In addition to cleaning up Yangchen's huge mess, Kuruk did it while refusing to expose her. He sacrificed his own reputation, personal happpiness, and life to preserve Yangchen's saint status. She's the Avatar people needed, but he's the Avatar the people deserved.
this should have way more likes! Yangchen seems a bit like Caesar in Fallout NV, where her society only functions well as long as she is around. This is a systemic failure that the next avatar was bound to be unable to contain.
I also take issue with the Kuruk slander in the video. He also knew that if his friends knew what he was doing, they would do the anime cast ensemble thing and refuse to let him fight alone, and they would be spiritually poisoned like he was, so he not only fought alone, but couldn't talk to anyone about it.
@@Dell-ol6hb Yes, being a good person, aside from bending 4 elements, is a bare minimum requirement to be a good Avatar. How about saving the world from dark spirit incursions? Does that make one a good Avatar? And making advancements in bending despite having such a short life? If you replaced Kuruk with any of the "good" Avatars, have them be in the same time and situation, who would fare better? How would they fare better? By telling their companions and having them suffer the same affliction, instead of them somewhat covering for his other duties? Korra? Korra would not have had spirit bending at the time.
This is both Kyoshi and Toph as an officer in a nutshell. It’s why I always say if there was ever a time traveling spirit or something that somehow allowed past and present characters to meet that Toph and Kyoshi would be the WORST influences on each other but the BEST of friends 😭They’d literaly just traverse the entire world hyping each other up and beating the BRAKES off of everything they didn’t like or who was breaking the law 🤣they would probly even turn it into a competition to see who could arrest and beat up more bad guys Lmfao 😂
@@kylewood2715 It absolutely is. I can't guarantee the precise wording, but the general voice is pure DNA. It's the start of the speech that ends with the girl sitting in a small cafe in Rickmansworth who realised the answer, but before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it the Earth was demolished.
I would have accepted Aang in A Tier, but I fully respect putting him in S. I think one point in his favor that isn't considered as highly for the other Avatars is the allies/friends he surrounded himself with. For the faults that Aang had, one of his friends was able to pick up the slack, to see solutions that he might not. That willingness to work with others, to come around and see solutions that he might balk at at first, /I/ think is further evidence for making him S Tier.
He seems to be the first avatar to have true team avatar and the precedent probably will help lots of future avatars mitigate their faults (with korra era basically often forgotten something she does is basically putting team avatar members has world leaders even to the point that only fire nation by end of the story isn’t ruled by member of team avatar)
@@kdlove8629it seems like a problem that should’ve been around for a very long time it just hasn’t been able to express itself until technology had reached a sufficient enough level where non benders could feasibly fight and beat benders. I don’t know if I could really blame Aang for that conflict, it would’ve happened no matter what in the conditions of the world they live in, like obviously being a non bender in this world means you’re automatically at the mercy of those who can bend
Aang also has the least amount of hindsight bias. Every past Avatar's perception will be weathered until only their extremes are remembered. They essentially become caricatures. Aang is the most-recorded Avatar, all his highs, lows, mediocres, and cabbage destruction is front-row-center. And he brought the world back from a very bad place. Definitely deserving of S tier.
Wan's real achievement was not merging with Raava and beating Vaatu, fixing the problem he created. His REAL achievment was getting the people to leave the lionturtle cities and settle the land. He was THE driving force of progress.
It's questionable whether that could be seen as an accomplishment that's only positive, as that move made him "inprison" the spirits into the spirit world and also probably was bad for the nature and ecosystems, which the humans expanded into.
@@BattleBrawlerHikaruYes, because you're selfishly focused on how it has helped humanity and not on how much life we destroyed to get here. Do you genuinely think that the improved living of humans justifies the incredible suffering it caused? Because the suffering of the rest of the earth, and especially the rest of humanity (because industrialisation existed and still exists on the backs of the suffering of more people than whom are being helped) means that it was ok? Morally good? Industrialisation happened as a direct result of the majority of human life becoming slaves or slave adjacent. Even in the scope of human suffering it doesn't justify itself.
I would agree with almost everything said here except for a few points. I think you overvalued Roku. I think Roku's biggest mistake wasn't sparing Sozin, it was failing to build up a safety net for after his death. We see that his confrontational with Sozin is decades before his death, and by his own admission he didn't speak to Sozin at all during that time. We know that the colonies weren't disbanded as Roku told Sozin to do. This means Roku either never checked to see if Sozin left or never followed up with Sozin. More than that we don't see any evidence that he built up or warned the earth kingdom of further invasion plans or warned the air nomads to be more cautious in the time between his death and the next avatar's training. We know he was personal friends with Gyatso and yet Gyatso seemed to have no suspicions of an oncoming war. It is not clear whether Roku could have prevented the war, but he certainly could have lessened the impact it would have had or work on minimizing the initial surprise. With all this I would put him in D tier with Kuruk.
@@Doomsword0 I get the feeling that after Legacy of Yangchen, Roku has to be the next avatar to be covered in the novels. So far out of the established line of avatars we were first introduced in ATLA, Roku will now be the one who we know/spent the least amount of time with and I definitely think he should be fleshed out more in a duology of novels like we got for Kyoshi and Yangchen have so far. We got a bit of Roku's era slightly fleshed out in the Avatar Legends RPG, but it was more of information about what the world was like during his era and not really about him specifically. F.C. Yee mentioned in an interview that he only feels comfortable writing about the avatars that Aang and Korra talk to, so Roku is one of the ones left remaining for him to tackle and write about.
@humanoidfrog4645 they said they knew "dark clouds are gathering". There is no evidence that they had any greater knowledge. In fact of all the monks, gyatso was in fact the least worried of all of them. He believed the monks were being overly cautious and shouldn't have told Aang who he is and that they were too worried. If he was warned by his good friend that Sozin was planning something and to take care of the next avatar then he would not be so relaxed about it.
I think Kyoshi's being judged a bit too harshly and Roku a bit too leniently. In Kyoshi's era, the EK is so ridiculously corrupt and chaotic that a big stick is pretty necessary. Roku on the other hand is born to a much more ideal society and messes up on the obvious solution to the pressing issue.
Precisely! Kiyoshi is always judged harshly and critically while Roku gets a pass all the time! Sounds like the modern society where women are under the microscope all the time
I think Kyoshi fell into the heuristic problem. A hammer wasn't the only tool she had, but she had to deal with so many nails that she started instinctively reaching for the hammer even when the problem required a screwdriver.
Kinda sad how Kuruk sacrificed or lost pretty much everything he loved, cleaning up Yangchens messes, and that gets him a place in D-tier while she gets a place in S-tier
@@donkeykong3628Yan Chen’s mess is one of the most vital and deadly one. Had Kuruk failed the world would have been in complete anarchy. Dark Spirits would make the 100 Year War look like a utopia.
@@nebelnoob5086Maybe she does. She did a pretty good job handling the human side of things, but if she gets S rank, Kuruk deserves it too, man literally fixed the Spirits plotline of Korra (except worse because it was a global occurence) on his own with nothing but determination and far too many hallucinogenic drugs. This Kuruk slander needs to end!
the kyoshi books really helped me like her a lot more. I get she's flawed as an avatar, but her character seemed sorta one dimensional in the show and she had a very interesting story in the books, rising from famine and a tough political landscape. An avatar that grew up without the "avatar resources" much like aang in a way, but even worse as she didnt have any formal mentorship and education her way of being an avatar was sorta to be what she didnt have growing up, a parental figure, stable and trying to be fair even if she was unsophisticated at it
Yeah in the show she's basically the "do whatever it takes yes kill them if you must" advice person who popped in a few times and not a ton more than that and the books really just expanded on that so much
Her being flawed and not this stereotypical “I’m strong and kill everything” is so much more better Books Kyoshi > Show Kyoshi (Same character really 😂) More like Book Kyoshi > Fanon Meme Kyoshi that most of the fanbase think how she really is which is sad.
Glad he is where he deserves. I don't buy that whole "He was actually kinda like batman having a secret live fighting dark spirits" retcon they gave him in the Kyoshi novels, especially because it came in the cost of Yangchen's former immaculate reputation as seen in TLA. Who asked for that? I much prefer when he was an example of how no one, not even the avatar, is beyond avoiding responsibility and being complacent with the way things are.
I actually liked the retcon. It showed that the "best" Avatar still screwed up and that the "worst" Avatar was just doing his best to clean up the mess left him. Idk, it made them a bit more human
I think Kuruk had an unfair score. The man had to fight demons that ended up tearing apart his psyche. The dark spirits came because the agreements arranged with the previous Avatar were not set up to be enforced and the humans took advantage. He fought dark spirits. He did more for the world than being a pencil-pushing bureaucrat for the Fire Nation. Yes, the socio-economic advancement was great for the Fire Nation, but it's not the Avatar's duty to make ONE Nation economically efficient.
I mean he wasnt F tier or anything I think D is fair. Sure, his life was hard, but he doesn’t really have mant accomplishments and wasn’t great at handling his problems. Yangchen however, was the one to leave those dark spirits behind and focused much more on human problems than spirit ones, so I don’t think she deserves S tier.
@@Doomsword0yes and he couldn't have been because of mistakes that Yang chen made. I dont think you can put her that high and then tell Kuruk that well... you didnt hold up your responsibilities. Apparently neither did yang chen
No I think the score is perfectly fair sure he had it bad but so did many other avatars he’s not special or anything, he’s just not as good of an avatar as many others. Also Yangchen caused some problems for him but she has way more achievements and did way more good for the world, plus all the avatars deal with the mistakes of their predecessors, Kyoshi had to fill in for Kuruk’s early death leaving the world without an avatar for decades, and Aang had to deal with the mess left by Roku
I find it so ironic that avatars have access to their past lives, but yet don't use it enough, especially when one avatar has the perfect knowledge to assist in a difficult scenario. The best avatar's are probably the ones who accept their limitations, whilst also unwaveringly sticking to their core beliefs.
maybe communicating with them its more difficult than we are led to believe, Aang as an air nomad is an spiritual powehouse and that helps when contacting the spirits and past lives, other avatars might be more challenged but I agree that they should use it more often.
It would be great if the current Avatar could create a meeting of SEVERAL past Avatars. They could discuss how the times have changed, how they had to fix the previous one's mistakes while the current Avatar would attempt to mediate between their differing ideologies.
Yangchen was supposed to be so spiritually in tune with her past lives that she had difficulty early on just being herself and having a grounded grasp on reality. Outside of our limited view of one of her stories I imagine she used her inherited knowledge as you'd expect an avatar to do.
I agree they dont do it 'enough' but i also thing about aang talking to like 4 past avatars and expressing his discontent with killing Ozai and all for of them are just like 'it sucks but you gotta do it.' And at the end of the day aang didnt and still got the job done. Could reaching back to Wan made learning energy bending easier? Maybe. But the idea of talking to lets just say at bare minimum 50 avatars to over a 100 sounds exhausting lol.
How would you rank an avatar based on how well they did when you don’t know much of what they did, you don’t rank them, should’ve been left off the ranking imo, still funny though
@masondenuccio1886 I agree we technically can't rank him and he did make mistakes, atheists one because, that seems to be the premise of the cycle itself avatars fixing the mistakes of their predecessors szeto is no different his mistakes are a result of salai,s
In Defense of Aang, we never really see him as an adult. In the anime and comics he's a kid and a teenager. So him not being able to think critically and solve complex geopolitical and socioeconomic issues as a young teenager is understandable. 38:00
I understand not wanting to put Kyoshi in S tier but B tier was so dramatic especially putting her next to Roku 😭 She has a 2 century legacy and a lot of her choices are influenced by the fact the world didn’t know she was the avatar until she was already all grown up, and she also didn’t have the luxury of being diplomatically trained like Yun was which is a whole plot point in her story which included her trying her best to follow fire kingdom diplomacy customs but ultimately failing because it was too much to learn.
Yeah, especially since the reason why Roku had such a good era was because of Kyoshi having already solved most of the big conflicts for him. Roku had it so easy that he was able to dick around and neglect his waterbending training for an entire year just to convince one specific guy to train him. And what was the legacy of Roku’s era? An entire nation of benders being almost completely genocided while the world was plunged into 100 years of war and tyranny.
Although kyoshi had very big mistakes I would have argued that the era after her was seen as a pretty stable one, not perfect by any means but Roku was free to learn for years only thinking of Sozin as his flaw which implies he didn't had any other major issues. So what kyoshi did worked to a certain extent probably because of her longevity which just made people around the world think "Well if she is going to stay I better behave" I wouldn't put her at S tier by any means even if she is my fsvorite avatar but I think that should be mentioned.
I feel like a lot of Kuruk's "mistakes" are the direct result of Yangchen's actions. He spent his entire life cleaning up after her mistakes so that she would seem better than she was at the expense of himself. I don't know if that makes him a good Avatar, but I feel like calling them his own problems and mistakes and giving him the lowest tier for that is rather unfair..
And the reason why Kuruk didn’t focus on worldly problems as much is because creates a time of peace for long after she died… which probably means all of Kuruk’s life and the beginning of Kiyoshi’s.
Agreed, it may also be a bit of a Treaty of Versailles problem, sure we have peace now, but we really haven't thought how to maintain that, so the next lot of people have to fix the issue. Yangchen may have "agreements" with the spirits, but with no method for them to be mediated when she moves on and that generation of humans dies, how do you mediate with the next lot in terms of the agreement, so kinda kicked the can down the road to the next Avatar? And because of this, we have dark spirits to deal with. Also, we may have a bit of a "Justice League doesn't help with small crime" thing that comes up in super hero stuff from time to time. For example, in the Last (terrible) season of Supergirl, one of the episodes has a character throw a wobbly over the heroes not helping the people of colour affected by some tragedy. The issue is, there all dealing with the big focus things like stopping buildings falling down, dealing with Super villains, things that are large and over arching and help everyone. Sure, Kuruk may not have helped in bridging between between nations, because he was dealing with Dark spirits from killing people. So we may have enough information to judge him, but not enough information to put that in context.
Well that's basically the whole idea of the Avatar. Each new avatar has to deal with the short comings of the previous avatar. Seto Fira nation focused - Yangchen has to focus more on all nations. Yangchen focuses a lot on the four nations but less efficient on the spirits Kuruk had to deal with dark spirits. Etc. Etc.
@@DigiBrad You're right to a degree, all Avatars tend to focus on the regrets and shortcomings of their predecessor, which in turn leads to their own shortcomings and regrets. That is very much part of the cycle. But in this situation I feel it is more than that. In most cases the problems they face are indirect and only related to the previous Avatar through vague connections. Szeto didn't directly cause widespread political issues that Yangchen had to fix, it was his inaction that allowed such problems to fester, but those are things that would happen even if the Avatar didn't exist. Many of the Avatar's regrets are tied to similar situations where what they let happen would have happened even if the Avatar wasn't around at all. And possibly more importantly, those issues don't become so bad that the next Avatar _has_ to dedicate their entire life to make things right again. In Kuruk's case, the issues he faces are the direct result of Yangchen's actions. She made deals with the spirits that the humans had no realistic hope of maintaining, and while those deals made things better in the short term they also made things far worse in the long term. That isn't her ignoring a problem and letting it get worse, that is her actively fucking things up in the long run because she had too much faith in humanity. Kuruk had no real choice but to spend his life dealing with those spirits or the results would have been catastrophic. And unlike the other Avatar's shortcomings, these spirits would not have been nearly as much of a problem if Yangchen hadn't made those deals. If the Avatar as a concept simply didn't exist in the world that problem would not be as bad as it was. It would have been bad, don't get me wrong, but just not nearly as bad as it was for Kuruk.
I’ll be back when I finish because Kyoshi being in B tier SHOCKED me. I understand not being S tier based on your POV, but I thought A tier for sure at the very least so I can’t wait to see where Roku, Korra, and Aang go😳
This post is purely based on this video. I might change my mind upon reading the books about her. The Avatar is defined as someone who helps bring balance between humans and between the humans and spirit worlds. They are the Bridge. Bending the four elements is a tool to get the job done. Kyoshi is probably the best Warrior of the Avatars. However, whenever there is a problem that can't be solved without violence, she has no solution. She is a case of "Did not understand the assignment." At least that is how this video portrays her.
@@The482075I think violence isn't her only tool available, since she created Kyoshi island specifically to avoid a battle. I think her problem is, like earth, she's a bit rigid and uncompromising.
@@sawsy3863 I'll be honest. I don't know much about the Avatars besides Aang and Korra. Anyway, feel free to share your perspective. What makes Yanchen F tier?
Bro Kuruk basically had to play demon slayer with dark spirits because Yangchen only did half of her job. I'd say given what he was left with he did pretty damn good.
I think we gotta give some more credit too to Aang and Tenzin for being a big part of leading Korra towards being more connected to the spirits and spirit world. At least at the start of her journey.
Seto set a bit of a dangerous precedent, an expectation in the Fire Nation that the Avatar from their nation would show them the same preferential treatment. Sozin seemed to have that expectation, anyway. Also, I noticed that you play Arkham Horror. I've been trying to craft this Avatar fanon that's kind of a fusion with a sort of Lovecraftian mythos, drawing heavily from monsters and deities from Asian mythologies
Kyoshi only ever stopping chin the conquerer when he came to HER doorstep has always felt weird to me. Like she would allow him to take the rest of the earthkingdom? Get out of your peninsula and defend the whole nation, ma'am! I fully support your B-tier Kyoshi
Honestly is it even worth saving a kingdom that has been corrupt for centuries, sometimes like they say it's better to do nothing than to do the wrong thing.
I feel that you have understated Kuruk's struggles and Yangchens's mistakes. Yangchen's neglect and unfair treatment of the Spirits was the main reason for the rise of Father Gloworm and the corruption. I feel that overtime her achievements and adoration in the Mortal world created a need for those in her. She didn't want to lose the Godlike status and legacy she had in the Mortal world by going against them even if meant being completely unfair to the Spirits. Kuruk paid the price for this. I think had he not fought the Spirit Corruption the world would have been destroyed. He wasn't with his flaws though, the most glaring one being his stubbornness to fight the Spirits alone. The typical toxic masculine behaviour of taking no help in the name of keeping everyone safe and making the problem bigger than it actually was. All in all had Yangchen been more concerned with fairness between the humans and spirits and less with her image and legacy among humans, Kuruk might have had an easier life.
Soooo.... not wanting to drag your friends into cleaning up a mess because you want to protect them and NOT have them tortured and corrupted is "toxic masculinity" now? Weird flex.
@@IceQueen975 yes, that's a valid use of the concept. Kuruk's refusal to enlist the help of his friends in battling the dark spirits, even at the risk of his own life, can be analysed with toxic masculinity. It's not some inherent negative trait of Kuruk as an individual, but rather as a larger trend in society. He felt he couldn't ask anyone for help, despite having more than capable friends who could have prolonged his life. His insistence on doing things alone literally broke him bit by bit before the guy died at 33. 'Doing things yourself, don't ask for help because that's feminine and makes you look weak' is definitely a patriarchal norm; so is the 'emotional stoicism' he practiced by not letting others know what he'd been doing and pretending it was ok. He had to resort to severe alcoholism and promiscuity to cope with the toll it was taking, instead of... getting help. It's a pretty good example of toxic masculinity I'd say.
I think the interesting thing about each Avatar is that their failures create problems for the next Avatar to deal with. * Yangchen's preference for humans over spirits leads to Kuruk's dark spirit problems. * Kuruk's inability/refusal to play the role of the Avatar as a mediator and keeper of the peace leads to the breakdown of the peace established by Yangchen, which Kyoshi has to deal with * Kyoshi doesn't deal with many socio-economic issues and disparities (just dealing with the violence that erupts from them), which cause the tension that arises during Roku's term * Roku's refusal to confront violence with force directly leads to the Air Nomad Genocide and the 100 Year War, which Aang has to resolve * Aang's inability to deal with the socioeconomic issues that arise from settler-colonialism and industrialization leads directly into all of the issues Korra encounters (except for Harmonic Convergence)
i mean that makes sense. being the bridge between the mortal and spirit world and being a mediator and being the most powerful bender isnt always the best if you are also a person
To be fair while Roku didn't _kill_ Sozin, he certainly did use force and make it clear what would happen if Sozin continued. And Sozin, for his part, listened -until the perfect opportunity presented itself. He halted his conquest, likely shut down the war preparations, and stopped. And even then, Sozin had at first come to that island to _help_ Roku. It's only at the end that he made his final decision, and by that point it was too late for Roku to do anything about it. Unless the Roku book adds to it, Roku was only ever in one major conflict where force was necessary, and he used force there, just not lethally.
the main problem with each seems to be that they died and things went to shit while the next avatar was still an infant/child. If we're blaming the individual policies of each nation on the avatar at the time... then by our standards we'd say they were all bad for letting the world be ruled using a feudal system/monarchy. Saying that an avatar not predicting socioeconomic issues is only valid with our 21st century knowledge and hindsight.
I absolutely LOVE that this story overall is so uniquely made that we can basically have a history book made out of the lore. And you have done so well showing that. You talk like it’s real history which is why I love your channel. Because the lore and history of the world of the avatar is so rich
Its kinda hard to rank them since we see such a small snapshot of most of them and even Aang and Korra we only really get a grasp on a few years out of their era's. Of course its also pretty intentional that each Avatar tends to focus there efforts on the failings of their predeccesors. All that being said Roku has gotta be the bottom of the list. If any other Avatar got an entire race eradicated we would have heard about it. Roku inherited a stable world from Kyoshi's centuries of peacekeeping and let his friend escalate his warmongering to horrific levels. As far as we can tell he was a good man and trying his best but his primary failure is perhaps the worst failure any of them did.
Stable for who, though? You think the fire nation was happy to wait their turn for 2 and a half centuries to make their mark on the world under the threat of extreme violence, sorry, law and order, for doing anything the God on earth disapproved of? If mastery is just practice .... Kyoshi has more practice than anyone. And coming off a corrupted world mainly lead by the earth kingdom and its last great Avatar being into socio-economic solutions... it's no wonder Sozen pushed for taking the fire nation in the direction they did. And Roku had to deal with all of this. With a nation's expectations on him to do as much as Kyoshi in a shorter lifetime, forward their agenda which has been stymied for so long by the previous avatar. With a world interested in seeing how this guy will order the world: word or stick? With a world already discounting him because he's not Kyoshi. Roku did fairly well, considering. There was no stopping the fire nation war, it was inevitable.
Let's be honest, his failure was, what? Not wanting to kill his best friend? I can't blame him for that, and he _still_ took action and had Sozin !@#$ing his pants so bad that he put his plans on hold until Roku died. And back to that best friends thing, even after that, Sozin did _not_ come to that island with the _intention_ of letting Roku die. Quite the opposite. He only made that choice when he saw Roku on the ground and realized his opportunity. But more than that, the only one to blame for Sozin's actions is Sozin. One can argue that even if Roku hadn't spared Sozin, that Roku still might have only lived a few years longer than he did, and it might have only postponed things and we'd be calling it Azulon's Comet instead.
@@brolytriplethreatas others have commented, Roku could've warned and prepared other nation's for FN's eventual attack. ”Guys, watch out for the Fire Lord, he's something of an expansionist. Also! The Great Comet is coming, make sure you're prepared for that!”
About Szeto I think it's a big point to be made about how much respect just his name envoked not just for fire nation officers but for politicians of all four nations. He is definitely not an S or A, but I would argue B due to how he is presented in the Yangchen book
I disagree with your assesment of Kyoshi's influence in things outside of 'beating up the baddies', she did absolutely recognise socioeconomic issues and knew they needed socioeconomic solutions, she was abandoned young and lived as an orphan on the streets, then as a servant in a mansion, then her avatar journey was lots experiences in areas with plenty of socioeconomic issues. She just wasn't very politically adept, she didn't care for the mind games and manipulations of politics and diplomacy, so she wouldnt play those games and abide by the arbitrary rules, but she knew what needed to be done and would rarely compromise on it, taking direct action against those who were trying to stop things from improving.
F'k yeah! She's mildly a bit of a Tyrant, but when the Tyrant CARES about the people it's essentially the best form of government you can get... her only FAILING as a benevolent tyrant is not living forever... which is generally where beloved emperors fail as well and why we mortals don't consider it a viable strategy most of the time... that opinion can be flexible when you've got essentially, a deific warrior for peace patrolling your world, which the Avatar world has. A Tyrant that has everyone's well being in mind telling the bureaucrats off ISN'T inherently a bad thing unless you're overvaluing communal governance and consider it beyond reproach. Kyoshi COULD have been a diplomat... if the diplomacy of her era wasn't rotten to the core. She was the sledgehammer the world needed at the time to remind them that sneaky politics be damned, the Avatar addresses the problems of the era.
I really want to see a show based on Avatar Kuruk. An Avatar fighting off evil all the while going thru his own personal demons and is under-appreciated by the mass. To me, his story is the most interesting.
I don't if others have mentioned it but Aang is shown with a group of varied people as his closest friends, each with their own views and perpectives and I feel this helps and improves how he is as the Avatar. Which is something I feel needed to be brought up since it is such a pivotal part of his Avatar skill set
I would go as far to say that Avatar Szeto actually directly contributed to the development of the culture in the fire nation that DIRECTLY lead into Kyoshi and Roku’s time. He’s most likely a huge part of why FireLord Sozin told Roku he was a fire nation citizen FIRST and why it was his duty to serve the fire nation above all. Reading the Kyoshi books was so interesting becuase all the fire nation scenes had this class based system based on social rankings that you can see how it would directly lead into the superiority complex from Sozin, and in a way it all directly leads back to Szeto and the environment he fostered in the nation. He definitely earned that C slot 😭
I feel like a lot of Yang Chen’s “achievements” are more short-term. Are they really achievements if they all become undone shortly after Kuruk becomes avatar? Sure she’s still up there but I’d say Aang was better
She is Def A tier if not an S tier No avatar Lived upto 230 years of age and accomplished so many things except for her. Kyoshi is truly the GOAT no doubt.
@@Enderflame_303look, while I agree she belongs at least in the A tier, lets not pretend that with more than 200 years most avatars in the list could have created a similar age of peace
I’d rank Roku as D tier. He didn’t do enough to actually fix any problems he focused so much on the minutia that he just left every big problem to Aang.
@@AstroSully She took care of one side over the other but she did a hell of a job taking care of the mortal world. There was incredible peace in the mortal world
So did Roku, it was 80 years of peace with him as the Avatar. His issue was sparing Sozin which didn't kill the movement of imperialism within the Fire Nation. No Avatar is perfect. Yang Chen's legacy would have been ruined if not for Kuruk defending the physical world from Dark Spirits. Roku's impact is downplayed because there was no Avatar around for a century. No Avatar would be guiltless if their successor was gone 100 years. People often overlook this when talking about Roku. What Yang Chen left for her successor is just as bad if not worse. All of them have their faults. @@jessedaniels4494
I don't think it's fair to pin the war on Roku as a mistake. He was a nuke with personal feelings in a high-tension geopolitical period. Him nuking Sozin or not, the war would have still happened. At least he delayed it with his presence until Sozin realized the nuke was a dud.
Killing Sozin was never the answer. His death would have only created even more xenophobic Firelords, even more extreme and despotic rulers. If you teach everyone to hate, it becomes harder to learn to love. The spin of having killed his best friend over a policy discussion would have destroyed Roku's reputation and maybe his mind. Sozin's heirs would have hated and feared the Avatar, and made things that much harder for others and other viewpoints. As it was, Ruku's power stopped Sozin from implementing his ideas more quickly. And his descendants (some of them) were more ruthless than he - Ruku was damned lucky that his lingering love for his bestie stopped him from forgetting Gandalf's wisdom: not to swiftly deal out death in judgment, for even the Wise cannot see all ends. The death would have started a war, then and there between Fire Nation and Avatar, and while Kyoshi was able to prevail against an army of nonbenders, it would have been too close between Ruku and an army of fire benders. My humble opinion.
@ziggystardust1973 The more that I think about it, Sozin getting killed probably would delay it more than anything. He already described the Fire Nation as being at it's most prosperous it had ever been, so I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't just Sozin alone who had similar ideas of "sharing" it's prosperity with the other Nations at that time. So even if he died there probably would have been another firelord who would start it sooner or later.
That's the issue with ATLA though, they deal with those complex problems in simplistic ways. LOK, the comics and the novels are more nuanced, but in ATLA killing Sozin would most likely be enough to prevent the war, just like locking up Ozai ended it.
I think kyoshi did the best she could for her time period especially because other than aang she arguably lived in the worst time period and simply did what she had to do and did it well and had more accomplishments than several avatars combined but she’s not S tier but at least A tier
I really love that you bring up the media side of Korra's era. It's like a folk legend becoming a superhero, the veil of mysticism is taken away as it's pretty easy to learn exactly what the Avatar is up to and critique their actions. And it's just another example of how particularly difficult this period of history is for an Avatar. The rate of technological development and societal change forced her to face threats like none seen before, and she had to adapt and learn extremely early in her career. She fought so hard, I'm just glad she's with Asami now (Happy Pride!)
Yeah that is a cool and tragic part of her character...She isn't at all a bad Avatar she's quite good and on par if not better than many that came before but they can easily condemn her mistakes and flaws because they can directly see them. She can't hide or pretend or be ignored like the previous Avatars. Can't wait to see the next Earth Avatar and how the world will treat them...I suspect that they'll hate them and/or believe they're an unneeded relic of an era long gone.
@@flamesofchaos13Korra is not a good Avatar. For example, Korra throughout the entirety of Book 1's conflict isn't invested in dealing with the societal issues that led to the formation of the Equalists but are instead focused on destroying their movement. Korra herself during the entirety of Book 1 did nothing but probending, airbending training, love triangle nonsense, and beat up the revolutionaries who are trying to deal with the core issues the best way they can. Never do we see Korra actually educate herself on a societal issue and implement her own effective solutions. She just beats up someone who is invested in fixing an issue and viewed as a savior for it. Korra's greatest accomplishment which was repopulating the world with airbenders happened on sheer accident. Korra foe the most part runs into the similar issue as the MCU heroes whenever they deal with a villain that is trying to deal with a societal issue.
@@GreatUniter Wow it's like a person is a person and has flaws. 1. Airbending training is a requirement for an Avatar that is her fulfilling her duties. Then Pro-Bending literally helped her click with the techniques of Airbending as Tenzin literally points out. 2. The Equalists no matter what are at the end of the day Terrorists that do need to be stopped for the safety of all...Because if they win the entire world will crumble into an eternal civil war between generations of Benders and Non-Benders. Their cause doesn't help Non-Benders and in fact demeans and distorts the idea of equality into a different form of supremacy and abuse. 3. Aang nor any Avatar before him ever gave equal rights to Non-Benders or Spirits...They always placed Benders above the others. That isn't a Korra only problem but a problem every single last Avatar to ever exist had. Some like Kyoshi even directly abused Non-Benders in favor of Benders...With the creation of the Dai Li. 4. You're solely condemning her for her season 1 portrayal. Completely avoiding her character growth and development in Seasons 2 to 4. Where she brought actual balance to the world by unlike previous Avatars respecting both the rights of Spirits and Humans, Ended the Tyranny of an Oppressive Empire, Realized that Civil Wars can actually be justified and supported one, Ensured that the world didn't crumble to Darkness for ten thousand years, Restored the Air Nation and allowed them to become Peacekeepers of the world so the Avatar is not the sole one responsible for world peace. 5. If we treated Aang the same way only judging him as a person and Avatar only during his season 1 portrayal...He couldn't control the Avatar State, He failed to learn how to control Firebending and let fear dictate his actions refusing to ever learn it, He ran away from his responsibility to bring balance so ensured that the Fire Nation reigned supreme for a hundred years bringing endless misery to all. Didn't compromise with Rebel Fighters condemning them as Terrorists. What a shitty fucking Avatar he must be right? Even when we look at Adult Aang...He didn't give Non-Benders equal rights, He didn't destroy the Dai Li, He didn't ensure the corruption of the Earth Kingdom was ended, He didn't kill or imprison Yakone so the knowledge of psychic Bloodbending was passed on. Then as a person he was a negligent father to two of his three children. When you actually realize the fact is that NONE of the Avatars are perfect that each and every single one of them made terrible mistakes as both an individual and icon...You most learn to accept the good with the bad. Aang and Korra are flawed but compared to what came before them...They're Legendary Avatars that had to learn harsh truths about the role of the Avatar the hard way and overcame nearly impossible challenges that would've easily destroyed previous Avatars before them then at the end of it all did in fact save the world and restored the connection to what never should've been severed in the first place.
@@flamesofchaos13 1. Korra doesn't need airbending to solve this conflict. Pro-bending, a sport that glorifies benders, in no way helps her tackle symptoms that led to the Equalist rebellion. 2. The Equalist provided the nonbending commonfolk with free self defense courses, developed weapons that will allow nonbenders to defend themselves, and dealt with the bending triads. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Heck the Equalists didn't even become violent until after the government got violent with them. 3. Korra did not give spirits nor non-benders equal rights. Spirits did not lack rights as they resided in their own realm and are not subject to law in the spirit world. 4. She doesn't get any better in Seasons 2-4. For example it is comically that the show tries to champion the ideals of democratic governance while allowing Korra to unilaterally make a decision like leaving the spirit portals open without consulting either party on what they wanted. Korra for some reason thinks she knows better than Wan when it comes to spirits even though he spent over a year living amongst them while Korra at the time had only gotten over her spiritual block and has less than a month's worth of experience in spiritual matters. In Book 4, her solution to Kuvira was to simply reinstall the monarchy. She never sits down a tries to formulate a solution that can give the EK stability and progress without resorting to Kuvira's brand of authoritarianism. In Book 3, she doesn't even bother to entertain Zaheer's ideology or acknowledge he something needs to be down about the oppressive nature of hierarchical societies. 5. No one said anything about Aang. Heck I never even compared her to any other Avatar. I have issues with Aang largely due to how he dealt with decolonization and how he neglected the EK after the war but that's an argument for another day. Kuvira's oppressive empire did more the Earth Kingdom than the Avatar did in centuries. Korra did not fight for the rights of spirits. They were not an oppressed group. They have never been oppressed. She left the portals open and let the world deal with the aftermath themselves. Korra is part of the reason the world was almost plunged into 10,000 years of darkness lol. She did not develop as a character despite what most say.
I like how Korra opening a portal to the spirit world is considered an achievement even though the spirits make it clear that they didn't want to interact with humans and it ultimately led to Republic city being destroyed. Then when she gets called out for it she basically tells everyone who has been uprooted from their homes that they just have to deal with it. Korra is the worst avatar in the series bar none.
What I have noticed is that the Avatars exeld on a few of there duties. The next Avatar would always have to clean their mess. For example, Yangchen focusing on keeping peace in a human world and forgetting the spirit world. And now Kuruk has to focus keeping the balance there and forgetting the human world. And that going on and on. I'm not complaining, but I personally see that all those responsibilities are IMPOSSIBLE for just ONE person to handle.
I love that you gave Avatar Szeto so much credit because a lot of his achievements have nothing to do with fighting as the avatar which is so refreshing. I saw a very odd take from Antoine Bandele when he said he didn’t enjoy the Yangchen novel (and refused to read the second one) because it was “too political”. It has been stated many times that the avatar is technically a political figure so of course they’ll have to be involved with politics and socioeconomics
It can be said that Avatar Seto's political reforms directly led to the cultural shift, and smooth political machinery, that allowed the Hundred Years War to happen at all. Seto unified the Fire Nation, made it prosperous. And from there not only grew the material and logistical capability to make global war, but also the hierarchical, supremacist worldview to make war easy.
What's the book about? What genre is it? How do you effectively write a novel? Trying to write my own novel as well but I'm just writing scenes that I want to happen but can't figure out how to connect them all together
I don’t think Wan sending the Spirits back to the spirit world (their home) was a mistake, given that the spirits were so oppressive and hostile that humans were forced to live on the backs of lion turtles for protection, and we see that as soon as Korra opens the portals again, the first thing that happens is the spirits destroying and causing problems for humans. I think they really muddled things in the beginnings episodes, by saying one thing (humans bad, nature good) while showing the opposite (humans scared and desperate, nature violent).
We're never given any context as to why they originally seemed so hostile. Spirits hate and distrust humans... why? Truth is, there's a lot more history we aren't seeing. Humans didn't evolve on the backs of the Lion turtles, they moved there. I'm suspecting humanity pissed off the spirits. You know, who are the literal bedrock of nature. If say, the Ocean spirit was killed by a human, life on Earth would pretty much end.
The humans do behave somewhat recklessly at points, and part of the reason the spirits go back is atonement for destruction. Moreover, humans are stronger come Korra, while ultimately humans and spirits are able to live together in Season 4.
I think it’s really cool that you can see the direct line of events of the fire nation unifying and then turning there eyes on the rest of the world. And between kyoshi and Roku the royals at least definitely start to see the avatar as a threat. Like it’s a really how all the prequels set to seeds
I feel like a seperate category should be how dire the problems of the world were when the Avatar was there - Kyoshi handed Roku a pretty stable world yet he left Ang a Ang a pretty messed up one and though Ang did amazing he left kora in one that had a lot of under the surface issues that festered such as the city he created and the political turmoil that left a teen Avatar - I find it funny on that note that the Avatar's don't leave a lil to do list journal for themselves lol
I feel like with Korra, I haven't read the books/comics, but she had plenty of life ahead of her, and she'd no doubt grow into an S tier avatar after the events of the series. Probably one of the best to ever do it if she kept on her trajectory.
Yea it feels like she had probably the most issues to deal with of any avatar, besides Kyoshi but Kyoshi did live for 230 years so that’s to be expected.
@@Dell-ol6hb The most we have seen on-screen for sure. But if the comics (ATLA) and books (Kyoshi) have proven anything, it's that there are myriads of other problems that the Avatar faces that we just don't get to see on screen. Like Tenzin's narration said in the very beginning of The Legend of Korra that Avatar Aang achieved many other remarkable things. I'm sure this applies to Yangchen, Roku, and more than likely Kyoshi; Korra isn't the exception.
I agree with this broadly, I think I’d raise kyoshi up to A tier with just the sheer amount of stuff she did and the rough circumstances she came from, and probably lower Roku a bit because he really did fuck up
I understand your criticisms of Kyoshi but I think she at least deserved A tier. Her accomplishments very much outweigh her faults but I think that’s the only difference for me! Thank you for the awesome video!!
Roku's decision to spare Sozin isn't what failed to prevent the Hundred-Year War. His failure to keep an eye on Sozin earlier on is. I think if Roku had intervened earlier on, as in stopping the invasions before or while they were happening, that would've had a better chance of dissuading him.
I agree with your assessment of Korra. We only get a slice of pie view of what she did with the show, and I suspect in her middle age and older she ends up quite wise and clever due to learning from her own past. She's been showing to be flexible and willing to find compromise, but people who think the avatar should just use thier power more than thier influence don't understand how complex social sciences are. History is complicated, and so is the world of the four elements.
Yea but she broke the cycle. The cycle that was held for over 100 avatars. She was the first to mess that up. I don't care what accomplishments she had after. That one act alone constitutes a much lower score in my opinion
@@BraydonAttoe-xs4ygShe's the only Avatar since the first one who has dealt with harmonic convergence. And Aang did die in the Avatar State ending the cycle forever, but Katara was there and saved the day.
@@jihoszcrazy how people call out Aang unlocking Korra's bending after Amon as plot convenience, but completely ignore the fact that he'd be dead if Katara didn't literally revived him.
@LuisGustavo-wd6pi The setup was better with Kataras resuscitation of Aang, which makes it less as contrived. Her healing abilities were mentioned since the first season, the single use healing water mcguffin had been floating around in the story for a whole season. They even reintroduced how special it was again in the previous episode as a way to heal Zukos burns. Setup and build up are important when you want to solve a problem in a story.
Kyoshi really was the FDR of Avatars. Got things done but really had to crack a few eggs to do it. And I’m glad you touched on how Korra mishandled the Anti Bender Revolution and allowed the Northern Water Tribe to occupy the South. Those are more of a blemish to Korra’s legacy than losing the avatar connection imo
I agree with you about Kyoshi. No one seems to mention that she allowed Chin the Conquerer to take over nearly all of the Earth Kingdom. She only stopped him when he tried to defeat her home town, only when it would have affected her.
Ok I think that everyone judges Kyoshi too much in that topic because we don't really know much about what happened ,we do 't know why Kyoshi let that happen and how it happen and I think we also forget about one important thing here ,this thing was created before Kyoshi got an actual character traits this was way before her books were even planed
All this talk about mediating between spirits and humans gave me the idea of a spirit as a new avatar that has to take over this role and maybe also gets the capability to bend the elements. That new perspective would be sooo interesting imo.
I’d say a lot of Korra’s mistakes were basically fixed within a few weeks, to a few years with the power vacuum /Kuvira case, that I don’t think it can count as a mistake she originally sided with (for one example) the Northern Tribe when she literally helps take it down once she gets new information a little later.
I'd also say a lot of her problems come from the writers nerfing the avatar state so hard now any skilled bender can stomp an avatar. It used to be a force of nature back in atla, something not even power upped Ozai can hold a candle against, now its a small power boost and that's it...
@@Soundwave1900 I think it's to give some credibility to the idea that she lost all her past lives. A lot of the avatar state was "the force and knowledge of all past avatars"... which she doesn't have anymore. So in that sense, it's good that she doesn't have plot armour just because she's the avatar and has to deal with the consequences of her mistakes.
@@samyloaiza98 well, perhaps, but the part where she've lost to every villain in the show in a fair fight, including when she had the connection with previous lives, doesn't put her in a good light. That's one of my personal beefs with the show, that she kinda sucks as a great equalizer if anyone can just come and beat her ass whenever. At this point Tenzing would've made a better equalizer. It does give weight to her decisions and roles but Aang had all that without being a complete pushover.
I wonder did aang learning energy bending affect his view on non benders because they goes from a type of person in the world to a punishment he can force on benders
4:59 - my big thing w/ the Spirits in the pre-Wan era is… it’s _not_ their land, at least not exclusively. Spirits _come from_ the Spirit World and colonized the physical world in a sense, and drove humans to the protection of the lion turtles. Yes there were oppressors _within_ the human settlements, in the conflict between spirits & humans I wouldn’t necessarily label the humans the oppressors
That’s also not to say the spirits were oppressors either, given the very valid points made about humanity’s relationship with nature But it again gets into dangerous territory when you start telling groups that they’re not managing their own resources “right” and taking control to manage it your own way - in universe see the North & South comics, irl see colonialism
I given how toed spirits are to nature in our world even while they’re in the spirit world I don’t think it’s that clear cut. These worlds are deeply connected. But it’s a fair point about human being unable to survive among the spirits. These things are rarely clear cut
While I think this is a good argument, I also think it's a little flawed. The natural state of the world is unsegregated. The Spirit and Physical planes are intertwined; one cannot exist without the other, and they were linked so that physical travel was possible. To say that the physical world is solely the domain of humanity and mortal life is not exactly true? It's our home dimension, yes, but every human eventually makes their way to the Spirit world (upon death). So it's not exactly fair to say that humanity and mortal life should get to claim an entire world for their sole use when that's not true for the spirits. The spirits are also not aliens. The most primordial of them embody fundamental concepts of nature, from the tangible (tides, ocean), to the ephemeral (individuality itself). They have as much right to the Physical world as the humans, and vice versa. I do believe that by sealing away the spirits and the spirit world, Avatar Wan created a fundamental imbalance in the natural world. Much as he did when he separated Vaatu and Raava.
Honestly this is why I say aang was almsot the perfect avatar, he weirdly for a pacificist was both perfectly capable of bringing the hammer and of solving the complex problems But I will always maintain that Korra and aang should’ve swapped, I’m not sure Korra was better(I actually think she was a worse bender) but she had the mentality to just crush the fire nation, and the negotiating skills to sufficiently fix the situation, I think a lot of aangs skills there were wasted Aang in turn I think would’ve had a better time with many of her problems, especially the spiritual, because while Korra grows into spiritual mastery, she was still not quite the mediator aang was and he had an instinctive grasp of the spiritual from day one.
I'm glad to see the love for Korra. She's one of my favorite characters in the Avatar universe, and has some truly incredible accomplishments and an arc that is frankly quite under appreciated.
@Underhel Wow your hatred against a non-existent character is remarkable Did she? Accidental or not, Aang abandoned the world for 100 years and almost left in a state not even the Avatar could save. And he risked the Avatar Cycle unneccesarily.
@Underhel You don't use the word hoe unless you either hate someone or you're really vulgar, and I chose to believe the better option. And Aang still didn't do better. He was the reason the Fire Nation got so strong in the first place, even if it's not his fault alone.
@@Mediados Aang did not abandon the world for 100 years. You talk as if he purposefully chose to freeze himself in an iceberg for a century because he wanted nothing to do with the world. Aang never risked the Avatar State unnecessarily. He's not like Korra who used the Avatar State just to beat children in a race.
So, I agree with all of your tier rankings. You give fair reasons for all, listing both the good and bad of each Avatar, and never let personal bias get involved with the ranking. That said, there are two point I'd like to bring up, for Kuruk and Aang respectively. 1. For Kuruk: A point you missed on why he was so fixated on battling Dark Sprits wasn't solely for revenge. That, honestly, was a pretty minor reason in the end. The big, overarching reason was his insistence on keeping Yangchen's legacy untainted. He feared that if people noticed the rise of angry spirits, they would start to question and even doubt the things Yangchen had done. And Kuruk, like everyone else, had such a deep respect for his predecessor that he felt it was his duty to preserve that legacy, even at his own expense. Yangchen herself feels profoundly guilty for this, remarking to Kyoshi how she wishes she could have done things differently in her time, if only so Kuruk wouldn't have suffered so much. 2. For Aang: I think a big flaw of his character is his immature attitude to love. As much as I love the kid, having grown up with the show, as I've gotten older, I can't deny how poorly he handles his love for Katara. I know he's twelve, but the way he act towards Katara is really cringy sometimes. He seems to really believe that, because he likes her, that automatically means she ought to love him back. He thinks that, because he kisses her, that means they're a thing. Pointedly ignoring the fact that SHE didn't want the kiss. This is especially bad in the Ember Island Players episode, where he does it AGAIN. I know it isn't fair to completely lay this at the kid's feet, this is really more a failure on the writer's part. They clearly went with a Westen idea of the hero getting the girl in a show that primarily focuses on Easten ideas and philosophies. If they had followed those latter philosophies more, I reckon it would have ended with Aang stepping away from the Gang and focusing on rebuilding the world, forgoing love as a needless attachment. But that's just what I think. What say you?
Him being a kid does explain things, and he also shows respect for Katara at other points. It's like Han Solo. Some scenes are cringey, but there's enough good scenes that it mitigates it.
I actually lowkey agree with... pretty much everything here?? Good god, man, well done, I love the way you analyze stuff and compare perspectives trying to stay objective. Neat!
One more note I'm not seeing mentioned in the comments and that was missed in the video as to Aang deserving his S tier: he leveled up the Avatar by adding spirit bending to the arsenal of available tools and as far as I'm aware is the first and only one to do it.
I would love to see a follow up to this video where it's like an alternate history type video, and you have avatars switch places. What if Szeto was in Kyoshi's time? What if Aang was in Kuruk's? How would they have dealt with problems their predecessors or descendants failed at?
One thing I wish you would have mentioned about Kora, is that not only was her world muh more compliated and she faced a lot more scrutiny, but she was also absolutely handicapped by the way the White Lotus hid her away. Not only did her world require a lot more skill, wisdom and knowledge than the world of probably any previous Avatar, but she started out with much fewer tools and much less learning (other than combat training) to lean on. No wonder Kora started out with a heavy reliance on big stick diplomacy. No one ever thought to provide her with anything other than a stick.
@@G-Forces My rough estimate would be 100 avatars - rather than one per generation (~30 years) and multiple Avatars running around at once, it's one per lifetime, and with two Avatars known to have lived for well over a century out of the half dozen or so we know the lifespans of (~230 for Kiyoshi; ~170 for Aang), an average lifespan of 100 years seems plausible (it's known that Avatars who die of old age live significantly longer than most because of their powers)
Korra I think belongs in a tier of her own for not only having to deal with the aftermath of Aang's mistakes, but of the mistakes of arguably every other Avatar on this list. The girl gets saddled with so much baggage that I'm pretty sure she could be the Avatar equivalent of generational trauma. I may not like her very much but I will never take away from her growth, accomplishments, and just how high both canon and meta problems were stacked against her.
Finally! It's so refreshing to hear someone in the fandom with a fair take on Korra, even if you don't like her as a character. I love her and her journey and all I ever see from the Avatar fandom is unjustified hate towards her
@@YourExGranPappi Except.... she didn't suck. She accomplished a lot during her time as Avatar and didn't leave any messes for any avatar after her to clean up, unlike a lot of the other Avatars
@@huskyxrichie6656 Her constant impulsivity and overconfidence causes her to lose majority of fights/situations in the series. She constantly gets dominated and makes stupid decisions that not only affect her, but the entire world negatively. She’s an unapologetic moron who thinks she can solve all of her problems with her fists, except she can’t fight. She consistently ignores the plans and ideas of her allies who have proven to be smarter and wiser than her, then mopes when she loses. Half the series was her crying because she messed up again. Plus, she severed the connection to all of the previous Avatar. That objectively makes her the worst Avatar in history. You can try to glaze her all you want, her series sucked. If it were good, it wouldn’t have been so universally hated.
Honestly, I would like to see a series about this Avatar Seto. Like I want to know how he did these things. But while you're correct he seemed a little biased for the Fire Nation, but during Yangchen's time there didn't seem to have been a big problem elsewhere. Which meant he was doing his job for the other nations as well. I haven't read the Kiyoshi books, but honestly, I feel like the previous Avatar leaves the current Avatar high and dry. Like I feel Kiyoshi could've talked with Seto about being more diplomatic. I feel like Aang was the only one truly in tune with his previous Avatars. And we know that the Avatar Spirit can be autonomous as Yangchen was able to try and get Aang's attention on her own. Also, Yangchen could've helped cued in Kuruk about the different pacts that were made and would've resulted in not as much dark spirits. And I feel like the Air Nomads would've been a great supporter of the Avatar. Kinda like what they currently are in Korra. This seems to be a problem with the Avatar. They don't really seem to use all the knowledge gathered from previous Avatars to the best of their ability. And I'm not surprised the Air Nomad Avatars are the ones that have the most peace. Because they're spiritual. They probably call upon previous Avatars more than any other nation. I mean, for all Yangchens faults with the spirits, she did create peace for a while. Aang stopped the Hundred Year War and for 70 years from what we know (we have yet to see with the new Avatar Studios coming out) he created Republic City and more unity with the different nations together.
Aang is obviously the best Avatar. Stopped the Hundred Year War and mastered all elements in a year starting when he was 12. All without killing anyone. If that doesn't deserve GOAT status, nothing does.
All of that is correct, except Aang never mastered all the elements in year. Toph and Zuko both stated he needed more work in the elements, and Aang himself stated he needed more time to master the elements.
@joshheralal8758 he was really only able to do that in the avatar state, meaning, he's accessing the collective experience of all avatars on top of his own. Ozai was wiping the floor with him when he was out of the avatar state.
All of the Fire Nation soldiers who died when Aang blasted Ozai's airship off the air and it crashed against the rocky mountains would like to have a word with you.
I liked that you out Kyoshi at B. You can have incredible feats, and be loved for them, and have a great legacy. But faultered a bit on softer skills. And it fits her character: law and order tends to lead to a focus on repression, instead of prevention and solutions to underlying problem.
I think the critic that Korra lost her connection to her past life is unfair. She was brutally attacked by Unalaq and almost killed by him. I don't see how that is her mistake. It's not her fault/mistake that those connections were lost. Otherwise, fantastic video. Great to listen to and a much appreciated drip through the history of the various Avatars.
I think there is one very significant factor that must be taken into account when comparing Avatars, namely to what extent young Avatars growing up had a support network to fall back on - both a young Team Avatar of peers and older mentors (usually associated with the last Avatar). Korra and Yangchen grew up pretty sheltered with a lot of adults taking care of them whereas for Kyoshi it was pretty much the opposite and it was an incredible challenge for her to even put together a Team Avatar in the first place. Aang was sort of in the middle, with good younger peers, but fewer older ones.
There are too many Avatars in the cycle considering how little technological progress humanity made between Wang and Aang (while between Aang and Korra, there seemed to be a technological boom within a few decades).
From Wan's to Szeto's Eras the world was inherently Magic based...Elements being bent was the go to and only means to gain power to influence others to dominate. Getting to Yangchen the world starts to figure out more destructive means of bending so now the power system is inherently perceived as imbalanced. Getting to Kyoshi the world learns a Might makes Right mentality to purge what you consider as weakness. Then Roku is when the Industrial Revolution starts with multi cultural colonies being formed with the Fire Nations prosperity being spread by force. Get to the war that lasts for a hundred years...War breeds a desire for advanced tech that makes your army more efficient than the enemy whether to destroy or save lives. The big difference from Aang to Korra is all about the world realizing Bending isn't the end all be all. Technology can surpass Bending capabilities in many fields proven as fact for a hundred years. Getting to the the aftermath Non Benders want to equal the playing field, The Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes don't want to be on the losing side of history again, The Fire Nation was Evil in their Warfare but it was proven correct that yes they had knowledge and tech to offer that would indeed change the world change the means of how people live and survive. Then the Republic ensures easy access to the best tech and inventors while being built on the idea of cooperation in the name of legends that saved the world...Highly marketable and enticing.
Avatar content! Always nice! But... Look at that amazing boardgame selection!!! Do you/does Tim have a boardgamegeek account? I'm really curious what your/his boardgame tier ranking is 😂
"Avatar Korra was A-tier, Kyoshi was B-tier at best. Now get in the comments, tell me where you think I'm wrong!" I know every comment drives engagement but geez does this ever have "at least things can't get any worse" energy
I think it's a very interesting choice for them to have made a water bending avatar so disconnected from spirituality when the water benders seem to be a decently spiritual civilization. Not as spiritual as the air nomads for sure but a lot of their practices are spirit based, particularly the moon spirit. But I always thought Korra was an earth Kingdom native/originally an earth bender because or how non spiritual she was and how hard air bending was (I am not well versed on Korra, haven't watched it)
Nope Southern Water Tribe and naturally a Waterbender. It goes Fire to Air to Water to Earth then repeats. Aang was Air and Korra is Water...Parentage and Birthplace and First Element. She just as an individual wasn't spirituality attuned...Just like Sokka another Southern Water Tribe member. It was stated in LoK that the Southerners forgot/ignored their spiritual duties. The Avatars can also have problems with not just their elemental opposite but what they mentally can't handle...Aang feared and hated Fire after he burned Katara so it was hard for him to learn even though Earth is naturally the hardest for an Airbending Avatar to understand which was also true. Korra just couldn't vibe with Air she's not pacifistic or calm or spiritual so it only clicked in after intense training and when left with no other option. Just like how Fire only clicked with Aang when he learnt its true purpose and meaning from the Dragons.
I know it’s a fairly old video at this point but Something I feel should be mentioned is that part of the reason Aang feels so “united” all the nations and can understand and be a mediator Besides spending time in each nation long enough to get a bit of understanding.. He was the only air nomad left. No other air nomads to discuss or talk or influence him (besides dead avatars) I don’t think he would’ve been as understanding of all nations if he wasn’t the only air nomad alive, more discussions and differing opinions and perspectives could have come out instead.
Yangchen was so bad at half of her job she turned Kuruk into a demon slayer. Saying Yangchen is the best is focusing on half of her job. Yes, she left the world peaceful enough for the next avatar but was so bad with spirits she made Kuruk Hell Boy. Kuruk had a far more difficult task than Yengchen as seen in how badly both Aang and Korra got bodied by dark spirits. Szeto was meant to bring balance but when an entire nation is filled with warlords killing people then that's balance. Kyoshi basically did the same thing when restoring the Earth Kingdom only that she lived longer than Szeto. Kyoshi also completely ignored Chin for years due to romance until her Avatar duties caught up to her. You're too harsh on Szeto. Roku basically caused the air nomad genocide and then died in a volcano. Szeto's main feat was lava bending 4 volcanos and keeping peace in the fire nation. If anything Roku was the worst Avatar. None of the previous ones messed up as badly as he did to the point that even he should be blamed for Aang running away as he basically led to a child being given pressure. My ranking is S Tier -Aang & Kyoshi A Tier - Kuruk &.Korra B Tier -Wan C TIer - Yengchen (She was excellent at half her job so half the points) D Tier - Szeto F Tier - Roku (An entire genocide could have been prevented and Szeto wouldn't have lost to a volcano)
Hey HFM just a question are you planning on making more Psychology of _ videos your Azula and Zuko ones are great and I think an Aang one would be interesting too
How would you rank the Avatars?! Where do you think I'm wrong?
~ Tim
I rank them all F lol!
Kyoshi kinda sucks
Korra D tier cmonbruh
For the first :40 seconds of the video, I just repeated Yang Chen. Just saying
when revisit httyd
In addition to cleaning up Yangchen's huge mess, Kuruk did it while refusing to expose her. He sacrificed his own reputation, personal happpiness, and life to preserve Yangchen's saint status. She's the Avatar people needed, but he's the Avatar the people deserved.
this should have way more likes! Yangchen seems a bit like Caesar in Fallout NV, where her society only functions well as long as she is around. This is a systemic failure that the next avatar was bound to be unable to contain.
I also take issue with the Kuruk slander in the video.
He also knew that if his friends knew what he was doing, they would do the anime cast ensemble thing and refuse to let him fight alone, and they would be spiritually poisoned like he was, so he not only fought alone, but couldn't talk to anyone about it.
Still doesn’t make him a good avatar, being a good person isn’t the same as being a good avatar
@@Dell-ol6hbhe focused too much on the spirit world because yangchen neglected that in her time,he’s both..
@@Dell-ol6hb Yes, being a good person, aside from bending 4 elements, is a bare minimum requirement to be a good Avatar.
How about saving the world from dark spirit incursions? Does that make one a good Avatar? And making advancements in bending despite having such a short life?
If you replaced Kuruk with any of the "good" Avatars, have them be in the same time and situation, who would fare better? How would they fare better? By telling their companions and having them suffer the same affliction, instead of them somewhat covering for his other duties? Korra? Korra would not have had spirit bending at the time.
"Don't be corrupt or I'll corrupt your face with my fist" is such a good line
ah, big stick diplomacy at its finest
The "Otherwise I'm gonna Law and Order you in the face" complete it so well too.
How did I know these are about Kyoshi without even getting to that part of the video yet haha
This is both Kyoshi and Toph as an officer in a nutshell. It’s why I always say if there was ever a time traveling spirit or something that somehow allowed past and present characters to meet that Toph and Kyoshi would be the WORST influences on each other but the BEST of friends 😭They’d literaly just traverse the entire world hyping each other up and beating the BRAKES off of everything they didn’t like or who was breaking the law 🤣they would probly even turn it into a competition to see who could arrest and beat up more bad guys Lmfao 😂
When i say my similar line, i say "I'll put my fist in your faste" cuz it sounds funny
“In the beginning, the universe was created. This was widely regarded as a bad move and made many people very angry”
I wish I could be certain this is a “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” quote, but it’s been so long, I just can’t be certain. Either way, I love it
@@kylewood2715 It absolutely is. I can't guarantee the precise wording, but the general voice is pure DNA. It's the start of the speech that ends with the girl sitting in a small cafe in Rickmansworth who realised the answer, but before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it the Earth was demolished.
Douglas Adams at his finest
@@rmsgrey if only she had her towel.
@@revan0890 At least she didn't think she was a hedgehog, even if there was something wrong with her feet...
I really want them to make an anthology series focusing on a different Avatar in history every episode.
They are making movies and TV shows on different avatars, so we will explore a lot of them over the years
@@wile123456 Ooh noice 👍
Each avatar fixing the mistakes or oversights of the previous avatar would be super cool
Took the words right out of my mouth. Maybe have Korra finding artifacts of past avatars and having her be the lens by which we explore past avatars.
@@orngcreator6115 Ooh that's a good framing device 👍
I would have accepted Aang in A Tier, but I fully respect putting him in S. I think one point in his favor that isn't considered as highly for the other Avatars is the allies/friends he surrounded himself with. For the faults that Aang had, one of his friends was able to pick up the slack, to see solutions that he might not.
That willingness to work with others, to come around and see solutions that he might balk at at first, /I/ think is further evidence for making him S Tier.
Yeah, Aang's ability to work with both humans and spirits is definitely to his credit
He seems to be the first avatar to have true team avatar and the precedent probably will help lots of future avatars mitigate their faults (with korra era basically often forgotten something she does is basically putting team avatar members has world leaders even to the point that only fire nation by end of the story isn’t ruled by member of team avatar)
Idk...we haven't seen adult Aang though...The equalists came to power for a reason, I wonder if it was due to his time as an adult avatar?
@@kdlove8629it seems like a problem that should’ve been around for a very long time it just hasn’t been able to express itself until technology had reached a sufficient enough level where non benders could feasibly fight and beat benders. I don’t know if I could really blame Aang for that conflict, it would’ve happened no matter what in the conditions of the world they live in, like obviously being a non bender in this world means you’re automatically at the mercy of those who can bend
Aang also has the least amount of hindsight bias. Every past Avatar's perception will be weathered until only their extremes are remembered. They essentially become caricatures. Aang is the most-recorded Avatar, all his highs, lows, mediocres, and cabbage destruction is front-row-center. And he brought the world back from a very bad place. Definitely deserving of S tier.
Wan's real achievement was not merging with Raava and beating Vaatu, fixing the problem he created. His REAL achievment was getting the people to leave the lionturtle cities and settle the land. He was THE driving force of progress.
It's questionable whether that could be seen as an accomplishment that's only positive, as that move made him "inprison" the spirits into the spirit world and also probably was bad for the nature and ecosystems, which the humans expanded into.
"progress" lol
@@DetinuTrackmania Industrialization is also very bad for the environment one lives in, yet I'm very happy I live in a world where it has happened.
@@BattleBrawlerHikaruYes, because you're selfishly focused on how it has helped humanity and not on how much life we destroyed to get here.
Do you genuinely think that the improved living of humans justifies the incredible suffering it caused? Because the suffering of the rest of the earth, and especially the rest of humanity (because industrialisation existed and still exists on the backs of the suffering of more people than whom are being helped) means that it was ok? Morally good? Industrialisation happened as a direct result of the majority of human life becoming slaves or slave adjacent. Even in the scope of human suffering it doesn't justify itself.
@@BattleBrawlerHikaru I suppose you're also happy that colonization happened in that case.
If scoring Asami counts as an accomplishment for Korra then scoring Rangi should count for Kyoshi.
Would being bros with best boy Zuko be an accomplishment for Aang, then?
I wouldn't say Zuko counts, but scoring Katara definitely does count.
i love how Asami is put at the same level as lasting world peace
@@E-man.I hope that's sarcasm
@@DavidElendu - Sarcasm how? It's a funny observation based on a joke made by Tim. What would sarcasm have to do with it?
I would agree with almost everything said here except for a few points. I think you overvalued Roku. I think Roku's biggest mistake wasn't sparing Sozin, it was failing to build up a safety net for after his death. We see that his confrontational with Sozin is decades before his death, and by his own admission he didn't speak to Sozin at all during that time. We know that the colonies weren't disbanded as Roku told Sozin to do. This means Roku either never checked to see if Sozin left or never followed up with Sozin. More than that we don't see any evidence that he built up or warned the earth kingdom of further invasion plans or warned the air nomads to be more cautious in the time between his death and the next avatar's training. We know he was personal friends with Gyatso and yet Gyatso seemed to have no suspicions of an oncoming war.
It is not clear whether Roku could have prevented the war, but he certainly could have lessened the impact it would have had or work on minimizing the initial surprise.
With all this I would put him in D tier with Kuruk.
Yeah fr
I am so curious if they'll do a Roku book eventually and flesh him out the way they have the others, maybe about him and Gyatso or something
@@Doomsword0 I get the feeling that after Legacy of Yangchen, Roku has to be the next avatar to be covered in the novels. So far out of the established line of avatars we were first introduced in ATLA, Roku will now be the one who we know/spent the least amount of time with and I definitely think he should be fleshed out more in a duology of novels like we got for Kyoshi and Yangchen have so far. We got a bit of Roku's era slightly fleshed out in the Avatar Legends RPG, but it was more of information about what the world was like during his era and not really about him specifically. F.C. Yee mentioned in an interview that he only feels comfortable writing about the avatars that Aang and Korra talk to, so Roku is one of the ones left remaining for him to tackle and write about.
Gyatso and the air nomads knew, but they didn't know about the comet but ngl nobody knew
@humanoidfrog4645 they said they knew "dark clouds are gathering". There is no evidence that they had any greater knowledge. In fact of all the monks, gyatso was in fact the least worried of all of them. He believed the monks were being overly cautious and shouldn't have told Aang who he is and that they were too worried. If he was warned by his good friend that Sozin was planning something and to take care of the next avatar then he would not be so relaxed about it.
I think Kyoshi's being judged a bit too harshly and Roku a bit too leniently. In Kyoshi's era, the EK is so ridiculously corrupt and chaotic that a big stick is pretty necessary. Roku on the other hand is born to a much more ideal society and messes up on the obvious solution to the pressing issue.
An ideal society built by Kyoshi btw!
@@JustRandomSymbols Exactly. Rokus world had very few problems because Kyoshi left it that way for him.
Totally agree!
Precisely! Kiyoshi is always judged harshly and critically while Roku gets a pass all the time! Sounds like the modern society where women are under the microscope all the time
I think Kyoshi fell into the heuristic problem. A hammer wasn't the only tool she had, but she had to deal with so many nails that she started instinctively reaching for the hammer even when the problem required a screwdriver.
Kinda sad how Kuruk sacrificed or lost pretty much everything he loved, cleaning up Yangchens messes, and that gets him a place in D-tier while she gets a place in S-tier
Every avatar had to clean up after the previous one’s mess
@@donkeykong3628Yan Chen’s mess is one of the most vital and deadly one. Had Kuruk failed the world would have been in complete anarchy. Dark Spirits would make the 100 Year War look like a utopia.
Absolutely, she didnt deserve the S rank ad an avatar.
@@nebelnoob5086Maybe she does. She did a pretty good job handling the human side of things, but if she gets S rank, Kuruk deserves it too, man literally fixed the Spirits plotline of Korra (except worse because it was a global occurence) on his own with nothing but determination and far too many hallucinogenic drugs. This Kuruk slander needs to end!
@@tylerbranson2099exactly. Man was 100x the Avatar Korra ever was but still gets shitted on
the kyoshi books really helped me like her a lot more. I get she's flawed as an avatar, but her character seemed sorta one dimensional in the show and she had a very interesting story in the books, rising from famine and a tough political landscape. An avatar that grew up without the "avatar resources" much like aang in a way, but even worse as she didnt have any formal mentorship and education
her way of being an avatar was sorta to be what she didnt have growing up, a parental figure, stable and trying to be fair even if she was unsophisticated at it
Yeah in the show she's basically the "do whatever it takes yes kill them if you must" advice person who popped in a few times and not a ton more than that and the books really just expanded on that so much
I’m re reading the Kyoshi novels for a third time and her story is so interesting and inspiring Kyoshi is still the GOAT and nothing can change that.
Her being flawed and not this stereotypical “I’m strong and kill everything” is so much more better
Books Kyoshi > Show Kyoshi (Same character really 😂)
More like Book Kyoshi > Fanon Meme Kyoshi that most of the fanbase think how she really is which is sad.
@@AstroSullylol thank god the meme of her being a killing machine right now became canon with the new Roku novel😂
Kuruk being the lowest rated avatar is absolutely on brand for Kuruk
That’s doing his sacrifice dirty though
Thats fro him stopping the dark spirits which did affect him that much.
Glad he is where he deserves. I don't buy that whole "He was actually kinda like batman having a secret live fighting dark spirits" retcon they gave him in the Kyoshi novels, especially because it came in the cost of Yangchen's former immaculate reputation as seen in TLA. Who asked for that? I much prefer when he was an example of how no one, not even the avatar, is beyond avoiding responsibility and being complacent with the way things are.
Kyoshi: So Kuruk sucked
Yangchen: No, you should blame me.
Me: Nah, I'm go with Kyoshi's assessment of him.
I actually liked the retcon. It showed that the "best" Avatar still screwed up and that the "worst" Avatar was just doing his best to clean up the mess left him. Idk, it made them a bit more human
I think Kuruk had an unfair score. The man had to fight demons that ended up tearing apart his psyche. The dark spirits came because the agreements arranged with the previous Avatar were not set up to be enforced and the humans took advantage. He fought dark spirits. He did more for the world than being a pencil-pushing bureaucrat for the Fire Nation. Yes, the socio-economic advancement was great for the Fire Nation, but it's not the Avatar's duty to make ONE Nation economically efficient.
He also gave Korra a bit of a pass when she was dealing with mental and physical issues after Zahr.
I think the argument is yes he fought the dark spirits but he wasn't present for the rest of the world and more actively helping them
I mean he wasnt F tier or anything I think D is fair. Sure, his life was hard, but he doesn’t really have mant accomplishments and wasn’t great at handling his problems. Yangchen however, was the one to leave those dark spirits behind and focused much more on human problems than spirit ones, so I don’t think she deserves S tier.
@@Doomsword0yes and he couldn't have been because of mistakes that Yang chen made. I dont think you can put her that high and then tell Kuruk that well... you didnt hold up your responsibilities. Apparently neither did yang chen
No I think the score is perfectly fair sure he had it bad but so did many other avatars he’s not special or anything, he’s just not as good of an avatar as many others. Also Yangchen caused some problems for him but she has way more achievements and did way more good for the world, plus all the avatars deal with the mistakes of their predecessors, Kyoshi had to fill in for Kuruk’s early death leaving the world without an avatar for decades, and Aang had to deal with the mess left by Roku
I find it so ironic that avatars have access to their past lives, but yet don't use it enough, especially when one avatar has the perfect knowledge to assist in a difficult scenario. The best avatar's are probably the ones who accept their limitations, whilst also unwaveringly sticking to their core beliefs.
maybe communicating with them its more difficult than we are led to believe, Aang as an air nomad is an spiritual powehouse and that helps when contacting the spirits and past lives, other avatars might be more challenged but I agree that they should use it more often.
It would be great if the current Avatar could create a meeting of SEVERAL past Avatars. They could discuss how the times have changed, how they had to fix the previous one's mistakes while the current Avatar would attempt to mediate between their differing ideologies.
@@RabbitShirak The council of Avatars
Yangchen was supposed to be so spiritually in tune with her past lives that she had difficulty early on just being herself and having a grounded grasp on reality. Outside of our limited view of one of her stories I imagine she used her inherited knowledge as you'd expect an avatar to do.
I agree they dont do it 'enough' but i also thing about aang talking to like 4 past avatars and expressing his discontent with killing Ozai and all for of them are just like 'it sucks but you gotta do it.' And at the end of the day aang didnt and still got the job done. Could reaching back to Wan made learning energy bending easier? Maybe. But the idea of talking to lets just say at bare minimum 50 avatars to over a 100 sounds exhausting lol.
I love how Silai got S tier simply because we didn't know much about them.
I don’t. How are you gonna rank him S when we don’t know him.
How would you rank an avatar based on how well they did when you don’t know much of what they did, you don’t rank them, should’ve been left off the ranking imo, still funny though
@@froggy8714 D tier. He had no known accomplishments or mistakes, and his legacy was "Good at being Avatar."
@@MasD1776I think it’s more of a joke than anything
@masondenuccio1886 I agree we technically can't rank him and he did make mistakes, atheists one because, that seems to be the premise of the cycle itself avatars fixing the mistakes of their predecessors szeto is no different his mistakes are a result of salai,s
In Defense of Aang, we never really see him as an adult. In the anime and comics he's a kid and a teenager. So him not being able to think critically and solve complex geopolitical and socioeconomic issues as a young teenager is understandable. 38:00
Yea I guess not everyone is like Jaden Smith.
Well Aang did help Korra out, helped see the past
Did you just say anime?
It’s not an anime.
@@shawnboahene5231yes it is. Don’t be pedantic.
I understand not wanting to put Kyoshi in S tier but B tier was so dramatic especially putting her next to Roku 😭 She has a 2 century legacy and a lot of her choices are influenced by the fact the world didn’t know she was the avatar until she was already all grown up, and she also didn’t have the luxury of being diplomatically trained like Yun was which is a whole plot point in her story which included her trying her best to follow fire kingdom diplomacy customs but ultimately failing because it was too much to learn.
Yeah, especially since the reason why Roku had such a good era was because of Kyoshi having already solved most of the big conflicts for him. Roku had it so easy that he was able to dick around and neglect his waterbending training for an entire year just to convince one specific guy to train him.
And what was the legacy of Roku’s era? An entire nation of benders being almost completely genocided while the world was plunged into 100 years of war and tyranny.
Although kyoshi had very big mistakes I would have argued that the era after her was seen as a pretty stable one, not perfect by any means but Roku was free to learn for years only thinking of Sozin as his flaw which implies he didn't had any other major issues. So what kyoshi did worked to a certain extent probably because of her longevity which just made people around the world think "Well if she is going to stay I better behave" I wouldn't put her at S tier by any means even if she is my fsvorite avatar but I think that should be mentioned.
00:15 Ranking criteria
Avatars:
00:39 Wan
06:16 Salai
07:15 Szeto
12:18 Yangchen
18:09 Kuruk
23:01 Kyoshi
31:54 Roku
35:21 Aang
40:16 Korra
thanks for the timestamp
I feel like a lot of Kuruk's "mistakes" are the direct result of Yangchen's actions. He spent his entire life cleaning up after her mistakes so that she would seem better than she was at the expense of himself. I don't know if that makes him a good Avatar, but I feel like calling them his own problems and mistakes and giving him the lowest tier for that is rather unfair..
And the reason why Kuruk didn’t focus on worldly problems as much is because creates a time of peace for long after she died… which probably means all of Kuruk’s life and the beginning of Kiyoshi’s.
Agreed, it may also be a bit of a Treaty of Versailles problem, sure we have peace now, but we really haven't thought how to maintain that, so the next lot of people have to fix the issue. Yangchen may have "agreements" with the spirits, but with no method for them to be mediated when she moves on and that generation of humans dies, how do you mediate with the next lot in terms of the agreement, so kinda kicked the can down the road to the next Avatar? And because of this, we have dark spirits to deal with.
Also, we may have a bit of a "Justice League doesn't help with small crime" thing that comes up in super hero stuff from time to time. For example, in the Last (terrible) season of Supergirl, one of the episodes has a character throw a wobbly over the heroes not helping the people of colour affected by some tragedy. The issue is, there all dealing with the big focus things like stopping buildings falling down, dealing with Super villains, things that are large and over arching and help everyone. Sure, Kuruk may not have helped in bridging between between nations, because he was dealing with Dark spirits from killing people.
So we may have enough information to judge him, but not enough information to put that in context.
Unlike aang he chose not to surround himself with friends and people who had his best interests. So it's kinda on him
Well that's basically the whole idea of the Avatar. Each new avatar has to deal with the short comings of the previous avatar.
Seto Fira nation focused - Yangchen has to focus more on all nations.
Yangchen focuses a lot on the four nations but less efficient on the spirits Kuruk had to deal with dark spirits.
Etc. Etc.
@@DigiBrad You're right to a degree, all Avatars tend to focus on the regrets and shortcomings of their predecessor, which in turn leads to their own shortcomings and regrets. That is very much part of the cycle. But in this situation I feel it is more than that. In most cases the problems they face are indirect and only related to the previous Avatar through vague connections. Szeto didn't directly cause widespread political issues that Yangchen had to fix, it was his inaction that allowed such problems to fester, but those are things that would happen even if the Avatar didn't exist. Many of the Avatar's regrets are tied to similar situations where what they let happen would have happened even if the Avatar wasn't around at all. And possibly more importantly, those issues don't become so bad that the next Avatar _has_ to dedicate their entire life to make things right again.
In Kuruk's case, the issues he faces are the direct result of Yangchen's actions. She made deals with the spirits that the humans had no realistic hope of maintaining, and while those deals made things better in the short term they also made things far worse in the long term. That isn't her ignoring a problem and letting it get worse, that is her actively fucking things up in the long run because she had too much faith in humanity. Kuruk had no real choice but to spend his life dealing with those spirits or the results would have been catastrophic. And unlike the other Avatar's shortcomings, these spirits would not have been nearly as much of a problem if Yangchen hadn't made those deals. If the Avatar as a concept simply didn't exist in the world that problem would not be as bad as it was. It would have been bad, don't get me wrong, but just not nearly as bad as it was for Kuruk.
I’ll be back when I finish because Kyoshi being in B tier SHOCKED me. I understand not being S tier based on your POV, but I thought A tier for sure at the very least so I can’t wait to see where Roku, Korra, and Aang go😳
This post is purely based on this video. I might change my mind upon reading the books about her.
The Avatar is defined as someone who helps bring balance between humans and between the humans and spirit worlds. They are the Bridge.
Bending the four elements is a tool to get the job done. Kyoshi is probably the best Warrior of the Avatars. However, whenever there is a problem that can't be solved without violence, she has no solution.
She is a case of "Did not understand the assignment." At least that is how this video portrays her.
@@The482075I think violence isn't her only tool available, since she created Kyoshi island specifically to avoid a battle. I think her problem is, like earth, she's a bit rigid and uncompromising.
@@RabbitShirak I see. Got to check out these books.
@@The482075 then why is Yangchen S tier? Lol She should be F tier then...
@@sawsy3863 I'll be honest. I don't know much about the Avatars besides Aang and Korra. Anyway, feel free to share your perspective. What makes Yanchen F tier?
Bro Kuruk basically had to play demon slayer with dark spirits because Yangchen only did half of her job. I'd say given what he was left with he did pretty damn good.
I think we gotta give some more credit too to Aang and Tenzin for being a big part of leading Korra towards being more connected to the spirits and spirit world. At least at the start of her journey.
but that is dumb. The spirits are always trouble.
Seto set a bit of a dangerous precedent, an expectation in the Fire Nation that the Avatar from their nation would show them the same preferential treatment. Sozin seemed to have that expectation, anyway.
Also, I noticed that you play Arkham Horror. I've been trying to craft this Avatar fanon that's kind of a fusion with a sort of Lovecraftian mythos, drawing heavily from monsters and deities from Asian mythologies
Zseto*
Kyoshi only ever stopping chin the conquerer when he came to HER doorstep has always felt weird to me. Like she would allow him to take the rest of the earthkingdom? Get out of your peninsula and defend the whole nation, ma'am! I fully support your B-tier Kyoshi
facts
Honestly is it even worth saving a kingdom that has been corrupt for centuries, sometimes like they say it's better to do nothing than to do the wrong thing.
@@Prankester6856 when the most corrupt part is the one taking over, yes, obviously...
@@mathies3598 both kinda sucks one was a tyrant while the other a classic Chinese corrupt burocracy
Nah man she deserves an A tier
I feel that you have understated Kuruk's struggles and Yangchens's mistakes.
Yangchen's neglect and unfair treatment of the Spirits was the main reason for the rise of Father Gloworm and the corruption. I feel that overtime her achievements and adoration in the Mortal world created a need for those in her. She didn't want to lose the Godlike status and legacy she had in the Mortal world by going against them even if meant being completely unfair to the Spirits.
Kuruk paid the price for this. I think had he not fought the Spirit Corruption the world would have been destroyed. He wasn't with his flaws though, the most glaring one being his stubbornness to fight the Spirits alone. The typical toxic masculine behaviour of taking no help in the name of keeping everyone safe and making the problem bigger than it actually was.
All in all had Yangchen been more concerned with fairness between the humans and spirits and less with her image and legacy among humans, Kuruk might have had an easier life.
Soooo.... not wanting to drag your friends into cleaning up a mess because you want to protect them and NOT have them tortured and corrupted is "toxic masculinity" now? Weird flex.
@IceQueen975 he may have lived longer if he got help
@@IceQueen975 yes, that's a valid use of the concept. Kuruk's refusal to enlist the help of his friends in battling the dark spirits, even at the risk of his own life, can be analysed with toxic masculinity.
It's not some inherent negative trait of Kuruk as an individual, but rather as a larger trend in society. He felt he couldn't ask anyone for help, despite having more than capable friends who could have prolonged his life. His insistence on doing things alone literally broke him bit by bit before the guy died at 33. 'Doing things yourself, don't ask for help because that's feminine and makes you look weak' is definitely a patriarchal norm; so is the 'emotional stoicism' he practiced by not letting others know what he'd been doing and pretending it was ok.
He had to resort to severe alcoholism and promiscuity to cope with the toll it was taking, instead of... getting help. It's a pretty good example of toxic masculinity I'd say.
I think the interesting thing about each Avatar is that their failures create problems for the next Avatar to deal with.
* Yangchen's preference for humans over spirits leads to Kuruk's dark spirit problems.
* Kuruk's inability/refusal to play the role of the Avatar as a mediator and keeper of the peace leads to the breakdown of the peace established by Yangchen, which Kyoshi has to deal with
* Kyoshi doesn't deal with many socio-economic issues and disparities (just dealing with the violence that erupts from them), which cause the tension that arises during Roku's term
* Roku's refusal to confront violence with force directly leads to the Air Nomad Genocide and the 100 Year War, which Aang has to resolve
* Aang's inability to deal with the socioeconomic issues that arise from settler-colonialism and industrialization leads directly into all of the issues Korra encounters (except for Harmonic Convergence)
i mean that makes sense. being the bridge between the mortal and spirit world and being a mediator and being the most powerful bender isnt always the best if you are also a person
To be fair while Roku didn't _kill_ Sozin, he certainly did use force and make it clear what would happen if Sozin continued. And Sozin, for his part, listened -until the perfect opportunity presented itself. He halted his conquest, likely shut down the war preparations, and stopped. And even then, Sozin had at first come to that island to _help_ Roku. It's only at the end that he made his final decision, and by that point it was too late for Roku to do anything about it.
Unless the Roku book adds to it, Roku was only ever in one major conflict where force was necessary, and he used force there, just not lethally.
the main problem with each seems to be that they died and things went to shit while the next avatar was still an infant/child.
If we're blaming the individual policies of each nation on the avatar at the time... then by our standards we'd say they were all bad for letting the world be ruled using a feudal system/monarchy. Saying that an avatar not predicting socioeconomic issues is only valid with our 21st century knowledge and hindsight.
I absolutely LOVE that this story overall is so uniquely made that we can basically have a history book made out of the lore. And you have done so well showing that. You talk like it’s real history which is why I love your channel. Because the lore and history of the world of the avatar is so rich
Its kinda hard to rank them since we see such a small snapshot of most of them and even Aang and Korra we only really get a grasp on a few years out of their era's. Of course its also pretty intentional that each Avatar tends to focus there efforts on the failings of their predeccesors. All that being said Roku has gotta be the bottom of the list. If any other Avatar got an entire race eradicated we would have heard about it. Roku inherited a stable world from Kyoshi's centuries of peacekeeping and let his friend escalate his warmongering to horrific levels. As far as we can tell he was a good man and trying his best but his primary failure is perhaps the worst failure any of them did.
Stable for who, though?
You think the fire nation was happy to wait their turn for 2 and a half centuries to make their mark on the world under the threat of extreme violence, sorry, law and order, for doing anything the God on earth disapproved of? If mastery is just practice .... Kyoshi has more practice than anyone.
And coming off a corrupted world mainly lead by the earth kingdom and its last great Avatar being into socio-economic solutions... it's no wonder Sozen pushed for taking the fire nation in the direction they did.
And Roku had to deal with all of this. With a nation's expectations on him to do as much as Kyoshi in a shorter lifetime, forward their agenda which has been stymied for so long by the previous avatar.
With a world interested in seeing how this guy will order the world: word or stick? With a world already discounting him because he's not Kyoshi.
Roku did fairly well, considering. There was no stopping the fire nation war, it was inevitable.
Let's be honest, his failure was, what? Not wanting to kill his best friend? I can't blame him for that, and he _still_ took action and had Sozin !@#$ing his pants so bad that he put his plans on hold until Roku died.
And back to that best friends thing, even after that, Sozin did _not_ come to that island with the _intention_ of letting Roku die. Quite the opposite. He only made that choice when he saw Roku on the ground and realized his opportunity.
But more than that, the only one to blame for Sozin's actions is Sozin.
One can argue that even if Roku hadn't spared Sozin, that Roku still might have only lived a few years longer than he did, and it might have only postponed things and we'd be calling it Azulon's Comet instead.
@@brolytriplethreatas others have commented, Roku could've warned and prepared other nation's for FN's eventual attack. ”Guys, watch out for the Fire Lord, he's something of an expansionist. Also! The Great Comet is coming, make sure you're prepared for that!”
About Szeto I think it's a big point to be made about how much respect just his name envoked not just for fire nation officers but for politicians of all four nations. He is definitely not an S or A, but I would argue B due to how he is presented in the Yangchen book
I disagree with your assesment of Kyoshi's influence in things outside of 'beating up the baddies', she did absolutely recognise socioeconomic issues and knew they needed socioeconomic solutions, she was abandoned young and lived as an orphan on the streets, then as a servant in a mansion, then her avatar journey was lots experiences in areas with plenty of socioeconomic issues. She just wasn't very politically adept, she didn't care for the mind games and manipulations of politics and diplomacy, so she wouldnt play those games and abide by the arbitrary rules, but she knew what needed to be done and would rarely compromise on it, taking direct action against those who were trying to stop things from improving.
F'k yeah! She's mildly a bit of a Tyrant, but when the Tyrant CARES about the people it's essentially the best form of government you can get... her only FAILING as a benevolent tyrant is not living forever... which is generally where beloved emperors fail as well and why we mortals don't consider it a viable strategy most of the time... that opinion can be flexible when you've got essentially, a deific warrior for peace patrolling your world, which the Avatar world has. A Tyrant that has everyone's well being in mind telling the bureaucrats off ISN'T inherently a bad thing unless you're overvaluing communal governance and consider it beyond reproach. Kyoshi COULD have been a diplomat... if the diplomacy of her era wasn't rotten to the core. She was the sledgehammer the world needed at the time to remind them that sneaky politics be damned, the Avatar addresses the problems of the era.
''Lastly, of course, she scored Asami.''
Brother I burst out laughing
I really want to see a show based on Avatar Kuruk. An Avatar fighting off evil all the while going thru his own personal demons and is under-appreciated by the mass. To me, his story is the most interesting.
I don't if others have mentioned it but Aang is shown with a group of varied people as his closest friends, each with their own views and perpectives and I feel this helps and improves how he is as the Avatar. Which is something I feel needed to be brought up since it is such a pivotal part of his Avatar skill set
I would go as far to say that Avatar Szeto actually directly contributed to the development of the culture in the fire nation that DIRECTLY lead into Kyoshi and Roku’s time. He’s most likely a huge part of why FireLord Sozin told Roku he was a fire nation citizen FIRST and why it was his duty to serve the fire nation above all. Reading the Kyoshi books was so interesting becuase all the fire nation scenes had this class based system based on social rankings that you can see how it would directly lead into the superiority complex from Sozin, and in a way it all directly leads back to Szeto and the environment he fostered in the nation. He definitely earned that C slot 😭
I feel like a lot of Yang Chen’s “achievements” are more short-term. Are they really achievements if they all become undone shortly after Kuruk becomes avatar? Sure she’s still up there but I’d say Aang was better
Kyoshi deserves a A for also doing this very hard and at time tankless job longer then she could have while not F up.
Not to mention she did her job longer than possibly any other Avatar in history, over 200 years.
She is Def A tier if not an S tier
No avatar Lived upto 230 years of age and accomplished so many things except for her. Kyoshi is truly the GOAT no doubt.
@@Enderflame_303look, while I agree she belongs at least in the A tier, lets not pretend that with more than 200 years most avatars in the list could have created a similar age of peace
I’d rank Roku as D tier. He didn’t do enough to actually fix any problems he focused so much on the minutia that he just left every big problem to Aang.
With that logic put Yan Chen in D tier as well. Hell maybe even E cause the problem she left is arguably worse.
@@AstroSully She took care of one side over the other but she did a hell of a job taking care of the mortal world. There was incredible peace in the mortal world
So did Roku, it was 80 years of peace with him as the Avatar. His issue was sparing Sozin which didn't kill the movement of imperialism within the Fire Nation. No Avatar is perfect. Yang Chen's legacy would have been ruined if not for Kuruk defending the physical world from Dark Spirits. Roku's impact is downplayed because there was no Avatar around for a century. No Avatar would be guiltless if their successor was gone 100 years. People often overlook this when talking about Roku. What Yang Chen left for her successor is just as bad if not worse. All of them have their faults. @@jessedaniels4494
@@jessedaniels4494and made kuruks life a living nightmare
I think Avatar Sato's focus on the fire nation's well-being can be seen as making the next avatar's job a lot easier.
Sato?
@@Nevershushu00 7:17
its szeto btw (not trynna be an a hole 🫶🏿)
@@jupeplayz7 gotcha
I wonder, if killing Sozin would have prevented the fire nation from starting a war, or if it would have just delayed it.
I don't think it's fair to pin the war on Roku as a mistake. He was a nuke with personal feelings in a high-tension geopolitical period. Him nuking Sozin or not, the war would have still happened. At least he delayed it with his presence until Sozin realized the nuke was a dud.
Killing Sozin was never the answer. His death would have only created even more xenophobic Firelords, even more extreme and despotic rulers.
If you teach everyone to hate, it becomes harder to learn to love. The spin of having killed his best friend over a policy discussion would have destroyed Roku's reputation and maybe his mind. Sozin's heirs would have hated and feared the Avatar, and made things that much harder for others and other viewpoints. As it was, Ruku's power stopped Sozin from implementing his ideas more quickly. And his descendants (some of them) were more ruthless than he - Ruku was damned lucky that his lingering love for his bestie stopped him from forgetting Gandalf's wisdom: not to swiftly deal out death in judgment, for even the Wise cannot see all ends. The death would have started a war, then and there between Fire Nation and Avatar, and while Kyoshi was able to prevail against an army of nonbenders, it would have been too close between Ruku and an army of fire benders.
My humble opinion.
@ziggystardust1973 The more that I think about it, Sozin getting killed probably would delay it more than anything. He already described the Fire Nation as being at it's most prosperous it had ever been, so I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't just Sozin alone who had similar ideas of "sharing" it's prosperity with the other Nations at that time. So even if he died there probably would have been another firelord who would start it sooner or later.
Azulon:"Hello,you killed my father,prepare to die!" Cycle of revenge..
That's the issue with ATLA though, they deal with those complex problems in simplistic ways. LOK, the comics and the novels are more nuanced, but in ATLA killing Sozin would most likely be enough to prevent the war, just like locking up Ozai ended it.
I think kyoshi did the best she could for her time period especially because other than aang she arguably lived in the worst time period and simply did what she had to do and did it well and had more accomplishments than several avatars combined but she’s not S tier but at least A tier
I've never seen a tier list video go this deep on each item being ranked, great job!
I really love that you bring up the media side of Korra's era. It's like a folk legend becoming a superhero, the veil of mysticism is taken away as it's pretty easy to learn exactly what the Avatar is up to and critique their actions.
And it's just another example of how particularly difficult this period of history is for an Avatar. The rate of technological development and societal change forced her to face threats like none seen before, and she had to adapt and learn extremely early in her career.
She fought so hard, I'm just glad she's with Asami now (Happy Pride!)
Yeah that is a cool and tragic part of her character...She isn't at all a bad Avatar she's quite good and on par if not better than many that came before but they can easily condemn her mistakes and flaws because they can directly see them. She can't hide or pretend or be ignored like the previous Avatars.
Can't wait to see the next Earth Avatar and how the world will treat them...I suspect that they'll hate them and/or believe they're an unneeded relic of an era long gone.
@@flamesofchaos13Korra is not a good Avatar. For example, Korra throughout the entirety of Book 1's conflict isn't invested in dealing with the societal issues that led to the formation of the Equalists but are instead focused on destroying their movement. Korra herself during the entirety of Book 1 did nothing but probending, airbending training, love triangle nonsense, and beat up the revolutionaries who are trying to deal with the core issues the best way they can.
Never do we see Korra actually educate herself on a societal issue and implement her own effective solutions. She just beats up someone who is invested in fixing an issue and viewed as a savior for it.
Korra's greatest accomplishment which was repopulating the world with airbenders happened on sheer accident.
Korra foe the most part runs into the similar issue as the MCU heroes whenever they deal with a villain that is trying to deal with a societal issue.
@@GreatUniter Wow it's like a person is a person and has flaws.
1. Airbending training is a requirement for an Avatar that is her fulfilling her duties. Then Pro-Bending literally helped her click with the techniques of Airbending as Tenzin literally points out.
2. The Equalists no matter what are at the end of the day Terrorists that do need to be stopped for the safety of all...Because if they win the entire world will crumble into an eternal civil war between generations of Benders and Non-Benders. Their cause doesn't help Non-Benders and in fact demeans and distorts the idea of equality into a different form of supremacy and abuse.
3. Aang nor any Avatar before him ever gave equal rights to Non-Benders or Spirits...They always placed Benders above the others. That isn't a Korra only problem but a problem every single last Avatar to ever exist had. Some like Kyoshi even directly abused Non-Benders in favor of Benders...With the creation of the Dai Li.
4. You're solely condemning her for her season 1 portrayal. Completely avoiding her character growth and development in Seasons 2 to 4. Where she brought actual balance to the world by unlike previous Avatars respecting both the rights of Spirits and Humans, Ended the Tyranny of an Oppressive Empire, Realized that Civil Wars can actually be justified and supported one, Ensured that the world didn't crumble to Darkness for ten thousand years, Restored the Air Nation and allowed them to become Peacekeepers of the world so the Avatar is not the sole one responsible for world peace.
5. If we treated Aang the same way only judging him as a person and Avatar only during his season 1 portrayal...He couldn't control the Avatar State, He failed to learn how to control Firebending and let fear dictate his actions refusing to ever learn it, He ran away from his responsibility to bring balance so ensured that the Fire Nation reigned supreme for a hundred years bringing endless misery to all. Didn't compromise with Rebel Fighters condemning them as Terrorists. What a shitty fucking Avatar he must be right?
Even when we look at Adult Aang...He didn't give Non-Benders equal rights, He didn't destroy the Dai Li, He didn't ensure the corruption of the Earth Kingdom was ended, He didn't kill or imprison Yakone so the knowledge of psychic Bloodbending was passed on. Then as a person he was a negligent father to two of his three children.
When you actually realize the fact is that NONE of the Avatars are perfect that each and every single one of them made terrible mistakes as both an individual and icon...You most learn to accept the good with the bad. Aang and Korra are flawed but compared to what came before them...They're Legendary Avatars that had to learn harsh truths about the role of the Avatar the hard way and overcame nearly impossible challenges that would've easily destroyed previous Avatars before them then at the end of it all did in fact save the world and restored the connection to what never should've been severed in the first place.
@@flamesofchaos13
1. Korra doesn't need airbending to solve this conflict. Pro-bending, a sport that glorifies benders, in no way helps her tackle symptoms that led to the Equalist rebellion.
2. The Equalist provided the nonbending commonfolk with free self defense courses, developed weapons that will allow nonbenders to defend themselves, and dealt with the bending triads. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Heck the Equalists didn't even become violent until after the government got violent with them.
3. Korra did not give spirits nor non-benders equal rights. Spirits did not lack rights as they resided in their own realm and are not subject to law in the spirit world.
4. She doesn't get any better in Seasons 2-4. For example it is comically that the show tries to champion the ideals of democratic governance while allowing Korra to unilaterally make a decision like leaving the spirit portals open without consulting either party on what they wanted. Korra for some reason thinks she knows better than Wan when it comes to spirits even though he spent over a year living amongst them while Korra at the time had only gotten over her spiritual block and has less than a month's worth of experience in spiritual matters.
In Book 4, her solution to Kuvira was to simply reinstall the monarchy. She never sits down a tries to formulate a solution that can give the EK stability and progress without resorting to Kuvira's brand of authoritarianism.
In Book 3, she doesn't even bother to entertain Zaheer's ideology or acknowledge he something needs to be down about the oppressive nature of hierarchical societies.
5. No one said anything about Aang. Heck I never even compared her to any other Avatar. I have issues with Aang largely due to how he dealt with decolonization and how he neglected the EK after the war but that's an argument for another day. Kuvira's oppressive empire did more the Earth Kingdom than the Avatar did in centuries.
Korra did not fight for the rights of spirits. They were not an oppressed group. They have never been oppressed. She left the portals open and let the world deal with the aftermath themselves.
Korra is part of the reason the world was almost plunged into 10,000 years of darkness lol.
She did not develop as a character despite what most say.
I like how Korra opening a portal to the spirit world is considered an achievement even though the spirits make it clear that they didn't want to interact with humans and it ultimately led to Republic city being destroyed. Then when she gets called out for it she basically tells everyone who has been uprooted from their homes that they just have to deal with it. Korra is the worst avatar in the series bar none.
Finally, an Avatar tier list made by someone who actually knows the material. I was getting so fed up I about did it myself.
What I have noticed is that the Avatars exeld on a few of there duties.
The next Avatar would always have to clean their mess.
For example, Yangchen focusing on keeping peace in a human world and forgetting the spirit world. And now Kuruk has to focus keeping the balance there and forgetting the human world. And that going on and on.
I'm not complaining, but I personally see that all those responsibilities are IMPOSSIBLE for just ONE person to handle.
I love that you gave Avatar Szeto so much credit because a lot of his achievements have nothing to do with fighting as the avatar which is so refreshing. I saw a very odd take from Antoine Bandele when he said he didn’t enjoy the Yangchen novel (and refused to read the second one) because it was “too political”. It has been stated many times that the avatar is technically a political figure so of course they’ll have to be involved with politics and socioeconomics
It can be said that Avatar Seto's political reforms directly led to the cultural shift, and smooth political machinery, that allowed the Hundred Years War to happen at all. Seto unified the Fire Nation, made it prosperous. And from there not only grew the material and logistical capability to make global war, but also the hierarchical, supremacist worldview to make war easy.
Great content as always. You helped to start writing again, and now I'm everyday a little closer to finally publishing my first novel. Thanks for that
What's the book about? What genre is it? How do you effectively write a novel?
Trying to write my own novel as well but I'm just writing scenes that I want to happen but can't figure out how to connect them all together
I would argue that what Wan did before he fused with Ravaa is irrelevant as he wasn't the Avatar yet.
I wouldn't.
I don’t think Wan sending the Spirits back to the spirit world (their home) was a mistake, given that the spirits were so oppressive and hostile that humans were forced to live on the backs of lion turtles for protection, and we see that as soon as Korra opens the portals again, the first thing that happens is the spirits destroying and causing problems for humans. I think they really muddled things in the beginnings episodes, by saying one thing (humans bad, nature good) while showing the opposite (humans scared and desperate, nature violent).
We're never given any context as to why they originally seemed so hostile. Spirits hate and distrust humans... why? Truth is, there's a lot more history we aren't seeing. Humans didn't evolve on the backs of the Lion turtles, they moved there. I'm suspecting humanity pissed off the spirits. You know, who are the literal bedrock of nature. If say, the Ocean spirit was killed by a human, life on Earth would pretty much end.
The humans do behave somewhat recklessly at points, and part of the reason the spirits go back is atonement for destruction.
Moreover, humans are stronger come Korra, while ultimately humans and spirits are able to live together in Season 4.
I think it’s really cool that you can see the direct line of events of the fire nation unifying and then turning there eyes on the rest of the world.
And between kyoshi and Roku the royals at least definitely start to see the avatar as a threat.
Like it’s a really how all the prequels set to seeds
I feel like a seperate category should be how dire the problems of the world were when the Avatar was there - Kyoshi handed Roku a pretty stable world yet he left Ang a Ang a pretty messed up one and though Ang did amazing he left kora in one that had a lot of under the surface issues that festered such as the city he created and the political turmoil that left a teen Avatar - I find it funny on that note that the Avatar's don't leave a lil to do list journal for themselves lol
I feel like with Korra, I haven't read the books/comics, but she had plenty of life ahead of her, and she'd no doubt grow into an S tier avatar after the events of the series. Probably one of the best to ever do it if she kept on her trajectory.
Yea it feels like she had probably the most issues to deal with of any avatar, besides Kyoshi but Kyoshi did live for 230 years so that’s to be expected.
@@Dell-ol6hb The most we have seen on-screen for sure. But if the comics (ATLA) and books (Kyoshi) have proven anything, it's that there are myriads of other problems that the Avatar faces that we just don't get to see on screen. Like Tenzin's narration said in the very beginning of The Legend of Korra that Avatar Aang achieved many other remarkable things. I'm sure this applies to Yangchen, Roku, and more than likely Kyoshi; Korra isn't the exception.
I agree with this broadly, I think I’d raise kyoshi up to A tier with just the sheer amount of stuff she did and the rough circumstances she came from, and probably lower Roku a bit because he really did fuck up
I understand your criticisms of Kyoshi but I think she at least deserved A tier. Her accomplishments very much outweigh her faults but I think that’s the only difference for me! Thank you for the awesome video!!
Roku's decision to spare Sozin isn't what failed to prevent the Hundred-Year War. His failure to keep an eye on Sozin earlier on is. I think if Roku had intervened earlier on, as in stopping the invasions before or while they were happening, that would've had a better chance of dissuading him.
I agree with your assessment of Korra. We only get a slice of pie view of what she did with the show, and I suspect in her middle age and older she ends up quite wise and clever due to learning from her own past.
She's been showing to be flexible and willing to find compromise, but people who think the avatar should just use thier power more than thier influence don't understand how complex social sciences are.
History is complicated, and so is the world of the four elements.
She leaves at the end of the show. There is no "older" or "middle age". Stfu
Yea but she broke the cycle. The cycle that was held for over 100 avatars. She was the first to mess that up. I don't care what accomplishments she had after. That one act alone constitutes a much lower score in my opinion
@@BraydonAttoe-xs4ygShe's the only Avatar since the first one who has dealt with harmonic convergence.
And Aang did die in the Avatar State ending the cycle forever, but Katara was there and saved the day.
@@jihoszcrazy how people call out Aang unlocking Korra's bending after Amon as plot convenience, but completely ignore the fact that he'd be dead if Katara didn't literally revived him.
@LuisGustavo-wd6pi The setup was better with Kataras resuscitation of Aang, which makes it less as contrived.
Her healing abilities were mentioned since the first season, the single use healing water mcguffin had been floating around in the story for a whole season. They even reintroduced how special it was again in the previous episode as a way to heal Zukos burns. Setup and build up are important when you want to solve a problem in a story.
I love how Asami is put at the same level as lasting world peace
Korra also helped foster and grow the earth kingdom into becoming the earth republic
"Many Avatars struggled and made mistakes while trying to achieve world balance":- Yangchen
Kyoshi really was the FDR of Avatars. Got things done but really had to crack a few eggs to do it. And I’m glad you touched on how Korra mishandled the Anti Bender Revolution and allowed the Northern Water Tribe to occupy the South. Those are more of a blemish to Korra’s legacy than losing the avatar connection imo
I agree with you about Kyoshi. No one seems to mention that she allowed Chin the Conquerer to take over nearly all of the Earth Kingdom. She only stopped him when he tried to defeat her home town, only when it would have affected her.
Ok I think that everyone judges Kyoshi too much in that topic because we don't really know much about what happened ,we do 't know why Kyoshi let that happen and how it happen and I think we also forget about one important thing here ,this thing was created before Kyoshi got an actual character traits this was way before her books were even planed
I can't believe that "Scoring Asami" was only one green dot, it should have filled the entire row with green dots.
I love how genuinely you talk on the events of this universe as if they were real historical events. Also NZ represent!
All this talk about mediating between spirits and humans gave me the idea of a spirit as a new avatar that has to take over this role and maybe also gets the capability to bend the elements. That new perspective would be sooo interesting imo.
I’d say a lot of Korra’s mistakes were basically fixed within a few weeks, to a few years with the power vacuum /Kuvira case, that I don’t think it can count as a mistake she originally sided with (for one example) the Northern Tribe when she literally helps take it down once she gets new information a little later.
It does prove that she's hella impulsive, and willing to do a LOT without properly vetting the cause.
I'd also say a lot of her problems come from the writers nerfing the avatar state so hard now any skilled bender can stomp an avatar. It used to be a force of nature back in atla, something not even power upped Ozai can hold a candle against, now its a small power boost and that's it...
@@Soundwave1900 I think it's to give some credibility to the idea that she lost all her past lives. A lot of the avatar state was "the force and knowledge of all past avatars"... which she doesn't have anymore. So in that sense, it's good that she doesn't have plot armour just because she's the avatar and has to deal with the consequences of her mistakes.
@@Soundwave1900Expand on this, wdym by it was nerfed and any skilled bender can stomp the avatar?
@@samyloaiza98 well, perhaps, but the part where she've lost to every villain in the show in a fair fight, including when she had the connection with previous lives, doesn't put her in a good light. That's one of my personal beefs with the show, that she kinda sucks as a great equalizer if anyone can just come and beat her ass whenever. At this point Tenzing would've made a better equalizer. It does give weight to her decisions and roles but Aang had all that without being a complete pushover.
It's so nice to hear an enthusiastic Avatar fan who knows the lore talk :)
I wonder did aang learning energy bending affect his view on non benders because they goes from a type of person in the world to a punishment he can force on benders
This.....this
Needs to be addressed 👈👆
What about the opposite? He may be able to give bending to non-benders.
4:59 - my big thing w/ the Spirits in the pre-Wan era is… it’s _not_ their land, at least not exclusively. Spirits _come from_ the Spirit World and colonized the physical world in a sense, and drove humans to the protection of the lion turtles.
Yes there were oppressors _within_ the human settlements, in the conflict between spirits & humans I wouldn’t necessarily label the humans the oppressors
That’s also not to say the spirits were oppressors either, given the very valid points made about humanity’s relationship with nature
But it again gets into dangerous territory when you start telling groups that they’re not managing their own resources “right” and taking control to manage it your own way - in universe see the North & South comics, irl see colonialism
I given how toed spirits are to nature in our world even while they’re in the spirit world I don’t think it’s that clear cut. These worlds are deeply connected.
But it’s a fair point about human being unable to survive among the spirits.
These things are rarely clear cut
While I think this is a good argument, I also think it's a little flawed. The natural state of the world is unsegregated. The Spirit and Physical planes are intertwined; one cannot exist without the other, and they were linked so that physical travel was possible. To say that the physical world is solely the domain of humanity and mortal life is not exactly true? It's our home dimension, yes, but every human eventually makes their way to the Spirit world (upon death). So it's not exactly fair to say that humanity and mortal life should get to claim an entire world for their sole use when that's not true for the spirits.
The spirits are also not aliens. The most primordial of them embody fundamental concepts of nature, from the tangible (tides, ocean), to the ephemeral (individuality itself). They have as much right to the Physical world as the humans, and vice versa. I do believe that by sealing away the spirits and the spirit world, Avatar Wan created a fundamental imbalance in the natural world. Much as he did when he separated Vaatu and Raava.
Tim I don't think tier lists are going away, you're good mate
Honestly this is why I say aang was almsot the perfect avatar, he weirdly for a pacificist was both perfectly capable of bringing the hammer and of solving the complex problems
But I will always maintain that Korra and aang should’ve swapped, I’m not sure Korra was better(I actually think she was a worse bender) but she had the mentality to just crush the fire nation, and the negotiating skills to sufficiently fix the situation, I think a lot of aangs skills there were wasted
Aang in turn I think would’ve had a better time with many of her problems, especially the spiritual, because while Korra grows into spiritual mastery, she was still not quite the mediator aang was and he had an instinctive grasp of the spiritual from day one.
I'm glad to see the love for Korra. She's one of my favorite characters in the Avatar universe, and has some truly incredible accomplishments and an arc that is frankly quite under appreciated.
Most people don't like her because she's a teen. To some degree I get it, but still. It's not like it doesn't work.
Korra is a terrible person
@Underhel Wow your hatred against a non-existent character is remarkable
Did she? Accidental or not, Aang abandoned the world for 100 years and almost left in a state not even the Avatar could save. And he risked the Avatar Cycle unneccesarily.
@Underhel You don't use the word hoe unless you either hate someone or you're really vulgar, and I chose to believe the better option. And Aang still didn't do better. He was the reason the Fire Nation got so strong in the first place, even if it's not his fault alone.
@@Mediados
Aang did not abandon the world for 100 years. You talk as if he purposefully chose to freeze himself in an iceberg for a century because he wanted nothing to do with the world.
Aang never risked the Avatar State unnecessarily. He's not like Korra who used the Avatar State just to beat children in a race.
Avatar Yang Chen is still seen as great because Kuruk was there to clean up and be blamed for her messes.
So, I agree with all of your tier rankings. You give fair reasons for all, listing both the good and bad of each Avatar, and never let personal bias get involved with the ranking. That said, there are two point I'd like to bring up, for Kuruk and Aang respectively.
1. For Kuruk: A point you missed on why he was so fixated on battling Dark Sprits wasn't solely for revenge. That, honestly, was a pretty minor reason in the end. The big, overarching reason was his insistence on keeping Yangchen's legacy untainted. He feared that if people noticed the rise of angry spirits, they would start to question and even doubt the things Yangchen had done. And Kuruk, like everyone else, had such a deep respect for his predecessor that he felt it was his duty to preserve that legacy, even at his own expense.
Yangchen herself feels profoundly guilty for this, remarking to Kyoshi how she wishes she could have done things differently in her time, if only so Kuruk wouldn't have suffered so much.
2. For Aang: I think a big flaw of his character is his immature attitude to love. As much as I love the kid, having grown up with the show, as I've gotten older, I can't deny how poorly he handles his love for Katara. I know he's twelve, but the way he act towards Katara is really cringy sometimes. He seems to really believe that, because he likes her, that automatically means she ought to love him back. He thinks that, because he kisses her, that means they're a thing. Pointedly ignoring the fact that SHE didn't want the kiss. This is especially bad in the Ember Island Players episode, where he does it AGAIN.
I know it isn't fair to completely lay this at the kid's feet, this is really more a failure on the writer's part. They clearly went with a Westen idea of the hero getting the girl in a show that primarily focuses on Easten ideas and philosophies. If they had followed those latter philosophies more, I reckon it would have ended with Aang stepping away from the Gang and focusing on rebuilding the world, forgoing love as a needless attachment.
But that's just what I think. What say you?
Him being a kid does explain things, and he also shows respect for Katara at other points.
It's like Han Solo. Some scenes are cringey, but there's enough good scenes that it mitigates it.
Well Katara DID show reciprocation multiple times, so Aang wasn't just assuming that because he liked her she liked him.
I actually lowkey agree with... pretty much everything here?? Good god, man, well done, I love the way you analyze stuff and compare perspectives trying to stay objective. Neat!
One more note I'm not seeing mentioned in the comments and that was missed in the video as to Aang deserving his S tier: he leveled up the Avatar by adding spirit bending to the arsenal of available tools and as far as I'm aware is the first and only one to do it.
I would love to see a follow up to this video where it's like an alternate history type video, and you have avatars switch places. What if Szeto was in Kyoshi's time? What if Aang was in Kuruk's? How would they have dealt with problems their predecessors or descendants failed at?
Justice for my boy Kuruk.
One thing I wish you would have mentioned about Kora, is that not only was her world muh more compliated and she faced a lot more scrutiny, but she was also absolutely handicapped by the way the White Lotus hid her away.
Not only did her world require a lot more skill, wisdom and knowledge than the world of probably any previous Avatar, but she started out with much fewer tools and much less learning (other than combat training) to lean on.
No wonder Kora started out with a heavy reliance on big stick diplomacy. No one ever thought to provide her with anything other than a stick.
So many Avatars. 1000 generations worth.
That would mean an average of one avatar every 10 years. The number of past avatars is probably closer to ~300.
@@G-Forces My rough estimate would be 100 avatars - rather than one per generation (~30 years) and multiple Avatars running around at once, it's one per lifetime, and with two Avatars known to have lived for well over a century out of the half dozen or so we know the lifespans of (~230 for Kiyoshi; ~170 for Aang), an average lifespan of 100 years seems plausible (it's known that Avatars who die of old age live significantly longer than most because of their powers)
@@rmsgrey Yeah, exactly. I should have specified I was making an upper estimate.
Korra I think belongs in a tier of her own for not only having to deal with the aftermath of Aang's mistakes, but of the mistakes of arguably every other Avatar on this list. The girl gets saddled with so much baggage that I'm pretty sure she could be the Avatar equivalent of generational trauma. I may not like her very much but I will never take away from her growth, accomplishments, and just how high both canon and meta problems were stacked against her.
Finally! It's so refreshing to hear someone in the fandom with a fair take on Korra, even if you don't like her as a character. I love her and her journey and all I ever see from the Avatar fandom is unjustified hate towards her
If a tier of her own means F tier for literally sucking at every aspect of being an Avatar, then you’re absolutely correct.
@@YourExGranPappi Except.... she didn't suck. She accomplished a lot during her time as Avatar and didn't leave any messes for any avatar after her to clean up, unlike a lot of the other Avatars
@@huskyxrichie6656 Her constant impulsivity and overconfidence causes her to lose majority of fights/situations in the series. She constantly gets dominated and makes stupid decisions that not only affect her, but the entire world negatively. She’s an unapologetic moron who thinks she can solve all of her problems with her fists, except she can’t fight. She consistently ignores the plans and ideas of her allies who have proven to be smarter and wiser than her, then mopes when she loses. Half the series was her crying because she messed up again. Plus, she severed the connection to all of the previous Avatar. That objectively makes her the worst Avatar in history. You can try to glaze her all you want, her series sucked. If it were good, it wouldn’t have been so universally hated.
Show me one mistake Aang made and Korra had to clean it up.
Honestly, I would like to see a series about this Avatar Seto. Like I want to know how he did these things. But while you're correct he seemed a little biased for the Fire Nation, but during Yangchen's time there didn't seem to have been a big problem elsewhere. Which meant he was doing his job for the other nations as well. I haven't read the Kiyoshi books, but honestly, I feel like the previous Avatar leaves the current Avatar high and dry. Like I feel Kiyoshi could've talked with Seto about being more diplomatic. I feel like Aang was the only one truly in tune with his previous Avatars. And we know that the Avatar Spirit can be autonomous as Yangchen was able to try and get Aang's attention on her own. Also, Yangchen could've helped cued in Kuruk about the different pacts that were made and would've resulted in not as much dark spirits. And I feel like the Air Nomads would've been a great supporter of the Avatar. Kinda like what they currently are in Korra. This seems to be a problem with the Avatar. They don't really seem to use all the knowledge gathered from previous Avatars to the best of their ability. And I'm not surprised the Air Nomad Avatars are the ones that have the most peace. Because they're spiritual. They probably call upon previous Avatars more than any other nation. I mean, for all Yangchens faults with the spirits, she did create peace for a while. Aang stopped the Hundred Year War and for 70 years from what we know (we have yet to see with the new Avatar Studios coming out) he created Republic City and more unity with the different nations together.
Was having a Hello Future Me binge yesterday and longing for more videos. Thank you! This video was so fun!
Aang is obviously the best Avatar. Stopped the Hundred Year War and mastered all elements in a year starting when he was 12. All without killing anyone. If that doesn't deserve GOAT status, nothing does.
All of that is correct, except Aang never mastered all the elements in year. Toph and Zuko both stated he needed more work in the elements, and Aang himself stated he needed more time to master the elements.
@@thevisionary5135That's true. Let's just say he learnt them well enough to be able to use them in a fight, which is still impressive.
@@joshheralal8758 yeah
@joshheralal8758 he was really only able to do that in the avatar state, meaning, he's accessing the collective experience of all avatars on top of his own. Ozai was wiping the floor with him when he was out of the avatar state.
All of the Fire Nation soldiers who died when Aang blasted Ozai's airship off the air and it crashed against the rocky mountains would like to have a word with you.
I liked that you out Kyoshi at B. You can have incredible feats, and be loved for them, and have a great legacy. But faultered a bit on softer skills. And it fits her character: law and order tends to lead to a focus on repression, instead of prevention and solutions to underlying problem.
I think the critic that Korra lost her connection to her past life is unfair. She was brutally attacked by Unalaq and almost killed by him. I don't see how that is her mistake. It's not her fault/mistake that those connections were lost.
Otherwise, fantastic video. Great to listen to and a much appreciated drip through the history of the various Avatars.
I think there is one very significant factor that must be taken into account when comparing Avatars, namely to what extent young Avatars growing up had a support network to fall back on - both a young Team Avatar of peers and older mentors (usually associated with the last Avatar). Korra and Yangchen grew up pretty sheltered with a lot of adults taking care of them whereas for Kyoshi it was pretty much the opposite and it was an incredible challenge for her to even put together a Team Avatar in the first place. Aang was sort of in the middle, with good younger peers, but fewer older ones.
There are too many Avatars in the cycle considering how little technological progress humanity made between Wang and Aang (while between Aang and Korra, there seemed to be a technological boom within a few decades).
consider the how long the middle ages are and the rapid growth in the last hundred years, it seems pretty accurate to me
From Wan's to Szeto's Eras the world was inherently Magic based...Elements being bent was the go to and only means to gain power to influence others to dominate. Getting to Yangchen the world starts to figure out more destructive means of bending so now the power system is inherently perceived as imbalanced. Getting to Kyoshi the world learns a Might makes Right mentality to purge what you consider as weakness. Then Roku is when the Industrial Revolution starts with multi cultural colonies being formed with the Fire Nations prosperity being spread by force. Get to the war that lasts for a hundred years...War breeds a desire for advanced tech that makes your army more efficient than the enemy whether to destroy or save lives.
The big difference from Aang to Korra is all about the world realizing Bending isn't the end all be all. Technology can surpass Bending capabilities in many fields proven as fact for a hundred years. Getting to the the aftermath Non Benders want to equal the playing field, The Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes don't want to be on the losing side of history again, The Fire Nation was Evil in their Warfare but it was proven correct that yes they had knowledge and tech to offer that would indeed change the world change the means of how people live and survive. Then the Republic ensures easy access to the best tech and inventors while being built on the idea of cooperation in the name of legends that saved the world...Highly marketable and enticing.
Avatar content! Always nice! But...
Look at that amazing boardgame selection!!! Do you/does Tim have a boardgamegeek account? I'm really curious what your/his boardgame tier ranking is 😂
"Avatar Korra was A-tier, Kyoshi was B-tier at best. Now get in the comments, tell me where you think I'm wrong!"
I know every comment drives engagement but geez does this ever have "at least things can't get any worse" energy
This guy putting Kuruk in D tier is exactly what an NPC in the Avatar universe would do 😭
I think it's a very interesting choice for them to have made a water bending avatar so disconnected from spirituality when the water benders seem to be a decently spiritual civilization. Not as spiritual as the air nomads for sure but a lot of their practices are spirit based, particularly the moon spirit. But I always thought Korra was an earth Kingdom native/originally an earth bender because or how non spiritual she was and how hard air bending was (I am not well versed on Korra, haven't watched it)
Nope Southern Water Tribe and naturally a Waterbender. It goes Fire to Air to Water to Earth then repeats. Aang was Air and Korra is Water...Parentage and Birthplace and First Element. She just as an individual wasn't spirituality attuned...Just like Sokka another Southern Water Tribe member. It was stated in LoK that the Southerners forgot/ignored their spiritual duties.
The Avatars can also have problems with not just their elemental opposite but what they mentally can't handle...Aang feared and hated Fire after he burned Katara so it was hard for him to learn even though Earth is naturally the hardest for an Airbending Avatar to understand which was also true. Korra just couldn't vibe with Air she's not pacifistic or calm or spiritual so it only clicked in after intense training and when left with no other option. Just like how Fire only clicked with Aang when he learnt its true purpose and meaning from the Dragons.
I know it’s a fairly old video at this point but
Something I feel should be mentioned is that part of the reason Aang feels so “united” all the nations and can understand and be a mediator
Besides spending time in each nation long enough to get a bit of understanding.. He was the only air nomad left. No other air nomads to discuss or talk or influence him (besides dead avatars)
I don’t think he would’ve been as understanding of all nations if he wasn’t the only air nomad alive, more discussions and differing opinions and perspectives could have come out instead.
Yangchen was so bad at half of her job she turned Kuruk into a demon slayer. Saying Yangchen is the best is focusing on half of her job. Yes, she left the world peaceful enough for the next avatar but was so bad with spirits she made Kuruk Hell Boy. Kuruk had a far more difficult task than Yengchen as seen in how badly both Aang and Korra got bodied by dark spirits.
Szeto was meant to bring balance but when an entire nation is filled with warlords killing people then that's balance. Kyoshi basically did the same thing when restoring the Earth Kingdom only that she lived longer than Szeto. Kyoshi also completely ignored Chin for years due to romance until her Avatar duties caught up to her. You're too harsh on Szeto.
Roku basically caused the air nomad genocide and then died in a volcano. Szeto's main feat was lava bending 4 volcanos and keeping peace in the fire nation. If anything Roku was the worst Avatar. None of the previous ones messed up as badly as he did to the point that even he should be blamed for Aang running away as he basically led to a child being given pressure.
My ranking is
S Tier -Aang & Kyoshi
A Tier - Kuruk &.Korra
B Tier -Wan
C TIer - Yengchen (She was excellent at half her job so half the points)
D Tier - Szeto
F Tier - Roku (An entire genocide could have been prevented and Szeto wouldn't have lost to a volcano)
It's good to see Tim making fun content he enjoys. I love the essays and philosophy but it is good to see Tim making stuff purely because he likes it
Hey HFM just a question are you planning on making more Psychology of _ videos your Azula and Zuko ones are great and I think an Aang one would be interesting too
every time you speak about Korra it is so eloquent, and makes so many great points that my jaw literally drops!
It feels like the writers hate the water binder avatars.
Literally couldn’t have done this better myself. Bravo.
After watching the fixing legend of Korra videos, I really want to see you pitch another season of Last Airbender set after the comics