Summary
Episode 5 has a distinct horror vibe as Aang, Katara, and Sokka are presented with the most painful memories as they attempt to navigate the Spirit World.
There’s a distinct horror tone to Episode 5 of Avatar: The Last Airbender that sets it apart from previous episodes in Season 1. It’s full of genuinely unnerving creature designs and horrifying scenarios that put our lead characters through the wringer, all while furthering the show’s underlying mythology.
Some time has passed since the end of Episode 4, with Aang and the gang making their way further north in search of the water tribe they need to save. At the same time, rumors of the Avatar’s reappearance are spreading everywhere, reaching even the furthest backwaters.
But Aang is still struggling with his responsibilities as Avatar. While he knows it’s pressing that he finds the water tribe as soon as possible, he can’t resist stopping to help everyone he comes across. This instinct lands all three of the gang in major trouble in “Spirited Away”, which confronts them with their own darkest memories and fears.
The Spirit Realm
On their travels, Aang and co. spot a forest that has been razed to the ground by the Fire Nation. Stopping to investigate, they meet a little girl who leads them to her father. He explains that the Fire Nation destroyed the forest simply to cleave a path to the mountain, but that, more problematically, the land has been “sick” since then. Animals aren’t grazing. Crops aren’t growing. And people – including the man’s son Shi-yong, whom he sent on an expedition for food – are vanishing.
Aang can’t let this matter go unaddressed, so he ventures into the ruined forest where reality has become so thin that the Spirit World is beginning to peep through. Now, unless I missed this particular detail, Aang hasn’t displayed any affinity for spirituality or astral projection until now, so it’s a little weird that he’s suddenly able to detach his spirit from his body and walk it around an entirely different plane of existence.
I’m nitpicking, though. For whatever reason, Aang also manages to separate the spirits of Katara and Sokka, so all three of them venture into the forest together.
Iroh and Zuko make a friend
Elsewhere, things aren’t looking too good for Zuko. Azula is still campaigning against him by bigging up Zhao to her father and persuading him to send more resources, which he agrees to even though he sees through Azula’s petty game of one-upmanship. But even Zuko’s men, especially Lieutenant Jee, who we already know is a traitor, are rapidly losing their patience with him.
Zuko and Iroh follow up on some local rumors of Waterbending, and while out and about they meet a bounty hunter named June whom Iroh employs, much to Zuko’s disgust. But it’s all part of his nephew’s ongoing tutelage. Zuko has very strong opinions about everything but lacks the life experience to support them. He needs to learn that when in Rome, it’s important to do as the Romans do.
Sokka and Katara face their pasts
The forest is full of interesting creatures, including a giant talking owl that only Aang can hear, a three-tailed fox that warns Sokka of the dangers of the fog, and a giant monster that is the wounded spirit of the forest, driven mad by its pain.
The only downside of all this is that basically every fantasy or fantasy-adjacent story ever tends to include something a lot like it. To Avatar’s credit, though, this is a very good version of the trope, more so because we’ve come to know and like these characters quite a bit over the last few episodes.
In essence, the forest fog forces people to live through their worst, most painful memories again. Katara sees her mother being burned alive to save her life. Sokka sees his father being ashamed of him. These are the deepest traumas of the lead characters, the wounds that never healed. They’re being shown them by a malevolent entity that is later identified as Koh the Face Stealer, a horrifying centipede-like spirit that feeds on its victims and steals their faces.
How does Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 1, Episode 5 end?
Aang, being the Avatar, can resist Koh’s tricks and manages to make it to the end of the fog, where he encounters Gyatso. After his corporeal form was immolated, Gyatso gave himself over to the Spirit World since he knew that Aang would eventually need his help. It’s him who lays out the particulars about Koh, and reveals that previous Avatars have also tussled with him. One of them, Roku, even bested him.
Aang determines that he needs to channel Roku to defeat Koh, but to do that he needs to be physically present in his shrine, which is located in the Fire Nation. So, with some final encouragement from Gyatso, who touchingly absolves him of the guilt he feels over the destruction of the Sky Temple, Aang sets out for the Fire Nation alone.
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