The Legend of Korra

Also, Mako was not shooting at Amon when he fought Tenzin. Tenzin took over for Mako and was the only one slinging attacks. Amon desperately dodges behind one of his Equalists to use as a shield, then makes a truly pathetic attempt at blocking the blast with his arms.

Tenzin curbstomped Amon. That is the only way to describe that fight.

As for Korra, Amon wasn't bloodbending her initially, he was targeting Mako, but her airbending takes him offguard. After being driven back helplessly, Amon begins bloodbending her, and Korra counters with an airbending kick that blows him out of the building.

Every time someone slings air at Amon, he goes down effortlessly, bloodbending or no.

edited 29th Oct '14 7:38:57 PM by TobiasDrake

It makes sense that Amon has a harder time dodging air attacks. They're quick and hit a wide area, unlike earthbending (slower movements are easier for him to manipulate), firebending (smaller attacks are easier for him to dodge) and waterbending (bit of both). But I really think you're exaggerating the efficacy of airbending against Amon. There's a difference between 'going down' and 'being knocked down but mostly unharmed, and ready to bloodbend you'.

And again, once Amon's got that full levitating body puppets bloodbending going airbending isn't going to save you.

edited 29th Oct '14 7:51:30 PM by oppyu

It saved Korra.

Amon was focused on Mako at the time. The same way Mako broke free when Amon was focused on the Lieutenant. That wasn't airbending any more than Mako broke free with the inherent advantage of firebending. Amon just desperately needed to learn how to multitask.

In fairness to him having trouble with Tenzin, Tenzin is pretty amazing.

And that Tenzin got captured in the first place.

edited 29th Oct '14 8:06:24 PM by Bocaj

Seriously, I linked the fight scene. Watch it. Here, I will give you a play by play.

Korra airbends a punch at Amon while he's bloodbending Mako. She then hits him a couple more times until he slams into the wall under the window. Amon responds by bloodbending Korra, to shut down her Airbending. Korra responds by saying, "No, you don't," and breaking free of the bloodbending just enough to airbend a kick at Amon, blasting him out the window.

In the final exchange of the fight, Amon had 100% of his attention on Korra, he was actively bloodbending her like a puppet, and she STILL beat him with airbending. Watch the video. She throws her first airbending punch at 4:19 while he's focused on Mako, and beats his bloodbending at 4:49.

edited 29th Oct '14 8:11:40 PM by TobiasDrake

He had also just been electrocuted and slammed around a few times. Poor guy was probably rattled.

Hmm. I still say that's more 'Korra is a BAMF' than 'Amon has a Pokemon-like weakness to Airbending'.

It can be a combination of factors.

Including Korra being a BAMF, Amon having to deal with extended bloodbending and getting electrocuted and the love of his life Lew Tennant turning on him, and the fact that the hallway windtunneled Korra's attacks.

In regards to people accusing Ursa of abandoning her kids, you all seem to be forgetting something. Had she took her kids with her she would've been hunted down and murdered along with her kids.

edited 29th Oct '14 8:17:28 PM by AfroWarrior27

To add to that, keep in mind that until he got effortlessly curbstomped off the stage by Tenzin, Amon has never fought a single airbender in his entire life. He has zero practice against them. Zero knowledge of their fighting styles, their movements, the way their element's attacks move, etc. He has to fight them blind, in stark contrast to every other bender he ever faces.

edited 29th Oct '14 8:20:28 PM by TobiasDrake

Yeah, I'll chalk it up to being weakened and emotionally rattled that she just bent at him after he'd just debended her, rather than airbending somehow invalidating bloodbending just because.

No biggie. I'd been meaning to purchase the Avatar comics for awhile but never got around to it. I wasn't expecting to hear about it in the Korra thread, but somehow I doubt they were ever going to bring it up at this point in the series.

(x5)

I'm still shocked (heh) that Amon survived that.

Aang got zapped from behind and almost died, Amon was hit point-blank and comes out of it relatively fine.

edited 29th Oct '14 8:21:45 PM by Soble

Yeah, that seems reasonable. His fighting style (at least in front of his Equalist lackeys) is based on using subtle bloodbending to anticipate and manipulate his opponents forms, so completely unfamiliar forms would be more likely to throw him for a bit of a loop. Like Deadpool using Confusion Fu to defeat the Taskmaster.

edited 29th Oct '14 8:24:16 PM by oppyu

You shouldn't really be surprised. Katara survived fire blasts... twice. (Books 1 and 2 finales)

Fire is only deadly if the plot demands it to be (The Air Nomads, Kya, Asami's mom, Mako and Bolin's parents)

edited 29th Oct '14 8:24:43 PM by NoName999

I figured Azula was just better at lightning bending than Mako (who was also being bloodbent at the time).

You could say that about everything really. Does what happened to Jet seem any more severe than all the other times characters got hit by boulders?

His suit could also be insulated from electricity and fire. Really it only makes sense.

Edit: All this talk of airbending makes me want to ask a question: can the characters actually see all of those gusts of wind and airblasts or is that just for the viewers' sake? I would assume the latter but I'm not entirely sure.

edited 30th Oct '14 5:12:46 AM by LSBK

Now that you mention it...

I mean, in real life you don't see blue air currents for a mere gust of wind. Tornados though, you see dirt, debris, the air is grayish-black. Since airbending can be strong enough to tear metal doors from their hinges, I'd imagine you could "see" it too.

maybe they feel it, after all that is why airbender shave

Incomparable analogy. Hama, Taarlok and Yakone can use bloodbending.

You're correct, this isn't Dragonball Z. But that doesn't mean that "Amon's not Yakone, so he can't beat any of the people Yakone did, even though he's stronger and more skilled than Yakone." stops being a bad argument.

Do we know that Amon is stronger or more skilled than Yakone? He never said he was, Tarrlok never said he was, and nobody ever fought both of them to tell us he was.

You're making a big assumption there.

edited 30th Oct '14 5:19:01 AM by LSBK

None of this matters because kuvira is the best ever at throwing the constitution to people.

I thought the same thing. Earth Empire, fuck yeah!

@Amon's weakness to Airbending this way :

Can someone explain to me how exactly Amon could ever have trained to resist airbending? Against whom?

I seem to remember that there were six people able to airbend that lived at the same time than him - Aang, Tenzin, Jinora, Ikki, Meelo, Korra - and none of them ever bothered to spar with him, if I am not mistaken. And there was no way the Equalists could be prepared because prior to the season's ending, the only foe they had faced in this list - Korra - did not airbend at all. He was just attacked by an unknown weapon.

Which does not make Korra any less awesome, because breaking bloodbending is no small feat. She did so not thanks to her airbending, but thanks to being, indeed, a BAMF.

Edit : just saw someone else already said it, so +1 simply.

On another note I read The Promise and the Search - amazing content full of Tokka-ness that made me glee in joy ("Am I doing this right Sokka ? I'm trying to roll my eyes at you".)

edited 30th Oct '14 7:41:33 AM by Julep

I never understood the appeal of "Tokka" myself. Either way I think just had Shipping Goggles on.