Southern Water Tribe

Now, we get a brief montage reintroducing the adult versions of Sokka, Toph, and Zuko, and this is another moment of pure fun in the movie because we got to see the rest of Team Avatar and what they've been up to lately while also retaining much of their personality.

Sokka's in the Southern Water Tribe teaching children about his inventions and telling his stories about Team Avatar.

Toph is in her metalbending school teaching kids how to metalbend, and Zuko's dealing with issues in the Fire Nation being the Fire Lord.

Everyone in Team Avatar is within their element.

So Kaya, um, basically we see...

It's s- it's framed around Korra's time recovering in the Southern Water Tribe, and Kaya is sort of trying to comfort her and give her, you know-

Yeah

... wisdom and talk to her and everything.

The way they interact with and view each other, how they view the world, how they view themselves, so much of that stems from how their parents raised them.

And the dichotomy between the Fire Nation siblings and the Southern Water Tribe siblings couldn't be a more accurate representation of that.

We talk a lot about Zuko and Sokka and Zuko and Katara, but one of the strongest foils in this series is Katara and Azula.

The daughters of the two opposing nations illuminate each other more and more as the story unfolds.

She wants to be a monster because it's better than facing what emotions would come out of investigating her and her mother's relationship.

Both Azula and Katara have lost their mothers during their formative years.

Kaeya sacrificed herself for the last Southern Water tribe waterbender, and Katara carried her mother's heart throughout the series, unlike Azula.

And unlike her counterpart, Katara is open and vulnerable because she recognized that in her mother.

All right.

So, Mirlan comes from Jasmine Island, the child of a prosperous family of southern water tribe merchants who later moved there.

He himself lacks the work ethos that made his family rich, and his inherited wealth is depleted.

His family forced him to join the protectors to set him on the right path, but he resented it.

definitely gonna make sure you get that producer credit yeah all right and then what large scale changes does your character try to enact in the world

I think he has visited every nation.

I think he has seen both the Northern and Southern Water Tribe.

I think he's met a lot of people.

And I think Hanako finally meets his eyes.

My name is Ikamak, from the Southern Water Tribe.

22 years ago, your mother visited the Southern Water Tribe on a diplomatic mission.

Simpler to this, I suppose.

And she swept me off my feet.

And so you're all sitting around the coffee table, drinking your tea, and Ikumot turns to you, Hanako, and asks, Well, clearly I've missed,

what, 22 years of your life? Tell me about yourself.

You said you were from the Southern Water Tribe, yes?

But to me, this story was less about Aang's parenting skills and more about Tenzin Kayambumi's issues surrounding their self-worth and issues with one another regarding their relationship with their father.

And also earlier in the art book, he mentioned that he thought that was a good thing to get into thematically to interplay with the kind of family strife in the Southern Water Tribe at the time that was happening as well.

It's like I understand, right? Like we're talking about, I understand what he's saying and what they're going for.

And I will say this, like I didn't even read that quote when I had initially watched.

There's spirit portals in the North and South pole.

Um, all this stuff they're throwing at us that we didn't know about.

So that this kind of a common theme of, uh, there's also like the notion that the chief of the Northern water tribe is also the chief of the Southern water tribe.

This, that wasn't clear.

I will say this.

This is not well communicated in the first show because for a long time, I always thought that the entire Southern Water Tribe was just that one village.

It's somebody established behind the scenes that, OK, there's actually a bunch of villages like that around the South Pole.

It's just there's not a lot of unity or like communication or cohesion between the different little parts of the Southern Water Tribe.

So it's really more the Southern Water Tribes, plural.

Yeah, right.

Apparently, it's not just that one village, but I always thought that for a long time, too.

There's a couple of frustrations I have with this season, and Unlock is part of that.

It's always cool to see them, but in terms of...

But it also felt like, really? Like, would Toph be here? Or Katara being in the Southern Water Tribe? I mean, that kind of makes

sense.

I mean, that makes sense.