Overanalyzing Avatar: The Painted Lady

Honestly I didn't hate the fake spirit thing, it seemed like a creative use of bending to me. Toph and Appa could've been utilized better, but I kinda like the idea of using magic to imitate scarier magic. I don't know, I've always liked theatrics in fiction, sort of getting a peak behind how they convinced their enemies they were more powerful than they really were. Likewise I also liked that they realized that they had to attribute the defense to the painted lady so they wouldn't just come back a day later, and the fact that Sokka's offhanded comment convinced Katara to fight back, him saying something like that felt totally natural. And him then saying "what? No, I wasn't being serious, did you even think this through?" also felt like a pretty natural reaction to finding out Katara took him seriously. That being said Sokka's schedule, Appa's "sickness", the over-the-top disgusting nature of the polution and weird fish body-horror, all of that stuff was just bad. Especially since in the end they have like two days just to worry about Aang sleeping.

pizzamonkey

Holy cow, someone agreed with me that this is the worst! Great divide at least had some decent comedy to it.

Ethan ThaDerpius

I agree, this episode isn't great, but I still liked the story line more than the great divide.

Dan Johnson

I think this episode would have been better if it took place after The Southern Raiders. Instead of focusing on Katara as if this were some big character defining moment (and not a character trait that she had already demonstrated over and over before), it should have focused on Zuko coming to terms with how even his own people, who are supposedly on the "winning" side, are suffering the consequences of generations of endless war. Totally scrap the "Katara plays guardian spirit" schtick and take this episode seriously. It's a serious consequence of war, and this show is usually so good about taking the actual consequences of war deadly serious and it just goes against so much of Avatar's fabric to treat this issue so cartoonishly and silly. Instead, make it a grounded issue for Zuko to deal with, and have the rest of Team Avatar rally to help him save this town (or another town suffering under the Fire Nation's war machine in some way). This would have given us a full episode where the whole team is present and has to come together to help Zuko accomplish his goal, rather than it always just being "Zuko takes one person on a side quest to help them with something and gain their trust and friendship." As it is, we do not get a single full episode where all of Team Avatar are together, encounter an obstacle, and overcome it together. We get a few minutes in a couple of episodes where they deal with a problem, but it's always a mini-conflict to move the rest of the episode's plot along rather than the main conflict of any episode. We also don't really get a full, regular episode, at all, where Katara isn't being openly hostile toward Zuko. She's in full blown bloodlust revenge mode in The Southern Raiders and really doesn't interact on a personal level with Zuko until the very end (once Zuko points her in the right direction she's so laser focused in on finding her target that Zuko almost feels like he's being dragged behind her just so he can personally witness how fucking terrifying she can be when she really wants to). Ember Island Players doesn't really count, either, because the team are pretty much just passive observers in that episode and don't really do anything to drive the plot forward. Then in Sozin's Comet Aang storms off to meditate at about the 12 minute mark in part 1 (roughly subtracting the intro and "previously on" segments from the beginning) and doesn't directly interact with anyone else in the group until 10 minutes before the end of the series. It would have been way better to have the "Fire Nation civilians are suffering, too" story AFTER Zuko was in the group and had his moments with everyone to gain their trust and camaraderie so we could see how the complete team could work together to overcome an obstacle. It also would have given everyone their opportunity to collectively support Zuko in something, really solidifying their friendship before the grand finale. Bonus: it would have given us one more episode with Suki, too.

Kevin Hall

actually Nightmares and Daydreams (apart from the Zuko part) might be worse than this one too

ThirdStrikeEnjoyer

Great Divide is still worse for me, but yeah this one is not that far behind it for sure, very strange episode

ThirdStrikeEnjoyer

Okay but real take away is Jesus is water bender

daniel ward

The moon continuity is just yue following the gang. Yue is literally fucking it up. Makes sense.

I feel like the episode could've been a lot better if it were mentioned by Fire Nation Citizens at all maybe influencing Zuko's final decision to help the gang or maybe if there were Fire Nation soldiers during Sokka's attack on the airships that realized, "Hey maybe the Avatar's gang isn't too bad, they helped out our people." I don't know, I feel like it could've been something that really started a change in the Fire Nation if it were done well enough.

Double Cross

Damn, fastest DMCA turnaround ever? Also, are you gonna cover the chibi shorts?

Kevin Hall

Perhaps Is there are more fire nation episodes than other nation episodes but the whole show is the other elements versus the fire nation. Also the entirety of the 1st season spent traveling through the Earth kingdom and then the 2nd season was again more Earth kingdom we we got a decent amount of water tribe but we also travel with people from the water tribe for the entire series. Which is why At least to me it feels like there's not a lot of fire nation episodes which is also why at least in my opinion they all get a pass. You know what episode I skip on a rewatch the great divide and bottle of the water tribe and that episode where they go to a play. Those are the only episodes and I put all 3 of those at equally as bad.

I've never been able to put into words exactly what it was that was off about this episode (/season?), and you have done so *perfectly*

Ya know does no one realise that the reason Appa swimming coz they don't wanna get spotted in the fire nation, later when aang gets seen air bending up a cliff of the sea Appa who way easier to spot.

I actually love this episode, I feel like its parallels to book 1 are very deliberate. We get to see a town buried within the Fire Nation, it’s easy to assume that’s the ONE place where people would be truly safe from the war, especially younger audiences. And yet it feels every inch like an oppressed, Earth Kingdom village. That’s a really cool face of the war machine that we don’t really get to see in any other episode. For all the things it does wrong, it still explores mature themes and ideas.

Fierce

About the metal processing factory, to get metal you have to separate it from the rock that it was encased in and since that just dilutes the iron percentage it makes sense that they were dumping it in the river like a lot of real life factories do with their waste products

I have a theory that Sokka was fucking with Katara just to get her to help the village when he says “this place will just go right back to the way it was.”

So you think a bunch of country folk give a shit about governance when they have asshole military next to them

i agree with you i skip HARDLY any episodes but this is one of them

matthew james Stromberg

fire nation episodes certainly don't get a pass, not only because more of the show takes place in the fire nation than any other nation, but they're usually the best episodes of the show

You know what bothered me, they were in a fire nation village. Katara casually water bending and blind Toph casually airbending whilst cleaning the river. Also indeed the painted lady is one lazy ass b****

Jesse

We celebrate these W's!

ADLegend21

Ugh. Can't believe this is your least favorite. All of the fire nation episodes imo get a pass because it's all we get in the fire nation. All u said is right now that u point it out. But the general esthetic puts it above the great divide I think.

Wasn’t expecting to see Jake and Amir reference lol

Uchii

Sokka not wanting to help doesn’t even make sense from a military point of view. They can take out a factory, and hearts and minds. When they eventually win it would suck if the whole fire nation still hated them.

Evan Brandt

Suck it viacom

Uno momento there my guy, still have to do my favorite epi first. Sokka's Master (or " the episode that reveals Uncle Iroh to be a f****** tank"

I have to be real, Season 3 is not my favorite for exactly this reason: the first half is very very forgettable

Bryant Bolyen

God this episode sucks. luckily the beach is next

Eduardo Beltran

I could never figure out what was wrong with this episode until now. Thank you

Another week, another over analyzing video 👌