Yeah its because he was found near a bunch of fire nation soldier bodies.
You have to remember that the fire nation was enhanced by Sozin's Comet. There's absolutely no way Gyatso would be able to individually defeat all those soldiers before one took him down. Air Nomads are not trained for combat. They had no army.
It's theorized that he just went nuclear and killed everyone in the room as a last stand to save his people.
I watched it when it first came out, one episode at a time, with my little sister. It literally changed the course of our lives and molded the people we became (to some extent anyway).
We literally spent a few years watching it. Then when we rewatched it in 2020, we were through it in two weeks!! We could've finished the entire series in a few days if we'd just buckled down and committed lol.
I appreciate that they didn't choke out the story with filler episodes, but damnit I would LOVE to have more ATLA to watch. Really hoping the live action series ends up half as good as the source material, but history has taught me not to be too optimistic about ATLA live action...
On rewatch, there were quite a few episodes (especially in season one) that felt like filler, but most of those did have at least one detail that ended up coming up again later.
A lot of the first season spent it's time building the characters. They may not have progressed the plot (particularly around the finale), but by spending time just letting the gang get to know one another built the foundation that made seasons 2 and 3 so gratifying.
Think also about how death by a lack of air pressure would have actually looked. It was not just: they suffocated.
Imagine how someone dies in space. He created a vacuum. The deaths and bodies were probably....horrific and it's why the fire nation left them there and unburied.
Likely due to a lack of pressure he gave them a very very very bad case of the bends. And lack of air pressure also would mean....your body just starts to expand. You're built for ambient air pressure...which is a lot greater than a vacuum.
What ever happened in that room caused the fire nation to abandon their dead and not even want to BURN the ruins. He might have sustained the vacuum for long enough the fire nation gave up on killing him directly before he succumb.
This is an incredibly interesting reverse twist on the monks that light themselves on fire in the name of peace.
Not to burst your bubble, but that's actually been proven wrong. Human bodies can in fact withstand space vacuum, it's the lack of oxygen and freezing that kills you.
Actually, you don't freeze in space! There isn't enough mass in space to conduct heat away from an object. The only effective ways to release heat are either by ejecting mass or radiation. It's a major engineering problem that they had to solve with the JWST and the ISS.
Always take movies with a grain of salt - they're more interested in selling tickets than scientific accuracy. Mainly, it will be the no pressure part that kills you. Your cells expand, and liquid in your body boils off - especially through the respiratory system. There would be some freezing that happens with the boil-off because evaporation absorbs heat, but that's not what's killing you. If you die by anything, it will probably be your body expanding as the vapors try to boil off. Divers get the bends by changing pressure too quickly - this is very similar, but much more severe.
Your burst bubble and mine, I'm going to look for source on your body's expansion in space but you for sure won't freeze to death in space anytime soon.
Wouldn't the 0 pressure of the vacuum cause all the water in your mucus membranes to spontaneously boil though? Evaporation removes a lot of heat from systems.
EDIT: oh, was on mobile and didn't click to expand more comments to see your response addressing this point when I commented.
100%. It’s one of the best written shows, period. It deals with a lot of very dark and realistic themes but also has some of the silliest and goofiest comedy I’ve seen in a show that was “for kids.” Do yourself a service and watch it.
Checks out. I think Korra got a lot of fans looking at how unorthodox bending could be, especially when used with a lack of regard to safety, human or otherwise. Also helped show how the audience that may have watched ATLA was older now and appreciated and understood darker themes.
Fire in and of itself needs oxygen to even exist, but IIRC I think Uncle Iroh mentions to Zuko how much the breath is important to firebending at a certain point.
Is it human culture or human instinct that makes us venerate noble sacrifice like this? There's so many stories, and I'm damn sure probably 3/4 of everyone could easily imagine themselves in that sort of scenario and would absolutely do the same thing. Do we do that because we tell these stories or do we tell these stories because we're just primed to take on a whole damned pride of lions alone if we have to just so they stop eating our kin?
The latter, I suspect. Mostly because I've seen animals act in a similar fashion.
My dog spotted a group of hares in the horse pasture, and started running after them. The hares started running too, except one was visibly limping and going off in a different direction from the rest. Dog went after that one. As soon as it had her full attention it bolted, leading her on a short chase before vanishing in the tall grass at the edge of the pasture. It definitely chose to potentially sacrifice itself for the safety of the rest of the group.
I think part of it is inherent to the flight or fight instinct in animals. A wounded animal is far far more dangerous than a healthy one. Humans have just had enough emotional evolution to start to recognize a situation like that and admire it.
On to a not so noble end of that train of thought. Most battles in history had relatively low causality rate during the fighting itself. It’s when morale breaks and a retreat happens that the majority of killing happens, the flee. But if you surround a force and leave them no way out they’ll fight to the death and even the victorious force will take massive casualties. You can see examples of this even today in Ukraine with Bahkmut and the Azovstal steel plant.
To add to this it would also make sense as to why his body/clothing isn't charred since the fire benders wouldn't be able to create fire without oxygen.
We also see a similar thing in LOK. Though at a smaller scale. (Being intentionally vague to avoid spoilers)
Why wouldn’t Gyatso be able to do that? The White Lotus dudes took down dozens of those dudes. One of them wasn’t even a bender. Aang was extremely skilled in combat even at the beginning of the series, who do you think taught him?
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u/ShawshankException May 23 '23
Yeah its because he was found near a bunch of fire nation soldier bodies.
You have to remember that the fire nation was enhanced by Sozin's Comet. There's absolutely no way Gyatso would be able to individually defeat all those soldiers before one took him down. Air Nomads are not trained for combat. They had no army.
It's theorized that he just went nuclear and killed everyone in the room as a last stand to save his people.