#legacy of yangchen spoilers

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Yangvik: Fake dating AU/scenario

Rangshi: "Oh no there's only one bed" scenario

[desnaa]

finished legacy of yangchen and god she deserved so much better. i hope she got to experience some genuine happiness and peace in her lifetime before passing away because damn. she had it way too hard

[kingofmongrels]

So let me get this straight.

First, the TTRPG reveals Sozin had a sister who learned chi-blocking from a Western Air Temple Nun who only teaches people are real deep into the Air Nomad sauce. Then one of the Yangchen books reveals that chi-blocking was developed using Air Nomad acupuncture maps and the one known survivor of the project to figure out how to do it was taken in by the Western Air Temple.

I'm just confused as you are, Ty Lee.

Uhhhhhhhh. Are the people running the franchise aware of the whole Ty Lee thing? Like I know it can be divisive, but at this point it feels they're just feeding into it by making chi-blocking historically sort of an Air Nomad thing even if anyone can do it.

[blandatlaheadcanons]

[image description: a pencil drawing of Yangchen crying into the fur of her sky bison, Nujian. Yangchen is a woman with waist-length long hair on the back of her head and shaved in front of her head. She faces to the right of the screen as she wrings her hands in her bison's fur. Nujian faces to the left. Only his face is visible. His eyes are closed.]

This dammed book causes me emotional damage

[junipernight]

I love them, your honor

[wandesu]

[creampuffqueen]

“avatar yangchen was so violent and evil, she killed people without remorse and she even exploded a guy because he killed her bison - hey what’s that sound?”

me asf:

[desnaa]

NOT THE LIVE LAUGH LOVE LMAO

these novels HURT me fr tho. yangchen did not deserve what she went through and i wish it really was a live laugh love story 😔 however the gaslighting gatekeeping and girlbossing was very agreeable 😌💅🏻

i finished reading the Avatar Yangchen novels

[foccaccia]

listen. im not saying the Avatar Yangchen duology is the most serious, heartbreaking, well-written, or adult story ive ever read. it isnt. but it also took me by fucking surprise. the torture scene? yangchen's successive breakdowns? jetsun's death and fate? all the deaths?? that one dead kid? (and all the other dead tortured child army kids??) the slow endless horror of the avatar cycle? being literally haunted and fucking lost in the countless incarnations of yourself and the knowledge that you have to dirty yourself for eternity with guilt, failure, death, and sin to save a bare few in the face of a world that will never stop trying to kill itself? having to make peace with that?

yangchen is so compelling to me. everyone loved her brief moment in the Avatar show, because of her stark "You have to abandon your own spiritual needs for the betterment of the world". but the novels drive that home in an interesting way.

yangchen is faced with greed on an unparalleled scale, and it is tearing the world apart. she is so desperate to do some good - shes so haunted by her countless past lives and desperate to at least not have regrets the same way they all do. she builds a spy network from nothing before she's even a teenager because she cant trust anyone, and at every step she is betrayed over and over by literally everyone she cares about, every choice she makes hurts or kills people, she spends almost the entirety of the second novel hopped up on enough drugs to would kill an ordinary person just so she can stay awake bc shes so terrified of hesitating for a single second. i cant figure out if haunted or chronically ill is a better term for whatever is happening in her brain but its. its fucked.

in a lot of ways she is objectively terrible at both avatarhood and being a spy, but she is exactly what the world needs. she so desperately loves her people, her culture, mercy, pacifism, and systematically cuts every tie to these things, no matter how much it hurts. she gets her hands so fucking dirty, she abandons her principles in every circumstance but one (the last Unanimity), she lets murderers and torturers go free and takes immediate economic control of half a world to abuse it.

and its the right decision. i know she gets flak because of how hard kuruk had to invisibly work the next cycle to fight the spirits yangchen pissed off, but yangchen's whole character is about balance, even more than aang's ever was, imo. aang gets a nearly perfect happy ending (which is good! there were good morals and a great story about culture and peace and genocide in the show, im not criticizing it) but yangchen's story really is wholly about balancing the world and the sacrifices you make to keep it even. for all that shes not a great avatar, shes actually a perfect avatar. she fixed it.

alao, kavik is fascinating. im putting him in a terrarium and shaking it. and the stark criticism of the white lotus the entire time... the implication they caused the platinum affair... ayunerak and do flatly admitting they will let (and even help along) the nations crash and burn in an apocalyptic war without fighting to stop it if it means they have control and can pop out of a bunker at the end to reshape society.... augh.

[folklorin]

i just finished reading the legacy of yangchen and i just can't help but draw this parallel between the ending scenes of tsok & tloy. yangchen displaying vulnerability after bottling up her feelings of helplessness and unworthiness throughout the whole book and finding refuge in jetsun mirrors the way yangchen welcomed an emotional kyoshi by embracing her with comfort and empathy.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Rangi: You know the difference between you and I? Kavik: I have high cheekbones? And you have a strong jaw? Rangi: I've been backstabbed, and you do the backstabbing! >:( Kavik: Uh-oh, who told you? It was Jujinta wasn't it? Damn it! Rangi: You told us when the three of us went out drinking! Kavik: I did?! Shit! Rangi: Jinpa is devastated! Now that's two Air Nomads you've hurt! Kavik: It was the worst decision of my life ok?! Rangi: No shit Sherlock! *the arguing can be heard multiple doors down in a different room* Kyoshi: Uhhhh should we help your guy? Yangchen, sipping tea: Does your girl know he's still my companion and I don't want him dead? Kyoshi: Yes. Yangchen: Then he'll be fine. Let him sweat a little.

[desnaa]

legacy of yangchen spoiler question about plot: why was yangchen banned from the air temple? a lot of stuff happened but was there a specific reason? it was not her fault the combustion benders could not be contained and she did her best to protect everyone once they broke free. the temple had also allowed them to stay despite being hesitant about it because they initially understood and supported her cause. so i don’t understand why they decided to ban her after what happened when they were aware of the potential outcomes.

[d7kyoshi]

Ride or die, babeyyyy!

[avatar-wtf]

Not sure if this is needed because I feel like the entire fandom has read the books but me but..

LEGACY OF YANGCHEN SPOILER

DUDE!!! NEVER FUCK WITH AN AIR NOMAD’S BISON!!!!

Appa’s lost days was sad enough but Yangchen really saw her bison MURDERED before her eyes trying to protect her and she couldn’t do anything to help him!!!

THAT IS COLD BLOODED OH MY GOD😭

I knew it was going to happen, I anticipated it but I’m still in shock. That hurts. That really really hurts 💔

I support whatever she does to Chaisee next, how ever brutal it is. She deserves it. It’s warranted.

I hope Yangchen unleashes hell.

[junipernight]

You ever think about the fact that Yangchen's ordeal with Unanimity began with her hiding under a shang city gathering hall, and ended with Unanimity hiding under a shang city gathering hall?

[emachinescat]

A Year in (Book) Review: My 2024 Reading Journey 📚

#6 - The Legacy of Yangchen by F. C. Yee

Fantasy / Chronicles of the Avatar #4 / 336 pages / published 2023 / Finished Jan. 11

One Sentence Review: Even better than its predecessor, Legacy enriches the world and history of the Avatar world even further, ties up all loose ends, mends the rifts that were so distressing to me in the first book, expands the political complexities of the world, and gives all characters a satisfying ending.

Favorite Quotes

"Everyone wanted to write history, but there was only so much ink to go around."

*

"Maybe the world, blithely dancing along the precipice, needed to know what it was like to fall."

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"You are so deep in my pocket, you're covered in lint."

*

"The true mind could weather illusions without being lost. The true heart could touch poison without being harmed."

*

"The work would wait for you, no matter the ragged tear in your spirit. Work would be a lover in your bed as you wept, ever present and steady, cradling you when you woke up soaked in your sweat, unsure of how long you'd lost consciousness. You still have me. You always have me."

My rating: 5/5

A Few More Thoughts (Spoilers)

If the first book was incredible, then this one is a masterpiece! It's exciting, smart, challenging, and, much like the show it comes from, offers a beautiful redemption arc that is hard won. It also kept me guessing at every turn. The ending is perfect, and the relationship between Yangchen and Kavik is life!

I had no idea that the stabbing and torture scene with Kavik was a ruse, nor that it was Kavik's idea in the first place. I was also completely tricked into thinking that Yingsu was dead. I suppose I was also surprised - and impressed - by all that these characters went through. I did not expect Nujian to die - that hurt!

This book teaches that peace and prosperity do not always come easily. In fact, sometimes healing can only come after everything we love, feel, or believe is lost, sacrificed, or put to the test. Also, the pressure of being the Avatar is far too much for one person to bear.