What will happen in the Avatar Universe?

[jordan179]

I got thinking about this because of kc_anathema's journal, into which this appeared in modified form as a comment.

Comments

[stokerbramwell]

Don't even forget the implications, both good and bad, of Kitara's bloodbending.

Nasty Implications of Bending Techniques

[jordan179]

Don't even forget the implications, both good and bad, of Kitara's bloodbending.

Kitara could, for instance, learn to kill someone with a trivial energy expenditure, by simply stopping or even interfering with blood flow in the heart or to the brain. This probably wouldn't even need a full moon. Fortunately, Kitara doesn't spend a lot of time thinking how to kill people quickly and untraceably, but we know from the episode in which Kitara learns bloodbending that not everyone from the Water Tribes is as nice as Kitara.

Human bone is calcium carbonate, essentially a mineral. The Avatar world does not yet grasp this, but when an Earthbender grasps this the potential will exist for bonebending -- which could not only be used to kill or injure someone, but worse still to warp them. The Earth Kingdom, whose culture is modeled on medieval China, presumably has plenty of alchemists, so this discovery is probably only a century or two away. Or even sooner, given the way that the war spurred technological progress

Re: Nasty Implications of Bending Techniques

[operations]

In the series finale, when he when full on Avatar state, I could only think of the quote when the Manhattan Project tested the atomic bomb: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

Re: Nasty Implications of Bending Techniques

[jordan179]

Indeed -- and Ozai hit three classic villain high notes:

(1) Drunk With His Own Power - When the comet appeared and Ozai poured forth fire from every extremity including his mouth, then began flamethrowing the Earth Kingdom. This was especially well done because he didn't do a Supervillain Rant at that point. He was getting down to business, and his relative silence was much more terrifying than would have been steady ranting.

(2) Overconfidence - Ozai was beating Aang in the first part of the fight, when Aang didn't want to enter the Avatar state because he feared losing control and killing Ozai. At that point Ozai began boasting, not bothering to consider the implications of the fact that he was failing to kill Aang even though Ozai had the power of the Comet and Aang hadn't yet summoned the power of the Avatar.

(3) Evil Cannot Understand Good - When Aang, in the Avatar state, completely demolished Ozai despite the power of the Comet, Aang summons a tremendous combined needle of all four elements which, clearly, would have

[sianmink]

I'm almost more interested in the past of the world of Avatar, like how the vast majority of 'native' fauna is six limbed, which really seems to indicate some sort of colonization a good long time ago.

Considering the nature of bending, airbenders might spontaneously start to appear in the other tribes. Aang will probably spend a lot of time re-forming the air nomads from whatever information he can find.

The South Water Tribe likely got an influx from the Much Better Off North after the war. Through previous marriages and such they considered themselves two branches of the same tribe anyway. With both the air and water tribes in serious need of rebuilding, The Aang/Katara relationship will likely not progress quickly.

All bending arts but air have recent revolutionary techniques. Lightningbending, Bloodbending (and its subtechnique plantbending) and Metalbending.

Since they didn't find a body, I'm not calling Sparky-Boom-Boom-Man dead.

[jordan179]

I have a number of questions about that world, one of which is where it is located? Another dimension? An alternate Earth? A lost interstellar colony? Note though that, whether or not "bending" is psionics or magic, both reincarnation and the Spirit World are definitely real.

I also have to wonder if there is more of the world than shown on that map. If all the world is on that map, then Aang's planet is considerably smaller than Earth, in fact about Luna or Mercury-sized. If not, then there must be a lot of unexplored territory.

What is Sozin's Comet, anyway? I can see why it might affect Firebending (Firebending is really "plasmabending," and both the Sun and a cometary tail are plasmas), but what's with the weird orbit? The speed at which it passes suggests not a comet but a long-period moon with a highly elliptical orbit and a very close, of a sort which can't be natural.

Has anyone considered that, on a future pass, it might very well collide with the Bending World? Such a collision would probably be a K-T or worse

Many worlds

[johncwright]

"What is Sozin's Comet, anyway? I can see why it might affect Firebending (Firebending is really "plasmabending," and both the Sun and a cometary tail are plasmas), but what's with the weird orbit? The speed at which it passes suggests not a comet but a long-period moon with a highly elliptical orbit and a very close, of a sort which can't be natural

Re: Many worlds

[jordan179]

Oh yes, I know that the chemistry and physics of the Avatar world are probably rather odd by our standards. OTOH, things aside from bending and the existence of the Spirit World seem to work pretty much as in our reality. And bending styles (such as metalbending, bloodbending, and lightning bending) seem to work on the assumption that it's more about our physics would call matter-phase changes than Aristotlean or Taoist assumptions about basic "elements" (indeed, despite the Oriental-like tone of the Bending World, the physical assumptions underlying the bending include the Aristotlean concepts).

I don't see why the Moon couldn't be both the domain of the Moon Spirit, friend of the Water Spirit and an orbiting planetoid; or why Sozin's Comet couldn't be both some sort of Plasma Spirit (perhaps friend to some terrestrial Fire Spirit) and a physical object in space. Though I know that there is no reason to assume that everything works as in our world

[kc_anathema]

Careful. Go too far down this train of thought and you'll end up writing fanfiction.

[arhyalon]

Are they planning to do more, other than the movie?

I had heard that all the original creators plans hinged on new characters.

[jordan179]

New characters could be very good, if they let the original creators retain creative control. I would love to see either the past or the future of that world, decades or centuries distant.

[blackwolfalpha1]

Movie?

[arhyalon]

Yeah, the guy who did Signs and Sixth Sense loves the show and is directing a live action movie. I even met a guy who had auditioned for it.

[yechezkiel]

Reading this has finally made me interested in the series. My little sister has been a devoted follower since the beginning, but I never saw enough of it to think it was worth paying attention to.