Book: Avatar The Last Airbender: The Promise Vols. 1-3
Author: Gene Luen Yang
Trigger warnings: none |(if you spotted any I missed please let me know so I can add them, thanks)
Sub-genre: Otherworld Junior Fantasy
Page count: Vol. 1: 76; Vol 2: 76; Vol 3: 76
Points of Diversity: People of color, Bi-racial characters, mixed race family, blind protagonist, mute character, gender bending/possible transgender (and I don’t mean Toph)
Intersectional Diversity?: Yes
Would Recommend?: Yes, highly
“Avatar: The Last Airbender” and “The Legend of Korra” are two of my favorite TV series of all time. So with two weeks of books I really didn’t care for, I decided to treat myself by finally digging into the graphic novel continuations of the Avatar series. In case you haven’t seen it, the basic premise is that there are four nations based on the elements of fire, earth, water, and air. Certain individuals in these nations are born as “benders” with the ability to control one of the elements. The Avatar is a constantly reincarnated person who can master all the elements and acts as the spiritual leader and guide of the world. For those who haven’t seen the shows I highly recommend them, whether you plan on reading the comics or not. These graphic novels are not the best introduction to the series. *Spoiler Warning* for plot elements from the show and the comic.
Both the shows and the comics have the largest casts of people of color that I am aware of and that is simply because, to the best of my knowledge, every character is a person of color. This also means there are numerous women of color present in primary and side roles as well. The cultures and people presented borrow heavily from South East Asian countries, primarily China, Japan, Tibet, and India, as well as Inuit tribes for the Water Tribe people. The art design for the characters reflects this in attire and appearance, avoiding the white-washing that the horrible movie was guilty of.
One of the protagonists, Toph, is a blind earth-bender and my favorite character of all time. She always walks around barefoot and uses the vibrations of the earth to create a mental map of her surroundings. This technique is so effective in helping her navigate and fight that her friends frequently forgot she was blind in the show, much to her frustration. However, it is never played off as Toph being too sensitive or anything like that. it is shown that her friends are clearly the ones screwing up and they quickly learn to be more aware of what they say or do so they don’t do something insensitive.
For the gender bending/possible transgender character we have Smellerbee. I say “possible” because, while she identifies as a girl, it is never stated whether Smellerbee is female bodied, male bodied, or intersex bodied. She does have a very androgynous appearance and in the show she expresses a great deal of anger and frustration over being misgendered by another character. So even if she herself isn’t trans, there are strong parallels.
Smellerbee is close friends with another character, Longshot, who is mute due to the trauma of his past. He speaks only once in the entire show in a moment of desperation. Outside of that he communicates through body language, facial expressions, and his eyes in a manner that those close to him understand and are able to translate for others who don’t.
All these elements create the most diverse show I have ever watched. That diversity is continued in the comic with the return of all these characters and then furthered through the introduction of a bi-racial character and a mixed race family that plays a prominent role in the conflict of the story.
The first story of the comics, “The Promise,” picks up where the cartoon left off with the Hundred Years war over and Zuko, one of the heroes, as the new fire lord. The basic premise here is that the Harmony Restoration Movement is underway, a movement between Lord Zuko and Earth King Kuei to remove all the Fire Nation colonies from Earth Kingdom territory, that were set up during his father’s reign, and relocate all of the Fire Nation people back to their native lands. In addition, Zuko greatly fears becoming a power hungry warlord like his father and asks Avatar Aang to kill him if Aang finds Zuko turning evil. This is where the titular promise comes in.
The plot here allows for a tense debate about colonialism, racism, and even brings up issues of cultural appropriation, defending one’s home, and what family is. At first the colonies leave peacefully and easily, but as time goes on, resentment grows. Colonies that have been in place for generations resist the movement, not wanting to leave behind the only homes they’ve ever known or be separated from their families. We see a microcosm of this conflict reflected in the colony of Yu Doa and the family of it’s mayor. He, Morishita, is from the Fire Nation but married an earth bender, known only as Mrs. Morishita, and the two of them have a daughter named Kori.
While stuck in the middle, Kori is never portrayed as indecisive or torn between the two peoples that birthed her. She is an earth bender like her mother but also learned to love the Fire Nation from her father. She sees herself as a child of both and is firm in fighting to defend Yu Doa, not as a colony, but as her home. She leads the training of a group of resistance fighters made up of earth benders and fire benders, using their combined techniques to defend the city. She insists that Yu Dao, having been around for over a century, should be allowed to stay and be accepted as both Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation. This is even subtly reflected in how she corrects her boyfriend, Sneers (a friend of Smellerbee and Longshot), when he talks about Yu Doa being something separate, by saying it is both.
Cultural appropriation comes into it when we see Aang meet up with two different Avatar Aang fan clubs. The first, in the Earth Kingdom capitol of Ba Sing Se, is laid back, fun, and celebratory, wearing shirts with pictures of Aang on them and meeting in a ramshackle club house with a few decorations that are reminiscent of the Western Air Temple where Aang grew up. The second group, in Yu Dao, is more intense in it’s fandom. Aang is very excited about and friendly towards both groups but his attitude towards the Yu Dao group quickly changes to anger when he learns that the tattoos on their heads are real like his and not just painted on. His rage grows when the members of the group try to placate him by saying members have to prove themselves by learning “air-bender like techniques” before getting their tattoos.
This angers him because the arrow shaped tattoos that he has are only given to those who have proven themselves air bending masters. They are a very important part of Aang’s culture, of which he is the last surviving member, and these people are using it as a part of a “costume” as Aang puts it. Further, Aang is shown as being justified in his anger; when he meets up with the members of the fan club later, they apologize deeply and have covered their tattoos. Aang isn’t entirely forgiving but then the group risks their lives in the battle for Yu Dao trying to keep the two armies of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom from hurting each other. Seeing this, Aang forgives them of their mistake and offers to teach them true air bending culture, which they readily agree to.
All in all, I think The Promise does a decent job of handling most of the issues brought up. From the conflict between Aang and Zuko as the latter turns against the Harmony Restoration Movement, to Zuko’s internal conflict as he struggles with what the right thing to do is, to the elements of colonialism, racism, and cultural appropriation that I brought up earlier. The primary weakness I see comes in how short and condensed the whole thing is. The story feels like it could easily be expanded into a season of the show but instead had to deliver a lot of plot and nuance in a graphic novel that’s just over 200 pages in length combined. While a good story overall, I wish that the novel had more room to expand on everything that was going on as the length made everything feel like it was moving a little too quickly.
The only other issue I had was with the writing and that is only because I couldn’t help but compare it to the show. The writing in the comic was very good but felt like it was written for a younger audience than the show. Both were written for a 7-12 age range, but the I never got the sense that the show was “talking down” to it’s audience because of that. The comic, however, did at a few points. It wasn’t enough to completely ruin the experience and it still felt like I was watching the show for the most part. The primary issue here is that some of the jokes and dialogue fell a bit flat but I would still call it well written, just not as well written as the show was.
Over the next couple weeks I will touch on the other two graphic novels in the series that follows after “The Last Airbender”. The second novel is called “The Search” and is about the search for Lord Zuko’s mom, who went missing sometime before the start of the show. I hope the addressing of heavier issues like racism and cultural appropriation continue to be touched on in the comics to come as these are very important for everyone, especially young people, to read about. I’ll keep my fingers crossed and let you all know what I think of “The Search” next week.
Oh, and thanks to my first book donation there will also be a bonus article 🙂
Mars WaterDragon 