City of Echoes (Jin Novel) Official Discussion Thread

[u/MrBKainXTR]

/r/Avatar_Kyoshi/comments/1m54n0z/city_of_echoes_official_spoiler_discussion_thread/

[u/BahamutLithp]

My reaction to the news was "Why would I want to read a book about that random girl Zuko dated for like a 5 minute segment?" I only broke down & checked it out from my library app because I was going to be without internet for a while & abruptly needed something I could do offline. So, I'm just giving advanced warning, don't go into this comment expecting glowing praise. People on these threads seem to really dislike when I dislike something, so consider this ample warning to anyone who doesn't want to hear criticism of this book to turn back now or forever hold their peace. With that said, I'm going to start by copying a comment I made about the book in Discord:

Yeah, [retconning Jin into a bender is] one of the things I didn't care for. I think the novel is really about Jin in name only. After I finished the book, I checked some articles to see what information was introduced before the book. The Nick.com website said that Jin's PARENTS were refugees, implying that SHE was born in Ba Sing Se, which is the impression I always got. There was also no mention of her being a bender.

Also, we have 1 scene of Jin in the entire show, & the book manages to do her personality totally the opposite. Jin in Tales of Ba Sing Se is forward, flirtatious, witty, & clearly doesn't have bigger concerns than going on a date. Actually, Susu is more like TV Jin than Book Jin. Book Jin is shy, awkward, quiet, serious, & dealing with all of this insane conspiracy drama.

I think it would've made way more sense to have the book start after the date with Zuko. It could have her thinking about whether or not "Lee" was really a firebender & feeling rejected. We get a much shorter view of what her day-to-day life was like, maybe she thinks about how her friend encouraged her to ask Lee out & now she's going to seek Susu out as a shoulder to cry on, then BAM, that's when we find out she's become a Joo Dee: That's the inciting incident.

That's the end of what I wrote on the Discord comment, but the reason I think that is I was just baffled by the introduction. I get that it's important to show her day-to-day routine to show how it changes, but the way they did it was so long & boring. It defies conventional wisdom to start when the story gets interesting, & I don't think in a good way. And I don't think they really needed to adapt the date. It's very awkwardly crammed in there, like it happens right after Jin finds out something is really wrong with her friend, so it doesn't make sense that she'd go to the tea shop repeatedly pining for this strange guy. The book doesn't make it clear that this happens, so maybe that's 1 of the many things it retcons, but in the show, Iroh knows Jin is a repeat customer.

Plus, the straightforward adapting of the scene just makes it so much more obvious (A) how different Jin acts in the rest of the book & (B) how different (read: worse) the writing style is. The date is more animated, with plenty of mentions of what the characters do with their hands or how they interact with the environment. There is very little of this in the rest of the book, with scenes mostly involving walking, standing, & talking.

I added so much to my original comment that I guess I need to split this comment into a Part 2.

[u/BahamutLithp → u/BahamutLithp]

Continuing from where I left off:

The plot felt like the rescue of Susu took a back seat & became more about Jin doing jobs for this Silver Fangs group the author invented. The one really interesting twist was when the rescue mission failed, but that didn't last long. It felt like they pulled a lot of punches with "revealing" a "double cross" only to say in the very next chapter that it was a fakeout & they were always working to free the Earth Kingdom, which doesn't really make sense to me because if some agents in the Dai Li were loyal, why didn't they prevent the coup or reveal the truth to the Earth King?

The way Susu starts regaining her memories also feels very lackluster. It's implied her brainwashing is wearing off because it hasn't been "recalibrated" recently, but like what? What do you MEAN they "won't take her in unless she shows signs of trouble"? How would they even know? They apparently don't have anyone watching her because she can just slip away to the dungeon housing the very people who tried to rescue her with goods. It's incredibly sloppy that the Dai Li only fail at that point because they apparently just straight-up aren't doing their jobs. Not that it really matters much because there aren't really any stakes for the Dai Li if Susu gets away.

And I think that leads into characters. I think the originals are bland. More so Xuan, since Susu's whole thing is having a boisterous personality, but that's also like her ONLY thing. I could not tell you a single thing that makes me go "That's Susu all right" as opposed to any other brash childhood friend archetype. Xuan's personality is just bland & boring nice guy, except his initial scene where ha's an ass to Jin, & it's never explained why he acted so differently that 1 time.

As for the returning characters? Well, I've already covered Jin, & Zuko is accurate for all the more he's in it, which just leaves Longshot & Smellerbee. I frankly rolled my eyes when they appeared. Jin talks about how the city is so huge it's very unlikely she'll ever encounter specific people, but it happens all the time, which really DOES make the city feel tiny. At a later point, the Rough Rhinos even show up, which I THINK was supposed to pay off a part where it's said Longshot trained the bow so he could best Fire Nation archers. Vachir is a Yu Yan, but they barely exchange volleys, & the way it's written actually makes it seem like Vachir was winning but said they should run away because everyone ELSE in their group was getting beat up. Like the one really interesting character payoff, & it was completely botched. I also don't think the writer really "got" Longshot's nonverbal communication. She clearly tried, but there are a lot of places where she resorts to giving him dialogue. In the show, he only speaks a single line when Jet's about to die, so him speaking at all should be a really big deal.

I think this is normally where I'd go "to be fair, here are the things I liked about the book," but I just don't think there's enough to bother with. It wasn't offensively bad, but it was generally boring, which is arguably worse. The decision to make Jin the protagonist only to retcon basically everything about her character & sideline her in favor of having other people make most of the plot decisions also really baffles me. I don't think this was a good book, & I think it makes a bad 1st impression for this project of books that aren't about the Avatar, which is a real shame because I do think the Avatar world has a lot of potential for interesting stories that aren't about the Avatar.

A nonbender would be cool. We haven't had a long-form story that was about a nonbender. To riff off the top of my head, Ty Lee is a good option. There's that whole time she was traveling with the circus, a time we know little about that gives her an excuse to see exotic locations & people. That provides a lot of easy excuses for her to get wrapped up in strange plots. We could also see how she learned chi blocking. In fact, that random old Water Tribe guy would make a pretty good villain. He somehow got chi blocking too, so it makes sense they could've come into contact, he really hates everyone Fire Nation, & it gives an interesting conflict because we like Ty Lee & think she's a good person but also the creepy old jerk is right to be against the Fire Nation, so that's an opportunity for a lot of good, dual-sided drama. But, at this point, I'm getting off the subject of the book itself, so I think it's best to end my comment here.