Not to be Confused With That One About the Blue People

Things The Internet Has Established:

1. Avatar: The Last Airbender is awesome.
2. The movie version, known as The Last Airbender on account of the aforementioned blue peepz, is less awesome. By a lot.
3. Hollywood and M. Night Shyamalan are racist for casting white people as Aang, Katara, and Sokka.

Our role here at SRSBZNZ is not to argue with the Internet about whether the cartoon or the movie is better (personally, we prefer the cartoon), or to provide you with diatribes on why the casting of this movie is or isn't racist (Hollywood in general, probably. This movie ... we're not entirely convinced). No. We are here to snark it up and to write about things that make us happy.

Enter the most badass television uncle ever, General Iroh.

Iroh, uncle to the not-so-evil Prince Zuko, accompanies his nephew on his journey to capture the avatar and regain his honor. In the series, Iroh enjoys tea, pai sho, and saying wise things that need to be deciphered. In the movie, we're sad to say, Iroh is Mr. Serious Business (not to be confused with SRSBZNZ, which is really much less serious). The Fire Nation views him as a failure for an unsuccessful siege at Ba Sing Se, the capital of the Earth Kingdom. 

We always feel bad for Uncle Iroh when Prince Zuko goes on one of his, "Must regain honor and make Daddy love me!" tangents and says that his uncle is a worthless loser who doesn't understand what's important. Like, OMG, Zuko, you are one seriously angsty teenager. But Uncle Iroh is wise and understands that Zuko will grow out of it. We're not even going to lie, we mostly feel bad for Uncle Iroh because sometimes we yell at our mom even though she's right. Basically, we're projecting. 

One of our favorite moments in the show, obviously, is when Zuko finally grows a pair and goes to tell his dad, Fire Lord Ozai, that he's deserting the Fire Nation and going to help the Avatar. Zuko proceeds to inform Fire Lord Ozai that he will go to Uncle Iroh and beg for forgiveness, because Uncle Iroh has been a better father than Ozai ever was.

Ozai: (I Think I'm Better Than Everyone Else Voice) "Your uncle? Well, perhaps he can pass down to you the ways of TEA and FAILURE." 

Allow us to share with you our reaction: BAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA

Few more hilarious angry lines have been uttered in our personal history of television watching. First of all, tea is made of win. Secondly, your butt is about to get TOTALLY SCHOOLED by the Avatar. Joke's on you, Fire Lord Ozai.

Our second favorite Dumbass Fire Nation Moment comes when Princess Azula, sister of Zuko, is betrayed by one of her friends, who happens to be Zuko's girlfriend. The betrayal occurs when Mai saves Zuko's life while Azula is trying to kill him. (Reason #23094872 you know this is a show intended for young adults. So much relationship drama! Yeesh.)

Mai: "You miscalculated. I love Zuko more than I fear you."

This is entertaining in and of itself, but wait! It gets better.

Azula: (Angry Child Voice) "No, YOU miscalculated! You should have feared ME more!"

Insert tantrum here. No, really. There is totally a tantrum after this exchange.

In addition to these hilarious moments of Fire Nation Dialogue Fail, the television series actually has a lot of genuinely funny moments. Having seen the movie first, it was difficult for us to transition into Saturday Morning Cartoon mode and enjoy the funny moments without being all like, "BUT THE AVATAR HAS TO SAVE THE WORLD WHY ARE THEY TRYING TO MAKE ME GIGGLE." Eventually, we got used to it, and ended up loving all the slapstick sidenotes in the cartoon. We have to say, however, that we totally support M. Night Shyamalan's decision to make the movie more serious. It is still a horrific adaptation of an awesome show, but all those slapstick cartoon moments would not translate well to live action. And you know we're always going to prefer the version that can be funny on purpose, and not just because it has no idea how awful it is. What we're trying to say is, waste your free time on the TV show instead of the movie. It's worth it just for Uncle Iroh.

Image from http://www.freewebs.com/zutarachick/iroh02.jpg.