25 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About Avatar: The Last Airbender

[Music] the last airbender ended too early zuko was supposed to end up with katara and avatar is most definitely an anime the cult classic avatar the last airbender is a source of nostalgia for a lot of us who grew up in the mid to late 2000s and while this series has been out for a long while i still can't shut up about it i've been begging my friends to watch it so i can continue talking about all the little tidbits i've learned to make videos about this series i mean it's on netflix's top show guys what more do you want of course as with any show you try to convince people to watch or people who just skim the show in general there are a lot of misconceptions about the show and avatar universe itself isn't it a cartoon for kids we never find out what happened to zuko's mom azula is the only one who can bend blue flames wrong given that avatar the last airbender was aired on nickelodeon you might expect it to follow the trends of other cartoons from the network spongebob the fairly odd parents jimmy neutron are all popular cartoons that came from nickelodeon but children's programming being just innocent fun is a common misconception avatar the last airbender and the legend of korra deals with some pretty mature subject matters including love loss betrayal nationalism militarism abuse in a show where a lot of the main characters motivations are from the loss of their loved ones it's safe to say it's a show that many different age groups can appreciate one of the biggest mysteries at the end of avatar the last airbender is what happened to zuko's mom what we do know is that in the dead of night zuko's mother ursa came to him said farewell and she was never seen again after supposedly intervening when ozai was supposed to kill zuko now if you haven't read the dark horse comic run of avatar you're missing out during the comic run the search zuko azula and team avatar try to find ursa they find out that she was banished from the fire nation after offering to kill fire lord azulon and ensure ozai was elected to the throne so that he would spare zuko's life once she had fled she met her old boyfriend who helped her change her identity and wipe the memories of her past once zuko and co found them she returned to the fire nation with her new family to be with zuko now that ozai was out of the picture ozaike didn't give zuko any slack in the avatar series a lot of people see ozai as a very one-dimensional cruel character who banished his shameful son for speaking out during a war meeting that then resulted in zuko's iconic burn scar but what many people don't know is that the reason for ozai's hatred was a little more than that the real reason why zuko was treated so poorly was because of his mother ursa you see firelord of zulon forced a marriage between ozai and ursa because she was avatar roku's granddaughter ursa tries to write home but suspects that ozai is intercepting her letters and to prove it she makes up the lie that zuko is not his son but of her old boyfriend kem once the truth is revealed ursus says she wishes zuko was an ozai son so ozai states that he will grant her wish and treat zuko as if he is not one of his own as a result zuko becomes an extension of ozai's hatred towards ursa to be clear not everyone in the avatar universe can bend an element much like other properties like x-men harry potter and so on you have to be of the chosen few born with the abilities a common misconception however is that your bending is derived from what nation you stem from this isn't entirely the case the majority of benders in avatar can use abilities that correlate with their respective nations however it could be more a matter of genetics an example is the likes of the foggy swamp tribe a tribe of waterbenders who reside in the earth kingdom and of course we can't forget about the brothers from the legend of korra however it's important to note that bending doesn't fully originate as a human ability the character toth was taught earthbending by the badger moles much like firebenders were by dragons airbenders by sky bison and waterbenders by the moon this indicates that it could purely be from an aptitude for bending tied to one's soul as energy bending implies that the ability to bend can be removed by bending someone's life energy zukun katara have a lot of almost intimate moments in the series moments like this lead a lot of fans to believe that zuku and katara were meant to end up together instead of katara and aang but the truth is a little bit more complicated the creators behind the series originally said that there was a 50 50 chance that the two would have ended up together but then backtracked and said there was never any chance series writer aaron e has once said during a lecture that the production team was planning to go with this angle but nickelodeon executives pushed them away from the idea for anyone who has watched the series this one may be fairly obvious there are some people out there that believe that because there wasn't a book of air season from the last airbender it meant that the series was cancelled prematurely this however isn't the case there are three seasons of avatar water earth and fire and they were named after the element aang had to learn in that season and the respective kingdom they spend most of their time in is avatar an anime a lot of people disagree with this perception anime is the name given to an animation that tends to originate from japan and the last airbender does exhibit traits that are synonymous with the art style from the region sometimes known as japanimation while the last airbender was influenced by asian cultures the main disagreement with the idea that avatar is an anime is that it wasn't created in japan most phases of production were completed in the us however some argued that because a lot of the animation was outsourced to south korea this could change its definition i guess it comes down to whether you interpret anime as an art style or where the animation comes from whenever a property gets adapted into another medium fans of the original always have to manage others expectations as a lot of people being introduced to it may believe that it's an exact adaptation when our butts were in those theater seats for the live-action adaptation most of our smiles were transformed into gaping holes witnessing the inaccurate portrayal of our favorite characters from completely different personalities blatant whitewashing mispronounced names incoherent plots bad acting there's a whole list of things that went wrong with this movie that most of us just want to forget when you see the main characters of avatar roaming around fighting off soldiers saving the world you might think that these characters are a little older late teens burdening on adulthood maybe well team avatar is a lot younger zuko is 16 saka is 15 katara and azula are 14 and aang and toff are 12. and remember the events of the series happen over a single year this one is fairly easy to misinterpret zuko's main love interest for a majority of the last airbender was mai or is it mei see what i did there that's the confusion surrounding her character because on paper people don't necessarily understand the pronunciation of her name but if after a couple of watches i'm sure you'll pick it up as may like the month of may mainzuka are the main fire nation pairing throughout the series it is largely inferred that despite zuko's switching sides in the book of fire they ended up together and if you didn't read the comics you would probably take the fact that zuko has a daughter in korra as confirmation of that fact but this might not be the case in the dark horse comic run mei breaks up with zuko after learning of his secret visits to ozai in prison and even though they do apologize they never officially get back together because of this we don't know if they did end up together or with somebody else momo plays a big part in the comic relief alongside saka and appa in the series and after aang discovering momo at the abandoned air temple there is nothing more inferred about his identity later on in the series he's just a flying lemur well what if i told you that there is more to him than meets the eye showrunners of the show intended for momo to be a reincarnation of aang's old father figure gyatso while this plan ultimately went unmentioned it does add an interesting twist on the character the idea of reincarnation is pretty simple once you die your non-physical essence starts a new life in a different form be that animal or human but there is some confusion over how it pertains to the avatar are all the avatars the same person well kind of it's debated while the soul of the previous avatar then inhabits the next body to continue the avatar cycle it doesn't mean that person is going to end up the same personality wise in the legend of korra we learn that the being that allows the avatar to exist is the spirit of light rava so this spirit is attached to the same soul every time but they are still separate people and each of those souls has their consciousness that the avatar can call upon jet is a controversial character who villainizes anyone who originates from the fire nation it's this perspective that ultimately results in him being brainwashed by the daily where team avatar saves him and he gets severely injured but a lot of people seem to think the jet might still be alive now guys i'm sorry it might not have happened on screen but jett is super dead not only is it inferred in the series but he's not been seen in the sequel comics and in avatar extras it was confirmed that for the record jet is gone high fantasy settings tend to have run-ins with magic every once in a while but what could be misconstrued as magic in the avatar world is very different and not magic in the traditional sense bending is a very physical process and each of the bending arts takes heavily from different martial arts while the spirit world exists many magical elements in the avatar universe i.e psychic powers fortune telling and superstition are portrayed with skepticism a curse for having the same name avatar the last airbender isn't the first search result you'll get on google you'll get james cameron's blockbuster avatar as a result some uneducated to the series may not realize the two are different ips just beyond the veil there's an amazingly deep series that lies in the big blue alien's shadow iro is the best character in avatar fight me if you dare i will die on this hill for the majority of the series uncle iro stands as a spiritual guide that assists a lot of the other characters along their journey but it's important to know he wasn't always like that when he was younger he was the revered military leader of fire nation armies filled with the same glory-hungry nature shared by his family it wasn't until the death of his son and his rumored trip to the spirit world that ira was able to cope with his loss and transform into the character all of us need once in a while you know what i need a one hour loop of uncle iroquotes to chill and reflect to as mentioned earlier shows aimed at younger audiences tend to be misconstrued as having no complex questions in their programming and if there is it tends to be very black and white and easy to answer i mean swiper no swiping people avatar is not one of those shows both the last airbender and the legend accora have complex moralities and difficult questions that the characters need to answer throughout the show the show deals with political and moral divides whether innocent casualties of war should be accepted should you kill the person who killed your mother in the comics there is even a conflict over oil and colonization bending is not just limited to the four elements earth fire water and air as some people may think there are a lot of different subsections of bending that don't necessarily correlate with the main element that is stemming from sure we see eye spending blood bending metal bending combustion bedding and so on were remnants of earth water fire are present in the things they are bending but fire leads to lightning bending and water leads to water healing which seems to be more to do with the spiritual connections to each element i would love to see more subsections of bending develop if a new series was ever released the imagery of the fabled lion turtles are present throughout the entire avatar series but it's not until the last few episodes of the last airbender that we learn in fact that they are actual creatures during his encounter with a lion turtle aang mentions that he thought the creatures were all but extinct a lot of people tend to forget why they faded away they didn't just slowly die out they were hunted to extinction this one lion turtle just moved away and hid from humans to survive tough has some family problems during her introduction toff's family appear to coddle her believing that she isn't capable of doing anything because she's blind we know differently she resents her parents for not listening but wants to rekindle that relationship but we never see that in the animated series that's where we have to look to the comics to find out what happened upon tough meeting her father her father initially refused to acknowledge that she was his daughter as she wasn't the mild-mannered polite woman that he wanted her to be but as they were trapped in a collapsing mine they reconciled and he accepted her for who she was during the legend of korra a major conflict in the first book is the equalist resistance where the leader amon can remove people's bending abilities this is not however the same as energy bending the ability that aang uses to remove ozai's bending in the last airbender ammon's abilities are a form of water bending and are more to do with blocking someone's chi paths similar in a way to tie lee's cheap locking martial arts during the last airbender energy bending however is a much more dangerous method you are bending someone's life energy and if you aren't powerful enough to battle with the subject's soul you could easily be overcome while using this technique azula is a very skilled firebender no one can deny that in her pursuit of perfection regarding her fire bending prowess azula develops the ability to create blue flames this however isn't an ability that is specific to her the blue shade of the flames she produces represent how red hot they are but as it turns out fire bending can turn into lots of colors during the episode the fire bending masters where zuko and ang go to learn of the origins of fire bending we see fire bending in an entire rainbow of colors okay let me get this straight aang learns all the elements in a single year takes down the fire lord during sozen's comet and people think that aang is a weak avatar this isn't the case as the various feats of bending that he displays are incredibly powerful even just in his battle with ozai however people may be referring to the fact that aang will not kill the fire lord when prompted to if you think aang choosing not to kill the fire lord is the weaker choice you maybe don't understand aang as a character during most of the series it is very much insinuated that aang is going to have to save the world and as a result many people seem to believe that the fate of the world entirely depended on team avatar but if you look deeper many different factors assisted in stopping the fire nation there was the earth kingdom the white lotus the water tribes various resistances across the new fire nation territories sure the fire nation were winning the war and the avatar was there to turn the tide but let's say ang didn't wake up there still would have been other groups fighting to stop their reign of terror and if history teaches us anything great empires always fall eventually and there you have it people just need to watch the series for themselves to enjoy the wondrous accomplishment that was the last airbender what do you guys think are there any other misconceptions about the series we missed let us know in the comments below be sure to like this video and subscribe for more content like this in the future thanks guys and we'll catch you next time

Channel: Screen Rant

Views: 630,009

Keywords: Avatar The Last Airbender, Prince Zuko Mother Ursa, Uncle Iroh, Dark Horse Comics, Netflix Trailer, ATLA, Legend of Korra, Aang Vs Ozai, Azula vs Zuko, Hidden Facts, Eastern Eggs, Dante Basco, Team Avatar, Jet Death, Zutara ship, ScreenRant, Screen Rant

Id: KV_KiFcURUs

Length: 15min 57sec (957 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 18 2020