Gun (Avatar)

:This article is about the Avatar. For the official, see Gun.
Gun was an Avatar who lived during the Ru Ming era, long before Yangchen's time.
== History ==
Avatar Gun had a close companion in Mesose, a poet and engineer whom they nicknamed "Se-Se". The latter would write treatises, and Gun liked to read or listen to these texts. Over the course of their adventures, Gun grew increasingly disdainful of humanity. The Avatar felt that people would always demand more aid despite being ungrateful for the aid already given, while also repeatedly making the same mistakes over and over again. In such moments of doubt, Mesose tried to calm Gun down.
Eventually, Gun and Mesose found themselves at the harbor city of Ha'an when it was hit by a tsunami. Gun attempted to stop the natural disaster, but they could only weaken it. Large parts of Ha'an were destroyed, and Mesose died in the floods despite Gun's efforts at saving the scholar. Devastated at this loss, Gun disappeared for an extended period of time before resuming their duties as Avatar.
=== Legacy ===
Gun was recorded as having failed to stop the tsunami at Ha'an, even though the city survived and would eventually prosper again. Jetsun would speculate that Gun themselves had demanded that this incident be labelled as a failure of theirs, considering that they had lost Mesose.
Eventually, an eight-year old Yangchen, possessed by Gun, would relive the day when Mesose died. About nine years later, Gun again possessed Yangchen as she was resting on a small island in the Northern Sea. This time, Gun's disdain for humanity came to the fore, as the long-dead Avatar implored their companion (mistaking Kavik for Mesose) to tell them why the Avatar should care any longer about all the ungrateful and short-sighted humans. When Kavik could only offer hope in the betterment of humanity as a reason, Gun started to madly laugh until Yangchen snapped out of the possession.
== Trivia ==
* Gun lived in the Ru Ming era which was first featured as part of Wan Shi Tong's calendar in "The Library".
** Based on the calendar system, Gun may have been a Water Avatar if the era names do indeed correspond to Avatars. If Gun's Ru Ming era was the most recent one of that name, as suggested by Tsering's familiarity with the topic, they lived three Avatar generations before Yangchen.
* In Chinese mythology, Gun (, "big fish") was father of Yu the Great, founder of the Xia dynasty, and was appointed to the task of controlling the Great Flood by Emperor Yao, though many died as Gun's efforts failed. This bears similarities to Avatar Gun being unable to stop the tsunami at Ha'an. In addition, Gun's era of Ru Ming was succeeded by the Yao Ping era ("Peace of Emperor Yao") in Wan Shi Tong's calendar.
* When Gun possessed Yangchen, Kavik felt that the Air Avatar suddenly seemed "decades" older. If this impression correctly reflects Gun's age, they were at least in their forties or fifties by the time of Mesose's death.
== References ==
pl:Gun
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Category:Avatars
Category:Characters
Category:Minor characters (Yangchen novels)
Category:Yangchen novels characters