Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Great Divide

The Great Divide
Season 1, Episode 11
Airdate	May 20, 2005
Production Number	1x11
Written by	John O'Bryan
Directed by	Giancarlo Volpe
← 1x10 Jet	1x12 → The Storm
Avatar: The Last Airbender — Season One

The Great Divide is the eleventh episode of the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the eleventh episode overall.

Guest Stars: Roberta Farkas (Zhang Leader), Rene Auberjonois (Gan Jin Leader), Leonard Stone (Canyon Guide), Scott Menville (Scout)

Plot Overview

The gang reaches the Great Divide, a massive canyon that stretches across the continent. But before they can fly across, they're embroiled in an ongoing feud between two nearby peoples- the effete, arrogant Gan Jin and the coarse, earthy Zhang. As the Avatar, Aang assumes the duty of making peace between the two groups while escorting them across the canyon together. Their guide insists that no food may be brought into the canyon, but both groups violate this ban under the assumption that their enemies would have done so anyway, and when it attracts a canyon crawler (a huge creature that resembles a spider-alligator hybrid) the guide is injured while driving it off.

Aang orders Sokka and Katara to mingle with the two tribes and investigate their shared history in hopes of discovering the root of the conflict. The Gan Jin believe that one hundred years ago, a man named Jin-Wei was on a pilgrimage, transporting a sacred orb to the Eastern Gate, when he was attacked by a Zhang named Wei-Jin, who stole the orb and ran off with it. The Zhangs, however, believe that Jin-Wei begged Wei-Jin to help him return the orb to his village, but when he carried out this mission he was unjusted arrested and imprisoned by the Gan Jin. The two siblings sympathize with their hosts to the point that they start to quarrel with each other.

The group reaches the far side, but when it becomes clear that without their injured guide's earthbending abilities they're all trapped in the canyon, tempers rise until the leaders of the Zhang and the Gan Jin come to blows. A huge swarm of canyon crawlers interrupts the duel, and the tribes cooperate to capture and harness the beasts, riding them up the canyon walls to freedom. Afterwards, Aang realizes that both legends were the result of distorting the facts of a single event, which he actually witnessed over one hundred years ago, before he was frozen. He explains this, heals the rift between the two peoples, and leaves them to continue their journey together.

Notes

• The stories of the Zhang and Gan Jin legends are told with different animation styles corresponding to the two tribes' personalities- elegant and smooth for the Gan Jin, angular and distorted for the Zhang. Aang's final explanation is told using a style much closer to that of the show's normal scenes.

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