ATLA EP. 17 REACTION
Added 2024-05-03 20:47:55 +0000 UTCComments
I know I'm late to the party, but I have some thoughts. The show portrays it from Aang's perspective and it intentionally makes it feel disrespectful or even blasphemous what the inventor and his people are doing to the temple. But you also have to remember that this temple has been dead for a century. I can't really blame a group of people coming across it and trying to survive and rebuild. They have no connection to the culture, and are simply trying to make a place for themselves. The air nomads are extinct. While it would be ideal to preserve the history of the place, it doesn't matter when you have to deal with the logistics of food, housing, and sanitation. The inventor has to provide for his people. I doubt anyone in a similar position would choose the preservation of the temple over the needs of their people, as much of a shame it is to destroy cultural artifacts of a dead civilization. There are definite moral quandaries about how the inventors creations are being used to create more suffering, but I honestly don't see any other option he could've had. He had no issue fighting back when there was an actual chance to win with Team Avatar, but without them they were trapped. I can understand your perspective, and the show leans into it hard for most of the episode, and even at the end it doesn't feel satisfying when Aang accepts them living in his peoples' temple. It just seems tragic and sad, but the silver lining of people trying to live in peace there is still encouraging. Settling the deserted air temple to begin with was audacious, but I don't think demolishing and reconstructing it was, I think that was just practicality.
EMB
2024-07-03 13:40:42 +0000 UTCI’ve rewatched ATLA a few times, and I still dislike the inventor & his people (minus his son). You can inhabit a place without destroying it how they did, the audacity was crazy
KC
2024-05-19 17:30:19 +0000 UTC
