No, it's not about the hazards of deep sea diving

When one states in such environs as these that one likes a children's television show, one is tempted to try to excuse it, or explain a higher, sophisticated reason for liking it, but I think such a tendency is backwards. I like Avatar: The Last Airbender. I think when someone likes something characterized by graphic violence or "adult themes" (i.e. people sinning), or even a G-rated, defiantly intellectual work, conscientious explanation should be forthcoming. It should be taken for granted that we like innocent adventure as made for children - where there may seem to be danger, but everything is under the control of an omnipotent guide (a team of writers who will not let the main characters die), strange, fantastical places and creatures abound, and the good guys have supernatural power and always win in the end. I chastise myself for feeling the need to explain it, but further explanation follows after the jump.
There may be no more to ATLA (as it were) than meets the eye. But there is more to my attraction to it than just the appealing art style, the enjoyable characters and dialogue, and the action and adventure. It takes me back to the joy of my childhood. I do not use "joy" here in the common way, but in the way Lewis introduces in Surprised by Joy: a desire the longing of which is more satisfying than the fulfillment of all other desires. He describes it as a "northern feeling." For me it is rather an ancient wooded feeling, but I am reminded of it by many of these fantasy shows and movies that others perceive as silly. In fact, the more serious a work of fantasy is, or perhaps the more sophisticated its author makes it in his attempt to be taken seriously, the less likely it is to evoke such a reaction from me, or the rarer they will be. For instance, The Wheel of Time evoked nothing of the sort from me, in what little of it I read before giving up, while The Chronicles of Narnia evoked everything. It is not just how young and impressionable I was at first exposure, either: Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime) affected me in much the same way as TCN, even though I was an adult when I first saw it. (Lewis and Miyazaki have turned out to be two artists who have my number in this regard.) I started watching ATLA only just this summer (and finished the series in less than a month, too, by the by) and it affects me no less than it would if I were five. It reminds me to feel joy: Lewisian joy. Its scenes stir within me memories of an ancient wood to which I've never been in the flesh, but which I recall with emotional vim nonetheless. I would like to go into further detail describing it, but it is always like a dream that one tries in vain to recall upon waking: vague, elusive, and wistful.

So the devil take this self-consciousness about not seeming grown-up to all the other grown-ups. This joy, and any mote of it, is more important than all the esteem of my peers, only the least of which I would lose for sincerely owning the desires of my soul.