Avatar: The Last Airbender

Then I assume there are a lot of important moments in the series you couldn't take seriously. Destiny is sort of big deal here. I'm honestly not sure why this moment stands out more to you.

And making Zuko out to afraid of his father as the reason he didn't kill him is just flat out wrong. I'm not sure how you got that impression. Well, you said you didn't remember most of it so, maybe that's not fair.

edited 26th Jan '16 6:57:39 AM by LSBK

Fair point. Still think that a few fights would have ended better if Appa helped out more often.

"If we don't want the world to destroy itself we need to replace [the era of fear] with an era of peace and kindness!" is a somewhat cheesy line. Though at least Ozai kinda lampshades it.

Appa constantly saved their lives by flying them out of places. When he did get involved with actually fighting people, it was either to knock out large groups or big targets the group was away from. His size would make him getting involved regularly impractical for the way they're usually attacked.

And also, I'm assuming they'd prefer if he didn't get involved with combat, for practical and sentimental reasons.

Idle thought: Azula name-drops the Divine Right to Rule during her checkmate of Long Feng. That's something that's always stuck with me.

Azula points out that Long Feng never could have beaten her because she has what he, as a lowly peasant, lacks: the Divine Right. She uses her bloodline as evidence that she is more qualified and, by nature, more skilled and talented than he could ever be.

In keeping with the principle of the Divine Right, succession to the position of Firelord is chosen by blood, not by merit. The Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom also appear to have Divine Right succession by bloodline as well. This raises a question: in a world so heavily governed by the Divine Right to Rule, from what Divine Source does this Right descend?

The answer, of course, must be the Avatar - the one holy figure in the Avatar setting. This fits with what we know about the Avatar's role in keeping balance between the nations. In international politics, the Avatar is the one person with the authority to remove a ruler from his seat of power and put someone else in his place. The Avatar reserves the right to declare a king unfit and strike him down, and the people respect that right^Hey! at least, before Korra's time brought the dawning of the end of kings.

In murdering Roku and his genocidal efforts to assassinate Aang, Firelord Sozin was not only betraying a friend, but sacrilegiously rebelling against his own theocracy. Roku laments that he did not see Sozin's ambition rising because he, alone, had the authority to declare Sozin unfit for the Fire Nation's throne. Just as Aang does later to Ozai, Roku could have removed Sozin from power and the nations of the world would have to accept his judgment.

By boasting about the Divine Right, Azula misses a critical point: that hers was violated three generations ago. In the end, the only member of their family who is declared fit to rule is Zuko, who made the effort to prove himself to the setting's Highest Authority, its Divine Source, and thus has his Divine Right restored.

Ozai, on the other hand, is laid low in the most meaningful way imaginable. By taking away his firebending, Aang not only defeats him but revokes the Divine Right. It's a symbolic gesture of the Divine Source rejecting Ozai and his bloodline - save for the one member who, on his own initiative, made the effort to become worthy.

Avatar has a lot of Eastern philosophy and spirituality in it but, in bringing up the Divine Right, Azula brought a bit of Western religion and its affiliation with Western politics to the table as well.

edited 29th Jan '16 10:40:38 AM by TobiasDrake

That's a pretty good analysis, if not one I'm certain the authors intended. I do find it somewhat weird how the Avatar universe has a lot of spiritual themes while staying studiously away from actual religion. The Avatars themselves are treated more like a cultural figure (I'm thinking the Queen of England, if she could fly and shoot fire) than a religious one.

Yeah the Avatar universe is a patchwork of modern and ancient that somehow comes off not too weird or too out there. Granted the series was designed for children and they wanted things to seem relatable to them while maintaining a certain aura of mystical allure that is easily achieved via eastern cultures and traditions.

Did we ever talk about the potential for an Avatar fighting game, who might be in it, or how it'd control?

I'm going through threads I put fighting game roster ideas in, so that I can remember where those all were.

I had a dream about Avatar. To crosspost from a different forum:

When ever someone starts off, when I have a dream I usually ignore them, just amounts to nonsense.

As for a game, I want something like that Korra game, but the combat list and moves five times the size and the game covering the course of the series. I think a good 30+ Hour game with sidequest and lore we normally get in books would make an amazing game.

Think how fun it would be to relive the adventure with additional missions, but being able to use all your favorite characters in combat while learning new and interesting things about them that the series didn't have the time to devote itself to?

It was surprisingly coherent.

Hey what are your thoughts on the episode "The Southern Raiders" and what it meant for Katara?

Because I've noticed a lot of people tend to twist things in ways I doubt they were ever intended to make Katara look worse. Like how the show was hypocritical for acting like Katara bloodbending was okay, even after she made a stink about it, when it clearly wasn't supposed to be okay.

Or how she was a bitch for not killing the guy because she wanted him to have a Fate Worse than Death even though she very clearly says, she just wasn't able to, without saying a word about him wanting to suffer or stuff.

I don't think her not killing the guy was because she wanted him to suffer a fate worse then death. I don't even think it was necessarily a victory of her better nature. I think it was a case of, having met him, and seen what he was like, she didn't care anything at all about him. She'd worked herself into a big hate over him, but that hate was deflated when she saw he wasn't a leering monster, just a fairly pathetic Fire Nation soldier. I think Katara is entirely capable of killing (she's capable, I think at least at this point in her life, of throwing most of her values to the wind if she's angry enough), but the conditions have to be right. She's not at all cold blooded; she's very passionate, which can be a good thing and a bad thing.

At Tobias Drake: The Divine Right of King's isn't entirely a Western concept. That particular term is of Western origin, but Asia had the similar Mandate of Heaven that they operated under. The concepts aren't entirely the same, as the Mandate says a ruler has Heaven's blessing so long as he is just, and may remove said blessing if that ruler becomes wicked. The way Azula employed the term had less to do with either notion, however, and more to do with notions of aristocratic entitlement (which were present in both East and West, being much, much more elaborate and pronounced in the East). Azula believed that, because she was royal, she was inherently better than other people. That's a concept familiar in the West ("Blood will tell") but the Divine Right of Kings kind of discards the notion of whether a King is better or worse than anyone else; it doesn;t matter in the slightest, because he's chosen by God. If he's good, it's because God thinks you deserve a good king, and if he's bad, it's because God thinks you deserve a bad king.

edited 6th Apr '16 4:39:37 PM by Robbery

Sounds like haters twisting things to make her sound worse.

Okay, I'm going to start putting together concepts I'd like to see in an Avatar fighting game. I welcome suggestions.

Characters:

Avatars:

• Aang (TLA season 3)
• Aang (Adult)
• Korra (LOK season 1)
• Korra (series end)
• Kyoshi
• Roku
• Wan

Waterbenders:

• Katara
• Hama
• Huu
• Pakku
• Amon
• Kya (Aang's daughter)
• Tarrlok
• Unalaq
• Ming-Hua

Earthbenders:

• Toph Beifong
• King Bumi
• Long Feng
• Bolin
• Lin Beifong
• Ghazan
• Kuvira
• "Sandbender"

Firebenders:

• Combustion Man
• Ozai
• Zuko
• Iroh
• Jeong Jeong
• Azula
• Admiral Zhao
• Mako
• P'Li

• Aang (TLA Season 1)
• Monk Gyatso
• Tenzin
• Jinora
• Zaheer

• Sokka
• Suki
• Ty Lee
• Mai
• The Blue Spirit
• Piandao
• Jet
• Longshot
• Hakoda
• Asami
• "The Lieutenant"

• Appa
• (June &) Nyla
• Vaatu
• Old Iron
• Hei Bai

Mechanics:

• Special Abilities and Transformations:
  • Not every character should have a transformation or "awakened" state, or necessarily even a "super" move, though that would be balanced by them more easily having access to their full moves.
  • Certain characters, such as the Avatars and Unalaq, should, though.
• Controls: Tekken based. Like Tekken does with traditional martial arts, bending (and other skills) can be mapped fairly well onto this scheme.
  • Projectile controls: At a longer range, this might borrow more from some of the popular 2D fighters for traps, zoning, and set-ups. Alternatively, I think I recall the Dragon Ball Z Budokai and Tenkaichi games handling projectiles well.
• Environments/stage layout: Most fights in the series that come to my mind, with the exception of Agni Kais, have some sort of range and area variation to them. I'd think most environments should be some sort of hybrid between Dead or Alive and Sonic Battle and Power Stone. Different walls, levels and layers, destructibility of environment, but still some basic geographical shape to stick to.
• Environmental conditions:
  • Some environments should give certain characters boosts or abilities based on their own. For example, in a dense forest: Hama would have more water to pull from living things, Huu could have the environment attack for him, and Longshot could hide more, for buffs. Meanwhile, Zhao's wild fire could endanger both combatants, Mai would find it much harder to aim, Pakku would have less water to pull from, etc:
  • Toggle-able conditions could also stack on top of stage considerations. Examples might be Day/Night, cloud cover (water and air up, fire down), Sozin's Comet, Black Sun (fire temporarily disabled for a chunk of a match), meteor shower (fire buffed until meteors land, then Earth has more material to work with), earthquake (non-earthbenders lose their footing more), etc.

edited 23rd Apr '16 2:06:56 AM by wanderlustwarrior

I think Amon should be under non-benders, because his fighting style wouldn't use Bloodbending. (Unless you wanted to make him OP).

Beginning of series Korra also feel odd, like she's too weak compared to the other Avatars?

Although she could have better skills in the avatar state compared to B4 Korra that would have pure power second only to Wan in my mind.

edited 7th Apr '16 1:22:38 AM by 32ndfreeze

Start of series Korra could focus on hand to hand over bending. And Amon might use his bloodbending as a counter-based character.

A lot of fighting games have ultimate specials these days where, like, you charge up a meter as you fight and then pull off a nasty, powerful attack that does a ton of damage if it hits.

To that end, I could see Amon being listed among the non-benders but having his bloodbending as his ultimate attack, foreshadowing the reveal in Story Mode.

That and that.

Not all forms of both main-character avatars need to be the complete movesets. By the time the series began, Korra had already learned three whole elements and a bit of pro-bending. With both her and Aang, their styles changed over time, and as main characters, they have more opportunity to reflect that.

Amon can be more centered on "dodging" and occasional bloodbending, with an "Ultimate" or "Super" move that temporarily de-powers bending opponents.

I picture a game a lot like Pokken tournament - switching between free range and 2D fighting, support characters that aid your main fighter and a super mode that you can only enter when a meter fully charges up. Heck, the Avatar State is literally a super mode.

That said, I'd like the Super Bar to be used for more then just super mode, like you can use a little bit of it to enhance your combos or interrupt attacks. One problem I have with Pokkken tournament is how easy it is to enter burst mode and use your special attack - it makes it feel less special.

And of course, buttloads of fanservice for longtime fans, like unique pre-fight dialogue for each character, and support characters ranging from popular to obscure - the characters made up for the card game! Robo Momo from the original concept! - and various different costumes, like the ones that never made it past the planning stages.

So basically, my ideal Avatar fighting game is the fight system of Pokken Tournament with some Street Fighter thrown in, the dialogue of Mortal Kombat X and the pure fanservice of the Naruto and Jojo fighting games.

I'd probably have it lean very heavily on Tekken's combat engine, since that scans most closely to actual fighting styles, similar to how bending takes its form.

One concern is making sure that each fighter is sufficiently interesting and different from each other. That was something I thought of when I was considering putting in Admiral Zhao (which I still might): would his style be more uncontrolled, for example? Area damage?

edited 8th Apr '16 1:10:59 PM by wanderlustwarrior

I think a more arena-based fighter would mesh better with bending's general range focus than a traditional fighting game.

Uncontrolled fires and area damage sound about right for Zhao, yeah. They sound about right for Ozai, too, but Zhao's probably better at running around doing physical combat while Ozai's better at tossing around waves of destruction.

"Traditional" fighting games have a lot of nuance. Tekken's significantly different from Street Fighter, for example. I think Tekken's control scheme would map over pretty well.

How interactive should the stages be? Not all, like Street Fighter? Slightly, like Tekken? Or maybe multi-layered and destructible, like Dead or Alive.

I can picture at least one level with many stages - the pro-bending arena. You could start on the roof and eventually break through the glass and fight on the ring. Heck, you could get third layer by knocking the opponent off the end and then continuing the fight on the platform directly under the ring.

edited 9th Apr '16 11:29:43 PM by drac0blade