Episode 1.14-- The Fortuneteller
Oldkid: Okay, so this is a one-off episode, with no major incidents.
Ideathy: We call that "filler" in the anime world.
Oldkid: Okay, so it's filler. But I still like it. Not a great episode, but it's got some good stuff. Sokka looks like a fool, which is always good. And the lesson learned was good: don't depend on predictions of the future.
Ideathy: Don't look at your horoscope, people.
Oldkid: What about advice from your broker? Or what about what the Bible says about the future?
Ideathy: Well, obviously written thousands of years ago doesn't know.
Oldkid: The point isn't what is or isn't true. The main thing is that it is our interpretation guiding what is being said to us. A text written two thousand years isn't saying to us what people understood it to mean a thousand or 500 or fifty years ago. So which is the true one? None, probably.
Ideathy: Exactly. The text doesn't predict the future. There's no way to predict the future. Not accurately.
Oldkid: The text... and a broker and a horoscope... predicts a future. For who knows when. That may happen, or may not.
Ideathy: It might happen to someone else, but probably not you.
Oldkid: The interesting thing is that although Sokka was right, he was such a jerk about it that he was wrong. No one would believe him.
Ideathy: He was a jerk because no one would believe him in the first place. The people were jerks about not believing him.
Oldkid: But he was communicating something directly opposed to what he KNEW they believed. Of course they were jerks. But if he had asked questions, or even communicated differently, at least they might have thought about it.
Ideathy: I doubt it. It's a classic case of people only believing what they have been told by someone.
Oldkid: But I've seen people change their minds and believe something opposed to their original, closely held system. It requires both doubt and experience. Sokka could have planted doubt, but he was just as mule-headed in his own belief. He was just lucky that he was right.
Ideathy: Yeah, admittedly he was rude about it. But those people, they were being thick skulled. They obviously would have believed no one other than Aunt Woo. She created kind of a cultish following where they only listened to her and her "teachings."
Oldkid: Right. Which is why I'm so pleased at how they drew the character of Aunt Woo. She wasn't taking advantage of them, and she was often right. She might have been a people-pleaser, but she was just a sincere person trying to help. And often she did. Until she didn't.
Ideathy: So far we've only had a conversation about predicting the future. I don't think we had much to say about the episode.
Oldkid: We talked about Sokka and Aunt Woo. You want to make mention the romance issues?
Ideathy: Oh, yeah, I suppose that happened.
Oldkid: Of course, you and i can predict the future and we know who these people are going to end up marrying.
Ideathy: Well, we have both watched Korra.
Oldkid: But I thought you couldn't predict the future?
Ideathy: That isn't predicting the future. That's just knowing the facts because we've seen what's going to happen because this is a really old show.
Oldkid: But it's Aang and the gang's future (hey, rhyme!).
Ideathy: Technically, it's not due to the timing of our own world. Where the show is right now it's technically the "future"...
Oldkid: But what if people stand above us like we stand above the characters in the show and can tell us with certainty what would happen to us?
Ideathy: That would require time travel, which technically is not possible by science. If I traveled back in time to younger me and tell me what happens later in life. But I also believe in different universes and timelines so for me for the real world, I don't think you can accurately say what will happen in the future.
Oldkid: Well, no matter what you say, I know that Aang is going to marry... OH LOOK AT THE TIME!
Ideathy: Yes. It's 7:09.
Oldkid: Time for another episode!