Current Events > I'm watching Avatar: The Last Airbender

(+) Yeah! (+)

SableWolfAngel posted...

I meant TLA. It's quite the emotional experience. But before that, you have GOT to tell me how you react to The Ember Island Players. It's the last episode before the finale and is the best executed recap episode I've ever seen in a series.

Wooo! Will do.
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I'm up to the Beach episode (I watched a few last night).

Dangit, I don't want to like this evil lady, she's too evil. Stop making her likable.
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Avatar is truly a sublime show. Like season 1 starts off fairly kid-oriented but it truly evolves into a mature themed show. The lore and animation are awesome are there are so many genuinely touching moments. It's mwah.

You like Azula? I think she's legitimately sociopathic. But she's aware of it and almost wishes she could have empathy. Kinda sad.
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C_Pain posted...

Avatar is truly a sublime show. Like season 1 starts off fairly kid-oriented but it truly evolves into a mature themed show. The lore and animation are awesome are there are so many genuinely touching moments. It's mwah.

True that.

C_Pain posted...

You like Azula? I think she's legitimately sociopathic. But she's aware of it and almost wishes she could have empathy. Kinda sad.

I think she's a good villain - and this episode did a good job of making her more human. I like Zuko more though, even though he's whiny haha.
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DuneMan posted...

The death of the voice actor Mako occurred around that time. I forget if it impacted Iroh's story or not, but the character was conspicuously silent toward the end IIRC.

They say they always planned for the silent treatment in season 3 but I dunno.

Stalolin posted...

Stop making her likable.

I don't find anything about her likeable at all.
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Does he end up not saying a single word this season?
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Him in jail is for a few episodes but he does talk and has classic Iroh dialogue. You can honestly tell it's a different guy, and he does a fair job, but sadly it doesn't have the same charm as Mako's voice honestly. S3 is so fucking good. The next episode you have is one of my favorites of the series.
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Also I'm a little confused. The Avatar gets re-incarnated, so why can he still talk to Roku and other past Avatars? Wouldn't that just be like... talking to yourself?
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They go into that in Korra actually. Without spoiling... it's both a reincarnation and a transference of the 'avatar spirit'. The new person is the avatar/has the spirit, but the spirit remembers the past individuals that it inhabited.
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legend of korra is a fine show
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Stalolin posted...

Does he end up not saying a single word this season?

There's less of him this season but yes he still talks at times.
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I love Zuko so much as a character. Definitely my favorite of the show.
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Hm... I never found Azula likable. Like others have said, she's legit crazy. You'd be much better off hanging out with her friend, Tai Lee(if I remember the name correctly). The interplay between Zuko with Azula and Ozai is nice though, and helps illustrate the overall philosophy of the Fire Nation: as directed by Ozai.
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Woo Aang kissed Katara. Yee boi. Although she didn't seem super into it.
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The Ember Island Players

Great episode! I wish I had some insightful comments, but there isn't much more to it than that haha. I really enjoyed it. Although I do wish Katara and Aang would just like, be a thing. Gurl plz.
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Finished! I'll do a proper write up of my thoughts and whatnot tomorrow, and probably start Korra.

Swear to gawd if Katara and Aang didn't hook up at the end I'd have been pissed.
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I know, right?! I just love the way Toph uses sonic waves to "see" people by screaming at the top of her lungs. Such a useful ability! And I didn't know Sokka was a Meatbender! It must be a secret 5th element...
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Speaking of secret bending techniques, how about Katara and bloodbending... it makes you wonder if other elements could have forbidden techniques like that.... Perhaps earthbenders could rip iron out of one's blood forcibly or firebenders could ignite an enemy's breath inside their lungs, burning them from the inside out. The world of Avatar gets a fair bit grimmer if you start thinking about stuff like that...
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DuneMan posted...

Perhaps earthbenders could rip iron out of one's blood forcibly

I don't think even the most powerful earthbenders could manage that. Bloodbending works because of the sheer amount of blood in the average human body, and even that is only possible when waterbenders are at their absolute strongest (under a full moon). Granted, there are a few waterbenders that can do it even without the full moon because of some quirk that isn't really explained, but still.

Earthbending works by affecting mineral particles, which are present in small quantities in most refined metals, hence being able to bend metals. In LoK, the Equalists use platinum for their mechs because earthbenders can't bend the metal (it's too pure and there are too few mineral particles). Going off of that, I very much doubt that the human body has enough stone/mineral particles to be affected by earthbending.

or firebenders could ignite an enemy's breath inside their lungs, burning them from the inside out

This one might be possible, but I doubt it. Standard air is not flammable itself (or else the entire atmosphere would ignite from a single spark). If there was somehow pure oxygen in someone's lungs, then maybe it could happen.

Skip Korra. It retcons a lot of stuff in a hamfisted way and she gets everything handed to her by being an awful person.

Aside from the lion turtle probably needing more foreshadowing, I always think that that story resolution of Aang taking away Ozai's powers is brilliant.
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Yeah, on second thought the amount of metallic elements contained in the human body is relatively low.

The whole concept of firebending though is producing flame by igniting breath. We also see detonations created at range. With enough practice a technique to ignite the lungs of your enemy should certainly be possible.
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That's true.

Bump - gonna do my write up in a bit, just been at the beach today.
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Rexdragon125 posted...

Skip Korra. It retcons a lot of stuff in a hamfisted way and she gets everything handed to her by being an awful person.

Honest question here: do you consider Rey from the new Star Wars movies to be a Mary Sue?
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masterpug53 posted...

Rexdragon125 posted...

Skip Korra. It retcons a lot of stuff in a hamfisted way and she gets everything handed to her by being an awful person.

Honest question here: do you consider Rey from the new Star Wars movies to be a Mary Sue?

Honest question here: are you going to dismiss any such concerns as being sexist if he says yes?
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Azula is my favourite character in the whole of ATLA tbh... The rest are great but I think the agni kai with Zuko and her complete breakdown propelled her to the top of my favs.
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7 7Sir Will posted...

masterpug53 posted...

Rexdragon125 posted...

Skip Korra. It retcons a lot of stuff in a hamfisted way and she gets everything handed to her by being an awful person.

Honest question here: do you consider Rey from the new Star Wars movies to be a Mary Sue?

Honest question here: are you going to dismiss any such concerns as being sexist if he says yes?

If someone is of a mind to dismiss a 'flawless' female protagonist like Rey with one hand and then reject a deliberately flawed female protagonist like Korra with the other - while at the same time complaining that a chronically struggling character like Korra 'gets everything handed to her' when a protagonist like Aang has all of his major physical and spiritual challenges solved for him by fishzillas and phoenix down water and lion turtles and such - then yes, I might reasonably surmise that this person has a more deep-seated problem with female protagonists in general.
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I've only seen the first season and a half of Korra. I need to finish as I hear 3 and 4 are better. In 1 she was kind of annoying, whiney, but not too bad. But the ending was a little unsatisfying. In season 2... well she's just a huge bitch. She's too flawed imo and just not very likeable.
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Haven't seen the new Star Wars. Don't be upset at me that Korra is just an unlikeable person lol. Korra lost the writer they had for Airbender and it really shows.

C_Pain posted...

They go into that in Korra actually. Without spoiling... it's both a reincarnation and a transference of the 'avatar spirit'. The new person is the avatar/has the spirit, but the spirit remembers the past individuals that it inhabited.

And then it all gets ruined when Korra severs the line of past Avatars. It's honestly really tragic that the next Avatar will only be able to seek guidance from Korra.

It's sad that the best episodes of Korra almost completely exclude her from the plot. Avatar Wan needs his own series.
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Sir Will posted...

I've only seen the first season and a half of Korra. I need to finish as I hear 3 and 4 are better. In 1 she was kind of annoying, whiney, but not too bad. But the ending was a little unsatisfying. In season 2... well she's just a huge bitch. She's too flawed imo and just not very likeable.

That does explain a good bit. I love LoK as much as TLA, but while there are some gems to be found in LoK Book 2, even I couldn't / wouldn't defend it as a whole. It was a major misstep that tried way too hard to recapture some of the worst elements of TLA Book 1 instead of moving forward with its own identity. Blessedly, Books 3 and 4 get things back on the right track.

So I beg you not to judge neither Korra nor the show as a whole until you've seen the whole series. I imagine it would be very hard to be disappointed with Book 3.
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Book 2 of LoK is the major low point for the entire series. Books 3 and 4 are MUCH better, especially Book 3.

Second half of book 2 is fine. Stop lying.
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SageHarpuia posted...

Whatever you do, don't watch TLoK.

This is the worst advice ever. LoK is different, but it's good on its own merits
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Korra is, quite honestly, the worst thing about her own show. Almost all of the other characters were good, even great, if mishandled (Mako and Bolin), but Korra herself is grating and largely unlikeable.

It's villains had issues, too. I just woke up one day able to airbend and I'm a master of it instantly! And then my girlfriend died so I decided I don't care and now I can fly! and I'm going to reconquer and enslave the Earth Kingdom for reasons and build super weapons and people will like me for it! And the finale with essentially the Anti-Avatar and the glowing giants duking it out in the bay was really stupid.

Amon was pretty good, though. Actually, I think he was really good, but I might be misremembering.
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zaheer's whole gimmick was about true freedom, the whole "let go of your earthly tether" stuff was some quoteby that one airbender who achieved flight, his girlfriend was the only thing was the only thing he was attached to and as soon as she died he accepted her death quickly
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Amon wasn't that bad, but Kuvira was the worst villain in the franchise.
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thisisboris2 posted...

zaheer's whole gimmick was about true freedom, the whole "let go of your earthly tether" stuff was some quoteby that one airbender who achieved flight, his girlfriend was the only thing was the only thing he was attached to and as soon as she died he accepted her death quickly

Zaheer's "whole gimmick" was dumb and hamfisted.
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Ryo_the_Inferno posted...

Korra is, quite honestly, the worst thing about her own show. Almost all of the other characters were good, even great, if mishandled (Mako and Bolin), but Korra herself is grating and largely unlikeable.

Couldn't disagree more strongly with this. What sets TLA and LoK apart is that while the former has a strong supporting cast (quite a bit moreso than the protagonist, even), while LoK is quite opposite. I could write quite a bit on why I believe Korra is the character who is most well-developed and worthy of investment across both series, but I'd rather keep this short for a number of reasons (not the least of which being this topic will likely purge in a few days).

Instead I'll just touch on the issue of her being unlikeable. Personally I found her ability to wear her heart completely on her sleeve to be incredibly refreshing, but of course your mileage may vary and there's several facets of her character than can put her on the range from lovable to intolerable. So I will counter that being unlikeable certainly doesn't bar one from being a deep and worthwhile character. Let's consider another character for a moment: pompous, arrogant, immature, thoroughly unlikeable, routinely shits on the good people around him, and shortsightedly spurns a golden opportunity for redemption. Now I can't imagine you're going to tell me that Zuko isn't one the best characters in both series. IMO, nobody in either series grows, fails, suffers, and learns more than Korra, and it is exactly her bratty immaturity from the start that makes her growth feel more worthwhile.

Unfortunately, LoK's Team Avatar 2.0 falls short. If I were making a top 10 best-character list from both series, Korra would be at the top, but Tenzin or Lin would break in at 7 or 8 at best. Asami is the biggest instance of missed potential. Unlike the rest of the internet, I'm perfectly fine with a female character having daddy issues as a major motivator, and in Book 1 this is mostly great. But this is just about the only development her character has throughout the rest of the series. Even in Book 1 she uses every chance she can get to tie whatever unrelated subject is at hand back to her father. But the real crime of her missed potential is how she fails to innovate her combat and tech. This may sound a bit shallow on my part, but one of the underlying themes in both series (and especially in LoK) is how an ancient spiritual being like the Avatar struggles to maintain relevance in an industrializing world. There's really no excuse for Asami to be rocking the exact same shock glove for the entire series; she should be constantly developing steampunk Iron Man suits or similar new and exciting tech to give non-benders a competitive edge. This would also brew some interesting friction between Korra and Asami, as two people who care deeply about each other yet their careers set them at odds.

Bolin is, at his best moments, a poor man's Sokka. At his worst, his jokes comes dangerously close to derailing whatever momentum is building in a scene. His best character development never extends beyond a more nebulous cautionary tale against throwing one's hat in with smooth-talking moguls and obvious facists.

Can't really give a solid critique of Mako, honestly, because I haven't thought about him in awhile. Good character but not great imo, and unfortunately gets dragged down by the characters he's often saddled with, like those two idiot detectives in Book 2 and fucking Prince Wu in Book 4.

As I hinted at before, if you want solid supporting characters in LoK, you have to look to the middle generation - Tenzin, Lin, Suyin, and to a lesser extent Bumi and Kya. All of them grow, have a few deep moments, and offer meaningful insight into what it's like to live in the shadow of their world's Greatest Generation.
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OK!

I loved The Last Airbender! Like, wow. I wish I had stuck with it earlier. It's a show with really tight story structure (even most of the filler episodes usually have characters or concepts that come back in some way), amazing characters, and so much heart.

Like I said earlier, it really reminded me of GoldenSun with the four elements and the bending and whatnot. It also clearly takes a lot of inspiration from various Asian cultures. I think I heard somewhere they consulted a lot of martial arts experts for choreography and inspiration for bending techniques. There's so much cool stuff you can do with concepts like that and it worked out well because the action is amazing.

I think Sokka and Katara are my favourite characters. They each have great arcs. Also Aappa because he's fluffy and derpy. I enjoy Sokka's in particular. He's always funny but at his core he's very unsure of himself, but projects a lot of cockiness. I really enjoyed his episode with the sword training master. Of course there's also Zuko, who turned out to be great as well, largely thanks to Iroh, who is one of the best characters I've seen in anything ever. Two of my favourite scenes from the show feature him. The Leaves From The Vine in Tales of Ba Sing Se, where I cried like a little girl, and during his speech to Zuko when he's about to set Aappa free.

Given that this show is on Nickelodeon, I think it would have been so easy for it to be mediocre. For it to be too jokey, to pander too much to small children, for it to shy away from heartfelt moments, but it doesn't, which is itself a pretty amazing achievement.

As I said before, there's a lot of heart. One of the moments that still sticks with me is Toph and Sokka talking about Katara and how strong she is, while she's chilling in the lake underneath them and can hear every word. I like to write fiction in my spare time and it kind of makes me depressed because all the characters are so fleshed out and they show themselves and what they're about in just about every interaction, and you end up with awesome moments like that.

Although I am still really confused about the nature of that lion turtle dude.

That's about all I have at the moment. I'll probably watch the whole series again in the near future. Also I'm on to Korra soon. I'm seeing many mixed reactions in this topic, haha.
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Stalolin posted...

I'm seeing many mixed reactions in this topic, haha.

Just know that it's not near as good as TLA but that doesn't mean it's bad. We all agree that the two-parter in book 2 was fucking amazing and all of book 3 was TLA quality.
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Ryo_the_Inferno posted...

I just woke up one day able to airbend and I'm a master of it instantly!

The sign of the ignorant viewer. He already was a scholar of the Air Nomads, he incorporated their lifestyle in his life. How is it a stretch that after the Harmonic Convergence that his extensive studies led to him grasping airbending fairly quickly? And we also don't know how much time passed.
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Do you all think there will be a third series?
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@Stalolin My man, great summary :D I'm overdue for a rewatch of both series myself, and I'm itching to get started (though to be honest, there's always a part of me that just wants to skip TLA Book 1 and dive right into 2, but that ultimately wouldn't feel right).

Though I'm a bit miffed that you didn't mention the single greatest moment across both series: Zuko and Iroh's reunion hug. I tear up just thinking about it. It's also a bit ironic to me that in a series built on eastern culture and mythology, its best moment finds root in a biblical parable.

Stalolin posted...

I think Sokka and Katara are my favourite characters.

While I'd still personally put Korra, Zuko and Iroh above them, it's a damn close race. Sokka in particular has a special place in my heart - I can't think of many characters who start out as comic relief but then grow and earn my investment quite like him. Sokka's Master and Boiling Rock 1 and 2 are two of my favorite eps in the series for this reason.

Although I am still really confused about the nature of that lion turtle dude.

In TLA's self-contained context, he's just a big pile of deus ex machina, both literally and figuratively. LoK expands on them a good bit, though.

Also I'm on to Korra soon. I'm seeing many mixed reactions in this topic, haha.

It's a very divisive show, no two ways about that. Judging by your above post, I think you will end up enjoying it overall. I'm definitely curious to read how you feel about it. Just don't let Book 2 dissuade you from finishing out the series ^^
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ItsVinceRusso posted...

Do you all think there will be a third series?

I would be thrilled, but I'm not holding my breath. LoK was divisive enough that it'd probably be hard to pitch a 3rd series, but that's just a guess on my part.

Can't imagine it being on Nickelodeon though, considering how Nick treated LoK Book 3 and 4, slashing the budget and forcing them to air online-only. I have to assume that should an Earth-Avatar series arise, the showrunners will want to keep the progression of TLA > LoK in terms of mature subject matter, and I'm still baffled that Nick let them get away with some of LoK's content.
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I think a prequel series would be cool. Showcasing the life of Kyoshi and her Avatar journey, or perhaps a miniseries highlighting the past three or four Avatars before Aang.
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@masterpug53
You say "Heart on her sleeve" I see "unable to use basic emotional control". Also the whole learning 3 elements before she was potty trained thing was pretty dumb. She was belligerent, spoiled, and arrogant. She grew out of some of those flaws, a bit, but they were pretty consistently part of her personality.

Zuko was pretty consistently annoying and disappointing until he finally joined the team. It was a lot of build up that had a good pay off. Korra never really gets that pay off. Zuko grows far more as a character than Korra does.

I agree, the adults in Korra were much better than the kids, with the exception, I think, of Asami. She was actually pretty great, the biggest mistake with her character was being stuck inbetween Korra and Mako. Asami was never shown to be an inventor, that was her father. She was a good mechanic, she was smart, and an excellent business woman, but that doesn't translate to being "steampunk Iron Man".

Mako and Bolin had potential, but they were botched pretty badly. By the end, Bolin was basically a caricature of himself. The Airbender kids were decent.

dave_is_slick posted...

Ryo_the_Inferno posted...

I just woke up one day able to airbend and I'm a master of it instantly!

The sign of the ignorant viewer. He already was a scholar of the Air Nomads, he incorporated their lifestyle in his life. How is it a stretch that after the Harmonic Convergence that his extensive studies led to him grasping airbending fairly quickly? And we also don't know how much time passed.

That's like saying he can do karate because he read about it a lot. Regardless of how long passed, he mastered airbending to a greater degree than the people who have been doing it their entire lives, in a matter of months. With no way to effectively practice it.
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I honestly think that's my favorite show of all time
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Ryo_the_Inferno posted...

That's like saying he can do karate because he read about it a lot.

Not really. More like he embraced the teachings of a lauded master, immersed himself in the culture, and had all the knowledge he needed to very quickly learn how to use his new power to a somewhat advanced degree.

Regardless of how long passed, he mastered airbending to a greater degree than the people who have been doing it their entire lives, in a matter of months. With no way to effectively practice it.

Not really. Look at his fight with Tenzin. Tenzin was EASILY winning. Zaheer seemed a lot better than he was previously because no one he fought against had ever fought an airbender and they had no idea how to properly fight against one, giving Zaheer a huge advantage. Once Zaheer goes up against a true airbending master, he gets his ass handed to him until his friends get involved and overwhelm Tenzin with numbers. Zaheer may have been skilled because of his immersion in Guru Laghima's teachings, but he was far from a master at airbending.