Why Isn't Joo Dee Legendary?

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Before We Start

While previewing the cards of Avatar: The Last Airbender (TLA), the first time I saw Joo Dee, One of Many, I was struck (scared) by her creepy composition. On a second look, though, I noticed she doesn’t have the legendary supertype, which is almost unprecedented for a Magic card named after a character. To learn more, I started doing some research on this card and on the story of Avatar.

This is a rough understanding written by someone encountering the Avatar IP for the first time. If there are any omissions or inaccuracies, I hope friends who love this IP will kindly point them out.

Who Is Joo Dee?

In the story of Avatar, Joo Dee is the cultural ambassador assigned to host Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph (Team Avatar) while they search for Appa, Loyal Sky Bisonduring their visit to the Earth Kingdom’s capital, Ba Sing Se. Her real mission, however, is as a watcher sent by the Dai Li to keep Team Avatar from finding Appa’s whereabouts. She always wears a friendly but eerie smile and never answers any sensitive question head-on, which makes viewers curious about her identity and the story behind her.

Joo Dee’s first appearance - B2: Earth CH:34: “You’re in Ba Sing Se now. Everyone is safe here.”

With Joo Dee “accompanying” them, Team Avatar finds nothing while trying to dig up news of Appa in Ba Sing Se, and we also notice that the Earth Kingdom citizens react quite unnaturally whenever Joo Dee is around, so the suspenseful atmosphere gradually builds. Eager to meet The Earth King, Team Avatar sneaks into a banquet of nobles, where Joo Dee comes to tell them to leave as soon as possible. But Aang, Swift Savior // Aang and La, Ocean's Furyaccidentally reveals his airbending at the banquet, and Joo Dee, having failed her mission, shows an expression other than a smile on her face for the first time.

After this, Team Avatar meets Long Feng, and after the conversation ends badly, the person who appears before them is another woman also named “Joo Dee” with a similar face. A week later, Joo Dee returns from a “vacation” at Lake Laogai as if nothing had happened, which only makes it feel more eerie. After failing in her mission to stop Team Avatar from continuing to look for Appa, when Joo Dee reports to Long Feng, Grand Secretariat, the head of the Dai Li, she uncharacteristically shows a will of her own, but Long Feng immediately reinforces the brainwashing with the keyword “the Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai”.

Later, Team Avatar and the resistance break into the Dai Li’s secret base and witness the Joo Dees’ brainwashing training, which formally exposes the inhumane acts of Long Feng and the Dai Li. After the Earth Kingdom is taken over by Azula, Cunning Usurper, Azula appoints Joo Dee as chief administrator of the puppet government. Ironically, in the comic Joo Dee appears in lavish clothes but holding a mint candy in her hand; as “chief administrator” she still faithfully carries out the duties of a cultural ambassador receiving foreign guests. While the Fire Nation prepares to destroy the Earth Kingdom in one stroke, Joo Dee still faithfully plays her role, receiving various people on the instructions of those in power, a pawn for stabilizing the Ba Sing Se regime.

After Avatar Aang // Aang, Master of Elementsdefeats Ozai, the Phoenix Kingand Fire Lord Zukotakes the throne, the hundred-year war between the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom ends, the Dai Li collapses, and a new era of freedom and peace arrives. The Joo Dees seem to be forgotten in the old era, their whereabouts unknown…

Wild Speculation

Joo Dee and Jane Doe

Extending this to English, the name “Joo Dee” was very likely designed as a nod to “Jane Doe”.

A quick explanation: in English, Jane Doe doesn’t refer to one specific person but is a female “nameless person”, commonly used for “a party in legal proceedings whose real name is unknown”, “some person or an ordinary person”, or “an unidentified female corpse”.

Source of the text: the New York Times Chinese edition’s “Jane Doe: Lament of the Nameless Woman”

And those women of the Earth Kingdom who were brainwashed and stripped of their names and agency, the Joo Dees who always greet people with a smile and mechanically carry out their tasks, aren’t they just like the Jane Does of all times and places, who have a “name” but merely an unidentifiable “code name”?

Then the legendary supertype naturally cannot suit her.

Lake Laogai

The keyword that controls Joo Dee, “the Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai”, not only makes explicit that the inhumane brainwashing of the Joo Dees takes place in the base under Lake Laogai, but also goes straight to the heart of the matter in matching the word “Laogai” (reform through labor). Since the Dai Li fully infiltrated the Earth Kingdom’s government, who knows how many Joo Dees have been persecuted here, had their minds inhumanely destroyed, or even sleep forever at the bottom of Lake Laogai.

Discussing the Joo Dee Pick in the TLE Source Material

As mentioned before, since Joo Dee is the code name of a nameless woman, the legendary type naturally doesn’t apply. But in the design of TLE, the legendary creature Sakashima of a Thousand Faceswas chosen, which is quite a pity; if it were really to be reprinted, Sakashima's Studentmight be more fitting.

Judging from how much page time Joo Dee gets in the story, making her non-legendary in TLA is exactly what makes the imagery of her card name “Joo Dee, One of Many” more fitting, subtly condensing the shadow under the Dai Li’s iron curtain into Joo Dee, this one of many.

A Little Magic Flavor

That’s right! It’s once again that familiar Agatha's Soul Cauldronthat fits best! Today’s dish is Joo Dee Cauldron! Just exile Joo Dee, One of Manyfrom your graveyard with the cauldron, and your other creatures with +1/+1 counters on them can, at sorcery speed, pay one mana of any color and tap to send out a copy of themselves! Of course, as part of the effect, the cost of sacrificing an artifact or creature is still required.

A quick explanation here:

1. The “one mana of any color” is the one black mana in Joo Dee’s activated ability cost, while the cauldron’s first effect lets you pay with mana of any color.
2. The wording of Joo Dee’s copy-making is ”……. Create a token that’s a copy of this creature, ……”, so the copy will be the creature that has +1/+1 counters on it and that gained Joo Dee’s activated ability from the cauldron.

Isn’t today’s dish simple and easy to pick up? See you next time in our Magic cooking class! (Not really)

Conclusion

I hope this short piece helps readers understand the deep meaning and charm of Avatar. The content sparked this exploration of mine, and it also indirectly proves that the Universes Beyond (UB) strategy doesn’t bring only bad effects. Refined design and set construction present the originally excellent text to new readers in a brand-new way. This is an artistic amplification, and it is what I hope UB can truly achieve: creating, in both directions, more audiences who love each other’s content, and in turn letting the whole community grow and experience it in depth.

Back to the heroine of this article. Although I couldn’t find more extra clues online, I believe that after the ending, the Joo Dees can scatter among the people in a peaceful world with no Dai Li, gradually recover their memories, names, identities, and agency, and regain their peace of mind.