Sfdebris.net

I have a Lot of issues with the final battle between Aang and Ozai in the finally of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the three biggest ones being-

The Lack of a Real Relationship between Aang and Ozai

The Punching the Scar on Aang's back to jumpstart the Avatar State

And Everything to do with the Lion Turtle but more specifically Energybending

People often call out The Legend of Korra for overusing Deus Ex Machinas to resolve their plot points but many seem to forget that The Last Airbender is guilty of this too. Koyzilla in book 1, the Healing Water in Earth and the Lion Turtle in Book 3. These things have almost as little buildup as the DEM in TLOK and are just as contrived as the ones in TLOK.

But what bugs me most about Energybending is how little it's used in the series. Really it's only been used twice between both Airbender and Korra and has basically been forgotten since the finally of Korra.

At this time one of the stories I'm working the hardest on is an Avatar Series that I'm hoping to pitch to Avatar Studio in the near future (Working title is Spirit Hunter and it's kinda Avatar's version of The Witcher, The Mandalorian and The Last of Us). And one thing Ive written in this series is the inclusion and expansion of Energy/Spiritbending and how it can work in this series.

The way I have it is Spiritbenders are basically glass cannons as they are possibly the most powerful Benders in the world for a number of reasons. As shown with Airbender and Korra an Spiritbender can takeaway or give someone bending powers but they can also Eat someone's life force or transfer energy around and can even borderline read someone's mind or at least their emotion and in some cases they can even see the future.

We've already seen how the first two abilities can be used but with the others, being able to transfer life force can turn someone into an effective immortal since they can add to their own life by taking someone else's literal life. And with those who can read minds/feelings and see the future they can use this to basically predict any attack that's thrown at them and avoid it which basically turns them into Heimdall from God of War. They can even corrupt and control Spirits if they're powerful enough and are immune to Spirits altering their bodies and cannot be possessed by a Spirit

However, all these abilities, at least in the human world, have notable drawbacks.

As stated by the Lion Turtle that Aang met if you're own Spirit must be unbendable when trying to takeaway someone's else's bending or you risk being corrupted and destroyed. This likewise applies to Energy eating and transferring and both also leave them open to attack from anyone their not focused on. Doesn't matter how much life you drain or how unbendable your spirit is you're still human and a sword through the heart is still going to kill you.

And with the last group, just because you can read a person will not always be useful if they know how to clear their mind, not to mention the terrifying effect of needing to control how much you want to see in someone because you can loose yourself and can no longer tell if what you're thinking are your thoughts or the thoughts of those you are hearing. And finally just because you can see a punch coming doesn't mean you will be able to avoid it especially if your opponent is faster then you.

However, in the Spirit world, it's a different story as Spiritbenders can effectively become Gods. As we've seen the spirit world doesn't operate under the same rules as the human world does and we've seen someone who has a strong connection to the Spirits of Order and Chaos do imagine what someone who had the power to control spirits and the energy of life itself could do in there.

In the Spirit world Spiritbenders become effective reality warpers, able to bend space itself, make some become a child or grow old in an instant and literally bring down the sky itself if they so choose. This makes them more dangerous then any of the bender alive if they should ever go into the Spirit World Physically.

They are the most rare among benders because their own power could effectively cause them to die young since another draw back of energy transfer is they can give their own life to someone else so many Spiritbenders die young. The ones who live to adulthood are among the most dangerous people alive but also among the weakest because their powers require more dedication then even Firebenders.

This is to help explain why we've seen so few throughout the series and why the Avatar almost never uses it. Few are alive to teach the Avatar how to use it. Oh, and I would also have it where Aunt Wu from The Fortuneteller was a Spiritbender which is how she's able to see the future and people so well, or at least imply that.

But what about you, how would you go about including Energy/Spiritbending if you were writing for Avatar?

I'd honnestly just delete it from the show if I could. I love the Last Airbender, but good god, energybending is just such an utter asspull that comes out from no where as a third way solution so that Aang doesn't have to make any hard choices.

If anything Korra, and I have a LOT of problems of s1 of Korra, used it way more effectively by treating it seriously and making it scary even if that wasn't actually what was happening.

I think that making a twelve year old murder someone as the ending of the show is the most insane misunderstanding of Avatar they could come up with.

CharlesPhipps wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 6:20 pm I think that making a twelve year old murder someone as the ending of the show is the most insane misunderstanding of Avatar they could come up with.

More importantly the purpose of Aang sparing Ozai's life is to show that Might Does NOT make Right. Killing Ozai would just prove that he is right, that killing is the only solution and that whatever issues may come from him remaining alive it would be worse because they would be no better then their enemies.

However, I feel the way it was handled was clumsy. The issue of Aang not wanting to kill anyone is only brought up once before the finale and only returns DURING the finale. And as I've said before the reason for this seems to be more to give Aang SOMETHING in his conflict with Ozai as the two don't have any real connection because Ozai never really did anything against Aang.

And second Aang HAS killed before. While we can debate if anyone he's fought has died Aang did kill the Buzzard wasp in the episode The Desert, we see it's head get severed from it's body. So Aang saying he's never killed another living being is false.

I get what the episode is trying to say and I agree with it but the execution is clumsily handled with it being rushed, and trying to fill a void created by the writers not giving Aang and Ozai any connection beyond "Each other's final obstacle."

Something that kinda bug me is no one even suggested the possibility of letting Aang take Ozai down, and letting someone else deliver the final blow themselves isn't suggested, of six people they have why are they putting the burden of execution on the sole member who would have a problem with that.

CharlesPhipps wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 6:20 pm I think that making a twelve year old murder someone as the ending of the show is the most insane misunderstanding of Avatar they could come up with.

I think there's a huge ocean of possibilities between Aang ripping the air from Ozai's lungs and watching coldly as he takes his last breath, and oh hey look at this turtle island in the very last episode that has the answer to all your problems.

Just a simple beatdown and imprison would not be that much different from the actual ending we got without needing to add that extra element out of nowhere.

I really have no problem with energy bending as it's used in TLA. It's like blood bending in that it is a very particular ability which requires a true master to really pull off. If anything, I have much, much more of a problem with Ty Lee's ability as far as something being overpowered is concerned.

I think that perhaps part of the problem is that we are all looking at this from the standpoint of a post-Korra franchise where bending has been so watered down and trivialized that anytime we see a form of bending used at all we assume anyone is able to do it.

In TLA, we see blood bending as a technique that only one (and later two) people in the entire world have ever thought of let alone managed to actually do, and it requires the full moon to do it. In Korra, it can be done at any time.

In TLA, Toph is presented as essentially the greatest earth bender ever to live and because of this she is able to develop the technique to bend metal, but by Korra it's perfectly normal.

In fact, by the time of Korra it seems that all bending is widely diversified and special techniques that were once accessible to the greatest masters only are doable by the masses.

Now let's be clear that I'm not arguing against Korra's treatment of bending as somehow impossible or inconsistent. Sure, given a hundred years' time it's conceivable that something like this Bending could develop like this, and so the series' creators didn't present something unbelievable or inconsistent with the franchise's established rules or lore. However, I do think that it was a poor creative choice to take bending in this direction, and I think that the way we look back at stuff like energy bending in TLA is evidence of just how far reaching the impact of this creative choice was.

If we can step back in time to before we saw Korra, though, I don't think energy bending is really that much of a deus ex machina or something out of place. TLA spends a lot of time establishing that the origins of bending are shrouded in mystery and legend, that the true powers of the Avatar are tied to the spirit world and that there is more going on than anyone fully understands, etc.

I think one of the greatest weaknesses of Korra is that it tries to answer all of those mysteries and give a full history of bending and the results are... not great. I think that's probably also a danger with trying to delve into energy bending further as suggested here.