"There is no war in Ba Sing Se," is a quote out of Avatar: The Last Airbender that really stuck in the minds of fans. It was a state of denial of the largest Earth Kingdom City and is remembered just by how disturbing it was that important worldly information was just swept under the rug.
The quote become a meme, and, according to Know Your Meme, its use has skyrocketed on the internet this year. It is no wonder, as Avatar: The Last Airbender recently came to Netflix. Also, a lot of the major events of 2020 have proven that there are people who are denial of the state of the world and its issues. Thus, the haunting quote, "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" has become as popular as it is. The memes are funny, but also a criticism of how society and individuals can be in denial about current events.
10 Ask Yourself The Big Question
This meme is inspired by a real debate between Zuko and Uncle Iroh. In the real scene, Uncle Iroh does tell Zuko to look inward and ask himself the big questions. However, he did not then say "Was there a war in Ba Sing Se?" Instead, he said, "who are you and what do YOU want?" That Iroh quote is far less remembered than the Ba Sing Se one, so this version is better as far as fans are concerned. However, there are a lot of Uncle Iroh quotes that are loved by the fandom.
9 Mega Mind Meme
This meme takes a scene from the film Megamind and adds a little dash of Avatar: The Last Airbender. In Megamind, there is a sort of twist villain who believes that, since he is a hero, that the main female character should date him. When she refuses him, he reveals his true nature as a villain and goes on a rant about how she is too idealistic, thus the "there is no Easter Bunny, there is no Tooth Fairy" line.
8 Parasite Meme
Parasite is a thriller/horror film that tackles issues of classism and social hierarchy. In it, an entire family pretends to be people they are not in order to work under a wealthy family. The sister of the family, Ki-Jung, is among the most clever of them. She sets herself up to be an art teacher and quickly practices her part before entering the wealthy family home.
This meme replaced Ki-Jung's face with Joo Dee, who is the tour guide and is one of the first characters to say the line "there is no war in Ba Sing Se." Like Ki-Jung, Joo Dee is lying.
7 Not Existing
One of the major elements that unify the Avatar: The Last Airbender fandom is that they hated the live-action movie by M. Night Shyamalan. The film had a casting controversy, lowest of low ratings, and even won awards for Worst Director, Worst Picture, and Worst Screenplay at the 31st Golden Raspberry Awards.
So, a lot of fans prefer to say that the movie never existed and still does not exist to this day, much like how the citizens of Ba Sing Se say "there is no war in Ba Sing Se."
6 Zero
Many memes are simply nonsensical and just relate to the fact that a certain quote was once said. In this case, we have a Dai Li saying the line instead of Joo Dee. The Dai Li are basically the secret police force of Ba Sing Se and will capture and brainwash citizens to believe that there is no war in Ba Sing Se. Also, the meme misspelled Ba Sing Se, but we'll forgive them—it's the thought that counts
5 Lake Laogai
Lake Laogai is real and is considered to be a nice vacation spot for the citizens of Ba Sing Se. However, it holds a dark secret, as it holds an underground prison where they brainwash people into believing there is no war in Ba Sing Se. It becomes the Dai Li's base of operations.
Due to Team Avatar, though, the underground prison is eventually abandoned.
4 Taking Action
As long as the citizens and the city's elite believe there is no war, then they do not have to get involved in it. This ultimately leads to Ba Sing Se getting attacked with little protection due to the ignorance of its citizens and inaction of the powerful. If war was believed, then Ba Sing Se would have been protected. However, the Dai Li decided to choose denial and took control of all information going into the city.
3 Phineas And Ferb
This scene from Phineas and Ferb is actually a popular meme template. If you look up "discovering something that doesn't exist meme," then you can find a little bit of everything. They unveil everything from "my sanity," "my will to live," "net neutrality," and much more.
What they truly unveil in the raw scene is a kind of unicorn-turtle creature... but don't let that distract you from the fact that there is still no war in Ba Sing Se.
2 Google Search
For anyone who believes there is a war and wants to let the people know, they get taken to the secret prison in Lake Laogai to be "re-educated." It is pretty creepy, and it happens to Jet in the series.
This is pretty silly since computers do not exist in Avatar: The Last Airbender. If they did, Ba Sing Se's police force may have had a much harder time suppressing information.
1 That Was A Lie
The lie detector quote is actually not a complete joke in this case. With Toph on their team, Aang and his friends did have a lie detector. Since she was such s skilled Earth Bender, Toph could feel is someone was lying through the earth around them.
It is Team Avatar that immediately knows something is not right when they enter Ba Sing Se.