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[Airbender/Korra] Book 2 and 3-ish discussion, now closed
"Yo Zuko, your bending sucks!"
"What was that? I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my fucking dragon!"
That dragon got combustion'd. During that fight, the thing I was most concerned for was that dragon's well-being. Even if they found more over the past 70 years those things must still be hella endangered!
I can't think of a single example of a fighting character in either series getting worse with age.
Considering Bumi was facebending at 110+, Zuko should have been able to set people on fire by blinking at them.
We don't exactly have a wealth of examples. The only people who were amazing benders in old age were prodigies. And Zuko was no prodigy.
I think that that is something to keep in mind for Zuko in general, both young Zuko in TLA! And old Zuko now. It's not that he has ever been a bad bender (exception being maybe in the flashbacks of him as a kid in TLA), his problem is that he's always been surrounded by prodigies like Azula, Toph, Katara, and Aang (ok not really a prodigy, but being the freaking avatar is close enough).
I can't think of a single example of a fighting character in either series getting worse with age.
Considering Bumi was facebending at 110+, Zuko should have been able to set people on fire by blinking at them.
We don't exactly have a wealth of examples. The only people who were amazing benders in old age were prodigies. And Zuko was no prodigy.
I think that that is something to keep in mind for Zuko in general, both young Zuko in TLA! And old Zuko now. It's not that he has ever been a bad bender (exception being maybe in the flashbacks of him as a kid in TLA), his problem is that he's always been surrounded by prodigies like Azula, Toph, Katara, and Aang (ok not really a prodigy, but being the freaking avatar is close enough).
Well I always thought that Aang was quite possibly very talented at bending. As talented as Toph. The difference being that Toph works at it, not just to see, but to expand her capabilities. Aang just kind of goofs off whenever he can.
I always thought that the original TLA cast divided along the lines of
Talent & Effort=Katara and Toph (masters of their respective elements)
Talent & minimal/some effort=Aang (good, very good, but if you restricted him to water, he couldn't beat Katara. Same if you restricted him to Earth, he couldn't beat Toph).
No Talent & Effort=Zuko (probably as good a fire-bender as Aang, maybe better)
Badass=Sokka.
Damn it this is making me want to run an Exalted Dragon-Blood game.
I can't think of a single example of a fighting character in either series getting worse with age.
Considering Bumi was facebending at 110+, Zuko should have been able to set people on fire by blinking at them.
We don't exactly have a wealth of examples. The only people who were amazing benders in old age were prodigies. And Zuko was no prodigy.
I think that that is something to keep in mind for Zuko in general, both young Zuko in TLA! And old Zuko now. It's not that he has ever been a bad bender (exception being maybe in the flashbacks of him as a kid in TLA), his problem is that he's always been surrounded by prodigies like Azula, Toph, Katara, and Aang (ok not really a prodigy, but being the freaking avatar is close enough).
Well I always thought that Aang was quite possibly very talented at bending. As talented as Toph. The difference being that Toph works at it, not just to see, but to expand her capabilities. Aang just kind of goofs off whenever he can.
I always thought that the original TLA cast divided along the lines of
Talent & Effort=Katara and Toph (masters of their respective elements) Talent & minimal/some effort=Aang (good, very good, but if you restricted him to water, he couldn't beat Katara. Same if you restricted him to Earth, he couldn't beat Toph).
No Talent & Effort=Zuko (probably as good a fire-bender as Aang, maybe better)
Badass=Sokka.
Damn it this is making me want to run an Exalted Dragon-Blood game.
I think the talent and minimal effort is a good way to group it, even if you just restrict him to his native element air, he didn't appear to be better than the other kids at the temple in his flashbacks. To use a more recent example, we can't compare him to Tenzin because he's had decades more to train, however the current villain showed the same or more talent than him in the last episode and he's only been at it for a few weeks.
It's also possible that he was holding back because of the lethal nature of fire and that he didn't want to actually kill these people.
But yeah, if Zuko doesn't get a nice "my kung fu is stronger than yours" moment I'll be disappointed. Zuko wasn't a prodigy, but he always worked extra hard to make up for it.
I honestly don't expect Zuko to be amazing. He did put in a lot of work an effort in order to become really good. But that can only take you so far if you're not a natural like Toph or Azula.
Some people just have to settle for being really really good at what they do vice world's greatest ever.
Toph had to practice her earthbending every second of consciousness. She was a genius because she was one with the earth.
Azula had the perfect personality for learning the dominant rage based fire bending available at the time. Zuko's firebending caught up to her immediately as soon as he learnt the method of firebending that best suited his personality.
Talent without effort is worthless.
I never said otherwise.
But no matter how much effort some people put in they're never going to make it to the big leagues.
I took a particular interest in studying the psychology of skill acquisition so when you talk about learning a skill what springs to mind is all the details. All of them.
It's nowhere near as simple as "talent prevails".
Some models of skill acquisition don't even include talent and explain talent as, basically, unskilled people not being able to see the steps that led to the person acquiring the skill, so they label the difference they cannot grasp as talent.
It's a very interesting field of study.
I use a ton of the practical application of this knowledge whenever I go to learn something new.
A very important point is that it isn't the amount of effort. It's the kind of effort. You have to break down walls in your learning, times when just repeating the same thing no longer works, and the most skilled people are those who have successfully broken through those plateaus. Even better if they've become skilled at recognising when they've hit a wall, determining what is causing it, figuring out how they might break through it, making a plan to do so, then putting in the effort to do so. Those people get better really quickly.
The importance of this meta cognitive step is common in all models of skill acquisition.
In this, Zuko is a million miles ahead of Azula. She hit the wall of Zuko and shattered immediately.
.
Um. Azula beat Zuko during their final battle. Katara was the one who defeated Azula in the end.
He held his own for a while, but she sure as hell didn't "shatter" against his awesome wall of awesome.
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+3
Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
Didn't Aang invent the air scooter? Probably takes some level of genius to invent a brand-new move, right?
This discussion is rapidly approaching Dragon Ball Z Scouter Power Levels, though...
The real question I want answered is, now that there are Airbenders, are they going to modify the rules of pro-bending to include an Airbender?
Because that would be awesome. And I want to see those matches.
I'd like to point out Zuko was fighting in a location picked for it's ability to inhibit fire bending, and Explosion lady was being fueled by dragonflame so she could show off.
It's also possible that he was holding back because of the lethal nature of fire and that he didn't want to actually kill these people.
But yeah, if Zuko doesn't get a nice "my kung fu is stronger than yours" moment I'll be disappointed. Zuko wasn't a prodigy, but he always worked extra hard to make up for it.
I honestly don't expect Zuko to be amazing. He did put in a lot of work an effort in order to become really good. But that can only take you so far if you're not a natural like Toph or Azula.
Some people just have to settle for being really really good at what they do vice world's greatest ever.
Toph had to practice her earthbending every second of consciousness. She was a genius because she was one with the earth.
Azula had the perfect personality for learning the dominant rage based fire bending available at the time. Zuko's firebending caught up to her immediately as soon as he learnt the method of firebending that best suited his personality.
Talent without effort is worthless.
I never said otherwise.
But no matter how much effort some people put in they're never going to make it to the big leagues.
I took a particular interest in studying the psychology of skill acquisition so when you talk about learning a skill what springs to mind is all the details. All of them.
It's nowhere near as simple as "talent prevails".
Some models of skill acquisition don't even include talent and explain talent as, basically, unskilled people not being able to see the steps that led to the person acquiring the skill, so they label the difference they cannot grasp as talent.
It's a very interesting field of study.
I use a ton of the practical application of this knowledge whenever I go to learn something new.
A very important point is that it isn't the amount of effort. It's the kind of effort. You have to break down walls in your learning, times when just repeating the same thing no longer works, and the most skilled people are those who have successfully broken through those plateaus. Even better if they've become skilled at recognising when they've hit a wall, determining what is causing it, figuring out how they might break through it, making a plan to do so, then putting in the effort to do so. Those people get better really quickly.
The importance of this meta cognitive step is common in all models of skill acquisition.
In this, Zuko is a million miles ahead of Azula. She hit the wall of Zuko and shattered immediately.
.
Um. Azula beat Zuko during their final battle. Katara was the one who defeated Azula in the end.
He held his own for a while, but she sure as hell didn't "shatter" against his awesome wall of awesome.
From what I remember, Zuko had Azula on the ropes and if Katara wasn't there he probably would have won. The only reason he couldn't deflect that lightning was because it wasn't aimed at him.
It's also possible that he was holding back because of the lethal nature of fire and that he didn't want to actually kill these people.
But yeah, if Zuko doesn't get a nice "my kung fu is stronger than yours" moment I'll be disappointed. Zuko wasn't a prodigy, but he always worked extra hard to make up for it.
I honestly don't expect Zuko to be amazing. He did put in a lot of work an effort in order to become really good. But that can only take you so far if you're not a natural like Toph or Azula.
Some people just have to settle for being really really good at what they do vice world's greatest ever.
Toph had to practice her earthbending every second of consciousness. She was a genius because she was one with the earth.
Azula had the perfect personality for learning the dominant rage based fire bending available at the time. Zuko's firebending caught up to her immediately as soon as he learnt the method of firebending that best suited his personality.
Talent without effort is worthless.
I never said otherwise.
But no matter how much effort some people put in they're never going to make it to the big leagues.
I took a particular interest in studying the psychology of skill acquisition so when you talk about learning a skill what springs to mind is all the details. All of them.
It's nowhere near as simple as "talent prevails".
Some models of skill acquisition don't even include talent and explain talent as, basically, unskilled people not being able to see the steps that led to the person acquiring the skill, so they label the difference they cannot grasp as talent.
It's a very interesting field of study.
I use a ton of the practical application of this knowledge whenever I go to learn something new.
A very important point is that it isn't the amount of effort. It's the kind of effort. You have to break down walls in your learning, times when just repeating the same thing no longer works, and the most skilled people are those who have successfully broken through those plateaus. Even better if they've become skilled at recognising when they've hit a wall, determining what is causing it, figuring out how they might break through it, making a plan to do so, then putting in the effort to do so. Those people get better really quickly.
The importance of this meta cognitive step is common in all models of skill acquisition.
In this, Zuko is a million miles ahead of Azula. She hit the wall of Zuko and shattered immediately.
.
Um. Azula beat Zuko during their final battle. Katara was the one who defeated Azula in the end.
He held his own for a while, but she sure as hell didn't "shatter" against his awesome wall of awesome.
From what I remember, Zuko had Azula on the ropes and if Katara wasn't there he probably would have won. The only reason he couldn't deflect that lightning was because it wasn't aimed at him.
Yeah he sacrificed himself to save Katara.
While duelling him Azula became increasingly erratic (tone of voice, facial expression, general movements) until eventually she lost her shit and decided to cheat. They were pretty even until then and just before she decided to pull out the old zeus bolts Zuko was actually starting to push her back.
Needing to jump to save katara threw off his lightning redirect and caused him to take a whole ton of damage.
I just rewatched it just now.
Zuko was completely untouched and calmly countered every single one of Azula's attacks with equal strength. Each time he countered her attack there is a shot of Azula looking more and more agitated.
Eventually he busted out some crazy capoeria fire kick aoe while Azula was trying to zip around the arena and knocked Azula on her ass.
She did a complete ass over tail pratfall, rebounded off the ground, span a few times and slid to a stop.
There's no handwaving that: she got served.
She got up, all hunched over, breathing heavily. Zuko said something, did an "I know kungfu" stance all calm, she got pissed and started to cast lightning. Zuko immediately responded with "I got this LIGHTNING ROD TIME" but Azula shifted her aim to Katara at the last second.
Then Zuko did his flying hero save and took his only damage of the fight. He took the lightning to the chest mid flying leap so he couldn't redirect it properly.
Azula went full on cackle mode and did her best The Shining impression all over Katara until Katara whupped her at the end with her god like water skills.
Whereupon what was left of Azula's sanity snapped and she started roaring and snarling like a beast breathing fire all over the place.
Zuko wasn't even breathing heavily when Azula attacked Katara. Azula was gasping for breath and couldn't even stand up straight.
She was losing.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited July 2014
One thing that definitely annoys me about Team Anti-Avatar is how they keep having them trounce master benders solo. Fine, they can hold their own enough to get away one-on-one, but outright beating them down, after spending 13 years in various prisons? And then
they're back together for a matter of days and handily out-fighting teams of master benders, including dragons, Zuko, one Waterbender that actually helped beat them the first time, and benders that the actual Avatar struggled with. And even though Zuko isn't a young guy anymore, he still tangled with the old Team Avatar solo and was a serious problem for his hella-talented psycho sister at the end.
It's just obnoxiously and unnecessarily cliche, how hard they're trying to show how powerful these guys are. I get it, they're Bad Doodz, but it's kinda silly to have them able to handily defeat some of the strongest benders in the world without much of a challenge, especially when one of them hasn't even had bending for more than a month or so.
Ninja Snarl P on
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
I like it.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
There's no way Zaofu is going to still be intact in five episodes time, is there?
You only ever spend time pointing out that a place is the safest place there is if you want to make it clear that even that won't protect you.
Let's review locations that were completely safe from attack:
Northern Air Temple (although I guess they did manage to hold them off)
Northern Water Tribe (only survives thanks to Koizilla)
Omashu (had the sense to give in before the bloodshed really started)
Ba Sing Se (would have been drilled open, then got a mix of Azula+Dai Li)
Even the Fire Nation Capital wasn't really able to stand up to an attack from a Ragtag Group (but that's due to the Power of Ragtag, a proper army probably wouldn't have gotten that far), although they did manage to beat them thanks to being forewarned.
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
It's also possible that he was holding back because of the lethal nature of fire and that he didn't want to actually kill these people.
But yeah, if Zuko doesn't get a nice "my kung fu is stronger than yours" moment I'll be disappointed. Zuko wasn't a prodigy, but he always worked extra hard to make up for it.
I honestly don't expect Zuko to be amazing. He did put in a lot of work an effort in order to become really good. But that can only take you so far if you're not a natural like Toph or Azula.
Some people just have to settle for being really really good at what they do vice world's greatest ever.
Toph had to practice her earthbending every second of consciousness. She was a genius because she was one with the earth.
Azula had the perfect personality for learning the dominant rage based fire bending available at the time. Zuko's firebending caught up to her immediately as soon as he learnt the method of firebending that best suited his personality.
Talent without effort is worthless.
I never said otherwise.
But no matter how much effort some people put in they're never going to make it to the big leagues.
I took a particular interest in studying the psychology of skill acquisition so when you talk about learning a skill what springs to mind is all the details. All of them.
It's nowhere near as simple as "talent prevails".
Some models of skill acquisition don't even include talent and explain talent as, basically, unskilled people not being able to see the steps that led to the person acquiring the skill, so they label the difference they cannot grasp as talent.
It's a very interesting field of study.
I use a ton of the practical application of this knowledge whenever I go to learn something new.
A very important point is that it isn't the amount of effort. It's the kind of effort. You have to break down walls in your learning, times when just repeating the same thing no longer works, and the most skilled people are those who have successfully broken through those plateaus. Even better if they've become skilled at recognising when they've hit a wall, determining what is causing it, figuring out how they might break through it, making a plan to do so, then putting in the effort to do so. Those people get better really quickly.
The importance of this meta cognitive step is common in all models of skill acquisition.
In this, Zuko is a million miles ahead of Azula. She hit the wall of Zuko and shattered immediately.
.
Um. Azula beat Zuko during their final battle. Katara was the one who defeated Azula in the end.
He held his own for a while, but she sure as hell didn't "shatter" against his awesome wall of awesome.
From what I remember, Zuko had Azula on the ropes and if Katara wasn't there he probably would have won. The only reason he couldn't deflect that lightning was because it wasn't aimed at him.
Yeah he sacrificed himself to save Katara.
While duelling him Azula became increasingly erratic (tone of voice, facial expression, general movements) until eventually she lost her shit and decided to cheat. They were pretty even until then and just before she decided to pull out the old zeus bolts Zuko was actually starting to push her back.
Needing to jump to save katara threw off his lightning redirect and caused him to take a whole ton of damage.
I just rewatched it just now.
Zuko was completely untouched and calmly countered every single one of Azula's attacks with equal strength. Each time he countered her attack there is a shot of Azula looking more and more agitated.
Eventually he busted out some crazy capoeria fire kick aoe while Azula was trying to zip around the arena and knocked Azula on her ass.
She did a complete ass over tail pratfall, rebounded off the ground, span a few times and slid to a stop.
There's no handwaving that: she got served.
She got up, all hunched over, breathing heavily. Zuko said something, did an "I know kungfu" stance all calm, she got pissed and started to cast lightning. Zuko immediately responded with "I got this LIGHTNING ROD TIME" but Azula shifted her aim to Katara at the last second.
Then Zuko did his flying hero save and took his only damage of the fight. He took the lightning to the chest mid flying leap so he couldn't redirect it properly.
Azula went full on cackle mode and did her best The Shining impression all over Katara until Katara whupped her at the end with her god like water skills.
Whereupon what was left of Azula's sanity snapped and she started roaring and snarling like a beast breathing fire all over the place.
Zuko wasn't even breathing heavily when Azula attacked Katara. Azula was gasping for breath and couldn't even stand up straight.
She was losing.
That fight should have ended with Katara using a water whip like a lightning rod to protect Zuko from his own stupidity, all "I've seen you guys throw lightning around like it's going out of style before, you thought I wouldn't come up with a defence?"
Followed by a combined ass-whupping.
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited July 2014
I wonder if that would actually work.
Random geek nerd time!
If you assume that waterbenders can only move the water itself, perhaps any water they use is pure? Pure water is an insulator.
Water in reality always has something conductive dissolved into it, which is where "water = conductive" comes from.
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0
Dark Raven XLaugh hard, run fast,be kindRegistered Userregular
I'd like to see Old Man Zuko throw out some blue flames and lightning.
Also yo Mako's dying this season. They know how wildly unpopular he is, and actually offing a member of Team Avatar would make Zaheer the worst guy they've fought so far. Maybe they'll finally show an aibender suffocate someone.
Oh brilliant
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
If you assume that waterbenders can only move the water itself, perhaps any water they use is pure? Pure water is an insulator.
Water in reality always has something conductive dissolved into it, which is where "water = conductive" comes from.
But we know from several places that they can bend water with stuff in it: bloodbending is the obvious example but equally there were various episodes of "mudbending" including the destruction of the great drill at Ba Sing Se. Adding solutes just makes the task more difficult, not impossible, and Katara trained on seawater.
If you assume that waterbenders can only move the water itself, perhaps any water they use is pure? Pure water is an insulator.
Water in reality always has something conductive dissolved into it, which is where "water = conductive" comes from.
But we know from several places that they can bend water with stuff in it: bloodbending is the obvious example but equally there were various episodes of "mudbending" including the destruction of the great drill at Ba Sing Se. Adding solutes just makes the task more difficult, not impossible, and Katara trained on seawater.
Good point. Also swamp benders!
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Mudbending seemed to be possible for both Katara and Toph. Toph seemed to have the most success (Katara managed to block the drill, Toph helping managed to push it all the way back, and after their totally plot-required and not-fanservice mudfight, Toph just blasted it off to clean up), so it probably depends on the mixture.
Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited July 2014
I just had an idea that made me wish I kind of hadn't thought of it.
We want conductivity here right?
Sweatbending.
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That was a clear case of "See how strong these guys are they are wiping the floor with these already established strong guys."
I wouldn't bother analysing Zuko's "power level" based on that.
Like, at all.
Simple and effective cliche: make everyone else look like chumps.
We knew how strong Tonraq was. He was going in ready for battle, P'Li one-shotted him like it was no big thing. That was a good example for how powerful she is. Zaheer's fights with the White Lotus guards and Kya showed not only how skilled a water bender she is, it got across how dangerous he was an air bender to named elite benders Korra hang around with.
Also
Zuko was knocked down by the earthbender.
The thing the earthbender did with those tiny rocks? That was toph level finesse. Most airbenders just pick up rocks and chuck them. Sometimes, if they're feeling particularly cunning, they throw curveballs.
This guy waved that thing around like he was waterbending a ball of water. With a spinning molten blade. It was so high level it looked simple, but it really really wasn't. You don't "waterbend" a ball of earth. Earth doesn't work like that. It requires strength and only respects strength. He wasn't gently guiding the blade to do that and his hand motions weren't the coaxing motions water benders use. He was forcing it. Each stroke of his hand was a cut, each curving swish of his hand was followed exactly by the blade, like a ball and chain without the chain. His skill is so high he can brute force earth and make it look graceful. When the hell have you ever seen earth look graceful before? Not even Toph looked graceful!
Then on top of that he made it spin, keep its precise cutting shape and heat up!
That was a really carefully designed sequence intended to show just how many different skills he is using all at once.
The other guys are really obviously flashy superpowered but that earth guy made me sit up and take notice because he was being subtle with earth.
They're all SSS rank.
Funhouse-mirror to the smooth way Ming-Hua crashes through roofs and crumples doors with fancy freezing expansion.
"Yo Zuko, your bending sucks!"
"What was that? I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my fucking dragon!"
That dragon got combustion'd. During that fight, the thing I was most concerned for was that dragon's well-being. Even if they found more over the past 70 years those things must still be hella endangered!
That reminds me, have we ever seen any Waterbenders create a bubble inside of a body of water to travel through it?
Yeah, in TLA they had to have Waterbenders make a bubble around Appa's head so he could travel with the submarine. And Katara did that thing where she froze herself, then turned the layer of ice around her into water to move through.
That reminds me, have we ever seen any Waterbenders create a bubble inside of a body of water to travel through it?
Also, it's how Team Avatar made their way through the Serpent's Pass: Aang and Katara did exactly what you described, an air bubble in the ocean and then just walked along the bed of the sea.
OK, I knew I was missing something. I just figured we would have seen it used to transport a large group of people underwater.
Depending on your definition of 'large' Aang and Katara made a bubble in the Serpent's Pass which ~10 people or so could travel in.
Also, the subs they used in the invasion of the fire nation where powered by water benders, maybe not quite the same as making a bubble to transport people in, but that's one of the largest troop movements you see TLA.
On another subject, has Korra done anything other than air-bending so far this season?
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CokomonOur butts are worth fighting for!Registered Userregular
All right, maybe that was what I was thinking off.
I wonder how tough waterbending a bubble like that would be at deeper pressure?
Posts
"What was that? I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my fucking dragon!"
I think that that is something to keep in mind for Zuko in general, both young Zuko in TLA! And old Zuko now. It's not that he has ever been a bad bender (exception being maybe in the flashbacks of him as a kid in TLA), his problem is that he's always been surrounded by prodigies like Azula, Toph, Katara, and Aang (ok not really a prodigy, but being the freaking avatar is close enough).
Well I always thought that Aang was quite possibly very talented at bending. As talented as Toph. The difference being that Toph works at it, not just to see, but to expand her capabilities. Aang just kind of goofs off whenever he can.
I always thought that the original TLA cast divided along the lines of
Talent & Effort=Katara and Toph (masters of their respective elements)
Talent & minimal/some effort=Aang (good, very good, but if you restricted him to water, he couldn't beat Katara. Same if you restricted him to Earth, he couldn't beat Toph).
No Talent & Effort=Zuko (probably as good a fire-bender as Aang, maybe better)
Badass=Sokka.
Damn it this is making me want to run an Exalted Dragon-Blood game.
I think the talent and minimal effort is a good way to group it, even if you just restrict him to his native element air, he didn't appear to be better than the other kids at the temple in his flashbacks. To use a more recent example, we can't compare him to Tenzin because he's had decades more to train, however the current villain showed the same or more talent than him in the last episode and he's only been at it for a few weeks.
Seems like it would be difficult for them to keep their eyes from drying out.
Um. Azula beat Zuko during their final battle. Katara was the one who defeated Azula in the end.
He held his own for a while, but she sure as hell didn't "shatter" against his awesome wall of awesome.
This discussion is rapidly approaching Dragon Ball Z Scouter Power Levels, though...
The real question I want answered is, now that there are Airbenders, are they going to modify the rules of pro-bending to include an Airbender?
Because that would be awesome. And I want to see those matches.
Yeah he sacrificed himself to save Katara.
While duelling him Azula became increasingly erratic (tone of voice, facial expression, general movements) until eventually she lost her shit and decided to cheat. They were pretty even until then and just before she decided to pull out the old zeus bolts Zuko was actually starting to push her back.
Needing to jump to save katara threw off his lightning redirect and caused him to take a whole ton of damage.
I just rewatched it just now.
Eventually he busted out some crazy capoeria fire kick aoe while Azula was trying to zip around the arena and knocked Azula on her ass.
She did a complete ass over tail pratfall, rebounded off the ground, span a few times and slid to a stop.
There's no handwaving that: she got served.
She got up, all hunched over, breathing heavily. Zuko said something, did an "I know kungfu" stance all calm, she got pissed and started to cast lightning. Zuko immediately responded with "I got this LIGHTNING ROD TIME" but Azula shifted her aim to Katara at the last second.
Then Zuko did his flying hero save and took his only damage of the fight. He took the lightning to the chest mid flying leap so he couldn't redirect it properly.
Azula went full on cackle mode and did her best The Shining impression all over Katara until Katara whupped her at the end with her god like water skills.
Whereupon what was left of Azula's sanity snapped and she started roaring and snarling like a beast breathing fire all over the place.
Zuko wasn't even breathing heavily when Azula attacked Katara. Azula was gasping for breath and couldn't even stand up straight.
She was losing.
It's just obnoxiously and unnecessarily cliche, how hard they're trying to show how powerful these guys are. I get it, they're Bad Doodz, but it's kinda silly to have them able to handily defeat some of the strongest benders in the world without much of a challenge, especially when one of them hasn't even had bending for more than a month or so.
You only ever spend time pointing out that a place is the safest place there is if you want to make it clear that even that won't protect you.
Let's review locations that were completely safe from attack:
Northern Air Temple (although I guess they did manage to hold them off)
Northern Water Tribe (only survives thanks to Koizilla)
Omashu (had the sense to give in before the bloodshed really started)
Ba Sing Se (would have been drilled open, then got a mix of Azula+Dai Li)
Even the Fire Nation Capital wasn't really able to stand up to an attack from a Ragtag Group (but that's due to the Power of Ragtag, a proper army probably wouldn't have gotten that far), although they did manage to beat them thanks to being forewarned.
That fight should have ended with Katara using a water whip like a lightning rod to protect Zuko from his own stupidity, all "I've seen you guys throw lightning around like it's going out of style before, you thought I wouldn't come up with a defence?"
Followed by a combined ass-whupping.
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Random geek nerd time!
If you assume that waterbenders can only move the water itself, perhaps any water they use is pure? Pure water is an insulator.
Water in reality always has something conductive dissolved into it, which is where "water = conductive" comes from.
Also yo Mako's dying this season. They know how wildly unpopular he is, and actually offing a member of Team Avatar would make Zaheer the worst guy they've fought so far. Maybe they'll finally show an aibender suffocate someone.
But we know from several places that they can bend water with stuff in it: bloodbending is the obvious example but equally there were various episodes of "mudbending" including the destruction of the great drill at Ba Sing Se. Adding solutes just makes the task more difficult, not impossible, and Katara trained on seawater.
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Good point. Also swamp benders!
We want conductivity here right?
Sweatbending.
How about an idea you will wish no-one had ever thought of?
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http://31.media.tumblr.com/dbc0f1405fd47d07d5b858632c8b7458/tumblr_n8mjntNNlO1r0tjypo2_1280.png
Look at that smugface. I guess the inventor's son would be the one to figure out it's advantageous to be able to see while flying.
Twitter: Cokomon | dA: Cokomon | Tumblr: Cokomon-art | XBL / NNID / Steam: Cokomon
Yesssss
Yeah, in TLA they had to have Waterbenders make a bubble around Appa's head so he could travel with the submarine. And Katara did that thing where she froze herself, then turned the layer of ice around her into water to move through.
Katara and Aang made a bubble around Appa's head once, didn't they?
Twitter: Cokomon | dA: Cokomon | Tumblr: Cokomon-art | XBL / NNID / Steam: Cokomon
Depending on your definition of 'large' Aang and Katara made a bubble in the Serpent's Pass which ~10 people or so could travel in.
Also, it's how Team Avatar made their way through the Serpent's Pass: Aang and Katara did exactly what you described, an air bubble in the ocean and then just walked along the bed of the sea.
On another subject, has Korra done anything other than air-bending so far this season?
I wonder how tough waterbending a bubble like that would be at deeper pressure?
Twitter: Cokomon | dA: Cokomon | Tumblr: Cokomon-art | XBL / NNID / Steam: Cokomon