The Kyoshi Novels - My thoughts

https://vimeo.com/474287107 Let me know if that doesn't work and I'll try something else!

Alex G

This embedded video isn't working for me either. It says: "because of its privacy settings, this video cannot be played here." Can you please upload an alternative link?

madgod

Loved the books, they really do expand the Avatar universe in a very satisfying way. One thing I am curious about that you didn't talk much about - what did you think of Kyoshi and Rangi's relationship? I think it's an important part of Kyoshi's character in these books, and I liked that the moments they had in the 2nd book helped to balance some of the high-stake scenes Kyoshi was facing.

jdthebud

The Kyoshi Novels are probably the best pieces of literature I've ever read. I was absolutely blown away by how incredible these books were.

Josiah Peterson

I see a lot of Kuruk in Korra; they both are extremely talented benders (and somewhat cocky) who sought to improve their fighting skills with modern/innovative forms of fighting. They both went through suffering and depression, and had a lot of experience with spirits. Kuruk and Korra are often misunderstand and even hated for their flaws, but I think their sacrifices show who they are as avatars, and made me really love them. Plus, if Kuruk knew how to "spirit bend", like Unalaq and Korra, his story wouldn't have been so tragic. I wonder how that would've affected the cycle.

Bonzo Pippinpaddle Opsicopolis The Third

I love how the world building of the fire nation in shadow really sets things up for the Air Nomad genocide and the 100 year war. A creator I follow on youtube did a really excellent video about this, if you wanted to explore it more :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo6CMCHtHMI

myownzinger

Good stuff. There's so much in these books. I like Hei-Ran and Rangi as well. That's a good point about the fire Avatars' portraits being across from the fire lord portraits :)

Alex G

That was my feeling at first, but the flashbacks with him in Shadow took away that feeling for me somewhat. He was a very good person, but some of it was hollow and that's what enabled him to slide all the way down like that.

Alex G

Well said :) Thinking about it in that way is really cool. Their actions connect each other and the challenges they have to face. We see that not only from one Avatar to the next but also across time. Like, in Korra she is dealing with things that started all the way back with Wan.

Alex G

That's a tough question :D My answer is probably too obvious but I'm gonna go with Aang and Korra, just because I've spent the most time with them. Honorable mention to Kyoshi and Avatar Wan.

Alex G

By the end of the second novel it seems to me that she has mixed feelings about it. She has bad memories but she has also forged a life there. It's probably better once she has the right people with her

Alex G

I like that quote as well. It sums up a lot of the struggles we've seen in the books and the shows and also is very relatable to me.

Alex G

There's so many things I love about these books. Probably one of my favorite more minor things to come out of rise was just that small bit of lore we got about Airbending through Kyoshi's mother, Jesa. I think it's cool and works that Airbending is less tied to being a pacifist and most just spirituality and your values. I also loved how they added lore to Kyoshi's fans for that too with Jesa using them to compensate for said Airbending. Also ngl Jesa's tattoo's just sound cool as hell with how she had them covered up. There's so many things I love about Shadow though. With the Fire Nation being my favorite of the 4 nations, I absolutely loved learning about all the lore, seeing some of the politics at work, learning about Szeto and in general just having that be the setting for most of it. I loved Zoryu and can't exactly blame him for some of the things he got up to. Hei-Ran became one of my favorite characters in this book. I already loved her in Rise, but she really won me over in Shadow. The fact that she gives 0 shits and has the balls to not only put the Avatar in her place, but the Fire Lord as well, with no fear, but rather they have fear of her, gets nothing but mad respect from me. Also Hei-Ran with the chalkboard telling Kyoshi to chill tf out like "it's fine, Rangi does this to me all the time, she'll be back in 5 minutes" is still my favorite thing. The scene that still sticks out to me the most is probably when Kyoshi was way too far gone in thinking Chaejin and his mother were working with Yun. Only Kuruk was able to pull her out of it when he said "This isn't who you are." What gets me is the meme has gone so far so many people think that is who Kyoshi is, someone who was about to straight murder a mother and son in front of eachother. It's why I really hope more people read the novels to really see how complex Kyoshi is and how she "actually" feels about killing. My other favorite thing about Shadow aside from in general redeeming my boy Kuruk was the entire conversation with Yangchen. We really see her caring and compassionate reputation shine through. She's just such a mom. We see it when she meets Aang and she acknowledges his gentle spirit, and we see it with Kyoshi when she allows her to just be vulnerable and cry for as long as she needed to. I also really love her quote to Kyoshi regarding talking to past avatars, and how Kyoshi could sit there for years speaking to Avatars and still not have the answers she wants because it's still Kyoshi that needs to make choices for the world, whether they end up being the right ones or not. Also, i'm 100% here for spirit fox that led Kyoshi to the place where she spoke to Yangchen being Kyoshi's animal guide. My last thoughts: that Rangi fakeout got me good and I was ready to murder Yee, Atuat is the best and I lowkey ship her with Hei-Ran, though I also absolutely appreciate their friendship as is, Jinpa is the best but does not get paid enough to deal with Kyoshi's bullshit, I liked Nyahitha a lot too and the additional lore of the Bhanti tribe, Yee continuing to not ignore Korra lore with that, the idea of the portrait of Fire Avatars being across the Fire Lord portraits, and lastly more foreshadowing to Sozin's ideas, the unification of the fire nation, etc, with what Zoryu was saying at the end there. Sorry for the long comment but that's all I could think of, it's 3am, and I love the hell out of these books.

WolfWarrior623

I love rise much more than shadow, one reason to it is yun. While i loved all his flashbacks a lot, i just didn't take him seriously as a villain particularly compared to jianzhu. One reason for this is that they built him too perfect in rise of kyoshi that i just didn't believe he would fall so low in terms of villainy as he did in shadow of kyoshi. I feel if they had shown some real character flaw at the beginning of rise than his transformation into that full vilainy would have been much more understandable.

I absolutely love these books for pretty much all the reasons you said. But here are some other things. I loved how they expanded how we think about bending. From dust-stepping, to bending the earth elements into paint, to lowering people's body temperatures for medical reasons, and so much more. I also really like the relationship between Kyoshi and Rangi. From an outsider's perspective, Kyoshi can come across as cold, powerful, stubborn, and sometimes even brutal, but Rangi sees straight through her and knows her for who she is. And it's because of this combined with her temperament that have her "wearing the boots" in the relationship so to speak; and I think that's a really cool juxtaposition. The next thing I really love that these books further established is this idea that each avatar is the Yin to the previous incarnation's Yang. They are opposites in a way that's meant to balance out the actions of their predecessor. Szeto ignored most of the world and focused on the Fire nation while it was in danger and decline, and he helped start part of the Fire Nation's Golden age. In turn, Yangchen devoted herself to all the peoples of the world, only she went to far, and routinely sided with humans over spirits. Kuruk had to deal with the spirits regularly because of that, and it caused him a lot of pain, but he felt he had to hide it and shoulder it for the sake of the world. Kyoshi then was forced to become the opposite of Kuruk (who was perceived as lazy and scandalous), and while Kuruk died in his 30s, Kyoshi lived for 230 years. Roku was empathetic and understanding, and showed his enemies mercy, often in stead of administering justice. Because of his mistakes, Aang had to become extremely proactive from a young age and face insane adversity at a young age. Though he was also extremely compassionate and gentle. Korra then opposed Aang's gentle calmness with rashness and aggression. The cycle is so well crafted, and each incarnation has their good and bad qualities, and I love it. Also just the sheer amount of lore I can gush over gives the book some serious brownie points for me. I just love that stuff. Rant over xD

Aidan Pullen

Hey I have a question now that you’ve been introduced avatar szeto , avatar yangchen, avatar kuruk, Avatar Kyoshi , avatar roku avatar aang and avatar korra who is your favorite avatar ? And if you can’t name just one who are your top three avatars ? And if you can’t pick just three then rank the avatars from your favorite to your least favorite?

Elijah baker

Wanna ask you something and see what you thought. I always thought why Kyoshi went back to what would later be Kyoshi island. Because it clearly shows she cares about those people when she saved it from Chin which I think she was around her 40s when she did that. But in the novels she has a distaste for that place in a manner of speaking. I mean they bullied her and as a orphan child never took care of her untill Kelsang so I’m curious what happened from end of Shadow of Kyoshi to her caring so much she “moved mountains” (haha) to save her people

hays collins

You will never be perfectly fair and you will never be truly correct. This is your burden. That always spoke to me when I read Rise of Kyoshi a few months ago. For me it actually shows how difficult the job of being Avatar is. Because no one decision will be right or fair in the eyes of everyone and as the Avatar that is even more true. You might get a large majority but you won't get everyone and that is something they have to learn to live with during their cycle as The Avatar. The stuff with Kuruk and Yangchen actually perfectly build on that quote because you see the perfect Avatar was flawed and the failing one as having not been this failure that Kyoshi saw him as. I also loved the Air Nomad lore and we see how different the world truly was for Aang and why he would have struggled so much with nobody knowing much about his people other than they were airbenders and they were gone. The Air Nomads did play a role in the world and it's sad to me that it's gone so I can imagine how he felt.

Trisha

Goodwin if you read this sorry for the horribly long and misspellings(stupid autocorrect) haha. When I talk about this lore I turn into a crazy person

hays collins

Ugh Lek dying hurt me so bad and made me rage. I had to reread it to make sure what I read was true. I almost threw my phone agaisnt the wall haha

hays collins

There is one thing that makes me go from liking a show to loving a show and it’s lore. If a lore is deep and expansive and good I’m gonna obsess over that show for a life time and I’m telling you when I read shadow of Kyoshi and they talked about Avatar Szeto I about had a heart attack I was so excited. The history and lore of the avatars just clicked for me. They way one avatars mistakes dictates the next avatars life blew me away and it all made since how Yangchen picking humans over sports led to the 100 year war and it blew me away. Yangchen made sports mad but caused a great peace. But this cause Kurruk to die early. Which cause the evils of the world to take advantage when caused Kyoshi to set in motion to bring even more peace which brought propersperity to the fire nation, and she helped the fire lord to solidify his and his children’s reign by basically getting rid of the clans and bringing all the power into a more centric positions for the fire lord. Then when Rocky couldn’t kill Sozin this caused the 100 year war. Which Aang had to fix. (Don’t know how it fits into korra). Now korra fixes the ravva and Vatuu situation completing the balance pendulum. It amazed me when I figured out over 7 generations how the balance of the world could sway in that way. UGHHH I LOVE THIS WORLD

hays collins

i really liked the quote about "Maybe the avatar should be born a sky bison, then they will be universally beloved"

Jupiterninja

That's right, Szeto too. And yeah everything comes together so nicely.

Alex G

I thought the story of Avatar Szeto was a bit telling as well. He was a fire nation avatar who seemed very fire nation focused. This may have fed into the thoughts of Sozin feeling that even though the avatar is supposed to be for the world that Roku's loyalty was stlll to his nation first. A bit of a reach - but man did I just find it odd that an Avatar would take on a job like that. I loved the yangchen and old iron tie in. It really solidifies just so much of the worlds more recent history for us. It's so good.

Drake Chuckle

Definitely, I think Kuruk and Yangchen were some of the best parts of the lore building. It added to the whole in such a nice way, as I mentioned.

Alex G

I think some of my favorite parts of the book are when we learn about past avatars and what they did right and wrong. I also loved learning about the fire nation and lot more about their politics and social structures

Cody Taylor