Avatar: The Legend of Korra

[Uzor]

Spoiler: show

Presumably she knows how, since she was able to return Beifong's bending, but maybe she lost the ability after losing access to the other Avatars? She did tell the airbending guy at the start that she couldn't just remove his bending..

Spoiler: show

I thought it was strange too, but she might have just meant that she's unwilling to just remove his bending, and that a better way to go about it is to learn to control it?

[Sunrider]

Regarding new villians:

Spoiler: show

Zuko is mad worried. We get it, and it seems rightly so. But, if he was so worried why didn't he fly his dragon and get Korra to go with him to check on the prisoner and have Korra seal away her bending?

Its not like he doesn't know that the avatar can do that, with his father being the first subject.

Or even better, why weren't the bending powers of these super high power benders sealed by Korra when she first became connected to her avatar state (after Amon)? They'll build super intense prisons but wont send the avatar to do a 5 minute job?

He might just think they're more than Korra can handle. She's a hell of a fighter and seems to have a solid grip on the Avatar State, but these four seem like serious shit, and they have both age and experience on their side.

And there's also the bit that we're not sure Korra can remove bending anymore, so yeah.

[Eurell]

To be fair. She never really had much chance. When did she officially complete her airbending training? Around the start of s2? Girls been busy lol.

[Serra]

Along that vein, Korra lost access to all the previous Avatars, so she lost a lot of their accumulated bending knowledge. She really shouldn't be anywhere near as skilled as she previously was.

[Obsidian]

Along that vein, Korra lost access to all the previous Avatars, so she lost a lot of their accumulated bending knowledge. She really shouldn't be anywhere near as skilled as she previously was.

I'll argue a lot of the expertise comes from Raava, who still resides within Korra, and if someone takes away your calculator you don't suddenly forget how to multiply. A good example of something she *did* (probably) lose when her past lives were "destroyed" (for lack of a better term) is Aang's ability to Energybend.

[Silenka]

Along that vein, Korra lost access to all the previous Avatars, so she lost a lot of their accumulated bending knowledge. She really shouldn't be anywhere near as skilled as she previously was.

I thought the bending knowledge from the past avatars only came when she was accessing the avatar state. She was always a strong fighter who has a good grasp on physical movement and how to incorporate bending into it, but the truly wonky stuff only came when she or Aang were accessing avatar state...I wouldn't really call those "skills", more like "limit break"

Spoiler: show

I don't think she knows how to remove bending anymore. Either the ability was given to Aang but not necessarily the entire avatar line, or Aang had the ability the entire time and the lion turtle just unlocked it for him/taught him to use it. She may need specific access to Aang to remove/replace bending. Of course, I could be proven entirely wrong if she uses bending removal on those villains. I don't see any other way for her to beat them save killing them and the Avatar doesn't kill people -_-

[Iono]

and the Avatar doesn't kill people -_-

Naw man, Aang was just a wussy air tribe.

Spoiler: show

Okay, maybe cuz Nick doesn't want kids to watch them kill, but technically at least Kyoshi and previous avatars didn't g.a.f.

[Eurell]

Yeah that was an Aang thing, not an Avatar thing.

[Nama]

Even the air avatar before Aang has killed people before when good of the world as at stake even though it goes against air tribe teachings so yeah Aang is a bitch.

[Sunrider]

I thought the bending knowledge from the past avatars only came when she was accessing the avatar state. She was always a strong fighter who has a good grasp on physical movement and how to incorporate bending into it, but the truly wonky stuff only came when she or Aang were accessing avatar state...I wouldn't really call those "skills", more like "limit break"

Spoiler: show

I don't think she knows how to remove bending anymore. Either the ability was given to Aang but not necessarily the entire avatar line, or Aang had the ability the entire time and the lion turtle just unlocked it for him/taught him to use it. She may need specific access to Aang to remove/replace bending. Of course, I could be proven entirely wrong if she uses bending removal on those villains. I don't see any other way for her to beat them save killing them and the Avatar doesn't kill people -_-

I don't think it's an ability that was granted and could be taken like Raava, it was more a technique the Lion turtle showed him how to do, like the 'octopus' technique he got from Katara's waterbending scroll.

Given that it's knowledge he possessed, then would normally say Korra lost it when she lost her connection to him... except that at the end of book one, she did it too.

So it's possible that having completed the action of energybending might allow her to retain understanding of it... but it might not.

[Deftscythe]

Remember that Amon removing people's bending was NOT the same thing Aang did to Ozai, it was some application of bloodbending that was closer to when Aang's chakras were blocked and kept him from the avatar state. Korra removing the blocks on people's bending did not necessarily have anything to do with energy bending.

As for Korra being worse at bending now, she was bending 3 elements when she was like, 5. She never needed the avatar state to kick ass. She's been training her entire life to be the avatar and all her teachers said she excelled at the physical aspect of the job.

[Serra]

I thought the bending knowledge from the past avatars only came when she was accessing the avatar state. She was always a strong fighter who has a good grasp on physical movement and how to incorporate bending into it, but the truly wonky stuff only came when she or Aang were accessing avatar state...I wouldn't really call those "skills", more like "limit break"

Spoiler: show

I don't think she knows how to remove bending anymore. Either the ability was given to Aang but not necessarily the entire avatar line, or Aang had the ability the entire time and the lion turtle just unlocked it for him/taught him to use it. She may need specific access to Aang to remove/replace bending. Of course, I could be proven entirely wrong if she uses bending removal on those villains. I don't see any other way for her to beat them save killing them and the Avatar doesn't kill people -_-

She gained it when she entered the Avatar state, and while she can still enter it, there is no connection to the past Avatars anymore. I'm not saying Korra's a bad fighter or bender, but that having access to the other Avatars was a (near) limitless source of bending knowledge and techniques.

[Cliron]

Regarding Energy bending, I remember that in 'The legend of Aang' the lion turtle mentioned that people bent each others energies before 'elemental' bending came about, meaning to me that anyone can energy bend not just the avatar.
During the Ozai fight, Ozai's energy was so powerful it nearly engulfed Aang.

Also, I imagine this line of energy bending is similar to what Korra had to employ at the end of season two against Unalok/Vaatu. Keep in mind she was just a water bender after Raava was defeated.

Finally, bit of a thought experiment, but can the avatar cycle now ever truly be broken? Before harmonic convergence, if an avatar was defeated while in the avatar state Raava would have been stuck in the spirit world with Vaatu (right?). However, now that their is no barrier, if Korra was defeated couldn't Raava just fuse with any ol human when she returns?

[Silenka]

Yeah how the fuck did I forget that past avatars killed people? Sheesh.

[Uzor]

It does make for a nice plot twist though, as it gives her and new avatars after her a "clean slate", now that they don't have all of the previous avatar's knowledge. Means she can't just go avatar state and kick all of the villain's asses.

[Eurell]

So do we know how Aang died yet? Any chance it had anything to do with these guys?

[Cayos]

Think he died of old age. Avatars live a lot longer than everyone else but being in the iceberg for 100 years kind of screwed him over.

[Obsidian]

So do we know how Aang died yet? Any chance it had anything to do with these guys?

Illness/age at 60-something. All the time in the iceberg caught up to him. It's in his bio on the Nick website (if that's still there).

[Corrderio]

According to the wiki:

The one hundred years Aang had spent frozen in an iceberg while in the Avatar State drained much of his inherent life energy, and by his later years the strain of this began to weigh heavily upon his body. When he felt that his end was nearing, he tasked the Order of the White Lotus to search for and watch over the next Avatar. Eventually, at the relatively young biological age of sixty-six, Aang passed away. The Avatar Spirit was reborn and reincarnated into the Southern Water Tribe as a headstrong, hot-headed, and rebellious girl named Korra.

[Silenka]

That's...actually pretty sad, I didn't know that.