I've never considered the theory of Kyoshi and how the nations of the world would view her as an demi-god. You know your world building is good when people are making compelling and thought provoking theories 2 decades later
I genuinely think it went beyond that before the genocide - in the Kyoshi novels its heavily insinuated that the Avatar is the closest thing to a full God the people have. Sure they have spirits that they believe in but people across the world, benders and non, used to invoke the name of the avatar in protection. Even during Kyoshi's time, there were people her age saying "Yangchen protect me" And they don't seem to pray to spirits for protection unless they're highly rural or had extremely benevolent spirits around, but even then most people in Kyoshi's time (and presumably before) would all but pray to the Avatar for protection.
This reminds me of when Aang worked with the sea spirit in the north pole to destroy the firenation soldiers and we see the people getting on their knees and bowing in worship.
Thats what you get for being a filthy casual and having to wait around for some youtuber (great video btw) to tell you about it. This is barely below the surface iceberg stuff
Aang holding his own against Ozai is impressive. But honestly what's more impressive is the fact that we don't even question it. We see that Aang, a 12 year old is holding his own against one of the greatest benders ever and we the audience don't find that odd. Because our perception of Aang and his skill has been built up throughout the course of the series
Even more, the members of Aang’s little group don’t even question it. They don’t ask “can you beat Ozai?”, they ask “are you going to kill him or not?”
I mean, Aang isnt a 12 year old. He is the goddamn Buddha. Frankly, its more aurprising Ozai, even high on cosmic power as he is, can briefly inconvenience this god entity.
I love how Lightning bending is silently introduced in the season 1 episode “The Storm” when Iroh uses it to redirect a bolt of lightning that would have crippled the ship. It happens so quickly and with almost no explanation though that the viewer is left to wonder, “Did Iroh really just bend Lightning??”
It's a common reaction from people watching the show for the first time; you can instantly tell they want to learn more, and then when Season 2 episode 9 comes along, they just eat it all up excitedly. This video is definitely on point about that haha. The show is a master class in world building for sure.
I’m so glad you mentioned this! When he said we weren’t introduced to lightning bending until season 2, all I could think was, “dude , did you forget about the storm from season 1?” That was a total WTF moment that introduced lightning bending. It just wasn’t directly addressed until we saw Azula do it intentionally in season 2.
I actually had to go back to that episode long after finishing the series a few months ago (yes, I’m a new avatar fan) because I didn’t even realise what actually happened with the lightning at that point, my brain was not stimulated enough to realise there was a question to be asked. What’s doubly sneaky is that they made the lightning yellow, as opposed to the consistent blue that they used in the rest of the series.
On my first watch, I didn't even think about it. Oh, the wise and skilled and powerful old master caught and deflected a lightning bolt. Oh, funny how his hair is messy now. It comes off as comic relief to kids. And later, we forgot that it happened. Only after watching a second or third time, we noticed. And maybe we noticed on the first watch, but not consciously.
I think what separates Toph from every other bender to me is the facts that she's not just doing the same earthbending as everyone else but better, she's playing an entirely different game from them.
On your point about Aang v Ozai, Aang actually could have beaten Ozai before the Avatar state. When Aang redirected Ozais lightning he CHOSE to not fire it at Ozai. Aang chose to not defeat him in that moment. Aang is an incredible bender.
@@silas6328 exactly. Had it been Kyoshi, Korra or even Yangchen or Kuruk, that fight would have been over before either before it started or as soon as Ozai thought he had the upper hand. Aang was just carrying the entire weight of the air nation on his shoulders - understandable, he might have acted differently if he hadn't been the last surviving airbender. He might have acted more like Yangchen and not have been as obsessed with not killing
Not to mention simply the act of holding in that lightning too long as he hesitated nearly killed him. He couldn't even stand for a moment. He risked a hell of a lot to stay true to who he was.
@@kileygarrett2141 That's something I've never thought about before. If Aang had been willing to cross the line with his people still alive, the world would not have lost much. But if the last member of a people defined by peace becomes a killer, then they really are gone.
Another example of covert power scaling is Gyatso. When the gang finds his skeleton, he is surrounded by the corpses of fire nation soldiers. The implication is he was able to defeat the skeletons around him. He is also in a pose of meditation while the fire nation soldiers' skeletons are twisted as though in pain.
@@derekmensch3601 It's never actually said in the series that that's what Gyatso did. As far as I know, that's just a prevalent fan theory (and Korra indicates that it was at least possible). Then again, I haven't kept up with everything the creators have said since the show finished, so it's possible that it was confirmed at some point outside of the show.
My favorite part of Avatar worldbuilding/powerscaling is how towards the end of the series, the Gaang starts to adapt their bending to adapt to other bending styles.
230 years... that's insane. To put it in perspective, let's imagine Avatar Kyoshi lived in our world and died this year. So she was born in ≈1792, sixteen years after the Declaration of Independence, and recognized as Avatar at sixteen years old (per the Avatar wiki) in 1808. Thomas Jefferson was president from 1801 to 1809, and he was only the third president ever. The Civil War, two world wars and the Cold War all would have happened under her watch. Every major event in the US except its founding would have happened in her lifetime. That's... honestly nuts.
You come from a culture without a long local history, unlike most. My home country spent 200 years being independent, without being acknowledged as such. From the 1300 to 1500. My fathers people have lived in a similar place since roman times, until his generation, whilst transmuting their language from vulgar latain to romansh, only to throw it away for a german dialect around the 1800s. I literally live in a house that is from about 1800, with many houses in the centre being from the 15th and 16th hundreds. The town hall was finished around 1470. And that is from the hearts europe where agriculture and settled housing spread thousands of years later than the indus valley, egypt, mesopotamia or china. Cleopatra (2000 years ago) was born closer to us, than to the erection of the giza pyrimaids (5000 years ago).
@@toffeeFairy In other words, Avatar Kyoshi could've been born before your country gained independence, lived throughout that 200-year period and died after it lost independence. Houses built when she was young would be considered old by the time she died; the difference in age between your house and the one your neighbors have lived in for generations is one mighty woman's lifetime. (Also, is your country Scotland? Genuinely don't know a lot of history)
"There is an unkillable, all powerful god woman who polices the planet, murdering the unjust" I really, REALLY want that to be a show now. Can the creators please do a 20 season Kyoshi show?
There's a pair of great official books about Kyoshi's origins, the Rise of Kyoshi and the Shadow of Kyoshi. Of course, they're not shows and since they're about her origins you only see the beginnings of the murderous all powerful god woman she becomes.
Hot Take: But I hope they don't. Hard to create conflict when the main character is strong enough to bend islands. Korra strugled with this too. Korra was by far the strongest bender in the world by the end of the first season, and the writers constantly needed to find reasons why she would lose a fight. I think leaving Kyoshi's prime in a shroud of mystery, and giving call backs is the better option. I want to idealize her, not ground her.
Not only does Ozai do it with the sliver of sun, extremely quickly, deep underground, and double fisted But he also does it from a seated, non-combative position with no proper stance or grounding.
Incredible, never noticed that Aang and Ozai perform their tiger-dillo stands in the last episodes and make their powers comparable. So great, that so many youtubers, including Overanalyzing Avatar still open my eyes for new stuff of my favorite series of all time
Honestly, this is the kind of analysis I was expecting from Overanalysing Avatar, but he just talks about full moons. And this incredible show has so much depth we still keep finding out new things about it. I love it!
Another little detail that I notice when I watch that scene is that even Aang’s “real” tiger-dillo stance still has a fairly halfhearted vocal line with it. He wasn’t giving that his all but it was still comparable to zuko, serious firebending protege who’s been training since he could walk. Aang’s just that good
The Kyoshi novels also show how the roots of the fire nation's nationalism that roku and aang would have to deal with began during Kyoshi's tenure when the fire lord bristled against her iron fist on world leaders, which se only did because Kuruk's untimely death left the world in chaos continuing the idea that all avatars have to both clean up after their predecessor and leave problems for their successor.
It also shows how authoritarian Kyoshi was and what that does to a nation and its people in the long term. The Fire nation became nationalistic purely because they were under the thumb of Kyoshi, breeding resentment and hate for the Earth nation as a whole, and why subsequent Fire Lords after her death have a superiority complex against the other nations. The Air Nomads were just doing their own thing and the Water Tribes were having their own spat, and competition, with each other to worry about other nations so it left the Fire Nation as the only one to stew in hatred. If Kyoshi didn't live as long we might not have had the Air Nomad genocide. We also see the parallels between the Fire and Earth Nations; they're both singular entities with one ruler, while the Water Tribe and Air Nomads are split between multiple entities. They both think they're the more superior nation, with the better culture, so naturally they're going to butt heads. The Fire Nation is more about innovation while the Earth Nation is more about tradition which makes them polar opposites and also more likely to butt heads. Unfortunately the other nations, being more insular, made them suseptible to being dominated by either one and it was the Fire Nation that was the one to make the move.
@@saraeissa4954 Aang didn’t tell the white lotus to keep Korra locked up. He told them to take care of her. And the white lotus only kept Korra isolated because they got scared by the red lotus trying to kill her, which has nothing to do with Aang.
Funny thing is, Kyoshi also mastered all of the elements in around a year. She had a problem, where she had way too much raw strength, and couldn't bend small objects at first. It took her effort to develop finesse and delicacy You should read the books, they're fantastic
one of my favourite parts of avatar is when Haru saves the old guy with earth bending and he immediately gets handed into the fire nation. i love how much that told us about the fire nation’s rule over its colonies and the fear it instilled in its colonial subjects and now not only have you reaffirmed my love for this show you’ve also given me a deeper understanding of one of my favourite moments and a technical writing skill i can attribute it to! thank you!
@@MaskofPoesy yeah he was a coward and a traitor no doubt - but also an accurate representation of how colonisers/oppressors often are able to get the colonised to turn on each other. really cool
@@MaskofPoesy To be fair, at that moment he was forced to either cover for the bender, putting himself and his family at risk, or snitch and live with guilt.
The way Aang fights is insane. If you watch his dights with Zuko, he’ll literally copy Zuko’s moves but with Air. This happens in their first actual fight, in the first episode with June and her Shirshu. He also does it in the last episode of the second season when he fights against and Azula. I love that they showed his quick learning and improvising skills in every fight.
I consider myself to be a pretty big fan of the Avatar franchise, so how did I not know that Kyoshi was almost 250 years old? And for that matter, what finally did her in? Did she just....get tired? Did she just CHOOSE to move on so the world could move forward? I haven't read either of the Kyoshi books, so maybe it's explained there, but STILL. The idea of the 7 foot tall all-powerful God-Woman stomping around for decades, CENTURIES at max power just wasting fools as she saw fit? Anyone old enough to have been around during that time should be fucking TERRIFIED of Aang, just on principle. Wouldn't YOU be?!
I had to look it up once he said that, and I guess the technique she was using doesn't make you truly immortal it just keeps you from aging for a very long time using your own spiritual energy or something along those lines? Being the Avatar, that would make you have a-lot of spiritual energy. The same thread I was reading was saying that's why Aang died at 66, because he used a-lot of spiritual energy when he was frozen in the iceberg. At-least that's the theory anyways for why he died comparatively young. It also seems like just being a bender in general causes you to live a very long life.
I was more under the impression that since she watched over the world for so long, she realize that everyone was afraid of her and intentionally suppressed themselves. She realize that without wars or conflicts, the world became stagnant and no progresses were being made. She became THE dictator. So she chose to just pass away peacefully and never taught that technique to the next generation.
The books give an explanation for how she was able to live so long, but unfortunately both books take place during her development years, where she's not quite the badass she is in her few scenes of the show. They don't even go into how, when, and why she formed the Dai Lee. I really wish they'd write a third book. They are worth reading 100%. The Kyoshi novels are what Korra wishes it could be.
considering she had unlocked the secret to immortality, she more than likely chose to pass on at a time when the world was in a good position to be avatar-less for ~25 years
@@saraeissa4954 Eh, Korra was honestly inconsistent at best, and trash at its lowest, and there are plenty of video essays that can explain why better than I could. But to each their own.
The Kyoshi novels also give an insight into how terrifying she was while also humanizing her. Not only was she an insanely powerful bender of the four elements (most earthbenders are handicapped in the arctic but she could draw up bedrock from the sea floor), but she could bend glass and flash freeze an opponent's internal organs once she was close enough.
@@aurin_komak To be fair there probably wasnt as wide use of metal in her time, outside swords and maybe some armor. Toph was born into the beginning of the industrial revolution, Metal was everywhere, Fire nation ships, Earth bender Cages, mechanical arms, Factories, pipes ect ect.
@@SONYUSR Yeah, this is thing with "inventing a new style/ way to do things". It's not that everyone before you COULDN'T do it, it's that nobody before you THOUGHT to do it.
@@aurin_komaktoph is probably the only person who could’ve invented metal bending. Not that anyone else talented can’t do it, but they can’t invent it because they don’t have seismic sense because they aren’t blind. Toph being blind is what made her great as she represented earth bending itself like the badger moles the original earthbenders.
There's actually one bit of powerscaling that I think goes unnoticed by most of the fandom and it's the implications of the final fight between Azula and Katara. Azula's the second or third greatest firebender in the world and forces Katara to fight with a dirty shot that KO'd Zuko. Not only does Katara win, she doesn't even use bloodbending to get the victory due to choosing not to or being unable to. Imagine how fast that fight could have ended if Katara bloodbended.
idk if that was a powerscaling moment for Katara as much as it was a show of her fight iq/ strategic abilities. Also I’m pretty sure she couldn’t blood bend without a full moon. Honestly a better powerscaling feat imo would have to be Katara fist show of bending in book 3’s season premiere where she’s able to casually use waves to push fire nation ships and make whirlpools.
I think it's also important to note that at this time Katara is at least the second most powerful water bender on the planet. Discounting Aang, her only competition is Pakku and with healing and blood bending on her side it's likely she bests him and is the #1 waterbender. The Gaang is truly ridiculous.
She can't bloodbend without the full moon, Azula was mentally unstable, Katara was being forced to run and could only barely defend - the way the fight ended was a last ditch effort tbf.
even though she couldn't bloodbend without the full-moon its completely possible that she could have easily learned to, if she wanted to explore it further. Amon could figure out wonders with it when he explored and Katara was one of the strongest waterbenders
One small thing about aangs air scooter: from the clip where the other kids try the air scooter, it is clear that using it is not just about bending and creating a ball, balancing and control over it's speed and rotation re also extremely important. The user also needs to make it so that they stick to the scooter when going up walls and stuff. This is basically never seen in any other technique, showing just how high level the technique of the air scooter is. This is so subtle that they clearly missed it in Korra, since literally every air bender and their mother use the air scooter like riding a bike.
Also, I want to add that you can powerscale katara with Hama and realized how powerful she is. She first learned how to waterbend ALONE for years without any type of guide and managed to held resistance to a master water bender from the pole north. Then, she trained only for a couple of months and is able to use blood bending in her first try against the water bender that discover the blood bending itself (mind you that Hama needed years to master blood bending and started with rats) while they were both at their peak power thanks to the full moon. Katana is really a legend and I think she is sometimes under saw. Also, great video! It was very entertaining
Katara's an interesting one in that the person we see her powerscale most with is *herself*: compare Katara at the start of the show with Katara at the end of S1, S2, S3, or North and South. In her we see perhaps the fullest complete journey for the mastery of any one element. And perhaps get a sense of her gaining that mastery not because she's a prodigy, but because she worked bloody hard at it.
you can totally tell they didn’t intend for her to be the avatar directly before roku, firstly because they say in the kyoshi island episode that kyoshi was alive “over 400 years ago” and we knew aang was 112 while roku died in his ~70s. then also because those statues of the previous avatars in episode 3, the avatar before roku in the cycle was a man
@@yourehereforthatarentyou Well, 112+70(at least)+230=412, so Kyoshi would have been "alive" at an exact 400 years before. It is also possible that the century figure was rounded as most places and people tend to do when not using exact date figures, so let's say it could be closer to 375 years prior to when the figure was quoted. There's also that the exact age of Roku's death is estimated conservatively so that could also add a few more years window to Kyoshi's relocating the Island. It's also possible that Chin the Conquer was the first errant emperor she eliminated. One would expect Chin to have been afraid of her and not gone on a rampage if Kyoshi had already developed her reputation to the level of demigod. This seems to indicate, to me, that Chin's conquest was rather early in her career, anywhere between her early 20's to 40's depending on how we're counting. Though the power and talent factor required makes me think it didn't happen any earlier than her mid 30's.
@@ckl9390 The point is that it does make sence as soon as you make Kyoshi live for over 200 years. But it wouldn‘t have if she lived a lifespan that is deemed normal for humans. It is nowhere in the show established that Avatars as such become extraordinarily old: Roku looks old-in-general, but not older than expected of a regular human livespan; Kyoshi (and Kuruk) looked, as mentioned, not old at all. So Roku and Kyoshi being extraordinarily old is quite obviously a mistake. (Also Roku lived more than 100 years and that didn‘t seem to be a conscious thought - watch the „the Avatar and the Firelord“ episode of Overanalyzing Avatar for that.) Maybe what was done with the mistake was fitting and apprechiated, but I really think it originally was a mistake rather than genious worldbuilding for the attack of the fire nation or something. The theory is not directly contradicted, but also not backed up in the show.
This feels like a Civilisation “angry Ghandi” glitch where just a few wrong numbers made Ghandi the most ruthless warmonger et of the whole series, which then became an intentional part of his character in later games.
Actually, lightning bending was introduced much earlier in “The Storm”. Iroh redirects lightning that was going to hit the ship and its never addressed or explained. We just watch him do it then look at him as his hair poofs up for a second and then it shifts focus.
I'd like to see about 95% of anime writers learn this. I'm sick and tired of endless monologues and internal monologues explaining things. It's why I barely watch anime anymore.
That's often caused by animes being too often just direct adaptations of mangos. In a comic you can get away with a box of thoughts passing through character's mind in a split second. In animation... it extends split seconds into very long minutes. But I absolutely agree, this is a lazy adaptation and I gave up on so many animes because of this.
Part of the reason the quality of an anime can dip drastically is because they need to pad content to avoid being ahead of the manga. Unfortunately the quality of manga can also dip is because drawing can be tedious work, and they are under constant abusive crunch by their publishers. It is heartbreaking how bad it can be for authors. Masashi Kishimoto, author of Naruto, delayed his honeymoon by twenty years or something ridiculous like that.
Action manga writers are so overworked I am honestly impressed when worldbuilding doesn't devolve into gibberish (see: Dragon Ball, Bleach). A lazy monologue is better than missing deadlines because you want to re-draft the script to be more elegant.
@@vaiyt But often the exposition dumps don't say anything that can't be easily shown. And it often is shown anyway but they feel like repeating it five times for no reason. My Hero Academia comes to my mind as example. They thoroughly explain the name, abilities and backstory of a character that appears for one page, dealing two punches, each overly explained in text, and then falling down to never be seen again.
As a child, I remember instinctively noting down every single time I noticed even the slightest change in the skills and abilities of the characters, especially with Aang. In practically every scene in the show where he uses bending techniques (any four of them, especially when he uses them at the same time), we see how he is ever so slightly better in the bending he’s using than he was in the preceding scene. With every scene, his arsenal was growing more varied, his techniques were more impactful and executed more effortlessly (mind you, he was developing not arc by arc or episode by episode, but scene by scene). This shows he was learning AND constantly honing his existing or newly learned abilities with practice. I wish I could show the movie clips here and how he was progressing scene by scene, but as a child whenever I’d get a glimpse of such development I would fall in love with the show more and more. Not only Aang, but the other characters’ abilities also almost never felt stagnant (except for Azula maybe, since she was supposed to be perfect by design). So yeah, you expressing similar observations in this video in a more well-structured manner felt validating for my 12-14 year old past self :)
Azula actually does get stronger. You can see it in her next appearance after becoming unhinged, in the beginning of the Southern Raiders episode. The thing is, this comes as a result of her becoming less disciplined; all her perfection failed to give her what she really wanted, and her emotional distress powered her bending with that emotion and the fire became wilder as a result. This is just hard to notice because she only fights once more after this and it's during Sozin's Comet AND during her mental breakdown so it's not really a good comparison to the rest of her appearances. Also, I'm not denying that she was stagnant before this point either; just saying she does show some changes at this point.
I haven’t seen it covered anywhere in the Avaterverse, but I saw a science video on why fire is blue. Blue fire is the purest combination of fire, fuel and oxygen. When fire turns orange, that’s the debris or remnants of an impure mix burning off. Azula’s fire is blue because it is pure fire. Fire in its purest form. Azula is a prodigy.
I am an Avatar fanboy, and was just expecting to watch this and agree, without learning anything new. I never picked up on the Z's in the fire nation royalty names and Iroh being the odd man out, or the speed of the lighting, or even the relative levels of power by all the avatars. 10/10! Thanks for deepening my love and understanding for how stinking well this show was written.
One other Fire Nation name we know with a hard zed in it is Aang's friend Kuzon. It may be more a naming tendency for the nation than just the royal family. How many named contemporary Fire Nation characters do we know about?
@@ckl9390 Ty Lee, Mai, Chan, Piandao, On Ji, Mrs. Kwan, Shoji, Dig, Lo, Li, Ruon-Jian, Fat, Dock, Chit Sang, Yon Rha. Mostly not major characters, but all from the Fire Nation. Z is definitly not a fire nation thing in general.
@@ckl9390 think about this: the air nomads, though few, were respected all over the world for their wisdom and altruism. aang, as a boy, was welcomed into the presence of bumi, the future king of omashu. it stands to reason that aang's friend kuzon might've been a member of the royal family too, like maybe a prince whose father wasn't the heir, or at least a member of the noble class who might've been descended from royalty. who else would've had the power during the end of sozin's reign, when the fire nation was beginning its nationalism and military campaign? visiting with air nomads might've been someone's practice of resistance against anti- air nomad sentiment, and consequently, aang could've been playing with a child of high society.
I've never really thought about the potential global impact Avatar Kyoshi had on the world... That's such a fascinating idea! Adds one more dynamic to Aang's need to defeat him because, kind of twice over (first as Kyoshi, then as Roku), the Avatar actually inspired the Fire Nation to become what it did. Aang is cleaning up his previous lifetime's messses.
The lightning bending thing is so dope though. Iroh explains how it's splitting energy apart - a concept we can barely understand. That's why it takes the whole stance and movement and breathing and whatnot. Because it's flimsy! And Ozai does it like it's nothing, like he has been doing this and only this every day of his life. And maybe that is what he is doing in his free time, just firing lightning bolts at stuff to practice.
Lightning-bending requires detachment from emotions, which Ozai and Azula had an easier time with due to their extreme confidence in themselves and utter contempt for everything else in the world.
@@vaiyt So that's why Ozai couldn't launch another one after Zuko gave him a taste of his own medicine. His pure, unadulterated fit of rage you could see animated in every muscle on his face prevented him from detaching himself.
For the point of Aang being a bender of nearly unparalleled raw talent, it is important to note that a typical Avatar Journey was not only about the mastery of bending but of the spirituality of each bending type as well. Clearly even taking that into account Aang is still an absolutely insane example of raw bending talent, but he is not as far above the other Avatars, or rather specifically Roku, than what you said in this video. Aang had no choice but to train constantly in order to just survive the war torn world he had awoken into. Roku had as much time as he wanted, and completely mastered all of the elements in the time that he had as well as being able to use the Avatar State at will. Aang mastered 1 element during his Avatar Journey and was quickly becoming an expert at both Earth and Fire while under the guidance of 2 people who had learned from their respective bending styles original practitioners. I still believe you are correct that Aang is the greatest Avatar yet, but the gap is not as wide as you think.
True, Roku was probably taking his time in learning all he could about each nation's customs, histories, and philosophies alongside mastering their actual element.
@@Tafah_0 Cultural knowledge of the 4 nations _would_ actually be the most important tool and weapon of a global peacekeeper, your main job is mediating between all the peoples of the world in order to prevent conflict, the vast majority of that is going to take the form of diplomacy and friendships between different peoples, which is going to require understanding of said people in the first place.
I believe that Kyoshi, at 230 would have a very different view on death, especially having outlived anyone she might have loved. I am not surprised that by the end of it she would come off as cold, knowing humanity's natural tendency toward chaos and destruction, and just being numb to it at that point.
I love that all of this is based *only* on what's in the show, and just one little 5-minute special they made where Aang visited a few of the past Avatars and learned about what was - in their opinions - their greatest failures of each life. (That little special was intended to make its way in the show, somewhere in Book 3, but they ultimately decided that it didn't fit naturally anywhere and cut it out). None of this is from the comics, or Legend of Korra, or any of the other spin-offs. It really shows how much world-building this show made as subtly as possible.
This video helped me finally figure out why the legend of Korra fell so flat with me: lightning bending went from being impressive mastery to just something young folks did to make money generating power for the grid. That really bothered me, and your comparison between Azula, Iroh and Ozai’s lightning bending really solidified that opinion. Thank you
Letting it be acceptable to teach entire generations of young men a technique that can instantly kill anyone they can see is fucking insane. You are permanently installing lethal weapons into people, something deadlier than an assualt rifle that they can shoot out their fingertips, what, the fuck. The knowledge and training needed to learn lightning generation _should_ be heavily regulated, the obvious reason why only royalty had it before was because of how obviously powerful it was, so the royal family hoarded it to themselves to make sure only _they_ had that power. If this clear logic was applied, working as a lightning power generator would be one of the most prestigious and high paying jobs in Republic City, because only a select few would even be allowed to learn it, and they would be heavily punished, likely imprisoned, for teaching it to anyone else without state approval.
meh I don't really see how that'd plauge your opinion on korra, if anything I think that's a genius detail to show the audience how the world has evloved over the years. It's a logical and realistic advancement and mirrors the real world pace of change. I think it's good! like for example lava bending was a rare skill on Korra but maybe for the next Avatar's era it's going to be more scaled and a whole new bending style is going to pop up and be the next cool thing
This is likely one of the best avatar deep dives I’ve seen, eloquence through the roof and great points regarding power scaling and world building, it feels like I always knew, but with that context in mind everything that led to the fire nation attacking makes soo much sense
Just so people can stop commenting about Lightning Redirection: "Aang did not need to practice lightning redirection. He just intuitively knew how to smoothly move the highly volatile energy through his body" I never said Zuko didn't tell him about this technique. I said he never _practiced_ it. Zuko and Aang talked about lightning redirection for maybe 15 seconds and then never addressed it again. Aang's first time ever even TRYING to redirect lightning was in active combat against Ozai. He literally had no practice. He just redirected lightning on his first try because he was so talented. Also, Zuko telling Aang HOW to do the technique does not automatically make Aang a master of the technique. If I told you, "Yeah, all you gotta do is run, jump from the free throw line, then dunk the basketball", that doesn't mean you could just instantly do it lol. And for those saying, "Well Zuko redirected lightning on his first try too", that is still an argument for Aang's prowess. Zuko was a master firebender. Aang wasn't close to being a master. No matter how you slice it, its super impressive.
On lightning bending: How about the fact that we NEVER see Zuko lightning bend throughtout the enitre series!? Thinking back to what Iroh told Zuko lightning bending takes, it makes sense that he would never be able to. That doesn't take anything away from what Zuko was able to acomplish as a character, but rather speaks to the profundity of the damage the truama he went through caused. If I'm right about the whole: Zuko never bent lightning thing...
I think Iroh's water-inspired technique counts as bending lightning, or he would not have told Zuko that total calmness was required to do it? Like if it counts as bending water that someone else throws at you (which I think we can all agree it does), and you can't redirect lightning with just any old firebending mindset, then bending lightning someone else throws at you should probably count as lightning bending, right?
@@ruaridhusher4373 lightning generation is different than lightning redirection. to generate lightning, a firebender must be able to separate the positive and negative energies within their body, which requires them to have complete emotional control. lightning redirection is simply providing a path for the lightning to flow through you, but does not require the same control and separation of energy. zuko is unable to generate lightning because his past trauma prevents him from gaining full control of his energy
It also shows how Zuko is "inept" as a Fire Nation royal considering Lightning bending is a royal-only style, pretty much required for a royal, that further helps his character development and his difference from the rest of his family. The fact that Iroh can do it, and that Iroh was a cold-hearted killer before the events of the ATLA, shows that the royal family has such strict and concrete terms of royal code and behaviour that Zuko now breaks away from.
In my mind the fact that Zuko can't bend lightning, only redirect it, shows that, while he never managed to attain that complete balance within himself, he still could take whatever crap other people threw at him and let it pass through. He spent so much time burdened by his family and nation's expectations and abuse.. Him developing this skill is to me another form of showing Zuko's emotional healing and growth.
"Aang was so good at waterbending that he did not even need to practice lightning redirection...he just intuitively knew how to move the energy" Zuko, who very specifically trained Aang in the technique: Am I a joke to you?
@@metal123498 yeah... like when Ozai shot lightning at Zuko and he had to redirect it for the first time after only being taught the technique for a few minutes.
In the history of Avatar's world, Kyoshi has to be the most prolific and culturally significant Avatar. By comparison, Aang's greatest accomplishment was ending a single war. He died relatively young, even when compared to Roku. It's not hard to imagine that after Korra dies, Aang will not be remembered as long as someone with a legacy like Kyoshi. Great video!
I might be tempted to agree with you if not for the fact that Aang ended a war that went on for literally a hundred years and was likely heavily involved in the political restructuring and cultural healing in the wake of that end. As much as I honestly hate Korra, her and Aang will probably be remembered just as well as Kyoshi.
@@unoriginal_name7091 Don't forget the founding of the United Republic, he was involved in creating a nation state that's different than any tribe or nation that has existed so far as iirc the nations before the war always lived seperated. Even in the comics iirc he temporarily broke contact with Roku because all he could say was that the colonies needed returning and the nations separated because its the only form of "balance" Roku ever knew and because he's a spirit he was simply incapable of perceiving that the world had changed and thus couldn't give aang advice on the "new balance" the world was trying to create
idk what Korra has done/will do yet cause I haven't finished LoK. But Aang ended a war that lasted almost 4 generations (from Sozin to Zuko), going against the best firebender in the world at the time while he was all juiced up from the comet. After said war, he went around the world again helping with rebuilding and restructuring as well as building Republic City and stronger relations between all the nations. That's a massive and sudden change in society that nobody is likely to forget. There's no way he won't be remembered with a great storied legacy
he did helped found the equivalent to ONU and saw the wake of a modern-ish society. he's going to probably be more historically remembered (but much less mystified and adored) than many of the earlier avatars, much like how we best remember the most prominent historical figures from the last century than the one prior and so on.
Arcane on Netflix also does silent world building really well! It's the only show I've seen in a while to handle this well since Avatar! It's been over a decade and there are still so many videos on Avatar and its writing. It's so amazing
Don`t you just love that more than 10 years ! 10 YEARS ! after a show as finished . people still love , and still discover this story ! I would say without a doubt that Avatar the last air bender is the best story ever created by humans . If not the best equal to Lord of the rings
It’s really awesome to see your first video of the new year, especially because it covers one of my all-time favorite shows. I’m excited for what new content you’ll release for 2022.
I have to say this is an amazing analysis about Worldbuilding and magic systems. And considering I'm using both in the stories I'm writing, I find it incredibly useful, because most of these are things I didn't notice or didn't think about despite studying creative writing for many years. I hope you make more of this kind of videos at least 1 of every 4, because you have some pretty amazing skills to analyze stories.
If you're ever looking for a critique partner feel free to hit me up, I'm also writing works that have power systems and magical like world building so we might click together well.
@@upg5147I see, but I don't write in English, I write in Spanish (my native language). But it's still good to see people writing this kind of things. I just use my English knowledge to study and learn all I can about writing
For anyone wondering, the song in the beginning is "Xuanzang" by Gareth Coker, made for Minecraft Xbox 360's Chinese Mythology DLC At 11:00 is "Tianxi Mountains" which is part of the same soundtrack :> Nice song choice :)
It should be noted that while Dragon Ball DID introduce power levels as a cheap way to scale power, they were intended to show how reliant on numbers the villains were (fan reaction to power levels and scouters shows how that went I guess), the concept disappears not too long after being introduced, and the rest of the series, especially pre-DBZ, is very adept at implying character strength through context clues. One that's easy to spot is how two characters are usually introduced at once in a pair, and their relationship is used to show how powerful one is in comparison to the other.
I think the problem is that power levels were too accurate. I don't think there was a single time in the show that two stated power levels went up against eachother and the highest power level didn't win. Any time a character did their power-boosting technique or transformation the scouter adjusted the numbers to match. I think all it would have taken to solidify the "relying on power levels is holding the bad guys back" is to make scouters fallible, to have the lower power level win.
There is a precedent specifically stated in the show that (as avatars go) some elements are harder to learn for different people, depending on your native bending style (and/or personality). Roku had trouble with water bending because he was a fire bender, Aang had similar troubles with earth bending because he was an air bender. As well Korra had troubles with air bending (though in that case it was more about her stubborn personality, more closely resembling an earth bender in personality).
I like how you talked about needing context to understand characters power levels.Aang being a master air bender was evident from the start in hindsight. The stunts he pulls in the first episode showcase so many different implementations of air bending and they all flow naturally. But in that episode it is out right said that the fire nation hasn't seen an air bender in years and so of course they fell for every trick. Throughout the first season we come to understand that Aang's bag of tricks is truly bottomless, and through flash backs we get the context of his interactions with other airbenders.
I have to say, the points you give to put Ozai above Iroh in power scaling are in my opinion invalid. Yes Ozai did generate lighting faster than anyone else shown in the show BUT when Iroh is shown generating lightning he's doing it to teach Zuko so doing it as fast as he could would be counter productive. Also I believe that Iroh also immediately noticed when the sun became available to him when he escaped prison since Zuko goes there immediately after confronting Ozai and he has already SINGLE HANDEDLY broken out and beaten all the guards, the most opportune moment to do this would be when the guards are still unaware that their bending has returned and are confused. The sheer fear and awe in the face and voice of the guard when Zuko asks him about the whereabouts of Iroh says it all to me. Finally Iroh is, like Aang for his own school of bending, the only fire bender to create a new fire bending technique in the show with his lightning redirecting technique. He was also the last fire bender to receive the title of dragon, though he technically did not earn it per say, so Ozai was really a complete fool to underestimate him...
It's also worth mentioning that Aang is like a spiritual prodigy too. He was able to open 6 out of 7 chakras in what, the span of a day, something that takes most people over 40 years? (I know part of why it was simplified was because it was a kid's shows and they had limited time, but regardless). He mastered the Avatar State in one year, was able to communicate with his past lives like he was ringing someone on the phone, and could even meditate into the spirit world with no problems at all. The kid was genuinely a beast.
When I first saw Ozia use lightning my brothers and I were freaking out about how fast he did it and the fact that he made two boltz. There were other things in here that I and my brothers have noticed before but also plenty I hadn't heard yet. Great video altogether
I noticed this with Azula's basic firebending as well. Her fire is blue; the most complete form of combustion. Everyone else's yellow/orange fire is incomplete combustion. It shows her mastery and how she was relentlessly trained to be the "perfect" firebender.
This was an absolute monster! You nailed everything, but I disagree on the Ang’s power scaling. The other Avatars lived in relative world peace, so they had time to work on their mastery. Ang had a timeline so everything was rushed for him.
Not true. He lived for twelve years with monks, unaware of war and his powers. And in that time he still became one of the most powerful airbenders. If I remember correctly, he was even the first to get his arrow in his age group. EDIT: Now I also remember that he learnt of being avatar early because of the incoming war and was pushed to learn advanced techniques faster, but we can already see him being ahead in the scene right before he was told all that.
@@kaksspl I agree that Ang was a prodigy when it came to Air bending and he was a master. I was more speaking to the other elements. They sped up his training due to the war and he probably spent more time training then a normal Avatar would.
@@YourLastGreatkNight in general, a newly-realized avatar’s only job was to go master the other elements. And they wouldn’t be on the run, so even though Aang’s training was more urgent, it’s likely that in one year of Roku’s training, he got more meaningful training and practice than Aang did in his year.
@@chrayez I see your reasoning there, but my thoughts are that during peacetime an Avatar will do more than just training. I would imagine they would try and learn about the culture, people, and environment they are in because it will be foreign to them. They maybe even listening to grievances because they are supposed to serve the world as a whole. So that was my thought process on the time they would spend in different nations, obviously I could be wrong.
14:02 Ozai, either through flashbacks or the current story, has always contextualized strength and decisiveness as power. According to Iroh, bending lightning requires uniformity of mind (no conflicting ideas or feelings). Ozai's near-instant lightning bending, even with just a sliver of sun peeking out of the eclipse, shows how powerful his ideology was. The man was ready to literally roast his firstborn a second time, no question about it.
you mentioned the fact that aang was an airbending master at 12 years old like 5 times but a) katara and toph were considered close to masters at around the same age b) toph and katara did not have teachers, despite this toph is still an earthbending prodigy while katara is very quickly shown to level up her abilities after meeting pakku c) aang had an entire community of people to teach him airbending, while katara and toph had to learn on their own for a majority of their lives d) aang is the AVATAR. it is heavily implied that thats the reason he is able to learn airbending so quickly
I'd like to correct you on the fact, that while Toph wasn't taught by the 'conventional' bending masters, she literally learned all she knew from badgermoles, the literal first earthbenders, according to what I know of the Avatar lore. So, she technically didn't really learn on her own, though I will admit she must have practiced and honed her skills without having to go underground to look for badgermole teachers.
Additionally, from the explanation that Roku gives us on the avatar state, the avatar gains and has access to all the knowledge and maybe even strength of the past avatars before them meaning that Aang not only had his own increadible talent for bending but also all of the knowledge of bending that Kyoshi gained over those 230 years when he chooses to access it in the avatar state. This further builds on the strength that Aang has without explicitly telling us and instead letting the audience put the pieces together and let the audience realize just how powerful this kid is.
Another small example of silent world building comes in the episode about Roku and Sozin’s past. When they’re fighting the volcano, we briefly see Sozin use what looks like heat bending, something we never see anyone else in the show do. To me this always signified that there were bending arts lost to time, and that because of the Fire Nation’s domination and the destruction of the Air Nomads and thus the world’s balance, the world is in a sort of Dark Age. Because of the focus on war for 100 years, many other less militant arts and abilities have been forgotten
The Kyoshi novels do a lot of clever worldbuilding as well. One of my favorite things was finding out that each of the four nations has a different method of finding the Avatar. In the show we see the Air Nomads use the "toys" test, where the Avatar as a child picks out toys that belonged to the old Avatars. In the novels, the Earth Kingdom uses some kind of "geomancy" technique to narrow down the exact location of the Avatar. We're not told how the Water Tribes and Fire Nation do it, but it can be easily inferred they have their own methods related to their cultures. It wasn't dwelt upon a lot in the book, but it gave the universe another level of cool detail that felt really natural.
A aspect of world building/ power scaling I noticed was early on in Book 1 when Iroh saw Aang and Roku flying past in the spirit world. No one else around him could see it. It showed the high level he was at early on in the series along with how in tune he was with his spiritual side. Only later on we are told he spent time learning from other bending techniques, however that one scene indicates he may have spent time with the monks and airbenders
I really hope we get a third Kyoshi novel, one that explores her later years. It would be really interesting to see how she coped with her longevity for, as any reader of the books would know, she wasn't nearly as stoic or bloodthirsty as history would remember her as. (Seriously, who else gained new love for Kyoshi when they learned how sweet she was?)
Needed to make a comment as soon as you made this point because it was so spot on, but your insight on Toph vs Aang "chef kiss" makes perfect sense on why we love her and her badassery so much. Fantastic video as always
I always feel like you have found an amazing balance of teaching for the future and entertainment for a majority! I enjoy listening to what you say for multiple reasons. When you explain a specific writing skill that you base a video around with a common piece of entertainment that also had used that specific skill at just about the best use that many have seen and appreciate! not only do people learn much from these videos, they understand with examples people have likely gotten interested in being a writer from! the other side of that coin is the entertainment, when explaining the scaling around the middle to end of the video, you use examples like the Tigerdillo roar and how much more powerful they were every time they appear of screen. when I got here I was ecstatic when I truly realize just how strong ang was all over again, I felt like a kid again siting on my grandparents couch when seeing the finally when it was first on TV and I honestly struggle to enjoy much in my life these days! Every bit of lore is re-energized in my eyes and brought me to the edge to my seat while teaching an amazing and well used skill of writing to me and I almost didn't even realize and I got that more interested in the explanation and entertainment! a small side note for a little more fact-to-point, you mentioned lore I had no idea about and still used it for power-scaling and it put my jaw to the floor. this shows just how well-thought and effective writer you are and it simple make every video I have watched from this channel what its all about, learning and entertainment. Ang is a master avatar, Tauf is a master earth-bender and you sir may not realize it but YOU are a master teacher, you maintain a balance that most teachers cant obtain in the classroom and an entertainer of the same caliber of some of the best actor and sports players! I may not become a writer but I can walk away and say I learned something I will NOT soon forget!
another great powerscaling moment with ozai can be found in how his and Iroh’s Comet Powered blasts are framed. While Iroh shoots a two handed blast that puts an impressive hole in the wall of Ba Sing Se, Ozai’s first comet blast allows him to basically torch a whole forest with one hand
@@tiagocidraes2390 I see wym. i was more talking from a visual/aoe damage in this example. just comparing ozai wiping out a large landscape after Iroh made the whole in the wall is pretty telling (imo) that ozai is stronger. Also if we look at other airships with firebenders, 5 of their blasts seems to add up (visually at least) to 1 of Ozais blasts.
I absolutely love the world building in Atla, and even now I love watching videos and reading analysis of things that I didn't pick up. And you make such a good point, the world is so compelling and one thing that I was reminded of in particular, when the use of air balloons was introduced, deleted by Teo and sokka, and then taken by the fire nation when they had to escape. And then they show up later in the show!! Not only is there great world building, it's also dynamic and charging, that you see the protags and other factors actually changing it!! It's a world in the midst of change, not only politically in the return of the avatar, but also on many other things like tech and culture
One fun bit of silent worldbuilding which is related to something you said is WHY the Fire Nation is more industrially advanced. It's because... they have fire. You need fire to extract and work with metal. That's why while the rest of the world is at a preindustrial tech level (they have some access to metal and use it in weapons and small tools), the Fire Nation is operating at an industrial tech level and can wield metal to build huge machinery and also operate the machinery with something like steam power. They got to skip the stage in our history where we had to figure out how to create, maintain, and direct large amounts of heat into doing useful work. We had to figure that out before we hit the industrial era. They got to skip that because they have easy access to heat. Pretty cool.
I think this is the best video of Avatar I've ever watched. Besides the analysis of world building itself, your analysis on Aang's talents and Kyoshi's power and the consequences of her presence in the world for 2 centuries was amazing, and something I've never really thought about.
One of my favorite pieces of world building was in Zuko Alone when Zuko is traveling through the earth kingdom. Theres no dialouge but we can see the old earth army disks, showing that this space was once a battle and has since grown over This world has a rich history while Aang is asleep and I dont think we get to see enough of it. Zuko Alone is a masterpiece episode.
And then there's Legend of Korra. For Avatar, pretty much the same thing that the sequel trilogy was for Star Wars. Not saying that LoK didn't have any good parts. I actually like that it expanded on the worldbuilding, but the way it was done was rushed and with some of the things happening only for shock value. Eventually it turned, from a unique cartoon, into an average anime, with barely any mystery left. As ATLA is my no. 1 show, this failure still hurts after all the years. I didn't expect LoK to be better, or even as good, as ATLA, but I also didn't expect such a mess. I hope it will get rebooted one day. In a way that will make the original show justice.
agree. the bending power levels were all over the place and cheapened what ATLA established. with pre LoK content; the more you examine it the deeper you appreciate ATLA itself but with LoK it doesn’t bear close examination. the backdrop themes were interesting, but the main characters were just so blah with issues that seemed far too modern for its analogous time in our timeline, that i can’t suspend disbelief, vs timeless archetypal ones like in ATLA. it feels to me like a fanfic of ATLA rather than a sequel.
So going back to the Ozai vs Azula vs Iroh lightning generation not only does it powerscales them but it also powerscales Zuko! The speed at which Ozai generates his lightning is insane and the fact that Zuko redirected it shows just how powerful hes become too.
Great GREAT analysis of the powerscaling !!!! Ozai PROVED he was the strongest fire bender (in the time frame of the series) with the almost instantaneous casting of lightning. If ANYONE else fought him during the comet they would have died. No doubt 😂 most ppl wouldn't have been able to REACT that fast, let alone defend, unless they mastered their own element, and even Zuko would have died if Iroh didn't teach him how to redirect it. That's probably one of my favorite scenes in book 3 so much buildup and fine text.
I loooove videos like this because I learn aspects of stories I love that I didn't know about, like the subtle powerscaling in Avatar. And also how I can adapt my writing from learning from said videos.
This is definitely what i need to see. When i started trying to write this past week my worldbuilding was not silent, even though I knew it should be. It's nice to see that articulated. Thanks for the video!
My favorite silent world building is when Azula is going to shoot lightning at Zuko and Iroh grabs her hand and redirects it before it even leave her hand. It’s the first time Lightning redirection is introduced which also isn’t explained until later and it shows that even when not at his prime Iroh is on a whole other level
Fascinating points on the series! Avatar remains my favorite TV show of all time. An incredible narrative for television especially at the time. Hopefully, we see a sequel series based on the comics in the future.
I liked how RWBY handled some of its world building. The show had left so many questions up that the viewer was basically glued to the screen hoping for an explanation. And it was like that for a few seasons. Then, right as they get to one of the 4 major plot devices in the whole series, the relics or whatever, its revealed that each of them are genies and can grant wishes. Instead of getting hidden away by Professor Oz, Ruby bluntly wished to know who Oz was, since they were all starting to not trust him. She thought she was gonna learn some small time scheme or anecdote about this old man that might make him a threat to the team. She, and the viewer, had NO CLUE, that the backstory to this one character that has been around since the beginning, would explain the ENTIRETY of the world building and major drive for the plot and its villains. It was like thousands of puzzle pieces were thrown on the ground in chaos, and by the time they all landed and laid still, they formed the perfect picture that made so many things throughout the series so far make sense. It was really great and I wish the show had kept that momentum
Even though Toph says that Aang's earthbending could use some work too, I would still definitely say he was a master. After the episode "Bitter Work", earthbending almost seems like Aang's go-to element. He almost uses it as much as airbending when he's fighting. Tbf he can't really waterbend everywhere, so it's quite difficult to say how good of a waterbender he was, even though he clearly had mastered it, but I would say that he's an even stronger earthbender than waterbender. I agree that Aang could've been the strongest waterbender on the planet, maybe except from Katara, idk it's close, but he didn't seem to do much with it after he mastered it. The reason why Aang became so good at waterbending so quick, is because it's pretty similar to air, which he already mastered, so the basics came super easily to him. But after the basics, he didn't seem to learn as quickly, as Katara, although she clearly worked much harder on it than Aang. Back to my point about earthbending though, being an earthbending master doesn't equal Toph level at all. Toph is way above that level, so she knows that Aang's earthbending could be better, when she compares it to her own. That's one of the differences between Aang, and his previous avatars. He masters an element, and then immediately goes to learn the next one, maybe even before he's mastered the previous one. His previous avatars lived among all of the nations for years, they didn't just master the bending disciplines. They became way more powerful than that, and they also became inclined with all the cultures. Still, we don't know exactly how strong Aang became when he was older, he was one of the strongest avatars ever, no doubt about that, but he definitely had the potential to become the strongest one by far, by how strong he was at 12. Anyways, that's just an observation I made about Aang's earthbending, which I think people really underestimate. I feel like his firebending is quite underrated too, but we barely see that so it's not that surprising. If I were to rate how good Aang is at every element at the end of the series, from 1-10, with a 7,5/10 being master level, it would go like this: Airbending 9,5/10: Waterbending 8/10: Earthbending 8,5/10: Firebending 6,5/10. We mostly just see his firebending during the comet, but from the little training scenes we see with Zuko, I wouldn't say that Aang looks far behind Zhao, who was a firebending master.
You did such a great job of explaining worldbuilding!! I never had such a firm understanding of it. I've been learning about analyzing what I watch and read and this video helps me a lot. Thank you.
22:52 Aang is also good at reading emotions in split seconds. Seeing someone that everyone says "must be stopped at all costs" have a face of absolute fear and terror mixed with shock and awe on them, Aang was merciful and redirected the lightning to miss Ozai, even though Aang could of fired upon him, he saw his enemy as a human and held back firing on Ozai... Even in the heat of battle, he is shown to be truly merciful...
Thank you for pointing out that the movies cut the Eagle explanations seeded earlier in the books. Most people hear someone authoritative complain about Eagles and just think "Ah, Tolkien bad"
Zuko has a conversation with Aang about lightning bending though--it's in preparation for Aang's confrontation with him, before he goes off with the lion turtle. Aang didn't do it instinctively, Zuko taught him.
I appreciate this video a lot. Good structure and presentation. An example: explaing what you mean when you use words e.g. power scaling is about measuring power, not increase power (scale as in weights opposed to scale as in climb). There was also many details that I hadn't considered much that you showed had big importance. The third thing was how you edited the clips. They were relevant and of a fitting lenght. Add to that the script. It engaged me for 30 minutes without fiddling with something else. Well done!
Peak educational content of youtube. I have watched ATLA at least 10 times, watched countless analysis videos on it and you still managed to demonstrate and explain amazing worldbuilding aspects that I never consciously considered. What an amazing video. :)
I would argue silent world building is also one of the reasons the fandom (including this video) often underestimate Katara. It is mentioned how Katara is the last waterbender of the southern water tribe- the firebenders took all the other ones. While I don’t think it’s explicitly said in the animated show, it would make sense that Katara was either implicitly or explicitly told to hide her abilities to protect her. So she doesn’t have “over a decade” of practice. She *might* have a decade of secret and inconsistent experimentation. Experimentation that became even more inconsistent after her mother’s death, as she needed to step into the role her mother no longer occupied. This is also assuming Katara didn’t know or respond to the fact her mother’s death was the direct result of her being a waterbender. The guilt from that alone could have stunted and/or stopped Katara from practicing at all. This inconsistent/discouraged practice is supported by the fact Katara didn’t know about her healing abilities- something she would have figured out if she had been consistently practicing for a decade. We also don’t see many waterbenders through the show. The most only truly powerful one we see in the first two seasons is Paku. So we get no true sense to how good Katara actually IS. She goes toe to toe with a man with DECADES more experience than her, and nearly wins. While it can be argued that Paku was holding back, throughout the fight it’s clear he’s having to use more and more forceful and advanced attacks to combat her. You can also see how quickly Katara LEARNS throughout the fight- turning Paku’s large wall of water into ice and skating on it to get behind him. While Paku does restrain her in the end, it’s impressive that Katara was able to last that long. It’s second only to Ozai vs. Aang in a child (she was 13 in the show) fighting against a master and showing their raw talent. It might be even MORE impressive as Aang at least had some proper training before the fight- Katara didn’t. While it’s not explicitly said how long the gang was in the North Pole, it was definitely less than a couple months. In this time, Katara goes from a total novice to someone Paku - a white-lotus waterbender- gives the title of “master.” He was confident in her ability to TRAIN THE AVATAR, a feat not left to just any master. During this time she also becomes a master healer, a waterbending skill that is on par with fighting in terms of difficulty. Lastly, she learns one of the most difficult waterbending techniques in the world-blood bending- in less than a week’s time. She is again against a waterbendering master - Hama - who has years more experience than her. Hama bloodbends her, trying to take control- but is unable to because Katara can successfully overcome it. Katara is also able to bloodbend Hama back, while also releasing Hana’s control of Sokka and Aang. This is a technique she was shown ONCE. Even knowing the basics of how it would be done, that’s an impressive feat. We never see another waterbender bloodbend until Korra. While this is in part because it’s morally reprehensible and usually can only be done under a full moon, I also wonder if it’s also because Katara is the only waterbender besides Hama in the original series who can do it. She may not even need it to be a full moon as while she’s only shown doing it under a full moon, she also restricts her use of it as she thinks it’s wrong. In short, Katara is probably the most powerful waterbender in the original series, but it is often underestimated due to the silent world building that many fans miss.
Savage: "Thanks for watching to the end of this very long video." Me: "What? This was like 12 minutes." *Checks timer* "HALF AN HOUR?! WHAT THE FUCK?" For real, this is incredibly insightful. Great video dude!
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I've never considered the theory of Kyoshi and how the nations of the world would view her as an demi-god. You know your world building is good when people are making compelling and thought provoking theories 2 decades later
I genuinely think it went beyond that before the genocide - in the Kyoshi novels its heavily insinuated that the Avatar is the closest thing to a full God the people have. Sure they have spirits that they believe in but people across the world, benders and non, used to invoke the name of the avatar in protection. Even during Kyoshi's time, there were people her age saying "Yangchen protect me" And they don't seem to pray to spirits for protection unless they're highly rural or had extremely benevolent spirits around, but even then most people in Kyoshi's time (and presumably before) would all but pray to the Avatar for protection.
This reminds me of when Aang worked with the sea spirit in the north pole to destroy the firenation soldiers and we see the people getting on their knees and bowing in worship.
Well what else would you call the Avatar? I’d say they fit the definition of Demi-god, even ignoring LoK.
Thats what you get for being a filthy casual and having to wait around for some youtuber (great video btw) to tell you about it. This is barely below the surface iceberg stuff
@@nirgunawish Bro they’re just starting to learn. It’s not that serious…
Aang holding his own against Ozai is impressive. But honestly what's more impressive is the fact that we don't even question it. We see that Aang, a 12 year old is holding his own against one of the greatest benders ever and we the audience don't find that odd. Because our perception of Aang and his skill has been built up throughout the course of the series
Even more, the members of Aang’s little group don’t even question it.
They don’t ask “can you beat Ozai?”, they ask “are you going to kill him or not?”
And in that the moments he struggles makes sense. We see the vulnerability and lacking still in his ability when compared to Ozai
I mean, Aang isnt a 12 year old. He is the goddamn Buddha. Frankly, its more aurprising Ozai, even high on cosmic power as he is, can briefly inconvenience this god entity.
I love how Lightning bending is silently introduced in the season 1 episode “The Storm” when Iroh uses it to redirect a bolt of lightning that would have crippled the ship. It happens so quickly and with almost no explanation though that the viewer is left to wonder, “Did Iroh really just bend Lightning??”
It's a common reaction from people watching the show for the first time; you can instantly tell they want to learn more, and then when Season 2 episode 9 comes along, they just eat it all up excitedly. This video is definitely on point about that haha. The show is a master class in world building for sure.
I’m so glad you mentioned this! When he said we weren’t introduced to lightning bending until season 2, all I could think was, “dude , did you forget about the storm from season 1?” That was a total WTF moment that introduced lightning bending. It just wasn’t directly addressed until we saw Azula do it intentionally in season 2.
I actually had to go back to that episode long after finishing the series a few months ago (yes, I’m a new avatar fan) because I didn’t even realise what actually happened with the lightning at that point, my brain was not stimulated enough to realise there was a question to be asked.
What’s doubly sneaky is that they made the lightning yellow, as opposed to the consistent blue that they used in the rest of the series.
On my first watch, I didn't even think about it. Oh, the wise and skilled and powerful old master caught and deflected a lightning bolt. Oh, funny how his hair is messy now. It comes off as comic relief to kids. And later, we forgot that it happened. Only after watching a second or third time, we noticed. And maybe we noticed on the first watch, but not consciously.
And he has the same reaction as we do. “Did I just bend Lightning?” Like he wasn’t 100% sure he would survive
I think what separates Toph from every other bender to me is the facts that she's not just doing the same earthbending as everyone else but better, she's playing an entirely different game from them.
@@ROB-cj4kq the eyes are due to she being blind same with the badgermoles
Boomi the only one that's with her
@@kamohelo6418 not even. Boomi didn’t know about metal bending either.
@@borby4584 no argument. that's when Toph became the best outright. But I have no doubt Boomi would be capable if given the insight on how it's done
@@kamohelo6418 touché. Plus Boomi does definitely have WAY more experience than Toph, even if Toph definitely has better seismic sense than him
On your point about Aang v Ozai, Aang actually could have beaten Ozai before the Avatar state. When Aang redirected Ozais lightning he CHOSE to not fire it at Ozai. Aang chose to not defeat him in that moment.
Aang is an incredible bender.
He lost only because of a HANDICAP he set for himself that he maintains throughout the entire fight.
@@silas6328 exactly. Had it been Kyoshi, Korra or even Yangchen or Kuruk, that fight would have been over before either before it started or as soon as Ozai thought he had the upper hand. Aang was just carrying the entire weight of the air nation on his shoulders - understandable, he might have acted differently if he hadn't been the last surviving airbender. He might have acted more like Yangchen and not have been as obsessed with not killing
He was a middle-schooler, taking on five LeBron James... while also trying to not take a single personal foul.
Not to mention simply the act of holding in that lightning too long as he hesitated nearly killed him. He couldn't even stand for a moment. He risked a hell of a lot to stay true to who he was.
@@kileygarrett2141 That's something I've never thought about before. If Aang had been willing to cross the line with his people still alive, the world would not have lost much. But if the last member of a people defined by peace becomes a killer, then they really are gone.
Another example of covert power scaling is Gyatso. When the gang finds his skeleton, he is surrounded by the corpses of fire nation soldiers. The implication is he was able to defeat the skeletons around him. He is also in a pose of meditation while the fire nation soldiers' skeletons are twisted as though in pain.
Don't they mention that he sucked all the air out of the room. With himself still inside?
@@derekmensch3601 It's never actually said in the series that that's what Gyatso did. As far as I know, that's just a prevalent fan theory (and Korra indicates that it was at least possible).
Then again, I haven't kept up with everything the creators have said since the show finished, so it's possible that it was confirmed at some point outside of the show.
@@WordSarien I think I might just be mis-remembering because I swore they said it. But it has been over 10 years since I watched it.
@@derekmensch3601 Nah they didn't
@@yotamkaspi8508 5 months late but I appreciate it
My favorite part of Avatar worldbuilding/powerscaling is how towards the end of the series, the Gaang starts to adapt their bending to adapt to other bending styles.
Even Soka had teachers from each nation and learned their ways, despite being benderless. Such an amazing detail I never noticed until years later.
Im still waiting for a waterbender throwing ice around like rocks
@@richardsonrichly8456 that's literally Happening in the show, just watch Katara nail Jet when they meet the second time
@@richardsonrichly8456 Perfect examples of that are Tarrlok, Eska and Desna. Their icebending is very similar to earthbending.
@@immanuela209 LOK isn’t canon
230 years... that's insane.
To put it in perspective, let's imagine Avatar Kyoshi lived in our world and died this year. So she was born in ≈1792, sixteen years after the Declaration of Independence, and recognized as Avatar at sixteen years old (per the Avatar wiki) in 1808.
Thomas Jefferson was president from 1801 to 1809, and he was only the third president ever. The Civil War, two world wars and the Cold War all would have happened under her watch. Every major event in the US except its founding would have happened in her lifetime. That's... honestly nuts.
So basically outliving every president like the queen of England, gotcha.
@@supercyc10 Maybe the Queen of England is Avatar Kyoshi...
You come from a culture without a long local history, unlike most. My home country spent 200 years being independent, without being acknowledged as such. From the 1300 to 1500. My fathers people have lived in a similar place since roman times, until his generation, whilst transmuting their language from vulgar latain to romansh, only to throw it away for a german dialect around the 1800s. I literally live in a house that is from about 1800, with many houses in the centre being from the 15th and 16th hundreds. The town hall was finished around 1470. And that is from the hearts europe where agriculture and settled housing spread thousands of years later than the indus valley, egypt, mesopotamia or china. Cleopatra (2000 years ago) was born closer to us, than to the erection of the giza pyrimaids (5000 years ago).
@@toffeeFairy nice flex?
@@toffeeFairy In other words, Avatar Kyoshi could've been born before your country gained independence, lived throughout that 200-year period and died after it lost independence. Houses built when she was young would be considered old by the time she died; the difference in age between your house and the one your neighbors have lived in for generations is one mighty woman's lifetime.
(Also, is your country Scotland? Genuinely don't know a lot of history)
"There is an unkillable, all powerful god woman who polices the planet, murdering the unjust"
I really, REALLY want that to be a show now. Can the creators please do a 20 season Kyoshi show?
Sounds like a Zack Snyder film.
Asian Nexus?
There's a pair of great official books about Kyoshi's origins, the Rise of Kyoshi and the Shadow of Kyoshi. Of course, they're not shows and since they're about her origins you only see the beginnings of the murderous all powerful god woman she becomes.
If they do it without wokism, I'm on board
Hot Take: But I hope they don't. Hard to create conflict when the main character is strong enough to bend islands. Korra strugled with this too. Korra was by far the strongest bender in the world by the end of the first season, and the writers constantly needed to find reasons why she would lose a fight. I think leaving Kyoshi's prime in a shroud of mystery, and giving call backs is the better option. I want to idealize her, not ground her.
Not only does Ozai do it with the sliver of sun, extremely quickly, deep underground, and double fisted
But he also does it from a seated, non-combative position with no proper stance or grounding.
Incredible, never noticed that Aang and Ozai perform their tiger-dillo stands in the last episodes and make their powers comparable.
So great, that so many youtubers, including Overanalyzing Avatar still open my eyes for new stuff of my favorite series of all time
That also blew my mind lol
Honestly, this is the kind of analysis I was expecting from Overanalysing Avatar, but he just talks about full moons. And this incredible show has so much depth we still keep finding out new things about it. I love it!
Thought you typed Tiger Dildo hahaha
@@kaksspl i think his videos are more meant to point out little details more so than actual analysis. either way a good time
Another little detail that I notice when I watch that scene is that even Aang’s “real” tiger-dillo stance still has a fairly halfhearted vocal line with it. He wasn’t giving that his all but it was still comparable to zuko, serious firebending protege who’s been training since he could walk. Aang’s just that good
The Kyoshi novels also show how the roots of the fire nation's nationalism that roku and aang would have to deal with began during Kyoshi's tenure when the fire lord bristled against her iron fist on world leaders, which se only did because Kuruk's untimely death left the world in chaos continuing the idea that all avatars have to both clean up after their predecessor and leave problems for their successor.
Aang is the only Avatar (who we know the specifics of) to not leave a mess behind for his successor.
@@wafflingmean4477 what about the suppression of non benders in the very state he created ?
@@wafflingmean4477 Uhm no, he did
It also shows how authoritarian Kyoshi was and what that does to a nation and its people in the long term. The Fire nation became nationalistic purely because they were under the thumb of Kyoshi, breeding resentment and hate for the Earth nation as a whole, and why subsequent Fire Lords after her death have a superiority complex against the other nations. The Air Nomads were just doing their own thing and the Water Tribes were having their own spat, and competition, with each other to worry about other nations so it left the Fire Nation as the only one to stew in hatred. If Kyoshi didn't live as long we might not have had the Air Nomad genocide.
We also see the parallels between the Fire and Earth Nations; they're both singular entities with one ruler, while the Water Tribe and Air Nomads are split between multiple entities. They both think they're the more superior nation, with the better culture, so naturally they're going to butt heads. The Fire Nation is more about innovation while the Earth Nation is more about tradition which makes them polar opposites and also more likely to butt heads. Unfortunately the other nations, being more insular, made them suseptible to being dominated by either one and it was the Fire Nation that was the one to make the move.
@@saraeissa4954 Aang didn’t tell the white lotus to keep Korra locked up. He told them to take care of her. And the white lotus only kept Korra isolated because they got scared by the red lotus trying to kill her, which has nothing to do with Aang.
Funny thing is, Kyoshi also mastered all of the elements in around a year. She had a problem, where she had way too much raw strength, and couldn't bend small objects at first. It took her effort to develop finesse and delicacy
You should read the books, they're fantastic
one of my favourite parts of avatar is when Haru saves the old guy with earth bending and he immediately gets handed into the fire nation. i love how much that told us about the fire nation’s rule over its colonies and the fear it instilled in its colonial subjects and now not only have you reaffirmed my love for this show you’ve also given me a deeper understanding of one of my favourite moments and a technical writing skill i can attribute it to! thank you!
Stick a branch in the bike, fall, cry ”the damn firenation!”
That old man was the absolute worst.
@@MaskofPoesy yeah he was a coward and a traitor no doubt - but also an accurate representation of how colonisers/oppressors often are able to get the colonised to turn on each other. really cool
@@SamuelFanara Yes, unfortunately it's the truth. Think about life in oppressive states like North Korea too. It's the same. Snitch or be snitched
@@MaskofPoesy To be fair, at that moment he was forced to either cover for the bender, putting himself and his family at risk, or snitch and live with guilt.
@@kaksspl
Exactly. It was either his family or Haru’s. It’s understandable.
The way Aang fights is insane. If you watch his dights with Zuko, he’ll literally copy Zuko’s moves but with Air. This happens in their first actual fight, in the first episode with June and her Shirshu. He also does it in the last episode of the second season when he fights against and Azula. I love that they showed his quick learning and improvising skills in every fight.
I consider myself to be a pretty big fan of the Avatar franchise, so how did I not know that Kyoshi was almost 250 years old? And for that matter, what finally did her in? Did she just....get tired? Did she just CHOOSE to move on so the world could move forward? I haven't read either of the Kyoshi books, so maybe it's explained there, but STILL. The idea of the 7 foot tall all-powerful God-Woman stomping around for decades, CENTURIES at max power just wasting fools as she saw fit? Anyone old enough to have been around during that time should be fucking TERRIFIED of Aang, just on principle. Wouldn't YOU be?!
I had to look it up once he said that, and I guess the technique she was using doesn't make you truly immortal it just keeps you from aging for a very long time using your own spiritual energy or something along those lines? Being the Avatar, that would make you have a-lot of spiritual energy. The same thread I was reading was saying that's why Aang died at 66, because he used a-lot of spiritual energy when he was frozen in the iceberg. At-least that's the theory anyways for why he died comparatively young. It also seems like just being a bender in general causes you to live a very long life.
I was more under the impression that since she watched over the world for so long, she realize that everyone was afraid of her and intentionally suppressed themselves. She realize that without wars or conflicts, the world became stagnant and no progresses were being made. She became THE dictator. So she chose to just pass away peacefully and never taught that technique to the next generation.
The books give an explanation for how she was able to live so long, but unfortunately both books take place during her development years, where she's not quite the badass she is in her few scenes of the show. They don't even go into how, when, and why she formed the Dai Lee. I really wish they'd write a third book. They are worth reading 100%. The Kyoshi novels are what Korra wishes it could be.
considering she had unlocked the secret to immortality, she more than likely chose to pass on at a time when the world was in a good position to be avatar-less for ~25 years
@@saraeissa4954 Eh, Korra was honestly inconsistent at best, and trash at its lowest, and there are plenty of video essays that can explain why better than I could. But to each their own.
The Kyoshi novels also give an insight into how terrifying she was while also humanizing her. Not only was she an insanely powerful bender of the four elements (most earthbenders are handicapped in the arctic but she could draw up bedrock from the sea floor), but she could bend glass and flash freeze an opponent's internal organs once she was close enough.
Imagine being able to raise bedrock from the seafloor but still not being able to metalbend
@@aurin_komak i think it's ever said she couldn't metalbend
@@aurin_komak To be fair there probably wasnt as wide use of metal in her time, outside swords and maybe some armor. Toph was born into the beginning of the industrial revolution, Metal was everywhere, Fire nation ships, Earth bender Cages, mechanical arms, Factories, pipes ect ect.
@@SONYUSR Yeah, this is thing with "inventing a new style/ way to do things". It's not that everyone before you COULDN'T do it, it's that nobody before you THOUGHT to do it.
@@aurin_komaktoph is probably the only person who could’ve invented metal bending. Not that anyone else talented can’t do it, but they can’t invent it because they don’t have seismic sense because they aren’t blind. Toph being blind is what made her great as she represented earth bending itself like the badger moles the original earthbenders.
There's actually one bit of powerscaling that I think goes unnoticed by most of the fandom and it's the implications of the final fight between Azula and Katara. Azula's the second or third greatest firebender in the world and forces Katara to fight with a dirty shot that KO'd Zuko. Not only does Katara win, she doesn't even use bloodbending to get the victory due to choosing not to or being unable to. Imagine how fast that fight could have ended if Katara bloodbended.
idk if that was a powerscaling moment for Katara as much as it was a show of her fight iq/ strategic abilities. Also I’m pretty sure she couldn’t blood bend without a full moon.
Honestly a better powerscaling feat imo would have to be Katara fist show of bending in book 3’s season premiere where she’s able to casually use waves to push fire nation ships and make whirlpools.
I think it's also important to note that at this time Katara is at least the second most powerful water bender on the planet. Discounting Aang, her only competition is Pakku and with healing and blood bending on her side it's likely she bests him and is the #1 waterbender.
The Gaang is truly ridiculous.
She can't bloodbend without the full moon, Azula was mentally unstable, Katara was being forced to run and could only barely defend - the way the fight ended was a last ditch effort tbf.
even though she couldn't bloodbend without the full-moon its completely possible that she could have easily learned to, if she wanted to explore it further. Amon could figure out wonders with it when he explored and Katara was one of the strongest waterbenders
@@LooseAsADEUCE OP enemies calls for even more OP allies
One small thing about aangs air scooter: from the clip where the other kids try the air scooter, it is clear that using it is not just about bending and creating a ball, balancing and control over it's speed and rotation re also extremely important. The user also needs to make it so that they stick to the scooter when going up walls and stuff. This is basically never seen in any other technique, showing just how high level the technique of the air scooter is. This is so subtle that they clearly missed it in Korra, since literally every air bender and their mother use the air scooter like riding a bike.
Also, I want to add that you can powerscale katara with Hama and realized how powerful she is. She first learned how to waterbend ALONE for years without any type of guide and managed to held resistance to a master water bender from the pole north. Then, she trained only for a couple of months and is able to use blood bending in her first try against the water bender that discover the blood bending itself (mind you that Hama needed years to master blood bending and started with rats) while they were both at their peak power thanks to the full moon. Katana is really a legend and I think she is sometimes under saw.
Also, great video! It was very entertaining
Katara's an interesting one in that the person we see her powerscale most with is *herself*: compare Katara at the start of the show with Katara at the end of S1, S2, S3, or North and South. In her we see perhaps the fullest complete journey for the mastery of any one element. And perhaps get a sense of her gaining that mastery not because she's a prodigy, but because she worked bloody hard at it.
@@PaulPower4was that a cheeky pun at the end of your comment?
I think I've read that Kyoshi being 230 years old was initially a mistake but when they realized, it was too late so they went with it.
you can totally tell they didn’t intend for her to be the avatar directly before roku, firstly because they say in the kyoshi island episode that kyoshi was alive “over 400 years ago” and we knew aang was 112 while roku died in his ~70s. then also because those statues of the previous avatars in episode 3, the avatar before roku in the cycle was a man
@@yourehereforthatarentyou Well, 112+70(at least)+230=412, so Kyoshi would have been "alive" at an exact 400 years before. It is also possible that the century figure was rounded as most places and people tend to do when not using exact date figures, so let's say it could be closer to 375 years prior to when the figure was quoted. There's also that the exact age of Roku's death is estimated conservatively so that could also add a few more years window to Kyoshi's relocating the Island. It's also possible that Chin the Conquer was the first errant emperor she eliminated. One would expect Chin to have been afraid of her and not gone on a rampage if Kyoshi had already developed her reputation to the level of demigod. This seems to indicate, to me, that Chin's conquest was rather early in her career, anywhere between her early 20's to 40's depending on how we're counting. Though the power and talent factor required makes me think it didn't happen any earlier than her mid 30's.
@@ckl9390 The point is that it does make sence as soon as you make Kyoshi live for over 200 years. But it wouldn‘t have if she lived a lifespan that is deemed normal for humans. It is nowhere in the show established that Avatars as such become extraordinarily old: Roku looks old-in-general, but not older than expected of a regular human livespan; Kyoshi (and Kuruk) looked, as mentioned, not old at all. So Roku and Kyoshi being extraordinarily old is quite obviously a mistake. (Also Roku lived more than 100 years and that didn‘t seem to be a conscious thought - watch the „the Avatar and the Firelord“ episode of Overanalyzing Avatar for that.)
Maybe what was done with the mistake was fitting and apprechiated, but I really think it originally was a mistake rather than genious worldbuilding for the attack of the fire nation or something. The theory is not directly contradicted, but also not backed up in the show.
@@Alina_Schmidt I think you meant "Sozin and Kyoshi being extraordinarily old is quite obviously a mistake. (Also Sozin ..."
This feels like a Civilisation “angry Ghandi” glitch where just a few wrong numbers made Ghandi the most ruthless warmonger et of the whole series, which then became an intentional part of his character in later games.
Actually, lightning bending was introduced much earlier in “The Storm”. Iroh redirects lightning that was going to hit the ship and its never addressed or explained. We just watch him do it then look at him as his hair poofs up for a second and then it shifts focus.
I'd like to see about 95% of anime writers learn this. I'm sick and tired of endless monologues and internal monologues explaining things. It's why I barely watch anime anymore.
That's often caused by animes being too often just direct adaptations of mangos. In a comic you can get away with a box of thoughts passing through character's mind in a split second. In animation... it extends split seconds into very long minutes.
But I absolutely agree, this is a lazy adaptation and I gave up on so many animes because of this.
Their exposition is generally terrible and yes, way too lengthy
Part of the reason the quality of an anime can dip drastically is because they need to pad content to avoid being ahead of the manga. Unfortunately the quality of manga can also dip is because drawing can be tedious work, and they are under constant abusive crunch by their publishers. It is heartbreaking how bad it can be for authors. Masashi Kishimoto, author of Naruto, delayed his honeymoon by twenty years or something ridiculous like that.
Action manga writers are so overworked I am honestly impressed when worldbuilding doesn't devolve into gibberish (see: Dragon Ball, Bleach). A lazy monologue is better than missing deadlines because you want to re-draft the script to be more elegant.
@@vaiyt But often the exposition dumps don't say anything that can't be easily shown. And it often is shown anyway but they feel like repeating it five times for no reason. My Hero Academia comes to my mind as example. They thoroughly explain the name, abilities and backstory of a character that appears for one page, dealing two punches, each overly explained in text, and then falling down to never be seen again.
As a child, I remember instinctively noting down every single time I noticed even the slightest change in the skills and abilities of the characters, especially with Aang. In practically every scene in the show where he uses bending techniques (any four of them, especially when he uses them at the same time), we see how he is ever so slightly better in the bending he’s using than he was in the preceding scene. With every scene, his arsenal was growing more varied, his techniques were more impactful and executed more effortlessly (mind you, he was developing not arc by arc or episode by episode, but scene by scene). This shows he was learning AND constantly honing his existing or newly learned abilities with practice. I wish I could show the movie clips here and how he was progressing scene by scene, but as a child whenever I’d get a glimpse of such development I would fall in love with the show more and more. Not only Aang, but the other characters’ abilities also almost never felt stagnant (except for Azula maybe, since she was supposed to be perfect by design). So yeah, you expressing similar observations in this video in a more well-structured manner felt validating for my 12-14 year old past self :)
Azula was a complete prodigy
The point of Azula was to be a measuring stick for Zuko.
Azula actually does get stronger. You can see it in her next appearance after becoming unhinged, in the beginning of the Southern Raiders episode. The thing is, this comes as a result of her becoming less disciplined; all her perfection failed to give her what she really wanted, and her emotional distress powered her bending with that emotion and the fire became wilder as a result.
This is just hard to notice because she only fights once more after this and it's during Sozin's Comet AND during her mental breakdown so it's not really a good comparison to the rest of her appearances. Also, I'm not denying that she was stagnant before this point either; just saying she does show some changes at this point.
I haven’t seen it covered anywhere in the Avaterverse, but I saw a science video on why fire is blue. Blue fire is the purest combination of fire, fuel and oxygen. When fire turns orange, that’s the debris or remnants of an impure mix burning off. Azula’s fire is blue because it is pure fire. Fire in its purest form. Azula is a prodigy.
Read Kyoshi novels man if you have not already. They characterize her fantastically and kinda smooth the edges
Can confirm, the Kyoshi novels really expand the world of Avatar.
I am an Avatar fanboy, and was just expecting to watch this and agree, without learning anything new. I never picked up on the Z's in the fire nation royalty names and Iroh being the odd man out, or the speed of the lighting, or even the relative levels of power by all the avatars. 10/10! Thanks for deepening my love and understanding for how stinking well this show was written.
One other Fire Nation name we know with a hard zed in it is Aang's friend Kuzon. It may be more a naming tendency for the nation than just the royal family. How many named contemporary Fire Nation characters do we know about?
@@ckl9390 Ty Lee, Mai, Chan, Piandao, On Ji, Mrs. Kwan, Shoji, Dig, Lo, Li, Ruon-Jian, Fat, Dock, Chit Sang, Yon Rha. Mostly not major characters, but all from the Fire Nation. Z is definitly not a fire nation thing in general.
@@Alina_Schmidt don't forget Zhao.
@@ckl9390 think about this: the air nomads, though few, were respected all over the world for their wisdom and altruism. aang, as a boy, was welcomed into the presence of bumi, the future king of omashu. it stands to reason that aang's friend kuzon might've been a member of the royal family too, like maybe a prince whose father wasn't the heir, or at least a member of the noble class who might've been descended from royalty. who else would've had the power during the end of sozin's reign, when the fire nation was beginning its nationalism and military campaign? visiting with air nomads might've been someone's practice of resistance against anti- air nomad sentiment, and consequently, aang could've been playing with a child of high society.
I've never really thought about the potential global impact Avatar Kyoshi had on the world... That's such a fascinating idea! Adds one more dynamic to Aang's need to defeat him because, kind of twice over (first as Kyoshi, then as Roku), the Avatar actually inspired the Fire Nation to become what it did. Aang is cleaning up his previous lifetime's messses.
The lightning bending thing is so dope though. Iroh explains how it's splitting energy apart - a concept we can barely understand. That's why it takes the whole stance and movement and breathing and whatnot. Because it's flimsy! And Ozai does it like it's nothing, like he has been doing this and only this every day of his life. And maybe that is what he is doing in his free time, just firing lightning bolts at stuff to practice.
Lightning-bending requires detachment from emotions, which Ozai and Azula had an easier time with due to their extreme confidence in themselves and utter contempt for everything else in the world.
@@vaiyt So that's why Ozai couldn't launch another one after Zuko gave him a taste of his own medicine. His pure, unadulterated fit of rage you could see animated in every muscle on his face prevented him from detaching himself.
My favorite part of the Kyoshi powerscaling conversation is that it was totally unintentional
For the point of Aang being a bender of nearly unparalleled raw talent, it is important to note that a typical Avatar Journey was not only about the mastery of bending but of the spirituality of each bending type as well. Clearly even taking that into account Aang is still an absolutely insane example of raw bending talent, but he is not as far above the other Avatars, or rather specifically Roku, than what you said in this video. Aang had no choice but to train constantly in order to just survive the war torn world he had awoken into. Roku had as much time as he wanted, and completely mastered all of the elements in the time that he had as well as being able to use the Avatar State at will. Aang mastered 1 element during his Avatar Journey and was quickly becoming an expert at both Earth and Fire while under the guidance of 2 people who had learned from their respective bending styles original practitioners. I still believe you are correct that Aang is the greatest Avatar yet, but the gap is not as wide as you think.
He still mastered air bending when he was 12, and mastered water bending in a few months.
True, Roku was probably taking his time in learning all he could about each nation's customs, histories, and philosophies alongside mastering their actual element.
@@Tafah_0 Cultural knowledge of the 4 nations _would_ actually be the most important tool and weapon of a global peacekeeper, your main job is mediating between all the peoples of the world in order to prevent conflict, the vast majority of that is going to take the form of diplomacy and friendships between different peoples, which is going to require understanding of said people in the first place.
I believe that Kyoshi, at 230 would have a very different view on death, especially having outlived anyone she might have loved. I am not surprised that by the end of it she would come off as cold, knowing humanity's natural tendency toward chaos and destruction, and just being numb to it at that point.
I love that all of this is based *only* on what's in the show, and just one little 5-minute special they made where Aang visited a few of the past Avatars and learned about what was - in their opinions - their greatest failures of each life. (That little special was intended to make its way in the show, somewhere in Book 3, but they ultimately decided that it didn't fit naturally anywhere and cut it out).
None of this is from the comics, or Legend of Korra, or any of the other spin-offs. It really shows how much world-building this show made as subtly as possible.
This video helped me finally figure out why the legend of Korra fell so flat with me: lightning bending went from being impressive mastery to just something young folks did to make money generating power for the grid. That really bothered me, and your comparison between Azula, Iroh and Ozai’s lightning bending really solidified that opinion. Thank you
Letting it be acceptable to teach entire generations of young men a technique that can instantly kill anyone they can see is fucking insane.
You are permanently installing lethal weapons into people, something deadlier than an assualt rifle that they can shoot out their fingertips, what, the fuck.
The knowledge and training needed to learn lightning generation _should_ be heavily regulated, the obvious reason why only royalty had it before was because of how obviously powerful it was, so the royal family hoarded it to themselves to make sure only _they_ had that power.
If this clear logic was applied, working as a lightning power generator would be one of the most prestigious and high paying jobs in Republic City, because only a select few would even be allowed to learn it, and they would be heavily punished, likely imprisoned, for teaching it to anyone else without state approval.
meh I don't really see how that'd plauge your opinion on korra, if anything I think that's a genius detail to show the audience how the world has evloved over the years. It's a logical and realistic advancement and mirrors the real world pace of change. I think it's good! like for example lava bending was a rare skill on Korra but maybe for the next Avatar's era it's going to be more scaled and a whole new bending style is going to pop up and be the next cool thing
Azula is the first time we see "Lightning Bending," but we also get hinted at it earlier when Iroh redirects a lightning strike in "The Storm."
This is likely one of the best avatar deep dives I’ve seen, eloquence through the roof and great points regarding power scaling and world building, it feels like I always knew, but with that context in mind everything that led to the fire nation attacking makes soo much sense
Just so people can stop commenting about Lightning Redirection:
"Aang did not need to practice lightning redirection. He just intuitively knew how to smoothly move the highly volatile energy through his body"
I never said Zuko didn't tell him about this technique. I said he never _practiced_ it. Zuko and Aang talked about lightning redirection for maybe 15 seconds and then never addressed it again. Aang's first time ever even TRYING to redirect lightning was in active combat against Ozai. He literally had no practice. He just redirected lightning on his first try because he was so talented.
Also, Zuko telling Aang HOW to do the technique does not automatically make Aang a master of the technique. If I told you, "Yeah, all you gotta do is run, jump from the free throw line, then dunk the basketball", that doesn't mean you could just instantly do it lol.
And for those saying, "Well Zuko redirected lightning on his first try too", that is still an argument for Aang's prowess. Zuko was a master firebender. Aang wasn't close to being a master. No matter how you slice it, its super impressive.
On lightning bending:
How about the fact that we NEVER see Zuko lightning bend throughtout the enitre series!? Thinking back to what Iroh told Zuko lightning bending takes, it makes sense that he would never be able to. That doesn't take anything away from what Zuko was able to acomplish as a character, but rather speaks to the profundity of the damage the truama he went through caused.
If I'm right about the whole: Zuko never bent lightning thing...
I think Iroh's water-inspired technique counts as bending lightning, or he would not have told Zuko that total calmness was required to do it? Like if it counts as bending water that someone else throws at you (which I think we can all agree it does), and you can't redirect lightning with just any old firebending mindset, then bending lightning someone else throws at you should probably count as lightning bending, right?
@@ruaridhusher4373 lightning generation is different than lightning redirection. to generate lightning, a firebender must be able to separate the positive and negative energies within their body, which requires them to have complete emotional control. lightning redirection is simply providing a path for the lightning to flow through you, but does not require the same control and separation of energy. zuko is unable to generate lightning because his past trauma prevents him from gaining full control of his energy
it also pretty handily serves as an indicator that Zuko is probably the least powerful of all the fire nation royals under normal circumstances
It also shows how Zuko is "inept" as a Fire Nation royal considering Lightning bending is a royal-only style, pretty much required for a royal, that further helps his character development and his difference from the rest of his family. The fact that Iroh can do it, and that Iroh was a cold-hearted killer before the events of the ATLA, shows that the royal family has such strict and concrete terms of royal code and behaviour that Zuko now breaks away from.
In my mind the fact that Zuko can't bend lightning, only redirect it, shows that, while he never managed to attain that complete balance within himself, he still could take whatever crap other people threw at him and let it pass through. He spent so much time burdened by his family and nation's expectations and abuse.. Him developing this skill is to me another form of showing Zuko's emotional healing and growth.
"Aang was so good at waterbending that he did not even need to practice lightning redirection...he just intuitively knew how to move the energy"
Zuko, who very specifically trained Aang in the technique: Am I a joke to you?
Explaining how a tecnique works is not the same as getting to practice it
@@metal123498 yeah... like when Ozai shot lightning at Zuko and he had to redirect it for the first time after only being taught the technique for a few minutes.
@@lunaneoma3894 Zuko literally practiced redirecting lightning.
@@gear2902 that's my point. And?
@@lunaneoma3894 Aang has never practiced lightning bending. Zuko has practiced lightning bending. There's a big difference.
In the history of Avatar's world, Kyoshi has to be the most prolific and culturally significant Avatar. By comparison, Aang's greatest accomplishment was ending a single war. He died relatively young, even when compared to Roku. It's not hard to imagine that after Korra dies, Aang will not be remembered as long as someone with a legacy like Kyoshi. Great video!
I might be tempted to agree with you if not for the fact that Aang ended a war that went on for literally a hundred years and was likely heavily involved in the political restructuring and cultural healing in the wake of that end. As much as I honestly hate Korra, her and Aang will probably be remembered just as well as Kyoshi.
@@unoriginal_name7091 Don't forget the founding of the United Republic, he was involved in creating a nation state that's different than any tribe or nation that has existed so far as iirc the nations before the war always lived seperated.
Even in the comics iirc he temporarily broke contact with Roku because all he could say was that the colonies needed returning and the nations separated because its the only form of "balance" Roku ever knew and because he's a spirit he was simply incapable of perceiving that the world had changed and thus couldn't give aang advice on the "new balance" the world was trying to create
idk what Korra has done/will do yet cause I haven't finished LoK. But Aang ended a war that lasted almost 4 generations (from Sozin to Zuko), going against the best firebender in the world at the time while he was all juiced up from the comet. After said war, he went around the world again helping with rebuilding and restructuring as well as building Republic City and stronger relations between all the nations. That's a massive and sudden change in society that nobody is likely to forget. There's no way he won't be remembered with a great storied legacy
A single 100 year full WORLD WAR. That's a lot. He also is coming creator of Republic City.
he did helped found the equivalent to ONU and saw the wake of a modern-ish society. he's going to probably be more historically remembered (but much less mystified and adored) than many of the earlier avatars, much like how we best remember the most prominent historical figures from the last century than the one prior and so on.
Arcane on Netflix also does silent world building really well! It's the only show I've seen in a while to handle this well since Avatar! It's been over a decade and there are still so many videos on Avatar and its writing. It's so amazing
Don`t you just love that more than 10 years ! 10 YEARS ! after a show as finished . people still love , and still discover this story ! I would say without a doubt that Avatar the last air bender is the best story ever created by humans . If not the best equal to Lord of the rings
14:00 that WAS an awesome detail, can't believe it hasn't been highlighted more in reviews
It’s really awesome to see your first video of the new year, especially because it covers one of my all-time favorite shows. I’m excited for what new content you’ll release for 2022.
tysm for the aang rant, i've seen way too many ppl being mean to him recently when he's one of my very favourite characters from the series!!
I have to say this is an amazing analysis about Worldbuilding and magic systems. And considering I'm using both in the stories I'm writing, I find it incredibly useful, because most of these are things I didn't notice or didn't think about despite studying creative writing for many years. I hope you make more of this kind of videos at least 1 of every 4, because you have some pretty amazing skills to analyze stories.
If you're ever looking for a critique partner feel free to hit me up, I'm also writing works that have power systems and magical like world building so we might click together well.
@@upg5147I see, but I don't write in English, I write in Spanish (my native language). But it's still good to see people writing this kind of things. I just use my English knowledge to study and learn all I can about writing
@@DanCreaMundos Ah no worries then. Your English is fluent by the way. Good luck to you in your writing endeavors!
For anyone wondering, the song in the beginning is "Xuanzang" by Gareth Coker, made for Minecraft Xbox 360's Chinese Mythology DLC
At 11:00 is "Tianxi Mountains" which is part of the same soundtrack :>
Nice song choice :)
It should be noted that while Dragon Ball DID introduce power levels as a cheap way to scale power, they were intended to show how reliant on numbers the villains were (fan reaction to power levels and scouters shows how that went I guess), the concept disappears not too long after being introduced, and the rest of the series, especially pre-DBZ, is very adept at implying character strength through context clues. One that's easy to spot is how two characters are usually introduced at once in a pair, and their relationship is used to show how powerful one is in comparison to the other.
It's incredibly telling of fandoms that they often latch onto villain perspectives as the ones they're meant to follow. And not in a good way.
I think the problem is that power levels were too accurate. I don't think there was a single time in the show that two stated power levels went up against eachother and the highest power level didn't win. Any time a character did their power-boosting technique or transformation the scouter adjusted the numbers to match. I think all it would have taken to solidify the "relying on power levels is holding the bad guys back" is to make scouters fallible, to have the lower power level win.
There is a precedent specifically stated in the show that (as avatars go) some elements are harder to learn for different people, depending on your native bending style (and/or personality). Roku had trouble with water bending because he was a fire bender, Aang had similar troubles with earth bending because he was an air bender. As well Korra had troubles with air bending (though in that case it was more about her stubborn personality, more closely resembling an earth bender in personality).
Dn, that fact about Kyoshi broke my mind...GOAT
I like how you talked about needing context to understand characters power levels.Aang being a master air bender was evident from the start in hindsight. The stunts he pulls in the first episode showcase so many different implementations of air bending and they all flow naturally. But in that episode it is out right said that the fire nation hasn't seen an air bender in years and so of course they fell for every trick. Throughout the first season we come to understand that Aang's bag of tricks is truly bottomless, and through flash backs we get the context of his interactions with other airbenders.
I have to say, the points you give to put Ozai above Iroh in power scaling are in my opinion invalid. Yes Ozai did generate lighting faster than anyone else shown in the show BUT when Iroh is shown generating lightning he's doing it to teach Zuko so doing it as fast as he could would be counter productive.
Also I believe that Iroh also immediately noticed when the sun became available to him when he escaped prison since Zuko goes there immediately after confronting Ozai and he has already SINGLE HANDEDLY broken out and beaten all the guards, the most opportune moment to do this would be when the guards are still unaware that their bending has returned and are confused. The sheer fear and awe in the face and voice of the guard when Zuko asks him about the whereabouts of Iroh says it all to me.
Finally Iroh is, like Aang for his own school of bending, the only fire bender to create a new fire bending technique in the show with his lightning redirecting technique.
He was also the last fire bender to receive the title of dragon, though he technically did not earn it per say, so Ozai was really a complete fool to underestimate him...
Based
Wouldnt the guards use fire bending as soon as they saw iroh using it?
@@spencervance8484 You think some no-name guards could best Iroh?
It's honestly more likely that Iroh took advantage of the *eclipse*, not its passing.
@@Duiker36 it's been a while since I've watched it but I think I remember burnt marks in the prison after his escape
It's also worth mentioning that Aang is like a spiritual prodigy too. He was able to open 6 out of 7 chakras in what, the span of a day, something that takes most people over 40 years? (I know part of why it was simplified was because it was a kid's shows and they had limited time, but regardless). He mastered the Avatar State in one year, was able to communicate with his past lives like he was ringing someone on the phone, and could even meditate into the spirit world with no problems at all. The kid was genuinely a beast.
When I first saw Ozia use lightning my brothers and I were freaking out about how fast he did it and the fact that he made two boltz. There were other things in here that I and my brothers have noticed before but also plenty I hadn't heard yet. Great video altogether
I noticed this with Azula's basic firebending as well.
Her fire is blue; the most complete form of combustion. Everyone else's yellow/orange fire is incomplete combustion. It shows her mastery and how she was relentlessly trained to be the "perfect" firebender.
This was an absolute monster! You nailed everything, but I disagree on the Ang’s power scaling. The other Avatars lived in relative world peace, so they had time to work on their mastery. Ang had a timeline so everything was rushed for him.
Not true. He lived for twelve years with monks, unaware of war and his powers. And in that time he still became one of the most powerful airbenders. If I remember correctly, he was even the first to get his arrow in his age group.
EDIT: Now I also remember that he learnt of being avatar early because of the incoming war and was pushed to learn advanced techniques faster, but we can already see him being ahead in the scene right before he was told all that.
@@kaksspl I agree that Ang was a prodigy when it came to Air bending and he was a master. I was more speaking to the other elements. They sped up his training due to the war and he probably spent more time training then a normal Avatar would.
@@YourLastGreatkNight in general, a newly-realized avatar’s only job was to go master the other elements. And they wouldn’t be on the run, so even though Aang’s training was more urgent, it’s likely that in one year of Roku’s training, he got more meaningful training and practice than Aang did in his year.
@@chrayez I see your reasoning there, but my thoughts are that during peacetime an Avatar will do more than just training. I would imagine they would try and learn about the culture, people, and environment they are in because it will be foreign to them. They maybe even listening to grievances because they are supposed to serve the world as a whole. So that was my thought process on the time they would spend in different nations, obviously I could be wrong.
14:02 Ozai, either through flashbacks or the current story, has always contextualized strength and decisiveness as power. According to Iroh, bending lightning requires uniformity of mind (no conflicting ideas or feelings). Ozai's near-instant lightning bending, even with just a sliver of sun peeking out of the eclipse, shows how powerful his ideology was. The man was ready to literally roast his firstborn a second time, no question about it.
I've never heard ozais post eclipse lighting put so eloquently, and not just the speed at which he produced it, but the intuition as well.
you mentioned the fact that aang was an airbending master at 12 years old like 5 times but
a) katara and toph were considered close to masters at around the same age
b) toph and katara did not have teachers, despite this toph is still an earthbending prodigy while katara is very quickly shown to level up her abilities after meeting pakku
c) aang had an entire community of people to teach him airbending, while katara and toph had to learn on their own for a majority of their lives
d) aang is the AVATAR. it is heavily implied that thats the reason he is able to learn airbending so quickly
I'd like to correct you on the fact, that while Toph wasn't taught by the 'conventional' bending masters, she literally learned all she knew from badgermoles, the literal first earthbenders, according to what I know of the Avatar lore. So, she technically didn't really learn on her own, though I will admit she must have practiced and honed her skills without having to go underground to look for badgermole teachers.
Katara could barely lift water in the first episode, when she was 14. There’s no way she was considered a “master” at 12
@@wolfywonder8480 "He better call you Master Katara from now on" -Pakku
Additionally, from the explanation that Roku gives us on the avatar state, the avatar gains and has access to all the knowledge and maybe even strength of the past avatars before them meaning that Aang not only had his own increadible talent for bending but also all of the knowledge of bending that Kyoshi gained over those 230 years when he chooses to access it in the avatar state. This further builds on the strength that Aang has without explicitly telling us and instead letting the audience put the pieces together and let the audience realize just how powerful this kid is.
Another small example of silent world building comes in the episode about Roku and Sozin’s past. When they’re fighting the volcano, we briefly see Sozin use what looks like heat bending, something we never see anyone else in the show do. To me this always signified that there were bending arts lost to time, and that because of the Fire Nation’s domination and the destruction of the Air Nomads and thus the world’s balance, the world is in a sort of Dark Age. Because of the focus on war for 100 years, many other less militant arts and abilities have been forgotten
The Kyoshi novels do a lot of clever worldbuilding as well. One of my favorite things was finding out that each of the four nations has a different method of finding the Avatar. In the show we see the Air Nomads use the "toys" test, where the Avatar as a child picks out toys that belonged to the old Avatars. In the novels, the Earth Kingdom uses some kind of "geomancy" technique to narrow down the exact location of the Avatar. We're not told how the Water Tribes and Fire Nation do it, but it can be easily inferred they have their own methods related to their cultures. It wasn't dwelt upon a lot in the book, but it gave the universe another level of cool detail that felt really natural.
I didn't even realize until you said it, but it's fascinating that benders have or/are always moving when they bend. I never even noticed it
With some exceptions like Combustion Bending, yes Benders have to move it's why Iroh could be restrainted with hand cuffs.
I like how this video is about silent and covert worldbuilding and the focus on that makes it a covert essay on how Aang is casually a friggin boss
A aspect of world building/ power scaling I noticed was early on in Book 1 when Iroh saw Aang and Roku flying past in the spirit world. No one else around him could see it. It showed the high level he was at early on in the series along with how in tune he was with his spiritual side. Only later on we are told he spent time learning from other bending techniques, however that one scene indicates he may have spent time with the monks and airbenders
I really hope we get a third Kyoshi novel, one that explores her later years.
It would be really interesting to see how she coped with her longevity for, as any reader of the books would know, she wasn't nearly as stoic or bloodthirsty as history would remember her as.
(Seriously, who else gained new love for Kyoshi when they learned how sweet she was?)
Bro how did this not come across my dash?? This is the content I Need.
Needed to make a comment as soon as you made this point because it was so spot on, but your insight on Toph vs Aang "chef kiss"
makes perfect sense on why we love her and her badassery so much. Fantastic video as always
I always feel like you have found an amazing balance of teaching for the future and entertainment for a majority! I enjoy listening to what you say for multiple reasons. When you explain a specific writing skill that you base a video around with a common piece of entertainment that also had used that specific skill at just about the best use that many have seen and appreciate! not only do people learn much from these videos, they understand with examples people have likely gotten interested in being a writer from! the other side of that coin is the entertainment, when explaining the scaling around the middle to end of the video, you use examples like the Tigerdillo roar and how much more powerful they were every time they appear of screen. when I got here I was ecstatic when I truly realize just how strong ang was all over again, I felt like a kid again siting on my grandparents couch when seeing the finally when it was first on TV and I honestly struggle to enjoy much in my life these days! Every bit of lore is re-energized in my eyes and brought me to the edge to my seat while teaching an amazing and well used skill of writing to me and I almost didn't even realize and I got that more interested in the explanation and entertainment! a small side note for a little more fact-to-point, you mentioned lore I had no idea about and still used it for power-scaling and it put my jaw to the floor. this shows just how well-thought and effective writer you are and it simple make every video I have watched from this channel what its all about, learning and entertainment. Ang is a master avatar, Tauf is a master earth-bender and you sir may not realize it but YOU are a master teacher, you maintain a balance that most teachers cant obtain in the classroom and an entertainer of the same caliber of some of the best actor and sports players! I may not become a writer but I can walk away and say I learned something I will NOT soon forget!
another great powerscaling moment with ozai can be found in how his and Iroh’s Comet Powered blasts are framed. While Iroh shoots a two handed blast that puts an impressive hole in the wall of Ba Sing Se, Ozai’s first comet blast allows him to basically torch a whole forest with one hand
I'd say punching a whole in the impenetrable wall is abit more of an achievement than burning a forest, but that's just me...
@@tiagocidraes2390 I see wym. i was more talking from a visual/aoe damage in this example. just comparing ozai wiping out a large landscape after Iroh made the whole in the wall is pretty telling (imo) that ozai is stronger. Also if we look at other airships with firebenders, 5 of their blasts seems to add up (visually at least) to 1 of Ozais blasts.
I absolutely love the world building in Atla, and even now I love watching videos and reading analysis of things that I didn't pick up. And you make such a good point, the world is so compelling and one thing that I was reminded of in particular, when the use of air balloons was introduced, deleted by Teo and sokka, and then taken by the fire nation when they had to escape. And then they show up later in the show!! Not only is there great world building, it's also dynamic and charging, that you see the protags and other factors actually changing it!! It's a world in the midst of change, not only politically in the return of the avatar, but also on many other things like tech and culture
Aang is INSANE, he is like the best bender (in raw talent) in the entire ATLA universe
One fun bit of silent worldbuilding which is related to something you said is WHY the Fire Nation is more industrially advanced. It's because... they have fire. You need fire to extract and work with metal. That's why while the rest of the world is at a preindustrial tech level (they have some access to metal and use it in weapons and small tools), the Fire Nation is operating at an industrial tech level and can wield metal to build huge machinery and also operate the machinery with something like steam power. They got to skip the stage in our history where we had to figure out how to create, maintain, and direct large amounts of heat into doing useful work. We had to figure that out before we hit the industrial era. They got to skip that because they have easy access to heat. Pretty cool.
I think this is the best video of Avatar I've ever watched. Besides the analysis of world building itself, your analysis on Aang's talents and Kyoshi's power and the consequences of her presence in the world for 2 centuries was amazing, and something I've never really thought about.
One of my favorite pieces of world building was in Zuko Alone when Zuko is traveling through the earth kingdom. Theres no dialouge but we can see the old earth army disks, showing that this space was once a battle and has since grown over
This world has a rich history while Aang is asleep and I dont think we get to see enough of it. Zuko Alone is a masterpiece episode.
I’ve grown tired of most video essayist as they keep repeating the same advice but you always bring something truly insightful thank you!
22:45 he was taught lightning redirection by zuko. There's a small clip of them doing the same movement iroh taught zuko
And then there's Legend of Korra. For Avatar, pretty much the same thing that the sequel trilogy was for Star Wars.
Not saying that LoK didn't have any good parts. I actually like that it expanded on the worldbuilding, but the way it was done was rushed and with some of the things happening only for shock value. Eventually it turned, from a unique cartoon, into an average anime, with barely any mystery left. As ATLA is my no. 1 show, this failure still hurts after all the years. I didn't expect LoK to be better, or even as good, as ATLA, but I also didn't expect such a mess. I hope it will get rebooted one day. In a way that will make the original show justice.
agree. the bending power levels were all over the place and cheapened what ATLA established. with pre LoK content; the more you examine it the deeper you appreciate ATLA itself but with LoK it doesn’t bear close examination. the backdrop themes were interesting, but the main characters were just so blah with issues that seemed far too modern for its analogous time in our timeline, that i can’t suspend disbelief, vs timeless archetypal ones like in ATLA. it feels to me like a fanfic of ATLA rather than a sequel.
So going back to the Ozai vs Azula vs Iroh lightning generation not only does it powerscales them but it also powerscales Zuko! The speed at which Ozai generates his lightning is insane and the fact that Zuko redirected it shows just how powerful hes become too.
Great GREAT analysis of the powerscaling !!!! Ozai PROVED he was the strongest fire bender (in the time frame of the series) with the almost instantaneous casting of lightning. If ANYONE else fought him during the comet they would have died. No doubt 😂 most ppl wouldn't have been able to REACT that fast, let alone defend, unless they mastered their own element, and even Zuko would have died if Iroh didn't teach him how to redirect it. That's probably one of my favorite scenes in book 3 so much buildup and fine text.
If Iroh fought Ozai during the comet I very much doubt he would have died...
I loooove videos like this because I learn aspects of stories I love that I didn't know about, like the subtle powerscaling in Avatar.
And also how I can adapt my writing from learning from said videos.
This is definitely what i need to see. When i started trying to write this past week my worldbuilding was not silent, even though I knew it should be. It's nice to see that articulated. Thanks for the video!
My favorite silent world building is when Azula is going to shoot lightning at Zuko and Iroh grabs her hand and redirects it before it even leave her hand. It’s the first time Lightning redirection is introduced which also isn’t explained until later and it shows that even when not at his prime Iroh is on a whole other level
No, the first time was when Iroh redirect the lightning in the storm episode season 1
I'm glad The Last Airbender's mastery over characters and narratives will not go unnoticed by channels like this that dissect it
Fascinating points on the series! Avatar remains my favorite TV show of all time. An incredible narrative for television especially at the time. Hopefully, we see a sequel series based on the comics in the future.
The more I watch the show and videos about, the more I appreciate every detail that was put in.
I liked how RWBY handled some of its world building.
The show had left so many questions up that the viewer was basically glued to the screen hoping for an explanation. And it was like that for a few seasons. Then, right as they get to one of the 4 major plot devices in the whole series, the relics or whatever, its revealed that each of them are genies and can grant wishes. Instead of getting hidden away by Professor Oz, Ruby bluntly wished to know who Oz was, since they were all starting to not trust him. She thought she was gonna learn some small time scheme or anecdote about this old man that might make him a threat to the team. She, and the viewer, had NO CLUE, that the backstory to this one character that has been around since the beginning, would explain the ENTIRETY of the world building and major drive for the plot and its villains. It was like thousands of puzzle pieces were thrown on the ground in chaos, and by the time they all landed and laid still, they formed the perfect picture that made so many things throughout the series so far make sense.
It was really great and I wish the show had kept that momentum
Even though Toph says that Aang's earthbending could use some work too, I would still definitely say he was a master. After the episode "Bitter Work", earthbending almost seems like Aang's go-to element. He almost uses it as much as airbending when he's fighting. Tbf he can't really waterbend everywhere, so it's quite difficult to say how good of a waterbender he was, even though he clearly had mastered it, but I would say that he's an even stronger earthbender than waterbender. I agree that Aang could've been the strongest waterbender on the planet, maybe except from Katara, idk it's close, but he didn't seem to do much with it after he mastered it. The reason why Aang became so good at waterbending so quick, is because it's pretty similar to air, which he already mastered, so the basics came super easily to him. But after the basics, he didn't seem to learn as quickly, as Katara, although she clearly worked much harder on it than Aang. Back to my point about earthbending though, being an earthbending master doesn't equal Toph level at all. Toph is way above that level, so she knows that Aang's earthbending could be better, when she compares it to her own.
That's one of the differences between Aang, and his previous avatars. He masters an element, and then immediately goes to learn the next one, maybe even before he's mastered the previous one. His previous avatars lived among all of the nations for years, they didn't just master the bending disciplines. They became way more powerful than that, and they also became inclined with all the cultures. Still, we don't know exactly how strong Aang became when he was older, he was one of the strongest avatars ever, no doubt about that, but he definitely had the potential to become the strongest one by far, by how strong he was at 12.
Anyways, that's just an observation I made about Aang's earthbending, which I think people really underestimate. I feel like his firebending is quite underrated too, but we barely see that so it's not that surprising. If I were to rate how good Aang is at every element at the end of the series, from 1-10, with a 7,5/10 being master level, it would go like this: Airbending 9,5/10: Waterbending 8/10: Earthbending 8,5/10: Firebending 6,5/10. We mostly just see his firebending during the comet, but from the little training scenes we see with Zuko, I wouldn't say that Aang looks far behind Zhao, who was a firebending master.
You did such a great job of explaining worldbuilding!! I never had such a firm understanding of it. I've been learning about analyzing what I watch and read and this video helps me a lot. Thank you.
That last bit about Kyoshi was new for me and really did broaden everything. Thank you so much, I really enjoyed this.
24:10 aang was also (internally) looking for a way not to end ozai, distracting him from the battle
amazing video btw
22:52 Aang is also good at reading emotions in split seconds. Seeing someone that everyone says "must be stopped at all costs" have a face of absolute fear and terror mixed with shock and awe on them, Aang was merciful and redirected the lightning to miss Ozai, even though Aang could of fired upon him, he saw his enemy as a human and held back firing on Ozai... Even in the heat of battle, he is shown to be truly merciful...
Thank you for pointing out that the movies cut the Eagle explanations seeded earlier in the books.
Most people hear someone authoritative complain about Eagles and just think "Ah, Tolkien bad"
Zuko has a conversation with Aang about lightning bending though--it's in preparation for Aang's confrontation with him, before he goes off with the lion turtle. Aang didn't do it instinctively, Zuko taught him.
I appreciate this video a lot. Good structure and presentation.
An example: explaing what you mean when you use words e.g. power scaling is about measuring power, not increase power (scale as in weights opposed to scale as in climb).
There was also many details that I hadn't considered much that you showed had big importance.
The third thing was how you edited the clips. They were relevant and of a fitting lenght.
Add to that the script. It engaged me for 30 minutes without fiddling with something else.
Well done!
Peak educational content of youtube. I have watched ATLA at least 10 times, watched countless analysis videos on it and you still managed to demonstrate and explain amazing worldbuilding aspects that I never consciously considered. What an amazing video. :)
I would argue silent world building is also one of the reasons the fandom (including this video) often underestimate Katara. It is mentioned how Katara is the last waterbender of the southern water tribe- the firebenders took all the other ones. While I don’t think it’s explicitly said in the animated show, it would make sense that Katara was either implicitly or explicitly told to hide her abilities to protect her. So she doesn’t have “over a decade” of practice. She *might* have a decade of secret and inconsistent experimentation. Experimentation that became even more inconsistent after her mother’s death, as she needed to step into the role her mother no longer occupied. This is also assuming Katara didn’t know or respond to the fact her mother’s death was the direct result of her being a waterbender. The guilt from that alone could have stunted and/or stopped Katara from practicing at all. This inconsistent/discouraged practice is supported by the fact Katara didn’t know about her healing abilities- something she would have figured out if she had been consistently practicing for a decade.
We also don’t see many waterbenders through the show. The most only truly powerful one we see in the first two seasons is Paku. So we get no true sense to how good Katara actually IS. She goes toe to toe with a man with DECADES more experience than her, and nearly wins. While it can be argued that Paku was holding back, throughout the fight it’s clear he’s having to use more and more forceful and advanced attacks to combat her. You can also see how quickly Katara LEARNS throughout the fight- turning Paku’s large wall of water into ice and skating on it to get behind him. While Paku does restrain her in the end, it’s impressive that Katara was able to last that long. It’s second only to Ozai vs. Aang in a child (she was 13 in the show) fighting against a master and showing their raw talent. It might be even MORE impressive as Aang at least had some proper training before the fight- Katara didn’t.
While it’s not explicitly said how long the gang was in the North Pole, it was definitely less than a couple months. In this time, Katara goes from a total novice to someone Paku - a white-lotus waterbender- gives the title of “master.” He was confident in her ability to TRAIN THE AVATAR, a feat not left to just any master. During this time she also becomes a master healer, a waterbending skill that is on par with fighting in terms of difficulty.
Lastly, she learns one of the most difficult waterbending techniques in the world-blood bending- in less than a week’s time. She is again against a waterbendering master - Hama - who has years more experience than her. Hama bloodbends her, trying to take control- but is unable to because Katara can successfully overcome it. Katara is also able to bloodbend Hama back, while also releasing Hana’s control of Sokka and Aang. This is a technique she was shown ONCE. Even knowing the basics of how it would be done, that’s an impressive feat. We never see another waterbender bloodbend until Korra. While this is in part because it’s morally reprehensible and usually can only be done under a full moon, I also wonder if it’s also because Katara is the only waterbender besides Hama in the original series who can do it. She may not even need it to be a full moon as while she’s only shown doing it under a full moon, she also restricts her use of it as she thinks it’s wrong.
In short, Katara is probably the most powerful waterbender in the original series, but it is often underestimated due to the silent world building that many fans miss.
Aang is the literal GOAT but nobody wants to talk about it.
Everything in this video was excellent, but man, that Kyoshi rant had me DYING! 😂
Savage: "Thanks for watching to the end of this very long video."
Me: "What? This was like 12 minutes." *Checks timer* "HALF AN HOUR?! WHAT THE FUCK?"
For real, this is incredibly insightful. Great video dude!
Also with the aang ozai fight, aang was also trying not to hurt him, while ozai is trying to murder him. It's amazing he was even able to survive.