Avatar:History of Gyatso (66 BG)
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| Gyatso's main article |
| History |
| Early life (c. late 70s BG - 67 AG) Lambak Island adventure (66 BG) Adult life (66 BG - 12 BG) Last years (12 BG - 0 BG) |
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| Gyatso's relationships |
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| Gyatso |
The life of Gyatso significantly changed in the year 66 BG. Having suffered a great loss and a mental block of airbending the year prior due to his older sister Yama's death in an accident, Gyatso suffered from low self-esteem and significant internal turmoil which had led to a halt of his airbending training. In an attempt to alleviate the situation, Gyatso was paired with the young Avatar Roku by their shared airbending master Disha. Though the two boys initially struggled to get along, they gradually became friends and eventually embarked on an unauthorized adventure to the mysterious Lambak Island.
There, their bond grew stronger as they unraveled a conspiracy involving the native Lambak Clan, the Western Kingdom Trading Company, and Prince Sozin. Gyatso also forged a great friendship with an island native named Malaya, while finding renewed inner peace and thus restoring his airbending. Together, the three put a stop to the machinations of the Lambak Clan leader Ulo and prevented numerous deaths as tensions escalated into fighting. To Gyatso's sorrow, Malaya died during these events, though his friendship with Roku emerged unbreakable from the adventure's conclusion.
Meeting Roku
Gyatso first met Avatar Roku after the latter arrived at the Southern Air Temple to begin his Avatar journey. Regarding Roku as a spoiled noble and representative of a corrupt system, the young airbender did not disguise his initial dislike of the new arrival. Regardless, Sister Disha tried to encourage Gyatso and Roku to spend time together, and brought both of them along during aid missions across the world.[1]
Embarking on an adventure
While Roku's airbending training was still ongoing, the young Avatar received a request of aid by his old friend Prince Sozin to explore an uncharted, fog-shrouded Fire Island on which the Earth Kingdom was supposedly trying to establish a presence on. Roku initially turned down the request,[2] but he and Ta Min - another friend of his who had come to the temple to deliver Sozin's request - were later attacked by an earthbender who used his bending to try and bury the pair alive.[3] Gyatso heard the attack and came to their aid, his airbending returning and allowing him to glide to their location, subdue the earthbender and dig out Roku and Ta Min. After the danger was over though, Gyatso found himself unable to airbend again, causing Ta Min to suggest that seeing her and Roku's lives threatened had allowed him to focus his chi and overcome his mental block. The trio questioned the earthbender, who claimed he had been sent to kill Roku by Earth King Jialun, before managing to escape.[4]
Following the attempt on his life, Roku decided to travel to the island and drive out the supposed Earth Kingdom presence there, believing both things to be part of a scheme of Jialun's. Disha refused to sanction his plan,[4] prompting Roku to leave the temple without her knowledge. Gyatso agreed to lend him Lola as a means of getting to the island in return for Roku allowing the Air Nomad to accompany him there; recalling how his airbending had become much stronger when Roku had been in danger, he guessed that Roku's adventure would provide him with similar opportunities, and from there he could perhaps figure out how to permanently restore his bending.[5]
After leaving the temple, Gyatso and Roku searched for the island using a coded map Sozin had sent to Roku. Their efforts were unsuccessful however, and after several days of fruitless searching, Gyatso suggested the two of them return to the temple before they could get into any further trouble. Roku convinced him to spend one more day looking though, adding that he would claim to have forced Gyatso to fly him away if it meant saving the Air Nomad from punishment. That night, Gyatso practiced his airbending forms, but was unable to produce more than faint gusts of wind despite his technique being flawless, and he eventually gave up in frustration. Roku - who had been secretly watching the display - assured him that his airbending would return, citing how he had once been greatly affected by the death of his brother Yasu, but had eventually healed. This prompted Gyatso to tell him about Yama, but neither of the two wanted to elaborate on their losses, and Gyatso instead asked about how Roku had been able to heal. Roku put it down to his friendship with Sozin, and related an anecdote from his childhood about how the prince had once defended Yasu against an angry patron in the Fire Nation Royal Spa.[6]
Resuming their search the next day, Gyatso and Roku got into a debate over their respective cultures, with Gyatso criticizing the Fire Nation for allowing the Fire Lord to wield absolute power and not having a female ruler at any point in its history. Roku in turn criticized the Air Nomads for segregating their temples based on gender, as well as their constant neutrality in political matters, which he saw as choosing inaction in response to injustice. Gyatso retorted that there would be far less injustice if more people acted like Air Nomads, before claiming that he would invent new slang and spread it across the Fire Nation. The discussion was interrupted by Roku catching sight of the fog-shrouded island they had been searching for; after he claimed to have known the location of it all along, Gyatso sarcastically thanked him for the tour of the South Sea.[6]
Searching for the Earth Kingdom expedition
Despite Gyatso and Roku's efforts, Lola proved unwilling to fly into the fog, and Roku proposed that he and Gyatso do so themselves with Gyatso's glider. Gyatso was reluctant, pointing out the danger of blindly crashing into a mountain or rock, as well as his struggles with airbending. Recalling Gyatso's original reason for choosing to accompany him, Roku deliberately fell out of Lola's saddle, prompting Gyatso to go after him. Again, Roku being in danger caused Gyatso's airbending to return, and he managed to grab Roku and glide with him towards the island. The two of them were unable to make it to the shore though, but Gyatso was able to safely drop Roku into the shallow water nearby,[7] and the pair walked through the shallows onto a rocky beach.[8]
Having arrived on the island, Gyatso felt a strange spiritual energy coming from it, and suggested there was more to the place than Sozin had revealed to Roku. He expressed a hope that Lola would be okay, to which Roku replied that she would likely return to the temple now that her riders were gone, before sarcastically commenting on Gyatso's connection - or lack thereof - to her. In response, Gyatso remarked on Roku's lack of an animal guide despite his being the Avatar, noting that Avatar Szeto had grown up with his dragon companion. Roku grudgingly acknowledged this, and Gyatso joined him in checking their supplies and assessing their surroundings before asking where they should go now. Recalling where they had arrived on the island and what Ta Min had said to him, Roku proposed that the two of them follow the beach northeast, the Earth Kingdom's presence having been reported to be on the eastern coast of the island. Gyatso asked what Roku would do once they found the Earth Kingdom contingent, and expressed doubt when the Avatar claimed he would tell them they were trespassing on Fire Nation territory before peacefully persuading them to leave. Roku stood up to begin traveling along the coast, only for Gyatso to point him in the right direction.[8]
A couple of days after their arrival on the island, Gyatso and Roku discovered the remains of a campsite built with earthbending, as well as a landing boat tied to a nearby tree. Exploring the area, Roku found a number of footprints, and from them he judged the Earth Kingdom contingent to be made up of six people. Gyatso remarked that he would have expected the supposed Earth Kingdom presence to be much bigger, and for them to have constructed a military outpost as opposed to a temporary camp, but Roku suggested the outpost had simply been established further inland. This did not convince the Air Nomad, who questioned why the Earth Kingdom would seek to claim a Fire Nation island without trying to secure its coast, to which Roku replied that the Earth Kingdom was not known for cunning tactics. Gyatso dismissed his claim as an overgeneralization, and pointed out that securing the coast was basic logic as opposed to military strategy. He suggested that Sozin had neglected to tell Roku the full story regarding the island, but Roku dismissed such an idea, and the two of them continued to follow the Earth Kingdom contingent inland.[9]
As night fell, Gyatso and Roku set up their camp on the edge of a swamp, and the pair had another conversation in which Gyatso admitted he was afraid his airbending would never return to its former strength. He told Roku how Yama's death had left him broken and uncentered - Roku replying that he had felt much the same after losing Yasu - but also confessed that part of him did not want to heal, believing it would mean having to forget about and stop loving his sister. In response, Roku suggested that instead of not loving Yama, he should figure out what it meant to love her following her passing, causing Gyatso to remark that the Avatar was not as foolish as everyone said. Roku thanked him for the compliment, before asking if Gyatso wanted to know why Disha would not teach him airbending. Gyatso replied that the answer to that question was obvious, and demonstrated his point by using his glider staff to knock Roku's headpiece - a gift from Sozin that was traditionally worn by the Fire Nation crown prince - off his head, prompting Roku to dive into the swamp in order to catch it. As Gyatso came over to help Roku up, Roku laughed and pulled the Air Nomad down into the swamp with him.[9]
While continuing their travels the next day, Gyatso and Roku encountered Oh Wen, an injured member of the Earth Kingdom contingent. To Gyatso's surprise, the Earth Kingdom man tried to kill him with earthbending, but the Air Nomad was able to subdue him with Roku's help.[10] The pair waited for Oh Wen to wake up, after which Gyatso offered to fix his arm - which had gotten dislocated in the fight - over the protests of Roku, who wanted to first question him about why he had come to the island. Roku eventually deferred to Gyatso, who pretended it would be his first time treating such an injury, much to Oh Wen's alarm; the Air Nomad proceeded to easily fix it, before admitting that all his people knew how to treat dislocations as a result of them frequently happening in airbending training.[11]
Dispute with Roku and splitting up
After healing Oh Wen's arm, Gyatso and Roku introduced themselves to him, and Roku explained about his mission to the island. Oh Wen scoffed at his claim about wanting to resolve things peacefully, accusing Roku of previously killing two of his companions - unaware they had actually been killed by Sozin, Dalisay and Kozaru long before Gyatso and Roku came to the island - before claiming Gyatso had tried to kill him a couple of days ago. Both Gyatso and Roku denied the accusations, with Gyatso stating that the Air Nomads were pacifists, but Oh Wen pointed out the injuries he had suffered prior to encountering the pair, which he insisted had come from someone attacking him with airbending, a claim Gyatso was unable to effectively refute.[11]
Gyatso turned to Roku and remarked that they were supposed to be questioning Oh Wen as opposed to letting him question them, prompting Roku to demand answers from the injured man. In response, Oh Wen answered that he was a security guard for the Western Kingdom Trading Company, with the mention of the organization causing Gyatso to stiffen. He stayed silent and shook his head when Roku questioned his reaction, and Oh Wen went on to explain that he and the rest of his group had been sent to the island by the company in order to locate a valuable rock that could only be found there.[11]
Following this reveal, Gyatso led Roku a short distance away and suggested to him that Sozin also knew about the rock, and was using Roku to quietly get rid of the Western Kingdom Trading Company presence in order to take it for himself. Roku replied that the resource in question belonged to the Fire Nation, thus Sozin was obligated to protect it, but Gyatso questioned why Sozin would lie to the Avatar in those circumstances. Roku argued that Sozin could have just been mistaken about the reason for the company's presence on the island, and dismissed Gyatso when the Air Nomad insisted that the rock's presence on the island was not a coincidence. Hurt and frustrated, Gyatso argued that the supposed Earth Kingdom assassin who attacked Roku and Ta Min at the Southern Air Temple could have actually been sent by Sozin, in order to motivate Roku to travel to the island following his earlier refusal to do so. Roku pointed out that he would never have been able to travel to the island if the assassin had succeeded in killing him, before insisting that Sozin was his friend, and would never lie to him or seek his death. Gyatso reminded him that their friendship had been established prior to Roku being revealed as the Avatar, but Roku insisted that his being the Avatar had not changed things between him and Sozin, further frustrating Gyatso.[11]
Roku claimed that if Sozin had known about the rock, he also had to know that Roku would have learned of it himself from Oh Wen's group, but Gyatso suggested that Sozin doubted Oh Wen's group would share such information, pointing out that Oh Wen had only told them after Gyatso helped fix his injury.[11] The two of them ultimately parted on bitter terms. While separated, Gyatso could not leave Roku behind as friends and if he needed his help. Gyatso while searching for him met Malaya, a island native.[12]