History Headscratchers / TheLegendOfKorraTechnologyAndMedicine

** I figured that the technological development was meant to reflect the rapid technological leap East Asian countries went through during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Though this was largely because Asia was catching up to the West's rapid progress they'd ignored. Still, after WW2 South Korea was basically rural and now it's an economic powerhouse. Before that, Japan basically went from feudal-era weaponry to Imperial Japan's WW2 military in less than a century. China experienced double-digit economic growth for around 20 years. I still think it's a bit unrealistic how much of a tech and industry boom happened in-between Airbender and Korra, but it does have some basis in reality.

** Four counter-arguments: 1) MedievalStasis doesn't explain it, when ''The Legend of Korra'' shows that the Avatar ''can'' go through rapid societal and technological changes. 2) The FarEast has never been in a state of stasis, and the area certainly experienced massive changes in the 10,000 years that preceded the 1920s (the decade equivalent to the setting of [=TLoK=]). 3) It's never said the previously Avatars "deliberately kept the four nations separate"; why would they have done so? Roku tried to stop Sozen from forcibly colonizing a part of the Earth Kingdom, but it seems unlikely the Avatars would've been against peaceful trade and exhange of ideas between the nations, which would lead to technological and social progress. 4) There's little information on the history of the Avatar world preceding the 100 Year War, so how would we know there were no large scale trade networks? Since bending allows greater mobility for trade vessels, and the Avatar world appears to be significantly smaller than ours, so there's no reason to assume such trade routes didn't exist. Also, even the members of Katara and Sokka's remote tribe seem to have a decent basic knowledge on the other three nations and their habits, and merchants in Earth Kingdom recognize the coins Katara and Sokka give to them as Water Tribe money, so it looks like trade and exchange of knowledge between the nations was going on the whole time, and they weren't being kept completely separate.

* The Earth Empire mecha suits are affected by electromagnetic pulses; this would seem to suggest that they incorporate some form of integrated circuitry. However, all the other technology seen throughout the series indicate that the Avatar world is still in an era where vacuum tubes would be dominant. Just how smart and ahead-of-his-time ''is'' Varrick?

* When the airbenders are attacking the colossus with paint bombs, they're able to get quite close to the windows in it head, and Meelo actually squashes against one. Why then, instead of the paint attack that would at best only slow the mecha down, didn't they try to break the windows and attack Kuvira? There's absolutely no hint in the series that anyone has come up with armored glass strong enough to withstand a master bender. And if airbending is not enought to break the windows, why not have Korra fly there and firebend or earthbend (glass is made of sand, so earthbending should work on it) a hole to the glass? Sure, they would be vulnerable to the colossus swatting them with its hands, but they had the same problem with their ultimate plan, and they still carried it out. (Also, presumably Kuvira would've been more wary of swatting them while they're attached to the colossus' head, since she might've accidentally broken the windows herself while trying to hit the airbenders.) Of course it's still possible this tactic might've failed for one reason or another, but it's weird they didn't even think of trying to exploit such and obvious weak spot in the colossus.

** Four counter-arguments: 1) MedievalStasis doesn't explain it, when ''The Legend of Korra'' shows that the Avatar ''can'' go through rapid societal and technological changes. 2) The FarEast has never been in a state of stasis, and the area certainly experienced massive changes in the 10,000 years that preceded the 1920s (the decade equivalent to the setting of [=TLoK=]). 3) It's never said the previously Avatars "deliberately kept the four nations separate"; why would they have done so? Roku tried to stop Sozen from forcibly colonizing a part of the Earth Kingdom, but it seems unlikely the Avatars would been against peaceful trade and exhange of ideas between the nations, which would lead to technological and social progress. 4) There's little information on the history of the Avatar world preceding the 100 Year War, so how would we know there were no large scale trade networks? Since bending allows greater mobility for trade vessels, and the Avatar world appears to be significantly smaller than ours, so there's no reason to assume such trade routes didn't exist. Also, even the members of Katara and Sokka's remote tribe seem to have a decent basic knowledge on the other three nations and their habits, and merchants in Earth Kingdom recognize the coins Katara and Sokka give to them as Water Tribe money, so it looks like trade and exchange of knowledge between the nations was going on the whole time, and they weren't being kept completely separate.

** Four counter-arguments: 1) MedievalStasis doesn't explain it, when ''The Legend of Korra'' shows that the Avatar ''can'' go through rapid societal and technological changes. 2) The FarEast has never been a state of stasis, and the area certainly experienced massive changes in the 10,000 years that preceded the 1920s (the decade equivalent to the setting of [=TLoK=]). 3) It's never said the previously Avatars "deliberately kept the four nations separate"; why would they have done so? Roku tried to stop Sozen from forcibly colonizing a part of the Earth Kingdom, but it seems unlikely the Avatars would been against peaceful trade and exhange of ideas between the nations, which would lead to technological and social progress. 4) There's little information on the history of the Avatar world preceding the 100 Year War, so how would we know there were no large scale trade networks? Since bending allows greater mobility for trade vessels, and the Avatar world appears to be significantly smaller than ours, so there's no reason to assume such trade routes didn't exist. Also, even the members of Katara and Sokka's remote tribe seem to have a decent basic knowledge on the other three nations and their habits, and merchants in Earth Kingdom recognize the coins Katara and Sokka give to them as Water Tribe money, so it looks like trade and exchange of knowledge between the nations was going on the whole time, and they weren't being kept completely separate.