Appa's Lost Days

Writer: Elizabeth Welch Ehasz

Director: Giancarlo Volpe

Guest Stars: Paul McKinney (Ghashiun), Dwight Schultz (Circus Trainer), Brian George (Guru Pathik), Jennie Kwan (Suki)

Production Code: 216

Overview
''After being abducted, Appa is traded to the Fire Nation Circus where the Circus Trainer mistreats him though he soon escapes with the help of a small boy. He later unwillingly enters a fight with a Boarcupine, and though wins, is badly wounded. By fortune, Suki and the Kyoshi warriors come across Appa and help him recover from his injuries, but are later attacked by Azula and her team and Appa is forced to flee. He returns to his childhood home at the Eastern Air Temple, where he encounters a mysterious guru. The guru aids Appa in his search for Aang, telling him to find Aang in Ba Sing Se, but before he is able to, he is captured by Long Feng.''

Synopsis
This episode spans a period of a month, from the end of "The Library" to just before "Tales of Ba Sing Se", detailing Appa's adventures after he was captured by the Sandbenders outside of Wan Shi Tong's library.

The Episode begins with Appa's capture in the earlier episode. Sandbenders attack Appa with intent to capture him, while Toph, her "sight" hampered by the sand, and divided by the need to prevent the library from sinking, is unable to help.

The Sandbenders drag Appa away, until Ghashiun, the leader of the group, orders Appa's saddle ransacked for any valuables, but nothing more valuable than Sokka's club is found. Appa tries to fight back once more, destroying one of the sand sailers, but Ghashiun is unfazed, as that sailer had been stolen from another tribe, called the Hami tribe, in the first place. He tosses the supplies on the saddle away, and continues with his plan to sell Appa to a group of Earth Kingdom merchants with beetle head-like hats.

After a little debate, the merchants decide to buy Appa, giving the Sandbenders a small chest with the money. The merchants start to drag Appa into a position so they can secure him on a caged sled, but once Appa is fastened into the sled, Aang blows his whistle during his search for Appa. Appa hears the whistle and begins to struggle, lifting the entire sled off the ground to get to his calling master. The merchants decided to shoot Appa with some Shirshu spit darts fired from a blowgun. The darts land in Appa's foot and he falls quickly to the ground. Before he is unconscious, he sees the giant cloud created by a frustrated Aang as he hears the two merchants discuss selling him for parts.



Appa next wakes up inside a small cage, next to him are several depressed-looking animals. A firebender talks to him and seems sympathetic, but it immediately becomes apparent that he is an animal tamer who intends to break Appa to his will. He begins by feeding the other animals, but not Appa. Instead, he lets out a Vulture Griffin and shows how Appa will "earn" his food by sending the Vulture Griffin through hoops. While the animal tamer is performing tricks with his back to Appa, the hungry bison slyly sucks in air, pulling the cabbages from the cart into his mouth. The tamer turns around and is furious, threatening Appa with fire.

That night, the circus is performing in a Fire Nation town. Appa tries to pull a bale of hay closer to him to eat, but it is much heavier than a cabbage. A small boy, waiting for his father to return with some "sizzle crisps," disobeys his father's orders not to move and helps Appa by moving the hay close enough for him to eat. He stays with Appa, only leaving when the animal tamer comes back. The animal tamer speaks to the Circus Master of how Appa is not "ready" to perform and how he needs more time, but the Circus Master tells him that a circus is "the home of Fear and Danger," and that Appa will perform that night.



During the show, Appa is introduced as "The Wind Buffalo," and dressed in a garish costume and makeup. The crowd laughs at the sight of Appa, and the animal tamer attempts to get Appa to fly by shouting, "Up." Appa spins around, and the crowd laughs more, only infuriating the animal tamer, who strikes at Appa with a whip of flame. Appa flies up and goes through a burning hoop and stands up on a high-rising platform, then flies through another hoop. However, Appa's costume catches on fire, and he slaps the hoop to the ground, striking the animal tamer on the head and knocking him to the ground. The crowd laughs again. Appa lands and sees the boy who helped him earlier, who reminds him of Aang. The boy yells at Appa, telling him to escape, and as Appa flies up, the animal tamer gets back up and is about to strike Appa with the whip, only to have Appa send him flying through the Circus tent. Appa manages to slip through an airhole at the top side of the tent and escapes, leaving behind his costume for the small boy to watch and smile.

Appa flies back to the spot where the library was, only to find it completely buried. He tries to dig it out, but decides it a futile effort and flies off. Feeling hungry, Appa lands to find food. He starts to move towards a giant purple egg, and just as he is about to eat it, a bipedal lizard runs off with the egg held above his head. He then turns over and goes to eat a cactus, scaring away a jackalope in the process. However, Appa eats the whole cactus and gets a mouth full of thorns for his trouble. Appa lifts off again and finds himself in the Buzzard-Wasp nest that Aang and the gang traveled to, quickly earning the ire of its inhabitants. Appa manages to fight them off and collapses in the sand, trying to get at the honey on his feet.



That night, Appa wanders into a farm, where he goes into an open barn and eats some hay and water. Appa then collapses, exhausted, on the ground, dreaming of his past: At the Eastern Air Temple, an airbending nun is preparing several children to bond with a group of young Flying Bison. She gives each of them an apple, telling them how to choose a bison carefully, because a bison is a companion for life. One of the boys is Aang, who soon finds Appa and offers him the fruit; Appa happily devours it before pushing Aang over and licking his face. Aang laughs, saying how this must mean the two will be together forever. The scene switches to Aang, sleeping with the group during "The Serpent's Pass", who is having the same exact dream as Appa.

Appa is startled awake by a farmer who, frightened of Appa's immense size, is attacking him with a pitchfork. The man's wife, drawn by his cries, comes to the barn with a torch to check out what is going on. Appa, now frightened of fire due to his time with the Tamer, rears up and backs into the barn, damaging the wall before flying out straight through the roof and flying off. Appa's path takes him directly over the Serpent's Pass, where Iroh sees him in the sky. Zuko, awakened by his uncle's reaction, asks him what is going on, but Iroh decides not to tell him about it.

Appa continues to fly, finding his landing in the middle of a forest. Exhausted, he lands in front of an overgrown doorway. As Appa tries to stand up, a Boarcupine comes charging out of the passage, tackling him and sending them both tumbling down the hillside. Appa is stuck with several quills but manages to fight off the boar, claiming the ruin as his own.



The next day, the Kyoshi Warriors are out picking berries when one notices the damage caused by the fight, as well as several clumps of white fur. Suki, recognizing the fur as Appa's, finds him still sleeping. Appa, however, is now frightened of people and is reluctant to let her get closer, despite the gift of fruit she leaves him. Suki gathers the rest of the warriors and calms Appa down by telling him how she wants to help him and return him to Aang. The girls remove the quills left from the boar, remove his shackles and clean his fur, but their celebration is short-lived as a blast of blue flames knocks a tree over. Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee show up, still pursuing the Avatar. The Warriors of Kyoshi defend Appa, but Azula and her friends are far more formidable opponents than they've faced before. Grabbing a burning branch, Suki uses it to get Appa to leave and search for Aang. Still frightened by the fire, Appa flies off, as Suki turns to engage Azula in combat.

Appa flies far away, passing over a group of Water Tribe ships, where Katara and Sokka's father, Hakoda, sees him flying above. He eventually makes his way back to the Eastern Air Temple, where he remembers his early days, playing with his siblings as a calf. As Appa walks around, he stumbles upon an old man who he thinks is Aang. After tackling him and licking him happily he finds that the man is not Aang, and he backs away and growls at the man. The man, who calls himself Guru Pathik, understands that he is not the person Appa expected, and he simply lies back, looking at Appa ever so often, and receiving a growl in return. Eventually, night settles in, and Appa falls asleep. The Guru reads Appa's energy, remarking on how Appa is so full of Love and Trust, but at the same time Fear is moving into where Trust should be. He also tells of how he had a vision of Aang and Appa years ago, and decided to come to the Eastern Air Temple and wait for the two. He then leaves Appa to rest, saying how Appa must let the clouds in his mind part and be at peace.



The coming morning, Appa finds some fruit which the Guru left for Appa to eat. Appa finds him meditating with a group of animals surrounding him. Appa decides to leave the man alone, and after flying around a bit, he comes to rest next to the Guru at the top of the Temple. The Guru gives Appa a note, which he ties to his horn, and then proceeds to tell Appa about how much his energy and Aang's are intertwined. As he tells Appa this, he puts his hand to Appa's forehead and tells Appa where to find Aang. Appa flies off, heading to Ba Sing Se.

As Appa flies into Ba Sing Se, two Dai Li agents are spying from the rooftops. Appa continues to fly around until suddenly he hears something. Under the gaze of three Pygmy Panthers, Appa lands in the middle of the city, where, deep in the shadows, he sees a man blowing a whistle. The man, however, is revealed to be Long Feng, and after a swift and powerful Earthbending move, he captures Appa underground, leaving only a single footprint in the mud. The Panthers will lead Momo to the footprint in the episode, The Tales of Ba Sing Se.

Series Continuity

 * The Sandbender catamaran that Appa accidentally blows into a sandbank is the same one Aang and Katara discover in "The Desert".
 * The parasol given to Team Avatar in "The Fortuneteller" makes a reappearance in this episode.
 * The way Guru Pathik read Appa's energy in order to find Aang mirrors how Aang found Appa and Momo in "The Swamp" by reading the energy of the Banyan-Grove Tree.
 * This is the only episode of the series besides "Zuko Alone" in which Katara and Sokka have no dialogue.
 * The circus that Appa was sold to is the same circus that Ty Lee was a part of in "Return to Omashu".
 * The Kyoshi Warriors appear in full costume for the first time since "The Warriors of Kyoshi".
 * The footprint Appa made right before he was captured by Long Feng is the same one seen in "Tales of Ba Sing Se".

Goofs

 * When the Sandbenders capture Appa they throw a muzzle over his mouth, which he breaks. As they are dragging Appa away, the muzzle is back around his mouth, and then when Ghashiun says, "Who knows what treasures are stashed in there," it is gone again. In the next shot it reappears.
 * Ghashuin says (in this episode) to muzzle Appa, and Toph makes mention of it in "The Desert", but he never actually said it in "The Library".
 * Although Sokka's club is seen being discarded by the Sandbenders, he is seen using it in later episodes.
 * When Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors fight Azula, Mai and Ty Lee, Suki draws a katana and shield to fight Azula. When she lunges with the katana she uses both hands and has no shield; in the next shot she has one again.
 * When Suki is following the trail of fur to where Appa was hiding, she clearly isn't holding anything, but when she confronts Appa just a few moments later, she already has an apple and several berries in her hand.
 * When Guru Pathik comments on Appa's well restedness you can see that Appa has "bed hair." However, in the scene just before that when Appa wakes up, he does not have bed head.

Trivia

 * On March 27, 2007, this episode received a Genesis Award from The Humane Society of the United States in the category "Outstanding Children's Programming," which the HSUS Genesis Award press release described as "...a mythical tale about animals held captive for human entertainment that resonates with the way animals are used in circuses today."
 * This episode spans over the longest period of time in the World of Avatar. It spans for four weeks.
 * According to "Avatar Extras", a battle between Appa and a Boarcupine under normal circumstances wouldn't have lasted very long, but Appa was tired and his legs were shackled.
 * In the scene right after Aang meets Appa, a Lion Turtle statue can be seen in the background.
 * The young Kyoshi Warrior who speaks after Suki is done explaining Appa's ordeal sounds very much like Ty Lee.
 * Appa is one of the few characters on Avatar to bleed; the first was Zuko in "The Waterbending Master" as well in "The Avatar State" during his battle with Azula.

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