Line #755 Headscratchers/TheLegendOfKorraMisc


1	!Misc headscratchers pertaining to ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra''. Return to [[Headscratchers/TheLegendOfKorra the index]] for more.
2
3	'''Note: If a category gets large, feel free to split it into its own subpage.'''
4
5	[[foldercontrol]]
6	[[folder: Bizzaro seasons]]
7	* In the first season, it's apparently autumn: the trees in the park where Korra met Gommu in the first episode are all yellow and brown, and it's apparently cold throughout the rest of the season, with light snowfall being visible on a couple of nights. This fits well with bending cosmology: Winter is the season of water, Spring is the season of earth, Summer is the season of fire, and Autumn is the season of air. Korra Book One is Air, following A:TLA's three other books, so it makes sense for [=TLoK=] to start during the Fall. Fast forward to Season 2: it's mentioned that it's six months after the death of Amon, and ...it's right before the Winter Solstice. Either Avatar World has some serious climate change issues, or someone on the writing team didn't do the math.
8	** Which hemisphere is Republic City in? If it's in the southern hemisphere, then its fall would be the northern hemisphere's spring; meaning six months later ''would'' be the northern hemisphere's Winter Solstice.
9	** Actually as indicated by the first episode ,Republic City is in the North and the Time Korra was spending with her family ,she was in the Southern Water Tribe so your conclusion was correct exce[t reversed.
10	[[/folder]]
11
12	[[folder: Why isn't Lin a LivingLieDetector?]]
13	* Seriously, she can use the earthbending sonar sense, her mother invented the technique, and she's the freaking chief of police. Did she never once think that that might be a useful skill to learn?
14	** Zaofu touts itself as the safest city in the world due in part to having ''one'' LivingLieDetector, who gets the special title Truthseer, and that one Truthseer is the only one we've met besides Toph herself. Furthermore, the ability was completely unheard of to Team Avatar. This seems to suggest that it is a difficult and rare technique that not everyone can learn.
15	** Re-watching Season 1, Lin uses the lie-detecting ability on an Equalist {{Mook}} to verify that the Equalists had not been the ones to kidnap Korra. Mako, Bolin, and Asami were there when she did it. It's odd that there's no mention of the ability afterwards, but she had it then at least. Is there a trope like CharacterizationMarchesOn, but with abilities instead of personality?
16	** It is also notable that even Toph's lie-detecting was not perfect, Azula proved it could be fooled and it seems doubtful that Lin is as skilled as Toph at this ability.
17	** She determined Korra wasn't in the Equalist prison using her seismic sense -- she scanned the prison and was able to see Korra was nowhere inside. She never even tried to determine whether or not the equalist Mako had up against the wall was lying or not. So, no, Lin has never demonstrated the Earthbending LivingLieDetector ability. It's odd that she would never learn/have been able to learn it, but not impossible.
18	** Since Toph was blind, she already had to rely on things like sound and vibrations in order to get a sense of the world around her. As such, she would be well-accustomed to the normal range of vital signs people have, and so it would be easy for her to pick up on even subtle changes that would indicate someone is lying. Lin ''is'' able to rely primarily on her eyes, so she isn't as attuned to this - note how she has to remove the sole of her shoe and stomp the ground in order to activate her seismic sense, whereas Toph could do it almost effortlessly.
19	[[/folder]]
20
21	[[folder:Platinum is common?]]
22	* Platinum a precious metal (about as rare as gold), but it seems everyone has a healthy supply of it to block metalbending. Enough to protect entire armies, or to build a HumongousMecha. No one ever discusses this, is it just not as rare in the Avatar world? And, narrative-wise, why pick ''platinum'', which isn't notably strong? Why not tungsten?
23	** It's rare on Earth. Doesn't mean it's rare everywhere.
24	** Which leaves the issue of platinum's lack of strength. Yeah, you can't bend it, but it's weak enough that any earthbender of decent strength should be able to bash it in with a boulder.
25	** No one said that platinum has the same level of strength/resilience it does in our world either - we explicitly saw Korra bash the head (and arm) of the Colossus with several big chunks of rock, without any appreciable damage or impact. It even survived half of a building collapsing upon it with little outward damage, and ultimately, they needed makeshift platinum cutter saws to make a dent. Plus, narratively, platinum is a rarer material to hear of, but not uncommon enough to be unknown among general audiences... tungsten and other lesser elements don't have that luxury.
26	** Then it's not really platinum, is it? In that case, just call it [[{{Unobtanium}} Bendertanium]] or just a super pure steel alloy.
27	** For all intents and purposes, it ''is'' platinum - like many other details in fiction, a little artistic license is simply taken out. Which is also what SuspensionOfDisbelief and AcceptableBreaksFromReality are for.
28	** Tungsten being less heard of makes it ''more'' practical, because even if people haven't heard of it, it still fits the requirement of being a very tough material used for armor and the like, instead of just changing platinum's availability and properties. It's like if instead of creating Kryptonite, a weird rock from outer space, in Superman's world, aluminum glows green and is somehow radioactive and deadly to him. It's just a weird choice.
29	** That's just it though; people not having heard about Tungsten much (if at all), just means it wouldn't be practical as a narrative element - but most everyone has heard of platinum, so the issue doesn't come up with that element. That, combined with the artistic license (platinum being stronger than it realistically is), the SuspensionOfDisbelief/AcceptableBreaksFromReality (which we all use with fiction to some degree), means that it works, at least more-or-less. Tungsten likely would have still worked, just less effectively due to many people not having heard about/remembering it before.
30	** My point is familiarity with platinum means people will understand why that doesn't make sense. It's like introducing a tank made out of gold. And it doesn't ''have'' to be tungsten, that was just an example. Let's say aluminum, or titanium, which is synonymous with "really dang strong".
31	** And that's also part of my point; people know about platinum's ''existence'', not necessarily how strong it is compared to other metals. But even if they did, because this is fiction, they see the artistic license, and the AcceptableBreaksFromReality, acknowledge it, and move on because it's part of the story they're trying to enjoy - or at least most would, considering it's such a small detail in the first place, and not really worth being put off about.
32	** However, even in common understanding of metals, Platinum is not known for its strength or purity - it is known for its rarity and it's precious quality. For AcceptableBreaksFromReality to be relevant, it would need to match the properties associated with it by the masses, which it doesn't. It isn't rare and it's a building material, so it isn't precious in universe. Typically, the go to metal for purity for the masses is gold or silver, not platinum, and the go to metal for strength and durability is titanium. So the 'platinum' in universe doesn't match the physical properties of reality and doesn't match the audiences expectations for what the metal would be. It stops being an AcceptableBreaksFromReality and becomes {{Unobtainium}}, at which point there is no point to call it platinum.
33	* Sato was one of the richest men in the world. Kuvira had almost all of the Earth Kingdom's resources at her finger tips. Cost is no issue. However cost is irrelevent when the supply does not exist. This is however not a matter you can just hand waive, Platinum is rarer than gold. No sorry, its in a whole other league, all the platinum mined in the world can fit in your average living room. A much more plausible and reasonable assumption would be to have made some alloy of super pure Steel, not your common household item, but not flat out impossible. The only way for platinum to be more common in the Avatar world is if they either somehow invented space travel to mine it from asteroids, or they risk forming volcanoes (And the whole plethora of problems with them including global cooling) to get at a relatively worthless resource for them.
34	** Or, the distribution of metals in the Avatar world is not an exact copy of ours. Just like the map and any number of other things isn't the same.
35	** My headcanon is that in the avatarverse, the metals are all the same stuff, but they are purified, and when they are pure enough they get another name. Why? well, it's said that platinum is so pure not even toph could bend it, but it doesn't have to be, you can have 'unrefined' platinum, or really refined iron. IMO in the avatarverse the ore is melted, impurities are taken out until the stuff is pure enough for te job, which may be iron-grade, steel-grade or the highest(so far) platinum-grade. This explains the abundance of platinum-grade in the Earth kindom: the refining method for metals would be to melt it in a location protected from impurities, make some earthbenders bend the impurities away through a chute or something. so if you have good benders you can make really good metal. lower purities are used as much as possible because you need less earthbenders.
36	*** The problem is that, outside of certain specialized uses and just plain selling the stuff, you don't want really pure metal. The very impurities (read: Carbon) that a metalbender would latch on to are what gives forged metals their strength. Again, pure platinum would be shite armor for anything but resisting bending.
37	** Platinum is probably somewhat easier to come by in a world with earth benders. Also, the mechs aren't solid platinum, merely the outside. Simply having a platinum shell seems to be enough to block metal bending. Kuvira managed to get enough by using the domes from Zaofu.
38	*** And again, we get right back to the issue of platinum's physical properties. Even if Earthbending makes the mining and refining processes super efficient (hence, more is available), if it's thick enough to withstand normal earthbending attacks, it's too heavy to let those mechs move like they do. If it's thin enough, it's easily breachable with a rock thrown hard enough. If it's strong and light enough to resist both, it's Unobtanium.
39	** The [=ATLA=] comics reveal that Republic City started as a mining town, so it stands to reason that mining for metals is one of its biggest industries and may even have access to large platinum deposits.
40	* It's also possible that people in the Avatarverse are using the word "platinum" as a simple and convenient catch-all term for any super-refined metals.
41	[[/folder]]
42
43	[[folder:So, why did Korra learn Airbending last?]]
44	* Yes, Korra had a better connection to the other elements, which is why she figured out how to bend them on her own when she was still very young. But that's exactly the point - her natural affinity means that there's less reason to take the time to truly master it, she'd quickly become proficient. Meanwhile, you have airbending. The Air Nomads are on the brink of extinction - for the longest time, Tenzin and Aang. Then, Aang dies, leaving Tenzin the only airbender. Tenzin doesn't have his first child until several years after Korra figures out that she's the Avatar. So, at this point, the only person in the entire world that knows anything about Airbending is Tenzin - if he died, all knowledge of Airbending techniques would be lost. Even if, say, he died while Pema was pregnant with Jinora. Even if they were teaching the Air Acolytes the basic airbending "techniques" (such as the spinning board maze... thing), how would the Air Acolytes ever be able to teach Jinora and Korra how to Airbend? They'd essentially have to reinvent the art entirely. To wait so long to teach her Airbending shows an incredible lack of foresight.
45	** There hasn't been a official reason given for why the Avatar must learn the bending arts in order of the Avatar Cycle. People just believe the Avatar must learn the elements in order. It may have something to do with learning the elements in that particular order helps/prepares them to learn the next art. The White Lotus might have even believed Korra learning the other bending arts first would help her to become more spiritual to prepare her for air bending.
46	** Aang was perfectly willing to learn Firebending first. As far as I can recall, there wasn't even any mention that he "should" learn it last.
47	** That and there's mentioning that the most difficult element for the Avatar to master is the element that goes against the Avatar's personality. Korra's personality is...decidedly not like an Airbender's, which is why she had such a hard time with it. I'm surprised she was able to learn waterbending, as I'm sure you have to have some fluidity in that area.
48	** That's the point. Airbending is what gives her the most trouble, so it will take her the longest to get proficient at. Since Airbending is also on the verge of becoming a lost art, learning it should top priority. If something happened to Tenzin, he'd have absolutely no way to teach her anything before he died. I suppose after Tenzin's kids were revealed as Airbenders, it's less urgent, but still.
49	** They explained this back in the last series. For the Avatar, each art builds on the next, which is why they do it in the pattern. Airbending is last because the last Avatar was an airbender. Aang was scolded for wanting to learn fire before he'd even mastered water, much less earth.
50	** Out of universe it would be that we saw Aang learn the first 3 elements, so to show Korra learning them would inevitably lead to the show retreading stuff we'd already seen, whereas with air Aang was already a master so we didn't see him learning it, so LOK had new ground to work with.
51	[[/folder]]
52
53	[[folder: If Aang didn't die at age 60...]]
54	* Would Korra just be a typical waterbender? Would she even exist?
55	** Same with Roku, would Aang be a normal airbender or would he have never existed either?
56	** Her parents would have a kid, but that kid wouldn't be the Korra we know, as it wouldn't have the same soul (since the Avatar soul would still be incarnated as Aang). So yeah, a regular waterbender, or maybe even a non-bender.
57	[[/folder]]
58
59	[[folder: What happens when a non-Bender dies?]]
60	* The Avatar is explicitly reincarnated, and there is a Spirit World that I presume holds the rest of the dead people in some form or another, but bending is also a spiritual connection as well as a power. Non-Benders don't have that. So do they still end up in the same place as Benders when they die?
61	** The Avatar is a special case. Aside from animals, we've never seen a single human in the spirit world that wasn't an Avatar. It stands to reason the afterlife is all-inclusive, and Avatars are the ones being short-changed.
62	** I figured that everyone was reincarnated, and only the Avatar has access to his/her past lives.
63	** Humans have been seen in the Spirit World. Remember when that panda spirit took all the villagers there? Also, Iroh has been stated to have visited the Spirit World (perhaps in an Orpheus-and-Eurydice-like quest for his dead son).
64	** Those were living humans, not dead ones. We've never seen anything to indicate that dead humans end up in the spirit world.
65	** [[spoiler: Iroh living in the spirit world is treated as an exception, so it seems that is not the conventional afterlife. It's likely that regular people, benders or otherwise, just reincarnate, same as the Avatar.]]
66	[[/folder]]
67
68	[[folder: A waste of a trip]]
69	* The beginning of the series started with Tenzin only dropping in to tell Korra her air bending training would be put on indefinite hold before heading back to Republic City in the morning. Was there no other way for Tenzin to communicate this than to take his entire family, including his very pregnant wife, and then fly them more than half way across the world to spend a single night at the South Pole? Was the use of carrier hawks discontinued in the past 70 years?
70	** Maybe he'd been planning on visiting Katara anyway and decided that was as good a time as any to let Korra know what was going on?
71	** Because Tenzin wanted to break the news, in person, as he knew Korra would be upset. She likely would have been more upset/angry if Tenzin had just sent a letter. A letter likewise could be more easily misunderstood than a face to face conversation. Tenzin also visiting Katara and likely conversing with the rest of the White Lotus as well.
72	[[/folder]]
73
74	[[folder: Where are the Equalists getting their resources?]]
75	* The Equalists are supposed to be a repressed minority fighting the system, but they somehow had the resources to construct stores and eventually transport and hang a gargantuan statue mask all to make just a statement.
76	** Just because there's prejudice against non-benders doesn't necessarily mean they have no resources whatsoever. Stuff like shop keeping is probably one of the few things they can do, for instance, since it doesn't require any bending skills. Plus, the Satos, a non-bending family, seem to be pretty rich, and Hiroshi is specifically stated to be the one providing the Equalists with most of their gear.
77	** Before Amon started making a stink about things, we're never shown any evidence that there was a substantial divide between benders and non-benders. There was ''one'' shopkeeper who was being extorted by a gang of bender criminals in the first episode, and the police showed up to arrest not only the criminals, but the Avatar who caused damage in her attempts to stop them. Coupled with factors like how wealthy and respected the Satos are, there's an implication that Amon and the Equalists were making a big ado about nothing.
78	** Although, the big mask for Aang's statue came after they had already taken over the city. They could have easily redirected its resources into doing that.
79	[[/folder]]
80
81	[[folder: Amon's stance]]
82	* Why does Amon always use the energy bending stance if he’s not energy bending? It makes sense when he does it for a crowd, but he also does it when no one else is around.
83	** Making this all the more confusing, blood bending is a technique that doesn’t require human contact, so why couldn’t he just cut off bending from afar?
84	** One possible solution: When he does it, his thumb is on the victim's forehead (location of one of the seven chakras). IIRC, he is using a very precise form of bloodbending to, essentially, permanently chi-block his victims by severing the chakra paths in their bodies. Since chi-blocking ''does'' require direct physical contact, maybe his bending removal trick does as well.
85	** Normal blood bending doesn't require physical contact, his bending blocking technique could very well require it. Just like normal waterbending can be done from afar but healing requires them to be very close.
86	[[/folder]]
87
88	[[folder: Was Wan the first to steal fire?]]
89	* It is hard to believe that no one before Wan has tried to harness fire for their own gain and that the hunters wouldn’t have a defense for it.
90	** Wan's friend warns him that he'll be banished to the spirit wilds if it's discovered he stole the fire, so there's obviously some precedent for it. Possibly, most residents of the city are well-off enough to not need to steal fire (since it's only given to a very small group of hunters), and those who did steal it were caught, banished to the wilds, and killed because they weren't able to assimilate.
91	[[/folder]]
92
93	[[folder: Instant mastery]]
94	* Despite being a first time fire user when he attacked the Chou compound, Wan displaced masterful level of control in not setting anyone or anything on fire.
95	** That's partially the point. Even when he had that power, he wasn't the kind of person who could use it to its full destructive potential. On the other hand, there wasn't a lot of flammable scenery around during the raid. He broke down the door to the food cellar, but that was it.
96	[[/folder]]
97
98	[[folder: Vaatu killing Raava]]
99	* Why does Vaatu think that Raava’s death would be permanent?
100	** He doesn't. He's already destroyed her before and she's destroyed him. It's a cycle that had been repeated indefinitely, and each time it happens, the world ends and a new one is created in a way. The only thing that happens when one destroys the other is that they become one again and the 'destroyed' half just has to regenerate for several thousand years.
101	** It's more of the fact that he and Raava have never been separated before. Vaatu theorised that, due to their separation, destroying Raava this time might be permanent. He even says as much himself.
102	[[/folder]]
103
104	[[folder: Light and darkness, order and chaos]]
105	* Why does chaos and darkness become more potent without peace and light, but peace and light weakens without peace and light?
106	** Sorry, could you rephrase that or provide a little context?
107	[[/folder]]
108
109	[[folder: Bloodbending, chi-blocking]]
110	* Blocking chi with blood bending denotes a physical block, and since Katara is a blood bender, shouldn’t she be able to reverse what Amon did and remove the block? Even if she couldn’t do it at that moment, she should have been able to do it during a full moon.
111	** Her bending was blocked. She can't blood bend her bending back if she can't even bend anything at all. There is also the fact that no one knew that Amon was blood bending, so why would they try a seemingly random thing to try and regain their bending?
112	*** They asked about Katara restoring people's bending, not Korra. And by the time Korra lost her bending, everyone knew that Amon was a bloodbender. That said, since Aang is the one who gives Korra her bending back, I'd assume that the answer is probably that it requires some extra spiritual powers that Katara doesn't have in order to make sure it works (especially since, in Korra's case, at least, she's getting ''three'' kinds of bending back instead of just one).
113	** Also, just because it involves bloodbending doesn't mean Katara will know exactly how to undo it. She only bloodbended twice briefly in the first series, and then swore she would never do it again. Yakone, Tarlokk, and Noatak were all skilled and powerful enough that they could do it without a full moon. The three of them were leagues ahead of her.
114	[[/folder]]
115
116	[[folder: Spirits and the portals]]
117	* Wan closes the spirit portal so that no human could physically enter the spirit world and release Vaatu. However, sealing the portal flat out doesn’t stop humans from entering the spirit world, not even in Korra. You could say it severely limits entry, but entry wasn’t an issue. Humans hide on lion turtles to even survive the spirit invasion, barely venturing into the wilderness for food. Only Wan thought it prudent to free a dark red monster with a demonic voice, then have the gall to be surprised it was evil. So this is Wan's contingency plan to ensure people like him don’t keep fucking it up for the rest. Or some one dimensional Saturday morning cartoon villain with a paper thin motivation to destroy the world. So he had a point.
118	** The only veritable benefit of sealing the portals would be to contain the spirits, but it doesn’t stop spirits either. In ''Avatar'', spirits showed up whenever they wanted and never had to use a portal. Maybe Kou, Heiby, or Wan Shi Tan, then it would be dangerous to leave the portal open so that unvetted low level spirits could just waltz in also and mess with people in a world where most humans have no means of fighting back.
119	** Is this even a question? I can't figure out what it's trying to say.
120	[[/folder]]
121
122	[[folder: Were the first airbenders in danger?]]
123	* Same as everyone else, the ancient airbenders lived on a lion turtle and borrowed its powers when they needed to head out to gather food. So presumably, they were under as much threat from the spirits, and yet they had a huge infestation of spirits on the lion turtle that didn’t hurt them until they were corrupted. So where these just the only peaceful spirits out there, or was the air benders' natural pacifism that kept them from being killed?
124	** Probably, the air benders' natural pacifism saved them.
125	** The problem most spirits ("most" admittedly being Raava and the Aye-aye) were shown to have with humans was that they didn't respect nature. Take the firebenders, for example - fire destroys nature, and the first firebenders used their power to burn down forests and kill other animals for food. The first airbenders, meanwhile, were peaceful vegetarians who used their bending to collect food and provide for themselves without disrupting nature, so the spirits weren't as likely to bother them.
126	*** But that’s a VERY flawed view of nature. In nature, fire is supposed to burn to clear rotting detritus, promote healthy growth of surviving plants, and return carbon, nitrogen and other essential nutrients to the soil. Indeed, massive wildfires that threaten ecosystems are starting to occur in Australia and California because humans were STOPPING fires. Is it ever established why it’s ‘against nature’ to eat animals? The very existence of carnivores prove that nature permits creatures to eat each other. Hell, the giant tree from the TLA shows that even vegans are hurting nature. What were humans doing that was against nature then? Humans need minerals, lipids, and essential amino acids from animal tissues. To replicate those would require tilling soil to cultivate agriculture for mass consumption, industry to synthesize artificial nutrients, and a large research base w/ associated infrastructure to study this. Veganism and Pacifism as the Air Benders would insist wouldn’t have ever lasted since they’d have died of Iron-deficiency anemia after a few months.
127	*** No one claimed the spirits are any less biased than the humans. The real problem is ''balance''. Humans take too much. Humans use to much, they do not give nature a chance to recover. Wildfires are caused far more by human carelessness than nature and thus far more damage. Look at what happened to Hei Bei's forest. That only happens because humans were literally destroying the forest. Sure you can say that Wan's people needed to clear some of the forest to make a home. The problem is they were not concerned with the amount of damage they could do and they assumed the spirits were attacking purely out of spite and not concern for the forest. Likewise, Aye-Aye didn't think the humans were destroying the forest for any good reason, assuming they were destroying for the fun of it. Both sides assumed the worst. What they really needed was a moderator to act between them.
128	[[/folder]]
129
130	[[folder: Effectiveness of the Avatar State]]
131	* Korra's connection to her past lives was severed, so since the Avatar State was simply the combined knowledge and skill of all Avatars, the State would either stop existing or be useless. Except for some reason, it still works like before?
132	** Wan was the First Avatar (no previous Avatars/past lives), and he was able to go into the Avatar State, demonstrated during the fight with Vaatu. So that implies that the Avatar State is more than just the accumulation of the knowledge and skills of the previous Avatars. Rather, the Avatar is entering a state in which he is directly channeling the power of Raava herself, and it is via this power that the knowledge/experience of previous Avatars(if applicable) is also available. Also, consider that it is stated in both series that killing the Avatar while in the Avatar State would end the Avatar Cycle...which is only possible if doing so would not only kill the Avatar, but ''also kill Raava herself''.
133	** The Avatar State ''did'' get a noticeable downgrade in seasons 3 and 4, as well. In the original series, it was powerful enough to completely curbstomp the most powerful firebender on the planet with no opposition. In season 3 of this show, it doesn't even give Korra much of an edge when she goes up against a bender of the most combat-ineffective element of air.
134	** Combat-ineffective? Hardly. Just because its users are not as inclined to lethal blows doesn't mean that it's somehow less useful in combat. Also, in that part Korra is also ''dying of poison'', which is going to seriously limit her abilities. I don't think it's indicative of the Avatar State's actual strength. It's like saying a rifle became weaker because in one scene it was being fired by a healthy commando, but in the next it was being fired by someone with a broken hand.
135	** Not saying it isn't as useful, just not as effective at fighting compared to firebending (which can incinerate your opponents), earthbending (which could crush them or restrain them in a column of stone), or waterbending (which can drown them or freeze them in a block of ice). Airbending can knock people around, for sure, but even Zaheer's suffocation move seems to be a finishing thing, something he's not able able to do unless his opponent is already incapacitated. There's a reason he spends most of the fight at a distance while dodging most of Korra's attacks.
136	** Gyatso was found next to dozens of Firebender bodies -- firebenders who would have died ''amped up by Sozin's Comet''. Zaheer fought and beat Kya, a master waterbender. Aang beat damn near everyone he fought one-on-one before he picked up any of the other elements. The idea that airbending isn't effective in combat is belied by literally the entirety of both series. The reason he spends most of the fight dodging is because Korra is in the Avatar State and not dodging means death, not because Zaheer's airbending (which, again, he has used repeatedly throughout the series to ''trounce'' experienced, expert benders) is inherently weak.
137	** Maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't recall Aang winning very many direct confrontations when he was using only airbending. The one that sticks out most was his first encounter with Zuko, who had underestimated him and was trying to capture him alive. And I'll give you that Gyatso did take down a good number of firebenders in his dying moments (though I'd also argue that airbending has its own sort of natural efficiency against firebending, as demonstrated many times), but that doesn't change the simple fact that air, on its own, is less likely to cause significant damage than water, earth, fire, or a combination of them. I don't mean any disrespect towards air; it's just the way the world works.
138	*** Airbending's combat efficacy seems to be partly due to it's rarity. In ''Avatar's'' early episodes, the only person alive who'd seen an airbender in action was King Bumi (who thrashes Aang in their encounter). Only a handful of elite benders were shown capable of standing up to Aang, even without his Avatar abilities. In ''TLOK'', for the first half of the series, the only Airbenders around were Aang's descendants and Korra. Airbending is clearly OP as hell (ex: How Tarrlok only makes his move against Korra when he realizes she can't airbend, Zaheer being nigh-unbeatable, despite having no practical training and only theoretical knowledge of airbending.), but people clearly being caught flatfooted when confronted with airbending only adds to it's prowess.
139	* It should be remembered that Aang's Avatar State differed from Korra's not just by having the past Avatars' experience but also in that Aang never really mastered his Avatar State, so every time it triggered he went completely berserk and never held back. Korra on the other hand had full control and so wasn't going all out all the time, so she seems weaker because she's deliberately holding back.
140	** Aang had mastered the state the last two times we see him use it in ATLA: The Season 3 finale (when he triggers the state willfully, but is lightning backstabbed by Azula before he could act) and during the showdown with Ozai (Watch again: Once his chakra is unblocked, Aang is in full control).
141	*** Aang wasn't in full control either of those times. Mastering the Avatar state is more than just learning to trigger it at will. It takes time and experience to master it, even Roku never mastered it completely
142	** Yeah, Aang absolutely did master the Avatar State. In the flashbacks in this series we see Aang as an adult use it in full control.
143	*** I assumed that Raava being reduced down to her core essence also reduced the overall power of the Avatar State. Not to mention Korra relies far too much on raw strength in combat. An opponent prepared to counter that (as Zaheer clearly was) would give her problems, regardless of her power level. Note how he was able to fend off Korra in a full Avatar State rage in the S3 finale.
144	* The thing is, the Avatar state consists of two parts: previous Avatars' skills + raw power of Raava. Now, Wan fused with Raava at her absolute weakest, whereas Korra did so with Raava at her strongest. What the second Avatar cycle lacks in experience is more or less fully compensated by the sheer firepower it provides.
145	[[/folder]]
146
147	[[folder: "Avatar"]]
148	* I once heard somewhere that ''Legend of Korra'' couldn't use the word "Avatar" in its title like the previous series, due to the release of the ''Avatar'' film in 2009. If that's true, though, the original series began its runtime ''before'' the James Cameron film came out, so shouldn't it hold the rights to the word above the movie?
149	** It's less about who holds the rights and more about just avoiding confusion. Presumably, Nickelodeon didn't copyright just the word "Avatar," but rather the whole title, "Avatar: The Last Airbender." And, as you say, they released that before Cameron's film came out. After that, having it start "Avatar," could confuse unfamiliar viewers into thinking it was related to the film, and could invite a lawsuit.
150	[[/folder]]
151
152	[[folder: The Unalaq]]
153	* Since this is about mischellanous Headscratchers and this one is an out-of-universe question, I think it's better to put this here instead of the Book 2 page. Regardless, isn't Unalaq's [[TheScrappy scrappy status]] a bit unearned? Judging by the series rather than what the fandom itself thinks, it is made clear by not just Unalaq himself, but also Korra and Toph, that he is not a one dimensional cartoon supervillain like the trope says he is, but a [[KnightTemplar well-intentioned, yet delusional person who started off with the best of interests but went to extremes in doing so]], just like the other [[BigBad, Big Bads]]. And it's not just a lie he made up to gain power, because he continues to genuinely believe in this rehtoric after he's revealed to be the villain, saying what Avatar Wan did by closing the human and spirit portals was not good and that the Avatar has only brought chaos, something he seeks to rectify by uniting spirits and humans together again (he would have no reason to lie about his motivations because everyone that heard his speech already knows he's evil, so there's no point to fool anybody). True, he intends to do all of this by fusing with the closest thing to Satan this universe has, but that's only supervillainy if you think Satan is evil, and there are some who don't see him as bad. Unalaq could be similar to them. Sure he reaches OmnicidalManiac status in the end, but only after the fusion and it doesn't change the fact he thinks his ideals are the right one, not just a TakeOverTheWorld for the hell of it, Muahahaha bad guy the fandom seems to paint him as. (That's more in line with Varrick's propaganda version, and we know Varrick CANNOT stand Unalaq and wants a war for profit so he can't make him look like someone with a point or good intentions). And there is also his point, which Korra agrees with, as well as Toph. So why do people say there is nothing complex about him?
154	** Thing is, TheScrappy is a trope that only applies to what the audience thinks. The show can try to portray someone as a complex character with meaningful and understandable motives, but it's whether the audience buys into that interpretation that really matters. Just like how someone can be a DesignatedHero even if the work tries to paint them as a genuine good guy.
155	[[/folder]]

Context Headscratchers / TheLegendOfKorraMisc