Avatar

I'm half-watching one of the only, or possibly only, shows of substance on Nickelodeon, called Avatar: The Last Airbender. I've been keeping up with it weekly with a couple of my kids (and at times, my husband)... it involves your basic good forces against evil, or rather, a balance of power gone drastically and horrifically unbalanced.

The show has a decidedly Eastern flavor.. the four nations that populate the world are distinguished by element: the Earth, Air, Water and Fire Nations, all cohabiting peacefully until the Fire Nation runs amok and makes war on the other nations.

Each nation gives rise to its own practitioners of element mastery.. 'benders' they are called, as in earth benders, air benders, etc. The maneuvering of the individual elements is based on a particular style of martial arts, which, even in animated form, is stunning to watch.

As the intro narration will inform you, the world's only hope against the formidable leader of the Fire Nation, is the Avatar... a reincarnation of hundreds of avatars before him or her, and master of all the elements.. kind of an amalgam of the Dalai Lama and Bruce Lee. In this particular show, the current reincarnation whose fate is inextricably tied in with that of the world's, is a young boy named Aang.. a child who has not yet mastered the art of fire bending and risks being no match for the Fire Lord when his time comes.

What I love about this show, and possibly to my eventual disappointment, is that Aang is caught up in the conflict between his monk-led training in the sacredness of all life, and the seeming inevitability that the only hope lies in his killing of the Fire Lord. (And all this on a popular, commercialized cable kids tv show!)

Even as Aang consults with his predecessors in the Spirit World, and is offered a variety of advice based on their personalities, the one voice that he holds the most respect for tells him that his own spiritual development must be sacrificed for his given duty of saving the world, whatever that may mean. (Which, of course, he takes to mean that he must take a life).

I have yet to see how this plays out.. and even so, I won't reveal the outcome, except to say that in one recent scene, Aang passed up on his one opportunity to take out the Fire Lord.

So, back to it.. I'm a little distracted. Tune in for more.