The Last Airbender Series: The Waterbending Scroll and Iroh's "Proverb"

"Are you so busy fighting you cannot see your own ship has set sail?" Uncle Iroh spits out this tremendous line, to which Zuko responds by bemoaning his uncle's use of trite and boring proverbs. Of course the interesting part of this is that this does not actually sound like a proverb. It may carry a sagacity because of Iroh's wise demeanor, but even if it was a proverb, what would it mean?

The backstory of this line is that the pirates and Zuko's crew are fighting each other because of a reneged agreement to trade the waterbending scroll that Katara stole for Aang. During the scuffle between the three groups, Katara, Sokka, and Aang were able to sneak away. In order to escape from the feud, Katara and Aang waterbend the pirate ship off the beach. As the pirate captain and Zuko are fighting, Iroh interrupts to deliver this line. The first implication of this line is that violence has some negative effect on your focus. But what are you focusing on i.e. what does the "ship" imply? An avid LOK fan would assume relationship, but let's think about this in ATLA terms. A ship is an important piece of property for a person. It actually may be a lifestyle in a way because of the technological importance of having a fast and able ship. But the obvious motion aspect of the ship likely makes the "ship" a metaphor for an event in life. It is something that you can see, but so much can affect you actually getting to the ship. The most telling part of this proverb is that this ship has "set sail". It passed by without you noticing, quite possibly one of the saddest and most indescribable feelings you could have. It describes this emotion that you have when you realize you missed out on something. So the proverb discusses the impact violence has on your way of life. If this were a proverb, it would be warning against the ill effects of violence, or more broadly malevolence toward another person, and how it actually detracts from your life and actually causes you to miss opportunities.

This proverb almost certainly has its real world counterparts. While it is difficult to put this in exact words, maybe an example would be a better demonstration. Consider Inigo Montoya's words at the end of The Princess Bride. He says that he had been in the revenge business for so long that he knows no other lifestyle. Having invested his entire life towards the demise of a single man, he missed out so many opportunities to do something else with his life. While it is a fulfilling experience, twenty years of his life are gone. So don't be so busy with the petty things that you miss out on a bigger opportunity. Don't let that ship sail because you were too busy fighting.