So much care went into the creation and design of Avatar: The Last Airbender and the franchise that grew around it that it's almost impossible to account for all the backstory crammed into every episode. Between supplementary material and spinoffs from the franchise there is a rich tapestry of history behind features that barely received focus, and nowhere is there a better example than with the statue of Fire Lord Ozai seen in the episode "The Runaway."
The Book Three episode "The Runaway" dealt with the Gaang camping on the outskirts of a Fire Nation town in need of money. When Toph began running scams on the village it proved a lucrative source of income until they attracted the notice of the mercenary hunting the Avatar known as Combustion Man. While the town itself was not even named in the episode itself, the giant flame-spewing statue of Ozai at its center was a memorable piece of the set design featured prominently in the episode's climax.
Many fans may have idly wondered at the fuel source for such a gargantuan statue, the metallic rendering of the Fire Lord releasing an ever-present plume of flame from its both and both fists while dwarfing all of the surrounding buildings. The answer to that question not only laid within the Nickelodeon website now known as the "Lost Lore of Avatar," but proved to be the centerpiece to fascinating backstory the episode did not have time to reveal.
Known as Fire Fountain City, the statue actually pulls its fuel from an immense reserve of subterranean gas. Much of the Fire Nation archipelago cities were built atop volcanic soil, with the volcanos of Avatar most memorably releasing their noxious fumes to Roku's detriment in the closing moments of his life. Those same noxious gases not only served as the fuel to the Ozai statue and the inspiration for town's new name, but in fact make up much of the village's history long before the Gaang ever came across it.
Originally known as North Chung-Ling, the prequel novel The Shadow of Kyoshi gives significant attention to the setting as it existed over 200 years prior to "The Runaway." It's explained that the village made a lucrative tourist industry around the deposits of natural gas by constructing tents around the exhaust points. The gases could create a dizzying and hallucinatory effect local charlatans billed as journeys to the Spirit World, and it was in such a tent that Kyoshi came across the spiritual master Nyahitha.
As Avatar Kuruk's former spiritual master, the former Fire Sage Nyahitha was far from a mere charlatan. He dismissed the natural gas tents as a sham once the real work came of guiding Kyoshi on her path to the spirit world, and the spiritually disinclined Earth Kingdom Avatar found new success under his guidance. Her visit there and the resultant feud waged between the noble houses of the Fire Nation proved to be major moments in the Avatar's developments, and it all took place off screen where the Gaang was none the wiser.
Such a history proves fascinating to fans of the Avatar world and helps better flesh it out as a tangible fantasy. Expanding on such small scraps of lore is one of the best aspects of the prequel novels, and watching the history of the world further flesh out in subsequent projects may be one of the coolest parts of being an Avatar fan. In fact, it's not just cool -- it's a gas.
