r/ATLA • u/Pleasant-Stick257 • 9d ago
Discussion Why doesn’t the Fire Nation use firearms?
What always confused me about the entire Hundred-years war is that the Fire Nation, an empire capable of producing tanks, war zeppelins and gigantic war machines such as the Dreadnoughts and the Drill, is not using what might seem primitive in comparison with said inventions: rifles and cannons.
One might say: “Bending is superior to a rifle”. Yes and no, actually. Indeed, an Earthbender will destroy a singular trooper in a 1v1. But when you have 10 rifles against one bender, the situation goes different. And the rifles will always have superiority in numbers. It must take a while to train a single fire bender — he is not just a soldier, but also a martial artist with the ability to bend at the same time. An average professional Redcoat of the 18th-19th centuries took a maximum of 18 months to train (usually it was even faster). Considering Fire Nation’s doctrine of throwing waves and waves of cannon fodder at the enemy positions — having riflemen (who can be easily conscripted in colossal numbers) is a great option, unlike the regular helpless spearmen seen in the show, who seem unable to get to an Earthbender before getting crushed. Not to mention, if the Fire Nation knows how to make tracks for the tanks and difficult mechanism, they’d likely be able to create a rifled barrel — increasing distance, accuracy and deadliness of their firearms. Granting cover and reliable support to the allied firebenders.
Absence of cannons also seems like a missed opportunity. Siege artillery would work much better in storming Ba Sing Se than medieval catapults, for example. If they are aware of fireworks, why avoid using a similar technology in military purposes? Finally, why not put a cannon into a tank’s turret, increasing every single parameter of the said war machine? Not to mention how much the dreadnoughts would benefit if the catapults got replaced by proper artillery.
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u/DoubleFlores24 9d ago
Cause they haven’t been invented in this universe.
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u/Kooky-Sector6880 9d ago
No they have its in the Kyoshi books they used them during the Camilla peony war.
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u/DoubleFlores24 9d ago
If so then why the fuck wasn’t it used during the Hundred Years’ War?… oh wait this is a kids show. You can’t show fire arms in a kids show.
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u/Kooky-Sector6880 9d ago
This exactly the reason its the same reason why Korra has modern tanks and railguns a mecha but no guns.
Which is wild since 80s transformers and Speed Racer had guns.
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u/DoubleFlores24 9d ago
Censorship has changed. You need your guns to be big loud, machine like or bazookas in order to be child friendly. It needs to be as over the top as humanly possible. Having a simple pistol or rifles could stir up controversy.
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u/Kooky-Sector6880 9d ago
Yeah I guess but it makes me wonder what changed though how did we go from the 80s where companies we're openly selling a transformer that could become a replica of an actual existing gun on a Saturday morning block to now where guns are not allowed ever.
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u/ChainsawSnuggling 7d ago
It probably has something to do with the increasing frequency of mass shootings.
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u/Strawberrycocoa 6d ago
I don't think Pistol Megatron was widely sold in the USA, even in the show's prime. Overseas sure, but the transformer that turned into a semi-realistic pistol didn't get to stay in stores very long.
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u/Pleasant-Stick257 9d ago
So you think it’s about censorship? Makes sense, but isn’t Korra 12+, actually? Or does this restriction work in both cases?
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u/Kooky-Sector6880 9d ago
No its TV-PG tv shows don't have 12+ rating in America also it started out on Nick and nick is the same company that removed any mention of death from its dragon ball dub.
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u/bloonshot 5d ago
yeah but those books didn't come out til after the show
the original show is the original source material so we can't exactly fault it for not containing elements of the lore added retroactively. It's the fault of whoever created the book for not considering the implications it'd have on the canon
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u/dragon-of-west 9d ago
visable confusion isn’t firebending literally fire arms and fire legs?
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u/Pleasant-Stick257 9d ago
Not every soldier is a firebender, as noted in the post. Most, in fact, are not, being regular spearmen instead. Moreover, the bending has much lower range and is harder to study than something simple. And simple means cheap and massive production, which is always profitable for warfare.
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u/SuchAdstic 8d ago
Someone else in the comments already answered and you prolly already seen it but it's a kids show, you can't show guns in a kids show.
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u/Jacket_Jacket_fruit 9d ago
Keeping gunpowder around probably isn't a good idea when most of your soldiers routinely shoot fire from their bodies.
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u/dropbear_airstrike 6d ago
Not to mention, sure, using muskets would allow the Fire Nation to mobilize 1000’s of non-firebending soldiers with muskets… but it would only take one water bender to completely ruin their gun powder.
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u/Napalmeon 6d ago
And that's not even taking into account how long it takes those weapons to reload even when everything is working in an optimal situation.
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u/PCN24454 5d ago
Is there gunpowder? They only have blasting jelly.
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u/Jacket_Jacket_fruit 5d ago
Well we're talking about the fire nation giving their soldiers guns. Which, y'know... Operate on gunpowder. So there would kinda have to be.
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u/Fairlibrarian101 5d ago
They had fireworks if I remember right, which uses the same powder that guns use.
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u/Ms_Anonymous123 Drink cactus juice🌵 9d ago
Surprised no one has said this yet but it's a kids show and guns would just shift the entire feel of the show
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u/Kooky-Sector6880 9d ago
I'm gonna take a gander and say its an aesthetic choice realistically any army past 1400 irl was using cannons as their main siege weapon and the Chinese had rockets for years before they got guns.
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u/Goblin_Deez_ 8d ago
They did see. Fire-arms.
I do wonder though, why it took them getting to Legend of Korra before the decided to shoot fire down a gun barrel. Kinda dumb of them really.
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u/HikariTheGardevoir 7d ago
- Censorship. Bending was specifically invented to 'take the overt violence out of the story'
- It's quite believable that they didn't feel the need to invent firearms because they can shoot fire out of their bodies. The people in charge of everything also tend to be firebenders, so they would tend to not see the use of the invention of firearms, or even oppose it because suddenly the non bender 'plebs' would be the same level as them
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u/TheTowerDefender 9d ago
i don't think gunpowder exists in the Avatar universe? the closest thing they have is "blasting jelly", which seems to be closer in nature to dynamite
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u/thadaviator 6d ago
Its important to remember that a fair bit of innovation only happens to make general tasks more convenient/profitable. When a good amount of the population are capable of magic martial arts, society likely has a different focus on what needs to be streamlined and innovated upon than a society without magic martial arts.
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u/kingbouncer 6d ago
Fire arms would break the story lore wise. The avatar probably couldn't tank a (head) shot from a musket. Fire arms would ruin the world building.
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u/Animefox92 6d ago
Because they don't really need them? The bulk of their army can do much more by themselves plus gunpowder around Fire people is asking for a situation like Zuko's ship nevermind a waterbender cam make them utterly useless... a Air bender can move the air away from the gun which means no ignition and an earth bender can send a sharp rock into the gun and make it backfire (and you know a metal bender can send it right back at you)
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u/GigachadKIVA 9d ago
I love the idea of bending incoming bullets Matrix style. Maybe thats why they don't use firearms xD
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u/Ok_Surprise_4090 6d ago
My headcanon on this kind of thing is that gunpowder doesn't exist in Avatar world.
Like maybe all the components are there, but they aren't explosive when combined, so that entire step of their technological development is just replaced by bending.
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u/One_Association9331 6d ago
Let's assume that Fire nation metallurgy is sufficient to keep a hand cannon from blowing up on you.
It's entirely possible that they're banned to keep the bending elite in their position of power.
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u/RiasxIssei_2012 6d ago
Because firebending is more efficient. In history, we have only created things out of necessity, same goes for guns. Originally made from bamboo by Chinese soldiers. There's a video on YouTube on the exact topic.
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u/Important_Sound772 5d ago
I think the issue people have is that in the comic except before the hundred years war apparently we see the fire nation use hand canons
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u/Sasquatch_Sensei 5d ago
Alot of fire nation soldiers do have fire arms. Can even have fire feet and fire breath
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u/Fancy_Ad_2325 7d ago
censorship for children. they used arrows and spears instead cause thats somehow not as scary and distructive as guns
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u/DREWBY3142 7d ago
I can’t imagine how guns could do more damage than pointy sticks and pointy stick projectiles. Doesn’t make sense that guns would be less scary.
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u/Dragonkingofthestars 6d ago
Avatar tv ratings.
No really that's it's. They have the explosions, (We know from them having fire works), they have the metallurgy know how to make pressure barring components (we know from steam engines), they have the industry knowledge to produce these at scale (we know from the identical patterns of warships that presumably have identical internal parts) and we know there based on asian society's THAT INVENTED FIRE ARMS IN The FIRST PALCE.
the only reason they lack fire arms is tv ratings a that's it, it's an executive decision that only got weirder when when got to the legend of Korra
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u/Strawberrycocoa 6d ago
I'm mostly sure that, aside from the Nickelodeon thing, bringing guns into the Avatar universe would render benders obsolete. Single shot musket rifles may still be a semi level playing field, but anything more modern just means the benders lose all relevance in combat scenarios. They won't be able to do any bending faster than a bullet can fly; the show needs a pre-firearms technology level for the main concepts to stay relevant.
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u/AesirSith 6d ago edited 6d ago
Because non-fire bending members of their armed forces are deemed expendable and are not worthy of such lethality. Remember, we mainly see infantrymen, cavalry, ship hands, . Front line soldiers with decent reinforcement. Prestigious folk like Commander Zhao most likely has a minimum 90% Fire Bender headcount for their personal guard and lesser members. I would suspect: 1. The riflemen still exist but are stationed elsewhere 2. Azulon's reign invested more into cannon warfare for more dominance.
We are also talking about the Fire Nation.
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u/Formal_Illustrator96 6d ago
People need to understand that tech doesn’t just pop out of thin air, ready made. There needs to be a demand for it, a niche for it to fill. The first guns were complete and utter shit. But they were still better than what we had at certain things. So people kept making them and eventually they got better.
But in ATLA, that niche was never there. Why waste time with this slow as fuck, inaccurate as fuck, expensive as fuck weapon when there are people who can do the exact same thing without any equipment at all?
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u/LordAmir5 6d ago
Isn't an earth bender basically a living gun and cannon? They have thrown rock bullets and balls at high speeds without need for gunpowder.
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u/Brilliant_Chemica 5d ago
If anything, earthbenders would be the ones using firearms. Moving around dust and lead balls, and hammering them, all just screams earth bender to me
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u/AlphaRankin 5d ago
I feel like having gun powder anywhere near people who can produce fire from their fingertips is a bad idea, especially considering it sometimes happens involuntarily when their emotions are flared.
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u/Gold-Eye-2623 5d ago
They do, they're those fleshy things that hang from their fireshoulders badumtss
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u/absolutly_not_Malkav 5d ago
Beside the out of universe reason that was given, as it's a kid show, I think we can have a reasonable explanation.
1) You want to know what happens when you give fighting tools to the opress class in an absolute monarchy where bender are superior to you in every way ? You get the equalist.Yes, it's better to fight other than with spears but it's also better to fight you.
2) And for what advantage ? They were actively winning the war. Sure, it was a bit long but they seemed to live quite peacefully on the main island without too much problem, so it could last a bit longer.
3) Now diverting their industry to mass-produce guns would be diverting that industry from other tools.
4) Finally those guards are you show are not there to fight wars. I mean it's the same reasoning: "Why not give an AK47 to policemen, they would fare better at their job than with their tool. Surely the country knows how to do it"
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u/The_Necrotic_Assasin 5d ago
WAIT IM SO SMART, SO I ASSUME THERE COULD BE NON BENDERS WHO COULD USE WEAPOMS LIKE GUNS AS SUCH AND THEN THE FIRE NATION WOULD LIKE DOUBLE THEIR POWER
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u/Proud-Ad-146 4d ago
Cuz guns are boring af in a world where god-like powers are inherent in much of the cast and population. Idk dude, last thing I wanted to see were the Equalists from Korra S1 going all 2A gun nutty.
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u/Agent_Green4573061 4d ago
They did during Avatar Kyoshi's era They were like the first firearms in China which were fire lances Look up characters in the card game and you'll see
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u/IbnKhaldune 4d ago
Simpler to keep it all low tech. Dont have to think beyond that. Pretty simple.
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u/Tiggy_Biggy 9d ago
Not all of them are firebenders, some have to use regular arms...