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masterghandalf) wrote2024-02-03 02:24 pm
masterghandalf) wrote2024-02-03 02:24 pm
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MG Reads Embers: Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Eight
We open with Toph complaining about Aang’s visions, which apparently include a promise that he’ll get a message from Gyatso if he stays on the right path, as she crushes rocks into gravel for Hama. She can’t help but feel something’s wrong here – water’s all about family, but Hama is alone. She thinks that making it out of the Fire Nation would be tricky, and Amaya’s existence proves waterbenders can make it without their tribe sometimes, but at least Amaya was a healer who practiced openly and who people loved. Hama’s keeping a low profile, and the whole situation bothers Toph, though she thinks she’s maybe still just spooked from all the ghost stories. Boots seems worried too, though Toph thinks Sokka probably isn’t, or he wouldn’t have been willing to go looking for spirits with Aang. Suddenly, she’s distracted by the sound of footsteps and decides the person who’s coming is a firebender, likely carrying swords. She greets him, doing her best to sound harmless, saying she’s all alone and he sounds like a nice man. The firebender laughs at that – he has it on good authority from everyone that he isn’t nice. He recognizes Boots’s presence and greets Toph as Lady Beifong – she’s shocked he knows her, and he introduces himself as Shidan of Byakko, Zuko’s grandfather. Toph runs over to him, grabs him by the beard, and demands to know where Zuko is. Shidan is impressed and assures her Zuko’s fine; Toph remembers what Tao said about trying to bend another element and wants to make sure. Shidan explains a bit about yaoren and says Zuko misses Toph too, and he’ll send a letter when he can. Toph, meanwhile wonders if he’s the same Shidan as Kuzon’s dragon companion – he admits he is and asks Toph if that frightens her. She insists she’s not and thinks she should take him to Aang, who might appreciate knowing that not everyone he knew is gone – but then she’s suddenly worried that Shidan might have been sent here by Ozai. Shidan explains that he doesn’t hold Byakko’s title himself, Kotone does, he’s not loyal to Ozai, and though he’s angry at some of Aang’s decisions, he means him no harm.
Toph is relieved but wants to know what he is doing here – apparently, a merchant from Byakko named Hitomi disappeared at this village not long ago, and Shidan has come to investigate. He admits that he’s been hearing the rumors about spirits too, but he thinks Toph would be better off not knowing more about his clan’s business – she thinks Aang might need to know. Shidan explains that he’s also investigating the families of those who died at the Siege of the North – since Aang was responsible for those deaths, should he show himself openly they’ll be honor-bound to seek revenge against him, unless their great names, the Fire Lord, or the ghosts of the dead themselves tell them otherwise. And since Ozai definitely won’t stop them, that means Aang might find himself facing thousands of angry Fire Nation citizens out for blood. If Shidan can give at least some of the ghosts peace, they might be willing to ask their relatives to stand down; it won’t be much, but it could help Aang some, and save some lives. Toph suddenly senses that the others are coming – she tells Shidan she’s not sure what they’ll think of him, after their experiences with Zuko. She tells him to take off, but he wants to stay and talk to Aang. As Aang approaches, Shidan muses to himself about why they never found him – he and Kuzon were looking for a young man, and then an adult, but Aang hasn’t changed at all. She wonders if Zuko told Shidan about how he found Aang, and then realizes that whether he did or not, Kuzon would never have known – he spent decades looking for Aang with no hope of ever finding him. If Zuko ever found out about that, he’d really think he was cursed. Aang and Sokka come up, and Toph is amused as she introduces them to Shidan and senses their reactions. Shidan only comments that he’s so far sensed no dangerous spirits nearby and asks if they’ve had more luck – Sokka points out that a great name is supposed to handle that sort of thing in their own domain, but Shidan’s a long way from home.
Aang hesitates about whether to tell Shidan anything, which Shidan thinks is a good sign. He admits he’s not here to help Aang, but he has no intention of harming him either. At least, not unless Aang intends to lay waste to the whole Fire Nation, but Shidan knows him and doubts he’d do something like that. He explains that one of his people vanished near here, but he still hasn’t been able to discover why. Aang is noncommittal, to Toph’s surprise – doesn’t he realize who Shidan is? Aang says he does know – but he knows Toph trusts Zuko and Iroh too, and Zuko still hurt Katara. He tells Shidan he knows his grandson. He also knows that Shidan is a great name, and all the great names are answerable to the Fire Lord, and that means whatever is happening here is something the Fire Lord is allowing to happen. As the Avatar, it’s his job to fix this, and he just wants Shidan to stay out of his way. Shidan, angered, calls Aang a young fool full of air’s pride, and thinks that whoever taught Aang about spirits should be beaten and that if Aang doesn’t want an alliance, he’s leaving. Aang bends him in place with earth; he can’t risk Shidan telling Ozai that they’re here, and he’ll let him go once they’re ready to leave. Toph insists that Shidan hates Ozai and won’t tell anyone; Shidan himself only coldly asks if Aang has actually mastered any element. Because if he’d mastered earth… he’d have bound Shidan better. Shidan breathes out a wave of heat, melting the stone enough that he’s able to break free and then bending the lava into a barrier between them before letting it cool. He explains that everything in these islands is born of fire, and he is a firebending master – Aang had better not test him again. Aang says Jeong Jeong never did anything like that, and Shidan says Jeong Jeong wasn’t standing on a volcano. Aang then says that Shiyu said only an Avatar could bend lava – Shidan can’t be human. Shidan is darkly amused Aang finally recognizes him and asks if Aang had really thought he was the only one to stand between humans and spirits. He turns to Sokka, who demonstrated some knowledge of great names, and wants him to know that if his missing subject isn’t found in this forest, he’ll burn it all to the ground. Aang protests that won’t solve anything, but Shidan says he presumes much. Aang says he’s an airbender, and he has to find another way – Toph is genuinely pleased that he’s standing his ground, thinking this is Aang at his best.
Luckily, Shidan also wants to find another way – Byakko would be heavily fined if he burned down another domain’s forest. Aang wonders why he cares about money, since that’s a human concept. Toph realizes that Sokka has also figured out what Shidan is, and Shidan says that he’s not a spirit, he’s as mortal as humans are, mostly. But he’s going to search for his missing subject, even if that means risking his own life – only then will Byakko act. Aang is amazed, and Shidan explains that as a great name, he is responsible for everyone and everything in his domain, including keeping them from harm. He doesn’t know what Hitomi might have done to anger a spirit – if it’s something he can fix, he will. He’ll only use violence if the spirit is so corrupted nothing else works. Aang wants to know why Shidan didn’t just say that to begin with; Shidan says he should have recognized that since most of the Fire Nation isn’t being attacked by spirits, most of its lords are doing their duty properly. He wonders if that just never occurred to Aang – Aang thinks waging war on innocent people is evil, and Shidan corrects him that it’s not malicious. The Fire Lord ordered the war, and the great names must obey, and since the Avatar set the Fire Lord over them, disobeying might call down the wrath of the spirits! Aang says it’s not fair, and Shidan says spirits aren’t fair. Shirotora cares for Byakko because Byakko cares for him. Agni cares for the Fire Nation because all fire is in his purview. Koh cares for the souls of the drowned because they’re his source of power. The Avatar Spirit cares for the world because it is the world, but it doesn’t care about justice, only destroying threats. Toph can’t believe he really thinks that, though she can tell from his heartbeat that he does, and he admits it. But he also understands that the Avatar Spirit isn’t the same as Kyoshi, Roku, or Aang. Aang must decide whether he seeks human justice or a spirit’s revenge. He wouldn’t be in Aang’s place even if it turned back time, undid Makoto’s evil and brought his clan back. He also warns them that he may be endangering Hitomi’s life by helping them – because the spirits might be angry because someone in the Fire Nation is going against the Fire Lord. Aang can’t believe that’s true, and Shidan hopes so too – so now he wants to go and talk to the locals and see if they know anything more.
We end with an author note: A/N: I know this one's going to draw fire, but here goes... There is a difference between an act seen as evil (you're killing my people) and an act defined as malicious. In Anglo-American law, malice "is expressed when there is manifested a deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a human being."
The key word there is "unlawfully". If you're a soldier fighting an enemy country, killing that country's soldiers on the battlefield is, generally, not unlawful.
Spirits are not about justice. They are about rules. Check any fairy tale. There are no extenuating circumstances. You break the rules, you pay the price. You follow the rules - even if you warp the letter of them 'til it bends around backward - and you're generally home free.
MG’s Thoughts
This was a short one, but I do still have some issues. For one, I really can’t help but be bugged by the framing of much of the conversation here, with Shidan being presented as irascible but ill tempered but fundamentally reasonable as he explains to the ignorant kids, Aang especially, how the world really works. For another, this has been an issue underpinning the fic ever since loyalty as a concept was introduced, but I think it really gets spelled out here with the idea that the great names have literally no choice but to follow the Fire Lord, and because of Kyoshi’s decree the universe itself will punish them if they go against said orders. In other words, we have a world here where the Nuremberg Defense is actually valid. Making it worse is that while loyalty and the great name system are all native to the Fire Nation, in the Embers!verse, the Fire Lord’s authority isn’t, which just leads us back to the problem where all the real problems in the fic’s Fire Nation aren’t homegrown social issues but were forced on it from the outside. I also still can’t help but think Vathara has kind of missed the point of the Avatar, in the way she depicts the Avatar as more of a spirit piggybacking on different human lives, rather than a single being that is both human and spirit being reincarnated over lifetimes. In particular, I wonder if she just missed Yangchen’s comments about how the Avatar is reborn to experience human lives and learn what it is to be human, and specifically not to be some distant, alien spirit standing in judgment over everyone.
Also, a few nitpicks, but I’m a bit weirded out that apparently Toph thinks the most suspicious thing about Hama is that she doesn’t act like a Water Tribe person is “supposed” to (also, apparently, we met Hama off-page, and also had Aang’s vision – which is somewhat different from canon, since it involved a message from Gyatso – off-page too). Also… I guess it’s lawful for the Fire Nation to kill people, but not lawful for the Ocean Spirit to do the same, since apparently every relative of anyone who died at the North Pole is honor-bound to be out for vengeance. And I still have to wonder what Vathara’s reaction was when canon confirmed that lavabending is an aspect of earthbending, not firebending.
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And that's a reoccurring problem in the fic - the closest anyone gets to acknowledging that the Ocean actually has a will of his own is when the one fellow claims he must have allied with Koh. (Though why he'd ally with Koh when his wife wants Koh to fail is beyond me.)
Which I can't help but suspect ties into the worrisome Water Tribe depiction, considering how hostile Vathara seems to think water spirits generally are and how she explicitly assumes the people of the four elements 'take after' their respective elements.
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I still hate that Vathara has like, "Culture is Genetic!" as a thing as well. Which is just... well, *wrong* on so many levels to me.
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Agreed. In one of her earlier ANs, she outright called it a kid with a WMD, not, you know, the wrath of a god, which is a very different thing. Seconding your other comments here as well.
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That's all I got so far.
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