r/ATLA • u/Sarlo10 • Feb 28 '25

Discussion I really dislike LOK because they killed the charm that ATLA built

Bending in legend of Korra is just like boxing, air fire water and earth bending all look the same. Bending just feels so mundane and not rooted in martial arts. Remember Katara and Aang learning specifically the movements of the water scroll? The movements mattered as to how the water was manipulated. In Korra you just make a fist and any which element comes out. No longer do the bending styles feel distinct.

I also dislike LOK because now most people can bend the special types of bending, lightning bending first only was done by the royal family (who were extremely skilled) and now it seems every guy could do it, they just do it to generate electricity for a power plant. Same goes for metal bending, it used to be only the avatar and the best earth bender alive and now it doesn’t feel special anymore.

They also added new types of bending like lava bending which makes no sense because it feels more like fire bending and it feels like it’s only for the avatar since he can bend fire and earth.

Also I think they made some characters just too over powered just so they can be the antagonists.

The spirit aspect was also way too much in LOK, and I hate that there is no connection to the previous avatars anymore which was also such a cool part about ATLA.

Also the modern age just kills the charm that pre industrial ATLA had.

I would love if they just made a prequel, they could go back a few hundred years and make such a great show but no it has to be about spirits and only having korra as a previous avatar

Edit: almost forgot one of the first scenes, a todler bending 3 elements. I just doesn’t sit right. It took aang 1 year to learn the elements and that was under immense pressure and Korra just learns it just after learning to walk.

Bloodbending without the full moon also doesn’t sit right

And if we’re going there: ATLA was such a coherent story and character deleopment, one baddie for the whole show. Korra is jus a new antagonist every season which can feel lackluster (espescially the whole light vs dark thing).

Also all those people suddenly being able to bend air? Really? Just feels like lazy writing.

Korras gang also doesn’t come close to having the charm of the og gang. The romance aspect was also underwhelming and took away from the plot imo.

ATLA was bending focused while in LOK technology overshadows bending a bit

Korra also pales in comparison to Aang because she’s hotheaded, stubborn, and often makes the same mistakes, which can be frustrating to watch. Aang, on the other hand, is just very likeable

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190

u/YourPainTastesGood Mar 01 '25

I was ok with it until the mech suits. Those just broke immersion too much.

The lack of distinction between bending styles was annoying and while I think it makes sense more people would learn the more advanced techniques with time (supposedly nobody but royals were allowed to learn lightning bending and Toph would certainly teach others metal-bending) but Psychic Bloodbending is just stupid (though I will admit I love Aang handing that guy his own ass)

I also wasn't fond of the delving into the spirit stuff, just removed all the actual mystique and strangeness of it for me and made it some generic good vs evil stuff instead of ATLA's history of asking more complicated moral questions.

27

u/SinceSevenTenEleven Mar 01 '25

I positively hated every aspect of bending that was introduced in season 2. WTF lasers? Jinora astral projection powerup? Was she literally the spirit of light?

10

u/The-Friendly-Autist Mar 02 '25

OK, on point 2, I agree, but ATLA very much had lazers.

Does Sparky-Sparky-Boom-Boom mean nothing to you?

9

u/DukeDens007 Mar 02 '25

Yeah but combustion bending can make sense within the established world, being able to generate fire and/or electricity out of thin air could probably lead to explosions or something like that- not a scientist.

But I think the reason why lasers and mech suits break the immersion of the show is that it isn’t easily explained by the established premise. You could argue that because people can bend fire, metal, and lightning, they advanced at a faster rate that our world, and LOK kinda touches on that. But suddenly saying that they advanced from wagons, swords, and traditional warfare (the fire nation was JUST starting their Industrial Revolution) into LASERS AND GIANT MECH SUITS… yeah that breaks immersion from the last show.

It’s like they took the idea of Avatar in a future world, with advanced technology and stuff, but only moved the timeline about 80 years, even if it’s realistic, its a massive jump from the original series. I still love LOK because of the very mature, real human stories being told, but that’s only if you look past the super strange jump in advancement. I used your comment to rant btw

2

u/The-Friendly-Autist Mar 02 '25

I disagree. In reality, from the very beginning of the Industrial Revolution to the very first laser produced by humanity, was about 110 years. LoK society did it only about 30-40 years faster, with literal magic powers to help them do it.

I find lasers completely and utterly believable, personally.

Mech suits, not so much.

0

u/nudegobby Mar 02 '25

Mech suits are a bit much when you're looking at an early automobile era, but they do make it steam punk which is in its own way a form of whimsy, and I get why they'd go that direction.

Not my favorite part though. I absolutely love the electro glove and Asami's driving goggles.

2

u/TheFriendshipMachine Mar 02 '25

I don't know that I agree that the mech suits were all that outlandish. In the time of the Last Airbender the fire nation was already using tanks and zeppelins, giving them 66 years on top of that? Very conceivable. To put it into real world perspective, it was 66 years between the first powered flight and the moon landing.

1

u/nudegobby Mar 02 '25

So there is a single reference to someone having a gun in the aang era from the avatar trading cards I can't remember all the specifics but besides that looking at real history the invention of gun powder and rifles didn't make swords a thing of the past. Guns were slow to reload and highly inaccurate upon first introduction and a skilled swordsman could easily defeat untrained gunmen for a long time. That being said it does make some sense that a world with benders and non benders who are secretly terrified of that power wielded by them would have reason to expedite something that makes bending obsolete. If gunpowder couldn't do it because what's a piece of metal to a metal bender and platinum bullets don't stand up to the explosion in a barrel then maybe an energy that can't be bent is the answer. Look at how ineffective guns are to a guy like magneto if you lived in a world with that guy you'd probably want to start carrying around plastic guns too. They just have different issues to solve than we do.

1

u/PrinceOfAssassins Mar 03 '25

Imo combustion bending being a subsection of fire makes even less sense than lava being earth

1

u/DOOMFOOL Mar 03 '25

Magma/lava is literally rock though.

1

u/DOOMFOOL Mar 03 '25

The fire nation was just starting industry? My guy they had hundreds of ironclad battleships, literal fucking tanks, and massive airships. The technological jump in LoK isn’t a problem at all unless you’re just looking for things to nitpick

1

u/BadMeetsEvil147 Mar 05 '25

We went from wagons to sending people to space in less time than the time between ATLA and LOK lol.

1

u/Remarkable-Form-6915 Mar 05 '25

We went from Wright brothers flying for a few seconds to landing on the moon 70 years later. That's an incredible leap. I don't think the technological advancements in LOK are that out of the realm of possibility. For me LOK doesn't really work as it isn't character focused as much and I don't find the relationships between the gang as solid. 

25

u/YesWomansLand1 Mar 01 '25

The blood bending stuff I'll allow because it's cool.

1

u/nudegobby Mar 02 '25

Blood bending is cool AND it was introduced in ATLA it's reasonable to believe that people can make advancements on advanced forms of bending. If stories of hama were told then more people would try to blood bend and perhaps perfect that technique. Iroh talks about looking to other forms of bending to learn lightning bending, and combustion bending uses less movement than fire bending normally does maybe it's not crazy to think yakones was a natural at water bending and met a combustion bender and thought "huh how he do that." Literally having amon and tarlok being of yakones lineage explaining no not everyone could blood bend but a powerful bender could even psychically bloodbend it's not out of the realm of possibilities. It approaches disbelief which is why the council didn't believe sokka until seeing it. Until Galileo we thought the sun revolved around the earth and until Einstein we thought no way we could split an atom. New things don't discredit the old just changes the way we look at them.

1

u/YesWomansLand1 Mar 03 '25

Yeah, it makes sense, but tha this t necessarily good. It would've been nice if they kept some things the same. Like, maybe only the royal family can lightning bend, but there's like one exception, and then later on in the show we find out he has a connection to the royal family in his lineage which explains it. Not everything should become advanced, because it just makes everything sort of boring in a way. There should be at least a few hard limits on what can advance and to where it can go, rather than just "oh, now everyone can lightning bend!" Because frankly, no, not everyone can lightning bend. The sheer level of peace of mind required to achieve it already locks out most, and on top of that you need to be a very powerful firebender, which also locks out another chunk of people.

-1

u/UseIessldi0t4444 Mar 02 '25

Blood carries oxygen -> Air benders can blood bend too.
Animals are made of earth and return to earth after death -> Earth benders can body bend.
Fire benders can bend electricity; Brain sends electric signals to move muscle -> Fire benders can muscle bend.
All benders are, in one way or another, also body benders.

Source: I used my imagination to make this male-bovine stool up.

Bonus:
Human Blood Components (g/cm3) (according to Wikipedia)
Water 0.81-0.86
Round 0.835
Oxygen - arterial: 2.4-3.2 × 10-4
Round 2.8 × 10-4
Oxygen - venous 1.6-2.3 × 10-4
Round 1.95 × 10-4
Assuming arterial and venous are equal volume, average 2.375 × 10-4
0.835 / (2.375 × 10-4) = 3,515.7894736842

Therefore, an airbender has to be about 3,516 times as powerful as the weakest blood bender to bend blood by oxygen instead of water.

Calculation is also another male-bovine stool I made up. Also does not take into account other possibilities like oxygen being ripped off of blood cells. (Now I'm imaging what that could be like. Maybe numbness, cell deaths, and later organ damage. Maybe something like removing oxygen from blood cells to the brain causing a stroke. Or air embolism which results similarly.)

2

u/YesWomansLand1 Mar 02 '25

No.

0

u/UseIessldi0t4444 Mar 02 '25

I agree. What I wrote was dumb. Especially in the context of the post.

1

u/nudegobby Mar 02 '25

Look I don't like it but maybe they could. Bending is just an extension of manipulating one's energy in order to manipulate the world around you. Just because it's not shown doesn't mean it's impossible. It took toph being removed from earth to invent a new form of earth bending. It took hama being removed from water to invent new water bending. The lady without arms in the red lotus psychically waterbends arms out of necessity. Push an Airbender or a fire bender to their absolute limits leave them on death's door and maybe we'll get something new out of it.

1

u/slimricc Mar 02 '25

Good example of less is more, the spiritualism never should have been engaged that much bc idt there is any good way to do it in that series. Or most series’

1

u/GentlewomenNeverTell Mar 02 '25 edited Mar 02 '25

I actually took Aang and Ozai's showdown to be an instance where Aang tapped into spirit-bending to stay true to non- violence, and I loved it.

I like Korra a lot, but the explanation of that as blood bending is seriously a let-down and I also didn't like random people like Mako having prodigy level abilities.

I thought the non- bender movement was a super interesting idea and should have been the big through line of the show, and I think the show should have understood where the sentiment comes from. Asami herself was a great argument for it: her mom was killed by a bender and she feels helpless so turns to tech. I just wish she had been something of a mouthpiece for where they're coming from, and they hadn't been treated at straightforward antagonists.

They also missed a real opportunity for Amon to be an anti- bender possessed by Vatuu who taps into spirit- bending to restore the universe. I also think it would have been cool for Korra to never get her bending back. Like she somehow opens the spirit world trying to get it back and the air nomads come back and that's how they can fight Vaatu but it's a major uphill battle. It would give a foundation to her romance with Asami, Asami could help her figure out how to fight back as a non- bender. And kind of a: so NOW you see where they're coming from, huh?

But I like to rewrite things in my head.

1

u/BreezyIsBeafy Mar 02 '25

Yeah I think what they did with the spirits was the biggest sad point for me. Making every spirit look identical even tho previously each spirit had its own motives and look.

1

u/CannabisGardener Mar 02 '25

Ya Toph taught metal bending in the book "The promise"

1

u/Evilrake Mar 04 '25

Psychic combustion bending in ATLA: aww you’re so sweet

Psychic bloodbending in LOK: umm, hello Human Resources?

1

u/YourPainTastesGood Mar 04 '25

Combustion bending isn’t psychic. He’s still bending like a firebender but through his head.

Combustion man’s forehead tattoo is clearly allowing him to focus all his fire through his light chakra on the head and focus it into a beam that travels and explodes. When he does so he takes deep breathes as firebending requires breathing and he moves his body with each blast, thrusting with his head to direct the bean.

Psychic bloodbending does none of the stuff waterbending requires.

Combustion bending is a hyper specialized bending art requiring uninterrupted flow of chi and a bodily alteration.

Psychic bloodbending is just “oh uhh he’s just really good at it” and in Korra when Sokka compares Combustion man to Yakone its not apt as it wasn’t even something either of them was born with and Yakone is able to defy the rules of bloodbending and teach it to his sons too. Its just not very good and defies existing lore.

0

u/Evilrake Mar 04 '25

Bruh you’re coping. Amon breaks no more ‘rules’ than sparky boom man - they’re exactly the same. Waxing poetic about one while handwaving away the other isn’t an argument with substance behind it.

1

u/YourPainTastesGood Mar 04 '25

Yeah keep babbling drivel due to your lack of any actual rebuttal. Call me back when you know how the setting works and actually look at the characters in how they use their powers.

1

u/Coolfatman Mar 04 '25

Mechs were such a joke. Imagine crafting such a great world in ATLA just to throw it all away. Had to drop LOK, and then I learn that LOK also killed off the whole Avatar line. They had to ruin things for the next show as well. I hope the new show is a hard reset but I doubt it.

-5

u/Fairlibrarian101 Mar 01 '25

With the spirit world stuff, it seems even more strange and mysterious after they did explain things. To me, it makes sense that powerful emotions, particularly coming from the Avatar, would have a fairly strong impact on the spirit world. The psychic blood bending does make sense, if you remember that psychic fire bending was basically what Combustion Man was doing with his ranged booms. The mech suits, depending on which type you’re talking about, are a stretch but not that huge a stretch that it’s not unbelievable. They’re much more believable than the giant drill the Fire Nation tried to use to breach the wall.

15

u/YourPainTastesGood Mar 01 '25

No, not really.

Combustion Man's powers and Psychic Bloodbending are very different. Combustion Man still required a great deal of physical movement but primarily using his head instead of his hands, he took great breaths with each blast (as firebending comes from the breath) and was channeling it through the tattoo on his head (certainly doing some stuff with the light chakra). The explosions still physically traveled from him in a visible beam. What he was doing was different from normal firebending but not anything that was as egregious as a guy being able to bloodbend without a full moon and without moving any part of his body or engaging in any usage of actual bending styles consistent with water bending and bloodbending.

The mech suits are just stupid. The fire nation drill was decently believable as it was a very flawed apparatus just meant to be a blunt instrument to get through the wall and it was established how long it took to build and they only made one. Just cause something is big doesn't mean its unbelievable. Mechs however are a wild diversion from the stylizations of the series as a whole.

3

u/Skyflareknight Mar 01 '25

I hated the mech suits as well, and the giant robot at the end. It broke immersion for me, and it did not feel right. They were supposed to be in the industrial era, but they suddenly have tech that powerful? Also I want less tech in Avatar and more bending and whatnot (I understand that can be a varied opinion because tech can be handled in a lot of ways, they just did it poorly in Korra). LOK was a one and done show for me. I don't hate Korra herself, but there are some things the show did that I did not like.

3

u/Blackbox7719 Mar 01 '25

I’m honestly hoping that, whatever apocalyptic event they say happened before the start of the new series, it resets the technology back to at least the Aang days. The mech suits were ridiculous

1

u/Suracha2022 Mar 02 '25

A way to look at the difference between the drill and the mech suits is that there was a gun built during World War 2 that fired 7-ton projectiles, and we're not really that surprised that that happened, especially since it was just one. However, if the same Evil Empire™ also had Warframe suits, then it would be pretty sketchy.

-5

u/Fairlibrarian101 Mar 01 '25

But with what Combustion Man was doing, yes he was taking the breath and aiming through the tattoo on his forehead, yes there was movement, but it was more mental than anything else. With the psychic blood bending, yes there was no movement when it was a surprise attack, but both Tarlocc and his father still had to do the arm movements for everything else. Only reason why Amon was able to do as much as he did with blood bending was because he spent 20-30 years training himself to do so. And the training to blood bend without a full moon started when they were still pretty young. The drill I find unbelievable not just because of its size, which is ridiculous, but because of the fact that a giant drill in combat is impractical at best. There were enough earthbenders there that should’ve been to effectively drop the earth beneath it to make it unable to move. Probably ten plus years to build, only to get stuck in a hole somewhere along the way. With the large mech suit, yes it was impractical, but at least getting stuck in a hole wouldn’t be as big a deal for it. But I’m unsure what you mean by “stylizations” of the series as a whole. I mean, it does make sense since you’re looking at non-benders trying to find a way to actually fight benders in a way that would still protect them. Mr. Sato did have what he thought were justifiable reasons and the means to develop and build the mechs we saw in book 1.

-2

u/Potential_Peace_3709 Mar 01 '25

Idrc if I get down votes, Im on your side and I feel bad you're being downvoted lol I've been rewatching it and I love it, albeit for entirely different reasons than ATLA. The evolution of more barbaric, street-style bending fits with how humans would inevitably use bending in a more industrial, civil, regulated world (I envision circa Industrial Revolution or first world war real world). I mean prior kids like the fire nation used it to burn villages and punish traitors for glory and Katara nearly killed a man. It's always been about fighting, it's just regulated now, like it would've been in reality. The psychic bloodbending made sense to me because if powerful Airbenders like Jinorrah can access the spirit world (the spirit world lore is fucked i agree, but isolating the lore with Wans experience on the air turtle it makes sense. Air nomads were the only humans coexisting peacefully with spirits) how would other powerful master benders not have mastered a psychic (or almost psychic) connection to their power? Even if its down to bending via eye or tongue movements, I mean the waterbender villain with no arms can literally bend to make arms and use them lethally. Especially because I'd imagine bloodbending takes an amount of focus that is nearly impossible when moving around with the amount of energy it would take to bend multiple people. Clearly disabled, limited movement, or even psychic bending - and powerful bending at that - isn't impossible. I don't like the mech suits and types of trains solely because of technology concurrence errors, I think they're too advanced for the perceived world building, but that's just me. I mean they don't have modern planes or cars but modern mech suits and trains? Wack (imo)

Im not looking to argue just wanted to share my take, I wanna know how others interpreted it too. Art is subjective after all /gen