scrape_r_rational/data/cache/2c2hry.md

Tumblr thread about power imbalance in Avatar: The Last Airbender

Post:

Link to content

Comments:

• u/alexanderwales:

  I really do like Avatar, and Legend of Korra. Generally speaking, they do a really, really good job with the world they've built ... for a kid's show. You see all sorts of examples of mundane utility with the powers, and in general people aren't stupid for stupid reasons. Aside from a few missteps, they're stupid for smart reasons. But yes, I would like to see an "adult" fic with all the schools of bending taken to their logical conclusions. Maybe not even set within the canon plotlines (even though that cuts down on the need to build up new characters), but just ... taken farther than the show does.
  
  For the record, I don't think that bonebending would really work, given how difficult bloodbending is supposed to be, and how little mineral there is in bones compared to how much water there is in the body. That's not to say that it's an unbelievable extrapolation, but it seems kind of iffy to me - if it were easy, you would expect bloodbending to be a *lot* easier, so I have to think that a person's chi interferes with bending, making bending their internals very difficult. Same reason that you don't see dessicationbending, where a waterbending simply pulls all the water out of their opponent.
  
  I would totally write a rational fic for Avatar if I had the time - it's one of my favorite series. I think it somewhat unfortunately covers a lot of its bases in a way that certain other series don't, which makes it a little less of a likely target.
  

  • u/None:

    Someone else was already planning on doing it earlier here in /r/rational but I haven't seen them talk about it in a while.
    

    • u/alexanderwales:

      That was /u/paradoxius (see [this thread](http://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/23c5d2/bst_im_working_on_an_avatar_the_last_airbender/)) and I am curious whether that ever went anywhere. I know I personally have more ideas than I could ever flesh out, and if I had to guess, I would say that's what happened.
      

  • u/Traiden04:

    Salts, the salts of the body could be manipulated to wreak havoc with Earth Bending. King Bomi has grown salt crystals into an immobilizing suit on the Outside of a person, just what do you think would happen if that was done to the salts inside someone.
    

    • u/TimTravel:

      Yeah, but Manton effect.
      

  • u/Timewinders:

    I've always wondered whether a bloodbender could freeze a tiny portion of a vital organ or just an artery to kill someone quickly. It's hard to say, though, since it does seem to be difficult in canon.
    

  • u/Winkle92:

    I don't think people are giving firebending enough credit. I mean, at it's core, firebending is pure energy manipulation. Thinking along those lines, you could do amazing things. Surround yourself in an unfocused aura of blazing radiation.  Good luck stopping a stream of high powered gamma rays! Release enormous flashes of intense light to permanently blind your opponents. Charge the air so that a single lightning bolt forks outwards to dozens of targets. And of course firebenders can manipulate electricity, and that's what neurons run on. They could send someone into seizures just by firing a little static into your brain. Or manipulate your emotions by stimulating certain areas of the brain. Or increase their own brain power with Electrical Brain Stimulation to increase their learning, memory, and reflexes. And other benders can bend their environment, so why not firebenders? Concentrate the full power of the sun on a person, or a whole city! They'll be reduced to ashes in seconds. Want to be subtle? Just bend the sun's ultraviolet radiation onto a target, no one will see or feel a thing- at least until a few minutes later when they break out in a terrible sunburn and die of radiation poisoning.
    
    And that's just the start of it. If, hypothetically, an firebender (i.e. energybender) can add energy to a system, then maybe they can take it out. Halt the kinetic energy of projectiles (or increase it), freeze water in an instant, bring the flow of air to a complete standstill, or instantly drop a persons temperature to below zero. But admittedly that's just speculation. Perhaps something for our protagonist to research...
    
    Firebending is without a doubt the most overpowered bending by a factor of five-hundred thousand, no, make that five-hundred trillion. The firebenders just need to realize it.
    

    • u/eaglejarl:

      To me, it seems like a bit of a stretch to go from "bending fire" to "bending all forms of energy".  That's like going from "bending earth" to "bending all forms of matter."  For that matter, why not go all the way?  Given that E=mc^2, then shouldn't a bend-any-sort-of-energy person be able to bend matter as well, basically making them a Reality Warper?
      
      Then again, fire is just a chemical reaction--oxidation.  If you can bend fire, you could perhaps bend any form of oxidation.  Rust metal instantly, mess with cellular respiration...lots of possibilities.  So, yeah, definitely overpowered if you use it properly.  Not sure that it's *more* overpowered than any of the others, though.
      

      • u/philip1201:

        Given the fact that fire-bending doesn't require a fuel source, and that lightning-bending is a subschool, I've always figured fire-bending is the manipulation of ionisation/electrons (in air), rather than the chemical reaction of oxidation.
        
        Seizure bending FTW.
        

      • u/eltegid:

        But /is/ fire just a chemical reaction in avatar? Fire is an element, whatever that means.
        I do think that as an element, it makes sense for fire to be related to some forms of energy.
        

        • u/eaglejarl:

          Fair point.  The world of Avatar might *literally* be made of the Greek elements.  I didn't think about that one.
          

      • u/Winkle92:

        I like your ideas!
        
        >it seems like a bit of a stretch to go from "bending fire" to "bending all forms of energy".
        
        But isn't all energy one in the same? The charged particles that start the chemical reaction of fire are presumably the same that manifest as lightning. There appears to be no fuel furebenders are summoning to burn, just the fire, which is what led me to believe it is simply raw energy. I guess it ultimately depends on the mechanism of fire bending. But I still stand by my assumptions. Taken to its logical conclusion, the chemical reaction of fire is simply a byproduct of a firebenders input of energy.
        
        Hah, on the E=mc^2 note, yeah I was actually going to argue that an advanced firebender with a little concentration could transmute any element from thin air. But manipulating elementary particles into existence might require some finer instruments that human hands. 
        
        Regardless its fun to think about.
        

        • u/Zephyr1011:

          The ability to bend a form of energy does not imply the ability to bend all forms of energy
          

  • u/TimTravel:

    > if it were easy, you would expect bloodbending to be a lot easier, so I have to think that a person's chi interferes with bending, making bending their internals very difficult. 
    
    You have no idea how many times I've had to convince people of this over on /r/whowouldwin. Certain people there have a tendency to think that anything possible with superpowers is easy with superpowers.
    

• u/None:

  I haven't read all of stuff here and if this has been said I apologise, but I've seen people both in the tumblr thread and here talk about "bending energy" or "bending oxidation" and...
  
  This is probably not what's going on? At all? Avatar has spirits, spirits of the *ocean* and the *moon* and spirits of *good* and *evil*. It's a world where mental things are fundamental. When people bend fire, they're not doing anything as prosaic as bending oxidation of anything (after all, they're bending fire out of *thin air*), they're doing spiritualsy stuff that corresponds roughly to some conceptual idea of fire.
  
  The most obvious point of evidence here is earth bending. What the *hell* is *earth*?! Earth benders can and do frequently bend a *lot* of different types of earth all over the world, so it's not any specific precise chemical composition. Besides, all earth has trace metal, so what's so special about metal? This does not *look* like a reductionistic universe, it looks like one that's fundamentally mental with the "concept" of earth directing the bending and not any specific chemical or physical consideration. That, or earth and water and air and fire are *fundamental* elements just like carbon and iron are in our world.
  
  Which constrains very little our anticipations! It looks like you could argue anything into being called "earth" or even "air." So we take our cues from canon, and in canon, the *least* versatile element *is* fire, which is basically only seen as the destructive force, with fire, explosions, and lightning being the only examples we're shown. Contrast with water, that can freeze or melt or boil, that can apparently *heal* (how on *earth* does that happen?!) and control internal bodily fluids (to the point where [Spoilers first season of Korra](#s "waterbending can be used to take away other people's bendings")!!!)
  
  So yeah, I maintain my original position on tumblr that fire is the least useful bending :P
  

  • u/alexanderwales:

    I just want to point out that firebending does involve some sort of heat control, since Iroh is seen to heat his tea with it but doesn't use any flame (and there are a few other examples from canon). So it's *slightly* more useful, but in terms of sheer combat potential, still has to be one of the worst abilities, second only to air (unless you assume that vacuumbending is a thing).
    
    Industrial applications, on the other hand ...
    

• u/Threedoge:

  Range. Range is the key to a rational Avatar fic. Is it line of sight, a sphere x meters in diameter, limitless? Until that question is answered its really tough to say what the end point of bending is.
  

  • u/alexanderwales:

    From watching the show, it's almost certainly something much harder to pin down. A mostly canonical explanation goes something like this;
    
    Everyone has a *chi*, and bending can simply be described as extending the influence of your *chi* beyond your body in order to manipulate your surroundings. This is why bending is so tied to martial arts - the physical exertion serves as a focal point to *chi* extension, but isn't strictly necessary.
    
    So it's not really something that can be measured in terms of meters, because it requires metaphysical concepts.
    

• u/None:

  I thought the Lava bender was an earth bender?
  

  • u/alexanderwales:

    If you're talking about the one from Legend of Korra, he is. However, there have been numerous points throughout the series where lavabending has been done by avatars, and before that guy showed up, there was some speculation about which school it belonged to, with some people saying that it was earth, some saying fire, and some saying both at once (and thus only usable by the avatar).
    

    • u/None:

      I honestly remember none of those previous points of lava bending.
      examples?
      

      • u/alexanderwales:

        From [the wiki](http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Lavabending):
        
        > The first known use of lavabending was by the Fire Nation Avatar who preceded Yangchen, who used the technique while in the Avatar State to cause the simultaneous eruption of four small volcanoes.
        Centuries later, the technique was utilized by Avatar Kyoshi when Chin approached her peninsula in an attempt to claim it as part of his empire. In order to protect her people, Kyoshi utilized her bending to split the peninsula from the Earth Kingdom mainland. In order to accomplish this, Kyoshi created fissures and bent lava up from underneath the landmass in order to sever it completely from the continent.
        
        > While attempting to master the Avatar State by harnessing the energy of the sun during the winter solstice in 55 BG, Avatar Roku remained stuck in the Avatar State as a result of the overwhelming power that rushed through his body. During this time, he inadvertently caused the eruption of a small volcano near the Fire Temple on Crescent Island. Roku eventually mastered the Avatar State and used lavabending once more in 12 BG, diverting a massive lava flow in an attempt to save his home island from a volcanic eruption.
        
        > Following his death, Avatar Roku manifested through Aang in 99 AG and used lavabending to destroy the Fire Temple during the winter solstice, in order to punish the Fire Sages who had since abandoned their duties to the Avatar in service of the Fire Lord.
        
        Mostly in the second season of the original series.
        

  • u/None:

    Oh you're right
    

• u/GeeJo:

  /u/reuben_ [broke down](http://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/comments/2cgx1x/av_club_comment_on_the_villains_of_each_element/cjfhv6h) how ridiculously overpowered the lavabending subdiscipline of the earthbender villain in the latest Korra series is over in /r/TheLastAirbender a few days ago, compared to the average firebender.
  
  > Trying to make bending fit our physics can only go wrong, but let's try. Something tells me Ghazan heating up earth to create lava makes him the most powerful bender in the entire LoK universe, and I get pretty pissed at how the show has been all over the place regarding people's powers.
  
  > In the latest episode he turns a decent chunk of earth into lava, creating a pit looking thingie to fend off the attacks of the metal clan guards. Let's guestimate its size at 5m radius, 1m deep. That makes it 25π cubic meters of earth that was heated into lava. According to Wikipedia, "lava is a liquid at temperatures from 700 to 1,200 °C". So let's say 1,000 °C, and let's also assume that's exactly the melting point of the rock, to make the math more simple. Looking at [this page on the thermal properties of soil](http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met455/notes/section6/2.html), it says the temperature of soil 30cm down doesn't vary a lot, staying at about 35 °C at any given time of the day. The same page will give you the specific heat of solid rock, at 750 J/(kg*K), and its density, 2700 kg/m^(3).
  
  > So we want to get ~212,000 kg of rock, from 308.15 K to 1273.15K, and then we want to melt that rock. The initial heating takes 212,000 kg * 965 K * 750 J/(kg*K) = 153,435,000,000 J of energy. Melting takes 212,000 kg * (225,000 J/kg) = 47,700,000,000 J of energy, totaling about 200 GJ (gigajoules), [equivalent to about 180 lightning bolts, or 4 MOAB bombs, the second most powerful non-nuclear weapon ever designed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28energy%29). That means Ghazan can produce as much energy as 180 of the world's best firebenders, in a few seconds.
  

• u/PeridexisErrant:

  >Yeah I’m thinking Quirrel as Sozin and Taylor Hebert as Aang.
  
  SOMEBODY DO THIS
  
  Seriously, there may not be a higher form of epic combat than this...
  

• u/Traiden04:

  I would say, in response to the bonebending, that earthbending is quite terrifying enough without giving it direct access to the salts in a person's body(huh, well that puts a new and horrifying spin on the growing crystals King Bomi used) when you can just remove the ground from under your foe to encase them in the earth. Earth Bending is used to raise a city from nothing in less than a day, it is the greatest force of industry available to all the nations. Water Bending too can also be used in this respect and both are limited to the most prevalent resource. Fire Bending has their metal processing but it does not hold a candle(heh) to an Earth or Water Bender just saying I have a house now.
  

  • u/eltegid:

    You made me think of what makes the fire nation/empire so strong. By working metal and having technology, you have weapons and tools that NON-BENDERS i.e. the majority of your population can use. That is a huge advantage and seems to make sense as an explanation for the success of the empire.
    

  • u/alexanderwales:

    Earthbending can raise houses, and dig tunnels, which makes it pretty damned good for starting up a community, but after that ... the utility starts to drop. It's possible that you could make an earthbending engine in order to mill your grains into flour, saw logs, etc., but the same is true for all other forms of bending as well.
    
    Contrast with waterbending, which can be used to make engines, ice houses, *and* for healing, *and* for food preservation, which cuts out a large amount of labor.
    
    Contrast with firebending, which has by far the most industrial uses. Sure, they can't build their own houses like the waterbenders or earthbenders, but once they have a village established, they can build similar engines and basically cut out all need for ovens and/or heating, which is enormously useful. That's without even getting to the metallurgy that they're capable of given the amount of heat they can produce.
    

• u/None:

  To those unfamiliar with tumblr format, the threads branch off and there are other lines of discussion available on the notes of a post.
  

• u/Stefanido:

  I think [Embers](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5398503/1/Embers) by Vathara managed to construct an AU where all of the nations really made sense. The story mostly follows Zuko and Iroh. By more strongly integrating the concept of the spirit world and the Avatar's role as the spirit bridge, a very interesting story creeps up.
  
  One of my favorite parts of this story is the absolute terror that having the Avatar, whose job it is to mediate with spirits partly on mortals' behalf, actually merge with the water spirit at the North Pole causes across the entire world.
  
  The story is complete, everything is resolved, although the final chapter feels like it was a cap put in place to allow the author to finally just finish the story. The 700k words before it are golden.
  

• u/None:

  I feel like this basically misses the point and appeal of various elements of the show. The appeal of bending in the first place is simply that it's cool. If it was something you had to think about, it wouldn't be as much fun. *Harry Potter* also puts no thought into its magic, and both of these series are wildly popular. This should tell you something. It doesn't matter how the Fire Nation wiped out the Air Nomads. It's the start of the conflict. Who cares how it happened? The bending fights are not about *bending*, they're about clashes of personality and power. The differences in the fighting styles between Azula and Zuko in their final battle symbolize their character arcs. Zuko has found his center. He is calm and capable, and this is seen in the way he holds his ground the entire fight. Azula is cracking under the pressure of power and paranoia, and this is shown by her erratic and wild motions that carry her around the battlefield. The fight would be worsened if they had to instead fight with intelligence and munchkinery instead of symbolism.
  
  Not that the appeal and point of a story can't be changed to be other things. But it's worth appreciating how a lack of attention to certain details can allow other things to come to the fore, and how necessary those details are in the first place to crafting an enjoyable and popular story. Certainly one can't lose track of storytelling elements simply to be rational. Have Zuko and Azula fight rationally, but it still needs to be symbolic of their opposed character arcs.
  

  • u/None:

    > Harry Potter also puts no thought into its magic, and both of these series are wildly popular.
    
    I think the example you chose has a certain counter-example that suffices to show that it is indeed possible to create a retelling of a children's story with vastly increased rational concepts, while still creating an incredibly strong and popular work of fiction. Just saying.
    

    • u/None:

      But the major difference is that Harry Potter has an enormous world full of details that beg to be fleshed out. Harry Potter was made for fanfiction. But the HP series deliberately makes a choice to focus on the milieu at the expense of the bland, predictable characters. A:TLA deliberately makes a choice to have a simple plot and a simple world to bring the characters into strong focus. Considering how bland and empty the world of A:TLA is and how simple and derivative the magical mechanics are, what exactly is the point of writing fanfiction about *that* as opposed to about the characters, who would do well in any world? You are very nearly writing original fiction; might as well make it something you can sell.
      
      Besides, I really don't understand the appeal of the game of pointing out the ways in which people who can casually violate the laws of our universe could indeed dominate it. Just seems rather vapid. Well, who am I to judge other people's fun?
      

  • u/None:

    To add to that, a lot of the fights are about personality, not bending. Aang can beat Zuko initially becuase Zuko is so uptight and obsessed with his vision of himself capturing the Avatar and regaining his honor that he can't focus on the task in front of him. Aang is clever and quick, and so he easily exploits that. But in the underground crystal cavern place Zuko can take Aang on because Zuko has just gone all-in by betraying his uncle and siding with his sister. He's utterly desperate and truly focused on success *at this moment*. He is not even thinking about his father. Azula is stronger than everyone because she is pretty darned rational and gets under everybody's skin. That's why she easily beats a pissed-off Zuko, but as Zuko becomes calmer and more collected and at peace with himself it becomes harder and harder for her to fight him. That's why Katara can beat Azula as well: Katara goes into mother bear mode, which Azula's mind games simply don't work on. But Aang never beats Azula because Aang never quite overcomes his personality flaw of being unwilling to use direct and overwhelming force.
    
    The connection between bending and personality is a big part of what makes bending so interesting. We see this most clearly when Aang is learning earthbending. He has to overcome his natural inclinations and learn to stand strong and face things head-on. The other elements also have their associations with personality traits which come out in various places. If bending were instead merely about how some people can control some elements and that allows them to do all kinds of terrifying things, a lot of the emotional appeal of the show would be lost in place of smart but meaningless action scenes.
    

    • u/None:

      >The connection between bending and personality is a big part of what makes bending so interesting. We see this most clearly when Aang is learning earthbending. He has to overcome his natural inclinations and learn to stand strong and face things head-on. The other elements also have their associations with personality traits which come out in various places.
      
      I think you're right, but I don't agree with the dilemma you're proposing. It's possible to create "bending flows from your personality" and "bending must be used intelligently and effectively" in the same story.
      

---