“Peace for who?! With all due respect, Your Majesty, my family has lived on this land for generations! This city was built on our blood and sweat! We have as much a right to be here as anyone else!”

Morishita’s angry speech, directed at Zuko, raises questions about land rights, indigeneity, and ancestral connection to places. Yang does not purport to answer these questions in The Promise. Instead, by portraying characters like Morishita, who have strong opinions on the matter, he presents them as ongoing, relevant debates.

“When you are in a position of power, you must put the needs of the world above your own. Zuko, at one time at least, understood this.”

Roku often delivers his wisdom to Aang in the form of succinct maxims. The second person “you” here is a generic pronoun, referring not only to Aang but also to Roku and all the other Avatars who have come before them. By removing himself from his own advice, Roku assumes a position of ultimate knowledge over Aang, though as the book progresses, his reliability begins to become questionable.

“Many of the Fire Nation families here immigrated over a hundred years ago, when Yu Dao was just a tiny village at the bottom of a valley. Together with the Earth Kingdom people who were already here, they built all this. Yu Dao now makes the finest metalwork ever produced, using both Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom expertise. That’s why this is one of the richest cities in the world.”

Zuko’s history lesson provides Aang with a perspective about the Fire Nation colonies that he had not seriously considered before. However, like many simplistic historical narratives, there might be some inaccuracies in the way Zuko presents things. In this moment, by telling the story of colonialism from the perspective of the colonizing people, Yang asks readers to consider how history can be presented in a plethora of ways and to think critically about the issues with Zuko’s narrative for themselves.

“I may be an earthbender, but through my father’s bloodline I am a Fire Nation citizen!”

Kori’s identity as both a Fire Nation and Earth Nation person gets at the central contradictions of the element bending system, which equates nationality and ethnicity. This storyline has allegorical resonance with The Position of Marginalized Cultures in a Multicultural Society, as perspectives from multicultural families like Kori’s weren’t considered during the development of the Harmony Restoration Movement.

“My students and I left this building in deference to The Harmony Restoration Movement! But now that the Fire Lord has recovered his senses and withdrawn his support for the movement, we’ve come back to reclaim what is rightfully ours!”

Kunyo’s language and tone reveal his feeling of entitlement to Earth Kingdom land and, more generally, resources. This colonialist attitude, contrasted with Zuko’s anticolonialist attitude, reveals that although Zuko withdrew his cooperation with the Harmony Restoration Movement to seek a different path to decolonization, that decision has emboldened firebenders who see nothing wrong with colonialism.

“Once, at the beach—you couldn’t have been older than three at the time—we saw a hawk attacking a turtle-crab by the water. You ran as fast as your little legs would carry you to rescue that turtle-crab. Even then, you possessed an odd affinity for the weak. But then, when you had the turtle-crab safely in your arms, you hesitated. The hawk looked at you with hungry eyes, and you realized you were condemning it to starve…Before you could reach a decision, a giant wave washed over you and carried you out into the ocean.”

Ozai relates an anecdote from Zuko’s childhood, which he treats as a proverb for present-day Zuko to learn a lesson from. Although Ozai is trying to use the story as a teaching tool, it also provides readers with an insight into their father-son relationship before Ozai became Fire Lord and before Zuko’s banishment. The story thus serves to humanize their dynamic, which eventually grew to be profoundly toxic but once included relatively normal family time, like a day at the beach.

“I know it’s just a silly fan club but for a moment there, it almost felt like…like I was at home again. With my people.”

Aang’s loneliness as the last remaining airbender is reflected in his wistful tone when describing his time with the Avatar Aang Fan Club. This emotional fragility illustrates the vulnerable position of minoritized cultures in a multicultural society on an individual scale, indicating the negative psychological impacts cultural erosion can have on even one person.

“There is no right or wrong apart from what you decide. Who you choose to defend deserves to be defended simply because you chose them. You are the Fire Lord. What you choose, by definition, is right.”

Ozai’s conception of the Fire Lord as the ultimate moral authority on earth replicates the historical concept of “divine right,” which European monarchs used to justify their authority beginning in the Middle Ages, claiming that they were the representatives of God on Earth. Ozai’s fierce adherence to this idea characterizes his power-hungry, hubristic nature and reflects the real-world colonialist attitudes informing the concept of divine right.

“Choose, choose, choose! All my life, people have been asking me to choose! I am an earthbender and a Fire Nation citizen, and I live in Yu Dao! That’s what I choose!”

Kori uses epizeuxis to simulate the chorus of voices that have told her throughout her life to “choose” between the groups in which she identifies as a member. Her insistence that she doesn’t have to pick one or the other stands in the face of the Harmony Restoration Movement’s founding premise that the four nations need to be completely separate, embodying The Complexities of Decolonization.

“All my life, I’ve been weak—so weak that my most trusted adviser was able to hide a hundred years’ war behind a curtain of lies. Well, I’m tired of being weak! It’s time for me to be a man!”

Though The Promise does not delve deeply into themes of gender, the Earth King’s reasoning for sending an army to Yu Dao hints at contemporary discourse about traditional notions of masculinity. Katara’s incredulous response to this statement—“What’s that supposed to mean?”—hints at the novel’s acknowledgment of the absurdity of Kuei’s gender-based military decision making.

“How is what I’m doing to them different from what my parents did to me? Maybe the Beifong Metalbending Academy is just a way for me to pass all that pressure and pain to someone else.”

Toph delivers a monologue about metalbending’s relationship to pressure and pain, of which this is the conclusion. The metaphorical resemblance between metal being formed through geological pressures and character being formed through life pressures adds to the symbolic significance of elements peppered throughout the book. Toph’s fear of becoming like her parents also runs parallel to Zuko’s fear of becoming like Ozai, and Aang’s resistance to becoming too much like Roku.

“Sifu Toph, you’re the first person to believe that we can become more than what we are.”

The three metalbending pupils reframe Toph’s concerns that she is trying to turn them into something they’re not by positing that what she is really doing is encouraging them to grow. The use of the term “Sifu,” borrowed from the Chinese language and meaning “master,” is one of the many instances in which the franchise creators blatantly borrow aspects of the Avatar universe from Asian cultures.

“Aang, how am I supposed to figure out what’s right when his voice is all I hear?! You could have silenced him forever…perhaps then I could have found peace! But you didn’t, and now I can’t!”

Zuko’s tendency to ask Aang and others for answers to his life’s biggest questions reveals his own inability to trust his instincts and take accountability for his actions. In this instance, he even blames Aang for his current predicaments instead of finding inner peace for himself. With this example, Zuko highlights the same issue that lies behind the promise that he forced Aang to make—a decision that will force Aang to take responsibility for something that should be Zuko’s decision.

“For you to treat our tattoos like a part of some…some costume…! My culture isn’t a game!”

Here, Yang uses allusion to reference the highly influential “We’re a Culture, Not a Costume” advertising campaign released out of Ohio University in 2011. Blatant text-to-life connections like this underscore the real-world relevance of the book’s themes but also date the book very clearly to the early 2010s for non-contemporary readers.

“You wanted a quiet life after the war. And that’s the one thing I can give you, to begin repaying you for all you’ve done for me. I can’t disturb you. I won’t.”

Caught between the competing influences of Ozai and Iroh, Zuko justifies his failure to seek Iroh’s advice as a gift of peace for his aging uncle. Later, Iroh will completely dismiss this justification as foolish, explicitly articulating the character flaw that Zuko exhibits throughout the text: refusing to acknowledge the self-serving reasons behind purportedly selfless actions.

“Whenever two nations come together, the stronger one can’t help but hurt the weaker one. They’ll conquer or burn or, at the very least, make a joke of the weaker nation.”

The Promise addresses the issue of cultural appropriation as an aspect of its larger discussion of the position of underrepresented cultures in multicultural societies. Here, Aang uses his own experience with appropriation to generalize a broader truth about societal dynamics. There is a tension presented between anecdotal and empirical truth in this scene, as Yang leaves it up to readers to decide how accurate Aang’s generalization is.

“We just received an official complaint from a firebending instructor about a ‘dirt girl’ and a ‘snow savage’ taking over his school.”

To simulate the use of racially abusive language, Yang created offensive epithets that people in the Avatar universe aim at one another. In this instance, the term “snow savage” directly references the real-world offensive use of the term “savage” aimed at colonized people, especially the Indigenous nations of the Americas, by colonizers. The Water Tribes are modeled largely on some of these Indigenous groups, such as the Inuit people of the far north and the Indigenous people of Siberia, like the Yakuts and Buryats. The use of a derogatory term historically aimed at Indigenous peoples has particularly pointed significance, therefore, when aimed at waterbenders.

“‘Listen, Smellerbee. Maybe we’ve been thinking about this all wrong. What if Yu Dao is neither Fire Nation nor Earth Kingdom?’

‘What if it’s a part of both?’”

The conflict between Sneers and Smellerbee is one of many instances in the novel of Friendship Challenged by Moral and Political Differences. In this climactic moment, Sneers and Kori challenge Smellerbee to think outside of her political perspective and consider a new way forward. In this way, Yang demonstrates how cultural conflicts play out both between world leaders, like Aang and Zuko, and also between civilian community members.

“When I saw Kori’s family, I also saw our future. If the nations have to be separate, what will that mean for us?”

Though she is treated as a secondary character in this specific book, Katara is one of the protagonists of the original animated series, and her importance can be seen in the influence she wields over Aang throughout The Promise. It is her words, not Zuko’s, that ultimately sway Aang into considering a different solution for Yu Dao’s colonial problem. In addition, she puts the larger issue into a very personal perspective for Aang by connecting it to their relationship.

“Empty yourself, Aang, and contemplate the world. Then you will understand.”

Roku’s advice to Aang alludes to Buddhist teachings of enlightenment through detachment from the material world. This theological reference is reinforced by the accompanying artwork, which depicts them sitting across from each other in the lotus position, the same position adopted by Buddhist meditators (including the Buddha himself).

“To you, Yu Dao has always just been a Fire Nation marker on an Earth Kingdom map. Let’s get off this balloon, Your Majesty. You ought to meet the people who have to live with your decisions.”

Katara’s words to the Earth King offer a gentle criticism of his leadership, which has previously been entirely removed from reality. Her encouragement that he meet his subjects helps to distinguish between theory-based and practicality-based policymaking, which do not always align. In this case, the Earth King’s theoretical desire to evict firebenders from his entire kingdom proves to be impractical and even harmful, but he (and Aang) cannot understand this until they actually meet with the people of Yu Dao.

“It took me a while, but I finally understand. You’re not just fighting a colony. You’re fighting a whole new kind of world.”

Aang follows Roku’s advice to “contemplate the world” and comes to an entirely different set of conclusions than his predecessor. His new worldview acknowledges the irreversible effects of colonialism that he was previously trying so hard to reverse. This comment reveals an important element of the novel’s narrative: It is not only the characters who have developed throughout the story but also society as a whole, demanding new leadership strategies from the Avatar.

“I’ve struggled for so long to do what’s right—to even know what’s right. Then when the war ended, I thought the struggle had finally ended, too. I thought I’d won, for good. A visit to Ozai in prison changed that. I realized the struggle was actually just beginning.”

Zuko’s internal conflict about finding his moral compass contributes to the exploration of how his friendship with Aang is challenged by moral and political differences. This quote, which reframes the end of the Hundred Year War (and by association the end of the animated series) as a beginning, opens up possibilities for an expansion of the Avatar franchise and continued exploration of Zuko’s character growth.