YMMV / Avatar: The Last Airbender "The Great Divide"

• Awesome Art: For all its faults, the animation remains top-notch; for some, the animated sequences detailing the stories of Wei Jin and Jin Wei may also deserve a mention.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: This episode almost manages to be a deep, non-partisan commentary on tribalism, how easy it is to get sucked into it, how keeping two sides apart isn't enough to stop them hating each other, and how being no worse than "the other side" doesn't mean you're on the right side.
• Anvilicious: You shouldn't let old grudges fester. The episode is one of the most disliked, since it's built entirely around that very simple message, with little else to distract from it being pounded into you.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The Canyon Guide; for bonus points, he's voiced by Leonard Stone, who played the father of Violet in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • As many viewers have noted, the episode is comprised mostly of arguing among the heroes and the two feuding tribes. An episode focused on the rescue of refugees of the war could have worked (and indeed, a later episode about that does work), if not for the fact that the aforementioned feud has no bearing on the rest of the story, and the feud made both sides unlikeable. Because of this, many fans would rather forget this episode existed◊.
  • Given a Discontinuity Nod in "The Ember Island Players":
    Actor Aang: Look, it's the Great Divide — the biggest canyon in the Earth Kingdom!
    [Beat]
    Actor Sokka: Eh... let's keep flying.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Team Avatar is left to escort refugees of the war to the outskirts of Ba Sing Se, which could've held higher potential if the tribes in question had anything to offer regarding the larger and more desperate effort to defeat the Fire Nation, and could've shown the greater consequences of the global conflict. Instead, the reason for their ancient feud has no bearing on the war raging behind them.

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