The Shadow of Kyoshi

The Kyoshi duology is a decent read as an excuse to spend more time in a familiar world; recognizable terminology and characters go a long way in making mediocre storytelling somewhat enjoyable.

My strongest feeling I'm left with on finishing it is a sense of missed potential with the time period it chose to cover. One of the most defining facts about Kyoshi is that she lived to be 230 years old. The first touched on a lore explanation for how that could have been but this one ignores a critical opportunity to explore Kyoshi's psychology in a potentially much more interesting and unique way. Living past 200 means she would have suffered through a repeating cycle of her closest friends dying from old age or otherwise over and over again; she's probably the Avatar that has felt the most alone on top of her already singular unique existence and there's such enormous potential there. But instead, a choice was made to focus on more quirky coming-of-age teenage antics that any story could have told.

This might have been to lean into a simpler, easy-to-digest plot and cast of characters, which is my first real critique. These books are trying for slightly darker, more mature material when compared to ATLA: harsher violence, murder, a slightly older cast, a mature relationship that's steady by the middle of the first novel, etc. But it contrasts horribly with the writing style which seems aimed at elementary/middle schoolers with a short attention span.
Absurdly short chapters, overly simplistic sentence structure and vocabulary, and very black-and-white characterization at times creates an awkward dissonance.

Even beyond that the prose itself still feels clunky at times despite how simple and straightforward everything is made to be. As a minor but reoccurring example, while the majority of the book is told from Kyoshi's pov, on occasion there will be a sentence insert from another characters emotional perspective but without inner dialogue or any deeper meaning to give it purpose. It just comes across awkward and could be solved by rewriting all these moments to be Kyoshi's observations. Not to mention the 7th grade level similes and metaphors that appear every other chapter.

As for the plot itself, well...

I love the idea of Yun as the central antagonist. Former close friend and false Avatar turned villain through repeat trauma and critical circumstance is just an inherently appealing concept.And it starts off pretty well too. I'm glad Yun wasn't just possessed because I hate that trope, it usually comes across as a writer skipping steps in making a compelling and earned conflict between friends, ignoring the real psychology and consequence needed to get there.To give more credit, I liked the piece-meal revelations on Yun's disposition. The interlude chapters are placed very precisely and information is revealed with just the right timing so that the reader is likely right alongside Kyoshi with doubts that Yun could be doing this on his own, all the way up until the final confirmation that he is. But the story really just didn't earn such a drastic, irreversible character shift in the end. Yun goes from unassuming insecure twink boy to cartoonishly psychopathic murderer because an equally over-the-top evil shopkeeper dangled water over the head of a dying child for no reason. It's genuinely one of the worst written things to come out of Avatar-related media. The Huazo, Chaejin and Zoryu plotline isn't much better either. I was decently interested in the events as things were unfolding, and I liked the reveal of how far Zoryu was willing to go even if it was a bit sudden. But again with the good ideas paired with poor execution, this plot takes up an enormous amount of time just to ultimately end with nothing. No consequence for Kyoshi's actions against Huazo because Zoryu is just an evil lil guy I guess. It's an extremely unsatisfying place to leave things off and it honestly reads like a to be continued... for a sequel that as far as I know isn't even planned to be made. An underdiscussed aspect that I think contributes to the Kyoshi novels feeling so inferior to the original show is the fact that these books don't really have any clearly defined themes. There are more meaningful ideas presented in a single episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and arguably in some single lines from Iroh alone than there is in the entirety of both these stories. They spend a lot of time on the inconvenience of cultural traditions, but that feels more like trying to stay true to the image of the Fire Nation over anything else. The only other thing is power and responsibilities potential to corrupt, but that idea is presented so poorly it's hard to count as a win. It obviously isn't all bad though, and the expansion on Kuruk's character in particular was genuinely great. It works as a tragic short story on it's own, and it ties into the events of the current events fluidly. I also love how it recontextualizes Kuruk from this laid-back irresponsible Avatar who probably died young due to incompetence into something much deeper and more tragic without betraying what we knew of him. I wish the lead into his story was a bit more subtle because it makes Kyoshi come across as needlessly dumb and incompetent herself, as this book is somewhat obsessed with doing, but that's a more minor gripe.


Shadow of Kyoshi is a series of events, likable enough characters, and a glimpse at an interesting time-period within a world everyone already loves. And that's fine, this isn't a bad time it just doesn't come close to the earned prestige of Avatar: The Last Airbender.


5/10

Honestly I didn't like this book very much. When I heard there were novels in development about Kyoshi I was so excited to learn how this woman became the person who established the Dai Li, killed Chin the Conquer, and advised Aang to kill Firelord Ozai. I loved the first book, I felt like it established Kyoshi's story brilliantly but this second entry just felt like a filler episode. And to hear that this series is probably just a duology really bummed me out. Obviously it's up to the author's discretion what subject matter they choose to tackle but to not even come close to covering the most interesting and purposefully vague aspects of Kyoshi's life? Kind of a let down. I also felt like the pacing of this book was lacking compared to the first. There was a beginning and ending but it didn't really feel like there was a middle. This is probably the one time a book would have benefitted from an extra hundred pages or so. 

Oh how desperately do I wish the comics were even half the quality of the books. F.C. Lee is a brilliant writer and has kept the Avatar universe alive through sheer will.

I do get frustrated when Avatars seemingly continue to lose battles against a person with one element. Often they even have Team Avatar to assist and they still all get schooled. I would really like for someone to just roll with how OP the Avatar is and find a way to craft an interesting story from that perspective. Maybe I'll get a shot in the future.

This books is basically the redemption of Avatar Kuruk but I did seem to think it clashed with the canon of ATLA a bit. Kuruk mentioned none of this to Aang and instead focused on the face stealer spirit which is weird because in this book he's all about hunting spirits.