In "The Avatar State", the first episode of the second season of "Avatar: The Last Airbender", the Captain of a ship commanded by Princess Azula reports to her: "Princess, I'm afraid the tides will not allow us to bring the ship into port before nightfall." But Azula challenges the Captain's information about this restriction on the ship's navigation: "Do the tides command this ship?" After she threatens to throw the Captain overboard, he agrees to pull the ship into port right away. Although this does not lead to a shipwreck, this is the problem of authoritarianism: The demands of the physical world can always conflict with—and even defeat—authoritarian desires. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 22 February 2026)