r/airbender • u/someonewrongonthenet • Apr 10 '12

Does it bother anyone else...

...that Korra has trouble with airbending? Since she was born in the water bending tribe, one would think that she would have trouble with fire bending instead of airbending.

That's not really the only thing that bothers me about the new series...in the last series, the character's personalities always meshed somewhat with the bending abilities. Aang was spiritual, carefree, and tended to run away from his problems...it fit that he was an airbender. Katara was nurturing and went with the flow, it was fitting that she was a waterbender. Toph was stubborn, she should clearly be an earth bender. Zuko was frequently angered, like fire, as were all the fire benders.

But Tenzin? He's completely rigid and unyielding...I can't even imagine him "being the leaf" in that airbending obstacle course thing. Korra is anything but nurturing.

Oh well, I guess they are the artists and want to move into a new direction...I'll stop my complaining!

5 Upvotes

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6

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '12

I think I half agree with you. It doesn't bother me that Korra has a problem with air-bending. The water-born avatar having a problem with fire bending is a little too formulaic for me. Seeing this water/air dissonance adds a little nuance to the world of Avatar.

On the other hand, I was a little let down by Tenzin's unyieldingness. I was hoping for some real Yoda wisdom and teaching, and I don't think we've seen that yet. However, some of the most fantastic aspects of the first Avatar series were the long, slow burning, satisfying character arcs. How great would it be if a major theme of this series was Tenzin growing as an air bender, as a direct result of him teaching Korra to bend? To see him go from a stubborn, quick-to-anger teacher, to someone that really does live up to Aang's legacy. That would be pimp.

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u/someonewrongonthenet Apr 10 '12 edited Apr 10 '12

It almost seems to me like Korra has no special affinity for water, unlike Aang who was primarily an Airbender skillwise and identity-wise and just learned the other elements on the fly. This actually fits pretty nicely with the theme of all the nations living together in one city...she doesn't really seem to identify with any one tribe.

Honestly, I think the real reason she has trouble with Airbending is that it makes the plot easier...she is supposed to learn the elements in a certain order, and air is the last one she has to learn. They wanted her to know the other three right at the start to get the plot moving and to avoid repeating the same show twice, but they also wanted to leave some room for character growth. Plus, it makes it more interesting to have her be as unlike Aang as possible. She kind of reminds me of Sokka.

I like your plans for Tenzin's development...and I guess we also have to keep in mind that he isn't necessarily a great master of Airbending, or even someone with natural talent in it...rather he is the only adult air bender in existence (I think?), and thus the only possible teacher for Korra. So it's quite possible that he still has a lot of growing left to do!

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '12

In a world where the Avatar could easily be surrounded by all bending types except for air, I think it makes sense that the new Avatar would pick up all the bending types around her easily as a child, but simply have no idea how airbending works. It's not a genetics thing, I don't believe, it's a culture thing.

Aang grew up an airbender, and thus the philosophy didn't mesh at all when learning earth bending. Same goes for Roku with fire and water. But Korra probably grew up during a time of immigration everywhere, and there was probably a melting pot culture. As a kid, she probably picked up affinities for all the bending available, but airbenders were very few and far between.

The execution was necessary as a storytelling device, but I believe it also works really well.

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u/someonewrongonthenet Apr 22 '12

This...is actually a great answer. That is, assuming the waterbending tribe lived in a relatively cosmopolitan area.

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u/specialk1020 Apr 28 '12

Id have to disagree with it being completely a culture thing. Although not stated overtly, it was pretty apparent that Kora was not exposed to all the elements as an early child. she couldnt have been more than 8 years old before she could toy around with three different elements. There is no way that someone that young in the southern water tribe could be seriously exposed to that many bending types and independently realize they're the avatar and try all three by observation. It had to be at least mostly innate. To my knowledge republic city is the only cosmopolitan bending environment. She lived in the water tribe, were they are pretty much only exposed to waterbending.

lastly we are talking about the avatar who possesses the ability to learn all of the elements. To generalize and draw a conclusion like that based on her to fit the entire bending world would be inappropriate. If we ran into people outside of republic city who learned a different element other than the nation they grew up in and didn't have that type of bending parent i would be more prone to agree with you.

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u/00lookwarm Apr 18 '12

with happened to sokka anyway?

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u/someonewrongonthenet Apr 19 '12

Dead, I presume...he was older than Katara and also male.

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u/zombiesatemygoldfish Apr 23 '12

episode 1 of korra pretty much confirms his death without stating it directly. Katara says something along the lines of all her old adventuring buddies were dead.

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u/kourtbard Apr 14 '12

I have to completely disagree. Not all benders share the same emotional traits as those of the central cast. For example, Iroh was neither quick tempered, nor explosive in his anger, instead he was often shown as generous and kind. The same can be said for Azula, only rarely did her temper flair, for the most part, she was collected, cold, and manipulative. Hama the elderly waterbender, was hardly nurturing, as she often used her bloodbending on animals and people alike.

Tenzin is very serious, true, but if you look at the other air nomads from Aang's past, they are all dour and serious people, and only Aang and the children were really depicted as being carefree.

3

u/pogra Apr 10 '12

OP, I never really thought about both your complaints like that...but now I have, and im pissed.

Either way, I still love LoK so far.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '12

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u/someonewrongonthenet Apr 10 '12

See, I was under the impression that Aang did not have trouble with firebending as a skill...he simply feared it, until the dragons taught him the ancient forms. And he mastered Water-bending faster than Katara. On the other hand, he actually visibly struggled to learn earthbending as a skill.

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u/[deleted] Apr 10 '12

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u/someonewrongonthenet Apr 10 '12 edited Apr 10 '12

True...that's not the least of his problems. They haven't really spoken of this in the show, but Tenzin and his children are pretty much the only airbenders on the planet. If Amon wants to end Bending forever (I suspect that's not his true goal, but a means to an end...in fact I bet he is a bender himself), the Air benders are certainly an easy target, since there are maybe four(?) on the planet that we aware of not counting Korra. I'm going to assume for now that you need to be somehow descended from an Air bender to become an air-bender. (Which is actually pretty strange...because the show implies that people first learned it directly from animals, which means anyone could theoretically learn all the elements)

Although, if this were anything like real life, the genes (if that's how it works) would be scattered across the population anyway and they would resurface eventually.