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My sister was just showing me a DIY photobooth gift on tiktok for a couple and I was like, “that’s so cute but I don’t think anyone will ever love me that much to accept that gift and be wholesome about it.” and she said “oh, I would just make it for you.”

and it was so reminiscent of the scene in Fleabag when Claire says “the only person I’d run through an airport for is you.” like, what love is more prevalent than sisterly love, no one will ever know me better.

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Okay i didn't add this to my review, even though I did research on it when I was looking for facts on Kyoshis legacy. So I just wanted to drop this little theory I have in here, which is that the Kyoshi Warriors fighting style is largely inspired by the wushu martial art of China, because that martial art does incorporate iron folding fans in their defensive fighting techniques.

Although the Kyoshi Warriors could have also been inspired by actual Buddhist warrior nuns like the sects in Nepal and Vietnam, and you can read about those warrior nuns too!

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The Rise of Kyoshi: A Review and brief Analysis

Rise of Kyoshi is the newest installment in the Avatar universe, and is the first of a two part book series written by F.C Yee in collaboration with the creator of The Last Airbender, Michael Dante DiMartino. The book is set apart to other additions of the Avatar universe because unlike the graphic novels that followed The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra, Rise of Kyoshi is a prequel, that gives us insight to an Avatar who was once only known to us as a foreboding, powerful and mysterious past life of Aang.

The prequel begins with the old companions of the recently deceased Avatar Kuruk searching for their old friends reincarnation in a small Earth Kingdom village known as Yokoya, the characters Jianzhu, an Earth Kingdom noble, and Kelsang, an air nomad have exhausted the means and methods of Earth Kingdom tradition in their search for the Avatar and attempt the Air Nations method, which consists of placing a plethora of toys before prospective children in the hopes that the Avatar child will select four toys hidden among the hundred or so that belonged to them in a past life. In this opening scene there is foreshadowing to a young Kyoshi but ultimately, Kelsang and Jianzhu believe that their search for the Avatar in Yokoya is a dead one.

Following that, the reader becomes acquainted with an adolescent Kyoshi, not yet aware of her identity and living as an orphaned servant in what can be described as a prepatory home for the boy the world believes to be the Avatar, Yun. The home is owned and ran by Jianzhu and houses many staff as well as Yun's firebending trainer Hei Ran (another old friend of Kuruk) and her daughter, a firebending prodigy and the personal guard of Yun, Rangi.

Once the reader is acquainted with the main characters of the book, the scene that is set is one of rising tensions; the huge and untamable Earth Kingdom is under threat by smugglers, criminals and pirates calling themselves 'The Fifth Nation' and it seems that the only thing holding them back is Jianzhus political power and the worlds belief that Yun is the Avatar.

With all these factors in play, Kyoshi believes herself to be nothing more than what she does in her day to day life, a servant with untrained earth bending powers living under the grace of Jianzhu and with the friendship of Kelsang who saved her from destitution after placing her in Jianzhus household. The turning point of the book comes about when a seemingly harmless game of bounce poetry in the kitchen between the household staff (influenced by Kelsang) has Kyoshi spurting the words of a secret poem written by Kuruk in his life that only Kelsang was aware of, this effortless flow for Kyoshi shakes Kelsang and plants a seed of doubt in the both of them as to Yun's identity.

Now that the plotline of RoK has been established, it would be prudent to tackle theories as to why Kyoshi is discovered to be the Avatar so late in her life when it's typical that most children are realized to be the Avatar by the time they're 12 or 14, or even as young as 4 in the case of Korra, however Kyoshi is only suspected to be the Avatar and then confirmed by the age of 16, and although the importance of this late stage realization is not addressed by the creators of A:TLA, theories on this anomaly are still interesting.

Firstly, Kyoshis childhood is filled with strife such as abandonment and neglect: she was orphaned in a small farming village with inhabitants that treated her like an eyesore and a burden, moreover she was often mercilessly bullied by the village children because of her notable height and status as an outcast. From such circumstances we can deduce that trauma of this kind might have been responsible for her subdued nature that in turn made her response to her bending powers subdued as well. In TLA and TLOK characters who experience great emotional change or strife are likely to have their bending abilities affected, when Zuko joins Aang and friends in season 3 the power in his firebending takes a dramatic hit because of an internal struggle that raged on in him for many years. Similarly Korras power in season 4 is subdued after the trauma of her battle with Zaheer, of course the factor of her still having the poison in her body plays into this but the show emphasizes her mental state being linked to her bending proficiency.

Alternatively, the factor of the previous Avatar's early death can be considered. When Avatar Kuruk is introduced in The Last Airbender he tells Aang that in his lifetime he was a reckless and hedonistic person and his friends in RoK do note the same things about his personality, he dies at 33 which is relatively young for an Avatar (or for any person), while Kyoshi herself has been revealed to live until age 230 by the shows creators. Every human is different however and it could be theorized that the Spirit known as Raava -which embodies humans to make them the Avatar- was displaced by Kuruks early death that was uncharacteristic to most Avatars life cycles. It could be that this sudden, early passing of Kuruk triggered Raava into a sort of dormancy that prevented the signs of Kyoshis identity from being known. 

However, as well as these theories could be true it is just as plausible that the blunder of Jianzhu and Kelsang in their rush to discover and name Yun the new Avatar is reason enough as to why Kyoshi was not recognized as the Avatar.

Finally, RoK in itself is a very well written book with everything from fleshed out world building - such as snippets of a world in which the original Air Nation is present and thriving and even subtle foreshadowing to the structure of the world we meet in the Last Airbender that actually becomes the history of that same world. For older fans that can simply not get enough of all the details in this fantasy world that we were introduced to as children, the book offers a tinge of nostalgia and the perspective of a previously mysterious but intriguing past life of Aang.

References:

 Yee, F. C., and Michael Dante DiMartino. Avatar, The Last Airbender: The Rise of Kyoshi (The Kyoshi Novels Book 1). Abrams, 2019.

DiMartino, D. Michael, Konietzko, Brian. (July 2008) Avatar: The Last Airbender. United States of America. Nickelodeon Studios.

DiMartino, D. Michael, Konietzko, Brian. (December 2014) The Legend of Korra. United States of America. Nickelodeon Studios.