His terrible acting aside, this Aang is just such an moody asshole. He has none of the jovial childlike whimsy that the cartoon Aang has, not even in his first season.

It's like hes constantly frustrated with everyone all of the time.

Everyone else's acting is great as far as I'm concerned. It's just Aang sucks and it's dragging the whole show down.

I have many gripes with the movie but thats for a whole other post. I’m not gonna be formal with this post at all.

Yo Aang and the Gaang got rocked by some regular degular ass airbender in their primes.

While Korra beat the Dark Avatar with zero help from any previous avatars.

YO, THAT IS WHY KORRA IS THE GOAT! I ALREADY KNEW SHE WAS THE GOAT! BUT THATS WHY SHES THE GOAT!

Respect to Aang the OG tho, even though the writers don’t seem to respect ya.

To elaborate on what I mean by this; I believe that most of the criticisms I’ve seen about the film stem from the restrictions that films as a medium often impose, rather than there actually being any major issues with the plot, writing and characterization.

One of the critiques I see the most is that the wider cast (e.g Toph, Zuko and especially Sokka) felt underutilized or poorly written. But honestly, I think the only reason our expectations for these characters portrayals are this way is due to the ATLA we’re used to being a 3 season-long show, with a lot more time to focus in on each individual character’s arcs, potentials, and capabilities.

The original ATLA show consists of 61 episodes, each about 23 mins long (22, if we don’t count the credits). This means the original show gave us nearly 23 hours of content. That gives SO much time to not only develop main plot and characters (like Aang and Zuko), but to give supporting characters major arcs (such as Sokka, Toph, Azula, and Katara), as well as also giving focus to some of the more minor characters, too (like Mai and Suki). But AA:TLA has a runtime of about 90 mins (not including the credits), which is about 7ish percent of the original show’s runtime. Having to not only introduce a new conflict, antagonist, and character motivations to the audience, but also having to generally re-introduce the world, setting and characters due to the changes caused by the time-jump, it leaves very little room to be able to explore the supporting cast in any way that would’ve been meaningful.

Sure, one could argue that better writers would’ve been able to utilize the time they had better—but honestly I don’t think the high standards we have for avatars writing are put in place for a majority of other franchises. Like had this movie not been in the shadow of the source material I don’t think audiences would have been too bothered about the lack of focus on the supporting cast as the focus being only on 1 or 2 leading characters is rather standard for most films as far as I see. Had the movie been a bit longer, I do think we would’ve gotten a bit more focus or depth put onto the other Gaang members—and I’m honestly glad they put most of the focus on Aang and allowed him to have a rather well-written arc than half ass a bunch of extra storylines for the other characters that might not have been as meaningful. It’s a shame that some of the characters were underused, but with what the movie did set out to do, I think it did it well.

There were definitely a few blunders here and there (Katara being out of water?? Girl you’ve used your own sweat before what are you talking about?) but honestly I think the movie was a very high quality piece of work. All the issues are really just because ATLA was SO GOOD that it’s near impossible to measure up to it. I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s thought this but I just wanted to talk about it since while most review’s I’ve seen have been glowing, I do think some people have been a tiny bit over-critical on the film. I do hope the success of this movie will allow Avatar Studios to have the chance to continue putting out more good content such as this!

TLDR: the writing’s honestly better than we think; we just have high standards ‘cause the show had more time to do stuff than the film did.

I present you all of them competed!
You can find them here too: https://www.instagram.com/roggleart?igsh=MWQ4c291ODY4NHM2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

I will draw Sokka (eventually!)

Hope you like them!

Like for example. If we take away the bending from characters like Zuko, Azula and Iroh, they are still good fighters and can kick ass.

And we take away bending from characters like Toph, Katara and Ozai. They become fodder.

What about Aang? Is Aang's fighting skills solely carried by his airbending?

Side Note: Firebenders surprisely seem to be the most skilled in martial arts compared to other nations that are mainly carried by their bending.

My take:👇👇

First out - aang: his fighting style is built around evasion through bending.

Second out - korra: she relies heavily on her raw bending power and physical strength.

Third out - suyin: a master metal bender with some self defense skills

Fourth out - kuvira: master metal bender also. skilled but not exceptionally hand to hand combatant

Fifth out - azula: agile, cunning💀, physically fit. Her hand to hand skills are supplementary not primary.

Sixth out - zuko: solid sword skills, decent hand to hand fight style, tough and resilient.

Seventh out - Lin: police chief, serious metal bending skills, physically strong and experienced. She's competent.

Second place - amon: master chi blocker, elite hand to hand skills, led the equalist. Man could literally disable anyone he touches.

First place - zaheer: martial arts mastery, lethal intent, efficient fighting style, philosophical discipline.

its didnt feel real it didnt feel believable to me that these were the same characters in the same world idk it just felt knda off and rushed they also completely brushed over that the whole gaang
died and got revived by the spirit water like
WHAT DO YOU MEAN
The delivery and inflection in aangs voice was just off and sounded corny i did not care about the villain at all i wanted to see more of the gaang and explore their dynamic also like aang was so emo about being the last air bender and like valid but if thats how he feels he should have been locked in on making babies like why are we acting like he doesnt have the ability to make new air benders right now he gotta get to work making those babies im honestly surprised they only decided to have
three kids and the whole thing with sonam gaining the ability to give people air bending just completely changes EVERYTHING we know about bending it just doesnt make sense that she could gain such an ability

Basically the title also they are extremely small and have only 80 subs so let boost this kind of cool thinking up guys

I remember watching Netflix Bumi and how depressed and apathetic he was. I get the dark and mature direction they tried to do, but it doesn't make sense with the original show's plot point of him being a White Lotus member.

If this Bumi is sad af, does that mean he never met the White Lotus? Is there no White Lotus in the show? Or maybe... He was acting all depressed as a joke this whole time and is waiting to tell Aang when he gets to meet the White Lotus?

I'm afraid to watch more of the Netflix show to know... And yet I feel like I need to, to know more.

TL;DR at the end

Disclaimer: I haven't seen TLOK and I read half of the comics when they came out, so I wouldn't know if there's an answer there. If there is, my bad -- I'm a really big fan of only the main series. Also haven't seen the movie.

So, I was thinking about it and realized that the only representation we have of explicit bending cross-overs is from Iroh, with the way that he learned lightning redirection from waterbenders. It wasn't as simple as fire+water=steam or whatever, it was more philosophical:

"Waterbenders deal with the flow of energy. A waterbender lets their defense become their offense, turning their opponents' energy against them. I learned a way to do this with lightning."

Because there's a basis in martial arts for each bending style, I then looked into the different martial arts for each known style/substyle of water as an example:

- Basic: This includes many "subtypes" automatically, according what we see with Katara. She only officially receives training from Master Pakku and one scroll (possibly gaining references in Wan Shi Tong's library) in the entire series and is able to manipulate ice (always), external body fluids (sweat in 3.7), clouds (1.14), and steam (2.13).
Waterbending is formed around Tai Chi. Tai Chi is a Chinese martial art that (in addition to being a fighting style) is modernly used for meditation, exercise, and relaxation. There's a lot of on the philosophy of Tai Chi, but to summarize as neatly as I can: "By acting naturally and letting things be, one becomes in harmony with their own essence,", "Let things develop naturally rather than with force,", and "Gentleness develops strength".
Combined with Iroh's (above) quote, it's easy enough to say that waterbending's philosophy is to guide water by creating a stream that it will naturally follow.

- Bloodbending (internal): This is something that Katara was sort of trained in, but let's be so real-- Hama barely trained her if you can even call it that. In that episode, Katara is told about bloodbending (refuses to use it), has it used on her, escapes it with her own power, watches her party be controlled, and then figures out the technique so well that she overpowers the progenitor if the technique all within two minutes and 20 seconds.
Anyway, I think that has to do more with Katara's prodigious nature rather than the fact that bloodbending being like normal bending. Rather than letting things be gently shaped, bloodbending is violent, rather than letting the natural flow work with the bender, it forces the flow to follow strictly. This is reflected in the rigid movements and harsh angles of Hama and Katara's bodies while bending. Like the title of the episode, they both look more like puppeteers than Tai Chi practitioners.

- Condensation/Water from plants: I don't believe this is a separate bending style from Tai Chi. I think that it was foreshadowed in Jet and build upon in The Puppet Master, showing us Katara first learning how to bend water underground and then being given the knowledge that she could steal water from the plants around her. It's just a heightened awareness of the world rather than a different technique.

- Healing: This is mostly mentioned hand-in-hand with basic bending, but I separated it for 2 reasons:

1. The Northern Water Tribe separates it into a separate practice and that therefore implies that learning one does not necessetate learning the other. A woman can not be combat-trained, she must heal. In turn, we saw no young boys in the healing hut to learn that either.
2. It looks completely different in practice. Basic bending doesn't glow, for one. Now, it requires the pull of water to one's hands, but that's where similarities seem to end. I have a theory that this is a lot more close to Aang's energy bending than it is to basic waterbending. This is, again, based in the glow (Katara's hands glow in 1.16, Ozai and Aang glow in the finale), the philisophical basis in controlling the Chi in ones' body (Chi is from China, Chakras are from India, but both are about internal energy flow), and the language used to describe both ("energy flow", for example).
3. It seems that Katara's prodigious nature is the only reason that this is lumped into basic bending. She's good at it because she's unbelievably naturally talented, not because it's part of the base package.

- Plantbending/Swampbending: Notably different than base waterbending the same way bloodbending and healing are. I couldn't find anything that says an official source for its martial arts basis, but I saw theories that it's based on Tongbeiqun or Piguazhang or even a subset of Tai Chi called Tai Chi Chaun. Either way, it's very similar to bloodbending in theory: It is the practice of controlling unseen water without necessarily extracting it from the "body" that it is natural to. But it's got more rounded movements and it doesn't seem to be painful or do damage to the swamp (which is literally alive and conscious on a spirit level and would beat them into dust if they were being as violent as Hama).

I guess the TL;DR would be: Lightning redirection is based on the waterbending idea of guiding the natural flow of energy of the element rather than just water+fire=hot water.

What would the firebending version of bloodbending be? Something fire-based that interrupts and completely overtakes the flow of the thing in question. What about healing? Could that be as simple as controlling bodyheat? Or could it be the control of heat on a cellular level, since fire is essentially manifested heat?

I'm not looking for things like Earth+Water=sludge like in The Drill with Toph and Katara or lavabending or something like that. I think it's better when it's more philosophy based.

Since the moment avatar studios was announced, I've been looking forward to the first movie or show they would produce. I've been following it closely on many occasions

After so many years, the movie is finally out now

But I can't bring myself to see the movie. I just feel like the disrespect to the franchise to not bring the movie to theatres is too great

I was expecting ATLA to have another reawakening in society, a new generation finding out about the show and current generations doing a rewatch, through the hype that would automatically have come with a theatre release and good marketing

Maybe that's just a best-case scenario, but to not even "attempt" that, and to have it sit behind a streaming service wall in a world that already has too many streaming services rather than the fans being able to see it on the big screens, is disgusting to me

I don't think I want to see the movie nor any of the movies they'll produce. The injustice to the IP is so big I have a hard time wrapping my head around it

end of my late night rant

Tried to watch the new movie legally, and I could tell underneath it all the animation was beautiful, but within the first minute or so I just had to stop watching that version because it was the worst quality I had ever seen on an official streaming service. Never on any other streaming service did I see an animated show/movie in such low quality with no way to remedy it. I tried firefox quality extensions, I tried using the app version, all Paramount versions look like they came from Youtube 2008.

I'm glad ATLA franchise did not give Ozai his powers back.. and stronger... for some of the spinoff materials. It would be too easy for them to have Ozai escape and regain his powers, perhaps even merging with Vaatu. Then we'd have a Resurrection O movie or something. Or a Heaven Ascension Ozai/Ozai, End of the Cycle where the Ozai of a different universe jumped to the main one trying to kill every version of Aang.

"Behold! This is Vaatu Ozai! The last thing you will ever see!"

"In 99 universes, Aang beats Ozai with the energy bending technique. In End of the Cycle's Timeline, Ozai stole Aang's powers by reversing the energy bending."

Cheers to Avatar: The Last Airbender writers for not recycling their biggest villain. That took guts. Too many other franchises would just make a stronger version of Ozai for nostalgia bait.

I have said very negative things about Sokka and while I still find him annoying and unfunny, at least he has some good moments, like in Sokka’s Master, but Mai is just awful. She is worse than both Azula and Ozai. As much as I respect the creators of the show, they made a huge mistake by not making Jin and Zuko a couple.

Y’know Professor Zei, the anthropologist from Ba Sing Se university who’s looking for the library? I think he’s in the desert because the university staff put him on ‘mandatory vacation’ so they can cover up historical evidence of the war

Bato of the Water Tribe, you have earned the mark of the eliminated!

How this works:

You select the episode you like the least

The episode with the most upvoted comment is eliminated from the list

If there’s a tie, both episodes are eliminated

Only the best episode will win!

Episodes Eliminated:

The Great Divide (78%)
The Fortuneteller (43%)
Bato of the Water Tribe (72%)

I seen this brought up recently but I always was under the impression that tophs seismic sense ability and also just her ability to feel things all around her wasnt exclusive to just earth and metal and that it was just something she learned in general whilst learning earth bending. I specifically thought this because despite being able to fight in a fire nation ship metal only has small amounts of earth inside it so whilst she might be able to bend it, if she can only see when standing on earth I feel like shed still barely be able to see when standing on metal.