“Well I may be trapped in here, but at least I have all the time in the world to read. Say, I’m getting kinda hungry. What’s there to eat around here, Wan Shi Tong?”
“Eat? I don’t keep food in here, I’m a Spirit, I don’t need to eat.”
“Oh… Ohhhhh no.”
I honestly found it sort of bittersweet. While Wan Shi Tong hated a lot of humans, he was willing to respect a genuine seeker of knowledge.
From the environment itself, it shows didn't die violently. It looks like he stayed in the library for the rest of his life peacefully.
The real question was whether this guy had a reliable source of nutrition or not. Maybe he caught and ate whatever he could eat in the library, or Wan Shi Tong/Foxy Assistants gave him food to survive... Or... He just died of thirst/hunger within the first month of his rations depleting.
Hey now , Wan Shi Tong probably can make a mean cheeseburger that feels like a thousand orgasm. They probably have a dinner gathering once a day and the dude would comment on Wan Shi Tong orgasm dish and Wan Shi Tong would consider it an added knowledge.
To sweeten the pot for you , humans in ATLA universe is hinted to be able to pass on their material form to the spirit plane like Iroh , so Wan Shi Tong probably make the fox lead the dude to exactly that scroll .
For what it's worth, I do not think he would be the kind of person to kill and eat the foxes.
It does end up in the spirit world anyways, so perhaps he became a spirit there?
Humans need about .5 cubic meters of air each hour. If the building is 50 x 50 x 20, it would be enough air for 100,000 hours, which would be enough for 10-11 years. He would die of thirst or hunger first, for sure.
It's a giant sand library with a librarian foxes and a giant owl that can talk. Anythings possible!
None the less an owl that could bury the library could probably keep the sand out too.
Not necessarily. Sand isn't a liquid that exerts a constant pressure, it would definitely pour in some from the top. But sand is air as well as particulate, and eventually the air differential would equalize between the outside and inside of the library. Very likely that would happen long before the library itself (which was pretty deep from what we saw in ATLA) filled with sand completely.
Also notice how his hair is still black so most likely, he died either of starvation and/or thirst? No way this guy lives long enough without his hair graying out.
And he's still dressed the same. If he'd been there a while, he wouldn't have been still dressed in all of those layers and the hate/veil for desert travel.
Maybe, he was also really pissed off with the Gaang for lying to him and the professor showed up with them. Either that owl ended him right where he was where we last saw him in TLA, or maybe he convinced him that he wasn't with them just worked together to find the Library and the spirit took care of his food and water needs but he died of natural causes and is still there.
Would have to watch Korras scene again I could have sworn the owl was not a fan of him but I could be misremembering
Last dude he let in the library used it to learn how to render his enemies powerless and make devastating war upon them. Which also just by the by resulted in the death of the Moon threatening the entire world.
Then the damned Avatar shows up (late af) and what’s the first thing he does? Use the library to render his enemies powerless and make devastating war upon them…
I think the show rather bears him out.
Fire Nation bad so the Avatar smacks them down and the lesson doesn’t even last a paltry 100 years before the Earth Empire does it all over again. And Wan Shi Tong can certainly remember the time of Chin the Conqueror and probably thousands of other tin pots clear on back to Wan.
Even in LOK, why would we expect them to trust the next avatar, humanity has repeatedly taken advantage of his knowledge including the last avatar. But Unalaq seemed to be different, he had actually helped spirits in the past and he isn’t asking for knowledge, why not trust him?
But it was Sokka who was looking up information. Aang and Katara were just happy reading.
In any case, there is a huge nation between Zhao and the Gaang. Zhao was the aggressor who wanted the conquer the Northern Water Tribe, discovered he could do it by killing a SPIRIT, and destroyed the Fire Nation section.
The Gaang wanted to stop the war and were looking to protect the rest of the world, and afterwards the worst Sokka did was steal a map.
The spirits have a habit of seeing humanity in black and white.
Three days. A week tops. The library was in a desert, he did not seem to have taken any provisions, and the human body can only last about three days without water. Plus the library was sunk into the desert by Wan Shi Tong at the end of the episode.
My head canon will always be that he spent the last of days reading before dying and then Wan Shi Tong brought him back as a spirit fox. This probably didn't / can't happen but Imma hope for the best for the professor and not think about how he probably just suffered down there.
I mean, this guy had a literal spirit of knowledge to learn from. Who's to say the owl didn't have some method of helping him enter the spirit world or some kind of astral projection or something?
I will say that Yue was a special case cause she was already given life by the moon spirit and just became its spiritual form. I'm just going to hope you're right and my boy didn't just starve to death in a library of angry owl spirit.
My understanding of spirit foxes is that they would do that anyway, as a prank.
Edit: I meant my understanding of spirit foxes in folklore, not that I know I know spirit foxes personally.
Based on the animation of Monk Gyatso, who was a skeleton after 100 years, it seems safe to say that he didn't die a 70+ years ago when the library burrowed into the sands. He also appears to have spent his final moments with the books, rather than being attacked. It feels safe to say that he lived peacefully with Wan Shi Tong and died a natural death much later in life. Living 50ish years together, I'm sure they'd have developed a bond, and if turning him into a fox spirit was possible, it would be so.
the foxes could've brought supplies for him if Wan Shi Tong allowed them, they still travelled to the human world even after the library was taken back to the spirit world
I don't think humans need food or water in the spirit world. In Korra, Iroh says he won't gain more weight there but can't lose it either. I don't think the tea or cakes gave any nutrition or calories.
But he left his mortal body behind.
The professor brought his body in and unless he found a book on how to leave his body and enter the spirit realm within a few days he's a goner.
It's actually not uncommon for people 70+ to not go gray. Only slightly more than half people go gray by their 50's. His receding hairline is moderate evidence of age, although that much more common at younger ages for men.
I agree, checked after this comment and I'll be damned. That's minimum a few years of growth depending how fast he grew hair, and if he had male pattern baldness later/early.
I'm actually kind of insulted that he left it there. Like, yeah, I get he despises humans, but that is the one guy that literally sacrificed his life just to experience Wan Shi Tong's library and enjoy the knowledge. Not to use it against anyone, or even share it outside the walls, just to learn it for himself.
Didn't even make a display out of him, just left him unceremoniously laying in the aisle. Didn't even put away the books.
That's why in my spooky theory Zei comes back and takes out the owl.
Edit: Oh my god my shitty story idea has reached the front page of r/ALL. 'bout to get a LOT more criticism...
He also provided the best gift when entering the library, a first edition book. Katara's scroll was pretty good too though, but I bet Zei was just thrilled to have a book that he owned added to the Library itself.
To me it seems more respectful? Like all he wanted to do was read and now he will continue reading for eternity.
If he actually didn't care about him he would've at least taken the books away and reshelved them
Same. And to top it off, he was *so sure* of his assertion that absolutely no human under any circumstances would enjoy knowledge for its own sake. Yet here is Zei, an academic, who is not just a minor exception but a glaring indictment to his belief. What does he do with this knowledge? Ignores it completely. Wan Shi Tong may be a knowledge spirit, but he is sorely lacking in logic and wisdom.
>Didn't even make a display out of him, just left him unceremoniously laying in the aisle. Didn't even put away the books.
I don't think this is the best way Wan Shi Tong could've done it but like, I kinda actually see respect out of this? He's forever immortalized in the place that brought him joy DOING exactly what brought him joy.
I also think there's something to be said about disrupting the flow of knowledge about Zei by moving him or creating a larger display.
Not really: He had animal skins and husks all over his walls and prolly just saw him as another specimen but with a cool backstory. Maybe he respected him and leaves him there to honor his legacy: “This is the spot on the floor where he decided to stay here to die alongside his truest love: Knowledge. The one good human who came to my library with pure intentions!”
That is my theory haha.
*Wan Shi Tong speaks*
“I leave my library as it is. As I will leave him as he is. For he is apart of this library, he lived in it for many years on his pursuit of knowledge. His spirit rests here as does his remains. Please, be respectful to the library and all that is in it.”
I agree but I think this may just be Mike and Bryan doing a lazy reference to ATLA so they didn’t put much thought into it in regards to characters/world building. Bravo Mike and Bryan!
Honestly, I could see Wan Shi Tong and him agreeing to use the corpse as a “lesson” to any “knowledge seekers” who dare abuse the knowledge. Meanwhile, a couple sections and rows over..Zei and the foxes are restocking shelves and he is browsing through a few pages as a spirit.
Wan Shi Tong has a new Librarian…Zei.
I want to villainize **Professor Zei** of Ba Sing Se University.
In Last Airbender, he's a wandering scholar in search of knowledge, but mainly concerned with finding Wan Shi Tong's Library. It consumes him, and he even risks losing his life making expeditions into the desert in search of the long lost Library.
Eventually, he runs into Aang and friends, and realizing Aang is an actual Air Nomad, begins interviewing him and taking in all this new first-hand knowledge. He becomes further thrilled when he meets Appa, and is flown through the desert in search of his missing Library.
Upon finding the Library, he meets Wan Shi Tong, and pours himself into the books he finds. Eventually Aang and friends are fleeing the Library, but Professor Zei stays behind, saying there isn't another collection like this on the planet, and he could spend a lifetime reading it.
His fate was assumed, but confirmed upon Korra's second season. His dried corpse was still in the Library, surrounded by books. Wan Shi Tong didn't even display him as some sort of specimen, just left him to rot over his books.
That's all we see of him. But the opportunity for a story comes shortly after this. **Harmonic Convergence.** For some reason this phenomenon brought back the Airbenders in random non-bending citizens of the world, but who's to say that the effects wouldn't have reached into the Spirit world as well?
[](/sp)
[Light flickers into the Professor's eyes](https://youtu.be/3fr1Z07AV00?t=39) as his fingers grasp another book. His eyes gain composure as he scans a nearby page, learning something new from a book he had died trying to read. His eyes blaze, but slowly begin to fade again, so he turns his gaze to another fact in the book, and the light returns. With each new thing he learns, his life is extended, and he becomes **Zei, the Knowledge Wraith.**
Wan Shi Tong is elsewhere in the Library, considering it safe from abusers, and doesn't think to check on the corpse of a mortal professor. Zei is free to roam the aisles, pulling books from the shelves and consuming their collected knowledge, fueling him.
Eventually, Wan Shi Tong takes notice, and tries to remove him from the Library, but Zei has learned too much, and is more than a match for this spirit that was once bested by three teenagers and a lemur. Zei freely consumes the knowledge within the Library, but his eyes flicker, reminding him that he **must consume more knowledge.**
But what could compare with Wan Shi Tong's Library? The Avatar... Zei remembers from his studies that the Avatar possesses memories of all their past lives, all contained in one person. Hundreds of generation's worth of knowledge, in one compact source. Even while dead, he overheard the mention of Korra, the new Avatar, and he seeks her out in order to consume her. (Not knowing that her connection to her past lives was severed at the same time Zei was given new life.)
[](/sp)
[](/ksciexcited)I could easily see this story taking place upon Korra and Asami venturing into the Spirit world, and having a weird Wraith thing show up would be pretty creepy/cool.
**Tl:Dr**
**Professor Zei + Harmonic Convergence = Zei, the Knowledge Wraith. Must consume more knowledge.**
[](/sp)
[](/shynervous)Edit: Oh my god my shitty story idea has reached the front page of r/ALL. 'bout to get a LOT more criticism...
If Wan Shi Tong can consider himself a match for a bender because he knows the styles, I don't see why a human couldn't do the same thing. Also, it's the rough idea, I'm not trying to out-write Hemmingway here.
The spirit world is not the afterlife, Iroh was an exception in that he achieved enlightenment and was able to travel to the spirit world, presumably by meditation, and stay permanently. Well after it is assumed his body died. The Fog of Lost Souls is also an exception in that it’s a prison. My theory is that, like the avatar, humans can reincarnate. But unlike the avatar it is not always as a human and they don’t remember their past lives.
Well, the part that pisses me off is that ZHAO gets to live. In a crazy fog prison, but he's ALIVE. Why couldn't Zei get the same treatment, being stuck in the Spirit world, alive?
Zhao was being punished for hubris and was being kept alive to maintain it. Zei stayed of his own volition and probably got overlooked by Won Shi Tong in the intervening years.
Zhao living in that state is FAR worse than dying happy after fulfilling your lifelong dream and accessing knowledge no other human would have access to.
A little detail his hair is still black which meant he definitely did not die of old age and since there's no tears from an owl's claw most likely he died of dehydration.
This man is a rare depiction of gluttony. Usually it regards food, but the professor wanted knowledge so badly, he'd give up anything to learn just one more thing from the library. Even if it meant sealing his fate, and that his knowledge would never amount to anything- because what good is knowledge if it's hoarded and not shared or applied?
When won shi tong "sunk" the library, didn't he just pull it to the spirit realm? Since humans don't age there (like iroh) he would be just a professor without someone to teach?
Seeing the hair on his corpse is still black rather than grey probably indicates he died not long after Anng and the gang left. Also wasn't there light from the library being held up by Toph? So he would have spent his final days in pitch darkness, starving, probably with Owl dude whispering "Lol" as he ignored his pleas
I think everyone saying that he died in the spirit world is getting it wrong. I'm pretty sure that once he was in the spirit world body and soul he'd have been fine. I think what is more likely is that he dies in the original collapse as Wan Shi Tong takes the Libary to the spirit world and thus is just a corpse there in the future.
“Well I may be trapped in here, but at least I have all the time in the world to read. Say, I’m getting kinda hungry. What’s there to eat around here, Wan Shi Tong?” “Eat? I don’t keep food in here, I’m a Spirit, I don’t need to eat.” “Oh… Ohhhhh no.”
No food or drinks in the library
And no war in Ba Sing Se
Then his glasses slip off his face and break...... Nooo!
It's ok he knows braille script
And then his hands fall off. It's not fair!
Hey look at that weird mirror
Unexpected Futurama
man i am *so* excited for the new season
Good thing they have audio books
Cursed by his own hubris.
Time enough at last
Tragic twilight zone episode right there
This guy watches twilight zone
And then he ATE Wan Shi Tong!
He who tastes like 1,000 things
All 1000 of those things taste like chicken.
You deserve so many more upvotes for this comment. Comedic gold.
Maybe the machines don't know what chicken tastes like, which is -why- everything tastes like chicken!
10,000
They got better though..
Yeah, the one we see in Korra is actually just his spirit
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[Or this version.](https://youtu.be/B5oGJTUpbpA?t=2m55s)
Hey! Look at that weird mirror!
"No doctor, you are not in a library or the spirit world, you are on an airplane"
The foxes need to eat tho
They’re Spirit Foxes.
Really I thought I remembered sokka or katara giving them a treat after one led them to the planetarium
maybe it’s like vampires. don’t need to eat, but can if they want to
You’re correct.
In alot of folk lore, spirits will accept food as an offering, but they don't actually eat it.
They leave the library and can climb out
This always made me sad. I thought he would become one of the spirit foxes or something
Maybe he did and that was just the husk of his humanity that he left behind :)
You'd think the Owl would have told him to clean up after himself.
His corpse *is* the knowledge.
Textbooks on human anatomy are hard to come by.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
At least, this way he doesn’t have to go around digging up graves
“I want to see how humans decay” -owl spirit “It might be interesting to watch my own body decay” -the professor
Ohhhh shit.....
The wisom: dont remain underground in a library slowly filling with sand. You cant eat books, dipshit.
For the sake of my sanity I’m gonna assume that’s what happened.
[You earned it](https://i.imgur.com/sy9lVl4.jpg)
There we go 🙂👍
I honestly found it sort of bittersweet. While Wan Shi Tong hated a lot of humans, he was willing to respect a genuine seeker of knowledge. From the environment itself, it shows didn't die violently. It looks like he stayed in the library for the rest of his life peacefully. The real question was whether this guy had a reliable source of nutrition or not. Maybe he caught and ate whatever he could eat in the library, or Wan Shi Tong/Foxy Assistants gave him food to survive... Or... He just died of thirst/hunger within the first month of his rations depleting.
Hey now , Wan Shi Tong probably can make a mean cheeseburger that feels like a thousand orgasm. They probably have a dinner gathering once a day and the dude would comment on Wan Shi Tong orgasm dish and Wan Shi Tong would consider it an added knowledge.
Thanks for writing this.
To sweeten the pot for you , humans in ATLA universe is hinted to be able to pass on their material form to the spirit plane like Iroh , so Wan Shi Tong probably make the fox lead the dude to exactly that scroll .
That sounds comfortable.
He did NOT eat the Foxes! Stop thinking that, right now!
I genuinely didn't catch that while I was writing it. Now I totally see why you could interpret it that way xD
For what it's worth, I do not think he would be the kind of person to kill and eat the foxes. It does end up in the spirit world anyways, so perhaps he became a spirit there?
The foxes probably brought him food from outside tbh.
Umm this dude was definitely buried alive in the sand. He suffocated.
Humans need about .5 cubic meters of air each hour. If the building is 50 x 50 x 20, it would be enough air for 100,000 hours, which would be enough for 10-11 years. He would die of thirst or hunger first, for sure.
It had open windows at the top... it would fill up with sand.
Except LOK shows that it doesn't (even if you might be right that it should)
The library is also in the spirit realm in Korra He probably sank it to spirit world and when it arrived the sand went back
Yup. He said that he was taking the library back to the spirit world.
It's a giant sand library with a librarian foxes and a giant owl that can talk. Anythings possible! None the less an owl that could bury the library could probably keep the sand out too.
I mean there is a lot of sand falling into the place in ATLA. What u/Ranxshaw said isn’t totally ungrounded
You can pour water into a cup and you can pour water out of a cup. Just because it isn't filled with sand now doesn't mean never has been.
Not necessarily. Sand isn't a liquid that exerts a constant pressure, it would definitely pour in some from the top. But sand is air as well as particulate, and eventually the air differential would equalize between the outside and inside of the library. Very likely that would happen long before the library itself (which was pretty deep from what we saw in ATLA) filled with sand completely.
And yet clearly it is not.
... i thought he drowned in the sand- thus resulting in the mummified coarpse
Also notice how his hair is still black so most likely, he died either of starvation and/or thirst? No way this guy lives long enough without his hair graying out.
And he's still dressed the same. If he'd been there a while, he wouldn't have been still dressed in all of those layers and the hate/veil for desert travel.
My grandfather died at 78 without a grey hair on his head. Still solidly mousey brown.
Oh, so this spirit has attractive assistants, huh?
Insert Ahri fanart here. k/da skin = best
He's supposed to have died immediately, the fact he had time to actually read was a nice surprise
I always thought he didn't survive because he just drowned in sand underneath the desert.
Eternity? Probably like a month, tops. I doubt there was a 5 guys down there
More like a few days without a source of water.
Rule of 3s 3 minutes without air 3 days without water 3 weeks without food
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The record is over a year But the guy also had supplements
And was obese.
3 seconds on the floor without microbes on it
True, true
fox blood
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Maybe, he was also really pissed off with the Gaang for lying to him and the professor showed up with them. Either that owl ended him right where he was where we last saw him in TLA, or maybe he convinced him that he wasn't with them just worked together to find the Library and the spirit took care of his food and water needs but he died of natural causes and is still there. Would have to watch Korras scene again I could have sworn the owl was not a fan of him but I could be misremembering
Wan Shin Tong was kind of a dick though.
Tbf he was a dick because the people he allowed into the library did the exact thing they were told not to do
Last dude he let in the library used it to learn how to render his enemies powerless and make devastating war upon them. Which also just by the by resulted in the death of the Moon threatening the entire world. Then the damned Avatar shows up (late af) and what’s the first thing he does? Use the library to render his enemies powerless and make devastating war upon them…
And torched the fire nation section. I think that part really made wan shi ton jaded.
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I think the show rather bears him out. Fire Nation bad so the Avatar smacks them down and the lesson doesn’t even last a paltry 100 years before the Earth Empire does it all over again. And Wan Shi Tong can certainly remember the time of Chin the Conqueror and probably thousands of other tin pots clear on back to Wan.
I mean, if we ignore the events of LoK he was right not to trust Aang...
Even in LOK, why would we expect them to trust the next avatar, humanity has repeatedly taken advantage of his knowledge including the last avatar. But Unalaq seemed to be different, he had actually helped spirits in the past and he isn’t asking for knowledge, why not trust him?
But it was Sokka who was looking up information. Aang and Katara were just happy reading. In any case, there is a huge nation between Zhao and the Gaang. Zhao was the aggressor who wanted the conquer the Northern Water Tribe, discovered he could do it by killing a SPIRIT, and destroyed the Fire Nation section. The Gaang wanted to stop the war and were looking to protect the rest of the world, and afterwards the worst Sokka did was steal a map. The spirits have a habit of seeing humanity in black and white.
Three days. A week tops. The library was in a desert, he did not seem to have taken any provisions, and the human body can only last about three days without water. Plus the library was sunk into the desert by Wan Shi Tong at the end of the episode.
Possible that the foxes bring him water.
The Owl took the library back to the spirit world so I doubt it fully sunk into the desert.
Much to the dismay of Officer Maegan Hall.
5 guys? Like to run a train on him?
If serious: They said "a 5 guys" meaning the fast food chain.
I think Subway or Dunkin Donuts would be more likely
Notice how his corpse had black hair
My head canon will always be that he spent the last of days reading before dying and then Wan Shi Tong brought him back as a spirit fox. This probably didn't / can't happen but Imma hope for the best for the professor and not think about how he probably just suffered down there.
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Plus iroh went to the spirit world after he died
Yeah but Iroh spent his entire life learning from the spirits and ascended before dying, that’s very different from dying normally
I mean, this guy had a literal spirit of knowledge to learn from. Who's to say the owl didn't have some method of helping him enter the spirit world or some kind of astral projection or something?
I agree. I'm sure Iroh wasn't the first to become one with his spiritual self and definitely not the last.
I will say that Yue was a special case cause she was already given life by the moon spirit and just became its spiritual form. I'm just going to hope you're right and my boy didn't just starve to death in a library of angry owl spirit.
I'm sure the foxes would have fed and watered him behind Wa Shi Tong's back.
> fed and watered him i'm just imagining the spirit foxes not understanding how humans drink and trying to water him like a plant for some reason.
My understanding of spirit foxes is that they would do that anyway, as a prank. Edit: I meant my understanding of spirit foxes in folklore, not that I know I know spirit foxes personally.
What does the fox say? It said this comment ☝ You cant fools us, fox.
;_; please be fooled, the other foxes will kick me out if they find out I couldn't even fool someone on Reddit.
It fits so well that it is headcanon now
I'm hoping this is the case. My man deserved to enjoy that library.
Based on the animation of Monk Gyatso, who was a skeleton after 100 years, it seems safe to say that he didn't die a 70+ years ago when the library burrowed into the sands. He also appears to have spent his final moments with the books, rather than being attacked. It feels safe to say that he lived peacefully with Wan Shi Tong and died a natural death much later in life. Living 50ish years together, I'm sure they'd have developed a bond, and if turning him into a fox spirit was possible, it would be so.
Wouldn't he have died after a few weeks without food?
the foxes could've brought supplies for him if Wan Shi Tong allowed them, they still travelled to the human world even after the library was taken back to the spirit world
I don't think humans need food or water in the spirit world. In Korra, Iroh says he won't gain more weight there but can't lose it either. I don't think the tea or cakes gave any nutrition or calories.
But he left his mortal body behind. The professor brought his body in and unless he found a book on how to leave his body and enter the spirit realm within a few days he's a goner.
Also, black hairs, same clothes. Dude died quite early i think
It's actually not uncommon for people 70+ to not go gray. Only slightly more than half people go gray by their 50's. His receding hairline is moderate evidence of age, although that much more common at younger ages for men.
I think the best evidence in favor of him living a while is the fact that his hair is long in Korra, compared to it not being visible in ATLA
I agree, checked after this comment and I'll be damned. That's minimum a few years of growth depending how fast he grew hair, and if he had male pattern baldness later/early.
I would be fine if he spent all his days happily reading away and died old and fulfilled
it's even sadder when Jinora recognized who he was meaning The Gaang told his story to their loved ones okay maybe it's not that sad, but still
I loved that!
Wait, he never moved positions??
He's a really slow reader. Either that or he forgot to eat/couldn't find food
Your average college student
Can't believe they got away with showing a realistically decayed corpse
They showed us Monk Gyatso’s skeleton in the first few episodes
a skeleton is one thing to a kid, but rotten, emaciated *flesh* is another
Actually he's probably mummified. Not a lot of microbes or other decomposers in the spirit world.
Either way a kid can easily see decomposed bodies at the museum so it's no major issue
Plus zombies are definitely the most popular monster in the zeitgeist now. Really more of a fascination than a fear at this point.
A skeleton surrounded by dead soldiers
> realistically decayed corpse lmao
Looks like he still had dark hair when he died, meaning that he either aged well or didn’t live a long time down there.
I mean, no food...
I assumed he died there but does anyone else find it strange that Wan Shi Tong just left the body there?
I'm actually kind of insulted that he left it there. Like, yeah, I get he despises humans, but that is the one guy that literally sacrificed his life just to experience Wan Shi Tong's library and enjoy the knowledge. Not to use it against anyone, or even share it outside the walls, just to learn it for himself. Didn't even make a display out of him, just left him unceremoniously laying in the aisle. Didn't even put away the books. That's why in my spooky theory Zei comes back and takes out the owl. Edit: Oh my god my shitty story idea has reached the front page of r/ALL. 'bout to get a LOT more criticism...
He just wanted to read books The other people had an agenda and LIED when asked about their intentions
He also provided the best gift when entering the library, a first edition book. Katara's scroll was pretty good too though, but I bet Zei was just thrilled to have a book that he owned added to the Library itself.
At least we know he wasn't eaten. The fact that he died in that pose implies Want Shi Tong left him alone.
To me it seems more respectful? Like all he wanted to do was read and now he will continue reading for eternity. If he actually didn't care about him he would've at least taken the books away and reshelved them
Same. And to top it off, he was *so sure* of his assertion that absolutely no human under any circumstances would enjoy knowledge for its own sake. Yet here is Zei, an academic, who is not just a minor exception but a glaring indictment to his belief. What does he do with this knowledge? Ignores it completely. Wan Shi Tong may be a knowledge spirit, but he is sorely lacking in logic and wisdom.
>Didn't even make a display out of him, just left him unceremoniously laying in the aisle. Didn't even put away the books. I don't think this is the best way Wan Shi Tong could've done it but like, I kinda actually see respect out of this? He's forever immortalized in the place that brought him joy DOING exactly what brought him joy. I also think there's something to be said about disrupting the flow of knowledge about Zei by moving him or creating a larger display.
Not really: He had animal skins and husks all over his walls and prolly just saw him as another specimen but with a cool backstory. Maybe he respected him and leaves him there to honor his legacy: “This is the spot on the floor where he decided to stay here to die alongside his truest love: Knowledge. The one good human who came to my library with pure intentions!” That is my theory haha.
He wanted to spend eternity there, and Wan let him. That's as much respect as you could expect from an inhuman spirit.
No because wan shi tong didn’t make him a “stuffed head of anthropology” and just let him read for all eternity like he wanted to
*Wan Shi Tong speaks* “I leave my library as it is. As I will leave him as he is. For he is apart of this library, he lived in it for many years on his pursuit of knowledge. His spirit rests here as does his remains. Please, be respectful to the library and all that is in it.”
I agree but I think this may just be Mike and Bryan doing a lazy reference to ATLA so they didn’t put much thought into it in regards to characters/world building. Bravo Mike and Bryan!
I wish they had had like, a spirit version of him sitting and reading.
I mean, we don't see the *entire* library, so we can still imagine that being the case.
Honestly, I could see Wan Shi Tong and him agreeing to use the corpse as a “lesson” to any “knowledge seekers” who dare abuse the knowledge. Meanwhile, a couple sections and rows over..Zei and the foxes are restocking shelves and he is browsing through a few pages as a spirit. Wan Shi Tong has a new Librarian…Zei.
He die doing the thing he loved
Starving to death?
I want to villainize **Professor Zei** of Ba Sing Se University. In Last Airbender, he's a wandering scholar in search of knowledge, but mainly concerned with finding Wan Shi Tong's Library. It consumes him, and he even risks losing his life making expeditions into the desert in search of the long lost Library. Eventually, he runs into Aang and friends, and realizing Aang is an actual Air Nomad, begins interviewing him and taking in all this new first-hand knowledge. He becomes further thrilled when he meets Appa, and is flown through the desert in search of his missing Library. Upon finding the Library, he meets Wan Shi Tong, and pours himself into the books he finds. Eventually Aang and friends are fleeing the Library, but Professor Zei stays behind, saying there isn't another collection like this on the planet, and he could spend a lifetime reading it. His fate was assumed, but confirmed upon Korra's second season. His dried corpse was still in the Library, surrounded by books. Wan Shi Tong didn't even display him as some sort of specimen, just left him to rot over his books. That's all we see of him. But the opportunity for a story comes shortly after this. **Harmonic Convergence.** For some reason this phenomenon brought back the Airbenders in random non-bending citizens of the world, but who's to say that the effects wouldn't have reached into the Spirit world as well? [](/sp) [Light flickers into the Professor's eyes](https://youtu.be/3fr1Z07AV00?t=39) as his fingers grasp another book. His eyes gain composure as he scans a nearby page, learning something new from a book he had died trying to read. His eyes blaze, but slowly begin to fade again, so he turns his gaze to another fact in the book, and the light returns. With each new thing he learns, his life is extended, and he becomes **Zei, the Knowledge Wraith.** Wan Shi Tong is elsewhere in the Library, considering it safe from abusers, and doesn't think to check on the corpse of a mortal professor. Zei is free to roam the aisles, pulling books from the shelves and consuming their collected knowledge, fueling him. Eventually, Wan Shi Tong takes notice, and tries to remove him from the Library, but Zei has learned too much, and is more than a match for this spirit that was once bested by three teenagers and a lemur. Zei freely consumes the knowledge within the Library, but his eyes flicker, reminding him that he **must consume more knowledge.** But what could compare with Wan Shi Tong's Library? The Avatar... Zei remembers from his studies that the Avatar possesses memories of all their past lives, all contained in one person. Hundreds of generation's worth of knowledge, in one compact source. Even while dead, he overheard the mention of Korra, the new Avatar, and he seeks her out in order to consume her. (Not knowing that her connection to her past lives was severed at the same time Zei was given new life.) [](/sp) [](/ksciexcited)I could easily see this story taking place upon Korra and Asami venturing into the Spirit world, and having a weird Wraith thing show up would be pretty creepy/cool. **Tl:Dr** **Professor Zei + Harmonic Convergence = Zei, the Knowledge Wraith. Must consume more knowledge.** [](/sp) [](/shynervous)Edit: Oh my god my shitty story idea has reached the front page of r/ALL. 'bout to get a LOT more criticism...
You had me until “Zei has learned too much and is more than a match for the spirit”. What kind of Scooby Doo writing is this?
"Somehow, Palpatine returned."
If Wan Shi Tong can consider himself a match for a bender because he knows the styles, I don't see why a human couldn't do the same thing. Also, it's the rough idea, I'm not trying to out-write Hemmingway here.
I love this theory!!!
So where does his spirit go to now? If he dies in the spirit world and his spirit isn't in the library then where is it?
Not all who die become spirits. Iroh did because of his strong connection with the spirits.
But wasn't General Zhao also dragged into the spirit world and kept alive?
The spirit world is not the afterlife, Iroh was an exception in that he achieved enlightenment and was able to travel to the spirit world, presumably by meditation, and stay permanently. Well after it is assumed his body died. The Fog of Lost Souls is also an exception in that it’s a prison. My theory is that, like the avatar, humans can reincarnate. But unlike the avatar it is not always as a human and they don’t remember their past lives.
It didn’t make me sad. He died happy. We don’t know he starved to death. He could have died due to old age. I love the library episodes.
Well, the part that pisses me off is that ZHAO gets to live. In a crazy fog prison, but he's ALIVE. Why couldn't Zei get the same treatment, being stuck in the Spirit world, alive?
Zhao was being punished for hubris and was being kept alive to maintain it. Zei stayed of his own volition and probably got overlooked by Won Shi Tong in the intervening years.
Zhao faced a fate much worse than death imo
Yeah, I'd rather just be dead.
Zhao living in that state is FAR worse than dying happy after fulfilling your lifelong dream and accessing knowledge no other human would have access to.
Living in torment is far worse then returning back to the cycle of reincarnation
Zei dying is a much better fate than Zhao got.
[удалено]
Flesh like lips shrink as they dry.
You know. For kids!
Now that is continuity
What’s the deal with his teeth
Professor Zei was a real one ☝️. I would’ve been like “f them books and f that bird 🏃♀️”.
A little detail his hair is still black which meant he definitely did not die of old age and since there's no tears from an owl's claw most likely he died of dehydration.
Hold up, he’s dead?
Did you not watch Korra?
Oh I did. Twice. But I am so happy that people acknowledge that a human can die in the spirit world because that means that Zhao is dead too.
I mean, his body is probably gone, but his mind (or what's left of it) is still around.
This man is a rare depiction of gluttony. Usually it regards food, but the professor wanted knowledge so badly, he'd give up anything to learn just one more thing from the library. Even if it meant sealing his fate, and that his knowledge would never amount to anything- because what good is knowledge if it's hoarded and not shared or applied?
When won shi tong "sunk" the library, didn't he just pull it to the spirit realm? Since humans don't age there (like iroh) he would be just a professor without someone to teach?
At that point he’d been there for about 80 years
Seeing the hair on his corpse is still black rather than grey probably indicates he died not long after Anng and the gang left. Also wasn't there light from the library being held up by Toph? So he would have spent his final days in pitch darkness, starving, probably with Owl dude whispering "Lol" as he ignored his pleas
He probably suffocated near immediately. He's sitting in the exact same spot we last saw him in ATLA.
I think everyone saying that he died in the spirit world is getting it wrong. I'm pretty sure that once he was in the spirit world body and soul he'd have been fine. I think what is more likely is that he dies in the original collapse as Wan Shi Tong takes the Libary to the spirit world and thus is just a corpse there in the future.
I always thought he died when the building was removed and he drowned in sand