Avatar Katara and the Pirate's Silver Review
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00:00Avatar, Katara, and the Pirate Silver.
00:03The story starts out by establishing that it happened before Season 3 of the show.
00:09Toph bores me by pointlessly whining because the Fire Nation is always chasing them.
00:14She says it's fine that she and Katara are different,
00:17and suggests that she taught Aang bending in a day and not weeks,
00:21which eventually makes Katara insecure.
00:24The scene was supposed to set up her trying to prove she's tough,
00:28but I didn't need to see that to be able to understand such a thing because I already know she can be tough.
00:34Her friendship with Toph already justifies her wanting to be tough.
00:40Some soldiers fling giant fireballs at Appa, causing Aang to make him fly up.
00:46But he flies too up, despite all of his experience with Appa, causing Katara to fall.
00:53And I have to assume that it makes sense because due to the direction the fireballs are going and where they are,
00:58if he did anything other than flying directly up, he would fly into the fireballs.
01:05And she creates a water spout to break her fall.
01:09She makes a ball of water around her to protect herself, and she gets sent down a waterfall.
01:14She gets out of an ice ball.
01:16Eventually, Aang warns Sokka not to yell because they're near some soldiers, who should've already heard the yelling.
01:23They see one of the soldiers eating alone, and it plays in for comedy when of course Toph could make anybody look like a chump.
01:31He starts a fire, and Toph traps him in the earth, which she should've done in the first place because that embarrassed him too.
01:39The heroes start putting out the fire, and Sokka sets the fires out before the fires are actually extinguished.
01:46The soldier accuses Aang of malice, and reveals to him that he thinks he and the Air Nomads want to take over the world.
01:53It makes sense that people with no knowledge of them would believe that when already their own government wanted to do that.
02:00This panel was mentioned as a goof on the wiki because Aang doesn't learn for the first time that Fire Nationers think this
02:07until he went undercover as a student in their country.
02:10But it could still not contradict the show, because he didn't reveal that he was taught about this in school.
02:17Katara eventually gets told by a soldier that no one's allowed outside the village without an escort,
02:22because Ozai only does stuff out of sadism, and the sheer arrogance of being able to make any law he wants, which is the same thing as sadism.
02:32He plans to arrest her just because she's not from this village, so she knocks him out and drags him into the bushes.
02:39Thankfully, she covers herself with a hanging green blanket instead of stealing his clothes, which would be uncomfortable for her to see.
02:47Anyone who looked down would still see that at least some of her clothes are blue.
02:52The shopkeeper complains that the soldier's ate all of his food, and he can't get new food because of the blockade, so that's a bit interesting.
03:01Someone tells her to follow him, and she wisely says no, but not so wisely lets down her hood, which makes it too obvious she's Water Tribe.
03:10She's surrounded by people who praise her on how good she was at waterbending.
03:15The guy with earrings in the 1800s wants to hire her for his ship, and she likes the idea because it'll go away from the soldiers.
03:24She's expected to demonstrate her waterbending just in case, even though he saw her waterbend.
03:31She didn't have to hit someone in the face with water. That could've gone wrong for her.
03:36Jiang explains that he tested her because earlier he hired someone else who pretended to be a waterbender for no reason.
03:43That doesn't explain it. When he saw her waterbend,
03:47I ain't thinking he could talk reason into one of these people's lampshade as being ridiculous.
03:53I see a padding subplot.
03:56He says that the Fire Lord spread lies that the Air Nomads had an army.
04:00So this can only make sense with a show if he was only surprised by learning that the schools were where the lies were spread,
04:06and before, he thought only adults were told this.
04:10After some boring worthless dialogue for way too long,
04:14Aang says he's going to tell him the truth, even though he clearly just did.
04:18He would've heard him say this because he's right next to him.
04:21He thinks airbending's evil and gets told that airbenders can't outright fly,
04:26even though that makes no sense.
04:28So I'm glad Zaheer flew in The Legend of Korra,
04:31although the idea that he had to let go of his human attachments is completely convoluted anyway,
04:37so he's still an airbender.
04:39Didn't Aang fly with airbending for his last battle with Ozai?
04:44Why would he need the Avatar State for that if he's only flying with airbending?
04:48This scene is such a waste of time.
04:51The soldier seems to believe him that he can't fly on his own at least.
04:55He's asked who told him the Air Nomads wanted to take over the world,
04:59and somehow, instead of him saying he learned it in school,
05:02he says he learned it from his cousin, as if he didn't go to school,
05:06which is the only way this couldn't be a continuity error,
05:09and says the other people learned this from a poster.
05:12So this completely contradicts the show.
05:15I guess the poster was meant for people who didn't go to school,
05:19but you'd think the Fire Nation would have truant officers.
05:22Katara thinks she has to be like Toph and Spitz, which ends up embarrassing her.
05:27I feel bad for her, but it's not as bad as it could be
05:30because she's been annoying before with no consequences.
05:34Katara ends up being brought to someone who happens to be the cousin of the pirate
05:38she stole a waterbending scroll from.
05:40How is she gonna get out of this tense situation?
05:43Well, she intimidates him, just like the Avatar's friend once,
05:48denies it, and walks away.
05:50Jing says the Earth Kingdom army is stretched thin from fighting the Fire Nation,
05:55so they've been easy to steal from.
05:57I have to assume that it's only King Bumi who's having the Earth Kingdom fight the Fire Nation,
06:02despite his lip service to neutral Jing,
06:06because the other king was oblivious to their threat.
06:09Unless the Earth Kingdom army is fighting on their own,
06:12without any sort of interaction from either the king or Long Feng,
06:17the one who's actually in charge.
06:19Somehow, Katara asks why these boxes are marked with the Earth Kingdom army seal,
06:24even though she should've heard people confess that they took it from their army a panel ago.
06:29She also somehow wonders why she'd be expected to wear their army uniform
06:33when it's easy to assume it's meant for a disguise so they could get out of here.
06:37Somehow, Aang and his friends still aren't planning to take off.
06:41Even though Katara could be hurt too badly to heal herself.
06:45I wouldn't blame anyone for completely skipping this subplot.
06:49Sokka thinks he could talk someone out of their government propaganda that's fully emotion-based with facts,
06:56because he's an idiot in this story.
06:58He says that he doesn't really want to be enemies with the Fire Lord,
07:01and would love to live in harmony with him and the Fire Nation.
07:04The soldier says the Fire Nation is sharing its wealth and achievements,
07:08but gets told that the Earth Kingdom citizens didn't welcome him into their homes,
07:13or let the armies into their biggest city.
07:15Sokka says that the rest of the world also wants to live in harmony with this country like it used to,
07:20but he doesn't believe him.
07:22He breaks out on his own.
07:24Why did this take so long?
07:26He shouldn't talk to them first.
07:28Somehow, Appa eats him and spits him out when I expected to have to Earthbend him away first.
07:34Jang reveals that he was raised in a family of pirates,
07:37which is less likely than the alternative, so I don't take it seriously.
07:41He says his ship is the last one here that wasn't taken by the Fire Nation,
07:46and he's keeping his crew free from them.
07:48He says the Earth King's army aren't his people,
07:51because the Earth Kingdom abandoned the people outside the walls of Ba Sing Se.
07:56If that was true, their army wouldn't be fighting a war with the Fire Nation at all.
08:01Some people get handed some papers to avoid suspicion.
08:05How did they get those papers?
08:07Oh, we don't need to explain that minor detail.
08:10But someone wants to take a closer look at that ship.
08:13He would hear Jang call Katara Waterbender.
08:16The guy wants to arrest them because they tried to take the ship earlier this year, and they resisted.
08:22How inconvenient that he recognizes the ship,
08:25even though ships tend to look similar to one another, if not the same.
08:30I guess he's a real ship fanatic.
08:32The crew gets onto the ship, and Katara Waterbends them for a little while.
08:37She tells Jang they've got to get out of here without the cargo,
08:41which is very stupid because she should know she could easily fend them off
08:44while the crew gets the cargo because she's right next to the ocean.
08:48Why can't she just keep sending the entire ocean coast at them over and over?
08:53He should tell her that.
08:55I guess she knows this and just doesn't want them to get away with stolen cargo,
08:59but it'll never get returned to its owners anyways,
09:02so there's no point in her interfering.
09:04They should have told her what the cargo was.
09:08A soldier sneaks up on Jang, and she saves him,
09:11and we see the impact both times the soldiers get hit.
09:15That's nice, but I prefer to see impact on people I actually hate.
09:20Well, these guys are just trying to stop pirates and doing their jobs,
09:24and as it's been established, they don't know that they're evil.
09:27Jang decides to set sail,
09:29even though he could still tell Katara to send the ocean at them.
09:33Eventually, the ship's hit with fire,
09:35and somehow Katara asks him why he cares about the cargo
09:38and accuses him of not caring about his crew for no reason.
09:41She easily waterbends to make the Fire Nation ship not a problem
09:45and makes a move ahead, damaging a dock
09:47so the pirates would be able to move the cargo onto the ship she stole.
09:52This is the best part of the story, of course.
09:55She fortunately genuinely smiles when thanked and spoken to in a friendly manner.
10:00This is the nicest pirate I've ever seen.
10:02It's confusing to betray a pirate so sympathetically.
10:06Eventually, Katara freezes the soldier who talked to Sokka,
10:10and Jang makes sure the Fire Nation ship gets sunk by stuff that got catapulted into it.
10:15So can the people on that ship swim?
10:18No one seems to consider that, thankfully.
10:22Katara notices medicine on the ship,
10:25and she accuses Jang of planning to make sick people pay for medicine and calls him cruel,
10:29so we know what her opinion on American healthcare is.
10:33He should've lied to her that he's gonna have people pay an extremely small price for the medicine,
10:38since she wouldn't believe him if he said he was gonna give it to people for free.
10:43He could also tell her that he's planning to keep the medicine in case he and his crew ever need it,
10:48which she could've easily assumed.
10:50Saying he's evil for that would be the same as calling a pharmacist evil for keeping medication in his store.
10:56She should know it wouldn't be sustainable for everyone to give out medicine for free
11:00unless the government or a billionaire-funded charity was paying for it all.
11:05Jang gets humanized again because when the ship docks,
11:08someone goes up to him with flowers happy with him.
11:11He thanks him for it.
11:13I guess this is his little brother.
11:15He explains that when he said they'd be paid in silver, he meant Silver Lily.
11:20There's no reason he'd say silver instead of being clear,
11:23because he was just begging for her to betray them at the last second.
11:28He says he'd be evil to demand money people didn't have as payment for curing their sick,
11:33but he's only doing this because they're his people.
11:37She says he'd be a pirate if he did that.
11:39She shouldn't say that because for all she knows, that could tempt him to change his mind.
11:43Oh, of course someone must've hated this for being political.
11:47Or more like disagreeing with their opinion,
11:49because if he was agreeing with someone, he wouldn't complain about it.
11:52Jang says his crew swore an oath to fight the Fire Nation until the war's over.
11:57She smiles because of this, and Aang greets her on Appa.
12:01She hugs him and Sokka and Toph, who at least halfway hugs back.
12:06While it makes sense that Katara would tell her friends about what she's been doing, it's still boring.
12:11I'd rather just have a text box say, one explanation later, like Archie Sonic.
12:16Sokka doesn't believe her, thinking that she's mistaken about the fact that they're pirates.
12:22Aang doesn't believe her either, even though these people have plenty of crazy adventures,
12:26and she's not known for being an idiot or a liar.
12:30Toph not vouching for him makes sense because Sokka thinks she's mistaken.
12:34Her living lie detector sense can't attack when someone only thinks they're telling the truth but aren't.
12:40Thankfully, Jang offers to make Katara an honorary member of his crew for getting them down the river.
12:46Wouldn't it suck if the story ended before this point?
12:49He says it might be time for him to retire. He doesn't seem old.
12:53So why does he think he's getting too old for this?
12:55I guess he phrased it poorly, and it really means that one day his luck might run out.
13:00Sokka calls her the coolest sister ever, and the story ends with her agreeing.
13:05This issue by Faith Erin Hicks is about Katara falling off Appa because Aang had to steer him directly up to avoid fireballs,
13:13and joining pirates and keeping some soldiers off their backs because she thinks that's the only way to get away from an occupied town.
13:20But she should've known that if she waited long enough, she'd see Appa in the air eventually.
13:25Sokka then dropped her disguise, but I get her being impatient to get back with them faster.
13:30And I like that the story had the pirates do something nice because it's led by a nice guy.
13:35Because the whole story had her hating them and had me waiting for the pirates to become total monsters.
13:40So it's a nice surprise that it didn't do that.
13:43This is the right kind of idealism that IDW Sonic should have instead of having nothing but irredeemable villains.
13:50This is more gray-and-gray morality.
13:52The kind it does have is shown off by Aang, who should know he can't change the mind of a Fire Nation soldier.
13:59But at least Hop thinks that's stupid and the person they're looking for can heal herself.
14:04So they have a reason to think there's no hurry.
14:06I was interested in seeing what Aang's subplot would be like, considering that I didn't think he'd have one.
14:11But it was nothing but frustrating padding.
14:14Speaking of that, that's what Sookie Alone is.
14:17A depressing, pointless story where she gets her hopes up in prison just to have everything she did be for nothing.
14:23At least for her, because it did get someone special privileges for telling the guards about her garden.
14:28I don't want to review that story because that's all I have to say about it.
14:31And it's probably mostly boring dialogue anyways.
14:34I like the idea of a garden that grows food in prison.
14:37But I hate the story because the prisoners end up losing access to it.
14:41When the people running the prison should just be grateful for the saved money and food.
14:46Another pointless story is Azul and the Spirit Temple, because it ends on the status quo.
14:52But it sounds interesting enough to review anyways because Azul is in it.
14:56And since when did she ever go to the Spirit Temple?