Avatar: The Last Airbender/Headscratchers/Miscellaneous

• The "getting crap past the radar" section says that there's occasional breast jiggling in the show. Proof, anyone?
  • The Beach episode is the only example I could think of.
• Ok, I am seriously confused over Katara's healing abilities. Why is she able to save Aang, who technically was dead, after Azula shot him with lightning, but not able to save Jet, who was still alive? I really don't get that at all. On a somewhat related note, why does Aang die almost immediately from Azula's lightning, but Zuko doesn't? Is it because of his partial re-directing?
  • Katara used the special water from the pool at the North Pole. She didn't appear to have realized that she could do that with the water until the finale, as she'd had some time to think about it, whereas she didn't have time to consider the possibility while escaping from the prison under Laogai. As for Zuko, yes, it was the redirection that saved him. I thought the series made that fact obvious.
  • Yeah I don't why I asked that. I was half-asleep when I wrote that...

• According to Avatar Extras, both the Southern Water Tribe AND the Foggy Swamp Tribe are descended from groups who left the Northern Water Tribe because they objected to the womanizing aspects of their culture e.g. the WHOLE culture. So in all the decades or centuries or whatever of Water Tribe history, during which entire colonies-worth of people packed up and left in disgust, NO-ONE THOUGHT OF CHANGING THE RULES OF THE NORTH TRIBE!!! Not the people who were leaving, not the ones left behind, both sides of the issue automatically decided to just say good-bye and return to the old system. WHAT?!?
  • Everyone who disagreed with the customs left instead of fighting against it, so nothing really changed. Sort of like if all the black people in America were to move back to Africa instead of fighting for civil rights.
  • Some of them did. It's why Liberia's capital is called Monrovia. It didn't work out so well.
  • Setting aside race relations, dissident groups either getting 'encouraged' to leave or choosing to do so has happened many times on Earth. The North American colonies and Australia are two notable examples. In the Northern Water Tribe's case, the dissidents leaving meant that the social pressure for gender equality also left (until Katara overturned things).
  • Perhaps the OP isn't familiar with a little place called Saudi Arabia. As of 2012, it's still an absolute monarchy without even the pretensions of civilian oversight, where women are forced by law to cover from head to toe in black (making Iran's dress code positively liberal in comparison) and people can be executed for 'sorcery' just because a citizen feels ill in their presence. Try going over there and changing the rules of that tribe, and you'll either be deported, if you're lucky, or beaten to death on the streets by the fanatical religious militia for challenging their 'traditional values'. If anything, the Northern Water Tribe's sexism was far too easily put aside.

• I understand Sokka wanted to save his father and loves him dearly, and I have a lot of respect for that, but I seriously have two big problems with it. First of all, was Hakoda really in that much more danger than anyone else who was captured because he was a leader and at the Boiling Rock? If yes, I can totally understand the urgency. However, what I really don't get is why he was about to go all alone until Zuko made him accept help. Think of how much easier it would have been if the gang had worked together. Somehow, I don't think Aang practicing Firebending was worth leaving him behind...
  • Sokka was engaging in a personal mission. He doesn't want to bring anyone else into it, and is reluctant to bring Zuko along. Besides, Toph and Aang are not precisely the most subtle of people to bring on a covert infiltration. Sokka also probably didn't want to risk their lives on what might be a boondoggle.

• So, why did the Moon and Ocean spirits give up their immortality, anyway? So they could swim around in a small pond for the rest of eternity? Especially since their continued existence is crucial to the balance of the world, why would they make themselves mortal so that they could be killed and upset the balance?
  • Spirits can only manifest on and affect the mortal plane on the solstices. They needed to become mortal to have a lasting effect.
    • Doesn't that imply that the Sun also has a physical form somewhere on the mortal plane. as in some kind of animal seeing not just the Sun in the solar system, it would have made for a good plot if somebody would try to do something to the source of the bad guys powers it would give Aang and co a lot of interesting choices.
    • That could be a possibility, but it also implies that the Sun is an just star in the sky, while the moon is a result of the spirits intervening on behalf of humans.
    • I think both are true. When the Moon spirit was mortally wounded the (lower case) moon didn't just vanish, it was still physically there... it just lost it's spiritual power and influence. Presumably, while it would still orbit the planet there would be no more tides. So hypothetically speaking, capturing or killing the Sun spirit would probably make sunlight go blood red or all chalky gray, take out the Firebender's powers, and likely also stop warming the planet.
      • But Iroh killed the last Dragon, he's famous for it through both the Fire Nation and Earth kingdoms, and likely many people who travel between the Water Tribe and Earth Kingdom.^[1]
        • It doesn't matter if Iroh killed the dragons because the dragons aren't spirits. They, like Firebenders, have merely learned to manipulate a power granted by a spirit (or are innately capable of it, to be more precise). Killing them has no more effect on Firebending than killing every beaver would affect knowledge of how to build dams. As long as someone carries the knowledge, it will persist, even if the original source of that knowledge is long dead. Now, if they managed to kill the sun, that would do away with Firebending altogether.
        • Yeah, but remember how everyone except Zhao thought destroying the moon was an absolutely HORRIBLE idea? How Iroh told him he'd basically be causing Armageddon and that killing the moon would have way too many disastrous effects on the world for it to possibly be remotely worth taking the Northern Water Tribe? And you think they should do the exact same thing to the sun? The source of all life on earth?

• Why does no one seem to pick up on the MIDDLE EASTERN cultural influences? Most people pick up on the Imperial Chinese/Japanese/Tibetan influences in the culture of Avatar but am I the only one to notice the Indian and (before Islam)Turkish/Arabian references? For example: Fire Nation clothing.
  • People keep hearing about the "obvious" Asian influences, so that keeps getting passed on as the "absolute truth" i.e. all influences are Asian. If/where there are Turkish/Arabian references are not as noticeable because of the sheer amount of Asian influences referenced by various people.
    • There are a few Arabic, Turkic, and Indian influences - the Sandbenders, some of the clothing, the Guru and the chakras, the word Agni - but they overall design work is East Asian. Then again, there's American White Trash culture with the waterbending Swamp Tribe, and the original Firebending tribe is Mayincatec for some reason. It's still rude to act like everyone else is so stupid for not pointing these things out (And Arabs, Turkic peoples, Indians? All Asian. it's the swamp tribe and the Incan firebenders that stick out).
    • As the above troper stated, India is a sub-continent of Asia, which makes Indians and the surrounding peoples Asians by default. They share some common ancestry even if the cultures are somewhat different. (Note that Buddhism, a predominately "Asian" religion/philosophy, was founded in India... And that the surrounding Islamic cultures used to follow more "Asian" cultures and religions before Islam took hold) Also, the Swamp Tribe could easily be based off the Vietnamese River People with the Southern swamp culture/mannerisms thrown in for jokes.
    • As for the matter of the Sun Warriors, they're not necessarily Mayincatec. To quote from the Fantasy Counterpart Culture page: The one Mayan-looking building in the Sun Warrior compound is more likely based after the Candi Sukuh in Indonesia, the rest of the compound borrows architectural styles from places like Angkor Wat and Phanom Rung. And the clothing worn by the Sun Warriors seems also derived from Southeast Asia, particular the headdresses which resemble Iban warrior headdresses. (So yes, all influences are Asian.)
    • Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Word of God is that the Sun Warrors and the city are based on Mayan and Aztec Indians. And the show has plenty of non Asian influences two biggest (but not only) are the four elements are Greek and Aang is a Messiah!
    • Where exactly was this word of God stated? The fact that you're suggesting the four elements are Greek-inspired and that Aang is a "messiah" (critical misunderstanding of what the term means) implies you have little idea of what you mean.
    • The art book says that the designers looked at Mayan ruins for inspiration when designing the Sun Warrior city.
    • The Chinese "elements" are Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood. The show's inspiration is either ancient Greek (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Aether) or Japanese (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Void). And the Avatar is TOTALLY a messiah figure. A reincarnated super-powerful meta-spiritual being whose job is to maintain peace and balance? That's pretty much the definition. It's just that almost every culture on earth has messiah mythology, so it can't be said to be from anywhere.
    • *sigh* You Fail Religious Studies Forever. Firstly, no, every culture on Earth does not have a "messiah mythology". There are vaguely similar concepts in some other cultures, but the specific concept of the Messiah is unique to the Abrahamic religions. Secondly, no, Messiah does not refer to "a reincarnated super-powerful meta-spiritual being whose job is to maintain peace and balance". In fact, most of that definition is actually antithetical to the concept of the Abrahamic Messiah. While Judaism, Christianity, and Islam disagree on the specific details, all three consider the Messiah to be a person who will destroy all evil on Earth and will either bring about or preside over the End of Days. There is nothing in there about maintaining a "balance" between good and evil or between nations (in fact most believers think the Messiah will unite all nations under a single kingdom) and there is certainly nothing in there about "reincarnation", a distinctly east-Asian concept. Once again, just because other cultures have concepts vaguely similar to the Abrahamic Messiah does not mean they have a "messiah mythology".
    • The Avatar might not be a messiah figure, but Aang certainly is. He was gone for 100 years, making the Earth (or whatever planet the Avatar world is on) a living hell, suddenly appeared, was destined to save the world and as a result, was chased around all over that same world. Come on, what else do you need in a messiah? He just wasn't killed and instead succeeded.
    • Really? I found him (Aang) more of a 'Sun Wukong/Monkey King' figure. Travelling around the world with a bunch of other people who are awesomely cool at certain different techniques/styles seeking enlightenment righting wrongs and solving problems along the way of a larger journey. Being imprisoned for a long time, fun loving, KUNG FU,
      • Did we read the same 'Journey to the West'? Because the Sun Wukong I know is very little like Aang, spending the prologue drunkenly dicking around in Heaven until he finds a dude with a hand too big to jump out of and getting himself trapped under a huge palm-heel strike of pinnacles. Then the Buddha-wannabe Xuanzang comes along on a quest to retrieve Buddhist texts from India and bring them to China, and lets Sun Wukong out with the latter wearing a Tiara of Bodhisattva Chant Migraines so that Xuanzang could control the mischievous monkey nutcase. The rest is mostly the Buddha throwing demons at the group of monkey, pig, and 2x monk because they need 81 catastrophes for Xuanzang to attain enlightenment, mostly with the nigh powerless Xuanzang trusting every demon that comes along and wants to eat his flesh, and Sun Wukong seeing through everything but incapacitated by Bodhisattva Chant Migraines until Xuanzang is about to be a monk roast, after which he comes and saves the monk's pasty butt. I fail to see how the story of Aang is anything similar to any of this... The closest I get is Sokka as the mischievous, Cassandra Sun Wukong and Aang as the derpy but kindhearted Xuanzang (with Toph and Katara as Pig and Ogre-Monk Who Is Largely Uninteresting, I guess?). Either way, Aang is far more like Jesus, and IMO, the story is, at its core, a Western story, but I digress...
    • Re: the four elements are Greek only thing - This is a direct quote from Bryan in the art book:

People often assume the "four-element theory" (comprised of air, water, earth, and fire) we brought to bending is exclusive to ancient Greece, and that in ancient China only a "five-element theory" was used (comprised of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water). Mike and I never claim to be experts in any of these subjects, but in our research we found the four-element theory was prevalent in ancient cultures all over the world, including ancient Buddhist teachings.

• • • • The fact remains that the specific four elements they chose were pretty much Grecian in nature, not Chinese. Note the lack of air and presence of wood and metal. That they acknowledge it simply means that its prevalent elsewhere, but this particular bit of culture is not from China; it would've helped their case more if they stated it was from Japan, since Japan does have five elements which would work with Avatar.
• In "The Southern Raiders," I noticed that Kya (Katara's mother) had on the necklace she supposedly passed down to Katara while being interrogated by Yon Rha. So...what, did they remove the necklace from the body after the fact, or...? Though I also doubt she died extremely violently, but eh. Doesn't make much sense to have it there; maybe it's just an accident.
  • This Troper always assumed that she was wearing the necklace Hakoda gave her, and he simply made it look a lot like the one that Kanna gave to her daughter in a way of showing that he loved Kya enough to try to emulate the stranger who had given Kanna a necklace that was so treasured by Kya.
  • When my dad died I inherited his Rose Bowl watch. I don't see why Katara shouldn't have inherited her late mother's necklace (assuming it is the same necklace).
  • *sigh*, the reason she couldn't have gotten it was because her mom was wearing it when she was (presumably) burnt to a crisp!
    • We don't know how much of Kya actually got torched.

• Okay, look at the picture on the Adrenaline Makeover page. Now, ignoring the fact that Katara shouldn't even be that tan in the FIRST PLACE (being that she is basically an eskimo who has lived below the Antarctic circle her entire life up until Aang), how is it that she got PALER after spending a great deal of time in EQUITORIAL countries?!
  • A culture that eats a lot of fish is probably going to have medium/dark skin regardless of latitude. The reason pale skin exists is to let more sun in so your skin can use it to make a vitamin, and fish are naturally high in that vitamin.
  • Maybe it's just the sun making it look lighter? ..Oh wait, isn't it like that inside too?
  • Eskimos have naturally olive skin, and Katara's skin tone is actually within the normal range. (Also, getting tan is far from impossible in the polar regions. In fact, sunburn can be a health problem in polar regions; even though those areas are cold the snow reflects almost all of the UV light.) As for Katara getting pale, that could just be the lighting.
  • Each Book was animated by a different studio, which is also why there are slight differences in the appearance of the character's faces over the seasons (Aang's eyes sometimes look bigger or smaller, and it might just be me, but in the last season many characters, notably Aang and Katara, have shorter/ more "snub"-type noses).

• How does Sokka have a "Warrior's Wolf Tail". A plain "wolf" seems very out of place in the Avatar world.
  • There are some normal animals in the Avatar world, like bears and cats. Maybe wolves exist there too.
    • Obviously Sokka is a wolf/human.
  • Maybe "Wolf" is just a general term for the species. We have poodles, golden retrievers, bloodhounds, huskies dachshunds, and the list goes on, but they're all classified as dogs. There could easily be a Bear-wolf, a Cat-Wolf, Eagle-Wolf, and Whatever-The-Hell-Else-Wolf, all classified generally as "wolves."
    • A normal, run-of-the-mill wolf is mentioned in Bato of the Water Tribe.
    • There was also that freaking huge spirit wolf.
    • And Bat-Wolves Wolf-Bats in the Secret Tunnel.

• A lot of people say that it makes no sense that Appa can carry about twelve adults in The Great Divide without a problem but he gets tired carry around seven kids in The Western Air temple, why does no one remember the two major differences between these circumstances?

1. 1. Appa wasn't wearing metal armor in The Great Divide, but he was during The Western Air Temple.
   2. The Great Divide is set during the winter, while The Western Air Temple is set during the summer. One tends to tire out faster when it's hot.

• • Also Appa could have stopped to rest a dozen times for all we know in the Great Divide. He was offscreen the entire time he was carrying those dozen people and it took everyone else 2 days to cross on foot. He had plenty of time to take breaks and still make it to the other side ahead of them.
  • Also also, Appa had just spent the whole day flying around during battle and fighting in that full plate armor that couldn't have been terribly light. He was probably pretty damn tired to begin with when they left the Fire Nation capital.

• Roku's headpiece. When the volcano starts erupting, and Roku and Ta Min run out of their house, we can see him take it off and leave it on the floor. At the "current" time, the island is deserted and seemingly featureless; everything has been "completely covered in ash", according to Toph, which would verify that it was the eruption that did it. How, then, did Iroh come to possess the item in the first place (much less have the foresight to smuggle it into his cell, which would be a different question entirely)?
  • Iroh's just that badass.
  • Iroh never said that it was Roku's headpiece. A duplicate headpiece could have been created after Sozin gave his to Roku, then passed down from Sozin to Azulon to Iroh. Admittedly that wouldn't make a whole whack of sense in the context of the episode. Alternately, Sozin could have gone to Roku's house first, before going up the volcano, seen the headpiece on the floor, and taken it back. As for Iroh's smuggling foresight ... yeah, he's just that awesome.
    • Going to Roku's house first seems pretty reasonable. After all, if you're looking for someone, the first place you'd go is where they're most likely to be. Iroh's smuggling could either be a result of someone he trusted (probably from the White Lotus) sneaking it to him, or part of a plan he had already created.
  • Also, what was the point of having it at all? It makes no sense in context (both in terms of how he had it at all, and how he got it into the cell), and then it never shows up again. If it became a plot device with Zuko later, I understand why they would have it, but why break the Willing Suspension of Disbelief like that and then never mention it again?
    • Possibly because the point of it was served in that single episode. It was the physical reminder of the bond which once existed between the Avatar and the Fire Lord, and once Zuko finally realised the true significance of that relationship in the present day, in him as a descendant of both, its job was done. To (badly) paraphrase what Zuko said in 'The Firebending Masters', it was a shadow of the past Zuko could learn from in the present, but once it was done he could move on from it. In that aforementioned episode, he understandably feels far more hesitant about explaining he's the crown prince, so perhaps he no longer wanted that association with the Royal Family until he could establish it on his own terms - as with his becoming Fire Lord. (Though admittedly if that were the answer and the writers hadn't simply ignored the headpiece, it would have been referred to.)
• In the season 2 finale, it is said by the earth king that the council of five are his most trusted generals. These are the same guys who either kept the war secret from him, never met the earth king or got appointed within the last day(in which case the first two still apply). None of that says anything good about their reliability.
  • Perhaps, the Dai Li were keeping the war a secret from them as well.
  • More likely, they were being manipulated by the Dai Li themselves. Long Feng probably had given them orders to keep the war a secret and to lead the Earth Kingdom's armies at his command rather than the Earth King's, or else.
  • Even more likely, the five generals only met and spoke with the Dai Li who acted as the Earth King's "official representative" to the council of generals. As far as they knew, the Dai Li always relayed their words to the Earth King after every meeting because that's what he told them. And as far as the Earth King knew, at every meeting the five generals just kept saying "everything's cool, no signs of war" because that's what the Dai Li told him.
• How did the mechanist get into that room at the northern air temple? They said you can only get in there by air bending, so how did he get in? I didn't see any inventions there that could simulate airbending.
  • You're assuming that he came in through the door, and not by busting through a wall somehow.
    • Looking back at the inside of the room, there were no holes in the wall. But there was a skylight, so maybe that's the answer.
  • All it requires is pumping enough air at enough pressure to push open the three spinny locks. Building an air pump to open it would be simple enough.
• So the chamber in "The Firebending Masters" is meant to make you go through the ancient firebending steps, in order to bring up the golden egg, and clearly the firebending steps are vital later on... so what's the point of the golden egg? To gluetrap the shmucks who pulled off the ancient firebending steps?
  • The golden egg is a treasured and probably religious relic. Obviously, whatever value it has to the Sun Warriors, it is supposed to stay put. The trap isn't to catch people who pulled off the firebending form, its to catch anyone stupid enough to try to take the egg itself.
    • Still doesn't explain why pulling off the firebending steps would bring up the trigger for a trap... unless it's somehow connected to them cheating the solstice timelock before that.
    • You're overthinking it. It's a quasi-religious icon that stays hidden except for the day of the solstice, where the Sun Warriors do the firebending form and then bow down to the sun stone or something.
    • Right. The trap is completely unconnected to the firebending dance. Its only there to catch someone who tries to steal the egg in the first place, and figures out how to actually raise the egg.
  • Yes. This troper rather thought that was obvious. The room is a Secret Test of Character and the golden egg is Schmuck Bait. If the visitors are thieves they'll take the egg and get caught by the trap. If they're there to learn True Firebending they'll leave the egg alone. The egg itself probably has no significance whatsoever beyond being pretty and glittery. It would've worked great if Zuko had listened to Aang's warning not to touch the egg, but no one ever accused Zuko of being the brightest crayon in the box...
    • Except that Zuko says it feels "alive". I just figured that the egg was literally a dragon egg. One of the two masters could be female and laid an egg that the Sun Warriors protect (hence the trap). After all, rebirth is an incredibly common theme in Avatar.
• Is no one gonna talk about Zuko Alone? I mean Zuko rides into town and makes friends with a local boy and his mom. But when he's forced to reveal he's a firebender to stop a bully who's using the war as an excuse for his actions, even they turn on him despite the fact he's been banished. I mean, come on!
  • And? Zuko's a firebender; the people in the village have been at war with firebenders for a century, and he's the declared son of who they perceive to be the root of all the misery in their lives. Their response is exactly what you'd expect from people who've spent generations suffering due to the Fire Nation.
  • The village yes, I can see that. It's the boy and his mother who bug me. They met him, got to know him, they should have at least realize that not all firebenders are evil especially the one who saves your life!
    • That's the point. Hatred and enmity for the Fire Nation is so deeply ingrained in these people that merely being a firebender is enough to be result in being hated. The fact that Zuko saved the boy was irrelevant; he's a firebender. You're acting like hate, racism, long-term warfare, and generational ethnic conflict can be undone by one good act. Its not that easy. The entire point behind that scene was to reinforce just how horribly the war the Fire Nation began is affecting people.
    • Right. It's just like in the episode The Painted Lady. After it's revealed that it was Katara all along that was helping the village, the villagers are angry and start ganging up on her because she's a water bender and she tricked them by dressing as a character from their legends. It isn't until Sokka gives his speech that they realize that no matter who she is, she did save them on multiple occasions, and only then do they come to their senses and thank her. Because of the war, hatred between the different nations are running high and cloud judgement.
  • I can't help but think that things would've gone better if he didn't give a speech about how he's the son of the firelord
• Alright, so in Lake Laogai, Jet is killed by a nasty blow to the chest by Long Feng. Fast forward to season 3, and Zuko recieves an identical blow from Toph (in the first episode after the Day of Black Sun). He clutches his side for a second, but is otherwise ok and never displays that injury again. What gives?
  • Long Feng was shooting to kill. Toph was not. At most, it was a "get away from me" reflex. Besides that, consider the amount of damage Zuko's taken in the three seasons. Besides that, Zuko's been slammed into countless things by this point. He just has a ton of Hit Points.
    • Good point on that last part. Something bothers me about the first, though; she may not have been attacking with killing in mind, but she was clearly desperate and hysterical (as she had a right to be, she was effectively blinded as well as slowed greatly, after all). It's not unreasonable to expect that she may have put a teensy bit more force behind the blow than is strictly necessary to get Zuko away, she is not in her normal state of mind. As well, given that she's almost certainly a stronger bender than Long Feng (treated that way, at any rate. Though given how much power the Dai Li are shown to have, this may not be exactly true), it may be that, although she put out less in terms of effort, she still put out more in terms of absolute power.
  • According to the commentary for that episode, in martial arts, the intent of a strike matters. Long Feng intended to kill, Toph didn't.
• When the Sandbenders steal Appa, we see in "Appa's Lost Days" that Sokka's club is among the items dumped on the ground in the middle of the desert. Sokka is seen using it, though, in later episodes, so when did he get it back?
  • Three explanations I can think of off the top of my head. First, the sandbenders kept everything they found, and had it with them when they found the Gaang at the vulture-hornet hive. Second, Sokka made a new one. Third, Sokka is Crazy Prepared and brought two.
  • Or he got a new one when he met up with his dad and the other men at Chameleon Bay.
• What is wrong with the Northern Water Tribe in The Siege of the North? For the entire first night of the fighting they do literally nothing. They are explicitly stated to have increased power because of the moon, they clearly have the power to freeze up Fire Nation ships during the day, they only have this power boost for a limited amount of time and they don't think to take advantage of it? If you look closely at the start of the second day you can see that the water benders didn't even bother to repair the damaged walls from the previous days bombardment.
  • Attacking the Fire Nation ships would be suicide. They're close together with overlapping arcs of fire and loaded with large numbers of troops. The waterbenders have to get close to attack the FN ships as shown when they attack one of said ships, and it takes a significant number of benders to do so to a single vessel. The Fire Nation fleet consists of hundreds such ships; they outnumber the Northern Tribe by a significant amount with a mere expeditionary force. After all, the Fire Nation army was able to overwhelm the Northern Tribe in a single day while assaulting heavily-defended enemy fortifications on top of their own element. If the Northern Water Tribe actually did something as stupid as emerge from their fortifications to sortie against the Fire Nation ships, they would be slaughtered, moon or no moon.
    • Except that the Northern Water Tribe did just that during the day of the first battle, going out in small boats to freeze up the ships. We have no reason to think that they can't do more from the safety of their walls under the full moon and even if they couldn't that still doesn't explain why they don't launch attacks during the night when the Fire Nation would have a hard time just trying to see them. Heck, the strike team sent out on the second day showed no problem locating and attacking Zhao even though they clearly didn't know the first thing about Fire Nation soldiers. But even if we assume that for some reason they can't do that it still doesn't answer why they didn't repair the walls.
    • Yes, they went out in small boats against one individual ship, which was being attacked by the Avatar at the time, and it took dozens of waterbenders to neutralize the ship. Not the entire Fire Nation navy, assembled in one solid formation and ready to return fire with artillery, firebenders, and other weaponry. There is absolutely no evidence that the Northern Tribe could strike at the Fire Nation navy from behind the walls, especially considering they have to be up close to even attack the Fire Nation vessels in their boats. The moonlight provides plenty of light to see by, and you can bet the Fire Nation will have plenty of sentries on watch to make sure the Northern Tribe doesn't get close. The strike team was able to infiltrate the Fire Nation fleet because it was a very small force operating in the middle of the main assault when things were confused and they could slip in among the confusion.
    • We've seen waterbenders surf around on water using nothing but their powers, and fairly quickly. There's no real reason the fire nation should ever win a sea battle against an army of waterbenders without them specifically using some sort of technology that gets around the fact that they're, you know, sailing on their enemies' weapon. Zhao's plan made sense on paper, but the fact that it required him to fight to the back of the city to take away their power sort of defeated the purpose. The waterbenders should have had no trouble replacing the walls on the fly, like we saw them do to create an entrance for Aang and his friends. Not to mention, boats are pretty dependent on water. The waterbenders should never even had to get close to the ships. All they should have had to do is line up on the walls and create a massive tidal wave to knock all of the ships over (or worse).
    • We've seen a very, very small number of waterbenders surf around on water without boats, and those are masters. The vast majority of waterbenders in the series use boats exclusively. There is plenty of reason why the Fire Nation can win against waterbenders on water: they have greater numbers and more firepower, and waterbenders need to devote dozens of benders to disable a single Fire Nation ship. The FN navy has hundreds of ships and thousands of sailors, not counting marine infantry, that can strike at far greater ranges than the waterbenders are capable of striking, as evidenced by the fact that they had to be within fifty meters to assault the individual Fire Nation ship that Aang was attacking, and the FN navy is in a tight formation with interlocking fields of fire. If they can put out more fire (literally and figuratively) than the waterbenders can match, at greater range than they are capable of, they have fire superiority. Demonstrated capabilities of the Northern Water Tribe show that the Fire Nation can indeed do this; the Fire Nation simply has that much more weaponry to bring to bear. In naval terms, they're able to achieve a greater concentration of force than the waterbenders can manage. Replacing the walls appears to require group effort and precise motions, which will be difficult when you're being constantly bombarded by hundreds of flaming catapault shots; battle damage inflicted on the city on the second day of the siege came from the bombardment on that day, and there are signs of repairs (while Zuko is infiltrating the city, you can see sections of the walls that had taken hits the previous day - they have been repaired) The waterbenders do have to get close to the ships, as demonstrated by the fact that the only time they attacked a Fire Nation ship they had to get right on top of it. They couldn't line the walls because of artillery bombardment that was suppressing them and pushing them backward; this was a common tactic in warfare all the way back to the Romans to clear archers off walls and it appears to have worked here as well.
      In conclusion, the Northern Water Tribe was outnumbered, and overpowered by superior FN technology, which had superior range and ability to inflict damage. Demonstrated Water Tribe capabilities, coupled with what we see of other waterbenders elsewhere in the series, indicates that they simply don't have the range to match the FN navy, or the numbers to do any serious damage to their ships once the main fleet arrives with concentrated force. There's nothing wrong with this; the benders are very powerful on water, but the FN simply has a greater industrial base and technology, allowing them to achieve greater concentration of force.
      If the invasion force was a single flotilla, maybe consisting of a dozen or so ships, I would agree with you. The waterbenders should be able to take such a force. The fact is, though, that the Fire Nation force sent against the Northern Water Tribe consisted of hundreds of ships. That's simply too much firepower, even for a tribe of waterbenders atop their own element, to match.
    • Keep in mind also that is is actually completely consistent with what we've seen elsewhere in the series, with the Fire Nation fighting the Earth Kingdom. If anything, the Fire Nation should be in an even worse position fighting the Earth Kingdom, as they're constantly fighting on terrain that, quite literally, favors the Earth Kingdom - and they've been continuously winning over a century of constant warfare, to the point that they've got the EK armies besieged in their own home cities. Just like with the Water Tribes, the Fire Nation's armies/navies are just that much more powerful and capable due to the immense technological and engineering advantage they have.
  • Also remember how few people they have in comparison. If the waterbenders couldn't defeat the WHOLE armada that night, then they'd be exhausted the next day when the fighting resumed. Not attacking was a defensive move.

• I wasn't quite sure where to put this because it bugs me on so many levels, so here goes: what the hell was going on at the end of "The Chase"? So Azula "surrenders" (and no one sees through it), then she hits Iroh with lightning, who so far was the only person in the series to stand up to her and redirect her lightning, a technique only he knew. When he falls, Aang, Zuko Katara and Toph bend their elements at her(which for Toph really doesn't make much sense). So Azula shields herself with... fire? How does that work? Then the whole Captain Planet nightmare explodes(?!?), Azula disappears, and the whole town is on fire. So, uh, what part of this makes sense?
  • I'm pretty sure Azula shot Iroh with her regular (blue) fire, not lightning, so he couldn't have redirected it. And my impression was that she created the explosion as cover to duck away under- Jeong Jeong does something similar in "The Deserter".
  • Azula shot Iroh when he glanced aside at Toph. He was distracted for an instant, but Azula is so damned good at exploiting weaknesses that she seized the fraction of a moment she got to hit him. That distracted the rest of the group for the instant she needed to whip up a shield of fire. Firebenders' flames have consistently been shown to have concussive force to them, demonstrated multiple times throughout the series. This is most notably in Jeong-Jeong's case, but there have been other instances where fire being created by a firebender can smash rocks, divert water, and disrupt air or other flames, so there's no reason why Azula can't whip up a shield with bent fire. In Toph's case, she was sending a shockwave of rock at Azula, which is also demonstrated elsewhere in the series, most notably when Long Feng does a similar move against Jet that hits him with enough force to kill him, so what Toph was doing actually makes perfect sense. Azula appear to create the explosion with her shield to cover her escape. The town was already on fire before they attacked her, due to all the fire Zuko and Azula had been slinging, and the flames that were generated and cast about by the explosion after the combined attack on her.
    • But where did she go? She was cornered, and clearly didn't jet-pack away or anything. I think they realized some of the problems with this when they made fun of it during the play.
    • She moved at the speed of plot.
    • Avatar is wuxia. Azula could easily have simply jumped over the wall; she's demonstrated similar jumping feats before. E.g. the intro to "The Southern Raiders," for example, has both Zuko and Azula making leaps that are pretty much impossible in real life.
    • Lets not forget that Azula can fly, not very well, but she can rocket herself forward with her flames. That should have given her plenty of distance in short time.
• Why does the Shell Game Master pick Toph to play? Since he's running a con (and he is running a con, or he wouldn't switch the rock halfway through), he would want to fix the odds so that the player has a 0% chance of guessing correctly. But a blind person would automatically have a 33% chance of guessing correctly, regardless of other circumstances. (Relatedly, why did he bother swapping the rock the first time she was playing? Or did he expect her companions to help her?)
  • It wouldn't matter if she was blind or not, because he didn't plan on her having any chance to win. He wasn't swapping the rocks. The first game, he loaded all of the shells with rocks so she would win, and then the second, he was in the process of putting all of the rocks in his sleeve so she would lose. Toph just tricked him because she's an earthbender.
  • I once took a class on magic/sleight-of-hand tricks, and one of the things the instructor taught us was the three-card-monte scam. It turns out that when confronted with a completely random choice, people will pick the middle shell/card more than 50% of the time, so even an honest 3-card-monte game would give the scammer 2:1 odds in their favor (assuming their target isn't in on the trick). But of course, no one ever actually runs these things honestly; after teaching us the trick to it, our teacher then spent the next 20 minutes showing us how to palm cards. In the context of the show, a child probably just looked like an easy target to take advantage of.
  • Why did he pick her? She had money. The con artist doesn't care if she was blind or not. She was a kid with cash which meant she was a target for his scam.
  • Another question about that episode is why they put Toph in a wooden cell. Judging by her tone of voice, the guard seemed to be well aware that Toph could bend metal. How? Even assuming they knew who she was (Combustion Man did talk to them beforehand), there can't be many people who know about the metalbending. It's highly unlikely they just guessed, since it's widely believed to be impossible. Toph hasn't done it in front of Combustion Man, and if she used it in a scam, it would have been too subtle for anyone to catch on (nobody ever seemed to realize she was Earthbending, after all).

• Nightmares and Daydreams. So Aang is stressed out. Why. Doesn't. He. Meditate. In a world of eastern philosophy, this seems like a gigantic plothole! No one even mentions it! It, well... it Just Bugs Me.
  • Meditation is two steps away from being asleep anyway. If he tried it, he might really fall asleep and have more nightmares, which he doesn't want. Besides, "I'm not going to sleep for two days straight and before I walk into the most important battle of my life" is not on very high on the list of informed decisions.
  • He's so stressed out he probably can't meditate anyway.
  • He does try yoga. It doesn't work well for him.
• In "The Puppetmaster", how did Hama build a prison cell, complete with a metal door and chains, in a cave under a mountain?
  • With a hammer, nails, wrench, possibly a screwdriver... Look, if they have refrigerators (used for torture) and steam-powered jet-skis on this show, One lady can put a door on a cave and build a few cages. She had a lot of time. She was 30 tops, when she escaped, and had to have been there for some thirty years.
  • I assumed that she found this old, abandoned prison and decided to use it for her own purposes.
  • She may as well have scared some of her prisoners so badly that they are willing to do slave labour for her to avoid her wrath. They think that she is a witch who can make them cut their own throats at any time, after all.
  • WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!
• Season 1, Episode 9 - "The Water Bending Scroll", How in the world did they get those boats UP THAT WATERFALL in the first place? There is simply no way they had the manpower and time to haul a steel boat and a massive Junk up a waterfall of that size.
  • They came from the other direction.
    • No they didn't. They came from an ocean port.
    • Maybe they came up another channel/distributary?
• No doubt about it, Zuko slamming Ozai was one of the best moments of the entire series, but am I the only one who was disappointed that Zuko didn't also call out Azula for being such a manipulative bitch and horrible sister? As awesome as their Agni Kai was, it would have been SO much more awesome if Zuko had at least somewhat slammed Azula verbally either before or during the fight...
  • If anything he regretted what he thought he had to do--remember, he was prepared to kill his little sister if the fight called for it. That's not a mindset where he's ready to call her out, it's a mindset where he has to keep his emotions in check.
    Also, Azula was too far gone for it to make a difference. You don't stop to tell a rabid mutt "Bad dog!" because it won't register. All Zuko felt he could do at that point was put her down.
    • Plus, YMMV, but Azula and Zuko DO seem to care for each other. Some people interpret her treatment of him in the beginning of Season 3 as rather decent (aside from the whole "Avatar still alive" thing)...
    • Definitely. Even if Zuko was determined to defeat Azula when he challenged her to the Agni Kai, she's such a pathetic, completely broken mess at the end of the fight that punishing her wouldn't have any meaning. Given that Zuko let his father off with imprisonment instead of execution, it's likely that he sent Azula to an asylum or some-such.
    • 1. He did send her to an asylum, the Avatar site confirmed it. 2. Zuko definately cares about Azula. He was prepared for the possibility of him having to kill her, sure, but Bryke outright say in the finale DVD commentary that "he didn't want to kill her" and is "not happy" about having to even fight her like this at all.
  • Zuko doesn't need to tell Azula that she is messed up. She already knows she's messed up and says as much to Zuko during "The Beach." Telling her she's nuts would be redundant and likely only get a "Well, yeah." response from her.
• You know the whole Azulon ordering Zuko dead thing? Let's assume, for simplicity's sake, that both Azula and Ozai were telling the truth (hard to believe, I know). How the heck would that version even have worked? How would Ozai have killed Zuko and gotten away with it? How the hell could Ursa kill Azulon? Why did nobody get suspicious of Ozai? And if Ozai hated Zuko so much, why didn't he just kill Zuko during the Agni Kai that he challenged him to?
  • Ozai would have killed Zuko by order of the Fire Lord. Can't argue with that. Ursa gets Azulon to sign a document declaring Ozai heir to the throne, then shoves a knife in his back. Nobody asks questions because there's a document with the Fire Lord's signature on it. And if you are suspicious, Ozai immolates you and your entire family as an example to anyone else who wants to get suspicious.
  • How would Ozai have killed Zuko and gotten away with it? Doing so under the orders of the Fire Lord. Besides, it's not like it would be hard for the son of the Fire Lord to disappear a child.
  • How the hell could Ursa kill Azulon? He's old, and he has to sleep at some point. She has access to the palace and Ozai's backing and support. Do the math. Hell, she could have just smothered him with a pillow, or dropped some poison into his food.
  • Why did nobody get suspicious of Ozai? Azulon was old. Death at old age happens.
  • And if Ozai hated Zuko so much, why didn't he just kill Zuko during the Agni Kai that he challenged him to? There's no indication that Ozai hated Zuko that much. Killing Zuko on Azulon's orders was just business.
    • Besides, it wouldn't look very good for someone to kill their own son. Banishment is far more palatable to the masses than murder. Also, it seems that Agni Kais don't usually end in death, but the burning of the eye. Ozai couldn't "accidentally" kill Zuko since Zuko didn't even fight.
• How exactly has this war gone on for 100 years? The Fire Nation hasn't seemed to do anything significant between the genocide of the Air Nomads and the beginning of the series? What exactly has been happening that whole time?
  • You mean besides raiding the Southern Water Tribe to capture waterbenders, repeated unsuccessful attacks on the Northern Water Tribe, building colonies all over the Earth Kingdom, conquering land, building up their warfighting ability, technology, and infrastructure, and laying seige to Ba Sing Se? You know, all the stuff they told us was happening right there on screen?

• In "The Boiling Rock part 1" the warden threatens Zuko with revealing his identity to the other prisoners, reasoning that since he "let the Fire Nation down" he would be targeted and attacked. Between the war prisoners and ordinary criminals, who in the entire inmate body would give a rat-somethings ass about Fire Nations politics? If anything, it would garner some respect for making problems for the authority.
  • Zuko was (once) prince of the Fire Nation; he represents the government. You know who's responsible for putting people in jail? The government. You know what would happen if a bunch of big, sweaty male prisoners knew that a little, scrawny, son of a government official was in jail with them? This if Zuko's lucky. And if he isn't...
  • Just because someone's a criminal doesn't mean they aren't still loyal to their country. The country is not necessarily the same as the government. Remember, the warden calls Zuko "the traitor prince" (emphasis mine). The ordinary criminals might well hate him for being a traitor, even if the war prisoners would respect him for it

• In The ember Island Players, one scene makes fun of the Fire Nation defeat at the North Pole. Now, we know that a lot of Fire Nation soldiers must have died offscreen (if they weren't killed by the Water Tribe warriors, then they were killed by Koizilla.) and the seige as a whole was a pretty huge defeat for the Fire Nation. The Seige of the North only happened a few months prior to the play's performance. Wouldn't this have fallen under Too Soon and a lot of people complained to the theater company? (While the Fire Nation would have believed they had pretty much won by that point, surely at least one of the families who lost a son or daughter would have been upset.)

• So I can buy the energybending thing, it was a little asspull, but whatevs, it was cool. What bugged me was the whole nebulousness of the Avatar State. So Aang is learning to control it. He's told that if he leaves now, it'll be blocked forever. He naturally ignores this advice and the avatar state is presumably blocked. Things in the ensuing fight go south. He decides that it's actually not really blocked, and does the whole chi thingy to unlock it. It gets worse. He then explicitly states that the avatar state was blocked forever(again) by Azula murdering him. Okay, cool. Then in the fight with Ozai, he gets poked in his scar and that suddenly unlocks the avatar state again? Wat. Yes, pressure points and chi and all that, but it still seemed like either that makes no goddamned sense or somebody should have thought of that WAY sooner.
  • For the season 2 Finale, you're grossly overthinking it. He lost access to the Avatar State because he stopped trying to unlock his chakras, so to gain access to it, he obviously needed to continue on the path. As for the Finale: That was actually adequately explained by the Previously On segment. The Avatar State glows because all of his past lives are sending their energy through him. Katara noted that there was a ton of twisted energy around Aang's scar, and when she tried to untangle it, Aang received some of his memory of the fight. The problem was that she didn't untangle it enough. Simply reopening the scar let the energy flow properly again.

• In "The Serpent's Pass", Aang fails to convince the ticket lady that he's the Avatar because people regularly come up to her in Aang costumes and request free passage. Why doesn't he prove his identity by showing her some airbending?
  • Other than the fact that otherwise we wouldn't have an episode, there really is none.
  • It's possible that everyone else in the room would've crowded around the Gaang in admiration or whatnot and made it even tougher for them to get through without getting pushy. Beifong ID was simply the safer complication-free solution.

• All right, I know that Aang technically has Gray Eyes. But there are just as many shots of him with gray eyes as there are of him with brown, or green, or even blue eyes. What's up with that? Is that what gray eyes look like in Real Life, or does Aang have Kaleidoscope Eyes?
  • Sometimes in Real Life eyes can look different hues, depending on the light. It seems to be the case in the show itself - like when it's sunset, everyone is colored warmer.
  • And some partial heterochromatic might also count - grey-blue eyes with light ochre dab around the pupil might look either grey, or bluish or green.

1. ↑ Yes, I know they're not dead, but only the Sun Warriors, Iroh, and some dead people know otherwise.