MG Reads Embers: Chapter Eighty-Seven

[masterghandalf]

Chapter Eighty-Seven

We open as the White Lotus ship approaches the North Pole, with Pakku praising the Northern summer and thinking that he’ll never get used to the sun’s cycles closer to the equator. This doesn’t get much of a reaction from Iroh, which annoys Pakku, since being a grumpy curmudgeon is supposed to be his job. Finally, he reminds Iroh that if Zuko’s wrong, then Zuko is safe, Amaya is safe, and that’s more than can be said for Pakku’s people. He also thinks not having Zuko and Aang in the same place is a good thing. The two of them together isn’t a recipe for disaster, it’s a full-scale feast – and Pakku is pleased when this succeeds in getting a reaction from Iroh. We cut to Aang as he greets Pakku and Iroh. He’s already run into some of the other White Louts masters, including Bumi, Piandao, Jeong Jeong, and a very seasick Shiyu who arrived with Hakoda. He explains to them that he needs to pull off what he’s planning before Sozin’s Comet leaves. Koh is a water spirit – Aang can tell that because he has power over the drowned – and so if things go wrong, Aang will need all the fire backing him up he can get. Iroh guesses that Ozai may have deduced the importance of the Spirit Oasis and tells Aang that the gathered masters are here to face him. Aang is stricken at the thought of facing Ozai again, especially since that means Ozai would have to get past his friends and Dragons’ Wings – and even as skilled as they are, they’ll be up against a lot of fire. Aang decides he has to trust that Sokka has a plan.

Iroh wants to get a look at the defenses; last time he was here, he was a bit distracted. He also tells Aang he knew he’d be here. Iroh says Sozin’s Comet will be here soon and pulls out a spyglass to watch the horizon. Aang asks what he’s looking for, and he says he’s watching for Ozai’s fleet, which will be coming from the direction of the nearest Fire Nation colony. Aang is surprised, since he knows Ozai is taking the high wind road, and that’s not the direction he’ll be coming from. Pakku thinks that Zuko may not have manners, but clearly, he learned something at sea; Iroh is still confused, since he doesn’t see how this works with Ozai’s objective, but Pakku thinks Ozai’s primary objective is power. He threw away his father, his wife, and his son for it. Iroh says Zuko didn’t mean to challenge Ozai at the war council or to break loyalty… and then he realizes something. Aang asks what’s wrong, and Iroh says that Ozai is obsessed with binding loyalty, and he knows so long as Kyoshi’s decree is in force, no one can break loyalty to him and survive… unless they have a great name willing to stand up for them, like Shidan, or Piandao… or Zuko. We cut to Zuko, watching the skies above Dragons’ Wings as the first sight of Ozai’s airship fleet comes into view. Zuko thinks he hates being right.

MG’s Thoughts

Well, this is one of the shortest chapters of the whole fic, and the last of the “preparation” chapters before the final battle starts next time. I still have some issues with it. Frist off… why is Koh a water spirit? He doesn’t resemble an aquatic creature. He doesn’t have water-based powers. He lives in a tree, not a body of water (there’s a pool nearby, but… that’s kind of tenuous). Aang reached him when he entered the spirit world by meditating at the North Pole’s Spirit Oasis, but space and distance don’t really work the same way in the spirit world as they do in the mortal world. He’s supposedly the Avatar Spirit’s offspring, which you’d think would make him connected to all four elements – assuming he has any particular elemental affiliation at all, something a lot of spirits don’t seem to have. In terms of the mythological parallels Vathara is drawing for him, Nidhogg isn’t really associated with water – Jormungand is, but in a way that’s related to qualities (ie, lying in the ocean and encircling the world) that Koh doesn’t share. Even his control over the drowned has previously been attributed to him having control over the unhallowed dead, not because they died in water specifically. It just feels like another case of the fic’s weird running theme that things strongly associated with water, especially deep water, are alien and dangerous. On a related note, the whole conversation with Iroh just feels like it exists to rub in that Zuko was right and Iroh was wrong about Ozai’s target, and IMO it just feels petty and unnecessary. I also can’t help but think that the appeance of the White Lotus masters is very rushed – they’re just there all of a sudden, with no buildup, and you’d think they’d have deserved that. Especially Bumi who is, after all, Aang’s oldest living friend. But not, it’s just skimmed over.

Comments

[mancalledtrue]

It just feels like another case of the fic’s weird running theme that things strongly associated with water, especially deep water, are alien and dangerous.

One is tempted to wonder if this has anything to do with the lionization of the Fire Nation.

[chessybell_90]

The idea that water and water spirits are dangerous turns up in some of her other works, so I'm personally inclined to suspect thalassophobia.

[bestbrotherever]

I wonder if she'd like The Sick Land. (One of the themes is that the water hates all non-water life.)

[masterghandalf]

Certainly wouldn't surprise me if it's two sides of the same general idea, though I do wonder (and don't know enough to speculate) if it's just this fic or reflective of larger thoughts Vathara seems to have.

[chessybell_90]

So I was joking earlier when I suggested Vathara might have thalassophobia, but given that the only connection I can see between even Embers Koh and water is 'people find them scary' I'm no longer sure.

[masterghandalf]

I mean, it's enough of a running theme that it seems to mean something...

Vathara IS afraid of water

[kalaong]

Go check out her first published work, "A Net of Dawn and Bones" and its sequel, "Seeds of Blood". One of the POV characters, Christophe Savonarola, is a self-doubting, wangsting firstborn heir to a powerful family with an affinity for fire magic. The big bad, his brother Steven Savonarola, is the secondborn son, highly skilled, popular and well-connected - and his specialty is manipulating water.

You could forgiven for seeing Cristophe as a Zuko-expy with Steven as Katara.

"Water should always conquer fire."

There's even a scene in "Seeds of Blood" where they have to cross a river on a haunted boat - that is actually rotted away and only floats by supernatural fiat.

It's actually almost certain that she's a pyromaniac, given how Zuko gets to wax poetic about staring into flames and feeling like a murderer every time he puts out a fire. There's a somewhat creepy scene in the first book where she basically engages in apologism for every wound ever suffered from fire; "Fire is far less willing to burn the living than most would believe. All that lives has water in it. Fire would much rather feast on a bit of dry grass, or a scrap of paper."

...I wonder how she can stand to drink when she's thirsty?

Re: Vathara IS afraid of water

[chessybell_90]

That does seem telling, yes.