@@quidditch1991 I agree, it would either be the Tales of Ba Sing Se, or the Storm for me. Both are just masterpieces of characterization fit into such a short time! :)
@@timpietz2279 Great additions to our list! Those episodes provided some great moments and character development too, and are definitely some of the best! :)
There you go again with Avatar, Avatar, Avatar. What about League Of Legends; Arcane just came out on Netflix. Analyse some League Of Legends lore, or crawl back under your rock.
Honestly even Aang wasn't above mythologising his people, he was 12 when he left, and while he was talented and committed to the philosophy, he probably hadn't learnt the exact details of how grown up enough to see any flaws in the system and well, dead people rarely disappoint you. Most of what we learn about air nomad culture is through his eyes, both via flashbacks, and via his influence on his family in LoK, and that perspective is limited by both his age and the fact he is just one person. I've made myself sad.
Yeah I was going to say: the most authoritative source for Air Nomad culture in the series was a 12 year old who would was known to be...not exactly great at focusing on his studies? There's no way his understanding of air bender culture was complete or in any way unbiased. I'd go so far as to say the culture he created in later life (disclosure: have not watched LoK), while I'm sure reverent of and accurate to the culture and world he grew up in to the best of his knowledge, would have differed so significantly from actual air nomad society that they should really be thought of as two fully distinct cultures. For but a single real world example of this, consider Aztec and modern Mexican cultures - you can see the connections from one to the other - Aztec bloodlines live on to this day in Mexico, and Mexican culture clearly reveres and embraces it's Aztec past, but the Aztec tribe was so thoroughly decimated that there's not any real continuity there. That embrace and celebration of Aztec heritage is still framed and heavily influenced by the country's colonial Spanish legacy and other outside factors.
To be fair even if Aang had a perfect understanding of his people’s culture by the time there were enough Airbenders around to be considered a proper nation again his teachings would have been unrecognisable Even by the end of LoK the Airbenders are notably different and far more interventionist than Aang’s time
@@farmboyjad Yeah, Air Nomad Culture may have to have a shift, from "Traditional Air Nomad Culture" to "New Air Normad Culture of Aang" or something like that, one that has similar roots, but had to evolve somewhat differently after so much of it was... burned and lost 😓 True, the Aztec Tribes and Nations are gone, but some of their customs and bloodlines still live on, albeit muddled with some new culture to place into the cracks of old Aztec culture that has been forgotten, making something somewhat new
I remember in the first Avatar graphic novel was Aang encountering a group of people who become a precursor to the Air Acolytes, and the author uses this plot as groundwork to comment on cultural appropriation. The group meant no ill-will and were invested in the Air Nomad culture, but Aang is offended by their attempts because they do not recognize the significance in the customs (one member has tattoos, which are only granted to Master Airbenders). But opposed to common attitudes that any kind of cultural appropriation is bad, period, the author presents a neutral position in that taking on customs without understanding it is bad but also hoarding it and not sharing it with others will also ensure the culture will die. Which Aang comes to understand by letting in the proto-acolytes and beginning a new Air Nomad culture.
Worth noting, if you consider Aang being friends with Bumi and Kuzon and such, that Nomad does not mean hermit. It's possible that Air Nomads spent a lot of time as the guests of other cultures- you touch about this with the Kyoshi reference . This would also factor really well in context of them being more or less Buddhist, where monks of different sects would travel about, begging for food, and it was often considered good karma and a learning experience to host monks. As for vegetarianism, even the Dalai Lama isn't a vegetarian entirely, and since the time of the Buddha, the idea was to do minimal harm, but also to take what was given. So, a monk might accept meat as a donation, but couldn't ask for meat. A modern example is people who are basically vegan but will eat deer hit by a car- it's kinder to put a suffering, dying deer out it's misery and honor it by using it's body. I guess you can say....MORALITY IS COMPLICATED!!!
Expanding on the mythologizing of the air nomads, the most influential refounder of their culture was also a child with some deep trauma (being a genocide survivor will do that to you). Its no wonder we, and perhaps the people by Kora's time, maybe dont have the most accurate idea of what the air nomads were like.
Even Tenzin seems to only know what the IDEAL Air Nomad was like, but not enough about what they were really like. I don't think it ever occurred to him that some Air Nomads gladly ate meat and didn't shy away from confrontations. I mean, not every Muslim feels the need to pray five times a day. But that's why I'm glad that by the end of Book 3, Tenzin agreed to modernize the culture rather than emulating the Air Nomads completely like he originally intended. Hence they abandoned the staffs.
Generational trauma as a native american is absolutely an impactful element of our lives. It's wild that me, a mixed native person at one point had to tell other children of my ethnic group that our people were dying while the remnants of our attempted and on going genocide flourish by way of our stolen land.
If I remember well even in the Avatar comics when Aang talks to one of his past lives turns out there was an air nomad festival about tea drinking that was already dead back when he was born. So even the nomad air culture have changed over time.
@@13KuriMaster Jesus that man was badass. Granted, with what we've seen an air bender do in legend of korra, the a guy can can probably collapse your lungs from long distance...
@@13KuriMaster I heard a theory that gyatsu took out the air of the entire room, because withouth air you cant create fire. In doing so he died suffocating with them, kinda like a suicidal attack.
I've gotten to a point with Avatar where my mind has started screaming "some of this HAS to be a lucky coincidence, no one can think of THIS many details" 🤯
Some of it surely is. But the wonderful thing about worldbuilding from the ground level (imagining the day to day life of your average person) is that if you imagine enough people's lives and apply some common sense, the details often end up clicking in place together.
I don't think for a second everything I say was intended, but I think there's some fun in treating stories absolutely seriously, just to see how deep we can go. Like, this is just as much for me to talk about how genocides happen realistically as it is to look at Avatar. ~ Tim
Some of it is probably convenience, but a lot of it is likely from studying real-world cultures and history in-depth. The more you do that, the better your work will be, because even the fantastical stuff will have kernels of truth sprinkled in, whether you consciously realized it at the time or not.
I know I'm 2 years late but I have to point out that the team in charge put a bunch of effort into the bending systems amd styles. Why wouldn't they put the same effort into the cultures that surround the styles of bending?
A few headcanons I have about the air nomads: 1. The Air Temples were spiritual centres, and many Air Nomad children were raised there, but most of the Air Nomad population didn't really live there. They lived where they went 2. That said, most Air Nomads would pay pilgrimage to each of the four temples - usually when the herd of Sky Bison they were following stopped by that temple. Some visited the temples every time they were in the area, some did so on occasion but not always, but generally there was an expectation to visit each Air Temple at least once 3. Each of the four Air Temples had its own interpretation of Air Nomad philosophy. While each interpretation held broadly the same values, each one emphasised some of those values over others. Also, the Air Nomads who were actually nomadic tended to have their own "folk philosophy" 4. The people who became airbenders in LoK were long-lost descendants of Air Nomads. This headcanon is particularly important to me because it takes the real-world parallels of that storyline (e.g. people in my country discovering that they have Jewish heritage and deciding to learn more about Judaism as a result) and makes them even more... parallelous
Yeah I really wish they had gone with the idea of the new airbenders in LoK being descendants. I understand that all air nomads were airbenders, but surely over the years some air nomads would have broken off from the culture and had children. Those children, not being raised as air nomads and away from spiritually connected sites, would have far less understanding and connection with the spirits, and so these children would be way less likely to be born as airbenders. It took a massive surge of energy from the Spirit World to activate the dormant powers of their descendants. And if you think about it, this might explain why Bumi's airbending remained dormant. Aang tried to educate his kids on airbending culture, but they grew up in Republic City. Odds are Bumi (particularly because he was much more hyperactive) had little patience for air nomad lessons and preferred exploring the city. Tenzin on the other hand was much calmer and more devoted to study. Katara described him as a far more serious child than Kya and Bumi. This meant that he developed a more in depth understanding of the spirit world and its connection to the physical world. This understanding allowed him to become an airbender. Aang likely never realised how important it was to raise airbenders in such a specific way, so he kind of rolled the dice when it came to his kids. And when Tenzin raised his own children, it's likely he was a far more rigid and disciplined father than Aang, since despite getting older I'm sure Aang never fully abandoned his relaxed attitude toward life. But as it turned out, Tenzin's rigid style of parenting, being more forceful in teaching them air nomad culture, probably caused him to have a higher ratio of airbending children than Aang (not including Kya because she was a waterbender from the start).
I have the same headcanon with the new airbenders being descendants of old ones. HC always seemed to me as enhancing spiritual energy and thus "unlocking" old airbender abilities sleeping in certain people
The Air Temples were built along the natural migration path of the Sky Bison. Remember the flashbacks showing Aang & Appa meet at Eastern temple? That's the birthing ground.
I really liked the acknowledgement of diversity of thought within the group. In worldbuilding, failure to realize this results in the world of hats problem. In reality, it results in viewing this group as villains and that group as paragons.
Now that I think about it, Aang making up the story to broker peace between the Gan Jins and Zhangs in “The Great Divide” makes a lot more sense. He’s playing on other people’s perceptions of his culture, just like many Air Nomads before him.
Even in the real world we can figure out cultures just by looking at old arfifacts and places. Even zaheer knew who guru lahima was. I don't think everyone copied aangs believe. The people of the airnomads were gone but their culture didnt disappear
@@whitedragon4552 true but culture is not set in stone. I am sure air nomad philosophy at the time of yangchen and Aang were not the exact same. But yeah he probably asked her.
@@saladcaesar7716 Yeah, I kinda see it but I think even if it changed a bit, the information from Yangchen would still be better than nothing. Even Roku could have given Aang at least some Air Nomad culture advise because he lived and learned in the temples for years and that was approximately 62 years before Aang froze himself.
The fire nation claimed they beat the “air nomad army” and “conquered its territory” because saying you just invading a “formal country” and “rightfully reaped the spoils” and “quelled the insurgents” sounds way better than storming a group of pacifist Monks in their holy sights and slaughtered the people who tried to escape the onslaught or defend their home
Kinda reminiscent of how some people will try to make the bloody history of the relationship between the native Americans and the European colonists sound justified by calling it a conquest.
@@LPVince94 Often we don’t even make it sound “conquesty” but in terms of Canada we “incorporated” them into the nation, so any suffering or violence is now partly due to them, and the harm and struggles they face is their own to overcome I think there is that issue for many fire nation citizens where the air nomads simply “died out” because they refused to kneel when defeated, believing they would not surrender and so killing/defeating them in war was the only thing the fire nation could do to “incorporate” them
I mean humans may be violent, but it’s mostly due to greed. They still are empathic and protective creatures. So obviously, painting the airbenders as a threat to the fire kingdom due to having the next avatar would be an easier justification for war rather than. I may have massacred a bunch of monk kids and babies. Haha lol.
I remember reading some speculation that any Air Nomad children that were non-benders would be given to Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation families to raise instead, as they would be unable to truly live the culture's way of life (or traverse the temples all that well) and that's why the Air Nomads were made up of only benders.
@@summerjoy1352 It would be practical. Remember that much of their architecture doesn't allow for non-air-benders to make full use of it. If a squib were to shake out then it seems reasonable that the child would be fostered to a family of another nation. Also keeping in mind that the definition of "family" in the air nomad culture was more communal than in others, you were not a child of individuals. The child in question wouldn't necessarily feel abandoned, indeed they would be excluded in many ways by continuing to live in the temples and unable to participate in a full Air Nomad lifestyle. It may be equally possible that the vast mountain ranges around the air temples had ground bound nomadic groups of people who were descendants of rare non-bending air nomads. For the region around the Northern Temple, which overlaps with the Earth Kingdom, there may also be Earth peoples who live as nomadic mountain herders. Other temples are on Island landmasses, and wherever there is a good harbour there are fishermen. Perhaps it was these people who lived in the shadows of the temples accepting non-bending Air Nomad fosterlings. Though it would certainly be a practice that is not widely advertised.
@@ckl9390 that makes total sense. It wouldn't be completely possible that the air nomads are just benders, but they prefered children who could bend than children who couldn't, on top of it children that where given to families in the other nations would mean that technily air nomads still lived and not all died. The character ty lee has a lot of the Features of air nomads and she and her Sisters just don't look like People from the fire nation, so this is quite possible
According to the canon when 2 air benders reproduce 100% of the time that child will be an air bender. When an Airbender reproduces with a non air bender it lowers the chances.
One of those misconceptions is brought to light in LOK when Tenzin claims that head shaving was a voluntary choice by air nomads, rather than something everyone did. I think we have the belief that they all shaved their heads because we only ever saw the devout temple-dwelling monks growing up watching ATLA.
I had a weird thought while watching the video: Could the Air Nomad's foraging be a cause of them being seen as bringers of a good harvest? So here's the deal: If the Nomads survived mainly on foraging and also had to gather enough food not just to sustain their travels, but likely to bring some back to the temples as well, they would probably learn over time to track down fertile foraging grounds. This would mean the Nomads were mainly seen in areas where a rich harvest was just hauled in or coming up. The people then associated the Air Nomads with rich harvests over time, but flipped the causality upside down: Instead of figuring out that the Nomads came because there was plenty food around, they believed that food grew richer with Air Nomads around
@@sonicvenom8292 thanks. For some reason I kept thinking about it and maybe there is another factor to this: The Air Nomads having a strong connection to the spiritual world might actually cause some spirits, who feel benevolent, to aid their friends by growing some food (like Hei Bai as shown in this video) This of course would mean that the idea of Air Nomads causing rich harvests wouldn't be wrong entirely, the people just haven't figured out that a bit of spirituality and kindheartedness can go a long way in their world.
Looking back, it's clear to me that the Air Nomads, as a whole, may never be able to recapture who they once were. They're growing in numbers again thanks to harmonic convergence, and we have those like Tenzin who have had the culture passed down to them by Aang, but the combination of the genocide and the changing world around them will inevitably result in their people being totally disconnected to the civilization they were during Aang's childhood. That time, that version of their people, is gone forever 😟
And that's why Tenzin created the New Air Nation instead of trying to resurrect the Air Nomads. The New Air Nation is the spiritual successor of the Air Nomads.
@@whitedragon4552 Aang pretty much haves a grasp what his culture was. Meditating, traveling, helping, air bending training & making cakes to throw at people.
@@TheMrPeteChannel It seems I misunderstood Jeremys comment a year ago lol. My comment was basically a general 'counter argument' to people who say that Aang might have not known everything about his culture even though he could have asked Yangchen and other air avatars if that was the case. But it seems Jeremy wasn't going for that. You are right of course.
Before watching this vid, can I just reitarate how utterly hilarious it is that Zaheer planned to destroy the only people with a (somewhat) anarchistic culture?
Zaheer's philosophy can be summed up as a New Age Movement Hell, the restoration of the Air Nomad culture is akin to Odinism and the restoration of the religions of antiquity
The main problem with a lot of the lok baddies was that damn near none of them stuck to the principles they were trying to represent. They were basically all liars.
Here's the thing: the Air Nomads are dead. Possessing air based superpowers does not a dead culture resurrect. Tim actually called LoK out on this, so I guess Zaheer felt the same way about trying to resurrect the Air Nomads by declaring random people who got superpowers to be part of the culture.
I love that the Air Temples aren't exactly* North, South, East and West. Feels more like realistic geography to stagger their locations than for them to be precise.
one thing on the sky bison: I think you heavily undersell *just how good* sky bison based transportation is. The gAang can go anywhere they want in a matter of *days*, even across oceans. I imagine air nomads were probably also quite mercantile since money is actually pretty important, even if it doesn’t seem like they need it much. The thing is all it takes is a hat and a change of clothes, and you would never know you were talking to an air nomad, therefore bison-riding merchants would be forgotten to time.
Possible. I personally think that maybe air nomads rather exchanged than used money to get goods. They could’ve used their bending to help someone or taught their philosophy, help with spirituality or something and earn things like food or a place for the night in return
@@rzuue I doubt they could get all that much based on just using just bending and wisdom. Aang is pretty devout, and he doesn’t say anything about money except complaining about a lack of it, which makes me think that there isn’t any significant teaching against it. (Infact he even does a little swindling with no remorse, but i give that one to being a kid)
@@misspurdy27288 I‘m just guessing, as it would be similar to Buddhist monks which live from donations and offer teaching and accommodation to people who want/need it. Sure, there probably was money too, but I think it might’ve not had very much value at the temples so maybe they didn’t use it as much even when trading with people of other nations. Who knows
@@rzuue The buddhist monks could do that because they were a relatively tiny subculture, air nomads appear to have been pretty populous relative to the whole.
@@misspurdy27288 it’s not like there are only few Buddhist monks, it’s about the accumulation of them in one place. The more there are, the more difficult it is to live from donations. But the ones at the temple were probably harvesting themselves and were not in need of great donations or trade. The rest were nomads, so only few at a time and not tons of people moving together. That’s why it seems at least a probability to me that some might’ve traded instead of using a currency.
Been watching your content on and off for ages. I’ve recently started trying to turn my random notes in to a coherent world and story. I’m not going to lie, these books are a tempting buy for Christmas.
fun fact: the plains indians were also symbiotic with the american bison, though we didn't know thios at the time. they kept the herds in balance and helped maintain the plains. when the settlers moved west and there seemed like an unlimited amount of bison, this was almost certainly because of smallpox and war ravaging the nomads who lived there. the loss of the native people meant the bison herds had exploded, and were probably on the brink of collapse. it's fascinating how the human world so directly effects the natural one. we think of them as separate, but the forests look to us as much as we look to it.
It's interesting to compare and contrast moments we see about Airbender society vs what Aang has internalized. Obvious examples: --Aang and Gyatso both share a playfulness that many of the others lack. Most of the monks we see are deadly serious - to be fair, they are kinda looking apocalypse in the face, they have reason to be serious, but Gyatso seems determined to get as much fun out of life as possible, and to make sure that Aang has a reasonably normal childhood. And while the kids we see in Aang's memories are definitely playful, they refuse to play that team game with Aang once he's revealed to be the Avatar...somehow it's not fair now, but was completely fair when his destiny was still a secret. Aang's never put in that situation, but I somehow don't see Aang, the madman who sees a giant sea monster off Kyoshi Island and says to himself "it's gonna be so fun to ride that," complaining about a game not being perfectly fair. --Aang's dedication to pacifism. Or...well, not dueling someone to the death, even if he is the madman who's declared himself emperor of the world and decided to burn half of it to the ground. (He's definitely killed several random Fire Nation mooks by the end of the show, especially in the episode with the mechanist where he's literally tossing avalanches at people on steep mountain paths. But sure, we'll chalk that up to animators not remembering to consider how fragile people are.) Compare that to the reveal of Gyatso's corpse. Sure, we don't see Gyatso go down fighting, but the implication is that Gyatso went down giving ten times as good as he got. And given how Aang reacts to being seemingly cornered, we know his approach to that situation would be to find a way to flee - he runs rather than fighting to the death. (And no this isn't me calling him a coward; the bravest warrior knows when victory is impossible and finds a way to survive that day and build a future one where victory *is* possible). Thus...Aang and Gyatso have *very* different opinions on the idea of pacifism. Gyatso wouldn't have started that fight, and if he'd survived to the end of it, I'd imagine the guilt of killing so many would have chewed him up something fierce, but he saw the value in fighting back to defend himself (and perhaps buying time for others to escape in the process).
The Air Nomads *were* playful and free-spirited as a people, though. Kind of one of their defining characteristics. Gyato could be serious when he needed to be.
@@briannab4037 I meant the other adult monks at the temple, who are deadly serious. The ones Aang and Gyatso threw pies at. All I'm saying is that of single-perspective sources on culture, Aang's (as that of a 12 year old child) is possibly one of the worst you could pick. Ideally, you wouldn't be relying on one source on a culture at all, but kids are often sheltered from a lot of the concerns of adult life. Childrearing is a major aspect of any culture, but there's often some cultural experiences that are entirely within the realm of adult life: politics, finance, romance, entire genres of art....there's a ton of things that kids just don't get exposed to that much. (Or, didn't before the internet brought the world to the fingertips of anyone with a computer or smartphone.)
I think the air nomads all being benders is connected to back in the lionturtle days, the airbenders were the only ones who were allowed to keep their bending on the lionturtle and everyone in the community had bending. When the humans left the lionturtles some people from each community may have chosen not to become benders so the airnomads were the only 100% bending community when they left the lion turtles.
@@kc_h7h they didn’t learn FB when they already got it from the lion turtles. They retroactively put that Garbage in despite the fact it it literally contradicts their own thing. You can’t learn something that you can already do. Nice try at a stupid ad hominem tho. You tried
@@ecoblitz3655 okay so technically you are saying that toph didnt learn from badgermoles. You said that you can't learn something while you already know it. But toph already had the abilty to manipulate earth. She never got powers from badgermoles. This is tophs exact frase: "the badgermoles didnt only teach me eartbending as a martial art but also as a extencion of my senses". This line confirms that the animals and moon teached humans bending as a martial art. Look at katara. She could bend water but she still needed to learn the martial arts to call herself a waterbender. And that martial arts was invented by the moon and ocean. Atla continuously shows us that bending is a martial art. Aang said to sokka that every bender needs a teacher. The teachers of humans were the animals and moon. You should see a human that got this powers from a lion turtle the same as a new born bender. They both have powers but they still need teachers
I think Zahir from Korra is an excellent example of the extreme spirituality associated with air benders and the rather horrific force they can bring to bear when they are not overly concerned about saving all lives.
Avatar has affected me more deeply than i realized. The worldbuilding in this literal children's show is so richly layered and agonizingly beautiful. Watching your videos and reflecting makes me realize the influence stories have. Incredible that an entire micro generation of kids was raised by this show. So grateful the creators were allowed to air it.
It is interesting to see how the concept of romanticism of the past comes forward in the new air nation in the Legend of Kora. How different characters thoughts of what they air nation was and what it will be is considered.
The Air Nomad genocide would be pretty straightforward for the Fire Nation if they all were only at the air temples. But if they're true nomads, they're all over the world, and yet the Fire Nation still were able to kill them all (except for Aang of course). I don't remember if outside the shows there was a remnant of Air Nomads living in secret, but I don't think so.
I think that there were air-nomads not at the temple, if I recall correctly the fire-nation used air-nomad relics to lure out air-nomads in hiding. And/or maybe they waited for a air-nomad holiday, knowing that all the nomads would return to the temples for it?
Depending on how far they traveled from the Air Temples, they might not have been quite as wide-spread as you might think. Plus, I have to imagine it would have been hard for air benders to go into hiding given the tatoos are a dead giveaway and the series even has episodes dedicated to showing how hard it is for targeted groups/individuals to stay hidden.
Maybe the ones that did survive couldn't find other airbender to start families. The ones that did start families had a decreased chance of offspring that could airbend. Also another thing to consider the airnomads that didn't live in the temple, probably took their spirituality more serious and having a spouse and childeren gets in the way of that. I also think the fire nation killed airnomads after the genocide, but they spewed out the propaganda of "killing ALL the airnomads" so they appear more strong.
I suggest reading the canon ATLA comic called: Relics. It’s a part of short stories that didn’t make it into the show and boy oh boy do I wish Relics was an episode in Book: 1, because it answers this question directly. It’s definetly worth the read.
in the comics, it was stated that the remaining ones were lured with air nomad relics, and killed. and it was already discussed in this channel that even if some over caution ones survived, they have lost the ability to air bend in generations
@@intensivepurpose I havn't been able to find it but I do plan on reading it. Doesn't change the fact that I'd much rather stay in the "old world" and the one we saw in Korra cuz I'm not a fan of all that tehcnology, it looks out of place and really ruined the world for me.
It's possible that "don't get attached" is only a rule for the monks. Historic Tibetan Buddhism, which is clearly an influence, has put a lot of rules on its monks while requiring of the laity only that they celebrate major holidays and donate to the monks a little.
This video could not have come at a better time. One of my pet projects deals with the aftermath of genocide and how the now extinct culture is viewed in modern times. I hadn’t even thought of the the air nomads being such a great example until this video, so thank you!
I also think that this aversion to attachment to things could be exactly because they were nomads - and could fly. The more things you need to carry, the harder it gets to fly. So it was a necessity for them to keep their belongings to a minimum. The other thing I though while watching is that their nomadic nature was just due to their abilities. If you need to walk, a nomadic lifestyle is much harder to maintain than if you can fly. They can cover more distance and get to the remotest places, so that was their advantage. If you don't need to settle and put all your time and energy into agriculture, why would you? Nature has everything to offer that you need and takes care of itself.
I'd aruge the Air Nomads in LoK were the best we could expect them to be as representations of their predecessors. Aang could have sought the wisdom, knowledge and guidance regarding the Air Nomads and their way of life from the past Air Nomad Avatars. That would have been passed down to his son Tenzin. From there if the knowledge is incomplete then it would diverge to mordernize and fit with the current world since Korra can no longer feel her connection to her past lives.
Bro, your lighting rig is so awesome, it's so striking in your eyes. Most people use a halo rig and it's beginning to make that effect over saturated in the industry. What you're doing with your lighting is awesome. The care that you put into your videos speaks volumes about the depth of thought that you put into all of your work.
Another amazing video about worldbuilding. I've literally started to read, and in general, process fictional stories - either written, filmed or animated - differently since I watch your videos. I was always in love with social science, but my conscious mind never really realized that good worldbuilding represents a deep understanding of theese fields of science. Nowadays I am more and more able to appreciate good worldbuilding, thanks to your interpretation. Keep up this valuable work.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who does that. My boyfriend thinks it's annoying when we watch something and after we are done I start asking a bunch of questions of how the worldbuilding has been done cause this or that does or does not make sense and whatnot.
Just have to say, whoever edited this, must have had planned the transition at 6:30 on purpose, I must applaud your ingenuity. I noticed, and whomever we must applaud.
A few things: 1) you drove me absolutely mad with that one book in the opposite direction than all the others. 2) I certainly know what I’m going to buy myself for Christmas >:) 3) I have rewatched a:tla in its entirety two or three times now, and I still learned many things from this video. I never realised how deeply thought-through every detail was-from the migration patterns for the temples’ positioning, to the parallelisms in idealisation and propaganda that we know to have happened in our own history. A:tla is, I think, my favourite series, and this is one of the reasons for that: it never gets boring-it’s all simple enough to not weigh much when you watch it, and at the same time complex enough to surprise you with new details each time you revisit it. Thanks for reminding me of this wonderful piece of art, and I look forward to buying your new book ;D
My headcanon as to why the air nomads focus so much on pacifism is that at some point, they figured out how incredibly lethal airbending can be and went “holy shit, we need to make absolutely certain we don’t end up teaching serial killers” and things kinda went from there
Possibility: there was only one group of Air Nomads who traveled between all four temples on some seasonal basis, with possibly a skeleton crew left behind at each for maintenance. I may be failing to recall some reason this was definitely not the case, though.
You hit on an important point for world building. Culture is not just what a people think about themselves, but what others think of them as well. As I write the history of the lands in my world, I can't help, as an historian, to also write the history of each land from the perspective of what the others think of them. This is both what their historians say, but also the "what everyone knows" about them in each country. Capturing the prejudice (both positive and negative pre-judgements) about a people/culture really enriches and brings realistic depth to the story. An example is the exoticism of the Elves by humans and halflings in LoTR ("ooo, fancy folk"), or the mutual prejudice on each side of the Elven-Dwarven feud. I've really enjoyed your videos and now I'm going to have to pick up your books. A lot of thought and work has obviously gone into this. Great job.
I was always under the impression that the reason there are no nonbenders born into the air nomads was because the babies that are born without bending abilities wouldn’t be able to survive. The constant moving around and riding on bisons would be impossible, let alone the layout of the temples would make survival impossible for them. I always thought that the air nation just kind of “evolved” to all be benders through the means of natural selection because their world would be impossible for a nonbender to survive in.
For air nomads to "evolve" into being all-benders, there would need to be thousands of generations where they _weren't_ all benders. If the nomad lifestyle was so brutal that non-benders couldn't survive it, then there'd be a LOT of dead babies. Why would they continue putting themselves through the ringer like that, when they could adopt a different lifestyle that doesn't kill most of their children?
The de-mythification of the air nomads makes them being gone feel even sadder. They weren't a mythical group of not quite understood creatures like spirits, just normal people who were living their lives, they were part of the world and affected it with their unique culture and now most people in the avatar world don't really know much about them except old legends. A fascinating thing though is the rebuilding of the new air nation, from the start it wouldn't have been possible to bring back the original culture fully. Even if more people survived the culture would've changed at least a bit if not drastically over time because of the deep scar that the attack of the fire kingdom would've left. But the new culture of the descendants of the only survivor plus all the new-age air benders is just as important and interesting (at least in my mind, I'll admit I stopped watching Korra before they got the new clothing), maybe far from the original but just as valid and just as air nomad as the old one. Old-age air nomad culture and new-age air nomad culture both have distinct history and are shaped by the world around them, it'd be really interesting to see someone analyze the new-age one given there's enough to analyze, and if not I hope they make more official content about that specifically.
It's easy to think of the Air Temples as the places where the Air Nomads spent most of their time living, just because that's where we tend to see them in flashbacks and stuff. But I always figured that nobody actually stayed at the temples for longer than a few weeks at a time, and the rest of the time they were traveling around the world. I mean, by age 12 Aang already had two very good friends in the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation (Bumi and Kuzon), he knows all the good locations for riding dangerous animals and such, he knows about penguin sledding which seems to be a uniquely Water Tribe thing, and we see him at the Eastern Air Temple when he's just a wee lil cutie in the flashback where he chooses Appa. So he's obviously done quite a lot of world traveling even at his young age.
I love your worldbuilding series. However, I feel like in this case there was more room for speculation on a topic you didn't talk about, and I would have loved to hear more about: How was marriage and family life managed in the air nomad culture? Did all parents agree to give up their children to be raised in the temples? Did the children in the temples know who their parent were? Did they know who their siblings are, even just for the purpose of not accidentally dating your sibling? These are the questions that bother me. Like, how would an air nomad know the woman he is having a child with is not actually his relative?
Hey Tim, not related to the video but to the charity stream at the end of the year: If you haven't decided yet, the Trevor Project would be an amazing charity to collect money for. I'm sure you are familiar with their work, and it really is an amazing cause. Hope you consider it
This is pretty eye opening in general. Thank you so much for these videos. I remember rewatching the earth and fire ones because they were so fascinating.
Maybe this sounds like a nitpick, but I find it hard to believe that unless they had some major source of protein we don't know about that vegetarianism extended beyond airbenders taking some monastic vow. The only reason I say that is that I can't imagine you could forage for so many plants up in those mountains. Unless of course, air nomads relied heavily on sky bison milk for protein and now I think it's almost impossible for it to have been any other way. In the real world, whenever you have a nomadic group tied to a particular nomadic animal, they always end up relying on that animal for either meat, milk, or both.
Aang thought it was necessary to clarify to Yangchen that he's 'even vegetarian'. She was literally the only air nomad he had spoken to since he woke up. Why would she need to know that if it's a given that ALL air nomads are vegetarian? I'm sure it was just a personal spiritual choice that happened to be common among their people ang mythologized along the way. Much how people still have the misconception that ALL Indians are vegetarian. With that many sky bison, it would make sense for a nomadic people to consider it. Aang also mentioned having a taste for tofu, so they might have also cultivated soybeans in whatever land they did have.
I do think their downfall and resurgence in ATLA & LOK respectively needs to be touched upon to truly appreciate the nomadic ways of the people; The resurgence of air benders after harmonic convergence clearly shows that airbenders had children in other cultures either before the genocide or for those that survived due to being within a nomadic period the children they had after the genocide, its very clear that their nomadic ways were the most important aspect to their people and just as not all vegans follow the strict code not all nomads abstained from intercourse and i absolutely love how its shown!!
5:28 - I've had the theory, ever since watching that episode, that what the teacher was saying wasn't that much propaganda. Overinflated, overplayed, and dramatized, perhaps, but likely talking of a real event. It's severely unlikely that the fire nation's alpha strike doing Sozin's Comet killed everyone, since a large portion of the Air Nomad population would be- well, nomadic. It is very likely that they formed a loosely organised militia in desperation, and attempted to either retaliate or safeguard the remaining population. Whether that's true or not, it's very likely that the reason the war dragged on so long is that the Fire Nation's victory over the Air Nomads was a Pyrrhic one, depriving them of the manpower needed for an easy victory.
12:32 as a person that lives around Amish country, _yes._ It's also interesting to note that because of their lifestyle, the infrastructure of "normal" society living around them is influenced by it to a degree, such as having the roads be paved wider to accommodate horse-and-buggy traffic as well as hitching posts at some convenience stores.
I don't know if this is mentioned anywhere and I just forgot it, but I've long envisioned that the air nomads tradition of being vegetarian was started as a way to stop air nomad raiders from taking other people's livestock, since the wise among them recognized the need to maintain peace with the other nations whose shear numbers would eventually wipe them out if they couldn't figure out a balance. I also don't think they all WERE born as benders, but rather those air nomad children who weren't able to bend were given to the other nations. Just look at Aang's son, Bumi for proof that it can happen, and giving away orphans is probably the best outcome based on the evidence we've seen.
The genocide part is really relevant today! And avatar live action coming out today is really goood The israel vs palestine thing is really a genocide not a war like most of the media are covering
Hit like. Cuz Appa is the bestest boy. Okay I was gonna hit like anyway, but you saying that reminded me to, and Appa is also the bestest boy. Oh man, I look forward to a breakdown of the world building of the water tribe! .... but what about the swamp benders?
One thing about the air nomad genocide that I didn’t understand was how Sozin could wipe them all out with one attack. As nomads, I assumed that the airbenders would be too far spread to completely destroy during the comet. But then, why is Aang the last one? I finally got my answer in one of the Nick magazine comics. Apparently, not all of them were killed during the comet, just those in the four main temples and adjacent. The fire nation set up smaller temples and settlements that were like what the nomads used while traveling or took over existing ones. They filled them with air nomad objects and would let the remaining nomads come to them, looking for other survivors. Then the fire nation would ambush the nomads. It’s such a clever part of the worldbuilding that was tucked away. This video was awesome. Is amazing how you can dissect such detailed world building from the scarce clues we get
Is there ever going to be a video on the Northern and Southern Water Tribes? I would really like to know more about their similarities and differences, and how they interacted before the war.
I'm creating my own world now, and in all honesty, this is something that I needed As of now, I'm fleshing out a race of what can only be described as the Faunus from RWBY, except more leaning to the animal aspect. They're antisocial, irritable, hostile, and outright barbaric. All the reasons to be afraid of them.
I'd say that, unlike in RWBY, all humans as a species aren't one single people who have like one culture. I would see little reason why a group as diverse as animal-people wouldn't be extremely socially and culturally unique in various ways. No pressure obviously, but that's a personal preference I always notice when discussing this stuff.
@@smuu1996 Totally agree with you. Generally in universe with multiple humanoid species, there is one that has lots of different cultures and arts and mythologies (the "humans"), then the other humanoids are monolithic groups with one culture and one belief system, even if they are equally large or even more larger in numbers and territories
@@smuu1996 I am researching on that, and honestly I've laid the foundation of the Beast Men, how the "Faunus" of my world are called, before I focus on the nitty gritty like specific cultures and differences They have a very mythical origin story; being the descendants of a small group of religious fanatics who were cursed by the god they strayed away from and turned them into half man, half animal And obviously the treatment of the more civilized humans are pretty sour; they're treated as animals rather than equals, despite them being just aware Enough to be reasoned with and even work as mercenaries
@@boid9761 That sounds very dark, I kinda like it. In my works, I always have lots of disturbing stuff, it just makes the fun and wholesome stuff in the story stand out more for me. The religious background for your creatures sounds interesting, I myself am also very much into the 'evil gods' thing, but I had all my gods kill each other many mamy years ago, with modern religions being these quasi-cults of personality praying to a dead former tyrant. The socio-economic effects of your world's inhabitants is important, it's good that you consider that.
@@smuu1996 Here's what I have as of now The Beast Men are a loose term to refer to the numerous nomadic barbarian groups wandering around the northern provinces Their ancestors were civilized humans reduced into having the behavior of the very animals they wore the skins of, so some of them, especially the Wolf Men, have the baseline requirements to create a recognizable tribe The Bear Men however, are more truly nomadic, and travel alone, or in groups of up to 12 people They live off of the wildlife and plants around them, but should the opportunity present itself, they'll go after cattle, crops, and even the farmers tending to those two things, hence why the Republic's rivals, the Twilight Caste, still hasn't phased out their raiding lifestyle despite having crops and cattle. The civilized people see them as animals; treating them as such even. Although, with a bit of training, and bribery with food and shelter, they can be reasoned with and even employed as mercenaries. After all, the Bear Men are infamous for "taking seven men with one blow"; not literally, but still. Unlike the Faunus, the Beast Men do not recognize taht they're discriminated. They're not smart enough to recognize such problems. Their simplistic lifestyles and reduced minds have eradicated the human need of social skills and societal awareness
This pending world-building episode of the Water Tribes is about to be ON POINT. In my head canon, I think about how the type of bending we see is impacted by the environment...especially with Water being the element of change and is directly related to the resources available. But since the waterbenders are masters of phase-change with their element (steam, mist, liquid water, ice, etc.) and the differing terrains pose a different elemental/environmental challenge -- the North is primarily ice and sea, the South is ice, sea, and rock (but from more of a distance), and the Swamp being...well a swamp -- I wonder if how the environment is to be manipulated and what resources are available determines the different "styles" of waterbending (as Won Shi Tong referred to them as Northern Style, Southern Style, and Foggy Swamp Style). On top of that, how the different tribes are structured, whether more formal, communal, or just there living their lives. I am excited for this video!
what if have 61 favourites? My mood right now says Bitter Work is a bitter but rewarding lesson and watching experience . Tim ive been a lurking fan and watcher for years. How can we get a signed book copy? Can we at all? Im checking the pre order online for hard copy, non amazon. But another way, across the sea to aus?
Zuko Alone is one of my favorites. It gave so much character to Zuko and it really was an interesting one for worldbuilding seeing a broken earth kingdom town.
I like to thing that the nomads and bison also had a sort of symbiotic relationship with various fruits and vegetables and grains that thrived in the mountainous habitats by planting little patches of them in habitable spaces they hadn’t yet reached and giving themselves reliable food sources near their homes. Also that the temples were built progressively by various avatars either born from the nomads or as thanks for aiding them in leaning the elements and wanting to provide a comfortable and safe space in the areas they tended to inhabit repeatedly due to the bison’s migratory patterns.
14:08 oh my- that’s Barbarians! As a German I’m equally surprised and happy to see that you know it! It has its flaws but I certainly loved watching it
Getting the book!!! (for my BF my whole DND party and probably everyone else I know XD) Gotta wait for that next paycheck though. Love your videos so much!! And your book! Vol. 1 is *chefs kiss*
great video again, damn. Although: In ecology (of plurispecific populations like in say: 2 species interacting in a given biome (bison and humans)) there are different categories for each type of interaction. Parasitism and predation are relations where one species benefits and one doesn't, but differently so. Likewise, symbiosis is one of several relations where both species benefit. specifically when they benefit so much that they seldom function without one another, like algae and fungi forming lichen, or nitrogen fixating bacteria and plants. I'd argue the relationship between air nomads and air bison is more kin to mutualism ( even though it's never clear cut in ecology). Often in mutualism, the interaction is the result of cooperation + coevolution and can resemble symbiosis, but each party is still able to form viable population without presence of the other. They just perform better together, to varying degrees.
Another little hint that Air Nomad history isn't as pacifist as Aang believes is the Wind Sword he finds in the Fire Nation weapon shop (when he dresses himself up in that ridiculous suit of armour). It's a hilt, and the blade is formed by airbending. You could argue that it's part of an artistic tradition of swordplay, but I think it hints at at least a more martial part of their history. Tibet, which is a major influence on the Air Nomads, spent a decent chunk of its history conquering. I like to see a more varied and changing past to the world of Avatar, and the idea that the Air Nomads weren't born pacifists but became pacifist through choice to fit a lot of the core messages of the show.
you and your videos made me watch avatar again!! i only watched it when i was a kid and though i thought it was nice i never realized all the amazing worldbuilding that went around it. thanks for making me look at stories in a different way❤️ love your videos!!
I definitely imagine that after the 100 year war, the air nomads would absolutely adopt more of a fire nation like mentality and would try to keep their people closer together, have military and protect their culture which nearly suffered extinction very zealot like. No matter what, after such a traumatic war and thanks to a modernized society, whatever the air nomads were before, they will never return to again. They will for sure treat family and community as a higher necessity over spirituality.
I want to rant today so here goes: Did anyone else hate how they brought back the air nation and made their culture just airbending in tlok? I hate the begingins episodew BUT atleast they could've used what was established in those episodes to bring back the air nation. Imagine tenzin and the gang going around the world gathering a dedicated group of people (not randoms like in the original show) who are dedicated and are willing to take up the nomadic lifestyle. I think this would've been better.
Well, partially Aang already tried to rebuild air nomad culture without the Air prospect, so it could be that that's why Tenzin in S3 focuses on the Airbending aspect? Like, the Air Acolytes we see in TLOK (including Pema); we now know from the comics (the Promise, the Rift) that Aang started teaching these "avatar fangirls" the ways of the Air Nomads, which became the Acolytes but yeah a bit weird that we don't see them much in TLOK season 3, since we see quite a bit of the temples there (although at least one Acolyte, Otaku, became an airbender too apparently) edit: oh, just found out there a new minicomic, we might see some more Air Acolytes screentime there? (august 2021; 'clearing the air': "Tenzin relates the tale of a figh he had as a youngster, and what the confrontation helped him discover about his Air Nomad heritage. But will that lesson work for Jinora, Ikki and Meelo?")
@@somerandomweeb4836 He tried to, right? He wanted to teach new airbenders the nomadic ways of the Air Nation I get now why he didn't search for dedicated groups of people, I mean those are the Air Acolytes already, there's probably a whole system in place for people who want to join the Air Nation
Their culture wasn't "just" airbending. It's just that Tenzin dedicated more time teaching airbending philosophy to the newcomers because it helps give them greater understanding of their spiritual teachings. And that was just the first step in creating the New Air Nation. As of now, the New Air Nation only consists of less than 50 people. It'll take generations before they're a fully fledged culture again.
Except they did try to do that, and no one was going for it, so he switched tactics. The people who would be dedicated to the nomadic lifestyle have already joined the air acolytes(and as shown by Acolyte Otaku, there were some of them who gained air bending). A lot of the other people who got bending already had lives of their own, and aren't just going to drop everything. In the long run, its a lot easier to train a group of people who want to learn air bending, and then teach a few of them how to be nomads, than it would be only train the very few people who are willing to drop everything from the get-go
Excellent video essay! I've seen all the Study in Worldbuilding episodes so far regarding each of the four nations, and this was the one I was most interested in due to the unknown elements. You did a wonderful job! Near the end I was reminded of Iroh's comment in the series when he was describing Air Nomads, when he cheerfully remarks how they "apparently had excellent senses of humor". Which I always enjoyed about seeing briefly come up in the Kyoshi novel.
When you said symbiosis you probably meant mutualism, where both species benefit each other. Symbiosis is an general term for all relationships between species which can also include parasitism, commensalism, predation, competition and neutralism.
I've been brainstorming an AU where the Fire Nation kept Air Nomad children too young to be the Avatar and a handful of traitor monks (at least one was in the card game) and brought them back to be raised as Fire Nation. In this AU the FN is more interested about absorbing what the other nations have that they don't to make themselves stronger. The impetus for this change comes from a fourth, Polynesian based Water Tribe having settled the islands at the tail end of the FN archipelago, and becoming citizens of it. They saw how useful the others could be and desired those abilities.
three more things from Rise of Kyoshi: 1: because the spirit world reflects visitors emotional states, many air nomads apparently had problems with it appearing featureless and plain, reflecting how some of them became too blank from their meditation, contrasting more lively people like Kelsang and Aang. 2: Sky bison symbiosis is further shown in that bison will return to wild herds if their bonded nomad dies. 3: Kyoshis mother had her airbending weakened by her materialist and criminal lifestyle.
Because of your advertising, where you said something about soft worldbuilding, I remembered a interesting book series that I want to recommend to anyone who wants to find great example of soft worldbuilding - Max Frei, The Stranger. It is a translation of russian books, so I don't know if quality is good, but I think anybody who is interested in the topic should try to read it. The main character may be Marry Sue, but it doesn't matter, what matter is - how author introducing new world features on the fly and it feels ok.
![Avatar: A Study in Worldbuilding - the Earth Kingdom [ The Last Airbender l Legend of Korra ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/I-FNPuIM9jg/mqdefault.jpg)
![Avatar: A Study in Worldbuilding - the Earth Kingdom [ The Last Airbender l Legend of Korra ]](/img/tr.png)
Click this link of you're cool linktr.ee/timhickson what's the best avatar episode? Tell meeeer
~ Tim
Tales of Ba Sing Se
@@quidditch1991 I agree, it would either be the Tales of Ba Sing Se, or the Storm for me. Both are just masterpieces of characterization fit into such a short time! :)
Already some great answers here. The Blue Spirit, Zuko Alone, The Crossroads of Destiny, are some others.
@@timpietz2279 Great additions to our list! Those episodes provided some great moments and character development too, and are definitely some of the best! :)
There you go again with Avatar, Avatar, Avatar. What about League Of Legends; Arcane just came out on Netflix.
Analyse some League Of Legends lore, or crawl back under your rock.
"They weren't all detached and above violence"
Maybe all those firebenders just tripped and fell while walking over to gyatso
Real talk, gyatso died because he lured the fire benders into that room and then cut out all the oxygen so they all suffocated
To paraphrase Malcolm X, violence in self-defense isn't violence, it's intelligence.
@@rikusauske so technically gyatso didn't kill them but their lack of oxygen did
@@RayTheManOli I didn't kill this man, the knife just moved into his skull!
Maybe a small gust of wind blew them over. Who knows?
~ Tim
Honestly even Aang wasn't above mythologising his people, he was 12 when he left, and while he was talented and committed to the philosophy, he probably hadn't learnt the exact details of how grown up enough to see any flaws in the system and well, dead people rarely disappoint you. Most of what we learn about air nomad culture is through his eyes, both via flashbacks, and via his influence on his family in LoK, and that perspective is limited by both his age and the fact he is just one person. I've made myself sad.
I think Aang's view was that of an impressionable child. Despite being a nomad, Aang hadn't yet adopted the nomadic lifestyle of his people.
Yeah I was going to say: the most authoritative source for Air Nomad culture in the series was a 12 year old who would was known to be...not exactly great at focusing on his studies? There's no way his understanding of air bender culture was complete or in any way unbiased. I'd go so far as to say the culture he created in later life (disclosure: have not watched LoK), while I'm sure reverent of and accurate to the culture and world he grew up in to the best of his knowledge, would have differed so significantly from actual air nomad society that they should really be thought of as two fully distinct cultures.
For but a single real world example of this, consider Aztec and modern Mexican cultures - you can see the connections from one to the other - Aztec bloodlines live on to this day in Mexico, and Mexican culture clearly reveres and embraces it's Aztec past, but the Aztec tribe was so thoroughly decimated that there's not any real continuity there. That embrace and celebration of Aztec heritage is still framed and heavily influenced by the country's colonial Spanish legacy and other outside factors.
To be fair even if Aang had a perfect understanding of his people’s culture by the time there were enough Airbenders around to be considered a proper nation again his teachings would have been unrecognisable
Even by the end of LoK the Airbenders are notably different and far more interventionist than Aang’s time
@@farmboyjad
Yeah, Air Nomad Culture may have to have a shift, from "Traditional Air Nomad Culture" to "New Air Normad Culture of Aang" or something like that, one that has similar roots, but had to evolve somewhat differently after so much of it was... burned and lost 😓
True, the Aztec Tribes and Nations are gone, but some of their customs and bloodlines still live on, albeit muddled with some new culture to place into the cracks of old Aztec culture that has been forgotten, making something somewhat new
I remember in the first Avatar graphic novel was Aang encountering a group of people who become a precursor to the Air Acolytes, and the author uses this plot as groundwork to comment on cultural appropriation. The group meant no ill-will and were invested in the Air Nomad culture, but Aang is offended by their attempts because they do not recognize the significance in the customs (one member has tattoos, which are only granted to Master Airbenders). But opposed to common attitudes that any kind of cultural appropriation is bad, period, the author presents a neutral position in that taking on customs without understanding it is bad but also hoarding it and not sharing it with others will also ensure the culture will die. Which Aang comes to understand by letting in the proto-acolytes and beginning a new Air Nomad culture.
"why avatar is the perfect show: a series"
That would be "overanalyzing avatar."
Perfect exept the end.
It is perfect 😄
Has he passed the total runtime of Avatar by talking about Avatar?
avatar is a masterpiece of animation
Worth noting, if you consider Aang being friends with Bumi and Kuzon and such, that Nomad does not mean hermit. It's possible that Air Nomads spent a lot of time as the guests of other cultures- you touch about this with the Kyoshi reference . This would also factor really well in context of them being more or less Buddhist, where monks of different sects would travel about, begging for food, and it was often considered good karma and a learning experience to host monks. As for vegetarianism, even the Dalai Lama isn't a vegetarian entirely, and since the time of the Buddha, the idea was to do minimal harm, but also to take what was given. So, a monk might accept meat as a donation, but couldn't ask for meat. A modern example is people who are basically vegan but will eat deer hit by a car- it's kinder to put a suffering, dying deer out it's misery and honor it by using it's body. I guess you can say....MORALITY IS COMPLICATED!!!
A point that I feel many fail to grasp, expressed eloquently.
or how the Buddha ate that one bad fish and proceeded to die, yeah
morality has very blurred lines but i think thats beauty of it
Yeah I like to honor dead people's bodies by eating them
@@leogreenfield4999 It just feels right, eh.
Expanding on the mythologizing of the air nomads, the most influential refounder of their culture was also a child with some deep trauma (being a genocide survivor will do that to you). Its no wonder we, and perhaps the people by Kora's time, maybe dont have the most accurate idea of what the air nomads were like.
Even Tenzin seems to only know what the IDEAL Air Nomad was like, but not enough about what they were really like. I don't think it ever occurred to him that some Air Nomads gladly ate meat and didn't shy away from confrontations. I mean, not every Muslim feels the need to pray five times a day.
But that's why I'm glad that by the end of Book 3, Tenzin agreed to modernize the culture rather than emulating the Air Nomads completely like he originally intended. Hence they abandoned the staffs.
Generational trauma as a native american is absolutely an impactful element of our lives. It's wild that me, a mixed native person at one point had to tell other children of my ethnic group that our people were dying while the remnants of our attempted and on going genocide flourish by way of our stolen land.
If I remember well even in the Avatar comics when Aang talks to one of his past lives turns out there was an air nomad festival about tea drinking that was already dead back when he was born. So even the nomad air culture have changed over time.
"They are not detached or above violence"
Showing master Gyatsu's skeleton surrounded by fire benders corpses.
They fought during Sozin's comet, didn't they?
@@mexcore14 Yep... and it is implied that even with the comet, they needed THAT many soldiers to take down Gyatsu.
@@13KuriMaster Jesus that man was badass.
Granted, with what we've seen an air bender do in legend of korra, the a guy can can probably collapse your lungs from long distance...
@@13KuriMaster I heard a theory that gyatsu took out the air of the entire room, because withouth air you cant create fire. In doing so he died suffocating with them, kinda like a suicidal attack.
@@pietroiso2 that's very cool and dark, and yeah probably that's what really happened
I've gotten to a point with Avatar where my mind has started screaming "some of this HAS to be a lucky coincidence, no one can think of THIS many details" 🤯
Some of it surely is. But the wonderful thing about worldbuilding from the ground level (imagining the day to day life of your average person) is that if you imagine enough people's lives and apply some common sense, the details often end up clicking in place together.
I don't think for a second everything I say was intended, but I think there's some fun in treating stories absolutely seriously, just to see how deep we can go. Like, this is just as much for me to talk about how genocides happen realistically as it is to look at Avatar.
~ Tim
Some of it is probably convenience, but a lot of it is likely from studying real-world cultures and history in-depth. The more you do that, the better your work will be, because even the fantastical stuff will have kernels of truth sprinkled in, whether you consciously realized it at the time or not.
@@michaelramon2411 Indeed. The subconscious mind works in strange ways.
I know I'm 2 years late but I have to point out that the team in charge put a bunch of effort into the bending systems amd styles. Why wouldn't they put the same effort into the cultures that surround the styles of bending?
A few headcanons I have about the air nomads:
1. The Air Temples were spiritual centres, and many Air Nomad children were raised there, but most of the Air Nomad population didn't really live there. They lived where they went
2. That said, most Air Nomads would pay pilgrimage to each of the four temples - usually when the herd of Sky Bison they were following stopped by that temple. Some visited the temples every time they were in the area, some did so on occasion but not always, but generally there was an expectation to visit each Air Temple at least once
3. Each of the four Air Temples had its own interpretation of Air Nomad philosophy. While each interpretation held broadly the same values, each one emphasised some of those values over others. Also, the Air Nomads who were actually nomadic tended to have their own "folk philosophy"
4. The people who became airbenders in LoK were long-lost descendants of Air Nomads. This headcanon is particularly important to me because it takes the real-world parallels of that storyline (e.g. people in my country discovering that they have Jewish heritage and deciding to learn more about Judaism as a result) and makes them even more... parallelous
Yeah I really wish they had gone with the idea of the new airbenders in LoK being descendants. I understand that all air nomads were airbenders, but surely over the years some air nomads would have broken off from the culture and had children. Those children, not being raised as air nomads and away from spiritually connected sites, would have far less understanding and connection with the spirits, and so these children would be way less likely to be born as airbenders. It took a massive surge of energy from the Spirit World to activate the dormant powers of their descendants.
And if you think about it, this might explain why Bumi's airbending remained dormant. Aang tried to educate his kids on airbending culture, but they grew up in Republic City. Odds are Bumi (particularly because he was much more hyperactive) had little patience for air nomad lessons and preferred exploring the city. Tenzin on the other hand was much calmer and more devoted to study. Katara described him as a far more serious child than Kya and Bumi. This meant that he developed a more in depth understanding of the spirit world and its connection to the physical world. This understanding allowed him to become an airbender. Aang likely never realised how important it was to raise airbenders in such a specific way, so he kind of rolled the dice when it came to his kids.
And when Tenzin raised his own children, it's likely he was a far more rigid and disciplined father than Aang, since despite getting older I'm sure Aang never fully abandoned his relaxed attitude toward life. But as it turned out, Tenzin's rigid style of parenting, being more forceful in teaching them air nomad culture, probably caused him to have a higher ratio of airbending children than Aang (not including Kya because she was a waterbender from the start).
I have the same headcanon with the new airbenders being descendants of old ones. HC always seemed to me as enhancing spiritual energy and thus "unlocking" old airbender abilities sleeping in certain people
The Air Temples were built along the natural migration path of the Sky Bison. Remember the flashbacks showing Aang & Appa meet at Eastern temple? That's the birthing ground.
ua-cam.com/video/-zS-RMBan2A/v-deo.html about your 4th point! You are right if you ask me
Reminds me of the Hajj in Islam - everyone is required to make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their life, if it's within their means
I really liked the acknowledgement of diversity of thought within the group. In worldbuilding, failure to realize this results in the world of hats problem. In reality, it results in viewing this group as villains and that group as paragons.
Now that I think about it, Aang making up the story to broker peace between the Gan Jins and Zhangs in “The Great Divide” makes a lot more sense. He’s playing on other people’s perceptions of his culture, just like many Air Nomads before him.
Tenzin didn't even fully understand the culture of the Air Nomads since his Father Aang was only a child when the Fire Nation wiped them out.
That’s true
But Aang could've asked Yangchen and other former air avatars how the culture of the Air Nomads was.
Even in the real world we can figure out cultures just by looking at old arfifacts and places. Even zaheer knew who guru lahima was. I don't think everyone copied aangs believe. The people of the airnomads were gone but their culture didnt disappear
@@whitedragon4552 true but culture is not set in stone. I am sure air nomad philosophy at the time of yangchen and Aang were not the exact same. But yeah he probably asked her.
@@saladcaesar7716 Yeah, I kinda see it but I think even if it changed a bit, the information from Yangchen would still be better than nothing. Even Roku could have given Aang at least some Air Nomad culture advise because he lived and learned in the temples for years and that was approximately 62 years before Aang froze himself.
The fire nation claimed they beat the “air nomad army” and “conquered its territory” because saying you just invading a “formal country” and “rightfully reaped the spoils” and “quelled the insurgents” sounds way better than storming a group of pacifist Monks in their holy sights and slaughtered the people who tried to escape the onslaught or defend their home
Kinda reminiscent of how some people will try to make the bloody history of the relationship between the native Americans and the European colonists sound justified by calling it a conquest.
@@LPVince94
Often we don’t even make it sound “conquesty” but in terms of Canada we “incorporated” them into the nation, so any suffering or violence is now partly due to them, and the harm and struggles they face is their own to overcome
I think there is that issue for many fire nation citizens where the air nomads simply “died out” because they refused to kneel when defeated, believing they would not surrender and so killing/defeating them in war was the only thing the fire nation could do to “incorporate” them
yeah, pretty much.
I mean humans may be violent, but it’s mostly due to greed. They still are empathic and protective creatures. So obviously, painting the airbenders as a threat to the fire kingdom due to having the next avatar would be an easier justification for war rather than. I may have massacred a bunch of monk kids and babies. Haha lol.
Absolutely thrilled this "series" continues, I just love the world building in avatar
Definitely
The Air Nomads always stuck out to me even more than the other three, and now I know why
I remember reading some speculation that any Air Nomad children that were non-benders would be given to Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation families to raise instead, as they would be unable to truly live the culture's way of life (or traverse the temples all that well) and that's why the Air Nomads were made up of only benders.
If true that makes the air nomads seem far less accepting.
@@summerjoy1352 It would be practical. Remember that much of their architecture doesn't allow for non-air-benders to make full use of it. If a squib were to shake out then it seems reasonable that the child would be fostered to a family of another nation. Also keeping in mind that the definition of "family" in the air nomad culture was more communal than in others, you were not a child of individuals. The child in question wouldn't necessarily feel abandoned, indeed they would be excluded in many ways by continuing to live in the temples and unable to participate in a full Air Nomad lifestyle. It may be equally possible that the vast mountain ranges around the air temples had ground bound nomadic groups of people who were descendants of rare non-bending air nomads. For the region around the Northern Temple, which overlaps with the Earth Kingdom, there may also be Earth peoples who live as nomadic mountain herders. Other temples are on Island landmasses, and wherever there is a good harbour there are fishermen. Perhaps it was these people who lived in the shadows of the temples accepting non-bending Air Nomad fosterlings. Though it would certainly be a practice that is not widely advertised.
@@ckl9390 plus it's better than the spartan system of "well, you're weak. Off to the cliffs with you!"
@@ckl9390 that makes total sense. It wouldn't be completely possible that the air nomads are just benders, but they prefered children who could bend than children who couldn't, on top of it children that where given to families in the other nations would mean that technily air nomads still lived and not all died. The character ty lee has a lot of the Features of air nomads and she and her Sisters just don't look like People from the fire nation, so this is quite possible
According to the canon when 2 air benders reproduce 100% of the time that child will be an air bender. When an Airbender reproduces with a non air bender it lowers the chances.
One of those misconceptions is brought to light in LOK when Tenzin claims that head shaving was a voluntary choice by air nomads, rather than something everyone did. I think we have the belief that they all shaved their heads because we only ever saw the devout temple-dwelling monks growing up watching ATLA.
I had a weird thought while watching the video: Could the Air Nomad's foraging be a cause of them being seen as bringers of a good harvest?
So here's the deal: If the Nomads survived mainly on foraging and also had to gather enough food not just to sustain their travels, but likely to bring some back to the temples as well, they would probably learn over time to track down fertile foraging grounds. This would mean the Nomads were mainly seen in areas where a rich harvest was just hauled in or coming up. The people then associated the Air Nomads with rich harvests over time, but flipped the causality upside down: Instead of figuring out that the Nomads came because there was plenty food around, they believed that food grew richer with Air Nomads around
Nice theory! Seems very possible as well.
@@sonicvenom8292 thanks. For some reason I kept thinking about it and maybe there is another factor to this: The Air Nomads having a strong connection to the spiritual world might actually cause some spirits, who feel benevolent, to aid their friends by growing some food (like Hei Bai as shown in this video)
This of course would mean that the idea of Air Nomads causing rich harvests wouldn't be wrong entirely, the people just haven't figured out that a bit of spirituality and kindheartedness can go a long way in their world.
Looking back, it's clear to me that the Air Nomads, as a whole, may never be able to recapture who they once were. They're growing in numbers again thanks to harmonic convergence, and we have those like Tenzin who have had the culture passed down to them by Aang, but the combination of the genocide and the changing world around them will inevitably result in their people being totally disconnected to the civilization they were during Aang's childhood. That time, that version of their people, is gone forever 😟
Sad true for the show and for ancient cultures in the real world 💔😔
And that's why Tenzin created the New Air Nation instead of trying to resurrect the Air Nomads. The New Air Nation is the spiritual successor of the Air Nomads.
I mean Aang could've asked Yangchen and other former air avatars what the culture of the Air Nomads was.
@@whitedragon4552 Aang pretty much haves a grasp what his culture was. Meditating, traveling, helping, air bending training & making cakes to throw at people.
@@TheMrPeteChannel It seems I misunderstood Jeremys comment a year ago lol. My comment was basically a general 'counter argument' to people who say that Aang might have not known everything about his culture even though he could have asked Yangchen and other air avatars if that was the case. But it seems Jeremy wasn't going for that. You are right of course.
Before watching this vid, can I just reitarate how utterly hilarious it is that Zaheer planned to destroy the only people with a (somewhat) anarchistic culture?
Zaheer's philosophy can be summed up as a New Age Movement
Hell, the restoration of the Air Nomad culture is akin to Odinism and the restoration of the religions of antiquity
@@boid9761 the religions of ancient cultures is dead and we don't know much about them
Wasn't that just a bluff though?
The main problem with a lot of the lok baddies was that damn near none of them stuck to the principles they were trying to represent. They were basically all liars.
Here's the thing: the Air Nomads are dead. Possessing air based superpowers does not a dead culture resurrect. Tim actually called LoK out on this, so I guess Zaheer felt the same way about trying to resurrect the Air Nomads by declaring random people who got superpowers to be part of the culture.
"Air nomads were a purely non violent people."
Monk Gyatso: "Peace was never an option."
It literally wasn't an option
I love that the Air Temples aren't exactly* North, South, East and West. Feels more like realistic geography to stagger their locations than for them to be precise.
Heck, the Western Temple is barely south at all from the Northern Temple.
one thing on the sky bison: I think you heavily undersell *just how good* sky bison based transportation is. The gAang can go anywhere they want in a matter of *days*, even across oceans.
I imagine air nomads were probably also quite mercantile since money is actually pretty important, even if it doesn’t seem like they need it much. The thing is all it takes is a hat and a change of clothes, and you would never know you were talking to an air nomad, therefore bison-riding merchants would be forgotten to time.
Possible. I personally think that maybe air nomads rather exchanged than used money to get goods. They could’ve used their bending to help someone or taught their philosophy, help with spirituality or something and earn things like food or a place for the night in return
@@rzuue I doubt they could get all that much based on just using just bending and wisdom.
Aang is pretty devout, and he doesn’t say anything about money except complaining about a lack of it, which makes me think that there isn’t any significant teaching against it. (Infact he even does a little swindling with no remorse, but i give that one to being a kid)
@@misspurdy27288 I‘m just guessing, as it would be similar to Buddhist monks which live from donations and offer teaching and accommodation to people who want/need it.
Sure, there probably was money too, but I think it might’ve not had very much value at the temples so maybe they didn’t use it as much even when trading with people of other nations. Who knows
@@rzuue The buddhist monks could do that because they were a relatively tiny subculture, air nomads appear to have been pretty populous relative to the whole.
@@misspurdy27288 it’s not like there are only few Buddhist monks, it’s about the accumulation of them in one place. The more there are, the more difficult it is to live from donations. But the ones at the temple were probably harvesting themselves and were not in need of great donations or trade. The rest were nomads, so only few at a time and not tons of people moving together. That’s why it seems at least a probability to me that some might’ve traded instead of using a currency.
Been watching your content on and off for ages. I’ve recently started trying to turn my random notes in to a coherent world and story. I’m not going to lie, these books are a tempting buy for Christmas.
fun fact: the plains indians were also symbiotic with the american bison, though we didn't know thios at the time. they kept the herds in balance and helped maintain the plains. when the settlers moved west and there seemed like an unlimited amount of bison, this was almost certainly because of smallpox and war ravaging the nomads who lived there. the loss of the native people meant the bison herds had exploded, and were probably on the brink of collapse.
it's fascinating how the human world so directly effects the natural one. we think of them as separate, but the forests look to us as much as we look to it.
@@brainderp808 semantics.
Wait really thats cool
Everything is connected.
The bison were nearly made extinct by the American military literally to drive the powerful Plains Nations into famine...
It's interesting to compare and contrast moments we see about Airbender society vs what Aang has internalized.
Obvious examples:
--Aang and Gyatso both share a playfulness that many of the others lack. Most of the monks we see are deadly serious - to be fair, they are kinda looking apocalypse in the face, they have reason to be serious, but Gyatso seems determined to get as much fun out of life as possible, and to make sure that Aang has a reasonably normal childhood. And while the kids we see in Aang's memories are definitely playful, they refuse to play that team game with Aang once he's revealed to be the Avatar...somehow it's not fair now, but was completely fair when his destiny was still a secret. Aang's never put in that situation, but I somehow don't see Aang, the madman who sees a giant sea monster off Kyoshi Island and says to himself "it's gonna be so fun to ride that," complaining about a game not being perfectly fair.
--Aang's dedication to pacifism. Or...well, not dueling someone to the death, even if he is the madman who's declared himself emperor of the world and decided to burn half of it to the ground. (He's definitely killed several random Fire Nation mooks by the end of the show, especially in the episode with the mechanist where he's literally tossing avalanches at people on steep mountain paths. But sure, we'll chalk that up to animators not remembering to consider how fragile people are.)
Compare that to the reveal of Gyatso's corpse. Sure, we don't see Gyatso go down fighting, but the implication is that Gyatso went down giving ten times as good as he got. And given how Aang reacts to being seemingly cornered, we know his approach to that situation would be to find a way to flee - he runs rather than fighting to the death. (And no this isn't me calling him a coward; the bravest warrior knows when victory is impossible and finds a way to survive that day and build a future one where victory *is* possible). Thus...Aang and Gyatso have *very* different opinions on the idea of pacifism. Gyatso wouldn't have started that fight, and if he'd survived to the end of it, I'd imagine the guilt of killing so many would have chewed him up something fierce, but he saw the value in fighting back to defend himself (and perhaps buying time for others to escape in the process).
The Air Nomads *were* playful and free-spirited as a people, though. Kind of one of their defining characteristics. Gyato could be serious when he needed to be.
@@briannab4037 I meant the other adult monks at the temple, who are deadly serious. The ones Aang and Gyatso threw pies at.
All I'm saying is that of single-perspective sources on culture, Aang's (as that of a 12 year old child) is possibly one of the worst you could pick. Ideally, you wouldn't be relying on one source on a culture at all, but kids are often sheltered from a lot of the concerns of adult life. Childrearing is a major aspect of any culture, but there's often some cultural experiences that are entirely within the realm of adult life: politics, finance, romance, entire genres of art....there's a ton of things that kids just don't get exposed to that much. (Or, didn't before the internet brought the world to the fingertips of anyone with a computer or smartphone.)
Aang's drowned thousands of fire nation sailors at the North Pole
@@GremlinsAndGnomes That wasn't Aang, that was Twi, the Moon Spirit and Rava, the Avatar spirit plus the rage of 10000 years of avatars
I think the air nomads all being benders is connected to back in the lionturtle days, the airbenders were the only ones who were allowed to keep their bending on the lionturtle and everyone in the community had bending. When the humans left the lionturtles some people from each community may have chosen not to become benders so the airnomads were the only 100% bending community when they left the lion turtles.
that would imply a lotta incest
@@spiceyicey Most creation stories do
Please don’t reference that horrible story of wan that retcons everything
@@kc_h7h they didn’t learn FB when they already got it from the lion turtles. They retroactively put that Garbage in despite the fact it it literally contradicts their own thing. You can’t learn something that you can already do. Nice try at a stupid ad hominem tho. You tried
@@ecoblitz3655 okay so technically you are saying that toph didnt learn from badgermoles. You said that you can't learn something while you already know it. But toph already had the abilty to manipulate earth. She never got powers from badgermoles. This is tophs exact frase: "the badgermoles didnt only teach me eartbending as a martial art but also as a extencion of my senses". This line confirms that the animals and moon teached humans bending as a martial art. Look at katara. She could bend water but she still needed to learn the martial arts to call herself a waterbender. And that martial arts was invented by the moon and ocean. Atla continuously shows us that bending is a martial art. Aang said to sokka that every bender needs a teacher. The teachers of humans were the animals and moon. You should see a human that got this powers from a lion turtle the same as a new born bender. They both have powers but they still need teachers
I think Zahir from Korra is an excellent example of the extreme spirituality associated with air benders and the rather horrific force they can bring to bear when they are not overly concerned about saving all lives.
Avatar has affected me more deeply than i realized. The worldbuilding in this literal children's show is so richly layered and agonizingly beautiful. Watching your videos and reflecting makes me realize the influence stories have. Incredible that an entire micro generation of kids was raised by this show. So grateful the creators were allowed to air it.
It is interesting to see how the concept of romanticism of the past comes forward in the new air nation in the Legend of Kora. How different characters thoughts of what they air nation was and what it will be is considered.
The Air Nomad genocide would be pretty straightforward for the Fire Nation if they all were only at the air temples. But if they're true nomads, they're all over the world, and yet the Fire Nation still were able to kill them all (except for Aang of course). I don't remember if outside the shows there was a remnant of Air Nomads living in secret, but I don't think so.
I think that there were air-nomads not at the temple, if I recall correctly the fire-nation used air-nomad relics to lure out air-nomads in hiding.
And/or maybe they waited for a air-nomad holiday, knowing that all the nomads would return to the temples for it?
Depending on how far they traveled from the Air Temples, they might not have been quite as wide-spread as you might think. Plus, I have to imagine it would have been hard for air benders to go into hiding given the tatoos are a dead giveaway and the series even has episodes dedicated to showing how hard it is for targeted groups/individuals to stay hidden.
Maybe the ones that did survive couldn't find other airbender to start families. The ones that did start families had a decreased chance of offspring that could airbend. Also another thing to consider the airnomads that didn't live in the temple, probably took their spirituality more serious and having a spouse and childeren gets in the way of that. I also think the fire nation killed airnomads after the genocide, but they spewed out the propaganda of "killing ALL the airnomads" so they appear more strong.
I suggest reading the canon ATLA comic called: Relics. It’s a part of short stories that didn’t make it into the show and boy oh boy do I wish Relics was an episode in Book: 1, because it answers this question directly. It’s definetly worth the read.
in the comics, it was stated that the remaining ones were lured with air nomad relics, and killed. and it was already discussed in this channel that even if some over caution ones survived, they have lost the ability to air bend in generations
"Nation States are Complicated!" *Funky music* *I start laughing uncontrollably*
This is why I want the next Avatar Series to take place in the past, when the AIr Nomads were still around so we can learn more about their culture.
If you haven’t done so already, read the Kyoshi novels. I think they do well in showing how complex the air nomads can be.
@@intensivepurpose I havn't been able to find it but I do plan on reading it.
Doesn't change the fact that I'd much rather stay in the "old world" and the one we saw in Korra cuz I'm not a fan of all that tehcnology, it looks out of place and really ruined the world for me.
The closeness to the spirits is something I hadn't really considered in detail before. Excellent video overall.
It's possible that "don't get attached" is only a rule for the monks. Historic Tibetan Buddhism, which is clearly an influence, has put a lot of rules on its monks while requiring of the laity only that they celebrate major holidays and donate to the monks a little.
Tim: "Science Geeks please don't hurt me."
Science Geeks: "No no, you're fine."
That feeling when you and Overly Sarcastic Productions uploaded two videos within an hour of time between each other with Avatar in the thumbnail.
This video could not have come at a better time.
One of my pet projects deals with the aftermath of genocide and how the now extinct culture is viewed in modern times. I hadn’t even thought of the the air nomads being such a great example until this video, so thank you!
Oh boy! Back to avatar! Maybe we will get a "why the great divide is better than you think" video! Would genuinely love to see it
I also think that this aversion to attachment to things could be exactly because they were nomads - and could fly. The more things you need to carry, the harder it gets to fly. So it was a necessity for them to keep their belongings to a minimum.
The other thing I though while watching is that their nomadic nature was just due to their abilities. If you need to walk, a nomadic lifestyle is much harder to maintain than if you can fly. They can cover more distance and get to the remotest places, so that was their advantage. If you don't need to settle and put all your time and energy into agriculture, why would you? Nature has everything to offer that you need and takes care of itself.
I'd aruge the Air Nomads in LoK were the best we could expect them to be as representations of their predecessors. Aang could have sought the wisdom, knowledge and guidance regarding the Air Nomads and their way of life from the past Air Nomad Avatars. That would have been passed down to his son Tenzin. From there if the knowledge is incomplete then it would diverge to mordernize and fit with the current world since Korra can no longer feel her connection to her past lives.
Now all we need is a worldbuilding video on the water tribes to complete the series
Bro, your lighting rig is so awesome, it's so striking in your eyes. Most people use a halo rig and it's beginning to make that effect over saturated in the industry. What you're doing with your lighting is awesome. The care that you put into your videos speaks volumes about the depth of thought that you put into all of your work.
This means a lot because I struggle with lighting so much. This is one of the only times I have felt like I've nailed it!
~ Tim
Just love talking about world building in general
Another amazing video about worldbuilding. I've literally started to read, and in general, process fictional stories - either written, filmed or animated - differently since I watch your videos. I was always in love with social science, but my conscious mind never really realized that good worldbuilding represents a deep understanding of theese fields of science. Nowadays I am more and more able to appreciate good worldbuilding, thanks to your interpretation. Keep up this valuable work.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who does that.
My boyfriend thinks it's annoying when we watch something and after we are done I start asking a bunch of questions of how the worldbuilding has been done cause this or that does or does not make sense and whatnot.
Just have to say, whoever edited this, must have had planned the transition at 6:30 on purpose, I must applaud your ingenuity. I noticed, and whomever we must applaud.
Wonderfully put together Tim. Love the thought line of the bison encouraging where the temples were built.
A few things:
1) you drove me absolutely mad with that one book in the opposite direction than all the others.
2) I certainly know what I’m going to buy myself for Christmas >:)
3) I have rewatched a:tla in its entirety two or three times now, and I still learned many things from this video. I never realised how deeply thought-through every detail was-from the migration patterns for the temples’ positioning, to the parallelisms in idealisation and propaganda that we know to have happened in our own history. A:tla is, I think, my favourite series, and this is one of the reasons for that: it never gets boring-it’s all simple enough to not weigh much when you watch it, and at the same time complex enough to surprise you with new details each time you revisit it.
Thanks for reminding me of this wonderful piece of art, and I look forward to buying your new book ;D
My headcanon as to why the air nomads focus so much on pacifism is that at some point, they figured out how incredibly lethal airbending can be and went “holy shit, we need to make absolutely certain we don’t end up teaching serial killers” and things kinda went from there
Silent, high maneuverability and invisible motion ninjas?
Possibility: there was only one group of Air Nomads who traveled between all four temples on some seasonal basis, with possibly a skeleton crew left behind at each for maintenance. I may be failing to recall some reason this was definitely not the case, though.
Not gonna lie love this dudes avatar vids it makes me appreciate the series
You hit on an important point for world building. Culture is not just what a people think about themselves, but what others think of them as well. As I write the history of the lands in my world, I can't help, as an historian, to also write the history of each land from the perspective of what the others think of them. This is both what their historians say, but also the "what everyone knows" about them in each country. Capturing the prejudice (both positive and negative pre-judgements) about a people/culture really enriches and brings realistic depth to the story. An example is the exoticism of the Elves by humans and halflings in LoTR ("ooo, fancy folk"), or the mutual prejudice on each side of the Elven-Dwarven feud.
I've really enjoyed your videos and now I'm going to have to pick up your books. A lot of thought and work has obviously gone into this. Great job.
I was always under the impression that the reason there are no nonbenders born into the air nomads was because the babies that are born without bending abilities wouldn’t be able to survive.
The constant moving around and riding on bisons would be impossible, let alone the layout of the temples would make survival impossible for them.
I always thought that the air nation just kind of “evolved” to all be benders through the means of natural selection because their world would be impossible for a nonbender to survive in.
I mean, Sokka had no problem riding on Appa, so that part's not the issue.
For air nomads to "evolve" into being all-benders, there would need to be thousands of generations where they _weren't_ all benders. If the nomad lifestyle was so brutal that non-benders couldn't survive it, then there'd be a LOT of dead babies. Why would they continue putting themselves through the ringer like that, when they could adopt a different lifestyle that doesn't kill most of their children?
The de-mythification of the air nomads makes them being gone feel even sadder. They weren't a mythical group of not quite understood creatures like spirits, just normal people who were living their lives, they were part of the world and affected it with their unique culture and now most people in the avatar world don't really know much about them except old legends.
A fascinating thing though is the rebuilding of the new air nation, from the start it wouldn't have been possible to bring back the original culture fully. Even if more people survived the culture would've changed at least a bit if not drastically over time because of the deep scar that the attack of the fire kingdom would've left. But the new culture of the descendants of the only survivor plus all the new-age air benders is just as important and interesting (at least in my mind, I'll admit I stopped watching Korra before they got the new clothing), maybe far from the original but just as valid and just as air nomad as the old one.
Old-age air nomad culture and new-age air nomad culture both have distinct history and are shaped by the world around them, it'd be really interesting to see someone analyze the new-age one given there's enough to analyze, and if not I hope they make more official content about that specifically.
ended up rambling a bit pfhgbc
Does anyone else have scenes in ATLA or LOK that they immediately start weeping? Cause I totally broke down just seeing Jinora reveal her tattoos 😭😭
Gave me chills
It's easy to think of the Air Temples as the places where the Air Nomads spent most of their time living, just because that's where we tend to see them in flashbacks and stuff. But I always figured that nobody actually stayed at the temples for longer than a few weeks at a time, and the rest of the time they were traveling around the world. I mean, by age 12 Aang already had two very good friends in the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation (Bumi and Kuzon), he knows all the good locations for riding dangerous animals and such, he knows about penguin sledding which seems to be a uniquely Water Tribe thing, and we see him at the Eastern Air Temple when he's just a wee lil cutie in the flashback where he chooses Appa. So he's obviously done quite a lot of world traveling even at his young age.
I love your worldbuilding series. However, I feel like in this case there was more room for speculation on a topic you didn't talk about, and I would have loved to hear more about: How was marriage and family life managed in the air nomad culture? Did all parents agree to give up their children to be raised in the temples? Did the children in the temples know who their parent were? Did they know who their siblings are, even just for the purpose of not accidentally dating your sibling? These are the questions that bother me. Like, how would an air nomad know the woman he is having a child with is not actually his relative?
what you really should be asking is: Would an Air Nomad care if he was dating his relatives?
The sponsor we deserve
Hey Tim, not related to the video but to the charity stream at the end of the year: If you haven't decided yet, the Trevor Project would be an amazing charity to collect money for. I'm sure you are familiar with their work, and it really is an amazing cause. Hope you consider it
Avatar The Last Airbender is for me has one of the best lore in animation including storytelling, character development and action scenes.
This is pretty eye opening in general. Thank you so much for these videos. I remember rewatching the earth and fire ones because they were so fascinating.
The examination of the society and their lifestyle through symbiotic relationships is kinda mind-blowing in how much sense it makes.
Maybe this sounds like a nitpick, but I find it hard to believe that unless they had some major source of protein we don't know about that vegetarianism extended beyond airbenders taking some monastic vow. The only reason I say that is that I can't imagine you could forage for so many plants up in those mountains. Unless of course, air nomads relied heavily on sky bison milk for protein and now I think it's almost impossible for it to have been any other way. In the real world, whenever you have a nomadic group tied to a particular nomadic animal, they always end up relying on that animal for either meat, milk, or both.
Aang thought it was necessary to clarify to Yangchen that he's 'even vegetarian'. She was literally the only air nomad he had spoken to since he woke up. Why would she need to know that if it's a given that ALL air nomads are vegetarian? I'm sure it was just a personal spiritual choice that happened to be common among their people ang mythologized along the way. Much how people still have the misconception that ALL Indians are vegetarian. With that many sky bison, it would make sense for a nomadic people to consider it. Aang also mentioned having a taste for tofu, so they might have also cultivated soybeans in whatever land they did have.
I do think their downfall and resurgence in ATLA & LOK respectively needs to be touched upon to truly appreciate the nomadic ways of the people; The resurgence of air benders after harmonic convergence clearly shows that airbenders had children in other cultures either before the genocide or for those that survived due to being within a nomadic period the children they had after the genocide, its very clear that their nomadic ways were the most important aspect to their people and just as not all vegans follow the strict code not all nomads abstained from intercourse and i absolutely love how its shown!!
5:28 - I've had the theory, ever since watching that episode, that what the teacher was saying wasn't that much propaganda. Overinflated, overplayed, and dramatized, perhaps, but likely talking of a real event.
It's severely unlikely that the fire nation's alpha strike doing Sozin's Comet killed everyone, since a large portion of the Air Nomad population would be- well, nomadic. It is very likely that they formed a loosely organised militia in desperation, and attempted to either retaliate or safeguard the remaining population.
Whether that's true or not, it's very likely that the reason the war dragged on so long is that the Fire Nation's victory over the Air Nomads was a Pyrrhic one, depriving them of the manpower needed for an easy victory.
12:32 as a person that lives around Amish country, _yes._
It's also interesting to note that because of their lifestyle, the infrastructure of "normal" society living around them is influenced by it to a degree, such as having the roads be paved wider to accommodate horse-and-buggy traffic as well as hitching posts at some convenience stores.
I don't know if this is mentioned anywhere and I just forgot it, but I've long envisioned that the air nomads tradition of being vegetarian was started as a way to stop air nomad raiders from taking other people's livestock, since the wise among them recognized the need to maintain peace with the other nations whose shear numbers would eventually wipe them out if they couldn't figure out a balance.
I also don't think they all WERE born as benders, but rather those air nomad children who weren't able to bend were given to the other nations. Just look at Aang's son, Bumi for proof that it can happen, and giving away orphans is probably the best outcome based on the evidence we've seen.
Hello Future Me talking avatar world building is my favorite comfortfood
I'm so excited for Tim's new book! Really enjoyed the first volume. ^^
The genocide part is really relevant today! And avatar live action coming out today is really goood
The israel vs palestine thing is really a genocide not a war like most of the media are covering
Hit like. Cuz Appa is the bestest boy.
Okay I was gonna hit like anyway, but you saying that reminded me to, and Appa is also the bestest boy.
Oh man, I look forward to a breakdown of the world building of the water tribe! .... but what about the swamp benders?
One thing about the air nomad genocide that I didn’t understand was how Sozin could wipe them all out with one attack. As nomads, I assumed that the airbenders would be too far spread to completely destroy during the comet. But then, why is Aang the last one? I finally got my answer in one of the Nick magazine comics. Apparently, not all of them were killed during the comet, just those in the four main temples and adjacent. The fire nation set up smaller temples and settlements that were like what the nomads used while traveling or took over existing ones. They filled them with air nomad objects and would let the remaining nomads come to them, looking for other survivors. Then the fire nation would ambush the nomads. It’s such a clever part of the worldbuilding that was tucked away.
This video was awesome. Is amazing how you can dissect such detailed world building from the scarce clues we get
Is there ever going to be a video on the Northern and Southern Water Tribes? I would really like to know more about their similarities and differences, and how they interacted before the war.
He recently did something about the water tribe, you can find it by searching the channel 👍🏻
i’ve watched this show so many times and think avatar lore A LOT, i’ve never thought about air bison migration patterns before and THATS SO COOL
I'm creating my own world now, and in all honesty, this is something that I needed
As of now, I'm fleshing out a race of what can only be described as the Faunus from RWBY, except more leaning to the animal aspect. They're antisocial, irritable, hostile, and outright barbaric. All the reasons to be afraid of them.
I'd say that, unlike in RWBY, all humans as a species aren't one single people who have like one culture. I would see little reason why a group as diverse as animal-people wouldn't be extremely socially and culturally unique in various ways. No pressure obviously, but that's a personal preference I always notice when discussing this stuff.
@@smuu1996 Totally agree with you. Generally in universe with multiple humanoid species, there is one that has lots of different cultures and arts and mythologies (the "humans"), then the other humanoids are monolithic groups with one culture and one belief system, even if they are equally large or even more larger in numbers and territories
@@smuu1996 I am researching on that, and honestly I've laid the foundation of the Beast Men, how the "Faunus" of my world are called, before I focus on the nitty gritty like specific cultures and differences
They have a very mythical origin story; being the descendants of a small group of religious fanatics who were cursed by the god they strayed away from and turned them into half man, half animal
And obviously the treatment of the more civilized humans are pretty sour; they're treated as animals rather than equals, despite them being just aware Enough to be reasoned with and even work as mercenaries
@@boid9761 That sounds very dark, I kinda like it. In my works, I always have lots of disturbing stuff, it just makes the fun and wholesome stuff in the story stand out more for me.
The religious background for your creatures sounds interesting, I myself am also very much into the 'evil gods' thing, but I had all my gods kill each other many mamy years ago, with modern religions being these quasi-cults of personality praying to a dead former tyrant.
The socio-economic effects of your world's inhabitants is important, it's good that you consider that.
@@smuu1996 Here's what I have as of now
The Beast Men are a loose term to refer to the numerous nomadic barbarian groups wandering around the northern provinces
Their ancestors were civilized humans reduced into having the behavior of the very animals they wore the skins of, so some of them, especially the Wolf Men, have the baseline requirements to create a recognizable tribe
The Bear Men however, are more truly nomadic, and travel alone, or in groups of up to 12 people
They live off of the wildlife and plants around them, but should the opportunity present itself, they'll go after cattle, crops, and even the farmers tending to those two things, hence why the Republic's rivals, the Twilight Caste, still hasn't phased out their raiding lifestyle despite having crops and cattle.
The civilized people see them as animals; treating them as such even. Although, with a bit of training, and bribery with food and shelter, they can be reasoned with and even employed as mercenaries. After all, the Bear Men are infamous for "taking seven men with one blow"; not literally, but still.
Unlike the Faunus, the Beast Men do not recognize taht they're discriminated. They're not smart enough to recognize such problems. Their simplistic lifestyles and reduced minds have eradicated the human need of social skills and societal awareness
This pending world-building episode of the Water Tribes is about to be ON POINT. In my head canon, I think about how the type of bending we see is impacted by the environment...especially with Water being the element of change and is directly related to the resources available. But since the waterbenders are masters of phase-change with their element (steam, mist, liquid water, ice, etc.) and the differing terrains pose a different elemental/environmental challenge -- the North is primarily ice and sea, the South is ice, sea, and rock (but from more of a distance), and the Swamp being...well a swamp -- I wonder if how the environment is to be manipulated and what resources are available determines the different "styles" of waterbending (as Won Shi Tong referred to them as Northern Style, Southern Style, and Foggy Swamp Style).
On top of that, how the different tribes are structured, whether more formal, communal, or just there living their lives.
I am excited for this video!
What's the best Avatar episode? Really. PRE-ORDER OWAW VOLUME II linktr.ee/timhickson
Releases November 26th!
~ Tim
The Day Of Black Sun
The Ba Sing Se episodes in my opinion, especially episodes 14 and 15.
what if have 61 favourites? My mood right now says Bitter Work is a bitter but rewarding lesson and watching experience .
Tim ive been a lurking fan and watcher for years. How can we get a signed book copy? Can we at all? Im checking the pre order online for hard copy, non amazon. But another way, across the sea to aus?
Zuko Alone is one of my favorites. It gave so much character to Zuko and it really was an interesting one for worldbuilding seeing a broken earth kingdom town.
Mm... My favorite is the Southern Raiders! Mostly because Katara finally gets to face and heal from her trauma.
I like to thing that the nomads and bison also had a sort of symbiotic relationship with various fruits and vegetables and grains that thrived in the mountainous habitats by planting little patches of them in habitable spaces they hadn’t yet reached and giving themselves reliable food sources near their homes. Also that the temples were built progressively by various avatars either born from the nomads or as thanks for aiding them in leaning the elements and wanting to provide a comfortable and safe space in the areas they tended to inhabit repeatedly due to the bison’s migratory patterns.
Great job, Tim~! Can't wait to pick up my copy!!
Nov 26th can't come soon enough 😁 but free content like this will have to tide us over
14:08 oh my- that’s Barbarians! As a German I’m equally surprised and happy to see that you know it! It has its flaws but I certainly loved watching it
Getting the book!!! (for my BF my whole DND party and probably everyone else I know XD) Gotta wait for that next paycheck though. Love your videos so much!! And your book! Vol. 1 is *chefs kiss*
Having just read Shadow of Kyoshi, I absolutely love this video for more reasons than I could ever mention.
great video again, damn. Although:
In ecology (of plurispecific populations like in say: 2 species interacting in a given biome (bison and humans)) there are different categories for each type of interaction. Parasitism and predation are relations where one species benefits and one doesn't, but differently so.
Likewise, symbiosis is one of several relations where both species benefit. specifically when they benefit so much that they seldom function without one another, like algae and fungi forming lichen, or nitrogen fixating bacteria and plants.
I'd argue the relationship between air nomads and air bison is more kin to mutualism ( even though it's never clear cut in ecology). Often in mutualism, the interaction is the result of cooperation + coevolution and can resemble symbiosis, but each party is still able to form viable population without presence of the other. They just perform better together, to varying degrees.
Another little hint that Air Nomad history isn't as pacifist as Aang believes is the Wind Sword he finds in the Fire Nation weapon shop (when he dresses himself up in that ridiculous suit of armour). It's a hilt, and the blade is formed by airbending. You could argue that it's part of an artistic tradition of swordplay, but I think it hints at at least a more martial part of their history. Tibet, which is a major influence on the Air Nomads, spent a decent chunk of its history conquering. I like to see a more varied and changing past to the world of Avatar, and the idea that the Air Nomads weren't born pacifists but became pacifist through choice to fit a lot of the core messages of the show.
The warped history the fire nation gives the air nomads is also pretty similar to the Israeli Palestinian conflict
you and your videos made me watch avatar again!! i only watched it when i was a kid and though i thought it was nice i never realized all the amazing worldbuilding that went around it. thanks for making me look at stories in a different way❤️ love your videos!!
Glad the superior cover won out ☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾
I definitely imagine that after the 100 year war, the air nomads would absolutely adopt more
of a fire nation like mentality and would try to keep their people closer together, have military
and protect their culture which nearly suffered extinction very zealot like.
No matter what, after such a traumatic war and thanks to a modernized society, whatever the
air nomads were before, they will never return to again. They will for sure treat family and community
as a higher necessity over spirituality.
I nominate Meelo as the airnation general to be given emergency powers in times of war.
I want to rant today so here goes:
Did anyone else hate how they brought back the air nation and made their culture just airbending in tlok?
I hate the begingins episodew BUT atleast they could've used what was established in those episodes to bring back the air nation. Imagine tenzin and the gang going around the world gathering a dedicated group of people (not randoms like in the original show) who are dedicated and are willing to take up the nomadic lifestyle. I think this would've been better.
Well, partially Aang already tried to rebuild air nomad culture without the Air prospect, so it could be that that's why Tenzin in S3 focuses on the Airbending aspect?
Like, the Air Acolytes we see in TLOK (including Pema); we now know from the comics (the Promise, the Rift) that Aang started teaching these "avatar fangirls" the ways of the Air Nomads, which became the Acolytes
but yeah a bit weird that we don't see them much in TLOK season 3, since we see quite a bit of the temples there (although at least one Acolyte, Otaku, became an airbender too apparently)
edit: oh, just found out there a new minicomic, we might see some more Air Acolytes screentime there?
(august 2021; 'clearing the air': "Tenzin relates the tale of a figh he had as a youngster, and what the confrontation helped him discover about his Air Nomad heritage. But will that lesson work for Jinora, Ikki and Meelo?")
@@donmah06 I think tenzin should've also focused on the culture, since Aang obviously told him everything about it.
@@somerandomweeb4836 He tried to, right? He wanted to teach new airbenders the nomadic ways of the Air Nation
I get now why he didn't search for dedicated groups of people, I mean those are the Air Acolytes already, there's probably a whole system in place for people who want to join the Air Nation
Their culture wasn't "just" airbending. It's just that Tenzin dedicated more time teaching airbending philosophy to the newcomers because it helps give them greater understanding of their spiritual teachings. And that was just the first step in creating the New Air Nation. As of now, the New Air Nation only consists of less than 50 people. It'll take generations before they're a fully fledged culture again.
Except they did try to do that, and no one was going for it, so he switched tactics. The people who would be dedicated to the nomadic lifestyle have already joined the air acolytes(and as shown by Acolyte Otaku, there were some of them who gained air bending). A lot of the other people who got bending already had lives of their own, and aren't just going to drop everything. In the long run, its a lot easier to train a group of people who want to learn air bending, and then teach a few of them how to be nomads, than it would be only train the very few people who are willing to drop everything from the get-go
Excellent video essay! I've seen all the Study in Worldbuilding episodes so far regarding each of the four nations, and this was the one I was most interested in due to the unknown elements. You did a wonderful job! Near the end I was reminded of Iroh's comment in the series when he was describing Air Nomads, when he cheerfully remarks how they "apparently had excellent senses of humor". Which I always enjoyed about seeing briefly come up in the Kyoshi novel.
Oh boy oh boy time to drop some very "subtle" hints to my family that a very certain book might make a good gift 👀
well now we need one on the water tribes.
When you said symbiosis you probably meant mutualism, where both species benefit each other. Symbiosis is an general term for all relationships between species which can also include parasitism, commensalism, predation, competition and neutralism.
Everyone forgets ammensalism.
I've been brainstorming an AU where the Fire Nation kept Air Nomad children too young to be the Avatar and a handful of traitor monks (at least one was in the card game) and brought them back to be raised as Fire Nation.
In this AU the FN is more interested about absorbing what the other nations have that they don't to make themselves stronger.
The impetus for this change comes from a fourth, Polynesian based Water Tribe having settled the islands at the tail end of the FN archipelago, and becoming citizens of it.
They saw how useful the others could be and desired those abilities.
What do we have to do in order for you to do a dramatic reading of book 1 of On Writing?
Hoepfully a study into the water tribes would come soon, I like the idea of the 4 nations having their own videos about them, we just need one more
Is it bad that whenever I hear 'bending' in my head, I hear Tim's voice?
three more things from Rise of Kyoshi:
1: because the spirit world reflects visitors emotional states, many air nomads apparently had problems with it appearing featureless and plain, reflecting how some of them became too blank from their meditation, contrasting more lively people like Kelsang and Aang.
2: Sky bison symbiosis is further shown in that bison will return to wild herds if their bonded nomad dies.
3: Kyoshis mother had her airbending weakened by her materialist and criminal lifestyle.
So... Worldbulding for the Water tribe?
Because of your advertising, where you said something about soft worldbuilding, I remembered a interesting book series that I want to recommend to anyone who wants to find great example of soft worldbuilding - Max Frei, The Stranger. It is a translation of russian books, so I don't know if quality is good, but I think anybody who is interested in the topic should try to read it. The main character may be Marry Sue, but it doesn't matter, what matter is - how author introducing new world features on the fly and it feels ok.
I FINALLY BEAT MY RECOMMENDEDS TO IT!