a beautiful young woman who’s white hair shimmers in the moonlight.

Back in the village, Katara leads Aang into a stable. They don’t have much room, so he’ll have to sleep in here with Appa. She gets him a blanket. As she hands it to him, there is a moment where they share eye contact. Katara breaks it off and leaves, but not before stealing one last glance at Aang.

That night, Aang has a dream that he and Appa fly through a terrible storm. They are buffeted by the full fury of the gale, struggle in vain to escape and eventually are forced under the waves. *

In his dream, Aang’s eyes and tattoos began to glow and he creates a giant bubble around himself and Appa. The bubble freezes over, encasing their figures in light which grows brighter and brighter.

In his sleep, Aang stirs and his tattoos dance luminously. The lights wax and wane in the slit of the stable door casting a strange light on the sleeping village.

The sun rises over an icy expanse the next morning. Aang throws open the flap to the yurt, but it is empty. Sokka and Katara and Grangran are already doing their duties. As he explores, the elderly villagers look upon him with suspicion. Aang bows to the villagers respectfully, eliciting a response of fear from them, and they hurriedly take a few steps away from the airbender. *

He hears Katara calling his name. Eager to impress her, he jumps high in the air and lands in front of her and her wards. The kids go nuts. They goad him into showing off, which he obliges.

Aang attracts quite a crowd, almost the entire village. He finishes his trick. Everyone is stunned. One villager erupts in applause, the others glare her into silence. The kids tackle Aang and climb all over him. His airbending is even cooler than Katara’s waterbending.

A stir in the crowd. Katara is a waterbender? Katara feels the eyes of the villagers on her. Grangran assures the other villagers that Katara is not a waterbender, as the crowd whisper amongst themselves and go about their business. She gives the younger children the evil eye and they scamper off screaming and grabs Katara and Aang to throw them both into the tent. She looks Aang square in the face and tells him that it would be uncustomary to kick him out without breakfast but that the airbender is no longer welcome here. She goes to find Sokka. There is quiet. Aang timidly asks Katara why she refuses to waterbend. She tells him it is forbidden. Aang doesn’t understand why. The waterbenders get taken away, by firebenders. There’s a war. Aang didn’t know of any war.

Just then, Grangran and Sokka return. Sokka has checked the morning traps and has brought oysters. He passes them out, they each pry them open and slurp theirs down, except Aang, who holds it awkwardly. Sokka apologizes and opens it for him. Aang makes a face, “Do you have anything vegetarian?” he asks. Sokka aghast, scoots away from him. Aang realizes he’s made a faux pas. He corrects himself. “Can I please have something vegetarian?” Grangran and Katara share a glance. Sokka doesn’t have any vegetarian options except for sea prunes for Grangran and they are nasty.

Grangran throws a shell at Sokka and thrusts a bowl of sea prunes into Aang’s hands. His stomach growls, and he eats one. He likes them!

Sokka does not get Aang. He and Katara share a look of disgust as Aang gorges himself. Katara leans over to Sokka and whispers in his ear that Aang doesn’t know about the war. Sokka asks how that is possible: the war has been going on for a hundred years.

Meanwhile, Zuko spies the village through a telescope. Everything is going according to plan. Just then, from around an iceberg, an armada of three of Zhao’s fastest destroyers cut Zuko’s Battleship off and he is forced to change course to avoid them.

Zhao boards Zuko’s ship. Zuko greets him, amazed he found the time to chase him and hopes his all-important mission wasn't jeopardized by this detour. Zhao admits it was easy to catch up with them, the battleship was built like a tank to hold a fully realized Avatar, which makes it slow, but necessary for his capture, which is why Zhao is commandeering Zuko’s ship. Zuko protests, the Avatar is his. Zhao reminds Zuko that he ignored a direct order and is trespassing in his domain. Zuko spits out that he doesn't take orders from anyone, especially a low born upstart rat like Zhao. Zhao's smile fades as he orders his men to take the prince into custody. Two guards grab Zuko arms, but he throws them off easily. He points at Zhao and challenges him to an Agni Kai, winner gets the ship. Zhao laughs, and asks how Zuko plans to survive stranded on an iceberg without a ship, doesn't he remember the last time he did an Agni Kai? Zuko will never forget.

Outside their village, Grangran leads Appa with a rope as Aang, Katara, and Sokka head out with her. Aang tells them that it was very nice to meet them, and he’ll come visit the South Pole again soon. Sokka explains to Aang they aren’t actually in the south pole, they are much further north, less than a day to the southern air temple. Katara extrapolates: There’s nothing left at the south pole.

https://www.onthegotours.com/au/Iceland/Best-Places-To-Visit/Reykjavik/Classic-Ice-Cave-Experience

https://www.masterfile.com/image/en/679-07608205/moon-rising-over-trees-and-buildings-at-night

The tribes used to be connected by the moon gate.

Under the light of the full moon, the portal would open and northerners and southerners could walk between the poles via the spirit world to mingle and trade and visit family and make the pilgrimage to the spirit oasis. The moon gate connected the north and south cultures. Until the fire nation destroyed everything in south and the portal was destroyed.

Flashback: Fiery projectiles rain down on the southern capital and reduce it to rubble.

Everybody who was trapped in the south had no choice but to move away from the ruins because there was no food. The north pole is floating ice, and the waterbenders can fish beneath the ice year-round, but south pole is above frozen ground and there you can’t grow food in frozen ground. Grangran interrupts and tells the airbender that it’s time for him to go. As he turns to leave, Aang asks if they are sure the south pole is really destroyed. Sokka assures him sarcastically, that yeah, they're sure, and glares at Aang. Aang posits that the monks at the southern air temple would have told him, they tell him a lot of things, after all, they told him that he was the- he doesn’t finish his sentence. He climbs on Appa and they trot off. Katara calls for him to wait. As she approaches, she tells him the only thing they have at the southern air temple anymore is a fire nation fort. Aang looks at her with a twinkle in his eye and assures her, there are air nomad monks.

He extends his hand to her. Grangran yells that she’s taking too long and though Katara takes a breath, she doesn’t look back as she takes Aang’s hand and climbs aboard. Grangran pushes Sokka to stop her. Katara wraps her arms around Aang as he tells her to hang on. “Appa, Yip yip!” Appa grumbles and begins to move just as Sokka reaches them. He grabs Appa’s fur and tries to pull them back but ends up getting pulled himself and has to run to keep up. Aang leads them straight towards the edge of the cliff and Sokka screams that they are all going to die! He shuts his eyes and holds tight as Appa leaps and they disappear over the edge. Grangran cries out for them and falls to her knees. Appa and the gang reappear, flying. Sokka freaks as he clutches Appa's fur. Aang tells Sokka that when he says let go, to let go. Sokka protests but Aang leads Appa into a barrel roll and yells at Sokka to let go which he does out of instinct. The momentum flips Sokka up and over and plomp, directly seated behind Katara on Appa’s back. The daring move has made Katara cling to Aang close and she blushes.

Aang cheers and Grangran watches as they fly towards the sun.

The sun is directly overhead as the Agni Kai begins.

Admiral Zhao and Prince Zuko crouch, back to back on the deck of the battleship. Shedding their capes, they turn to face each other. Iroh counsels Zuko to remember his basics, as they are his greatest assets, but Zuko seems not to heed his uncle's wisdom, instead stating, simply and forcefully, that he will not allow himself to lose. As he assumes his stance, Zhao, doing the same, taunts Zuko, saying: "This will be over quickly." *

The two opponents stare fiercely into each other's unblinking eyes for a brief moment, waiting for the other to strike; it is Zuko who begins the duel with a series of fire blasts from his hands and feet. *

Zhao seems more than a match for Zuko, effortlessly avoiding and nullifying all of his fire blasts. As the prince catches his breath, Iroh continues to advise Zuko to remember his basics. Zhao throws his own volley of fire blasts; Zuko is able to block each attack, but he is slowly forced back with every parry he makes. For the final blast, Zhao, using both fists, sends a ball of fire that connects solidly with Zuko, knocking him to the ground. Pressing his advantage, Zhao leaps into the air, covers the distance separating him and Zuko, and prepares a finishing blast aimed directly for the prince's exposed face. An instant before contact, Zuko rolls out of the way, rises with a kicking flourish, and knocks Zhao out of his stance. *

With new-found vigor, Zuko releases a series of low attacks that cause Zhao to retreat, finishing him with a jet of fire from a full body kick. Prone, Zhao tells Zuko to do it, to give him a scar like his own, but Zuko aims beside his face instead. As the victorious prince walks away, a beaten and furious Zhao sends a jet of fire at Zuko's back. Iroh intervenes, however, stopping the attack with his bare hand and throwing the admiral to the ground. As Iroh stands over Zhao, Zuko tries to attack Zhao once more, but his uncle tells him not to taint his victory by retaliating. Iroh lectures Zhao about the dishonor he has brought upon himself through his actions and states that his nephew, even in exile, has proven himself to be more honorable. *

From the crow's nest, a scout shouts. They all crane their necks to see a flying bison with a water tribe girl and boy and air nomad fly far above them.

Up on Appa, Sokka refuses to open his eyes as he clutches Katara's garments. Katara lets him know that he's missing the sights. Aang spies the fire navy ships below. The fear deep inside him grows. He’s never seen fire navy ships this far south.

Both Zhao and Zuko blink in their telescopes. Iroh suggests they try working together as the bison disappears into the clouds.

Aang and Sokka and Katara fly through clouds and above mists and fog. Sokka asks if they are they yet. Aang spots the temple at the top of a mountain and they fly closer. Katara remarks on how beautiful it is.

From a window, the white-haired girl watches them all land in a sky bison pen and jump off. She disappears into the shadows. Appa grazes happily.

Sokka wishes he could eat, that ride took longer than he thought. Katara shushes him. Aang calls out to his people, but nobody answers. The temple appears to be abandoned. They walk up the temple steps. Sokka asks Aang if the airbenders have any food and is berated by Katara for being one of the first outsiders to see an airbender temple and he can only think with his stomach. She apologizes for Sokka. Aang insists the airbenders are simply hiding. There are lots of hiding places. They walk through a large archway into a great hall beyond. In the rafters above, the white-haired girl shifts into position. As Aang, Katara, and Sokka pass beneath her, she drops a net down upon them. The girl lands and knocks them off their feet and they fall to the ground in a pile.

She brandishes a staff at the subdued trio. “Are you firebenders?” She barks. They tell her they are not. “That’s just what a firebender would say!” They assure her they are not firebenders. They are water tribe, and Aang is an airbender. She releases them and introduces herself as Princess Yue of the northern water tribe. Sokka is impressed and bows, “your majesty,” Katara does a stiff movement she would call a curtsey. Aang recognizes the staff and grabs it but Yue holds fast. It’s a sacred air nomad staff, it’s not to be touched by outsiders. Yue is nonplussed. Sokka tells Aang that he can’t speak to a princess like that. Aang takes a deep breath and bellows, “LET IT GO!” His voice echoes in the halls. Yue lets go of the staff. Aang apologizes for yelling and inspects the staff. Yue never got the names of the other two, Sokka and Katara. Yue is incredulous, “You are Sokka and Katara!? Your father saved my life! Hakoda’s ship arrived at our capital a year ago and he was granted audience before me and my father. My father refused to help, and, I had to make a choice. I ran away and boarded your father’s ship in secret with the moon scroll.”

“We’re going to reopen the moon portal!”

But where is their father now? “He was taken prisoner by the fire nation. The last thing he said was he’d be a boomerang, but, I never got to ask him what that means.” “Means he’ll be back,” Sokka explains. He shows her the boomerang his father gave him when he left. Aang asks her how she got here. Yue continues, “I was found by a fisherman and made my way south. I got marooned here about a month ago after my ship sank. Been looking for a way off ever since, but there’s so many fire nation... We could fly to the south pole on a sky bison, though.” Someone’s stomach growls. Katara admonishes Sokka. It wasn’t him, it was Aang! Yue calculates that there is enough time to eat.

https://www.mostphotos.com/fi-fi/2720912/plum-orchard

The air temple orchard is overgrown, though a thousand years of tending have given a sense of order to the older trees. Aang hopes they like mountain peaches as he hops high in the air and grabs one. He lands and hands a peach to Katara and jumps back into the air. Sokka, asks her for it, salivating, and Katara licks it all over, much to Sokka’s chagrin. Aang lands with an armful of peaches and one in his mouth. He hands them out. They sit and enjoy a moment of peace.

Yue asks how the boomerang works. Sokka hands it to her and instructs her how to throw it. She does her best, but it is a terrible throw. She puts her hands up to her mouth and yells “Come back!” Sokka offers to go get it, but she should, she threw it, and they both end up going together. When they find it, Sokka throws it to demonstrate. Yue commends him on the throw. Sokka smiles goofily and gets lost in her eyes. They smile at each other and the boomerang runs smack into the side of Sokka’s head and he yelps in pain. Aang and Katara come running. Though he’s bleeding and wincing, Yue laughs and says it’s nothing a waterbender couldn’t heal. Katara isn’t sure what she means. Yue furthers, waterbenders can heal, she thought everybody knew that, especially waterbenders.

Yue pours some water into Katara’s hands. Katara is unsure what to do so she waterbends the water onto Sokka’s cut. Nothing happens. She closes her eyes and concentrates. The water releases a soft glow. Katara gasps and her eyes pop open. The wound has closed and there is no scar. Yue tells Katara that she just did some high-level bending. Aang lights up, he knows where the airbenders are.

Aang leads them to an intricately carved door. If the airbenders are hiding, it will be here. They have storerooms and water reserves deep in the temple. It’s his last hope. Only high level airbending can open this door, he reveals, and he bends two focused currents of air into the large doors' ornate locking mechanism, and a strange hauntingly beautiful tone resonates. The locks disengage, and the doors open slowly. Aang walks into the darkened room as Katara, Sokka, and Yue follow him.

Aang calls out to the airbenders. The room is pitch black and his footsteps echo. Katap. Katap. Katap. Skrit. He steps on something. It is a wooden medallion. He picks it up and flashes back to a happy looking older airbender monk: Gyatso, wearing medallion on a necklace.

Monk Gyatso is Aang’s sensei. Aang in the flashback has no tattoos yet and runs up to him calling his name and they embrace. Gyatso leads Aang out of the wind lock doors and onto the terrace before it.

Flying bison of all sizes fill the sky above. Gyatso tells Aang to call to him. “Appa!” Aang yells. Appa roars and dives down to Aang leaving his siblings and his much larger mother behind. Appa nuzzles and licks Aang as he laughs and laughs and laughs.

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The memory fades as Aang’s eyes adjust to the shadows. He sees a sky bison skull among bones and piles of soot and ashes, all over the room. Firebenders were here. Katara gasps. “Oh no.”

Aang falls to his knees. He is not alright. His eyes and tattoos light up. Wind begins to circle around him. Sokka freaks, “Is he glowing? How is he glowing?!” Katara calls for Aang. The winds get faster and faster, lifting Aang into the air. Yue makes them take cover. The soot and bones in the room get caught up in the whirlwind, disintegrating into brown and black dust and debris. Aang’s eyes, emanating white light, widen. The swirling blackness closes in on him. He shuts his eyes and pushes the darkness away, forcing all the ashes out the temple. Aang stops glowing and he drifts to the ground.

Outside, the ash cloud drifts away.

Yue, Katara, and Sokka cough around the corner. Katara runs to Aang and takes him into her lap. He stirs. It really has been one hundred years. She cradles his head and opens up to him that she and Sokka lost their mother to the fire nation. Even though his people are gone, he has found a new family: herself and Sokka. He looks Katara in the eyes and tells her with conviction that he will never firebend. Never ever. He sits up and hugs Katara as she mulls his statement.

From their ships, the firebenders notice the ash cloud drifting down from the temple as they pull into the harbor of the fort. Something must be going on. They form a squad of male and female fire nation soldiers fresh from the base. Zhao tells Iroh that he is too old and slow for this mission and Zuko is free to stay behind as well, if he doesn’t think he can make the climb. Zuko is ready. Iroh warns Zuko that Zhao is not to be trusted. Zuko assures his uncle, he can handle Zhao. From the battlements, Iroh watches the troops begin the hike. He puts on a cloak and sneaks out after them.

Later, the sun sets over the mountain peaks. Aang and the others bring flowers to a stone alter. The medallion sits in the middle of it. They pile the flowers around it. Aang sets a peach down with the flowers and steps back. Peaches were Gyatso’s favorite, he tells them. He closes his eyes. They all do. Aang gives the airbender prayer of mourning. The sound of wings. They open their eyes and a winged lemur eats the peach on the altar.

Aang laughs, a long clear laugh as he takes the lemur, lazily eating the peach, into his hands and names him Momo. The wind blows through the flowers.

Night falls. In a clearing in the orchard, Aang strokes the sleeping lemur as Sokka builds a fire and Yue puts peaches on the ends of sticks. She pokes fun at his fire building technique. Sokka has been building fires his whole life. Yue retorts that she’s only been doing it for the last year and she’s already better then him. They race to light the fire and Yue wins, but just barely. “Best two out of three?” Yue asks Sokka with a cheeky smile. Katara returns with a bucket filled with well water.

The peaches roast on the sticks as the fire casts an amber yellow on the kids’ faces. “So, are we going to talk about what happened?” Sokka asks. Yue and Katara avoid his line of questioning. Sokka extrapolates, “Aang was glowing. I haven’t heard of a glowing person before.” Aang is silent. Yue speaks up, “I have.”

“When I was born I was very sick and very weak. Most babies cry when they're born, but I was born as if I was asleep, my eyes closed. They told my mother and father I was going to die. That night, beneath the full moon, he brought me to the spirit oasis and placed me in the pond and pleaded with the spirits to save me. I began to glow and my hair turned white. I opened my eyes and began to cry, and they knew I would live. That's why my mother named me Yue. For the moon.”

Yue explains that Aang must be filled with immense spiritual power. Aang is silent. Sokka pipes up that it was the same light from when Aang came out of the iceberg. Still Aang is silent. Katara scoots closer to him and prods him why he told her he would never firebend. She asks him if he is the avatar. Aang stands, surprising the lemur and it scurries away. He never wanted to be the Avatar. He only ever wanted to be normal and play airball with the other kids. He didn't ask to be the avatar! They were going to send him away, to the eastern temple where he would be safer. Which means he was in danger. Avatars aren't supposed to know they are the avatar until they are 16 because: what if they told you, you were supposed to save the world at twelve years old? That’s why he ran away. He was going to come back but ran into a storm and somehow he lost 100 years.

Sokka is confused, if he's the avatar, how come he can’t bend the other elements? Aang doesn't know how yet.

Yue smiles. Out of her pack she produces the moon scroll.

In it is more than just how to open the moon gate, but also advanced waterbender techniques as well. She gives it to Aang and suggests Katara give him his first lesson. Sheepishly, Katara unravels the scroll. There’s writing, but she doesn't know how to read. Aang and Yue are taken aback by this, but Sokka doesn’t know how to read either. They have chores all day, there wouldn't be any time for reading, even if they had books. Yue sadly remarks that everyone in the Northern tribe knows how to read and apologizes that life in the south has gotten so hard. Aang comes closer and reads the scroll to Katara. Water is the element of versatility. It is a liquid, a solid, a gas. Gifted waterbenders can even be healers. He smiles and Katara blushes and Sokka touches his head where the wound would have been. Water is Tui and La, Push and Pull, and the earliest waterbenders learned how to push and pull the ocean like the moon with its tides. The moon is the source of power for all waterbenders and they are strongest when the moon is full.

They look up at the moon above. Aang remarks that they will be really strong tonight. Yue informs Aang, it's almost full. It's waxing, it will be full tomorrow. Katara admits that from studying the drawings, she doesn't know any of these moves. Aang asks her what she does know. She smiles. She takes him by the hand down to the well. Katara thrusts her hand out over the edge of the well and instructs Aang to do the same. She moves her hand up and down. Aang isn't sure but she tells him to feel the water, even though it’s not attached to his body. Splashes echo out of the deep. Katara says “Ok, I'll pull it and you push it.” Splash. “Ok, now you pull it and I push it.” Splishy splash. He feels it! Katara asks Aang to pull the water up with her. Aang is surprised on how it's almost like air, but heavy.

Together, they lift a large ball of water high into the air. Aang chuckles and starts pushing it over Katara's head, he lets go. Katara closes her eyes and shrieks but opens them when she realizes she's holding up the water by herself.

She celebrates and loses her concentration and drops the water and gets soaked. Aang laughs and she douses him with the puddle around her. Aang laughs again and dries himself off with a whirlwind. Katara, drenched, asks if he could dry her off too. He tries. Her hair is swept back and poofs out. They both laugh. They gaze into each other’s eyes. Between their faces, the light of the campfire sparkles in the distance.

The campfire suddenly flares up a pillar of fire 10 feet high. Sokka yelps. Aang and Katara turn to face the flames. A rustle behind them. Fire nation soldiers! They throw their spears. Aang whisks Katara down behind the well with him. Katara begins to panic. Aang tells her to use the water.

They lift a spout out of the well and repel the foot soldiers. They run towards the campsite. Yue and Sokka are held captive by elite firebenders while Zhao taunts her. He’s been looking for the princess’s hiding place. Zuko concludes she’s the reason he’s locked down the southern sea. Zhao nods.

Katara and Aang come running to a stop. Zhao is immediately taken by the air nomad boy. Where did he come from? Where are the other air nomads? Zuko wastes no time in taking Katara prisoner. He advises her not to struggle. Zhao stares at Aang while confirming with Zuko that the girl is indeed the Avatar. She's the one from the village, the one waterbender in all the south, therefore, she must be the avatar. Aang shouts that she's not the avatar. Zuko sizes up the air nomad boy. Then who is? Katara tries to stop him but Aang tells them that he is. Zuko retorts that he couldn't possibly be the avatar, he’s just a child! Zhao isn't so sure. The avatar would be over a hundred years old, Zuko reminds Zhao, they have the princess, they have the avatar, but if he wants to waste his time with an air nomad liar, he is welcome to. Zhao willing to be convinced, leaves Aang.

Soldiers take Katara, Yue and Sokka and form ranks.

Aang drops out of the sky in front of the squadron. He declares himself the avatar and points his staff at the firebenders. They laugh at him. He calls for Appa. From above, Appa roars, then dives and the solders duck and cower. Aang makes an air scooter and zips through all the solders like a pinball. Appa lands where Aang was standing and charges the soldiers with his horns, they scramble to their feet to fend off Appa. Some run. The distraction gives Yue the chance to escape. She knocks her captor in the gut and off of her and throws him into Sokka's guard. Aang takes out the bender holding Katara, and they struggle to get the chains off.

Zhao calls for the men to form rank. Someone yells, “the prisoners are escaping!” Zuko and Zhao leap into the chaos. They arrive to hear Aang give up on getting the chains off of Katara and that they need get to Appa to escape. Zhao is a clever man, he turns and runs to Appa, manifesting a fiery whip in each hand. Zuko fire charges into the group and separates Katara from the rest. Aang spins in and spins Katara out into Yue and Sokka’s arms. Aang and Zuko duel. Katara won’t leave Aang so Sokka picks her up and puts her over his shoulder. Katara begs Sokka to stop, but then changes her mind and tells Sokka to take her to the well. Yue tells them she will get the key to the shackles and joins Aang against Zuko. Appa runs about the courtyard chasing a hapless soldier in circles until Zhao faces off against the beast.

Aang dodges Zuko’s fireball as Appa wails in fear from afar. In his distracted moment Zuko gets past Aang but runs right into Yue. Aang is torn, does he run to help Appa or Yue? Yue tells him that she’s got this, and he goes to rescue Appa from Zhao’s torment. Yue gets in close, Zuko is on the defensive. He dodges past her, and she doesn’t follow. She has pickpocketed the key.

Sokka and Katara are at the well and Katara is bringing up all the water she can with her hands behind her back. Zuko comes racing towards them. Sokka screams and Katara throws the water at Zuko, and completely misses him. Katara asks if she got him. Zuko didn’t even get wet. Sokka throws the boomerang and Zuko has to duck. Zuko rises to his feet and the boomerang comes back knocking Zuko’s helmet. The water pools by Zuko’s feet as he fixes his helmet and with menacing rage makes fire daggers in his hands. Katara closes her eyes. She spreads her fingers then clenches her fists with a quick breath out and the water freezes and Zuko feet are frozen to the ground. Yue slides by Zuko on the ice twirling the key on her finger.

Yue unlocks Katara’s shackles as, in the distance, a blast of fire. Appa roars and flees into the air. Aang screams his name as he runs after him, but Appa won’t come back.

Zhao turns to Aang with a sadistic look in his eyes and a fiery whip in each hand. Katara, Sokka, and Yue come running. They try to convince Aang he has no other choice, he has to run. If he’s captured, who will save them? Fire nation soldiers begin to compose themselves surrounding the group. Zuko, fuming melts his feet. Aang pops the wings out of the staff. It’s also is a glider. He runs and takes flight on the orchard path. Zhao barks a command and all the firebending infantry call out and punch the sky sending fireballs into the air above and beyond and all around Aang. The fireballs arc in the sky and land all over the temple. The peach trees left and right burn and Aang lands among them. The sight of temple burning sends him into a rage. Aang glows. The wind picks up and blows all the fires out. Zhao and Zuko see. He is the avatar. With the fires out, the avatar spirit leaves Aang and the light of his tattoos fade and he lands. Zhao and Zuko race towards him; the chase is on.

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Aang runs through a large archway and into a great stone rotunda with a corkscrew staircase in the center. He runs at the speed of wind up the staircase to the top. Zuko and Zhao are hot on his heels. At the top of the stairs there’s a hallway and at the end of the hallway Aang finds the door to the jump room locked. Zhao leisurely jogs, beast like, up the stairs. Zuko fire leaps up the sides to just beneath the top. Zuko grabs the edge of the top with the tips of his fingers. He pulls himself up. Desperate, Aang hits the lock with the staff and it breaks open. The door swings off the hinges to a launch pad at the top of the mountain just above the tree line. With freedom before him, he turns around and faces Zuko as the prince rises to his feet.

Zuko promises Aang that if he comes with Zuko now, he and his friends will be unharmed. Aang asks how he can trust Zuko. The fire nation invaded and killed his people. Zuko retorts it was the airbenders’ aggression and illegal settlements on Fire nation land that brought this upon them. Aang claims the airbenders are pacifist. Zuko clarifies then, that Aang won’t just windblast him off and takes a step forward. Aang also takes a step forward. The people who lived here were mostly children. He accuses the fire nation of genocide. Zuko doesn’t want to believe it, but Aang’s conviction has awoken what he knows to be true, and he falters. Aang is still very vulnerable and emotional. His tattoos light up, his eyes glow, the wind rustles around his clothing: the avatar state emerges.

Zhao comes around the corner, not even out of breath. He sees Aang’s glow and smiles his crazy smile and charges Aang. Under the state of the Avatar, Aang is stiffer, more confident. He sends a blast of air with his staff down the hallway at Zhao, knocking him off the stairs. Zuko jumps after him and catches Zhao’s hand and saves him from falling. Zhao glares menacingly at Zuko as he pulls him up. The Avatar spirit fades as Aang realizes he just attempted murder. His actions horrify and confuse him. Tears stream down his face.

Zhao kneels, winded from the air blast. Aang turns to flee. Zuko takes off after him. Aang activates his glider and throws it out the window and leaps out after it, catching it and the wind. For a second, it seems like he’ll get away but then Zuko jumps after him at full speed and grabs hold of his legs, causing them to spiral and crash in the clearing below. Zhao approaches the edge and looks down. He jumps off. Aang and Zuko lie in a crumple before him. Aang tries to get up, but he can’t. Zuko is also injured. Zhao gags Aang and shackles his hands and feet. He goes to Zuko and helps him up. Zhao compliments him on his willingness to sacrifice everything, maybe they aren’t so different. Zhao throws Zuko towards the edge of the cliff and fireballs him off.

Aang watches, in a daze, as Zuko disappears into the forest below. From afar, Iroh is lit up by the light of the fireball. Zhao lumbers back from the edge and picks Aang up and over his shoulder as Aang passes out. Darkness.

A knock on a heavy iron battleship door. Iroh opens it and stands in the doorway. A messenger tells Iroh to hurry, there’s been an accident with the Prince. Iroh pushes through the crowd to the deck of the boat where Zhao meets him. Zhao proclaims to Iroh that the avatar threw the prince off a cliff. A search party is to be sent immediately to find his body for proper burial. Iroh spits and claims he never liked the sullen prince who had no respect for his elders and they can leave the body on the mountain for all he cares. He asks if the Avatar is in custody. Aang, gagged and bound, is carried by two large soldiers. Iroh leads them into the bowels of the ship. The battleship is a marvel of engineering and the prison for the avatar is state of the art. Even so, Zhao expected more. Iroh states that it’s mobile, self-sufficient, heavily guarded, and the safest place for the avatar to be.

In the avatar’s cell, Zhao has Aang’s arms chained up and his legs chained down. Iroh gets into Aang’s face, “So this is the great Avatar. Master of all the elements. I don't know how you've managed to elude the Fire Nation for a hundred years, but your little game of hide and seek is over.”

Zhao ungags Aang and asks him how it feels to be the only airbender left. “Do you miss your people? Don't worry, you won't be killed like they were.” Zhao turns to leave. Aang takes a deep inhale and breath blasts Zhao, knocking him to the floor. Zhao is triggered, and fiery. Iroh helps bring him under control. Zhao tells Aang, “Blow all the wind you want, but your situation is futile. See, if you die you will just be reborn and the Fire Nation would have to start searching all over again. So, I'll keep you alive, but just barely.” Zhao leaves in a huff. Uncle Iroh glares at the remaining guards and asks for a minute alone with the thing that killed his nephew. They oblige.

Iroh approaches Aang. Aang shies away, but Iroh lays a gentle hand on his shoulder and assures him he is not like the others. He reveals that he knows Aang didn't kill Zuko but that it doesn't matter because no one will believe Aang anyway. Aang asks what's going to happen to him. Iroh assures Aang that when the time comes, he will help Aang escape, but first, he needs Aang's help. He needs to know about the waterbending girl.

In the prison hold, Katara sits comforting Grangran. Grangran is babbling on about how the fire nation came not long after they left and rounded up the villagers onto their ships but Katara's eyes fix on Sokka. He’s worried about Yue. Katara thinks they should be worried about all of them. A guard rattles the door and tells them to shut up. Iroh enters, carrying a bucket of water. The guard tries to stop him from entering the cell but Iroh tells him the orders are from Zhao. The prisoners haven’t been watered all day. Besides, Iroh asks the guard if he thinks the dragon of the west can’t handle one young waterbending girl. The guard apologizes and opens the door. Iroh enters the cell, kneels, and takes out a ladle and invites the villagers to drink. They do not move. He drinks some water himself. Sokka takes the bucket and gently helps Katara quench their grandmother’s thirst. The bucket is passed around and Katara brings the empty bucket and the ladle to Iroh. He tells her, “Katara, I have spoken with Aang. He needs you to come with me.”

Iroh takes Katara into his cabin. On the bed, Zuko lies suffering, his stomach wrapped in bandages from Zhao’s fireball. Iroh asks Katara to heal him. Katara doesn’t want to, Zuko put shackles on her and he is after Aang. Iroh understands why she wouldn’t want to. Zuko attacked her, he’s an angry young man, he’s fire nation, but he’s the only good thing in Iroh’s life. Maybe she can see past the anger and the pain and see that he has suffered at the hands of the fire nation, too. Katara eyes the scar on Zuko’s face.

Reluctantly, Katara dips her hand in a bucket by the bedside. Water clings to her hands and she brings them to Zuko’s bandages. The water glows for a few moments and Zuko is soothed. Katara asks to be taken back to the cell. Iroh sneaks Katara through the ship. He takes her back into the prison hold and in with the rest of the villagers. As he locks them in, Sokka asks him about Yue. Iroh tells him, she is with Zhao.

In Zuko’s former quarters, Zhao sits beneath a rack of twin swords, eating a feast alone. Yue is escorted in. She has been bathed and dressed in her gown from the night she left the north. She is seated in front of Zhao. He invites her to eat. He tells her about the captain who found the dress of the northern water tribe princess on a water tribe boat headed for the south pole. Yue asks what Zhao wants. Zhao wants peace, a permanent peace with the water nation. The southerners have wasted their land, like the earthbending savages and the airbenders before them. The north will be safe, it’s water, the fire nation doesn’t want water. The southerners can move to the north. Yue doesn’t understand. Zhao tells her, he’s going to help her open the moon gate. Isn’t that what she wants? Yue asks about the avatar. Zhao tells her she can either leave here and return home with her people or join him in prison. Yue wants to know where her people are. Zhao will take her there.

The prison hold door is flung open. Zhao leads Yue to the southern people. She sees them locked in a crowded cell. She announces that they will all be taken to the North Pole as her new subjects. Zhao will allow them to open the moon gate to let the water tribe members through to their sister tribe. However, the southerners will never return to the south. This news is upsetting, the south is their home. Yue assures them, this is their only option. Zhao tells the Princess its time for her to return, Yue asks to stay. Zhao locks her up in with the rest of the tribe. A soldier enters the hold and tells Zhao they have the beast.

On the deck of the ship, fire nation soldiers struggle to restrain Appa with ropes. Zhao appears. Appa wails and struggles harder. Zhao delights in his fear and what a fine present Appa will be for his bride to be. They take Appa below deck and set sail. Momo watches from the walls of the fort. He glides down and reaches the battleship and crawls through a vent in the side of the ship. He hears familiar voices, Sokka and Yue huddled close. Sokka asks her what the north is like. Yue tells him that it’s different. She has responsibilities, she’s betrothed. Sokka doesn’t understand she’s to be married.

Yue asks if she can do something she’s wanted to do since she first saw Sokka. He nods and she kisses him. She curls into his little spoon as he holds her. Momo gags and continues through the vents.

Momo passes by Iroh and Zuko in his cabin. Zuko is feeling much better after being healed. Iroh tells Zuko that Zhao captured the bison and maybe they can use him to gain the Avatar’s trust. Zuko bets that if the Avatar escapes under Zhao’s command, it will be a huge blow to his plans. There is a knock at the door. Zuko hides in the closet. Iroh answers, it is Zhao. Zhao wants Iroh to know that he grieves for the prince and they will want to get word to the fire lord, but first, Iroh is invited to the north pole, as Zhao’s advisor. Iroh asks if Zhao meant the south pole and Zhao smiles and leaves. Zuko peeks out of the closet as Iroh shuts the door.

Momo continues on through the vents. Finally, he finds Aang’s cell. Aang is delighted to see Momo. Momo gnaws at the shackles at Aang’s feet, to no avail. He curls up around Aang’s neck, giving him comfort deep in the bowels of the battleship.

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Late day, over the icy seas, icebreaker ships take the battleship as far south as they can. The firebenders load sleds and snowmobiles with their prisoners for the south pole. Katara is lead out, the only prisoner in full shackles and even a muzzle. Iroh walks down the gangplank after the last of the prisoners. He passes a soldier, there is a familiar scar beneath the helm. The two nod to each other and Iroh joins Zhao on his sled. The fire nation troops take off, roaring into the distance.

On the ship, a soldier stands guard outside of Zuko’s former room. There is a clanging at the end of the hallway. The soldier investigates and is incapacitated by a masked man. The man enters Zuko’s old quarters and stares at the twin swords on the mantle. The door is left ajar and the swords above the mantle are gone.

Down in the prison hold, four guards play a game in front of Appa’s cell. One of them asks why they need so many men to guard this beast. Another guard tells him, that he’s a gift for Princess Azula from Zhao just as Aang will be a gift to the fire lord. There is a bang down the hall. The guards all jump at the noise.

The helmet of a Fire Nation soldier rolls down the hallway toward them. When one guard investigates alone, the other three suddenly see a flame erupt from the hallway and hear the muffled sounds of combat and of chains being strung up. When two more guards follow after him, they find their companion strung up with his hands to the ceiling. The masked man, clinging to the ceiling, wraps a chain around a hand of each guard and drops down, simultaneously pulling the guards up. The last guard standing in front of Appa’s cell, having heard the scuffle, takes his horn to sound the alarm, though before he could blow the instrument, it is knocked out of his hands by a well-aimed knife. Noticing a figure running toward him, he firebends, though the masked man extinguishes the fire by throwing water and proceeds to sweep the legs from underneath the guard with the bucket. *

Appa groans in interest as the masked man offers him some hay.

Inside his cell, Aang hears a commotion and eyes the door with apprehension. Momo hisses at the door as the lock is being turned. Aang gasps as a masked figure enters with dual broadswords. Momo attacks the figure and is easily subdued when the figure reveals Appa in the hallway. The man unlocks Aang’s chains and retreats to Appa without saying a word. Aang asks him who he is, what is going on, and wonders if the man is there to rescue him. The figure does not respond, and they are interrupted by the sound of the alarm. He signals for the Avatar to follow him. *

Aang, Momo, and the masked figure ride Appa through the halls of the ship. They burst through the door to the deck and are surrounded by soldiers. The masked man draws his swords but Aang yells, “yip-yip,” and they take to the sky. Firebenders all around them shoot projectiles the sky bison dodges or are deflected by the swords. The soldiers’ last hope is artillery that they point at the escapees. FIRE! A rocket heads directly towards the bison. The masked figure taps Aang on the shoulder, but Aang is concentrating. The figure shakes him. Aang sees the rocket but doesn’t know what it is. The figure unsheathes his swords and throws them at the rocket causing it to explode and sending the riders tumbling through the sky in the resulting shockwave. The firebenders below argue about who’s idea it was to shoot the rocket. Gaining his senses after the blast, Aang whirlwinds himself onto Appa’s back. They dive and catch the masked man in Aang’s arms. Momo lands on Aang’s shoulders as the mask falls off the man, revealing him to be an unconscious prince Zuko.

At the south pole, the ruins of the former southern capital are jagged and jut harshly from the surrounding icy waste. Zhao investigates the moon scroll as firebenders race to cut blocks of ice. They stack ice block onto ice block to rebuild the portal according to the scroll. When it is finished, it looks like a tunnel that leads into the side of a wall.

Aang lands Appa on the icy terrain. The tracks of snowmobiles run deep and are easy to follow, but that’s not his issue. Zuko lies motionless on the ground. Aang’s gaze follows the tracks into the distance, then returns to the unconscious Zuko. He can’t just leave him here.

At the south pole, Zhao watches the sun set. He orders Princess Yue to open the moon gate. She can’t. Only a waterbender can. All eyes turn towards Katara. They unshackle and unmuzzle her.

Katara approaches the rebuilt portal. It looks rough and raw in the twilight. She waves her hands over the ice. No change. She does again, but nothing happens. Zhao’s face darkens. He barks an order. The water tribe villagers are pushed to their knees as firebender soldiers brandish flames at them. She tries again and again to use her powers on the portal, but still, it does not respond.

Katara cowers. Zhao approaches her, his fury palpable. He suggests she try again. She doesn’t know if she can open the portal. He sneers that he hopes, for her family’s sake, that she is wrong. He snaps his fingers twice and Grangran is dragged forward. Zhao commands her to open the gate, and though Katara tries, she still can’t do it. Zhao scowls. He looks over at the villagers and spies Sokka. He orders Grangran returned to the others and Sokka to be dragged forward next. Katara begs Zhao. He orders her to open the gate. Sokka tells her that it’s okay, and that he loves her. Grangran yells that she believes in Katara. Yue joins them. The whole village shouts encouragements. The sun disappears over the horizon. The light of the moon is the only light in the sky. Katara closes her eyes and waves her hands once again. Nothing happens. Zhao makes a fireball in his fist and approaches Sokka.

A villager shouts and Zhao turns. A soft light creeps over each ice block until the entire arch is shining. The shining abruptly stops and the blocks have fused together. Zhao investigates.

In the darkness of the tunnel, one can see the moon, hanging in blackness, illuminating a path to a distant archway. Zhao laughs, an evil laugh. Yue stands and bids the southerners to follow her to the north, but Zhao stops them. Elite firebenders take hold of Yue, while others put Katara back into shackles and muzzle and lump her in with the villagers. Yue spits at Zhao for turning against his word. Zhao takes her personally into custody and leaves the rest of the water tribe with the elite guard as he and a small team, including Iroh, lead Yue through the portal.

As they walk the moon’s path, Admiral Zhao sinisterly tells General Iroh that they are in the process of writing history, as they will be destroying the last of the Water Tribe civilization. Yue is aghast at Zhao’s machinations, and Zhao has her gagged. Iroh warns Zhao that history is not always kind to its subjects, Zhao condescendingly assures him that this will not be like Iroh's legendary failure at Ba Sing Se; Iroh ominously tells Zhao he hopes not, for Zhao's sake. The firebenders and Yue reach the end of the path and find themselves in the throne room of the northern water tribe. *

Iroh confirms their location and inquires if it is wise to attack during the full moon, as waterbenders draw strength from the moon. Zhao states that he is aware of the problem, and that he is working on a solution. As he reveals a secret door behind the throne, Zhao explains that years earlier, while serving as a young officer in the Earth Kingdom, he stumbled on the secret of the Moon and Ocean Spirit's mortal forms in an underground library. When he declares it is his destiny to kill the moon spirit, Iroh angrily informs him that the spirits are not to be trifled with. Condescendingly, Zhao tells Iroh he has heard tales of his journey into the Spirit World and assures him that the Moon and Ocean Spirits, having made the decision to give up their immortality to be part of the human world, will face the consequences of that decision. *

They descend down the passageway behind the throne to the spirit oasis: a small bamboo forested pool in a glacial atrium. A low voice is heard up ahead. Zhao puts his fingers to his lips and the firebenders sneak in the shadows. Chief Arnook, Yue’s father, prays to the moon for his daughter and his people. The light of the full moon shines brightly above. When he finishes, he asks an older man, Master Pakku, to escort him back. Zhao reveals himself and his prisoner, Princess Yue. Pakku squares up but Arnook orders him to stand down.

Zhao commends the chief for his wisdom and releases Yue to him. Arnook ungags her and Yue tells him that Zhao means to destroy the water tribe by killing the moon spirit. Arnook and Pakku share a look.

Arnook is incredulous that Zhao could kill the moon, whose bed is the sky and the horizon, but Zhao assures him confidently, that the spirits are close, closer than he thinks. He gestures to the pool, two koi fish swim around each other. Yue is in disbelief that Zhao thinks the fish are the spirits, but Arnook and Pakku are silent with secret knowledge.

Meanwhile, at the south pole, Katara breaths through her muzzle, now hoary with frost. A firebender yelps and points at the sky, it’s Aang riding Appa. The firebenders form a defensive perimeter. Katara takes her chance, she ices the locks to the point that they break and she frees herself from her bonds. She begins taking out firebenders as Aang does the same. The firebenders run to their snowmobiles and sleds and retreat. Katara throws off the muzzle and hugs Aang as Sokka inspects the gate. He runs through it, after Yue. The rest of the southerners follow with trepidation. In the palace, Sokka begins to call out. He sees the door ajar behind the throne. Sokka finds it out of place and passes through it. Katara and Aang ensure all the remaining southerners go through the portal. Aang shows her Zuko on Appa and they decide to leave him in the south.

Suddenly, as if he had been conscious for a while, Zuko makes his move and attacks. Katara trounces him. She freezes him in a block of ice and she and Aang and Momo try to pull Appa through the moon portal. Appa resists; after being cooped up in the ship, he is not interested in going through a small door again.

Sokka sneaks down the path to the spirit oasis. Zhao arrogantly applauds his own efforts to fulfill his "destiny", speculating as to which names by which future generations will call him. From the shadows, Sokka makes eye contact with Yue. He retreats to get help.

A water tribe scout on an ice tower watches the fire navy ship’s blockade. It’s nothing unusual.

Katara and Aang desperately pull Appa with a rope onto the moon path. Zuko the ice block begins to steam.

Zhao takes a burlap sack and charges into the water. After a moment, he rises with the fish in the bag. As he hoists it over his head in triumph, the full moon above transforms, turning from white to blood-red. *

The scout sees the red moon. His waterbender comrade in arms reacts: he can no longer waterbend.

On the moon path, the moon and path are red in the blackness. Katara feels weak. She collapses. Aang releases Appa’s rope and helps her up. Appa pulls back into the open air on the south side. Aang hobbles Katara over to the north side and lays her down in the throne room. He tells Momo to watch over her, he has to go back for Appa. The path beneath him cracks and Katara tells him to hurry. Aang runs through the gate to the other side. Before he can make it to the south, a shadow appears in the doorway and fireblasts him back. Prince Zuko who corners Aang in the disintegrating moon path.

Yue begs Zhao to release the moon spirit. The chief holds her and comforts her. Iroh pleads with Zhao to consider his actions: they will bring harm to all, not just those in the Water Tribe. Reinforcing the point, Iroh promises Zhao, "Whatever you do to that spirit, I'll unleash on you ten-fold." Zhao confirms what he knew all along, that Iroh is a traitor. To save the moon spirit, Arnook offers Zhao the unconditional surrender of the northern water tribe.

Water tribe warriors swarm into the throne room and surround the villagers coming through the portal. Sokka appears in the door behind the throne and bids them to follow him. The arch of the moon gate begins to crack and Katara yells for Aang. Zuko’s firebending keeps Aang on the pathway guarding the south door as it splinters here and there.

Zhao confirms with Arnook, that he has his unconditional surrender and releases the fish back into the water. The moon turns white. Everyone, the water tribe scouts, fire navy sailors, Sokka, Katara, Aang, Iroh, and even Zuko is relieved. The floor beneath Aang and Zuko solidifies again and Zuko takes a defensive stance.

Zhao watches the fish swim. Something dark and unsatisfied crosses his mind. Without a hesitation, he fire blasts the white fish.

Iroh watches the fire bolt hit the moon spirit in horror.

On the moon path, the full moon above Aang goes out like a light. The path beneath Aang and Zuko disappears and Aang falls into darkness. Zuko jumps to the southern portal and pulls himself through as the pathway vanishes behind him leaving an empty black tunnel.

Katara yells for Aang, and approaches the portal, but the portal in the north now ends in an icy wall. Momo scratches desperately at the wall.

The scout blinks in the darkness. He is at a loss. One by one, on the horizon, the fire navy blockade lights their trebuchets. They fling fiery projectiles in waves. The scout blows his horn.

Appa huffs at the gate. Zuko tries again and again to jump through the threshold, but without the moon, the gate is shut. Zuko lights the sky up with his fire blasts.

Iroh bellows and lunges on Zhao. The elite squad do their best to protect Zhao but are subdued by Iroh’s fury. Zhao realizes he might be in trouble and flees up the ice wall, his fingers sinking like molten rods into the ice to climb his way out through the opening above. Iroh falls to his knees and mourns the spirit with the chief and Pakku and Yue. Sokka returns with warriors and villagers. The first round of trebuchet projectiles hit the palace and bits of icy debris fall from the ceiling. Grangran pulls Katara wailing for Aang to the safety of the path to the spirit oasis and down to join the others. The northern water tribe capital is in chaos. The dead white fish is prodded by the living black fish.

Aang floats in darkness thick as water. A giant black koi fish finds him and swallows him.

Katara clutches Momo as a ripple in the water breaks the stillness of the spirit oasis. Aang rises out of the water in the avatar state.

Katara is filled with joy, but Aang does not respond. He rises into the sky. Ice and snow from the land and sky begin to swirl around him and envelope him the form of a giant snow-white koi fish. The fish swims through the air out over the bay and dives into the water between fire navy ships. They are hit with a minor wave, but the sailors braced themselves. The snow fish becomes slush and the fish shape decompresses, filling the seas. Then the shape recollects and rises pulling all the water with it. The ships try to flee but are caught up in the gargantuan shape. The rocky bay beneath is revealed as some ships are beached on the seafloor. The water pillar takes a vaguely humanoid fish shape.

It collapses, and the navy ships are tsunamied away.

Back at the spirit oasis, Iroh notices, with astonishment, that Yue has been touched by the Moon Spirit, and that as a result, some of its life force is within her; Yue affirms the conjecture, then decides that she should try to restore the spirit to life by giving hers to it. Her father, upset by this idea, protests, but she is unmoved by him. Sokka takes her hands into his own and assures her there has to be another way. She calmly replies, "I have to try," and places her hands on the dead fish. *

The fish glows as Yue’s spirit leaves her body, she closes her eyes, exhales one last time, and collapses into Sokka's arms, dead. *

Moments later, Yue's body evaporates, and the fish, suddenly filled with life, swims into the oasis, looking for its partner. Floating, Yue appears above the water as a spirit, clothed in a flowing white dress. She tells Sokka that she will always be with him, kissing him one last time before disappearing; as she vanishes, the moon reappears in the sky, restoring the waterbenders' abilities. *

On the walls of the palace, Zhao sees the moon’s return and screams his frustration.

Aang fused with the Ocean spirit, in the meantime, has laid waste to the Fire Nation's navy but ceases as the moon reappears. The Ocean Spirit acknowledges the moon's restoration and, ending its violent vendetta, places Aang atop the outer wall of the city as it melts into the ocean water. *

Zhao finds a hole in the ceiling of the palace as jumps down. He has no choice but to escape through the moon portal. Except a figure blocks his way, Prince Zuko. They begin to fight. Iroh returns to the throne room and catches their duel. As Zhao and Zuko weave in and out of moonbeams let in by breaks in the ceiling. The beams seem to bend and sway as if attracted to Zhao. They wrap around him like a web of fine hair and he is stuck. Tentacles of light pull him into the air. Zuko, forgetting the duel, tries to help Zhao, reaching out a hand to him, but Zhao stubbornly refuses to take it, and he is pulled through the hole in the roof, where he vanishes in the light of the moon. Iroh puts his arm around Zuko and leads the teen back through the moon portal to the south.

Zuko is already planning, they will camp in the south and wait for the Avatar to return for his bison. Iroh looks at him sadly as Zuko begins to make camp with Appa tied up nearby. With a decisive move, Iroh unleashes a fireball that destroys the moon portal in the south. Zuko is speechless as Iroh retrieves Appa and mounts him and pulls Zuko aboard. Zuko says “uh… yip-yip” and the three lift off.

Back in the north, a drained Aang makes his way to the throne room as the rest return as well. Aang looks distraught at the closed portal’s dead end and whispers Appa’s name. The water tribe surrounds and embraces him as a group, with Katara, Sokka, Grangran, Arnook and Pakku in the center. The fire navy ships retreat out of the north and the moon glows high in the sky.

Post credit scene

In the Fire Nation, Fire Lord Ozai imparts the knowledge of Iroh's treasonous behavior and Zuko's failure to his daughter, Azula, and entrusts her with a special task as she looks up at him, a smile on her face. *

#movies #tv #atla #avatar the last airbender #fanfic #fandom #fix

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thehappydromomaniac · 5 years

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#NoSurbhiNoIshqbaaaz and #EndIshqbaaazWithShivika

I am an ardent fan of serial Ishqbaaaz. And a diehard fan of Shivika especially Annika. I got hooked to Ishqbaaz in the middle of August 2016 because of Shivaay and since then, no turning back. I have watched almost every single episode of it; cried, laughed, angered, agitated and sometimes baffled by it. Ishqbaaaz is the only series that had so much to give. Not the same old sob story or forced romance or boring, draggy plots. The chemistry between the brothers and the pairs are always beautifully portrayed and became the reason for me to follow the series religiously. Kudos to the writer who has even thought about it, the producer and directors who have given it the appropriate treatment, the entire crew for making it happen and the line of talents whom without, this wouldn't be possible at all.

A couple of days back, a news broke all the diehard fan’s hearts - A generation leap in order to save the show. And the main lead, Surbhi Chandna won’t be part of it as she is reluctant to play an older mother character at this point of time - Totally acceptable.

Fans tripped and begin their social media campaign and other whatnot to save their beloved Annika. I was happy to see the unity they had and the unplanned Twitter trend went viral. The issue needed clarification and the show’s producer, Ms Gul Khan was approached. She too answered all questions given honestly. Dear Gul ma’am, first of all, if you ever get to read this post, thanks for what you have given me; Almost 3 years of good entertainment and for always answering honestly without twisting and turning facts. Your honesty and frank personality has constantly been misconstrued as ego but I understand your stand. Being a creative head and controlling the finances at the same time can be a huge burden which you have handled so gracefully. You are an inspiration. I admire you a lot. Stay awesome. Without you, Ishqbaaz, Shivika, Narbhi wouldn't have been possible at all. You believed in it and you gave life to it. Thank you

Now, coming back to the movement “#NoSurbhiNoIshqbaaaz”. I am thrilled by it and to see the love Surbhi has garnered among the young generation who are now driving this campaign. I agree with them. Surbhi is one of the valves in the heart called Ishqbaaaz. Her exit would mean the heart’s function would be compromised. Destruction is inevitable if she leaves. But what I don’t understand is the hatred that is being thrown towards the producer and writer of the show. I have read multiple tweets and comments on Insta that range from disturbingly mean to misplaced hatred; ego, stupid, money-minded, etc. Totally misplaced!

Why misplaced you may ask, since I am in the mood of writing, here you go.

1. If not for Gul ma’am, we wouldn't have got Shivika or Narbhi. Gul & Harneet CREATED Shivika pair. Technically, they are the first 2 fans. This decision had to be the toughest for THEM. THEY must be the most frustrated compared to any fan out there. Most fans invest a little time on social media or TV to watch, post, comment and then back to their routine life, either work or studies. But for G & H, this is their bread & butter and the food for their creative soul. They work on a daily basis to bring more and more life for those characters. They have more work to do compared to fans who are locking horns with them. Just because they have strong exteriors and practical point of view, they cannot be targeted for such cyber-bullying. Yes, the current reaction towards them is crossing the limits of constructive comments and reaching the line of cyberbullying. Calling them money minded, egoistic. One even condemned Harneet’s writing meanly. That is cyber-bullying, guys. Thank God, it is not affecting them. Or maybe it does, and they are just not showing it. They might be dealing it their own way. But guys, NOT COOL YAAR!

2. The past few months, we have seen the TRP plummet despite a strong fan following in Social Media. The strong fan following did not reflect where it should. Do you think TRP is child's play? This is not a charity organization. This is a business. Most of the fans are educated. You are supposed to be able to analyse this logically. Not impulsively. TRP rates reveal how loved a show is. If viewers don’t watch & numbers don’t show, the channel can only interpret it as “People are not interested in it”. Therefore, it will be pushed to some time slot where it won’t get much appropriate attention. Sponsors or ad times will be affected. These are what feeds the show's finances in the long run - A constant gain of profit or $$$ is needed to cover the production costs, the crews' salary and of course The Actors' salary. And for a show like Ishqbaaz, for the quality I see on screen, it has to cost a fortune. Who is going to give it? You and me? We can’t. But there was one thing that we could have done which we failed - WATCHING THE SHOW IN THE BLOODY TV SO THAT THE TRP DIDN’T GO LOW”. WE FAILED!!

For a quick read about the importance of TRP for TV programmes, please click the link below.

https://www.jagranjosh.com/general-knowledge/what-is-trp-and-how-is-it-calculated-1524137013-1

3. For Ishqbaaz to end, means the entire crew could go jobless and once again pushed to look for other opportunities. Which I know isn't going to be easy. Fans are making all kinds of disapproving noises from outside but no one is seeing straight. Gul Khan opened opportunities, gave the crew & talents a way into our hearts. Without her, Ishqbaaaz would have been just an idea on a piece of paper. Almost 3 years ago, she hired them and had faith in them before you & I even thought of Narbhi. Harneet created Shivika on paper. They did all the work. All we did was praising the talents and creating fan followings & factions. And shamelessly insult the very same people who created it. It's like insulting our best friend's parents even though we know our best friend wouldn't have existed if her parents didn't bear her for 9 months & raised her. Don’t forget, the joy of success and the pain of failures hurts them most.

4. You call her egoistic for clarifying her stand without twisting facts, for her straightforward answers, for standing firm of her decision to save her baby whom she gave birth to. Then, you doubt her sanity. If the channel said we are a small bunch, it is because we are reflecting as small bunch where we shouldn't. We should have shown them that we are big in numbers and support by not letting the numbers fall. I ask all of us. Aren't we egoistic too for not even giving a chance to understand her point of view? We are losing entertainment. She is losing the concept/idea she gave birth to. For all your rants and insulting words, may I ask if WE are willing to contribute financially to maintain the series instead of tweeting & spreading hatred? That would be more beneficial. But the truth is, WE didn't even have to do that. All WE had to do was BLOODY WATCHED IT ON TV SO THAT THE TRP WAS STILL GOOD AND THE SHOW WOULD GO ON WITHOUT ALL THIS DRAMA!

5. If anyone needs to be blamed, it's those fan factions who instigated each other. First Rudy-Soumya fans fought & created the first ripple. Then, Gauri-Omkara. All that unnecessary jealousy towards Shivika. Shivika fans, on the other hand, were too proud that they cannot be shaken by those fans. Then the Shivika faction further split into separate factions. One wants more Shivika, another more Omkara-Gauri, how are the makers supposed to satisfy everyone? I read all the nasty comments and immature remarks by one to another. Ishqbaaaz fandom parted ways. The larger faction was of course: Shivika. Shivika fans were bigger in number but not enough to carry Ishqbaaaz on its shoulders all by itself. The truth that all the factions and fandom will not accept is they let their ego affect the entire Ishqbaaaz universe. Even now as they read this, they will be too sensitive to the term ‘ego’ - which they conveniently throw at another person but can’t accept their own fault - most of them will be thinking of nasty comments to throw at me for saying it out loud. This was mainly the reason behind the fall of Dil Bole Oberoi. Fandoms came for its defence when it was scrapped and merged but where was the needed viewership when it was running?

6. Now, let’s talk about the digital power that went viral recently. But before that, we must address the matter of online impressions in Hotstar first - Now, I am from Malaysia. Ishqbaaaz has a substantial fan following here. In the channel we are provided with locally, the episodes are far behind, not the latest episodes. My friends & I constantly discuss Ishqbaaaz as everyone knows I am a crazy fan & that I keep myself updated with the latest episodes and progress as part of my daily routine. My day doesn't begin or end without me watching or even thinking about Ishqbaaaz. But you know the sad part for us here, Hotstar is not geographically accessible here. Even if it is, the lack of subtitles can be a bummer because the biggest market for drama here is the Malay market & the South Indian market. Most of us can’t understand Hindi but guess what; Most of us can’t speak Korea and yet the Korean dramas are successfully running here, thanks to subtitles. Ishqbaaaz’s Tamil version was utter nonsense for me as the voices did not give the same impact as the original voices. So, I chose to watch it online via any other sources possible. Mine was an act of desperation. Not a day goes by without me opening Hotstar, just in case they have made it accessible; Disappointment on daily basis. If Hotstar was available and the subtitled option was available, maybe, just maybe, we could have helped with the global rating but that’s as much as we could have done. The local impression is still the major factor. Which again, whom to blame? Gul & Harneet? Absolutely not! I BLAME those online attention seekers who desperately needed followers and likes in social media that they began posting entire episodes on Insta. The fact is - those people are the biggest reason for all this Pehla Huva Raita. With an easier option to just watch it on Insta, Hotstar was neglected. So, we lost our online numbers as well. Now we don’t even have that ground to defend. Think about it!

Ratings are specific. Entertainment is a business. It survives on its value to bring profit. It is sad to see the fandom is made of a majority of young girls who are supposed to be educated and who are in full capacity to analyse this but are driven by unreasonable hate and anger. We are fans of Annika who is loving, responsible, forgiving, nurturing, fighting for justice without hurting people around her, coming up with quirky but practical solutions, who respect the older people in her life; and yet the girls following her seem to act brashly, unlike her at all. She fights for what she thinks is right but never at the expense of bashing another. Do you see the irony here? You idolize her but failed to follow her good footsteps. And also, I read a few comments about Annika being portrayed as crying a lot lately. Yes, she cried because she is not an emotionless robot. she is just like and me; going through shit on daily basis. But she doesn't lose hope. Annika rarely gives up. Scientific researches have backed that strong people do cry more but they don’t give up. Life can’t be rosy all the time. Without struggle, life becomes boring. and if you think her character has no oomph anymore, maybe it is time to revamp, don’t you think?

And then I see some posts calling to boycott the series now. BRAVO! Just brilliant. I can understand if you want to boycott it after Surbhi is out. But now, while she is still in it, trying her best to bring the numbers up again with the hope that her fans won’t fail her? That’s just brilliant. Instead of helping her, you want to boycott, bring down the numbers and prove Gul ma’ams point? You sure you are a fan? Coz, your actions are not reflecting it. You are supposed to watch it even more now, encourage people around to watch so that the numbers increase exponentially. The same spirit you showed in the Twitter trend, you have to show in front of your TV. Campaign for more people to watch it on TV, your family, neighbours, friends, crushes, etc. Report all the accounts that are conveniently posting the full episodes on Insta. Even if they post a day after, for fans who are convenient with it will go back to their account instead of going to the correct source; HOTSTAR. Pictures seriously won't do much harm unless the pictures show the entire scene. If it shows one juicy scene, it will trigger people’s curiosity to watch it. The real culprits are those who post the episodes. That is not loving. You are butchering Surbhi’s talent for your own greed to get more followers and likes. You want people to go to your account instead of TV and HOTSTAR. So, you are increasing the possibility for the numbers to go down and thanks to that, makers need to look into other angles which have directly affected SC now. So, blame them, not the makers.

The makers have tried and are trying many angles, plot after plot. Seriously, I have followed another Indian series before (which I am not going to name) with the unchanged plot for more than 3 years now. Before the leap, they lead pair didn’t get along, villains always separating them, went on in a circle for years until I got fed up. Leap after leap, the same plot. Even after a major leap, once again the same. The villains always get the better out of everything. The TRP is high still. But that is not the case for Ishqbaaaz. Harneet has given brilliant character progress for the leads, the chemistry between the pairs and who can deny the brilliant love of the Oberoi brothers. Villains are always defeated with Obros & Obahus’ togetherness. No other drama out there did that. And yet, all her efforts are forgotten and you are blaming her for her writing? Her plots are smart. And yes, it is a series end of the day, and it has to have some masala and some ups and down. The plots did get boring at some point but always managed to bounce back. Different angles had to be explored.Y ou think they thought Shivika would be a craze when they first introduced them to us? They just did it by hoping it would and it did. Just like that, they tried coming up with plots after plots but some failed. No one and nothing is perfect. We are all humans and we are all flawed.

For a series named ISHQBAAAZ, the fandom is sure showing a lot of hatred. That won’t solve this. Only love would. Stop fighting and focus on uniting. Start a mission to prove to Gul ma’am and the channel that the fans can BRING BACK GOOD TRP if they unite; THEN, YOU ARE ALL TRUE FANS.

Gul ma’am, I don’t know if you would ever get to read this. I hope it finds its way to you. I know your action is merely to keep the show running. I can understand that you are the most affected party in this. I used to work in the TV industry, so I know a little about how it works. I don’t agree with most of the things that are said to you. But there is one thing that I think might have worked. - Marketing is very important for all products. Ishqbaaaz (just as much as I am emotionally attached to) is also a product. It has a good fan following but something is misplaced. I don’t know what but there are some things that could be done to help get it back on track. I believe in doing everything doable possible before moving on. If you have the same belief, you may read further.

You have seen better numbers for the show before, so you do know that it is not impossible to bring back those numbers. And you can’t be taking everyone’s suggestions for the plots, etc. It is your drama. Your baby. Plots aside, here are some marketing suggestions. I don’t know how effective these could be. But we will never know if we don’t give it a go.

1) Urge the casts to posts videos in their Insta & Twitter urging them to watch it on TV or Hotstar. Their fans will listen to them.

2) Initiate a campaign - throw a contest; A watch & win contest. Real-time contest where they have to answer within 10 minutes of the episode end on TV, via SMS or online. This contest should not be posted in Hotstar and should be an exclusive TV contest. The prize could be a dinner session with the Ishqbaaaz team or the lead pair or either one of them. This could encourage the fans to watch it on TV.

3) I don’t know if Ishqbaaaz has a digital marketing team. If you do but most fans are unaware of it, it means the team needs to up its game. The digital team has to overshadow all the fandom or better, work along. Your team could both look out for accounts that violate and post episodes, report and block it and also join forces with the active fan clubs by feeding them exclusive pics and vid bits in exchange for turning the traffic back to where it should be; TV and HOTSTAR. Again, an online HOTSTAR exclusive contest with probably signed merchandises as prizes could be a good hook.

4) Please consider the ASEAN market for HOTSTAR. Maybe we could help too.

I believe the redux is about to end. Just matter of Shivaay & Annika’s confession. Once the redux ends, I assume the next is going to be exploring the pregnancy track. All of us fans have been waiting for this to happen. Seeing Shivika’s parenting skills have been long dreamt by all of us. We really hope to see that. If even that doesn't work, then probably nothing much can be done to avoid the generation leap. But frankly, it would be much graceful to end it with Shivika. Ishqbaaaz is synonymous with Shivika and Obros, taking it away means taking the essence of Ishqbaaaz away. Though, I don’t think I am in any position to condemn your attempts to breathe new life to the series. Only you know how much investment of time, effort, blood, sweat and money has gone into this. It is easy for us to tell you to kill it with grace, but you are the one living the pain. In many ways, i can associate myself with Annika’s character as in real life I am as emphatatic. I am quirkier and even more stubborn than Annika though. Thank you for showing me a reflection of myself.

If anyone is going to argue that other successfully running dramas are also available on Instagram but it doesn't affect their TRP, it simply means, their fandom is strong enough to watch it on TV and don’t allow other factors cloud them or disintegrate them. They are doing their job right. Now, it’s our turn. Seriously, if I am part of the makers, for all the inappropriate hatred showered, I would lose my interest to even think of making it better. They must be highly motivated to deal with all this and still go on with this tiring job. Anyways, spamming inboxes, ambushing the offices, trending helps a little. But you know what will help the most? WATCHING ISHQBAAAZ ON TV! LET THE TRP TALK TO THEM COZ THAT’S THE RIGHT LANGUAGE TO GET THE MESSAGE ACROSS!

Last but not least. Thanks, to everyone for reading this long post. I hope the series that has woke me up everyday feeling good will not end too soon. And yes, I support #NoSurbhiNoIshqbaaaz and #EndIshqbaaazWithShivika

Constructive comments are welcomed.

Insta: @arulkc

#ishqbaaaz #shivika #nosurbhinoishqbaaaz #surbhi chandna #starplus #tv series #indiantv

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