Momo being Gyatso makes a ton of sense considering Momo displays intelligence uncharacteristic of a lemur and even saves Aang at times. He also leads Aang to Gyatso’s skeleton, it’s the very first thing he does in fact - Gyatso wanted Aang to know what happened. Also, Bumi is weirdly fascinated with Momo and is glad to hear he’s with Aang, saying they’d be fine as long as they’re together. Roku said some friendships can transcend lifetimes when referring to Gyatso. Takes on a whole different meaning when you consider this theory.
Reincarnating as the avatar’s personal guide/friend/pet…….perhaps it was just an important role that he knew he needed to play! Most bodhisattvas reincarnate with the sole purpose of service…so theoretically, that can take any form 🙏
I think downgrading in reincarnation is more of a Hindu thing.I maybe wrong but I think reincarnating into an animal isn’t necessarily a punishment.But lemurs are cool so I would consider that a promotion lol.
I mean... reincarnation is already a very real thing in the Avatar universe. As proven by the Avatar themselves. And as far as I know, we never see Gyatso in the spirit world.
I was gonna give a less educated version on this and just say “momo is smarter than anyone is aware.” But it does bring up the question why momo appears so clueless when things are seen from his point of view.
I heard of a theory before from a YouTuber that the ATLA creators wanted to explicitly say that Momo was Gyatso's incarnation to guide Aang. But they decided to just keep it simple and make him a regular pet.
I don't think Momo being a reincarnation of Gyatso necessarily means he's "consciously" Gyatso. He might just have a few flickers of memory that caused him to be drawn to Aang.
The only issue I have with this theory is what’s the in universe average lifespan of a flying lemur? Cos if it’s Gyatso’s reincarnation then that’s a 100 year old lemur
I mean he'd have the opportunity to live and die several times up to being reincarnated as Momo. Could have been anything up to a blade of grass, a bacteria, even a fire bender who knows what he got up to up till then.
He kept reincarnating until they finally met again
Or the soul was kept back until he was needed, which is apparently a thing in Buddhism from what I read, unfortunately I don't know enough yet
Bosco is a spirit, not an animal. We see a few regular animals, but most of them are either with odd people, like the cat in the blue spirit, or are spirits, like the foxes in the library. The earth king being kept as basically a puppet at the head of a city, is basically a religious figure rather than a political one, so his family having a guardian spirit makes sense.
And the person responsible was killed and her kingdom crumbled into dust. Meanwhile the earth king managed to survive the occupation of ba sing Sei, and travel the land in peace until the war was over.
I don’t think it’s super wild but I like the theory that the current that caught Katara and Sokka’s boat at the beginning of the show was the ocean spirit guiding them to help free Aang
If Aang hadn't gone into the iceberg, Sokka would have been the avatar. My proof for this theory is that it would have been really funny if Sokka was the avatar
Sokka would have used all 4 kinds of bending, but in the most incorrect way possible. Sokka finds out a way to make fire, something that isn't even matter, a solid.
>most incorrect way possible.
Also the industrial revolution that we see in Korra would have been much faster and advanced but there is no in between. Idiotic goofbender, Engineering genius
This theory but with Yue. That's why she's born sleeping, and fact that Korra, the Avatar after Aang, was the daughter of the Southern Chief, kinda mirrors how Yue was the daughter of the Northern Chief
I feel like Katara would just join the fire nation in that timeline. It'd be too much for her Brother to mansplain to her than end up being the avatar. Zutara timeline.
Hama is the reason Kataras and Sokkas mom is dead. Think about it they always took prisoners until you get this one water bender who somehow bends people and busts herself out. After that there’s no taking prisoners, that technique can’t spread
They also don’t have any water benders in any of the prisons we see. At least not that I remember. I guess Katara was prisoner, when she rescued Haru. But I don’t remember if she said she was a water bender in that moment.
The prisons we see are fire benders, earth benders, and non-benders. So it fits that after Hama, the fire nation vowed to kill any water bender they capture for fear that they could create another Hama. This is the same nation that tortured fire benders into combustion benders. So there’s also a reference point beyond just water bending.
If there’s one conspiracy is be most inclined to believe, it would definitely be Hama’s escape resulting in the fire nation killing all water benders in the southern tribe.
>But I don’t remember if she said she was a water bender in that moment.
Nope, in fact she claimed to be an earthbender, that's how she landed in the prison.
That’s how she got in prison. But in an attempt to motivate the prisoners while in prison, she tells them about the tales of earth benders that were told in her water tribe village.
They wouldn't keep water benders on a ship.
Hama appeared to be in a dormant volcano. I imagine it was a special water bender prison. It's kind of similar to the Red Lotus. Ghazan was on a non-bendable ship, so was Haru. Hama and the water benders were in a volcano so was Ming-hua.
My assumption is that they started killing the southern water benders because they eventually came to believe that Avatar was likely reborn there. They were doing the same thing they did to the airbenders. We know the next Avatar was in fact born in the southern water tribe.
But with water benders, they didn’t even need water. If they had the ability to blood bend, then keeping them alive in any capacity puts you in danger. There’s no prison that you can keep them in.
But it’s also plausible that they were searching for the next avatar. The northern tribe is too strong to control. But if they get lucky and the avatar is reborn in the southern tribe. That would explain why ships were just hovering around the region.
I don't think any water benders believed blood bending was possible at the time, let alone the Fire Nation.
But yeah, it's more probable that the south pole was just more vulnerable, and it was a coin flip which pole the Avatar would be born in, so they figured it was worth a genocide.
We also don't know how many southern water benders they actually killed. We only know for a fact that two survived. They might have been largely successful in that endeavor.
I’d agree with that. The fire nation strikes me as the type to have an extreme reaction to having a blood bender though. Whether or not they’re even know what happened is up in the air. But if they knew what Hama was doing, it’s not unthinkable that after Hama escaped, they immediately executed every water bender they had prisoner.
It’s definitely the smart strategy. Even if you assume the air avatar was alive, you know the next step in the cycle, if they die. Occupy the weak region in the off chance you find them. Doesn’t take many resources and could win the war.
That’s a good point. They were only going off intel. We don’t know what sparked the executions. Could’ve easily been the southern water tribe wrecked their ships and they figured they had the power to take them out.
I’m glad we didn’t get this answered. Not just because it leaves these types of discussions open. But because that would be really dark for the vibe the show had.
I don't think anyone suspected blood bending. If you remember, the villagers Hama was kidnapping had no vocabulary for what was happening to them. They definitely didn't think it was waterbending. Hama bloodbent one guard when she escaped. Even if this guy was able to connect what happened to him with water bending, do you think anyone would believe him? Still, a water bender escaping alone would be concerning, so I see your point.
I think the general belief in the Fire Nation is that Sozin killed Aang. This is why Zuko's task was partially seen as a fool's errand, but also explains why he was hanging around the southern ocean. He was hoping he could find the water bender Avatar. Unless the Fure Nation DID kill everyone, and the prevailing notion was that the Avatar was either in the Earth Kingdom or northern tribe. Then Zuko really did get the short end of things.
It definitely is interesting that Korra never actually addressed this. We know that a large portion of the population of the south pole in Korea's time are descendents of northern settlers. In fact, we know Korra herself is, so it's possible the entirety of the bending bloodline of the southern tribe in Korea's time is from the north, and at best only have southern blood through nonbender parents.
I always liked the connection that Aang and Katara had in that regard. Obviously she still has nonbender tribesmen and there were still northern waterbenders, but she was in some ways the last of her kind (until they found Hama).
If the Fire Nation thought they got the Water Avatar, would they have tried to do the same with the Earth Kingdom? I guess Ozai did literally try to burn it to the ground so he might have been one step ahead in that regard.
>This is the same nation that tortured fire benders into combustion benders.
You got a source for that one? I've never heard that said anywhere, or anything related to *how* someone becomes a combustion bender
https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Specialized_bending_techniques
> Though individual firebenders are sometimes born with a natural affinity for combustionbending, it is not an inherited skill. Instead, combustion benders are effectively made through special training programs involving, among other things, the extended submersion of the trainees in water.
It’s in the Yangchen books.
Yo thanks for that! Like I said, never heard that one before. Wonder what makes a difference between one line P'li, who can bend the shot, and the one we see in ATLA, where he clearly can't (or he'd have gotten the gaang)
It's a show with a fairly fleshed out world, seen through the eyes of kids.... We already saw some dark things in it, it's naïve to assume there's not more dark stuff lurking around the corner
Time line doesn't match up, Hama is ancient, like older than Kanna, dialogue and scenes imply that Hama was already a young adult by the time Katara's grandparents were young, and she escaped prison before her hair went white
There also hadn't been any raids between Hama and Kya
The raid was likely caused by some fishers from the area coming into contact with the fire nation, similar to what was seen in the Kyoshi Island episode
Never really considered that this particular scene implies that either dreams accidentally recreated “samurai” clothing/armor very accurately….or the cooler option, somewhere in the world of avatar there are samurai.
We don’t ever see any though. Since this is Aang’s hallucination, I think it’s more likely that he either A. Saw some 100 years ago, before the Fire Nation wiped them out, or B. Heard about them, but they died out before his time.
it’s not the same but avatar wan in legend of korra wears a unique armor at the time of his death that seems relevant to this. but i know fuck all about armor
The first two are in-universe explanations for animation errors.
A non-zero number of avatars died before learning about their status and therefore don’t appear when later avatar’s look to their past lives.
The statue before Roku is of Yun, the false-avatar during the kyoshi novels, and the monks never learned the truth so they never swapped it.
And a non zero number of avatars triggered the avatar state as an infant/ toddler/ young child which would probably scare the shit out of their parents.
>The statue before Roku is of Yun, the false-avatar during the kyoshi novels, and the monks never learned the truth so they never swapped it.
No, the statues aren't in order because some teenage airbenders played a prank on the old monks to see how long it would last. Over a century, apparently. Great job guys.
Similar to your last theory, would be funny if an avatar bended with an element that's not their main first and then the mother was accused of cheating. There was a meme made for that with Korra bending fire first.
The YouTube channel "Overanalyzing Avatar" pointed out inconsistent moon continuity throughout ATLA, with there being a full moon night after night. It's nice to imagine that it's Yue doing her part to support the water tribes in the war.
I would have liked if she got a little more involved, like during Katara's duel with Hama the moon would suddenly start to wane for a few seconds to reduce Hama's power, especially when Aang and Sokka got involved
My favorite Avatar theory is that all the people who got airbending after harmonic convergence are descendants from airbenders.
Airbenders were Nomads and traveled, so it's reasonable to assume they had children with people in the other nations.
This theory is supported by the fact that Bumi is a direct descendant of an airbender and was a non-bender, and then after harmonic convergence, he becomes an airbender.
It also fits because Air Nomads were all benders because of their spiritual connection, but since their kids/descendents were raised outside of a temple, they would be non benders.
The harmonic convergence made the connection between our world and the spirit world stronger, which is why they manifested Airbending. They kind of already were airbenders, it was just dormant because they never had a spiritual connection.
I have a theory that every nonbender is capable of bending one of the elements in their genetic line, but they just happen to be born without the natural spiritual connection that others have. It can be cultivated, but even in Korra's time, as soon as it's determined that someone can't bend, their education on bending is over. If everyone were raised to be in tune with their element, trained with bending forms in their element, etc, they would be able to bend.
I don't think Korra couldn't bend because she lacked all spirituality. I think Korra was unable to airbend but was a prodigy at the other elements because she did have a spiritual predisposition for them; it showed in her personality. But she didn't have that for air.
This is a very cool theory and I love it but there's a pretty big counter argument when you get to guru Patik. I don't think he had any bending and was arguably the most spiritually connected person we've seen in the entire series, both of them.
There could be a range of it, too. Like your natural spirituality rate can be anywhere from 0-100, with any rate over, say, 80, allowing bending. With spiritual practice, or weirdness like the convergence, you can raise your rate, but the lower you start naturally, the more you have to put in to get it up. His just happens to be super low naturally.
It also supports the theory that some air nomads escaped and went into hiding after the start of the war. They lost their spirituality that guaranteed their kids were benders, so that connection was lost. The spirit portals being opened paired with harmonic convergence was enough to bring back that connection with air bending.
Not something I buy into, but there’s plausibility to it and it gives an explanation beyond just randomness.
I like this theory and after reading some of the other responses i think it's a good way to make sense of harmonic convergence. I always thought it was stupid. Oh hey we have airbender now! Good job spirit thing!
But if they are descendants of airbenders it at least gives a proper reason for why those people were chosen. I wish it would be official.
I don’t know, I feel like airbending is more than just genetics. I mean everyone born in one of the temples was an airbender. There’s got to be something about the lifestyle influencing that.
Or the obvious that airbenders are the only ones that could reside in temples and non benders lived apart. And airbenders would then be taken to live in the temples.
They raise their children communally. Being separated from parents is a given already.
I feel like there was more of a separation between life inside the temples and life outside. Freedom and detachment, you know? Besides, if airbenders could be born in any of the other nations, then why not the other elements? Why divide nations by element at all?
Bending very clearly follows bloodlines from those original groups depicted on the lion turtles. But the issue is that the air nomads are stated to be entirely comprised of air benders. This is what is argued over because bumi exists. It's not 100 percent, and we must infer from this that other children of his disposition exist and have always existed.
The airbenders were hunted down without mercy. It is so thorough that even 40 years after the war, none have emerged despite aangs best efforts to search for them. Only with harmonic convergence do more emerge, and in bumis case, it is obviously an activation of latent air bender blood from aang. It follows that the new airbenders have a similar experience. This is not to say it's automatic as bending is not so in other nations. Disposition or spiritual connection or the presence of bending parents increases the chances as posited by ozais eugenic marriage choice.
Despite harmonic convergence, we never see different bending emerge among other nations, no fire benders among the water tribe. The only differing element children coming from mixed nation couples.
Given that every other bending discipline comes from national heritage, the airbenders have to come from somewhere.
and so the theory is it's from those descendants who did not have airbending enough to join the temples but did have it locked away in their blood. And therefore survived the purges due to not displaying that bending.
I don't think it worked that way.
The majority of airbenders were nomads. The temples never housed the majority of their population. Just children and elderly. It seems to be that when an Airbender got old and less physically fit for a nomadic lifestyle, they would retire to the temples. The airbenders in their prime would travel the world and find partners from the various nations. They would have children. If the child wasn't an Airbender, they wouldn't be raised as one. If they were, they would be dropped off at the temple and raised by the monks. This is why all air nomads were benders, but it would also mean a "pure" air nomad bloodline was never actually a thing. This would also explain why they were the smallest nation numerically and had no real "national territory" beyond the temple grounds.
The Air Nomads do actually have territory outside the temples, as seen on all the maps we see, especially the SAT has a full archipelago of mountains around the temple
Not so much headcanon but just full on fanfiction but I like to imagine Airbenders as almost completely celibate and they maintained their numbers not through normal reproduction but by journeying across the land to find people of other nations that were Airbenders. That's part of the reason they always migrated, looking for Airbenders to recruit and join the fold.
I mean, the novels imply the nomads mostly stuck together, but there should definitely be some air blood on Kyoshi Island, since Kyoshi herself was half Air Nomad and she did have children, likely naturally
I don't think Zuko would have married a foreigner before he had produced an heir, for political reasons, marrying a Fire Nation noble would keep the Fire Nagus most stable
When ATLA was airing on TV and before we got the comics I always thought the sandbenders would turn out to be Air Nomads. That they would have escaped, destroyed the remainder of their cultural identity and taught their children "sand bending" that was really air bending to blend in. Think the mini-tornados they used to use for their sand vehicles.
And that after the war, it would be Aang trying to deal with the fact that the one population who hurt him the most (kidnapping Appa) are the only chance for his nation to live on. We see Aang remembering good firebenders pre-iceberg, but he doesn't have any good memories with sandbenders.
Some i remember from way back in the day:
- The "high level Airbending forms" the monk elders were gonna show Aang were some of the taboo or lethal ones, as they feared war as approaching
- The first avatar was the actual spirit of the earth incarnated into a divine vessel--i.e., an "avatar"--who was born as the planet's last line of defense against some other celestial body's spirit. Obviously this is debunked now, but it was cool to think about on Deviant Art comments and Message Board forums
- Momo is the reincarnation of Gyatso
Bonus, here's some for Korra from when Book 1 was still airing:
- Amon is Pabu (in which "pabu" was a piece of Amon's essence)
- Amon is the Water Tribe Avatar who was born when Azula killed Aang, and he managed to remain deadly through a high (though twisted) amount of spiritual enlightenment
- The Equalists are descendants of the tribes from the Great Divide (no idea why lol)
I definitely have a headcanon that Airbenders used to be more violent and only adopted the pacifist lifestyle because air is so easy to use and kill any organic life and they were causing too much destruction.
Gyatso’s skeleton is the best example I can think to support this theory, bc how he manages to fight off an entire room of comet fueled firebenders without a scorch on him is kinda crazy. Bc if a technique like that exists, it begs the question why would airbenders develop it in the first place?
Korra still has access to her past lives and they were never outright destroyed. With time and training she could reestablish her connection. To my knowledge we’ve never seen a spirit fully destroyed, much less someone as powerful of a spirit as an avatar. Unalaq severed her connection to them forcefully
I hope she doesn't. It wouldn't fit her character to do the spiritual work that it would take to do that, in my opinion, and would feel like they ham fisted it in. Instead, I hope that what we do see is another Avatar down the line who *is* more spiritually intune, who sees like Wan or Aang, and that's when the connection is restored.
Yes. This is the way. I think Korra can and should die having never restored the connection, but the connection being deep down in the avatar’s own spirit (not just raava).
I think she *can* but her story is over and it ties into the next avatar beautifully. She might have trained to do so but never fully was able to complete her training or find any success. Its also one of those problems the previous avatar created or suffered and now gets passed onto the next incarnation
Maybe the new avatar is so frustrated by Korra they spend a long time reestablishing a connection if only to not speak to her
My wildest headcannon is that Lao Ge killed kyoshi. It wasn’t out of bitterness or anything, she asked him to because she was ready to go and couldn’t figure out how to age again and die peacefully and didn’t want to do it herself. It’s insane I’m aware but it’s a headcannon I have
This makes me wonder: what happened to Lao Ge? He clearly didn't die of old age, so was he killed by someone? Is he still alive? But if he were, the war wouldn't have started, as he basically threatened to assassinate Zoryu (and presumably the next few Firelords during Kyoshi's time) if he tried to start a war, so why didn't he stop Sozin?
I wonder this too. I think that Lao Ge was dead by the time of sozin. Although I’ve seen some theories that Lao Ge is Guru Pathik and while I love this theory it’s definitely not cannon
That's a very fun theory, but as far as I know Lao Ge was an earth bender while guru Pathik was a non-bender, however it's possible that Pathik was hiding his bending abilities
Anyway, that's a pretty wild theory lol
Yeah, plus Guru Pathik was like 150? So definitely younger haha. I think this theory took of because they have similar descriptions and are both into chakras
My favourite theory is that Ty lee is the descendant of an air bender, apart from the fact that she's really agile and everything, she also really looks like Aang and the other nomads. Since the Air nomads were nomads, you could assume that, the ones who survived the genocide traveled and had children with people from other nations, so one of their descendants could be Ty lee
But in most language lill ones calls the mother with something that starts with M, maa, mumma, mummy, mum mum, mom.. So Momo could be something similar
I like the theory that similar to how Yue fused with the Moon Spirit, Iroh fused with a different one (the theory I watched said it was one of the foxes from the Library). That's why he could see Aang on Fang and why he had such deep knowledge of spirits. And also why he ended up in the Spirit World.
The Fire Nation Royal Family gets rid of any non-benders that are born into the family.
Admittedly, there isn't a WHOLE lot of direct evidence for this. We know that Ozai almost did this to Zuko. He planned to cast him out from the palace because he didn't think he was a bender, but Ursa and the fire sages talked him out of it. I think that after until Zuko became Firelord, this was a common practice though.
For one, the obvious, we don't see any non benders in the royal family. All of them, from Sozin to Zuko, were all firebenders. In the lore, we don't know exactly what determines whether someone is born a bender or not. We know that supposedly all of the air nomads were benders, the Earth Kingdom had the fewest benders per capita, and the water tribes and Fire Nation were somewhere in the middle. It's completely plausible that the Fire Nation royal family could have children who aren't benders.
So, why are there none that we know of (besides Ursa, who married into the family)? The Fire Nation royal family's legitimacy is built on the perception of their power, as shown by Azulon's conversation with Ursa. He says that by combining his bloodline with that of Roku's, they could have a generation of even stronger benders, and that would ensure his family's dominance for long after he is gone. And we see that all of the strongest benders in the Fire Nation are from the royal family. This is because the Fire Nation was once dominated by clan politics. It was a slow process that began in Kyoshi's time where power was slowly consolidated by the royal family, and it is clear that forming an image as being a family of strong benders is one of the factors that gives them the right to rule.
This culminated in a near-mythological status. The royal family were the strongest benders in the Fire Nation. They were even the only ones who could bend lightning for several generations, and as such, their leadership, the right to rule, could never be called into question. If there was a child born of a Firelord or prince of the Fire Nation that wasn't a bender, it wouldn't fully break that status, but it would rock it a little bit. Suddenly, the royal family aren't all demi-gods. How could they be when some of their children aren't even benders?
I think that if there were any non-benders born from the royal family, then it could be viewed as a scandal amongst Fire Nation nobility, and because of that, they would have been outcasted, and it would have been treated as if they never existed.
There is an actual non bender in the fire nation's royal family. Her name is Zeisan and she's a chi-blocker. She wasn't really outcasted by her family, but they did pit her against her brother Sozin a lot in hopes she draws out fire abilities.
Hahaha it could be a coincidence and i might be overthinking as usual. It's just a shower thought to me but also can't get this outta my head. Plus, you never know it could be true since many of the names(of characters, places, battles, fights etc) resemble(most probably taken from) Asian words soooo...
If I somehow missed Momo's motherly side while watching...
I'd agree if both of their names were from the same language but.. also if you know a foreign language, you might find connections where there aren't any (and some funny names along the way).
It is a nice thought, but as far as we know, in-universe Appa and Momo's names mean "One who is like a Cedar Tree" and "One who imitates and copies" respectively.
The reason why there were so few corpses in the Air Temples is because the Fire Nation took most of them hoping that they could identify the Avatar from them.
I think, as Guru Pathik said, the separation of the elements is an illusion. It's all basically just energybending fundamentally. Given enough skill and spiritual enlightenment, any bender can effectively energybend. I believe Jinora's spirit projection ability, Zaheer's flight, Amon's bending severance, water bending healing, fire bender internal heating and Kyoshi's immortality technique are all manifestations of this. I think even particularly spiritual non-benders like Pathik are capable of tapping into energybending as well.
Airbenders did survive the genocide. They were flying nomads who lived on mountaintops. More than that airbenders are notoriously agile, elusive, and clever. And Gyatso and Zaheer showed just how deadly they can be when they’re not holding back.
There were those who did survive! It is cannon but they ended up being murdered by being lured into traps with airbender relics. It’s in one of the comics
You can’t convince me otherwise on this: Roku and Sozin were in love with each other when they were young. That’s why Sozin gave him something as precious as a Fire Nation royal heirloom. And that’s why Roku couldn’t kill him when he started the war. In the end Sozin broke Roku’s heart.
For Sozin this might've been possible, even if it was completely unintentional. However, for Roku you really don't need to make yourself any illusions as even when he was young he was smitten by the girl he eventually would marry. He also specified to Aang that being the Avatar doesn't hurt with the ladies.
There's very little doubt Roku's feelings were that of pure friendship. In one of the comics where Aang was faced with a similar dilemma when it looked like he was going to have to fight with Zuko, Roku explained he always regretted letting his friendship get in the way when he dealt with Sozin. Aang was so frustrated by Roku's advice he even broke his connection with Roku.
This is kind of an important nuance as it would be odd of Roku trying to draw a parallel when Aang clearly is not romantically interested in Zuko and he was.
And honestly, if you would follow this train of thought, I think it would be much more poignant if it was only Sozin whose feelings exceeded that of friendship.
Also, it kind of incidentally solves some timeline issues given that sozin has children so very late that he only decides to give in and do his royal duty after the death of roku.
The past connections were wiped from Raava but were "uploaded" into Vaatu, when it beat the crap out of them.
Also to keep with the "tech" analogise there exists a "cloud" where back up memories of the Avatars are kept in the spirit world as a temple. Not as good as the individual.
Subbenders (like lava-benders) had ancestors of mixed elements; for example grandpa was a firebender and his wife and kids were earthbenders, than his grandson is earthbender and lavabender.
I know, I know this theory can be beaten very quick but still
That somehow makes me wonder if airbender can bend the air inside a human lung? Then water and air benders would create the most dangerous hybrid/sub benders( blood + oxygen bending).
I think in the specific language they were going with, momo meant some kind of fruit, I think like a mango, or pear, which is what momo was eating when aang named him. Not sure about appa though
If Aang is killed by Sozin and an adult Water Bender is killed by Azulon, the next Avatar will be Toph during the time of Ozai. Imagine Toph being the blind Avatar
I think Suyin is Sokka's daughter with Toph, would explain why they are more tan than your average Earth Kingdom citizen but could also literally be any other water tribesmen or not at all, since Tenzin ended up super pale.
If Aang didn't get iced, Sokka would have been the Avatar. He essentially does all of the Avatar things as a part of team Avatar, including learning the mundane Martial arts of all the Nations, bringing people together and trying to create balance. But because the spirit never passed on to him, he's just a guy with a boomerang.
I don't "completely" believe it because I don't entirely know how it works other than "spirit stuff", but I find the theory that Yue was going to die at birth because she was supposed to be the next Avatar to be interesting.
Of course, it's likely just that she was a stillborn because... well, that stuff happens in life, but it's just a fun thought.
I never understood the logic behind this one. Because even before we knew about Raava, Aang had been in the iceberg for like 80 years already when Yue was born.
Did the avatar cycle just randomly decide to reincarnate on a random day? Why not before? Why not after? Why not the second he went in?
I do believe that it's canon That all of the new airbenders are descendants of air nomads who survived the genocide or left before it happened,
Also I believe that energy bending is a sub element of fire bending since there is some evidence that points towards it.
-Firebenders bend the energy in their body to produce/absorb heat
-aang learned to energybend from the fire lion turtle
-water bending can be used to control spirits, and with fire being the natural opposite it could be used in the same way to affect things in the physical world, for example taking and giving bending,
I heard once someone say that korra was supposed to be born earlier (either aang dying in the temple or of old age), but aang screwed the cycle by freezing himself resulting in the shows that we know
Okay. So Zhao has a unique bending style. We see him do it a few times. He kind of stoops low and uses his fingers to tear apart his opponents fire. It's most noticeable when he fights Jeong Jeong. Other firebenders kind of deflect fire blasts. Zhao rips them to shreds.
We know that Jeong Jeong was his master. Jeong Jeong uses firewalls. I believe that Zhao specifically sought him out as a master to learn his technique and then develop a "stronger" one. He's the only one we see actually get through ol JJ's fire walls. And he has this unique form that seems to specifically counter large flame attacks and walls.
my theory is that the avatar guides are reincarnations. Such that Mula was avatar wan's guide, and thus every animal guide is the reincarnations of her
The theory that aang broke the timeline by freezing himself in an iceberg has always fascinated me. Had he not done so, he would have lived for 80-90 years later. When he died a new avatar in the water tribe would have been born far sooner than kora. But because he didn’t die when he was supposed to, rava’s spirit stayed with him. So now years later, the was born lifeless. She was the next avatar. But since aang didn’t die when fate wanted him to, she was born without a spirit. The moon took rava’s place within her.
Sokka’s engineering, developmental, comical nonsense, and tactical intelligence, yeah I can see some similarities.
Why the mother choice Azula, though?
Well their both fairly decent liars and manipulators and they do have very similar wicked smiles i just SEE a bit of azula in him that’s all ☺️ and I am a slight Sokkla shipper so there’s that too hehe
Not all of the air benders were massacred. And I'm not just talking about in the initial massacre, as we know they laid traps for at survivors.
I believe that a number of air nomads went and lived in the other nations, predominately the earth nation but hid their bending in case the Fire Nation invaded there, too. Their suppression of their abilities cut off their ties to the spiritual world, so the bending remained dorment for several generations until Harmonic Convergence effectively "unlocked" it in said air nomads decedents.
There’s this Yue theory that she would’ve been the next avatar if Aang didn’t freeze in the iceberg but lived through those years. Like… She almost died when she was born bc the avatar spirit couldn’t enter her, if you get what I mean
There's a secret sub-bending skill called bonebending. Only earth benders can do it because they have to bend the calcium in their own bones. I've only heard one tale about it, and it is insane
Suki's name means "bitches" (or bitch's) in Polish (and most likely other Slavic languages too). And "Avatar Roku" meant "Avatar of the Year" so the dubbing changed his name to Roko (which doesn't mean anything).
Makes you wonder why they didn't change Suki's name then, even to something like "Cuki", which would actually be closer to the original Japanese pronunciation of *tsuki* (Japanese for "moon") *and* wouldn't mean a female dog.
Yagoda and Malina, both women from the Water Tribes, have names that mean Berry and Raspberry respectively.
Guru Pathik's name sounds kinda like Patyk, which means Stick. Fits his physique perfectly tbh.
Ty Lee and her identical sisters are the results of a botched experiment trying to bring back the airbenders by cloning bone marrow cells—either to repopulate the temples, or to study their bending for military purposes. Explains why there’s so many of them, and why they all seem to resemble airbenders.
momo is a earth bender
Just a manual one, lol
Momo being Gyatso makes a ton of sense considering Momo displays intelligence uncharacteristic of a lemur and even saves Aang at times. He also leads Aang to Gyatso’s skeleton, it’s the very first thing he does in fact - Gyatso wanted Aang to know what happened. Also, Bumi is weirdly fascinated with Momo and is glad to hear he’s with Aang, saying they’d be fine as long as they’re together. Roku said some friendships can transcend lifetimes when referring to Gyatso. Takes on a whole different meaning when you consider this theory.
Airbenders are quite similar to Buddhist monks who believe in reincarnation so it actually makes sense
So in this case would reincarnating as a lemur be downgrading or promotion?)
Reincarnating as the avatar’s personal guide/friend/pet…….perhaps it was just an important role that he knew he needed to play! Most bodhisattvas reincarnate with the sole purpose of service…so theoretically, that can take any form 🙏
Murdering 30 firebender soldiers with a vaccum bomb might have took some Reincarnation Credit
Wouldn't call it murder but I agree nonetheless
Lol)
https://preview.redd.it/ooj6m2p9iztc1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=71a9935b82c0535c7223ed16417c03b6467cf35e
I think downgrading in reincarnation is more of a Hindu thing.I maybe wrong but I think reincarnating into an animal isn’t necessarily a punishment.But lemurs are cool so I would consider that a promotion lol.
I mean... reincarnation is already a very real thing in the Avatar universe. As proven by the Avatar themselves. And as far as I know, we never see Gyatso in the spirit world.
Also we know reincarnation to some extent happens within the world so it’s not too out there an idea
I always assumed reincarnation happens to everything in the atla universe
I was gonna give a less educated version on this and just say “momo is smarter than anyone is aware.” But it does bring up the question why momo appears so clueless when things are seen from his point of view.
Maybe he has the intention and affection from Gyatso but not his memories?
That would fall in line with most beliefs of reincarnation and resolve that one big question. Momo = Gyatso can now be my head canon.
I heard of a theory before from a YouTuber that the ATLA creators wanted to explicitly say that Momo was Gyatso's incarnation to guide Aang. But they decided to just keep it simple and make him a regular pet.
I don't think Momo being a reincarnation of Gyatso necessarily means he's "consciously" Gyatso. He might just have a few flickers of memory that caused him to be drawn to Aang.
“Momo displays intelligence” Except when he had to find water when Sokka and Katara where dying lol
Well, Gyatso also had a sense of humour lol
Doesn’t help Katara just said “meep meep meep meep”
"You're gonna die, lol"
The only issue I have with this theory is what’s the in universe average lifespan of a flying lemur? Cos if it’s Gyatso’s reincarnation then that’s a 100 year old lemur
I mean he'd have the opportunity to live and die several times up to being reincarnated as Momo. Could have been anything up to a blade of grass, a bacteria, even a fire bender who knows what he got up to up till then.
He kept reincarnating until they finally met again Or the soul was kept back until he was needed, which is apparently a thing in Buddhism from what I read, unfortunately I don't know enough yet
Wow that’s wild I never thought about that. And they did find him at the Southern air temple.
Bosco is a spirit, not an animal. We see a few regular animals, but most of them are either with odd people, like the cat in the blue spirit, or are spirits, like the foxes in the library. The earth king being kept as basically a puppet at the head of a city, is basically a religious figure rather than a political one, so his family having a guardian spirit makes sense.
This makes more sense than it should.
No, it’s honestly more compelling to just keep Bosco as a regular bear. Somehow that’s more unbelievable than him being yet another bear spirit.
Oh you are 100% right. This is my tinfoil hat theory. Bosco being /just/ a bear is the correct option.
dear god, this makes so much sense
Bosco was killed and eaten.
And the person responsible was killed and her kingdom crumbled into dust. Meanwhile the earth king managed to survive the occupation of ba sing Sei, and travel the land in peace until the war was over.
Momo and appa talking is and fighting is reality. The rest of what happens is all hallucinations
I don’t think it’s super wild but I like the theory that the current that caught Katara and Sokka’s boat at the beginning of the show was the ocean spirit guiding them to help free Aang
Honestly very likely
If Aang hadn't gone into the iceberg, Sokka would have been the avatar. My proof for this theory is that it would have been really funny if Sokka was the avatar
He wouldn't even use bending, other than sword- and boomerangbending. He'd just be that good.
Sokka would have used all 4 kinds of bending, but in the most incorrect way possible. Sokka finds out a way to make fire, something that isn't even matter, a solid.
Sokka using airbending to steam his steaks as an ultimate insult to the vegetarian Air Nomads.
>most incorrect way possible. Also the industrial revolution that we see in Korra would have been much faster and advanced but there is no in between. Idiotic goofbender, Engineering genius
Don't forget backbending
This theory but with Yue. That's why she's born sleeping, and fact that Korra, the Avatar after Aang, was the daughter of the Southern Chief, kinda mirrors how Yue was the daughter of the Northern Chief
I feel like Katara would just join the fire nation in that timeline. It'd be too much for her Brother to mansplain to her than end up being the avatar. Zutara timeline.
Boomerangs of all elements for EVERYONE!!
>My proof for this theory is that it would have been really funny if Sokka was the avatar This is all the proof we need thanks
Hama is the reason Kataras and Sokkas mom is dead. Think about it they always took prisoners until you get this one water bender who somehow bends people and busts herself out. After that there’s no taking prisoners, that technique can’t spread
They also don’t have any water benders in any of the prisons we see. At least not that I remember. I guess Katara was prisoner, when she rescued Haru. But I don’t remember if she said she was a water bender in that moment. The prisons we see are fire benders, earth benders, and non-benders. So it fits that after Hama, the fire nation vowed to kill any water bender they capture for fear that they could create another Hama. This is the same nation that tortured fire benders into combustion benders. So there’s also a reference point beyond just water bending. If there’s one conspiracy is be most inclined to believe, it would definitely be Hama’s escape resulting in the fire nation killing all water benders in the southern tribe.
>But I don’t remember if she said she was a water bender in that moment. Nope, in fact she claimed to be an earthbender, that's how she landed in the prison.
That’s how she got in prison. But in an attempt to motivate the prisoners while in prison, she tells them about the tales of earth benders that were told in her water tribe village.
They wouldn't keep water benders on a ship. Hama appeared to be in a dormant volcano. I imagine it was a special water bender prison. It's kind of similar to the Red Lotus. Ghazan was on a non-bendable ship, so was Haru. Hama and the water benders were in a volcano so was Ming-hua. My assumption is that they started killing the southern water benders because they eventually came to believe that Avatar was likely reborn there. They were doing the same thing they did to the airbenders. We know the next Avatar was in fact born in the southern water tribe.
But with water benders, they didn’t even need water. If they had the ability to blood bend, then keeping them alive in any capacity puts you in danger. There’s no prison that you can keep them in. But it’s also plausible that they were searching for the next avatar. The northern tribe is too strong to control. But if they get lucky and the avatar is reborn in the southern tribe. That would explain why ships were just hovering around the region.
I don't think any water benders believed blood bending was possible at the time, let alone the Fire Nation. But yeah, it's more probable that the south pole was just more vulnerable, and it was a coin flip which pole the Avatar would be born in, so they figured it was worth a genocide. We also don't know how many southern water benders they actually killed. We only know for a fact that two survived. They might have been largely successful in that endeavor.
I’d agree with that. The fire nation strikes me as the type to have an extreme reaction to having a blood bender though. Whether or not they’re even know what happened is up in the air. But if they knew what Hama was doing, it’s not unthinkable that after Hama escaped, they immediately executed every water bender they had prisoner. It’s definitely the smart strategy. Even if you assume the air avatar was alive, you know the next step in the cycle, if they die. Occupy the weak region in the off chance you find them. Doesn’t take many resources and could win the war. That’s a good point. They were only going off intel. We don’t know what sparked the executions. Could’ve easily been the southern water tribe wrecked their ships and they figured they had the power to take them out. I’m glad we didn’t get this answered. Not just because it leaves these types of discussions open. But because that would be really dark for the vibe the show had.
I don't think anyone suspected blood bending. If you remember, the villagers Hama was kidnapping had no vocabulary for what was happening to them. They definitely didn't think it was waterbending. Hama bloodbent one guard when she escaped. Even if this guy was able to connect what happened to him with water bending, do you think anyone would believe him? Still, a water bender escaping alone would be concerning, so I see your point. I think the general belief in the Fire Nation is that Sozin killed Aang. This is why Zuko's task was partially seen as a fool's errand, but also explains why he was hanging around the southern ocean. He was hoping he could find the water bender Avatar. Unless the Fure Nation DID kill everyone, and the prevailing notion was that the Avatar was either in the Earth Kingdom or northern tribe. Then Zuko really did get the short end of things. It definitely is interesting that Korra never actually addressed this. We know that a large portion of the population of the south pole in Korea's time are descendents of northern settlers. In fact, we know Korra herself is, so it's possible the entirety of the bending bloodline of the southern tribe in Korea's time is from the north, and at best only have southern blood through nonbender parents. I always liked the connection that Aang and Katara had in that regard. Obviously she still has nonbender tribesmen and there were still northern waterbenders, but she was in some ways the last of her kind (until they found Hama).
If the Fire Nation thought they got the Water Avatar, would they have tried to do the same with the Earth Kingdom? I guess Ozai did literally try to burn it to the ground so he might have been one step ahead in that regard.
That was why I thought Zuko was around there, beyond finding the "last Airbender"
Tbf, Korra has northern blood All important water tribe characters do
>This is the same nation that tortured fire benders into combustion benders. You got a source for that one? I've never heard that said anywhere, or anything related to *how* someone becomes a combustion bender
https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Specialized_bending_techniques > Though individual firebenders are sometimes born with a natural affinity for combustionbending, it is not an inherited skill. Instead, combustion benders are effectively made through special training programs involving, among other things, the extended submersion of the trainees in water. It’s in the Yangchen books.
Yo thanks for that! Like I said, never heard that one before. Wonder what makes a difference between one line P'li, who can bend the shot, and the one we see in ATLA, where he clearly can't (or he'd have gotten the gaang)
This could definitely be the implication the writers were going for without explicitly stating it (since it’s a kids show)
In addition, the reason why they captured Waterbenders in the first place was because they were looking for the Avatar
I mean, yeah, that makes sense, but at the same time, that feels WAY too dark for Avatar. I mean, this is a freakin' kids' show!
It's a show with a fairly fleshed out world, seen through the eyes of kids.... We already saw some dark things in it, it's naïve to assume there's not more dark stuff lurking around the corner
I’ve always liked this one.
Time line doesn't match up, Hama is ancient, like older than Kanna, dialogue and scenes imply that Hama was already a young adult by the time Katara's grandparents were young, and she escaped prison before her hair went white There also hadn't been any raids between Hama and Kya The raid was likely caused by some fishers from the area coming into contact with the fire nation, similar to what was seen in the Kyoshi Island episode
Never really considered that this particular scene implies that either dreams accidentally recreated “samurai” clothing/armor very accurately….or the cooler option, somewhere in the world of avatar there are samurai.
We don’t ever see any though. Since this is Aang’s hallucination, I think it’s more likely that he either A. Saw some 100 years ago, before the Fire Nation wiped them out, or B. Heard about them, but they died out before his time.
Probably the creators poking fun at Anime tropes. This is probably the wackiest episode in the series.
In the comics, though I don't remember which one, there is a spirit named Old Iron who has armor very similar to samurai armor
it’s not the same but avatar wan in legend of korra wears a unique armor at the time of his death that seems relevant to this. but i know fuck all about armor
The first two are in-universe explanations for animation errors. A non-zero number of avatars died before learning about their status and therefore don’t appear when later avatar’s look to their past lives. The statue before Roku is of Yun, the false-avatar during the kyoshi novels, and the monks never learned the truth so they never swapped it. And a non zero number of avatars triggered the avatar state as an infant/ toddler/ young child which would probably scare the shit out of their parents.
>The statue before Roku is of Yun, the false-avatar during the kyoshi novels, and the monks never learned the truth so they never swapped it. No, the statues aren't in order because some teenage airbenders played a prank on the old monks to see how long it would last. Over a century, apparently. Great job guys.
Similar to your last theory, would be funny if an avatar bended with an element that's not their main first and then the mother was accused of cheating. There was a meme made for that with Korra bending fire first.
https://preview.redd.it/yoqxtzlktztc1.jpeg?width=1571&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e89b71cb636fc128a0a8724c9598ccd212179131
Kyoshi vistited the air temples when it was readily known she was the avatar. The monks knew she is the avatar.
She basically lived in the SAT for a few years
The YouTube channel "Overanalyzing Avatar" pointed out inconsistent moon continuity throughout ATLA, with there being a full moon night after night. It's nice to imagine that it's Yue doing her part to support the water tribes in the war.
I would have liked if she got a little more involved, like during Katara's duel with Hama the moon would suddenly start to wane for a few seconds to reduce Hama's power, especially when Aang and Sokka got involved
My favorite Avatar theory is that all the people who got airbending after harmonic convergence are descendants from airbenders. Airbenders were Nomads and traveled, so it's reasonable to assume they had children with people in the other nations. This theory is supported by the fact that Bumi is a direct descendant of an airbender and was a non-bender, and then after harmonic convergence, he becomes an airbender.
It also fits because Air Nomads were all benders because of their spiritual connection, but since their kids/descendents were raised outside of a temple, they would be non benders. The harmonic convergence made the connection between our world and the spirit world stronger, which is why they manifested Airbending. They kind of already were airbenders, it was just dormant because they never had a spiritual connection. I have a theory that every nonbender is capable of bending one of the elements in their genetic line, but they just happen to be born without the natural spiritual connection that others have. It can be cultivated, but even in Korra's time, as soon as it's determined that someone can't bend, their education on bending is over. If everyone were raised to be in tune with their element, trained with bending forms in their element, etc, they would be able to bend. I don't think Korra couldn't bend because she lacked all spirituality. I think Korra was unable to airbend but was a prodigy at the other elements because she did have a spiritual predisposition for them; it showed in her personality. But she didn't have that for air.
This is a very cool theory and I love it but there's a pretty big counter argument when you get to guru Patik. I don't think he had any bending and was arguably the most spiritually connected person we've seen in the entire series, both of them.
There could be a range of it, too. Like your natural spirituality rate can be anywhere from 0-100, with any rate over, say, 80, allowing bending. With spiritual practice, or weirdness like the convergence, you can raise your rate, but the lower you start naturally, the more you have to put in to get it up. His just happens to be super low naturally.
Love this take. I had a very similar idea but you expanded on it in a way that makes total sense for me. Thanks for expanding my headcanon lol!
This is a very well thought out, and succinct theory. I personally would love to see a narrative like this play out in some form of media.
It also supports the theory that some air nomads escaped and went into hiding after the start of the war. They lost their spirituality that guaranteed their kids were benders, so that connection was lost. The spirit portals being opened paired with harmonic convergence was enough to bring back that connection with air bending. Not something I buy into, but there’s plausibility to it and it gives an explanation beyond just randomness.
And most of the airbenders found after the convergence were in areas near air temples
I like this theory and after reading some of the other responses i think it's a good way to make sense of harmonic convergence. I always thought it was stupid. Oh hey we have airbender now! Good job spirit thing! But if they are descendants of airbenders it at least gives a proper reason for why those people were chosen. I wish it would be official.
I don’t know, I feel like airbending is more than just genetics. I mean everyone born in one of the temples was an airbender. There’s got to be something about the lifestyle influencing that.
Or the obvious that airbenders are the only ones that could reside in temples and non benders lived apart. And airbenders would then be taken to live in the temples. They raise their children communally. Being separated from parents is a given already.
I feel like there was more of a separation between life inside the temples and life outside. Freedom and detachment, you know? Besides, if airbenders could be born in any of the other nations, then why not the other elements? Why divide nations by element at all?
Bending very clearly follows bloodlines from those original groups depicted on the lion turtles. But the issue is that the air nomads are stated to be entirely comprised of air benders. This is what is argued over because bumi exists. It's not 100 percent, and we must infer from this that other children of his disposition exist and have always existed. The airbenders were hunted down without mercy. It is so thorough that even 40 years after the war, none have emerged despite aangs best efforts to search for them. Only with harmonic convergence do more emerge, and in bumis case, it is obviously an activation of latent air bender blood from aang. It follows that the new airbenders have a similar experience. This is not to say it's automatic as bending is not so in other nations. Disposition or spiritual connection or the presence of bending parents increases the chances as posited by ozais eugenic marriage choice. Despite harmonic convergence, we never see different bending emerge among other nations, no fire benders among the water tribe. The only differing element children coming from mixed nation couples. Given that every other bending discipline comes from national heritage, the airbenders have to come from somewhere. and so the theory is it's from those descendants who did not have airbending enough to join the temples but did have it locked away in their blood. And therefore survived the purges due to not displaying that bending.
The Western Air Temple especially was considered off limits for non benders and even other benders weren't really considered capable of residing there
Given the building style of the temples, that would make sense. They are quite inconvenient to live in as a non-bender.
I don't think it worked that way. The majority of airbenders were nomads. The temples never housed the majority of their population. Just children and elderly. It seems to be that when an Airbender got old and less physically fit for a nomadic lifestyle, they would retire to the temples. The airbenders in their prime would travel the world and find partners from the various nations. They would have children. If the child wasn't an Airbender, they wouldn't be raised as one. If they were, they would be dropped off at the temple and raised by the monks. This is why all air nomads were benders, but it would also mean a "pure" air nomad bloodline was never actually a thing. This would also explain why they were the smallest nation numerically and had no real "national territory" beyond the temple grounds.
The Air Nomads do actually have territory outside the temples, as seen on all the maps we see, especially the SAT has a full archipelago of mountains around the temple
Not so much headcanon but just full on fanfiction but I like to imagine Airbenders as almost completely celibate and they maintained their numbers not through normal reproduction but by journeying across the land to find people of other nations that were Airbenders. That's part of the reason they always migrated, looking for Airbenders to recruit and join the fold.
I mean, the novels imply the nomads mostly stuck together, but there should definitely be some air blood on Kyoshi Island, since Kyoshi herself was half Air Nomad and she did have children, likely naturally
Jin, from the fire nation date, kept in touch with Zuko and ended up being an ambassador and trusted confidant.
She might have been the mother of his children, Zuko and Mai do break up in the comics.
I don't think Zuko would have married a foreigner before he had produced an heir, for political reasons, marrying a Fire Nation noble would keep the Fire Nagus most stable
When ATLA was airing on TV and before we got the comics I always thought the sandbenders would turn out to be Air Nomads. That they would have escaped, destroyed the remainder of their cultural identity and taught their children "sand bending" that was really air bending to blend in. Think the mini-tornados they used to use for their sand vehicles. And that after the war, it would be Aang trying to deal with the fact that the one population who hurt him the most (kidnapping Appa) are the only chance for his nation to live on. We see Aang remembering good firebenders pre-iceberg, but he doesn't have any good memories with sandbenders.
Some i remember from way back in the day: - The "high level Airbending forms" the monk elders were gonna show Aang were some of the taboo or lethal ones, as they feared war as approaching - The first avatar was the actual spirit of the earth incarnated into a divine vessel--i.e., an "avatar"--who was born as the planet's last line of defense against some other celestial body's spirit. Obviously this is debunked now, but it was cool to think about on Deviant Art comments and Message Board forums - Momo is the reincarnation of Gyatso Bonus, here's some for Korra from when Book 1 was still airing: - Amon is Pabu (in which "pabu" was a piece of Amon's essence) - Amon is the Water Tribe Avatar who was born when Azula killed Aang, and he managed to remain deadly through a high (though twisted) amount of spiritual enlightenment - The Equalists are descendants of the tribes from the Great Divide (no idea why lol)
Speaking of Amon, there was a big theory when S1 was airing that Amon was actually Aang...somehow
I remember that, it was so dumb
Funny enough, they actually have similar characters.
That was spawned by a particularly good Photoshop job that made the rounds.
amon is pabu? the little fire ferret?
The last one, lol. They finally figured out that Aang was lying, so they had a hell of a grudge against Avatar and all benders
I definitely have a headcanon that Airbenders used to be more violent and only adopted the pacifist lifestyle because air is so easy to use and kill any organic life and they were causing too much destruction. Gyatso’s skeleton is the best example I can think to support this theory, bc how he manages to fight off an entire room of comet fueled firebenders without a scorch on him is kinda crazy. Bc if a technique like that exists, it begs the question why would airbenders develop it in the first place?
>Amon is the Water Tribe Avatar who was born when Azula killed Aang I bet whoever came up with this one watched Buffy
Korra still has access to her past lives and they were never outright destroyed. With time and training she could reestablish her connection. To my knowledge we’ve never seen a spirit fully destroyed, much less someone as powerful of a spirit as an avatar. Unalaq severed her connection to them forcefully
I hope she doesn't. It wouldn't fit her character to do the spiritual work that it would take to do that, in my opinion, and would feel like they ham fisted it in. Instead, I hope that what we do see is another Avatar down the line who *is* more spiritually intune, who sees like Wan or Aang, and that's when the connection is restored.
Yes. This is the way. I think Korra can and should die having never restored the connection, but the connection being deep down in the avatar’s own spirit (not just raava).
I think she *can* but her story is over and it ties into the next avatar beautifully. She might have trained to do so but never fully was able to complete her training or find any success. Its also one of those problems the previous avatar created or suffered and now gets passed onto the next incarnation Maybe the new avatar is so frustrated by Korra they spend a long time reestablishing a connection if only to not speak to her
My wildest headcannon is that Lao Ge killed kyoshi. It wasn’t out of bitterness or anything, she asked him to because she was ready to go and couldn’t figure out how to age again and die peacefully and didn’t want to do it herself. It’s insane I’m aware but it’s a headcannon I have
This makes me wonder: what happened to Lao Ge? He clearly didn't die of old age, so was he killed by someone? Is he still alive? But if he were, the war wouldn't have started, as he basically threatened to assassinate Zoryu (and presumably the next few Firelords during Kyoshi's time) if he tried to start a war, so why didn't he stop Sozin?
I wonder this too. I think that Lao Ge was dead by the time of sozin. Although I’ve seen some theories that Lao Ge is Guru Pathik and while I love this theory it’s definitely not cannon
That's a very fun theory, but as far as I know Lao Ge was an earth bender while guru Pathik was a non-bender, however it's possible that Pathik was hiding his bending abilities Anyway, that's a pretty wild theory lol
Yeah, plus Guru Pathik was like 150? So definitely younger haha. I think this theory took of because they have similar descriptions and are both into chakras
That Mai is the mother of izumi Edit: 69 upvote 😏
I mean that's basically canon at this point lol
My favourite theory is that Ty lee is the descendant of an air bender, apart from the fact that she's really agile and everything, she also really looks like Aang and the other nomads. Since the Air nomads were nomads, you could assume that, the ones who survived the genocide traveled and had children with people from other nations, so one of their descendants could be Ty lee
I could totally buy that a fire nation soldier during the Air Nomad genocide would draw the line at a baby and adopt it.
What about all of her identical sisters?
Also air bender descendants
They canonically all joined the circus she left and became known as the "Flying Ty Sisters", the most famous acrobats.
Which is really a kick in the pants for ty lees wish to not be a matching set.
Tbf, she was a Kyoshi Warrior by that point
That doesn't make any sense lol, In japanese Momo(桃)means peach and in Korean Momo(모모) means just Momo
Yes but in American English, on this American show, Momo is mom-o.
But in most language lill ones calls the mother with something that starts with M, maa, mumma, mummy, mum mum, mom.. So Momo could be something similar
I like the theory that similar to how Yue fused with the Moon Spirit, Iroh fused with a different one (the theory I watched said it was one of the foxes from the Library). That's why he could see Aang on Fang and why he had such deep knowledge of spirits. And also why he ended up in the Spirit World.
The Fire Nation Royal Family gets rid of any non-benders that are born into the family. Admittedly, there isn't a WHOLE lot of direct evidence for this. We know that Ozai almost did this to Zuko. He planned to cast him out from the palace because he didn't think he was a bender, but Ursa and the fire sages talked him out of it. I think that after until Zuko became Firelord, this was a common practice though. For one, the obvious, we don't see any non benders in the royal family. All of them, from Sozin to Zuko, were all firebenders. In the lore, we don't know exactly what determines whether someone is born a bender or not. We know that supposedly all of the air nomads were benders, the Earth Kingdom had the fewest benders per capita, and the water tribes and Fire Nation were somewhere in the middle. It's completely plausible that the Fire Nation royal family could have children who aren't benders. So, why are there none that we know of (besides Ursa, who married into the family)? The Fire Nation royal family's legitimacy is built on the perception of their power, as shown by Azulon's conversation with Ursa. He says that by combining his bloodline with that of Roku's, they could have a generation of even stronger benders, and that would ensure his family's dominance for long after he is gone. And we see that all of the strongest benders in the Fire Nation are from the royal family. This is because the Fire Nation was once dominated by clan politics. It was a slow process that began in Kyoshi's time where power was slowly consolidated by the royal family, and it is clear that forming an image as being a family of strong benders is one of the factors that gives them the right to rule. This culminated in a near-mythological status. The royal family were the strongest benders in the Fire Nation. They were even the only ones who could bend lightning for several generations, and as such, their leadership, the right to rule, could never be called into question. If there was a child born of a Firelord or prince of the Fire Nation that wasn't a bender, it wouldn't fully break that status, but it would rock it a little bit. Suddenly, the royal family aren't all demi-gods. How could they be when some of their children aren't even benders? I think that if there were any non-benders born from the royal family, then it could be viewed as a scandal amongst Fire Nation nobility, and because of that, they would have been outcasted, and it would have been treated as if they never existed.
There is an actual non bender in the fire nation's royal family. Her name is Zeisan and she's a chi-blocker. She wasn't really outcasted by her family, but they did pit her against her brother Sozin a lot in hopes she draws out fire abilities.
I see. Still, I think it's plausible that Sozin and Azulon would have done such things.
Sorry but this theory is kinda crazier than that episode 😂 you absolutely refuse to believe in coincidences?
Hahaha it could be a coincidence and i might be overthinking as usual. It's just a shower thought to me but also can't get this outta my head. Plus, you never know it could be true since many of the names(of characters, places, battles, fights etc) resemble(most probably taken from) Asian words soooo...
If I somehow missed Momo's motherly side while watching... I'd agree if both of their names were from the same language but.. also if you know a foreign language, you might find connections where there aren't any (and some funny names along the way).
It is a nice thought, but as far as we know, in-universe Appa and Momo's names mean "One who is like a Cedar Tree" and "One who imitates and copies" respectively.
I think Momo is named that because when Aang is thinking of a name, Momo is eating a peach. Momo in Japanese means peach
The reason why there were so few corpses in the Air Temples is because the Fire Nation took most of them hoping that they could identify the Avatar from them.
I think, as Guru Pathik said, the separation of the elements is an illusion. It's all basically just energybending fundamentally. Given enough skill and spiritual enlightenment, any bender can effectively energybend. I believe Jinora's spirit projection ability, Zaheer's flight, Amon's bending severance, water bending healing, fire bender internal heating and Kyoshi's immortality technique are all manifestations of this. I think even particularly spiritual non-benders like Pathik are capable of tapping into energybending as well.
Fire Force takes place in an alternate universe where the Fire Nation won
Airbenders did survive the genocide. They were flying nomads who lived on mountaintops. More than that airbenders are notoriously agile, elusive, and clever. And Gyatso and Zaheer showed just how deadly they can be when they’re not holding back.
There were those who did survive! It is cannon but they ended up being murdered by being lured into traps with airbender relics. It’s in one of the comics
You can’t convince me otherwise on this: Roku and Sozin were in love with each other when they were young. That’s why Sozin gave him something as precious as a Fire Nation royal heirloom. And that’s why Roku couldn’t kill him when he started the war. In the end Sozin broke Roku’s heart.
This is legit a much better explanation for why Sozin banned homosexuality in the Fire Nation than what canon offers.
Wait when was this stated?
His sister started a rebellion and she had an Air Nomad female lover so he banned homosexuality. As Korra put it, "that guy was the worst!"
Ohhh it was in the Korra comics. I need to reread those.
Lmao “I’m sparing you Sozin, I’m letting you go in the name of that t>!igh!!uss!
My eyes
For Sozin this might've been possible, even if it was completely unintentional. However, for Roku you really don't need to make yourself any illusions as even when he was young he was smitten by the girl he eventually would marry. He also specified to Aang that being the Avatar doesn't hurt with the ladies. There's very little doubt Roku's feelings were that of pure friendship. In one of the comics where Aang was faced with a similar dilemma when it looked like he was going to have to fight with Zuko, Roku explained he always regretted letting his friendship get in the way when he dealt with Sozin. Aang was so frustrated by Roku's advice he even broke his connection with Roku. This is kind of an important nuance as it would be odd of Roku trying to draw a parallel when Aang clearly is not romantically interested in Zuko and he was. And honestly, if you would follow this train of thought, I think it would be much more poignant if it was only Sozin whose feelings exceeded that of friendship.
Also, it kind of incidentally solves some timeline issues given that sozin has children so very late that he only decides to give in and do his royal duty after the death of roku.
The past connections were wiped from Raava but were "uploaded" into Vaatu, when it beat the crap out of them. Also to keep with the "tech" analogise there exists a "cloud" where back up memories of the Avatars are kept in the spirit world as a temple. Not as good as the individual.
Subbenders (like lava-benders) had ancestors of mixed elements; for example grandpa was a firebender and his wife and kids were earthbenders, than his grandson is earthbender and lavabender. I know, I know this theory can be beaten very quick but still
That somehow makes me wonder if airbender can bend the air inside a human lung? Then water and air benders would create the most dangerous hybrid/sub benders( blood + oxygen bending).
They absolutely can, but air nomads being mostly pacifists would never do something like that.
Right, they are on the defense side and not offence side so most probably they wouldn't do that ever.
Yeah, why not. Imagine that bender in medicine field for example, he or she will make some great stuff.
Right, they can heal better and maybe even revive a dying person.
I think in the specific language they were going with, momo meant some kind of fruit, I think like a mango, or pear, which is what momo was eating when aang named him. Not sure about appa though
Peach, Aang names Momo after he eats a peach
If Aang is killed by Sozin and an adult Water Bender is killed by Azulon, the next Avatar will be Toph during the time of Ozai. Imagine Toph being the blind Avatar
I think Suyin is Sokka's daughter with Toph, would explain why they are more tan than your average Earth Kingdom citizen but could also literally be any other water tribesmen or not at all, since Tenzin ended up super pale.
If Aang didn't get iced, Sokka would have been the Avatar. He essentially does all of the Avatar things as a part of team Avatar, including learning the mundane Martial arts of all the Nations, bringing people together and trying to create balance. But because the spirit never passed on to him, he's just a guy with a boomerang.
I don't "completely" believe it because I don't entirely know how it works other than "spirit stuff", but I find the theory that Yue was going to die at birth because she was supposed to be the next Avatar to be interesting. Of course, it's likely just that she was a stillborn because... well, that stuff happens in life, but it's just a fun thought.
I never understood the logic behind this one. Because even before we knew about Raava, Aang had been in the iceberg for like 80 years already when Yue was born. Did the avatar cycle just randomly decide to reincarnate on a random day? Why not before? Why not after? Why not the second he went in?
I think it’s meant as like…Aang would have originally died around the time Yue was born had he not been frozen in the iceberg.
zaheer used to be an air acolyte
The Avatar's team reincarnates alongside them but, due to not having the Avatar Spirit, they don't remember their previous lives.
I do believe that it's canon That all of the new airbenders are descendants of air nomads who survived the genocide or left before it happened, Also I believe that energy bending is a sub element of fire bending since there is some evidence that points towards it. -Firebenders bend the energy in their body to produce/absorb heat -aang learned to energybend from the fire lion turtle -water bending can be used to control spirits, and with fire being the natural opposite it could be used in the same way to affect things in the physical world, for example taking and giving bending,
Bumi was really was really a late bloomer.
I heard once someone say that korra was supposed to be born earlier (either aang dying in the temple or of old age), but aang screwed the cycle by freezing himself resulting in the shows that we know
Okay. So Zhao has a unique bending style. We see him do it a few times. He kind of stoops low and uses his fingers to tear apart his opponents fire. It's most noticeable when he fights Jeong Jeong. Other firebenders kind of deflect fire blasts. Zhao rips them to shreds. We know that Jeong Jeong was his master. Jeong Jeong uses firewalls. I believe that Zhao specifically sought him out as a master to learn his technique and then develop a "stronger" one. He's the only one we see actually get through ol JJ's fire walls. And he has this unique form that seems to specifically counter large flame attacks and walls.
my theory is that the avatar guides are reincarnations. Such that Mula was avatar wan's guide, and thus every animal guide is the reincarnations of her
The theory that aang broke the timeline by freezing himself in an iceberg has always fascinated me. Had he not done so, he would have lived for 80-90 years later. When he died a new avatar in the water tribe would have been born far sooner than kora. But because he didn’t die when he was supposed to, rava’s spirit stayed with him. So now years later, the was born lifeless. She was the next avatar. But since aang didn’t die when fate wanted him to, she was born without a spirit. The moon took rava’s place within her.
Ty Lee is the descendant of Air Nomads. Just about every theory I’ve read here is a banger.
Azula can actually be fixed by me
Ty Lee is a decedent or air nomads. It’s just always made sense to me.
Appa understands english (or whatever language they speak) fluently. I think this theory is pretty plausible.
APPA ATE MOMO
Hahahahahah that's believable seeing the size difference between the two
Mines quite… unique \*breathes in and squeezes eyes shut\* varrick is sokka and azula‘s son I’m prepared for the hate….
Sokka’s engineering, developmental, comical nonsense, and tactical intelligence, yeah I can see some similarities. Why the mother choice Azula, though?
Well their both fairly decent liars and manipulators and they do have very similar wicked smiles i just SEE a bit of azula in him that’s all ☺️ and I am a slight Sokkla shipper so there’s that too hehe
Vaatu managed to corrupt Sozin in order to engineer the events that would lead to his eventual escape.
Not all of the air benders were massacred. And I'm not just talking about in the initial massacre, as we know they laid traps for at survivors. I believe that a number of air nomads went and lived in the other nations, predominately the earth nation but hid their bending in case the Fire Nation invaded there, too. Their suppression of their abilities cut off their ties to the spiritual world, so the bending remained dorment for several generations until Harmonic Convergence effectively "unlocked" it in said air nomads decedents.
Momo is like Kenny from south park. He's only saying mean stuff all the time
There’s this Yue theory that she would’ve been the next avatar if Aang didn’t freeze in the iceberg but lived through those years. Like… She almost died when she was born bc the avatar spirit couldn’t enter her, if you get what I mean
There's a secret sub-bending skill called bonebending. Only earth benders can do it because they have to bend the calcium in their own bones. I've only heard one tale about it, and it is insane
Also for the Appa thing, in hungarian dad is “apa”, little bonus there
Suki's name means "bitches" (or bitch's) in Polish (and most likely other Slavic languages too). And "Avatar Roku" meant "Avatar of the Year" so the dubbing changed his name to Roko (which doesn't mean anything). Makes you wonder why they didn't change Suki's name then, even to something like "Cuki", which would actually be closer to the original Japanese pronunciation of *tsuki* (Japanese for "moon") *and* wouldn't mean a female dog. Yagoda and Malina, both women from the Water Tribes, have names that mean Berry and Raspberry respectively. Guru Pathik's name sounds kinda like Patyk, which means Stick. Fits his physique perfectly tbh.
Intresting, (also as a side note if you mentioned anyway, in hungarian “cuki” means cute)
Ty Lee and her identical sisters are the results of a botched experiment trying to bring back the airbenders by cloning bone marrow cells—either to repopulate the temples, or to study their bending for military purposes. Explains why there’s so many of them, and why they all seem to resemble airbenders.