Why The Deserter is Book 1's MOST UNDERRATED Episode - Avatar The Last Airbender 

Lowkey I feel like people rarely mention just how good the show looks visually

Honestly it’s good that Jeong Jeong wasn’t Aangs permanent teacher. He taught Aang important stuff like restraint and control, but i don’t think it would be good long term. JJ’s self-hatred of his own element wouldn’t be good for the Avatar, someone who is meant to honor, learn and appreciate each element. It could also paint a bad picture in Aang’s mind regarding firebending and the fire nation when it’s time to rebuild the world after the war

Another thing I really like about this episode is the interaction between Katara and Jeong Jeong. It's also the first episode where Katara uses water to heal. It brings Aang fear of the destruction fire can cause, but also helps Katara to learn that she has healing capabilities too. It's a nice contrast between fire and water that again leads to what we see in the future with how much damage water bending can do too.

It might just be me, but does anyone else feel like the scene where Aang burns Katara is one of the most horrifying moments in the show? I mean, grew up with stories kids with magic powers, but then seeing someone accidentally hurting someone with their powers is just so… visceral

It's cool how this episode still impacted Aang's ability to firebend all the way up to Book 3

I knew Zuko was gonna be Aang's teacher once Toph showed up. Pakku is supposed to be his teacher, but then it's Katara, Bumi is suppose to teach him, but then it's Toph. Aang's first two teachers are kids, it'd be out of place for his last teacher to be an adult, it's gonna be a Fire Nation kid . . . wait, no need to introduce one, there's already one hunting Aang X3

Here’s a short list of important things this episode does: - Further reinforces the “fire is bad” theme that ultimately pays off when Aang learns that it isn’t inherently bad from the dragons making the pay off that much better. - Introduces healing abilities for water benders which allows a realistic misogynist in Paku to have a cultural belief to represent in believing women can only become healers not true benders. - Introduced the first “good” fire bender in Jong Jong (we don’t know for certain that Iroh is a good guy yet). - Makes Aang learn about the dangers of uncontrolled power and why someone like the fire lord/fire nation are so dangerous. - Gives Aang a challenge very unique to the avatar that’s unique to fire similar to how earth is a challenge for an air bender, making the reward of him WILLINGLY learning fire bending later much more of a moral victory.

Book 1 in general is underrated. Not as deep and impactful as 2 and 3, but still vital into setting the stage for the characters and the world they breathe in.

Roku saying " i have mastered the elemnents a 1000 times over a 1000 lifetimes. Now i must do it once again" Sound sooo heavey. There's been an avatar for this long and still MUST go on. Sounds more like a burden or a curse than anything phrased this way. Almost kinda sad

DESTINY!? What would a boy know of Destiny? If a fish lives his whole life in this river, does he know the river’s destiny? No! Only that it goes on and on, out of his control. He may follow where it flows but he cannot see its end. He can’t imagine the Ocean.

I feel like jeong jeong erred in his teaching method because he missed his chance to "strike while the iron is hot." When aang burned katara, the consequence of his action was very fresh, making him extremely open to guidance towards not making the same mistake again. Instead, aang was essentially abandoned with no way to learn proper control, forcing him to run away to avoid the mistake instead of learning restraint/control to avoid making the mistake. Basically, jeong jeong only ended up teaching aang to fear the element, not respect, something that took most of the series to overcome. This is why I typically don't intervene the first time when a research assistant is about to make a non-critical experimental mistake, so that the experience will make them open to learning. I can tell them repeatedly to watch out for this, watch out for that, but it's usually only when the mistake happens that they take my warnings seriously.

The scene with Jeong Jeong and Avatar Roku is awesome; one of my favorites in the whole show. Jeong Jeong tells us the rules that have never been broken and must be followed: the avatar must learn the elements in the same order and accordance to the Avatar Cycle, which means Aang is far from ready for fire. But here we have Roku, seemingly coming out of nowhere. As the previous avatar, he knows this rule better than even the guy who just told it. And he says to break the rule. It just gives so much life and dimension and nuance to the Avatar as a concept, that it's this incredible journey of learning power and responsibility, and yet for Aang, it has to go against so much of what it had been for "a thousand" past lives, presumably - nay, assuredly - out of desperation caused by the scenario that the world is currently facing. It is so cool to see Aang's ultimate mentor tell one of the wisest people in the world to break the rules for Aang.

I always found it amazing that zong zong knew aang hadn't mastered water and earth just by the way he walked.

This is amazing. The Deserter has always been my favorite book one episode. There are so many things done perfectly in this episode and, as a kid, watching Aang pick up his first tinge of firebending so quickly and then schooling Zhao got me so excited for what was to come.

Jeong jeong is one of my favorite characters, because of what he went through in his life he ended having this flawed idea about fire being only destruction. Avatar always went out the way to show the wise people were also not perfect. Jeong jeong never bends fire from his limbs and his movements match that of a water bender

I always really enjoyed this episode, but I never see it high on anyone’s tier list. Then again, I’m weird since I say Bitter Work is my favorite episode

There's another really meaningful detail about this episode. This happened immediately after the episode that Sokka, upon finding that Aang had been keeping from him and Katara the map to their father, impulsively, and out of anger, decided to abandon Aang to go find their father. But then they both agreed that they had to stay with Aang because it was their duty to protect him. But then in this episode when Aang hurts Katara, it likely made Sokka, and Katara also, start thinking that they maybe should've left Aang after all. It also ties into the running joke in Jet about "Sokka's instincts" and how Sokka is more in self-conflict about whether he truly can rely on his instincts. After his foolishness burned Katara, Sokka would probably feel confirmation that he should indeed listen to his immediate instincts for the sake of his sister's safety.

My favourite part is when Angg stops, turns to the camera and says "I know who I am, I'm a goofy kid"

One episode has to be the worst. It's nice that it's at least one where Aang ends a cultural rivalry peacefully.

I think Sokka saw air ball & thought “wait I DO WANNA PLAY THIS” & invented soccer. Or ah real football, rather than touchdown.

What a surprise to see this pop up almost immediately after I've finished rewatching the series, especially one on Jeong Jeong, a character who I didn't really thought that much of as a kid(most likely due to his very little screen time) but has grown to become one of my favourites as of late & this vid just captures the reason why.

This is my absolute favorite episode of Book 1. The impact The Deserter has on the series in terms of Aang learning firebending is amazing

at first I was curious why it had 8 views then I realized I’m actually new for once

I never liked how Roku, an aged and experienced avatar said "teach him fire you prick" Like of course it went wrong...

In the repeated words of Dante Basco on the Braving the Elements Podcast: Lotta good folks in the Fire Nation.

Bro. Omg. The amount of detail in this video?!? U did an amazing job with describing the IMPORTANCE of this episode and foreshadowing! Great work❤

I always love the avatar videos! Much love

Great reflections and views on everything related to this awesome episode and it's implications. Your content is top tier for me!!!

Love your videos man keep it up!!!

23:59, so funnily enough, the episodes prominently featuring the Dai-Li and The Puppetmaster all share a head writer with The Deserter. He also wrote The Swamp, pretty neat.

your editing is top tear!!

Thought we'd all know that it's possible Jeong Jeong was moving into the spirit world due to his time spent in meditation. Explains why Roku showed up and Jeong Jeong was not scared and just did as he was told. It was not an unusual occurrence.

The first video that RU-vid recommended from your channel to me was AoT overanalysis. I have watched it because of you. Now i've seen Avatar first, only after your videos. And I can truly understand this depth in your videos! Thanks!

This is such a good video!

Funny that The Great Divide is controversial I don't like it as an episode, but I have a lot of nostalgia for it because it's literally the first episode I saw and where I originally picked the story up from

There was a videoby "My little thought tree" on this very episode not so long ago, which I really enjoyed. He said it was his favorite episode of book 1, and talked about Jeong Jeong's fear impeding him from teaching Aang properly the way of firebending, of control and restraint.

Ah, perfectly timed video to watch while I eat hehe

what matter most in the roku scene is not the tree being set ablaze, it is that the whole scene is epic

I sometimes wonder what it would've been like in Jeong Jeong traveled with or returned the Team avatar to teach Aang firebending when he has had the experience with Water and Earth bending. Especially with Aang's fear for firebending and the Avatar state. I like that Zuko is eventually his teacher and it was the right choice, but I still have that "what if" in my head of Jeong Jeong's philosophy shaping Aang's bending and having a true older Master teach him instead of a peer.

Bro beat me to it, and finally spoke about this episode. I haven’t seen anyone mention THIS or how Aang didn’t firebend either in the Netflix show.( Ima still make my video tho 🗿)

Jeong Jeong is such a cool character I wish he had more screen time

About the scene with Roku, this scene always reminded me of the exodus story from the Bible, specifically the part when God reveals itself to Moses through a burning bush. Just like in the story, the tree here is on fire but does not look burning or decaying- which conveniently also ties perfectly to Jeong Jeong's take on fire bending. Also just like in the biblical story he looks away from the tree as a sign of respect as he is tasked with his mission. I think it really shows Jeong Jeong views the avatar as literally God. This is later emphasized when he says "I have never seen such raw power".

I absolutely love this analysis. I know a lot of people hate on Legend of Korra, but this kind of makes me think on Zaheer and how he was written, the dynamic he played in the story and the effect he had on Korra. He gives me similar vibes to Zhao, but he's vastly different.

The REAL most underrated episode was when Team Avatar went to the Library and got plans for the Day of Black Sun.

The Top-Knots on the Poster might have a deeper meaning. If cutting of the knot represents cutting ties with the Fire-Nation depicting the Deserters with the Knot means You still belong to us, you still are under our jurisdiction. Especially since historically Deserters face the death penalty.

Wolf Cove is what it’s called in the Netflix show, not the original.

I think that this is not just an underrated episode but also the best episode in this season. I like how this shows how good an episode can be, even without any extremely significant character moments or interactions. This is no storm or blue spirit where the focus is on character interactions or actively moving the plot forward. Of course, there is that scene where Aang accidentally burns Katara but this episode didn't even need that to be good. It purely focuses on fire nation and fire as an element; world building (as dry as it can be) is fun atleast for me.

The measure of your maturity is how spiritual you become during the midst of your frustrations.

16:42 this was definitely a spiritual interaction, he was meditating 🧘 when aang got there he’s connected

I really love JJ, his malice is actually deep rooted and unwavering. Most characters with malice completely undermine it by being too cartoony, not justifying it well enough, or becoming hopeful. (You could say his second appearence ruins this but it is so quick its’ too hard to gauge)

What’s really funny to me is that the first episode of Avatar that I watched was the “Great Divide” episode. I watched it on CN when they still showed episodes. Even the worst episode still got me interested in ATLA so I can’t hate it that much

6:12 That statue isn't of Kyoshi. Kyoshi's statue is in that room it's just not next to Roku because the statues in that room aren't set up in any obvious order.

6:19 I wonder if that’s a statue of the guy everyone thought was the avatar before discovering kyoshi. I can’t remember his name, but maybe the southern air temple never encountered the avatar or just never updated it

Ok this gonna be weird, but did anyone else kinda find Jeong Jeong hot when first watching the show? 😅😂 Same with Master Piandao

It would be really cool to have a prequel animated series that explores the birth of aang in relation to rokua death we could see young bumi and a character we never get to see kuzon. We would get to learn more of the fire nations internal struggles for the thrown. And see more of the picture as to why Roku and ozai grew separate morales. And I've always thought it would be a strange twist to reveal fire benders are actually airbenders. That have focused particularly of bending the heat of the air. This would have explained why one of aangs best friends was a fire bender perhaps in the past fire benders were more peaceful like the sun warriors and airbenders and together could do amazing things. This would also play into the Airbender temple drama of giatso not wanting aang to train at the wrong age growing up to quickly and the other monks feeling like evading responsibility will be an issue. Perhaps the other monks had also been aware that the tribe was split between adult thinkers and free minded children. Aangs connection with giatso was his guiding light to remain true to his air bending nature while the other who were less at peace with giatso's decision may have surrendered to the fire nation. Leaving only aangs friends and giatso murdered by the fire nation. Other surviving airbenders join the fire nation and learn fire bending through heating of air. Tho I gotta admit I don't fully believe this theory I like pondering other stories as to why things happened the way they did

I like the great divide tbh

I still think it was JonJon that went with Iroh to meet the sun warriors, he deserted after the thrown changed hands.

16:00 Aang doesnt remember turning into Kioshi. So the same goes with Roku

Jeong Jeong deserved more episodes around him

Not trying to be annoying. Just wondering when the next walking dead retrospective will be I’m hype ! 🔥

Honestly I don’t get why the great divide gets as much hate as it does. Is it the best episode? I don’t think so, but I think it’s good in the way that it shows that the avatar is there to broker peace among others, at whatever cost, even if lying gets that peace.

This is actually one of my favorite Book One episodes

1:15 Jet and the pirates would like to know your location

Funny I just saw another RU-vid video saying this was the author's favorite episode of season 1. He also makes a good case for the quality of this great episode. I really hope to see many more of your episode-by-episode deep dive "overanalysis" ATLA videos. Long before your Attack on Titan Overanalysis series began, I often told anyone that would listen that AOT and ATLA are essentially two of the deepest and most intelligent shows ever created. Almost every single episode has enough nuance and complexity that you can write a 30+ minute analysis video *without* going into "Overanalyzing" territory. Finally, I apologize in advance for possibly being negative. That's what I thought if the right person makes such videos. I am MUCH more interested in what you have to say concerning Jeong Jeong's toxic philosophy and the shows nuanced discussion of the regular people living and growing up in a propaganda brainwashing military dictatorship in the midst of a war that has lasted longer than practically every single person's lives...rather than, oh let's say, spend hours upon hours complaining that they animated the full moon in meaningless glancing shots in far too many episodes. Or that in real life Aang's bending in episode X would have resulted in the accidental death of some soldier in the background, therefore his claim of "never taking a life" is some sort of monumentally critical plot-hole. (It's not even hearing it over and over that becomes exasperating. It's the "smarter than the writers" subtext, when I find it far more interesting that perhaps the writers purposely snuck in many of the background deaths as a joke on the TV-Y7 Nickelodeon censors. We know they actively pushed the censors, such as doing everything they could to get away with Jet's death while technically following Nick's "no murder" commandment (then even joking about it in "The Ember Island Players.") But I digress. I admit my insults are far less veiled and more obvious than anything on ATLA. My point still stands that I'd LOVE to keep seeing you do episode-by-episode deep dive "analysis" (no "over" needed) videos on ATLA. (But please don't stop AOT either! Lol 😜)

I can’t lie i really gotta read the light novels of yangchen and Kyoshi so much cool lore I’m missing out on

10:02 that's exactly what he did say 9:50 10 seconds ago

It’s always been my favorite from season 1

Somewhat UNRELATED, the dance Aang does is called Hamboning. You can do a RU-vid search to see examples.

Why tf is the fish giving "f*ck me" eyes at 0:22?

Dang, "uploaded 11 seconds ago"

Kora/Aang vs the Colossal Titan, who you got?

Jeong Jeong should consult the dragon masters to learn peace.

1:54 brother do NOT call it wolf cove 😔 that’s only applicable to the Netflix adaptation, it’d be like saying this episode is about how they tackled Jeong Jeong in the live action avatar. Nice video though🥰

The only disappointing element in this episode was how Zhao got fooled a bit too easily. Sure they foreshadowed him being impulsive. But he is a far cry from the insightfull and cunning admiral from a few episodes ago. Aang s plot to exploit zhao s flaw could have been a bit more complex. Otherwise it was an incredible introduction to fire bending and how not all fire nation are evil ..

You think that ozai breathing fire was propaganda he enforced after seeing iroh do it?

12:44 I don't understand what this is trying to say, the meaning and expectations behind these words

Ouch! You burnt my hands! At night. 😎

6:21 Hm, it's the same image.

Wolf Cove is only for the live action, in the actual series it's just called the South Pole.

Imma share my own opinion of the most underrated episode of atla, it's The Library episode.

Kinda off topic but obviously i get that not everybody wants or even likes kids but it's mildly frustrating seeing many reactors be so annoyed or even angry at aang in this and the previous episode

I love my life and I hope everyone on this video loves their life too

I think Avatar day is underrated

Those videos make the Netflix series look even worse, we'll ignore that Aang didn't water bend at all in the first book of *WATER*, revealing the Firelord so early, completely removing this episode, it feels like they want an action series and nothing more, and even that pales in comparison, because animated fights just look flatout better because there is no burden of physics and effects needed. They rush every plot point, the Air Nomads extermination, there was no reason to show it at the very beginning, Iroh's son plot point, WE HAVEN'T EVEN LEARNED ABOUT IROH YET, why would we feel sad about it, because they relay on people already knowing that plot point and the character, for those that don't know, why would they be sad, or at least as sad as the revelation was in Ba Sing Se, which was foreshadowed by Iroh's capture by the earth benders and than followed by Zhao talking about the death of Iroh's son. That series is infuriating because it had the budget and talent to be good, but the writers completely missed the point of the whole show entirely, all the lessons, the symbolism, the build up, everything feels either gone or rushed.

Where that Twd retrospective at ?

Jong jong deserved more screen time

bro, great divide is not that bad, but its not the greates thing evern, on any other tv show it would be mid to good. avatar is just so good it sticks out like a sore thumb

The great devide was arguably a bad episode but a good lesson. Like Dora the explorer in a way. Lesson, don't make assumptions about people, forgive and forget is the only way to move forward, enemies become friends when faced with a collective threat, and people don't (usually) let go of life long grudges. Sad episode really.

6:22 are you a programmer, no one else writes not equal that way

LETS GOOOOO🎉

Off-comment but you ever seen gravity falls? I feel it’s something very much suited for you

Oh, another video about how one of the best episodes of Avatar is one of the best episodes. The Deserter, Sokka’s Master, Jet and so on. Get back to me when you have “The Great Divide is the most important episode of Avatar The Last Airbender.”

I was dreading the Netflix show being mentioned again and compared to the show. Glad it didn't happen. Im no longer comfortable in the avatar videoessays as that damn live action show is pure spectacle no story telling. Absolutely does not justify it's existence and does not add anything of value to ATLA.

all of avatar is highly overrated, they is why each new remake sucks, its the same as the original √

Jeong jeong is soooooooo underrated