If Amon is not Cabbage Man's son, he could also be the Cabbage Man himself, sent back from the dead by the cabbage spirits.
My biggest question about Amon and the equalists is, who is funding these dudes? They seem to have the most advanced tech in the city.
They probably aren't being funded by benders, for obvious reasons. But who does that leave? Almost everyone wealthy/powerful in the original series was a bender. There's the Kyoshi warriors, there's the sword master Fire Nation guy, there's Azula's old friends who I'm guessing come from wealthy families.
All of those seem unlikely. Maybe there's a new economic force at work. Or maybe they are being funded by benders. One group that comes to mind would be the metalbending cops. It probably helps them to have equalists taking bender criminals off the street. Plus Toph's family was super-rich.
Or maybe Cabbage Man is behind the funding. We never saw him sell his cabbages, and he somehow had the funds to continue refilling his cart.
Both of Mako's and Bolin's parents would have to be benders as well. One fire and one earth. So, unless Amon is secretly a bender he can't be the father.
I've watched through episode 3, gotta say that they are keeping a good thing going.
Except Amon's motivations. I understand they are realistic, but every time I hear the reasoning it makes me want to hit my head against a wall to make the stupid go away.
What if the weapon had been a KNIFE?
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
I've watched through episode 3, gotta say that they are keeping a good thing going.
Except Amon's motivations. I understand they are realistic, but every time I hear the reasoning it makes me want to hit my head against a wall to make the stupid go away.
What if the weapon had been a KNIFE?
To be fair, a lot of people whose relatives are murdered by a gun become very anti-gun and support or start movements and organizations that are working to have guns banned.
And if your society is arranged such that only certain hereditary castes of people are capable of owning and using guns or other powerful technology, well ... I can see where the dude is coming from is all. Plus he's not even killing them, just taking their toys away. No different from what Aang did to a bender that abused his power ... and you could make the argument that all benders inherently abuse their power.
I do love how some of his statements resonate with the scarier popular reactionary movements in real-world history, though. "Benders have started all wars."
And Amon is going to start a revolution, resulting in many possible deaths, purely through the power of his MIND and VOICE. Obviously we need to mute and lobotomize people who can think and talk.
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
The trouble with knives is that they are tools as well as weapons; an outright ban on knives interferes with more than just stabby people and a partial ban is useless as then the shabby types just start carrying chefs' knives and such.
There are similar issues with guns too, though less pronounced since far fewer people hunt game than chop vegetables or open boxes.
Not that any of his logic stops a few extremists popping up and trying for the absolute ban every so often. Which s what Amon is; an extremist, willing to use violence to influence public opinion, AKA a terrorist/freedom fighter.
Well, there's equality-equality, which is of course silly—and then there's the less extreme equality of opportunity, which is imo a good ideal. And if you have these priveleged castes of benders running around, you'll never come close to achieving the latter.
Edit: the flipside to this argument is that maybe equality of opportunity isn't worth it if MAGIC IS REAL and you have to destroy it to get that ideal.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
And Amon is going to start a revolution, resulting in many possible deaths, purely through the power of his MIND and VOICE. Obviously we need to mute and lobotomize people who can think and talk.
You.....don't really pay attention to the world, do you?
Cognitive dissonance. It is a thing.
Particularly when you get to zealots, which is what Amon is.
And Amon is going to start a revolution, resulting in many possible deaths, purely through the power of his MIND and VOICE. Obviously we need to mute and lobotomize people who can think and talk.
You.....don't really pay attention to the world, do you?
Cognitive dissonance. It is a thing.
Particularly when you get to zealots, which is what Amon is.
I didn't keep up a quote tree where I said that I understand that his motivations are "realistic", as in people actually do use this line of reasoning in the real world.
I just haven't seen anything in the world specifically repressing non-benders. Sure, the rich and powerful tend to be benders. But nothing is preventing a non-bender merchant king. Most of the reason the rich are benders is not specifically because they themselves were benders, but because they were nobility (bending just being a part of it).
Like that gang leader. A gang leader doesn't need to be a bender, and in fact his bending probably was only tangentially related (gave him a leg up at the start, not so useful later on unless his people require constant fear whipping).
The difference between guns and bending is that any human can potentially own a gun, whereas only certain groups of folks get to use bending. It's a situation that has no exact real-world analog. Imagine if only Irish people could use guns, only Mexicans could use electricity, etc...
Edit: it is established that bending is hereditary, right? It's not like Harry Potter magic where the kid of non-wizard parents can become a wizard?
Both of Mako's and Bolin's parents would have to be benders as well. One fire and one earth. So, unless Amon is secretly a bender he can't be the father.
Chances are better that he is secretly a bender than the chance that he is super Chi-Blocker even if you do not believe Amon is their father. It would be really interesting to see if the show deals with the secret shame of trying to hide what you are from the people around you. It could even be as simple as Amon having been a bender whose Chakra flows were damaged somehow during his attack or at a later date.
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21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
While Amon arguably has a point, so far his methods are definitely on the extreme side of things. Whether being so extreme is necessary has yet to be determined, and of course there is a lot more story to be revealed so it'll be interesting to watch how this plays out.
The difference between guns and bending is that any human can potentially own a gun, whereas only certain groups of folks get to use bending. It's a situation that has no exact real-world analog. Imagine if only Irish people could use guns, only Mexicans could use electricity, etc...
Edit: it is established that bending is hereditary, right? It's not like Harry Potter magic where the kid of non-wizard parents can become a wizard?
It is an ambiguous combination of biological and spiritual factors. There was a small bit in one of the early episodes where a kid was an earthbender but his twin brother wasn't.
Also, I'm not sure if Toph's parents were benders or not, so who knows.
And Amon is going to start a revolution, resulting in many possible deaths, purely through the power of his MIND and VOICE. Obviously we need to mute and lobotomize people who can think and talk.
You.....don't really pay attention to the world, do you?
Cognitive dissonance. It is a thing.
Particularly when you get to zealots, which is what Amon is.
I didn't keep up a quote tree where I said that I understand that his motivations are "realistic", as in people actually do use this line of reasoning in the real world.
I just haven't seen anything in the world specifically repressing non-benders. Sure, the rich and powerful tend to be benders. But nothing is preventing a non-bender merchant king. Most of the reason the rich are benders is not specifically because they themselves were benders, but because they were nobility (bending just being a part of it).
Like that gang leader. A gang leader doesn't need to be a bender, and in fact his bending probably was only tangentially related (gave him a leg up at the start, not so useful later on unless his people require constant fear whipping).
The Equalist rep in the park was specifically attacked by benders once and threatened by one of them before. A gang leader could be a bender, but it's far more likely when they have the powerful advantage of what's essentially a built in, unseeable, always accessible bazooka. Which will most definitely stretch to the rest of society. People would understandably be intimidated by any bender and fearful of upsetting them.
I will say this about Amon: I didn't care for that business about how he was chosen by spirits. I think he's lying, and I think he's got a bad attitude.
He's been no more extreme than a typical superhero. He's only attacked criminals*, and he hasn't killed anyone.
*One notable exception, but you know. Everyone makes mistakes. Plus dude shouldn't have been hanging around the triads!
Actually, not even an exception so far. Bolin was working for the Triad. I doubt very much whatever it was he was doing was in support of a legal and fair enterprise.
Essentially what we have at this point is a man rounding up criminal benders who abuse their power and removing it from them. His ultimate goal is extremely suspect but up to this point he's literally done nothing I would consider evil and from another POV would even support.
I think the best possible twist we can have to this story, is if Amon is 100% right, and that the Council and Police in Republic City actually are oppressing non benders, through labor laws, and even stricter punishments for crimes committed etc. It would put Korra in an interesting position of having/needing to support people who are diametrically opposed to her even existing.
My only problem with Amon's motivations is that we never actually see any of this "oppression" going on. Sure there may be a such a thing as "bender privilege", but that's hardly reason to go to war.
Still, there has to be something to this if so many people show up to a anti-bending rally. Maybe all the uber wealthy folks in the city are all benders and Amon is just perpetuating the stereotype.
My only problem with Amon's motivations is that we never actually see any of this "oppression" going on. Sure there may be a such a thing as "bender privilege", but that's hardly reason to go to war.
Still, there has to be something to this if so many people show up to a anti-bending rally. Maybe all the uber wealthy folks in the city are all benders and Amon is just perpetuating the stereotype.
Think about it. The city council? Benders. The elite and top brass of the police force? Benders. Gangsters? All benders, so far.
Even if there's no actual oppression on the part of the city's elite, a perception that benders are running the show is certainly understandable.
Also, the main difference between benders and melee weapons such as swords and knives is that it's far more difficult to defend yourself against a firebender or an earthbender than a man with a knife in a streetfight.
All the non-benders we've seen take on benders and survive have had years and years of training and were, in all likelihood, at the pinnacle of martial skill.
It's simply not possible for normal citizens in the Korra setting to reliably defend themselves against benders without extreme proficiency in hand-to-hand combat, a skill which most citizens have neither the time nor the resources to acquire.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
The problem is that eventually neither the Earth Kingdom nor the Fire Nation are just going to sit by and let their people be treated like that. So they are going to move in to protect them, increasing the tension, and Amon will probably try to respark the War. Which is probably his plan.
Bending doesn't open up magic opportunities for you that give you a free and easy life. See also: Mako and Bolin. Equality of opportunity doesn't mean everyone gets the same opportunity to do every kind of thing a person can do, and being born into bending is no different than being born into gymnastic ability or math wizardry or perfect pitch. It's what you make of yourself that matters.
I don't have the least shred of sympathy for Amon, and don't think he has a point at all. He's using eliminationist rhetoric and fueling populist discontent for his own ends.
If criminality is the problem, you deal with the criminals. You don't ban the weapons they're using. Heck, the vast majority of benders are law abiding citizens. You don't take away their bending because others cant do it, especially not out of some warped idea of equality.
I am doubtful that the equalists have anything close to the means to actually de-bendize a significant number of benders. They seem to have perhaps a dozen or so highly skilled chiblockers. There are thousands of benders. The chiblockers are at most a match for a skilled benders.
I am predicting that Amon will not be the final villain. He probably doesn't even really de-bend people.
Saw speculation that he only blocks one of two magic chi points, creating anxiety, and you need to get over your anxiety to bend. If this is true then he'll probably succeed in de-bending Korra, who will then have to learn calm and whatnot to get her powers back.
I bet someone is using the equalists. Maybe someone who wants to destabilize Republic City.
Edit: @spool32, I disagree. First of all, we haven't actually seen much about the non-benders in Republic City. Mako and Bolin may not be sitting easy, but that's largely because of extortion by *other benders*. They also have a roof over their heads, jobs, etc. I don't think you'll find any benders living as bums in Central Park. In the first show, non-benders were largely farmers and peasants; in Ba Sing-Se they had a whole walled off section of poor-nonbenders. Only the Kyoshi had nonbending political power, and they lived on a godforsaken eel-haunted island. And as others have pointed out, in Republic City—and in every city in the previous show—benders appear to occupy all positions of power. I mean you can say that a sufficiently awesome nonbender could gain a similar amount of power but I think Marx's ideas about class warfare would obviously apply here, at least as a diagnosis of the problem.
I agree about Amon's demogoguery though. Seems to be a recurrent problem in real history too: oppressed underclass identifies a structural problem in society and then go too far off the deep end of zealotry in their attempt to solve it. And I love that the show has succeeded in being so morally ambiguous that we are even having this discussion in the first place
The problem is that eventually neither the Earth Kingdom nor the Fire Nation are just going to sit by and let their people be treated like that. So they are going to move in to protect them, increasing the tension, and Amon will probably try to respark the War. Which is probably his plan.
Actually, Republic City is the capital of an independent nation formed out of the Fire Nation colonies, so the Earth Nation and Fire Nation don't have much reason to get involved.
Even benders who were down on their luck at one point still have it better than your average urban poor. They can go into probending, they're sought-after by gangs, and as evidenced by the latest episode, it's quite easy for them to get industrial work if they so choose.
I've watched through episode 3, gotta say that they are keeping a good thing going.
Except Amon's motivations. I understand they are realistic, but every time I hear the reasoning it makes me want to hit my head against a wall to make the stupid go away.
What if the weapon had been a KNIFE?
To be fair, a lot of people whose relatives are murdered by a gun become very anti-gun and support or start movements and organizations that are working to have guns banned.
I love Korra as the main character. I love that she's a (freakishly strong) chick, that she has curves and muscles and isn't just "inexplicably good at fighting super model," that she has some pretty understandable flaws for an overconfident teenager born into circumstances she doesn't even realize are privileged, that she looks balls to the walls awesome when they animate her fighting. and also she's BROWN! BROWN! BROWN LADY LEADING PROTAGONISTS IN THE HOUSE!
How much of her strength is from being physically overpowering, and how much is from martial arts techniques using her opponent's strength against him (a la the Kiyoshi warriors)? I don't think she could actually fling that enormous bouncer/mechanic guy. But who knows, Mako threw that chi blocker against a wall pretty effortlessly when he was in the steam.
Also, re: Various peoples and their real world analogues, I always took it as:
Water = Eskimo/Inuit
Air = Tibetan
Earth = Chinese
Fire = Japanese
Water is most likely Russian, although there is some chance that the two tribes represent the two sides of the Bering Strait. There's one ethnic group that has very similar traditional dress.
The Earth=China theory is nicely backed up by the resemblance of the Sandbender region to the Taklamakan Desert.
The problem is that eventually neither the Earth Kingdom nor the Fire Nation are just going to sit by and let their people be treated like that. So they are going to move in to protect them, increasing the tension, and Amon will probably try to respark the War. Which is probably his plan.
Actually, Republic City is the capital of an independent nation formed out of the Fire Nation colonies, so the Earth Nation and Fire Nation don't have much reason to get involved.
Even benders who were down on their luck at one point still have it better than your average urban poor. They can go into probending, they're sought-after by gangs, and as evidenced by the latest episode, it's quite easy for them to get industrial work if they so choose.
I'd say that the fact that he went directly to lightning bending seems to indicate that it is rare enough to demand a premium.
Bending, beyond which element you have the potential to bend, has very few explicit ties to heredity. Remember that both Katara and Toph had 2 non-bender parents, and Korra might too.
I've watched through episode 3, gotta say that they are keeping a good thing going.
Except Amon's motivations. I understand they are realistic, but every time I hear the reasoning it makes me want to hit my head against a wall to make the stupid go away.
What if the weapon had been a KNIFE?
To be fair, a lot of people whose relatives are murdered by a gun become very anti-gun and support or start movements and organizations that are working to have guns banned.
Like this guy:
I had this exact same thought when Mako let loose with his backstory. It's basically a 1:1 rip of Bruce's life.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Other than his family wasn't rich, or part of the privileged class (benders in his case, ultra-wealthy in Bruce's). We also don't know that his family is dead, only that they were taken away.
"Boy who witnesses terrible thing happens to family grows up to resent that thing" didn't start with Batman. :P
I thought the dialog made it quite clear they were killed. Just in that "it's saturday morning and we're not allowed to say kill or die but you know what we really mean wink wink".
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
It should also be pointed out that Mako and Bolin aren't poor because they can't get work. It's because they can't get work/sponsors in the field they want to be in. Assuming Mako's work gets them the 30k in two weeks they could be living well on that work alone. It's just not as glamorous.
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
edited April 2012
It could also be that redirecting lightning is dangerous. That would be a fair analogy to the foundries and factories of the industrial revolution if the work were dangerous (though high-paying isn't necessarily the most accurate).
Bending, beyond which element you have the potential to bend, has very few explicit ties to heredity. Remember that both Katara and Toph had 2 non-bender parents, and Korra might too.
Uh... I think you're missing a very important part of Katara's backstory.
Bending, beyond which element you have the potential to bend, has very few explicit ties to heredity. Remember that both Katara and Toph had 2 non-bender parents, and Korra might too.
Uh... I think you're missing a very important part of Katara's backstory.
It should also be pointed out that Mako and Bolin aren't poor because they can't get work. It's because they can't get work/sponsors in the field they want to be in. Assuming Mako's work gets them the 30k in two weeks they could be living well on that work alone. It's just not as glamorous.
Why assume that though? Bolin pretty clearly felt the need to get money by whatever means he could to supplement Mako, I doubt he would have been that desperate if Mako's other job would easily provide them the money.
Bending, beyond which element you have the potential to bend, has very few explicit ties to heredity. Remember that both Katara and Toph had 2 non-bender parents, and Korra might too.
Uh... I think you're missing a very important part of Katara's backstory.
No, he isn't. Katara's mother was not a bender. She said she was a bender so she'd get arrested and hauled to the Fire nation prisons instead of Katara. She didn't realize that the captain wasn't interested in taking prisoners that day.
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My biggest question about Amon and the equalists is, who is funding these dudes? They seem to have the most advanced tech in the city.
They probably aren't being funded by benders, for obvious reasons. But who does that leave? Almost everyone wealthy/powerful in the original series was a bender. There's the Kyoshi warriors, there's the sword master Fire Nation guy, there's Azula's old friends who I'm guessing come from wealthy families.
All of those seem unlikely. Maybe there's a new economic force at work. Or maybe they are being funded by benders. One group that comes to mind would be the metalbending cops. It probably helps them to have equalists taking bender criminals off the street. Plus Toph's family was super-rich.
Or maybe Cabbage Man is behind the funding. We never saw him sell his cabbages, and he somehow had the funds to continue refilling his cart.
Except Amon's motivations. I understand they are realistic, but every time I hear the reasoning it makes me want to hit my head against a wall to make the stupid go away.
What if the weapon had been a KNIFE?
To be fair, a lot of people whose relatives are murdered by a gun become very anti-gun and support or start movements and organizations that are working to have guns banned.
I do love how some of his statements resonate with the scarier popular reactionary movements in real-world history, though. "Benders have started all wars."
There are similar issues with guns too, though less pronounced since far fewer people hunt game than chop vegetables or open boxes.
Not that any of his logic stops a few extremists popping up and trying for the absolute ban every so often. Which s what Amon is; an extremist, willing to use violence to influence public opinion, AKA a terrorist/freedom fighter.
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Edit: the flipside to this argument is that maybe equality of opportunity isn't worth it if MAGIC IS REAL and you have to destroy it to get that ideal.
You.....don't really pay attention to the world, do you?
Cognitive dissonance. It is a thing.
Particularly when you get to zealots, which is what Amon is.
I just haven't seen anything in the world specifically repressing non-benders. Sure, the rich and powerful tend to be benders. But nothing is preventing a non-bender merchant king. Most of the reason the rich are benders is not specifically because they themselves were benders, but because they were nobility (bending just being a part of it).
Like that gang leader. A gang leader doesn't need to be a bender, and in fact his bending probably was only tangentially related (gave him a leg up at the start, not so useful later on unless his people require constant fear whipping).
Edit: it is established that bending is hereditary, right? It's not like Harry Potter magic where the kid of non-wizard parents can become a wizard?
there, I said it.
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Also, I'm not sure if Toph's parents were benders or not, so who knows.
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*One notable exception, but you know. Everyone makes mistakes. Plus dude shouldn't have been hanging around the triads!
The Equalist rep in the park was specifically attacked by benders once and threatened by one of them before. A gang leader could be a bender, but it's far more likely when they have the powerful advantage of what's essentially a built in, unseeable, always accessible bazooka. Which will most definitely stretch to the rest of society. People would understandably be intimidated by any bender and fearful of upsetting them.
Actually, not even an exception so far. Bolin was working for the Triad. I doubt very much whatever it was he was doing was in support of a legal and fair enterprise.
Essentially what we have at this point is a man rounding up criminal benders who abuse their power and removing it from them. His ultimate goal is extremely suspect but up to this point he's literally done nothing I would consider evil and from another POV would even support.
Still, there has to be something to this if so many people show up to a anti-bending rally. Maybe all the uber wealthy folks in the city are all benders and Amon is just perpetuating the stereotype.
Think about it. The city council? Benders. The elite and top brass of the police force? Benders. Gangsters? All benders, so far.
Even if there's no actual oppression on the part of the city's elite, a perception that benders are running the show is certainly understandable.
Also, the main difference between benders and melee weapons such as swords and knives is that it's far more difficult to defend yourself against a firebender or an earthbender than a man with a knife in a streetfight.
All the non-benders we've seen take on benders and survive have had years and years of training and were, in all likelihood, at the pinnacle of martial skill.
It's simply not possible for normal citizens in the Korra setting to reliably defend themselves against benders without extreme proficiency in hand-to-hand combat, a skill which most citizens have neither the time nor the resources to acquire.
I don't have the least shred of sympathy for Amon, and don't think he has a point at all. He's using eliminationist rhetoric and fueling populist discontent for his own ends.
If criminality is the problem, you deal with the criminals. You don't ban the weapons they're using. Heck, the vast majority of benders are law abiding citizens. You don't take away their bending because others cant do it, especially not out of some warped idea of equality.
I am predicting that Amon will not be the final villain. He probably doesn't even really de-bend people.
I bet someone is using the equalists. Maybe someone who wants to destabilize Republic City.
Edit: @spool32, I disagree. First of all, we haven't actually seen much about the non-benders in Republic City. Mako and Bolin may not be sitting easy, but that's largely because of extortion by *other benders*. They also have a roof over their heads, jobs, etc. I don't think you'll find any benders living as bums in Central Park. In the first show, non-benders were largely farmers and peasants; in Ba Sing-Se they had a whole walled off section of poor-nonbenders. Only the Kyoshi had nonbending political power, and they lived on a godforsaken eel-haunted island. And as others have pointed out, in Republic City—and in every city in the previous show—benders appear to occupy all positions of power. I mean you can say that a sufficiently awesome nonbender could gain a similar amount of power but I think Marx's ideas about class warfare would obviously apply here, at least as a diagnosis of the problem.
I agree about Amon's demogoguery though. Seems to be a recurrent problem in real history too: oppressed underclass identifies a structural problem in society and then go too far off the deep end of zealotry in their attempt to solve it. And I love that the show has succeeded in being so morally ambiguous that we are even having this discussion in the first place
Actually, Republic City is the capital of an independent nation formed out of the Fire Nation colonies, so the Earth Nation and Fire Nation don't have much reason to get involved.
Even benders who were down on their luck at one point still have it better than your average urban poor. They can go into probending, they're sought-after by gangs, and as evidenced by the latest episode, it's quite easy for them to get industrial work if they so choose.
Like this guy:
Water is most likely Russian, although there is some chance that the two tribes represent the two sides of the Bering Strait. There's one ethnic group that has very similar traditional dress.
The Earth=China theory is nicely backed up by the resemblance of the Sandbender region to the Taklamakan Desert.
I'd say that the fact that he went directly to lightning bending seems to indicate that it is rare enough to demand a premium.
I had this exact same thought when Mako let loose with his backstory. It's basically a 1:1 rip of Bruce's life.
"Boy who witnesses terrible thing happens to family grows up to resent that thing" didn't start with Batman. :P
Neither of Katara's parents are benders.
Uh... I think you're missing a very important part of Katara's backstory.
Why assume that though? Bolin pretty clearly felt the need to get money by whatever means he could to supplement Mako, I doubt he would have been that desperate if Mako's other job would easily provide them the money.
No, he isn't. Katara's mother was not a bender. She said she was a bender so she'd get arrested and hauled to the Fire nation prisons instead of Katara. She didn't realize that the captain wasn't interested in taking prisoners that day.