The use of motifs and irony in Mountains and Badgermolehills by Glass_Onion (Avatar the Last Airbender)
Mountains and Badgermolehills by Glass_Onion (@glass-0nion on tumblr) is one of the most popular Avatar: the Last Airbender fics out there, for good reason, as it's FANTASTIC. let's talk about it for day 3 of fanfic appreciation month! SPOILERS FOR THE FIC AHEAD
If you haven't read it, which you should, the plot is basically: Zuko gets captured after the events of the episode The Blue Spirit; Sokka also gets captured, and they don't know who eachother are from their cells. they work together to escape imprisonment, and then sokka convinces zuko to tag along with the gaang for a while on the pretense of him convincing aang to join the firelord. the whole story is told from zuko's point of view.
I've read this fic maybe three times, and I've thought a lot about how it's this good, and i think i've finally put my finger on it. a lot of the enjoyability of this fic comes from how consistent the characters act and how it all ties together to not only make a believable story with believable characters, but one with an extremely satisfying ending. (that these characters are also extremely likable and funny is a different matter.)
so, i'm going to break it down into two things this fic uses really well.
Recurring motifs demonstrate who the characters are as people, keep the characterization consistent throughout the story, and highlight how the characters change throughout the story.
Dramatic irony hands the audience insight the POV character does not have, gives the story greater stakes, and hints the ending without spelling it out.
The most prominent recurring motif in Mountains and Badgermolehills are plans. The word "plan" appears in the fic over 100 times, because there are a lot of plans. There's a plan to escape the cell, a plan to escape the outside compound, and only more plans after that.
With planning, a major difference between our two main characters presents itself: Sokka's plans are always (called) stupid, and always work, while Zuko never plans anything and also sucks at improvising. Sokka plans things both with Zuko and behind Zuko's back. Zuko jumps off a cliff without thinking and recites the same theater monologue both times he needs to improvise a threat.
When it is revealed to Zuko halfway through the story that Sokka's plan is actually to convince Zuko to join Aang's side, instead of the other way around, it works well because Sokka's been coming up with unlikely-to-succeed ("stupid") plans the whole time. When his plan works, that makes sense too, because Sokka's stupid plans always work.
At the end of the story, when Zuko jumps off a cliff with no plan to try to convince the ocean spirit to spare the lives of the fire nation fleet, it makes sense. He never comes up with a plan, and he's jumped off a cliff before.
Additionally, Zuko's kindness always works. He never plans to be kind, but he warms up Sokka's cell without expecting to get anything out of it, he hesitates when Sokka is scared of having his wound cauterized, he fights with Aang to protect an old man. And it always works. He can pretend to be cruel, say lines from a theater script, but that only works so long as no one recognizes it for what it is. Pretend cruelty fails him, genuine kindness succeeds.
The dramatic irony in Mountains and Badgermolehills is delectable. Because the fic comes entirely from Zuko's point of view, Glass_Onion is fantastic in making sure the audience realizes Sokka's true plan without having Zuko become aware of it.
In chapters 2 and 3, Zuko tells Sokka that he is still planning on fighting for the nation that banished and imprisoned him, and in chapter 3 Sokka asks why, and says that he should stop risking his life for the nation that keeps sending him to die.
Sokka says this: âWeâre just in this to escape together. But Iâm not- I wasnât trying to make you betray your nation for the Water Tribe. You arenât the moon; youâre not about to change the tides of war. But, from an outsiderâs perspective, you have to know how this looks.â This whole paragraph is straight irony.
The line about "just in this to escape together" is ironic because what they don't know is they're in it for the long haul now. The line about about not trying to make him betray his nation for the Water Tribes is ironic because Sokka is trying to make Lee betray his nation for his own sake. The line about "you aren't the moon; you're not about to change the tides of war" is ironic considering what eventually happens in the fic. And the line about "from an outsider's perspective, you have to know how this looks" is ironic, because as an outsider, Sokka doesn't know the half of it.
And, irony of all ironies, chapter 3 is titled The Plan. Now, why, after two whole chapters of planning, is specifically chapter 3 titled The Plan? The answer can be found in the other chapter titles. Chapter 8 and 9, after the gaang reunites and Zuko is trying to convince them to join the fire nation while they do the reverse, are titled The Plan Begins and The Plan Continues. Chapter 10, where Zuko discovers Sokka's real plan, is titled The Plan Hits a Snag. But Zuko doesn't get the plan to convince Aang to join the fire nation until chapter 6.
All of these chapter titles refer to the same plan- the one to get Zuko to defect from the fire nation. While the story is entirely from Zuko's POV, the chapter titles describe what is happening from Sokka's end. And from Sokka's end, it is chapter 3, wherein he both hears of Lee's plans to remain loyal to the nation continually hurting him, and also discovers that Lee is actually Zuko, that he comes up with The Plan.
There are a lot of little signals throughout the first half of the fic as to what Sokka's true plan is, and I won't go through all of them, but I want to talk about my favorite.
In Chapter 6, The Talk, Zuko messes around with a loose thread on his shirt, and this exchange happens.
âKeep pulling that thread, itâs going to unravel,â Sokka warns, noticing the movement. âAnd then youâll be shirtless and cold and no one will give you any sympathy.âÂ
âIt doesnât matter,â Zuko replies flatly. âItâs already ruined.âÂ
âWell, you could always turn it into something else, then.â
Zuko frowns up. âSomething else?âÂ
âSure, no sense wasting good material. You could weave it into something new. Like... rope. Who doesnât need rope? As long as, yâknow, youâve got the patience to make it into rope. Hm, is that silk?â He considers. âProbably better to just buy new rope, actually. And a new shirt. Youâre rich, arenât you?â
No longer listening, Zuko just stares at the unraveling thread. At the possibilities.Â
This exchange shows Sokka as someone who plans ahead and has imagination for what damaged things can become and shows Zuko as someone who is starting to be won over to Sokka's way of thinking.
This constant, just above the surface irony that gets picked up on by the audience after flying straight over zuko's head, not only makes the story more suspenseful, as we wonder when zuko will catch onto what's really happening, but it also means that when the "twist" is revealed to zuko, the audience doesn't also feel blindsided.
it's just so well done. recurring motifs and dramatic irony go so hard in Mountains and Badgermolehills. It's perfect.
Fanfic appreciation month (December) will be me taking time to talk about (at least) one of my favorite fanfics everyday, and then cross-posting it to the ao3 comments section, because my comments have been lacking lately and i'm gonna fix it! i'll be trying to link to the author's tumblr page as well if i can find it, but if i don't find it and you know what it is, please let me know so i can credit them here as well!
izzy806
areudirty
prguitarman
pixelskylines
kaledo-art
theartofmadeline
