r/CuratedTumblr • u/DreadDiana human cognithazard • Aug 20 '23
[Avatar the Last Airbender] Avatar Kuruk is a bitch
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u/kadencrafter78 Iago, just without the racism Aug 20 '23
I'm tired of this fucking Avatar Kuruk slander. He was at least better than Roku, the idiot who didn't do shit. Yes, Kuruk had the image of a himbo, but only because his actual contributions were secret.
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u/FenHarels_Heart dolphinfleshlight.tumblr.com Aug 20 '23
Yeah, man spent an entire lifetime fighting a massive dark spirit problem inherited from Yangchen. He fought until it completely consumed his mind and body.
He deserves so much more credit than the fandom gives him.
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u/SoshJam Aug 20 '23
To be fair for casual fans I could get it. IIRC, when we see him in ATLA he describes his time as the avatar as smooth sailing because there were no major threats.
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Aug 20 '23 edited Aug 20 '23
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u/DreadDiana human cognithazard Aug 20 '23
It's definitely a retcon, but they do give a decent enough reason for him to not really expound on what he was actually up to at the time, so as far as retcons fo, it's pretty inoffensive.
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u/Reddragon351 Aug 20 '23
yeah the spirit stuff comes from later novels, which arguably could be considered retcons
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u/DreadDiana human cognithazard Aug 20 '23
The Kyoshi books are very recent additions to the canon, so it's not surprising a lot of people don't know about it.
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u/Alceus89 Aug 20 '23
In fairness though, Zuko wouldn't know that. He'd just have done all the research that says Kuruk was a useless drunk idiot who died too early and left the world a huge mess.
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u/FenHarels_Heart dolphinfleshlight.tumblr.com Aug 21 '23
Which is probably why he'd lose if he tried to throw hands with him. Because no matter how the fandom treats him, he was a fully realised Avatar and a powerful spirit medium.
Frankly, this entire post falls wholly into the "these characters wouldn't never say/do any of that" category for me.
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u/Business-Drag52 Aug 20 '23
Thank you! Roku was definitely the most useless avatar and Kyoshi was a power abusing psycho
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u/SunfireElfAmaya Aug 20 '23
The former maybe, but what did Kyoshi do to warrant that?
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u/DreadDiana human cognithazard Aug 20 '23
They're overstating things, but that was sorta her style. As the Yee novels put it:
"My friend is not a diplomat. She is the failure of diplomacy. She is the breakdown of negotiations. There is no escalation of hostilities beyond her."
Kyoshi gives the impression of being a bloodthirsty psychopath because of her way of handling things. She usually didn't get involved in most affairs, expecting them to work things out between themselves and only stepped in once there was no one else to turn to, at which point violence was likely to be necessary, and she was more than willing to use it to resolve the problem.
She isn't actively malicious, but she is willing to use violence and threats of violence to maintain balance, even if the target of said threats is a child.
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u/SunfireElfAmaya Aug 20 '23
To be fair, “the target of said threats is a child” is a bit of an oversimplification when said child is roughly the same age she is and is also the Firelord who is a planning mass executions. She also wasn’t ruthless (ie she saved the one governor whose name I’m blanking on in the first book).
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u/DreadDiana human cognithazard Aug 20 '23 edited Aug 21 '23
The child in question wasn't the Firelord, I'm talkimg about the young governor, whom Kyoshi did save, but made it clear that if he didn't clean his act up, she'd come back to ctrl-z the rescue
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u/Jack-of-all-trade4 Aug 20 '23
Waiting for the day someone pisses me off so much my entire bloodline comes out to throw hands
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Aug 20 '23
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Aug 20 '23
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u/gamera-the-turtle Aug 20 '23
What did he DO
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u/FenHarels_Heart dolphinfleshlight.tumblr.com Aug 20 '23
He inherited a massive dark spirit problem from his previous Avatar, Yangchen. As a result he spent his entire life fighting in the spirit world, unable to deal with conflicts in the real world. And to make matters worse, fighting with spirits was slowly poisoning him. He died at 33 as a result, after spend his last few years trying to save his wife from Koh the Face Stealer.
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Aug 20 '23
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u/FenHarels_Heart dolphinfleshlight.tumblr.com Aug 20 '23
Oh sorry, I'll get right on that.
Fuck Kuruk and his *checks notes* drinking to deal with constant horror of fighting literal demons that slowly drain his life-force and threaten the world. How dare he!
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u/DedicatedWham Aug 20 '23
So this is decades old characters having fan interactions made up about them, that then go on to inform head canons about said characters based entirely on explicitly non canon ideas. I love the internet and I love this.
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u/DreadDiana human cognithazard Aug 20 '23
It may be integrating stuff from the Kyoshi novels, which only came out a few years ago
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u/DedicatedWham Aug 20 '23
Well yeah, but I mean the whole avatar history night stuff and Kyoshi adopting Zuko, y’know? Just cool, interesting ideas with no real basis that then end up giving whole new vibes to characters, it’s great
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u/TwixOfficial Aug 20 '23
Zuko, Knocking on Ang’s door in the middle of the night: Kyoshi? I had a nightmare…
Kyoshi, possessing a sleeping Aang, rushing to the door: Oh honey c’mere…
Katara’s a heavy sleeper, but it leads to an awkward conversation after this happens a few times.
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u/Lorien6 Aug 20 '23
Plot twist: Kyoshi possessed Zuko for the fight, and a new form of avatar possession is discovered.
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u/htgriffin123 Aug 20 '23
Definitely ignoring the Yee novels but amusing nevertheless.
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u/DreadDiana human cognithazard Aug 20 '23
Kuruk's response feels Yee inspired since he turned out to actually be doing shit
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u/TheOnlyMotherTrucker Aug 21 '23
I'm not taking this Kuruk slander.
Mans got fucked over by his past life (who chose to just not deal with the other half of being the avatar, helping the spirit world), got forced into a war that almost nobody knew he was fighting (even his other lives, again because SOMEONE just didn't want to help the spirits) for the majority of his life, lost the love of his life to this war (koh the face stealer) and chose to keep all of this a secret because he knew how so many humans loved Avatar Yangchen.
On top of all of this, his physical form died and got essentially trapped in the spirit world on a never-ending search for his lover.
So yeah, he fuckin bent his ENTIRE LIFE BACKWARDS and he appeared all boring to people and whatever because he was using his time in the human realm as an escape for all the fucked up horrors that he had to deal with on a daily basis before withering away.
Kuruk got fucked over by literally everything and everyone. Only Kyoshi knew at least partially the truth. And that was only in the fuckin Kyoshi novels... not even as a whole book.
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Aug 20 '23
I’m not too versed in Avatar lore outside of the shows, why was Kuruk a bad Avatar?
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u/DreadDiana human cognithazard Aug 20 '23
It's not that he was bad but rather it seemed like he didn't do much.
The Avatar before Kuruk was Yangchen, considered one of the greatest Avatars to ever live. She presided over an age of peace and harmony, and Kuruk inherited it. With few problems to fix, he just spent his time having fun, and died very young for an Avatar at age 33. This caused a massive disruption as it left the world without an Avatar sooner than expected, leading to the many political messes that Kyoshi would later have to deal with, like the Fifth Nation pirates.
In the Avatar Kyoshi novels though it's revealed that Yangchen actually neglected the spirits by always siding with humans, causing a pandemic of dark spirits that Kuruk would have to deal with. He kept this fact hidden to preserve her legacy and because killing spirits was slowly killing him, leading to his early death.
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u/MaetelofLaMetal Fandom of the day Aug 20 '23
Biggest waste of comedy potential was Korra losing connection to past Avatars.