A Northerner, a Southerner, and an Air Nomad, All Working Together

SPOILER ALERT
This review is for those who have read or are familiar with the previous books in the Avatar: The Last Airbender series or don't mind knowing spoilers for them.
SPOILER ALERT

Avatar: The Last Airbender
North and South
By Gene Luen Yang & Gurihiru
in collaboration with Bryan Konietzko & Michael Dante DiMartino
Amazon ~ Powell's

When Katara and Sokka return home to the Southern Water Tribe, they are shocked to find that it has gone from a small village to a bustling city! Malina, a Northerner, is behind the change and plans to unify the Water Tribes, but Gilak, a Southerner, leads a fierce rebellion to stop her. In the face of these two opposing tribes, Katara will have to make peace with her nostalgia and mistrust to save the home she loves from being permanently torn apart.


Welp, it's finally time to focus on Katara and Sokka. While they were present in books 1-3, and had a very short stint in book 4 (mostly setting up this book), I can't say the pair ever had much impact in their stories, aside from comic relief or sideplots. So I was happy to finally get them front and center, especially if their story was all it promised to be.

Honestly, it felt a bit like a rehash of The Rift, only with people rallying against foreigners instead of spirits raging against humans. Talk about themes relevant to today, right?

I've always liked Katara, but more as a role model than someone I'm interested in watching. She's often seen as the motherly sort, taking care of the group, and not really let act her age unless she's squabbling with her brother. Here, isolated from all of Team Avatar except her brother, she finally got to shine as a young protagonist in her own right, instead of just support. We see her struggle with the changes around her, both personal and societal, as her home and family begin new journeys. And she's allowed to strut her stuff a bit when fights start up.

However, I would have wished for her to be even more isolated. Aang and Toph reappear in the second part of the story, and even Zuko joins the team in part three, making more characters to keep track of and robbing Katara of what could have been some much-needed individual growth. Or just giving her room to breathe and think and express her opinions.

As it stands, Katara's opinion against industrializing the Southern Water Tribe seems based solely on what occurred in The Rift. She has a flashback to the damage the new town and factory had on the environment there, but she never brings up any other memories or justification for her reluctance. Why didn't she mention what happened in the season 3 episode, The Painted Lady, wherein she saw the effects of industrial pollution on the populace and took direct action against the source? Or perhaps she could have likened her feelings back to Aang's at discovering the misappropriation of the Northern Air Temple? Instead, because she never elaborates on her feelings she comes off as being contrarian without having reason for it.

Perhaps they weren't allowed to depict parts of the show, or they just didn't have room to, but if they could have at least had Katara reference them, I feel like she would have come off much more relatable and less scripted. She doesn't  seem to ever struggle with indecision about mining, which makes any temptation she might have faced from the Southern Elder just fall flat. I get that you don't want to have a main character commit treason, or side with racists, but her having some slight temptation, just to get others to see her side of things, would have been much more compelling than what we got.

Now, her conflicted opinions on personal matters was a welcome inclusion, even if it was a bit of a common trope. I liked seeing the parallels of Katara's relationship with Aang brought into her story with her father. I liked the little bit of reflection and closure we get regarding her mother, especially as it related to the kids. I even liked the slight back and forth she had with Malina and trying to put aside her initial misgivings. But on the whole, I felt like most of her conflict was either left in subtext or hastily patched over to move on to other characters. I just wish she had gotten more time and space dedicated to her conflicts...but maybe that can still be addressed in future?

Sokka, on the other hand, was precisely what I expected of him. We've seen his eagerness to embrace change and progress, not only in The Rift, but harkening back to the show. And his understanding of non-benders wanting some equal footing amongst benders is no doubt seeded in his own status as a non-bending member of Team Avatar. Throughout the show we've watched as he found his own strengths and capitalized on them, becoming an innovator and all-around strategist.

Still, I might have liked to have seen more growth from him in this story, instead of acting mostly the same comedic relief that we've seen throughout this comic series. Because his character is largely unchanged from the end of the show, the only new conflict I could really see for him is in reacting to Katara. But since she really doesn't do anything besides voice frustration, there's nothing for Sokka to react to. So other than getting more time in the spotlight, I'm sorry to say he doesn't have much advancement in his character here.

Moving past our two leads, I think this story was definitely better paced than the last. I mean, I would have loved if more detail and exploration had been given to the themes and conflicts of this story, even barring my aforementioned wishes for character development, but at least it didn't feel like this narrative needed to be given another whole book or two.

The problems of North vs South, their different ideologies and cultures, their disparity of societal progress owing to their vastly differing involvements in the war, and the biases that can arise from that culture shock, were all presented thoughtfully and tactfully. Even the extremist views of Gilak and his army winning over more centralist members of the South when presented evidence of the North's prejudices, was chilling in its truth. Granted, this was published after the 2016 US election, so I assume they drew from real-life events, but its still chilling to see our reality mirrored so effortlessly in this fantasy media.

I will say that I found the climax and fallout a bit underwhelming. For a finale that held such stakes, pulled off a twist, and resulted in a death, there really was no reaction to it whatsoever. I mean, the finale we got was sweet and all, and I did enjoy the call back of food dividing the North and South in the first book now serving to unite them in the end, but we're not gonna have anything said about that death? No grumblings? No regrets? Just never gonna bring it up again?

And I feel like that's my main gripe about all these comics. I don't know if I'm just holding them to too high a standard because of the masterpiece that was the original show, or if they're waiting until later to really address all these threads they've introduced. Am I expecting too much of a middle-grade comic series, or are they just not willing to commit to a deeper exploration of their themes? I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but seeing as there's only one book left in the series, I'm running out of room to push things off to... But I guess I'll see soon enough.

Overall, North and South felt better realized than previous entries, but still didn't quite live up to my expectations. I felt its story better fit the size limitations of this series, but I still wished some aspects (like the characters) were given greater focus or were allowed deeper exploration. It had some extremely poignant themes, and a couple moments even brought a tear to my eye, but, as I've found with the majority of this series, I'm still left wanting more. As the last of Gene Luen Yang & Gurihiru's contributions to this series, I think it was a strong way to go out, and I'll definitely miss them going forward. But forward is where I must go...