[Kaijo]

Originally Posted by orion

They did set it up. Korra in the very beginning didn't think that she needed air bending to be the Avatar. She was good with the other 3. Then came a probending match and she needed it to help them win. This is a similar situation. Amon took all her bending away and she really needed something to save Mako and her air bending kicked in full force as it was the only thing left.

She said she didn't need airbending because she couldn't do it. And that was something she actually got over, once she calmed down. She went right back to the training.

Originally Posted by james0246

^Don't mistake my words. Korra had the techniques to utilize air bending. She trained for it. But, she lacked the fundamental qualities required to actual bend Air, and, truthfully, I do not think she was ever shown actually gaining the traits needed to utilize Air.

Air, by its very nature, is free, and Korra, in a nice dramatic turn, was constantly plagued by her insecurities throughout the series. I liked this. I liked that her fears were (undoubtedly) the root of her inability to be bend air. Sadly, she never really got over her fears, so I am unclear how she was able to bend air (a slight argument could be made that she survived her greatest fear, so she could finally break through her mental block and air bend).

I didn't really see many insecurities. In fact, the first few times we saw Korra, she was very self-confident. I believe we even got a "woohoo!" a few times there in the first episode. She was very self-assured. She recognized she had problems with the spiritual stuff and airbending, but that's why she was so eager to train with Tenzin and learn it. Sure, a bit later when she was continually frustrated by her lack of ability to airbend, she was upset. But we were never really shown why she was having issues with it. I actually argued against a friend of mine, who kept calling BS on the airbending thing, when comparing it with Aang's earthbending block. I was trying to argue that it wasn't an issue, while he said it was. I eventually was forced to change my mind and agree.

(That being said, I find many of your other critiques are far closer to nitpicking rather than true criticism.

Let me pose these related questions to you: If they suddenly show in season 2, a number of people who can bend multiple, if not all, elements, will you have any problem with this? How about if they never really explain well how that happened? Is it alright to set up canon, just to ignore it later? Is that really just a nitpick, or lazy writing?

(additionally, as Sokka said in his brief appreance (and I'm paraphrasing), "if you can accept that a fire bender can shoot fire from his forehead at will, then why couldn't a water bender learn to blood bend without the moon?").

Because the former was never said to be impossible.

As for Tenzin and his family, yes, I agree they would have been targets. That's why we were shown that two airships were sent after them... which Lin took down. I'm not saying it's bad, per se, so much as lazy writing. Like I said, I'd love to, in my fanfiction, just have things happen without setting them up. It would make writing soooo much easier. Why should I need to explain anything? I'll just do what I want, and let the audience come up with their own ideas.

Originally Posted by Slayerx

That's because she was really, really, really overly emotional and no longer thinking like her normal self... kind of like how someone who would never harm a fly, might be driven to kill if you do something to anger them in a way they never felt before. Hell that was the whole POINT of that event, to show that Katara's anger over the loss of her mother had given her a thirst for vengeance that was causing her to act against her principles. She was acting out of pure rage.

in history groups of people who never interacted can easily make similar developments... when it comes down to it, the ONLY requirement for one to begin the recreation of bloodbending is for one skilled waterbending to think "isn't there water in blood?"

in fact, if the villagers knew how hama was abducting poeple (which would be a requirement if they wanted to keep her locked up since they would have to know to avoid her cell during the full moon), then its easy to believe that the rumors of bloodbending would slowly spread from there.

Which is why Katara saw fit to outlaw bloodbending... its not well known because it is universally outlawed, and only criminals would ever attempt to recreate the technique assuming they have the patience, talent and discipline to figure it out.

In the end, katara had a choice... try to keep in a secret and risk the technique being recreated in an unprepared world, or allow word to spread, but prepare the world to counter it should it pop up

Hell its even possibly that over the 30 years since the first series (it was outlawed when yakone was around), some other waterbender somewhere already figured it out, or stories of bloodbending had already slipped. Thus given Katara reason to act instead of trying to keep a secret that was no longer secret

Do you see what you're doing? Rather than quote from the show itself, you have formed reasons in your mind on what you *think* happened, and trying to treat that as fact. We don't know. It goes back to lazy writing, and that if you want to establish something, you have to, you know, establish it.

I often see this attitude, and it's fascinating. That, in order to defend something, someone will make up a bunch of reasons that aren't actually in the show or series itself. As an author, I'd actually love that. Why write out details myself, when I can just rely on my audience to make them up for me?

As sokka pointed out, there was once a time when people did not believe metal bending was possible... toph proved them wrong. There was a time when people did not believe Blood bending was possible, but Hama proved them wrong. Most would not think it possible to channel firebending through your mind, but then we have combustion man. I'd probably say that there was probably a time when lightning was not considered possible either. We are dealing with a world that evolves with time, and as such new discovers pop up.

Your analogies aren't the same.

The writers set up metal bending rather well, when they had a voiceover of the guru that metal is merely refined earth. And Toph's unique abilities allowed her to sense the particles of earth in there, and bend it. That's good writing. Which brings up another point of bad writing when they introduced platinum in Korra, which they supposedly couldn't bend. Why not? Platinum is metal, too!

They never said combustion man's abilities were impossible, and bending has always required a mental component (witness Aan's earthbending learning).

The problem they set up with blood bending, is that waterbenders just don't have that kind of power to bloodbend, except when strengthened under a full moon. Maybe Yakone was the strongest water bender there ever was, but they never established that.

Look, I'm not against blood-bending, per se. I'm saying that their implementation was sloppy and lazy. If you're going to ignore canon, you better have a damn good reason. That's what this all boils down to: good reasons. It's why you have to make up reasons in your mind, because you can't point to them in the show.

I see i thought your only problem was the impossibility of the tech. Yes i agree they are very impractical weapons, but the same can be said about most EVERY mech in fiction... kinda of pointless to complain about this one use of mechs if you don't complain about everything else

I'll drop my complaints against the mecha, mostly. I only brought them up because I found their implementation clunky, and if that was the only problem with the show, I'd let it pass (seriously, did the writers never learn in school that platinum is metal?).

But mecha are not, in and of themselves, impractical. In the Gundam series, they are very practical and useful; much more agile than tanks or fighters. So my issue with these was that they were impractical for the setting they were placed in.

Like most everything else, the writers tried to build them up as a threat, but in order to do that, they had to dumb down the heroes and ignore basic physics and geology.

If they took it a step furthar and actually showed the equalists knocking on their door, then it wouldn't be much of a twist since the idea that they were captured after that would be EXTREMELY predictable. The best kind of foreshadowing is the subtle kind, not the painfully obvious.

Actually, all they would have needed was to have Amon say "It's okay, they only think they are getting away; I know exactly where they are headed." That's it. That's how I would have done it. And then when I revealed them as hostages, perhaps a short explanation and flashback from Amon: "I knew they'd go to 'this particular island' and had an ambush waiting. I plan for every contingency."

As for the emotional trigger... again, this only occurred when Aang either knew about someone who had died (monk gyasto), or when he thought someone he cared about was about to die (Katara getting buried)... This actually fits with the idea of an avatar realizing their power by being at their lowest point.

Emotional trigger... such as when the avatar realizes something horrible has happened/about to happen to someone they care about? Naw, the state wouldn't trigger then. Whether about a guy or a bison.

Stance are not as important as you think when you consider the fact that ANY body movement can become a trigger for bending... recall Katara in epsidoe 1 of the first series; she had plenty of trouble dealing with her water bending and yet it was when she got emotional and started waving her arms around that she destroyed an iceberg (with the breaks matching her arm movements)...

So... body movement isn't important, except when it is? I poke a little bit of fun, but stance is the same thing as body movement. Well, both are needed, because they are interrelated. And we are shown time and time again in the first series, how much movement is required to bend. Pay attention to the detail sometime, because they put a LOT of work into it. For instance, lightning is called up using the same motions, no matter who is tossing it around.

Maybe there are people who are satisfied by making up reasons in their own mind to account for things a show doesn't do a good job establishing. I'm not one of those. And I've said before, there is some amount of lazy writing and bad plot points I am capable of letting pass... but do it too often, and it passes my threshold, and then I unload on every single one.

And what kills me, is that there are many ways to resolve all these issues, that you and everyone else have come up with suggestions for, that would have taken all of 5 minutes to do. If a writer can't take 5 minutes to fix glaring issues, that's just lazy.

Canon? Lore? Who needs those things anymore?