Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Dark477
Oct 15, 2018

Larryb posted:

Also, since it contains trace amounts of iron (among other metals present in the body), couldn't an earthbender theoretically bloodbend as well?

No. Earthbenders bend the earth in the metal. I think it was established in the first season of Korra that the purer the metal the harder it is to bend

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

The Bee
Nov 25, 2012

Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!

Mr Interweb posted:

isn't lava bending, mud bending, sand bending, etc. not specifically separate kinds of bending but just regular elemental bending under certain circumstances?

like, lava is just molten rock, which makes sense that earth benders can use it because they're bending the rocks it's made up of, which just happens to be really hot. they're carrying the heat along with it just because it's already apart of it, but they're not bending the heat itself like a fire bender presumably would.

same thing with mud bending/swamp bending being done by water benders. the mud and vines are being moved due to water. if there was no water involved, then no bending of mud/vines/etc. is involved either.

Pretty much, yep! Which is why a water and earthbender can both bend mud.

That said, I feel like it can be a little inconsistent. I think we had some scenes where firebenders bent lava as well?

TwoPair
Mar 28, 2010

Pandamn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta
Grimey Drawer

drrockso20 posted:

Or of course Aang only having one Airbender kid(honestly him having so few kids will always bewilder me, Tenzin was much better about it than his dad)

After birthing 3 kids, Katara was probably like nope I'm done, you're not the last airbender anymore, just teach Tenzin

Larryb
Oct 5, 2010

The Bee posted:

Pretty much, yep! Which is why a water and earthbender can both bend mud.

That said, I feel like it can be a little inconsistent. I think we had some scenes where firebenders bent lava as well?

We saw Roku divert a lava flow once but that’s the only example I can think of.

Asgerd
May 6, 2012

I worked up a powerful loneliness in my massive bed, in the massive dark.
Grimey Drawer

ninjewtsu posted:

Though really I'd like the setting a lot more if bending wasn't genetic period tbh

“Bending is genetic” is kind of something LoK retconned, since both Katara and Toph had two nonbending parents. Apart from the idea that only people from country x could bend element x, was it ever established as genetic in AtLA? I guess they needed it to be true so Aang could have airbending offspring, but then they brought other airbenders back anyway because A Wizard Did It... goddamn LoK was a hot mess.

Android Blues
Nov 22, 2008

Even in TLA, the airbenders have been gone for one hundred years and it's implied that this is the result of genocide and the fact that the bending peoples were all ethno-states, so there weren't (for instance) Earth Kingdom natives who were born as airbenders, ever. It's an unfortunate implication that most probably arose by accident, in the way that these things do when you start telling stories about nations of people born with different magic powers.

Larryb
Oct 5, 2010

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that it’s implied that a particular type of bender only existed in their nation of origin which Korra later contradicted.

Though that said, even in Korra bending ability seemed to be the luck of the draw more often than not (I don’t believe Korra’s mom was a bender and neither were most of Toph’s descendants with like 3 exceptions).

X_Toad
Apr 2, 2011

Mr Interweb posted:

isn't lava bending, mud bending, sand bending, etc. not specifically separate kinds of bending but just regular elemental bending under certain circumstances?
They technically are, but most earthbenders are at least aware of sand and mud even if they can't bend it perfectly, whereas lava seems to be completely out of most earthbenders' perception, thus making it feel like a different element.

Funky Valentine
Feb 26, 2014

Dojyaa~an

Larryb posted:

Yeah, I’m pretty sure that it’s implied that a particular type of bender only existed in their nation of origin which Korra later contradicted.

Part of this is because Korra takes place 80% of the time in what is expressly the most cosmopolitan part of the Avatar world where the individual nations are blurring together.

Larryb
Oct 5, 2010

Funky Valentine posted:

Part of this is because Korra takes place 80% of the time in what is expressly the most cosmopolitan part of the Avatar world where the individual nations are blurring together.

Speaking of which, is it ever stated exactly where Republic City is geographically?

Android Blues
Nov 22, 2008

Larryb posted:

Speaking of which, is it ever stated exactly where Republic City is geographically?

West coast of the Earth Kingdom, I think? Could be the southern coast. Its founding is detailed in one of the comics.

BioEnchanted
Aug 9, 2011

He plays for the dreamers that forgot how to dream, and the lovers that forgot how to love.
THere's a little spit of land on the northwest of the earth kingdom continent. The south coast of that spit is where Republic City is. There is a map that makes it clear in season 4.

Here's a world map with the city location highlighted in the black square

BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Sep 23, 2020

Cattail Prophet
Apr 12, 2014

...I have a lot of questions about the scale of Ba Sing Se on that map.

SlothfulCobra
Mar 27, 2011

Ba Sing Se is extremely large, but probably not that large. Also apparently the Air Nomad territory is actually a coloring error.

If I were going to do another show in the same setting but wanted a more intricate and detailed world, I'd try making the past shows set in distant history and try making a map of independent territories, since the Earth Kingdom isn't actually united, and it's plenty plausible that the Fire Nation and Water Tribes could go through some independence splits.

And apparently Toph's kids could just get some unincorporated land to make their own city on somehow, sure, why not.

T-man
Aug 22, 2010


Talk shit, get bzzzt.

toph build the enormous earth dams needed to make it livable, just off screen

The 7th Guest
Dec 17, 2003

Kipo season 3: October 12th

BioEnchanted
Aug 9, 2011

He plays for the dreamers that forgot how to dream, and the lovers that forgot how to love.

SlothfulCobra posted:



And apparently Toph's kids could just get some unincorporated land to make their own city on somehow, sure, why not.

It used to be the city that Toph's parents lived in. She got permission from the Earth Queen to bulldoze the place out of spite because it's a city that the Beifong family basically owns anyway and the Queen didn't give a gently caress.

Madurai
Jun 26, 2012

Cattail Prophet posted:

...I have a lot of questions about the scale of Ba Sing Se on that map.

I had a lot of questions about the scale of Ba Sing Se while watching the show.

Funky Valentine
Feb 26, 2014

Dojyaa~an

There is no euclidean geometry in Ba Sing Se.

SlothfulCobra
Mar 27, 2011

There's gotta be some kinda story about somebody raising an army of Earthbenders to create an impenetrable fortress city-state and then the ruler there became known as king just out of prestige despite his lack of actual control over the rest of the area.

pentyne
Nov 7, 2012

Madurai posted:

I had a lot of questions about the scale of Ba Sing Se while watching the show.

SlothfulCobra posted:

There's gotta be some kinda story about somebody raising an army of Earthbenders to create an impenetrable fortress city-state and then the ruler there became known as king just out of prestige despite his lack of actual control over the rest of the area.

It makes a lot of sense in most of the "Earth Kingdom" is basically like China during the feudal eras. You've got a massively powerful central city but such a huge land mass that force projection is only possible in specific and extreme circumstances and in general if revenue and trade is flowing into the city then there's no real problem. Before the Fire kingdom invaded there were probably civil skirmishes on a regular basis.

The thing about being able to create earth and stone works from magic hand waving solves an enormous problem of human labor costs for development and empire building. Imagine instead of the Roman corp of engineers building everything as the empire marched they just waved their hands and boom new, immaculate fully functional aqueducts and fortresses.

Regalingualius
Jan 7, 2012

We gazed into the eyes of madness... And all we found was horny.




The Kyoshi prequel novels go into those sorts of issues with the internal politics of the Earth Kingdom... specifically with her storming into the domains of corrupt officials to force them to knock it off or face (more of) her wrath.

Yvonmukluk
Oct 10, 2012

Everything is Sinister


SlothfulCobra posted:

I think bending was explicitly supposed to not be genetic from the twins who one could bend and one couldn't, but once you get into trying to portray cultural mixing while still using elemental affiliation as a proxy for culture, it starts going weird. Especially when they drop the veneer of mysticism around bending. Not that they even really addressed interculturalism much after season 1.

Also I've still been watching Amphibia, and now it seems pretty clear that Hop-Pop is gonna end up on the wrong side of the king. He had that book that said that the Calamity Box was bad, and now here's the king saying that the box was something his family once used regularly. Presumably to do whatever earned them the position of royalty in the first place, as well as making him so very large. The big central tower of the castle sure does look like it's made of metal totally unlike any of the architecture of the rest of Amphibia, like it's some kind of ancient sci-fi machine the castle was built around. And the royal family probably didn't lose the calamity box by choice or accident.

Presumably there was some kind of uprising at some point that got rid of the box but left the monarchy. Although since there was a CD player, there must've been some other kind of dimension-hopping within the last 36 years.


Also there's apparently a bit of a class order with frogs down low and salamanders up high in the ruling class, and toads kind of in the middle above the frogs. I wonder where axolotls fit in. There's been a lot in Newtopia, but not in any senior positions, and that could just be because they're better suited to live in the water that surrounds the city.
Regarding Amphibia:
Wasn't there a frog in that torn portrait from the sleepover episode that had a similar hue to Sprig? Given Marcy's comment earlier in the season she'd never seen a frog his colour before, I wonder if that was one of Sprig & Polly's parents, and the reason they're not around is because they took the box to Earth to keep it out of the king's hands. I'm guessing long ago in the distant past I, AKU, UNLEASHED AN UNSPEAKABLE EVILthe king's ancestors were dimensional conquerors with their robot army until...something happened to destroy their civilization.

Someone translated the pages of the book about the box, and it looks like the three gems correspond to three archetypes - Heart (Anne), Wit (Marcy) and Strength (Sasha). Also there's some prophecy about three stars from beyond saving Amphibia or whatever. The three temples actually show up in the background of the credits animation, along with the ruins where Anne & Sasha are swordfighting in the opening credits.

MorningMoon
Dec 29, 2013

He's been tapping into Aunt May's bank account!
Didn't I kill him with a HELICOPTER?
Is Magneto an earthbender or a firebender?

SlothfulCobra
Mar 27, 2011

I just remembered that there's also that robot who was chasing after the Plantars just sitting outside the Newtopia walls, waiting for them. That's gotta be a recipe for something interesting happening. They maybe should've mentioned that to Marcy.

pentyne posted:

It makes a lot of sense in most of the "Earth Kingdom" is basically like China during the feudal eras. You've got a massively powerful central city but such a huge land mass that force projection is only possible in specific and extreme circumstances and in general if revenue and trade is flowing into the city then there's no real problem. Before the Fire kingdom invaded there were probably civil skirmishes on a regular basis.

The thing about being able to create earth and stone works from magic hand waving solves an enormous problem of human labor costs for development and empire building. Imagine instead of the Roman corp of engineers building everything as the empire marched they just waved their hands and boom new, immaculate fully functional aqueducts and fortresses.

There was a whole episode about a "civil skirmish" that was just one guy from a city that was definitely not Ba Sing Se trying to conquer all of the Earth Kingdom. It really just sounds like a bunch of independent areas only loosely tied together by tradition rather than anything else. Heck, Bumi's also a king, even though he's not The Earth King.

Ba Sing Se reminds me a lot of Constantinople/Istanbul/Byzantium/Miklagard/Tsarigrad/Wulumu as a city that somebody spent a lot of money to build up at some point just for the specific purpose of being invincible to all assault, but despite the empire being seated in an unassailable city, it didn't mean that the provinces outside of the city would necessarily remain in its dominion, being able to declare their own independence or be overrun by some foreign power.

And it would still take a lot of earthbenders to make walls that big, because even if they don't physically carry every stone with their hands, it still takes musclepower and effort to bend. People can only move so much at once, and they'll get exhausted from the exertion. However that works.

cant cook creole bream
Aug 15, 2011
I think Fahrenheit is better for weather

MorningMoon posted:

Is Magneto an earthbender or a firebender?

This took me a minute, but yeah, that is a sort of valid question, which isn't all that obvious. Either he controls metal, which would be earth, or he is actually controlling magnetism, which is physically speaking the same force as electricity, which would fall under fire.

Yvonmukluk
Oct 10, 2012

Everything is Sinister


Magneto's not a woodbender, of that at least you can be certain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5-JVvCrGC8

Mr Interweb
Aug 25, 2004

MorningMoon posted:

Is Magneto an earthbender or a firebender?

:monocle:

ninjewtsu
Oct 9, 2012

If bending wasn't determined genetically zaheer would have been able to air bend before korra season 3 and I dont think there's any nongenetic explanation for why he would not have been able to

Same goes for the air acolytes, if genetics was not a strict requirement at least 1 air acolyte would have learned how to airbend

DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?
there's a difference between genetic and hereditary but in ATLA/Korra, bending is both

ninjewtsu
Oct 9, 2012

If bending was a learned attribute iroh would have been able to waterbend, but despite being well learned enough in water bending culture and philosophy to develop his own technique using those ideas, iroh was not a water bender

Trebuchet King
Jul 5, 2005

This post...

...is a
WORK OF FICTION!!



Late to its defense but I really, really, really like the Big Hero 6 series. I feel like it's put together well, it looks sharp, the music's solid, and my least favorite character I can't completely hate. The villains are also just a shitton of fun--imagine every villain in Miraculous was on the Mime's level and that's the kind of consistency I feel BH6 has.

Also, they definitely have code names. They just don't use them.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Yvonmukluk posted:

Magneto's not a woodbender, of that at least you can be certain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5-JVvCrGC8

“...and then once he realized he still had superpowers, he crushed the cops with their cars and flew away. Anyway, where’s dinner, Sue?”

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
A big part of Avatar's worldbuilding is that a significant percentage of the world's population have superpowers, the SAME superpowers, and so they use them every day in useful ways, not just for combat. We see the Northern Water Tribe's Venice style ice city is basically the aquatic equivalent of Ba Sing Se, and that Earth Kingdom cities have huge infrastructure and public works projects that would only be possible at their technology level with bending, and the Air Nomad temples are nearly inaccessible without flight. (hence why the people who take refuge in there develop technology to make up for lack of bending, which is also kind of a theme)

Ba Sing Se is still probably an incredible feat all that considered, and we do see the outer walls having significant farmland (and enough empty space for Aang to put together a zoo) that's probably able to supply the population to at least an extent throughout all but the most determined siege. It's probably also inspired by Constantinople, whose walls were genuinely that impregnable throughout its history. Like most ridiculously fortified cities, either you use modern technology to break it down, or conquer it from within by exploiting the weakness of its power structure.

T-man
Aug 22, 2010


Talk shit, get bzzzt.

korra exploded the world of AtLA into a bunch of cool color coordinated clothes and whatever was necessary to make their terrible politics points about how liberal capitalism is the one true way to run society :goonsay: and shouldn't be cannon :goonsay:

Madurai
Jun 26, 2012

T-man posted:

korra exploded the world of AtLA into a bunch of cool color coordinated clothes and whatever was necessary to make their terrible politics points about how liberal capitalism is the one true way to run society :goonsay: and shouldn't be cannon :goonsay:

Did you use airbending to make that leap?

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
It's not exactly unprecedented or without grounding, really. Kind of the problem when you have a procession of generic network-acceptable political scapegoats as villains, though. Just not the same as three seasons of setup to fight a dynastic genocidal imperialist.

mycot
Oct 23, 2014

"It's okay. There are other Terminators! Just give us this one!"
Hell Gem

Ghost Leviathan posted:

It's not exactly unprecedented or without grounding, really. Kind of the problem when you have a procession of generic network-acceptable political scapegoats as villains, though. Just not the same as three seasons of setup to fight a dynastic genocidal imperialist.

Not having a single overarching bad guy affected the structure of Korra a lot, but tbh I'll always be grateful that Bryke didn't immediately start off the sequel with another world war. It's the immediate re-raising of the stakes that makes stuff like the Star Wars sequel trilogy unintentionally depressing.

mycot
Oct 23, 2014

"It's okay. There are other Terminators! Just give us this one!"
Hell Gem
Somehow, Ozai has returned.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

MorningMoon
Dec 29, 2013

He's been tapping into Aunt May's bank account!
Didn't I kill him with a HELICOPTER?

mycot posted:

Somehow, Ozai has returned.

Ozai Jr, the secret third son. He has TWO scars!

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply