The comments are teaching me that, yes, there actually are a bunch of people who believe forcing a 13-year-old to abandon his principles and murder someone would have been a more satisfying way to end this children's cartoon. Wild.
I think for the sake of it being a children's cartoon, energy bending was necessary, since it has to remain PG, but I think that if the story didn't have to worry about that, then the better ending would have been Aang having to kill Ozai and learning that not every conflict can be resolved peacefully - that there are some people who cannot be reasoned with. I think that showing that every set of principles and beliefs has flaws and exceptions is a very human and realistic message, even if it not the one you want to hear.
Nitpik: Ozai was trying to kill Aang in the fight, so at that point it would have been self defense, not murder. Killing to stop someone from killing others also is not legally or culturally considered murder in most nations. Betrayal of Aang's principles: yes Murder: Not quite
I think they could have just slowly built on the lionturtle lore from the scroll from the Library episode. I think if Aang actively went on a quest to find it instead of being passive, it would feel more satisfying.
Agree, it's kinda unfortunate that the first mention of him is basically a joke. Piando also mentions them, but he makes it sound as if they're just another hybrid animal rather than something special, and it feels weird that Piando knows about them and have statues of them, while Roku and the other avatars don't.
Agreed. I think it would make more sense if Aang took the action himself to seek out the lion turtle after consulting with the past Avatars. Then his disappearance from the others would seem less like a mystery for them to solve and more like them assuming Aang is running away from his responsibilities again.
@@samasthtcI think he’s referring to how when Aang is on the lion turtle, Roku doesn’t know where he is. But I don’t actually think that means the other avatars don’t know about lion turtles, just that when you see a forest, you don’t assume it’s in the back of a giant creature
Ehhh still, it still completely bypasses the whole internal conflict aang has been experiencing for pretty much the entirety of season 3. Its not JUST the lion turtle, its throwing away potential character development
Bro, if Aang wanted to kill Ozai, it would be the quickest fight. He just had to redirect the lightning at the start back at Ozai and that would be it.
Ngl tgat would be funny. Aang redirects the lightning straight back at the fatherloed, he is dead, aang leaves the avatar state and goes - so is that it?
What if Ozai just simply dodged the redirection and never shot lightning at Aang again? If Azula did it in the comics then Ozai is more than capable of doing it here.
They did bring up the lion turtle in the library in a throw away line Aang: "hey look at this weird lion turtle thing!" Sokka: "ehh I've seen weirder."
Yeah but by that sense, they could have just switched the lion turtle with the cabbage man and nothing would have changed, as the cabbage man has also appeared in the show before!
I love seeing someone actually look at avatar in a constructive manner as the finale always gave me this empty feeling when I finished it that I couldn’t figure out why
i guess it’s something people were waiting for for years so the expectations were very high. albeit still a great finale and i loved it but maybe some expectations people had were unrealistic
To me, it was as simple as briefly expand the discussion on The Library episode, and have them read on an inscription stating that these beings are said to be better bendings than the greatest avatars known. I believe that it didn't really needed to be stated too much, it feels mystical this way. I'd always seen a spirit like the Lion Turtle almost like a demigod. Also, some people say it appeared from nowhere, but Aang had been meditating a lot seeking for spiritual help. Your solution of having Aang figuring it out himself is great, though. Great video.
I've seen this show, from start to finish, at least 10 times by now. This is the first take I've heard of changes in its story that are in the spirit of the story. I really like it. I would like to add a few more instances of set-up to this. The first - Bloodbending should be another clue for Aang. There should be a line, when they're discussing how to defeat the fire lord, when Zuko mentions Bloodbending as a possible solution and Katara stops him and says that it she doesn't ever want to feel that way again. Aang asks what way? She says 'like she's holding their body hostage from their spirit which she can feel is trying to resist' or something like that. The second - Right from the point he starts getting anxious about the invasion and his fight with the firelord he should begin having strange dreams about the ocean, and often times just look towards the coast suddenly as if he felt like something is watching him. There's a lot of scenes in the fire nation where they are near a coast so there are a lot of opportunities to foreshadow. The third- During his training with the Guru, when they are discussing the Third Eye chakra and dispelling the illusion of separation, there should be a more obvious line but said in the joking mannerisms of the Guru. When they talk about how all the nations are actually one, he should say something along the lines of 'just the nations?' and Aang can say 'what do you mean' and he can be the first one to drop this idea into Aang's head that maybe the illusion of separation goes beyond just how we see people but also to how we see the elements that make up the world and you can leave the scene with Aang thoughtfully pondering that before going on to the next chakra.
TLDR at the end. I love that this revision wouldn’t be hard to implement, and that all the bending styles could still have originally been learned by observing and practicing techniques taught by specific creatures rather than gifted by the lion turtles. (Fire/Dragons, Earth/Badger Moles, Air/Sky Bison, Water/Moon & Ocean spirits.) It opens up the possibility of other creatures, beings or even concepts possibly teaching humanity new; bending styles, techniques, life lessons, ways to influence ourselves and the world around us. The Lion Turtles inclusion into the story then becomes an introduction in learning a brand new bending style, essentially spirit bending. All of the foreshadowing suggested if done with this goal in mind would have subtle taught Aang this bending style thru the entire series. It’s only fitting then for the Avatar to be the first to learn this style and make use of it. However all the records and mentions of the lion turtle prior to meeting one could have shown attempts of previous masters and scholars to learn from the creature. (Communicating with and influencing the decisions of others would be the basics of the bending styles and temporally controlling or permanently altering another would be the more advanced techniques. Keeping in mind the fact that spiritual beings literally inhabit and influence parts of the Avatar world it only makes sense that eventually a bending style specifically for interacting with them would develop eventually) In the Final scenes of the battle I’d make it Aangs internal struggle learning how to properly use the more advanced methods of this new bending style. I’d also add copt out a line that explains why no one else was able to learn this style before Aang. Something along the lines of “To bend another’s spirit mine must be as light and free as air, able to push and pull with the purity of water, my own resolve as direct and unyielding as earth, as full of life and permanently altering as fire.” Then in Kora the Rava backstory could be changed such that the first Avatar also learned spirit bending from the lion turtles. Unlike the other nations and bending styles he was alone and came across Rava and her battle before he could teach any other people the bending style. After bonding with Rava they decided to keep it secret so there wouldn’t ever be a dark avatar. Then in Koras day the birth of the new nation of republic city also has the plot of people wanting to come and learn this new bending style from Aang who was more concerned with first re-establishing the air nation but taught some spirit bending too but no-one really picked it up and as technology was being developed and revolutionized most people just turned to that as part of their cultural identity. These changes would give Koras villains more consistency with the in universe lore. (Much like lightning bending is a water bending technique incorporated into the fire bending style: Amon using water bending with a spirit bending technique to mimic blood bending or at least pretending it’s blood bending when he is doing some minor spirit bending, Unalaq using spirit bending to bond with Vaatu as the first Avatar feared someone would, Zaheer applying a spirit bending technique to his air bending to actually give himself flight, and Kuviras conflict also better incorporating the conflict between spirit and technology) TLDR: Basically I think if this proposed change was implemented as a new bending style into the AtlA universe it would solve the continuity problems in both series, and introduce another element for the writers to incorporate more life lessons into as this is meant as a story to help children understand and make good choices in our complex society.
@@toad6284 Yeah, I never liked the Rava backstory with Lion Turtles teaching bending when Toph clearly learned through the Badgers rather than a Lion Turtle. And proposing spirit bending would kind of still fit with the Greek philosophy of the elements, namely aether(?) I think. Or it had a different name, essentially what the stars and celestial bodies consisted of.
@@Captain_MelonLord The lion turtles didn't teach bending though, they simply bestowed the power to bend upon those who couldn't, humans. When talking about Avatar Juan, it's never stated that the Lion Turtles teach you how to use the power, only that they gave the power to wield it, and that Juan learned how to properly bend fire from the dragons before going to the different turtles to get their elements bestowed to him
@@pancakewaffles I admit I prolly misunderstood the backstory then. It's been a while since I watched it (most obviously because I referred to the first avatar as Rava in my first comment, oops) and that explanation makes more sense.
Agreed, I actually don't even think Energy Bending has to be invented by Aang... It can just be him reinventing it. It's still a result of his own intuition and ingenuity, but afterward they discover it is an ancient technique that can tie him to his ancestors and heritage; something that was lost that he resurrected.
I think this is by far the worst re-write that you could do to the problem. It changes Aang into a reckless Gary Stue who goes unprepared into the fight and just hoeps for a stroke of genius in the last second, which of course then comes. Isn't that how Rey operates? Isn't that equally a deus ex machina moment because the solution appears suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere and exactly when needed?
I actually have an idea for a different rewrite: the lion turtle is the animal guide of a previous Avatar, a much more ancient one, who teaches him chi-blocking. Aang isn't brought to some random cliff, but to a temple where he can meditate. When he is touched by the lion turtle, he sees the memories and contacts the avatar, a much more ancient one, who is the creator of chi-blocking. There is no giving or taking bending powers, just blocking them, but by combining the four elements in one's body into pure energy, the chi can be blocked permanently. When he takes Ozais powers and rejoins the crew, the conversation goes a bit different. Aang: "I took away his powerbending." Toph: "Wow, how did you do THAT?" Aang: "I blocked his chi." Sokka: "Like Tai Lee?" Aang: "Well, not exactly. With the power of all the elements I can close them completely. I hope it works, I'm not completely sure what I did there." And at the end in Irohs tee shop there's a scene outside where Aang trains with Tai Lee, or even with all the Kyoshi warriors. It could be interesting because it would imply that Tai Lee is a descendant from an ancient fighting group that helped the Avatar, similar to the white lotus. And the Kyoshi warriors are gonna close the loop. Alternatively the lion turtle could bring him to a descendant of the fire avatar before Roku who lives in a traveling circus that just passed the sea from the fire nation to the earth kingdom. Because fire already is energy, so fire bending is energy bending, that's how both he and Tai Lee know how to do it, they know the energy flows of the human body in and out.
One huge flaw with your argument...how do you think all those fire benders on the Air Temples died? Yes, the Air Nomads were pacifists, but not to the extreme that you're suggesting they were. Saying that anybody who thinks Aang should have killed Ozai is agreeing with Ozai is just a fundamental misunderstanding of the Air Nomads and what information the series presented us about them. They went down fighting Edit: clarity
We only have confirmation that Monk Gyatso killed any fire benders, and he was always shown to be more of a pragmatist. He was the one who wanted to break tradition and allow Aang to grow up as a normal boy instead of being raised as the avatar. The other air nomads were massacred without any resistance. Aang even confirms that they have no formal military. Besides, one single Airbender, refusing to uphold the morals of his people is far less consequential when he was still one of many. Aang is literally the entire nation of Air Nomads in one boy, he represents the people alone.
"Air nomad genocide" means litterly destroying not only their people, but also their culture and their places. So if the fire nation is forcing them to act against their culture, it isn't what air nomads believed. Actually from what air nomads believed we know only from aang that is the last one of their kind.
19:20 one thing I would change about the flashbacks here is that they should pile up the negative memories first while Ozai's darkness encroaches and then at the last second with Aangs tiny light everything goes quiet and the camera is shaky. Then Aang remembers that the lion turtle told him that the lion turtle told him he sensed his anguish and to weather the lies (according to your change). This will make Aang remember all the bad memories he already remembered but he will also remember the gaang enduring them together and this will let Aang finally learn energy bending by being an unwavering light in a world of darkness.
5:04 Love this video but hard disagree here. I think Katara not forgiving him is one of the most mature and overlooked parts of the show. It’s refreshing to see a piece of media for young audiences be nuanced about forgiveness vs. acceptance. Choosing to move on and not perpetuate the cycle of violence is a valuable lesson. Revenge is often hallow and isn’t the path to happiness and inner peace. Katara was right not to take the violent path. Forgiveness is an entirely different story. Forgiveness is earned, and not owed. What steps did Yon Rha take to earn Katara’s forgiveness? Do we even know he’s truly sorry? He only apologized under the threat of death and there’s no indication of remorse before that point. He even selfishly offered his mother’s life in place of his own. He destroyed her family and her childhood and he’s never shown regret for that. The show is not saying forgiveness is useless. Katara DOES forgive Zuko. That’s because he’s earned it. He’s shown remorse and earned her trust. There’s a difference between these two characters. I also love that the show doesn’t judge whether her decision not to forgive is right or wrong. It’s just the path she’s chosen.
I believe you are conflating forgiveness and absolution. Forgiveness is to let go of hatred and malice, to release the hold someone else has on your heart. You can forgive someone while also cutting them out of your life. Absolution is to say that they are no longer culpable, or don't deserve to be treated differently anymore. Katara should NOT absolve Yon Rha because of his foolishness and insincere apology - but she should forgive him, so the anger doesn't burn a hole in her heart. Forgiveness is for yourself, absolution is for the person who wronged you.
I don't know about OP, but I don't think Katara should have forgiven him even by your definition of foregiveness. Hate and anger are very useful emotions in small doses: they teach you to protect yourself and others from similar situations, and they spark righteousness. Lots of activists who ever fought for a better place did so because they hated how unfair things were, and they were angry at the people letting things be unfair. So yeah, Katara should definitely hate the soldier who burned her mom alive (headcanon) for the rest of her life if she so wishes, and I don't think this hate would decrease her life quality in any way, as long as it doesn't become an obsession. On the contrary, I think it will motivate her to continue fighting for justice. Not saying that she would no longer fight for justice the second she would hypothetically forgive him, just that she chose not to and that's perfectly valid. Just like Aang choosing to forgive is also valid.
No, that is very unhealthy. Choosing not to forgive, choosing to hold on to hatred, it only hurts yourself. www.apa.org/monitor/2017/01/ce-corner www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/forgiveness/art-20047692
@@BWHERE The dude is right, during human evolution, the genetic factors that make us feel angry are what made us prevail as species and even today it has its function, all emotions do.
Honestly, I think the answer was right there. He should've just banished him to the spirit world, where he'd have no bending. There were already a bunch of instances where his spiritual attunement is shown, and how he travels between spaces. We also know spirits can, and constantly do, steal people away into the spirit realm. Body and all. We see it, at least, with the spirit of the forest and with the face stealer. There's literally nothing they needed to change anywhere else. Just fight, he goes avatar mode, has a few flashbacks of his interactions with spirits and what they've done, decides not to kill him, incapacitates him, and does his avatar spirit magic to phase him into the spirit world. They show how he can't bend anymore, and how he'll now have to deal with being powerless (literally same punishment, but it makes sense). I seriously can't fathom how such genius writers couldn't come up with that solution, cliché as it may be.
@@GhostEmblem Vaatu didn't exist yet in Avatar's mythos, so yeah he'd probably just let Ozai free in the spirit world as there is virtually no damage he could do from that space & may even have the possibility for personal change.
This would've also set up the possibility of Korra meeting Ozai when she went into the spirit world in season 2. She already met Iroh there, implying that he's either dead or people going to the spirit world don't age, making it logical why Ozai is still there as well. Iroh being there also felt somewhat random imo (like they included him just for the fan service and to have some wise character to tell Korra what to do next), but Ozai being there would then at least actually make sense. I'll leave up for interpretation how an interaction between Korra and Ozai would play out, but it would've definitely been interesting. It could even set up an old villain as a new (and much greater) threat if he discovered Vaatu instead of Unalaq for example.
Idk that kinda Just feels like killing him without saying it, "i didn't kill him, i Just sent him to a place only spirits and dead things go, and he can't come back"
Fantastic rewrite and I loved your take and incorporation of inventing new styles and Aang discovering how to be the Avatar but also true to himself. I liked how Aang stuck to his morals in the show showing how the war wasn't going to turn him into someone he wasn't. But this rewrite definitely fleshes it out better than the show did with a better lead up to. And the idea of using his experiences mentors teaching like Earth-bending stubbornness with his air-bending creativity and out of the box to invent energy bending is genius, and does make sense considering how Iroh developed a new move in redirecting lightning by studying water bending. Again showing how all the elements/nations are harmonious with each other and balance each other {No element is superior over the others which was what the fire nation kept claiming throughout the show} and why the Avatar is needed as well. Great video!
Yeah I agree 100% Aang shouldn’t have killed Ozai but energy bending should have been his technique with only a little help of the lion turtle, great video keep it up ❤
6:05 *God from the machine. This is loaned from Ancient Greek theatrical plays, where the characters who played the roles of Gods (like Zeus, Ares, Aphrodite etc) would hover above the ground, attached to a machine above the ground
Yes! This is what I always say, killing Ozai would be the death of Aang’s culture. Aang peacefully defeating Ozai was him claiming a small shred of victory and survival for his people This is a great list of changes, Ill be referring back to this whenever I think about this issue with the finale, it’s got my full support
I present a counter argument to the idea that not killing Ozai is brave. In the case of the Joker, Batman’s decision to leave him alive knowing that he always escapes and hurts/kills more people, means that he puts his promise to himself higher than the safety of the public. He is arguably indirectly responsible for deaths in Gotham. When Aang decided to take his powers, he knew that failing would destroy him instead, and he almost got overwhelmed . This would have allowed Ozai to kill him and then no one would be able to defeat him, thus dooming the world. Luckily, the plot armor stepped in. That is why I think killing Ozai instead of taking a huge risk just for personal reasons, was the smarter option.
Completely agreed but the OP did make a good thematic point about how killing Ozai sort of goes against the way of life of the air nomads. That said, I still wish he fucking MURKED Ozai. Man is still causing issues from prison in the comics.
Great video. I generally like the idea of improving the introduction of energy bending. My original thought was to detach it from the lion turtle completely but keep it as a "surprise power up" that is unlocked by truely representing all 4 elements in harmony: steadfast conviction in your own beliefs (earth), evading ideas you recognise as harmful (air), embracing change where it's appropriate/important (water) and maybe most importantly: having an appreciation for the flame of life. I like your idea as well, tho.
The lion turtle didn’t give him the ability, it showed him. His connection to the spirit world and ability to quickly learn bending style allowed him to do it. It wasn’t just dropped in his lap
I would cut out the lion turtles and have Aang learn Chi Blocking, and he does some advanced level chi blocking combined with avatar state maybe, to take away his bending. It's already been established it can temporally take away bending, so this makes perfect sense!
This is very similar to what they did with blood bending in Korra, permanent chi blocking. I think this could theoretically work for the finale but Aang would need to have trained in it for at least a season leading up to the fight.
I could go for that version; honestly, tho, the whole "blocked chakra, then unblocked by a random rock" thing bugged me WAY more than the lion turtle ever did.
saaaame, it throws all of Guru Pathik's teachings in the trash, together with the katara vs the world dilema. What was the point of season 2 finale if a rock solves everything in the end?
I think the rock is misread by a lot of people. To me Aang functionally died for that segement of the fight. Through out the show Aang is shown to enter the 'survival'/'triggered' avatar state by a constant glow of his eyes and tattoos. Other avatars (like Kyoshi in Avatar Day, and the ones shown in the convo with Roku in The Avatar State) have a momentary flash in and then perform their action. When Aang got hit by the rock 'survival' avatar took over his body, confirmed by the fact that when Ozai is about to be executed it's the other avatars talking as one. (I don't remember it exactly but the closed captioning even explictly says something similiar for the lines) At the last moment Aang comes back and regains control of his body, does the energy bending, and puts out the fires with the "quick flash" avatar state we saw other avatars do. Aang didn't master or control the avatar state until that final moment after bending his own energy to defeat Ozai which if you think Pathik is right, would be the moment the Chakra was unlocked. (I counter that like Yang Chen Pathik is wrong in thinking being the avatar is about sacrificing to become a vessel for power)
@@jacobmerrill693 that's a solid analysis but it doesn't change that the plot beats go like this: aang could not get into the avatar state, then got hit by a rock, then he could get into the avatar state. This chain of events is some of the poorest writing in the show imo. And sure, maybe Guru Pathik was wrong or lying about earthly attachments, but this would be a cheap retcon because the Guru episode was clearly written at face value. It just reeks of the writers wanting to pair Aang with Katara at the end, and throwing a rug over the blocked Chakra storyline.
@@renataroshu I'd say we're immediately told in Crossroads that's Pathik is wrong. Aang questions if he really is suppose to give up Katara and decides to leave to save her. Then in the big fight when he does do it he still doesn't properly enter a mastered avatar state (he's full glow, and compared to the survival version we see earlier unresponsive to things going on around him) and dies. Which to me seems like signals that the Chakra route is junk. As for the rock I still think the beat works, he's still connected to the other avatars (E1 Roku pops up, and then there's the lion turtle council). Aang isn't in a position that would trigger the survival avatar state until the rock moment and the lines about losing the avatar state are easily read as meaning the on demand controlled version. To Aang he can't enter the Avatar state the same way he couldn't in S2E1, the lightning/death blocked Pathik's cosmic energy method putting him back at square one. Aang doesn't have the avatar state because the (incorrect) way we/him think he can control it is blocked by the scar. In reality the state is mastered by a mastery and acceptance of yourself, which Aang does by refusing to let the avatar state kill Ozai and instead take his bending.
@@renataroshu the block in the avatar state wasn't due to Katara because Aang DOES let go of his attachment in Season 2 (why he's able to enter the avatar state before Azula kills him). The block is a physical block from Azula's strike that's unlocked when the wound is reopened. I'm not saying that has to be satisfying for you, but that's what it really is
I agree, the Lion Turtle should be more present than one minor segment in the Library, something that important can't fly over the heads and come back at the final season as if it was "foreshadowed" it's not, they didn't even mentioned how especial it was, they treat it like a random animal and it was a mysthical creature at the end. This needed more time, more hints, one single scene it's not enough.
YES!!! 😮 Yes yes yes yes! I've always seen the finale like Aang choosing at the finish line to be Aang instead of the Avatar, stopping just short of truly accepting his calling and thus failing his growing arc. This solution resolves that wonderfully, by allowing Aang to defeat Ozai as only Aang the full-blown Avatar can. Honestly, I'm perfectly okay with the Lion Turtle only being foreshadowed that one time in the library episode. As long as, like you describe, the principles that make energy-bending work are presented and emphasized. This is a genius way to resolve it. Thank you so much! 🎉 Edit: Also, if the show overtly connected Tai Lee's chi-blocking to entering the Avatar state, then that (mostly) solves that one major contrivance. We just need Sokka to throw out "maybe let us hit you hard in the back" on down time to brainstorm solutions for Aang. The team could ignore the idea, dismiss the idea, or even say it's theoretically potentially possible but not worth trying, and boom. Now we know why the rock works.
Just taking a slightly unpopular view, but it seems like in this version that energy bending in this form is a rediscovered ancient technique, rather than a brand new one like you’re describing, because if we tie in the Legend of Korra into this series, it all evens out, even with these changes.
No, Aang killing Ozai doesn't do anything to endorse Ozai or prove his way of looking at the world. Aang *IS* the world. That's supposed to be what the Avatar is: the living embodiment of the world's will. The world believes in pacifism, but it also believes in self defense and preservation. Aang makes it clear that he's still a child and doesn't understand air nation ideals nor pacifism. Pacifism does *not* mean that you never fight: it means that you don't seek out or instigate a fight, and even if you're in a fight then you do whatever you can to get out of it before finally resorting to violence. Aang *did* try everything he could to stop Ozai outside of fighting back. I trust Yangchen, someone who lived a centuries long life as an avatar and airbender, over Aang who only had about 12 years of living with those ideas. The airbenders defended themselves against the fire nation when they came to slaughter them, it's extremely clear that they were fine with the idea of fighting to defend themselves and others. And if that still isn't enough for you, then look to Buddhist monks who are what the airbenders are modeled after. They are some of the most dangerous and deadly fighters in history because they got tired of being assaulted and robbed on the road while they were traveling. They learned martial arts to *defend* themselves. Aang absolutely was supposed to learnt he lesson that his duty as the avatar takes precedence over his desires as an Airbender. His ideals still live on, after all it isn't Aang killing Ozai it's the avatar killing Ozai. The *only* way that energybending works is if they started teasing the *ability* itself in season 2 and then had Aang working to master it throughout.
Your take on this is really interesting, but I also think that the deus ex machina wasn't the easy fix for Aang that you are presenting. Sure, it was a new tool that presented itself at the last minute, but Aang certainly didn't have time to master this technique. His epic battle with Ozai showed that Aang was still in over his head until his avatar state was restored. At this point, the problem that Aang had was that his past lives, who had no problem getting rid of a threat, would overtake Aang and end Ozai. But it was Aang's will that overtook the avatar state (something he was not exactly able to do well before) that demonstrated he was not going to lose control and let "others" take the easy and direct way out. Aang took a real risk in attempting the energy bending technique as it almost consumed him. But his will to gain control over the avatar state and in bending Ozai's energy was the perfect ending. Killing Ozai would have been less satisfying (as you stated) since it would have gone against Aang's values. Leaving Ozai alive without the power that was the backbone of his conquest is a greater humiliation than killing him. Also, wasn't there some foreshadowing of the lion turtles? Maybe in the library and at the home of the sword master?
I know I’m late to the party. The finale could’ve been better, but wasn’t it also a factor of Nickelodeon? Nickelodeon wouldn’t allow death, so they couldn’t have Aang kill Ozai if I’m right. I feel like that’s where the lion turtle cop out came from.
I found that, along with Buddhist mantra, there were some good parallels with Christianity when it came to what the Lion Turtle said. It was an indirect way of saying, “Be in the world, but not of it” along with other indirect lines in regards to being strong, and it wasn’t about being strong physically, “Be strong and of good courage”
@@natiprot69 the background music that plays when the lion turtle is on screen. also I do believe the fire nation soldiers actually use one when preparing to fight aang in the summer solstice episode. I think both are Chinese mantras which isn't my area of expertise since my study is more on Tibetan and Japanese buddhism so I couldn't tell you what mantras they actually are.
the only thing i disagree with you on is energy bending needing to be new. I think its fine for energy bending to be a thing the lion turtles have always done, without it needing to explicitly be a gift from the lion turtle to aand. or in the other direction, just because aang intuits how to energy bend, doesn't mean it needs to be something that has never happened before. It could perhaps even be hinted that some people already can energy bend. but due to some deep spiritual devotion, they never explicitly tell someone how. They just do their best to spread their message of connectedness and all that, and occasionally people reach "enlightnment" and are able to learn to do it themselves. But that adds a whole extra layer of foreshadowing and such that would need to happen. might overcomplicate the ending. but at the very least there's no reason energy bending would need to be wholly new, at least IMO
Energy bending can only be done by the avatar. It’s been confirmed. It is only an avatar ability. Regular people cannot do it regular benders cannot do it.
If we go with the idea that there are other energy benders out there, it could be suggested/implied that Guru Pathik is one. People always critique the ending and the Great Divide, but the one thing from ATLA that's always bugged me a little personally is who tf is Guru Pathik and where did he come from, why does he know so much about the Avatar in a world where there hasn't been one for 112 years.
@@rossjones8656while true, i don't think changing this is a good thing. You can see the bending styles as representations of the four (main) states of matter. Solid, liquid, gas and plasma. And all matter is made of energy. Energy bending being exclusive to those who unify all of these makes sense.
@@BluePhoenix_ you do realize even this can be bend into everyone else. Iroh talking about learing from all other bender style could in theory lead to such power being unlocked.
Lion-turtle WERE mentioned in Season 2 episode 10 at the 10 minute 33 seconds mark. It is portrayed as a random trivia to put aside like that one of the avatar incarnation was left-handed. and lost among all the other animal mixes.
S2E10 at 10 minutes and 33 seconds...and we see Wan-Chi Tong turn his head and tell the group of them in the library to come out of hiding... Wth are you talking about? EDIT: it's at 13 minutes and 33 seconds. Not 10 minutes and 33 seconds.
Aang killing Ozai would be a second death of his people, because he, willingly, would be abandoning their teachings and ways. In a certain way, it would be to bring to completion what Ozai and his forefathers intendend to.
You sold me on this in the 2nd half. I was waiting to see where you were going with the little hints you proposed. I like this a lot. It doesn't change the ending but makes it so much more impactful. Good job!
I initially wasn't a fan of the changes, but when you got to the end you sold me. I do think more foreshadowing could be used, but I really like how you tied in the spirit water into energy bending. Maybe it could also tie in with lightning redirection, since it's manipulating the energy within you, and there should be more focus besides some comments in passing since we already had one that was barely noticeable until you look back from the end.
You cannot creat a new bending type, you can only creat a new SUB bending. The 4 main bendings were given by the lion turtles, so this new one had to be given by a lion turtle as well.
I might disagree with some of the philosophical points at the beginning but the tweak/rewrites are incredible. Its always easier to edit something than create something new so i understand how the writers could have missed it, but i genuinely think they would be 100% on board with this if they saw it and appreciate that its an improvement. Very much in the spirit of the story. Excellent work.
I love this idea of letting Aang earn his victory rather than handing it to him through the lion turtle. I actually got really emotional when you explained your version of the finale and especially the final exchange with the energy bending. It is just sad, that we can't change it in retrospect. Well done!
I think you did as well as anyone could without pivoting entirely away from Energy Bending. But I personally still just hate energy bending on a conceptual level, and I would not be happy with any ending that made it canon or relevant. Bending in the show is almost always a 1-directional relationship between the spirit of the bender and the physical world around them. That is to say, their spirit, will, and mind all inform how and what they bend, and the bending itself is a physical manifestation of that. Energy bending reverses this, showing that the physical body of a person can invoke change in another's spirit. And that just feels wrong to me. As soon as spirituality can be affected by simple physical actions, it is no longer really spirituality, just straight up magic. And up until the finale, bending in ATLA never feels like magic. It always feels like (a fictionalized version of) martial arts, the channeling of one's spirit INTO the physical. The spiritual affecting the physical, not the other way around. So yeah, Energy Bending fundamentally sucks, and though this video shows how to make it not as bad, it still isn't ideal, imo.
The only thing I think I would add to make this a perfect fix would be if Aand had done some introspection on the fact that Ty Les could block people’s bending and practiced a bit with that concept before learning the whole truth. It would feel like he reqlly earned the ability. He was close, but he needed the extra guidance for sake of time.
Yall expect a 12 year old boy to kill someone, terrorist or not, and be mentally fine later on? Especially when killing goes against everything his people taught him? Y'all are crazy.
@@thorthewolf8801 I mean fair point but I doubt Aang saw their dead bodies after what he did. Also during the southern air temple episode Aang saw gyatsos body and bro started crashing out. I bet it's the first time mans saw a dead body and bro wasn't fine after that and there wasn't even any blood. Imagine he kills Ozai and sees blood. You think he'll be fine then?
Katara did not owe that guy forgiveness nor did she need to try to forgive him for her sake. he took pleasure in her mothers death. Katara had every right to be angry.
Forgiveness is for yourself. If someone wrongs you, holding onto your hatred and anger only hurts *you* more. Forgiveness is letting go of a bad person’s influence on you. Its freeing.
That’s kinda weak. Forgiveness or not, having your loved one killed is grief that will stick with you for life. Forgiving a murderer wouldn’t bring you solace.
Ffs forgiveness is not something to be deserved or not, it also not requires to be buddies with her murderer. Yes she had every right to be angry, but what she did is essentialy repressed her emotions and let him live. She still was angry and hateful at him so forgiveness is about letting your hatred go. You don't forget, you don't reconciliate, you simply free yourself from your negative emotions inside you that destroy you ,not the killer. As hard as it might seem, maybe katara should have try to forgive him.
@@dawidfigas11 Is that forgiveness or simply moving on? To move on Katara needed closure and for that she needed to confront Yon Rha. For the record I'm glad that neither Aang nor Katara ended up a killer.
@meganmccarthy2974 well forgiveness is also moving on but the diffrence is that katara accepted. Forgiveness is elite form of acception because it requires you also to let all your hatred and resenment go, if katara forgave yon rha she wouldn't be still angry about her situation afterwards. She moved on but she still feels anger understandably so. Forgiveness is harder tho more efficient in healing process because you don't have to battle your negative thoughts anymore
This gave me chills. Fantastic video. Your love for this story and it's themes is evident and you've done a great job in providing a much more rewarding ending to it.
What I love about this version, is that it also makes Amon's abilities in Legend of Korra more plausable and also sets up Avatar Wan having met the lion turtles in Beginnings without it feeling like a cheap retcon. With energy bending being something one can figure out, instead of being given by the lion turtles (similar to how the original benders figured bending out from the other original masters), it makes Amon's ability to remove bending more consistent with ATLA instead of having to basically retcon how blood bending works. Great video!
Thanks you so much. I am writting my story for an anime and I have been collecting loads of info to make it perfect and I can undoubtedly say that your video has been the most helpful for me. Thanks again.
Good luck on your story! If you haven't already checked them out, I highly recommend Hello Future Me's channel. Lots of good story writing/world building material there.
While this is good, there is one thing: wouldn’t Aang creating energy bending cause a plot hole for the legend of Korra, since it was shown how the first benders came to be?
You could keep that and just say that the lion turtle knew about energy bending and its appearance was to give Aang a nudge in the right direction instead of just explaining it outright
I actually love the ending, same as Twilight ending in breaking dawn (book not movie cos they added so much drama for entertainment sake n took away from the message), because so much of media is one group is stronger than the other because of love/friendship/power/whatever plot point, etc. and a generalised narrative of violence is always portrayed as good only when good people use it just cos. So this gave us a beautiful example of how violence begets violence, the best way to truly end a massive world altering war is by finding a safe and peaceful resolution. I do think it would've made more depth had be had more lore around the lionturtles, just something simple as something in the library, where we first see them deplicted, could maybe have had a little chat about "oh this says that these creatures know the secrets to bending/extinct form of bending (aka energt bending) and have some massive power that would be useful to us" "neat, we should look for them" "nope, cant, says they're extinct and that even when they werent they only presented to folk with some idealised behavioural/spiritual quality that Ange doesnt feel like he has" "well darn it, fine, lets keep looking for other solutions". Cos the lionturtules are hinted towards but not with any real lore or explanation. I love the peaceful ending, but just needed a little more lore first.
Dude, your writing is top-notch. I hope someone at Avatar Studios sees this and hires you lol. You also perfectly described, why it would have been a worse ending, if Aang just killed Ozai. I was never able to explain it like that, but always felt I don't agree with most people on this.
3:58 Thank you for articulating what I’ve felt about the ending of ATLA. Aang was uniquely qualified to end the cycle of violence. He disproved the Fire Nation’s propaganda that those with power must use it to dominate and destroy. Very good analysis overall. I wonder if some of these ideas can be inferred into the existing ending, like Aang figuring out this new way of bending on his own (with a little help from the lion turtle) because of Toph’s example. But your changes make a lot of sense.
“Anyone who thinks Aang should have killed Ozai is agreeing with Ozai.” Would that actually be such a bad thing, though? Obviously Ozai is the worse kind of pure evil ever. I’m not saying he was justified in anything he ever did. That said, I tend to find villains more interesting when they have a point. Not necessarily the “Thanos was right” treatment, but having at least one thing someone can point to and say “well, he was right about that much of it” makes everything they were wrong about carry that much more weight. The fight can play out the way it did, up to the point where Ozai strikes at Aang while he has his back turned, but then have Aang say something like “I won fair and square. I tried to save your life. I don’t want to kill you, just stand down and accept defeat!” Ozai rejects the idea, saying something along the lines of “the strong deserve to rule. If you aren’t strong enough to claim what you want then you’re not strong enough to have it.” And maybe throw in a reference to how the world always bends to the Avatar’s will because of how powerful they are. Then maybe Aang, with sadness in his voice, says “No. The Avatar uses their strength to protect the weak from people like you.” To be clear, I like your idea. I think it’s a cool way to go about the energybending thing. I just don’t think that killing Ozai necessarily means agreeing with his entire worldview. In my view, it more so just means accepting that sometimes, there’s not a good solution, and you occasionally have to choose the best choice from a list of bad options.
This is put together and explained so well. I'm now subscribed! You have a great understanding of storytelling, and I love how this solution makes Aang solve the problem instead of the turtle. I do have some disagreements, though, that I'll elaborate below. I agree these changes would have been a muuuuuuch better viewing experience and mostly fix the ending, *but* the main issue would still exist. I still think it would be slightly unsatisfying because all the tension comes from the show writer's decision that Aang MUST kill the Fire Lord (not defeat and imprison him) while Aang wants to hold onto his conviction that it's never okay to take someone's life (a conviction none of his friends hold and one he needs to learn is also not a good conviction). Furthermore, Aang's reasoning was absolutely foolish to me, even as I watched as a pre-teen. When Aang said, "I can't just go around wiping out people I don't like," I was like... huh? What does how much you like him have anything at all to do with wiping him out? He's a world-ending killer by choice who has insisted on leaving you no other choice but to kill him if you want to protect the Earth kingdom. Sokka's answer was also a poor writing decision in response to what Aang said, as it removed an opportunity for Aang's friends to correct his thinking. *Killing the Fire Lord is NOT murder* because it's justified. I understand, though, that this killing feels more personal to Aang, which morally isn't relevant. More importantly, though, I think it would be a bad life lesson to end with energy-bending. In real war, there usually isn't a way out of killing someone, and refusing to do so puts your companions, your loved ones, and your nation in danger. To risk those you love in order to hold onto a wrong conviction is not good, and it's bad to teach people to stick to false convictions at the expense of lives. Aang found the person he looked up to most in life, Monk Gyatso, surrounded by the bodies of the fire nation soldiers he killed during the ambush. The man who supposedly taught him not to take life, ever, likely suffocated that room of fire nation soldiers in order to protect the life of his people. Aang learning when it's appropriate to kill is not a betrayal of his people and has nothing to do with whether or not the Air Nomads "deserve to exist." The show is brilliant in so many ways, one of which is how it makes characters question their own beliefs, change what is wrong, and hold fast to what is right. Sokka ditching his sexist beliefs, Zuko realizing that his beloved nation is/has been committing acts of evil and that they are in the wrong, and Aang... well this was his turn to realize that not everything he believes is right is actually right. A flashback to finding Monk Gyatso's skeleton after he spoke to the Air Nomad Avatar would have been a way to simply ease Aang into the dreaded fact that he must kill the genocidal Ozai to save the lives of everyone else and that it would be the right thing to do. Remember, Aang partly blamed himself for the eradication of the Air Nomads because he ran away when they coincidentally needed him most. He shouldn't blame himself at all, but the point is... what did he expect to do during that battle? Be there, ask them nicely to stop fire bending, then die? Everything Aang has experienced since he awoke from the ice should have already taught him that killing in war is unavoidable, and I don't see him telling his friends not to kill enemy soldiers in battle. The dilemma at the finale partly felt fabricated in hindsight. Lastly... well this last one is an unrelated side comment: Aang could have imprisoned the Fire Lord without taking his bending away, too, avoiding the entire energy-bending thing while still holding onto his convictions (since he's powerful enough to stop Ozai without killing him), so to this day I don't see the point of it. If keeping him imprisoned in a giant earth square is too hard or too dangerous, they could introduce energy-bending later to solve that if the writer's reeeally insisted on including it, and the final fight's ending would have been a much greater viewing experience. Ozai couldn't move until Aang released his hands and feet. It was already GG. The comet would pass by, and that would be it. There was no need to risk his own life and try energy-bending right then instead of in a more controlled environment. I think what Aang did was selfish.
Batman would shoot the joker if he wasnt handcuffed by the writers. He originally killed the criminals. He stopped because they didn't want to keep inventing new ones.
Your ideas could actually work in the Netflix’s Avatar. However, I disagree on the way you were wording Aang’s newfound bending as “cheats.” Yes, he has them but it’s not like he wanted to use it ASAP. He chose not to use it before and after getting his avatar state back despite almost losing. Aang was giving Ozai so many chances to surrender before taking his right to bend. That doesn’t feel like cheating to me. Anyone who watches ATLA as a kid would still be satisfied of the ending regardless if it was a deux machina moment. The only mistake in the writing I’ve notice in the show is that Katara and Sokka failing to warn the allies about Azula knowing the invasion. 1:46
I used to watch ATLA as it originally aired and even as a middle schooler I felt like something was off with the finale. I knew Aang wouldn't kill Ozai but I thought he would use his skills that we've watched him go through dangerous lengths to hone for 3 seasons. Instead him just obtaining a new skill from some unknown new entity in the finale felt like we've gone through all that stuff for nothing, as he used his actual bending skills only for a few minutes while they fought. I expected him to find a new genius creative method to incapacitate Ozai like Katara did to Azula but no. Actually Azula vs Katara and Zuko scene seems to be a lot more memorable for most of the fandom than Aang vs Ozai. Even if it was more of a personal vendetta between Azula and Zuko, the stakes felt higher, emotions were more intense, the fight was more creative and the payoff was more satisfying because we've actually seen them learn and sharpen the techniques they use through trial and error, like Zuko's lightning bending and Katara using water in ways that noone else could think of. The finale doesn't have that same feeling of "everything has lead us to this moment". Oh well. This video is my canon finale now.
i've had an idea of how to fix the ending, which is essentially like yours, but even more minimalist in change. include more lion turtle forshadowing, that would definitely help. but the important part is to change the words the lion turtle says. "the true mind" line is actually pretty strong. it tells aang that if he'll stick hard enough to his beliefs, he'll see through the lies. i'd say essentially only that, maybe a bit more explicitly. the only message the lion turtle needs to give us is telling him he needs to stick to his beliefs even when they lead him to a dead end. that's it. i wouldn't even have the lion turtle say that that's when he'll find another way, no, just be a counter-voice to the avatars. and then you can have the whole fight play exactly the same, even without the lightning stuff you've added. then for the second lion turtle text, i'll essentially repeat the first message: the only way you win is by sticking to your morals. and the only change needed after that is when the two ask him how he did that, aang says that he stuck to his morals and found a way. that's it. that's not to say your version is worse. just that in actuality, very little was actually needed to fix this. the only thing the lion turtle needs to tell aang is to stick to his morals, then aang finds a way because he did. cut, print, done.
I hate that comparison to batman, killing joker is not the same, joker is a repeated small time criminal that has (to my knowledge) never deliberately killed an innocent person while committing localized rime, Ozai contributed to a global genocide war that effectively wiped an entire race and culture from history. that's like saying AL Capone and Hitler were equal threats to the world, Hitler needed to die, the threat he posed if ever he was released from prison was too high to consider leniency, but reality is even though Aang didn't kill Ozai, he did, Aang took his powers and relegated him to a life sentence of imprisonment, equal to neutering an animal and the releasing it to the wild, not its natural habitat, yeah its alive but bugger predators are just waiting in the shadows for an unarmed patsy to cone along
Sup B- good vid! I know this is kinda late but man i was thinking like in your last video you talked about game sonic imagine if you did a video showing Archie sonic and testing how far could he go that would be fire
I personally think they spoke to the whole "Aangs character arch" thing in Korra. When his kids talk about him, you see he never really changed. He's set in his ways. And I think that's an amazing way to write a character that is all about freedom & individuality.
4:30 you can totally disagree with absolute pacifism and support the death penalty for ozai without believing the outlandish quote “the air nomads didn’t deserve to exist”??? You bring up a good point about how defeating ozai without killing is more of a “f you” thing to do though. However, if I was in the ATLA world, I wouldn’t be okay with Aang taking on additional risk during the fight by not being able to kill ozai, as this does make the fight much more difficult. It’s totally fine if you know the outcome, that aang wins anyway. But I can totally imagine a future where Aang’s unwillingness to kill ozai leaves a window to be defeated in some timelines. The consequence of which is the genocide of 75% of all human kind. That’s simply not an acceptable risk to take on. Even in Jainism, the most pacificist of all religions, violence is acceptable if the suffering caused by staying pacifist would exceed that of fighting back.
Aang controlling Ozai's energy to force his own lightning out the other hand would have been _too hype_ I woulda been like "Wait did he just... AANG YOU CAN CONTROL HIS BENDING COOK THIS MAN!!!"
That would've been much better. It always vexed me how the lion turtle gets forced into the story at the last moments just to give Aang a last minute cheat code. This would've actually given us a more satisfying ending and would show his fight with Ozai's mind better. He's basically learning it on the fly, so of course it would not be perfect immediately and actually puts him at risk of being corrupted. Though he's always been able to pick up new bending styles rather quickly (except earth since it's his mental opposite thus requiring more work), holding on to his own morals and values while being the avatar throughout the story and despite his friends and past lives urging him to kill Ozai, would also foreshadow his own will being or becoming unbendable. Though why does that guy on the left 10:42 look like a pig... Edit: The memories flashing by in that last moment briefly reminding him of where he once was and everything he's learned now makes that scene perfect.
That’s something I would leave open-ended for ATLA but definitely touch on in Korra. I think one of the weaknesses of Korra is how it demystified bending, so I wouldn’t want energy bending to become super commonplace.
This is a clever rewrite! It's a little over-reliant on flashbacks for my taste, but you're one of the first people I've heard talk about the fact that energy bending is a battle of wills. It seems like a lot of people missed that, but it really is a powerful and satisfying conclusion to Aang's character arc, your version just elevates that!
One thing I will say after rewatching the show is that there are multiple mentions of lion turtles and there’s statues of them, which I didn’t realise the first time around, so I guess they did foreshadow them a lil bit
You really got me with the utilitarian argument. Glad you understand how vital it was that Aang didn't concede. I've always found this that lesson leads back to attachment. People like to say they'd be making the hard choice by killing "for the greater good" but they do not realize that doing the right thing will sometimes mean being willing let go of our attachments and risk losing.
i understand the sentiment here, but i kind of disagree with youre interpretation of the dragon turtle. i see it as more of a plot device to separate the group than any deus ex machina. all bending is energy bending, and the dragon turtle just contextualizes this to aang after he spent the rest of the episode asking other figures, some of which we also were hearing about for the first time, were telling him the same thing he has been hearing from his friends, the exact thing he knew he didnt need to hear. I think the dragon turtles do represent something close to what "God" represents in the avatar universe, but not in a cheap way, in the sort of grounded, introspective, "where does life and energy come from to begin with" way.
That's good... I would still add some setup for the Avatar State - maybe connecting to the seeking of answers from previous Avatars and his spirit cracking under the pressure of losing the fight to establish the chakra. Maybe Ozai breaking the rock by lightning bending and having the energy of that triggering Aangs ability to enter the avatar state instead of the rock. This also would solidify the connection between lightning bending and energy bending - leading to a worldbuilding aspect like spiritual restoration as a fire-domain analog to healers from the water-domain, both being splinters of energy bending
I think the fact that you're glazing/liking everyone who agrees with you in the comments, but ignoring those who have genuinely good points, plus pinning a comment where you strawman those who disagree is a telling sign of one of the flaws of pacifism in this context, self-righteousness and holier than thou syndrome. In the context of the story, the ending works, and in fact I like it! Aang is the avatar but he's also the last airbender, and needs to stand as a last bastion of his people's beliefs, or else the air nomads truly die there. That is great. Almost unexplained magical lion powers is not, but you fixed that. The problem is you think this is objectively the right choice, and I admit it *could* be seen as such after we have the hindsight of energy bending, but without that, it's not necessarily the right decision to not kill the firelord. I think it's an important lesson for kids, although not shown here and instead implied or foreshadowed, is that as others have said, all philosophies have their pros and cons. Iroh literally teaches us to draw wisdom from many different places and make balanced decisions. You can't just say forgiveness and pacifism and air nomadism is king and leave it at that, because truly, there are cases where it's not the right call, and it leads to more suffering. I think it's best shut down in a quote from the abridged series of Dragon Ball Z, funnily enough, where the following is said: "You think you’re better than everyone else, but there you stand: the good man doing nothing. And while evil triumphs and your rigid pacifism crumbles into bloodstained dust, the only victory afforded to you is that you stuck true to your guns. You are a coward, to your last whimper." And for other examples like Batman, I don't believe Batman ever explicitly says killing the joker would be the right or wrong move. He just says HE can't do it, because once he steps over that edge, once he kills his first villain, he won't be able to go back. That's an exploration of his potential *weakness* not strength. Also, we see when the firebenders attacked the air temple, there were hundreds of corpses of firebenders, so even the air nomads make exceptions.
1) I am not personally a pacifist. Aang is. I will throw hands for many different reasons. This is an argument about what’s right for Aang in this story, although I did slightly conflate it with my own morals when I talked about forgiveness in the beginning, so I understand your confusion. I should have been more clear. 2) your ethical code is utilitarian, while mine is deontological. I don’t believe “minimizing suffering” is the only metric to be considered when making moral decisions. 3) do you expect me to favorite comments I disagree with? Why would I do that?
How about connecting Ty Lee's aura-sensing and chi-blocking to it as well? Also, do you see yourself writing an Avatar fanfiction with the changes you mentioned here and others?
Aang and Batman's situationarent really compareable. Aang took away Ozai's bending. That's like if Batman completely lobotomised Joker instead of just putting him in Arkham.
A tiny change to this is that I think you should also keep the lion turtle’s words in Aang’s final flashback montage, albeit the new ones you came up with
Killing Ozai does not mean one agrees with Ozai. Killing is not always wrong, there's a time to kill. A dictator such as Ozai destroying the world is a fundamental time to kill if bot done out of hatred. The air nomads pacifism is fundamentally flawed. Now this does not mean that pacifism in certain circumstances is not a greater good or not always viable, but when you're in a war and there IS no other option but to kill the devil to protect others, then killing is the moral good. But Aang had another option, he took away the firelord's bending. Aang's dilemma luckily found this solution. If Aang did not have this solution and he didn't kill the fire lord, he would entirely be at fault. Though culpability is a different story.
@plantcrone9662 If someone breaks into your house and threatens you and your family and you do have the ability to defend yourself and killing in the heat of the moment is necessary, is that wrong? If a country is being attacked and they must use their military forces etc to defend themselves, is war wrong at this point, or are the people needing to fight and even kill to defend themselves from tyranny wrong? If you think pacifism is the moral good in every situation then you're the one in the wrong. Killing is not always wrong, killing in self defense or in the time of war if done is needed scenarios is not wrong or evil. The outcomes have a nasty affect but a person is not committing any sort of evil. Killing in self defense only becomes murder if it's done in cold blood with hatred.
Not gonna lie, I was ready to judge as this is my favourite show ever, but you have shut me up and shown me I am a closed minded fool. I agree with every point you make and you are a creative genius to come up with what you have. Incredible video ❤🫡
I think another way to fix the Deus Ex Machina would be to have Aang's conflict about not wanting to kill the Fire Lord brought up much earlier. During Book 2, have him be trying to figure out a way to beat the Fire Lord without killing him. Nothing major, just spit balling ideas with Katara, Sokka, and Toph. Then, when Sokka learns about the Eclipse, he's not just learning it for its military value, he's learning it to give Aang a way to win without killing the Fire Lord. But, that makes it Sokka's idea, and Sokka's effort, not Aang's. So when the Eclipse invasion fails, it forces Aang to come up with his own solution. Have him seek out Guru Patik, Zuko in tow, right after the adventure with the Sun Warriors. Guru Patik is moved by Aang's comitment to his people, and tells Aang about old Airbender tales he was told about how the ancients used to bend the cosmic energy of the universe, rather than the elements. This then gives Aang something to do when Zuko is off with Sokka & Katara; he's trying to figure out Energy Bending. One of his attempts causes him to have a vision of a Lion Turtle, but he doesn't know what it means. This could also play in to why he wants to wait to fight the Fire Lord; he hasn't figured out Energy Bending yet. Then, when the Lion Turtle appears during the finale, it mentions it came because Aang connected with it during that attempt at Energy Bending where he had a vision. This means that the Lion Turtle's arrival and gift of energy bending are a direct result of Aang's efforts, instead of something completely random.
Well, Great Divide, while not really great for the story as a whole, does showcase a way in which Aang learns to lead. Sometimes, a white lie is necessary to settle a pointless dispute that will never end. If Aang couldn’t even settle this small and useless dispute, how would he ever begin his journey to save the world? Especially the aftermath, when brawn isn’t everything. As for the Lion Turtle stuff, hell yes. They only ever mention Lion Turtles once, and barely anyone would have noticed. When the Lion Turtle first appeared, I had absolutely no idea what it was or where it came from. Like, why was it there? Was it waiting for Aang? Why did he get hypnotized into swimming to that turtle? It was all a bit too confusing. If they also mentioned that these lion turtles are sensitive to spiritual energy and can sense imbalances, and noticed Aang’s imbalance with the Avatar State, that would have been perfect. Even better? If Guru Pathik met them before, and actually asked the Turtles to help Aang after he left suddenly from his training. It could be a scenario where Pathik, someone who shouldn’t even be alive after so many years since he knew Gyatso, had escaped the attack from the Fire Nation, fleeing into hiding. However, Pathik, a non-bender but tied to the air nomads, got discovered and was attacked. If Pathik took a raft to sea to escape, it could be that he was discovered in the ocean, attacked by a Fire Nation ship, but the Lion Turtle appeared. The turtle, noticing the imbalance of the elements due to so many deaths, arrived to check out the situation. After determining the cause, the Turtle discovers a lone survivor, Pathik, being attacked. The Lion Turtle sinks the ship as a small retaliation against such a terrible act, and the rescued Pathik thanks the Turtle. Pathik becomes the first to train under the Lion Turtle, becoming far more spiritually inclined than before. His constitution is raised, allowing him to live longer than most, and the Lion Turtle could even tell the Guru that his duty can be to help guide the Avatar in the future, as the Turtle senses the Avatar is not yet dead. It would round out Guru Pathik’s lore, and perfectly acknowledge the existence of the Lion Turtle. But Holy shit. I didn’t think it would have been possible to create an even better ending, but if there ever was one, it was this.
Definitely an improvement but still a bit of an ass pull. honestly i think it would be better if the entire concept of energy bending was just scrapped and they just put Ozai in a North Pole prison.
Hear me out: The Lion Turtles shouldve been the divine creatures of legend that no one knows about, foreshadowed via backgrounds. the lion turtles gave chi to humans, who then learned from sky bison, badger moles, dragons, and the moon spirit how to bend the elements. the humans went to war with the lion turtles seeking power. before dying of injury, the last lion turtle taught the last of the pro-lion turtle monks how to chi bend (which is a better name then energy bending, imo) and gave him his spirit, which made him become the first avatar. after the death of the first avatar, chi bending became a lost art. when aang leaves, he finds the skeleton of the last lion turtle in the ocean, which has become a floating island. being there awakens an energy within him and opens up an inner spectral realm, and allows him to speak with the spirit of the lion turtle himself. In this realm, Aang is not the avatar. It is Aang and the spirit of the last lion turtle, the 2 parts of the one whole known as "The Avatar". this lion turtle teaches aang chi bending, just as he taught the first avatar. Chi bending allows Aang to bend the chi within someone. We see aang come up with an idea, but he doesnt say it and we dont know what it is. Then, in his fight with Ozai, Aang traps Ozai like he did before and gives his speech in his air ball. He lands, LEAVES THE AVATAR STATE, and puts his fingers to Ozais forehead with a confident look. Aang removes the chi from Ozai, removing the ability to bend in the process. So sure Aang doesn't invent chi bending here, but he does become the first human to ever take away someone's bending. and he does it as aang, not the avatar.
The confident look is the only thing I have a problem with. Even with the encounter of the original show, he was still unsure. I think it should be more subtle and unclear, sort of like the original speech. The lion turtle skeleton is such a cool idea tho, I have no idea why no one thought of it before
I disagree about aang taking ozais bending from what he learned being deus c machina. The lion turtles were foreshadowed way back in book too they didn’t just come outta nowhere. Even if only mentioned once by aang in a book I’m surpirrssed no one ever points that at. And the power wasn’t given to him either this is something that was always able to be done as seen later in legend of Korra it’s further expanded on from a concept already introduceds in the show which is chakras and chi which have real world ties to acupuncture. I think the episodes about chakras in itself was a big for shadowing to this very moment. I just think people need to look a little harder .
Killing Ozai would not only have been too easy, but highly less satisfying. It takes a harsher toll, a greater will, and a higher moral compass to be able to spare the life of someone so ruthless and purely evil. Even after he lost his bending, he tries to even turn his son who he banished for simply talking over the general and told him he’d never welcome him back, against the world to continue the fire nations reign. The set up for future story telling would have been lacking. However the underlying resentment from Zuko would have been an interesting twist.
The comments are teaching me that, yes, there actually are a bunch of people who believe forcing a 13-year-old to abandon his principles and murder someone would have been a more satisfying way to end this children's cartoon. Wild.
It would’ve been equally compelling but would’ve been infinitely more pessimistic lol.
It would've been tragic but it would also be consistent withthe foreshadowing they've shown so far. Your version fixes it really well!
I think for the sake of it being a children's cartoon, energy bending was necessary, since it has to remain PG, but I think that if the story didn't have to worry about that, then the better ending would have been Aang having to kill Ozai and learning that not every conflict can be resolved peacefully - that there are some people who cannot be reasoned with.
I think that showing that every set of principles and beliefs has flaws and exceptions is a very human and realistic message, even if it not the one you want to hear.
Nitpik: Ozai was trying to kill Aang in the fight, so at that point it would have been self defense, not murder. Killing to stop someone from killing others also is not legally or culturally considered murder in most nations.
Betrayal of Aang's principles: yes
Murder: Not quite
people don't realize how much bleaker the story would be if Aang killed Ozai. Would people feel the same way if Zuko had to kill Azula?
I think they could have just slowly built on the lionturtle lore from the scroll from the Library episode. I think if Aang actively went on a quest to find it instead of being passive, it would feel more satisfying.
Agree, it's kinda unfortunate that the first mention of him is basically a joke.
Piando also mentions them, but he makes it sound as if they're just another hybrid animal rather than something special, and it feels weird that Piando knows about them and have statues of them, while Roku and the other avatars don't.
@@MegaspinosaurusrexHow do we know that the other avatars don’t?
Agreed. I think it would make more sense if Aang took the action himself to seek out the lion turtle after consulting with the past Avatars. Then his disappearance from the others would seem less like a mystery for them to solve and more like them assuming Aang is running away from his responsibilities again.
@@samasthtcI think he’s referring to how when Aang is on the lion turtle, Roku doesn’t know where he is. But I don’t actually think that means the other avatars don’t know about lion turtles, just that when you see a forest, you don’t assume it’s in the back of a giant creature
Ehhh still, it still completely bypasses the whole internal conflict aang has been experiencing for pretty much the entirety of season 3. Its not JUST the lion turtle, its throwing away potential character development
Bro, if Aang wanted to kill Ozai, it would be the quickest fight. He just had to redirect the lightning at the start back at Ozai and that would be it.
Ngl tgat would be funny.
Aang redirects the lightning straight back at the fatherloed, he is dead, aang leaves the avatar state and goes
- so is that it?
@PineappleDealer37 he redirected the lightning before he even entered the Avatar state.
@c.w.k.n.5117 ah right, that's even funnier lol.
Guess that's it. He dead. *Leaves*
wait, what if ozai ends up catching the lightning and they play lightning redirection ping pong?
What if Ozai just simply dodged the redirection and never shot lightning at Aang again? If Azula did it in the comics then Ozai is more than capable of doing it here.
They did bring up the lion turtle in the library in a throw away line
Aang: "hey look at this weird lion turtle thing!"
Sokka: "ehh I've seen weirder."
I would like to know where Sokka has seen weirder
Yeah but by that sense, they could have just switched the lion turtle with the cabbage man and nothing would have changed, as the cabbage man has also appeared in the show before!
@@NobleGuy-cf6ut Now I wish it was cabbage man who taught aang energy bending
I believe that's not the only time either. xD
Caught it on my second watch
I love seeing someone actually look at avatar in a constructive manner as the finale always gave me this empty feeling when I finished it that I couldn’t figure out why
i guess it’s something people were waiting for for years so the expectations were very high. albeit still a great finale and i loved it but maybe some expectations people had were unrealistic
@@LeonardEngels but I think his fix is much worse than the original.
Katara and Aang not talking out what was confusing Katara and them just kissing pissed me tf off
To me, it was as simple as briefly expand the discussion on The Library episode, and have them read on an inscription stating that these beings are said to be better bendings than the greatest avatars known. I believe that it didn't really needed to be stated too much, it feels mystical this way. I'd always seen a spirit like the Lion Turtle almost like a demigod. Also, some people say it appeared from nowhere, but Aang had been meditating a lot seeking for spiritual help. Your solution of having Aang figuring it out himself is great, though. Great video.
I like that, more mystical, like a demigod - that fits!
I've seen this show, from start to finish, at least 10 times by now. This is the first take I've heard of changes in its story that are in the spirit of the story. I really like it. I would like to add a few more instances of set-up to this.
The first - Bloodbending should be another clue for Aang. There should be a line, when they're discussing how to defeat the fire lord, when Zuko mentions Bloodbending as a possible solution and Katara stops him and says that it she doesn't ever want to feel that way again. Aang asks what way? She says 'like she's holding their body hostage from their spirit which she can feel is trying to resist' or something like that.
The second - Right from the point he starts getting anxious about the invasion and his fight with the firelord he should begin having strange dreams about the ocean, and often times just look towards the coast suddenly as if he felt like something is watching him. There's a lot of scenes in the fire nation where they are near a coast so there are a lot of opportunities to foreshadow.
The third- During his training with the Guru, when they are discussing the Third Eye chakra and dispelling the illusion of separation, there should be a more obvious line but said in the joking mannerisms of the Guru. When they talk about how all the nations are actually one, he should say something along the lines of 'just the nations?' and Aang can say 'what do you mean' and he can be the first one to drop this idea into Aang's head that maybe the illusion of separation goes beyond just how we see people but also to how we see the elements that make up the world and you can leave the scene with Aang thoughtfully pondering that before going on to the next chakra.
All very good ideas! I particularly like the foreboding shots of the ocean during book 3, it would really add to the spooky vibe of the season.
TLDR at the end.
I love that this revision wouldn’t be hard to implement, and that all the bending styles could still have originally been learned by observing and practicing techniques taught by specific creatures rather than gifted by the lion turtles. (Fire/Dragons, Earth/Badger Moles, Air/Sky Bison, Water/Moon & Ocean spirits.)
It opens up the possibility of other creatures, beings or even concepts possibly teaching humanity new; bending styles, techniques, life lessons, ways to influence ourselves and the world around us.
The Lion Turtles inclusion into the story then becomes an introduction in learning a brand new bending style, essentially spirit bending. All of the foreshadowing suggested if done with this goal in mind would have subtle taught Aang this bending style thru the entire series. It’s only fitting then for the Avatar to be the first to learn this style and make use of it. However all the records and mentions of the lion turtle prior to meeting one could have shown attempts of previous masters and scholars to learn from the creature.
(Communicating with and influencing the decisions of others would be the basics of the bending styles and temporally controlling or permanently altering another would be the more advanced techniques. Keeping in mind the fact that spiritual beings literally inhabit and influence parts of the Avatar world it only makes sense that eventually a bending style specifically for interacting with them would develop eventually)
In the Final scenes of the battle I’d make it Aangs internal struggle learning how to properly use the more advanced methods of this new bending style. I’d also add copt out a line that explains why no one else was able to learn this style before Aang. Something along the lines of “To bend another’s spirit mine must be as light and free as air, able to push and pull with the purity of water, my own resolve as direct and unyielding as earth, as full of life and permanently altering as fire.”
Then in Kora the Rava backstory could be changed such that the first Avatar also learned spirit bending from the lion turtles. Unlike the other nations and bending styles he was alone and came across Rava and her battle before he could teach any other people the bending style. After bonding with Rava they decided to keep it secret so there wouldn’t ever be a dark avatar.
Then in Koras day the birth of the new nation of republic city also has the plot of people wanting to come and learn this new bending style from Aang who was more concerned with first re-establishing the air nation but taught some spirit bending too but no-one really picked it up and as technology was being developed and revolutionized most people just turned to that as part of their cultural identity.
These changes would give Koras villains more consistency with the in universe lore. (Much like lightning bending is a water bending technique incorporated into the fire bending style: Amon using water bending with a spirit bending technique to mimic blood bending or at least pretending it’s blood bending when he is doing some minor spirit bending, Unalaq using spirit bending to bond with Vaatu as the first Avatar feared someone would, Zaheer applying a spirit bending technique to his air bending to actually give himself flight, and Kuviras conflict also better incorporating the conflict between spirit and technology)
TLDR: Basically I think if this proposed change was implemented as a new bending style into the AtlA universe it would solve the continuity problems in both series, and introduce another element for the writers to incorporate more life lessons into as this is meant as a story to help children understand and make good choices in our complex society.
@@toad6284 Yeah, I never liked the Rava backstory with Lion Turtles teaching bending when Toph clearly learned through the Badgers rather than a Lion Turtle. And proposing spirit bending would kind of still fit with the Greek philosophy of the elements, namely aether(?) I think. Or it had a different name, essentially what the stars and celestial bodies consisted of.
@@Captain_MelonLord The lion turtles didn't teach bending though, they simply bestowed the power to bend upon those who couldn't, humans. When talking about Avatar Juan, it's never stated that the Lion Turtles teach you how to use the power, only that they gave the power to wield it, and that Juan learned how to properly bend fire from the dragons before going to the different turtles to get their elements bestowed to him
@@pancakewaffles I admit I prolly misunderstood the backstory then. It's been a while since I watched it (most obviously because I referred to the first avatar as Rava in my first comment, oops) and that explanation makes more sense.
this is my favorite re-write. The minimal changes are way better than trying to re-do everything
Agreed, I actually don't even think Energy Bending has to be invented by Aang... It can just be him reinventing it. It's still a result of his own intuition and ingenuity, but afterward they discover it is an ancient technique that can tie him to his ancestors and heritage; something that was lost that he resurrected.
@@EmethMatthew Yeah, just that little extra buildup, and Aang still being the one to make the solution goes a long way
I think this is by far the worst re-write that you could do to the problem. It changes Aang into a reckless Gary Stue who goes unprepared into the fight and just hoeps for a stroke of genius in the last second, which of course then comes. Isn't that how Rey operates? Isn't that equally a deus ex machina moment because the solution appears suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere and exactly when needed?
I actually have an idea for a different rewrite: the lion turtle is the animal guide of a previous Avatar, a much more ancient one, who teaches him chi-blocking.
Aang isn't brought to some random cliff, but to a temple where he can meditate. When he is touched by the lion turtle, he sees the memories and contacts the avatar, a much more ancient one, who is the creator of chi-blocking. There is no giving or taking bending powers, just blocking them, but by combining the four elements in one's body into pure energy, the chi can be blocked permanently.
When he takes Ozais powers and rejoins the crew, the conversation goes a bit different.
Aang: "I took away his powerbending."
Toph: "Wow, how did you do THAT?"
Aang: "I blocked his chi."
Sokka: "Like Tai Lee?"
Aang: "Well, not exactly. With the power of all the elements I can close them completely. I hope it works, I'm not completely sure what I did there."
And at the end in Irohs tee shop there's a scene outside where Aang trains with Tai Lee, or even with all the Kyoshi warriors.
It could be interesting because it would imply that Tai Lee is a descendant from an ancient fighting group that helped the Avatar, similar to the white lotus. And the Kyoshi warriors are gonna close the loop.
Alternatively the lion turtle could bring him to a descendant of the fire avatar before Roku who lives in a traveling circus that just passed the sea from the fire nation to the earth kingdom. Because fire already is energy, so fire bending is energy bending, that's how both he and Tai Lee know how to do it, they know the energy flows of the human body in and out.
One huge flaw with your argument...how do you think all those fire benders on the Air Temples died? Yes, the Air Nomads were pacifists, but not to the extreme that you're suggesting they were. Saying that anybody who thinks Aang should have killed Ozai is agreeing with Ozai is just a fundamental misunderstanding of the Air Nomads and what information the series presented us about them. They went down fighting
Edit: clarity
We only have confirmation that Monk Gyatso killed any fire benders, and he was always shown to be more of a pragmatist. He was the one who wanted to break tradition and allow Aang to grow up as a normal boy instead of being raised as the avatar. The other air nomads were massacred without any resistance. Aang even confirms that they have no formal military. Besides, one single Airbender, refusing to uphold the morals of his people is far less consequential when he was still one of many. Aang is literally the entire nation of Air Nomads in one boy, he represents the people alone.
@@BWHERE Only the monk that was closest to Aang and his direct mentor and father figure?
That one?
"Air nomad genocide" means litterly destroying not only their people, but also their culture and their places. So if the fire nation is forcing them to act against their culture, it isn't what air nomads believed. Actually from what air nomads believed we know only from aang that is the last one of their kind.
Even if they did go down fighting, it was because they were attacked. Aang is on the offensive here, which is a major difference.
@@MJ-98 he's being shot lighting at
Someone has to animate this ending, this is insane! Or somehow share it with the ATLA team and see what they think of it cuz this is epic!
Thank you!
@@BWHERE Like bruh If Avatar Kyoshi was still alive and kicking I definitely think she would literally kill him Freeze his internal organs
19:20 one thing I would change about the flashbacks here is that they should pile up the negative memories first while Ozai's darkness encroaches and then at the last second with Aangs tiny light everything goes quiet and the camera is shaky. Then Aang remembers that the lion turtle told him that the lion turtle told him he sensed his anguish and to weather the lies (according to your change). This will make Aang remember all the bad memories he already remembered but he will also remember the gaang enduring them together and this will let Aang finally learn energy bending by being an unwavering light in a world of darkness.
5:04
Love this video but hard disagree here. I think Katara not forgiving him is one of the most mature and overlooked parts of the show. It’s refreshing to see a piece of media for young audiences be nuanced about forgiveness vs. acceptance.
Choosing to move on and not perpetuate the cycle of violence is a valuable lesson. Revenge is often hallow and isn’t the path to happiness and inner peace. Katara was right not to take the violent path.
Forgiveness is an entirely different story. Forgiveness is earned, and not owed. What steps did Yon Rha take to earn Katara’s forgiveness? Do we even know he’s truly sorry? He only apologized under the threat of death and there’s no indication of remorse before that point. He even selfishly offered his mother’s life in place of his own. He destroyed her family and her childhood and he’s never shown regret for that.
The show is not saying forgiveness is useless. Katara DOES forgive Zuko. That’s because he’s earned it. He’s shown remorse and earned her trust. There’s a difference between these two characters.
I also love that the show doesn’t judge whether her decision not to forgive is right or wrong. It’s just the path she’s chosen.
I believe you are conflating forgiveness and absolution. Forgiveness is to let go of hatred and malice, to release the hold someone else has on your heart. You can forgive someone while also cutting them out of your life. Absolution is to say that they are no longer culpable, or don't deserve to be treated differently anymore. Katara should NOT absolve Yon Rha because of his foolishness and insincere apology - but she should forgive him, so the anger doesn't burn a hole in her heart. Forgiveness is for yourself, absolution is for the person who wronged you.
I don't know about OP, but I don't think Katara should have forgiven him even by your definition of foregiveness. Hate and anger are very useful emotions in small doses: they teach you to protect yourself and others from similar situations, and they spark righteousness. Lots of activists who ever fought for a better place did so because they hated how unfair things were, and they were angry at the people letting things be unfair.
So yeah, Katara should definitely hate the soldier who burned her mom alive (headcanon) for the rest of her life if she so wishes, and I don't think this hate would decrease her life quality in any way, as long as it doesn't become an obsession. On the contrary, I think it will motivate her to continue fighting for justice. Not saying that she would no longer fight for justice the second she would hypothetically forgive him, just that she chose not to and that's perfectly valid. Just like Aang choosing to forgive is also valid.
No, that is very unhealthy. Choosing not to forgive, choosing to hold on to hatred, it only hurts yourself. www.apa.org/monitor/2017/01/ce-corner www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/forgiveness/art-20047692
@@BWHERE The dude is right, during human evolution, the genetic factors that make us feel angry are what made us prevail as species and even today it has its function, all emotions do.
It was at this moment I realized we simply had differing world views, and that this video has nothing more to say to me. I still watched it though.
Honestly, I think the answer was right there. He should've just banished him to the spirit world, where he'd have no bending. There were already a bunch of instances where his spiritual attunement is shown, and how he travels between spaces. We also know spirits can, and constantly do, steal people away into the spirit realm. Body and all. We see it, at least, with the spirit of the forest and with the face stealer.
There's literally nothing they needed to change anywhere else. Just fight, he goes avatar mode, has a few flashbacks of his interactions with spirits and what they've done, decides not to kill him, incapacitates him, and does his avatar spirit magic to phase him into the spirit world. They show how he can't bend anymore, and how he'll now have to deal with being powerless (literally same punishment, but it makes sense).
I seriously can't fathom how such genius writers couldn't come up with that solution, cliché as it may be.
That would have been badass. Sending Ozai to the Shadow Realm, a place worse than death.
So he would still be free in the spirit world, or he'd be in the spirit world and imprisoned ontop of that like Vatuu?
@@GhostEmblem Vaatu didn't exist yet in Avatar's mythos, so yeah he'd probably just let Ozai free in the spirit world as there is virtually no damage he could do from that space & may even have the possibility for personal change.
This would've also set up the possibility of Korra meeting Ozai when she went into the spirit world in season 2. She already met Iroh there, implying that he's either dead or people going to the spirit world don't age, making it logical why Ozai is still there as well. Iroh being there also felt somewhat random imo (like they included him just for the fan service and to have some wise character to tell Korra what to do next), but Ozai being there would then at least actually make sense. I'll leave up for interpretation how an interaction between Korra and Ozai would play out, but it would've definitely been interesting. It could even set up an old villain as a new (and much greater) threat if he discovered Vaatu instead of Unalaq for example.
Idk that kinda Just feels like killing him without saying it, "i didn't kill him, i Just sent him to a place only spirits and dead things go, and he can't come back"
Fantastic rewrite and I loved your take and incorporation of inventing new styles and Aang discovering how to be the Avatar but also true to himself. I liked how Aang stuck to his morals in the show showing how the war wasn't going to turn him into someone he wasn't. But this rewrite definitely fleshes it out better than the show did with a better lead up to. And the idea of using his experiences mentors teaching like Earth-bending stubbornness with his air-bending creativity and out of the box to invent energy bending is genius, and does make sense considering how Iroh developed a new move in redirecting lightning by studying water bending. Again showing how all the elements/nations are harmonious with each other and balance each other {No element is superior over the others which was what the fire nation kept claiming throughout the show} and why the Avatar is needed as well.
Great video!
5:05 hell no
🤝🏻
Yeah I agree 100% Aang shouldn’t have killed Ozai but energy bending should have been his technique with only a little help of the lion turtle, great video keep it up ❤
Thank you!
6:05 *God from the machine. This is loaned from Ancient Greek theatrical plays, where the characters who played the roles of Gods (like Zeus, Ares, Aphrodite etc) would hover above the ground, attached to a machine above the ground
Yes! This is what I always say, killing Ozai would be the death of Aang’s culture. Aang peacefully defeating Ozai was him claiming a small shred of victory and survival for his people
This is a great list of changes, Ill be referring back to this whenever I think about this issue with the finale, it’s got my full support
Thank you!
I present a counter argument to the idea that not killing Ozai is brave. In the case of the Joker, Batman’s decision to leave him alive knowing that he always escapes and hurts/kills more people, means that he puts his promise to himself higher than the safety of the public. He is arguably indirectly responsible for deaths in Gotham. When Aang decided to take his powers, he knew that failing would destroy him instead, and he almost got overwhelmed . This would have allowed Ozai to kill him and then no one would be able to defeat him, thus dooming the world. Luckily, the plot armor stepped in. That is why I think killing Ozai instead of taking a huge risk just for personal reasons, was the smarter option.
Completely agreed but the OP did make a good thematic point about how killing Ozai sort of goes against the way of life of the air nomads. That said, I still wish he fucking MURKED Ozai. Man is still causing issues from prison in the comics.
True
It was an extremely selfish choice, putting his own spiritual needs above the fate of the world, as changchen would put it.
Great video. I generally like the idea of improving the introduction of energy bending.
My original thought was to detach it from the lion turtle completely but keep it as a "surprise power up" that is unlocked by truely representing all 4 elements in harmony: steadfast conviction in your own beliefs (earth), evading ideas you recognise as harmful (air), embracing change where it's appropriate/important (water) and maybe most importantly: having an appreciation for the flame of life.
I like your idea as well, tho.
Thanks! I tied it into air and earth there at the end but that’s an awesome point about the other two elements!
The lion turtle didn’t give him the ability, it showed him. His connection to the spirit world and ability to quickly learn bending style allowed him to do it. It wasn’t just dropped in his lap
I would cut out the lion turtles and have Aang learn Chi Blocking, and he does some advanced level chi blocking combined with avatar state maybe, to take away his bending. It's already been established it can temporally take away bending, so this makes perfect sense!
This is very similar to what they did with blood bending in Korra, permanent chi blocking. I think this could theoretically work for the finale but Aang would need to have trained in it for at least a season leading up to the fight.
all he needs is basic chi blocking, then he can restrain him
I could go for that version; honestly, tho, the whole "blocked chakra, then unblocked by a random rock" thing bugged me WAY more than the lion turtle ever did.
saaaame, it throws all of Guru Pathik's teachings in the trash, together with the katara vs the world dilema. What was the point of season 2 finale if a rock solves everything in the end?
I think the rock is misread by a lot of people. To me Aang functionally died for that segement of the fight. Through out the show Aang is shown to enter the 'survival'/'triggered' avatar state by a constant glow of his eyes and tattoos. Other avatars (like Kyoshi in Avatar Day, and the ones shown in the convo with Roku in The Avatar State) have a momentary flash in and then perform their action.
When Aang got hit by the rock 'survival' avatar took over his body, confirmed by the fact that when Ozai is about to be executed it's the other avatars talking as one. (I don't remember it exactly but the closed captioning even explictly says something similiar for the lines)
At the last moment Aang comes back and regains control of his body, does the energy bending, and puts out the fires with the "quick flash" avatar state we saw other avatars do. Aang didn't master or control the avatar state until that final moment after bending his own energy to defeat Ozai which if you think Pathik is right, would be the moment the Chakra was unlocked.
(I counter that like Yang Chen Pathik is wrong in thinking being the avatar is about sacrificing to become a vessel for power)
@@jacobmerrill693 that's a solid analysis but it doesn't change that the plot beats go like this: aang could not get into the avatar state, then got hit by a rock, then he could get into the avatar state. This chain of events is some of the poorest writing in the show imo. And sure, maybe Guru Pathik was wrong or lying about earthly attachments, but this would be a cheap retcon because the Guru episode was clearly written at face value. It just reeks of the writers wanting to pair Aang with Katara at the end, and throwing a rug over the blocked Chakra storyline.
@@renataroshu I'd say we're immediately told in Crossroads that's Pathik is wrong. Aang questions if he really is suppose to give up Katara and decides to leave to save her. Then in the big fight when he does do it he still doesn't properly enter a mastered avatar state (he's full glow, and compared to the survival version we see earlier unresponsive to things going on around him) and dies. Which to me seems like signals that the Chakra route is junk.
As for the rock I still think the beat works, he's still connected to the other avatars (E1 Roku pops up, and then there's the lion turtle council). Aang isn't in a position that would trigger the survival avatar state until the rock moment and the lines about losing the avatar state are easily read as meaning the on demand controlled version. To Aang he can't enter the Avatar state the same way he couldn't in S2E1, the lightning/death blocked Pathik's cosmic energy method putting him back at square one.
Aang doesn't have the avatar state because the (incorrect) way we/him think he can control it is blocked by the scar. In reality the state is mastered by a mastery and acceptance of yourself, which Aang does by refusing to let the avatar state kill Ozai and instead take his bending.
@@renataroshu the block in the avatar state wasn't due to Katara because Aang DOES let go of his attachment in Season 2 (why he's able to enter the avatar state before Azula kills him). The block is a physical block from Azula's strike that's unlocked when the wound is reopened. I'm not saying that has to be satisfying for you, but that's what it really is
I agree, the Lion Turtle should be more present than one minor segment in the Library, something that important can't fly over the heads and come back at the final season as if it was "foreshadowed" it's not, they didn't even mentioned how especial it was, they treat it like a random animal and it was a mysthical creature at the end. This needed more time, more hints, one single scene it's not enough.
YES!!! 😮 Yes yes yes yes! I've always seen the finale like Aang choosing at the finish line to be Aang instead of the Avatar, stopping just short of truly accepting his calling and thus failing his growing arc. This solution resolves that wonderfully, by allowing Aang to defeat Ozai as only Aang the full-blown Avatar can.
Honestly, I'm perfectly okay with the Lion Turtle only being foreshadowed that one time in the library episode. As long as, like you describe, the principles that make energy-bending work are presented and emphasized.
This is a genius way to resolve it. Thank you so much! 🎉
Edit: Also, if the show overtly connected Tai Lee's chi-blocking to entering the Avatar state, then that (mostly) solves that one major contrivance. We just need Sokka to throw out "maybe let us hit you hard in the back" on down time to brainstorm solutions for Aang. The team could ignore the idea, dismiss the idea, or even say it's theoretically potentially possible but not worth trying, and boom. Now we know why the rock works.
Great idea about Sokka! It would be both funny AND exciting when it happens
Just taking a slightly unpopular view, but it seems like in this version that energy bending in this form is a rediscovered ancient technique, rather than a brand new one like you’re describing, because if we tie in the Legend of Korra into this series, it all evens out, even with these changes.
No, Aang killing Ozai doesn't do anything to endorse Ozai or prove his way of looking at the world. Aang *IS* the world. That's supposed to be what the Avatar is: the living embodiment of the world's will. The world believes in pacifism, but it also believes in self defense and preservation.
Aang makes it clear that he's still a child and doesn't understand air nation ideals nor pacifism. Pacifism does *not* mean that you never fight: it means that you don't seek out or instigate a fight, and even if you're in a fight then you do whatever you can to get out of it before finally resorting to violence. Aang *did* try everything he could to stop Ozai outside of fighting back. I trust Yangchen, someone who lived a centuries long life as an avatar and airbender, over Aang who only had about 12 years of living with those ideas.
The airbenders defended themselves against the fire nation when they came to slaughter them, it's extremely clear that they were fine with the idea of fighting to defend themselves and others. And if that still isn't enough for you, then look to Buddhist monks who are what the airbenders are modeled after. They are some of the most dangerous and deadly fighters in history because they got tired of being assaulted and robbed on the road while they were traveling. They learned martial arts to *defend* themselves.
Aang absolutely was supposed to learnt he lesson that his duty as the avatar takes precedence over his desires as an Airbender. His ideals still live on, after all it isn't Aang killing Ozai it's the avatar killing Ozai.
The *only* way that energybending works is if they started teasing the *ability* itself in season 2 and then had Aang working to master it throughout.
Genuinely interesting concepts of how to change the finale! I loved it!!
Thank you!
Your take on this is really interesting, but I also think that the deus ex machina wasn't the easy fix for Aang that you are presenting. Sure, it was a new tool that presented itself at the last minute, but Aang certainly didn't have time to master this technique. His epic battle with Ozai showed that Aang was still in over his head until his avatar state was restored. At this point, the problem that Aang had was that his past lives, who had no problem getting rid of a threat, would overtake Aang and end Ozai. But it was Aang's will that overtook the avatar state (something he was not exactly able to do well before) that demonstrated he was not going to lose control and let "others" take the easy and direct way out. Aang took a real risk in attempting the energy bending technique as it almost consumed him. But his will to gain control over the avatar state and in bending Ozai's energy was the perfect ending. Killing Ozai would have been less satisfying (as you stated) since it would have gone against Aang's values. Leaving Ozai alive without the power that was the backbone of his conquest is a greater humiliation than killing him. Also, wasn't there some foreshadowing of the lion turtles? Maybe in the library and at the home of the sword master?
I know I’m late to the party. The finale could’ve been better, but wasn’t it also a factor of Nickelodeon? Nickelodeon wouldn’t allow death, so they couldn’t have Aang kill Ozai if I’m right. I feel like that’s where the lion turtle cop out came from.
I found that, along with Buddhist mantra, there were some good parallels with Christianity when it came to what the Lion Turtle said.
It was an indirect way of saying, “Be in the world, but not of it” along with other indirect lines in regards to being strong, and it wasn’t about being strong physically, “Be strong and of good courage”
is there a buddhist mantra in the show? Care to share which one?
@@natiprot69 the background music that plays when the lion turtle is on screen. also I do believe the fire nation soldiers actually use one when preparing to fight aang in the summer solstice episode. I think both are Chinese mantras which isn't my area of expertise since my study is more on Tibetan and Japanese buddhism so I couldn't tell you what mantras they actually are.
the only thing i disagree with you on is energy bending needing to be new. I think its fine for energy bending to be a thing the lion turtles have always done, without it needing to explicitly be a gift from the lion turtle to aand. or in the other direction, just because aang intuits how to energy bend, doesn't mean it needs to be something that has never happened before.
It could perhaps even be hinted that some people already can energy bend. but due to some deep spiritual devotion, they never explicitly tell someone how. They just do their best to spread their message of connectedness and all that, and occasionally people reach "enlightnment" and are able to learn to do it themselves. But that adds a whole extra layer of foreshadowing and such that would need to happen. might overcomplicate the ending.
but at the very least there's no reason energy bending would need to be wholly new, at least IMO
Energy bending can only be done by the avatar. It’s been confirmed. It is only an avatar ability. Regular people cannot do it regular benders cannot do it.
@@sarickacampbell2642 we are also talking about a re-write here.
If we go with the idea that there are other energy benders out there, it could be suggested/implied that Guru Pathik is one. People always critique the ending and the Great Divide, but the one thing from ATLA that's always bugged me a little personally is who tf is Guru Pathik and where did he come from, why does he know so much about the Avatar in a world where there hasn't been one for 112 years.
@@rossjones8656while true, i don't think changing this is a good thing.
You can see the bending styles as representations of the four (main) states of matter. Solid, liquid, gas and plasma.
And all matter is made of energy. Energy bending being exclusive to those who unify all of these makes sense.
@@BluePhoenix_ you do realize even this can be bend into everyone else. Iroh talking about learing from all other bender style could in theory lead to such power being unlocked.
Lion-turtle WERE mentioned in Season 2 episode 10 at the 10 minute 33 seconds mark. It is portrayed as a random trivia to put aside like that one of the avatar incarnation was left-handed. and lost among all the other animal mixes.
S2E10 at 10 minutes and 33 seconds...and we see Wan-Chi Tong turn his head and tell the group of them in the library to come out of hiding...
Wth are you talking about?
EDIT: it's at 13 minutes and 33 seconds. Not 10 minutes and 33 seconds.
Aang killing Ozai would be a second death of his people, because he, willingly, would be abandoning their teachings and ways. In a certain way, it would be to bring to completion what Ozai and his forefathers intendend to.
You sold me on this in the 2nd half. I was waiting to see where you were going with the little hints you proposed. I like this a lot. It doesn't change the ending but makes it so much more impactful. Good job!
Thanks!
Aang talks all that no killing shit when there are at least a dozen earth kingdom soldiers frozen and drowned under a moat that say otherwise
Lol
I initially wasn't a fan of the changes, but when you got to the end you sold me. I do think more foreshadowing could be used, but I really like how you tied in the spirit water into energy bending. Maybe it could also tie in with lightning redirection, since it's manipulating the energy within you, and there should be more focus besides some comments in passing since we already had one that was barely noticeable until you look back from the end.
“Stay frosty.”
Flameo, my good hotman
You cannot creat a new bending type, you can only creat a new SUB bending. The 4 main bendings were given by the lion turtles, so this new one had to be given by a lion turtle as well.
I might disagree with some of the philosophical points at the beginning but the tweak/rewrites are incredible.
Its always easier to edit something than create something new so i understand how the writers could have missed it, but i genuinely think they would be 100% on board with this if they saw it and appreciate that its an improvement.
Very much in the spirit of the story. Excellent work.
I appreciate that, thank you!
I love this idea of letting Aang earn his victory rather than handing it to him through the lion turtle. I actually got really emotional when you explained your version of the finale and especially the final exchange with the energy bending. It is just sad, that we can't change it in retrospect. Well done!
I think you did as well as anyone could without pivoting entirely away from Energy Bending. But I personally still just hate energy bending on a conceptual level, and I would not be happy with any ending that made it canon or relevant.
Bending in the show is almost always a 1-directional relationship between the spirit of the bender and the physical world around them. That is to say, their spirit, will, and mind all inform how and what they bend, and the bending itself is a physical manifestation of that. Energy bending reverses this, showing that the physical body of a person can invoke change in another's spirit. And that just feels wrong to me. As soon as spirituality can be affected by simple physical actions, it is no longer really spirituality, just straight up magic. And up until the finale, bending in ATLA never feels like magic. It always feels like (a fictionalized version of) martial arts, the channeling of one's spirit INTO the physical. The spiritual affecting the physical, not the other way around.
So yeah, Energy Bending fundamentally sucks, and though this video shows how to make it not as bad, it still isn't ideal, imo.
Awesome Video Bro!
The only thing I think I would add to make this a perfect fix would be if Aand had done some introspection on the fact that Ty Les could block people’s bending and practiced a bit with that concept before learning the whole truth. It would feel like he reqlly earned the ability. He was close, but he needed the extra guidance for sake of time.
Yall expect a 12 year old boy to kill someone, terrorist or not, and be mentally fine later on? Especially when killing goes against everything his people taught him? Y'all are crazy.
Aang has killed people on multiple occasions, no biggie.
@@thorthewolf8801 I mean fair point but I doubt Aang saw their dead bodies after what he did. Also during the southern air temple episode Aang saw gyatsos body and bro started crashing out. I bet it's the first time mans saw a dead body and bro wasn't fine after that and there wasn't even any blood. Imagine he kills Ozai and sees blood. You think he'll be fine then?
Katara did not owe that guy forgiveness nor did she need to try to forgive him for her sake. he took pleasure in her mothers death. Katara had every right to be angry.
Forgiveness is for yourself. If someone wrongs you, holding onto your hatred and anger only hurts *you* more. Forgiveness is letting go of a bad person’s influence on you. Its freeing.
That’s kinda weak. Forgiveness or not, having your loved one killed is grief that will stick with you for life. Forgiving a murderer wouldn’t bring you solace.
Ffs forgiveness is not something to be deserved or not, it also not requires to be buddies with her murderer. Yes she had every right to be angry, but what she did is essentialy repressed her emotions and let him live. She still was angry and hateful at him so forgiveness is about letting your hatred go. You don't forget, you don't reconciliate, you simply free yourself from your negative emotions inside you that destroy you ,not the killer. As hard as it might seem, maybe katara should have try to forgive him.
@@dawidfigas11 Is that forgiveness or simply moving on? To move on Katara needed closure and for that she needed to confront Yon Rha. For the record I'm glad that neither Aang nor Katara ended up a killer.
@meganmccarthy2974 well forgiveness is also moving on but the diffrence is that katara accepted. Forgiveness is elite form of acception because it requires you also to let all your hatred and resenment go, if katara forgave yon rha she wouldn't be still angry about her situation afterwards. She moved on but she still feels anger understandably so. Forgiveness is harder tho more efficient in healing process because you don't have to battle your negative thoughts anymore
This gave me chills. Fantastic video. Your love for this story and it's themes is evident and you've done a great job in providing a much more rewarding ending to it.
Thank you! 🙏
What I love about this version, is that it also makes Amon's abilities in Legend of Korra more plausable and also sets up Avatar Wan having met the lion turtles in Beginnings without it feeling like a cheap retcon. With energy bending being something one can figure out, instead of being given by the lion turtles (similar to how the original benders figured bending out from the other original masters), it makes Amon's ability to remove bending more consistent with ATLA instead of having to basically retcon how blood bending works. Great video!
This was incredible. Didn't know I needed this a decade or so later. Also felt a kind of way with the ending but couldn't put words to it.
Thank you! Glad you liked it
There is a martial art in this world that make you lose your bending. Ty Lee. Why not let Aang learn that upgrade it to more permanent solution?
Thanks you so much. I am writting my story for an anime and I have been collecting loads of info to make it perfect and I can undoubtedly say that your video has been the most helpful for me.
Thanks again.
Thanks for watching!
Good luck on your story! If you haven't already checked them out, I highly recommend Hello Future Me's channel. Lots of good story writing/world building material there.
@@thomicrisler9855 thanks I will surely check them out.
While this is good, there is one thing: wouldn’t Aang creating energy bending cause a plot hole for the legend of Korra, since it was shown how the first benders came to be?
You could keep that and just say that the lion turtle knew about energy bending and its appearance was to give Aang a nudge in the right direction instead of just explaining it outright
Wow, I actually felt goosebumps as I was listening to how you would have done the ending. Great video. ❤
Glad you liked it!
I want Ozai written better. I wanna know what happens in his messed up head. I wanna know why is it so messed up.
I actually love the ending, same as Twilight ending in breaking dawn (book not movie cos they added so much drama for entertainment sake n took away from the message), because so much of media is one group is stronger than the other because of love/friendship/power/whatever plot point, etc. and a generalised narrative of violence is always portrayed as good only when good people use it just cos.
So this gave us a beautiful example of how violence begets violence, the best way to truly end a massive world altering war is by finding a safe and peaceful resolution. I do think it would've made more depth had be had more lore around the lionturtles, just something simple as something in the library, where we first see them deplicted, could maybe have had a little chat about "oh this says that these creatures know the secrets to bending/extinct form of bending (aka energt bending) and have some massive power that would be useful to us" "neat, we should look for them" "nope, cant, says they're extinct and that even when they werent they only presented to folk with some idealised behavioural/spiritual quality that Ange doesnt feel like he has" "well darn it, fine, lets keep looking for other solutions".
Cos the lionturtules are hinted towards but not with any real lore or explanation.
I love the peaceful ending, but just needed a little more lore first.
Dude, your writing is top-notch. I hope someone at Avatar Studios sees this and hires you lol. You also perfectly described, why it would have been a worse ending, if Aang just killed Ozai. I was never able to explain it like that, but always felt I don't agree with most people on this.
3:58 Thank you for articulating what I’ve felt about the ending of ATLA. Aang was uniquely qualified to end the cycle of violence. He disproved the Fire Nation’s propaganda that those with power must use it to dominate and destroy.
Very good analysis overall. I wonder if some of these ideas can be inferred into the existing ending, like Aang figuring out this new way of bending on his own (with a little help from the lion turtle) because of Toph’s example. But your changes make a lot of sense.
I really like your version of the ending! Glad to see you bring the proper respect for the source material too, well done!
“Anyone who thinks Aang should have killed Ozai is agreeing with Ozai.”
Would that actually be such a bad thing, though? Obviously Ozai is the worse kind of pure evil ever. I’m not saying he was justified in anything he ever did. That said, I tend to find villains more interesting when they have a point. Not necessarily the “Thanos was right” treatment, but having at least one thing someone can point to and say “well, he was right about that much of it” makes everything they were wrong about carry that much more weight.
The fight can play out the way it did, up to the point where Ozai strikes at Aang while he has his back turned, but then have Aang say something like “I won fair and square. I tried to save your life. I don’t want to kill you, just stand down and accept defeat!”
Ozai rejects the idea, saying something along the lines of “the strong deserve to rule. If you aren’t strong enough to claim what you want then you’re not strong enough to have it.” And maybe throw in a reference to how the world always bends to the Avatar’s will because of how powerful they are.
Then maybe Aang, with sadness in his voice, says “No. The Avatar uses their strength to protect the weak from people like you.”
To be clear, I like your idea. I think it’s a cool way to go about the energybending thing. I just don’t think that killing Ozai necessarily means agreeing with his entire worldview. In my view, it more so just means accepting that sometimes, there’s not a good solution, and you occasionally have to choose the best choice from a list of bad options.
This is put together and explained so well. I'm now subscribed! You have a great understanding of storytelling, and I love how this solution makes Aang solve the problem instead of the turtle. I do have some disagreements, though, that I'll elaborate below.
I agree these changes would have been a muuuuuuch better viewing experience and mostly fix the ending, *but* the main issue would still exist.
I still think it would be slightly unsatisfying because all the tension comes from the show writer's decision that Aang MUST kill the Fire Lord (not defeat and imprison him) while Aang wants to hold onto his conviction that it's never okay to take someone's life (a conviction none of his friends hold and one he needs to learn is also not a good conviction). Furthermore, Aang's reasoning was absolutely foolish to me, even as I watched as a pre-teen. When Aang said, "I can't just go around wiping out people I don't like," I was like... huh? What does how much you like him have anything at all to do with wiping him out? He's a world-ending killer by choice who has insisted on leaving you no other choice but to kill him if you want to protect the Earth kingdom. Sokka's answer was also a poor writing decision in response to what Aang said, as it removed an opportunity for Aang's friends to correct his thinking. *Killing the Fire Lord is NOT murder* because it's justified. I understand, though, that this killing feels more personal to Aang, which morally isn't relevant.
More importantly, though, I think it would be a bad life lesson to end with energy-bending. In real war, there usually isn't a way out of killing someone, and refusing to do so puts your companions, your loved ones, and your nation in danger. To risk those you love in order to hold onto a wrong conviction is not good, and it's bad to teach people to stick to false convictions at the expense of lives. Aang found the person he looked up to most in life, Monk Gyatso, surrounded by the bodies of the fire nation soldiers he killed during the ambush. The man who supposedly taught him not to take life, ever, likely suffocated that room of fire nation soldiers in order to protect the life of his people. Aang learning when it's appropriate to kill is not a betrayal of his people and has nothing to do with whether or not the Air Nomads "deserve to exist."
The show is brilliant in so many ways, one of which is how it makes characters question their own beliefs, change what is wrong, and hold fast to what is right. Sokka ditching his sexist beliefs, Zuko realizing that his beloved nation is/has been committing acts of evil and that they are in the wrong, and Aang... well this was his turn to realize that not everything he believes is right is actually right. A flashback to finding Monk Gyatso's skeleton after he spoke to the Air Nomad Avatar would have been a way to simply ease Aang into the dreaded fact that he must kill the genocidal Ozai to save the lives of everyone else and that it would be the right thing to do. Remember, Aang partly blamed himself for the eradication of the Air Nomads because he ran away when they coincidentally needed him most. He shouldn't blame himself at all, but the point is... what did he expect to do during that battle? Be there, ask them nicely to stop fire bending, then die? Everything Aang has experienced since he awoke from the ice should have already taught him that killing in war is unavoidable, and I don't see him telling his friends not to kill enemy soldiers in battle. The dilemma at the finale partly felt fabricated in hindsight.
Lastly... well this last one is an unrelated side comment: Aang could have imprisoned the Fire Lord without taking his bending away, too, avoiding the entire energy-bending thing while still holding onto his convictions (since he's powerful enough to stop Ozai without killing him), so to this day I don't see the point of it. If keeping him imprisoned in a giant earth square is too hard or too dangerous, they could introduce energy-bending later to solve that if the writer's reeeally insisted on including it, and the final fight's ending would have been a much greater viewing experience. Ozai couldn't move until Aang released his hands and feet. It was already GG. The comet would pass by, and that would be it. There was no need to risk his own life and try energy-bending right then instead of in a more controlled environment. I think what Aang did was selfish.
Wow. You do it better than I expected at start. This will be my new lore of atla in my head. You truly love atla through and through❤
Batman would shoot the joker if he wasnt handcuffed by the writers.
He originally killed the criminals.
He stopped because they didn't want to keep inventing new ones.
Your ideas could actually work in the Netflix’s Avatar. However, I disagree on the way you were wording Aang’s newfound bending as “cheats.” Yes, he has them but it’s not like he wanted to use it ASAP. He chose not to use it before and after getting his avatar state back despite almost losing. Aang was giving Ozai so many chances to surrender before taking his right to bend. That doesn’t feel like cheating to me.
Anyone who watches ATLA as a kid would still be satisfied of the ending regardless if it was a deux machina moment. The only mistake in the writing I’ve notice in the show is that Katara and Sokka failing to warn the allies about Azula knowing the invasion. 1:46
I used to watch ATLA as it originally aired and even as a middle schooler I felt like something was off with the finale. I knew Aang wouldn't kill Ozai but I thought he would use his skills that we've watched him go through dangerous lengths to hone for 3 seasons. Instead him just obtaining a new skill from some unknown new entity in the finale felt like we've gone through all that stuff for nothing, as he used his actual bending skills only for a few minutes while they fought. I expected him to find a new genius creative method to incapacitate Ozai like Katara did to Azula but no. Actually Azula vs Katara and Zuko scene seems to be a lot more memorable for most of the fandom than Aang vs Ozai. Even if it was more of a personal vendetta between Azula and Zuko, the stakes felt higher, emotions were more intense, the fight was more creative and the payoff was more satisfying because we've actually seen them learn and sharpen the techniques they use through trial and error, like Zuko's lightning bending and Katara using water in ways that noone else could think of. The finale doesn't have that same feeling of "everything has lead us to this moment". Oh well. This video is my canon finale now.
I knew he was trolling with the “avatar sucks” thing. But I still wanted to fight him 🤣
i've had an idea of how to fix the ending, which is essentially like yours, but even more minimalist in change.
include more lion turtle forshadowing, that would definitely help. but the important part is to change the words the lion turtle says.
"the true mind" line is actually pretty strong. it tells aang that if he'll stick hard enough to his beliefs, he'll see through the lies. i'd say essentially only that, maybe a bit more explicitly.
the only message the lion turtle needs to give us is telling him he needs to stick to his beliefs even when they lead him to a dead end. that's it. i wouldn't even have the lion turtle say that that's when he'll find another way, no, just be a counter-voice to the avatars.
and then you can have the whole fight play exactly the same, even without the lightning stuff you've added. then for the second lion turtle text, i'll essentially repeat the first message: the only way you win is by sticking to your morals.
and the only change needed after that is when the two ask him how he did that, aang says that he stuck to his morals and found a way.
that's it.
that's not to say your version is worse. just that in actuality, very little was actually needed to fix this. the only thing the lion turtle needs to tell aang is to stick to his morals, then aang finds a way because he did. cut, print, done.
My lazy ahh solution? Get frozen again but bring Ozai along.
10000 IQ move
I hate that comparison to batman, killing joker is not the same, joker is a repeated small time criminal that has (to my knowledge) never deliberately killed an innocent person while committing localized rime, Ozai contributed to a global genocide war that effectively wiped an entire race and culture from history. that's like saying AL Capone and Hitler were equal threats to the world, Hitler needed to die, the threat he posed if ever he was released from prison was too high to consider leniency, but reality is even though Aang didn't kill Ozai, he did, Aang took his powers and relegated him to a life sentence of imprisonment, equal to neutering an animal and the releasing it to the wild, not its natural habitat, yeah its alive but bugger predators are just waiting in the shadows for an unarmed patsy to cone along
Avatar studios should definitely hire you as a writer
Dream job honestly
@@BWHERE Let's just hope that, somehow, they see this.
Sup B- good vid! I know this is kinda late but man i was thinking like in your last video you talked about game sonic imagine if you did a video showing Archie sonic and testing how far could he go that would be fire
I personally think they spoke to the whole "Aangs character arch" thing in Korra. When his kids talk about him, you see he never really changed. He's set in his ways. And I think that's an amazing way to write a character that is all about freedom & individuality.
4:30 you can totally disagree with absolute pacifism and support the death penalty for ozai without believing the outlandish quote “the air nomads didn’t deserve to exist”???
You bring up a good point about how defeating ozai without killing is more of a “f you” thing to do though. However, if I was in the ATLA world, I wouldn’t be okay with Aang taking on additional risk during the fight by not being able to kill ozai, as this does make the fight much more difficult. It’s totally fine if you know the outcome, that aang wins anyway. But I can totally imagine a future where Aang’s unwillingness to kill ozai leaves a window to be defeated in some timelines. The consequence of which is the genocide of 75% of all human kind. That’s simply not an acceptable risk to take on.
Even in Jainism, the most pacificist of all religions, violence is acceptable if the suffering caused by staying pacifist would exceed that of fighting back.
Aang controlling Ozai's energy to force his own lightning out the other hand would have been _too hype_
I woulda been like "Wait did he just... AANG YOU CAN CONTROL HIS BENDING COOK THIS MAN!!!"
That would've been much better. It always vexed me how the lion turtle gets forced into the story at the last moments just to give Aang a last minute cheat code. This would've actually given us a more satisfying ending and would show his fight with Ozai's mind better. He's basically learning it on the fly, so of course it would not be perfect immediately and actually puts him at risk of being corrupted. Though he's always been able to pick up new bending styles rather quickly (except earth since it's his mental opposite thus requiring more work), holding on to his own morals and values while being the avatar throughout the story and despite his friends and past lives urging him to kill Ozai, would also foreshadow his own will being or becoming unbendable.
Though why does that guy on the left 10:42 look like a pig...
Edit: The memories flashing by in that last moment briefly reminding him of where he once was and everything he's learned now makes that scene perfect.
Would such a discovery of energy bending allow Ang to grant bending like how the lion turtles used to?
That’s something I would leave open-ended for ATLA but definitely touch on in Korra. I think one of the weaknesses of Korra is how it demystified bending, so I wouldn’t want energy bending to become super commonplace.
Great Video! I love your way of fixing the finale's biggest mistake.
Thank you!
This is a clever rewrite! It's a little over-reliant on flashbacks for my taste, but you're one of the first people I've heard talk about the fact that energy bending is a battle of wills. It seems like a lot of people missed that, but it really is a powerful and satisfying conclusion to Aang's character arc, your version just elevates that!
One thing I will say after rewatching the show is that there are multiple mentions of lion turtles and there’s statues of them, which I didn’t realise the first time around, so I guess they did foreshadow them a lil bit
You really got me with the utilitarian argument. Glad you understand how vital it was that Aang didn't concede.
I've always found this that lesson leads back to attachment. People like to say they'd be making the hard choice by killing "for the greater good" but they do not realize that doing the right thing will sometimes mean being willing let go of our attachments and risk losing.
i understand the sentiment here, but i kind of disagree with youre interpretation of the dragon turtle. i see it as more of a plot device to separate the group than any deus ex machina. all bending is energy bending, and the dragon turtle just contextualizes this to aang after he spent the rest of the episode asking other figures, some of which we also were hearing about for the first time, were telling him the same thing he has been hearing from his friends, the exact thing he knew he didnt need to hear. I think the dragon turtles do represent something close to what "God" represents in the avatar universe, but not in a cheap way, in the sort of grounded, introspective, "where does life and energy come from to begin with" way.
That's good... I would still add some setup for the Avatar State - maybe connecting to the seeking of answers from previous Avatars and his spirit cracking under the pressure of losing the fight to establish the chakra. Maybe Ozai breaking the rock by lightning bending and having the energy of that triggering Aangs ability to enter the avatar state instead of the rock. This also would solidify the connection between lightning bending and energy bending - leading to a worldbuilding aspect like spiritual restoration as a fire-domain analog to healers from the water-domain, both being splinters of energy bending
What if they are trying to say that there's always another way. Killing can't be your last option.
I think the fact that you're glazing/liking everyone who agrees with you in the comments, but ignoring those who have genuinely good points, plus pinning a comment where you strawman those who disagree is a telling sign of one of the flaws of pacifism in this context, self-righteousness and holier than thou syndrome.
In the context of the story, the ending works, and in fact I like it! Aang is the avatar but he's also the last airbender, and needs to stand as a last bastion of his people's beliefs, or else the air nomads truly die there. That is great. Almost unexplained magical lion powers is not, but you fixed that.
The problem is you think this is objectively the right choice, and I admit it *could* be seen as such after we have the hindsight of energy bending, but without that, it's not necessarily the right decision to not kill the firelord. I think it's an important lesson for kids, although not shown here and instead implied or foreshadowed, is that as others have said, all philosophies have their pros and cons. Iroh literally teaches us to draw wisdom from many different places and make balanced decisions. You can't just say forgiveness and pacifism and air nomadism is king and leave it at that, because truly, there are cases where it's not the right call, and it leads to more suffering.
I think it's best shut down in a quote from the abridged series of Dragon Ball Z, funnily enough, where the following is said: "You think you’re better than everyone else, but there you stand: the good man doing nothing. And while evil triumphs and your rigid pacifism crumbles into bloodstained dust, the only victory afforded to you is that you stuck true to your guns. You are a coward, to your last whimper."
And for other examples like Batman, I don't believe Batman ever explicitly says killing the joker would be the right or wrong move. He just says HE can't do it, because once he steps over that edge, once he kills his first villain, he won't be able to go back. That's an exploration of his potential *weakness* not strength. Also, we see when the firebenders attacked the air temple, there were hundreds of corpses of firebenders, so even the air nomads make exceptions.
1) I am not personally a pacifist. Aang is. I will throw hands for many different reasons. This is an argument about what’s right for Aang in this story, although I did slightly conflate it with my own morals when I talked about forgiveness in the beginning, so I understand your confusion. I should have been more clear. 2) your ethical code is utilitarian, while mine is deontological. I don’t believe “minimizing suffering” is the only metric to be considered when making moral decisions. 3) do you expect me to favorite comments I disagree with? Why would I do that?
How about connecting Ty Lee's aura-sensing and chi-blocking to it as well?
Also, do you see yourself writing an Avatar fanfiction with the changes you mentioned here and others?
Aang and Batman's situationarent really compareable. Aang took away Ozai's bending. That's like if Batman completely lobotomised Joker instead of just putting him in Arkham.
Calling that a deus ex machina is just a bad call. We always knew Aang didnt have a blood thirst. Great ending.
A tiny change to this is that I think you should also keep the lion turtle’s words in Aang’s final flashback montage, albeit the new ones you came up with
The third path is always the most difficult. Not choosing that third path, is actually the cop out. Killing is easy
Damn, that section where the Lion Turtle speaks to Aang through the will of his energy!? Chef’s Kiss. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Killing Ozai does not mean one agrees with Ozai. Killing is not always wrong, there's a time to kill. A dictator such as Ozai destroying the world is a fundamental time to kill if bot done out of hatred. The air nomads pacifism is fundamentally flawed. Now this does not mean that pacifism in certain circumstances is not a greater good or not always viable, but when you're in a war and there IS no other option but to kill the devil to protect others, then killing is the moral good. But Aang had another option, he took away the firelord's bending. Aang's dilemma luckily found this solution. If Aang did not have this solution and he didn't kill the fire lord, he would entirely be at fault. Though culpability is a different story.
So you agree with ozai😂
@plantcrone9662 If someone breaks into your house and threatens you and your family and you do have the ability to defend yourself and killing in the heat of the moment is necessary, is that wrong? If a country is being attacked and they must use their military forces etc to defend themselves, is war wrong at this point, or are the people needing to fight and even kill to defend themselves from tyranny wrong? If you think pacifism is the moral good in every situation then you're the one in the wrong. Killing is not always wrong, killing in self defense or in the time of war if done is needed scenarios is not wrong or evil. The outcomes have a nasty affect but a person is not committing any sort of evil. Killing in self defense only becomes murder if it's done in cold blood with hatred.
Not gonna lie, I was ready to judge as this is my favourite show ever, but you have shut me up and shown me I am a closed minded fool. I agree with every point you make and you are a creative genius to come up with what you have. Incredible video ❤🫡
Thank you so much!
I think another way to fix the Deus Ex Machina would be to have Aang's conflict about not wanting to kill the Fire Lord brought up much earlier. During Book 2, have him be trying to figure out a way to beat the Fire Lord without killing him. Nothing major, just spit balling ideas with Katara, Sokka, and Toph. Then, when Sokka learns about the Eclipse, he's not just learning it for its military value, he's learning it to give Aang a way to win without killing the Fire Lord.
But, that makes it Sokka's idea, and Sokka's effort, not Aang's. So when the Eclipse invasion fails, it forces Aang to come up with his own solution.
Have him seek out Guru Patik, Zuko in tow, right after the adventure with the Sun Warriors. Guru Patik is moved by Aang's comitment to his people, and tells Aang about old Airbender tales he was told about how the ancients used to bend the cosmic energy of the universe, rather than the elements. This then gives Aang something to do when Zuko is off with Sokka & Katara; he's trying to figure out Energy Bending. One of his attempts causes him to have a vision of a Lion Turtle, but he doesn't know what it means. This could also play in to why he wants to wait to fight the Fire Lord; he hasn't figured out Energy Bending yet.
Then, when the Lion Turtle appears during the finale, it mentions it came because Aang connected with it during that attempt at Energy Bending where he had a vision. This means that the Lion Turtle's arrival and gift of energy bending are a direct result of Aang's efforts, instead of something completely random.
This is excellent!
@@BWHERE
Thank you.
Well, Great Divide, while not really great for the story as a whole, does showcase a way in which Aang learns to lead. Sometimes, a white lie is necessary to settle a pointless dispute that will never end.
If Aang couldn’t even settle this small and useless dispute, how would he ever begin his journey to save the world?
Especially the aftermath, when brawn isn’t everything.
As for the Lion Turtle stuff, hell yes. They only ever mention Lion Turtles once, and barely anyone would have noticed. When the Lion Turtle first appeared, I had absolutely no idea what it was or where it came from. Like, why was it there? Was it waiting for Aang? Why did he get hypnotized into swimming to that turtle? It was all a bit too confusing.
If they also mentioned that these lion turtles are sensitive to spiritual energy and can sense imbalances, and noticed Aang’s imbalance with the Avatar State, that would have been perfect. Even better? If Guru Pathik met them before, and actually asked the Turtles to help Aang after he left suddenly from his training.
It could be a scenario where Pathik, someone who shouldn’t even be alive after so many years since he knew Gyatso, had escaped the attack from the Fire Nation, fleeing into hiding. However, Pathik, a non-bender but tied to the air nomads, got discovered and was attacked. If Pathik took a raft to sea to escape, it could be that he was discovered in the ocean, attacked by a Fire Nation ship, but the Lion Turtle appeared. The turtle, noticing the imbalance of the elements due to so many deaths, arrived to check out the situation. After determining the cause, the Turtle discovers a lone survivor, Pathik, being attacked. The Lion Turtle sinks the ship as a small retaliation against such a terrible act, and the rescued Pathik thanks the Turtle. Pathik becomes the first to train under the Lion Turtle, becoming far more spiritually inclined than before. His constitution is raised, allowing him to live longer than most, and the Lion Turtle could even tell the Guru that his duty can be to help guide the Avatar in the future, as the Turtle senses the Avatar is not yet dead.
It would round out Guru Pathik’s lore, and perfectly acknowledge the existence of the Lion Turtle.
But Holy shit. I didn’t think it would have been possible to create an even better ending, but if there ever was one, it was this.
Definitely an improvement but still a bit of an ass pull. honestly i think it would be better if the entire concept of energy bending was just scrapped and they just put Ozai in a North Pole prison.
This is so much more epic than I thought it was going to be!!!
Thanks!
Hear me out: The Lion Turtles shouldve been the divine creatures of legend that no one knows about, foreshadowed via backgrounds. the lion turtles gave chi to humans, who then learned from sky bison, badger moles, dragons, and the moon spirit how to bend the elements. the humans went to war with the lion turtles seeking power. before dying of injury, the last lion turtle taught the last of the pro-lion turtle monks how to chi bend (which is a better name then energy bending, imo) and gave him his spirit, which made him become the first avatar. after the death of the first avatar, chi bending became a lost art. when aang leaves, he finds the skeleton of the last lion turtle in the ocean, which has become a floating island. being there awakens an energy within him and opens up an inner spectral realm, and allows him to speak with the spirit of the lion turtle himself. In this realm, Aang is not the avatar. It is Aang and the spirit of the last lion turtle, the 2 parts of the one whole known as "The Avatar". this lion turtle teaches aang chi bending, just as he taught the first avatar. Chi bending allows Aang to bend the chi within someone. We see aang come up with an idea, but he doesnt say it and we dont know what it is.
Then, in his fight with Ozai, Aang traps Ozai like he did before and gives his speech in his air ball. He lands, LEAVES THE AVATAR STATE, and puts his fingers to Ozais forehead with a confident look. Aang removes the chi from Ozai, removing the ability to bend in the process. So sure Aang doesn't invent chi bending here, but he does become the first human to ever take away someone's bending. and he does it as aang, not the avatar.
The confident look is the only thing I have a problem with. Even with the encounter of the original show, he was still unsure. I think it should be more subtle and unclear, sort of like the original speech. The lion turtle skeleton is such a cool idea tho, I have no idea why no one thought of it before
I disagree about aang taking ozais bending from what he learned being deus c machina. The lion turtles were foreshadowed way back in book too they didn’t just come outta nowhere. Even if only mentioned once by aang in a book I’m surpirrssed no one ever points that at. And the power wasn’t given to him either this is something that was always able to be done as seen later in legend of Korra it’s further expanded on from a concept already introduceds in the show which is chakras and chi which have real world ties to acupuncture. I think the episodes about chakras in itself was a big for shadowing to this very moment. I just think people need to look a little harder .
I love this version. I always had an issue with the ending and you fixed it perfectly. Headcanoned.
He should have had katara teach him blood bending and take his bending away that way, by blocking his chi or chocras.
Killing Ozai would not only have been too easy, but highly less satisfying. It takes a harsher toll, a greater will, and a higher moral compass to be able to spare the life of someone so ruthless and purely evil. Even after he lost his bending, he tries to even turn his son who he banished for simply talking over the general and told him he’d never welcome him back, against the world to continue the fire nations reign. The set up for future story telling would have been lacking. However the underlying resentment from Zuko would have been an interesting twist.