205: Avatar Day

Monk Gyatso:    This episode was mostly for fun, but has a few things to learn from.  The most important is what we see in Prince Zuko.  Here he needs to make decisions about who and what he is, and what he would like to become.  

 He realizes that he will never be the prince and heir to the throne again, but he hates begging and being poor.   

He is faced now with a choice as to who and what he wants to be.  He is unsure, and feels he needs to make this choice alone.   

We do need to make our choices for ourselves, but we can also seek wise counsel, and talking these things out with Iroh might be of a great help to him.

This episode features a tribunal of law to determine if someone is guilty or not, but it is NOT founded upon evidence, which is important because people can remember things incorrectly.  

It is difficult to trust entirely upon take what people remember or tell, they could even think they are telling the truth, but be remembering incorrectly.  We should be grateful to have courts that are based upon evidence and multiple witnesses.   

This is also good to remember when you hear negative gossip about someone: to be both skeptical of such hearsay, and gracious in letting someone explain themselves.

Sometimes people have things that help them feel unique, and feel it is an important part of their individuality.  We see how important Sokka’s boomerang is to him.  

 On one hand, we need to understand that things do not make us WHO we are, and shouldn’t set our hearts so much upon these.  We are who we are on the inside.  But, on the other hand, we can understand when others might be so sad when they lose something, because we know how this might be important to them.  We should be compassionate to others.