Why EARTH is Aang's MOST IMPORTANT Element - Avatar the Last Airbender

of all the elements Ang must master I think fire definitely presents the most challenges it's destructive it brings searing pain and their zang's guilt of burning Katara finding a teacher is the logistical nightmare in and of itself but saying that despite the additional baggage that comes with the quote unquote enemies elements that is largely presented as this indiscriminant allc consuming destruction I've always thought that the element that had the biggest impact on Ang both as an individual Bender as well as the Avatar was Earth though before we talk about Ang's Journey with it I think it's important to briefly Linger on the major philosophies behind each of the elements Ang's native elements air is about freedom of movement both in a metaphorical as well as literal sense air bending is based on intuition and avoidance whenever possible they will avoid conflict or at least striking the opponent directly instead opting for a more creative way of tiring out the opponent or restricting their movement or somehow incapacitating them it is the most dynamic of all the bending arts and is's all about always finding another path to solve every problem just like wind can float wherever it pleases so can air Benders and yeah that is ang he gets his tattoos not by some combat trial or great honor or anything like that but rather by coming up with a new technique that is the air scooter when he first meets Zuko who blatantly tells him that he wants to take him to the fire lord Ang deflects the blows but surrenders almost immediately for the simple reason of just knowing that somehow someway he'll figure out how to get out himself something we of course know he does even when he fights Zuko he first dances around him just allowing him to Tire himself out he then wraps him up in the banner thingy just hoping that he'd get enough time to flee and finally he uses the mattress try not to think about your face getting bashed against a metal wall with a mattress by the way but okay Jokes Aside obviously from a realism point of view yeah getting slammed against metal is probably about as pleasant as trying to 1 V one to but from my writing point of view using the mattress instead of a direct blow is clearly showing Ang's reluctance to directly harm his opponents even in a situation where he has been kidnapped he still doesn't really go all out he just using cartoon logic a mattress is soft therefore getting slammed with a mattress that is soft should also be soft right then there's water bending the elements of change much like here the philosophy of water bending is to embrace the current and guide it rather than trying to fundamentally reshape it like tai chi on which it is based on it is a style with slow flowing and gentle movements aimed at redirecting an attacker rather than meeting it with an opposing attack of their own with water bending there is of course the dark side that is blood bending but I think that's more so this rebellious almost antithesis of the element's fundamental Arts there are plenty of discussions to be had around the potential healing properties of blood bending but not to get Sidetrack with theoreticals now let's just say that blood bending while incorporating the flowing forms of fundamental water bending doesn't exactly align with their nature not only does it not redirect the attacker it literally aims to control them outright but yes unsurprisingly Ang picks up water bending with almost no difficulty whatsoever even managing to initially Leap Frog katara's progress the bending forms might differ from air bending but his easygoing and fun-loving nature immediately J with the elements on a much much deeper level many of qatar's blunders initially come from her trying to actively Force certain moves something that of course goes directly against the fundamentals of the elements Ang's upbringing on the other hand already has a whole lot more of that just going with the flow attitude basically baked in even firebending it is uncontrolled destruction consuming everything in its wake but it is also life itself I've made a whole video about Jong Jong and Ang's Journey when it comes to his initial attempts at fire bending so I won't read has all that again but even the foreign and enemy elements lends itself much much more to Ang than Earth because some of the air Nomads of spirituality also exists within Jang jang's and of course eventually the sun warriors's teachings fire is life and it is Passion something that Ang knows very well a lot of his initial Success With Fire bending is clearly just a result of his ignorance toward that destructive side of the elements but somewhat amusingly I think there is a case to be made that in terms of the philosophical understanding a fire bending and kind of surpasses book 1 and two Zuko just like Atara would try to force her water bending Zuko also doesn't entirely take io's teachings on board fire bending comes from the breath not the muscles Ang on the other hand again somewhat foolishly lets that fire breathe for itself just like air and water Ang is super easy going with fire something that does kind of backfire get it backfire it's like a word but it's a so fire because you know he's bending fire okay shut up but the point I'm getting at is that all three of these elements immediately jive with Ang's personality and so he immediately picks up the basics and the elements don't really change his behavior but then there is Earth here's something to immediately lay the groundwork for everything we'll talk about next Earth despite being the third element Ang must master in the cycle is actually the very last one we see him Bend not just in terms of traditional bending but also in the Avatar States me organizing this little section in this order is not just for the sake of telling my own little narrative that is actually how he learns these elements his first evertime earthbending is in the Avatar State during the winter solstice but only after having already fire bent as for Ang himself he first fire bends or at least manipulates fire in the deserter whereas his first time earthbending only comes in bitter work and as much as this is just a fun little factoid based on a technicality I think it beautifully illustrates creates just how fundamentally it clashes with Ang's initial worldview and I say initial because as soon as we see him interact with Boomie I think slowly but surely that begins to change eventually climaxing just before he faces oai but let's return to the elements themselves you might have noticed that this little subsection of the video is titled Earth the boring elements and while it is just very very punny because you know like boring as in a drill as in drilling the Earth you know is very funny it is also very true unlike the other elements that are about freedom of movement or simply going with the flow or raw passion Earth is slow is deliberate it's rigid and it's about listening and watching before ever moving a muscle as much as Ang has trained with the monks and is super spiritually attuned becoming a master in air bending through the invention of this wacky goofy air scooter and just standing around predicting the enemy are clearly pretty far apart on the spectrum of bending Styles right where with air water and fire he could just jump right in and try things with Earth the somewhat paradoxical thing is that if you aren't sure it will work it just won't you kind of by default can't even really try if you were to look at the elements through the lens of system 1 and system 2 thinking I think Earth very much falls into the ladder Camp of slow and methodical rather than fast emotional and almost automatic intuition depending on the Bender that line will of course blur somewhat aula for example is also much much more calculated and a lot of cor up blurs that line even further with most of the elements being far more reactionary but thematically I think you see what I'm getting at which finally leads me onto Ang's actual journey of learning Earth and while the bending part happens in bitter work and I guess also kind of sort of with General Fong I think the true teachings of earthbending begin with boomy and are then a constant theme throughout the second and many parts of the third book and neutr when you do nothing just about everything Ang has done leading up to this point has been either reactionary or just a Vibe based pit stop for fun but following this point his and really the story as a whole becomes much much more concentrated he is clearly a master of evasive maneuvering you have no idea where you're going do you he is no longer marking up just some goofy spots on the map where they should land for fun instead the episode directly proceeding return to amasu takes us to the swamp which begins with B truly hearing and feeling his surroundings and it eventually concludes with another important message that everything and everyone are connected while the lesson comes from a water bender I think the philosophy of that statement is much much more akin to earthbending cultures which may or may not also be why who's eyes are actually green as opposed to the water tribes blue perhaps there is some cross-cultural Heritage there that makes them embody the outgoing nature of water benders as well as the more slow and methodical thinking of earthbenders Avatar day begins to push us in the direction of more decisive action as opposed to the purely reactionary story we'd seen this far I think hoshi's conflict with chin is a very nice bite-sized representation of those teachings both stood their ground to such a degree that they literally ripped it in half which then leads us into the introduction of tof and really the core tenant of earthbending that being stoicism at its core stoicism teaches that external factors events emotions and so on are outside of our control and should they therefore not weigh on our mind instead you should focus on the thoughts and actions you can actually control for tough that is exemplified through her using her element to see the World and Achieve Independence through that she may have been born blind but in her own way she sees infinitely more than her parents who only see her weaknesses tof might come off as overly blunt and self-serving but that's just an outcome of her not letting others affect her emotions the tales of bossing say and The Runaway are both very good examples in both episodes there is some sort of conflict and Toof is confronted about something she immediately claps back she is blunt and she doesn't apologize for anything but only when she gets some alone time does she actually work through those underlying feelings in hopes of gaining better control over them all of this is to say that much like the rigid nature of earthbending its philosophies are also purposefully dull that is the complete inverse of Ang it's simply not in his nature yet to confront these things truly head on when he found out he was the Avatar he ran away and started the story as we know it when he returned he still avoided telling the truth that he is indeed the Avatar when he was called out for disappearing he again ran away and we saw him unpack those feelings in the storm I think a concise little example is the super cut of the blue Spirits untie me and I'll fight you right now if we knew each other back then do you think we could have been friends too make any new friends no I don't think I did it's not that Ang can't be quite forward and step up to a fight it's rather a question of how he goes about these things when it comes to the blue Spirits he never mentions it again because it is an outcome of his failure as the Avatar not even on a world scale but strictly personal with Zuko he wasn't around to maintain balance before this war started but even when he returns he can even restore balance in this single relationship confronting that is just really really hard because he's supposed to restore balance to the entire world so jumping back to Bitter work we see that angle of Ang wanting to jump straight into Earth bending just like he did with all the previous elements but regardless of how much he practices or how many training montages he gets it just doesn't work for the simple reason of him thinking that it won't work he has no problem fighting or pushing against something so long as that is on his terms but when it comes to facing something face to face he fails but when it came right down to it you didn't have the guts even the way Ang apologizes he shows humility just apologizing and saying that he panicked something that of course goes against that stoic way of thinking instead of trying to control the energy within himself he tries to control the surroundings and the Earth he's about to face and so he simply Dodges out of the way that is that airbending philosophy he doesn't face it head on he finds his own path again just like the mattress from a purely realistic sense obviously dodging out of the way of a massive Boulder is just a smart thing to do if you are not like 100% certain so yeah it's like really hard to fall tank for that but at the same time in universe that is a fundamental failure of earthbending not even technique but fundamental understanding of how it even works after all their practice tof was confident in Ang's skills and by every measure had he stood his ground he would have broken apart the boulder but again this is earthbending there really is no trying here if he didn't stand his ground he's failed fundamentally because of the episode format Ang does of course overcome that initial barrier relatively quickly with him then finding Saka and confining in him about the pressure he feels he even explicitly vocalizes this if I try I fail but if I don't try I'm never going to get it but importantly even with Saka he doesn't want to go get tough because that would again be confronting that failure head on something that he doesn't want to do just yet but as the saber-tooth moose lion appears we see that slow shift in his perspective he first does his usual thing of Simply deflecting the attack he then tries to trick it into following him but when it does not react he is finally forced to jump in again and face it head on this entire sequence begins with purely airbending philosophy of not striking his opponents each and every move Ang pulls here is merely misdirecting its attack but finally realizing that there is no other way Ang stands his ground and while he might use air bending Strikes Back In what is pretty clearly earthbending fashion there's a whole different debate to be had here about how air bending with the other bending techniques is easily the most OP elements and it's not even close but point is much like the very smug to would say this marks the first major step toward Ang truly understanding and accepting the stoic philosophy that is Earth he does not try to reshape his surroundings by deflecting the blow to somewhere else he faces it head on and pushes back from his own position that is the one and only thing he needs to control his own position he asks to why she didn't intervene but instead of actively blaming her he stead demands his staff back again not trying to reshape his environment by having to apologize for something that has already happened in the past but rather focusing on the current and personal issue of the staff in a perfect world we'd see that progression of Ang actually trying to break through this barrier that his earthbending happened throughout the entire season but again because of the limitations of the 20-minute episode format he does kind of sort of go from oh my God this is impossible to actually Earth bending within a single afternoon a whole lot happens in that single single afternoon and it definitely feels like much much longer than a single afternoon but it is a single afternoon and keep the staff in Mind by the way but yes as much as this does seem a little wacky goofy that you know it is just a single afternoon the themes of him struggling with the elements continue for a long long time and I think they are best showcased when he loses Opa for the first ever time in the series he is quite literally grounded just like with gatu in the storm his emotions do boil over and he tries running away from it all but when he comes back he is far more cold and almost distant in the Serpent's Pass Katara tells him that it's okay to miss AA and to show emotion but Ang just says that he didn't like the anger he felt in the desert and while he doesn't explicitly mention it I think this also goes for the many times he went into his super volatile Avatar States but he then simply bows and thanks for her concern clearly this is a very very different Ang obviously a majority of this is just because of opa but I think there is already that angle of this being that new found Earth Kingdom type of thinking apaa has been kidnapped there's no point in being sad about that the only thing he can focus on now is keeping a clear head and doing everything he can to do to find him I think the birth of hope there is another thing to signal that Ang is not sad or angry or anything because there is hope and the only thing he can do is pursue Opa the only thing he can trust is his two feet and the ground beneath him we see something similar with tals of of bosing say as well his tale begins with the somewhat somber search for Opa but upon seeing the state of the zoo instead of focusing on that loss Ang again pivots to the thing he can control and improve the zoo he might not have been able to help Opa in the deserts but he can help the animals here and so this too becomes a moment of introspection as he very fittingly uses his newly acquired Earth bending skills to help the situation and if we jump back in time just a teeny bit to the drill I think Ang's fight with aul up is another good show Fus of how his fighting style has already developed first of all purely narratively he is now defending something instead of just fighting her so by defaults he sort of needs to stand his ground there is nowhere he can run to but on a strictly personal level it is no longer evasion based most of his moves now incorporate some sort of immediate retaliation I think this is best showcased by when he's pushed up against the wall he blocks the strike face to face and immediately goes to push her back with that same technique remember this is an airbender who goto is air bending and we see exactly this with oai he uses air bending but in this situation he doesn't ditto for the entire mission of actually destroying the drill the entire method of taking it down is these coordinated precise attacks just like the slow and methodical approach of Earth bending but the most interesting aspects of this I think manifest in the latter half of book two and early book 3 after finding AA and escaping like La guy Ang is absolutely locked in in the book two narrative this is the peak of his calm collected and Laser focused Pursuits of a single goal in this case meaning the earth king to inform him of the eclipse his fighting style has entirely shifted from a mostly solo focused mixture of evasion and offense to perfectly synchronized movements with Toof that are all about creating this impregnable defense this is that fundamental shift from reactionary thinking to slow and deliberate an even better example of this I think is their surprise fight against Sparky Sparky boomman the fight opens with just pure evasion they were clearly caught off guard so system one thinking takes over as Ang just essentially kites him around while everyone else can flee but as soon as he is read his opponents Ang slows way way way down he chooses to effectively tank one of the hits and employ the purest form of neutral Jing as he hides in one of the pillars and simply listens just like Toff in her introduction he is waiting for that one small opening and when he sees it he uses that opportunity to again tank one of the explosions and uses that to get away he doesn't fight him nor does he try to just run away instead he phases his attacks just head on and uses those blasts to get away that's just how op Earth plus air is even in small scale examples like they're training during The Runaway Ang is interweaving theep Flowing moves of water bending with the more rude stances of Earth bending placing one precise strike right right after redirecting Karas oh yeah and of course my point being that as soon as Ang grasps the basics of earthbending his overall thought process not just in regards to combat but problems in general shift on a fundamental level I'd argue more so than with any other elements and frankly it's not even close minus air itself of course because I mean that was his first element that said though Avatar is a threea story so before we get to the triumphant Victory we of course still have the book to finale and the obligatory defeat at the hands of aoua and here like we should do with a Goodall act two finale we see both sides of Ang one is the much more confident post- earthbending version while the other is still the non-committal pre- earthbending one in his conversation with iro he talks about the guru and the final chakra he couldn't open saying that he would have had to give up on love and that he just couldn't do that and while iro does wisely say that Perfection and power is overrated we have the benefit of H ites and um yeah that non-commitment to mastering the Avatar state does come back to bite him we're of course getting into theoreticals now but had Ang learned to open his final chakra and just popped his Avatar state right from the GetGo I think there is a very good chance that this fight might have gone their way but whatever the case trying to open it here last minute is again purely reactionary and simply fails more on that in a second but regarding Ang's bending style note how throughout much of the fight he is constantly trying to break aula stance again just like with Toof it is not about hitting her directly it is first this meticulous process of breaking a root and then finishing her with one single blow and yes I do think iro was actually teaching this exact thing to Zuko as well Basics Zuko break his root more on that too in a second same for him trying to directly counter azula's big jet propulsion attack I don't know what that is he is kind of sort of destroyed by her but he claps right back and comes barreling toward them with the huge Boulder thingy but alas while he tries standing his ground and while he is definitely thinking like an earthbender and eventually even pulling a reverse Uno with the Avatar States his initial apprehension about opening the chakras just like it happened in bitter work is what gets him Zapped and this I think is obviously another major step for Ang in terms of bending philosophy we see him be punished for not being stoic and truly embracing his duties as the avatar the wound heals but there is now a scar a permanent reminder that in the grand scheme of things he alone is irrelevant and that as an avatar his first Duty lies with the world he must be Resolute and book three opens with exactly that upon learning that the world thinks he has disappeared yet again and that the fire nation has basically proclaimed victory in the war he refuses to repeat his hundred years of disappearance and demands that they basically return to the fight right now and in what is a very very clear parallel to his first time fleeing as well as the storm he just flees alt together only this time things are very different this say is already an earthbender and so when Qatar and the others catch up to him he goes as far as to burn his own glider the thing that sparked this entire areu and Earth Bender conflict to begin with this is ang truly embodying that stoic worldview of Earth he doesn't try to change the world's perception of him he allows them to believe that he died and disappeared all over again he knows himself and he knows that eventually he will come back stronger than ever the very first episode of the Season already positions Ang as a much more ready Avatar who can face the remainder of his challenges head on and much like Earth actually being the last element He bends I think this is very fitting because another another fun fact Earth is actually Ang's second most used element in book three in book two water inches It Out by just a couple of times but even then Earth very quickly becomes Ang's go-to but returning to more thematic Centric things in the same way Ang would face the fear of the world blaming him all over again there's another major fear Ang has hello Zuko here when Zuko appears in the Western Air temple with his whole pitch of teaching gang fire bending everyone immediately roasts him with tof even straight up asking you want to what now and note how when we hear all of them Pyon reason after reason for them not to trust Zuko we see qara Saka and Toth all bunched up but Ang is not in the frame and we don't hear a single thing from him part of that is probably because he obviously knows Zuko did already save him once but equally so I think this is just him listening not throwing out accusations or insults or anything he simply stands there and listens because he knows that at the end of the day he must learn Fire And if Zuko has indeed changed well then arguing about what he has and hasn't done he pointless there would of course still be a few swings and roundabouts but I think this scene right here illustrates all of that beautifully fire can be dangerous and wild I need to be more careful so I don't hurt people unintentionally just like with the search of an earthbending Master Ang paused and he listened and suddenly the most unexpected of faces vocalized Ang's deepest fear and so finally he is also ready to face fire itself it is a dangerous force that consumes but the only thing that an can control is how he wields it as long as he truly believes in himself self there is nothing to fear like we already saw with bitter work all he needed is that one nudge but even above his greatest fear fire bending there is still his Destiny of facing the fire lord throughout the years and this still pops up just about every other day there's been debates around whether or not Ang wimped out of killing oai but yeah I don't think so I have to kill the fire lord the Ang we see in book three is obviously not some cold machine with zero doubts this is still the pacifist monk but when each and every one of us past lives tells him that he must indeed be Resolute well he is that is the thing that allowed him to actually become the Avatar and learn his direct opposit right he wants a peaceful way out but if he can't talk oide down well then the only thing he can do is focus on himself and stopping him by any means necessary even talking to his past lives it's not just Roku as we usually say he goes through all of the elements one by one and only after hearing all of them does he finally make up his mind so yeah had it not been for the lion turtle 100% I think he would have been very decisive and that huge Elemental whirly boy would have placed a very precise singular strike to finish oai or actually I guess he could have Zapped him even earlier but I guess both work but okay let's take a step back and talk about the oai fight itself I've been doing these singular videos all building up toward where the single big oai fight vide so I won't go super in-depth here as there is a ton to cover but much like with the aula fight at the end of book two so so so many of Ang's attacks here are meant to break oai stance at every opportunity he tries boxing him in his style is no longer about evasion or even blocking it's about simply breaking through every single one of ozai's attacks whether or not it is actually Earth that he's bending his stature and composure are entirely earthbending by the way in the same way that Zuko uses those wide rooted stances in his final agnik Kai even before popping is outs our states Ang is already blatantly tanking hits and immediately retaliating with strikes of his own even with lightning he Dodges and Dodges but ultimately he faces even that headon but I think the single greatest example of this is the seismic sense after he brings oai down in many ways just killing goai is the easy way out yeah it would weigh heavily on Ang's conscience but at the end of the day he already told himself that he will go through with this each and every one of his past lives tells him that yes he has no other choice the entire world would have his back and this is just the start of his Avatar Hood surely you'll have to face even Graver threats after oai but even so Ang focuses on himself and he refuses that if we return to that point of earthbending drawing on stoicism this is exactly that he conquers the unbridled Rage of the Avatar State and prioritizes reason there is another way no matter how hard he will face it because he knows he can the process will only destroy him if his spirit is not strong enough but what else can he believe in if not his own Spirits sparing oai isn't really emotion so much as it is confidence that he doesn't need to die and so when oai goes to throw another attack we see the direct opposite of their bending Styles Ang is calm he listens and gracefully dismantles ozai's entire frantic attack piece by piece even ignoring the spirit Shenanigans Ang doesn't redirect he blocks and dissipates the attack of of the world's strongest Firebender who has been Juiced up by the Comets not only does he face his Destiny he stares it right in the eyes and effectively says I won Ang has come a very long way since that Boulder rolling down the hill he knows himself and he knows his spirits I think a major major part of what makes Ang this Prodigy of a bender is this exact Mastery of two opposing Arts not just bending them but truly understanding them like I said I think it's no coincidence that Earth is eventually a second go-to and also the last element He technically bends it's exactly because he is a 12-year-old kid thrown into a middle of a war and told that he has to stop it in like 6 months he must be resilient and earthbending is the thing that fundamentally makes him able to achieve that much much more so than water or fire as the Avatar and like we saw with both oai and aula his fights are not just fights it is all or nothing if he were to die that is it sure some resistance would continue but by and large that would spell the end of this war if he were to die in the Avatar stat that's the end of the cycle and that's exactly why I think earthbending is the most important element for Ang he can't be Brash or overly emotional he needs to be patient and deliberate in everything he does and perhaps above all he must employ a whole lot of neutral Jing and that's the video another one that's been sitting in the draft for a long long while so glad to have finally put it out there definitely have a few more to go before we get to the big Big Ang versus oza video though so hope you're looking forward to that but with that said I want to say massive thank you to our current patrons and YouTube members who allow me to produce even more of these for you all and let's also give a warm welcome to the newest members of the team the very happy bear looking thing which definitely didn't break any of my scripts not at all Austin akachi AI I'm sorry if I buted the name I have no idea how you pronounce it and Luke without there'll be a whole lot less of my rambling so seriously thank you thank you other than that I want to say thank you very much for watching I hope you have a great day and hopefully I'll see you in the next one bye-bye

Channel: Korotos Mystery Shack

Views: 95,416

Keywords: Koroto's, Mystery, Shack, Korotos, Koroto, avatar the last airbender, Avatar, Aang, earthbending, toph, blind bandit, book 2, book 3, aang vs ozai, sozins comet, aang avatar state, retrospective, atla, essay, avatar studios

Id: YKwW8SIfFCQ

Length: 30min 41sec (1841 seconds)

Published: Wed May 22 2024