The Legend of Korra

Thanks. I will. But only when it's supported by mountains of in show evidence.

edited 13th Jul '14 3:18:54 PM by windweaver

It's worth noting that all new airbenders, but especially Zaheer, have styles very different from Aang's flowing, acrobatic moves. Korra initially used it much like fire, but she's gotten a lot better with the whole dodge and weave thing. The conscripted airbenders just use blasts unskillfully. And Zaheer uses very offensive, forceful moves. Kai looks like he's shaping up to be closer to the traditional light-footed style, though.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

The key there is mindsets, not physical situations. Being physically confined isn't enough. Airbenders are naturally defiant, and when that breaks is when they stop being able to do it. You'll notice Kai was most powerful when he was fighting his way out of there.

At the end of their training the Earth Kingdom would probably have ended up with a bunch of useless airbenders, but just dumping them in a hole isn't nearly enough.

I figure Kai probably took to airbending easier given his life. He's probably been evading people after him for a good while now and is good with getting close as we've seen when he was robing people. Just give him some proper training and his quick development isn't too hard to understand.

That sounds about right, my problem with what windweaver said wasn't so much what he was saying, but he implied that it meant.

edited 13th Jul '14 3:31:16 PM by KBSL

[shrug] I thought the captivity and gruesome treatment would have broken a couple of them at least. Maybe see someone who was waving trouble couldn't even produce a light breeze but whatever.

Elfive makes the best point on it though that perhaps what we saw wouldn't have been enough.

edited 13th Jul '14 3:36:17 PM by windweaver

They weren't there for very long. They were scared, yeah, but I would think it would be to early for any (or at least most) of them to actually be broken.

Now that I'll buy.

Aside from Zuko, note that you mostly quote cases of Avatars having troubles with some elements. I think that you can't compare the problem of a "simple" bender with what Korra experienced when she first dealt with Airbending (or Aang with Earthbending).

Avatars have to master all four elements, which are very different in nature. But there is a wide range of methods to bend any element: Zuko, Azula, Iroh and Jeong all firebent in very different ways, and were extremely distinct from each other. Same with Toph and Bumi (Toph is rather unique tbh).

So, the jailed Airbenders being de-powered, I do not think so. But had they completed their training, they would probably have been very different benders than Aang was.

It would be sort of interesting seeing how someone who was born a bender but didn't have the "right" personality for it would adapt to that. It wouldn't be like Aang or Korra who had to learn it, they've always known they were an earthbender of firebender but something about them just never said, "I'm an [[insert]] bender]]"

We've never actually seen anyone have that problem, and the closet thing to it would Zuko, and even then his problem wasn't not understanding or considering himself a firebender and more just figuring out why he's still going.

One assumes that there aren't a lot of such cases, since if a person tries and fails to bend, he or she probably just figures that he/she isn't a bender at all.

I'd say the Sand Benders are a more flexible, shifting and flowing type of Earthbenders that could be a lot closer to Waterbenders or Airbenders.

Eh, sand is apparently hard for most earthbenders to bend. I would assume for sandbenders the opposite would be the case, i.e. they would just have to get use to it and train with regular earth.

I just had a thought... the recent episodes confirm that Sokka became a chief, presumably of the Southern Water Tribe, and that he was still alive when Korra was about five years old. However, this is after Tonraq's banishment, and probably after Unalaq's ascension (since Zuko mentions that he was involved in building P'Li's prison). So was Sokka acting chief of the South, subservient to Unalaq? If so, did Unalaq abolish the position of Southern Chief after Sokka's death, since the South doesn't seem to have a chief on its own at all at the beginning of Book 2?

IIRC, the Southern Water Tribe did have a Chief, but the North didn't formally recognize it as a separate authority. I could be wrong, though.

If Sokka was Chief at some point, it's likely he's the main reason the South was still autonomous as of this series. Cause no matter how much the North may have wanted to make themselves the sole authority for the Water Tribes, there's no freaking way they would've had the icicles to take it from Sokka.

edited 13th Jul '14 6:26:48 PM by KnownUnknown

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

I'm pretty sure there was no Southern Chief in book 2, just a council of elders.

If he was the chief 13-14 years before the series then the simplest answer is that he was simply the chief of both tribes. They weren't separated until recently, and I don't recall them mentioning the South have an interm chief or proxy when Unalaq wasn't around.

It was never specifically said that the Chief had to be from the Northern Tribe I don't think. Unalaq just happened to be.

I don't see the Northerns being intimidated by Sokka. He accomplished many things, and they respected that, which is likely why he was chief in the first place, but he was never an intimidating person.

edited 13th Jul '14 6:41:06 PM by KBSL

Impossible. The flashbacks in season 2 showed us that the chief preceding Unalaq was his and Tonraq's father.

I think a simpler explanation is that Sokka used the political clout of being a personal friend of the Avatar to operate his tribe relatively independent of the Northern Tribe. When he died they were left without a clear leader so it was easier for Unalaq to exert more control.

edit: I wonder if Korra ever knew Sokka. They don't say when he died but it was recently enough that it's possible she would remember meeting him. His sister did wind up teaching her waterbending.

edited 13th Jul '14 6:45:23 PM by Kostya

Not personally intimidating. But his friends included the Fire Lord, the Avatar and founder of Republic City as well as the police Chief of Republic City. Going to against the South back then, would mean going against the Fire Nation and Republic City as well.

I don't think capturing an airbender would stop them from being a bender as Aang was captured several times. The archers and Zuko both captured him and he could still bend.

Mentioning their mindstates is somewhat valid but since their powers became active because of Harmonic Convergence, who knows what "rules" apply.

Ultimately, like Bocaj joked, I don't think putting an airbender in jail would stop them from being a bender.

(•_•)⌐■-■ ( ಠ_ಠ)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)

Then I'm at a lose. Exactly how long were the North and South supposed to have been united then, I wonder.

edited 13th Jul '14 7:33:04 PM by KBSL

That's because I thought that would be enough. For the most part, we've only ever seen the training of the Avatars. but if Zuko could lose his drive and his bending, it stands to reason he's not the first person that's happened to. There are also the metal bending kids Toph was training in the comics who weren't quite stubborn enough for Metalbending at first according to her. They didn't get stubborn enough to bend the most stubborn element until they were absolutely unwilling to quit due to finally feeling like Toph believed in them.

As for the whole capture bit, there's a difference between being captured and being in captivity. As was pointed out to me it's probably a matter of they just weren't down there for as long as I was thinking. The despair probably needed to set in more before what I was thinking about would happen.

Regardless, I'm curious about the tribe leadership timeline as well. I don't have as much raw data for that.

According to this Zaheer and his gang are called the Red Lotus. I have a feeling the theory about them being former White Lotus members is correct.

Saw 4 and 5 now.

Things seem to be proceeding nicely, if a bit fast-paced. The show feels more cogent and organic than it did last season.

Poor Lin, though.

well remenber that it was the da li, they were more busy to make loyal soldier and efectives airbenders, it time they will become fanatical soldiers for the earth queen, just like many fire bender in the fire nation

now i doubt they will make good airbenders(near the level of anag) but the earth queen want more tropes to kept her will

so, when airbending start to beocme a more active force in republic city, how did you think they could use their abilities?

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"