#book two

Yeah, this is up there with "the Lion Turtles giving people elements to wield contradicts what was established about the original benders!" as a take that miscontrues what was canonically told and shown to us in that two-parter. It's 2025, I cannot believe I'm still seeing this.

I don't know whether or not Bryke was going for a Yin/Yang thing when they made Raava and Vaatu, but if so, they did not succeed because that's not what they come off as at all. THIS was Yin/Yang:

Raava and Vaatu are actually incarnations of "two sides of one/the same coin". It's an idiom that means two seemingly completely different things are actually closely related aspects of the same thing, emphasizing that while things might appear separate or even polar opposite to one another, they can in truth be interconnected and inseparable from each other, and this comes implicitly with the understanding that too much of either thing in great excess will lead to the exact same result. Such is the case with what Raava and Vaatu embody, where their light and darkness needs to co-exist.

They have the same design but with different coloring, looking like one could fit on top of the other and be the other side of a singular entity. They're introduced to us in their default state - literally tied together by their tails. In the age before the Avatar's existence, no spirit or human was specifically assigned the task of keeping balance within the realms or restoring the balance whenever it was lost, so Raava and Vaatu were just the natural cornerstone of balance. So long as they remained connected and not separate from each other, they upheld the balance. They were the balance. Vaatu's natural instincts always led him to seeking freedom from Raava, but every Harmonic Convergence period she was sure to beat him and keep him in his place. By severing their connection and allowing Vaatu on his own to run amuck near the time of Harmonic Convergeance, Wan disrupted that seemingly unshakable balance, and it was thrown off because Vaatu was the one attempting to conquer Raava, to extinguish his other half completely so that he could spread chaos, ruination and darkness upon the world unchecked. The reason Avatar Wan then "conquering" Vaatu did not similarly throw off the balance is because Raava had just melded with Wan's human spirit and this birthed the singular Avatar Spirit, with the human side of this spirit essentially serving as Vaatu's replacement for what reigns in and rounds out the harmonious, oderly spirit, making the Avatar the new keeper of balance in place of the Raava/Vaatu union. But as Raava and Vaatu are two halves of a singular whole that now had to exist apart from each other - or cease to exist as its original self at all in Raava's case - the world's balance was left very fragile, making it crucial that the Avatar live on and on through different lives to keep the balance and serve as the bridge between two realms.

While the two spirits themselves don't factor into much of TLoK after Book Two, the thing about them embodying two sides of the same coin and how too much of either one of them in great excess should be avoided if there's to be a proper balance is a huge running theme through Book Three and Book Four with its villains. The Red Lotus wanted to spread complete and total chaos throughout the world, which was shown to be a bad thing, and in direct response, the Earth Empire rose and wanted to establish complete and total order in the world through controlling fascist overreach, which was shown to be just as bad. One is Vaatu to the extreme and the other is Raava to the extreme, and they're both enemies of balance that the Avatar has to stop. Yes, the conflicts are Good VS Evil, but they have nuances to them that take them far beyond "light, order and harmony is Pure Good while darkness, chaos and destruction is Pure Evil."

Lastly, even the idea of these spirits as Pure Good and Pure Evil is flawed. Vaatu was disappointingly pretty damn super evil due to the whole "directly conspiring with Unalaq to become a Dark Avatar, doom humanity and reign over spirits in a darkened, desolate world" thing that was just written and handled poorly in general, but Raava? She was not "Pure Good" whatsoever. There was nothing that much differentiated her from all the other high-and-mighty human hating spirits we were shown, and her concerns about Vaatu going loose from her were all about duty, adherence to status quo, and self preservation rather than about morality or concern for who Vaatu might harm. Though she understood morals and virtues, Raava was just as amoral in her approach as Vaatu, but she actually grew beyond her inititally static nature by seeing firsthand the virtues that humans like Wan were capable of having and acting upon, and as Wan was taking care of her in a weakened state, she was humbled.

Jason didn't care about Tim Drake. He was very bitter towards the teen. Something about him just unsettled Jason. He didn't know what it was; but there was something that reminded him of something. Jason couldn't pin point what exactly that something was.

Note: This takes place between "That's Not My Name" and "Not to Me" of Batman's Failure- Joker Junior's Story

Completed AU

Three chapters. Two thousand, four hundred and sixty-four words

Book Two of Batman's Biggest Failure

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