Nightmare Fuel / The Legacy of Yangchen

Unmarked spoilers below.

---

• The Unanimity Project and the island where it took place will make your hair stand on end. As part of her quest to make her position as Zongdu lifelong and hereditary, Chaisee had her agents recruit people desperate for extra money from around the isolated islands between the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom and smuggle them to a tiny island heavily implied to be the same one where she grew up. Based on the evidence Yangchen, Kavik, and Jujinta uncover, there were well over a hundred recruits, including children. Only five recruits got off the island alive, and only two make it to the end of the book.
  • The nonbenders in Unanimity were split into two groups. One was relentlessly trained in chi-blocking using scrolls about chi paths stolen from the Air Temples. Anyone who lagged behind, even due to injury, was taken away and never returned, so people survived by intentionally inflicting injuries too severe to cope with on their peers and hiding their own hurts. The other nonbenders were taken to the far side of the island to experiment with herbalism and poison using the strange plant life. They were never seen again either.
  • The earthbenders were taken to the volcano in the center of the island, presumably to try to develop lavabending. None of them were ever seen again. The implication is that they were all placed in life-or-death situations with lava to try to force the ability to the surface, like what happens to Bolin, but none of them had talent.
  • The firebenders were trained to become combustionbenders. Only four people survived the process: Yingsu, Xiayun, Thapa, and Raitei. Raitei is a boy no older than thirteen, Aang's age at the end of the original show. After he's rescued from the island, he dies trying to assassinate Yangchen with his technique only for it to backfire, and her bison, Nujian, sacrifices his life to save her.
  • The black temple. Raava protect us, the black temple. It’s described as blocks of fresh volcanic rock fused together to form a windowless shape taller than a Taku apartment. Given how residential buildings built before the invention of elevators could be up to ten stories tall and the legendary extravagance of Taku, the temple is clearly enormous. Yet, the only entrance is a short, narrow crevice that people passing in and out have to crawl through. Jujinta guesses that the design is meant to prevent things from escaping. Inside, Yangchen and her friends find a bunch of disassembled metal rings greased with animal fat. They’re piled on top of a chair with leather restraints for the wrist, ankles, and head. The wooden arms of the chair bear gouges from desperate fingernails, and the cushion is stained with human waste. Guess now we know where the Dai Li brainwashing technique came from.
    • If brainwashing was invented here, there had to have been lots of trial and error before Chaisee’s agents got it right. Three guesses what happened to all the washouts from her chi-blocking program…
    • Once she learns all she can from the black temple, which isn’t much, Yangchen sinks the entire building straight down into the ground to hide its secrets. Yet we know that the Dai Li were brainwashing people hundreds of years later. That means someone independently rediscovered how to do it. Which in turn means that another place like the black temple existed at some point between Yangchen and Aang’s eras. Sweet dreams.
  • The secret to creating combustionbenders is finally revealed, and just as Thapa implied in the last book, it's Training from Hell. Firebenders are chained deep underwater, where they can’t breathe or create flames. They have to let the pressure compress their power deep inside them, then push it out all at once to create as much concussive force as possible. Either they break the chains and float to the surface with the ability unlocked, or they drown. According to Raitei, the initial breakthrough only comes if you truly believe you’re going to die. The later stages of the training are never explored, but based on Thapa's hints in the last book, it probably isn’t any more pleasant.