History Headscratchers / AvatarTheLastAirbenderMiscellaneous

Also, Azula was too far gone for it to make a difference. You don't stop to tell a rabid mutt "Bad dog!" because it won't register. All Zuko felt he could do at that point was put her down.

* No doubt about it, Zuko slamming Ozai was one of the best moments of the entire series, but am I the only one who was disappointed that Zuko didn't also call out Azula for being such a manipulative bitch and horrible sister? As awesome as their Agni Kai was, it would have been SO much more awesome if Zuko had at least somewhat slammed Azula verbally either before or during the fight...

* No doubt about it, Zuko slamming Ozai was one of the best moments of the entire series, but am I the only one who was disappointed that Zuko didn't also call out Azula for being such a manipulative bitch and horrible sister? As awesome as their Agni Kai was, it would have been SO much more awesome if Zuko had at least somewhat slammed Azula verbally either before or during the fight...

*** No they didn't. They came from an ocean port.

** They came from the other direction.

* Season 1, Episode 9 - "The Water Bending Scroll", How in the world did they get those boats UP THAT WATERFALL in the first place? There is simply no way they had the manpower and time to haul a steel boat and a massive Junk up a waterfall of that size.

*** Doesn't that imply that the Sun also has a physical form somewere on the mortal plane. as in some kind of animal seeing not just the Sun in the solar system, it would have made for a good plot if somebody would try to do something to the source of the bad guys powers it would give Aang and co a lot of interesing choices.

* Why does no one seem to pick up on the MIDDLE EASTERN cultural influences? Most people pick up on the Imperial Chinese/Japanse/Tibetan influences in the culture of Avatar but am I the only one to notice the Indian and (before Islam)Turkish/Arabian referances? For example: Fire Nation clothing.
** People keep hearing about the "obvious" asian influences, so that keeps getting passed on as the "absolute truth" i.e. all influences are asian. If/where there are Turkish/Arabian references are not as noticable because of the shere ''amount'' of asian influences referenced by various people.

** I'm pretty sure Azula shot Iroh with her regular (blue) fire, not lightningh, so he couldn't have redirected it. And my impression was that ''she'' created the explosion as cover to duck away under- Jeong Jeong does something similar in "The Deserter".

** I once took a class on magic/sleight-of-hand tricks, and one of the things the instructor taught us was the three-card-monte scam. It turns out that when condfronted with a completely random choice, people will pick the middle shell/card more than 50% of the time, so even an honest 3-card-monte game would give the scammer 2:1 odds in their favor (assuming their target isnt in on the trick). But of course, no one ever actually runs these things honestly; after teaching us the trick to it, our teacher then spent the next 20 minutes showing us how to palm cards. In the context of the show, a child probaly just looked like an easy target to take advantage of.

** I assumed that she found this old, abandoned prison and decided to use it for her own purposes.

** With a hammer, nails, wrench, possibly a screwdriver... Look, if they have refrigerators (used for torture) and steam-powered jet-skis on this show, One lady can put a door on a cave and build a few cages. She had a lot of time. She was 30 tops, when she escaped, and had to have been there for some thirty years.

** With a hammer, nails, wrench, possibly a screwdriver... Look, if they have refrigerators (used for torture) and steam-powered jet-skis on this show, One lady can put a door on a cave and build a cage. She had a lot of time. She was 30 tops, when she escaped, and had to have been there for some thirty years. Is that too short a time to steal/acquire the materials she'd need to build a few cages?

* In "The Puppetmaster", how did Hama build a prison cell, complete with a metal door and chains, in a cave under a mountain?

** He does try yoga. It doesn't work well for him.

** Yes. This troper rather thought that was obvious. The room is a SecretTestOfCharacter and the golden egg is SchmuckBait. If the visitors are thieves they'll take the egg and get caught by the trap. If they're there to learn True Firebending they'll leave the egg alone. The egg itself probably has no significance whatsoever beyond being pretty and glittery. It would've worked great if Aang had listened to Zuko's warning not to touch the egg, but no one ever accused Aang of being the brightest crayon in the box...

** Yes. This troper rather thought that was obvious. The room is a SecretTestOfCharacter and the golden egg is SchmuckBait. If the visitors are thieves they'll take the egg and get caught by the trap. If they're there to learn True Firebending they'll leave the egg alone. The egg itself probably has no significance whatsoever beyond being pretty and glittery. It would've worked great if Zuko had listened to Aang's warning not to touch the egg, but no one ever accused Zuko of being the brightest crayon in the box...

** He's so stressed out he probably can't meditate anyway.

** Meditation is two steps away from being asleep anyway. If he tried it, he might ''really'' fall asleep and have more nightmares, which he doesn't want. Besides, "I'm not going to sleep for two days straight and before I walk into the most important battle of my life" is not on very high on the list of informed decisions.

* Nightmares and Daydreams. So Aang is stressed out. Why. Doesn't. He. Meditate. In a world of eastern philosophy, this seems like a gigantic plothole! No one even mentions it! It, well... it Just Bugs Me.

** I once took a class on magic/sleight-of-hand tricks, and one of the things the instructor taught us was the three-card-monte scam. It turns out that when condfronted with a completely random choice, people will pick the middle shell/card more than 50% of the time, so even an honest 3-card-monte game would give the scammer 2:1 odds in their favor (assuming their target isnt in on the trick). But of course, no one ever actually runs these things honestly; after teaching us the trick to it, our teacher then spent the next 20 minutes showing us how to palm cards. In the context of the show, a child probaly just looked like an easy target to take advantage of.

** I once took a class on magic/sleight-of-hand tricks, and one of the things the instructor taught us was the three-card-monte scam. It turns out that when condfronted with a completely random choice, people will pick the middle shell/card more than 50% of the time, so even an honest 3-card-monte game would give the scammer 2:1 odds in their favor (assuming their target isnt in on the trick). But of course, no one ever actually runs these things honestly; after teaching us the trick to it, our teacher then spent the next 20 minutes showing us how to palm cards. In the context of the show, a child probaly just looked like an easy target to take advantage of.
* Ok, so in 'The Blue Spirit,' Zhao makes it clear that he won't kill Aang because the Avatar would just be reborn and the search would start all over again. If the fire nation is aware of this, then why exterminate the Airbenders in the first place? Aang was 12 when he was frozen. This means that Avatar Roku has been dead for 12 years. Which means the Avatar has already been reborn. So wouldn't the SMART thing to do be to take out the Water Tribes first, and THEN go after the airbenders? Why was nobody suspicious when the Avatar wasn't reborn?

** I once took a class on magic/sleight-of-hand tricks, and one of the things the instructor taught us was the three-card-monte scam. It turns out that when condfronted with a completely random choice, people will pick the middle shell/card more than 50% of the time, so even an honest 3-card-monte game would give the scammer 2:1 odds in their favor (assuming their target isnt in on the trick). But of course, no one ever actually runs these things honestly; after teaching us the trick to it, our teacher then spent the next 20 minutes showing us how to palm cards. In the context of the show, a child probaly just looked like an easy target to take advantage of.

*** Doesn't that imply that the Sun also has a phisical form somewere on the mortal plane. as in some kind of animal seeing not just the Sun in the solar system, it would have made for a good plot if somebody would try to do something to the source of the bad guys powers it would give Aang and co a lot of interesing choices.

** I once took a class on magic/sleight-of-hand tricks, and one of the things the instructor taught us was the three-card-monte scam. It turns out that when condfronted with a completely random choice, people will pick the middle shell/card more than 50% of the time, so even an honest 3-card-monte game would give the scammer 2:1 odds in their favor (assuming their target isnt in on the trick). But of course, no one ever actually runs these things honestly; after teaching us the trick to it, our teacher then spent the next 20 minutes showing us how to palm cards.

** It wouldn't matter if she was blind or not, because he didn't plan on her having ''any'' chance to win. He wasn't swapping the rocks. The first game, he loaded ''all'' of the shells with rocks so she would win, and then the second, he was in the process of putting all of the rocks in his sleeve so she would lose. Toph just tricked him because she's an earthbender.

* Why does the Shell Game Master pick Toph to play? Since he's running a con (and he is running a con, or he wouldn't switch the rock halfway through), he would want to fix the odds so that the player has a 0% chance of guessing correctly. But a blind person would automatically have a 33% chance of guessing correctly, regardless of other circumstances. (Relatedly, why did he bother swapping the rock the first time she was playing? Or did he expect her companions to help her?)

*** Avatar is wuxia. Azula could easily have simply jumped over the wall; she's demonstrated similar jumping feats before. E.g. the intro to "The Southern Raiders," for example, has both Zuko and Azula making leaps that are pretty much impossible in real life.