benders overpower non-benders except for the ones they don't because those are exceptionally trained outliers
even when outnumbered a bender won't lose to a bunch of non-benders, except when a group of chi-blockers overpowers the avatar
also benders have societal privilege and power except for all the ones that don't
and all the non-benders in position of privilege and power are just rare exceptions
Your position is basically "well average people do great and can become fantastically wealthy, look at steve jobs! There's no problem with social mobility"
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BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
It just seems like a bit of a contrivance that benders would occupy anything approaching the same socio-economic strata as non-benders.
If I can lift boulders and make buildings with my mind there's no way I'm doing general labor out in the fields.
It just seems like a bit of a contrivance that benders would occupy anything approaching the same socio-economic strata as non-benders.
If I can lift boulders and make buildings with my mind there's no way I'm doing general labor out in the fields.
Not the same labor, but did you see Mako in the power plant? Or the guys making Satomobile parts?
There's a lot of work that Benders can do that sucks. They can do it quicker and easier, sure, but that just means there's more demand.
And in management positions, there's not much benefit to the whole superpowers bit. System could be set up to give all the edges to benders, but it doesn't have to be.
It just seems like a bit of a contrivance that benders would occupy anything approaching the same socio-economic strata as non-benders.
If I can lift boulders and make buildings with my mind there's no way I'm doing general labor out in the fields.
Not the same labor, but did you see Mako in the power plant? Or the guys making Satomobile parts?
There's a lot of work that Benders can do that sucks. They can do it quicker and easier, sure, but that just means there's more demand.
And in management positions, there's not much benefit to the whole superpowers bit. System could be set up to give all the edges to benders, but it doesn't have to be.
What i'm saying is that if I can build a wall at several hundred times the rate of someone who can't bend, there's not going to be much of a masonry market left for non-benders. Same with being able to plough my fields in a few minutes rather than a few days, or building irrigation canals and bridges by waving my hands in the air. Benders would control almost all of the means of production since they would be the the means of production.
The show is just skirting over a lot of the issues that would loom large in any world where a subset of the population had a huge natural advantage over everyone else. It's being addressed in some ways in Korra, but the idea of benders and non-benders occupying the same roles in society doesn't mesh at all with basic economics.
seems like bending would be a lot less useful in a post-industrial revolution kind of world, especially if there's not much call for a strong military any more. I'm sure that they'll show us the other side of things if we are supposed to think serious equality problems exist. These guys have proved their writing chops.
It just looks kind of weird now because the benders we spend the most time with (aside from the avatar and last few airbenders, who are kinda special cases) are dirt poor, whereas the non-benders we've seen the most of, Sato and his daughter, are fantastically well-off.
seems like bending would be a lot less useful in a post-industrial revolution kind of world, especially if there's not much call for a strong military any more. I'm sure that they'll show us the other side of things if we are supposed to think serious equality problems exist. These guys have proved their writing chops.
It just looks kind of weird now because the benders we spend the most time with (aside from the avatar and last few airbenders, who are kinda special cases) are dirt poor, whereas the non-benders we've seen the most of, Sato and his daughter, are fantastically well-off.
Really, this has been the case with almost everyone we have seen in the show. All of the most wealthy characters are normals, for the most part, exempting the fire-bending royalty.
You can really argue either side of this argument with what has been shown in the shows. There just isn't enough evidence to go on outside of what has been shown in Republic City over the week or two the Avatar has been there in the first three episodes.
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KorKnown to detonate from time to timeRegistered Userregular
we have regularly seen benders menacing non-benders
it is a recurring theme on the show
we have very rarely seen the opposite
most of these examples are Equalist-related, who menace benders plenty
the only one I can remember that isn't is the Triads hassling that shopkeeper, but that's just good old fashioned gangs abusing the weak and nothing specific to benders
Also the 100 year long war with the fire nation that resulted in the extinction of one civilization and the near extinction of another would have never happened if bending weren't a thing
it would have happened with swords and cannons instead
The only reason the war broke out was because sozin's comet supercharged the firebenders
Ain't no comet that supercharges swords
I realize this is a way late, but this isn't true. A comet comes down, Sokka makes a sword out of it, and it can cut through solid steel beams in a single swipe.
we have regularly seen benders menacing non-benders
it is a recurring theme on the show
we have very rarely seen the opposite
most of these examples are Equalist-related, who menace benders plenty
the only one I can remember that isn't is the Triads hassling that shopkeeper, but that's just good old fashioned gangs abusing the weak and nothing specific to benders
Also the 100 year long war with the fire nation that resulted in the extinction of one civilization and the near extinction of another would have never happened if bending weren't a thing
it would have happened with swords and cannons instead
The only reason the war broke out was because sozin's comet supercharged the firebenders
Ain't no comet that supercharges swords
I realize this is a way late, but this isn't true. A comet comes down, Sokka makes a sword out of it, and it can cut through solid steel beams in a single swipe.
No, no, that's meteors. Clearly different from comets. Comets:Benders::Meteors:Swordsmen
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KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
seems like bending would be a lot less useful in a post-industrial revolution kind of world, especially if there's not much call for a strong military any more. I'm sure that they'll show us the other side of things if we are supposed to think serious equality problems exist. These guys have proved their writing chops.
It just looks kind of weird now because the benders we spend the most time with (aside from the avatar and last few airbenders, who are kinda special cases) are dirt poor, whereas the non-benders we've seen the most of, Sato and his daughter, are fantastically well-off.
Really, this has been the case with almost everyone we have seen in the show. All of the most wealthy characters are normals, for the most part, exempting the fire-bending royalty.
You can really argue either side of this argument with what has been shown in the shows. There just isn't enough evidence to go on outside of what has been shown in Republic City over the week or two the Avatar has been there in the first three episodes.
Well the council wasn't full of normies, the wealthy and powerful gang leaders were all benders, the chief of police is a bender, the major sport is professional bending which probably pays really really well if you're good at it, bumi was king of a city and also a bender, the secret police of ba sing sei were all benders, all the generals in the earth kingdom army were benders
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KorKnown to detonate from time to timeRegistered Userregular
we have regularly seen benders menacing non-benders
it is a recurring theme on the show
we have very rarely seen the opposite
most of these examples are Equalist-related, who menace benders plenty
the only one I can remember that isn't is the Triads hassling that shopkeeper, but that's just good old fashioned gangs abusing the weak and nothing specific to benders
Also the 100 year long war with the fire nation that resulted in the extinction of one civilization and the near extinction of another would have never happened if bending weren't a thing
it would have happened with swords and cannons instead
The only reason the war broke out was because sozin's comet supercharged the firebenders
Ain't no comet that supercharges swords
I realize this is a way late, but this isn't true. A comet comes down, Sokka makes a sword out of it, and it can cut through solid steel beams in a single swipe.
No, no, that's meteors. Clearly different from comets. Comets:Benders::Meteors:Swordsmen
Wait... it's meteorite when it lands, isn't it? Or is it when it enters our atmosphere? I can never keep the 3 of them straight.
You "nonbendies", get to digging with your hands when I give you a break from worshipping me like the god of earth that I am
Man what?
They have labor animals and now combustion engines. Nobody is using their hands to plow a field.
That was working from the world that would actually come to pass with element-controlling magic superhumans and also was a joke and they'll dig with what I allow them to dig with
I mean really, if you're trying to make the argument that Amon is wrong because there is no inequality then you're being willfully ignorant
...I'm not making that argument. At all?
All I'm saying is:
1) That the wealthy characters of the show, the ones specifically called wealthy (Northern Water Tribe princess and her boyfriend in contrast to Sokka, the Bei Fong family in comparison to everyone, The Earth King and most of the Upper Ring we were shown, Mei's family, all of the kids of major figures on Ember Island, etc.) were typically normals with the exception of the fire nation royalty. Other folks we could assume had wealth, but it wasn't specifically called out as important in the show.
2) There is not enough evidence one way or another from what we have seen in the series to vindicate or condemn Amon's platform on a global level, only in Republic City during the time of Korra's visit.
There never was a strong message in the previous shows that bending was bad or that benders overtly oppressed non-benders. It wasn't greatly a concern for the series before now while the message that anyone properly trained in anything can be powerful was something they touched on. There were episodes with similar problems, such as Zuko Alone, but it wasn't benders that was the focus, but the soldiers in general (only one of which was a bender).
This is a new thing thematically for the show. While you could argue for retroactive interpretations that benders have been oppressing the shit out of people forever, you could just as easily argue opposite from the first series.
we have regularly seen benders menacing non-benders
it is a recurring theme on the show
we have very rarely seen the opposite
most of these examples are Equalist-related, who menace benders plenty
the only one I can remember that isn't is the Triads hassling that shopkeeper, but that's just good old fashioned gangs abusing the weak and nothing specific to benders
Also the 100 year long war with the fire nation that resulted in the extinction of one civilization and the near extinction of another would have never happened if bending weren't a thing
it would have happened with swords and cannons instead
The only reason the war broke out was because sozin's comet supercharged the firebenders
Ain't no comet that supercharges swords
I realize this is a way late, but this isn't true. A comet comes down, Sokka makes a sword out of it, and it can cut through solid steel beams in a single swipe.
No, no, that's meteors. Clearly different from comets. Comets:Benders::Meteors:Swordsmen
Wait... it's meteorite when it lands, isn't it? Or is it when it enters our atmosphere? I can never keep the 3 of them straight.
One thing related to this conversation that I don't think TLA did very well was demonstrating just how powerful the average bender is. Out of necessity we were pretty much only ever shown the best benders around. Aang needed formidable enemies and powerful allies. But Korra seems to shed a more realistic light on it. Probending athletes get tired after, at a guess, 30 minutes to an hour of bending relatively small amounts of one thing or another and can't do it as well anymore afterwards. The commentator calls it "running out of juice."
If this is an example of how powerful most benders are, then you aren't going to see an economy built on benders being able to control the crop and field industry because they're not capable of doing so. Benders and non-benders are certainly not going to be equal, but I don't think the split is as big as its been assumed to be. Truly gifted benders with more stamina to do crazy things are probably quite rare, even if we saw tons of them during TLA. There was a war on in TLA, so it makes sense for the best and brightest to be used as frontline soldiers.
But if what is considered in Korra's time to be an athletic bender can only move several relatively small earthen discs for 30 minutes to an hour at a time, they aren't going to be the sole source of agricultural development in the Earth Kingdom.
maybe i'm wrong but i was sort of assuming that with the probenders, a lot more was going on than the obvious. Like the waterbenders were constantly playing tug of war with the water under the arena and such
also remember that the mail system in Omashu and the trains in Ba Sing Se both relied on a small number of earthbenders moving around large, heavy stone containers full of goods/people
That'd make sense with the water Speed, but firebenders generate it themselves and earthbenders have the discs on their side to work with. Really, the relative power of bending in Avatar in general is fairly wildly inconsistent. It hasn't really ever been a thing the show has needed to worry about, since it wasn't really ever the point. Until Korra, where they've purposefully made Benders and their place in the world a direct focus of the series.
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HarrierThe Star Spangled ManRegistered Userregular
Yeah, the main bender characters in TLA consisted of:
-The Avatar, who was an airbending prodigy and picked up the other elements really quickly
-A waterbending prodigy who advanced to near-master level in maybe a month
-An earthbending prodigy who maybe really was the best earthbender in the world at the age of 12
-A firebending prodigy who had blue fire, something we saw from no one else
-An incredibly badass, incredibly powerful old firebending master
And Zuko, who's not the natural bender that his sister or the others are, but who had work ethic and willpower of Green Lantern levels and drove himself until he was a very powerful firebender.
TLA really showed the best of the best when it came to bending.
I don't wanna kill anybody. I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from.
also just because they're only throwing a small sandstone disc, maybe they're throwing it really hard
It can't be too hard, if they're expecting these matches to make and sort of realistic sense. You throw a stone disc hard at a person and it hits them in the chest, they're going to be lucky to have a few broken ribs, I don't care what kind of padding is used.
also just because they're only throwing a small sandstone disc, maybe they're throwing it really hard
It can't be too hard, if they're expecting these matches to make and sort of realistic sense. You throw a stone disc hard at a person and it hits them in the chest, they're going to be lucky to have a few broken ribs, I don't care what kind of padding is used.
well it seems like a fairly "soft" kind of rock, since it explodes into dust as soon as it hits its target
Getting hit with one is probably not a fun experience in the least
I would gladly watch a whole movie about Korra vs. an apartment building full of equalists.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
The answer here is that the powers are shown as the plot demands. It wouldn't make much sense for a sports team to have unlimited energy if you want Mako's patient strategy to work out, so they have them get tired more.
A lot of Korra is shown to change the notions that were pretty much considered cannon from TLA. Lightning was a rare and very difficult to master art, now random street thugs can use it without the discipline and cold objectivity that was said to be required of it. The avatar could easily earth bend entire walls and rivers without thinking too much about it, but now Korra seems overpowered/overpowering with comparably small amounts of water and earth.
A lot of powers are getting toned down to fit the urban setting and to make the chi blockers a more credible enemy.
also just because they're only throwing a small sandstone disc, maybe they're throwing it really hard
It can't be too hard, if they're expecting these matches to make and sort of realistic sense. You throw a stone disc hard at a person and it hits them in the chest, they're going to be lucky to have a few broken ribs, I don't care what kind of padding is used.
well it seems like a fairly "soft" kind of rock, since it explodes into dust as soon as it hits its target
Getting hit with one is probably not a fun experience in the least
That would make more sense, yeah. A sandstone-y kind of rock, maybe? Anyway, it still doesn't seem like they're doing a whole lot compared to all the benders of the last show.
also just because they're only throwing a small sandstone disc, maybe they're throwing it really hard
It can't be too hard, if they're expecting these matches to make and sort of realistic sense. You throw a stone disc hard at a person and it hits them in the chest, they're going to be lucky to have a few broken ribs, I don't care what kind of padding is used.
well it seems like a fairly "soft" kind of rock, since it explodes into dust as soon as it hits its target
Getting hit with one is probably not a fun experience in the least
That would make more sense, yeah. A sandstone-y kind of rock, maybe? Anyway, it still doesn't seem like they're doing a whole lot compared to all the benders of the last show.
well, it seems like more of a finesse sport than something like Earth Rumble VI from the Blind Bandit episode
I consider Pro Bending to be something akin to Boxing or MMA fighting. You know that matches last only a set amount of time, so you train for that. In addition if you see an advantage you push yourself hard to take advantage of it. It's a thing that people get tired very quickly (in real life anyway) anytime they are pushing themselves to their limit. Heck, there was a pretty famous example of just this happening in MMA when Brock Lesnar literally used the Homer Simpson defense of letting his opponent tire himself out by hitting him, and then winning. So compared to real life, this seems reasonable to me. Compared to the examples from the first series, well maybe not so much, though as mentioned before pretty much every named bender was some kind of serious badass.
Posts
http://www.audioentropy.com/
you're not gonna get an unbiased opinion about bending from any of those places
http://www.audioentropy.com/
And he may have been a bender, we don't know, he just wasn't a metal bender apparently?
Your position is basically "well average people do great and can become fantastically wealthy, look at steve jobs! There's no problem with social mobility"
If I can lift boulders and make buildings with my mind there's no way I'm doing general labor out in the fields.
Not the same labor, but did you see Mako in the power plant? Or the guys making Satomobile parts?
There's a lot of work that Benders can do that sucks. They can do it quicker and easier, sure, but that just means there's more demand.
And in management positions, there's not much benefit to the whole superpowers bit. System could be set up to give all the edges to benders, but it doesn't have to be.
Why I fear the ocean.
What i'm saying is that if I can build a wall at several hundred times the rate of someone who can't bend, there's not going to be much of a masonry market left for non-benders. Same with being able to plough my fields in a few minutes rather than a few days, or building irrigation canals and bridges by waving my hands in the air. Benders would control almost all of the means of production since they would be the the means of production.
The show is just skirting over a lot of the issues that would loom large in any world where a subset of the population had a huge natural advantage over everyone else. It's being addressed in some ways in Korra, but the idea of benders and non-benders occupying the same roles in society doesn't mesh at all with basic economics.
It just looks kind of weird now because the benders we spend the most time with (aside from the avatar and last few airbenders, who are kinda special cases) are dirt poor, whereas the non-benders we've seen the most of, Sato and his daughter, are fantastically well-off.
You "nonbendies", get to digging with your hands when I give you a break from worshipping me like the god of earth that I am
Man what?
They have labor animals and now combustion engines. Nobody is using their hands to plow a field.
Really, this has been the case with almost everyone we have seen in the show. All of the most wealthy characters are normals, for the most part, exempting the fire-bending royalty.
You can really argue either side of this argument with what has been shown in the shows. There just isn't enough evidence to go on outside of what has been shown in Republic City over the week or two the Avatar has been there in the first three episodes.
I realize this is a way late, but this isn't true. A comet comes down, Sokka makes a sword out of it, and it can cut through solid steel beams in a single swipe.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
No, no, that's meteors. Clearly different from comets. Comets:Benders::Meteors:Swordsmen
Well the council wasn't full of normies, the wealthy and powerful gang leaders were all benders, the chief of police is a bender, the major sport is professional bending which probably pays really really well if you're good at it, bumi was king of a city and also a bender, the secret police of ba sing sei were all benders, all the generals in the earth kingdom army were benders
Wait... it's meteorite when it lands, isn't it? Or is it when it enters our atmosphere? I can never keep the 3 of them straight.
Pokemon Safari - Sneasel, Pawniard, ????
That was working from the world that would actually come to pass with element-controlling magic superhumans and also was a joke and they'll dig with what I allow them to dig with
...I'm not making that argument. At all?
All I'm saying is:
1) That the wealthy characters of the show, the ones specifically called wealthy (Northern Water Tribe princess and her boyfriend in contrast to Sokka, the Bei Fong family in comparison to everyone, The Earth King and most of the Upper Ring we were shown, Mei's family, all of the kids of major figures on Ember Island, etc.) were typically normals with the exception of the fire nation royalty. Other folks we could assume had wealth, but it wasn't specifically called out as important in the show.
2) There is not enough evidence one way or another from what we have seen in the series to vindicate or condemn Amon's platform on a global level, only in Republic City during the time of Korra's visit.
There never was a strong message in the previous shows that bending was bad or that benders overtly oppressed non-benders. It wasn't greatly a concern for the series before now while the message that anyone properly trained in anything can be powerful was something they touched on. There were episodes with similar problems, such as Zuko Alone, but it wasn't benders that was the focus, but the soldiers in general (only one of which was a bender).
This is a new thing thematically for the show. While you could argue for retroactive interpretations that benders have been oppressing the shit out of people forever, you could just as easily argue opposite from the first series.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqBChyNyLhU
http://www.audioentropy.com/
If this is an example of how powerful most benders are, then you aren't going to see an economy built on benders being able to control the crop and field industry because they're not capable of doing so. Benders and non-benders are certainly not going to be equal, but I don't think the split is as big as its been assumed to be. Truly gifted benders with more stamina to do crazy things are probably quite rare, even if we saw tons of them during TLA. There was a war on in TLA, so it makes sense for the best and brightest to be used as frontline soldiers.
But if what is considered in Korra's time to be an athletic bender can only move several relatively small earthen discs for 30 minutes to an hour at a time, they aren't going to be the sole source of agricultural development in the Earth Kingdom.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I was shocked at how short the matches actually are
http://www.audioentropy.com/
-The Avatar, who was an airbending prodigy and picked up the other elements really quickly
-A waterbending prodigy who advanced to near-master level in maybe a month
-An earthbending prodigy who maybe really was the best earthbender in the world at the age of 12
-A firebending prodigy who had blue fire, something we saw from no one else
-An incredibly badass, incredibly powerful old firebending master
And Zuko, who's not the natural bender that his sister or the others are, but who had work ethic and willpower of Green Lantern levels and drove himself until he was a very powerful firebender.
TLA really showed the best of the best when it came to bending.
It can't be too hard, if they're expecting these matches to make and sort of realistic sense. You throw a stone disc hard at a person and it hits them in the chest, they're going to be lucky to have a few broken ribs, I don't care what kind of padding is used.
well it seems like a fairly "soft" kind of rock, since it explodes into dust as soon as it hits its target
Getting hit with one is probably not a fun experience in the least
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I would gladly watch a whole movie about Korra vs. an apartment building full of equalists.
A lot of Korra is shown to change the notions that were pretty much considered cannon from TLA. Lightning was a rare and very difficult to master art, now random street thugs can use it without the discipline and cold objectivity that was said to be required of it. The avatar could easily earth bend entire walls and rivers without thinking too much about it, but now Korra seems overpowered/overpowering with comparably small amounts of water and earth.
A lot of powers are getting toned down to fit the urban setting and to make the chi blockers a more credible enemy.
That would make more sense, yeah. A sandstone-y kind of rock, maybe? Anyway, it still doesn't seem like they're doing a whole lot compared to all the benders of the last show.
the world
oh man
just fire-elbowing everyone right in the throat
I suspect it's apples vs oranges and that the skill sets/physical demands are pretty different?
well, it seems like more of a finesse sport than something like Earth Rumble VI from the Blind Bandit episode
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRRp6BY4WXQ