Avatar: The Last Airbender

There's also nothing preventing Benders from using tech themselves. Heck, Korra's Final Boss was a bonafide Humongous Mecha operated via Metalbending.

I'm certain I read somewhere that Avatar originally was going to be a sci fi series with Appa being a robot or something.

The potential fusion of Bending with technology is arguably more potent than either by itself. Mecha controlled via Metalbending, Lightningbending powered Gauss rifles...the list goes on and on.

Edited by M84 on Mar 4th 2020 at 5:41:44 PM

Science makes magic all the more dangerous.

Science is all about finding the ins & outs of everything, & the ins and outs of bending is potentially limitless.

Edited by slimcoder on Mar 4th 2020 at 1:42:43 AM

Not to mention that bending makes industry less pollution heavy and less resource intensive. Why carry extra batteries if you have a lightning bender with you?

Sounds like that part from SHAZAM!.

Just to go off on the last page, there’s absolutely a TON of potential stories you could tell in the Avatar Universe.

Personally, there’s only a handful of Avatar-focused stories that I would be interested in. I am dying to hear about Aang’s adult years and I would love to see more about Wan’s life, but other than that I wish the writers would cover other stories that don’t focus on the Avatar. I honestly feel like it kind of holds the universe back.

For example, there’s potential in stories about the White Lotus, the Red Lotus, the Beifongs, the development of the Air Nation, Tenzin’s young life, Sokka and Suki’s life, the Fire Nation in LOK, the life of General Iroh I, the life of General Iroh II, Varrick’s life, Jinora and Kai, and the crime life in Republic City.

None of those are required to include the Avatar in them.

You heard right. Back when Avatar was still just a concept, Aang was going to the last survivor of a technologically advanced society that 100 years later had been all but forgotten. It's all there in the Art of the Animated Series, including concept art of Aang dressed not unlike Luke Skywalker while wielding a high-tech looking version of his glider.

Although if I recall right it was Momo who was the robot, not Appa.

Aang was also a shepherd in that draft, and he herded flocks of Appas.

Was Appa supposed to be the original name of the species

I'm pretty sure that Appa's species was still called "Sky/Flying Bison" even in development, but it's kind of easier and quicker to just say a flock of Appas.

Hell, there could be a massive politicing story set in the Earth Kingdom, or even a story on when Firelord went from a spiritual to political position

Democracy comes to the Fire Nation and Zuko and his descendants are beheaded via guillotine.

Or the Fire Nation pulls a Britain in that it still has a monarch but the monarch isn't that powerful politically.

Do we have a trope name for that? I feel like we should.

I think that's Sufficiently Analyzed Magic

Magitek, one step away from Clark's Third Law.

I'm thinking more along the lines of the inverse of Science Destroys Magic.

So literally Magic Enhanced Technology. Magitek is still closest to that, as it's usually something magical fueling what would otherwise be explained normal technology. You would have to demonstrate that the magical element straightway enhances the existing technology, rather than merely serving as the fuel or origin.

Ork technology from Warhammer 40K fits that definition. Ork tech looks crude but is quite functional (and dangerous), but the Orks' innate collective psychic power ensures that their tech performs better when they do otherwise silly things like painting their vehicles red. Orks believe red vehicles go faster, and their collective psychic ability makes that belief reality.

Edited by M84 on Mar 5th 2020 at 6:13:32 PM

The thing about magic is that magic, as used in media, is frequently scientific. It's just that people don't think about it, because it usually has trappings associated with "magical stuff".

Wizards are scientists, every last one of them. If you've worked out the precise amount of bat guano required to produce a giant fireball out of the word "Infernum", you have engaged in the scientific process.

Spells, all spells, are the result of science working upon magic. They are the product of people taking previously unknown laws of physics, experimenting with those laws, and creating processes to use those laws that are demonstrable and repeatable. They have mystical properties, but they behave in ways that can be predicted and understood, and are therefore scientific. Fictional physics are still physics.

Reading a tome on how to cast Dimension Portal and then doing it means that you are standing on the shoulders of the people who first put in the effort to analyze, experiment, and record their results. They discovered a scientifically-produced manner of manipulating the laws of physics that they named Dimension Portal, and you are now proving their work.

It's actually exceedingly rare to see magic in a work of media that defies scientific analysis. Magic that just does things without rhyme or reason, that can't be controlled, can't be utilized, can't be relied upon. It's rare because writers (and game developers) like to use magic as a tool, and that means it has to function in a way that the characters can reasonably utilize. And that means it has to be scientific.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 5th 2020 at 8:20:49 AM

Right, once magic becomes subject to logic and rules, it ceases to be magic and becomes just another branch of science.

It's the other side of "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

We do have a trope for Wild Magic, and oftentimes The Fair Folk are the only ones to have magic. Magic can still be mysterious, but we tend to prefer more understood magic. See Sanderson's First Law for how that relates to the plotting and storytelling.

In Avatar, for example, while bending is a scientific and understood process, the spirits themselves were always mysterious and impossible to quantify. That's why the Avatar was the one in charge of dealing with them—as far as normal people were concerned, the rules of spirit powers were basically "spirit does whatever the hell it wants, laws of physics be damned."

I'm reminded of this video.

Spirits being more mysterious doesn't mean they're breaking the laws of physics and benders aren't. It just means humans have an inaccurate or incomplete view of physics. It's like saying a bow and arrow is mundane and explainable by physics but cannons are witchcraft.