| "Hello! I am a playwright, and I am writing the saga of the heroic Avatar, the last airbender, and his noble friends. Have you heard of him?" |
| — Pu-on Tim introducing himself to the cabbage merchant.[1] |
Pu-on Tim was an acclaimed Earth Kingdom playwright. He was best known for his play based on the life of Aang, The Boy in the Iceberg, which is considered to be his seminal work.[3]
History[]
Convinced that Avatar Aang was destined to defeat Fire Lord Ozai and end the Hundred Year War,[1] Pu-on Tim embarked on a quest to collect as much information on the Avatar and his comrades as possible.[1][3] Writing The Boy in the Iceberg, Pu-on Tim spent weeks at a time on the road, stayed up for days, researched leads, and followed the Avatar. He often described the experience of following the Avatar as a "painful and blurry dream", something that nearly drove him insane.[3]
Pu-on Tim encountered "a surprisingly knowledgeable merchant of cabbage" in Ba Sing Se.
He scoured the globe gathering information on Avatar Aang, from the icy South Pole region to the heart of Ba Sing Se. His sources included "singing nomads, pirates, prisoners of war, and a surprisingly knowledgeable merchant of cabbage".[3] He met the latter by chance during his research in Ba Sing Se. After introducing himself, Pu-on Tim was surprised when the cabbage merchant immediately declared that Team Avatar was a "villainous group of cabbage destroyers". Intrigued by this unique viewpoint, Pu-on Tim responded by pointing out that Avatar Aang was fighting to end the Great War, whereupon the cabbage merchant retold his many negative encounters with Team Avatar across the world.[1]
His work came to an end after seven months of research.[4] Despite the toll of his project on his mental health, Pu-on Tim's work resulted in him having hundreds of scrolls filled with notes about the Avatar, and he could not have been happier with his unbiased view of the Avatar and his companions. He called The Boy in the Iceberg his "masterpiece", though other critics were less kind about the play, calling it merely "watchable".[3]
Appearances[]
Avatar books[]
Trivia[]
Pu-on Tim as depicted on the poster for The Boy in the Iceberg.
- Pu-on Tim's name consists of two parts: "Pu" (浦 ), is a Chinese surname meaning "beach", and is one of the Hundred Family Surnames. On-tim (安添), his given name, roughly reads as "increasing peace". The character 安 is also used in Aang's name. His name exclusively uses the Cantonese readings of the characters.
- When animatic editor of the show Dao Le jokingly took offense on the name Piandao, the swordsmaster from the episode written by Tim Hedrick, the Avatar writer decided to name the playwright Pu-on Tim as a humorous play on the words "poo on Tim", enabling Dao's "revenge".[4][5] His appearance is also modeled off of Hedrick.
- The depiction of Pu-on Tim on the poster for The Boy in the Iceberg is very similar to an 18th century portrait of Emperor Gaozong of Tang, with the only notable differences being in the expression and lack of a goatee.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Gyllenhaal, Rebecca (writer); Yang, Jessica (writer), Bonnie, Pang (artist). Avatar: The Last Airbender: My Cabbages! (August 27, 2024), Penguin Random House.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Hedrick, Tim, Hamilton, Josh, O'Bryan, John (writers) & Volpe, Giancarlo (director). (July 18, 2008). "The Ember Island Players". Avatar: The Last Airbender. Season 3. Episode 17. Nickelodeon.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 From older Avatar: The Last Airbender official site, originally on Nick.com. Encyclopedia now broken, archived at The Lost Lore of Avatar Aang - Gear: The Boy in the Iceberg.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Avatar Extras for "The Ember Island Players" on Nicktoons Network.
- ↑ Basco, Dante (host), Varney, Janet (host), Hedrick, Tim (guest), Hamilton, Josh (guest), O'Bryan, John (guest). (August 16, 2024). "The Elemental Players with Tim Hedrick, Josh Hamilton, & John O'Bryan". Avatar: Braving the Elements. Episode 132. Apple Podcasts.