Avatar: The Last Airbender

The two times we've seen a spirit's power alter a human aside from the Harmonic Convergence Fusion Dance are interesting:

• One comicbook bad guy pissed off a spirit and it attacked him. The attack left the guy alive but it also somehow mutated his arm into something monstrous and powerful.

• The Kyoshi novels had Yun, a mortal Earthbender who managed to overpower and consume a spirit that tried to the same to him. Yun gained Father Glowworm's power to dig passages between the Spirit Realm and the Mortal Realm along with a general power boost to his bending abilities. It's a dark parody of the Avatar Fusion Dance, since Father Glowworm was not willing and seemingly died in the process.

For mortals, the latter case is arguably the most beneficial. Yun's consumption of Father Glowworm didn't change him in any meaningful way aside from making him more powerful.

Edited by M84 on May 29th 2023 at 2:13:41 AM

That's information we only get in a browser game on Nick.com and not something anyone ever brings up as a concern in the show, it doesn't really function narratively as a restraint on the avatar state. iirc it was also in-universe speculation, which in light of Kyoshi's long life now not being because she was the avatar, might just be wrong. Aang could have just naturally died at 66.

It was also something one of the series' creators, Bryan Konietzko, said in a WSJ interview.

WSJ (07/21/2010): 'Legend of Korra': The 'Avatar' Creators on the New Spinoff

"You gotta keep in mind that he was frozen in a state of suspended animation for 100 years, so he kind of burned up some of his extra Avatar time."

The logic is that one's natural lifespan depends on your life energy, or chi. Being in the Avatar State for an entire century was a massive drain on Aang's life energy.

Edited by M84 on May 30th 2023 at 11:14:33 PM

Not just the comics — the same thing happens to a few people in the "Beginnings" episode. It's explained that that's normally what happens when sprits and people fuse — the person gets parts of the sprit's body, and if they fuse for too long, they die. Wan never got spirit body parts because Raava is a primordial spirit from the dawn of time, and is therefore an exception to the rule.

That assumes that there is "extra Avatar time", which was the going explanation for Kyoshi's long life until it was superseded in the novels, so I don't know if that's still canon. With the new explanation given, there is no reason to assume that Avatars live longer than normal people, and therefore no need to explain Aang's death as anything but natural. Besides, being said in an interview is even further from actually being a meaningful factor in how the Avatar State is used in the show. It's never actual used as a restriction in the narrative.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Jun 3rd 2023 at 7:18:01 AM

I mean. It could be the case that Aang was going to live to 80, but using the Avatar Stage for 100 years shortened that to 66. There is a middle ground between "the Avatar State doesn't drain energy and Aang died naturally at 66" and "all Avatars naturally live to 200, but Aang burned through 134 years in the Avatar Stage".

I'd say it's less "Avatars live a long time," and more "spiritually Enlighted people live a long time." Bumi lived to be at least 112, and Guru Pathik was old enough to have been a personal friend of Aang's mentor from 100 years ago.

Avatar’s having a longer natural life span is not mutually exclusive with Kyoshi learning a specific method to halt aging. Her living to 230 is an absurd outlier that can easily be explained with both factors being true.

It can, but remove Kyoshi and we have no textual evidence of Avatars living longer. That was the canon explanation for a long time (a hastily thrown up explanation for math mistake), but the writers thought of an idea they liked better. Canon changes.

Edited by TheMountainKing on Jun 4th 2023 at 9:47:11 AM

When both Word of God and something said in-universe point to the idea that Avatars generally live a long time, it's pretty clear-cut. Though tbf it seems to not be a thing unique to Avatars but is true for anyone with a strong spirit.

It's related to spirituality. The stronger one's spirit, the healthier one is in this setting. Aang's issue was that being in the Avatar State for a whole century drained his spirit.

Kuruk had the same issue. His soul was damaged by the Dark Spirits and this led to his early death.

Edited by M84 on Jun 4th 2023 at 10:29:59 PM

For some reason, it never really registered for me that technically Aang was in the Avatar State the entire time. I don't know why; He was in the Avatar State when he created the iceberg, and he was in it when he woke up and came out of the iceberg, but it didn't register somehow.

...On a side note, now I have this funny image in my head of all the statues in all the Avatar temples just having their eyes stay lit for 100 years straight.

Edited by diddyknux on Jun 5th 2023 at 5:35:18 AM

Yeah, but that clearly doesn't happen, because it's all the eyes lighting up again when Aang next goes into the Avatar State that clues the whole world in to his return.

I suppose being cocooned away broke the past Avatar spirits' connection with their statues, or something.

But its not even that, because he also goes into the Avatar State at the end of episode 2.

It is weird that the Avatar Statues weren't glowing at all times from when he froze himself to when he got out.

Yeah, it only happened when Aang unsealed the door and "met" his past self for the first time. Apparently that had a symbolic relevance the other times didn't have.

What happened to the name change vote?

What name change vote?

We were voting to change the name of the topic to better encompass the whole franchise. I don't think we came to any real consensus, or if we did, none of us hollered for a mod to let them know.

I rewatched ATLA recently, and I was struck hey some differences between how oriel seem to remember the series and how it actually is. The main one is that character's arcs are a lot more episodic. People talk about Sokka like he had a series-long arc about overcoming his sexism, when really he was casually sexist for the first three episodes and then learned his lesson in episode four, after which it literally never comes up again. Same with Aang and not killing people. Fans talk like he struggled with it the whole series, but the idea that he has a strict rule against killing is only introduced in s3e16, two episodes before it becomes his main conflict in the finale.

I think this is because of Zuko, who actually does have a series spanning serialized arc. People misremember the other characters as having arcs like Zuko's, when really they develop episodically, more like traditional kid's show characters.

It's true. Sokka is a very quick study — once he realizes he was wrong about something, he course corrects in no time flat. He did the same with Aang, flat-out banishing him from the village when he didn't trust him, and then setting off to rescue him the moment he realizes he was wrong.

The series is pretty much episodic but most cartoon reviewers saw it as it serial.

This is especially true of how people talk about Sokka. You'd think his sexism was a big part of his character, or even his main arc for the whole show, not something dropped four episodes in. I guess it is at least introduced before the episode in which it's resolved, unlike most of the internal conflicts.

That might just have more to do with people really liking to talk up Sokka.

At the time, most shows (but not all) just relied on the Snap Back. Characters having an arc at all was a huge novelty. They did a great job at making a show that wasn't too badly affected by Continuity Lockout too. Just dropping in you could usually understand what was going on even if you didn't watch every episode beforehand, which can be a struggle with multiseason serial shows.

Edited by PhiSat on Jun 23rd 2023 at 10:03:02 AM

I would argue thats only really true for maybe the first half of the series; after The Library things start moving too fast to drop in and out outside a few isolated spots