Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend of Korra discussion thread

[TypeWannabe]

No, the second states that a fake is not as good as the original. The first states that the original beats fakes. See? Difference.

[Theocrass]

I think I might enjoy it.

[Counterguardian]

Is there a trailer out?

[Theocrass]

Not that I know of.

[Counterguardian]

Damn it.

But still. I want to find out what happened to Zuko's mum. Bastards said that it would be included in the third season and they never did squat.

[Neir]

She's dead.

[Inugami]

In the original Digimon season, Gabumon seemed to be the ice-elemental digimon. Yet when he needed it, his "Blue Blaster" started a fire. And the water-type Seadramon would shoot water out his mouth as though that made sense as a weapon. (Note: it doesn't.)

In my experience, "elemental manipulation" was throwing variously colored energy around like lasers. Boring.

When I heard about Avatar, and how Bending was supposed to be this complex system of manipulating elements according to the motions of martial arts, I was intrigued. It sounded so much more interesting. But I didn't watch television, so I never saw the series.

One day, it happened to be airing on a television at a pizza restraunt where I was eating. It was the first Kyoshi Island episode.

I saw the sea serpent vomit-spray water everywhere as though that made sense (which it didn't, especially as it was an animal and not a digimon), and wrote the whole damn series off as an overhyped waste of time.


Sometime later, on youtube, I saw some interesting images of a small girl dancing around flying rocks while hurling rocks at men, and winning. Furthermore, she appeared to be blind and operating by vibrations.

This wasn't shooting funny lasers at people. This was physical, and highly tactical. It was absolutely amazing.

THIS was the elemental manipulation martial arts the creators had promised, and I later came to finally see and appreciate Airbending, Waterbending and Firebending.


Of course, given that I came in on the episodes where Aang is seeking out Toph because of a vision, and she becomes his trainer, and they're both the same age within their group... I came to the conclusion that they were an obvious couple.

Even after watching the rest of the second season and catching up on the first, that conclusion didn't really change. I didn't see anything nearly as interesting in Aang/Katara as I saw in Toph/Aang. I also appreciated the possibilities of Zuko/Katara.


Toph/Sokka pissed me the hell off -- not because it challenged my preferred ship, but because it came out of absolutely fucking no where. Until Suki shows up, Toph didn't show any interest in Sokka at all, and then all of a sudden she starts get interested? When it's OBVIOUS that he's already in a relationship?

Further, the whole "Oh, Sokka; you saved me" bit... that only made sense when I thought she was trying to ham things up and tease Sokka in order to mask her embarassment at nearing dying from her blindness and inability to swim. Trying to turn THAT into a serious note of interest for Sokka was... it seemed aggravatingly stupid.

The whole Toph/Sokka thing just came off as horribly forced, and I never forgave it for that. Plus, of course, I shipped them both with different people (Aang and Suki).



Anyway, the ending finale.

I had no problem with the Energy/Spirit-Bending thing.

MY problem was how all of the previous Avatars were telling Aang to set aside any concern about his personal enlightenment (the thing he NEEDS to control the Avatar State, mind you!) and how even the other Air Nomad incarnation was telling him to set aside their cultural imperative against killing.

The writers were making everyone and their dog tell Aang to kill Ozai, without a single note of dissent. They did that JUST to ratchet up the tension, before they swooped in and gave Aang a third option anyway.

So, while I don't think the SOLUTION of Spirit-Bending was a bad idea, I hated how the writers handled the ISSUE it was meant to solve.

Would it have killed them to have SOME people telling Aang that it was okay not to kill Ozai, but still realize that he would probably need to in order to win?

Would it have been bad for some of them to say that it didn't matter whether or not he killed Ozai so long as he won?

I do think they should have had the other characters debating with themselves about the best way to handle the situation, with all of them more or less agreeing that none of their own ideas were very good, for one reason or another.

Then the message would have been, "We need an 11th hour solution to handle this problem in a way we can all be happy with." And lo and behold, their conclusion is proven correct! Destiny or luck or the gods or whatever else rewards their faith.

[TypeWannabe]

I missed you Inugami. Are you even remotely still interested in BlazBlue?

[Theocrass]

I didn't mind the energybending scene either.

[Neir]

To be fair, Ozai was a dick. Like, to everyone. All the time. Even Iroh was like 'stomp dat bitch'

[Theocrass]

Was he? I don't remember ... (About Iroh saying something like that.)

[Neir]

More along the lines of 'my brother must be stopped. but he's kind of a dick, so killing him might be the only way to do it.'

[Grant]

I'm not sure if Iroh ever actually said it in so many words (and I don't think Iroh even interacts with Ozai in the show) but pretty much everything he says from season 2 on can be summed up as 'Zuko stop idolizing him/Zuko try to enjoy life/the Avatar needs to beat Ozai/Zuko will you shut up, sit down and enjoy life'. Without the justified snarkiness at the end.

[Theocrass]

You know what, you're right. We've never seen Iroh and Ozai interact on screen.

[Grant]

Which was a pity. Even an aborted fight between those two would have been great.

[Theocrass]

I would have given my pinkie just for some interaction.

[Grant]

Ditto, but they put about as much politics/society as they could into a series made primarily for children. It would have had to be a fight to make it in.

[Theocrass]

Once they put in the "Sokka ready for lovemaking scene", they should been able to do whatever they wanted to.

[mewarmo990]

I didn't mind the energybending scene either.

Me neither. But it just kind of came out of nowhere. I have a feeling that they had to cut some things out to make it all fit into three seasons.

If it were up to me, I would have connected it to Aang's abortive chakra lessons from that one Indian guy.

[Counterguardian]

If it were up to me, I would have connected it to the onion and banana juice from that one Indian guy.

Fixed.