Please do not come at me for mentioning shipping, I promise it is part of the context!

A lot of anti-zutara ATLA fans think the ship is wrong because it’s a coloniser/colonial fantasy. I’m not entirely sure what they mean by that? A lot of them reference the Water Tribes being inspired by inuit/native cultures, which is true, that were colonised, also true. But the Southern Water Tribe is not a colony of the Fire Nation, is it?

What the FN did to the SWT checks all the boxes for genocide rather than colonisation, doesn’t it?

Here are the definitions for each:

1. Genocide

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

2. Colonisation

Colonisation is a process of establishing occupation of or control over foreign territories or peoples for the purpose of cultivation, exploitation, trade and possibly settlement, setting up coloniality and often colonies, commonly pursued and maintained by, but distinct from, imperialism, mercantilism, or colonialism.

FN never conquered the South Pole (most likely because it wasn’t worth it) and haven’t tried to impose their own cultural/religious/administrative practices on the surviving population. They never exploited the South Pole for resources either and they definitely did not settle there.

Now come to think of it, maybe what the FN did to the SWT falls better under war crimes, as waterbenders were the closest thing the south had to armed forces?

But that doesn’t sound strong enough considering that without waterbenders their whole civilisation became nearly extinct. This is why the north has Agna Qel’a and the SWT lives in tupiqs, with only one building made of ice still standing. They obviously also perceive them as ‘lesser than’, which is something they think of everyone who isn’t FN, true, but they do seem to think even less of the SWT.

Offtopic: Now if you ask me, Azulon was an idiot to eradicate SWT waterbenders, they would have been far more useful to the FN as enslaved healers or fighters (as messed up as it sounds).

Any thoughts on all of this? How would you define FN’s actions towards the SWT, from a modern International Relations perspective? Are the links between the SWT and inuit/native cultures enough to make Zutara look like a coloniser’s wet dream, as some people would put it?

What if there are immigrants from a different nation who go somewhere and accidentally birth the avatar could this happen? And how would it affect things?

Example, let’s say there is a small water tribe family living in the earth kingdom and they just so happen to birth the avatar and now a naturally water bending avatar isn’t in a water tribe.

This will be a speculation nothing official yet if leaks aren't allowed I will delete the post

The photo shows the new avatar their mentor and their animal Companion they appear to be in a waste land theres a city in background that looks to be in ruins I have a theory on why

There's a lot of roots around that means korra didn't find a way to get rid of the roots they become uncontrollable that resulted in any form of roods and trains to be useless and renewable energy becoming impossible to maintain because there's a possibility for the roots to grow

This caused any Scientific advancements to completely stop because there's no energy to maintain long term experiments with time knowledge and info of tech was ultimately lost to time even if some info survived and based down to younger generations they might not be familiar with the technology and how to build them correctly

This will result in the world regressing back before the industrial era there's the spirits some might hate humanity and started killing them this could possibly result in some humans going back to live on the sole lion turtle back for protection

The roots might be korra's regret

So if tough can bend metal does that mean every earth bender can. I know she is the best at it but thats something like the lightning i think if they try they can also bend metal

So we know how that iroh makes fire through his own bodyheat right?

So if a fire bender can control their body heat to make fire, couldn't they just do it on others and just set a person ablaze using that person's own body heat?

Cause if so then i wouldn't say that fire is the second weakest element

So in avatar the last airbender the first earth benders where Oma and Shu but in legend of korra it was said that people already knew how to bend earth because of the lionturtles. And it’s not only earth benders it’s with all the different bendings. Can someone please explain why this can make sense. (sorry if it’s hard to understand English isn’t my first language)

With enough training do you think an air bender could condense air into a solid or liquid form? If so could they still use it like how water benders can use steam or ice?

I think Gyatso knows that Sozin killed Malaya. Sozin made the final blow with firebending and burned her whole body. Unless her body was severely damaged in the tunnel collapse, there’s no way those burns go unnoticed. I think Gyatso couldn’t bring himself to tell Roku that Sozin was responsible for her death so soon after the battle. I think it’ll come up in the sequel when Gyatso and Roku are fighting again over Sozin and his morals.

So as its been been in both ATLA and ATLOK Aang was always spiritually much stronger than Korra whose physical prowess was much better as a fighter.

Is it just me or does anyone else also think that when Aang went into the Avatar state he was much stronger and freakier than Korra in the Avatar state(barring the convergence arc in which her avatar state was overpowered imo in the context of the series)

Hi All,

I’m re-watching ATLA for the millionth time, and the question that always comes to mind when watching is how did the Southern Raiders know about Katara being the last water bender in the Southern Tribe. I looked online and have seen a few theories:

1 - There was a spy in the tribe. (I, for one, think this is very unlikely. They South Pole is a very remote location, and though they are not completely isolated from the world, being that the tribe is so small and how suspicious they were of Aang when he arrived, I don’t think think someone would be able to sneak in/hide their true intentions while being in the tribe.)

2 - They were looking for Hama [The Puppetmaster]. (I like this theory, but I don’t know if it’s feasible. From Hama’s flashback, she was still relatively young when she escaped the fire nation prison. I can’t remember how long she said she was held captive, but like I said she seemed to still be young. The timeframe doesn’t really match for me. I’m not that knowledged on the exact ages of Team Avatar or the timeframe of the series, but from some estimates I know that:

• The time from when Aang left the iceberg to when Team Avatar met Hama was maybe a year or less. (In the beginning of the series, Avatar Roku said Aang had to defeat the fire lord by Summer’s End). I’m guessing Katara is 14/15, and her mother was taken (☠️) by the Southern Raiders when Katara was a child, I’m assuming maybe 6 years old based on how she looked during the flashback. This timeline does not match up to me because, like I said earlier, Hama still seemed young when she escaped. Let’s assume she escaped at 30 years old, and she looks to be at least 70 when Team Avatar met her. This means the Fire Nation waited at least 40+ years until they raided the Southern Water Tribe to look for Hama, which is a bit too long in my opinion for this theory to pan out. )

I propose a new theory. So - we know Admiral Zhao went to the library in the desert. There - he found out the the Ocean & Moon Spirits crossed over into the mortal world and were located in the Northern Water Tribe. Also, when Katara was about to attempt to fight Wan Shi Tong, they mentioned that they knew Northern, Southern, and Swamp fighting styles. This means that they had information on the Southern Water Tribe. My theory is that when Zhao was looking for and reading the Ocean & Moon Spirit’s information, he stumbled across something that made him aware of a water bender being in the Southern Water Tribe, and he told the Fire Nation this information! We also know that the library seems to be sorted by Nations, because the Fire nation [I’m assuming it was Zhao since he was the only other person that was mentioned being there] burned everything in their area. Being so, we can assume that the Water Tribe(s) location are in one area, so Zhao could have easily stumbled across a document that mentioned the Southern Water Tribe having a water bender!

Let me know what you guys think of this theory! I would love to discuss further. Also - I have not seen my theory anywhere, so if someone else already said or guessed this first I apologize!

• EDIT: To clear up any confusion that may happen, I referred to Wan Shi Tong as they/them because I didn’t know their pronouns.

What if Energy is a normal element like fire, water, etc that anyone can use? What if people never visited or lived on the lion turtle that gave energy bending, therefore nobody can energy bend? It's possible because we saw Aang getting energy bending the same way people in the past got their bending.

I have a theory...

Maybe because Korra could bend 3 of the 4 elements when she was four because they tell the avatar that they are the avatar when they are young so that if a war breaks out (like with aang)so they can master the elements faster or something?

So we know that the elements all have their own unique sub elements such as lightning for fire or blood for water and we also know that the elements are all very separate from each other. My point is that, there is air in water and fire so why can’t air benders at least manipulate said elements?

Listen, We all know that everyone only controls one element and that's it, except for the avatar. We also know, that many techniques like metal bending or lightning bending are learnable by basically all earth and fire benders, only that some have more talent in it than others.

However, some special bending styles apparently don't quite fit. Not everyone can learn to magma bend, or at least it is implied, and we know for a fact that not everyone can combustion bend.

Now, stay with me, what if magma benders are, while being 100% earth bender, only magma benders because one of their parent were a fire bender ? It would make a lot of sense, not only because of the "heat" and "fire" aspect of coming magma bending in contrast to other earth bending styles, but also because at least for one of the magma benders in the show (Bolin) we know that one of his parent was a fire bender, in order for Marco to be one.

So maybe there is a direct link between being able to do some sorts of rare bending styles and being the child of 2 different benders.

Same thing sort of goes for combustion benders. I heard that in the comics it is explained as a very difficult breathing technique, and that people that can do it come from some sort of tribe where they learn to breath on mountain tops from a very young age. Therefore it may be a stretch to combine the fire of combustion with a parent of another element, like the breathing styles of air benders.

It may also be, that the "bending gene" just gets passed on for multiple generations, and that lightning benders were only able to do so because they were mixed with the flow of water benders, and it just so happens that at least in korras world, many people were long decedents of water and fire benders.

In conclusion, I don't know everything there is to know about the franchise apart from the series and some information I caught up on about the comics, so it may be something easily debunkable, but I find it to be an interesting thought if it isn't,

I am not sure if anyone has asked this question before, but can someone clarify how were airbenders born? I don't think the monks were having children themselves. So were the airbenders born elsewhere and brought in? If so, how did getting rid of the previous generation of monks/airbenders got rid of them for a 100 years. Would not more of them had to have been born somehow?

Theory: each of the 4 elements has a Spirit World sub-bending that corresponds to the nature of that element, of which, Spirit Bending (the healing of Spirits) is just one type. I'm calling it Spirit World sub-bending for lack of a better name, but it does seem like this type of bending can be used in the Spirit World (as seen by Korra using Spirit Bending in LoK Ep. A New Spiritual Age even though she didn't come in through a Spirit Portal).

Energy bending is the Spirit World sub-bending of fire because it's shown to Aang by the Fire Lion Turtle (see image - the markings of Aang's Lion Turtle (Atla Ep. Sozin's Comet) match the Fire Lion Turtle (LoK Ep. Beginnings Part 1)). This makes sense as lightning (a subset of fire) is just pure energy. The spirit version of it is channeling energy within the body instead of in the environment.

We know Spirit Bending is a Water sub-bend because it's taught to Korra by her water bending Uncle Unalaq. This makes sense as healing is a sub-bend of Water bending.

Spiritual Projection is the Spirit World subtype of Air, as it's only known practitioner is Jinora, an Air Bender. That said, I think when Avatars Roku and Kyoshi appear to the world in the place of Aang (Atla Eps. The Deserter and Avatar Day) they are using Spiritual Projection through the Avatar state. Whether either of them knew how to do this in life doesn't really matter as in the Avatar state they have access to all the power of all of the Avatars. In any case, this form of Spirit World sub bending makes sense for the Air element as Air is all about freedom and being nomads, is often focused on travel and movement.

The only Spirit World sub-bending we haven't seen is earth. My guess is that the earth version of Spirit World bending would be based on either locating spirits or locating things in the Spirit World - like a Spirit version of the seismic sense. The Spirit World doesn't seem to have a set layout (like when Korra goes to run up a hill and is suddenly very far from Iroh in A New Spiritual Age), so a way to pin things down would be very useful. Another idea would be that it would allow the user to change form (just as earth benders manipulate matter) like the way the Spirits can get really big or small at will.

What do you think earth Spirit World sub-bending is like?

Lion Turtle Markings from LoK (Left 4) and Atla (right)

Mine is that Avatar and Pokemon take place in the same universe. It’s the post-Pokemon era, all the bending animals evolved from Pokemon and that’s why there’s so many hybrid animals. And that’s how animals know how to bend elements.

do they create acetylene, and if they do is that everybody or maybe just combustion man, could combustion man weld with his forehead

I'm starting to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender again. I noticed that in the episode where Hama appears, someone refers to her as a witch. This made me wonder, do witches or witchcraft exist in the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender? " Why are they called witches?