I think the ‘failures’ of avatars is a philosophical point about human life. Each generation tries its best, and accomplishes so much, but the butterfly effects of their failures will have to be dealt with by their descendants.
Yes, a HUMAN having to play god over other humans..and we know how humanity is. There will be flaws and rebellion no matter what. Not everyone will be happy with something in order. And every avatar was a different person with different beliefs and priorities within themselves. This whole video just really highlights it.
I think the "failures" aren't failures, at least as presented. Life is always at flux. It's not the job of the Avatar to stop life from happening. The Avatar is a power of good that applies themself to where they are needed the most - whether it's with upset spirits or power-hungry humans. How is the Avatar supposed to ensure no human will ever again attempt to gain power? By lobotomizing every human? No, they work to stop that individual, but that means they have already "failed" because what happened, happened already, and there's now a war going on.
I agree. And yea, they made mistakes, but if they weren't there, would it really be that much better? It's hard to say. You can't really say that it's a bad cycle when this might be the better timeline compared to one without an Avatar
I like how Matpat pointed out Aang's trust in friends as a key factor to being successful in his Avatar duties because it was a lack a trust that screwed over a previous Avatar. I mean MatPat talked a lot about how Kururk was too busy dealing with angry spirits to handle the affairs of the material world, but he failed to mention that Kuruk never told anyone what he was doing. To the rest of the world, even his closest friends, Kururk was just an super-powered party boy just doing the bare minimum of his Avatar duty with no idea that he been protecting the world from angry Lovecraftian entities. If he trusted his friends and fill them in on his turmoils, Kuruk may had been not only be able to figure out a better with dealing with the Dark Spirits (beside just killing them), but could have been able to make time to deal with the problems of the material world; and maybe his friends would in turn be better prepared to handle things forwards after Kuruk's death.
As you touched on with Kyoshi a really important factor with Avatars is how theyre raised too. For example, Korra's biggest flaw throughout her series is her stubbornness and pride. This can easily be traced back to the fact that she discovered that she was the avatar way too young and was subsequently isolated a lot her life while she was trained. As a result while growing up she built her whole identity around being the Avatar and how great/important she is.
Indeed, and that makes her unfit to deal with the problems she was facing during the entirety of LoK. How are you supposed to solve the Equalists problems? How does she even know that converging the spirits to human worlds would bring this much chaos? How would she handle with the fact that the existence of avatars, and subsequently her entire identity is the reason why the world is imbalanced and how was she supposed to handle Kuvira when she can't even handle her internal demons? Avatars are humans too. Even with the power of a god. They cannot solve everything. Which is why I find LOK to be brilliant and albeit not on par. Is close to AtLA. And before people say AtLA is superior to LOK. Keep in mind that AtLA is so good that comparing it to the likes of Breaking Bad is blasphemy. Because AtLA is THAT GOOD.
To be fair, she grew up in an isolated village learning about how Aang and his predecessors saved the world. About how the Avatar is the key to everything. Aang *wanted* Korra to be fed this information. Then when Korra enters the real world, the world has already moved on. The Avatar isn’t really needed as much because technology has compensated for a lot of what the Avatar does. Korra talks about how she’s the Avatar a lot because she’s compensating for her role being lost.
@@zurielschubert9410 No doubt almost all Korra's failures are a result of her being way too young for the job. It does not help that she is only one human even more so than some other Avatar. She was unable to contact her past lives for much needed advice for quite some time. Shortly after gaining this ability, she lost it. Now Aang was young too, younger, and it's worth noting that if he wasn't then maybe the whole 100 years lost thing wasn't necessary, but he was at least mature for his age and able to contact past Avatars for advice.
@@craigyeah1052 because he's a monk. Not just any monk, a prodigy and he trained under a wise and lighthearted Monk Gyatso. He's wise because that's the culture and tradition of being an Air Nomad. Korra is the closest thing we had to a modern Avatar. And what makes it worst is by giving her everything she needs to become a good avatar physically. The first friends she made in her entire life was with Kai and Bolin. She was trained in her homelands as she is under the wings of the greatest benders at their time. So she doesn't explore much.
@@zurielschubert9410I completely agree with you. Korra had to deal with so much and most of it she did it alone in a way no other avatar before her was. She never had a clear road to follow and forced to make many impossible decisions. How would she have known that leaving open the spirit portal would create the world’s deadliest air bender? How would she have known that Kuvira would become a militant dictator while she recovered from almost dying due to mercury poisoning? All this while being a teenager and young adult in season 4, for someone who wasn’t allowed to have a childhood and have friends until she ran away.
Mattpatt hit the nail on the head when he talks about how Aangs success as the Avatar was because of his friends. Each of his friends became highly respected international leaders and the most powerful Benders in the world. The Best example of this is Zuko when Aang died Zuko retired from being Firelord and began traveling the world playing the same role as the Avatar solving political problems all around the world, defeating warlords, and stopping the Red Lotus.
That's true for a lot of Avatars, it's a known thing that Avatar companions become some of the most powerful people of that time along with the Avatar. I know from the books that Kyoshi and Kuruk at least had extremely capable companions that helped them out. Yangchen probably had the least aid from what we saw but even she would've been screwed without help
Each of his friends became highly respected international leaders and the most powerful benders in the world False. Sokka was aangs friend, but was not a bender Yes, I like to nitpick
In a way, the same thing can be said about Korra's success as the Avatar as well. Given how like with Aangs friends, her friends also showed the same type of determination to stand by her whenever she needed it the most.
Aang succeeded the most in his case because his main circle of allies all represented important factors of the world. He was the last Airbender. Katara was the last Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. Toph was an Earthbending prodigy. Zuko was the crown prince of the Fire Nation who eventually turned away from his tyrannical father. And finally, we have Sokka and Suki. Non-benders who, despite being out of their depths, manage to bring skills and brains to the table, allowing them to contribute just as much as all the others. Aang's team managed to include all four nations, along with non-benders, all working together to stop the big bad that is Fire Lord Ozai. He might not have managed to bring perfect harmony, but he did accomplish a great feat which did bring prosperity. Not everlasting, but at the very least, a way better place than it was when the journey began.
Also you can see that avatars' success hugely depends on his upbrining conditions. The mentorship of airbending monks allowed Aang to reveal his potential in his early years and become wise beyond his age. But also the attitude of his contemporaries alongside with the monks overseeing his individual problems led to Aangs' emotional breakdown and to his flight from the temple. The air nomads were also notable for traveling around the world constantly (hence the name), and that had allowed Aang to create bonds around different countries, which helped him even a century later (acquaintance and old friendship with king Bumi, knowledge of the fire nation traditions, etcetera). So, you can say that even without 100 year ice imprisonement and war Aang would still be able to create strong bonds with various people and become a great avatar. And monk spiritual training is also essential to avatar. So I would suggest entrusting every avatar to the air nomads first as soon as his/hers identity is revealed. It contrasts a lot with Roku's training, who was probably living for many year in separate areas. Also I think that 20-30 year period, while the young avatar is growing/learning, creates a big power vacuum, which is very bad for the whole idea of maitaining balance in the world.
Reading your comment felt like a speech on why we should have allies or at least see it through the lens of others cuz the different things they experienced and what they can bring to make not only you but the world whole
In Aang’s defense, his life as an avatar was rebuilding the world since the 100 year war finally ended, a war he stopped. And he did do _some_ dabbling in the spirit world, but we never really see a problem with the spirit world during Aang’s time as avatar except a few outliers like the undead panda
Wath the Avatar need to do is to; Teach all nations how to teach how to create spiritual connections by meditation for them to discover the unmaterial world before the death time And to put them to work togeder having care by a full of fruits and veggies and plants for a full "year" by seeding, growing and not the last cooking a meal at the end with the nectar from the fruits; Only the morons would not apreciate the peace; IT is sufficient fur evwrybody and IT always was and IT will Be; You only eat with one mouth, so do your parents, your kids, your grandkinds, but also IT is the same for your neightbor, your friend, your teacher, the firefighter, the priest, the homeless, the CEO, the baseball player, the soccer player, the medics, sooo on; You can Be the humanity saviors, but IT starts with stop focusing on distractions crated by so called ekites or news, re conquer your mind and your self; I am out
In Escape from the Spirit World, Yangchen explains to Aang the reason why the Avatar is human is because if the avatar is to keep the peace between nations and protect mankind, he/she must experience human emotions and turmoil to understand what it means to be human and why, in spite of all their failures and mistakes, humanity is still worth saving. And it makes sense given that the spirits, being more detached from the physical world, look down on human struggles and affairs, and choose to remove themselves from such conflicts.
@Snarfing Some Avatar humans were also said to have messed up horrendously, and neglect how humanity was worth saving. Nobody wins in any system over time, as shown with this theory
I think It's good to note that the avatar is still a human, they will make mistakes. I can't even imagine the amount of pressure that they feel being basically the most important human on their planet.
One could say that was the main point of The Legend Of Korra (along with the unconfortable but necessary aesop "In the right circunstances, good causes can and will be highjacked by bad actors")
which makes for a _divine premise._ great power with great responsibility, being under the immense weight of expectations...chosen ones are a classic trope for a reason
I think it's essential for us to remember that the Avatar, despite being the vessel for a powerful spirit, is still human and prone to making human mistakes. Roku not killing Sozin when he started showing signs of genocidal imperialism was a mistake, but you can still sympathize with his decision because they were childhood friends and he still loved him like a brother. I can't imagine how stressful it must be to have a major say in every decision that could change the world.
Which only supports the theory that they shouldn't have that responsibility put upon them in the first place. Humans can't handle the role and responsibility of a god
@@lilithium3940 so true, so true. Even the Avatar with the best foresight might not be able to see far enough down the road to see the impact of their decisions.
@@lilithium3940absolutely true, it’s brought up in the last airbender that aang can’t finish his training and unlock the complete avatar state because of his monk ties, as an airbender he’s supposed to let go of his earthly needs but as the avatar he needs to care for the earth and protect it
@@lilithium3940 But the Avatars do end up stopping many wars and also if you don't give power to the avatar, people like sozin and qing just become stronger. Even with no avatar we would still end up with horrible dictators.
I think he sort of missed the fact that almost every avatar we see had a group of friends helping them Aang and Korra werent special cases, Kyoshi, Yangchen, Roku, & Kuruk all had great friends who helped them with their avatar duties, Even wan's spirit friends helped him bring peace
There is a theory going around that each avatar’s greatest regrets are corrected in the next avatar (eg. korok regretted his short life so kyoshi ended up over 200 years old when she died and aang regretted taking so long to master elements other than air so korra learned them very quickly)
pretty Shore aangs greatest regret was running away and not being there when the air nomad genocide took place, and korra helped rebuilding the air nomads
@@AdamCharron he didn't master them when he was a child though, he only learned them. He relied on the Avatar state to defeat Ozai in the end, which even then he struggled grasping.
It must also be stated that Avatar Kuruk had to focus on the spirit world BECAUSE the avatar before him, Yangchen, neglected her duties to the spirits in her lifetime. It got so bad that Kuruk had to single-handedly stop an invading spirit army from invading the humans. Since there's also no open communication between the two worlds (other than the Avatar themselves), his victory with the spirits went unpublished to the human world with only his absence being noted. He died binging balance but was remembered for being "lazy" and MIA. Of course, all this just perpetuates the cycle of current Avatars having to clean up on the messes of the previous.
I always liked that fact about the Avatar franchise. Keeping the world in balance is an impossible task, as long as there are humans, there will be conflicts. And no amount of godly power will allow a single individual to fix the entire world's problem, no matter how wise they are. The best each Avatar can do, is deal with it in the way they find suitable, and hope their successor will have an easier time.
Same here, I like how it addresses the fact that no matter how powerful someone is or how amazing their friends are or how great the world is, there will always be conflict and balance is only possible in a virtual sense that yes, balance exists but true balance cannot be achieved
@drunkasaur I wouldn’t say it’s nonsense because there’s conflict as a result of a broken system. I mean conflict is one of the most important parts of a story. I’d argue that having characters trying to resolve an inherently conflicted world is a pretty good premise for a story.. and pretty good writing too.
@@Newt2799 Like it's the other way around: conflict must be created for a story, so the Avatar will always have more problems to solve than he/she can handle.
Fun thing, while yes the avatar can weild all 4 elements, people can learn from each one. Iroh became one of the strongest benders because he could wait for the right moment like an earth bender and could use an opponents power against them like a water bender. If you watch zuko fighting azula a few of his moves aren't fire bending, their bending styles like earth and water.
Forgot about how Iroh taught Zuko air bending technique too. The breathing he was telling zuko about at the north pole invasion is an Airbending technique that you can see Anng uses constantly. Notice how no matter the temperature Anng wears the EXACT same outfit (until book 3) even in the north pole. He's not bothered because he bends the air constantly to keep himself warm. Zuko proves this isn't common among fire bender in the boiling rock when any other fire bender put in the cooler can't bend, but he can and does to keep warm.
When you talk about Kyoshi at 11:40. The books also state that she isn't vengeful like you make her appear. She has a very rigid sense of justice. If she was vengeful, she would've killed Fire Lord Zoryu at the end of _Shadow of Kyoshi,_ not simply threatened him. Though, the person who she sent with the threat thought he should've been killed. But Matt, your point is kind of made in universe. Multiple people, even Korra herself, say that the avatar isn't necessary anymore. That it's an old ceremonial position at this point.
Pretty sure Avatar Roku emphasized the importance of friendship, even implying that the avatar's companions also reincarnate to help them out. Also, I'm not entirely sure Aang would act "decisively" if Sokka one day told him that the southern water tribe was planning on "expanding."
I mean... Roku did stop Sozin. When he discovered the first colony he confronted Sozin and after he "indecisively" let Sozin live, Sozin stopped. The colony was gone, there was no conflict, no war, nothing until after Roku died. The Fire Nation was still on good terms with the world until the comet arrived and Sozin used it to start the war.
@@DrTimes99 while your argument is sound, there is a huge hole in it: Sozin literally just waited for Roku to be gone to enact his plans. Roku failed to stop him, he just delayed it, and that delay wasn't even that negative impactful; the delay only strengthened the fire nation's army, navy, and air force. The comet was just icing on the cake by that time.
@@itlogmanok6046 is that on Roku or the inherent limitations of the Avatar cycle? Sozin & the Fire Nation are based on Imperial Japan's Meji Restoration period; their colonialism wasn't the fanaticism of one man, it was a much broader socio-economic movement. Say Roku does "end" Sozin after the first colony; either he'll need to full genocide-run the ruling elite of his own nation or Sozin's successor just waits out Roku's death to do exactly what Sozin did.
Right, it's the whole "chosen one" issue. The idea that only one person can fix everything despite how unrealistic that is. As you also pointed out it's why Aang is one of the most successful ones due to him realizing how important his relationships were. Not just with his close friends and colleagues, but with EVERYONE he helps along the way. This kind of thing can be applied to so many other characters throughout fiction. It's why it makes sense that Batman recruits other people to help him or why Harry Potter's trust in his friends helps him out so much. No matter how much power you wield, you are but one person and will need help even if just occasionally.
The other thing is … can we really say the Avatar is a chosen one after knowing the origins of Avatar Wan? Wan was not selected to have his power or position. Wan broke the world by stealing freeing Vaatu and what we call the Avatar is the entirely accidental union of Wan/Raava on an eternal quest to redeem Wan’s mistake
@@TheJadedJames honestly being an avatar reminds me of how link and zelda is forever destined to be bounded to the triforce and demise. So yeah i can say they are consider “chosen” ones in a way. With the avatar needing to so many things to keep the balance while cleaning up the mess the last avatar left is honestly stressful. What is interesting though is how can Aang and Korea do so much with the friends they have but even with the friendship the other avatars had stuff still got messy
Also that "Chosen One" mindset the people of the World of Avatar have can be pretty detrimental. One of the reasons that the world is disarray in Kyoshi's era was due to the fact that it took so long find the next Avatar that some people lost hope and some people thought "this is my time to take control"
If you have to say "As you pointed out...", then it really doesn't need to be said. While the point is evident, and I do agree with it, it's already been said.
That’s why I really enjoyed moments where Tinzin, Korra’s spiritual mentor (because she’d mastered all elements by the end of season 1) told her that the rest of them can handle other problems while she’d delt with a primary threat. Almost all the Avatars before Aang had thought the task of protecting the world and keeping order fell to them alone. But, by journeying across the world, meeting new people and making life-long friends, he’d gained different perspectives, as Iroh had once said, and with their help, created a new form of unified government to keep all kingdoms in check. Though Korra may have done poorly in her duties as Avatar, to be fair, she’d had to deal with so much in such a short time, during a revolutionary time of change for the world. Despite the fact she’d brought the Spirt world and physical world back to unity, there is still the lingering question: could there still be a future in which bending and the old ways are simply forgotten to time? Not even the Avatar can control time, cultures, and ideas.
12:30 She's not _unbothered_ by taking a life, she recognizes a very specific maxim: when you have the ability and opportunity to prevent a death and you don't, that death is on your hands. Like how Roku's refusal to be decisive with Sozin led to the war, which meant the death of an entire culture was more or less on his hands. Kyoshi is taking responsibility for her part in Chin's death.
Wath the Avatar need to do is to; Teach all nations how to teach how to create spiritual connections by meditation for them to discover the unmaterial world before the death time And to put them to work togeder having care by a full of fruits and veggies and plants for a full "year" by seeding, growing and not the last cooking a meal at the end with the nectar from the fruits; Only the morons would not apreciate the peace; IT is sufficient fur evwrybody and IT always was and IT will Be; You only eat with one mouth, so do your parents, your kids, your grandkinds, but also IT is the same for your neightbor, your friend, your teacher, the firefighter, the priest, the homeless, the CEO, the baseball player, the soccer player, the medics, sooo on; You can Be the humanity saviors, but IT starts with stop focusing on distractions crated by so called ekites or news, re conquer your mind and your self; I am out
@@bruced.1537 especially with the flash game dialog literally disproving his points, kiyoshi didn't hate the people rebelling, she was upset at how it was being done, she valued the cultural history of the earth nation, and also along with that, they were also destroying the city as well.
Sooo, in essence, the show successfully showcased how bad things can go in a realistic manner instead of dealing with problems like "because they got solved, deal with it"
I mean, thousands of years and to this day we don't have an answer for every problem, and we don't even have powers. It makes sense that all Avatars are actually not perfect beings, but humans that carry a mission that's, in all honesty, impossible, yet they do what they feel is the best. Kinda insane how realistic it is.
Wath the Avatar need to do is to; Teach all nations how to teach how to create spiritual connections by meditation for them to discover the unmaterial world before the death time And to put them to work togeder having care by a full of fruits and veggies and plants for a full "year" by seeding, growing and not the last cooking a meal at the end with the nectar from the fruits; Only the morons would not apreciate the peace; IT is sufficient fur evwrybody and IT always was and IT will Be; You only eat with one mouth, so do your parents, your kids, your grandkinds, but also IT is the same for your neightbor, your friend, your teacher, the firefighter, the priest, the homeless, the CEO, the baseball player, the soccer player, the medics, sooo on; You can Be the humanity saviors, but IT starts with stop focusing on distractions crated by so called ekites or news, re conquer your mind and your self; I am out
@@insecure8926 Wath the Avatar need to do is to; Teach all nations how to teach how to create spiritual connections by meditation for them to discover the unmaterial world before the death time And to put them to work togeder having care by a full of fruits and veggies and plants for a full "year" by seeding, growing and not the last cooking a meal at the end with the nectar from the fruits; Only the morons would not apreciate the peace; IT is sufficient fur evwrybody and IT always was and IT will Be; You only eat with one mouth, so do your parents, your kids, your grandkinds, but also IT is the same for your neightbor, your friend, your teacher, the firefighter, the priest, the homeless, the CEO, the baseball player, the soccer player, the medics, sooo on; You can Be the humanity saviors, but IT starts with stop focusing on distractions crated by so called ekites or news, re conquer your mind and your self; I am out
@@kailucasanton3421 Wath the Avatar need to do is to; Teach all nations how to teach how to create spiritual connections by meditation for them to discover the unmaterial world before the death time And to put them to work togeder having care by a full of fruits and veggies and plants for a full "year" by seeding, growing and not the last cooking a meal at the end with the nectar from the fruits; Only the morons would not apreciate the peace; IT is sufficient fur evwrybody and IT always was and IT will Be; You only eat with one mouth, so do your parents, your kids, your grandkinds, but also IT is the same for your neightbor, your friend, your teacher, the firefighter, the priest, the homeless, the CEO, the baseball player, the soccer player, the medics, sooo on; You can Be the humanity saviors, but IT starts with stop focusing on distractions crated by so called ekites or news, re conquer your mind and your self; I am out
MatPat overlooked the fact that toward the end of Korra, the airbenders became nomadic peacekeepers again (like Jedi). Because balance is a team effort.
Honestly, everyone was so dependent on an avatar to save them that simply having the avatar helped form a rebellion group. Before book 3, there was no rebellion aside from some small groups (like the water tribe). But once team avatar gathered people, a rebellion was finally formed. Having an avatar was crucial to morale, and in that big battle in the beginning of book 3, once azula strikes aang the battle s lost because people lost that spirit.
in korra's defense, her decision to leave the portals open changed a lot but eventually people and spirits lived harmoniously together and although it gave zaheer airbending too, it gave a huge upstart to the air nation's return
It would be interesting to see how the reappearance of the Air Nation influences the geopolitical scenario if we ever get a series post-Korra. Like, how would pro-bending accomodate to airbenders?
In korra’s further defense, it’s not her fault that the nations fell out of balance as she was recovering. The nations kept peace for the 15~17 years she was growing up and training perfectly fine without an avatar, so they should’ve been able to maintain peace while korra was recovering.
It's hard to say what the ramifications of Korra's decisions are though after such a short time having passed, since it impacts the next 10,000 years. We saw how the spirits terrorized humans in _their own_ world (the spirit world was always a separate place) and kept them confined to the lion turtles who sheltered them. That decision wasn't made lightly by Wan and we can see just how powerful and cruel spirits can be when they want to.
I do remember thinking that the idea of the Avatar was unfair to everyone Unfair to expect the avatar to handle everything and unfair to refuse anyone else the power needed to do change I remember loving how the Gaang split up, trusted each other to do their part for the world and work together. They didn’t make Aang do everything alone. The avatar is neat and all but maybe they shouldn’t be tasked with keeping the whole world in check - it’s impossible and setting them up for failure.
When you really think about the reason why Anng and Korra worked so well was because they learned that one person can't always make a difference that you need to rely on others and have people place there faith in themselves to fix a problem.
if anything the idea is most unfair to the avatar themselves considering the moment your born a spirit decides your life is dedicated to the world and fixing it, if you wanted a normal life too bad you have to fight the firelord on the day of the comet as a 12 year old. Thats definitley the most unfair
@@LaptapGamer Just look what it did to Aang. He was told WAY too early, and because of it, he was isolated by his peers and was over-trained by the monks (except Gyatso), leading him to run away. Luckily for Aang, running away saved his life, but that amount of pressure on a child is AWFUL.
I've recently started binge watching LOK again, and Toph touches on this when telling Korra to "get over yourself." Toph explained that as police chief, she worked hard to bring peace to Republic City, but realized that "the names change but the streets stay the same." This is also alluded to when Avatar Wan takes his final breath saying he failed to bring balance, only for Raava to tell him they will continue to bring balance in all of his lifetimes. I don't think the Avatars "bring" balance per se, the Avatars themselves ARE balance. Before Raava merged with Wan, she and Vaatu were entwined, wrestling for eternity. The Moon and Ocean spirits, represented by the Yin and Yang Koi fish, circle each other in an eternal dance of balance and harmony (push and pull). Therefore, balance is not 100% peace, nor is it what Zaheer preached (100% chaos), balance is the ebb and flow of order and chaos coming and going. Therefore ending the Avatar would be imbalanced, as the dance between order and chaos would end, just like when Wan separated Raava from Vaatu.... but also, just like if Raava or Vaatu are destroyed, one would grow within the other until the next harmonic convergence. So if the Avatar ends, something else would form to bring balance to the world.
This also makes sense if you LOOK at the Avatar state instead of looking to the novels and stories. Mattpat names, what, six avatars? Look at that crowd. There were certainly dozens of Avatars. The stories we tell are of the ones that were "interesting". And, it isn't an old chinese curse to live in "interesting times" for nothing.
@@Chaosmancer7 Yeah, stories about peaceful times and how good leaders brought good things are quite boring. "You don't hear about the good people do, but you do hear about their fuckups." -Me.
@@X9Killbot Bruh it comes off as extremely douche-y to quote yourself. At the very least, you can pull an 'As I always say...' instead of trying to sound like Plato.
I think in order to make a judgement as to whether the Avatars help, you'd have to imagine the world events without the presence of the Avatars. Sure they all had failures, but they did end up stopping most major conflicts eventually and prevent any world domination. Who knows, maybe Chin's descendants would have been in charge all the way up to Korra's time if not for his death
But mere presence of a figure like the Avatar already changes how politics works in the world. Sozin for example waited until after Roku's death to start the war. Without Aang the United Republic might never exist. No Szeto and the fFire Nation may never become a unified state. The list goes on, so with no Avatar the entire world would look different politically and culturally.
@@EinstinStinium One can also imagine a world also if the Avatar cycle ended there and then for some contrived reason. It's not like there's just one hypothetical of Avatar never existing in the first place.
Yeah, say what you will about the world Aang built after the war. If Aang had never come back, the Fire Nation would have taken over the entire world. It would be so much worse and there is an extent that you are only free to judge Aang because we never saw that very possible alternate future where Ozai wins
This is exactly the dilemma faced by Korra. As the world modernized and more people became “atheist” towards her, people start to question whether she is still needed or not.
Well, no,... she aint, it'd be better if everyone start developing from the sheep mentality of "this person can do it all so I'll relax" Even in reality we have that, only difference is, we dont have an avatar, just bish a$$ governments
Dilemma?! There is no dilemma in the legend of Korra 🤗 There was a lot of bad writting and a total lack of a plan in a product that was produced probably to fast. And for the record is not like the last season and the ending of the original series was thaaaat great. I get it I loved the show too 🥲 but you are trying to explain in a conboluted way things that dont really have a good explanation beacuse... They are just incoherent due to bad writing. They messed up. Not that uncommon in the show bussines then or now.
Its funny how opposite Aang and Korra are, Aang didnt want to be the avatar in a world that needed one, while Korra wanted to be the avatar in a world that didnt need one. Makes me wonder how the avatar after Korra will fare, considering the more modernized the world becomes the less it needs an avatar
@@GreyAres sure, TLoK doesnt match up to ATLA but it is definitely not badly written (not counting season 2 though, that season sucked). Almost all the problems in the show are caused in some way due to Korra (as said in the video). Vaatu, Zaheer, Kuvira are all directly or indirectly due to Korra, making the viewer think about the absolute necessity of the avatar. ATLA showed Aang saving the world placing that idea of need in the viewers head, while TLoK flips that on its head and shows the viewer how the avatar caused a lot of major issues in the world, this is even directly referenced to in the clipshow episode in season 4. The dilemma the show gives to the viewer is precisely why this video was made in the first place, is the avatar truly a necessity?
The real problem seems to be that everybody else in that whole world is incapable of fixing anything. It seems to me that the only real responsibility the avatar has is maintaining relations with the spirits, since they're literally the only person with the power to do so. In my mind, everything else should be secondary.
the fact that the one time the avatar disappeared was the start of a massive technological and social advancement is proof that the avatar hold the world back. thousands of years and very little change in the world and then after only a hundred years of the avatar being MIA and boom, we now have cars and people are marrying those from outside their birth nations.
@@abiean222 Except that wasn't what happened? If you are talking about the fire nation colonies I am not sure that is a great point to make considering what had to happen before it and it was not a lack of avatar that made that possible, it was the existance of war. Plus people from different nations alredy married between them for generations we see that in the kyoshi novels; sure it happened more by the occupation but it was because of that, an occupation where there were second clas citizens and upper class who where the aggresors. More tecnológical advancements were made in the time of Aang so that doesn't seem like the avatar is the issue.
@@abiean222 nah, without the avatar the fire Nation could go completely unchecked and do whatever they want. Including exploit the other nations for their labor and materials.
One thing you kind of didn't really look at is that in the world the mere existence of the Avatar has caused every single nation to rely on it for everything, instead of solving the problems on their own they are looking for a magical fix. Which you can imagine the problems the causes, especially as we see through Aang when he goes missing where barely anyone is doing anything to fix the war and just waiting for the Avatar to come and fix it for them.
and even when aang beat ozai, they still needed a fire lord and would have been an issue if zuko didnt change sides. Aang plan was literally beat ozai war over.
thats not true at all, in kyoshi she made a point she couldn't just step into the firenation and fix all their problems it had to be at most a partnership, and aang during the invasion tried to team up with the earth kingdom and the foggy swamp tribe to win the war, another example of this is the earth kingdom war in republic city Korra tried to gets the firenation and earth nation rulers to do the fighting
You are being too generous in your statement. Matt didn’t just “didn’t really look at”, he failed to connect his arguments with his point. Almost all of his points lead to a conclusion that avatars just didn’t succeed in their responsibilities. They did nothing. And doing nothing is very different from making it worse. Without avatars the world wouldn’t even have as little as avatars manage to accomplish. So, the only point that would give all these arguments power, the connective tissue for all of Matt’s arguments - is what you pointed out. The reliance on avatars. And, I might be wrong, but I don’t really remember it being shown in the show. It could be, but I would beed proof. You know, maybe a part of the video dedicated to proving the world actually neglectfully relied on an avatar and that led to some wrong decisions… idk
It was still pretty worthless. Like, they're right, the Avatar can't bring balance, but killing them doesn't help in any shape or form, it just creates a new power vacuum.
@@bdletoast09 But that also means that having the Avatar around isn't any better in any way. They're just a centralized tool to benefit one institution or another based on the arbitration of one person's biases.
@@sovietcupcakes328 That's what all institutions are. At least with the Avatar, the power is in the hand of someone with the wisdom of thousands of past lives and a bit more insight of what the world needs.
@@bdletoast09 That didn't stop catastrophic mistakes after mistakes. The "wisdom" imparted by previous avatars rarely matters in the vast majority of day to day events, let alone larger events where the Avatar ends up only having the effect of an absolute monarchy, and everyone else has to pray the next one isn't incompetent or insane. That's why institutions shouldn't be based on the whims of one dictator or another.
Also note that in most cases, there's generally a sixteen year gap between avatars. So whatever issues the last avatar left, the new one inherits after that conflict spends at least sixteen years festering and taking root - and that's only if the avatar gets right to work, rather than spending some handfuls of years learning their other elements beforehand.
@@morganrussman not exactly but it does take them something like 4 years to "test" for the avatar and then as was mentioned, they are not supposed to be introduced to the other elements until they are sixteen because before then, they are a child. Monk Gyatso showed the devastating effects of this: Aang was socially isolated from all of his peers because they thought that his life was unfair to them. He basically lost every friend that he had just by that revelation and he then had adults trying to treat him as a weapon.
@nathanielbass771 it may take time to test and track down the avatar, but, I do think it was mentioned, or, implied in an episode or 2 that one avatar passes away, and then the next one is born practically immediately after.
@@morganrussman this is true, but if say there are 1,000 children born in a single day... and news can only travel at its fastest in Korra's time via phone and TV... it takes a while
Korra merging the spirit and physical realm could have catastrophic consequences. While new allies might be found, some seriously powerful enemies would emerge.
@@fcasias7 I am not looking forward to the poor Avatar who has to clean up her mess. Especially with how her poorly thought decisions will end up snowballing into a horrible disaster
In defense of Roku, It seemed that after warning Sozen he was able to stop the Fire Nation from imperialism for decades until he happened to die in the unlikely event of a volcanic explosion.
@@eghoseisiramen1892 would you see the worst in your friend just off the bat? a person could be a really good friend to you and people around you, but be a crappy person outside of this circle. we’re not all-seeing. we’re human.
@@amorfatikhb Lol, he literally invaded the Earth kingdom... And you even could argue the only reason he exterminated the air nomads was to get rid of the guy that shamed him, neglected him, destroyed his dream left him in the rain his friend... If, Rooku had helped him or at least at stayed connected with him or just let him conquer the world. The extermination of the air nomads would never have taken to that extent...
In Korra’s defense, while unlocking the spirit portal was not all good for everyone… It did bring about a new age of Air Nomads which fixed Roku’s greatest failure and was Aang’s greatest hope. Also, wanted to point out that this video highlights one of my favorite things about Avatar which is that you have real people making real choices that have real consequences they have to live with. Because everything matters it makes the world feel real/believable.
That’s right. She save the air benders from going extinct. She definitely had it the hardest tho. I feel like every avatar had one big problem to solve while she had one big problem in like every season and also with like the strongest villains we’ve seen in the avatar universe(Amon, Zaheer). Amon even might be the strongest villains of all time.
@@theking-jn8es She did that on pure accident. Unalaq was the who got her to open the portals. She could have easily restored airbending to the world by giving the Air Acolytes airbending via energybending.
@@GreatUniter I totally agree that it was on accident but she and the air nation needed that luck to not go extinct. Now there is a whole new generation of air benders. I’m not sure if she can give someone bending powers if they didn’t have it before if I’m not mistaken only the giant turtle could do that. But if she is able to do that then yeah that would’ve been the better solution
I think that’s why I enjoy the show so much, it’s real. These avatars lacked to solve problems that snowballed into bigger issues that had to be addressed by the next. These issues even arise in personal matters, Aang was a good avatar but a bad father and it just goes to show us that all people, regardless of how much good or change we bring, are ultimately flawed in some way or another.
Was Aang a bad father?? I never watched The Legend of Korra because it didn't quite grab me like it's predecessor did. But I can understand where you're coming from though. Aang would be so busy trying to set up some kind of new political system for the people among a bunch of other things an Avatar is supposed to do he ends up neglecting time with his kids in turn 😟.
@@TheMeloettaful that was part of it. the other part of it was he felt responsible for bringing back the airbenders so when he had all 3 of his kids he unintentionally played favorites with tenzin. the only airbender at the time. Not to say he was a bad dad but he felt it was necessary to teach tenzin about the culture and bending so the next avatar would have an airbending teacher and 2 so the airbenders could continue through tenzin. Problem was he hyper focused on tenzin and neglected his other 2 kids in some aspects.
@@nicholasduca5221 it also weird he didn't teach his other children about airbending and air nomad culture. Like sure they weren't Airbenders but that doesn't mean they couldn't learn about it and spread that knowledge on themselves. Like we learn he never took kya and bumi to the air temples just tenzin. Which is a little more than neglect. He's deliberately cutting them off from their own history as his children air benders or not they're in some way apart of the air nation and as his descendants its their history as much as it is tenzins
I mean aang could of been way worse tbh if you really look at it, it's just obviously he would see tenzen as a possible way to kickstart the air nation again which would put a lot of pressure on him and tenzen. And I don't feel that he was as neglectful as people say, I mean his daughter is one of the best water benders as well if I recall and they all seem healthy albeit all up in each other's business but their siblings, of course they would be like that a little.
Honestly, if there were just 2 or 4 avatars, then each could do a different part of the avatar. Which is why I love how the last Airbender gang split up and trust eachother to do their part and to keep working together. I think it's what makes the balance better for so long, makes it fair so that people are working together with the avatar. I love this series so much!
2 may be the key as 4 may just become a superweapon for each nation, because then they would not be the avatar of the world, they would only be a powerfull bender that only happens once every generation and can commune with the spirits. Basically Setzo but worse since they could be more likely to be used in war.
My disgruntled opinions of Legend of Korra aside, I really think the major issues with Aang's reign as avatar was that he was told by the monks who he trusted the most that he was the avatar at the age of twelve, as the other avatars (Kyoshi and Roku are the ones I know of) weren't told until they were sixteen, and Gyatsu reflects this by saying that he himself wanted to wait until Aang turned sixteen before telling him he's the avatar.
That was because the war was coming very soon. The Monks knew that Aang needed to train quyickly if they had any chance at stopping the Fire Nation. A bit heavy-handed yes, but they weren’t wrong either.
@@guccifer764 That's still no excuse and they were going about it all wrong, no wonder Aang ran off. They told a literal child the fate of the world is on his shoulders, that literal child was feeling more and more isolated because his friends didn't want him to join in on games because they were already making unfair assumptions about his abilities, and then the adults wanted to separate Aang presumably without telling him.
I'm more bothered by the fact that the monks, who probably knew Aang pretty well, didn't anticipate that he would try to run away or make any attempts to prevent such a thing from happening. But hey, story's gotta story.
@@staticradio724 They didn't know him well.They made these decisions without the input of and against the wishes of the monk who did know him well. It's like at a school. Not every teacher is going to know every child, even if that child has been there for years - but that child's teacher should know him well.
In Legend of Korra, there is a scene where the very first Avatar, on his deathbed, surrounded by ruins of war, realizes that all his life he tried to improve things, tried to bring peace to the world, and yet he failed. The spirit of Raava talks back that it doesn't matter as there will be more opportunities to do this as they are fused together for eternity (more like 10000 years).
Avatar: The Last Airbender is just such a great show. Watching it as a kid I loved it, watching it now I still do. From the music to the animation I love it all. Truly a MASTERPIECE
The biggest issue to me, at least, is that there weren't enough Avatars to deal with everything. No matter how powerful you are, a person can only deal with so many things in their life time
But what if those Avatars started hurting heads? People with vastly different personalities and lives like Aang and Kyoshi likely won’t see eye to eye on how to solve certain issues. And, let’s say there were 4 Avatars alive at the same time, one to tackle each of the 4 duties of the Avatar. What happens when their actions end up affecting the works of the other Avatars? What happens when they reach a disagreement on how to handle something? What if those disagreements turn violent? What will happen to the people who aren’t nearly as strong as them getting caught up in the violence? Even if the Avatars got along well and had a solid plan to account for as many things as possible, the biggest issue they can’t fully account for is humanity. Someone will always be opposed to how the state of things currently is, and that will lead to them pushing for change. Even if that person gets taken out of the picture, someone will take their place, again and again until a revolution is sparked by their desire for change. No matter how many Avatars there are, they can’t make a “perfect” world without stripping away everyone and every being’s will.
In Hinduism, the avatar is the incarnation of a deity in human or animal form to counteract an evil in the world. In mythology, this mainly refers to the avatars of the God Vishnu. However, there were avatars of other deities as well, but in Avatar we only see the avatars of Raava (and one for Vaatu). What if humans discovered a way to permanently fuse with spirits, and then certain humans merged with the primordial spirits of their world (like Tui and La).
@@erenhearthandsherc1481maybe if 4 avatars at the same time come from the same nation e.g if 3 more avatars were with Aang they would have agreed more on things because they understood each other being from the same nation and if one avatar dies they will not reincarnate until the others pass away
i guess aang was the most successful avatar in the sense that he sort of broke the cycle by introducing the least amount of problems. in fact his group had each bending type (zuko fire, katara water, toph earth, sokaa non bender)
Knowing the creators of this series, these failures of the Avatars and how some like Aang and Korra succeed (more so than the others) is definitely intentional and makes for a pretty good moral.
The thing is even if the avatar were a world-stabilising force, it would be an unreliable one as the avatar is mortal. When the avatar dies the world would have to wait for a new avatar to surface. Case in point, it took 16 years for Kyoshi and Roku to even realise they were the avatar, let alone become fully trained. A lot can happen in 16 years, particularly with such a prominent power vacuum.
I was just thinking that while watching this. Even if we had perfect avatars, we don't have perfect non-avatar people. If somebody really wanted to start a war, they could just exploit the time it takes for a new avatar to grow up. Some people in-universe even realized this, as Sozin's plan to destroy the nation where the avatar would be born next, while he was still a child, was essentially a version of the same idea, although he probably intended it to be more permanent. But he was dead anyway by the time that Aang returned, so as far as he knows, his plan worked and he got everything he wanted.
0:13 man this hits hard knowing he will be passing his channel onto the next generation of theorists. We'll miss you matpat ❤ I hope you have a wonderful time away from it all
I think the key to having a good avatar is to have one that has friendships in each of the nations. Like Aang he had friends from every nation and that’s why he was able to create a society that had all 4 nations in mind.
Quick thing I think Mat misunderstood: The choice of Korra keeping the spirit portals open wouldn't make people airbenders, the harmonic convergence happens anyway, which made people airbenders
Actually it was messing with the Harmonic convergence (Avatar vs. Dark Avatar) what altered the balance of the world and gave people the power to Airbend
@stevenle9960 No, they were repopulating. It just would have taken them a century or two to get back up in numbers. So long as they keep having more than two kids.
@@angelr194 No, just Harmonic Convergence existing whether or not Raava and Vaatu were involved that triggered the return of Airbenders. Harmonic Convergence is literally the rebirth of the world, and when that phenomenon occurred, it restarted the cycle by providing the world with new Airbenders.
Catastrophic consequences due to inaction - hence, a failure. Or worse, catastrophic consequences because the Avatar acted based on their own limited knowledge and biases, like creating a secret police. The Avatar's effect is that of an absolute monarch dictating over others, it's dependent only on random chance that we won't get one that is incompetent or insane.
What I believe he is saying is that the avatars need to end, but need to be replaced by a system including more than ONE person. He’s saying it never worked so find a new one, not nothing at all.
@@nicholascharles9625 The point of the video (at least according to the title) is to say that the world would have been better without any avatars to begin with. That is just not true, because if they hadn't existed, all the problems that were caused by them not acting on it, would have played out exactly the same AND the problems that they fixed wouldn't be fixed.
While the Avatar does create problems, many of those problems would have come to pass anyway if the Avatar weren’t there. Sozin wanted to wage a war, and the only thing that could possibly stand in his way was Avatar Roku. Sure, the war started because Roku was indecisive, but if the Avatar didn’t exist, Sozin wouldn’t have had a reason to postpone his plans. Chin was able to take over the earth kingdom due to Kyoshi’s inaction, but it goes to show that no one has the power to stop someone like Chin except for the Avatar, because Chin was unstoppable before she stepped in. Avatar Koruk had next to no interaction with the outside world because of his preoccupation with the spirits, and it led to the nations feuding. Yeah, the Avatar could certainly do better. However, people like Sozin, Chin, Amon, etcetera, will still be around even if the Avatar isn’t, and the nations will still be prone to division. The only difference is that without the Avatar, these conflicts can’t be prevented. Well, in all fairness, maybe they could if people weren’t so dependant on the Avatar, but that’s a whole different can of worms.
I loved the friendship take😂 It makes me realize that Aang having his friends help him is also significant because of their background. Each one of them possesses a different bending style and Sokka is a non bender. As they grow up, they gain high places in their nations and strive to keep the peace. Although it didn’t last much after Aang’s death. I’ve only watched the of series once and nothing else, so I could be missing a lot. Sorry
One unrelated thing that was always in mind whenever Avatar popped up. Aang, if I remember correctly, was said to favor his son with air bending more than the others. Which kinda bugged me. I don’t know how it resolved, but I don’t think Aang was like that. He loved them equally but knew that the air bending son( dong know his name) had more responsibilities on his shoulders, to repopulate the air nomads. Maybe so the Avatar cycle is balanced even after Aang.
@@arjunshah2568 Right like they tried to force a narrative, even tho we all know Aang would treat each of them equally, but due to Tenzin being an airbender, the only airbender besides him. And knowing he's gonna die at some point it makes sense he would have to mainly focus on Tenzin over Kya and Bumi
@lazyxphantomx08 That's the whole point, though. Aang loved them all, but he would spend more time with tenzin because he had to rebuild the air nomad culture but that doesn't mean the kids would be happy about it. Aang is still human and he has limited time, unfortunately he had to dedicate more of his time to one of his children.
The problem doesn't seem to be the idea of the avatar itself, merely that there is FAR too much responsibility forced onto a single person who never even got the choice to be the avatar to begin with
And compounding that, there's no guarantee how old they'll be when a crisis arises. Something that an adult could easily handle peacefully could end poorly if it happens while the avatar is 10 or younger.
@@Elleore I saw, I was only halfway through the video or so and the title seemed to imply differently. My bad, I should have watched the whole thing first
This kind of feels like a miss. Part of the message of Korra is that as the world progresses, the traditional role of the Avatar becomes less relevant and that tying your sense of self to your "destiny" or what other people tell you to be can be self destructive. This feels exactly like what the more minor antagionsts - the mayor especially, put pressure on Korra for, that she isn't saving the world perfectly. I don't think it's wrong for the avatr to exist or the world would have been better without them, It's about everyone doing the best they can can in the moment, and depending on others to shore up their faults and blindspots. It's also up to the people of the world to make the right choices. It's a little insane to think a single person was the cause of the 100 Year World, no matter how influential the fire lord is. Soldiers and people had to go along with it. It's also why being connected to past Avatars is one of the most important (yet underused) powers. They alloe thr Avatar to draw on centuries of knoeledge that no one person could have. That still doesn't make them less human and they are still prone to mistakes though.
Had Roku killed Sozin the war wouldn't have happened especially if he did it when they were younger as he could use his powers to force the Fire nation into stopping their rampage
@@neilstone3583 see we don't know that, maybe the fire Nation would have taken it as an act of aggression that the avatar wanted to intentionally weaken the fire nation in the face of the other nations' growing power of something. There's no telling what would have risen out of the ashes of that act, and I think that's kinda the point. Not acting will not solve any problems, but doing something cannot solve every problem.
I don't know if it's just me but one of the main take aways of ATLA to me is that you can't do things on your own and it's okay to rely on others for help. The Avatar is just an ideal state, where one person has all the powers of all four nations, but it isn't a realistic one. None of the avatars were able to solve everything on their own, which is why you see Aang succeed more often than not in the main series. He recognizes that he needs people to rely on, not to just do it alone, and he has his friends explicitly help and come up with solutions alongside him. The true definition of balance, where one all-powerful doesn't loom over all, but rather takes into consideration all points from all walks of life in making a decision.
Exactly, Aang did use all knowledges and points of views of his friends including in the moments that he had to decide how to fight Ozai and even during his fight with Ozai. It was the movements and knowledge of his friends and of himself that helped him in the fight and I just LOVE how it was Toph move that helped him see Ozai and react and do what he did in the end. It proves how it all, all his friends, training and contacts throught his story were essencial for him. Aang is not One Person Saves All but is indeed All Forces Work Together to Bring Balance, Peace and Order. I just love Avatar Aang story 💛😄💚🌟
And thinking about it, Aang story proves how he need everyone to be his best version and do what he can in his best way. His friends are supporters, masters and helpers for his growth, sanity and humanity and more. All things that he learned with his friends improved him and helped him to be himself and not a version of his friends or of others or of some ideal or role but to be a new version of him that knows more things than any older version of him. His friends make him strong and human. Like, he can be fragile around them and they will hug him and help him, support him like Katara did many times. He doesn't need to be The Avatar around them but be the human Aang that happens to be the avatar. In fact none of them likes the moments when Aang forgets to be himself and tries to be a figure or role named avatar. They value him. They ground him. They all help each other to improve and give mutual support and that's great. They are a great group. I love them.
12:29 When Kyoshi says she doesn't see the difference between killing and taking a life by accident she means that even though it was an accident, she still felt guilty as if it was a murder.
Kyoshi wasn't guilty. She would have killed him herself but he did it himself because he was stubborn. How did you get guilt in that tone. It straight toward and calm to me. Kyoshi doesn't play around.
I think the main point of the scene is to contrast different Avatar's perspectives. Kyoshi is an earth nation Avatar and remains pretty neutral, rational, and objective. The whole neutral gin thing. Whereas Aang is an Air nomad who disconnects with the things that would hold him down, and separates from trauma. Just like how he leaves the temple to run from the burden of being an Avatar. It's a constant theme for Aang that he grows bit by bit through to the very end with his fight with Ozai.
This video is through a very westernized view of balance. We so often associate balance with “winning” and all problems being permanently solved. But even total peace isn’t balance. When every Avatar creates an equal and opposite problem for the next one to fix, that is perfectly balanced. It is the Yin and the Yang. The understanding that neither light nor darkness can exist without the other and both are necessary for a good life. All the Avatars (except probably Korra) did keep balance. I think we in the US in particular have this idea that the heroes are always supposed to win and there is a happily ever after. Which don’t get me wrong, I love that too, I’ve literally been binging Superman and Lois over the weekend. But a lot of other genres, like Cyberpunk for instance , show that even if a hero wins, he will probably lose something equal in the process. Aka, balance.
This is very true, the asian spiritual philosophy that avatar is based on is much more satisfied with neutrality than overwhelming good or overwhelming bad. The cycle of good and bad and the inevitability of suffering are a very different lens than “winning over evil”
Exactly! This is what old Toph was alluding to in LOK when she told Korra to "get over herself". Just like Toph's experience as chief of police, "the names change but the streets stay the same...."
And there are always forces countering the balance the avatar brings. It’s not like a balance is achieved and everyone is just okay with it. The world is ever evolving
Two sides of the same coin: starts with a mess caused by the previous Avatar's events. ___ Their solution works (or at least is positive in some way) for the rest of their time, unknowingly (or knowingly) causing a problem for the next Avatar. In short; Yin and Yang or at least I feel like it follows that somewhat loosely.
Not sure Wheter it's something I want to base my system of governance on. But on the other hand, tough times are bound to happen. Be it by natural progression or bad decisions bad stuff will happen eventually. So why stress about it? Just say its 'balanced'
Pretty sure the song Surface Pressure from Encanto applies to basically all of the Avatars. They were all just people doing their best, though no amount of good they managed in their entire lives could ever keep up with the constant demands of their entire world. In the end, they're just one person. Aang being the only real exception due to the many friendships and relationships he had forged along his journey, and even he left his own messes behind.
Korra as well actually, she also had people whom she could trust just like Aang did, but I do agree tho, having one person take on this heavy of a responsibility is just too much
@@WAVE0025 But if not them, then who will？Its difficult, yes, but I think this world still needs a savior. Or at least, an alliance headed by an Avatar to regulate peace throughout the world.
The avatar is keeping balance. Sure, they can’t do everything but Kyoshi saved everybody on her island and took down Chin the Conqueror, Aang saved the whole entire world from the fire nation etc. It’s obvious that some avatars fail but it’s better to have the avatar than not to. Korra also didn’t completely fail in harmonic convergence. She brought back the Airbenders!
But honestly, Kyoshi could've done better than that. Like come on, only saved everyone on her island while her actual duty is to save the ENTIRE world? Disgustingly selfish..
@@Bijoyoo Wasn't the issue that Qin himself was the one leading his conquest? I didn't read the comics so idk if they (Qin's army) continued conquesting on after Qin died, but would've letting him die "save the world". Again, this is based on what I know about Kyoshi from just the ATLA show.
In fairness, Korra was also an impulsive teenager. According to what little I know, the avatar's identity doesn't get revealed to the avatar themselves until they are 16(I'm guessing to let them have at least a somewhat normal childhood. Give or take certain circumstances like Kyoshi who's childhood sucked) Both Aang and Korra didn't fully get that, though they were for very understandable reasons. Aang because of a massive war and him overhearing the elder monks and Korra because...of the red lotus from what I gather. Though I don't think she knew it or realized it, her life was in danger her entire life.
@@nemowindsor8724 yeah, but she didn't have a normal childhood. She was raised and traimed in isolation bc The Red Lotus tried to kidnapped her when it was announced a new avatar was found. She quite literally has to learn how to become human and spiritual bc her entire 16 years of life she was only the avatar.
with the excuse of Korra being an “impulsive teen” during the LOK, the same rule has to apply for Aang. with that logic, Aang should have never ended the war and defeated Ozai, because he’s just a crybaby kid. Aang was proof that determination trumps all, and Korra was just aggressive and arrogant
@legitnesssparklebutt8836 yeah but considering how she was brought up as the avatar it's not really a surprise that she ended up that way. I mean, yeah she clearly had a fiery personality from the start even as a little kid. Tie that with the fact that she has the fact that she's this super important person shoved down her throat her whole life and also simply having a natural talent for bending(minus air of course) kinda makes for a concotuon of her definitely becoming arrogant. Sure, she'd probably still be somewhat overconfident and violent even if she didn't know that she was the avatar until later in her life, but I personally feel like her arrogance comes from unintentionally being placed on a pedestal as the avatar since she was 3. But I understand that for her, there was no way she wouldn't have known she was the avatar since she unlocked her bending abilities at such a young age. I guess it just bugs me that people hate on Korra so much by comparing her to Aang. Like, I get it, Aang is a fantastic character in almost every way. I love him! But because Korra is literally nothing like him, people trash on her for being her own different character.
I know friendship gets mocked for being a kiddie solution for tv shows but it really could resolve real world problems. Like if there was genuine sincere friendship between different authorities across the world, you’d have all authorities caring about their friends’ nations and therefore do their best to make decisions for all nations to flourish. It would be super difficult still managing the resources of the world though and there would always be threats of selfishness and corruption to abuse the international friendships. And working through conflict as friends would also be difficult.
friendship is a force for good but isnt necessarily a good thing. look at all the friendships putin has maintained. the average person wouldnt consider putin to be a good person, therefore his friendships are a means to control and manipulate on the world stage more than they are tempering and unifying.
In defense of Kyoshi...her trauma is more prominent than stated: for 16 years the avatar was thought to be someone else, Yun, who she was a handmaid to. His main master Jianzhu was power hungry and on figuring out Kyoshi was the Avatar sent Yun into the hands of an evil spirit which in turn caused Yun to be a villain, Jianzhu also killed Kyoshi's adoptive father. Yun killed Jianzhu in a teahouse while he was speaking to Kyoshi, and then Kyoshi was forced to end his life later on. Also, she has difficulty doing specific bending skills a) because her power was naturally more huge with little finesse and b) because her hands are scarred from being zapped by the only lightning bender at the time. Furthermore, she lived for 230 odd years...we've seen so little of those years. At the point she confronted Chin, she had likely said goodbye to Rangi, her first girlfriend, then later on her child and that child's father. I can't imagine how jaded you must be after all that 😅
Yeah, the sheer length of her lifetime is absurd. So far as the timing of her fight with Chin (also the peasant revolt and subsequent creation of the dai li, which was essentially contemporaneous to Chin) she was in her 40s, but at this point we essentially know nothing about her life for around 20 years prior nor for the most part after.
The first Avatar said it and Rava consoled him with the truth. He stated he failed and she said they would always be together to try again. The world is full of conflict, but I think things would be much worse without the Avatar. Look how ppl lived before Wong. Look what Sozin accomplished with Aang missing ☹️ An Avatar’s duty is NEVER done. That means more content 😄
I don’t think the creators of Avatar overlooked these issues. I noticed them while the first show was still running. These issues, and the issues clearly caused by previous avatars that were explained in convenient JUST enough detail to understand how the solution affected the next avatar, seemed more intentional than coincidental. For example, Kyoshi focusing only on her home while at the same time fully acknowledging a near-complete domination of the Earth kingdom…was laid out for Aang for us to watch. Aang did not summarize this for us, he did not have these stories told off screen. Avatars are human and cooperation is an essential element of humanity. At least that was the feel I got.
I wanna see an Evil Avatar. It'd allow us to view a whole new experience and put more emphasis on the "Balance" that the Avatars are responsible for maintaining in the world. After all, just because the Avatar is responsible for maintaining balance doesn't necessarily mean they're a good person. That's just my opinion though, let me know your thoughts on this too, if you have any.
To be an “evil” avatar there’d kinda have to be a way to measure someone’s goodness, right? Everybody’s the hero from their perspective. Like he talked about in this video, a bunch of the avatars did some pretty sketchy stuff but there’s not really an objective way to say they’re the evil avatar
@@rubyraptor right like the fire Lord was evil to us but the fire nation viewed his good to evil meter way differently from all the other tribes of course
I honestly just want to see an evil avatar who literally doesn’t do anything and watches people suffer. Like, it wasn’t their choice to be an avatar, even if their nation was in the cycle, still that doesn’t mean they SHOULD take up the responsibility to maintain balance in the 4 nations. They are just humans with greater power than others, I want to see one that is free from these kind of responsibilities and is free to do as they will, and not devote their entire lives to saving others. But I feel like the story would be a bit… bland?? Not interesting and engaging enough since there won’t be enough content for that.
@@justsomeonewithdifferentop7101 That's just Kuruk. He spent his life faffing about and was only in the spirit world to get revenge on Ko, who stole his lover's face. There's still plenty that could be done with that, but it wouldn't be an Avatar being very Avatar-y.
I feel like a lot of the problems with the Avatar cycle could be minimized if it were for two things One, is the Avatar knowing about the mistakes of the ones that came before them, when the avatar reincarnates, they are completely oblivious to the whole Avatar scheme until someone teaches them, or they learn on their own, this means that most of the time they won't even know which mistakes the previous avatars committed until speaking with them personally or... reading a history book in some cases. Aang avoids committing countless mistakes during his time because of the wisdom he gets not only from the friends he meets, but mostly from the previous Avatars as well. And Two, there being at least some sort of punishment or signal for Avatars that are right on their way to "failing" one of their goals, without that, they aren't really "directed" towards solving issues in the right, morally correct and fail-proof way possible and are prone to make and repeat the same mistakes countless times across reincarnations, if they do, they will just continue to live on doing it, sometimes even believing they served their purpose. But hey, that's just a theory.
I think you are correct, the main issues for each avatar seem to stem out of the fact that their goals were taken up alone. The key issue is that if the avatar has a goallets say maintain peace with the spirirts, if they take the role on alone and die. Well then their goal is not met and no one else will take up the effort to complete the goal. However if the avatar recruits a group of very spiritual people that can communicate with spirirts, then even if the avatar dies, the people in that group can carry on which would lengthen the ammount of peace that may last. That is very important in conjunction with your first point being the Avatars just not being fully aware of the issues their past lives left, this is not to say they had absolutely no information on their past life. It is just that most of the time it feels like the Avatars are not as well informed as they should be. Korra is one specific case of where things start to feel like her knowledge of the world is really darn small. She was basically homeschooled in all disclipines of elements aside from air, but does not seem to understand literally anything about the cultures and peoples aside from bending. But yeah second point could also work in conjunction with allies/friends. By having friends to assist on these goals, the avatar will be able to make quicker decisions when things are going south as they will be more informed. This together is actually why I think the council that Aang makes is interesting as it would actually address most of these issues, unforunately other issues did arise still though around the council itself.
I am surprised that Sokka didn't try to do more for the nonbenders after the main series and during the creation of Republic City. I feel that because he was a nonbender, he would be able to relate to their plight more than any of team avatar. We may get more information when the movie about them as adults releases, but that is where I stand right now.
I always felt like “non benders as some kind of underclass” is naturally just something that sprang up in Korra time. In Aang’s time people were obviously more likely to identify themselves by what nation they belonged too. It doesn’t matter if you can bend or not. You’re in the water tribe, and in the water tribe, we hate the fire nation. But if you live in Republic City where all kinds of benders live, it isn’t about what nation you are from anymore, because nobody is from any of them. Now it is about whether you are a bender or not. And that’s how the Equalists become a thing
The avatar should have some kind of team of friends from other nations to help keep them balanced and guide them. So far we don't really know if the past Avatars had many friends. And Roku had a bad friend.
If all the other nations said no thanks, for whatever reason, Sozin could've instead wanted to buy land from the Earth Kingdom, or pay Earth benders to help make more islands. Sozin also would've accepted those who wanted to join the Fire nation. All we know is, Roku saw an occupied Earth city. Did Sozin invade or just buy the city?
We know roku had a crew of people who helped train him, kyoshi had the flying opera and rangi, Kuruk had his gang they talked about in the kyoshi books, and Yangchen had kavik
Actually, we do know the other Avatars had companions from the novels. In the most recent one, it's even explained that the Avatar's companions are so legendary that Yangchen even tries to use it as bargaining chip at one point. Of course, this can also backfire, as one of Kuruk's companions, Jianzhu, uses his status after Kuruk's premature death to start amassing political power, and ends up becoming a Long Feng type character, where he's almost the de facto ruler of the Earth Kingdom and a major antagonist for Kyoshi.
Iroh said the point of the show and the avatar a long time ago… ultimately the avatars job is to get perspective and share it. You don’t fix the worlds problems by showing up being Superman, saving everyone, giving your solution… you fix it by giving others the insights you have gained. In essence the avatar is to show up, be a reality check and guide others. Everyone thinks Korra was a bad avatar, especially because she “lost the avatar state”… but to me she understood the assignment the most. Ultimately she dealt with a lot of problems successfully not by fighting, but by getting or giving perspective. This idea really coming to light when she meets iroh, the spirit baby bird and all the dark spirits in the spirit world. Ultimately Korra rarely averted things and just helped people learn to cope with the reality. I mean that’s really all the avatar can and is expected to do… you’re not going to personally stop generations of inherited BS by facing it head on alone. You do it by building bonds and understanding and connecting with the world as it is not as you wish it to be. In my eyes Korra just understood this better than anyone as her story progressed. The avatars failures were consistently and fundamentally a lack of acceptance… of the world (and the state of it), of themselves… and Korra was no different. Her very identity was the avatar. But she ultimately learned, you know what, youre still human, even you need perspective or understanding. Drop the ego and see you/the world for what it is. That you are it and it is you. If the avatar is of these worlds and the worlds are broken… then ask…what is it I need when I am broken. And by connecting herself as Korra, as the avatar to the people and the world she was in, she was finally able to stop trying to be the hero above the people trying to prevent the metaphorical dam from breaking and instead be the wiseman, teaching the people the reality and how to swim. That’s all the avatar was ever meant to be. A reflection to heal the world, not save it. Not understanding this has been the avatars folly.
The avatar system was unstable and Aang was the only successful one. His friend group truly united all people. Sokka is a non bender, Katara is a water bender, Zuko is a fire bender and Toph is an earth bender
Great take, the Avatar can be a source of peace or destruction but in the end it always serves as a mirror for humanity to reflect back on. Aang correctly chose to experience the lives of each nation first hand, everything he learnt and all the bonds he formed were the key to end the war.
The problem with Avatar Kuruk is that for the world not to get destroyed by spirits he had to help them because Yangchen tended only to the matters of humans.
A sequel where the avatar reincarnates as four people, one for each nation, with all of them having control over the four elements, would be pretty interesting. Having a "council of avatars" instead of just the one person and all the different conflicts and solutions that would arise from it... which is kinda what Aang pulled off now that I think of it
That's kinda not possible? Since they would need four spirits that don't exist, if i remember correctly? But yeah, that concept would be amazing. Multiple aspects to consider, probably most of them wouldn't be of the same age, thus the orders would think to take the lead. Also, the second and maybe third to come would be see as frauds at first, and how that would be delt with.
@@3bodYking99 I mean, ever since LoK's Raava nonsense, anything is possible. Past lives? Nah, just memories imprinted on Raava. Bending taught by the original bending spirits? Nah, just Raava doing her thing after bonding with the first Avatar. I mean, the odds are very slim, but there is a non-0% chance Nickelodeon goes "What if there were FOUR Avatars?" and do something like "It turns out that when Raava was ripped out of Korra's body, she was fractured into four pieces, which each bonded to a different bender!" and make four Avatars happen anyway.
@@christianrose9166 well reincarnation works differently in the east anyway (to my knowledge and understanding. I very well could be wrong). Instead of the same soul passing through multiple bodies it's the spark of life that gives life to multiple souls through time. That's why Avatars can talk to past Avatars; because they're different people powered by the same life force.
When they announced that they will be making the next Earth Avatar series in 2025, I was wondering how far into the future it could take place. I can imagine Korra possibly living to their version of our modern day, so that would be cool to see what that would look like.
I only hope they don't go woke or kust focus too much on teen drama and romance or suff like that i can already see many problem's with a modern day like avatar story
I think the ‘failures’ of avatars is a philosophical point about human life. Each generation tries its best, and accomplishes so much, but the butterfly effects of their failures will have to be dealt with by their descendants.
Yes, a HUMAN having to play god over other humans..and we know how humanity is. There will be flaws and rebellion no matter what. Not everyone will be happy with something in order. And every avatar was a different person with different beliefs and priorities within themselves. This whole video just really highlights it.
It's kind of a reflection on the legal system and how it law has its consequences 🤔
I think the "failures" aren't failures, at least as presented.
Life is always at flux. It's not the job of the Avatar to stop life from happening. The Avatar is a power of good that applies themself to where they are needed the most - whether it's with upset spirits or power-hungry humans.
How is the Avatar supposed to ensure no human will ever again attempt to gain power? By lobotomizing every human?
No, they work to stop that individual, but that means they have already "failed" because what happened, happened already, and there's now a war going on.
I agree. And yea, they made mistakes, but if they weren't there, would it really be that much better? It's hard to say. You can't really say that it's a bad cycle when this might be the better timeline compared to one without an Avatar
Words of wisdom right here.
I like how Matpat pointed out Aang's trust in friends as a key factor to being successful in his Avatar duties because it was a lack a trust that screwed over a previous Avatar. I mean MatPat talked a lot about how Kururk was too busy dealing with angry spirits to handle the affairs of the material world, but he failed to mention that Kuruk never told anyone what he was doing. To the rest of the world, even his closest friends, Kururk was just an super-powered party boy just doing the bare minimum of his Avatar duty with no idea that he been protecting the world from angry Lovecraftian entities. If he trusted his friends and fill them in on his turmoils, Kuruk may had been not only be able to figure out a better with dealing with the Dark Spirits (beside just killing them), but could have been able to make time to deal with the problems of the material world; and maybe his friends would in turn be better prepared to handle things forwards after Kuruk's death.
Agreed!
You passed your 3rd grade fsa 😎
@Lady Tsunade 动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪大法 大法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 大紀元時報 九評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Winnie the Pooh 劉曉波动态网自由门
And it sucks a spirit killed his wife too
@@notanguished SCREW THE CHINESE SCAMMER'S WIFI LFGGGGGGGGGG
As you touched on with Kyoshi a really important factor with Avatars is how theyre raised too. For example, Korra's biggest flaw throughout her series is her stubbornness and pride. This can easily be traced back to the fact that she discovered that she was the avatar way too young and was subsequently isolated a lot her life while she was trained. As a result while growing up she built her whole identity around being the Avatar and how great/important she is.
Indeed, and that makes her unfit to deal with the problems she was facing during the entirety of LoK. How are you supposed to solve the Equalists problems? How does she even know that converging the spirits to human worlds would bring this much chaos? How would she handle with the fact that the existence of avatars, and subsequently her entire identity is the reason why the world is imbalanced and how was she supposed to handle Kuvira when she can't even handle her internal demons?
Avatars are humans too. Even with the power of a god. They cannot solve everything.
Which is why I find LOK to be brilliant and albeit not on par. Is close to AtLA. And before people say AtLA is superior to LOK. Keep in mind that AtLA is so good that comparing it to the likes of Breaking Bad is blasphemy. Because AtLA is THAT GOOD.
To be fair, she grew up in an isolated village learning about how Aang and his predecessors saved the world. About how the Avatar is the key to everything. Aang *wanted* Korra to be fed this information.
Then when Korra enters the real world, the world has already moved on. The Avatar isn’t really needed as much because technology has compensated for a lot of what the Avatar does.
Korra talks about how she’s the Avatar a lot because she’s compensating for her role being lost.
@@zurielschubert9410 No doubt almost all Korra's failures are a result of her being way too young for the job. It does not help that she is only one human even more so than some other Avatar. She was unable to contact her past lives for much needed advice for quite some time. Shortly after gaining this ability, she lost it.
Now Aang was young too, younger, and it's worth noting that if he wasn't then maybe the whole 100 years lost thing wasn't necessary, but he was at least mature for his age and able to contact past Avatars for advice.
@@craigyeah1052 because he's a monk. Not just any monk, a prodigy and he trained under a wise and lighthearted Monk Gyatso. He's wise because that's the culture and tradition of being an Air Nomad.
Korra is the closest thing we had to a modern Avatar. And what makes it worst is by giving her everything she needs to become a good avatar physically. The first friends she made in her entire life was with Kai and Bolin. She was trained in her homelands as she is under the wings of the greatest benders at their time. So she doesn't explore much.
@@zurielschubert9410I completely agree with you. Korra had to deal with so much and most of it she did it alone in a way no other avatar before her was.
She never had a clear road to follow and forced to make many impossible decisions. How would she have known that leaving open the spirit portal would create the world’s deadliest air bender?
How would she have known that Kuvira would become a militant dictator while she recovered from almost dying due to mercury poisoning?
All this while being a teenager and young adult in season 4, for someone who wasn’t allowed to have a childhood and have friends until she ran away.
“But when UA-cam needed him most he vanished” hits different now 😭😭😭
I came here for to say this.
Same :(
Yep
:(
I'm gonna cry!
Mattpatt hit the nail on the head when he talks about how Aangs success as the Avatar was because of his friends. Each of his friends became highly respected international leaders and the most powerful Benders in the world. The Best example of this is Zuko when Aang died Zuko retired from being Firelord and began traveling the world playing the same role as the Avatar solving political problems all around the world, defeating warlords, and stopping the Red Lotus.
That's true for a lot of Avatars, it's a known thing that Avatar companions become some of the most powerful people of that time along with the Avatar. I know from the books that Kyoshi and Kuruk at least had extremely capable companions that helped them out. Yangchen probably had the least aid from what we saw but even she would've been screwed without help
Each of his friends became highly respected international leaders and the most powerful benders in the world
False. Sokka was aangs friend, but was not a bender
Yes, I like to nitpick
Befriending world leaders / having friends to monopolise the thrones would be the right choice no?
In a way, the same thing can be said about Korra's success as the Avatar as well. Given how like with Aangs friends, her friends also showed the same type of determination to stand by her whenever she needed it the most.
@@edwardaucay8597 and we clearly know how roku had bad history about friendship💀💀 that was the cause of a 100 year war lmao
Aang succeeded the most in his case because his main circle of allies all represented important factors of the world. He was the last Airbender. Katara was the last Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. Toph was an Earthbending prodigy. Zuko was the crown prince of the Fire Nation who eventually turned away from his tyrannical father. And finally, we have Sokka and Suki. Non-benders who, despite being out of their depths, manage to bring skills and brains to the table, allowing them to contribute just as much as all the others. Aang's team managed to include all four nations, along with non-benders, all working together to stop the big bad that is Fire Lord Ozai. He might not have managed to bring perfect harmony, but he did accomplish a great feat which did bring prosperity. Not everlasting, but at the very least, a way better place than it was when the journey began.
Also you can see that avatars' success hugely depends on his upbrining conditions. The mentorship of airbending monks allowed Aang to reveal his potential in his early years and become wise beyond his age. But also the attitude of his contemporaries alongside with the monks overseeing his individual problems led to Aangs' emotional breakdown and to his flight from the temple.
The air nomads were also notable for traveling around the world constantly (hence the name), and that had allowed Aang to create bonds around different countries, which helped him even a century later (acquaintance and old friendship with king Bumi, knowledge of the fire nation traditions, etcetera). So, you can say that even without 100 year ice imprisonement and war Aang would still be able to create strong bonds with various people and become a great avatar. And monk spiritual training is also essential to avatar. So I would suggest entrusting every avatar to the air nomads first as soon as his/hers identity is revealed.
It contrasts a lot with Roku's training, who was probably living for many year in separate areas. Also I think that 20-30 year period, while the young avatar is growing/learning, creates a big power vacuum, which is very bad for the whole idea of maitaining balance in the world.
Reading your comment felt like a speech on why we should have allies or at least see it through the lens of others cuz the different things they experienced and what they can bring to make not only you but the world whole
In Aang’s defense, his life as an avatar was rebuilding the world since the 100 year war finally ended, a war he stopped. And he did do _some_ dabbling in the spirit world, but we never really see a problem with the spirit world during Aang’s time as avatar except a few outliers like the undead panda
Wath the Avatar need to do is to;
Teach all nations how to teach how to create spiritual connections by meditation for them to discover the unmaterial world before the death time
And to put them to work togeder having care by a full of fruits and veggies and plants for a full "year" by seeding, growing and not the last cooking a meal at the end with the nectar from the fruits;
Only the morons would not apreciate the peace; IT is sufficient fur evwrybody and IT always was and IT will Be;
You only eat with one mouth, so do your parents, your kids, your grandkinds, but also IT is the same for your neightbor, your friend, your teacher, the firefighter, the priest, the homeless, the CEO, the baseball player, the soccer player, the medics, sooo on;
You can Be the humanity saviors, but IT starts with stop focusing on distractions crated by so called ekites or news, re conquer your mind and your self; I am out
I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all model 🤔 We'll have to see what the next Avatar brings 🤞
@@cyrileo I can't wait to see the challenges the new Earth Avatar has to deal with.
After the series ends, aang actually does quite a bit in the spirit world
That intro hits different after his announced retirement
fr, maybe he will return after 100 years? 🫠
maybe he is the last style theory bender@@andyseasOandyplay017
fr
So true
Fr
In Escape from the Spirit World, Yangchen explains to Aang the reason why the Avatar is human is because if the avatar is to keep the peace between nations and protect mankind, he/she must experience human emotions and turmoil to understand what it means to be human and why, in spite of all their failures and mistakes, humanity is still worth saving. And it makes sense given that the spirits, being more detached from the physical world, look down on human struggles and affairs, and choose to remove themselves from such conflicts.
Yeah for an Eastern based show, the avatar is very similar to Jesus in that way.
exactly, this is why i found this theory quite one sided xD.
@@jacobmisal470 well minus the amount if times they failed.
@Snarfing Some Avatar humans were also said to have messed up horrendously, and neglect how humanity was worth saving. Nobody wins in any system over time, as shown with this theory
@@sefewet that doesnt change that the avatar system barely works, if you can call that work
I think It's good to note that the avatar is still a human, they will make mistakes. I can't even imagine the amount of pressure that they feel being basically the most important human on their planet.
One could say that was the main point of The Legend Of Korra (along with the unconfortable but necessary aesop "In the right circunstances, good causes can and will be highjacked by bad actors")
One nation can basically kidnap and reprogramm avatar to conquer the world
But that’s the problem. Why should one human have all that power?
Yangchen even made a point about how that was an important component to the avatar.
which makes for a _divine premise._ great power with great responsibility, being under the immense weight of expectations...chosen ones are a classic trope for a reason
We need the 4th channel this year to unlock MatPats full potential
Isn’t the fourth channel gtlive
@@childsworstnightmare8131 no
It's coming this month I'm pretty sure actually
Anime Theory or Music Theory will be perfect
i think the 4th channel is the air theorist
"When youtube needed him the most he vanished"
Ironic....
😢
Indeed T_T
coulda used irohnic
💀
But everything changed when the film theory attacked
I think it's essential for us to remember that the Avatar, despite being the vessel for a powerful spirit, is still human and prone to making human mistakes. Roku not killing Sozin when he started showing signs of genocidal imperialism was a mistake, but you can still sympathize with his decision because they were childhood friends and he still loved him like a brother. I can't imagine how stressful it must be to have a major say in every decision that could change the world.
Which only supports the theory that they shouldn't have that responsibility put upon them in the first place. Humans can't handle the role and responsibility of a god
@@lilithium3940 so true, so true. Even the Avatar with the best foresight might not be able to see far enough down the road to see the impact of their decisions.
@@lilithium3940absolutely true, it’s brought up in the last airbender that aang can’t finish his training and unlock the complete avatar state because of his monk ties, as an airbender he’s supposed to let go of his earthly needs but as the avatar he needs to care for the earth and protect it
@@lilithium3940 But the Avatars do end up stopping many wars and also if you don't give power to the avatar, people like sozin and qing just become stronger. Even with no avatar we would still end up with horrible dictators.
hello everybody what are your opinions on eggdog?
I think he sort of missed the fact that almost every avatar we see had a group of friends helping them Aang and Korra werent special cases, Kyoshi, Yangchen, Roku, & Kuruk all had great friends who helped them with their avatar duties, Even wan's spirit friends helped him bring peace
oh yea
There is a theory going around that each avatar’s greatest regrets are corrected in the next avatar (eg. korok regretted his short life so kyoshi ended up over 200 years old when she died and aang regretted taking so long to master elements other than air so korra learned them very quickly)
pretty Shore aangs greatest regret was running away and not being there when the air nomad genocide took place, and korra helped rebuilding the air nomads
Aang's biggest regret was that he ran away from being the Avatar, Korra wanted nothing more than to be the Avatar the moment she knew she was.
Pretty sure Aang was the youngest avatar to master all 4 elements.
@@AdamCharron he didn't master them when he was a child though, he only learned them. He relied on the Avatar state to defeat Ozai in the end, which even then he struggled grasping.
@tjm2218 huh I'm not rly sure, but it could be. Most people I've heard though say that he hadn't mastered it yet, he had only learned them.
This intro hits different post retirement
Fr 😭
Fr.
It must also be stated that Avatar Kuruk had to focus on the spirit world BECAUSE the avatar before him, Yangchen, neglected her duties to the spirits in her lifetime. It got so bad that Kuruk had to single-handedly stop an invading spirit army from invading the humans. Since there's also no open communication between the two worlds (other than the Avatar themselves), his victory with the spirits went unpublished to the human world with only his absence being noted. He died binging balance but was remembered for being "lazy" and MIA.
Of course, all this just perpetuates the cycle of current Avatars having to clean up on the messes of the previous.
I always liked that fact about the Avatar franchise. Keeping the world in balance is an impossible task, as long as there are humans, there will be conflicts. And no amount of godly power will allow a single individual to fix the entire world's problem, no matter how wise they are. The best each Avatar can do, is deal with it in the way they find suitable, and hope their successor will have an easier time.
Same here, I like how it addresses the fact that no matter how powerful someone is or how amazing their friends are or how great the world is, there will always be conflict and balance is only possible in a virtual sense that yes, balance exists but true balance cannot be achieved
@drunkasaur Obvious bait is obvious.
@drunkasaur I wouldn’t say it’s nonsense because there’s conflict as a result of a broken system. I mean conflict is one of the most important parts of a story.
I’d argue that having characters trying to resolve an inherently conflicted world is a pretty good premise for a story.. and pretty good writing too.
Exactly. People are people. I mean if Jesus couldn't do it
@@Newt2799 Like it's the other way around: conflict must be created for a story, so the Avatar will always have more problems to solve than he/she can handle.
Fun thing, while yes the avatar can weild all 4 elements, people can learn from each one. Iroh became one of the strongest benders because he could wait for the right moment like an earth bender and could use an opponents power against them like a water bender. If you watch zuko fighting azula a few of his moves aren't fire bending, their bending styles like earth and water.
Avatar iroh fanfic needs to be a thing
"It is important to take wisdom from different places. If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale." That's my favorite Iroh quote
Forgot about how Iroh taught Zuko air bending technique too. The breathing he was telling zuko about at the north pole invasion is an Airbending technique that you can see Anng uses constantly. Notice how no matter the temperature Anng wears the EXACT same outfit (until book 3) even in the north pole. He's not bothered because he bends the air constantly to keep himself warm. Zuko proves this isn't common among fire bender in the boiling rock when any other fire bender put in the cooler can't bend, but he can and does to keep warm.
Red Lotus propaganda
I know right
@@edythebeast7087 .
laughing hard asf at this
I agree with there views on the avatar
Did Zaheer create this Video theory?
When you talk about Kyoshi at 11:40. The books also state that she isn't vengeful like you make her appear. She has a very rigid sense of justice. If she was vengeful, she would've killed Fire Lord Zoryu at the end of _Shadow of Kyoshi,_ not simply threatened him. Though, the person who she sent with the threat thought he should've been killed.
But Matt, your point is kind of made in universe. Multiple people, even Korra herself, say that the avatar isn't necessary anymore. That it's an old ceremonial position at this point.
@goofyyahyou are one
@goofyyah Yeah Im totally gonna click your link ._.
Pretty sure Avatar Roku emphasized the importance of friendship, even implying that the avatar's companions also reincarnate to help them out. Also, I'm not entirely sure Aang would act "decisively" if Sokka one day told him that the southern water tribe was planning on "expanding."
I mean... Roku did stop Sozin. When he discovered the first colony he confronted Sozin and after he "indecisively" let Sozin live, Sozin stopped. The colony was gone, there was no conflict, no war, nothing until after Roku died. The Fire Nation was still on good terms with the world until the comet arrived and Sozin used it to start the war.
na. he'd get his sister to smack sense into em
Maybe that's why Sokka isn't in LOK 👀
@@DrTimes99 while your argument is sound, there is a huge hole in it: Sozin literally just waited for Roku to be gone to enact his plans. Roku failed to stop him, he just delayed it, and that delay wasn't even that negative impactful; the delay only strengthened the fire nation's army, navy, and air force. The comet was just icing on the cake by that time.
@@itlogmanok6046 is that on Roku or the inherent limitations of the Avatar cycle? Sozin & the Fire Nation are based on Imperial Japan's Meji Restoration period; their colonialism wasn't the fanaticism of one man, it was a much broader socio-economic movement. Say Roku does "end" Sozin after the first colony; either he'll need to full genocide-run the ruling elite of his own nation or Sozin's successor just waits out Roku's death to do exactly what Sozin did.
Right, it's the whole "chosen one" issue. The idea that only one person can fix everything despite how unrealistic that is. As you also pointed out it's why Aang is one of the most successful ones due to him realizing how important his relationships were. Not just with his close friends and colleagues, but with EVERYONE he helps along the way. This kind of thing can be applied to so many other characters throughout fiction. It's why it makes sense that Batman recruits other people to help him or why Harry Potter's trust in his friends helps him out so much. No matter how much power you wield, you are but one person and will need help even if just occasionally.
The other thing is … can we really say the Avatar is a chosen one after knowing the origins of Avatar Wan? Wan was not selected to have his power or position. Wan broke the world by stealing freeing Vaatu and what we call the Avatar is the entirely accidental union of Wan/Raava on an eternal quest to redeem Wan’s mistake
@@TheJadedJames honestly being an avatar reminds me of how link and zelda is forever destined to be bounded to the triforce and demise. So yeah i can say they are consider “chosen” ones in a way.
With the avatar needing to so many things to keep the balance while cleaning up the mess the last avatar left is honestly stressful. What is interesting though is how can Aang and Korea do so much with the friends they have but even with the friendship the other avatars had stuff still got messy
Also that "Chosen One" mindset the people of the World of Avatar have can be pretty detrimental. One of the reasons that the world is disarray in Kyoshi's era was due to the fact that it took so long find the next Avatar that some people lost hope and some people thought "this is my time to take control"
If you have to say "As you pointed out...", then it really doesn't need to be said. While the point is evident, and I do agree with it, it's already been said.
That’s why I really enjoyed moments where Tinzin, Korra’s spiritual mentor (because she’d mastered all elements by the end of season 1) told her that the rest of them can handle other problems while she’d delt with a primary threat. Almost all the Avatars before Aang had thought the task of protecting the world and keeping order fell to them alone. But, by journeying across the world, meeting new people and making life-long friends, he’d gained different perspectives, as Iroh had once said, and with their help, created a new form of unified government to keep all kingdoms in check. Though Korra may have done poorly in her duties as Avatar, to be fair, she’d had to deal with so much in such a short time, during a revolutionary time of change for the world. Despite the fact she’d brought the Spirt world and physical world back to unity, there is still the lingering question: could there still be a future in which bending and the old ways are simply forgotten to time? Not even the Avatar can control time, cultures, and ideas.
0:14 I still miss MatPat 😢
“When UA-cam needed him most. He vanished” we needed his help for the gravity falls situation
And. Eye
how has ur existed for nine years and still no subs
12:30
She's not _unbothered_ by taking a life, she recognizes a very specific maxim: when you have the ability and opportunity to prevent a death and you don't, that death is on your hands.
Like how Roku's refusal to be decisive with Sozin led to the war, which meant the death of an entire culture was more or less on his hands.
Kyoshi is taking responsibility for her part in Chin's death.
Why take responsibility? Mf really just subjucated the entire continent he deserves to die in a much more gruesome death🤣
Wath the Avatar need to do is to;
Teach all nations how to teach how to create spiritual connections by meditation for them to discover the unmaterial world before the death time
And to put them to work togeder having care by a full of fruits and veggies and plants for a full "year" by seeding, growing and not the last cooking a meal at the end with the nectar from the fruits;
Only the morons would not apreciate the peace; IT is sufficient fur evwrybody and IT always was and IT will Be;
You only eat with one mouth, so do your parents, your kids, your grandkinds, but also IT is the same for your neightbor, your friend, your teacher, the firefighter, the priest, the homeless, the CEO, the baseball player, the soccer player, the medics, sooo on;
You can Be the humanity saviors, but IT starts with stop focusing on distractions crated by so called ekites or news, re conquer your mind and your self; I am out
Yeah i don't like how he changed shyoki story to fit his theory...
@@bruced.1537 especially with the flash game dialog literally disproving his points, kiyoshi didn't hate the people rebelling, she was upset at how it was being done, she valued the cultural history of the earth nation, and also along with that, they were also destroying the city as well.
Sooo, in essence, the show successfully showcased how bad things can go in a realistic manner instead of dealing with problems like "because they got solved, deal with it"
I mean, thousands of years and to this day we don't have an answer for every problem, and we don't even have powers. It makes sense that all Avatars are actually not perfect beings, but humans that carry a mission that's, in all honesty, impossible, yet they do what they feel is the best. Kinda insane how realistic it is.
really shows how much everyone involved in the avatar universe are really passionate about making it one of the best fictional universes out there
Wath the Avatar need to do is to;
Teach all nations how to teach how to create spiritual connections by meditation for them to discover the unmaterial world before the death time
And to put them to work togeder having care by a full of fruits and veggies and plants for a full "year" by seeding, growing and not the last cooking a meal at the end with the nectar from the fruits;
Only the morons would not apreciate the peace; IT is sufficient fur evwrybody and IT always was and IT will Be;
You only eat with one mouth, so do your parents, your kids, your grandkinds, but also IT is the same for your neightbor, your friend, your teacher, the firefighter, the priest, the homeless, the CEO, the baseball player, the soccer player, the medics, sooo on;
You can Be the humanity saviors, but IT starts with stop focusing on distractions crated by so called ekites or news, re conquer your mind and your self; I am out
@@insecure8926 Wath the Avatar need to do is to;
Teach all nations how to teach how to create spiritual connections by meditation for them to discover the unmaterial world before the death time
And to put them to work togeder having care by a full of fruits and veggies and plants for a full "year" by seeding, growing and not the last cooking a meal at the end with the nectar from the fruits;
Only the morons would not apreciate the peace; IT is sufficient fur evwrybody and IT always was and IT will Be;
You only eat with one mouth, so do your parents, your kids, your grandkinds, but also IT is the same for your neightbor, your friend, your teacher, the firefighter, the priest, the homeless, the CEO, the baseball player, the soccer player, the medics, sooo on;
You can Be the humanity saviors, but IT starts with stop focusing on distractions crated by so called ekites or news, re conquer your mind and your self; I am out
@@kailucasanton3421 Wath the Avatar need to do is to;
Teach all nations how to teach how to create spiritual connections by meditation for them to discover the unmaterial world before the death time
And to put them to work togeder having care by a full of fruits and veggies and plants for a full "year" by seeding, growing and not the last cooking a meal at the end with the nectar from the fruits;
Only the morons would not apreciate the peace; IT is sufficient fur evwrybody and IT always was and IT will Be;
You only eat with one mouth, so do your parents, your kids, your grandkinds, but also IT is the same for your neightbor, your friend, your teacher, the firefighter, the priest, the homeless, the CEO, the baseball player, the soccer player, the medics, sooo on;
You can Be the humanity saviors, but IT starts with stop focusing on distractions crated by so called ekites or news, re conquer your mind and your self; I am out
MatPat overlooked the fact that toward the end of Korra, the airbenders became nomadic peacekeepers again (like Jedi). Because balance is a team effort.
“Hearing when UA-cam needed him the most, he vanished” hits a little bit harder now 2024😭😂 0:13
thats what im saying
Fr
Lol
Honestly, everyone was so dependent on an avatar to save them that simply having the avatar helped form a rebellion group. Before book 3, there was no rebellion aside from some small groups (like the water tribe). But once team avatar gathered people, a rebellion was finally formed. Having an avatar was crucial to morale, and in that big battle in the beginning of book 3, once azula strikes aang the battle s lost because people lost that spirit.
@Goofy ahh bot
Derpy
in korra's defense, her decision to leave the portals open changed a lot but eventually people and spirits lived harmoniously together and although it gave zaheer airbending too, it gave a huge upstart to the air nation's return
It would be interesting to see how the reappearance of the Air Nation influences the geopolitical scenario if we ever get a series post-Korra. Like, how would pro-bending accomodate to airbenders?
@@omarrodrigomanzanares7474 havent you seen the video yet, he lituraly Stated that were getting a Series after Korra in a few years.
@@omarrodrigomanzanares7474they didn’t cover it in the comic books?
In korra’s further defense, it’s not her fault that the nations fell out of balance as she was recovering. The nations kept peace for the 15~17 years she was growing up and training perfectly fine without an avatar, so they should’ve been able to maintain peace while korra was recovering.
It's hard to say what the ramifications of Korra's decisions are though after such a short time having passed, since it impacts the next 10,000 years. We saw how the spirits terrorized humans in _their own_ world (the spirit world was always a separate place) and kept them confined to the lion turtles who sheltered them. That decision wasn't made lightly by Wan and we can see just how powerful and cruel spirits can be when they want to.
I do remember thinking that the idea of the Avatar was unfair to everyone
Unfair to expect the avatar to handle everything and unfair to refuse anyone else the power needed to do change
I remember loving how the Gaang split up, trusted each other to do their part for the world and work together. They didn’t make Aang do everything alone.
The avatar is neat and all but maybe they shouldn’t be tasked with keeping the whole world in check - it’s impossible and setting them up for failure.
When you really think about the reason why Anng and Korra worked so well was because they learned that one person can't always make a difference that you need to rely on others and have people place there faith in themselves to fix a problem.
if anything the idea is most unfair to the avatar themselves considering the moment your born a spirit decides your life is dedicated to the world and fixing it, if you wanted a normal life too bad you have to fight the firelord on the day of the comet as a 12 year old. Thats definitley the most unfair
I mean, the Avatar's only task is to be a connecting bridge between the human world and the spirit world, that is about it
@@LaptapGamer Just look what it did to Aang. He was told WAY too early, and because of it, he was isolated by his peers and was over-trained by the monks (except Gyatso), leading him to run away.
Luckily for Aang, running away saved his life, but that amount of pressure on a child is AWFUL.
@@oxcare5 You make it sound like that's easy...
The funny thing is how the intro fits what happens after the retirement☠️ 0:00
I've recently started binge watching LOK again, and Toph touches on this when telling Korra to "get over yourself." Toph explained that as police chief, she worked hard to bring peace to Republic City, but realized that "the names change but the streets stay the same." This is also alluded to when Avatar Wan takes his final breath saying he failed to bring balance, only for Raava to tell him they will continue to bring balance in all of his lifetimes.
I don't think the Avatars "bring" balance per se, the Avatars themselves ARE balance. Before Raava merged with Wan, she and Vaatu were entwined, wrestling for eternity. The Moon and Ocean spirits, represented by the Yin and Yang Koi fish, circle each other in an eternal dance of balance and harmony (push and pull). Therefore, balance is not 100% peace, nor is it what Zaheer preached (100% chaos), balance is the ebb and flow of order and chaos coming and going. Therefore ending the Avatar would be imbalanced, as the dance between order and chaos would end, just like when Wan separated Raava from Vaatu.... but also, just like if Raava or Vaatu are destroyed, one would grow within the other until the next harmonic convergence. So if the Avatar ends, something else would form to bring balance to the world.
I agree with this take more than the rest.
This also makes sense if you LOOK at the Avatar state instead of looking to the novels and stories. Mattpat names, what, six avatars? Look at that crowd. There were certainly dozens of Avatars. The stories we tell are of the ones that were "interesting".
And, it isn't an old chinese curse to live in "interesting times" for nothing.
@@Chaosmancer7 Yeah, stories about peaceful times and how good leaders brought good things are quite boring. "You don't hear about the good people do, but you do hear about their fuckups." -Me.
@@X9Killbot Bruh it comes off as extremely douche-y to quote yourself. At the very least, you can pull an 'As I always say...' instead of trying to sound like Plato.
@@ChargeQM Meh. It's fine.
I think in order to make a judgement as to whether the Avatars help, you'd have to imagine the world events without the presence of the Avatars. Sure they all had failures, but they did end up stopping most major conflicts eventually and prevent any world domination.
Who knows, maybe Chin's descendants would have been in charge all the way up to Korra's time if not for his death
But mere presence of a figure like the Avatar already changes how politics works in the world. Sozin for example waited until after Roku's death to start the war. Without Aang the United Republic might never exist. No Szeto and the fFire Nation may never become a unified state. The list goes on, so with no Avatar the entire world would look different politically and culturally.
@@EinstinStinium One can also imagine a world also if the Avatar cycle ended there and then for some contrived reason. It's not like there's just one hypothetical of Avatar never existing in the first place.
Yeah, say what you will about the world Aang built after the war. If Aang had never come back, the Fire Nation would have taken over the entire world. It would be so much worse and there is an extent that you are only free to judge Aang because we never saw that very possible alternate future where Ozai wins
This is exactly the dilemma faced by Korra. As the world modernized and more people became “atheist” towards her, people start to question whether she is still needed or not.
Well, no,... she aint, it'd be better if everyone start developing from the sheep mentality of "this person can do it all so I'll relax"
Even in reality we have that, only difference is, we dont have an avatar, just bish a$$ governments
@@Mahlak_Mriuani_Anatman
The fact that the government is still as bad as the avatars says alot.
Dilemma?! There is no dilemma in the legend of Korra 🤗 There was a lot of bad writting and a total lack of a plan in a product that was produced probably to fast.
And for the record is not like the last season and the ending of the original series was thaaaat great. I get it I loved the show too 🥲 but you are trying to explain in a conboluted way things that dont really have a good explanation beacuse... They are just incoherent due to bad writing. They messed up.
Not that uncommon in the show bussines then or now.
Its funny how opposite Aang and Korra are, Aang didnt want to be the avatar in a world that needed one, while Korra wanted to be the avatar in a world that didnt need one. Makes me wonder how the avatar after Korra will fare, considering the more modernized the world becomes the less it needs an avatar
@@GreyAres sure, TLoK doesnt match up to ATLA but it is definitely not badly written (not counting season 2 though, that season sucked). Almost all the problems in the show are caused in some way due to Korra (as said in the video). Vaatu, Zaheer, Kuvira are all directly or indirectly due to Korra, making the viewer think about the absolute necessity of the avatar. ATLA showed Aang saving the world placing that idea of need in the viewers head, while TLoK flips that on its head and shows the viewer how the avatar caused a lot of major issues in the world, this is even directly referenced to in the clipshow episode in season 4. The dilemma the show gives to the viewer is precisely why this video was made in the first place, is the avatar truly a necessity?
The intro hits different now that Matpat is retiring..
And after the last avatar was killed. Another avatar was not found for 100 years.
The real problem seems to be that everybody else in that whole world is incapable of fixing anything. It seems to me that the only real responsibility the avatar has is maintaining relations with the spirits, since they're literally the only person with the power to do so. In my mind, everything else should be secondary.
the fact that the one time the avatar disappeared was the start of a massive technological and social advancement is proof that the avatar hold the world back. thousands of years and very little change in the world and then after only a hundred years of the avatar being MIA and boom, we now have cars and people are marrying those from outside their birth nations.
@@abiean222 The FireNation was already on the verge of all that, none of the avatars stood in the way of such advancement even indirectly.
@@abiean222 Except that wasn't what happened? If you are talking about the fire nation colonies I am not sure that is a great point to make considering what had to happen before it and it was not a lack of avatar that made that possible, it was the existance of war. Plus people from different nations alredy married between them for generations we see that in the kyoshi novels; sure it happened more by the occupation but it was because of that, an occupation where there were second clas citizens and upper class who where the aggresors.
More tecnológical advancements were made in the time of Aang so that doesn't seem like the avatar is the issue.
True except airbenders could also connect with spirit though not on the same level as the avatar
@@abiean222 nah, without the avatar the fire Nation could go completely unchecked and do whatever they want. Including exploit the other nations for their labor and materials.
One thing you kind of didn't really look at is that in the world the mere existence of the Avatar has caused every single nation to rely on it for everything, instead of solving the problems on their own they are looking for a magical fix. Which you can imagine the problems the causes, especially as we see through Aang when he goes missing where barely anyone is doing anything to fix the war and just waiting for the Avatar to come and fix it for them.
and even when aang beat ozai, they still needed a fire lord and would have been an issue if zuko didnt change sides.
Aang plan was literally beat ozai war over.
thats not true at all, in kyoshi she made a point she couldn't just step into the firenation and fix all their problems it had to be at most a partnership, and aang during the invasion tried to team up with the earth kingdom and the foggy swamp tribe to win the war, another example of this is the earth kingdom war in republic city Korra tried to gets the firenation and earth nation rulers to do the fighting
@@LaptapGamer I mean sure the avatar has certainly tried to do that, but they haven't actually been all the successful.
You are being too generous in your statement. Matt didn’t just “didn’t really look at”, he failed to connect his arguments with his point. Almost all of his points lead to a conclusion that avatars just didn’t succeed in their responsibilities. They did nothing. And doing nothing is very different from making it worse. Without avatars the world wouldn’t even have as little as avatars manage to accomplish. So, the only point that would give all these arguments power, the connective tissue for all of Matt’s arguments - is what you pointed out. The reliance on avatars. And, I might be wrong, but I don’t really remember it being shown in the show. It could be, but I would beed proof. You know, maybe a part of the video dedicated to proving the world actually neglectfully relied on an avatar and that led to some wrong decisions… idk
Another good point.
I really wish MatPat touched upon how Zaheer and the Red Lotus trying to end the avatar cycle ties into this
It was still pretty worthless. Like, they're right, the Avatar can't bring balance, but killing them doesn't help in any shape or form, it just creates a new power vacuum.
@@bdletoast09 But that also means that having the Avatar around isn't any better in any way. They're just a centralized tool to benefit one institution or another based on the arbitration of one person's biases.
@@sovietcupcakes328 That's what all institutions are. At least with the Avatar, the power is in the hand of someone with the wisdom of thousands of past lives and a bit more insight of what the world needs.
@@bdletoast09 not in the case of korra lol
@@bdletoast09 That didn't stop catastrophic mistakes after mistakes. The "wisdom" imparted by previous avatars rarely matters in the vast majority of day to day events, let alone larger events where the Avatar ends up only having the effect of an absolute monarchy, and everyone else has to pray the next one isn't incompetent or insane. That's why institutions shouldn't be based on the whims of one dictator or another.
*_But when UA-cam needed him most, he vanished._*
😢
Also note that in most cases, there's generally a sixteen year gap between avatars. So whatever issues the last avatar left, the new one inherits after that conflict spends at least sixteen years festering and taking root - and that's only if the avatar gets right to work, rather than spending some handfuls of years learning their other elements beforehand.
Well, there is no gap between them, the next avatar just doesn't know they're the avatar for that long.
@@morganrussman not exactly but it does take them something like 4 years to "test" for the avatar and then as was mentioned, they are not supposed to be introduced to the other elements until they are sixteen because before then, they are a child. Monk Gyatso showed the devastating effects of this: Aang was socially isolated from all of his peers because they thought that his life was unfair to them. He basically lost every friend that he had just by that revelation and he then had adults trying to treat him as a weapon.
@nathanielbass771 it may take time to test and track down the avatar, but, I do think it was mentioned, or, implied in an episode or 2 that one avatar passes away, and then the next one is born practically immediately after.
@@morganrussman this is true, but if say there are 1,000 children born in a single day... and news can only travel at its fastest in Korra's time via phone and TV... it takes a while
@@morganrussman and also the avitar is like 1
Korra merging the spirit and physical realm could have catastrophic consequences. While new allies might be found, some seriously powerful enemies would emerge.
The Varic manage to weaponize spirit vines within years means the destructive consequences of her actions are already stirring
That literally means the face stealer is walking around in the real world somewhere… yikes 😭😭
@@richrobin7070 exactly, imagine all the messes the new avatar has to deal with after Korra's reign
I was pleasently surprised that he harped on Korra as much as she did. None of her big decisions seemed thought out at all.
@@fcasias7 I am not looking forward to the poor Avatar who has to clean up her mess. Especially with how her poorly thought decisions will end up snowballing into a horrible disaster
In defense of Roku, It seemed that after warning Sozen he was able to stop the Fire Nation from imperialism for decades until he happened to die in the unlikely event of a volcanic explosion.
True but u could argue that he should have known his friend better
@@eghoseisiramen1892 would you see the worst in your friend just off the bat? a person could be a really good friend to you and people around you, but be a crappy person outside of this circle. we’re not all-seeing. we’re human.
@@amorfatikhb Lol, he literally invaded the Earth kingdom... And you even could argue the only reason he exterminated the air nomads was to get rid of the guy that shamed him, neglected him, destroyed his dream left him in the rain his friend...
If, Rooku had helped him or at least at stayed connected with him or just let him conquer the world. The extermination of the air nomads would never have taken to that extent...
That was honestly the most stupid thing he did why would he risk his life saving a empty island with no lives threatened
"And when the world needed him most, he vanished" hits real different now that matpat's retired
Yess😭😭😭
In Korra’s defense, while unlocking the spirit portal was not all good for everyone… It did bring about a new age of Air Nomads which fixed Roku’s greatest failure and was Aang’s greatest hope.
Also, wanted to point out that this video highlights one of my favorite things about Avatar which is that you have real people making real choices that have real consequences they have to live with. Because everything matters it makes the world feel real/believable.
That’s right. She save the air benders from going extinct. She definitely had it the hardest tho. I feel like every avatar had one big problem to solve while she had one big problem in like every season and also with like the strongest villains we’ve seen in the avatar universe(Amon, Zaheer). Amon even might be the strongest villains of all time.
@@theking-jn8es
She did that on pure accident. Unalaq was the who got her to open the portals.
She could have easily restored airbending to the world by giving the Air Acolytes airbending via energybending.
@@GreatUniter I totally agree that it was on accident but she and the air nation needed that luck to not go extinct. Now there is a whole new generation of air benders.
I’m not sure if she can give someone bending powers if they didn’t have it before if I’m not mistaken only the giant turtle could do that. But if she is able to do that then yeah that would’ve been the better solution
Actually, closing portals won't take powers from them. So you are not very correct.
@@GreatUniter when was it established that you can give non benders bending??
I think that’s why I enjoy the show so much, it’s real. These avatars lacked to solve problems that snowballed into bigger issues that had to be addressed by the next. These issues even arise in personal matters, Aang was a good avatar but a bad father and it just goes to show us that all people, regardless of how much good or change we bring, are ultimately flawed in some way or another.
Was Aang a bad father?? I never watched The Legend of Korra because it didn't quite grab me like it's predecessor did. But I can understand where you're coming from though. Aang would be so busy trying to set up some kind of new political system for the people among a bunch of other things an Avatar is supposed to do he ends up neglecting time with his kids in turn 😟.
@@TheMeloettaful that was part of it. the other part of it was he felt responsible for bringing back the airbenders so when he had all 3 of his kids he unintentionally played favorites with tenzin. the only airbender at the time. Not to say he was a bad dad but he felt it was necessary to teach tenzin about the culture and bending so the next avatar would have an airbending teacher and 2 so the airbenders could continue through tenzin. Problem was he hyper focused on tenzin and neglected his other 2 kids in some aspects.
@@nicholasduca5221 it also weird he didn't teach his other children about airbending and air nomad culture. Like sure they weren't Airbenders but that doesn't mean they couldn't learn about it and spread that knowledge on themselves. Like we learn he never took kya and bumi to the air temples just tenzin. Which is a little more than neglect. He's deliberately cutting them off from their own history as his children air benders or not they're in some way apart of the air nation and as his descendants its their history as much as it is tenzins
@@nicholascharles9625 yup, all nations had non benders, but those non benders were still part of those nations and it's people.
I mean aang could of been way worse tbh if you really look at it, it's just obviously he would see tenzen as a possible way to kickstart the air nation again which would put a lot of pressure on him and tenzen. And I don't feel that he was as neglectful as people say, I mean his daughter is one of the best water benders as well if I recall and they all seem healthy albeit all up in each other's business but their siblings, of course they would be like that a little.
"Controlling all the elements in this world is meaningless if you don't also control the element of friendship."
Twilight Sparkle would be proud
Anime protagonist tropes in a nutshell
Friendship is magic
They have to make a point.
There a bot among us.
@@myleswelnetz6700 And your reasoning for a bot?
“But when the world needed him most he vanished” has never rung so true😭🫡
Honestly, if there were just 2 or 4 avatars, then each could do a different part of the avatar. Which is why I love how the last Airbender gang split up and trust eachother to do their part and to keep working together. I think it's what makes the balance better for so long, makes it fair so that people are working together with the avatar. I love this series so much!
2 may be the key as 4 may just become a superweapon for each nation, because then they would not be the avatar of the world, they would only be a powerfull bender that only happens once every generation and can commune with the spirits. Basically Setzo but worse since they could be more likely to be used in war.
so basically naruto and other jinchurikies 😄
This would be a fantastic fan fiction idea! Wonder is anyone wrote something similar.
I think it'll lead to more conflict honestly
@@HectorT52 Imagine if they ended up on different sides of a conflict though. Could make things even worse.
MatPat, please bring balance to your fandom by giving us the other 3 parts of the 'How to bend' series.
Still waiting for science behind earthbending here
3 isn't an even number we need balance
@@kwayneboy1524 we already have water.
I agree!
My disgruntled opinions of Legend of Korra aside, I really think the major issues with Aang's reign as avatar was that he was told by the monks who he trusted the most that he was the avatar at the age of twelve, as the other avatars (Kyoshi and Roku are the ones I know of) weren't told until they were sixteen, and Gyatsu reflects this by saying that he himself wanted to wait until Aang turned sixteen before telling him he's the avatar.
That was because the war was coming very soon. The Monks knew that Aang needed to train quyickly if they had any chance at stopping the Fire Nation. A bit heavy-handed yes, but they weren’t wrong either.
iirc Yangchen was also told before 16 but for different reasons
@@guccifer764 That's still no excuse and they were going about it all wrong, no wonder Aang ran off. They told a literal child the fate of the world is on his shoulders, that literal child was feeling more and more isolated because his friends didn't want him to join in on games because they were already making unfair assumptions about his abilities, and then the adults wanted to separate Aang presumably without telling him.
I'm more bothered by the fact that the monks, who probably knew Aang pretty well, didn't anticipate that he would try to run away or make any attempts to prevent such a thing from happening. But hey, story's gotta story.
@@staticradio724 They didn't know him well.They made these decisions without the input of and against the wishes of the monk who did know him well. It's like at a school. Not every teacher is going to know every child, even if that child has been there for years - but that child's teacher should know him well.
I just finished watching Avatar the last Airbender and have been wanting to watch this theory
Same just finished it like 30 minutes ago
@@Pope_uncle_big_t same
In Legend of Korra, there is a scene where the very first Avatar, on his deathbed, surrounded by ruins of war, realizes that all his life he tried to improve things, tried to bring peace to the world, and yet he failed. The spirit of Raava talks back that it doesn't matter as there will be more opportunities to do this as they are fused together for eternity (more like 10000 years).
the good god is kinda sus tbh
@@olaf-chan-728 you mean Raava? Elaborate?
Avatar: The Last Airbender is just such a great show. Watching it as a kid I loved it, watching it now I still do. From the music to the animation I love it all. Truly a MASTERPIECE
Its not just great, its the best
Nothing less than a masterpiece.
That intro tho😂😂
@here is the full clip it’s a link to making pizza
It's overrated in my opinion. People claim It's mathematically flawless and the single greatest peice of media ever produced.
The biggest issue to me, at least, is that there weren't enough Avatars to deal with everything. No matter how powerful you are, a person can only deal with so many things in their life time
But what if those Avatars started hurting heads? People with vastly different personalities and lives like Aang and Kyoshi likely won’t see eye to eye on how to solve certain issues. And, let’s say there were 4 Avatars alive at the same time, one to tackle each of the 4 duties of the Avatar. What happens when their actions end up affecting the works of the other Avatars? What happens when they reach a disagreement on how to handle something? What if those disagreements turn violent? What will happen to the people who aren’t nearly as strong as them getting caught up in the violence?
Even if the Avatars got along well and had a solid plan to account for as many things as possible, the biggest issue they can’t fully account for is humanity. Someone will always be opposed to how the state of things currently is, and that will lead to them pushing for change. Even if that person gets taken out of the picture, someone will take their place, again and again until a revolution is sparked by their desire for change. No matter how many Avatars there are, they can’t make a “perfect” world without stripping away everyone and every being’s will.
In Hinduism, the avatar is the incarnation of a deity in human or animal form to counteract an evil in the world. In mythology, this mainly refers to the avatars of the God Vishnu. However, there were avatars of other deities as well, but in Avatar we only see the avatars of Raava (and one for Vaatu). What if humans discovered a way to permanently fuse with spirits, and then certain humans merged with the primordial spirits of their world (like Tui and La).
@@derekclinton9438e already saw that, in Korra a villane fuses whit the evil spirit and become the dark avatar, no reason we cant have other avtars
@@erenhearthandsherc1481maybe if 4 avatars at the same time come from the same nation e.g if 3 more avatars were with Aang they would have agreed more on things because they understood each other being from the same nation and if one avatar dies they will not reincarnate until the others pass away
Superman: I approve this
2:25 safe to say it’s only better by default💀
i guess aang was the most successful avatar in the sense that he sort of broke the cycle by introducing the least amount of problems. in fact his group had each bending type (zuko fire, katara water, toph earth, sokaa non bender)
Pretty much true I guess Aang cleaned up the old messes and Korra tied up any of Aang's loose ends which I think were only 3 or 4.
Knowing the creators of this series, these failures of the Avatars and how some like Aang and Korra succeed (more so than the others) is definitely intentional and makes for a pretty good moral.
Korra most deinitely did not succeed.
@@Snow-xd4rv Korra simply looked better than the other avatars who aren't Aang. That doesn't mean she's a good avatar
@Snow999 As others have replied, yeah she didn’t objectively succeed, but when that’s a success compared to the other avatars then the point stands
The thing is even if the avatar were a world-stabilising force, it would be an unreliable one as the avatar is mortal. When the avatar dies the world would have to wait for a new avatar to surface. Case in point, it took 16 years for Kyoshi and Roku to even realise they were the avatar, let alone become fully trained. A lot can happen in 16 years, particularly with such a prominent power vacuum.
I was just thinking that while watching this. Even if we had perfect avatars, we don't have perfect non-avatar people. If somebody really wanted to start a war, they could just exploit the time it takes for a new avatar to grow up. Some people in-universe even realized this, as Sozin's plan to destroy the nation where the avatar would be born next, while he was still a child, was essentially a version of the same idea, although he probably intended it to be more permanent. But he was dead anyway by the time that Aang returned, so as far as he knows, his plan worked and he got everything he wanted.
Aang even made it worse, what with his hundred year freezer nap leaving the position open.
0:13 man this hits hard knowing he will be passing his channel onto the next generation of theorists. We'll miss you matpat ❤ I hope you have a wonderful time away from it all
I think the key to having a good avatar is to have one that has friendships in each of the nations. Like Aang he had friends from every nation and that’s why he was able to create a society that had all 4 nations in mind.
Quick thing I think Mat misunderstood:
The choice of Korra keeping the spirit portals open wouldn't make people airbenders, the harmonic convergence happens anyway, which made people airbenders
Actually it was messing with the Harmonic convergence (Avatar vs. Dark Avatar) what altered the balance of the world and gave people the power to Airbend
also Zaheer was ONE DUDE.
Harmonic convergence saved airbenders from literally becoming extinct
@stevenle9960
No, they were repopulating. It just would have taken them a century or two to get back up in numbers. So long as they keep having more than two kids.
@@angelr194 No, just Harmonic Convergence existing whether or not Raava and Vaatu were involved that triggered the return of Airbenders. Harmonic Convergence is literally the rebirth of the world, and when that phenomenon occurred, it restarted the cycle by providing the world with new Airbenders.
@@stevenle9960 no only that, Korra had no idea Zaheer even existed, nor that he would get Airbending.
Most of these "failings" of the avatar are caused by inaction rather than action. If the avatars were not there, I think things would only be worse
Exactly! Gosh this is the best comment and I'm annoyed Matt Pat didn't say much regarding it
If you have the power to act and do nothing that is still a decisive action. What's the phrase? "Evil triumphs when good men do nothing."
Catastrophic consequences due to inaction - hence, a failure. Or worse, catastrophic consequences because the Avatar acted based on their own limited knowledge and biases, like creating a secret police. The Avatar's effect is that of an absolute monarch dictating over others, it's dependent only on random chance that we won't get one that is incompetent or insane.
What I believe he is saying is that the avatars need to end, but need to be replaced by a system including more than ONE person. He’s saying it never worked so find a new one, not nothing at all.
@@nicholascharles9625 The point of the video (at least according to the title) is to say that the world would have been better without any avatars to begin with. That is just not true, because if they hadn't existed, all the problems that were caused by them not acting on it, would have played out exactly the same AND the problems that they fixed wouldn't be fixed.
Knowing he’s retiring, makes this cold open hit so hard 😢
While the Avatar does create problems, many of those problems would have come to pass anyway if the Avatar weren’t there.
Sozin wanted to wage a war, and the only thing that could possibly stand in his way was Avatar Roku. Sure, the war started because Roku was indecisive, but if the Avatar didn’t exist, Sozin wouldn’t have had a reason to postpone his plans.
Chin was able to take over the earth kingdom due to Kyoshi’s inaction, but it goes to show that no one has the power to stop someone like Chin except for the Avatar, because Chin was unstoppable before she stepped in.
Avatar Koruk had next to no interaction with the outside world because of his preoccupation with the spirits, and it led to the nations feuding.
Yeah, the Avatar could certainly do better. However, people like Sozin, Chin, Amon, etcetera, will still be around even if the Avatar isn’t, and the nations will still be prone to division. The only difference is that without the Avatar, these conflicts can’t be prevented.
Well, in all fairness, maybe they could if people weren’t so dependant on the Avatar, but that’s a whole different can of worms.
I loved the friendship take😂
It makes me realize that Aang having his friends help him is also significant because of their background. Each one of them possesses a different bending style and Sokka is a non bender. As they grow up, they gain high places in their nations and strive to keep the peace. Although it didn’t last much after Aang’s death. I’ve only watched the of series once and nothing else, so I could be missing a lot. Sorry
One unrelated thing that was always in mind whenever Avatar popped up. Aang, if I remember correctly, was said to favor his son with air bending more than the others. Which kinda bugged me. I don’t know how it resolved, but I don’t think Aang was like that. He loved them equally but knew that the air bending son( dong know his name) had more responsibilities on his shoulders, to repopulate the air nomads. Maybe so the Avatar cycle is balanced even after Aang.
@@arjunshah2568 yeah as much as I like LOK, they really butchered all the ATLA characters
@@arjunshah2568 Right like they tried to force a narrative, even tho we all know Aang would treat each of them equally, but due to Tenzin being an airbender, the only airbender besides him. And knowing he's gonna die at some point it makes sense he would have to mainly focus on Tenzin over Kya and Bumi
@lazyxphantomx08 That's the whole point, though. Aang loved them all, but he would spend more time with tenzin because he had to rebuild the air nomad culture but that doesn't mean the kids would be happy about it. Aang is still human and he has limited time, unfortunately he had to dedicate more of his time to one of his children.
@@PurpIe.Potatohow did they butcher the character?
The problem doesn't seem to be the idea of the avatar itself, merely that there is FAR too much responsibility forced onto a single person who never even got the choice to be the avatar to begin with
That’s more or less Matpat’s point
And compounding that, there's no guarantee how old they'll be when a crisis arises. Something that an adult could easily handle peacefully could end poorly if it happens while the avatar is 10 or younger.
@@Elleore I saw, I was only halfway through the video or so and the title seemed to imply differently. My bad, I should have watched the whole thing first
Avatar Wan did more or less choose to become the Avatar, so they did all choose this roll in a way whether they realize it or not
Given the context of this year watching the opening is really painful
I can't believe this actually ended with 'maybe the real avatar is the friends we made along the way'
Lol
This kind of feels like a miss. Part of the message of Korra is that as the world progresses, the traditional role of the Avatar becomes less relevant and that tying your sense of self to your "destiny" or what other people tell you to be can be self destructive. This feels exactly like what the more minor antagionsts - the mayor especially, put pressure on Korra for, that she isn't saving the world perfectly. I don't think it's wrong for the avatr to exist or the world would have been better without them, It's about everyone doing the best they can can in the moment, and depending on others to shore up their faults and blindspots. It's also up to the people of the world to make the right choices. It's a little insane to think a single person was the cause of the 100 Year World, no matter how influential the fire lord is. Soldiers and people had to go along with it. It's also why being connected to past Avatars is one of the most important (yet underused) powers. They alloe thr Avatar to draw on centuries of knoeledge that no one person could have. That still doesn't make them less human and they are still prone to mistakes though.
It also begs the question if the Avatar is really needed.
na bro the point of korra is being a bad show that doesnt make sense and fucks the lore of the original, like with the spirit world
@@ruffuzx4058 nah
Had Roku killed Sozin the war wouldn't have happened especially if he did it when they were younger as he could use his powers to force the Fire nation into stopping their rampage
@@neilstone3583 see we don't know that, maybe the fire Nation would have taken it as an act of aggression that the avatar wanted to intentionally weaken the fire nation in the face of the other nations' growing power of something. There's no telling what would have risen out of the ashes of that act, and I think that's kinda the point. Not acting will not solve any problems, but doing something cannot solve every problem.
I don't know if it's just me but one of the main take aways of ATLA to me is that you can't do things on your own and it's okay to rely on others for help. The Avatar is just an ideal state, where one person has all the powers of all four nations, but it isn't a realistic one. None of the avatars were able to solve everything on their own, which is why you see Aang succeed more often than not in the main series. He recognizes that he needs people to rely on, not to just do it alone, and he has his friends explicitly help and come up with solutions alongside him.
The true definition of balance, where one all-powerful doesn't loom over all, but rather takes into consideration all points from all walks of life in making a decision.
Exactly, Aang did use all knowledges and points of views of his friends including in the moments that he had to decide how to fight Ozai and even during his fight with Ozai. It was the movements and knowledge of his friends and of himself that helped him in the fight and I just LOVE how it was Toph move that helped him see Ozai and react and do what he did in the end. It proves how it all, all his friends, training and contacts throught his story were essencial for him. Aang is not One Person Saves All but is indeed All Forces Work Together to Bring Balance, Peace and Order.
I just love Avatar Aang story 💛😄💚🌟
And thinking about it, Aang story proves how he need everyone to be his best version and do what he can in his best way. His friends are supporters, masters and helpers for his growth, sanity and humanity and more. All things that he learned with his friends improved him and helped him to be himself and not a version of his friends or of others or of some ideal or role but to be a new version of him that knows more things than any older version of him. His friends make him strong and human. Like, he can be fragile around them and they will hug him and help him, support him like Katara did many times. He doesn't need to be The Avatar around them but be the human Aang that happens to be the avatar. In fact none of them likes the moments when Aang forgets to be himself and tries to be a figure or role named avatar. They value him. They ground him. They all help each other to improve and give mutual support and that's great.
They are a great group. I love them.
0:16 This hits much harder now that MatPat’s retiring
12:29 When Kyoshi says she doesn't see the difference between killing and taking a life by accident she means that even though it was an accident, she still felt guilty as if it was a murder.
Well in a sense the victim stays dead in the end. They are the same
Kyoshi wasn't guilty. She would have killed him herself but he did it himself because he was stubborn. How did you get guilt in that tone. It straight toward and calm to me. Kyoshi doesn't play around.
@@Snow-xd4rv well, just because she said she'd do anything to stop him, doesn't mean she would be happy with it. She would probably feel some guilt.
I think the main point of the scene is to contrast different Avatar's perspectives. Kyoshi is an earth nation Avatar and remains pretty neutral, rational, and objective. The whole neutral gin thing. Whereas Aang is an Air nomad who disconnects with the things that would hold him down, and separates from trauma. Just like how he leaves the temple to run from the burden of being an Avatar. It's a constant theme for Aang that he grows bit by bit through to the very end with his fight with Ozai.
based on experience, accidentally ending someone’s life & purposely ending someone’s life feels equally awful
This video is through a very westernized view of balance. We so often associate balance with “winning” and all problems being permanently solved. But even total peace isn’t balance. When every Avatar creates an equal and opposite problem for the next one to fix, that is perfectly balanced. It is the Yin and the Yang. The understanding that neither light nor darkness can exist without the other and both are necessary for a good life. All the Avatars (except probably Korra) did keep balance. I think we in the US in particular have this idea that the heroes are always supposed to win and there is a happily ever after. Which don’t get me wrong, I love that too, I’ve literally been binging Superman and Lois over the weekend. But a lot of other genres, like Cyberpunk for instance , show that even if a hero wins, he will probably lose something equal in the process. Aka, balance.
This is very true, the asian spiritual philosophy that avatar is based on is much more satisfied with neutrality than overwhelming good or overwhelming bad. The cycle of good and bad and the inevitability of suffering are a very different lens than “winning over evil”
Exactly! This is what old Toph was alluding to in LOK when she told Korra to "get over herself". Just like Toph's experience as chief of police, "the names change but the streets stay the same...."
And there are always forces countering the balance the avatar brings. It’s not like a balance is achieved and everyone is just okay with it. The world is ever evolving
Two sides of the same coin:
starts with a mess caused by the previous Avatar's events.
___
Their solution works (or at least is positive in some way) for the rest of their time, unknowingly (or knowingly) causing a problem for the next Avatar.
In short; Yin and Yang or at least I feel like it follows that somewhat loosely.
Not sure Wheter it's something I want to base my system of governance on.
But on the other hand, tough times are bound to happen. Be it by natural progression or bad decisions bad stuff will happen eventually. So why stress about it? Just say its 'balanced'
Pretty sure the song Surface Pressure from Encanto applies to basically all of the Avatars. They were all just people doing their best, though no amount of good they managed in their entire lives could ever keep up with the constant demands of their entire world. In the end, they're just one person. Aang being the only real exception due to the many friendships and relationships he had forged along his journey, and even he left his own messes behind.
Good analogy.
Korra as well actually, she also had people whom she could trust just like Aang did, but I do agree tho, having one person take on this heavy of a responsibility is just too much
amv for Kyoshi when.?
@@WAVE0025 But if not them, then who will？Its difficult, yes, but I think this world still needs a savior. Or at least, an alliance headed by an Avatar to regulate peace throughout the world.
coming back to this on 3/11/24 after matt patts disappearance .........only 99 years and 363 days till he comes back
and saves youtube
The avatar is keeping balance. Sure, they can’t do everything but Kyoshi saved everybody on her island and took down Chin the Conqueror, Aang saved the whole entire world from the fire nation etc. It’s obvious that some avatars fail but it’s better to have the avatar than not to. Korra also didn’t completely fail in harmonic convergence. She brought back the Airbenders!
But honestly, Kyoshi could've done better than that. Like come on, only saved everyone on her island while her actual duty is to save the ENTIRE world? Disgustingly selfish..
@@Bijoyoo very true. She should’ve done so much more.
@@Bijoyoo Wasn't the issue that Qin himself was the one leading his conquest? I didn't read the comics so idk if they (Qin's army) continued conquesting on after Qin died, but would've letting him die "save the world". Again, this is based on what I know about Kyoshi from just the ATLA show.
I honestly love that she merged the living world and the spirit world. That was so cool.
I don't even know what happened in the comics. I read one book...
.. and found it HORRIBLE. Worse then Legend of Korra.
In fairness, Korra was also an impulsive teenager. According to what little I know, the avatar's identity doesn't get revealed to the avatar themselves until they are 16(I'm guessing to let them have at least a somewhat normal childhood. Give or take certain circumstances like Kyoshi who's childhood sucked) Both Aang and Korra didn't fully get that, though they were for very understandable reasons. Aang because of a massive war and him overhearing the elder monks and Korra because...of the red lotus from what I gather. Though I don't think she knew it or realized it, her life was in danger her entire life.
Korra knew she was the Avatar when she was a toddler. She announced it herslelf and bended three elements right there and then.
@@nemowindsor8724 yeah, but she didn't have a normal childhood. She was raised and traimed in isolation bc The Red Lotus tried to kidnapped her when it was announced a new avatar was found. She quite literally has to learn how to become human and spiritual bc her entire 16 years of life she was only the avatar.
with the excuse of Korra being an “impulsive teen” during the LOK, the same rule has to apply for Aang. with that logic, Aang should have never ended the war and defeated Ozai, because he’s just a crybaby kid. Aang was proof that determination trumps all, and Korra was just aggressive and arrogant
@legitnesssparklebutt8836 yeah but considering how she was brought up as the avatar it's not really a surprise that she ended up that way. I mean, yeah she clearly had a fiery personality from the start even as a little kid. Tie that with the fact that she has the fact that she's this super important person shoved down her throat her whole life and also simply having a natural talent for bending(minus air of course) kinda makes for a concotuon of her definitely becoming arrogant. Sure, she'd probably still be somewhat overconfident and violent even if she didn't know that she was the avatar until later in her life, but I personally feel like her arrogance comes from unintentionally being placed on a pedestal as the avatar since she was 3. But I understand that for her, there was no way she wouldn't have known she was the avatar since she unlocked her bending abilities at such a young age.
I guess it just bugs me that people hate on Korra so much by comparing her to Aang. Like, I get it, Aang is a fantastic character in almost every way. I love him! But because Korra is literally nothing like him, people trash on her for being her own different character.
and anng was a freaking 12 year old.
I just love how completely hidden the fourth bending type is.
Thats 3 different bots... Smh
I think he said that it was going to be conspiracy theory
I think it's sports theory
I'm think book theory
@@theoutsiderjess1869 to make that an entertaining form of content would be quite the channel considering the visual aspect.
i knew the intro was foreshadowing something XC
I know friendship gets mocked for being a kiddie solution for tv shows but it really could resolve real world problems. Like if there was genuine sincere friendship between different authorities across the world, you’d have all authorities caring about their friends’ nations and therefore do their best to make decisions for all nations to flourish. It would be super difficult still managing the resources of the world though and there would always be threats of selfishness and corruption to abuse the international friendships. And working through conflict as friends would also be difficult.
friendship is a force for good but isnt necessarily a good thing. look at all the friendships putin has maintained. the average person wouldnt consider putin to be a good person, therefore his friendships are a means to control and manipulate on the world stage more than they are tempering and unifying.
Or the worlds leader could just ya know...care about their own people, cause that would be a lot of progress
@@turbogamer2023 Worst take ever.
@@JustCallMeCeles 😂
In defense of Kyoshi...her trauma is more prominent than stated: for 16 years the avatar was thought to be someone else, Yun, who she was a handmaid to. His main master Jianzhu was power hungry and on figuring out Kyoshi was the Avatar sent Yun into the hands of an evil spirit which in turn caused Yun to be a villain, Jianzhu also killed Kyoshi's adoptive father. Yun killed Jianzhu in a teahouse while he was speaking to Kyoshi, and then Kyoshi was forced to end his life later on. Also, she has difficulty doing specific bending skills a) because her power was naturally more huge with little finesse and b) because her hands are scarred from being zapped by the only lightning bender at the time. Furthermore, she lived for 230 odd years...we've seen so little of those years. At the point she confronted Chin, she had likely said goodbye to Rangi, her first girlfriend, then later on her child and that child's father. I can't imagine how jaded you must be after all that 😅
Yeah, the sheer length of her lifetime is absurd. So far as the timing of her fight with Chin (also the peasant revolt and subsequent creation of the dai li, which was essentially contemporaneous to Chin) she was in her 40s, but at this point we essentially know nothing about her life for around 20 years prior nor for the most part after.
Still an L though.
ua-cam.com/video/ikJPUnlUM7I/v-deo.html Finally it’s here🤠
Her trauma is really not an excuse for what she did after tbh
@@csf4534 I 100% agree with you.
The first Avatar said it and Rava consoled him with the truth. He stated he failed and she said they would always be together to try again. The world is full of conflict, but I think things would be much worse without the Avatar. Look how ppl lived before Wong. Look what Sozin accomplished with Aang missing ☹️ An Avatar’s duty is NEVER done. That means more content 😄
hits different now doesn't it
I don’t think the creators of Avatar overlooked these issues. I noticed them while the first show was still running. These issues, and the issues clearly caused by previous avatars that were explained in convenient JUST enough detail to understand how the solution affected the next avatar, seemed more intentional than coincidental. For example, Kyoshi focusing only on her home while at the same time fully acknowledging a near-complete domination of the Earth kingdom…was laid out for Aang for us to watch. Aang did not summarize this for us, he did not have these stories told off screen. Avatars are human and cooperation is an essential element of humanity. At least that was the feel I got.
I wanna see an Evil Avatar. It'd allow us to view a whole new experience and put more emphasis on the "Balance" that the Avatars are responsible for maintaining in the world. After all, just because the Avatar is responsible for maintaining balance doesn't necessarily mean they're a good person. That's just my opinion though, let me know your thoughts on this too, if you have any.
To be an “evil” avatar there’d kinda have to be a way to measure someone’s goodness, right? Everybody’s the hero from their perspective. Like he talked about in this video, a bunch of the avatars did some pretty sketchy stuff but there’s not really an objective way to say they’re the evil avatar
@@rubyraptor right like the fire Lord was evil to us but the fire nation viewed his good to evil meter way differently from all the other tribes of course
Sorta like Injustice Superman
I honestly just want to see an evil avatar who literally doesn’t do anything and watches people suffer. Like, it wasn’t their choice to be an avatar, even if their nation was in the cycle, still that doesn’t mean they SHOULD take up the responsibility to maintain balance in the 4 nations. They are just humans with greater power than others, I want to see one that is free from these kind of responsibilities and is free to do as they will, and not devote their entire lives to saving others. But I feel like the story would be a bit… bland?? Not interesting and engaging enough since there won’t be enough content for that.
@@justsomeonewithdifferentop7101 That's just Kuruk. He spent his life faffing about and was only in the spirit world to get revenge on Ko, who stole his lover's face. There's still plenty that could be done with that, but it wouldn't be an Avatar being very Avatar-y.
I feel like a lot of the problems with the Avatar cycle could be minimized if it were for two things
One, is the Avatar knowing about the mistakes of the ones that came before them, when the avatar reincarnates, they are completely oblivious to the whole Avatar scheme until someone teaches them, or they learn on their own, this means that most of the time they won't even know which mistakes the previous avatars committed until speaking with them personally or... reading a history book in some cases. Aang avoids committing countless mistakes during his time because of the wisdom he gets not only from the friends he meets, but mostly from the previous Avatars as well.
And Two, there being at least some sort of punishment or signal for Avatars that are right on their way to "failing" one of their goals, without that, they aren't really "directed" towards solving issues in the right, morally correct and fail-proof way possible and are prone to make and repeat the same mistakes countless times across reincarnations, if they do, they will just continue to live on doing it, sometimes even believing they served their purpose.
But hey, that's just a theory.
A film theory
I think you are correct, the main issues for each avatar seem to stem out of the fact that their goals were taken up alone. The key issue is that if the avatar has a goallets say maintain peace with the spirirts, if they take the role on alone and die. Well then their goal is not met and no one else will take up the effort to complete the goal. However if the avatar recruits a group of very spiritual people that can communicate with spirirts, then even if the avatar dies, the people in that group can carry on which would lengthen the ammount of peace that may last.
That is very important in conjunction with your first point being the Avatars just not being fully aware of the issues their past lives left, this is not to say they had absolutely no information on their past life. It is just that most of the time it feels like the Avatars are not as well informed as they should be. Korra is one specific case of where things start to feel like her knowledge of the world is really darn small. She was basically homeschooled in all disclipines of elements aside from air, but does not seem to understand literally anything about the cultures and peoples aside from bending.
But yeah second point could also work in conjunction with allies/friends. By having friends to assist on these goals, the avatar will be able to make quicker decisions when things are going south as they will be more informed. This together is actually why I think the council that Aang makes is interesting as it would actually address most of these issues, unforunately other issues did arise still though around the council itself.
@@numbernumber25 you could argue that korra doesn’t know about other cultures because she didn’t pay attention enough to learn or did not care enough
Well they do train the avatar and teach them about the natural world but it's only when they're 16 when they can handle such news
'When UA-cam needed him most, he vanished' That aged well.
I am surprised that Sokka didn't try to do more for the nonbenders after the main series and during the creation of Republic City. I feel that because he was a nonbender, he would be able to relate to their plight more than any of team avatar. We may get more information when the movie about them as adults releases, but that is where I stand right now.
Man, they did Sokka dirty in The Legend of Korra
I always felt like “non benders as some kind of underclass” is naturally just something that sprang up in Korra time. In Aang’s time people were obviously more likely to identify themselves by what nation they belonged too. It doesn’t matter if you can bend or not. You’re in the water tribe, and in the water tribe, we hate the fire nation. But if you live in Republic City where all kinds of benders live, it isn’t about what nation you are from anymore, because nobody is from any of them. Now it is about whether you are a bender or not. And that’s how the Equalists become a thing
@@TheJadedJames honestly I think that's bc in ATLA both benders and non benders were united because of the threat of the fire Nation.
I think they majorly failed with not writing more about Sokka. I would not mind at all if they decided to retcon some things.
@@TheJadedJames that makes a lot of sense actually
probably one of the things mat pat should be most known for is to make an entire 40 minute essay. Literally, his script is like watching Deep look!
Matpat really just ended it with "The real power was the friends we made along the way"
OMG the intro is perfect
The avatar should have some kind of team of friends from other nations to help keep them balanced and guide them. So far we don't really know if the past Avatars had many friends. And Roku had a bad friend.
Yeah, and we don't even know if Roku did have other friends aside what we know already
Roku does describe his masters as friends as well
If all the other nations said no thanks, for whatever reason, Sozin could've instead wanted to buy land from the Earth Kingdom, or pay Earth benders to help make more islands. Sozin also would've accepted those who wanted to join the Fire nation. All we know is, Roku saw an occupied Earth city. Did Sozin invade or just buy the city?
We know roku had a crew of people who helped train him, kyoshi had the flying opera and rangi, Kuruk had his gang they talked about in the kyoshi books, and Yangchen had kavik
Actually, we do know the other Avatars had companions from the novels. In the most recent one, it's even explained that the Avatar's companions are so legendary that Yangchen even tries to use it as bargaining chip at one point.
Of course, this can also backfire, as one of Kuruk's companions, Jianzhu, uses his status after Kuruk's premature death to start amassing political power, and ends up becoming a Long Feng type character, where he's almost the de facto ruler of the Earth Kingdom and a major antagonist for Kyoshi.
Iroh said the point of the show and the avatar a long time ago… ultimately the avatars job is to get perspective and share it. You don’t fix the worlds problems by showing up being Superman, saving everyone, giving your solution… you fix it by giving others the insights you have gained. In essence the avatar is to show up, be a reality check and guide others.
Everyone thinks Korra was a bad avatar, especially because she “lost the avatar state”… but to me she understood the assignment the most. Ultimately she dealt with a lot of problems successfully not by fighting, but by getting or giving perspective. This idea really coming to light when she meets iroh, the spirit baby bird and all the dark spirits in the spirit world. Ultimately Korra rarely averted things and just helped people learn to cope with the reality. I mean that’s really all the avatar can and is expected to do… you’re not going to personally stop generations of inherited BS by facing it head on alone. You do it by building bonds and understanding and connecting with the world as it is not as you wish it to be. In my eyes Korra just understood this better than anyone as her story progressed.
The avatars failures were consistently and fundamentally a lack of acceptance… of the world (and the state of it), of themselves… and Korra was no different. Her very identity was the avatar. But she ultimately learned, you know what, youre still human, even you need perspective or understanding. Drop the ego and see you/the world for what it is. That you are it and it is you. If the avatar is of these worlds and the worlds are broken… then ask…what is it I need when I am broken. And by connecting herself as Korra, as the avatar to the people and the world she was in, she was finally able to stop trying to be the hero above the people trying to prevent the metaphorical dam from breaking and instead be the wiseman, teaching the people the reality and how to swim.
That’s all the avatar was ever meant to be. A reflection to heal the world, not save it. Not understanding this has been the avatars folly.
The avatar system was unstable and Aang was the only successful one. His friend group truly united all people. Sokka is a non bender, Katara is a water bender, Zuko is a fire bender and Toph is an earth bender
Great take, the Avatar can be a source of peace or destruction but in the end it always serves as a mirror for humanity to reflect back on. Aang correctly chose to experience the lives of each nation first hand, everything he learnt and all the bonds he formed were the key to end the war.
“When UA-cam needed him the most, he vanished” cuts deep
The problem with Avatar Kuruk is that for the world not to get destroyed by spirits he had to help them because Yangchen tended only to the matters of humans.
A sequel where the avatar reincarnates as four people, one for each nation, with all of them having control over the four elements, would be pretty interesting. Having a "council of avatars" instead of just the one person and all the different conflicts and solutions that would arise from it... which is kinda what Aang pulled off now that I think of it
That's kinda not possible? Since they would need four spirits that don't exist, if i remember correctly?
But yeah, that concept would be amazing.
Multiple aspects to consider, probably most of them wouldn't be of the same age, thus the orders would think to take the lead.
Also, the second and maybe third to come would be see as frauds at first, and how that would be delt with.
Imagine an avatar who masters all elements but develops a God complex
@@3bodYking99 I mean, ever since LoK's Raava nonsense, anything is possible. Past lives? Nah, just memories imprinted on Raava. Bending taught by the original bending spirits? Nah, just Raava doing her thing after bonding with the first Avatar. I mean, the odds are very slim, but there is a non-0% chance Nickelodeon goes "What if there were FOUR Avatars?" and do something like "It turns out that when Raava was ripped out of Korra's body, she was fractured into four pieces, which each bonded to a different bender!" and make four Avatars happen anyway.
@@christianrose9166 well reincarnation works differently in the east anyway (to my knowledge and understanding. I very well could be wrong). Instead of the same soul passing through multiple bodies it's the spark of life that gives life to multiple souls through time. That's why Avatars can talk to past Avatars; because they're different people powered by the same life force.
they would need 3 more Raavas, not possible
When they announced that they will be making the next Earth Avatar series in 2025, I was wondering how far into the future it could take place. I can imagine Korra possibly living to their version of our modern day, so that would be cool to see what that would look like.
WAIT THEY DID?!
@@Mr.Needle-Hamster cyberpunk avatar
I'm wondering if fire benders will be able to bend electronics
Non Benders being able to take down Benders would be cool using advanced technology that can't be metal bend
I only hope they don't go woke or kust focus too much on teen drama and romance or suff like that i can already see many problem's with a modern day like avatar story
I love how in the intro u can make out the word STYLE.