Line #48 Fridge/AvatarTheLastAirbenderThePromise


1	%%
2	%%
3	%%
4	%% This isn't Troper Tales or a forum. Refrain from first person entries, speculation, and "replying" to entries. Administrivia/RepairDontRespond is in effect here as much as any other page.
5	%%
6	%%
7	%%
8	%%
9	%%
10	%%
11	%%
12	%%
13	%%
14	%%
15
16	!!FridgeBrilliance
17	* In one of Aang's visits to an airbender temple, a airbender game is shown with balls and poles. This, in addition to "Earth Rumble," suggests that sports involving bending were common even before "Pro Bending."
18	* In Tales of Ba Sing Se, Iroh finds a handful of kids playing what appears to be an Earthbending-based version of Soccer. Since the URN began as Earth Kingdom territory, the game could have been adapted to include other benders.
19	* Aang runs into trouble because his concept of 4 separate nations cannot accommodate mixed bender families, and he feels that harmony cannot be achieved otherwise, but what have he and Katara been doing all along? The Gaang too? Could the realization have given him the idea that the United Republic might work? He's already faced the issue at a personal level, now he shows the way in extending it to the rest of the world.
20	** Aang is having trouble with current events because his understanding of the world is 100 years out of date. Part 1 and even the show itself highlights his antiquated concept of culture- especially Fire Nation culture. He's having difficulty understanding the situation because he's trying to pull StatusQuoIsGod with century-old 'quo.
21	*** Part of Zuko's struggle is that he realizes this, but can't find a way out of it.
22	* Yu Dao is a hundred years old - '''''the''''' oldest colony, established by Fire Lord Sozin, perhaps the very one Roku broke up during "The Avatar And The Fire Lord", and the only one seen which has both Firebenders and Earthbenders, unlike Haru's village where they are imprisoned on identification, or Gaipan(the village Jet flooded) where there are no Earthbenders at ''all''. What if "colonies" like Yu Dao are what Sozin intended from ''day one'' - a way of "sharing the Fire Nation's prosperity with the world?" The only problem was, ''Roku wouldn't even look at it!'' The United Republic of Nations might have come about a century and a half earlier if only Roku and Sozin talked like grown-ups instead of children who stole each other's toys.
23	** Sozin not only turned out to be a WellIntentionedExtremist, but it also turned out that TheExtremistWasRight. Separation of the nations wasn't necessary for balance, and was in fact holding them back from the greater achievements seen in WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra. The general idea is that there was good to be had from the idea if Roku had not been so dismissive of it out of hand. There was a way to do achieve the effect we see in WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra '''without''' 100 years of war, ethnic cleansing, and all that. Roku could have steered Sozin towards those ends if he had put forth any effort in that regard. And if Sozin really did just want to conquer territory, then Roku could drop the hammer on him. And if Katara hadn't used her CooldownHug to ''point that out'', Aang would have ''[[HereWeGoAgain repeated Roku's mistake.]]'' Can we just say that Katara is '''awesome?'''
24	** Yeah, except Sozin wasn't advocating peaceful trade or cultural exchange; he was foisting the Fire Nation's prosperity onto the other nations whether they wanted it or not as a transparent excuse to grab power, and the whole shtick about "sharing" was just a flimsy cover to get Roku to go along with it on the strength of their friendship. The "brilliance" would be in the fact that Sozin's flimsy excuse was what actually ended up coming out of it once peace had been achieved.
25	*** And where does it prove that Sozin was lying about his motivations? Given at the time, they are still best friends, and that he had a guilty conscience at the very end of his life, he wouldn't lie to Roku about his intentions. Sozin only failed because he let his extremism override his well-intentions.
26	** Maybe Roku only knew his role to [[StatusQuoIsGod keep eternal separation]] as an Avatar that he was unable to comprehend the notions of multicultural coexistence, let alone a counterargument to Sozin's plan by [[TakeAThirdOption suggesting on soft power (trade agreements) rather than hard power (military might)]]. As we've seen in ''The Promise'', it was only through a long time of thinking during that crisis that such idea was conceived with Roku still conflating their peaceful coexistence with Sozin's conquests.
27	* Of ''course'' Sokka got his boomerang back, but not his sword- it's a boomerang. It's ''supposed'' to come back.
28	* So why might Zuko have gone to former EvilOverlord [[AbusiveParents Ozai]] for advice on running the country, rather than the only remaining member of his family who actually cares about him? Well, Zuko ''did'' go to Iroh for advice when ''he'' was the one in prison, back during the [=TV=] series, and his uncle refused to talk to him. Ozai, on the other hand, offered advice without even being asked--albeit at a cost. Maybe Zuko figured that it was Ozai or nothing, and he might as well take his chances.
29	** It ''was'' Ozai or nothing, because '''Ozai is the only man alive who has ever been in Zuko's position.''' Ozai is the only man alive who has ever been Fire Lord before, and Zuko knows this damn well. Gene Luen Yang mentioned in [[http://www.avatarspirit.net/interviews.php?id=25 an interview]] that he based this on a book called ''The President's Club'', which talks about how new presidents often seek advice from previous ones, even if they were bitter political enemies, just because ''no one else'' knows what it's like to be in that position unless they actually have been before. The interview also mentions part 3 giving another reason for Zuko not going to Iroh, and that turns out to be Zuko wanting to let Iroh ''retire in peace''. Iroh's had a rough life, he lost his only child to the royal family's -- ''his'' family's -- pointless war, and Zuko wants to let him enjoy his tea shop in peace. Iroh gently calls him out on this at the end of the comic, but there's Zuko's reasoning right there: Ozai is the only person who ''can'' advise him about being Fire Lord, and he wants to leave Iroh alone, after Iroh's wasted the last few years trying to give Zuko advice he wasn't grateful enough for.
30
31	!!FridgeHorror
32	* The scene with fire barrier of the rival Kunyo firebending school's students only warmed the metal coins Toph's metalbending students shoot at them. Thus said coins became dangerous to the firebenders than to the metalbenders. This explains why firearms seem conspicuously absent in ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' even though the technology level could easily support it (Sokka had gunpowder in one of the original series episodes).
33	* Remember when Zuko passed out and slept for four days? Sure, he's catching up on lost sleep, but he's probably also recovering from that dislocated shoulder. We last saw him falling off of a cliff. Assuming that the Avatar planet has around the same mass as Earth, he's accelerating at a rate of 32 feet per second squared. So every second he falls, he's falling 32 feet per second ''faster than the second before''. As he's falling, he has time to say "Aang, I don't--", which means that he's been falling for about a second and a half already. Moreover, he's falling face-first, meaning that when Aang catches him by the wrist, the rest of his body continues to drop, while his arm remains fixed. Estimating that Zuko is around six feet tall, and weighs 178 pounds, the resulting momentum means that it's Aang is even able to maintain his grasp on Zuko's wrist in the first place, and it's definitely enough to yank an arm out of its socket.
34	* Had it not for GreyAndGrayMorality and realization of their own flaws, the Team Avatar is this close to becoming DesignatedHero as they are basically deporting Fire Nation colonists without any clue that they are actually rooting them off their homes based on his obliviousness over why the residents of older colonies are upset over being "returned" to their homeland compared to the newer ones. This show how much resentment against Fire Nation and restoration of pre-Hundred Year War status quo have entrenched among the people of Avatar-verse.
35	* After rewatching the scene in the first part of the the final four part episode after you've read the Promise...
36
37	Aang: Get a grip before I blast you off this roof!
38
39	Zuko: Go ahead and do it!
40
41	...seems like The Promise as a whole might have been designed to be so that piece of the scene would retroactively work as [[Forshadowing]].
42
43	!!FridgeLogic
44	* Aang thought he was faced with two ways to maintain world peace and balance: create a world where all elements live together or keep each of them apart. However, the only option that is feasible is the former, because Aang forgot that he is the LAST AIRBENDER! Should he decided to choose the latter option and followed it rigidly, he would leave no descendants behind, resulting in the extinction of airbenders that would permanently damage the balance of the world. In other words, while he might be able to maintain world balance during his reign, the balance would die with him. Thankfully, he made the right choice in the end.
45	** Of course, the Avatar isn't immune to hypocrisy. That, or Aang has fallen into the trap [[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra Korra]] has: not really thinking out his future beyond being the Avatar. He's 13, after all, and how many 13-year-olds really think about their future marriages and children? Like Zuko, Aang is also a ''stubborn boy'' who isn't immune to acting rashly or without forethought. So he doesn't really think his whole plan through until Katara calls him on his hypocrisy.
46	* Boomerang always comes back! ...So when did Boomerang come back this time? He's pretty certain it wasn't coming back when he and Toph were in dire straits on the Airship in the ATLA finale, and then... he suddenly has it again in Part One here.
47	** It could just as easily be a new boomerang--it's not like Boomerang was a one-of-a-kind weapon, unlike Sokka's sword; replacing it can't have been too hard.
48	** Another alternative is that Sokka simply got up and looked for it. Given his impressive calculative ability he could have figured out its approximate location and started looking for it there.

Context Fridge / AvatarTheLastAirbenderThePromise