Was Ozai really that strong without the comet? Aang could have shat on his life way before Sozin's comet, and even could have killed him without the avatar state during the comet.
Would Aang have been better off murdering the fuck out of Ozai like his past lives told him to, or was it a better moral that "there's always another way"?
The show copped out by letting Aang get away with not killing. It was a selfish thing for Aang to do. Like every Avatar before, Aang's mistakes revisit the next Avatar.
its about ending the cycle. just as the avatars were reincarnated so too was the evil they fought.
Ozai was probably just slightly stronger than Iroh, though would probably not last in a prolonged engagement. Azula is kind of the same way, and she's probably just slightly stronger than both of them.
I think it's better to tell children that we should strive to find better alternatives to stopping dangerous people. Everyone is damaged in some way and killing them is rarely the solution to stop them from breaking and destroying others.
Personally speaking though, I believe there are times when a person, however damaged and wrong, crosses the line between having the possibility of redemption and simply needing to be stopped by any means, including killing them.
They went with a better moral, but it's not one I necessarily agree with.
Except it didn't end anything. Aang never learned to kill so he goes through life not killing people who are trying to upset the balance. People like Yakkone. If Aang had killed him, the Equalists would never have happened. The same could be said about the Red Lotus. They were just imprisoned.
>Aang didnt kill people
>said people come back in one way or another to fuck with Korra later on
>cycle broken
Its literally the same thing with Roku and Sozen. Roku didnt do what was necessary, even if it wasnt murder, Aang paid for it for the entirety of Last Airbender
Well it's not like Aang got off scott free. He had to slap Ozai's shit, and he doesn't like fighting.
In this moment, I'm reminded of what Android 16 once said. It's not the exact quote, but something like "There are people out there who words alone will not reach. Fight to protect what matters to you"
Aang had to drop the pacifist shit and go full DBZ on him, even though he'd really just rather sit down and talk it out over jasmine tea. But I don't mind that he didn't kill him.
One could say that crippling a murderer by, I don't know, cutting off all his fingers would stop them from killing.
What evil?
Avatar Kuruk didn't have to do shit because he was living in a peaceful time, but his wife got her face stolen by a spirit.
Avatar Kyoshi let a conqueror die, but said she would have killed him if she had to anyway, since his death led to an era of peace.
Avatar Roku did nothing for 25 years because he believed his pal Sozin wouldn't start the war, but then his island was got fucked and Sozin left him to die. Sozin was able to start the war because Roku refused to kill his friend.
Aang had to deal with Roku's mistake, but the other avatars didn't have that. I'm not sure what happened during Avatar Yangchen's time, but if you do please tell me.
>Like every Avatar before, Aang's mistakes revisit the next Avatar.
The only mistake Aang made was not killing the bloodbender that went on to have kids
Ding ding ding. Aang shirked his responsibility to the world for his own selfish personal reasons. He didn't even want to listen to Yang Chen when she told him that because he was the avatar, his sole responsibility was to the world.
>Ozai
>Stronger than Iroh
this bitch don't know shit about the Dragon of the West
In a short engagement Ozai would definitely have the upper hand, but if Iroh can prolong it, which he probably could, he'd emerge victorious
>Aang didn't kill people
>said people come back in one way or another
who?
I like how people say Aang didn't kill people
I can only imagine how many people drowned at the siege of the north. Yeah you can argue it was the ocean spirit, but if Aang wasnt there the ocean spirit wouldnt have been able to do that, so he shares some of the blame
Without going nto the lion turtle fiasco I think Aang is better off not killing if that is an option. Stopping more war with the fire king dead would be really hard. Zuko would have a very hard time regaining any political clout if the fire king died. It would be seen as him siding with the avatar, who most of the fire kingdom thinks is the enemy, in order to stage a coup. Also keeping him in prison works well to placate the earth kingdom. If not they may go searching for someone to blame a la Germany after ww1.
As if we needed more reasons to hate Legend of Korra. Thanks.
>Azula stronger than Iroh and the Firelord.
>Scrapper detected
She's only 14 and shes at least at their level if not higher
Do not summon him, he likes Azula for all the wrong reasons. Come to think of it I havent seen him in a while
>Would Aang have been better off murdering the fuck out of Ozai
Personally no. And in the long run there is no difference to the rest of the world between dead and living his life in prison without bending.
She never shows the shear power of the firelord or theven depth of technique that Iroh had. If you put Ozai against Zuko and Katara during the eclipse he would have stomped. It took a Aang in avatar state to take him down. She is skilled but young and inexperienced. Iroh and Ozai have decades of experience in her and are just as much prodigies as her.
It was explicitly stated and shown that Azula wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders when she faced off against Zuko.
And yet Aang was never able to defeat Azula despite the comet not being a factor. Katara was the only one who managed to defeat her and that was after a very long fight with comet powered Zuko
And Iroh just doesnt really like showing his powerlevel for some reason, and assuming he would go full throttle is out of character for him
You can still count her as inexperienced compared to her father and Uncle. Note how Ozai fires lightning and Zuko in the eclipse episode. Quick, efficient and double-barreled. Azula's is much slower. She has to go through some time consuming movements for her lightning to work well, even before Sozin's comet.
>Katara was the only one who managed to defeat her
>that was after a very long fight with comet powered Zuko
Actually Katara is the only reason Zuko lost
Aang would have beat Ozai without the avatar state if he wasn't a bitch. He could have redirected Ozai's lightning back at him and then proceed to rape him, but he didn't and just decided to hide in a fucking rock until he literally got pushed into the avatar state which did the work for him.
>scrapper
Now there's so,e vintage name faggotry
He makes her look like a fool on top of the drill. Also Aang nevery fights her as a fully realized avatar. Ozai is literally flying around destroying solid rocks with fire. He also demonstrates the ability to fire lightning with both hands. Her fight during the eclipse isn't on the same scale. I'm not doubting she is strong but she just doesn't have the experience of these veterans.
Dodging constantly and trying to destroy a drill =/= defeating her in a fight.
And in their other fights, he either runs away or almost dies in ba sing se
Azula's greatest strength was her ability to manipulate and control people. Her firebending was secondary. She didn't take Ba Sing Se through Firebending.
In ba sing se she just makes the smart move of not waiting for him to transform. Something dbz villians could learn but I digress. Do you think she could match up to Aang presuming he could transform without a free shot? She kinda just sniper him during an opening. Not reflective of their bending skills but her ruthlessness
>killing them is rarely the solution to stop them from breaking and destroying others.
What?
Korra was willing to die to save her enemy, and redeemed her. Aang corrupted Ozai and ruined him. Who was the better Avatar again?
actually it was stated in the penultimate episode that Iroh could best Ozai in a duel. But bloodshed between brothers would just cause more bloodhsed. Iroh said the Avatar had to defeat Ozai, who was threatening the balance of the world.
>Would Aang have been better off murdering the fuck out of Ozai like his past lives told him to, or was it a better moral that "there's always another way"?
The problem with this question is that there it isn't a question of in-universe mechanics, it's a question of writing.
Given the story that played out and the existence of a non-lethal tool to take down Ozai Aang did the right thing. The issue is that that tool shouldn't have existed, it was cop-out writing that served to undermine a really strong and important moral lesson that much too few people seem to understand.
As for how strong Ozai was, obviously Aang could have ruined his shit 700 different ways if not for the comet, Ozai was probably a more than serviceable bender, but the king isn't generally the king because he's the strongest guy around.
>I think it's better to tell children that we should strive to find better alternatives to stopping dangerous people
That not even what the original lesson was about, the fact that the particular issue in play was whether or not to kill someone to stop them from causing greater harm is basically incidental, the real lesson at the core of it all was that sometimes you have to let go of your own personal compunctions and moral codes and realize that the world is larger than you and your ego. Putting the things you consider personally "important" over literally everything else in the world is IMMENSELY selfish.
>served to undermine a really strong and important moral lesson that much too few people seem to understand.
What lesson is that?
There was no point anywhere in the season where it was suggested Aang might be wrong.
You may have WANTED it to be the story of how "the Punisher is a smarter hero than Batman" but it was never that.
>There was no point anywhere in the season where it was suggested Aang might be wrong.
You mean except for the part where 3 Avatars in a row told him to his face that he was wrong and that his duty is to the world, not to his own sense of righteousness?
Characters had the opinion that he should kill, yes, but those characters were being depicted as assholes.
The plot was about how Aang is more idealistic than them and this is depicted as a good thing because heroes in chidren's media should be, y'know, nice pure Neutral-Good good guys.
You WANTED Aang to be wrong because you're old and cynical and believe in your heart of hearts that bad people should die.
>but those characters were being depicted as assholes.
They weren't though.
All three of them were good guys who either did the right thing or did the wrong thing and learned from it.
Aang on the other hand doesn't learn anything, he has the answer dropped that allows him to perfectly serve both himself and the world dropped into his lap from God on High. An answer that was in no way set up or hinted towards as even being a possibility prior to literally the moment it is used.
I can't honestly believe that you believe that "You will never have to compromise your own ideals" is a good or accurate lesson to teach children.
>heroes in chidren's media should be, y'know, nice pure Neutral-Good good guys.
That's some nice opinions you got there.
>You WANTED Aang to be wrong because you're old and cynical and believe in your heart of hearts that bad people should die.
Nah, nice smear job though.
I already explained that the killing is incidental to the moral lesson.
What I do believe is that my moral compass isn't the be-all end-all, I believe that what is inside my head is smaller than the rest of the world.
The lesson can be applied to anything as grand as what is shown in the show to something as small as having to kiss the ass of someone you hate in order to keep your job because you have kids that depend on you.
>I'm not sure what happened during Avatar Yangchen's time, but if you do please tell me.
We're not really given details, but it was somewhat implied she was highly efficient. She gave no shits about killing people when necessary. Hence why Kuruk's lifetime was in relative peace.
>I can't honestly believe that you believe that "You will never have to compromise your own ideals" is a good or accurate lesson to teach children.
When your ideals are the moral high ground because we're talking about the act of murder?
I get it, criminal justice, what soldiers do in war, etc., it's a gray area to adults.
But we're talking about a show for children, about heroism, and the main character was still a child himself, raised to be a pacifist monk. OF COURSE the moral of the story was that "his belief in a better way was right, the past avatars didn't believe it because they weren't young, idealistic children like he was but he was right and they were wrong."
Now, we can have a seperate discussion about how the Lion-Turtle was seeded in and I'd agree with you completely that it not coming until the finale is too late and makes it a deus ex machina...but the solution to that isn't "it shouldn't have been done", that wouldn't have fit the tone they were going for.
What they should've done is set it up stronger, sooner, and more often. Make spiritbending a Chekhov's Gun instead of an asspull.
>But we're talking about a show for children, about heroism
But that's exactly the issue.
You brought up the Batman vs The Punisher comparison earlier and they're actually a good jumping off point for what my point is.
I dislike both Batman and the Punisher and I dislike them for the same reason, despite having the exact opposite approaches they both make the exact same mistake.
They do what they do to serve to themselves and their own egos.
Batman refuses to kill because he has a near pathological aversion to the very concept, he literally cannot make himself do it, it isn't because it's right, he acts the way he does for his own sake.
The Punisher is the same, he kills out of a personal sense of vengeance and righteousness, he more or less deliberately overlooks the possibility that there could ever be a better solution than to pump lead into every person he sees as having done wrong. He doesn't do it because it's right, he does it for his own sake.
The most heroic thing you can do is to cast aside yourself and do something you hate because you know it is the right thing and because it is your duty, it doesn't matter if that thing is killing someone or sparing someone, putting other people above yourself, that is what makes a hero.
And that's why I have problem with the ATLA finale and why I don't think having Aang kill Ozai would have contravened the tone of the show at all. The lesson it ultimately tries to teach is that heroism and self-interest will always be perfectly compatible, and that simply isn't true.
In the end Aang still became a hero, but it feels hollow because he didn't have to give anything up to attain it.
Literally everything that happens in S1 and S3 is a result of ether Aang not killing Yakone or his friends refusing to kill the Red Lotus out of respect for his memory.
Iroh doesn;t know whether or not he could beat Ozai. He said so. So I'd say he's at least slightly better than Iroh.
>but the king isn't generally the king because he's the strongest guy around.
You forget the fact that the Fire Lord canbe challenged to an agni kai for the right to rule. That means the fire lord's gotta be pretty damn good. At least in regards to his family.
Let's not forget that Ozai didn't have to lead the charge to genocide the earth kingdom. He chose to do so. That leads me to believe he considered himself pretty damn powerful, and he doesn;t strike me as a guy to underestimate his enemies.
>because you know it is the right thing
And there's the issue.
You think Aang didn't want to kill Ozai because...what, doing it would've tainted himself, in a modern American ideal of "killing is a sin, it will send you to Hell" sense?
What do you say to a character who believes that killing is wrong not because it would harm THEIRSELF, but because they just plain don't think it's the appropriate solution to the problem of "a bad person is doing bad things"?
>What do you say to a character who believes that killing is wrong not because it would harm THEIRSELF, but because they just plain don't think it's the appropriate solution to the problem of "a bad person is doing bad things"?
I would say they are more or less transparently wrong or at least ask them to explain their rationale because I certainly don't get it.
And in the specific context of ATLA I would say it is directly contradicted.
Aang knows that Ozai HAS to be stopped, he knows that HE has to do it and he knows that killing Ozai would stop him.
Aang never tries to make the argument that killing Ozai somehow wouldn't work or that killing him would be MORE wrong than letting him burn the entire world to cinders.
He only ever argues in terms of himself and his own morality "But the Monks told me", "But I don't want to do it", "But killing is bad!"
>Iroh and Ozai have decades of experience in her
>I would say they are more or less transparently wrong or at least ask them to explain their rationale because I certainly don't get it.
Well I can't speak for a fictional character, but from where I sit, this guy is 100% right.
Ozai's not the Joker. The reason you take him down isn't "if he gets loose, he'll kill again". The reason you take him down is to take a whole country down.
Making Ozai disappear from the world wouldn't have changed the rest of the Fire Nation's minds about the war they were fighting.
A dead Ozai is a martyr. An Ozai jailed by his own homeland is an example.
Not killing people happens all the time user. You're here because your mom made that horrible choice she probably regrets
>The only mistake Aang made was not killing the bloodbender that went on to have kids
Not even that big of a mistake on his part. Yakone was imprisoned and somehow the police couldn't keep him locked away so he escaped. If Aang had his way Yakone would probably have been in prison for the rest of his life or atleast a good part of it.
Actually Iroh said he doubted his ability to defeat Ozai in a fight.
The one who didn't lose every single fight in the Avatar State, give spirits the opportunity to drive mankind to the edge of extinction (again), sever their connection to past lives, cause the disintegration of the Earth Kingdom, the world's capital city leveled, and create a Dark Avatar.
>Everyone is damaged in some way and killing them is rarely the solution to stop them from breaking and destroying others.
yeah, if you kill them, they win
Should have taken his bending and publicly fucked him in the mouth. Think of the blow it would deal to the Fire Nation's morale; their mighty Fire Lord broken and spiritually maimed before gargling Airbender shame chowder.
In fact, all those defeated by Avatars should get forced to orally service their conqueror, and not just because Korra sitting on Kuvira's face excites me.
The show is big on cop-outs.
You know what the biggest cop-out is? Zuko versus Azula. Say one thing about anime: In an anime, the conflict would've been about the fight itself, and it would end with Zuko physically overpowering her and probably killing her. Here, Katara was there and she fucked his plan for no reason. If Katara wasn't present, Zuko would have won through sheer attrition.
It's really dumb. An important lesson to teach kids is that sometimes you have to make the hard choices to destroy evil. Sometimes, you have to put down a sick dog.
Like, it's a bit disappointing because you realize "Oh, right. It's a cartoon after all. Should have seen that coming."
Not really. If you kill someone, they're just dead. It's like when we kill terrorists. Who remembers Osama now? Or those Al-Qadea No. 2s? They're just dead meat.
Alive they were dangerous. Dead, they're gone.
What martyr? Zuko, his son, is the new Fire Lord. The King is dead, long live the King. Who's going to miss the old guy when his younger, more dynamic son just took over?
If he had stood on the palace steps and - metaphorically - tossed down his dad and sister's burning skill and went "I'M FIRE LORD NOW" who the fuck would argue with him? He has Elemental Jesus backing him, and it's his right by blood.
Technically that would really secure his rule, because people would be thinking "Wow, he killed his dad and his sister, and they were batshit. This guy must be a stone cold killer."
That last bit sounds Jawesome
Ment for this
why so bloodthristy, user?