The Shadow of Kyoshi cut scene 1

"I'll participate. [...] But on my own team, by myself."

— Kyoshi agrees to compete in the Sticky Mountain festival game.

Template:Chapter infobox"The Shadow of Kyoshi cut scene 1" is a deleted segment from The Shadow of Kyoshi that would have been set after "The Message" but diverge from the events of "Resignation".

Background

Initially written into an earlier draft of The Shadow of Kyoshi, the text never appeared in the final version of the novel published on July 21, 2020. It was instead distributed over a year later as an exclusive bonus content booklet in the Kyoshi Novels Box Set, which was officially released by Amulet Books on October 19, 2021, and features events that differ substantially from what ultimately occurred in the completed novel's narrative as well as page-by-page commentary from F. C. Yee about his writing process. A second cut scene became available on July 19, 2022.

Overview

Kyoshi competes in a traditional festival game.

Synopsis

Kyoshi spends most of the morning with Nyahitha in the melonyam fields, destroying every route and pass he could remember among the terrain to hide the inflammatory message about Chaejin carved into the hillside.

They arrive back in town to see the villagers hard at work building three enormous pyramids out of bamboo. At Kyoshi's questioning, Nyahitha says they are called Sticky Mountains and will be covered in cooked glutinous rice when complete as part of a tradition during the Festival of Szeto in which the village divides into teams and sends young people to climb them and try to grab the flag on top. He explains it is meant to be a symbol of good fortune and plenty because there is usually more than enough grain from the harvest to spare for the ritual. However, Kyoshi cannot help but feel disgusted at the waste of food and recalls similar traditions in the Earth Kingdom.

The rest of Kyoshi's group spots them in the town square and come over, Rangi handing them each a bun filled with bean paste as she knew they would not have eaten during their spiritual training the previous night. Kyoshi is bothered by how the gesture fills her with an overwhelming desire to immediately kiss Rangi but clamps the feeling down.

While the group catches up, the crowd grows around them and cheers when the workers begin scooping mounds of cooked rice onto the bamboo scaffolds. The applause quickly subsides, however, and is replaced by angry shouts from the foremen at the top of the pyramids when it becomes clear there is not enough rice to fully cover even one of the structures. Kyoshi worries it will be interpreted as a bad sign from spirits.

Huazo chooses this moment to arrive with her contingent, insisting the game still be held as the festival is about the enduring will of their nation as much as food and that the spirits will be pleased as long as the competition remains fierce. The gathered villagers are uncertain how to respond, Kyoshi notices, particularly after catching site of how elegantly the Saowon are dressed for the contest compared to the North Chung-Ling residents in their faded, tattered rags. In her mind, the Saowon's efforts to conform their outfits to the town's style in preparation to compete comes across more as mockery than fitting in.

The crowd eventually parts to let Sanshur Keohso and his own group of seasoned fighters through, whom Kyoshi realizes he must have gathered from other villages on the island as backup. He smiles widely at Huazo and welcomes her household to join the game, both groups giddy for a fight in the current political climate under the guise of a friendly competition. He asks Huazo if she knows the rules, to which she responds that there should be one flag atop each pyramid for three total, that the team who retrieves the majority of flags is the winner, and that no bending is allowed. Sanshur adds that the game does not end until all three flags are claimed and will not stop on account of injury. As they discuss teams, he also surprises everyone by declaring that Kyoshi is joining on his side as a friend and ally to the "legitimate" Fire Lord.

Kyoshi decides she erred in not distancing herself earlier from the different sides of the two clans' conflict and sees this as a chance to set the record straight while also minimizing collateral damage, so she agrees to play but on her own team by herself. As the different teams gather in their chosen side-streets to prepare, Rangi and Hei-Ran are less approving of Kyoshi's decision, frowning and concerned at the sheer numbers Kyoshi is going up against. She assures them she can handle herself, even without the elements, and maintains the game will end quicker and with less violence if she can get the flags first.

A local boy then comes over with an ink and brush so Kyoshi can draw a symbol on herself to indicate her team. Without directly expressing it, Kyoshi hesitantly asks for permission to represent the Sei'naka clan. Hei-Ran recognizes Kyoshi's request and readily accepts, beaming proudly at the Avatar and drawing her clan's character herself across Kyoshi's shoulders. She says that Kyoshi is now part of her and Rangi's family and cannot lose because their clan does not tolerate failure. Understanding the stark contrast now to Hei-Ran's earlier attitude over the course of the morning that the Sticky Mountain game was a pointless frivolity, Kyoshi promises not to disappoint her.

Rangi subsequently pulls Kyoshi down by her shoulder to whisper that the only reason she hasn't knocked her out and dragged her back to the inn is that she "owe[s] [her] one from Hujiang", then gives her a quick peck on the shell of her ear. Nyahitha follows up with his own carefully worded parting wisdom that this is the most Kuruk move Kyoshi could have possibly pulled, to which she mutters back dryly, "shut up, old man".

Everyone not involved in the game proceeds to back away as the foremen announce the start of the game. Kyoshi watches as the Saowon and Keohso teams swarm the pyramids and gets trampled herself after reaching the nearest one, forcing her into a crouch. Hearing Rangi's voice in her head from many past training sessions, Kyoshi explodes back up in perfect hot squat form, sending the men on top of her hurtling away. She barrels through the narrow partition she created and starts to climb the pyramid but slides back down, layers of sticky rice crumbling off the scaffolding into her hands. Right before the crowd closes in on her again, she leaps up with her arms extended to reach the bare scaffolding not covered by rice and hauls herself up and out of the fray.

With her new vantage point, Kyoshi is easily able to reach the top of the first pyramid and snatch the flag from its moorings. She holds it up in victory, noting that a cheer would be nice to hear but instead sees Rangi jumping up and down and pointing to the second pyramid. Kyoshi slides back down and works her way toward the central period, separating clashing Saowon and Keohso contestants along the way but finding it impossible to make any more progress as the fighters she tosses away simply rejoin the fray.

Remembering that dust-stepping was more about the footwork than bending, Kyoshi tries a technique she had only ever considered in more lighthearted moments, managing to run up the back of a large Saowon man and spring off his shoulders before he falls to the ground. Landing one foot on the shoulder of a Keohso competitor, she predicts his movements before they occur in order to step again onto another person. Repeating this process, she is able to run across the crowd to the central pyramid and up its slope to grab the flag on top.

Kyoshi takes some time to catch her breath and observes the Saowon and Keohso players all struggling and failing to climb the third pyramid as anytime someone makes it a few feet, they are flung backward by their opponents below. The action reminds Kyoshi of an old Yokoyan expression about a bucket of reefcrabs, whereby even though any one of them could escape the container individually, none ever would because it would get dragged down by the others when it got close to the edge.

As she sees the third pyramid continue to swell and sag from the many players attempting to climb it, Kyoshi suddenly detects a sensation in her body she is unaccustomed to. She realizes she is actually enjoying herself, having never won at anything nor usually gotten the chance to be an active participant in fun activities. Bolstering her determination, she takes her time getting down the central pyramid, no one paying her any mind since it now lacks its flag, and walks around to the back corner of its empty bamboo frame. Noticing that it was not hammered into the ground like the settlements she was accustomed to inhabiting in Yokoya but rather could slide freely with enough force, Kyoshi takes aim and shoves the bamboo platform like a sledge toward the third pyramid.

The Keohso and Saowon men on the outskirts express shock, some diving out of the way, as Kyoshi's pyramid crashes into them, overturning banks of people. Embracing her raw strength more than ever before, Kyoshi drives her pyramid deeper into the formation of people before finally ramming into the third pyramid. Then, climbing back up her pyramid like a ladder, she prepares to jump to the third one's peak, leaping just as she feels the slap of a hand around her ankles from the quick-thinking competitors who had raced up her pyramid after her.

Kyoshi's body veers horizontal mid-flight as she stretches out her arms. She hears a shriek from below and fears she is not going make it. But then, feeling a breeze so fortuitous that she is not sure whether she is accidentally using airbending to cheat, the flag lifts and flutters out toward her. Kyoshi catches it with the sides of her longest fingers, then crashes into the top of the already-crowded pyramid. The last Sticky Mountain teeters and groans under her added weight before snapping with a crunch and sending her tumbling down with everyone else.

Production notes

Series continuity

• Upon arriving back in town with Nyahitha, Kyoshi asks if the bamboo structures being built are parade floats, intended by F. C. Yee to be a subtle reference to the floats from "Avatar Day".
• Rangi giving Kyoshi a bean paste bun after a night of meditation is repurposed into a more emotionally charged scene in "Weakness" where Rangi uses her own firebending to heat up a bowl of noodles for Kyoshi shortly after claiming she no longer cares about her.
  • Kyoshi inadvertently becoming a part of Rangi and Hei-Ran's family by competing in the Sticky Mountain festival game on behalf of their clan is similarly adapted for a more serious scene in "Weakness" where Hei-Ran admits that, due to Rangi's love for Kyoshi, she sees Kyoshi as her daughter as well.
• Kyoshi's use of brute force to hurl the clashing Saowon and Keohso competitors apart during the Sticky Mountain festival game is replaced in "Resignation" by a scene of her and Jinpa employing airbending to separate the brawling clan members, the reason for the fight also changed from the ritualistic game to the discovery of the melonyam message.
• Kyoshi's improvised sprint atop the heads and shoulders of the Saowon and Keohso competitors is intended by Yee to draw a link between the head-running technique Suki performs in "The Boiling Rock, Part 2" and the dust-stepping technique Kyoshi learns in "Questions and Meditations".
  • Yee elaborates that he wanted to imply that the head-running technique was a secret Kyoshi Island trick passed down along the generations of warriors so that non-benders would have a version of "wuxia weightless stepping" too.
• Originally prodded by Kelsang in "Honest Work" and Jinpa in "The Invitation", Kyoshi finally learns to have fun and enjoy herself.

Character revelations

• Kyoshi invents a nonbending version of dust-stepping.

Goofs

• On the twelfth page of this chapter, the paragraph starting with "Kyoshi took a moment..." is printed twice in close succession.

Trivia

• Yee notes that letting Kyoshi successfully hide the inflammatory message before it is seen made for a waste of drama in this draft.
• Yee drew inspiration for the Sticky Mountain festival game from Hong Kong's Cheung Chau Bun Festival, where people climb up a tower of buns and try to snatch the highest ones they can for luck.
• The scene of the crowd parting to let Sanshur Keohso and his group of strong-armed fighters through to confront Huazo and her own contingent is meant to evoke films such as Yojimbo.
• Beneath the scene where Yee describes Kyoshi realizing how much she is enjoying herself, he confesses that he regrets not showing her having more fun in the books.
• According to Yee, while some of the major themes of the novel are present in this chapter, such as the Avatar learning her own power, dealing with factionalism, and adapting to cultural nuances, it was largely cut because it lacked connection to the overall narrative and, consequently, could not justify the sixteen pages it took up.