ATLA: The Promise Part One

[tripodeca113]

"When I first signed on to write the comics, I freaked out a little. I had a hard time imagining how to continue the story in an authentic way.

Two things helped. First, I looked at history. The Fire Nation is loosely based on Imperial Japan, so I looked at what happened to Japan after they were defeated in World War II. It's not like the end of the war meant the end of conflict, especially in Japanese colonies.

Second, I remembered that our protagonists are teenagers. Especially in your teenage years, character growth is often two steps forward, one step back."Gene Yang

(24 out of 72 pages)



So these comics have kind of a mixed reception. Personally I like them,but I have issues with them sometimes. Anyway I was going through the older entries when I realized this series hadn't been posted in full and that most of what had been posted was no longer view-able. So why not post them?. If you haven't watched the show this may not be for you.

After recreating the shows opening, the story proper begins.





They plan on removing the colonies, with the Avatar overseeing that the process happens peacefully. The dub this the Harmony Restoration Process. This is inspired by the Self-Strengthening Movement and May Fourth Movement from Chinese history.





They go for a night ride on Appa.


One year later

At the Fire Nation Royal palace, Zuko wakes up sensing that he's about to be attacked. The assassins takes out his guards, but he defeats them.

Some time later at Yu Dao.



Zuko remembers the conversation he had with his father in the show's finale. Continuing from where the show left off, Ozai refuses to answer Zuko's questions about his mother.



Later Aang, Katara and Sokka are overseeing the arrival of the Fire Nation citizens from the last of the newer colonies back to the Fire Nation, when they learn Zuko has withdrawn his support for the Harmony Restoration Movement.

Toph chastises her students, before leaving to check what's happening in Yu Dao. Hearing Appa overhead she launches herself into the air.

Zuko has holed up in Yu Dao with his soldiers.
Aang is mediating and discussing the matter with Avatar Roku. He believes that the he could have prevented the Hundred Year War if he had killed Firelord Sozin.



Oh look it's Smellerbee and Longshot. They didn't get killed by the Dai Li. And they bought the guy who was only in one episode with them.

Aang rejects their offer to break into the city, and flies over the gates with Katara.

A group of Fire Nation soldiers attack them.








Well that was a bit abrupt. With Zuko and Aang calmed down,he shows them around the city.


When Zuko first arrived he ordered his soldiers to arrest the mayor, only for an Earthbender to stop them.

From the time he spent with them, Zuko believes that the Harmony Restoration Movement would destroy Yu Dao and that ever since his coronation he has been neglecting the good of his people.






Smellerbee and the rest give Aang three days to arrange a solution with the Earth King. Otherwise they'll deal with the problem themselves.



Meanwhile Zuko has arrived back at the Fire Nation (please don't think about the travel times in this story, poor Appa).

Mai is annoyed that Zuko left without telling her.

That night a troubled Zuko awakens.




I do wonder if Aang will have to kill Zuko.
What do you think official poster showing the characters as adults?
I don't know either grown-up Zuko.

Comments

[janegray]

Really don't hate the hate for the comics.

No, they are not as excellent as the show.

But they are still pretty good!

[mastermahan]

They are good - Gene Luen Yang is an excellent writer, and his knowledge of and passion for Chinese history and culture served him well writing these.

I do get where the distaste comes from. Zuko's character journey is the best part of the show, so toying with the idea that Zuko's not really Ozai's son was playing with fire, no pun intended. A lot of people dropped the comic during The Search and didn't see the better stuff that came after.

Although I wonder if people would react differently to Zuko's disappeared, idolized mother being revealed as a damaged fuckup post-Steven Universe.

[ozaline]

I mean if he'd actually not been Ozai's son it'd have undercut the themes of the show but as he was I think the Search was a pretty good story.

[sanjuro]

I know it's a more complicated issue but isn't Aang endorsing segregation? It's weird that he's taking such a hardline stance and not entertaining the idea that there could be an exception.

[locuatico]

Long explanation short: Yes, yes he is. And that is the point.
Aang is from a time before the war and is thinking with the mentality of the time, which is that the four nations can ONLY be in harmony if they are separated.

[t209]

Again, the in-universe values.
Even before the Hundred Years War, elemental segregation seems to be endorsed by all Avatars.
And almost everyone suffers from the oppression by Fire Nation during the Fire Nation war, which they resent Fire Nation colonies as a symbol of subjugation and evil.
Combining these two means that "peacefully integrating" or "naturalization" would be completely alien to them.

[t209]

So any idea if it felt like a reference to Expulsions of Germans in Czechoslovakia (including Poland, Russia, and Baltic countries) and finding the ethnic Germans to be "problematic"--even Sudeten Germans were protected under country's constitution and living there way way before Second World War--due to backlash of German occupation and being used as a reason for said occupation?
https://youtu.be/zyWx4p4hiaY
I am not sure about immigration rights since Fire Nation colonists being the result of "unlawful land seizure by someone a century ago" even if current inhabitants having little to no commonality with their homeland and mostly backlash against "evil invaders" (unless if you count "guilt by inaction or association").
Like Harmony Restoration Movement, many of these nations wanted to "put back people in right places" (which again ignoring said people living in regions for generations and more in common with local; not to mention peacefully integrated even in areas where the conquered people became the government).

[tripodeca113]

According to interviews it's inspired by post- World War 2 Japan. Like how Taiwan was under Japanese rule for fifty years, but after the war the Japanese families who had moved there had to leave. The Taiwanese were second-class citizens, but interpersonal relationships could be more complicated.
Yang notes he has a Taiwanese acquaintance who's grandfather was adopted and cared for by a Japanese family.