Time is an Illusion: Time and Space in the Swamp

NATALIA STROK

Avatar The Last Airbender and Philosophy: Wisdom from Aang to Zuko

Wiley Blackwell

Año: 2022; p. 117 - 123

The second Book of Avatar is the book of Earth, which introduces important characters such as Azulaand Toph. In this paper I propose to focus on the fourth chapter “The Swamp”, where Aang learnssomething concerning time and space. Sokka, Katara, Aang and Momo fly on Appa to Ba Sing Sesearching for an earthbender master, who can train the Avatar. Suddenly a light and, after that, atornado attract them to a swamp. “I think the swamp is calling to me. […] I am actually hearing theearth”, says Aang. This turns to be a mystical place, where animals, plants and human beings live. “Itfeels alive”, says Katara. And while Appa and Momo try to escape from the tribal men in canoes, thethree friends experience hallucinations: Katara sees her mom, Sokka sees Yue, and Aang sees andfollows a giggling young girl he has never seen before. Those illusions lead them to the centre of theswamp, a big tree. After fighting with a monster made of plants, the wise man of the waterbendertribe that protects the swamp, who turns to be the one moving the monster that had chased them,explains that this sacred place is this one big tree that expands itself and creates this “whole world”,where everything lives together as a unity, which includes the perception of time and space:“everything is connected”.I propose to analyse this chapter in the light of Augustine of Hippo’s (fifth century) and Plotinus’(third century) interpretations of time as “the life of the soul”, distentio animi, “the image ofeternity”. I will focus on Augustine’s Confessions Book 11 and Plotinus’ Ennead III.7. Although one isa Christian thinker and the other one is a pagan, both present a similar interpretation of time, and itis possible to affirm that the Neoplatonic thought of Plotinus has a strong influence on Augustine.Both of them stress the subjectivity that involves the experience of time. Concerning the spatialtopic on the swamp, I propose to interpret it in a Neoplatonic frame as well, where a unity flourishesto a multiplicity. And I would like to add something concerning Zuko’s evolution from the openingscene of this chapter to the last one.