what would you have me do?

Do you feel like 'deus ex machina' moments improve a story, or take away from it?

Quick definition of a deus ex machina, for anyone who doesn’t know: literary term that refers to a character or event that seems to exist just to effortlessly solve a problem that seems unsolvable. So because this is a general example, I’m going to delve into something specific.

I know a lot of people in the Avatar fandom—particularly, from what I’ve seen, people who ship Zuko/Katara and tend to be hard on Aang in general as a character—hate the ‘deus ex machina’ of the final part of Sozin’s Comet. Spoilers ahead in case you’re an anon who hasn’t seen Avatar!

But personally, I love it. I really, really do. Because the finale carefully layers things. We have Aang consulting his past lives (and damn do I want to know what Yangchen did her lifetime, bc holy shit girl) and we see that he has, with no other possible avenues, more or less accepted that he will have to do what Yangchen says: to sacrifice his own spiritual needs, and do whatever it takes to protect the world.

But here’s the thing. Aang, by just facing the Firelord in many ways, already has. This snippet of their conversation says it all.

Aang harkens back to enlightenment and detachment—something he had to sacrifice his attachments to achieve in “The Crossroads of Destiny” in season two by going into the Avatar state. He had to let go of his attachments, and he did, despite the difficulty of it. And it was the physical trauma of getting shot with lightning, not the emotional, that was what closed off his chakra. There was nothing but emotional/physical distress that could have activated it. 

So the idea that Aang somehow had to unlock his chakra, emotionally, again, and that him getting into the Avatar state from being blasted into the rock was a dues ex machina? False. 

But the one people mainly talk about is the Lion Turtle, energy-bending spiel. And, again, I love that too, even more than the above, because it fits so well. Let me explain.

Aang goes into his conversation with Yangchen struggling with a huge moral conundrum, and it’s worth noting again that all of his friends—specifically Sokka, Katara, and Zuko—grew up in this war. It shaped everything about them. For Aang, he had the equivalent of running away from home for a day or two and getting in an accident. Then he wakes up, thinking it’s been only a couple of days, and finds out that he is the last of his kind, that everyone and everything he ever loved is dead, and most notably, that he blames himself because he ran away, even if he had no idea that this would happen. Because we see that when Aang is in the vicinity and feels responsible for something, he goes back and helps: returning to the village when he realizes the Fire Nation is heading there, turning back to help put out the fires on Kyoshi Island, and that’s just within the first four episodes of the first season.

So Aang, while often terrified and unsure, still will face responsibility and hold himself accountable and do the right thing. And we see, from Air Nomad philosophy—which, largely, is all that Aang has left of his people; he didn’t have Katara and Sokka’s life, with the slow decimination of their culture, some of which remains in people and other places, over sixty years; it happened to him overnight—that detachment is a pure form of spirituality.

And that Aang is stuck between achieving enlightenment to be able to control the Avatar State (again, a part of himself he was growing more and more scared of, because of how he had hurt other people in it) and recognizing that he’s bound to the world, as his duty. Enlightenment for being grounded; detachment for earthly duty.

So Aang finds out A) his last hope at not killing Ozai has just been extinguished, B) he can never achieve the truest form of his people’s spirituality, even though he is all that remains of his people, and C) he will have to betray his people’s moral code, as the last of them, by killing Ozai. Because there are no other Air Nomads. Aang doesn’t just have to uphold his people’s values in the world—in a world that wiped them 100 years ago to the day, in a world that’s descended into violence—he has to uphold his people for the world, because if he doesn’t, the Air Nomads truly will be gone.

And he accepts B), but refuses to give up on A) because otherwise he’d have to give up on C), and his dead people—who he loves, who he so loves and loved and who has loved him in turn—deserve better than more violence on the anniversary of their deaths. And Aang has sacrificed so much, as well. He accepts that the way the world interacts with his people and their temples has to change, he loses Appa and sacrifices his attachments to his people and to his friends in order to gain access to the Avatar state, he lets his staff—all he has left of his people’s relics—burn, he covers up his arrow and lets the world think he failed them, again.

So when the Lion Turtle, an ancient creature, appears the key factor is Aang asks for a different answer. Because choosing your own destiny, when Aang has been forced into the Avatar’s destiny, is huge. Because unlike in 1x02, “The Avatar Returns,” Sozin’s Comet part 4 is “Avatar Aang.” He is the Avatar, on his own terms, in his own way, with the peace needed to heal a violent and damaged world, with the same peace, mercy, and forgiveness that gave Zuko a second chance. 

When Aang takes the lightning and could possibly kill Ozai, we see him contemplate, consider, and then he redirects it, he already knows he has a second option from the Lion Turtle. He doesn’t know quite how or if it will work, but he does know the risk, with his life and the world on the line, the same way it would have been with the lightning. And Aang had heard from the Lion Turtle, that his own spirit could be corrupted and destroyed. And it’s because he never wavered from his moral code that it isn’t, that he plants himself like a tree and says no, you move. And I firmly believe that if Aang hadn’t had the second option of the Lion Turtle, if he had had to kill Ozai to end the war, he would have.

Energybending also brings things back in full circle, with a blue beam in the light announcing the Avatar—found, then lost, and then found again—and his personal and global redemption to the world. His elemental sphere falls away until it’s only air, and he does what he knows is right, draws into the steadiness of an earthbender too, to trap Ozai and help him perform energybending. And once Ozai has been defeated, Aang enters the Avatar State willfully for the second time ever in the show, this time at peace and in control, and the first and last element he ever bends in the Avatar state is water, one to seal him away in ice, another to defend himself in the pilot, and a last time cleanse the sins of the land and of the world. Because he saw the violence and hatred around him and said no, he saw people around him saying mercy and power couldn’t be mutually exclusive said no.

Deus ex machina, the Lion Turtle and energybending may technically be, but it fits perfectly with Avatar’s themes and the point of the story, and of Aang’s character and of the entire narrative as well, so in those cases, yes, as long as a deus ex machina is well executed in some manner and fits, I don’t mind it.

Cheap plot-twists that remove character’s agency and or is flat out convenient with no regard to thematic grace or narrative themes, on the other hand? No thank you.

Hope this answers your question, nonny.