Avatar Aang: An Annotated Bibliography
Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Which might make you think this lives up to author The Big Rocky Eye's summary as "[the] driest, most academic fanfic you'll ever read".
The Bibliography is actually one of the most amazing bits of post-series fic ever. It reads like a document out of the show's world, and gives sometimes amazing, sometimes touching, often hilarious and occasionally heartbreaking snapshots of the Gaang.
It's packed with references to Canon, Fanon, Word of God and Word of Dante, and some fantastic World Building as the Bibliography was published years after the Gaang is gone.. It makes you want to read the works it references, and the author's notes at the end lovingly layout Rocky Eye's inspirations and let you in on some of the references.
- Cassandra Truth: Aang's final battle with Ozai
- Crowning Moment of Funny: What schism nearly sunders Chief Sokka and Firelord Zuko's friendship? The Infinitesimals Priority dispute, an Avatar World version of the Leibniz/Newton calculus debate.
- What patches their relationship? Aang starts a Food Fight.
- The cabbage merchant wrote a rather terse biography....
- One of Sokka's sample problems for his infinitesimals work: how long he will survive, in minutes, after angering Suki. His conclusion:
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If carrying sword and boomerang, 5.7 minutes. If carrying only boomerang, 3.3 minutes. If carrying only sword, 3.1 minutes. If carrying neither, 5.5 seconds. |
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- I Knew It!/Jossed: Given The Legend of Korra, some details will of course be Jossed. More impressive are the cases of I Knew It!. Some examples:
- Jossed: Aang's age. Aang is described as "in his early hundred-and-sixties." Though, Rocky Eye builds in a dodge ("that could be either biological or chronological, it doesn't matter").
- Both: The next Avatar. Half credit for a female Avatar; plus, learning Airbending from Aang's kid was a given.
- I Knew It!: This is the impressive one: One of Aang's children is an Airbender named Tenzin. (Presumably, Rocky Eye took the name from the same source as the writers of the show: Tenzin Gyatso is the name of the current Dalai Lama.)
- Original Flavor: Carried rather well via the choice of format.
- Self-Insert Fic: Not The Big Rocky Eye. Bizarrely enough, it's Katara. Unless the work is a forgery, she seems to have used her life as a starting point for a lewd Real Person Fic, which she hid very carefully. Unfortunately, it was found after her death, and published.
- The Appendix/Author's Note confirms forgery. Someone posing as Katara wrote a Possession Sue Self Insert RPF that was mistaken for autobiographical.
- Speculative Documentary: Probably the best fit for a genre.
- Shout-Out: To every aspect of the show and its fandom:
- One cited reference is Avatar: The Last Airbender by Riko and Dimar (Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino).
- Avatar's Wife, Firelord's Concubine leading to a "wave of fictional works which some have aptly named 'Zutara.'"
- Chapters as written by the cabbage merchant and a former pirate.
- In-universe disdain for The Boy in the Iceberg, with a later author writing a response.
- The Infinitesimals Priority dispute. One wonders if Rocky Eye has read The Baroque Cycle...
- The Adventures of Pvt. Wang Fire. An in-universe humorous fictional account of Sokka's persona: To Wang Fire!
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Even those who dislike Zuko's sister may find the way history treats her rather sad.
- Take That: To a few of the fandom's less... shining moments...
- Tear Jerker: Some of the Gaang... don't get a long and happy life.
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From Remembering Toph Beifong: "She died early, at about the age of fifty, due to an unknown disease....She died clinging to Chief Sokka's hands." |
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- Vindicated by History: In-universe Firelord Zuko "The Great" was so unpopular for most of his reign that people were calling for Ozai's return.