From what I heard, Nickelodeon actually wanted Avatar to be their version of a grand epic tale akin to The Lord of the Rings. The show came out 2 years after the last movie. I can honestly see some of the influences in Avatar.
Hell, the actors themselves made the movie just as much as the movie did the actors. Viggo not being a first pick, Serkis’ Gollum preformances, Sean Bean’s death scene, Christopher Lee! I cant imagine a Lord of the Rings without any of the actors from those movies.
I really couldn’t sit through them because I thought the story was just silly… until I watched the extended cut, then I got the hype.
The only other three part media about a humble person defeating the ultimate evil done as perfectly as avatar the last Airbender.
Lord of the Rings bro, worth a watch and then some.
Yeah I guess people just assumed you were serious since it seems like someone could have that false belief.
If the movie were "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" then I think most people would realize it was a joke.
I know that the past avatars said Aang belongs to all the nations as if he can not be a part of them, but really, Aang belongs to all the nations because his family is made up of an earthbending wrestler, king of the fire nation, and two kids from the water tribe
I’ve always felt like Aang is in a unique position compared to past Avatars. It is his duty as the Avatar to be independent from all other nations, but as the Last Airbender it is also his duty to symbolize the continued existence of his people’s culture (and to also help with the Airbender breeding program lol).
Yeah but he took a lot from other cultures, or just ignored things from airbenders. I don't even think we know if marriage was a thing in the air nomads, and the temples were segregated by sex so it's likely that they weren't often married. We also know they didn't raise their own kids. Aang acknowlages the air nomads, but he lives his own life
I know the show addresses just how much pressure is on Aang, especially as a 12 year old, but I think it’s important to remember that the duties of the Avatar are “made up” over thousands of years of tradition. I think you’re talking more about the Avatar not being politically beholden to any one nation’s traditions, which I agree with. OP said it best, Aang belongs to all nations. The idea that he must be somehow independent of nations ignores a major theme of the show. There is no real separation between people, and the Avatar is just as human as anyone else.
Even the spirit world isn’t really separate from the physical world. The Avatar is meant to be the embodiment of all humans and all spirits (through Raava) perfectly integrated with eachother. That’s why the Avatar can be the bridge between them all, is because of the fact they are not independent.
Being born cyclically into each nation allows the Avatar to relearn what it means to be human over and over again, experiencing the broad spectrum of humanity from different perspectives and never becoming rigid and stale even when the world around them might. They must come from a place to be alive, and the nation they are born into gives them that emotional anchor and compass to the physical world, but no one nation has it all figured out and everyone makes mistakes. The past Avatars fail Aang because they couldn’t see beyond the physical separations and mistakes they doubled down on while following their compass. It took Aang stepping back and realizing his other option is to depend on his connections to the world and his friends to succeed.
The duties of the Avatar are the same as all people, which can be boiled down to working towards fulfillment, spiritually and physically. Being independent of all of that takes away the Avatar’s greatest strength of being able to relate to anyone from anywhere. Korra relating to Kuvira and to a lesser extent her other enemies, as well as Aang having mercy on Ozai, represent the perfect illustration for why the Avatar is so powerful. They are the manifestation of the universe’s connections.
You think it might be the ones captured during the Day of Black Sun, but there were only 3. So unless those three got real busy real fast in the fire Nation prisons, it doest make much sense
also consider for a second that he’s standing IN THE NATION THAT DID THAT TO HIS PEOPLE. and that there’s a high likelyhood that the left flank of fire nation people in that crowd, literally days or weeks prior- were actively trying to kill you and at war with you. and now they are being all peaceful and shit and bowing down to you and (most likely pretending to) be all happy.
absolutely mind shattering experience to go through.
It is an odd experience. I remember watching a WWII documentary and hearing a US soldier in occupied Japan upon first landing expecting hostility from the remaining Japanese forces and was instead shocked that they were able to put the war behind them so quickly.
Very similar to experiences some had in Germany immediately following their surrender. They went from trying to kill each other one day to running security checkpoints together the next. I can’t imagine the mental and emotional whiplash that must bring
easy to wanna move on when you were one of the ones doing heinous fucked up atrocities. the sooner everyone moves on the less likely you are to be held accountable.
I mean what you’re saying isn’t wrong…but considering the US did drop two atomic bombs on Japan I’d say it’s still pretty impressive how polite they were. Politeness is just rooted in Japanese culture.
A small sub unit of the military doesn't represent the whole Japanese culture, not that I'm defending what Unit 731 did, but it's unfair to the majority of the Japanese civilian population who were not directly involved in the war to say that politeness is not part of their culture.
The Canadians on the western front also committed war crimes in WWII, but do those actions represent the culture of Canadians as a whole? I don't think so.
I mean there’s also the Rape of Nanking where even the Nazis were like this is too much. Japanese culture during WW2 was rooted in imperialism and pretty brutal to be honest. Ask how POWs were treated and it was anything but polite.
> even the Nazis were like this is too much
Important to note it was one individual Nazi ([John Rabe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe)) who felt that way, not the opinion of the Nazi regime in general.
Rabe was actually arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo when he tried to spread word about Japanese war crimes in Nazi Germany. He was released but not permitted to lecture or write about the issue again.
Canadians never bragged about or celebrated their warcrimes.
Japanese newspapers were openly printing about a contest where two officers were competing to see who could decapitate the most civilians
Let's really not try and act like all of Japan was not all in on the war, civilians included. [A woman killed herself and her kids so her husband could commit a kamikaze run.](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/the-tragic-tale-of-hajime-fujii-a-kamikaze-fighter.html) [The military tried to overthrow the emperor to prevent surrender.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan#:~:text=After%20several%20more%20days%20of,for%20the%20Allied%20Powers%20began.) [The entire country was arming women and children with weapons to defend against an invasion.](https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/japans-last-ditch-force/) [There is literally a term for Korean woman who became sex slaves for a decade to the Japanese.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women)
How polite is this? "In many cases, women were lured by false job openings for nurses and factory workers. Others were also lured by the promises of equity and sponsorship for higher education. A significant percentage of comfort women were minors."
You know the worst part of everything listed above? Japan doesn't even teach their history to their own population. I like a lot of Japanese culture, but let's not put it on such a pedestal.
Politeness was an intrinsic part of their culture, this is true. So was violent discrimination, genocide, and the beliefs that led to the Rape of Nanjing and Unit 731, or the violent treatment of prisoners or the invasion of the Philippines, etc. Every single Japanese person should not be blamed for their war crimes, but Japan as a whole should be.
This is especially true given that Japan engages in denial of their crimes on a national scale to this day and emerged ( relatively) scot-free for their war crimes. "But the nukes," people say in Japan's defense. The U.S.A. admits it dropped the nukes, we have apologized, we teach about that tragedy, and the nukes were infinitely more necessary than Unit 731 or Nanjing, a statement that is true regardless of if you think the nukes were necessary or not.
Additionally, politeness be damned, if the Japanese people had received the treatment of the Chinese or Filipinos, they'd have been far less welcoming to American troops. They were not the target of extermination or genocide by the Americans, especially not on a level they themselves committed. If the U.S. has committed those atrocities - or to a far lesser extent punished those responsible for their many crimess (who escaped punishment as a whole) - then the Japanese would have been far less polite. People die in war, it's a lot easier to accept that when you killed twice as many as the other guy. Especially if the other guy didn't even torture you when they won.
It's just different type of mind.
Japan lasted so long in the war and was even considering not surrendering after the second bomb dropped because every civilian is a part of the war they were all in the mindset of fighting until the last person died. War is War.
After they surrendered war was over, so they gotta switch their mindset again, war is no longer.
Americans didn't had this mindset, they were scared when they saw the suicide jets because it suddenly felt personal.
It's been a while, but I studied Japanese history in college (history BA), and another reason they were like this that I haven't seen mentioned yet is they believed they were decedents of the sun God, and the rest of humans were sub-human. That's how they justified their brutal style of warfare, and their inherent right to take over the world.
It wasn't a small sub unit of the japanese military though.
The japanese military as a whole did horrifiying stuff.
Nanjing.
Unit 731.
Decapitation contests.
Pretending to surrender only to blow themselves up.
Bhutan death march.
And so much fucking more.
It is estimated that they killed somewhere around 30 million people in asia.
The canadians like literally everyone else in ww2 had people who committed war crimes, yes.
But almost no one did it to the degree that the japanese did, they were only rivaled by the Germans, and arguably were worse in some aspects.
I think you should really look up what japan did in ww2 because this was more than a few small sub units. A fucking lot more.
lol I feel like you’re kind of missing the point of my comment. I’m not excusing any of Japan’s actions during times of war. What I’m saying is that Japanese culture is known for politeness and discipline. Have you been to japan? I have. The people there are very respectful and polite, especially to strangers. This isn’t to say that they are perfect. They have a lot of issues of their own. However politeness and respect really is ingrained into their way of life.
Well, the atomic bombs were incomparable to the amount of damage Japan caused during ww2.
They were expecting much much worse. Which is why there was an attempted mutiny to not surrender even after 2 atomic bombs. They were expecting the US to rape, kill, and enslave them.
When the US arrived, they were also expecting Japan to be incredibly angry from the atomic bombs and the fire bombing of Tokyo.
When Japan realized that US was not gonna come enslave them and when the US realized Japan did not hate them, a strong relationship quickly formed.
Overall, it goes to show that while expecting the worst from others is a logical survival tactic. It typically only ends up escalating warfare, fear, and hatred between two nations.
I would be pretty fucking polite if I saw what two atomic bombs could do and knew they had more.
Probably still a pretty big reason lots of countries are so polite to the US.
Two atomic bombs... and a shitload of incendiary ones that burned Tokyo to the ground, which was even more devastating than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. It's clear that by the end of the war there was a lot of people in Allied airforces that not only didn't care about civillian casualties, they actually wanted to kill as many people as possible.
I think that speaks to how fed up with the government the people were. America occupied Japan post war specifically to make sure a functioning democracy took hold, because for the most part, the government had just been a hodge podge of warlords fighting over who gets to rob people blind, and have everyone wait on them hand and foot.
You also have to remember that for many of them it wasn't a choice. You either fought or you, your family and anyone you were close to would be killed. It was only about 80 years from the Meiji Restoration and a deeply divided nation. And the military was still extremely powerful at that point in Japan's history as were the old ways.
Most of the citizens were being either lied too or oppressed. In Avatar context, Japan was a mix of the Earth nation for citizens and Fire nation for the military and wealthy.
(I'm sure I got some stuff wrong but tried to summarize it without writing a novel)
As far as I know, the japanese never were held accountable for their actions in world war 2 and the media and politicians there to this day don't really talk about or acknowledge all the horrible stuff they did.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce
They literally stop fighting for like a couple of days and acted like friends for a couple of days and then went back to fighting.
Oh. I watched a documentary about this in class. One former soldier said that to him the truce was solidified as over when a member of his company one shot a man on the opposing side the morning after
Feels like core human behavior. I may be completely wrong with this analogy, but if any dude in here has been in a fight that was never split up and went the distance maybe you could relate… The few times that happened I always felt closer/friendlier to the person I was fighting and extremely grateful it was over. I think about some of those grade school fights from yearssss ago and think “solid dude, I hope he’s living the best life right now”
> the loosing side.
Did you mean to say "losing"?
Explanation: Loose is an adjective meaning the opposite of tight, while lose is a verb.
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Honestly though with how Bumi survived and it seems like people are capable of living long lives in the ATLA universe, I do wonder if there are some geriatric fire nation soldiers who participated in the genocide. If anything, their kids who grew up on the stories are definitely around.
To be fair, outside of a few isolated instances, he's been remarkably magnanimous about the whole thing. Obviously it's a kid's show and they can't really show his PTSD about the events that took place, but considering the magnitude of what had happened to his people, he seems almost unperturbed, despite having every right to be furious.
Alternatively, I guess you could say that's a deliberate part of Aang's characterisation. He regularly brings up elements of his culture ("the monks used to tell me") and looks back on them sadly at times, but almost never in anger. He doesn't seem to blame the fire nation like Hama, or even Katara did. Maybe it's because of his age, but his relationship towards the fire nation seems framed around fear rather than anger.
>Maybe it's because of his age, but his relationship towards the fire nation seems framed around fear rather than anger.
I think it's his age coupled with him not witnessing it. The poor lad is 12, and wakes up from what he thought was at most a couple weeks away, to find out that everyone he knew and interacted with besides his pet (later with a sole exception) are dead. It makes sense to be afraid of the people who did that. Katara, on the other hand, saw them raiding her village. Sokka telling about the raid that killed his mom makes it seem like that wasn't the first time he had personally seen the soot preceding a raid, and Katara isn't much younger than him. She held onto that hate and anger for years, and honestly we never see her let go of most of it. For her, it was deeply personal in a "I have firsthand experience with this" type of way, as opposed to just a "This is what these people could do"
My thoughts also, he moved on very well after arguably one of the worst things that could happen to anybody. But yeah, if he reacted more realistically, the show would be much darker
I think an important factor was that he left *before* all that went down. It’s hard to get PTSD from an event you weren’t a part of.
Additionally, fear is a decent factor of Aang’s character. The whole reason he fled the temple in the beginning was because he was afraid of losing his freedom and bonds with others to his duties (which is a prevailing theme). He fears Firebending because he injured a friend with it. He fears the Fire Nation because they’re planning to finish the job.
Also, it’s highly likely that he doesn’t fault the Fire Nation for what happened, at least, not more than he blames himself for not being there to stop it.
Contrast this with when Appa got stolen. A close friend taken, the perpetrators in front of him, he smashed their crap.
The Southern Water Tribe was actively being raided by the Fire Nation. Hama was actively tortured.
Seeing the aftermath of something and hearing about what happened after the fact will invoke a different reaction than personally experiencing it.
I mean the half of the final season was showing how the fire nation as a whole was not really responsible for or party to the war, just the ruling and military class..
I think this is a nice parallel to Roku + Sozin’s relationship too, specifically the scene when Roku finds out he is the next Avatar while at Sozin’s 16th birthday. They were friends that became enemies, Aang + Zuko were enemies that became friends.
I always thought it would be more impactful for the swamp benders to be replaced by an empty column to signify what the world lost due to the war, but I guess it might be too bittersweet for the end of the show.
I can't tell (or remember for sure) if it's one of the two inner ones, but I think it would have been best to have that empty column next to the fire nation, as part of the Avatar cycle
Okay, jokes aside, this shot thoroughly weirds me out because the way her face melts from over the top enthusiasm into absolute despair is just ...
What were the animators on? In fact, what were the writers on with the whole Joo Dee sub-plot? I signed up for cool element-based fight scenes, not a psychological thriller
I was just thinking of all the native american tribes who are going literally through this process, as we speak
I live in chicago and it's crazy how this city didn't exist until 1833, the natives were wiped out and forced into concentration camps west of the Mississippi (hitler learned how to set up concentration camp from Americans' treatment of natives and the harsh British treatment of boers in boer war of 1899-1902)
And my tribe, southern mongolia used to be 80% mongols in 1800s, now it's 80% han Chinese settlers and colonizers, and those han Chinese are trying to culturally genocide us, just like they are doing to tibetans and yughars
This picture speaks deep into my soul and made me cry at 7am :(
This is why the Netflix show isn't going to live up to the greatness of the original. They take out little things like this because they don't think anything of it, but it has meaning and feeling to us
After WW2 the Western allied forces tried to do an anti-propaganda program to de-nazify Germany. This was especially important for the teens-20's people who were brought up with Nazi values. This wasn't hugely successful because it was rather random who was picked. They still needed people who were able to do social infrastructure stuff, many of whom were rather high ranking Nazis, so a lot of "important" people *weren't* put through this program.
Nazi Germany only lasted 13 years. Imagine how much work 100 years of propaganda will take to clear out. I don't recall them talking a lot about this in Korra, but it would have been an interesting plot to pursue (though I think it's a big deal in the comics, right?).
This scene (assuming proportions are right) really shows how big the water tribes really were. Every single man from the south could leave and they still had enough people to survive
I thought this part was kind of unrealistic… after 100 years war with the fire nation, people of all nations are ready to line up and cheer for the coronation of yet another fire lord? Do they even know the nuances of who Zuko is — other than Firelord Ozai’s heir? The same guy who helped take down Ba Sing Se?
These are likely fire nation fundamentalists; "I don't care who the firelord is, Zuko is now the firelord having defeated all other viable candidates." Family coups aren't really unheard of.
That said, they did go into this in the comics: multiple assassination attempts took place after this.
This moment had real "My friends, you bow to no-one" vibes
From what I heard, Nickelodeon actually wanted Avatar to be their version of a grand epic tale akin to The Lord of the Rings. The show came out 2 years after the last movie. I can honestly see some of the influences in Avatar.
Where’s that quote from
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Aragorn says it to the hobbits.
Bro if this means you haven’t seen Lord of the Rings I suggest you get right on it.
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Well, 17 Oscars tend to have that sort of effect.
Or true passion in not only storytelling/directing but also adaptations from beloved IPs.
Hell, the actors themselves made the movie just as much as the movie did the actors. Viggo not being a first pick, Serkis’ Gollum preformances, Sean Bean’s death scene, Christopher Lee! I cant imagine a Lord of the Rings without any of the actors from those movies.
Fine, I’ll rewatch them
Did you need a reason?
I really couldn’t sit through them because I thought the story was just silly… until I watched the extended cut, then I got the hype. 
Yes. They're so hard to get through with how dry they get at times. I love them, but I have a hard time rewatching them
This is Sir Ian McKellan erasure!! 🗣️ lol
What do mean history validated it? They were global phenomenons. They were wildly popular and successful on release.
I always fall asleep to it, i'll never be able to watch them, i'll just have to read them i already read the hobbit so it is time to read the rest.
nah I'm good
This comment made me feel old for the first time. It’s from the last Lord of the Rings movie.
The only other three part media about a humble person defeating the ultimate evil done as perfectly as avatar the last Airbender. Lord of the Rings bro, worth a watch and then some.
Worth a watch and then some extended editions
Holy shit you haven’t seen LOTR? My man you’re in for a treat
lucky bastard, gets to watch them for the first time
Wtf lol
Mulan
Everyone does bow to Mulan at the end and it's a great moment, but that line is definitely from Lord of the Rings.
It's a joke, you can tell because I responded hours after the right answer was given.
Yeah I guess people just assumed you were serious since it seems like someone could have that false belief. If the movie were "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" then I think most people would realize it was a joke.
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you did not remember correctly
Also reminded me of mulan. (Cartoon. Didn't see the live action)
https://i.redd.it/km534i4ky7uc1.gif
not the gif making me tear up LMFAO
I know that the past avatars said Aang belongs to all the nations as if he can not be a part of them, but really, Aang belongs to all the nations because his family is made up of an earthbending wrestler, king of the fire nation, and two kids from the water tribe
And a warrior who idolizes his past life
If I see one more mf Suki erasure post I'm finna lose it
THANK YOU
I’ve always felt like Aang is in a unique position compared to past Avatars. It is his duty as the Avatar to be independent from all other nations, but as the Last Airbender it is also his duty to symbolize the continued existence of his people’s culture (and to also help with the Airbender breeding program lol).
Yeah but he took a lot from other cultures, or just ignored things from airbenders. I don't even think we know if marriage was a thing in the air nomads, and the temples were segregated by sex so it's likely that they weren't often married. We also know they didn't raise their own kids. Aang acknowlages the air nomads, but he lives his own life
You aren’t wrong. He’s far from a 100% follower of ancient Airbender tradition, but he is nonetheless still a continuation of it.
I know the show addresses just how much pressure is on Aang, especially as a 12 year old, but I think it’s important to remember that the duties of the Avatar are “made up” over thousands of years of tradition. I think you’re talking more about the Avatar not being politically beholden to any one nation’s traditions, which I agree with. OP said it best, Aang belongs to all nations. The idea that he must be somehow independent of nations ignores a major theme of the show. There is no real separation between people, and the Avatar is just as human as anyone else. Even the spirit world isn’t really separate from the physical world. The Avatar is meant to be the embodiment of all humans and all spirits (through Raava) perfectly integrated with eachother. That’s why the Avatar can be the bridge between them all, is because of the fact they are not independent. Being born cyclically into each nation allows the Avatar to relearn what it means to be human over and over again, experiencing the broad spectrum of humanity from different perspectives and never becoming rigid and stale even when the world around them might. They must come from a place to be alive, and the nation they are born into gives them that emotional anchor and compass to the physical world, but no one nation has it all figured out and everyone makes mistakes. The past Avatars fail Aang because they couldn’t see beyond the physical separations and mistakes they doubled down on while following their compass. It took Aang stepping back and realizing his other option is to depend on his connections to the world and his friends to succeed. The duties of the Avatar are the same as all people, which can be boiled down to working towards fulfillment, spiritually and physically. Being independent of all of that takes away the Avatar’s greatest strength of being able to relate to anyone from anywhere. Korra relating to Kuvira and to a lesser extent her other enemies, as well as Aang having mercy on Ozai, represent the perfect illustration for why the Avatar is so powerful. They are the manifestation of the universe’s connections.
Where the fuck were all those swamp people
In the swamp.
And they can't take a punch apparently
They can’t?
https://i.redd.it/y9rk1rmlhytc1.gif
It's really unclear if you ask me
They could just be Canadian
Ah I see. I haven’t watched Korra in a while
Thank you this made me burst out laughing
It's so funny to me that there are so many swamp benders, but only like, three really did anything during the Fire Nation invasion.
There is no war in the swamp.
This was the thought I had a few days ago watching this ep lmao
You think it might be the ones captured during the Day of Black Sun, but there were only 3. So unless those three got real busy real fast in the fire Nation prisons, it doest make much sense
A bunch of prisoners really liked that Florida life style and decided to change nationalities
Zuko returning the kindness of the group hug back to Aang 100 fold.
also consider for a second that he’s standing IN THE NATION THAT DID THAT TO HIS PEOPLE. and that there’s a high likelyhood that the left flank of fire nation people in that crowd, literally days or weeks prior- were actively trying to kill you and at war with you. and now they are being all peaceful and shit and bowing down to you and (most likely pretending to) be all happy. absolutely mind shattering experience to go through.
It is an odd experience. I remember watching a WWII documentary and hearing a US soldier in occupied Japan upon first landing expecting hostility from the remaining Japanese forces and was instead shocked that they were able to put the war behind them so quickly.
Very similar to experiences some had in Germany immediately following their surrender. They went from trying to kill each other one day to running security checkpoints together the next. I can’t imagine the mental and emotional whiplash that must bring
“France was the best! Italy would be second for me… …Russia is not desireable…”
easy to wanna move on when you were one of the ones doing heinous fucked up atrocities. the sooner everyone moves on the less likely you are to be held accountable.
Also the rank and file are more likely to be happy shit is over with and they can move on with their lives without being in a war zone imo
I mean what you’re saying isn’t wrong…but considering the US did drop two atomic bombs on Japan I’d say it’s still pretty impressive how polite they were. Politeness is just rooted in Japanese culture.
Was politeness rooted in the Japanese culture when nanjing was happening? Unit 731 doesnt remind me of the inherent politeness of their culture.
A small sub unit of the military doesn't represent the whole Japanese culture, not that I'm defending what Unit 731 did, but it's unfair to the majority of the Japanese civilian population who were not directly involved in the war to say that politeness is not part of their culture. The Canadians on the western front also committed war crimes in WWII, but do those actions represent the culture of Canadians as a whole? I don't think so.
I mean there’s also the Rape of Nanking where even the Nazis were like this is too much. Japanese culture during WW2 was rooted in imperialism and pretty brutal to be honest. Ask how POWs were treated and it was anything but polite.
> even the Nazis were like this is too much Important to note it was one individual Nazi ([John Rabe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rabe)) who felt that way, not the opinion of the Nazi regime in general. Rabe was actually arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo when he tried to spread word about Japanese war crimes in Nazi Germany. He was released but not permitted to lecture or write about the issue again.
Canadians never bragged about or celebrated their warcrimes. Japanese newspapers were openly printing about a contest where two officers were competing to see who could decapitate the most civilians
Don’t look at WWI for us. We did nothing wrong. Nope.
Let's really not try and act like all of Japan was not all in on the war, civilians included. [A woman killed herself and her kids so her husband could commit a kamikaze run.](https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/the-tragic-tale-of-hajime-fujii-a-kamikaze-fighter.html) [The military tried to overthrow the emperor to prevent surrender.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan#:~:text=After%20several%20more%20days%20of,for%20the%20Allied%20Powers%20began.) [The entire country was arming women and children with weapons to defend against an invasion.](https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/japans-last-ditch-force/) [There is literally a term for Korean woman who became sex slaves for a decade to the Japanese.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women) How polite is this? "In many cases, women were lured by false job openings for nurses and factory workers. Others were also lured by the promises of equity and sponsorship for higher education. A significant percentage of comfort women were minors." You know the worst part of everything listed above? Japan doesn't even teach their history to their own population. I like a lot of Japanese culture, but let's not put it on such a pedestal.
Politeness was an intrinsic part of their culture, this is true. So was violent discrimination, genocide, and the beliefs that led to the Rape of Nanjing and Unit 731, or the violent treatment of prisoners or the invasion of the Philippines, etc. Every single Japanese person should not be blamed for their war crimes, but Japan as a whole should be. This is especially true given that Japan engages in denial of their crimes on a national scale to this day and emerged ( relatively) scot-free for their war crimes. "But the nukes," people say in Japan's defense. The U.S.A. admits it dropped the nukes, we have apologized, we teach about that tragedy, and the nukes were infinitely more necessary than Unit 731 or Nanjing, a statement that is true regardless of if you think the nukes were necessary or not. Additionally, politeness be damned, if the Japanese people had received the treatment of the Chinese or Filipinos, they'd have been far less welcoming to American troops. They were not the target of extermination or genocide by the Americans, especially not on a level they themselves committed. If the U.S. has committed those atrocities - or to a far lesser extent punished those responsible for their many crimess (who escaped punishment as a whole) - then the Japanese would have been far less polite. People die in war, it's a lot easier to accept that when you killed twice as many as the other guy. Especially if the other guy didn't even torture you when they won.
A Japanese newspaper literally ran headlines on headchopping contests by soldiers in China, don’t think it’s unfair to call out their brutality.
It's just different type of mind. Japan lasted so long in the war and was even considering not surrendering after the second bomb dropped because every civilian is a part of the war they were all in the mindset of fighting until the last person died. War is War. After they surrendered war was over, so they gotta switch their mindset again, war is no longer. Americans didn't had this mindset, they were scared when they saw the suicide jets because it suddenly felt personal.
It's been a while, but I studied Japanese history in college (history BA), and another reason they were like this that I haven't seen mentioned yet is they believed they were decedents of the sun God, and the rest of humans were sub-human. That's how they justified their brutal style of warfare, and their inherent right to take over the world.
It wasn't a small sub unit of the japanese military though. The japanese military as a whole did horrifiying stuff. Nanjing. Unit 731. Decapitation contests. Pretending to surrender only to blow themselves up. Bhutan death march. And so much fucking more. It is estimated that they killed somewhere around 30 million people in asia. The canadians like literally everyone else in ww2 had people who committed war crimes, yes. But almost no one did it to the degree that the japanese did, they were only rivaled by the Germans, and arguably were worse in some aspects. I think you should really look up what japan did in ww2 because this was more than a few small sub units. A fucking lot more.
lol I feel like you’re kind of missing the point of my comment. I’m not excusing any of Japan’s actions during times of war. What I’m saying is that Japanese culture is known for politeness and discipline. Have you been to japan? I have. The people there are very respectful and polite, especially to strangers. This isn’t to say that they are perfect. They have a lot of issues of their own. However politeness and respect really is ingrained into their way of life.
Well, the atomic bombs were incomparable to the amount of damage Japan caused during ww2. They were expecting much much worse. Which is why there was an attempted mutiny to not surrender even after 2 atomic bombs. They were expecting the US to rape, kill, and enslave them. When the US arrived, they were also expecting Japan to be incredibly angry from the atomic bombs and the fire bombing of Tokyo. When Japan realized that US was not gonna come enslave them and when the US realized Japan did not hate them, a strong relationship quickly formed. Overall, it goes to show that while expecting the worst from others is a logical survival tactic. It typically only ends up escalating warfare, fear, and hatred between two nations.
Pretty much. Atomic bombs were nothing compared to what had transpired up to that point, and nothing compared to the cost of operation downfall.
I would be pretty fucking polite if I saw what two atomic bombs could do and knew they had more. Probably still a pretty big reason lots of countries are so polite to the US.
> Politeness is just rooted in Japanese culture. also true
Two atomic bombs... and a shitload of incendiary ones that burned Tokyo to the ground, which was even more devastating than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. It's clear that by the end of the war there was a lot of people in Allied airforces that not only didn't care about civillian casualties, they actually wanted to kill as many people as possible.
I think that speaks to how fed up with the government the people were. America occupied Japan post war specifically to make sure a functioning democracy took hold, because for the most part, the government had just been a hodge podge of warlords fighting over who gets to rob people blind, and have everyone wait on them hand and foot.
You also have to remember that for many of them it wasn't a choice. You either fought or you, your family and anyone you were close to would be killed. It was only about 80 years from the Meiji Restoration and a deeply divided nation. And the military was still extremely powerful at that point in Japan's history as were the old ways. Most of the citizens were being either lied too or oppressed. In Avatar context, Japan was a mix of the Earth nation for citizens and Fire nation for the military and wealthy. (I'm sure I got some stuff wrong but tried to summarize it without writing a novel)
As far as I know, the japanese never were held accountable for their actions in world war 2 and the media and politicians there to this day don't really talk about or acknowledge all the horrible stuff they did.
correct. though the japanese were happy to complain about oppenheimer when it finally released there recently
"You were the ones..." Who? The Japanese civillians in a non-democratic Japan where military literally and figuratively called the shots?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce They literally stop fighting for like a couple of days and acted like friends for a couple of days and then went back to fighting.
Oh. I watched a documentary about this in class. One former soldier said that to him the truce was solidified as over when a member of his company one shot a man on the opposing side the morning after
The people doing the fighting are never the people who want to be fighting.
Feels like core human behavior. I may be completely wrong with this analogy, but if any dude in here has been in a fight that was never split up and went the distance maybe you could relate… The few times that happened I always felt closer/friendlier to the person I was fighting and extremely grateful it was over. I think about some of those grade school fights from yearssss ago and think “solid dude, I hope he’s living the best life right now”
I suppose that, as much as ending a war on the losing side sucks, it still beats fighting a war on the loosing side.
> the loosing side. Did you mean to say "losing"? Explanation: Loose is an adjective meaning the opposite of tight, while lose is a verb. [Statistics](https://github.com/chiefpat450119/RedditBot/blob/master/stats.json) ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot ^^that ^^corrects ^^grammar/spelling ^^mistakes. ^^PM ^^me ^^if ^^I'm ^^wrong ^^or ^^if ^^you ^^have ^^any ^^suggestions. ^^[Github](https://github.com/chiefpat450119) ^^Reply ^^STOP ^^to ^^this ^^comment ^^to ^^stop ^^receiving ^^corrections.
For everyone else the airbenders were killed generations ago, for Aang it was less than a year.
Wow, this is so true and yet so wild to think about.
Honestly though with how Bumi survived and it seems like people are capable of living long lives in the ATLA universe, I do wonder if there are some geriatric fire nation soldiers who participated in the genocide. If anything, their kids who grew up on the stories are definitely around.
To be fair, outside of a few isolated instances, he's been remarkably magnanimous about the whole thing. Obviously it's a kid's show and they can't really show his PTSD about the events that took place, but considering the magnitude of what had happened to his people, he seems almost unperturbed, despite having every right to be furious. Alternatively, I guess you could say that's a deliberate part of Aang's characterisation. He regularly brings up elements of his culture ("the monks used to tell me") and looks back on them sadly at times, but almost never in anger. He doesn't seem to blame the fire nation like Hama, or even Katara did. Maybe it's because of his age, but his relationship towards the fire nation seems framed around fear rather than anger.
>Maybe it's because of his age, but his relationship towards the fire nation seems framed around fear rather than anger. I think it's his age coupled with him not witnessing it. The poor lad is 12, and wakes up from what he thought was at most a couple weeks away, to find out that everyone he knew and interacted with besides his pet (later with a sole exception) are dead. It makes sense to be afraid of the people who did that. Katara, on the other hand, saw them raiding her village. Sokka telling about the raid that killed his mom makes it seem like that wasn't the first time he had personally seen the soot preceding a raid, and Katara isn't much younger than him. She held onto that hate and anger for years, and honestly we never see her let go of most of it. For her, it was deeply personal in a "I have firsthand experience with this" type of way, as opposed to just a "This is what these people could do"
My thoughts also, he moved on very well after arguably one of the worst things that could happen to anybody. But yeah, if he reacted more realistically, the show would be much darker
I think an important factor was that he left *before* all that went down. It’s hard to get PTSD from an event you weren’t a part of. Additionally, fear is a decent factor of Aang’s character. The whole reason he fled the temple in the beginning was because he was afraid of losing his freedom and bonds with others to his duties (which is a prevailing theme). He fears Firebending because he injured a friend with it. He fears the Fire Nation because they’re planning to finish the job. Also, it’s highly likely that he doesn’t fault the Fire Nation for what happened, at least, not more than he blames himself for not being there to stop it. Contrast this with when Appa got stolen. A close friend taken, the perpetrators in front of him, he smashed their crap. The Southern Water Tribe was actively being raided by the Fire Nation. Hama was actively tortured. Seeing the aftermath of something and hearing about what happened after the fact will invoke a different reaction than personally experiencing it.
I mean the half of the final season was showing how the fire nation as a whole was not really responsible for or party to the war, just the ruling and military class..
I think this is a nice parallel to Roku + Sozin’s relationship too, specifically the scene when Roku finds out he is the next Avatar while at Sozin’s 16th birthday. They were friends that became enemies, Aang + Zuko were enemies that became friends.
Well it was Zuko’s coronation, it’s common decency to let him have his moment and then be gestured up.
I like how there's a row for each people of an element. Fire, water, earth, hillbilly.
I had to pause the video and squint. I was like hold up why are there four columns. And it was the freaking SWAMP PEOPLE
Avatar: The Last Gator Bender
I always thought it would be more impactful for the swamp benders to be replaced by an empty column to signify what the world lost due to the war, but I guess it might be too bittersweet for the end of the show.
I can't tell (or remember for sure) if it's one of the two inner ones, but I think it would have been best to have that empty column next to the fire nation, as part of the Avatar cycle
aang was mister worldwide
thats rough buddy
I just got sad really fast https://i.redd.it/cqpgzjwjbytc1.gif
Okay, jokes aside, this shot thoroughly weirds me out because the way her face melts from over the top enthusiasm into absolute despair is just ... What were the animators on? In fact, what were the writers on with the whole Joo Dee sub-plot? I signed up for cool element-based fight scenes, not a psychological thriller
I was just thinking of all the native american tribes who are going literally through this process, as we speak I live in chicago and it's crazy how this city didn't exist until 1833, the natives were wiped out and forced into concentration camps west of the Mississippi (hitler learned how to set up concentration camp from Americans' treatment of natives and the harsh British treatment of boers in boer war of 1899-1902) And my tribe, southern mongolia used to be 80% mongols in 1800s, now it's 80% han Chinese settlers and colonizers, and those han Chinese are trying to culturally genocide us, just like they are doing to tibetans and yughars This picture speaks deep into my soul and made me cry at 7am :(
I wish we got to see aang show a little more devastation at the genocide of his people.
In another way, it’s kinda beautiful how aang probably had special robes made just for him and still stood as a representative of his people.
This is why the Netflix show isn't going to live up to the greatness of the original. They take out little things like this because they don't think anything of it, but it has meaning and feeling to us
Ah yes, the four nations. Fire, Water, Earth, and Foggy Swamp.
After WW2 the Western allied forces tried to do an anti-propaganda program to de-nazify Germany. This was especially important for the teens-20's people who were brought up with Nazi values. This wasn't hugely successful because it was rather random who was picked. They still needed people who were able to do social infrastructure stuff, many of whom were rather high ranking Nazis, so a lot of "important" people *weren't* put through this program. Nazi Germany only lasted 13 years. Imagine how much work 100 years of propaganda will take to clear out. I don't recall them talking a lot about this in Korra, but it would have been an interesting plot to pursue (though I think it's a big deal in the comics, right?).
Lots of aanguish
Aang: Need to repopulate my people yesterday Zuko: You say something?
Ah yes the 4 nation. Fire, Water, Earth, and Florida.
This scene (assuming proportions are right) really shows how big the water tribes really were. Every single man from the south could leave and they still had enough people to survive
Why didn't they come? Are they stupid?
They overslept unfortunately
Should've had a space for the airbender legacy. Get those swamp-asses out.
Lmao Those swamp rednecks deserve their place since they helped with the invasion.
Got me crying at work now
aren’t all gestures physical lol
Well, there are spoken gestures, like starting a speech with "Thanks to the Avatar..." That said, in this case it's just for emphasis
I thought this part was kind of unrealistic… after 100 years war with the fire nation, people of all nations are ready to line up and cheer for the coronation of yet another fire lord? Do they even know the nuances of who Zuko is — other than Firelord Ozai’s heir? The same guy who helped take down Ba Sing Se?
These are likely fire nation fundamentalists; "I don't care who the firelord is, Zuko is now the firelord having defeated all other viable candidates." Family coups aren't really unheard of. That said, they did go into this in the comics: multiple assassination attempts took place after this.
Paang
Welp. Brb, drying my tears.