stardust :
I think (hope) at least the first part of next book is gonna be primarily nisha's story, and the starting point of her true avatar journey is finding out that she killed her parents, which they needed a lot of setup to properly establish. it was her equivalent to aang's backstory (up to getting stuck in the ice) except instead of being in relatively brief flashbacks, because we had another main character who was going through the beginning of *her* avatar journey at the same time as nisha's setup phase, and because their stories are intrinsically tied nisha couldn't start her journey until late in the season. if nisha had also been terrified the entirety of book one nothing wouldve ever happened, but she also needed to start feeling that fear of abandonment again to begin her journey, so naturally she couldn't find out what she did until late in the season. now that she has, her journey can start and she can learn to forgive herself and not be terrified the way pavi had to learn to trust herself and not be terrified. i think this phase of book 2 will end with them being reunited and apologizing to each other, because even though neither of them really did anything *wrong* (they're both scared, traumatized kids who have to come to terms with one of them accidentally killing their parents; pavi can't be blamed for being angry with nisha for lying, but nisha also can't be blamed for lying out of fear when she just found out the last time she dealt with these emotions she killed their parents. obviously nisha isn't at fault for killing their parents either, they were abandoning her and she lost control because she was a terrified, hurting 6 year old whose parents were abandoning her) they did hurt each other and an important part of maturing is realizing that (even if it was accidental and for completely understandable reasons) you should apologize for hurting other people, especially people you care about
2026-11-04 00:53:12