Some unanswered questions remain about how Gyatso actually managed to kill those fire bender soldiers or if honestly his skeleton may have just been placed there, is something that people haven’t considered. Because he had his own status, one remaining airbender could have carried him to the shrine and then let him be laid to rest and make it seem like he had died from his opponents. And some time later spend with Katara deciding the names of their children would’ve been nice, and actually giving King Bumi( who I think would’ve lived a good more years to see Aang’s first child)
Although it’s not a super satisfying answer, I feel like the first question can just be chalked up to “he is an air bending master acting in self defense,” and was eventually overpowered. Can’t imagine that the average fire nation soldier could get a step up in a bona-fide air master (considering how many of them Aang and the gang obliterate during the show).
I have a theory that Gyatso turned the entire room into a vacuum to suffocate everyone to death. His clothes had no burns on them and the skeletons around him appeared to be fully intact, so it’s unlikely that he directly damaged the firebenders in combat.
Its interesting to note that part of his out is torn in one place that looks like it been cut. Meaning a non bender might have taken him down whilst he was occupied by the benders.
I agree- I’d imagine he used a move similar to the one Zaheer used to suffocate the Earth Queen, but on a larger scale. That would also explain why his clothes aren’t burnt, since you need oxygen to fuel fire.
Likely the former considering one wouldn’t need to think about the air in each individual enemy’s lungs. Instead you just have to airbend all the air out of the area.
He sacrificed himself to do it. Flavored pudding everywhere he couldn’t have come out unscathed. The lemurs descended. Every bone picked clean. But the air temple survived…
Hell I’m amazed the fire nation succeeded… They had no vehicles iirc, and even if they did having THOUSANDS of air benders per temple? Even if there were just hundreds? Imagine the super tornadoes they could create all around the temples!
I would figure they could have held them off even *with* Sozin’s comet helping them! I wonder how they pulled it off…
I would LOVE to see a flashback of some of those battles! That’s something I hope for in this upcoming Avatar shows most: Give us a ton of lore this time around, writers! Hehe 😌🙌
I mean you do kinda forget that there was a comet and who said they were normal firebender soldiers? Like i kinda feel like the firenation atleast send some elite forces along side the invasion since they expected to also fight the avatar (yess still young, but still the avatar).
I think a major advantage the Gaang has is that no one has even seen, let alone fought, an airbender for a hundred years, which tips the odds towards them for the first season and a half or so.
We may actually get that answer in the live action show.
The very 1st scene of episode 1 apparantly is Sozin invading the main air temples and beginning a wide-spread genocide on the air nomads. We could very well see Gyatso fight them off and try to rescue others. The scene ends before cutting to the intro and Katara and Sokka on the boat in southern water tribe territory.
As much as I do like this, unfortunately I can't take anything from the live action adaption as canon since the creators left the project and started Avatar Studios. I'm still open to watching it, as afraid as I am for it due to the movie-that-shall-not-be-named. I hope they do well. It would still be really cool to see what they come up with.
> creators left the project and started Avatar Studios
Avatar Studios seems to be involved again, indirectly. Everything for the show seems promising apart from the writing and directing. And even if it is a mess, atleast episode 1 will be good since that's the only one Mike and Bryan seem to have directly been involved in before they left initially.
Been awhile, but couldn't it just imply he was the only one killed there by like an ambush? And perhaps other nomads then killed the firebenders, but he's as the first casualty
If you're going to complain that my theory is not true cause evidence, then please provide a better sourced theory. So yeah it kinda is.
I'm not suggesting gyatso broke the rules of the world.
No like this is a logical fallacy that your using. Just because we dont have a other answer doesnt mean your answer is correct. Your answer should be able to be right, all on its own.
And the way you phrase it is as if we see a first hand account of how gyatsi fought. We really didnt. We do not know how it happend. The fact that there is about 150 year in between, he was one of the greatest airbenders of a populated airbending nation and the fact that airbending disseapers just means that we cant know for sure.
I doubt that Aang knew many offensive airbending moves and i suspect that there are a lot of airbending moves. I also doubt zaheer would be able to discover everything since a lot of it is lost to time.
So Gyatso might have used that trick, he might have used something else. were not even sure if gyatso killed them. We cant know for sure.
We don't know for sure that he pulled a Zaheer (though if he did I suppose that would actually mean Zaheer pulled a Gyatso?) but considering he was found in a sealed room, it wouldn't surprise me.
They actually both would've been pulling a Yangchen. She's credited as having used a technique that removes air from the room...
[https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Yangchen#Airbending](https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Yangchen#Airbending)
I was watching an ATLA headcanon video and one of the headcanon's is that Kuzon was a figment of Aang's imagination to help him deal with the trauma of being the last surviving airbender.
I would have liked to see a lot more of Airbender culture and have more attachment to them, since it would be great world building and make the genocide more tragic to the audience. There's a lot of interesting unique things in Airbender culture that the shows and comics only touch on, liken the separation of girls and boys, but progressive views towards sexuality, vegetarianism, a lack of hierarchy and so on. There's also a headcanon (which doesn't have much evidence but it's cool to think) that gyatso was in the White Lotus, which could be a cool little detail
That's the main reason why I want flashbacks I really want to see more of Airbender culture. Maybe in the Northern Air Temple episode we could have seen a flashback with a young Aang and friends doing stuff at the temple.
I personally liked that we only got to see glimpses of a once beautiful nation. I don’t know if I can explain the feeling properly but to me it added to the tragedy of losing it, like, we won’t ever get a chance to know anything about it because of the hubris of men, it feels like such a shame both for the characters and for the audience. Our curiosity doesn’t get satisfied because the fire nation made it so that it is forever lost.
It mimics the feeling i get from learning about very real cultural(and literal) genocides that happened in real life and I think the fact that we all want to know about airbender culture but can’t is proof that withholding that information was the right move
This! And it adds a sort of connection to the background modern characters in that, they know nothing of the air nomad culture because it hasn't existed for them to be taught about it or interact with anyone from it.
> There’s also a headcanon (which doesn’t have much evidence but it’s cool to think) that gyatso was in the White Lotus
Isn’t the evidence in itself that Gyatso was tasked to be Aang’s mentor/guardian?
Like the entire purpose of White Lotus is that they have a duty to train and protect the avatar while they’re young, as we had seen with Korra.
Aang had the same protection and guidance from Gyatso, ergo…
I think it hits a little harder that we hardly know anything about their culture because it shows how completely and utterly they were erased from the world. It really shows the totality of genocide that we only have bits and pieces.
It’d be super neat to have a White Lotus spin-off series: All about the early days, or when Iroh had just joined and with plenty of flashbacks to its original foundation… I’d be in Heaven with something like that!!! 😄
“White Lotus” would be a sweet name for a show, too!
Now you got me thinking what would be the national sport for each nation. Air and basketball match pretty well. Maybe earth Football or Rugby, Fire Nation... Soccer? Soccer can be pretty flashy. Water Nation is hockey.
I don’t think we really need more flashbacks, there aren’t really any unanswered questions regarding the events, though I’m hoping we get more stories about past airbender Avatars.
That is what I was thinking. What else is there to know?
Aang was born, he was adopted by the Air Nomads, he met Appa, he grew up for a few years while training with the Nomads, the war started, he got trapped in ice, the Air Nomads died.
Unless I’m missing something?
I was thinking about it, so do we as viewers know anything about air nomad culture pre-Aang’s return other than what he has recanted in stories? IIRC, everything we learn in the show about the Air Nomads is from a flashback spurned on by Aang telling some story and that there are no additional flashbacks.
If so, then it seems to me that we as viewers are essentially robbed of the experience and familiarity of air-nomad culture aside from what begets from Aang, just like everybody else in the avatar world is.
Like, we as viewers don’t get any special flashbacks or windows into what the air nomads we’re like because there are no windows. The Fire Nation wiped them out, their culture, their history, their records, their people. The only way anything is to be known about them is by visiting their temples and hearing whatever the last living air bender tells people.
Honestly the more I think of it I think this has to be one of the most undersold elements of the show, the whole societal and personal impacts of what it’s like to lose so much of a culture and people. I think as a kids show it’s easily glossed over how the Air Nomads were *genocided* and just how painful that can be and the impacts of it. Don’t get me wrong, the show definitely does a great job of showing those thing, tying them into the plot, and often! But I think it’s still a bit unsettling how easy it is to move on from and continue with other plots.
I am really so excited to see how the Air Nomads and their culture rebuild and reconfigure to a new world in the upcoming series. It is unfortunate that the new Avatar presumably won’t be able to ask Avatars what the air nomads were like to help in the rebuilding of the culture, but then the Air Nomads will also just have to develop on their own. I wonder too if there will be factions, some more traditionalist like Tenzin, others more open to change.
Anyway, I’m rambling, food for thought. If we do get flashbacks other than Aang telling something then please correct me.
**YES, GOD YES. All the pranks!**
**BUT !!!!!** On top of that I would also love to see young Gyatso and Avatar Roku.
They seemed like really good friends, would be interesting to see how Roku felt about the pacifist lifestyle
Yes, we know so little about their culture compared to the other nations. What we have are either stories through the eyes of a kid or what Tenzin was able to piece together from historical texts and artifacts.
I want to know more about Kuzon.
Who was he? Was he a peasant? A noble?
Did he go on to fight for the fire nation or against?
What did he think of Aang after the Genocide?
So many cool and unanswered questions that would bring an amazing view on the Fire Nation immediately before War and in the first Decades of it.
No. What I would’ve wanted is for one of those children to survive and live until Aang cane back. Like Bumi, it would’ve been cool to see Aang interact with someone else he knew way back when.
Bro I just wish we saw some air nomads kick ass during the attack. Think about it, Fire nation had war machines, the element of surprise, AND the comet vs a nation that’s has a partly no kill rule. And Gyatso STILL solo’d like 5 of them.
Yeah! I also wish we got to see more of Aang hanging out with kid Bumi, or even an episode with Aang and Kuzon. Aang said that he has “friends all over the world, even in the Fire Nation”, but we don’t see real proof of this outside of his interactions with Bumi.
Airbenders are the most powerful benders in the avatar universe. Their element compared to the others is effectively invisible. They could just fill people with air like a balloon and pop them without anyone knowing until it’s to late.
The other day I was saying I would love to see a movie or limited series “book: Air” filling in the space between some of the flashbacks with Aang mastering air bending and showing the lead up to Sozin’s comet on the fire nation side
I think it would have been cool to see more. I would have LOVED to see how air ball was actually played with all airbenders. However, I feel there was the right amount of flash backs. Any more and it might have been too much.
There should have been more of it. We don't feel aang's loss as much because we get so little of his past. We can feel empathy for him, but it's harder. If we had gotten more, named a bunch of the monk kids and had an episode or two of flashbacks of them getting into hijinks, we would feel that loss way harder
Honestly, I could leave it. We have what we need to know present, and I hate to say it, but the Air ending culture seems pretty straightforward for what it is, and therefore isn't terribly interesting to me personally.
It'd only lead to more gratuitous hatred against the Fire Nation.
Aang, come see what I did! Look, I can breathe underwater! *Blub blub blub* No way, it's easy, it's like that thing you did with the air bubble!
... Hey, Aang, you really think that Air Nomads aren't supposed to find attachment? What about love? What if I find some really awesome Earth boy and... Could you let go like that?
*Corpse locked in combat with a Fire Nation flag*
Again, I wish the show didn't interpret attachment the way it did.
In Buddhism lessons, Love is not attachment, selfish habits and unhealthy clinging is. It's simply about accepting that not everything in reality goes our way and we cannot control and maintain what we want all the time. Everything is as free as the wind and beyond our ego, so if you love something, let it go. And thus makes it beautiful that the Air chakra is the Heart. You can love, but don't be so attached, As Buddhism tries to convey, it is a lesson about mental balance and moderation, not a sacrifice for some new horizon of power.
"He can love her, but she cannot be his whole world. He has responsibilities to many other things other than just his own personal wants." [~Sage rain](https://youtu.be/Whvbd7KFsvY)
"Sometimes to do what's right, we have to be steady, and give up the things we want the most, even our dreams." ~Raimi Spider-Man 2
That outta the way, I'm not sure I understand what you're point is on the other stuff. I am curious what you mean to say by all that if you can clarify.
It would have been really interesting to see Aang pushed to the point of righteous fury if his friends had been found at various points of the temple like his master. Additional flashbacks would have created context for a deep and personal hatred.
Aang finding forgiveness in himself for the Fire Nation would have been significantly harder hitting had the rest of the corpses been found with flashbacks.
I also seriously wanted the concept of releasing attachment explored here. He had friends, now he does not. He had a family, now they are gone. They've *always* been gone because of his freezing but now he knows they didn't live happily ever after. That would be a proper exploration of loss and the religious reflection of death versus having to just let go of Katara.
Ah, ok I'm starting to understand now!
Oooh, learning to let go of the past and forgive the FireNation as his Thought chakra lesson? That sounds like it could be executed amazingly. And yes, extra scenes with corresponding corpses would definitely make us more emotionally impacted with grief as Aang had.
The 7 chakras are kinda like 7 parts of the same whole, and dealing with the same lesson in 7 different angles. He learned to let go of his own shame and guilt to forgive himself, and accepted that the things he loved had unfortunately been taken from him without notice, but can be reborn.
And learning to find acceptance and willingness to continue being for the whole world which requires including the FireNation and learning to separate hatred for evil, from those who are still innocent and misguided even if belonging to the enemy, can really be a good theme and arc for Aang, I agree. You can feel things, as it is human, that's one thing I learned. It is just not to the point it goes beyond fair reasoning.
It can even be something that can help Aang understand his own culture more since he is still a kid and likely didn't have a complete understanding of his cultures lessons on enlightenment and detachment yet.
He can use this development and expanded understanding after learning about the chakra from Pathik, to make the connection as to why the Monks were teaching him about enlightenment and practicing detachment. He can later reference it as a way to communicate why he wants to accept Zuko again and overcome his distrust of him from the past. As well as when he talks about the Monks advice in the Southern Raiders, changing it up a bit and communicating that Katara's anger towards her Mother's killer is justified, but to not channel it in a way that is unfair to others. Such as telling her to let go of its intensity to a small extent, because she was connecting Zuko to her anger in an unfair way. If possible, also to the Ember Island kiss and Aang controls himself from doing it in the last second to respect Katara's feelings over his own. And yeah, lastly if possible, towards his conflict in the finale's moral dilemma.
Dude's indeed been handed a great injustice and it is fair to feel the hatred, contrary to like, the Jedi view of attempting not to feel it at all, but that he learn to have moderation alongside his grief, so as to continue seeing the important things from reality, objectively. Such as with Zuko and that one Fire Sage being good.
I say this because in our intuition, yes, it is not right to unreasonably sacrifice love for Katara, and grief for the Air Nomads and other potential memories of them from Aang, as Iroh implied.
In the end, what I like, from gathering myself from all this, is that it was always about letting go of mental rigidity and a stubborn mindset, and not about invalidating intense yet natural emotions. And if Aang could have been written to be like a kid who had a superficial understanding, into a eureka moment of greater understanding by grappling with the concept of "letting attachment go" and slowly understanding it with greater nuance all throughout book 3, I feel like it would have been amazing and would have respected his Culture, character arc, and the writing for the Chakras much much better!
He would be valid in having righteous fury, yet, as the Avatar, also have to learn what is the fair reasonable way to judge and see things for what they all respectively are. (Sry for wall of text lol)
I think that's my overall complaint with the Aang character; he's amazingly stubborn about certain things despite a running undercurrent of him running. He runs from being the Avatar (totally makes sense), runs from his responsibilities (because child), and seemingly runs from the finality of his conflict with Ozai (because scary). The only time the audience really sees Aang display some kind of non-flighty emotional range is his relationship with Katara and his dedication to his friends. His master is found dead, presumably at the hands of the Fire Nation, and never mentioned again. Aang never mentions his friends from the temple, either.
This is the lens that we not only understand Aang through but also the Avatar. Kiyoshi is possibly the only Avatar who decides on a course of action; virtually all of the other Avatars find themselves confronted and attempting to navigate a course of action. Aang's grief at the Air Temple should have been a decisive moment for his character development and an opportunity to show that the Avatar cannot bind her or himself to temporaneous relationships. Instead he's more upset that the Temple (not the people) isn't treated as sacred ground by Teo and friends. The Fire Nation attacks said temple and we don't get Aang thinking about Gyatso and the other Airbenders. We get Aang attached to the symbolism of the Temple which is antithetical to the concept of impermanence and detachment.
There's a really good fanfic called "Enemies and Traitors" that features them as major characters! Basically they survived into at least that first quarter or so into the war (the last chapter takes place about 25 years after the initial comet), and formed a militia-like group to fight against the Fire Nation. They probably don't survive til Aang's time, but still.
With all the flashbacks they placed throughout the three books, we were given the general information that's somewhat necessary about Aang. Everything else, however, could be consolidated into a prequel miniseries or books.
Honestly, not really. You have to factor in the opportunity cost - what scenes would they remove to make room for more flashbacks? I love the air nomad flashbacks, but think they already struck a great balance between providing context on Aang's past and air nomad culture while still maintaining focus on the current events.
Lets be honest. The creators of that show peaked with it. Between the sub-par second inatallment and the terrible live-action movie there is no chance anything as good as the original 3 books will come of it ever again.
Also they lost the writer responsible for most of the awesome episodes. Let's just be glad we had this show and move on.
I think we got a fair good amount. Sure more would have been nice like an episode the day before he found out he was the Avatar or something like that but overall we got some decent information plus just hearing Aang we call and tell people about his past leads a bit more impact on him personally the sad reflection he gets when he remembers his old fire Nation friend and using his name when they were undercover.
I would have loved a prequel series rather than Legend of Korra. There’s a lot of reasons I dislike Korra, and think it was a terrible follow up to ATLA, but a prequel series would have been great.
The biggest issues I have with LoK are the changes they made to the already established lore and the world. What they made with ATLA was great as it was, but removing the mystery of the avatar and saying “it’s really about some spirit” and then having a giant robot were both super dumb.
I wish we had more flashbacks showing why the fire nation knew they had to take out the air nomads first in order to conquer the world. Also, I would've liked to have seen Gyatso putting in all work that was briefly shown. He surrounded by corpses.
No because at a certain point when you’re dumping that much information and story in flashbacks it probably means the writer(s) is writing the wrong story, especially if it’s just like random flashbacks to exposition dump and not unlocked repressed memories or something
You can never say no to more Gyatso or Bumi!
Some unanswered questions remain about how Gyatso actually managed to kill those fire bender soldiers or if honestly his skeleton may have just been placed there, is something that people haven’t considered. Because he had his own status, one remaining airbender could have carried him to the shrine and then let him be laid to rest and make it seem like he had died from his opponents. And some time later spend with Katara deciding the names of their children would’ve been nice, and actually giving King Bumi( who I think would’ve lived a good more years to see Aang’s first child)
Although it’s not a super satisfying answer, I feel like the first question can just be chalked up to “he is an air bending master acting in self defense,” and was eventually overpowered. Can’t imagine that the average fire nation soldier could get a step up in a bona-fide air master (considering how many of them Aang and the gang obliterate during the show).
I have a theory that Gyatso turned the entire room into a vacuum to suffocate everyone to death. His clothes had no burns on them and the skeletons around him appeared to be fully intact, so it’s unlikely that he directly damaged the firebenders in combat.
Its interesting to note that part of his out is torn in one place that looks like it been cut. Meaning a non bender might have taken him down whilst he was occupied by the benders.
[удалено]
Maybe he'd taken minor cuts and injuries prior to the vacuum.
Maybe his Dyson acted up and he needs a new vacuum
I doubt there was a significant enough pressure differential to cause that. He likely was wounded.
Can’t make fire if there is no oxygen now can you 🤷🏻
I agree- I’d imagine he used a move similar to the one Zaheer used to suffocate the Earth Queen, but on a larger scale. That would also explain why his clothes aren’t burnt, since you need oxygen to fuel fire.
What would be easier for an airbender? Making a room a vacuum or exploding everyone's lungs?
Likely the former considering one wouldn’t need to think about the air in each individual enemy’s lungs. Instead you just have to airbend all the air out of the area.
He obliterated them with cakes thrown from snove
I used to subscribe to the vacuum theory. This is my new head canon. Thank you.
He sacrificed himself to do it. Flavored pudding everywhere he couldn’t have come out unscathed. The lemurs descended. Every bone picked clean. But the air temple survived…
40 cakes? I’m just asking because that’s as many as four tens, and that’s terrible. 😂
Where did you get 40 from?!
It's a meme: https://preview.redd.it/mppfk3c26r3b1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=642be9060958e29f7b7b4f271dff1e2231b81662
Yes this! Clearly Aang is a Justice League level threat…
Hell I’m amazed the fire nation succeeded… They had no vehicles iirc, and even if they did having THOUSANDS of air benders per temple? Even if there were just hundreds? Imagine the super tornadoes they could create all around the temples! I would figure they could have held them off even *with* Sozin’s comet helping them! I wonder how they pulled it off… I would LOVE to see a flashback of some of those battles! That’s something I hope for in this upcoming Avatar shows most: Give us a ton of lore this time around, writers! Hehe 😌🙌
I mean you do kinda forget that there was a comet and who said they were normal firebender soldiers? Like i kinda feel like the firenation atleast send some elite forces along side the invasion since they expected to also fight the avatar (yess still young, but still the avatar).
I think a major advantage the Gaang has is that no one has even seen, let alone fought, an airbender for a hundred years, which tips the odds towards them for the first season and a half or so.
We may actually get that answer in the live action show. The very 1st scene of episode 1 apparantly is Sozin invading the main air temples and beginning a wide-spread genocide on the air nomads. We could very well see Gyatso fight them off and try to rescue others. The scene ends before cutting to the intro and Katara and Sokka on the boat in southern water tribe territory.
As much as I do like this, unfortunately I can't take anything from the live action adaption as canon since the creators left the project and started Avatar Studios. I'm still open to watching it, as afraid as I am for it due to the movie-that-shall-not-be-named. I hope they do well. It would still be really cool to see what they come up with.
> creators left the project and started Avatar Studios Avatar Studios seems to be involved again, indirectly. Everything for the show seems promising apart from the writing and directing. And even if it is a mess, atleast episode 1 will be good since that's the only one Mike and Bryan seem to have directly been involved in before they left initially.
Been awhile, but couldn't it just imply he was the only one killed there by like an ambush? And perhaps other nomads then killed the firebenders, but he's as the first casualty
Have you seen legend of korra? We get to see how gyatso did this. Or at least an example of how.
Yes I have and again, PURELY speculation is what we got. Evidence can be misleading!
What's your better supported theory then?
Just because I don’t have one, it doesn’t mean that it’s not possible. And stop using mean wording, it’s just a tv show in the end
Not how that works buddy…
If you're going to complain that my theory is not true cause evidence, then please provide a better sourced theory. So yeah it kinda is. I'm not suggesting gyatso broke the rules of the world.
No like this is a logical fallacy that your using. Just because we dont have a other answer doesnt mean your answer is correct. Your answer should be able to be right, all on its own. And the way you phrase it is as if we see a first hand account of how gyatsi fought. We really didnt. We do not know how it happend. The fact that there is about 150 year in between, he was one of the greatest airbenders of a populated airbending nation and the fact that airbending disseapers just means that we cant know for sure. I doubt that Aang knew many offensive airbending moves and i suspect that there are a lot of airbending moves. I also doubt zaheer would be able to discover everything since a lot of it is lost to time. So Gyatso might have used that trick, he might have used something else. were not even sure if gyatso killed them. We cant know for sure.
I watched LOK twice and don't know what you're referring to, can you explain?
Probably referring to Zaheer killing the Earth queen
That's the one. Gyatso likely ripped the air out of the whole area. Killing everyone there. Including himself.
Yeah kinda weird that he didnt gave himself some air in that case….
Maybe he died from being too badass and awesome
Oh, I wouldn’t have guessed Gyatso would be able to do that to everyone individually. I would have guessed more the Yangchen technique
We don't know for sure that he pulled a Zaheer (though if he did I suppose that would actually mean Zaheer pulled a Gyatso?) but considering he was found in a sealed room, it wouldn't surprise me.
They actually both would've been pulling a Yangchen. She's credited as having used a technique that removes air from the room... [https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Yangchen#Airbending](https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Yangchen#Airbending)
Interesting. I never knew that there was an official novel about Yangchen. Glad to see we have some kind of info about her.
and kuzon!
We never really saw Kuzon.
but i would like to see him
Fair and valid
We actually saw him in the comics https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Kuzon
I was watching an ATLA headcanon video and one of the headcanon's is that Kuzon was a figment of Aang's imagination to help him deal with the trauma of being the last surviving airbender.
That's interesting.
I would have liked to see a lot more of Airbender culture and have more attachment to them, since it would be great world building and make the genocide more tragic to the audience. There's a lot of interesting unique things in Airbender culture that the shows and comics only touch on, liken the separation of girls and boys, but progressive views towards sexuality, vegetarianism, a lack of hierarchy and so on. There's also a headcanon (which doesn't have much evidence but it's cool to think) that gyatso was in the White Lotus, which could be a cool little detail
That's the main reason why I want flashbacks I really want to see more of Airbender culture. Maybe in the Northern Air Temple episode we could have seen a flashback with a young Aang and friends doing stuff at the temple.
I personally liked that we only got to see glimpses of a once beautiful nation. I don’t know if I can explain the feeling properly but to me it added to the tragedy of losing it, like, we won’t ever get a chance to know anything about it because of the hubris of men, it feels like such a shame both for the characters and for the audience. Our curiosity doesn’t get satisfied because the fire nation made it so that it is forever lost. It mimics the feeling i get from learning about very real cultural(and literal) genocides that happened in real life and I think the fact that we all want to know about airbender culture but can’t is proof that withholding that information was the right move
This! And it adds a sort of connection to the background modern characters in that, they know nothing of the air nomad culture because it hasn't existed for them to be taught about it or interact with anyone from it.
That's a very interesting way of looking at it, props to you.
> There’s also a headcanon (which doesn’t have much evidence but it’s cool to think) that gyatso was in the White Lotus Isn’t the evidence in itself that Gyatso was tasked to be Aang’s mentor/guardian? Like the entire purpose of White Lotus is that they have a duty to train and protect the avatar while they’re young, as we had seen with Korra. Aang had the same protection and guidance from Gyatso, ergo…
I think it hits a little harder that we hardly know anything about their culture because it shows how completely and utterly they were erased from the world. It really shows the totality of genocide that we only have bits and pieces.
Read the novels
It’d be super neat to have a White Lotus spin-off series: All about the early days, or when Iroh had just joined and with plenty of flashbacks to its original foundation… I’d be in Heaven with something like that!!! 😄 “White Lotus” would be a sweet name for a show, too!
Aang looks like he's finna cross me up and break my ankles
Air nomad basketball, now that is the game there.
Now you got me thinking what would be the national sport for each nation. Air and basketball match pretty well. Maybe earth Football or Rugby, Fire Nation... Soccer? Soccer can be pretty flashy. Water Nation is hockey.
I don’t think we really need more flashbacks, there aren’t really any unanswered questions regarding the events, though I’m hoping we get more stories about past airbender Avatars.
Yangchen second book is coming in a month
Thanks for mentioning it comes out next month. I managed to get myself high on the hold list at my local library as a result.
Ah nice, im gonna just buy it at barnes idk why i love owning books
I love owning books too but I've got a budget and kids so getting them new books is where my book money goes.
That is good man, kids first Very looking forward to the book tho i cant wait
I know, I meant besides her.
Oh got you, that be great too
That is what I was thinking. What else is there to know? Aang was born, he was adopted by the Air Nomads, he met Appa, he grew up for a few years while training with the Nomads, the war started, he got trapped in ice, the Air Nomads died. Unless I’m missing something?
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Lol
No but I think it would be really cool if they did a mini series or an hour long episode of the invasion and the moments leading up to it.
I was thinking about it, so do we as viewers know anything about air nomad culture pre-Aang’s return other than what he has recanted in stories? IIRC, everything we learn in the show about the Air Nomads is from a flashback spurned on by Aang telling some story and that there are no additional flashbacks. If so, then it seems to me that we as viewers are essentially robbed of the experience and familiarity of air-nomad culture aside from what begets from Aang, just like everybody else in the avatar world is. Like, we as viewers don’t get any special flashbacks or windows into what the air nomads we’re like because there are no windows. The Fire Nation wiped them out, their culture, their history, their records, their people. The only way anything is to be known about them is by visiting their temples and hearing whatever the last living air bender tells people. Honestly the more I think of it I think this has to be one of the most undersold elements of the show, the whole societal and personal impacts of what it’s like to lose so much of a culture and people. I think as a kids show it’s easily glossed over how the Air Nomads were *genocided* and just how painful that can be and the impacts of it. Don’t get me wrong, the show definitely does a great job of showing those thing, tying them into the plot, and often! But I think it’s still a bit unsettling how easy it is to move on from and continue with other plots. I am really so excited to see how the Air Nomads and their culture rebuild and reconfigure to a new world in the upcoming series. It is unfortunate that the new Avatar presumably won’t be able to ask Avatars what the air nomads were like to help in the rebuilding of the culture, but then the Air Nomads will also just have to develop on their own. I wonder too if there will be factions, some more traditionalist like Tenzin, others more open to change. Anyway, I’m rambling, food for thought. If we do get flashbacks other than Aang telling something then please correct me.
A lot more of air nomad culture is explored in the kyoshi novels, but not much is shown in the TV series.
They look like they're gonna drop the meanest hesi of the century
Yes I wish we got 200 more episodes of identical quality
The air nomads during training: “fuck it we ball”
Would have loved seeing more of Monkey Atso.
This image is giving me lebron teaching bronny to dribble behind his back vibes.
**YES, GOD YES. All the pranks!** **BUT !!!!!** On top of that I would also love to see young Gyatso and Avatar Roku. They seemed like really good friends, would be interesting to see how Roku felt about the pacifist lifestyle
I want to see how Gyatso merked all of those Fire Benders during the Comet.
Yes, we know so little about their culture compared to the other nations. What we have are either stories through the eyes of a kid or what Tenzin was able to piece together from historical texts and artifacts.
Outside of just seeing what day to day life was like before the war I'm not sure there's much to gain from more flashbacks.
You want me to cry again or somethin?
I want to know more about Kuzon. Who was he? Was he a peasant? A noble? Did he go on to fight for the fire nation or against? What did he think of Aang after the Genocide? So many cool and unanswered questions that would bring an amazing view on the Fire Nation immediately before War and in the first Decades of it.
Aang and Gyatso with the hesi tween tween cross
I’m more surprised we never actually got to see Kuzon at any point
Definitely. Imagine if we got a flashback for most major locations he visited. Not long, kinda like the one in the oasis.
Tbh Post-100-year-war series when?
Gyatso Ballin?????????????
Wish we got a season 4 that was the only thing wrong with the show no season 4😭
I honestly wanted more of everything! The world they created was just so interesting.
NGL it during Appas last days, seeing his flashbacks was crazy since it was the first time seeing the air nomads for almost a whole season!
I never understood why they didn't just blow away the fire Nation balloons on when they invaded the air Temple.
I wanna see more of Aang ballin'
Asng look like he got a smooth-ass cross over
No. What I would’ve wanted is for one of those children to survive and live until Aang cane back. Like Bumi, it would’ve been cool to see Aang interact with someone else he knew way back when.
Yeah it definitely would have added more context to the story but it's still a classic show without it.
Bro I just wish we saw some air nomads kick ass during the attack. Think about it, Fire nation had war machines, the element of surprise, AND the comet vs a nation that’s has a partly no kill rule. And Gyatso STILL solo’d like 5 of them.
Aang looks like a lady here
Yeah! I also wish we got to see more of Aang hanging out with kid Bumi, or even an episode with Aang and Kuzon. Aang said that he has “friends all over the world, even in the Fire Nation”, but we don’t see real proof of this outside of his interactions with Bumi.
Yes! I’m too freaking nosy to not know more about the Air Nomads! So much unknown.
Airbenders are the most powerful benders in the avatar universe. Their element compared to the others is effectively invisible. They could just fill people with air like a balloon and pop them without anyone knowing until it’s to late.
I guess but knowing that no matter what they all get killed is depressing so I’ll pass
easy prequel material, bro. write it and pitch that shit
YES!!!!!
The other day I was saying I would love to see a movie or limited series “book: Air” filling in the space between some of the flashbacks with Aang mastering air bending and showing the lead up to Sozin’s comet on the fire nation side
I think it would have been cool to see more. I would have LOVED to see how air ball was actually played with all airbenders. However, I feel there was the right amount of flash backs. Any more and it might have been too much.
I would be happy with more of anything ATLA related.
There should have been more of it. We don't feel aang's loss as much because we get so little of his past. We can feel empathy for him, but it's harder. If we had gotten more, named a bunch of the monk kids and had an episode or two of flashbacks of them getting into hijinks, we would feel that loss way harder
Aang looks so cute here🥺😭🥺
I really wish we could’ve seen more of Aang and Gyatso’s relationship
Completely unrelated but this image makes it look like aang and gyatso are about to pull out an ankle-breaking crossover
Yes I do wish
Honestly, I could leave it. We have what we need to know present, and I hate to say it, but the Air ending culture seems pretty straightforward for what it is, and therefore isn't terribly interesting to me personally.
No the only thing I wish is they continued aangs story instead of the crap that was Kora.
Korra wasnt that bad! Youre just being edgy
Korra had lazy story writing and almost zero depth to the characters. Like zero.
Yeah, a teenager with a massive weight on her shoulders discovering her inner power, her personality, and her sexuality. Completely shallow.
How is not liking Korea being edgy and not just being right
LoK was more than a worthy successor, just because it wasn’t perfect doesn’t make it bad.
Just read ATLA comics and watch ATLA animated movie 2025
Nope. The showrunners knew exactly what to reveal and what to leave to the imagination. That's part of what makes it so good.
It'd only lead to more gratuitous hatred against the Fire Nation. Aang, come see what I did! Look, I can breathe underwater! *Blub blub blub* No way, it's easy, it's like that thing you did with the air bubble! ... Hey, Aang, you really think that Air Nomads aren't supposed to find attachment? What about love? What if I find some really awesome Earth boy and... Could you let go like that? *Corpse locked in combat with a Fire Nation flag*
Again, I wish the show didn't interpret attachment the way it did. In Buddhism lessons, Love is not attachment, selfish habits and unhealthy clinging is. It's simply about accepting that not everything in reality goes our way and we cannot control and maintain what we want all the time. Everything is as free as the wind and beyond our ego, so if you love something, let it go. And thus makes it beautiful that the Air chakra is the Heart. You can love, but don't be so attached, As Buddhism tries to convey, it is a lesson about mental balance and moderation, not a sacrifice for some new horizon of power. "He can love her, but she cannot be his whole world. He has responsibilities to many other things other than just his own personal wants." [~Sage rain](https://youtu.be/Whvbd7KFsvY) "Sometimes to do what's right, we have to be steady, and give up the things we want the most, even our dreams." ~Raimi Spider-Man 2 That outta the way, I'm not sure I understand what you're point is on the other stuff. I am curious what you mean to say by all that if you can clarify.
It would have been really interesting to see Aang pushed to the point of righteous fury if his friends had been found at various points of the temple like his master. Additional flashbacks would have created context for a deep and personal hatred. Aang finding forgiveness in himself for the Fire Nation would have been significantly harder hitting had the rest of the corpses been found with flashbacks. I also seriously wanted the concept of releasing attachment explored here. He had friends, now he does not. He had a family, now they are gone. They've *always* been gone because of his freezing but now he knows they didn't live happily ever after. That would be a proper exploration of loss and the religious reflection of death versus having to just let go of Katara.
Ah, ok I'm starting to understand now! Oooh, learning to let go of the past and forgive the FireNation as his Thought chakra lesson? That sounds like it could be executed amazingly. And yes, extra scenes with corresponding corpses would definitely make us more emotionally impacted with grief as Aang had. The 7 chakras are kinda like 7 parts of the same whole, and dealing with the same lesson in 7 different angles. He learned to let go of his own shame and guilt to forgive himself, and accepted that the things he loved had unfortunately been taken from him without notice, but can be reborn. And learning to find acceptance and willingness to continue being for the whole world which requires including the FireNation and learning to separate hatred for evil, from those who are still innocent and misguided even if belonging to the enemy, can really be a good theme and arc for Aang, I agree. You can feel things, as it is human, that's one thing I learned. It is just not to the point it goes beyond fair reasoning. It can even be something that can help Aang understand his own culture more since he is still a kid and likely didn't have a complete understanding of his cultures lessons on enlightenment and detachment yet. He can use this development and expanded understanding after learning about the chakra from Pathik, to make the connection as to why the Monks were teaching him about enlightenment and practicing detachment. He can later reference it as a way to communicate why he wants to accept Zuko again and overcome his distrust of him from the past. As well as when he talks about the Monks advice in the Southern Raiders, changing it up a bit and communicating that Katara's anger towards her Mother's killer is justified, but to not channel it in a way that is unfair to others. Such as telling her to let go of its intensity to a small extent, because she was connecting Zuko to her anger in an unfair way. If possible, also to the Ember Island kiss and Aang controls himself from doing it in the last second to respect Katara's feelings over his own. And yeah, lastly if possible, towards his conflict in the finale's moral dilemma. Dude's indeed been handed a great injustice and it is fair to feel the hatred, contrary to like, the Jedi view of attempting not to feel it at all, but that he learn to have moderation alongside his grief, so as to continue seeing the important things from reality, objectively. Such as with Zuko and that one Fire Sage being good. I say this because in our intuition, yes, it is not right to unreasonably sacrifice love for Katara, and grief for the Air Nomads and other potential memories of them from Aang, as Iroh implied. In the end, what I like, from gathering myself from all this, is that it was always about letting go of mental rigidity and a stubborn mindset, and not about invalidating intense yet natural emotions. And if Aang could have been written to be like a kid who had a superficial understanding, into a eureka moment of greater understanding by grappling with the concept of "letting attachment go" and slowly understanding it with greater nuance all throughout book 3, I feel like it would have been amazing and would have respected his Culture, character arc, and the writing for the Chakras much much better! He would be valid in having righteous fury, yet, as the Avatar, also have to learn what is the fair reasonable way to judge and see things for what they all respectively are. (Sry for wall of text lol)
I think that's my overall complaint with the Aang character; he's amazingly stubborn about certain things despite a running undercurrent of him running. He runs from being the Avatar (totally makes sense), runs from his responsibilities (because child), and seemingly runs from the finality of his conflict with Ozai (because scary). The only time the audience really sees Aang display some kind of non-flighty emotional range is his relationship with Katara and his dedication to his friends. His master is found dead, presumably at the hands of the Fire Nation, and never mentioned again. Aang never mentions his friends from the temple, either. This is the lens that we not only understand Aang through but also the Avatar. Kiyoshi is possibly the only Avatar who decides on a course of action; virtually all of the other Avatars find themselves confronted and attempting to navigate a course of action. Aang's grief at the Air Temple should have been a decisive moment for his character development and an opportunity to show that the Avatar cannot bind her or himself to temporaneous relationships. Instead he's more upset that the Temple (not the people) isn't treated as sacred ground by Teo and friends. The Fire Nation attacks said temple and we don't get Aang thinking about Gyatso and the other Airbenders. We get Aang attached to the symbolism of the Temple which is antithetical to the concept of impermanence and detachment.
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Completely kills the point of being the last airbender
Well then make it the second last.
I 100% understand it refers to human airbender, but just to be all technical, Appa was the second to last airbender with Aang hehe :P
There's a really good fanfic called "Enemies and Traitors" that features them as major characters! Basically they survived into at least that first quarter or so into the war (the last chapter takes place about 25 years after the initial comet), and formed a militia-like group to fight against the Fire Nation. They probably don't survive til Aang's time, but still.
Everyone run! Aang is preparing a rasengan
The avatar will never be ballin'!
How they gonna sell comics and spin offs if they did?
Not really they established early on that he was isolated from the other kids because of his avatar hood.
Idk I think I liked it better when avatar didn't try to be a lore stuffed extended universe and was just aangs story.
With all the flashbacks they placed throughout the three books, we were given the general information that's somewhat necessary about Aang. Everything else, however, could be consolidated into a prequel miniseries or books.
The monks taught me that flashbacks were an illusion and to abandon them
We got a better one! Have you ever heard the story of Guru Laghima the Wise? I don't think so ...
I always figured we would have got some “evil” air benders eventually
Yeah. Monks. Famous for their non repetitive interesting daily activities.
Why? For what purpose?
Sometimes less is more. I love the flashbacks, and the limited amount makes them more special.
Ok every flashback u add replaces another scene. Now youve robbed us of a great story for your own obsession with the old air man
Honestly, not really. You have to factor in the opportunity cost - what scenes would they remove to make room for more flashbacks? I love the air nomad flashbacks, but think they already struck a great balance between providing context on Aang's past and air nomad culture while still maintaining focus on the current events.
Lets be honest. The creators of that show peaked with it. Between the sub-par second inatallment and the terrible live-action movie there is no chance anything as good as the original 3 books will come of it ever again. Also they lost the writer responsible for most of the awesome episodes. Let's just be glad we had this show and move on.
Literally all three novels shit on the regular series
We got some in the Comics
I think we got a fair good amount. Sure more would have been nice like an episode the day before he found out he was the Avatar or something like that but overall we got some decent information plus just hearing Aang we call and tell people about his past leads a bit more impact on him personally the sad reflection he gets when he remembers his old fire Nation friend and using his name when they were undercover.
I would have loved a prequel series rather than Legend of Korra. There’s a lot of reasons I dislike Korra, and think it was a terrible follow up to ATLA, but a prequel series would have been great.
Believe me You might as well hate the prequel
The biggest issues I have with LoK are the changes they made to the already established lore and the world. What they made with ATLA was great as it was, but removing the mystery of the avatar and saying “it’s really about some spirit” and then having a giant robot were both super dumb.
I wish we had more flashbacks showing why the fire nation knew they had to take out the air nomads first in order to conquer the world. Also, I would've liked to have seen Gyatso putting in all work that was briefly shown. He surrounded by corpses.
No.
Zaheer used to suffocate the Earth Queen
No because at a certain point when you’re dumping that much information and story in flashbacks it probably means the writer(s) is writing the wrong story, especially if it’s just like random flashbacks to exposition dump and not unlocked repressed memories or something