- This article is about the town located in the Earth Kingdom. For other similar uses, see Oasis (disambiguation).
| "Oh, yeah, I've been there. It's a pristine natural ice spring. [...] It's one of nature's wonders." |
| — Aang to Katara about the Misty Palms Oasis' former glory.[1] |
The Misty Palms Oasis is a town located on the southwestern edge of the Si Wong Desert.[2] Originally hosting only a seedy cantina, the oasis was always crowded with traders, soldiers, and wanderers of the Si Wong Desert, as it garnered significant traffic from a diverse crowd of mostly Earth Kingdom citizens. As the final stop to rest and buy or trade anything before venturing into the desert, the Misty Palms Oasis is of great importance to travelers who need to stock up on supplies.[3] Because of this, the settlement expanded greatly into a trading center after the Hundred Year War and also came to be populated by a large number of spirits following the Harmonic Convergence of 171 AG.[2]
History[]
For most of its history, the Misty Palms Oasis was an icy, refreshing spring. Between late 296 and early 295 BG, Avatar Kyoshi and her secretary Jinpa traveled to Misty Palms, and ran into a problem with the beetle-headed merchants and their mercenaries.[4]
An outdated drawing of the Misty Palms Oasis preserves the image of a once bountiful spring.
During the Hundred Year War, the spring gradually melted away and the oasis was converted into a rest stop.
Before making plans to find information about the Fire Nation, Team Avatar decided to take "mini-vacations". For hers, Katara chose to visit the Misty Palms Oasis, as it sounded refreshing. Aang stated that he had been to its "pristine natural ice spring" once before, commenting that it was "one of nature's wonders". However, much to their disappointment, the oasis had deteriorated into a state far less stimulating than it once was, with the ice spring having almost entirely melted away. Here, the group encountered Professor Zei before heading off into the desert in search of Wan Shi Tong's Library.[1]
Several days later, Zuko and Iroh met up with Fung inside the cantina and had a run-in with bounty hunter Xin Fu and earthbending instructor Master Yu. They were able to avoid capture by initiating a bar fight.[5]
After the end of the Hundred Year War, the Misty Palms Oasis started to actively grow.[6] Pakku and Kanna got married at the town and, although the waterbending master felt that the settlement failed to live up to its name, his wife admitted that they had a wonderful time nonetheless.[7]
By 171 AG, the Misty Palms Oasis had grown into a bustling town.
After Avatar Korra opened the spirit portals after Harmonic Convergence in 171 AG, spirits had taken refuge in the village, where they lurked around and interacted with the townspeople. A few weeks after Harmonic Convergence, Aiwei, after having escaped Zaofu, rented a room at the Misty Palms Inn. After tracking the truth seer to the oasis, Team Avatar entered the village, though soon left again after noticing that Earth Queen Hou-Ting had their wanted posters put up. In order to continue their search for Aiwei, Mako and Bolin donned disguises and returned. However, it was not long before they were discovered by Macao and Lily, two fierce-looking individuals who had recognized Bolin. Under the impression that they were bounty hunters, the two brothers ran for cover. As they intended to leave, Bolin spotted Aiwei returning to his inn room. After getting Asami and Korra, the foursome tried to get a room across from Aiwei's, though were initially denied, as the innkeeper had bad prior experiences with youths. At that moment, Lily and Macao found them again. Team Avatar instantly readied for battle, though the duo turned out to be fans of The Adventures of Nuktuk: Hero of the South and were after an autograph of Bolin. Due to his reputation as a mover star, the innkeeper changed her mind and agreed to rent the team a room. That night, a fight broke out between Mako and Bolin and Ghazan and Ming-Hua, destroying part of the inn's inner court.[2]
The next day, Lin Beifong, Tonraq, and Zuko awaited the return of Korra to the town at the local cantina, after the Chief of Police had tracked down Team Avatar's jeep to the outskirts of the oasis. Upon Korra and Asami's return, Lin informed the duo that Mako and Bolin had been captured by the Red Lotus, while Tonraq told them of the Earth Queen's death and the fall of Ba Sing Se.[8]
A day later, Bolin and Mako, having fled Ba Sing Se with their family, followed the path of Korra and Asami's makeshift sand-sailer to the Misty Palms Oasis. There, Team Avatar reunited, and Mako and Bolin made their friends, Tonraq, Lin, and Zuko aware of Zaheer's threat against the new Air Nation.[9]
Description[]
By 100 AG, the ice spring had been largely cut down and the oasis converted to a dusty rest stop for Si Wong Desert travelers.
Once one of the world's natural wonders, the iceberg in the center of the village contains spiritual properties, causing it to ascend from the sand a small amount each day, only for an equal amount to melt into mist. The spiritual properties of the oasis attract various benign spirits and is an ideal location for practicing meditation.[10] Although the iceberg is for the most part still preserved beneath the hot desert sand,[3] the top is gradually being cut down due to the high demand for the frozen drinks of the cantina, where a skilled bartender serves a selection of those beverages and dices fruit with dual katanas.[5]
Seventy years later, the settlement had expanded tremendously around the oasis. The old cantina grew into a city, with the similar ice carved sticks at the center of the oasis. Numerous inns and taverns were built inside the city for people exploring the desert,[2] holdovers from a prior tourism boom.[11]
Trivia[]
- The design of the Misty Palms Oasis bears many similarities to the Chinese region of Xinjiang, which is home to the world's largest population of Uyghurs:
- The clothing of the inhabitants includes a number of Arab elements, such as taqiyahs, hijab, and veils.
- The establishment of the walled town around an oasis is similar to the city of Kashgar.
- Architectural elements such as onion-shaped roofs, square houses, and streets with bazaars are common to the city of Turpan, which is itself centered on an oasis.
- The updated design for the settlement in The Legend of Korra was based on tourist trap establishments set up in Southern California during the 1950s.[11]
- The rocky landscape at the outskirts of the settlement was partially based on the geology of Joshua Tree National Park.[11]