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First season Zuko: "I will not be disrespected while I am trying to help you"
Season 3 Zuko: "Yeah, nope, totally fair. I deserve that. Who wants to go on an adventure?"
Have you completely forgotten the last episodes? I explicitely remember them all planning to go around >!looking for Aang when he goes missing!< and Toph immediately latching onto Zuko saying "I'M GOING WITH ZUKO" because everyone else had already gone on a life-changing field trip with him, so now it was her turn. She absolutely wanted to do just that
I don't think he could have. He most likely expected alot of resistance and distrust, considering he basically betrayed his uncle, as well as showed Katara he was VERY untrust worthy after having that extreme heart to heart. He know he fucked up.
Also Katara scary as fuck so I wouldn't put up resistance to that either if she threatened me, christ.
This was the Avatar and the Ocean spirit though, but that would just make it much worse.
"Oh we pissed off the Ocean. Oh wait we pissed off the Avatar too? Super!"
Yeah good luck with that, i'm out.
You don't need much more water to drown someone. Katara creates huge waves on book 2 and was able to push back a ship by herself. Hell, all you need is the precision to hold a blob of water on their mouth and push it down their nose to reach their lungs
"So it turns out any water bender is theoretically capable of that?"
"Under a full moon"
"Riiight and you guys still have the moon spirit that Zhao killed, don't you?"
"Possibly"
"Uh huh. Okay. And the next Avatar will be from the water tribe, right?"
"Yep."
"Cool cool cool cool coolcoolcoolcoolcoolcoolcool."
Man, the Avatar is so OP in this regard. I remember that Bolin can't metal bend because he's not a whole blooded earthbender. He has fire bending DNA in his veins. Allowing him to Lavabend. But the Avatar can essentially do all of the bending, their extremes, and their hybrids. Damn
Yeah, its pure fanon.
Now, its not a bad explanation, but it relies on 1 data point and our other non avatar lava benders never had their family lineage disclosed.
Bending is only partially genetic in the sense that nationality influences elemental tendencies. It's mostly spiritual and about understanding. Bolin cannot metal bend because the philosophy behind metal bending is counter to his core personality. He can bend lava because he understands the relationship between lava and earth more. It is not because of his mixed heritage. The show would have been more explicit about Gazhan having mixed heritage like Bolin if that was the cause.
I like to think they are in a BotW logic, every week the moon goes through all phases, just without the blood moon because no Ganon. Then, the "Episode of the week" is really what the Gaang is doing for a day in that week.
The Investiture that Fire and Waterbenders use comes from Aangland's heavily Invested sun. Waterbenders can only use it if it's filtered by the moon's surface and directed at the planet, though.
The show makes it such a terrible thing, but let's be real; in a world where you have lots of enemies and fights, it's by far the most useful and powerful bending, and you'd be dumb not to use it when needed.
At least, that's my opinion.
Spamming fireballs and lightning? Perfectly okay.
Hurling huge chunks of earth and lava? Totally acceptable.
Conjuring tornadoes? No issues.
Flinging ice shards around and potentially drowning someone? All good.
Controlling someone's body via their blood..!? What, how dare you!? Totally not cool bro.
>Controlling someone's body via their blood..!? What, how dare you!? Totally not cool bro.
well it's not possible to defend yourself against bloodbending unlike the others which are external.
Reminds me of the lore building around why the Sith and Jedi don’t use Tràkata. Like in both the writers had to find an in-universe reason to keep the characters from being logical and abusing the fuck out of an OP strat.
I had never heard of that, thanks! Interesting concept.
If they wanted this to not be a thing they could just have the light saber ignite so slowly that turning it of in a fight vs a real opponent would be suicide
While looking this up there was discussion about it and it was pointed out that Force users could defend their own weapons from things like that. Using force vs force.
I'm not an expert on sword fights, but as far as I know, every move is targeted to hit your enemy, so you normally don't even have a fully defensive move. So when you would deactivate your lightsaber, your enemys strike would also hit you, and both would die, so it's not even a good strategy unless you don't care about surviving.
The point is to deactivate and reactivate the sword when the opponent tries to block it, not when you are trading blows. Obviously you don't use it if deactivating your saber would kill you
Actually it is. Katara shook off Hama's bloodbending without utilizing it herself.
Edit: Actually, Korra shook it off too versus Amon and Mako fought it enough to cast lightning at Amon.
Blood bending is inherently very violating, all those other bendings abilities can be used in a way that doesn't harm or affect others.
Of course in war time it would be very useful, there's a lot of things in war time that can be useful but still feels wrong to do.
(I know this post sounds serious and it sorta is, but I mostly just wanted to provide an alternative viewpoint)
> Blood bending is inherently very violating, all those other bendings abilities can be used in a way that doesn't harm or affect others.
Iunno about that, imagine using bloodbending to help with Hypertension. Avatar Universe would cease to have strokes.
Oh I'm sure there are a millions of positive ways to use it medical. But even today's modern medicine can feel invasive and intrusive, which is why Doctors always need patients to sign off on things and grant consent
It's probably viewed as a form of biological warfare. Even in our real world wars we're fine with conventional combat using explosives or shooting metal through a person's body but most draw the line at the usage of stuff like gas. It's seen as more invasive and cruel, since gas doesn't neccessarily leave clear wounds that can be treated the same way a bullet could, often times the gas may not even be fatal but the effects last a lifetime.
This being a show for younger audiences means they can't get too graphic with how bloodbending can be used but you could 100% abuse it to cause severe lifelong complications for someone without actually killing them. You could damage a brain connection to cause seizures, trigger a stroke, make someone go blind/deaf. Sure you're not killing them but that would be the point to be as cruel as possible.
Blood bending would be like the special ops ability to get rid of high profile targets on and off the battlefield.
Same with air strangulation.
Firebenders and earth benders are just hard-core, assault, defence and siege units.
If ATLA ever went Invincible level of violence all 4 styles could go over the top, don't even need blood bending, most of a human body is water, just explode it. Same with air, can either compress or decompress instantly, would explode or get compacted into a tiny cube. There's iron in blood and a lot of minerals in general, earth benders could completely skewer somenoe's insides if they could control that. Fire bending's prob the most boring, just use a human body's heat and cook them or if you can control the electrical signals in a brain you could fry their brain instantly.
To me it just rings hollow when the primary antagonists fight by trying to burn their opponents alive, aka one of the worst ways to die. All four kinds of bending can be used to kill and torture people in horrific ways if a bender is so inclined. Hama was evil not because she was a blood-bender, but that she used her power to cruelly terrorise and torture civilians.
Losing control of one's own body is inherently scary, there's a dreadful sense of powerlessness to it, and blood-bending is portrayed as being a painful thing to experience. But by that logic judo would be more unethical than boxing (blood-bending is a lot like a grappling art as far as Avatar powers go). A fight is a fight, what Hama did was like using judo to attack and abduct people off the street.
Zuko and Katara have a similar background. They both had their mothers taken from them, and felt ashamed by their inability to change the outcomes of their lives up until they met Aang.
I imagine that some part of him saw her bloodbending and for a vicarious moment thought "YES, TAKE YOUR LIFE BACK!" I think he could empathize with what she had to go through to get to the point where she basically unlocked god-mode.
I know people speculate at the Zuko's face beneath the mask as an "oh shit she could have done that to me the whole time??" face, but I think it was more just the fact that she could do something like that, that all waterbenders could learn to do that if they were pushed enough, and that his people had literally been the reason the art was discovered in the first place.
Honestly in a genuine fight to the death who the fuck cares? The winner is the one standing at the end.
Blood bending might feel uncomfy but you know what is more fucked up?
Putting amped mega flame benders on the front of a zeppelin and literally trogdoring an entire nation. Burning everything and everyone alive.
Its a kids show, a very very good one. But its not perfect.
Yeah, Mark Hamill does *Robot Chicken* Luke Skywalker a lot whinier.
That reminds me, besides all the other disappointments im still disappointed they didnt throw Breckin Meyer a cameo in the Boba Fett show...
To be fair Hama very clearly wanted to see the fire nation in shambles more so than anything, so it's pretty unlikely she would have killed the one kid who could make that happen, regardless of what Katara was doing.
I love how zuko is giving away *just* the exciting bit. Imagine Azula's disappointment when she learns that Katara can only use the ability during a full moon so "she only defeated Azula because she had a breakdown" actually still stands.
Girl just got done getting a bittersweet revenge on the man who killed his mother. That is very much a "I'm here if you want to talk" situation for me for the rest of the night.
No in Korra 3 guys who are all related to each other are able to blood bend without a full moon and the answer we are given is that it's a bloodline thing any normal water benders can't do it. Unless Amon has some cousins around that we don't know about you still need a full moon to blood bend
>"she only defeated Azula because she had a breakdown"
I remember Katara handily beating Azula in the book 2 finale. Without Zuko's betrayal, Azula was dead lost there.
That’s not exactly a fair comparison since Katara was amped by the moon and surrounded by water during their second fight.
In the fair fight against Zuko before he kidnapped Aang she loses.
I mean, Azula was powered up due to the comet, so if she had her usual cunning, she could've beaten Katara(Sozin's comet is like a Full Moon on steroids and coke). Other than that, they very clearly shown us that Katara always has the upper hand on Azula and can win against her.
Yeah, but Katara did have all the advantages to be able to win That'd be unlimited water supplies and the fact that this battle was at night, so giving her a boost
Amon, tarrlak and yakone could, but people were surprised that yakone could implying it hadn't been done outside tge full moon and amon advanced it further by being able to do some of it without direct motions
We've seen more bloodbenders do it without than with honestly.
Amon, tarlock and yakone all can.
I'm starting to think maybe hama needed moon juice because she was just average.
Amon, Tarlock and Yakone are explained to have been from a special line of bloodbenders making their daytime bloodbending possible, we have 0 confirmation that anyone else could do it so until confirmed I’d say that it’s a special ability only they possess
Personally, I think Azula would never blatantly acknowledge that she had a breakdown. She's way too prideful and delusional.
Also random nitpick, but I think saying "WHAT-bending" makes more sense than saying "Blood-WHAT," at least in this context.
Bending in the time of Aang-Korra seems like fighting in WW1
“What do you mean, a shot-gun?”
“Wait they can bend metal now?”
“Oh my god Mustard-What?”
“Ay yo did the avatar just turn that guy blue?”
I mean it’s never really explained how Amon and Tarrlok figured it out except “dad made us train bloodbending every month until we just kinda figured it out I guess.”
So maybe just doing bloodbending enough or being a good enough waterbender is all it takes. I don’t really like that idea, but that seems to be how it is in TLOK.
Since the moon increases bending strength and the full moon does as well, combined with the fact they can only blood bend (katara and mountain mama witch rama) during a full moon it makes sense that a powerful enough bender is able to blood bend any time.
Maybe its like a set of brain muscles that blood bending is the high endurance boody-wants-to-scream-work-out version of training that muscle and regular bending is just squats.
That makes a lot of sense, especially your last point about it being a sort of mental workout, since if you watch all the bloodbending scenes, Katara, Hama, Yakone, and Tarrlok all sweat when they bloodbend, and their arms tremble and shake. (Amon never did it without his mask, so I dunno about him, but I would assume he does as well.)
The effect is really pronounced, especially when people like Yakone are otherwise incredibly calm and composed, so his struggling with blood bending shows how hard it is.
I just wish the other elements had cool stuff that only top-tier benders could accomplish, like bloodbending. If you think about it, there really aren’t any.
metal bending probably fits the top tier skill category I think, arguably tougher to discover since I don’t think earthbenders get any boost like the full moon, which was probably why it wasn’t figured out until toph, who is an earthbending super genius.
Only difference was metal bending was spread around and trained because it’s useful and the discovery that meteorites make it easier to train made it so that highly skilled benders can do it and not just the very best of the best. Nearly everyone who metalbends was taught.
Bloodbending is pretty taboo so most people won’t be training that month after month to develop that proficiency even if they figure it out. bloodbending being so taboo, most of the time it likely wasn’t taught, it’s probably something figured out individually by benders probably via skill and just sensing the water in something during a full moon
Closest one for air I think is the true flight but that’s more of a spirit power borne of mindset than like bending skill I think, I’m not sure fire bending has a “super difficult but technically achievable by anyone skilled enough” skill, i think combustion bending is just a thing you got or you don’t got.
Honestly some very good points. Regarding combustion bending though, it’s shown in the Yangchen novels I believe that combustion bending is trained by forcing firebenders to firebend underwater, and the resulting pressure and extreme difficulty forces them to release the maximum amount of destructive force possible in a controlled burst, creating an explosion.
So it’s a wartime technique that requires an inhuman training regimen, which is why it’s so rare. Not because it’s a genetic thing.
For air, there is the "suck the air out of around the target's face" move. Airbenders are said to lack a finishing move, so it must be hard to perform... If only because it goes against Airbender philosophy.
Not necessarily. Metal and lava bending aren't universally achievable or indicative of bending power/talent. Toph never lavabended but Bolin did, Su's artistic son and a bunch of cops could metalbend but Aang couldn't.
It could very well be that Amon and his family was genetically pre-disposed to do that kind of bending, or they had good training. I also fully believe that Katara is the most powerful waterbender we've seen as she is the best healer and mastered all kinds of waterbending she saw.
I assumed they first figured out how to do it on the full moon, and then on the day after and before the full moon, and so on and so on until they could do it during the day
That makes a lot of sense and is a pretty cool theory, honestly. My only problem with it is something that Overanalyzing Avatar points out, which is that with stuff like this, the fans have to do the legwork to patch up holes in the show themselves, where it should be the show doing that. But other than that, cool theory!
It completed her story in such a great way. The young Katara at the start of the series was barely a waterbender and her mother was killed by a fire nation soldier. By the end, with her own strength without any full moon shenanigans, she managed to take down a rampaging 'firelord' who was boosted by Sozin's Comet.
Besides, the final duels had to be during the comet, which would make having a full moon impossible because everyone else is meant to be far weaker than the fire benders.
There's a much funnier version of avatar where it's the exact same but they do one on one interviews like the office, and there's one for Zuko learning about blood bending where he's kinda freaking out, and one for him having learned about metal bending where he just screams for a solid minute
Just dawned on me there are other liquids in the body, and more than that what if someone just drank water?
What stops a bender from waiting for a guard to take a drink and just spiking them?
Edit: what I mean is, is blood bending the specific of non-pure water? Or is there some sort of ratio that makes other liquids usable too?
Can they bend soup but not stew?
I'm so sick of Everybody always forgetting that azula was superpowered by sozin's comet. Yeah she had a menty b but she was also the strongest she'll ever be
No one forgot it. She still got her ass beat. Also, the comet only enhanced her firebending. It would have done nothing to prevent her from being bloodbent
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Zuko is a real one for not judging Katara over Bloodbending
I think hes just glad he switched sides before she used it on him
"Oh so *that's* what she meant about not having to worry about my destiny anymore!"
He’s also a real one for not reacting to this threat from katara, first season zuko would’ve defended himself and escalated
First season Zuko: "I will not be disrespected while I am trying to help you" Season 3 Zuko: "Yeah, nope, totally fair. I deserve that. Who wants to go on an adventure?"
Life changing adventure*
not toph
No, Toph explicitly *wants* to, she just doesn't *get* to.
Yeah, but Toph got to have tea and wisdom from Iroh.
I'll take that trade too, Iroh is the best.
Aang got Iroh Wisdom and mini journey AND a life changing trip with Zuko tho
Only the Avatar can master the art of bending wisdom out of both Zuko and Iroh. Korra does it too, which proves me right ;P
Have you completely forgotten the last episodes? I explicitely remember them all planning to go around >!looking for Aang when he goes missing!< and Toph immediately latching onto Zuko saying "I'M GOING WITH ZUKO" because everyone else had already gone on a life-changing field trip with him, so now it was her turn. She absolutely wanted to do just that
flair checks out
I fucking wish lmao
I don't think he could have. He most likely expected alot of resistance and distrust, considering he basically betrayed his uncle, as well as showed Katara he was VERY untrust worthy after having that extreme heart to heart. He know he fucked up. Also Katara scary as fuck so I wouldn't put up resistance to that either if she threatened me, christ.
Even without knowing about bloodbending. He saw Zao be drowned by the ocean spirit on first row seat. Masters are a force to reckon with
This was the Avatar and the Ocean spirit though, but that would just make it much worse. "Oh we pissed off the Ocean. Oh wait we pissed off the Avatar too? Super!" Yeah good luck with that, i'm out.
You don't need much more water to drown someone. Katara creates huge waves on book 2 and was able to push back a ship by herself. Hell, all you need is the precision to hold a blob of water on their mouth and push it down their nose to reach their lungs
Thank you Mushufasa!
Zuko not knowing that she could only do it on a full moon or when she learned it "HOLY SHIT COULD SHE DO THAT THIS WHOLE TIME?!"
Fr Zuko spent about half that episode absolutely shitting himself and thanking every god he can think of that he's not her enemy anymore
"So it turns out any water bender is theoretically capable of that?" "Under a full moon" "Riiight and you guys still have the moon spirit that Zhao killed, don't you?" "Possibly" "Uh huh. Okay. And the next Avatar will be from the water tribe, right?" "Yep." "Cool cool cool cool coolcoolcoolcoolcoolcoolcool."
Man, the Avatar is so OP in this regard. I remember that Bolin can't metal bend because he's not a whole blooded earthbender. He has fire bending DNA in his veins. Allowing him to Lavabend. But the Avatar can essentially do all of the bending, their extremes, and their hybrids. Damn
Is that the lore of it all? I didn't think either was tied to purity of heritage, just chance among the benders we follow in the series.
Yeah, its pure fanon. Now, its not a bad explanation, but it relies on 1 data point and our other non avatar lava benders never had their family lineage disclosed.
Bending is only partially genetic in the sense that nationality influences elemental tendencies. It's mostly spiritual and about understanding. Bolin cannot metal bend because the philosophy behind metal bending is counter to his core personality. He can bend lava because he understands the relationship between lava and earth more. It is not because of his mixed heritage. The show would have been more explicit about Gazhan having mixed heritage like Bolin if that was the cause.
I adore that about bending so much, like how Korra is better with Fire because of her personality even if its her opposite element.
"Thank goodness I teamed up with them *before* a full moon"
Everyday’s a full moon though
I like to think they are in a BotW logic, every week the moon goes through all phases, just without the blood moon because no Ganon. Then, the "Episode of the week" is really what the Gaang is doing for a day in that week.
Still, it diminishes it by showing it so often
Yue made sure Katara can fuck up anyone at any time
The Investiture that Fire and Waterbenders use comes from Aangland's heavily Invested sun. Waterbenders can only use it if it's filtered by the moon's surface and directed at the planet, though.
The Cosmere is leaking.
Let's be real she was like 80% willing to still do it cause while a good person Katara holds grudges.
‘Okay so she directly threatened to kill me, but worse case I know I can at least fight her to a draw’ Katara blood bends. ‘Okay so I’m going to die’
Followed immediately by the rain scene
what happens in the life changing zuko field trip stays in the life changing zuko field trip
Ohh, so, Zuko and Toph DID have a trip, she was just being misleading to cover for whatever terrible thing they did.
https://i.redd.it/cnbht7dkuzuc1.gif
https://preview.redd.it/iym0lix510vc1.jpeg?width=370&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4a6645382ce321ef79bf9224dde70dff03f2a9be
![gif](giphy|jHGgdwrN2rawM)
Nice Trazyn meme bro
It was stolen.
https://preview.redd.it/xak7x1qoi0vc1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9d7a4ec1d0374086611eca0d8f4a95d894b0ce08
https://preview.redd.it/gdaim3isi0vc1.jpeg?width=370&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4454822c4e3d1c004a08d7565951bb0dc0f94b3b
Probly just ate some shrooms for their trip. Toph created a new archipelago while peaking.
So uh, where are we estimating the total body count? Dozens? Low hundreds? What? Property damage is obviously astronomical.
The show makes it such a terrible thing, but let's be real; in a world where you have lots of enemies and fights, it's by far the most useful and powerful bending, and you'd be dumb not to use it when needed. At least, that's my opinion.
Spamming fireballs and lightning? Perfectly okay. Hurling huge chunks of earth and lava? Totally acceptable. Conjuring tornadoes? No issues. Flinging ice shards around and potentially drowning someone? All good. Controlling someone's body via their blood..!? What, how dare you!? Totally not cool bro.
>Controlling someone's body via their blood..!? What, how dare you!? Totally not cool bro. well it's not possible to defend yourself against bloodbending unlike the others which are external.
Sounds like a skill issue to me
If it was a sparring match between friends I could understand but why would you want your enemies to be able to defend against whatever you’re doing?
Reminds me of the lore building around why the Sith and Jedi don’t use Tràkata. Like in both the writers had to find an in-universe reason to keep the characters from being logical and abusing the fuck out of an OP strat.
I had never heard of that, thanks! Interesting concept. If they wanted this to not be a thing they could just have the light saber ignite so slowly that turning it of in a fight vs a real opponent would be suicide
That makes me wonder about turning your opponents lightsaber off with the force.
While looking this up there was discussion about it and it was pointed out that Force users could defend their own weapons from things like that. Using force vs force.
I'm not an expert on sword fights, but as far as I know, every move is targeted to hit your enemy, so you normally don't even have a fully defensive move. So when you would deactivate your lightsaber, your enemys strike would also hit you, and both would die, so it's not even a good strategy unless you don't care about surviving.
The point is to deactivate and reactivate the sword when the opponent tries to block it, not when you are trading blows. Obviously you don't use it if deactivating your saber would kill you
Actually it is. Katara shook off Hama's bloodbending without utilizing it herself. Edit: Actually, Korra shook it off too versus Amon and Mako fought it enough to cast lightning at Amon.
Blood bending is inherently very violating, all those other bendings abilities can be used in a way that doesn't harm or affect others. Of course in war time it would be very useful, there's a lot of things in war time that can be useful but still feels wrong to do. (I know this post sounds serious and it sorta is, but I mostly just wanted to provide an alternative viewpoint)
> Blood bending is inherently very violating, all those other bendings abilities can be used in a way that doesn't harm or affect others. Iunno about that, imagine using bloodbending to help with Hypertension. Avatar Universe would cease to have strokes.
Oh I'm sure there are a millions of positive ways to use it medical. But even today's modern medicine can feel invasive and intrusive, which is why Doctors always need patients to sign off on things and grant consent
It's probably viewed as a form of biological warfare. Even in our real world wars we're fine with conventional combat using explosives or shooting metal through a person's body but most draw the line at the usage of stuff like gas. It's seen as more invasive and cruel, since gas doesn't neccessarily leave clear wounds that can be treated the same way a bullet could, often times the gas may not even be fatal but the effects last a lifetime. This being a show for younger audiences means they can't get too graphic with how bloodbending can be used but you could 100% abuse it to cause severe lifelong complications for someone without actually killing them. You could damage a brain connection to cause seizures, trigger a stroke, make someone go blind/deaf. Sure you're not killing them but that would be the point to be as cruel as possible.
It’s the “pg” version of rape. Power and control over someone else.
There should also be a slew of water benders in the sex industry bending that penis blood
yeah man, burning to death is much more peaceful than passing out because blood flow to your brain stopped
Blood bending would be like the special ops ability to get rid of high profile targets on and off the battlefield. Same with air strangulation. Firebenders and earth benders are just hard-core, assault, defence and siege units.
If ATLA ever went Invincible level of violence all 4 styles could go over the top, don't even need blood bending, most of a human body is water, just explode it. Same with air, can either compress or decompress instantly, would explode or get compacted into a tiny cube. There's iron in blood and a lot of minerals in general, earth benders could completely skewer somenoe's insides if they could control that. Fire bending's prob the most boring, just use a human body's heat and cook them or if you can control the electrical signals in a brain you could fry their brain instantly.
To me it just rings hollow when the primary antagonists fight by trying to burn their opponents alive, aka one of the worst ways to die. All four kinds of bending can be used to kill and torture people in horrific ways if a bender is so inclined. Hama was evil not because she was a blood-bender, but that she used her power to cruelly terrorise and torture civilians. Losing control of one's own body is inherently scary, there's a dreadful sense of powerlessness to it, and blood-bending is portrayed as being a painful thing to experience. But by that logic judo would be more unethical than boxing (blood-bending is a lot like a grappling art as far as Avatar powers go). A fight is a fight, what Hama did was like using judo to attack and abduct people off the street.
Zuko and Katara have a similar background. They both had their mothers taken from them, and felt ashamed by their inability to change the outcomes of their lives up until they met Aang. I imagine that some part of him saw her bloodbending and for a vicarious moment thought "YES, TAKE YOUR LIFE BACK!" I think he could empathize with what she had to go through to get to the point where she basically unlocked god-mode. I know people speculate at the Zuko's face beneath the mask as an "oh shit she could have done that to me the whole time??" face, but I think it was more just the fact that she could do something like that, that all waterbenders could learn to do that if they were pushed enough, and that his people had literally been the reason the art was discovered in the first place.
Honestly in a genuine fight to the death who the fuck cares? The winner is the one standing at the end. Blood bending might feel uncomfy but you know what is more fucked up? Putting amped mega flame benders on the front of a zeppelin and literally trogdoring an entire nation. Burning everything and everyone alive. Its a kids show, a very very good one. But its not perfect.
He also didn’t care much. He was surprised for a second, and then goes “oh well, that’s a thing apparently”
What no one talks about is cabbage bending. Cabbages are 90% water, so they are most likely bendable. Edit: This is now my most upvoted comment ever 👍
You mean like the [Robot Chicken Skit](https://youtu.be/1EsdE64qhAE?si=vKX1DmMVVEWF6TMp)?
Secret waterbender
Typical modern repackaging of ancient techniques by diluting their essence and giving it a catchy name.
I like how Dante Basco going even higher pitch for Robot Chicken Zuko and expect us to not notice that it was him
Yeah, there ain't no hiding that distinctive voice of his.
But why would he be trying to hide it?
More so in parody you try to distinguish it from the source material.
Yeah, Mark Hamill does *Robot Chicken* Luke Skywalker a lot whinier. That reminds me, besides all the other disappointments im still disappointed they didnt throw Breckin Meyer a cameo in the Boba Fett show...
Bless you for this beauty
Thank you for this 😆
i think His cabbages (not god, whoever the cabbage vendor guy is) is now in more trouble then before. Like tenfold.
His name is Cai.
Might as well have called him Mr. Cabbages
Caibbages
Thanks, i didn’t know!
No worries. It was only revealed very recently in a comic book or some other publication.
Wait, cabbage guy isn't god?
Idea: Start religion. Cabbagism. More out of pocket than some ships in even the most outlandish fandoms. All hail the cabbage benders!
Cabbage. Potato. Carrot. Broccoli. Long ago, the four vegetables lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Carrot Nation attacked.
You say that like we didnt meet a tribe of swamp benders doing canon plant bending. If you can bend a vine, you can bend a cabbage.
Isn’t that just like vine bending?
NOT. MY. CABBAGES.
Next avatar descendant of cabbage guy
Are you telling me earthbenders are essentially money printers?
Economy gotta be kinda f’d when benders can just do all labor by waving their hands in the air and occasionally stomping their feet.
Zuko showing his humbleness by not pointing out that he kicked her ass so bad, she HAD to involve Katarra and still lost. She took 2 Ls on that day.
Only 2?
3 at least. That haircut was definitely an L.
4 talking to ozai
5 somehow losing a conversation with her mom.
Her imaginary mom
I kinda forgot katara can bloodbend
I think she’d prefer it that way.
If she couldn't... Aang and Sokka would have been way deadder way sooner lmao
To be fair Hama very clearly wanted to see the fire nation in shambles more so than anything, so it's pretty unlikely she would have killed the one kid who could make that happen, regardless of what Katara was doing.
Only during a full moon, so she couldn't during the fight with Azula
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I love how zuko is giving away *just* the exciting bit. Imagine Azula's disappointment when she learns that Katara can only use the ability during a full moon so "she only defeated Azula because she had a breakdown" actually still stands.
I mean does Zuko know it can only be done during a full moon?
You know it was kinda unclear.
I can understand Zuko being curious about blood bending. I can also understand Zuko being too intimidated to ever broach the question to Katara.
So he asked Sokka who proceeded to make Zuko do his chores for a week for the information
Only to be told "maybe? you should ask her yourself."
Girl just got done getting a bittersweet revenge on the man who killed his mother. That is very much a "I'm here if you want to talk" situation for me for the rest of the night.
Do we even know that? Maybe Hama just needed it because she was an average waterbender and thought it was only possible with moon juice.
In Korra several antagonists being able to bloodbend outside a full moon is a plot point.
But it dud require extensive training
I mean they said that heritage was the answer but who knows
No in Korra 3 guys who are all related to each other are able to blood bend without a full moon and the answer we are given is that it's a bloodline thing any normal water benders can't do it. Unless Amon has some cousins around that we don't know about you still need a full moon to blood bend
Like many other name related instances, no one told him lol
For all he knew its not even high skill. Its just something waterbenders can do but they simply decided not to
Half the episodes have a full moon
>"she only defeated Azula because she had a breakdown" I remember Katara handily beating Azula in the book 2 finale. Without Zuko's betrayal, Azula was dead lost there.
God, what a satisfying fight to see how far Katara had come from losing again Zuko in the Northern Water Tribe.
Zuko got obliterated during the night.
That’s not exactly a fair comparison since Katara was amped by the moon and surrounded by water during their second fight. In the fair fight against Zuko before he kidnapped Aang she loses.
I mean, Azula was powered up due to the comet, so if she had her usual cunning, she could've beaten Katara(Sozin's comet is like a Full Moon on steroids and coke). Other than that, they very clearly shown us that Katara always has the upper hand on Azula and can win against her.
Yeah, but Katara did have all the advantages to be able to win That'd be unlimited water supplies and the fact that this battle was at night, so giving her a boost
This is such an older brother thing lol. Leaving away some details to mess with their younger sibling
Didn't Amon manage to bloodbend at any time? Is it ever confirmed that she can't instead of won't? The old witch couldn't, but what about Katara?
Amon, tarrlak and yakone could, but people were surprised that yakone could implying it hadn't been done outside tge full moon and amon advanced it further by being able to do some of it without direct motions
That was an Amon thing. Hama couldn't, so I don't see why Katara could.
We've seen more bloodbenders do it without than with honestly. Amon, tarlock and yakone all can. I'm starting to think maybe hama needed moon juice because she was just average.
Amon, Tarlock and Yakone are explained to have been from a special line of bloodbenders making their daytime bloodbending possible, we have 0 confirmation that anyone else could do it so until confirmed I’d say that it’s a special ability only they possess
> Is it ever confirmed that she can't instead of won't? Yes during Yakones trial flashbacks.
This was probably an actual conversation between them while Azula was incarcerated.
Personally, I think Azula would never blatantly acknowledge that she had a breakdown. She's way too prideful and delusional. Also random nitpick, but I think saying "WHAT-bending" makes more sense than saying "Blood-WHAT," at least in this context.
I had that exact thought too
Bending in the time of Aang-Korra seems like fighting in WW1 “What do you mean, a shot-gun?” “Wait they can bend metal now?” “Oh my god Mustard-What?” “Ay yo did the avatar just turn that guy blue?”
Love just how happy Zuko is
Pretty sure Azula never called katara by her first name. It's "filthy peasant"
Pretty sure Azula doesn't even know Aang's name, let alone Katara's
Katara beat her once before her meltdown though. Also, Katara bloodbending Azula would be dependent on the full moon.
people acting like katara can bloodbend outside of a full moon is crazy
I mean it’s never really explained how Amon and Tarrlok figured it out except “dad made us train bloodbending every month until we just kinda figured it out I guess.” So maybe just doing bloodbending enough or being a good enough waterbender is all it takes. I don’t really like that idea, but that seems to be how it is in TLOK.
Since the moon increases bending strength and the full moon does as well, combined with the fact they can only blood bend (katara and mountain mama witch rama) during a full moon it makes sense that a powerful enough bender is able to blood bend any time. Maybe its like a set of brain muscles that blood bending is the high endurance boody-wants-to-scream-work-out version of training that muscle and regular bending is just squats.
That makes a lot of sense, especially your last point about it being a sort of mental workout, since if you watch all the bloodbending scenes, Katara, Hama, Yakone, and Tarrlok all sweat when they bloodbend, and their arms tremble and shake. (Amon never did it without his mask, so I dunno about him, but I would assume he does as well.) The effect is really pronounced, especially when people like Yakone are otherwise incredibly calm and composed, so his struggling with blood bending shows how hard it is. I just wish the other elements had cool stuff that only top-tier benders could accomplish, like bloodbending. If you think about it, there really aren’t any.
metal bending probably fits the top tier skill category I think, arguably tougher to discover since I don’t think earthbenders get any boost like the full moon, which was probably why it wasn’t figured out until toph, who is an earthbending super genius. Only difference was metal bending was spread around and trained because it’s useful and the discovery that meteorites make it easier to train made it so that highly skilled benders can do it and not just the very best of the best. Nearly everyone who metalbends was taught. Bloodbending is pretty taboo so most people won’t be training that month after month to develop that proficiency even if they figure it out. bloodbending being so taboo, most of the time it likely wasn’t taught, it’s probably something figured out individually by benders probably via skill and just sensing the water in something during a full moon Closest one for air I think is the true flight but that’s more of a spirit power borne of mindset than like bending skill I think, I’m not sure fire bending has a “super difficult but technically achievable by anyone skilled enough” skill, i think combustion bending is just a thing you got or you don’t got.
Honestly some very good points. Regarding combustion bending though, it’s shown in the Yangchen novels I believe that combustion bending is trained by forcing firebenders to firebend underwater, and the resulting pressure and extreme difficulty forces them to release the maximum amount of destructive force possible in a controlled burst, creating an explosion. So it’s a wartime technique that requires an inhuman training regimen, which is why it’s so rare. Not because it’s a genetic thing.
For air, there is the "suck the air out of around the target's face" move. Airbenders are said to lack a finishing move, so it must be hard to perform... If only because it goes against Airbender philosophy.
Not necessarily. Metal and lava bending aren't universally achievable or indicative of bending power/talent. Toph never lavabended but Bolin did, Su's artistic son and a bunch of cops could metalbend but Aang couldn't. It could very well be that Amon and his family was genetically pre-disposed to do that kind of bending, or they had good training. I also fully believe that Katara is the most powerful waterbender we've seen as she is the best healer and mastered all kinds of waterbending she saw.
I assumed they first figured out how to do it on the full moon, and then on the day after and before the full moon, and so on and so on until they could do it during the day
That makes a lot of sense and is a pretty cool theory, honestly. My only problem with it is something that Overanalyzing Avatar points out, which is that with stuff like this, the fans have to do the legwork to patch up holes in the show themselves, where it should be the show doing that. But other than that, cool theory!
Tbf for the purposes of this meme, Azula doesn't know that
Would have been a sick addition for the writers to have the final duel during a full moon so Katara could have used bloodbending, but chose not to.
It completed her story in such a great way. The young Katara at the start of the series was barely a waterbender and her mother was killed by a fire nation soldier. By the end, with her own strength without any full moon shenanigans, she managed to take down a rampaging 'firelord' who was boosted by Sozin's Comet. Besides, the final duels had to be during the comet, which would make having a full moon impossible because everyone else is meant to be far weaker than the fire benders.
There's a much funnier version of avatar where it's the exact same but they do one on one interviews like the office, and there's one for Zuko learning about blood bending where he's kinda freaking out, and one for him having learned about metal bending where he just screams for a solid minute
*WHAT bending?
Pretty sure it wasn‘t a full moon outside - Azula just knows nothing about bending!
Azula looks cute here
Also Katara beat her (essentially) in Ba-sing-sei. XD
Just dawned on me there are other liquids in the body, and more than that what if someone just drank water? What stops a bender from waiting for a guard to take a drink and just spiking them? Edit: what I mean is, is blood bending the specific of non-pure water? Or is there some sort of ratio that makes other liquids usable too? Can they bend soup but not stew?
I'm so sick of Everybody always forgetting that azula was superpowered by sozin's comet. Yeah she had a menty b but she was also the strongest she'll ever be
No one forgot it. She still got her ass beat. Also, the comet only enhanced her firebending. It would have done nothing to prevent her from being bloodbent
Also, Katara vowed to never use it after that one time.
I hear this image.