Monthly Wrap Up-Avatar Book 1

                 This is my least favorite season of the show, oddly enough. When most people hear me say that, they act very surprised. The problem is that 'worst' does not denote 'bad'. In fact, this season is still better than most, if not almost all, western cartoons. This season just had a bit of a rough start, but managed to get it together early enough for an all-around great season.

My thoughts in Scores
Chapter 1, The Boy in the Iceberg-7
Chapter 2, The Avatar Returns-7
Chapter 3, The Southern Air Temple-7.5
Chapter 4, The Warriors of Kyoshi-8
Chapter 5, The King of Omashu-9.5
Chapter 6, Imprisoned-7   
Chapter 7, The Spirit World-8.5
Chapter 8, Avatar Roku-7.5
Chapter 9, The Waterbending Scroll-8
Chapter 10, Jet-9
Chapter 11, The Great Divide-1
Chapter 12, The Storm-8
Chapter 13, The Blue Spirit-9
Chapter 14,  The Fortuneteller-6
Chapter 15, Bato of the Water Tribe-7
Chapter 16, The Deserter-8
Chapter 17, The Northern Air Temple-7.5
Chapter 18, The Waterbending Master-9
Chapter 19, The Siege of the North Part One-9
Chapter 20, The Siege of the North PartTwo-9.5

            Wait a second! Tomorrow is March! And you know what that means! It's Shonen Month!

Character Study-Zhao

               Zhao is a great character. I think he was and still is under-appreciated because of being shown up by later villains. The guy is the perfect starting villain to me, and for a variety of reasons. In terms of personality, he works great. He's cocky, intelligent, ruthless, easily angered, and a little unstable. He doesn't develop really, just has some...aspects that were revealed over time. Mostly the raging insanity. Without him, the first season wouldn't have worked nearly as well. Mostly the reason Zuko is sympathetic at all is because he is able to play off Zhao's douchebaggery. His eventual fate, without spoilers, is a perfect representation of him as a whole, cocky arrogant and spiteful.

              Zhao is voiced by JASON ISAACS! The guy is decently prolific, but all you need to know is he plays Lucius Malfoy. The man has the perfect voice for this character, and fills it with as much arrogance, anger, and just plain sliminess as is humanly possible.

             Zhao's color might surprise you. Red, oddly enough, is his secondary color, not his main one. His main color is Black. The guy is very passionate sure, but what he wants is power, fame, and to go down in the history books as a great commander. And he is literally willing to do anything to do it. That is the essence of Black, really.

                      Overall, Zhao is my favorite villain of the series so far, and a definite contender for my favorites in any other western cartoon as well.

Character Study-Katara

              Katara is another weird character to discuss. She is, I'm pretty sure, the least popular member of the Gaang. Is she my least favorite member? Yeah. But is she a bad character? No. She's strong willed, motherly, playful, moral, uptight, and will go out of her way to help the helpless. She doesn't change much over the course of both the season and the show, and for good reason. Who she is a complex, and at times troublesome, but it's more a help than a hindrance, so she really doesn't need to change. Something is partly revealed this season that is prominent in both the next seasons, but I won't discuss it until next season. (If I remember then. Someone remind me then!)

           Katara is played byMae Whitman. You may remember her as Roxy from Scott Pilgrim! Seriously, I just found this out and screw everything else she did, that is awesome. Oh, and she was Lisa Miller in Scott Pilgrim VS the Animation. (Which they should just redo as the whole series, like 4 episodes a book. PLEASE?) She is really good, and makes Katara who she is. The soft voice that easily becomes annoyed, enraged, and scary, and is most memorable as those last three, works great.

          Katara is a pretty easy character to map out. She's White. No second color, just White. She's moral as all hell, compassionate, quick-to-judge, inflexible, and great for the healings.

          Overall, Katara is a really good character, but in the way she works with the others and the story, not so much one who you watch the show for or is very often a personal favorite.

Character Study-Iroh

             Iroh is another favorite of the series for me. He is hilarious, insightful, wise, and makes Chuck Norris look like a bitch. There isn't much to talk about with him, especially because that, in the series proper, he is static. He does not develop at all throughout the story, mostly because all his development happened years before the story starts, and are only vaguely mentioned.

           His voice actor is a...rough subject. I'll just talk about his first voice actor for the time being, and discuss that hornet's nest when the changeover happens. He is/was voiced by Mako, a legendary actor whose famous roles include Aku from Samurai Jack, The Wizard from Conan the Barbarian, and many other works. The guy is/was phenomenal, and his role as Iroh did more than solidify the character, he fortified it. His voice made the character early on, and for that I praise him.

         Iroh is Red, yes, obviously, but his second color is interesting. The Red is where his passion, drive, and individualism comes from. His second color is White. He says he studied Waterbending, and it shows in his fighting. He also is very moral and believes in Order. A very White character. Odd how he and his nephew have the same colors?

                   Iroh in an incredible character, and the best pro/antagonist in the show (besides Sokka). His good heart and great jokes made him incredibly endearing, and Mako's performance will forever live on, on our DVD shelves.

Character Study-Sokka

              I've really been looking forward to this. Sokka is by far my favorite character in the show. He has some of the best lines, is an interesting and flawed character, and is an amazing example of a badass normal. Sokka is intelligent, logical, proud, and a warrior. Over the season he learns the war is not as black-and-white as it seemed, though he still bears a large grudge against the Fire Nation. He also realizes how much of a creative mind he is later in the season, which I like quite a bit. Oddly enough, Sokka was originally going to only be in the beginning, and be much more serious a character. However, his voice actor made him so funny that they gave him more funny lines, and the fans and creators alike grew attached to him, so they made him a main character.

           Speaking of his voice actor, the man is Jack De Sena, a comedian. The only thing I recognize him from on his IMDB page is he was Jimmy Olsen on The Batman. I wouldn't know that because I jumped that show early on like the white chick of the Titanic. The guy should get more work, his job as Sokka is great, and probably a large reason why the character is so well-loved and relatable.

          Sokka, obviously, fits in with the rest of his tribe in color. But that isn't Blue. Sokka and his tribe's main color is White. Sokka is a bastion of order, a main staple of White. It also works mechanically, because Waterbending can heal (Damage prevention and/or lifegain) and is very defensive in fighting. Sokka is Blue too, his creativity and intellictual streak show in that, but his main color is White.

         Sokka is an awesome character, relatable to most nerds in a lot of ways, and just plain cool. He doesn't develop much over the seasons, but I'll track what does develop.

Character Study-Zuko

                  Zuko is a tough topic to talk about. The man has more fangirls than every other character in this show combined. (Probably helped by his first shirtless scene in episode 3.) So I want to start off by saying that Zuko is awesome. He is seriously one of the reasons, in my opinion, this show caught on as fast and as hard as it did because of him and his uncle. Their often B plots were so good, and so much fun, that they added to the show by a lot. Having a semi-main antagonist who people can sympathize with and kinda root for is a great way to keep a show interesting, because it makes the show more than a typical Black and White moral play. However, if I ever have to read another goddamn fanfic where Season 1 Zuko is a good guy who dates Katara I am going to punch every Zutarian within a 5-mile radius. More on that topic later down the line. Zuko is awesome because he develops like any other character does. Over the course of the season, he learns to respect his grandfather more, and his need to find the Avatar learns to take a backseat to surviving.

             He is voiced by Dante Basco, also known as the Jake from American Dragon: Jake Long. Fun fact: writing that was the first time I've even thought about that show is 7 years. The guy has some serious talent though, and his job as Zuko pretty much solidifies that. In fact, screw that shirtless scene, I think his voice is the reason that he's got so many fangirls.

           It's funny, because I think no matter how much development the guy goes through, and how many times he switches sides, his color is the same. The dude is very Red, and a dash of White. He is very passionate, and is an individualist. He does what he wants, regardless of the obstacles in his way, even legal ones. The White comes from his sense of honor and duty, which run deeply with his character. The conflict, between what he whats and what he believes he needs and deserves by right, is the reason for his constant changing.

                Overall, Zuko in the first season is a great antagonist, and a large contributing factor to what kept the show interesting.

Character Study-Aang

                I think Aang is a great protagonist, and maybe my favorite in a Western cartoon is quiet a while. I think it's mostly because he feels like a kid. He's a show-off, gets bored easily, flighty and silly. But he's also wise, intelligent, and a major badass, especially for his age. His development over Season 1 is actually pretty cool. He learns not to be so cocky, to trust his friends more, it's okay to lie to a people about their history if you think it will help (okay, I'll let it go), and own up to his mistakes. I think what really makes me like Aang is that despite his tragic past, he isn't aangsty (Except in the movie, where he is very aangsty with a hard a). He sometimes is overcome with sadness, grief, or self-disappointment but what matters to me is that he doesn't let that get him down. His mood his easily changeable, and he gets out of his rare funks pretty easily.

              He's voice acted by Zach Tyler (I really want to say/type Taylor, and I don't know why), who I just discovered is 7 months younger than me. The more you know. The only other big role he had was in some movie called The Ant Bully, which I never saw. From his work in this season alone, I would say he's a pretty decent voice-actor, and young enough that he sounds more like a kid than if they had gotten a woman to do it like they usually do.


            In a new little segment, I say what color from Magic: the Gathering I think the character is. With Aang I'd have to go Blue, with a splash of white and a smidge of black in this season. I think that the Air Nomads, as a culture, were Blue. I thought of this long and hard, and it seemed much better than the seemingly more natural choice of White. White is about life gain and vigilance and a little flying on the side. How would a Air Bender heal you? Blue is the color of tapping, removal, and in general indirectly screwing with the opponent, much like the fighting style of an Airbender. Also, the 'goal' of White is to make peace, and while the monks were peaceful, from what I saw they weren't the kind to oppose others or force their wills. They were Nomads, and the Blue philosophy of 'Learning everything' seems much more their style. Plus, he learned Waterbending this season, so he gets a splash of White. The black comes from the several episodes which show his selfish side.

             Overall, I think Aang as a character is one of the reasons I got interested in the show, because they were going for a character who felt like a real kid, and never came off as trying to be 'cool' any more than a kid does at times for fun.