History Headscratchers / AvatarTheLastAirbenderMiscellaneous

[[folder: Significance of "The Southern Raiders"]]
* Sooo...The Southern Raiders. Seems like an entire episode doesn't really fit in with either the series or Katara's character. Setting aside from the comparatively minor (in the episode not the series) matter of Katara's trust for Zuko, which really could have been better handled in general, what did it really accomplish? Katara goes superbitch mode towards Sokka for not supporting her bid to go after Yon Ra(h?). True, she does have her moments, but she's never ''that'' bad. And they turn her into a liar by having her use bloodbending, which she said she wouldn't use again. Sort of a [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment Big Lipped Alligator Episode]].
** Katara had grown up thinking of the fire nation as these terrible, evil, and scary people- especially after one of them killed her mother. She pictured this man as a frightening monster, the ultimate evil, and yet when she finally confronts him she realizes that she had been wrong. Yon Rah isn't a monster- he is, in her words, merely pathetic, and actually not scary at all. In this moment, Katara realizes that the picture of the fire nation that she had grown up with isn't entirely true. This realization began with "The Headband" (seeing how the people of the fire nation are just that- people) and completes itself with this episode. The man who killed her mother, the ultimate evil in her eyes, is just a pathetic old man. And it's this final realization that allows her to forgive Zuko and accept him as a friend.
*** Yeah...that really doesn't address the entry in any way.
*** Sure it does. You said it doesn't fit with her character. They explained why it did. A kind person can easily hold deep feelings of anger towards someone, especially if that person killed their mother. It's an event that has defined her personality. It fits with the show because they haven't been scared to show a character do questionable things if it was necessary for their development (in this case, her forgiving Zuko). And she didn't lie about never using bloodbending. It's possible she was honest when she said that and in a moment of weakness and anger went back on that statement. For her to have lied, that would be that when she first claimed she wouldn't use bloodbending, she knew it wasn't true. The whole thing fits in with her character because family is important to her and she's kind of emotional.
*** ''Setting aside from the comparatively minor (in the episode not the series) matter of Katara's trust for Zuko, which really could have been better handled in general, what did it really accomplish?''
*** How is Katara's trust for Zuko minor? Remember, at this point she was betrayed by him and is naturally suspicious. Her accepting him as a friend and ally is a huge step, and ties in well with the series' focus on forgiveness. In addition, she has dealt with the emotional baggage caused by her mother's death, which is a huge step in character development.
*** Plus, it shows how far they've come. Because Katara now trusts and cares for him, she sheds tears for him when he is severely wounded by Azula. If not for "The Southern Raiders" Katara would not have even agreed to come with Zuko to face off Azula. Then again, if Katara hadn't come, Zuko wouldn't have thrown himself in front of Katara, but I'm going to choose to ignore that fact.
** Remember how the episode ended? Aang says that violence is never the answer, and Zuko asks what he's going to do about the Fire Lord? Remember how the series ended? Aang is conflicted about whether or not to kill the Fire Lord? If this episode had not occurred, Aang would probably never have gone on his entire spiritual journey in the finale and discovered energybending. After all, in Nightmares and Daydreams, he was basically freaking out because he thought Ozai might kill HIM. Thanks to Zuko's question in this episode, that is completely reversed by the finale.
** It also wasn't just Katara's trust in Zuko that was cemented in the episode. It was her learning not to demonize the entire Fire Nation (something she's done throughout the entire series, if you haven't noticed; she brings it up ''all the time'') due to the actions of ''one man.'' Hunting down her mother's killer ultimately made her recognize him for what he really was - a weak, feeble, pathetic old man - and that she shouldn't hold his actions against anyone else who just happens to be from the same nation.
[[/folder]]

*** Except that Aang says in Nightmares and Daydreams that he has not learned any Firebending and he will have to fight Ozai in just a few days. By the episode, Katara and others assure Aang that he is ready....except that he does know any firebending. At best, he was only 75% ready and that's if we do not count the Avatar State not working. So how can Aang be ready then but not later at the Western Air Temple?

* And while we are on that, why was Aang not learning Firebending? He spent all of Book 1 looking for a Waterbending teacher. He then spends the first half of Book 2, looking an Earthbending teacher. So, the next step would be Fire right? Except they never try to look for one after finding Toph, even at the beginning of Book 3, this is basically an irrelevance to the characters and story. They only mention it before the Invasion, when Aang points out he has not learned any Firebending. Sokka follows up by saying the Eclipse(that only lasts 8 minutes) will block it out so Aang doesn't need, despite the fact he uses the rest of bending for the whole day anyway. And then when the Invasion fails they decide Aang needs to learn finally Firebending. So, does the Avatar need Firebending or not?

*** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint That's the point.]] Hatred and enmity for the Fire Nation is so deeply ingrained in these people that merely ''being'' a firebender is enough to be result in being hated. The fact that Zuko saved the boy was irrelevant; he's a ''firebender''. You're acting like hate, racism, long-term warfare, and generational ethnic conflict can be undone by one good act. Its ''not'' that easy. The entire point behind that scene was to reinforce just how horribly the war the Fire Nation began is affecting people.

[[folder: Row, row, row your boat]]
* 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.
** They came from the other direction.
*** No they didn't. They came from an ocean port.
*** Maybe they came up another channel/distributary?
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Radar]]
* The "getting crap past the radar" section says that there's occasional breast jiggling in the show. Proof, anyone?
** The Beach episode is the only example I could think of.
[[/folder]]

* During her tutoring for Aang's earth-bending, when she encased herself in rock as armor, why did she bother keeping her eyes from being covered from rock? She's blind, right? Why would she need that part exposed? It's not like she feels vibrations through only her eyes, right?
** It's an animation mistake. They designed a rock armor that only had a mouth hole, so she could breathe, but the animator put in the eyeholes.
*** So you're saying that for every picture made to make that animation, that person did not once think "Hm, maybe her eyes aren't her mouth, and she's also blind." How could they have missed this?
** The same way an animator gave Toph six fingers in ''Korra''. Mistakes happen. If you have to draw something several hundred times, you're probably not stopping at each one to analyze it.
*** That's just it, though. You can't just draw six fingers on a character 50 times without realizing you made a mistake. Unless a drone or an A.I. does auto-drawing, I don't see how this is possible. It does not make sense.
*** Apparently you can, because, again, it happened. People make mistakes, and will go on autopilot just copying things, especially if you have to draw it several hundred times. Let it go, man.
*** Don't tell me to let it go, and don't make this about me. That aside, it's really sad that they have to literally autopilot themselves to get through every image after another for shows like this. "No point in correcting errors, we ain't got time for that!"
*** Every single job on the planet that does that kind of repetitive action goes into autopilot. I say "let it go," because you asked a question, you got an answer, and then you rejected the answer because you seem determined to drag this out and find some kind of direct fault with someone. You act as if it can't be a simple animation error, it has to be them maliciously not giving a shit. There's no reason this topic had to go past the second bullet point.
*** Or we can take a third option and say that the animator wasn't familiar with the character. Toph had only appeared in two episodes prior to episode 29. The majority of the animation was outsourced to JM Animation, DR Movie, and MOI Animation, all studios in South Korea, so it's entirely possible that a worker looked at the storyboard and tried to fix what he perceived as a mistake.

*** Or maybe it's the opposite and she doesn't want to creep everyone out with her almost blank slate mask.

** We do in fact have someone surviving without a face; in ''ComicBooks/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheSearch'', we have Rafa, a dude who lost his face to Koh and hides this fact behind a wooden mask. Which begs the question: how is he still alive without a face?

* In "The Southern Raiders," I noticed that Kya (Katara's mother) had on the necklace she supposedly passed down to Katara while being interrogated by Yon Rha. So...what, did they remove the necklace from the body after the fact, or...? Though I also doubt she died extremely violently, but eh. Doesn't make much sense to have it there; maybe it's just an accident.
** This Troper always assumed that she was wearing the necklace Hakoda gave her, and he simply made it look a lot like the one that Kanna gave to her daughter in a way of showing that he loved Kya enough to try to emulate the stranger who had given Kanna a necklace that was so treasured by Kya.
** When my dad died I inherited his Rose Bowl watch. I don't see why Katara shouldn't have inherited her late mother's necklace (assuming it is the same necklace).
** [[CompletelyMissingThePoint *sigh*,]] the reason she couldn't have gotten it was because her mom was wearing it when she was (presumably) burnt to a crisp!
*** We don't know how much of Kya actually got torched.