Wan Shi Tong's Library
From Avatar Wiki, the Avatar: The Last Airbender database
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- This article is about a place. For the episode by a similar name, see "The Library".
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Wan Shi Tong's Library |
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Si Wong Desert; central Earth Kingdom |
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Wan Shi Tong's Library was an immense library buried within the Si Wong Desert.
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[edit] History
The library is an ancient collection of books, built by the knowledge spirit Wan Shi Tong in the Spirit World. He later transported it to the real world to collect and preserve all of the world's knowledge with the assistance of his Knowledge Seekers. At one point in time the library was accessible to humans, as Wan Shi Tong hoped they would benefit from the vast amount of information. Though it can be assumed the collection was greatly enjoyed, other humans sought secrets that would destroy their enemies. Angered by the abuse of knowledge, the spirit returned the library to the Spirit World.
Though the building of the library is the size of a large palace, most of it lay buried beneath the sands of the Si Wong Desert, with its top most spire visible from the desert. Because of the library's other-worldly origins, its collection contains a great amount of information concerning the spirits. From this, Admiral Zhao learned that the Ocean and Moon spirits, Tui and La, were located at the Spirit Oasis, and were the key to defeating the Water Tribe. The portion of the library concerning the Fire Nation was destroyed, presumably by Zhao to stop anyone from discovering his nation's own weakness.
The library also holds an advanced, domed planetary calender room. Using its gears, cogs, crystal-projected stars, as well as several rotating planets, the planetarium acts as a kind of almanac, illustrating both recorded history as well as projected future planetary alignments. This calendar revealed the solar eclipse to Team Avatar; this information they used to create The Invasion plan.
The library was completely buried underneath the desert sands by Wan Shi Tong to return to the Spirit World to prevent his knowledge from ever being misused again.
[edit] Trivia
- In an illustration displaying the library as a whole, it retains an appearance similar to that of the Taj Mahal. The buried library's implied massive size is also reference to the mausoleum's most conspicuous characteristic.
- The writing at the bottom of the illustration reads 萬知堂神祕图書館, meaning "Wan Shi Tong's Mysterious Library".
- One of the books within the library illustrates a Lion Turtle.
