Avatar the Last Airbender

[Tavar]

Probably some sort of ceremonial/decorative armor.

[Lord Seth]

I'm not sure what all you saw of the Fire Nation culture in "The Deserter", other than they have a periodic celebration in which they wear masks, eat hot food, and do firebending, and that desertering is rare and/or hard to do, hence Jeong Jeong's fame. The "real look at what things are like" was a look at a fire nation town in the middle of a celebration that, for one thing, is likely not representative of their general life, and even then it didn't look that different from any other town having a similar sort of celebration, other than steortypical fire nation things (hot food and firebending) and the masks, which we're never given an explanation for and just exist so the main characters can inflitrate more easily.

It showed us what regular Fire Nation citizen's thoughts were on in issues like Ozai, the Avatar, and the war. It showed us the kinds of things that would be seen as fun, and that they still did "regular" things. And then we got to see the viewpoint of a soldier in the Fire Nation army...well, okay, from deserters rather than current soldiers, but that's still more than we ever got in the third season in regards to finding out anything about the army other than that they're the guys the characters fight against. As far as I know, "The Deserter" was the closest we ever got to ever making the Fire Nation soldiers anything more than just nameless, motiveless mooks.

I'd say "The Headband" and "The Painted Lady" actually paint a better picture about general life in the fire nation than "The Deserter", and that's despite the fact I think that "The Deserter" is the better episode.

I don't think so, my issue is that I don't think I got anything from "The Headband" I didn't already get from The Deserter. The biggest thing I got out of The Headband is "they have incorrect perceptions of history" but we kinda already got that from The Deserter when we saw how they saw Ozai as a hero with fun stage shows for kids showing that.

"The Painted Lady" does show a little more, but at the same time because it decides to make it entirely about the village that happens to be near the factory that's causing pollution, it doesn't feel like it gives us that much of a big picture of the whole thing. In fact, I don't think they really gave sufficient personality to the villagers outside of that guy doing that unfunny "switching personalities" gag, which didn't tell me anything. "The Deserter" may have shown it about a particular festival, but it used that to show the prevailing attitudes and ideas, as well giving us a real glimpse into Fire Nation culture. "The Painted Lady" is so narrow in what it shows that it doesn't seem to achieve that. And furthermore, it doesn't even seem to succeed that well in showing that this is some kind of side effect of the war, it really seemed more a side effect of industrialization, so the whole thing comes across as more of something out of Captain Planet than something related to Avatar.

But, y'know, as of late I've realized something, and it's something that's been bugging me more and more. It relates to how I felt we never got to see information on the motives of the individual soldiers in the Fire Nation army. This is actually something that kinda bugged me before, but I didn't really figure out what it was until recently: It's how simplistic the relation of the bending power of the citizens is to the nation they live in.

ALL the firebenders are in the Fire Nation. ALL the earthbenders are in the Earth Kingdom. ALL the waterbenders are in the polar regions. ALL the airbenders were living in their temples. Any exceptions are just temporary. Sure, Katara and Aang aren't earthbenders or firebenders and spend time in both nations, but not as actually living there.

The reason this bugs me is that by all rights there should have been plenty of immigration throughout the world's history. There'd have to be some airbenders who didn't like the monastery lifestyle and decided to live in, say, the Fire Nation. There would've definitely been some earthbenders who moved to the Fire Nation for various reasons, and vice versa. And given that bending seems to be somewhat genetic, this should have created plenty of benders of different types in each nation. And because people tend to consider their home the place they grew up in rather than wherever their ancestors came from, this would have produced plenty of non-firebenders living in and loyal to the Fire Nation, plenty of non-earthbenders loyal to and living in the Earth Kingdom, and so on. There have been many times throughout history when someone whose ancestors lived in another country fought against that country because it was an enemy to the country they lived in.

So when war broke out, there should have been plenty of earthbenders who lived in the Fire Nation and were on their side. There should have been plenty of firebenders who lived in the Earth Kingdom and were on their side. There should have also been plenty of waterbenders and airbenders on either side. But that's never displayed.

Maybe you can claim that the Fire Nation was like Nazi Germany in that they considered their bending the superior form in the same way the Nazis thought the Germans were the master race, and as a result they drove away people who would have otherwise considered themselves loyal to the Fire Nation. Well, first, while some people in the Fire Nation thought that, I don't think we were ever given the feeling that that was part of the reason for the war (remember, Sozin started it on the basis that he thought taking over other countries would allow him to share their prosperity, meaning he was thinking of the Fire Nation as a nation, and didn't seem concerned with bending power--sure, he wiped out the airbenders, but he didn't do that because they weren't firebenders, but because he wanted to destroy the next Avatar), nor did we get that strong of a feeling that this was some majority view. People in the Fire Nation were fighting for their country, not their bending power. And even if we accept all of that, that doesn't explain why the other countries didn't have their supply of firebenders.

So by all rights we should've seen plenty of benders who were on the side of countries other than the one where their bending power originated from. Yet we never see that. Instead it's just one bending type in each country. Any firebender who sides with the Earth Kingdom is one that was previously part of the Fire Nation and betrayed them, rather than someone who was already living in the Earth Kingdom and was fighting to protect the country they viewed as their home. The benders in each country being more diverse not only would've made more sense, it would've been great for the issue of motivations, on why people would be fighting against the country that their ancestors were originally from. But we don't get that. And that kinda disappoints me.

[Illieas]

And I've explained several times why bloodbending was not necessary for this. It was yet another thing they spend a fair amount of time setting up (a full episode!) and then it didn't pay off.

and i constantly mention why it was used. imagery to emulate hama and world building on water bending. it was the creepy episode about revenge and bitterness that had a pay off later when the main character emulates the same characteristics to show the wrongness of the situation. could she have drowned him or used a sword or dagger instead? yes but you lose the imagery.

Wrong. A deus ex machina is "an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device." Just because something is explainable doesn't mean it's not a deus ex machina.

alright lets get right to the heart of the issue. I have major qualms with the use of deus ex machina because it implies an ass pull (that it comes from no where and no explaination). it also why it is placed in criticisms of its use. i explained that there are rather logical reason why metal bending was not prevelant and explained that it was logical in it use. it was also not a last resort. you and I could probably write out 5 different ways to get out of cage on a cart with two shady people holding a little girl hostage.

the other point i would use is that she didn't know immediately. it developed over the coarse of the episode. it started from the idea that everything is connected something starting off from the swamp episode. than was expanded on. to say that the earth and metal are only different because we think they are. she did not have the ability at the start. she experimented on the cage first feeling it out. she then moved on to realize that there existed impurities in th metal. then she started to attempt to move it. evetually made it partially move then entirely move.

basically I would compare it to the scenario to a physics major playing a game of pool. say an episode ago he does not win because he shoots straight. he get set up to another game. he starts to practice. he realized after thinking about it hey i can use my physics and apply it to pool. i starts to attempts at changing angles of contact. he find he can produce spin. he keeps at it and using geometry can produce how to get the right placements of the cue. he wins in th end.

if this is the case and it is just logical extentions applied in a different scenario. Then i agree it was deus ex machina and so was escaping the wooden prison with water bending.

Harry Potter is also a book series. Books and TV shows are extremely different mediums. Harry Potter can go about worldbuilding in ways that don't work well on a TV series, and vice versa. The way they can go about having side plots is also different.

i disagree. they are pretty close. except one is visual and the other descriptive. given a infinate budget , imagination, and time. I think every book could be turned into visual media with minimal loss. unless you consider your imagination on the scenario described as an integral part.

But again, you're not seeing my point. If you're limited in showing blood (for all I know they really weren't but just chose to), don't draw attention to that. Don't put in a sword if you can't really do anything with it. Don't bring up this big dilemma about killing if you aren't willing or aren't able to actually force the character to choose one or the other. And, to show I don't only point this kind of stuff out in season three, don't bring up the possibility that you can stop bending by just crushing someone's hands if no character is ever going to try to do that, even in cases where it would make sense (e.g. when Zhao captures Aang). Going farther than usual is fine, but don't do things that only showcase your limitations.

that is meta gaming at this point.
hey kid show it won't have death. hey that character is an audience favorite not going to die ever. does this mean that we should not place them in any precarious situation that they could possibly die but actually won't if you know your cliches right?

crushing a man's hands? we are going into war crimes as possible solution done by our heroes?
also that has been shown to be ineffective. combustion man and iroh and bumi have all shown that crush their hands would do nothing. and remember fire comes from the breath. so unless you stop him from breathing it ain't happening.

But again (I know I keep repeating myself), what we learn are tidbits, trivia. We don't really get to the heart of their characters like we did with Aang and Zuko. You could've had Ty Lee say something about how she used to have a cat when she was a kid in The Beach and it would've told us exactly as much about her character. I'm not saying they should make an entire episode around each secondary character, but if they want to get into their background and motivations, have them give interesting and relevant information in believable ways. Don't just have them all go somewhere and decide to share random facts for no apparent reason

but it was not so random they are at fire. yelling at each other questioning who had it worst. this kinda makes it possible to get to talking back story at that point. it gave tidbits which i consider enough to make them interesting and explain why they are the way they are.

also a cat? what does owning a cat tell you about attention issues. when explainng your sextuplets in a house hold that act about the same, and need to go to the circus where you are in the spotlight. it helped explain why she is that way. A cat does not. they did an inbetween both spectrums of backstory of everything or just focus on the plot.

[Sotharsyl]

@ Lord Seth
You make a lot of good points but for example remember what happened when Zuko switched sides,he lost his firebending I'm not saying that benders are like paladins and once they break a code they're striped of their powers but the proper bending mindset and the culture of the elemental nations are heavily intertwined.

To further analyze the Zuko example the people of the Fire Nation are ambitious,driven and honour bound their benders are even more extreme than the regular population.

For the longest time Zuko's state of mind was "Capture the Avatar,make father proud and restore my honour" these objectives were his ambitions they were his drive he was in the excelent state of mind to firebend.

Then he switched sides he reversed the Avatar goal,threw out the second and he knew that the chance to recover his honour was slim he wasn't being ambitious for himself he was acting out of a perceived duty to the world and his drive was lacking now that he was fighting against his own people he was in no state to firebend.

The Gaang were nice people but they couldn't foster in Zuko the aggressive ambitious nature he used to channel his bending so the whole need for the whole Sun Warriors side quest to discover a alternate take on firebending on which I might rant on how stupid I felt it was another time.

I imagine that for example if a airbender were to leave the monastery for the finner things in life in the FN he would soon discover he hasn't got the prper inner calm to airbend.


Also what you say gets a lot of approval from me the Nations were too separated I mean just station some waterbender healers near the frontline and the EK army gets a huge advantage or at least send the really bad cases but who can handle the trip to the NWT if they won't send the healers out, every soldier matters.

[Lord Seth]

and i constantly mention why it was used. imagery to emulate hama and world building on water bending. it was the creepy episode about revenge and bitterness that had a pay off later when the main character emulates the same characteristics to show the wrongness of the situation. could she have drowned him or used a sword or dagger instead? yes but you lose the imagery.

If that were the goal, then it would've been better to have Katara attack the guy himself with bloodbending rather than some random soldier along the way. Heck, that works better even from a view of escalation. If bloodbending was seen by Katara as some threshold she shouldn't cross (which I felt was a dumb idea created only by making Hama a strawman, but let's never mind that for now), it would have been better for it to be reserved on the guy who killed her mother. The random soldier on the way should've been forced to by threatened drowning, which later escalates to bloodbending when she finds the guy himself before backing off and deciding not to use it.

Still, you do bring up some good points. Bloodbending was, still, however, very poorly used, both in how its story potential was squandered and the strawman nature of Hama, and even if it did have some slight payoff, it ultimately didn't seem enough to justify a whole episode on it. They should've done more with it.

alright lets get right to the heart of the issue. I have major qualms with the use of deus ex machina because it implies an ass pull (that it comes from no where and no explaination).

No, many deus ex machinas or "ass pulls" have explanations. They still come from nowhere, however. Just because something makes sense doesn't mean it is not a deus ex machina or an ass pull, though it often makes an already-existing deus ex machina worse.

For example, if the heroes are all cornered and about to be killed, and then some guy comes out of nowhere and dispatches of the bad guys, explains he's just a wandering vigilante of sorts, and then leaves, that's a deus ex machina. It's explained and seems to make sense, but it still comes out of nowhere, has no setup, and saves them, so it's a deus ex machina.

Though it is unfortunately we're fixating on metalbending so much when it was one of my more minor points.

i disagree. they are pretty close. except one is visual and the other descriptive. given a infinate budget , imagination, and time. I think every book could be turned into visual media with minimal loss.

Not really. Sure, if you made a movie adaptation long enough you could try to get every detail from the book, but it wouldn't be very good because you'd spend so much time getting in details that in a book can be revealed much more quickly. Remember that a visual medium is presented in real time, so to speak, whereas a book is not. This simple fact completely throws off the way stories can be told. That's why movie adaptations have to so frequently make adjustments.

But I wasn't referring to the visual vs. descriptive element. No, I was referring to the issue of installments. A TV series, with its many installments (episodes) is very different from a book with its single installments (the book itself). Chapters in a book aren't analogous to an episode, they're really just something made for the reader's convenience. A book is a lot more like a movie in this respect than a TV series. For the same reason a movie is drastically different than a TV series, a book is drastically different from a TV series. And then there's the fact one is a visual medium while the other is text, bringing a book farther away from a TV series than a movie already is.

But perhaps even more important is the nature of it. Quidditch is interwoven into the story rather than stopping the plot for a while just for it. Heck, look at some of the Quidditch games that have plot purpose I can think of. The third book had the Dementors show up during a game, which incites Harry to try to learn the expecto patronus spell. The first book has the game in which Snape is seen chanting while Harry is having trouble holding onto his broom for some reason, and when they distract him from his chanting the broom no longer has that problem, causing them to suspect that he was trying to kill Harry. I'm sure there are other examples, though I can't think of them offhand. The Quidditch games didn't stop the narrative, it worked alongside it, sometimes even intersecting.

that is meta gaming at this point.
hey kid show it won't have death.

Other kid's shows have (heck, Avatar ITSELF has had death), but never mind that for now.

hey that character is an audience favorite not going to die ever. does this mean that we should not place them in any precarious situation that they could possibly die but actually won't if you know your cliches right?

This can be a problem some series run into. The best way to handle this is to focus on the question of how they'll escape from danger, not if they will. Of course people know that Batman is going to thwart whatever plan he's going up against in Batman: The Animated Series, the suspense is over how he manages to do it.

That's one of the reasons the fact Code Lyoko in its first season failed so terribly whenever it tried to pull the "oh wow! Will Aelita manage to deactivate the tower in time to stop X.A.N.A. from achieving whatever is plan of the episode is?" thing (which it did in nearly every episode). We know X.A.N.A. will be stopped. Cutting back and forth between her deactivating the tower and whatever else is happening does not build suspense because we already know that Aelita's going to deactivate it just in time to stop X.A.N.A. from doing whatever (e.g. trying to shoot a laser at someone from a satellite). This, combined with the relatively repetitive nature of them getting to the towers in the first place, resulted in a lack of suspense. The show should have focused less on "will they succeed" and focused more on "how will they succeed?" in its first season, though it did improve in later seasons.

crushing a man's hands? we are going into war crimes as possible solution done by our heroes?

I don't know if war crimes even exist in the Avatar world, but I was pointing out the fact that none of the villains ever bother with it. But it would have been a way to subdue Ozai, possibly.

also that has been shown to be ineffective. combustion man and iroh and bumi have all shown that crush their hands would do nothing.

The hand-crushing of Iroh was thwarted by Zuko, and I don't remember the others having that happen to them, though you are free to point out any cases I overlooked.

and remember fire comes from the breath. so unless you stop him from breathing it ain't happening.

They were able to defeat Azula by removing the use of her hands. Obviously they didn't crush them or cut them off, but she was breathing fire from her mouth and was still subdued. But even ignoring that, removing the usage of firebending--or any kind of bending--from one's hands might leave firebreathing intact, but still drastically weakens them.

And that still doesn't explain why Zhao didn't take the opportunity when he had Aang captured and at his mercy to do that to Aang's hands. Sure, he didn't kill Aang because he feared it would just cause another Avatar to be reborn, but why not just incapacitate him just in case he escapes, as well as making it harder to escape for him? That's the whole problem, they bring this up, but then even people who are ruthless enough to use it don't.

But I do question the claim that doing so wouldn't stop someone's firebending. From what I remember, we have only seen Azula and Iroh breathe fire, the former of which only did it during the eclipse so maybe she couldn't normally. Iroh says it caused him to be called the dragon of the west, and if any firebender can breathe fire than that name doesn't make sense. So it seems indicated that firebreathing is not that common a skill. But even if it could be done by any firebender, it does not change the fact that any bendings that require hand gestures would be halted. For a comparison, someone can still swordfight if they lose their non-dominant hand, but they'll be much more restricted in what they can do.

Regardless, that whole thing was a relatively minor point of mine anyway. You seem to keep responding to minor points I made.

but it was not so random they are at fire. yelling at each other questioning who had it worst. this kinda makes it possible to get to talking back story at that point. it gave tidbits which i consider enough to make them interesting and explain why they are the way they are.

But the whole setup feels contrived and the dialogue unrealistic. It's basically a forced situation to try to bring out character details, except the details were told just don't really matter as shown by the fact they're never brought up again.

also a cat? what does owning a cat tell you about attention issues.

It doesn't, that's my point. It's trivia about a character that ultimately has no bearing on anything.

To be fair, however, it was slightly more enlightening than that. But it still amounts to "trivia about a character that might be kinda interesting, but is ultimately fairly irrelevant."

[Lord Seth]

@ Lord Seth
You make a lot of good points but for example remember what happened when Zuko switched sides,he lost his firebending I'm not saying that benders are like paladins and once they break a code they're striped of their powers but the proper bending mindset and the culture of the elemental nations are heavily intertwined.

To further analyze the Zuko example the people of the Fire Nation are ambitious,driven and honour bound their benders are even more extreme than the regular population.

For the longest time Zuko's state of mind was "Capture the Avatar,make father proud and restore my honour" these objectives were his ambitions they were his drive he was in the excelent state of mind to firebend.

Then he switched sides he reversed the Avatar goal,threw out the second and he knew that the chance to recover his honour was slim he wasn't being ambitious for himself he was acting out of a perceived duty to the world and his drive was lacking now that he was fighting against his own people he was in no state to firebend.

But all of what was because of Zuko's personal changes, it didn't really have anything to do with him switching nations. As far as I remember, he didn't lose his firebending when he was living in the Earth Kingdom and was a renegade from the Fire Nation.

Or for other examples, Iroh seemed to have no real drive at all through a lot of the series, and he could firebend just fine. Jeong Jeong's defection from the Fire Nation was similar to that of Zuko, and he could still firebend.

Zuko's crisis of firebending seemed to be something that applied to just him, which is reinforced by the fact other firebenders had no problem keeping their firebending despite defections. I'm really not buying that explanation.

The Gaang were nice people but they couldn't foster in Zuko the aggressive ambitious nature he used to channel his bending so the whole need for the whole Sun Warriors side quest to discover a alternate take on firebending on which I might rant on how stupid I felt it was another time.

By all means, rant. I'm curious.

[SuperPanda]

Hello, I'm new to the conversation. I might come back a little late to take my own stance on things like earth>metal bending, blood bending symbolism vs waste of space, season 3 in general, Fire Lord successions and all of that.

On the current theme though, the bending being tied to nations and Firebending vs Sun Warrior bending I'll give my two rock shaped nuts (which might just be rocks).

Bending and nations: The nations are for the most part very geographically separate and travel between them doesn't seem normal or common for civilians. Even within any given country travel from one place to another seemed to be a pretty serious ordeal. In real history, settlements barely as far away as a horse ride could develop wildly different language, culture, fashions and the like. Compared to the distances and difficulties in travel these are nothing. The air nomads seem to be the only "country" with a relatively easy form of travel, but since there is the fact that all air nomads are air benders there is some serious question about how that society works at all (this and the show was dead when we started).

The water tribes are based at the poles, surrounded by their elements where they can use their bending at its most powerful to create worlds that seem pretty happy for them. I wouldn't want to live at the north pole but they seemed pretty happy there. A peasant at the pole doesn't have the resources needed to get to the earth or fire kingdoms and benders at the poles are guaranteed pretty good live through being somewhat vernerated. Earth benders wouldn't have any power at the poles because there is a distinct lack of earth for them to bend. Fire benders are at a disadvantage because the cold limits their heat transference abilities. Air benders seem to be a special case as for them bending appears to have been as much a religion as anything else.

The Earth Kingdom is based in mostly dry and rocky territories, water can be hard to come by, though heat for fire is readily available. Water tribe members wouldn't find their bending of much use in this enviornment for everyday things and so they would need to leave a life of respect for that of being a peasant. Earth benders leaving home would be unlikely to go to the Water tribe, as mentioned before, but also because they don't really have a way to go there. The earth kingdom navy didn't seem all that impressive in the crossing vast oceans department. Earth Kingdom citizens might go to the fire nation, but these two advanced civilizations are both decently militant and likely are generally at a decent degree of strained relationships. Also the Fire Nation seems to be largely split across many islands, getting there would be difficult. The air nomads are again a special case.

The Fire Nation is an advanced civilization with a militaristic background. It is unlikely to trust any newcomer with a position of status. It is also highly feudal in nature meaning that new comers would be, at best, peasants. Water Benders could probably help the Fire Nation a good deal given its place on islands, but a distrust of outsiders and the big differences in how Fire and Water bending translates to philosophy makes them both unlikely to work with each other. See above for the Earth Kingdom. The Air Nomads are a special case.

The Air Nomads. Thing is, they are sort of like the Jedi from the original star wars trilogy. We know that they are good and wise, but we don't really know much about them other than that the last of their order will restore balance. They were a people composed 100% of benders and of monks. This is a head-scratcher because we see with Sokka and Katara that bending is not guaranteed to pass on to children. So non benders had to go somewhere else and this somewhere else wasn't part of the community. The only way this makes sense (and it doesn't) is if Air Nomads took mates from other countries and then the benders became monks and the normal people didn't. This opens the door for, there should be many more air benders out there who aren't monks. The other way is if the wise and peaceful air benders simply killed all the non-bender babies. Thing is, we'll never know.

Travel wasn't common or easy prior to the current war as far as we can tell, so immigration isn't likely to have been common or easy. Since the other nations don't have a big reason to want other benders (who might be spies) in their ranks anyways, the initial immigrants would have a very hard time of it and wouldn't have an incentive to leave home... this point makes sense to me (with the exception of airbenders who I try not to think about).

Sun Warriors - it made an interesting point about how firebending is suppose to be about bending light and heat, about bending an essential element of life, but the military forces of the war-mad firelords have turned it into bending death and destruction. Fire more obviously than the other elements, is both life and death, but like many in the fire nation Zuko only knew how to use it for Death. Iroh is one of the few who understands that its power comes from life and uses it thusly and that is what makes him so strong. Azula simply embraced the cold calm of death at its full potential.

[Dr.Epic]

Avatar State! Yip! Yip!

Also, I don't care what anybody says, Sparky Sparky Boom Man was awesome. I really hope he survived that fall because he's the man and he has a badass power. I want to see him come back. I also hope Sokka's space sword returns. I hope he doesn't find it. I just hope in Legend of Korra there's a vender selling some sword he claims fell from the sky and is made out of an odd metal and the main characters just call it a piece of junk and move on without buying it and we never see it again. That'd be a hilarious Easter Egg!

[Lord Seth]

Bending and nations: The nations are for the most part very geographically separate and travel between them doesn't seem normal or common for civilians.

You could maybe make that claim for the Water Tribe or Air Nomads, but the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom have a huge border and are right next to each other. And the Air Nomads can travel around pretty easily.

Do remember, though, that the Water Tribe has settlements on the north and south pole. If they've got the traveling capability to get from one side of the world to the other, they definitely can go part of the way to one of the other nations.

Earth Kingdom citizens might go to the fire nation, but these two advanced civilizations are both decently militant and likely are generally at a decent degree of strained relationships.

In the present day, yes, but it has been said that beforehand the nations lived in harmony. And that's the time period (the lengthy time period) I'm referring to.

The Fire Nation is an advanced civilization with a militaristic background.

Was there ever any indication that it was particularly militaristic before the war?

It is unlikely to trust any newcomer with a position of status. It is also highly feudal in nature meaning that new comers would be, at best, peasants.

Speculation. Yes, the Fire Nation is a monarchy, but I do not recall seeing evidence that it is "highly feudal."

Water Benders could probably help the Fire Nation a good deal given its place on islands, but a distrust of outsiders and the big differences in how Fire and Water bending translates to philosophy makes them both unlikely to work with each other. See above for the Earth Kingdom.

The series, as far as I can remember, displays no evidence of "distrust of outsiders" from any of the nations prior to the war. Heck, Katara's "the four nations lived together in harmony" voice over at the start of every episode is evidence of the opposite.

The Air Nomads. Thing is, they are sort of like the Jedi from the original star wars trilogy. We know that they are good and wise, but we don't really know much about them other than that the last of their order will restore balance. They were a people composed 100% of benders and of monks. This is a head-scratcher because we see with Sokka and Katara that bending is not guaranteed to pass on to children. So non benders had to go somewhere else and this somewhere else wasn't part of the community. The only way this makes sense (and it doesn't) is if Air Nomads took mates from other countries and then the benders became monks and the normal people didn't.

The issue of the Air Nomads all being benders was a bit of an annoyance, but I guess you can handwave it by saying that airbending is 100% guaranteed to be passed on (which actually raises its own series of questions). But why would they need to take mates from other countries? We know there are female airbenders by the fact that the previous airbending Avatar was female.

But again, the whole fact that the Air Nomads did seem to live in a particular lifestyle leads to the issue of what happened if anyone didn't happen to want to do that and wanted to live somewhere else. That's exactly why by all rights some airbenders should've decided to strike out on their own and live in the other countries.

Travel wasn't common or easy prior to the current war as far as we can tell,

And it wasn't rare or difficult prior to the current war as far as we can tell either.

so immigration isn't likely to have been common or easy. Since the other nations don't have a big reason to want other benders (who might be spies) in their ranks anyways,

The fact they'd be getting bending powers they wouldn't have normally and would be extremely useful isn't a big reason?

The "might be spies" part seems odd also, given that we really haven't seen indication that there would be mistrust between the nations before the war, as I have stated previously.

On a less argumentative note, you should all check out this if you haven't already.

[thubby]

combustion man had a cool power but he was as much a character as the moving wall of death in videogames.

[Yora]

Oh he had character. It was just all in body language and his face.
Not much, but he is kind of unique.

[T-O-E]

Iroh says it caused him to be called the dragon of the west, and if any firebender can breathe fire than that name doesn't make sense.

Wasn't he given the Dragon title because he said he killed the last two dragons? Seems like a retcon.

[DomaDoma]

Wasn't he given the Dragon title because he said he killed the last two dragons? Seems like a retcon.

Nah, I think it was just a kind of badass line when he said it towards the end of the second season.

Also, Zuko melts ice with his breath at some point, I'm pretty sure.

[ZombyWoof]

Nah, I think it was just a kind of badass line when he said it towards the end of the second season.

Personally here's what I think:

"Dragon of the West" means he's earned the title "Dragon" which means (in theory) he's defeated a dragon with firebending. So I think when he was like, "Let me show you why they call me the Dragon of the West" he was saying "Let me show you how much better at firebending I am than you could ever hope to be... scrub."

Also, Zuko melts ice with his breath at some point, I'm pretty sure.

Also, Iroh invented Lightning Redirection... and no one has shot flames out of their mouth like Iroh did until Azula during Sozin's Comet.

[DomaDoma]

I'm not saying Iroh isn't a more powerful firebender than Zuko. That'd be silly. I'm just saying that firebending being in the breath is probably a universal concept.

[Zjoot]

Yeah, I think we've seen a lot of firebenders breathing fire. Even Aang does when he's learning firebending from Zuko at the beginning of the finalle

[ZombyWoof]

Rewatching Avatar:

Iroh manages to hold off the Dai Li, Zuko, and Azula. All at once. Also when running from Azula he creates lightning to blow a hole in a wall. We don't see how quickly he generates it but it had to be pretty quick...

I'm confident in saying that Iroh is probably better than Ozai... and is probably the most powerful non-avatar-state firebender we ever see.

EDIT: Also, Katara starts off season 3 by being a total person who deserves to be slapped in the face for being a jerk to her father. Her dad's like, "Oh, hi Aang! You're the Avatar? I'm Katara and Sokka's dad!" And she's like, "GTFO SCRUB! WHO ARE YOU TO TALK TO HIM! I HATE YOU!" Then Aang is like, "... why are you mad at your dad?" Katara's all, "I'm not mad."

Also Aang flips out when Sokka explains that everyone thinks Aang's dead. What a bloody freak. Pay attention son: element of surprise.

[thubby]

EDIT: Also, Katara starts off season 3 by being a total person who deserves to be slapped in the face for being a jerk to her father. Her dad's like, "Oh, hi Aang! You're the Avatar? I'm Katara and Sokka's dad!" And she's like, "GTFO SCRUB! WHO ARE YOU TO TALK TO HIM! I HATE YOU!" Then Aang is like, "... why are you mad at your dad?" Katara's all, "I'm not mad."

katara feels her father abandoned her. considering what happened, it's perfectly understandable, and quite human.
her rational mind knows he didnt and that he's a soldier, so she was conflicted.

believe it or not, her reaction is pretty normal (though not rational, humans generally aren't when it comes to this sort of thing).

she's also 14, her father left when she was, what, 6? her father hasn't been around for 1/2 her life, and very little of what she'd be conscious of.

[ZombyWoof]

katara feels her father abandoned her. considering what happened, it's perfectly understandable, and quite human.
her rational mind knows he didnt and that he's a soldier, so she was conflicted.

believe it or not, her reaction is pretty normal (though not rational, humans generally aren't when it comes to this sort of thing)

It's not normal at all. They've been out with each other for weeks and it hadn't come up or been resolved before the start of season 3 and it takes Hakkoda like three seconds to resolve the issue.

It was really, really stupid and set the tone for Season 3: a bunch of rushed nonesense that didn't really flow from itself.

[Partysan]

Just to jump in regarding the all-air-nomads-are-benders thing: the official explanation for this is that, while genetics seem to determine which element you can bend (although they never bother to explain how the first human benders were able to learn by imitation) your own level of spirituality determines if you can actually bend and how strong your bending is.
While in other nations there were varying amounts of benders, the fire nation having the lowest and the water tribes the second highest rates of benders, the air nomad due to their highly spiritual lifestyle as monks etc. did pretty much universally reach the neccessary level of spirituality to be benders.
There's other problems with the Air Nomads that I'd like to have adressed, e.g. how they could have children when men and women were in different temples...

[John Cribati]

There's other problems with the Air Nomads that I'd like to have adressed, e.g. how they could have children when men and women were in different temples...

Aang was at the Eastern Air temple when he got Appa. Whether this was before or after he moved to the Southern, that implies that either an entourage of Monks went to the Eastern, or an entourage of Nuns went to the Southern. More likely the first. Kids are all distracted by their cute furry animals, adults are off boning.

[Lord Seth]

Nah, I think it was just a kind of badass line when he said it towards the end of the second season.

I don't remember the exact quote, but Iroh says something along the lines of "allow me to show you why I was called the Dragon of the West" and then breathes fire.

On the subject of Combustion Man, to me he seemed to be taking all the worst parts of Ozai and making them even worse while getting rid of the few things that were at least kinda interesting about Ozai. Even if Ozai didn't seem to have much of a motivation to take over the world, at least his actions seemed fairly consistent with that goal. At first, it seems Combustion Man is trying to kill Aang because he's paid to do it, fair enough. It's not very well done, they could've done a lot more to develop him as a mercenary, but it's something. But then that's thrown out the window when Zuko offers to pay him more money to leave Aang alone, and he refuses for no apparent reason. Which is just more emblematic about the problem with him: He's not a character. He's just a plot device that just does whatever the writers want him to do. I've complained about Ozai's lack of personality, but he at least was a character, even if a highly generic one. Combustion Man doesn't even qualify as that.

[John Cribati]

@ Combustion Man: Here's what someone watching for the first time had to say about him:

Look, Combustion Man scares me. His silence is eerie, his tenacity is unsettling, and his powers of fire bending outright horrify me. There’s almost no sense of his character, so there’s no emotional point to exploit. He exists to assassinate, as if he’s a robot, and to me, that makes him the worst foe Team Avatar has ever faced. They have nothing to go on. No weaknesses, no motivations, no dialogue, NOTHING AT ALL.

He hasn't gotten to The Western Air Temple yet (in fact, he'll get to it tomorrow) so I don't know if that opinion will change. But so far, his opinion of season 3 was "good, but not mind-blowingly so." The only episode so far he had a problem with was The Beach, and his only complaint was that they vandalized that poor kid's house.

Link for the Curious

[ZombyWoof]

I don't remember the exact quote, but Iroh says something along the lines of "allow me to show you why I was called the Dragon of the West" and then breathes fire.

"Do you know how I got the nickname, "The Dragon of the West?""

"I don't have time for a boring anecdote, uncle."

"It's more of a demonstration, really."

Then he proceeds to hold of Azula, Azula's friends, and the Dai Li with a combination of breathing fire and shooting lightning.

Also: The Beach has some of the greatest fan service ever in the form of Ty Lee playing volleyball XD

Also the Beach has some of the greatest character development outside the Gaang.

EDIT: The Avatar and the Firelord, one of the best and best-named episodes.

[Zjoot]

But then that's thrown out the window when Zuko offers to pay him more money to leave Aang alone, and he refuses for no apparent reason.

I thought it was pretty obvious he was out for revenge after being whooped in "The Runaway."

[Bobikus]

I thought it was pretty obvious he was out for revenge after being whooped in "The Runaway."

Pretty much. Likely a matter of pride/revenge after the Avatar got away from him twice.

[Bunny Earz]

Wow I'm am so sorry I've been gone so long. I'll try to respond to every thing.

Yeah, I think we've seen a lot of firebenders breathing fire. Even Aang does when he's learning firebending from Zuko at the beginning of the finalle

Although you never seem to see them doing that in the beginning episodes...

Rewatching Avatar:

Iroh manages to hold off the Dai Li, Zuko, and Azula. All at once. Also when running from Azula he creates lightning to blow a hole in a wall. We don't see how quickly he generates it but it had to be pretty quick...

I'm confident in saying that Iroh is probably better than Ozai... and is probably the most powerful non-avatar-state firebender we ever see.

Iroh is pretty powerful and I completely agree!

EDIT: Also, Katara starts off season 3 by being a total person who deserves to be slapped in the face for being a jerk to her father. Her dad's like, "Oh, hi Aang! You're the Avatar? I'm Katara and Sokka's dad!" And she's like, "GTFO SCRUB! WHO ARE YOU TO TALK TO HIM! I HATE YOU!" Then Aang is like, "... why are you mad at your dad?" Katara's all, "I'm not mad."

Well I don't know. If your father just up and left you without a mother wouldn't you be upset?

Also Aang flips out when Sokka explains that everyone thinks Aang's dead. What a bloody freak. Pay attention son: element of surprise.

Well he felt like he had failed the world and everyone thought so too.

katara feels her father abandoned her. considering what happened, it's perfectly understandable, and quite human.
her rational mind knows he didnt and that he's a soldier, so she was conflicted.

believe it or not, her reaction is pretty normal (though not rational, humans generally aren't when it comes to this sort of thing).

she's also 14, her father left when she was, what, 6? her father hasn't been around for 1/2 her life, and very little of what she'd be conscious of.

And that is what I would do too. I would be pretty mad.

It's not normal at all. They've been out with each other for weeks and it hadn't come up or been resolved before the start of season 3 and it takes Hakkoda like three seconds to resolve the issue.

It was really, really stupid and set the tone for Season 3: a bunch of rushed nonesense that didn't really flow from itself.

I thought it would make perfect sense. It just got resolved after Aang left because she finally told her father what was up.

Just to jump in regarding the all-air-nomads-are-benders thing: the official explanation for this is that, while genetics seem to determine which element you can bend (although they never bother to explain how the first human benders were able to learn by imitation) your own level of spirituality determines if you can actually bend and how strong your bending is.
While in other nations there were varying amounts of benders, the fire nation having the lowest and the water tribes the second highest rates of benders, the air nomad due to their highly spiritual lifestyle as monks etc. did pretty much universally reach the neccessary level of spirituality to be benders.
There's other problems with the Air Nomads that I'd like to have adressed, e.g. how they could have children when men and women were in different temples...

Hmmm... Puzzling...

Aang was at the Eastern Air temple when he got Appa. Whether this was before or after he moved to the Southern, that implies that either an entourage of Monks went to the Eastern, or an entourage of Nuns went to the Southern. More likely the first. Kids are all distracted by their cute furry animals, adults are off boning.

That is a lovely thing to say...

I don't remember the exact quote, but Iroh says something along the lines of "allow me to show you why I was called the Dragon of the West" and then breathes fire.

Yes, but then later he says that he got the title: Dragon, because he killed a dragon (or everyone thought he did.

On the subject of Combustion Man, to me he seemed to be taking all the worst parts of Ozai and making them even worse while getting rid of the few things that were at least kinda interesting about Ozai. Even if Ozai didn't seem to have much of a motivation to take over the world, at least his actions seemed fairly consistent with that goal. At first, it seems Combustion Man is trying to kill Aang because he's paid to do it, fair enough. It's not very well done, they could've done a lot more to develop him as a mercenary, but it's something. But then that's thrown out the window when Zuko offers to pay him more money to leave Aang alone, and he refuses for no apparent reason. Which is just more emblematic about the problem with him: He's not a character. He's just a plot device that just does whatever the writers want him to do. I've complained about Ozai's lack of personality, but he at least was a character, even if a highly generic one. Combustion Man doesn't even qualify as that.

Yes, but Combustian man didn't want to stop because it got personal after Aang hit his head with a pebble.

@ Combustion Man: Here's what someone watching for the first time had to say about him:

Look, Combustion Man scares me. His silence is eerie, his tenacity is unsettling, and his powers of fire bending outright horrify me. There’s almost no sense of his character, so there’s no emotional point to exploit. He exists to assassinate, as if he’s a robot, and to me, that makes him the worst foe Team Avatar has ever faced. They have nothing to go on. No weaknesses, no motivations, no dialogue, NOTHING AT ALL.

That's what I thought at first...

He hasn't gotten to The Western Air Temple yet (in fact, he'll get to it tomorrow) so I don't know if that opinion will change. But so far, his opinion of season 3 was "good, but not mind-blowingly so." The only episode so far he had a problem with was The Beach, and his only complaint was that they vandalized that poor kid's house.

Link for the Curious

Ya that was a nice house

"Do you know how I got the nickname, "The Dragon of the West?""

"I don't have time for a boring anecdote, uncle."

"It's more of a demonstration, really."

Then he proceeds to hold of Azula, Azula's friends, and the Dai Li with a combination of breathing fire and shooting lightning.

True, impressive but I don't remember any lightning. I'll have to rewatch it.

Also: The Beach has some of the greatest fan service ever in the form of Ty Lee playing volleyball XD

Also the Beach has some of the greatest character development outside the Gaang.

Exactly what I've been trying to say. You really learn a lot about them.

EDIT: The Avatar and the Firelord, one of the best and best-named episodes.

I thought it was clever but not the best.

I thought it was pretty obvious he was out for revenge after being whooped in "The Runaway."

Exactly...

[Lord Seth]

I think the thing with season 3 is that a lot of its flaws aren't apparent until you finish watching; this is especially true with the buildups with no adequate payoff. My opinion of The Boiling Rock has lessened somewhat now that I know that they did absolutely nothing with Sokka and Katara's father after they spent all that time rescuing the guy; ditto with Sokka's Master, which at the time I thought was a decent enough episode (though maybe that was because it came after The Painted Lady and shined just by comparison) but after finishing the season I can realize how little it really mattered. Some issues, like just how much filler there was, were obvious even while watching, but being able to look back just makes me realize that even the things that it seemed was worthwhile in the filler ended up not meaning much of anything. I was bored by Combustion Man when I first saw the season, but it was only later that it became obvious that he was just a plot device and not even a character.

[Bobikus]

Combustion Man is the best character.

[Lord Seth]

To be fair, Combustion Man could've worked perfectly fine as a one-episode villain. If they had taken all of the stuff from his various appearances and put it into one episode, it actually could've been pretty cool. But as a recurring villain, he fails pretty terribly.