Was Yakone being able to bloodbend at any time due to genetics (because his sons could do it) or was he really just a Ozai-tier waterbender?
Was Yakone being able to bloodbend at any time due to genetics (because his sons could do it) or was he really just a Ozai-tier waterbender?
the latter
his sons could do it because he taught them to
genetics might just be an especially strong affinity for bending rather than just the ability to bloodbend during the day
Same reason buttholes off the street could lightening bend. There was no reason.
>There was no reason.
the reason is that their highly industrialized world and faster, cheaper forms of knowledge dispersion meant once rare techniques are now commonplace
>uhhh actually anyone could do it but they just never read how XD!!!!
Cuck
im no avatar loremaster but the reason in ATLA for lightning bending being rare is that it was a prized, secret royal technique only taught within the royal bloodline, giving them supremacy over anyone else and legitimizing their rulership. thats why zuko never knew how to do it and azula could: zuko was unworthy and got exiled on top of that and azula was the favorite child of Ozai and probably gave him head when no one was watching. probably reach-arounds too.
that last part is entire my headcanon based on the interaction Azula had with Zuko in her bedchambers.
It was never a royal bloodline secret. People just jumped to that conclusion because we only see the royals do it but that is because the number of actual master firebenders we meet in the show is extremely small and most are in the royal family, and the ones who aren't are people like Jeong Jeong who doesn't have the screentime nor would he lightningbend if he was able given his views on regular firebending.
Note he says "only a select few firebenders can separate these energies" implying it is a more widely known just extremely difficult to do technique or something of a talent.
Toph discovers metalbending and within her lifetime it's a well-known technique because she explicitly sought to spread the knowledge of how to metalbend. Bloodbending was discovered by Hama who only ever taught Katara, who then pushed to have the practice outlawed. Yakone apparently discovered bloodbending on his own and only taught his kids. Hama and Katara couldn't bloodbend without the full moon, but it's equally likely that Hama never refined bloodbending as a technique - and Katara never learned beyond the basics - as Yakone being anything special.
The full moon may have also enchanced Hama's waterbending capabilities in the same way the Comet could do to Firebenders. Meanwhile Yakone probably was just that powerful as a Waterbender since he managed to take out a whole court room.
>faster, cheaper forms of knowledge dispersion
I wasn’t aware they had the internet in Korra. Unless you meant to imply that written word wasn’t around in Aang’s time?
>Unless you meant to imply that written word wasn’t around in Aang’s time?
they transitioned to radio, telegraph, and mass-produced written works
newspapers are very much a thing in korra when they werent in aangs time
and the invention of the steamship would obviously allow ideas and knowledge to move between far off places much faster
>when they werent in aangs time
Do we actually know that for sure?
Just because we never see a newspaper doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Something people keep forgetting about AtlA is that the world as we see it in the show is specifically after 100 years of war not in it's natural pre war state, the south pole is not just one tiny village of about twenty people, the north pole is not just one city,etc resources are scarce and society has crumbled over time.
The thing that everyone forgets about AtLA is that it's not some ancient fantasy setting, the widespread tech level is 19th century and the Fire Nation in particular is straight up 20th century.
There is zero indication of the printing press existing in AtLA's time period.
There's a whole scene explaining how lightning bending works it goes beyond just having someone show you how it's done since Zuko a well trained fire bender couldn't do it no matter how much he trained because he lacked the mental capacity to do so. You have to either be enlightened, insane, or both to conjure lightning
Lightning in Korra is weaker, it's more like a shock, in the original show it was fatal, so maybe the "lightning" in Korra is a weaker imitation of true lightning bending.
they are on the whole much more versatile with lightning in korra, like using it as a precise arc welder to slice through steel
the general de-mystification of advanced techniques has led to them being more mundane
This is a moronic retcon. The reason advanced techniques were barred is because if you didn't know what you were doing you could hurt yourself and others around you. It's like the writers just don't understand their own universe. No, time wouldn't change this neither would technology. You either had the capacity to be a good bender or you didn't.
its more widespread because times have changed and super techniques are no longer solely taught to the royal family
for the last time IT WAS NEVER A ROYAL SECRET.
Never does anyone say it was a royal secret, Iroh uses entirely general terms when describing it. And even if it was that doesn't change the point it is dangerous to learn, highly lethal, and requires a certain disposition going into it and none of that is going to change with advancing times.
Technically it's canonically not true now given in the Kyoshi novels it's mentioned that even during Kyoshi's time as avatar the technique was known albeit rare and used by firebending outlaws.
>da novel
Who cares
I mean Mako straight up killed that b***h with his lightning.
you're comparing lighting by the literal strongest top 2 fire benders in the era of war and conquest, compared to the lightning of basic blue collar workers
>Same reason buttholes off the street could lightening bend
There's no such thing as lightning bending. It can't be manipulated like fire can. You can just generate or redirect it. There is no bending it.
I know that's not the point you were trying to make, which came through. I just wanted to point out that particular distinction in phrasing because most people make that mistake.
No one really said you had to be a particularly strong bender in order to lightning bend. You just had to be able to negative and positive chi separate within or some bullshit wuxia magic.
You actually did. It was an extremely hard technique. Zuko managed to learn how to redirect it but he could never fire it.
Zuko couldn't separate his negative and positive because of his inner turmoil or whatever. And he was a very powerful bender. I never said you had to be a strong fire bender to learn lightning bending.
Lighting bending requires mastery of oneself and one’s purpose through meditation. Street thug A didn’t exactly strike me as the meditating type.
>the new series
You mean another avatar? Anything set post-Korra will adhere to their autistic desire to progress technology and culture as rapid not as possible. Part that will be the near-homogenization of bending styles like we’ve already seen with pro bending.
>Lighting bending requires mastery of oneself and one’s purpose through meditation
>Azula
I don't think it does. I think it requires extreme focus on precision.
maybe don’t speedwatch if you want to have discussions
Look, I'm just saying, Azula, who was constantly haunted by her mother's disapproval and chasing after her father's validation did not have "a mastery of herself and her purpose".
And Ozai, who had an unquenchable thirst for power, certainly didn't achieve mastery of himself through meditation.
Yeah she did. Her self was to be Ozai's Dragon and future Fire Empress and purpose was to lead the fire nation to conquer the world
Bro once she became fire lord AKA reached her goal AKA achieved her purpose, she had a mental breakdown. Because that really wasn't what she wanted.
She got a gutted Fire Lord position because Ozai had just invented a superior one for himself, it didn't change her status as her dad's minion.
>Azula
Anon, do you think only good people can master themselves? Do you think malicious purpose isn’t real?
I don't think she knew her own purpose, whereas Zuko clearly knew his by the end. He even told Ozai what his purpose was. Again I reiterate, I think lightning bending requires extreme focus on precision (being very careful to not mix the positive and negative energies).
That actually makes sense and I'm sick of pretending it doesn't.
It makes perfect sense that lightening bending was once a big secret technique only known to a few but so was fricking gunpowder once, eventually that info gets out and it becomes common knowledge.
The real question is how did the secret of bloodbending get known? Did Katara teach someone?, Did Hama teach somebody else in jail? Did Yakone just independently figure it out himself?
It seems that Yakone was part of some ancient special bloodline of prodigy Waterbenders.
the fact Katara tried to get it banned implies that there were more bloodbenders than just those 3
No it doesn't make sense and I am tired of people trying to claim it does. For the same reason that random thugs on the street aren't brewing their own gunpowder. Yes you may know it is Saltpeter + Charcoal + Sulfer, but unless you have a guide or experience you aren't going to be finding and mixing those ingredients in your backyard. Why? because it has a high probability to blow up in your face, and why does a thug need gunpowder, standard weapons work just fine and you really don't need to bust down a wall. Not to mention looking up how to make explosives is a good way to get yourself on a watchlist.
Lightningbending is the same way. Yes someone can know the basic principle of it but if they don't grasp it it literally blows up in your face. And the benefit it offers is that it is a highly lethal killing tool, nothing else. Regular bending for most people works just fine in that regard in fact most thugs probably want something not immediately lethal in order to rough people up and avoid getting homicide added to a list of crimes. And then on the watchlist side why would you allow lightningbending to be taught in a regular society. Just as how we don't teach kids how to make explosives there is no practical use for lightningbending that other bendings don't cover outside of combat. Welding? use firebending or metalbending. Power generation? make an earthbending generator it would be 10 times more effective. If we are going to ban bloodbending then it makes sense to bend lightningbending as well.
Lighningbending was never a secret technique it was a difficult and lethal one. There is a difference and that is why it becoming commonplace in Korra is dumb.
>And the benefit it offers is that it is a highly lethal killing tool, nothing else
power generators, and no, you can't store earth as energy opposed to electricity.
>Doesn't know how a turbine works
He just doesn't know how an electricity works in general.
>you can't store earth as energy opposed to electricity.
Gravity generator: Move rock up slope attached to rope, attached to counter weight with the rope pulling a gear/wheel to turn dynamo.
Heat battery: Use lavabending to to melt down stone which can boil water for turning turbine or power stirling engine
Inefficient method: Use earthbending/metal bending to directly turn turbine or generator
>For the same reason that random thugs on the street aren't brewing their own gunpowder.
Because there is an entire worldwide supply network that legally supplies all the ammunition they could ever want?
In countries where guns are illegal or hard to get you bet your ass gang members are making their own gunpowder as well as their own guns and they can do so BECAUSE that information is available.
>Lightningbending is the same way. Yes someone can know the basic principle of it but if they don't grasp it it literally blows up in your face
You know what's another skill IRL that was once rare, is extremely dangerous with the risk of death but is also positively mundane these days?
Driving
>And then on the watchlist side
Why are you assuming lightingbending is illegal when in the show it clearly isn't?
I agree that using lightiningbending for energy generation is pants on head moronic though.
>Lighningbending was never a secret technique it was a difficult and lethal one.
Literally all bending is horrifyingly lethal, an amateur earthbender could kill hundreds easily.
Lightingbending doesn't appear to be any more lethal than any other form of bending.
Yes any bending can be lethal, but Lightningbending in the original series was always portrayed as especially lethal and never had the cartoon buffer of people surviving things they shouldn't. Yes in real life hitting someone in the head with a rock at the speeds earthbenders can is going to cave in their skull, in avatar it dazes someone a bit.
Lightningbending in contrast, we only ever see a direct hit with once. And that is Aang getting his back blown out by Azula. And it literally puts him on death's doorstep with the only reason for his living being the special healing water Katara had. Iroh directly refuses to shoot lightning at Zuko to test his redirection, because he points out if it is even slightly off Zuko will die, and even full on states he should never want to be in a position to test this technique. The times we see a botched redirection it is also near lethal for those involved. Zuko being taken completely out of the fight with Azula with his still 90% redirection. Part of Aangs fight with Ozai he has the chance to send the lightning right back at him but chooses to throw it into the air because it is apparent it would be a lethal strike.
On that note there is another factor to the danger of Lightningbending, the uncontrollability of it. The reason one has to do redirection is that you don't actually bend lightning, just generate it and point it in a direction. The lightning has to flow through you in order to actually move it somewhere else. Basically another bending style can choose to be lethal and can more accurately control there powers so as to not harm someone else. You can't do either with Lightningbending. So it just seems odd to me bloodbending would be illegal and lightningbending not.
He hit the genetic lottery because bloodbending can only be done during a full moon but he was born with the ability to do it whenever he wanted. That ability was passed on to his sons.
God that whole subplot was fricking stupid, why couldn’t they just make Amon just a normal dude that learned mega chi blocking or some shit? What would that have taken away from the story?
Bryke suck as story tellers it's sad. Both korra and dragon prince are mid-tier at their best times and shitty on average and it's because the writers split.
But it’s such a clear story though, I mean you’d have to be brain dead to not see the possibilities.
They're primarily story borders who wanted to tell and EPIC Story without the constraints of having other writers. It got to their heads and so they made a shittier version of avatar. It's sad because I doubt the new series will go back to giving each martial art a style again.
But even then they could have seen what the frick the general theme with Amon and the whole arc for Season one should have been. It should have been “okay he has a point but is going about it in a fricked up way”. It would have just been the same shit with Jet only he’s the main antagonist. And instead of his brother what his face could have been an friend or some shit that started the movement with him but left when he started going crazy with it.
Honestly the only thing of the earth avatar series that gives me hype is seeing how they handle the new air nation situation, I hope they don't screw it up.
They’ll either be the new big bad or be comedically inept.
>new big bad
God I wish, they really have infinite possibilities with here.
Imagine an extremist sect made up of the descendants of the buttholes who refused to join with Tenzin in S3. Also, you just know there will be a lot of airbending sub-styles due to the Nu-airbenders incorporating things of the bending of their relatives.
>Nu-airbenders incorporating things of the bending of their relatives
So air bending in a similar style to the pro bending style?
Yeah
>air benders who are not boring baldies
Cool. I'd like to see the next air bending avatar completely reject air nomad bullshit.
I like to think that at some point in Avatar's world history the Airbenders were Not!Mongols pillaging and raping villages.
Everybody gangster until the Air Nomads become the Air Crusaders
They have this running problem with Korra where the villain brings up a legitimate problem with the society but then OOPS HAHAHA HE WAS CRAZY EEEEVIL HIS MOTIVATIONS ARE TAINTED! That means we can ignore the societal issues brought up beyond a handwave at the end!
MCU movies have this issue too.
>That means we can ignore the societal issues brought up beyond a handwave at the end!
korra literally says that they should address amons issues
>MCU movies have this issue too.
iron monger literally just wants to sell new and better weapons
>korra literally says that they should address amons issues
and then? The fricking Equalists are brought back as random fricking grunts for some powerful benders for some fricking reason, going against their very own principles.
Reread the last 6 words that you quoted. When the frick does the series follow through on that? Its just brought up in the season 1 finale and they move on to the next arc in season 2.
It’s fricked because they can just make it a message about extremism. I mean the Avatar is supposed to bring balance, so why the frick couldn’t they have just addressed the point but said the means in which they sought to achieve it were fricked. I mean they do shit like make a non bender president after season one but that doesn’t really do anything. Also they don’t really show how nonbenders have it harder than benders. I mean aside from the butthole on the rival pro bending team bullying some people it’s seems not so bad. I mean one of the richest dudes in the city isn’t a bender.
they should have focused on how technology was going to displace benders
The whole notion that waterbending can permanently seal someone else's bending abilities is very dumb, and it's even dumber that Katara couldn't undo it with her own Waterbending
Lightning should have been an air bending evolved ability, not fire
>In the early stages of development, air acts as an insulator between the positive and negative charges in the cloud and between the cloud and the ground. When the opposite charges build up enough, this insulating capacity of the air breaks down and there is a rapid discharge of electricity that we know as lightning.
Amon should have just been an expert chi blocker. The narrative themes that could have been touched on with a legitimate bender vs non bender class struggle made for an excellent story that could have lasted multiple seasons. Not to mention the advent of new tech in Korra would have created ample opportunity to show the gap being closed between benders and non benders as well as a disregard for the spirit world by the general public in exchange for technological progress. Frick what a wasted potential.
This, they could have had a whole thing about the rise in tech shaking up the world's balance and traditions, with benders afraid of societal change and everyone navigating what that meant for the state of the world, and even worked that into the whole spirit world stuff...it just feels like every season touches on interesting topics and goes about it in a shallow, rushed way. God, the pieces are all there and it's such a cool setting...
I had an idea for an AU fanfic like this. It’s basically where Amon is the Ozai of TLOK, but he doesn’t start out all take over and get rid of bending. He and the Equalists are much more chill and are a public movement calling for well equality and peace. But over the course of the series as multiple bending villains do fricked up shit and more tech is developed he loses heart and starts to see extreme measures as the only solution.
I actually think it was a good thing that he was a bender. Otherwise it would be just an "us vs them" or a "powerless against powerful" argument, which will just bring forth war. However if a bender sees that bending is bad, that means they have a legitimate reason instead of just jealously. He was willing to cripple himself for a greater cause.
Except it wasn’t, benders are pretty easily dealt with with shit like chi blocking and advancing technology just makes it even easier. All making Amon a bender did was just make him some generic power hungry butthole.
It completely ruined any nuance to the conversation and it was never brought up again and the city still had inequality up until the end.
well yeah, but that writing problem has nothing to do with him being a bender or not.
you said generic power hungry, when he made himself weaker for the cause he was advocating. Plus he could have taken control of the city by force from the beginning, but instead waiting until enough people believed in his cause because he didn't wanted to be just in power, he wanted to be in power to bring a (misguided) good change in society.
If it were just chi blockers and technology, it would be just seen as "You only say that because you don't know what it is like to be a bender/non-bender"
>you said generic power hungry, when he made himself weaker for the cause he was advocating
No he went from a well meaning extremist to a guy that didn’t give a shit and was just using a real issue to take over and become powerful. It was never about equality or the cause for Amon, that was all just a facade to let him take away peoples bending so no one could stand against him.
> he made himself weaker for the cause he was advocating.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Actually I would have preferred if they hadn't explained who he was or how his powers worked at all at leave it to the imagination. It just felt too obvious and straightforward as it is.
I also liked the contradiction of Korra being capable of taking anyone in a fight only to then be scared of someone who can't even appear to bend, it was an interesting way to challenge he view of the world.
This power level shit will be the downfall of the Avatar franchise, mark my words
Almost every other anime and cartoon elemental power system is just “SHOOT THE ELEMENT AS A LASER AT YOUR OPPONENT!” And that is really boring. Fire balls, wind shurikens, ice beams, and it’s so bad that nobody every uses earth because they can’t make earth into a laser beam.
Avatar is the outlier. Each bending style is unique and beautiful to animate. At least it was in ATLA.
whoever thought it would be a good idea to replace the elemental martial arts with a guy doing an anime smirk and saying “heh, none of you can move now because I am the BLOOD bender >:)” should be shot. Frick your high stakes, it looks like shit and is boring and ugly.
Bolin using magma because it’s the earth laser beam is boring and ugly.
Mako spamming the lightning laser beam is boring and ugly.
Zaheer doing an anime smirk and floating around is boring and ugly.
>shit talking Zaheer's flight
Nah him losing his earthly connection and gaining flight is kino. Just ignore the morons who claim that means he was a Master, because him getting washed in a 1 on 1 airbending fight and needing his goons shows his limits pretty solidly.
>I have let go of all wordly desires...but I'm still going to kidnap and kill you
How FRICKING exactly am I supposed to believe he let go of his worldly desires if he went flying away carrying Korra to do the very thing he set out to do for the material world since the beginning, if he was free he would have just escaped forever
Thats my bad for mispeaking, the series identifies it as "earthly tether" which in this case would be P'li. His desire for anarchy wasnt anything tethering him to the earth as he wished for the destruction of the world's systems.
>No one can bloodbend unless it's a full moon
>Just kidding this random guy can because he tries really, really hard
>So can his kids
Get fricked Bryke
>it's more effective to use any other bending to turn a turbine to create electricity, rather than just directly creating electricity
holy moronation batman
Try charging a battery with piezo igniter.
There is a reason why we do not collect lightning bolts irl. And while some of the problems do not translate to lightning bending since it is less powerful, it still would be extremely hard.
And that is ignoring the fact that you need to know what an electricity is and how to make it useful. Something tells me, that propelling oneself using earth bending is infinitely simpler than inventing a car or that lighting a room with a fire is simpler than inventing a light bulb.
>There is a reason why we do not collect lightning bolts irl
because of location dumbass
Do you even know the fricking steps to go through to even get to turning turbine and then converting the kinetic energy into electrical energy? Being able to generate lightning yourself bypasses all that.
>Something tells me, that propelling oneself using earth bending is infinitely simpler than inventing a car or that lighting a room with a fire is simpler than inventing a light bulb.
Yes, it's easier to just run than to invent a car. Great job figuring that out.
>because of location dumbass
And also because of: unknown charge, varying power, instantaneous nature, high voltage that needs to be lowered, etc.
The locations is the least of your concerns.
>Do you even know the fricking steps to go through to even get to turning turbine and then converting the kinetic energy into electrical energy? Being able to generate lightning yourself bypasses all that.
Electrical generator is infinitely simpler than any infrastructure needed to use or transform electricity.
> Yes, it's easier to just run than to invent a car. Great job figuring that out.
You NEED to be able to run to start inventing wheels, you need wheels to invent carriage, you need carriage to consider inventing a car.
You NEED to know what an electricity is to know lightning is electricity. You need to know how to operate "simpler" electricity to know how to handle fricking lightning. You need simple generators to start studying electricity.
That is ignoring the fact, that inventions need to make life simpler for people to adopt them. How on earth is it simpler to employ hundreds of people to strike lightning 8hr a day than building a hydropower plant or burning the coal.
>And also because of: unknown charge, varying power, instantaneous nature, high voltage that needs to be lowered, etc.
All able to be calculated except instantaneous nature which is part of location you tried to sneak by. Guess what isn't able to be calculated? A magic specific fricking spot where you can just catch lighting bolts. We have lighting rods irl now able to catch lightning. The actual fricking problem is that there isn't a consistent flow of it compared to a river. And guess what there is in the Avatar universe? People who can generate fricking lightning consistently.
>Electrical generator is infinitely simpler than any infrastructure needed to use or transform electricity.
Given how in the universe they're using the infrastructure of electricity conversion without issue, obviously that isn't the case.
>That is ignoring the fact, that inventions need to make life simpler for people to adopt them. How on earth is it simpler to employ hundreds of people to strike lightning 8hr a day than building a hydropower plant or burning the coal.
Because you have hundreds of fricking living batteries already. Why the frick do the people in the earth kingdom use earth benders instead of an elevator with a simple pulley system? Because they live in a universe where thousands of people can fricking move earth up and down.
>A magic specific fricking spot where you can just catch lighting bolts.
Stick a bunch of long iron poles into the filed you are done.
> except instantaneous nature which is part of location you tried to sneak by.
No, what I meant by instantaneous nature is different. It is true that lightning has a lot of usable energy, it is about it being released all at once that is the problem. Think nuclear power plant and a fricking atomic bomb. Think car driving for miles and car hiting a wall at 200 miles. All cases have a lot of energy that surely can be recovered and used, but some are harder, because you have to deal with all the energy at once.
>Given how in the universe they're using the infrastructure of electricity conversion without issue, obviously that isn't the case.
What do you mean? Are we taking this argument seriously or we stop? Because you are trying to prove Korra's universe isn't stupid because it works inside of it. You could have just said "Well they do use lb to generate electricity, deal with it. "
In real life anything that goes into transforming, storing and using electricity is more complex than things we do to generate electricity.
>Because you have hundreds of fricking living batteries already
>Because they live in a universe where thousands of people can fricking move earth up and down.
That is one of my points. Not only it is harder technologically to absorb lightning than to tie stones to pulleys to generator, it is safer, and there is more people who can lift rocks. You will just go bankrupt if you'd try something like this.
>Stick a bunch of long iron poles into the filed you are done.
and is it going to have thunder in that fricking field all the time to be consistent you fricking moron? I'm not even going to bother wasting my time going through your other points.
It's not the element use that's the issue so much as the man hours. To generate electricity in the manner shown in the show means firebenders have to repeatedly shoot lighting for hours on end which is probably tiring and dangerous, while other ways of generating electricity using bending (or better yet without bending) would involve far less effort.
>loses argument
>starts replying to himself
What would an Ozai-tier Earthbender look like? Be able to metalbend, lavabend, and sandbend at the same time?
Could Ozai firebend and lightningbend at the same time?
There's one element I like about Amon's bloodbending in the series, and that's watching and noticing when he's doing it to weaken people fighting him, like Korra. There's a scene in the episode where the equalists attack the Pro-bending finals, and Korra seems to be rapidly gaining on him escaping through the roof, then all of a sudden her water tornado she's riding starts to collapse and her vision goes fuzzy.
It's cool in hindsight, still a fricking storybreaking power and a terrible way to do the whole bending silencing thing.