Avatar: The Last Airbender

Flat "What"

...anyway... Koh says one of the Avatar's past incarnations tried to kill him maybe 800-900 years ago. We know he's talking about Kuruk, but Kuruk died 412 years before that conversation, and didn't live very long.

I'm not sure spirits have a good grasp of time to be honest, especially if they don't enter the material world very often.

Fair.

I just finished my rewatch of Book 1, and 2 things just crossed my mind:

• So I guess Yue lives on in the fish? So when Sokka died, even if he went (back) to the Spirit World, he wouldn't encounter her. That is sad, but I guess she'd give her blessing to Sokka and Suki.
• Aang and Katara hugging with Momo made me realize...
  We know what happened to most of Team Avatar (everyone except Sokka and Suki, grumble grumble), but we never really asked, what happened to Appa and Momo?
  There's a reason Roku's spirit guide dragon Fang shows up with him, since they unexpectedly died together. But we don't know of Aang's spirit guide or pet friend.

I mentioned a couple of pages ago how much I want to see Aang (and the rest of the Gaang) deal with the death of Appa. It may sound sadistic on the surface, but I feel like it would be a pretty great emotional story to tell.

Also, I’m currently rewatching Avatar Day and I’m realizing that it is pretty underrated. It’s probably the funniest one in the entire show. Iroh gives what is, hands down, his best quote: “In the darkest times, hope is something you bring yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength.” And lastly, the Kyoshi backstory is one of the best flashbacks in the show.

Kyoshi just straight up pleading guilty and leaving Aang to deal with the concequences

She even denies the possible loophole and sees no meaningful difference between Chin falling to his death due to being too stubborn to move and killing him directly.

Huh looking back she reminds me of Jianzhu now.

Guess she becomes more like him as she grew up.

Edited by slimcoder on May 22nd 2020 at 12:16:10 PM

It probably helps that his last plan to influence her was...to let everyone in the Earth Kingdom know she really was the legit Avatar and to bequeath everything he owned to her.

Edited by M84 on May 23rd 2020 at 3:32:20 AM

Also Sky Bison are supposed to be lifelong companions to airbenders so they might have comparable lifespans to humans. Appa may have just out lived Aang considering he died young.

x4 She's got good beliefs.

Heh I found Jianzhu one of the most compelling characters in Kyoshi.

He is just kind of a brutal deconstruction of Team Avatar. A great warrior who went on to become a famous figure through assisting the Avatar only unlike Aang's companions he become negatively affected by Kuruk being a poor Avatar.

Jianzhu is what happens if the responsibilities of the Avatar fall upon their companions & they just go fucking insane as a result of the enormity such a responsibility is.

Even Kelsang & Hei-Ran who are better adjusted have some black marks in their history.

Edited by slimcoder on May 22nd 2020 at 12:41:43 PM

Jianzhu ultimately just wanted an Avatar who would actually take the job seriously.

He got his wish.

Oh this means he actually won in the end.

All the atrocities, the desperation, sacrifice of Yun, even killing & poisoning the only 2 friends he had left in the world, it was all worth it.

Because it barred the fruit he so obsessively seeked, the Ultimate Avatar.

Goddamn he fucking did it.

Edited by slimcoder on May 22nd 2020 at 12:49:22 PM

I wouldn't call Kyoshi the ultimate Avatar, she left Chin carve a swathe through the Earth Kingdom and didn't stop him til he came for her home.

Also she made the Dai Li.

Edited by lycropath on May 22nd 2020 at 12:57:24 PM

Jianzhu probably would have approved of the Dai Li.

This is the same guy who managed to execute like a thousand criminals in a single afternoon through simply having them dig their own graves, enter it, & then cover every grave with his bending in one move.

All while recounting it as a morbidly funny story.

He'd love the Da Li.

....Efficient.

Also horrifying.

Yeah everyone shitting on the Fire Nation forgets that the Earth kingdom has had some fairly terrible Empire Building habits of its own (Considering the whole story is a mirror of the Japanese conquests of the late 1800's and that the Earth Kingdom is China... yeah)

I wonder what a "Western" nation would look like in Avatar - like pompous Conquistador types or greedy Euro characters and traders. Would they have magical chivalry instead of Bending?

I don't think the Jianzhu liked the Earth King enough to like the idea of the Dai Li.

He'd most likely prefer them to be under their control rather than any of the incompetent politicians he despised.

> Would they have magical chivalry instead of Bending?

Oh god,now I'm picturing King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table searching for holy grail in avatar land

also they all have magic swords talking horses

Edited by Ultimatum on May 22nd 2020 at 11:22:26 AM

How exactly am I supposed to picture that?

Are the horses swords, or are the swords horses?

I am imagining a nation whose origins are tied to Spirits more akin to the Fair Folk of European stories.

Ooooooh that would be really cool. I always loved the more Fair Folkish/Fae feel that the spirits kind of had in A:LOA

Magic Knight: Noble fae! I come seeking your wisdom on my quest to -

Unicorn: Tits or GTFO.

Magic Knight: Dammit.

> I am imagining a nation whose origins are tied to Spirits more akin to the Fair Folk of European stories.

Or one Spirit in particular that insists it's the only one and the others are all pretenders and liars

hmm