City of Walls and Secrets
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Avatar: The Last Airbender episode | |
|---|---|
| "City of Walls and Secrets" | |
 The Dai Li |
|
| Book | Two: Earth |
| Chapter | Fourteen |
| Episode # | Thirty-four |
| Prod. code | 214 |
| Airdate | September 22, 2006 |
| Writer(s) | Tim Hedrick |
| Director | Lauren MacMullan |
| Guest star(s) | Clancy Brown (Long Feng) Lauren Tom (Joo Dee) Crawford Wilson (Jet) Nika Futterman (Smellerbee) George Kee Cheung (Pao) |
| Previous episode | |
|---|---|
| "The Drill" | |
| Next episode | |
| "The Tales of Ba Sing Se" |
"City of Walls and Secrets" is an episode from the animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which airs on Nickelodeon. It is the fourteenth episode of the second season of the series.
Aang and the kids finally arrive in Ba Sing Se to see the Earth King, only to find mysterious forces within the city conspiring to stop them. Meanwhile, Jet tries to find proof that Zuko and Iroh are of the Fire Nation.
[edit] Episode synopsis
Riding the Earth rail, the group finally enters Ba Sing Se. Sokka is confident that they will easily find Appa, but the city is bigger than they imagined... much bigger. Soon after they arrive, Aang and his friends are met by Joo Dee, a cheerful, incessantly-smiling woman assigned to guide them around the city. Attempts by Sokka to try and get their guide to talk about the war and a possible audience with the Earth King are invariably ignored.
Ba Sing Se seems to have as many walls inside the city as it does outside. It becomes readily apparent that class segregation is very real in Ba Sing Se. As they see the many sections of Ba Sing Se, the kids soon find the segregation of rich and poor people disturbing. Aang recalls that this may be the reason why he didn't visit the city in the years before his being trapped in the iceberg.
As a reward for protecting Ba Sing Se from the Fire Nation attack, Aang, Katara, Sokka and Toph are given a house in the city's inner ring.
Meanwhile, Iroh and Zuko are beginning new lives inside Ba Sing Se, working in a Tea House. A short distance away, Jet is becoming increasingly determined to expose them as Firebenders, much to the dismay of Smellerbee and Longshot, who see disturbing similarities to the Jet of before.
In the upper ring, Aang and his group are finally taken to their new house. When a possible audience with the Earth King is finally mentioned, it is revealed that they will have to wait at least a month. It soon becomes apparent that within the walls of the city, no one wants to talk or even think about the war raging in the rest of the world. Even Aang's attempts to find Appa bears no fruit as no one seems willing to divulge any information to them, thanks to some meaningful glances from Joo Dee. Along the way they also see members of the Dai Li — elite guards who safeguard Ba Sing Se's culture and society.
Meanwhile, Zuko and Iroh's new jobs are coming along smoothly, where the former Fire Nation general soon becomes popular for his superior tea brews. Jet continues to watch them for signs of Firebending, but even Iroh is being careful to do things normally.
When a notice arrives of a party being held in the palace, Katara decides its a good way to reach the Earth King. Toph says that since the gang is mostly commoners, they'd be spotted right away if they went to the event. In the end, Toph decides that Katara can pass off as a high born girl, and both of them dress up in formal attire. They then head for the palace while Aang and Sokka wait at the house. The girls are initially refused entry by a guard, who rejects even Toph's family seal. They eventually get inside by tagging along with an official named Long Feng, but their attempts to sneak Aang and Sokka inside are stymied by Long Feng himself, who seems determined to personally help them out.
Aang and Sokka eventually arrive at the palace and manage to get in through the side entrance disguised as servants. All of the kids are soon discovered by Joo Dee, who appears very frightened that they have defied the orders and entered the palace. Aang is soon exposed as the Avatar, but he quickly smooths things over with a display of his abilities to entertain the audience, until the Earth King himself arrives. Sokka is captured and dragged away by Dai Li guards as the Dai Li bind and gag Katara and Toph with earthbending. Aang himself is confronted by Long Feng, who reveals himself to be the Grand Secretariat of the Earth King and head of the Dai Li. Aang is then led to a room where the others are waiting.
Jet, getting impatient with waiting, finally charges into the tea restaurant where Iroh and Zuko are working. He accuses the two newcomers as Firebenders, but is met only by skepticism by the tea shop patrons. Angered, Jet draws his Hook swords and attacks Zuko, who defends himself with a pair of swords from two guards patronizing the teahouse. Despite taunts from Jet, Zuko holds his own without using his Firebending. Zuko finally disarms Jet at the cost of one of his blades. Guards arrive at the scene and take Jet into custody. Smellerbee and Longshot watch as their friend and leader is taken away. Later, after being presumably taken to Long Feng's secret prison located under Lake Laogai, a Dai Li officer begins to brainwash him into believing that the city is safe and peaceful.
Inside Long Feng's chamber, Sokka tries to talk about the coming solar eclipse, but is abruptly cut off by Feng. To preserve the culture and utopian life within the walls of Ba Sing Se, Feng explains, no mention of the war is permitted. It is also revealed that Feng is in charge of handling day-to-day affairs in the city, including all military matters. The King himself is no more than a figurehead, a beloved icon. When Aang threatens to talk and tell everyone about the war, Feng threatens them with expulsion from the city. He then goes on to say that if Aang persists, he may never find his missing bison ever again.
As they are dismissed, Long Feng calls in Joo Dee to accompany them. The group stares in disbelief as they all realize that Joo Dee has been replaced with another woman.
[edit] Notes
- The game Aang and Sokka were playing in this episode seems to be the Avatar world's own version of "Rock, Paper, Scissors," the difference being that the four elements are used instead of the familiar stationary. Earth appears to beat Fire. This game was seen once before in "The Storm" when it was being played by two Airbenders. By now, three hand positions were shown: a pound fist to represent Earth, an overturned grasping hand emulating flames to represent Fire, and an unnamed position that resembles an eight trigram palm strike in "The Storm."
- The names Katara and Toph used at the party were Kuā Měi(姱 美) for Katara and Dòng(侗) for Toph. Toph was not happy with hers because while Kuā Měi means fascinating or beautiful, Dòng means ignorant or rustic.
- This episode was originally going to be called "The Secret of Ba Sing Se," and television guides occasionally address this episode by the original title.
- The King of the Earth Kingdom is similar to several Emperors of Japan who were controlled by members of the court, or by shoguns who held power from the 1100s until 1867.
- Professor Zei is mentioned by one of the students at the University.
- In this episode, the show pokes fun at the fantastic creatures which appear in it, normally combinations of two real-world animals. Katara tells the group a bear will be at the party, leading them to ask if she means a platypus bear, skunk bear, gopher bear, or armadillo bear, to which she replies that it is just a bear. Toph then comments that the city is weird.
- The name of the Dai Li guards is a reference to General Dai Li, the head of the Chinese secret police under Chiang Kai-shek. He was known as the "Himmler of China," which would explain the viciousness of their leader Long Feng.
- The sign in front of the shop seems to read "包氏茶館" (bāo shì chá guǎn) which means 'Bao clan's teahouse.' Here, the owner's last name is Bāo (包) which means 'to cover.' However in "Lake Laogai, he was called 'Pao.'
- When her passport was denied as an invitation to the Earth king's party, Toph insisted that the Pangs and the Yum Soon Hans were waiting inside for them. Coincidentally, those names she gave make up a Cantonese sentence (朋友守候) that translates as 'friends are waiting.' The Mandarin pronunciation is péng yǒu shǒu hòu.
- The words 表層城大學 (biǎo céng chéng dà xué), the name of the school, appear at the entrance of Ba Sing Se University. This translates as 'Exterior Layer City University.'
[edit] Goofs
- When Iroh and Zuko are first seen in the tea shop, Iroh cannot tie his apron due to it being too small. The shop owner tells them to have some tea while he goes to get more string. Moments later, when Iroh throws the tea out, we can see that he already has the extra string and that his apron is tied.
- In the episode, Iroh trimmed his beard. When Jet attacked he and Zuko, his beard looked like it did in the previous episode, The Drill.
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