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bitchinstrawberry · 1 month

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Traditional benders vs sub benders

Imagine a world where all the subcategories of bending have become so common, that "pure" elemental bending has flipped over to being more rare. And we've already seen the potential of this. In the og atla lighting was rare (only the royal family was using it) and metal bending was just created, but in tlok both sub bendings were being thrown around like extra boomerangs.

We also saw how people adapted to their environments via sand bending and swamp/plant bending. Which poses the question, did sand benders learn "traditional" earth bending before sand? Or did they learn sand first, and would need to change tactics when asked to earth bend? Was there swamp benders who needed to learn how to move water independently? In atla the North Pole only taught healing to women, therefore there was a whole class of waterbenders that could heal, but not much else.

So by taking in real world experiences, where as groups of people mix in communities, and have kids with each other, cultures and identities get mixed and/or diluted down. (Not necessarily in a bad/evil way, but like how some parents put emphasis on their kids learning the new culture and end up neglecting their own cultural heritage). As the kids today might say, we are losing recipes, it could happen here too. We get the new age of benders, that struggle with learning "traditional" bending. Maybe this is following after a age of benders that "specialized" their bendings to a extreme.

Like if a few more generations in, Toph's family only knows how to metal bend. Some fire benders can't actually bend fire, only lightning. There are some communities where fire and earth nations got so intertwined, they only seem to produce lava benders. Generations down in katara and aangs family we get a self proclaimed cloud bender.

This could lead to a conflict where we have traditionalists that view subcategory benders as lesser than those who align with the original tradition bending. We could get a evil avatar out of this story line where from a young age the avatar is raised with these ideals but later gets their redemption (i could go on another messy rant how this is my favorite possibility) Reinforcing the lesson about how being open minded and learning from others with always improve yourself. Or a story line about how it's no longer just four elements the avatar is representing, and shows the lesson about how representation and understanding is still needed after every one got mixed in (because there could easily be 7+ decently sized, different, yet still comparatively niche, ways of bending/culture along with tons of smaller ways of life)

Another conflict that could happen is how rare "traditional" masters are, so that when it's time for the avatar to learn all four elements, it's become increasingly hard. Then we get to see the avatar and their friends learn bending from the original benders, and the lesson is along the lines of how it's still important to understand your roots, and while its impossible to know every fact about the past, the information should always be available to look back at. Maybe the villain is a organization that views "traditional" bending as dangerous and made people too unpredictable or it's a way to nerf civilians (bc a earth bender could potentially learn BOTH metal and lave bending, but preventing knowledge would keep metal and lava benders restricted to one subcategory)

I have so many half baked ideas that all stem from me wanting to see more of the subcategories of bending. And with all the talk about getting to see a new avatar, we've all been wondering what the story could be. I personally love how aang and korra contrasted each other. it doesn't leave much room narratively for a new avatar. BUT by continuing down the themes of how quickly the world has changed, we already saw people questioning the need for a avatar. This also ties in to the ending of tlok, where the avatar cycle has been restarted. A perfect time to introduce a change of duty.

#avatar the last airbender #the legend of korra #atla #tlok #I've read zero percent of the comics #so plz be polite if you want to correct anything #my knowledge on how subcategories of bending work could very well be based off a wrong assumption i made as a kid #if you hated this treat it like a fun lil what if #if you love it plz share ur own ideas w me

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cyren-myadd · 2 months

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I often see people describe Spider as a neglected child. Do you think that is totally accurate? Would Norm and the other scientists have set rules and boundaries? If Lo’ak and Spider did something stupid together would Jake punish both of them? What would a scene like this look like?

I don't think Spider was PHYSICALLY neglected, as in the adults always made sure he had food, water, medical care, and a safe place to sleep. But was Spider EMOTIONALLY neglected? Yes, I think so. The High Ground comics don't go into much detail about Spider's relationship with the people who raised him, the McCoskers, but what little we do see is nothing like the love and care Jake and Neytiri have for their children. I definitely don't think McCosker ever abused him, and I'm sure the other humans would've stepped in if he ever physically neglected him, but I one hundred percent believe the McCoskers emotionally neglected Spider. When Jake decided to move the Omaticaya and the allied humans to High Camp, Spider was packed and ready to go, and he didn't seem to care about never seeing his foster family again. Same with McCosker. McCosker was annoyed with him for trying to run away with Kiri, but he didn't really seem to care that Spider would prefer to live with the Na'vi and loyal humans over his foster family. If a kid is willing to leave behind the people who raised him for 14ish years without even saying goodbye, there is clearly something wrong with the relationship between the kid and the family. That emotional connection, knowing that there's an adult who loves you and would help you if you were in danger, just wasn't there for Spider like all the other child characters have.

(it seriously kills me that every time another child character was in danger, there was an adult rushing to rescue them concerned about their wellbeing, but when Spider was in danger, the only ones who did anything about it were A. the other child characters, which didn't end well :( and B. the war criminal who needed a 3-hour movie to realize he actually does care about his son)

As for the scientists, I'm sure they cared about Spider and made an effort to teach him things (I headcanon that Norm is the one who taught him to read and write and other basic human stuff while the Sully kids taught Spider the Na'vi stuff) but at the end of the day, they weren't his guardians and weren't responsible for raising him, teaching him rules, and disciplining him. That would fall to McCosker, and as far as I can tell with McCosker, it looks like he just gave up on raising Spider and lets him do whatever he wants as long as he comes home to sleep at night. We could speculate that maybe McCosker was a better parent when Spider was younger, but based off of how one of Spider's earliest appearances in the movie is him running around in the jungle with unkempt, matted hair and his only adult supervision there because he was with the Sully kids, we can guess that McCosker wasn't always that invested in raising Spider.

When it comes to discipline, I don't think Jake would feel like it's appropriate for him to discipline Spider and would prefer to leave it to McCosker. That's what he did in the comics when the boys were in trouble for exploring the battlefield. Jake makes it clear in both the comic and the movie that he does NOT view himself as a parental figure to Spider, and thus he's not responsible for disciplining him when he fucks up.

I'm very curious to see if Jake's relationship to Spider is different in A3. Since Spider went through literal torture to keep High Camp safe and ran back into a battlefield with zero hesitation to help Jake find Kiri and Tuk, I wonder if Jake will decide to properly look after Spider instead of just letting him hang out with his kids. I've seen some folks say Jake's "a son for a son" line is meant to symbolize Spider's adoption into the Sully family, but I don't think an adoption should happen until A. the Sullies know Spider saved Quaritch and they resolve that situation, and B. Spider and Neytiri resolve their issues.

Whatever ends up happening, I just want Spider to have the same love and protection that all the other child characters have. All children deserve to have a parent who loves and protects them, even if they have made some pretty big mistakes like saving Quaritch. If Jake can be forgiven for helping Q plan Hometree 9/11, Spider can absolutely be forgiven for only sparing his life when all his other actions opposed him.

#atwow #avatar #avatar the way of water #avatar the way of traumatizing spider #avatar spider #spider socorro #miles quaritch #colonel quaritch #avatar jake sully #jake sully #neytiri sully #atwow neytiri #atwow spider #sully family #cyren myadd theorizes

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