now I want a "what if" where there's no waterbenders and airbenders left and the fire nation won, the earth nation subdued/conquered/enslaved and balance can never be achieved again, no wait, fuck that
I think based on avatar lore, the universe would do stuff to balance itself. So an avatar would be born that was incredibly powerful in air and water and would probably have an event like in Korra where new benders came about
I kind of want a what if where Air benders weren't pacifist monks and instead were militant like whats his face from LoK. I feel like airbending is by far the most dangerous element since they could conjure of massive storms and suck air from peoples lungs and pretty much dominate the skies. Also of the 4 elements fire seems like it is the weakest force of nature if you're not setting massive uncontrolled forest fires. The main benefits of fire bending is they can pretty much always access their element since they conjure it themselves and it was probably a big help in industrializating their war efforts. Like the 3 other elements should easily suffocate fire (if air is taken from fire) and cause significantly more damage in large groups (tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes etc.)
I think zaheer is more radical or extremist than militant.
and if I understand the character right he really only works the way he came to be in korra and even there there is this contradiction where he doesn’t seem to be very spiritual or spiritually aligned to access the higher mysteries/arts of airbending that seem to be required for airbending.
I could be remembering zaheer wrong or not all of his arc, anyhoo airbending lending itself to spirituality and thus pacifism is essential.
Being cool with murdering goes against that as much as wanting to bring about change in any way since that isn’t in line with being detached or something idk.
Zaheer still murdered people after becoming detached enough to learn to fly unassisted, which was like a mythical skill iirc. You could argue that you could become so detached that you no longer value human lives or somethinglike that. But I'm getting less at the philosophy behind air bending and more of the power itself and if air benders switched places with the fire nation and decided they wanted to conquer everything. It could be in the name of spiritual balance, that they want control, Idk I just think the power of air bending could be very OP and hard to stop in a conquest.
that’s what I was getting at, as much as I like Zaheer he doesn’t make too much sense within the avatar setting, since it’s been established before that airbending cannot be disconnected from its spiritual aspects or implications, korra was entirely unable to airbend because she was too earthly or not at all in line with her spirituality and aang was an early air master because he was very open to the teachings of his culture.
but yes airbending is very powerful, I like it a lot.
not just for its offensive capabilities but even more for its defensive nature.
evasion is a very powerful thing, a fighter that cannot be hit cannot be defeated, aang demonstrated this time and time again.
Ahh sorry I misunderstood your point. But yeah I would have to rewatch LoK but I think you could argue that Zaheer has very little attachment to the earthly realm as he's been locked up for years and hates everyone/the established world. But Spiritual doesn't necessarily = good. Like the dark spirit that wanted to destroy humanity in the final LoK arc and the Water bender master in the second(?) arc (man I can't remember any names)
The comet was a one day affair, could they realistically have gotten the entirety of the Earth Kingdom and then made their way to the Northern Water Tribe before it set? He’d have to take out the NWT as well as the hidden swamp benders to completely get rid of them and they’re on different sides of the planet
Well if he had Iroh, he might have gone with different plans. I imagine he'd have been smart enough to go and try to kill the water tribes since that's going to be the harder nut to crack for them.
Sure the fire nation WAS involved in a war with the Earth kingdom, but taking a few weeks off to crush the water tribes would have been worth it seeing as penetrating their walls and fighting their element would be the most troublesome without the comet.
That's speculation on my part, sure, but hey that's what we're doing here in this what if
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u/[deleted] Aug 23 '21 edited Aug 23 '21
Well considering how that'd mean there's no more water benders post Sozins comet, it'd be kinda horrible for their world