I think you could also add that they could bend in ineffectual ways before learning true form from each of the animals.
Legend of Korra Book 3: Change |OT| SCHEDULEBENDING
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I think you could also add that they could bend in ineffectual ways before learning true form from each of the animals.
Infinite Justice
Member
as said before he had great potential in Season 1 but i just don't think he was a great character overall (beat Mako though since he became ship bait) and instead of improving he degraded even further. *shrug*
so basically we are back to the argument of bending being genetic or not?
ohhh boy, way to open that fucking can of worms again Mike and Bryan.
Ah, my bad. Didn't mean to bring back an old/tired discussion. Hopefully it dies. I just was a bit confused wanted quick clarification.
Anyways, dat Bolin sure is a jackass.
Infinite Justice
Member
Nah the comment wasn't directed to you but to the Creators.
will fix my post to clarify.
As for the actual discussion, if that's how it can be interpreted i could see it coming back but maybe thats just me.
You assumed it, but nothing of the sort was ever stated. In the World of Avatar, some people can bend while others can't, and that has never changed throughout ATLA and LOK. Genetics, spirituality or pure luck, it's always been the same mixed of muddled reasons why humans can bend.
Some people simply had it. You're not the first one to be confused by this since, from what I've been reading online, a lot of people forgot this very essential piece of information from ATLA, despite that it was talked about a lot in many episodes (the guys at the Republic City Dispatch podcast, for example, were surprised the Sky Bison were the original airbenders after watching Book 3 of Korra, what?!)
The original benders, physical beings that could manipulate the four elements, were sky bison, badgermoles, dragons and, in the case of waterbending, the Moon and Ocean (which were spirits). This is essential to the mythology of ATLA. The Lionturtles, physical animals and NOT spirits, had the ability to energybend.
In LOK, this is expanded upon: In the era before the Avatar (the era of Raava, as it's called in the Avatar Wiki), the Lionturtles energybent humans so that the ability to bend an element was awoken within them (and then, removed).
Also, the bending animals do not "give" bending to humans, simply that some humans began to look to them and think "hey, could we do that?" and viola, some discovered that they could and learned fire bending from the Dragons, others pushed and pulled like the tides (moon and ocean), airbenders started whooshing around air like the sky bison, and others (like Toph) copied the movements of badgermoles.
LOK did not retcon this. We could infer that what the Lionturtles regularly did to humans had a lasting effect, or maybe it was the creation of the Avatar coupled with Harmonic Convergence that awoke bending in some humans. Wether or not these humans already had the ability to bend before, is not stated.
darkazcura
Member
It's not that muddled. It's clearly a genetic thing, and if it weren't, there would have been airbenders after they were all killed off. Aang would have rebuilt the air nation himself if it were as simple as finding people willing to learn how to manipulate their energy. Even if he found a 1 percent success rate, he would have done it, but he doesn't because it's genetic. People learn how to bend and yes they 'just have it', but to me, it's clearly a genetic thing from the original humans who were energy bent. It's their lineage that spread like wild fire over the course of 10000 years. It doesn't have to be precisely said for it to be true, imo. It's definitely been inferred to be genetic (not everyone gets the gene/ability passed on though). If it weren't, random benders would be popping up across the nations, but fire benders were always born to fire benders and so on and forth.
If it were as simple as learning how to bend your chi, the avatar wouldn't be the only one who could bend multiple elements. You see lighting redirection as a water tribe movement when Iroh teaches Zuko. If it were just learning how to move your energy to understand the elements, Zuko and Iroh should have been able to bend water, but because they were genetically fire benders, the movement results in lightning redirection, a fire bending subset.
So I've been thinking, has the writers ever gotten a villain 100% right? I mean outside of Azula (lol). Amon had an awesome presence (he just looked bad ass, and was super threatening). You just KNEW he meant business, and you always feared when he might strike next. But his motivation was always kind of shaky. But then they gave him the really poorly handled exposition in the back half, and it unraveled the totality of his movement, and undercut a lot of the deeper conflict/aspect to what he was doing (it was more revenge, and less a deeply held belief. At least, that's how I took it. I know not everyone agrees).
Ozai, well he was just alright. He was menacing in the sense that, he was a conflict that was on the horizon. But it wasn't really him per se, it was more so Sozin's comet (that he was going to use). On the one hand, they tried to not show Ozai very much, to kind of hype him up. But in the end, he was a megalomaniac that wanted to rule the world. On a design level, he just looked like a buffed out dude. I still like him as a villain in a larger sense, but not really on a personal level.
Unalaq was pretty terrible. I still stand by this. He was pretty much always evil incarnate, without any explanation as to how he became that way. We find out at an early age, he's willing to get his own brother exiled. He was making plans with the Red Lotus to capture his own flesh and blood to abuse her for his plan. And his plan was...to become a dark Avatar. To uh, bring balance by allowing Dark to run wild. I dunno. He just lacked depth, and as a design character, he wasn't that interesting. I didn't even care for him when he was in villain mode (when he was actually fighting our characters).
Zaheer was pretty bad ass. He kind of succeeded where Amon failed. You really felt he believed in his cause (and it was a deeper philosophical view on how the world should be, even if you didn't agree with). Yeah...that could have been fleshed out a bit more, but I still appreciated this more than Amon's backstory (or rather, in terms of motivation). His design I guess was kind of plain, but he was also a really cool fighter with awesome henchmen, so that made up for it, and he was menacing when he actually came into the fray (I kind of feel that, it was a mistake having Zaheer be off screen for half the season though). In the end, Zaheer is kind of like Amon 2.0. He lacks the presence Amon had, but was also more competent in what he was pushing for.
I guess there are other villains, but I suppose these are the ones I think stand out the most as being "main end of the level boss fight" types. I kind of fee like the writers have yet to get it 100% right. Like there is always a misstep or two with the villains (and I suppose this is sometimes related to the writers not being able to end their stories all that well).
Ozai, well he was just alright. He was menacing in the sense that, he was a conflict that was on the horizon. But it wasn't really him per se, it was more so Sozin's comet (that he was going to use). On the one hand, they tried to not show Ozai very much, to kind of hype him up. But in the end, he was a megalomaniac that wanted to rule the world. On a design level, he just looked like a buffed out dude. I still like him as a villain in a larger sense, but not really on a personal level.
Unalaq was pretty terrible. I still stand by this. He was pretty much always evil incarnate, without any explanation as to how he became that way. We find out at an early age, he's willing to get his own brother exiled. He was making plans with the Red Lotus to capture his own flesh and blood to abuse her for his plan. And his plan was...to become a dark Avatar. To uh, bring balance by allowing Dark to run wild. I dunno. He just lacked depth, and as a design character, he wasn't that interesting. I didn't even care for him when he was in villain mode (when he was actually fighting our characters).
Zaheer was pretty bad ass. He kind of succeeded where Amon failed. You really felt he believed in his cause (and it was a deeper philosophical view on how the world should be, even if you didn't agree with). Yeah...that could have been fleshed out a bit more, but I still appreciated this more than Amon's backstory (or rather, in terms of motivation). His design I guess was kind of plain, but he was also a really cool fighter with awesome henchmen, so that made up for it, and he was menacing when he actually came into the fray (I kind of feel that, it was a mistake having Zaheer be off screen for half the season though). In the end, Zaheer is kind of like Amon 2.0. He lacks the presence Amon had, but was also more competent in what he was pushing for.
I guess there are other villains, but I suppose these are the ones I think stand out the most as being "main end of the level boss fight" types. I kind of fee like the writers have yet to get it 100% right. Like there is always a misstep or two with the villains (and I suppose this is sometimes related to the writers not being able to end their stories all that well).
Astral Dog
Member
I was a little surprised when the writers said they didnt make the type of villains that are just evil
i guess for this type of show they are alright
Septimus Prime
Member
On top of this, look at Bolin's ability to lavabend, and then look at his lineage. Is it coincidence that that son of a firebender and an earthbender can bend both elements together in lava?
Astral Dog
Member
Then what would Mako do?
My feeling is that it probably is; there's never any in-universe speculation that his parentage matters for this and there's no indication that Ghazan is similar. IIRC the characters treat it as basically the same sort of thing as metalbending, which is just something that some earthbenders happen to be able to do. Although I guess it should be noted that metalbending in particular appears to be heritable, given that despite being pretty rare overall every single one of Toph's earthbending descendents was capable of it.
Phoenician_Viking
Banned
Amazing, and an accurate description of the 2.
I still say that Ozai is a brilliant villain, just because shows rarely capture how an actual sociopath acts in favor of more of a caricature of an asshole.
I feel a lot of people miss that many of his monsterous actions were what he considered genuine acts of kindness. When he scarred Zuko and sent him off to get the Avatar, he intended to teach him how to be a man, to instill in him what he believes to be good values. Basically how any good father would try to raise his child. In fact, it's exactly what Iroh did. The difference is that Iroh loved Zuko, and it is through that that Zuko learned to walk his own path. Azula on the other hand, responded as well to his teachings as he could have hoped for, and how did she end up? Broken and crying. Ozai is a statement on how, if you don't have love and compassion driving your actions, what you do is poisoned.
Ozai had all the traditional traits of the usual evil overlord, and he would be just that anywhere else. But this is TLA, where he worked as a commentary of imperialism, of might makes right philosophy, the effects of how real people (because the other characters are written so well) would interact with someone who genuinely lacked empathy and works as a great foil of Aang who is the most humanitarian character in the series.
And somehow the same people who managed to use a trope as generic as evil overlord in such a clever and creative way gave us Unalaq...
This video really illustrates that biggest difference between the two shows is not the quality of writing, but the goals of the writing. TLA is an extremely empowering show whose goal is to say how far a single person can go, the difference they can make.
LoK, even if it were somehow written better than TLA, would be hard to like because it is all about disempowering Korra, showing time and again how is incapable of doing something. All other things being equal, I just would not want my kids to watch to watch Korra because I want to raise them so that they believe they CAN accomplish great things.
Septimus Prime
Member
Right. Plus, we can also note that, until Korra's time, Earth/Fire couplings were probably extremely rare, and even if they did occur, their offspring may not have the proper traits (and if they did probably kept them hidden from everyone, due to their parentage being social taboo).
Brood and be boring. His usual.
Excellent video.
Legend of Korra could have been so great. At this point it can still be good but I doubt season 4 will be so transcendent that it brings the entire series to great tier as well.
Stranger things have happened I suppose.
I do think too many series as of late try to humanize their villains and what not. And that can work if you give them quirks and what not. But a lot of time they do try to justify the way that they are.
I honestly want someone who grew up normal with a completely normal family without any type of trauma, and them be the villain. I just want a straight up asshole who has little to no redeeming qualities who is just greedy or an extreme narcissist.
I honestly want someone who grew up normal with a completely normal family without any type of trauma, and them be the villain. I just want a straight up asshole who has little to no redeeming qualities who is just greedy or an extreme narcissist.
I was a little surprised when the writers said they didnt make the type of villains that are just evil
i guess for this type of show they are alright
Interesting, I would be curious to hear their take on Unalaq. At least to me, he certainly came off as being evil just to be evil. Like, any face he put on as being reasonable, was just a front...because we saw that even when he was younger he was willing to backstab his own brother. And then we also learn he was long plotting with the Red Lotus.
I guess without any real motivation, it just comes off as him being evil to be evil. I suppose, the motivation implied was that, he genuinely thought the world was out of balance by having dark sealed away? I just don't understand why he thought himself as being the chosen one to become one with with the Vaatu (and how it's balance to destroy light/the avatar. Really makes no sense). I could buy into a theory that over time, he slowly started to lose his sanity. But again, that's not really shown (and we also saw him being an asshole at an early age). I dunno. I guess it's because they didn't really show us enough of his beliefs, that he kind of came off as just being an evil bastard, vs. having a deeply held belief of the world being out of balance spiritually. Although we did get the scenes in the beginning of the season where he was ranting to the tribe about it.
So I guess.
Admiral Woofington
Member
My biggest problem with Unalaq is that he seemed broken as a character. How a guy like him could beat his war fighting brother in water bending is beyond me and imho utter bullshit from the writers, especially after we see how great Korra's dad is fighting.
I was afraid that they were going to repeat the mistake when Tenzin and Zaheer were fighting, but they at least made it where Zaheer couldn't beat him alone.
I was afraid that they were going to repeat the mistake when Tenzin and Zaheer were fighting, but they at least made it where Zaheer couldn't beat him alone.
i think tenzin would have eventually beat zaheer if zaheer didn't try and resort to murder (although even then i think tenzin probably could have nullified the attack and at least forced zaheer to pass out in a similar fashion). it was the first time tenzin was really up against something he could have trained against. giant fucking platinum machines? previously unseen spirits? can't really blame him for getting overwhelmed. of course, it did suck to see him get handled the way he did.
next season on the legend of korra: what will korra do against quip-bending master nathan drake? find out only nick.com.
Astral Dog
Member
Korra says he just wants power...and thats it, he didnt care for his sons, caused the spiritual imbalance, imprisoned the Red Lotus, caused a civil war, was going to kill a little girl,and banished his brother, then fused with Vaatu, wich is made of pure evil, to kill millions of humans, because why the fuck not.
Ozai was similar, but he had more of a presence,and was part of the Fire Nation disfunctional royal family, Azulon cared for his son i guess, Zhao was typical evil and Yakone im not sure. A little more realistic villains i suppose..
Infinite Justice
Member
i would watch that tbh.
Villain just being a massive troll to Korra? yes!!! and bonus points if Nolan North voices them also
Atraveller
Banned
I thought Otaku was the name of a chubby middle aged student in air temple?
The real twist is that Otaku was the real leader of the Red Lotus all along. Amon, Unalaq and Zaheer were all working for him. He's been trolling Korra at every step.
Yeah that's Ryu but both him and Otaku seem like prime candidates to be flying soon lol.
Yeah that's Ryu but both him and Otaku seem like prime candidates to be flying soon lol.
That's just fantastic.
Oops, got their characters mixed up. Pretty funny, because I didn't even realize they were different even after seeing the entire season. lol
Which is weird, because Ryu doesn't even come with them initially , and Otaku was there training. So it's not that hard to mix up (plus Otaku is chubby). Look at his face though, totally the true mastermind.
It was more than that. Sort of.
I do think unalaq believed in what he was doing. He mentioned at one point "after today there will be no more eater tribe" - his views were very much in line with the red lotus.
He just wanted to be the one to usher in the new age. He wanted to be the centre of it all, and that's where his desire for power lay.
Now you can of course wonder why unalaq felt the way he did. Its not explored, perhaps it should have been. But really my issue with the character was never motivation. As others have mentioned, he just really lacked the presence of a compelling villain.
While I concede that obtaining bending is a bit more explained that what I made it out to be, they do state in Beginnings that no one can hold more than one element at the time. The Avatar can do it because she/he are also the supreme light spirit, Raava. So it could be as simple as learning how to bend your chi outwards, it's just that it can't go as far as to bend more than one element.
It could be, but... I always thought (and the comics confirm also hint this) that Ozai banished Zuko also because he finally had a reason to supplant Zuko with Azula, his favorite child. Not because he actually thought the had a lesson to teach Zuko. It could be both reasons, honestly.
Astral Dog
Member
He controlled a Dark GOD with his pure malice,his mere presence is enough to corrupt even the most innocent of spirits and transform them into eldritch abominations,he tried to kill the Avatar,also his niece, and the spirit of light because he wanted to make the earth a living hell for humans and spirits alike, so that HE could rule it,even the Red Lotus,his old "friends" said he was demented, he is like the antichrist of Avatar
Who knows what other evil things hes done.
Someone needs to read One Piece. Great villains gallery.
I hope next season wraps up Korra nicely since I would like to go back and review it all since I think it has the potential to be another great Avatar series, warts and all.
The show makes some gestures in this direction, but that's not really what we're shown. When Raava and Vaatu were both out in the wild, it kind of sucked being around them, and the world as a whole wasn't really suitable for humans (though it's unclear to what extent this was due to Vaatu's influence). When Vaatu got away from Raava, spirits started attacking people. Then Vaatu was sealed away for a long time, and things were pretty good. Civilization happened, and the Avatar (of Raava) was a major force for good and seems to be at least partly responsible for ATLA-world history working out much nicer than real-world history. Much later, Vaatu's energy got spirits to appear in the physical world and attack people just like before. Then Vaatu got free and like his first order of business was to go to Republic City and fuck their shit up.
It's possible to say that Vaatu wasn't an evil spirit, but this is for notions of good and evil that don't really care about human welfare. The more influence Vaatu has, the worse off people are.
There are fictional worlds where when the fundamental source of chaos gets destroyed or whatever the world gets a lot worse off, because a perfectly orderly world is a perfectly stagnant one (for example). But Avatar-world doesn't really seem to work that way.
Brawndo Addict
Banned
Just stopping in to say I saw the news about Season 4.
I can only imagine the meeting with Nick executives went something like this too:
I can only imagine the meeting with Nick executives went something like this too:
m_shortpants
Member
Just stopping in to say I saw the news about Season 4.
I can only imagine the meeting with Nick executives went something like this too:
I'm just happy we're getting the last season
Phoenician_Viking
Banned
Maybe the air nation will play a bigger roll next season.
This is great.
Yeah that's Ryu but both him and Otaku seem like prime candidates to be flying soon lol.
This is great.
Atraveller
Banned
Quite fitting, the Avatar series is wasted on Nick.I can only imagine the meeting with Nick executives went something like this too:
Icyflamez96
Member
Astral Dog
Member
You should tell that to Unalaq and Vaatu. as they apparently didnt get the memo, Vaatu was happy when the spirits attacked the village, Unalaq was delighted when he destroyed Raava, possibly destroying the souls of the past Avatars too, even Korra needed the help of Jesus Jinora to finish him off, she didnt even TRIED to show mercy, the best she could do was destroying his soul, even his own children were happy he was gone.
He didnt survived because he was EVIL given form, there wont be another Avatar villain as EVIL as Unalaq.
I'm hoping for the Fire Nation to be a bigger role actually since it's the only nation we haven't really been to since ATLA
You should tell that to Unalaq and Vaatu. as they apparently didnt get the memo, Vaatu was happy when the spirits attacked the village, Unalaq was delighted when he destroyed Raava, possibly destroying the souls of the past Avatars too, even Korra needed the help of Jesus Jinora to finish him off, she didnt even TRIED to show mercy, the best she could do was destroying his soul, even his own children were happy he was gone.
He didnt survived because he was EVIL given form, there wont be another Avatar villain as EVIL as Unalaq.
That and, I don't see how Unalaq can justify killing light without being evil. Like, how is that balance? If he truly believes in ying/yang and that dark being locked away is what kept the world out of balance, why would be killing light...restore balance? wat.
Also if Unalaq deemed himself worthy of being the dark avatar, why would he not want a light avatar to exist as well (if again, it was about balance and not a power trip). Unalaq to me, seemed like he was evil just to be evil, with no real explanation for his motivations or how he came to be. The flashback that showed us that he betrayed his own brother, only further made this aggravating (as it established that even at an early age, he was bad, but again no reason why he became bad).
I guess you could argue Ozai was similar (I don't mean in presentation, rather in being a megalomaniac). But, I guess an Ozai kind of villain really doesn't work for me in such a short time frame. Well, a villain like that COULD have worked, if they were really cool like Amon (so an evil character that just wants chaos and is evil). But if you are going that route, the villain has to be a lot of fun to watch. Unalaq was NOT that.
There are no avatar comics in ba sing se
I don't have a tumblr.
How do I note that pictures? I don't know how to tumblr
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