r/LastAirbenderLore • u/Angela275 • Apr 15 '20

Kyoshi

I been thinking Kyoshi died at 230. At that old age how did she fight. Or was it possible she like Bumi kept in shape?

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36

u/MrBKainXTR Apr 16 '20

Its revealed in the recent kyoshi novel that she was able to live such a long time because of a spiritual/meditative technique that essentially pauses aging. So she very well could have had the body of a 40 year old at age 230.

16

u/Enfireno May 14 '20

That sort of thing never sat well with me. If only because, if anybody could do it, WHY DOES NOBODY LEARN HOW?

6

u/MrBKainXTR May 18 '20

Well it was a secret technique only a few people knew about.

7

u/Ndean192 Jun 03 '20

It was the pathway to many abilities that other avatars considered unnatural.

4

u/PJ_Ammas Jul 02 '20

Is it possible to learn this power?

5

u/DarthSeverus13 Jul 02 '20

Not from Raava.

6

u/Meii345 Jul 04 '20

Makes me think about the fact that Kyoshi would absolutely use the dark side of the force

4

u/bihuginn Jul 22 '20

Another reason the whole raava light spirit thing is bullshit. Like Avatar Wan is pretty cool but the later half of season two reads like fanfiction.

You can't represent balance if you're only half of a whole. It's like if each avatar only had two elements.

2

u/Meta-EvenThisAcronym Jul 27 '20

Not necessarily. Nothing about Vaatu seems balanced.

It's just like light side Jedi striving for balance. The Avatar himself/herself is literally part of that balance because of the link with Raava.

1

u/bihuginn Jul 27 '20

You're not comparing like with like. They inserted badly interpreted Christian ideas coated in a thin veneer of spiritualism and unjected it into a mythos based on Eastern culture. Everything about the latter half of season two, bar the flashback to Avatar Wan, was awful. A dark avatar reads like something out of fanfiction and then it became dbz.

Now this makes it sound like I hate Korra, I don't. I just think the show and characters deserved so much better than the shitty writing present throughout the show.

2

u/KamenRiderDragon Sep 02 '20

Because themes of light and dark only exist in Christian mythos? Why is this such a prevailing thought?

1

u/GreatPower1000 Aug 03 '20

Had they followed trough with the civil war it would have been better.

1

u/bihuginn Aug 04 '20

Oh 100% the start of season 2 was great. Actual morale conflict that an Avatar has to deal with, especially Korra who struggled being unbiased it was a perfect story for her.

1

u/shadar78 Jul 25 '20

Youve opened my eyes to the possibilities, Bumi

1

u/Vic-VonDoom Sep 17 '20

Balance doesn't always mean holding the scale. Sometimes it means being the weight. Thats what Raava and the Avatar did. Raava is on one side of the scale, while Vaatu is on the other. If Vaatu escapes, the scales become unbalanced. So, the Avatar does keep the balance by keeping Vaatu and other benders in check.

1

u/bihuginn Sep 23 '20

Locking up one aspect and freeing to achieve balance is a very western view.

1

u/Vic-VonDoom Sep 23 '20 edited Sep 23 '20

Not really. Wan upset the balance by untangling them. What happened next was acceptance of the natural process of change. Balance was no longer able to be achieved through Raava and Vaatu being locked in eternal combat. So, Wan and Raava adjusted when one aspect of reality was left unchecked by its other half. So, I don't think it was westernized, I think it was just an example of nature's ability to adjust to the chaos that human beings often introduce into the system. It was totally Wan's fault, but he couldn't have realistically known though.

EDIT: So, I don't think Vaatu was evil or even that Raava was "good." I think Vaatu just represented the destructive aspect of reality while Raava perhaps represented the creative aspect. Vaatu was reacting logically to the absence of his other half.

1

u/bihuginn Sep 28 '20

The issue with that theory is that vaatu is shown to be irredeemable evil and raava perfectly good. They have huge (us centric)christian themes and subtext essentially making the avatar a Jesus allagory too. While we can make all sorts of theories on how it makes sense, the issue is we have to do that to fix shitty writing.

I wish they were shown to be creation and destruction in a balanced yin yang esque type deal, but they're just good and bad, poorly written and poorly introduced. I really like LOK but sometimes the writters just fucked over everything else.

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u/Vic-VonDoom Sep 28 '20 edited Sep 28 '20

All Vaatu did was turn spirits more aggressive, which had a negative effect on humans. Thats seen as evil to us because we're humans. However, to a cosmic force, its just engaging in rational behavior- again, he represents destruction. And Raava was never shown to be perfectly good. She just maintained balance by battling with Vaatu. Both entities were defined solely by each other. Humanity was simply in the way- or a co-occurring thing or something.

(EDIT: for better clarity and grammar) It's like Jupiter's magnetic field and cosmic radiation. Radiation and electromagnetism don't care about our planet, but Jupiter's magnetic field "saves" us from cosmic radiation by diverting it nonetheless. Its accidental, yet essential for our survival. Like Raava fighting Vaatu. It has nothing to do with good or evil (or us). It just is. Our survival is one of many results.

I think the religious connotations seem like more of a personal perspective than the writers' intent. I just saw two cosmic entities trying to find balance again by doing what they'd been doing for 10,000 years- opposing one another while accidentally maintaining cosmic balance. The "good vs evil" thing is more a westernized translation of a eastern philosophical concept. IMO, the issue was maintaining balance in a changing world, not neccesarily Jesus vs the Devil.

And, I don't think it was bad writing. I think it was just something that was inevitably going to happen in a world defined by spirituality, but moving toward industrialization. There was eventually gonna be a spirituality vs technology storyline because LOK has always been about finding balance between seemingly opposite concepts.

1

u/bihuginn Oct 10 '20

Look I really can't be bothered to cite the countless references from the bible and torrah that relate to this. But one

That fact that it needs explaining - shitty writing

Two- Vaatu was very clearly designated evil by the writers, there's nothing in his writing or character that's anything but. Anything else is headcannon (which is honestly better than cannon but his point) unfortunately he's pretty heavily coded evil.

Three- as for it being personal, I've been studying relgions as a hobby since I was a child (I had weird interests) now I'm getting a degree in theology, I've looked at how spiritualism is represented in LoK from multiple perspectives and along with much of the show it's been simplified and westernised. They also fucked the timeline but that's a separate issue.

Sorry if this seemed lazy or dismissive, I really shouldn't be on reddit rn I'm pretty mentally exhausted but I needed to respond to this for reasons.

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u/Ndean192 Jul 05 '20

I think she would be a Gray Jedi or someone who balanced the dark and light of the force

2

u/Meii345 Jul 05 '20

Yeah. Because she can do whatever it takes to get justice, but she's not consumated by ragd

2

u/Kungfudude_75 Aug 09 '20

Same, she would've been a Qui-Gon Jinn sort of character who was on the light side but understood there was value in the dark side and didn't ignore it.

1

u/Xeniamm Aug 15 '20

She is literally that if you see the daofei side as the dark side. At first she hates it, at the end of the book she understands that there are things that aren't that bad in that world.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '20

There is no such thing as a grey jedi.

2

u/Enfireno May 18 '20

But anyone could learn it. Maybe there is a discipline factor involved, but that wouldn't turn away literally everyone else. I'm totally using this in something.

9

u/HalfHeartedHeathen May 23 '20

Say you know this secret technique. Are you gonna teach it to everyone, knowing that the ones to get the most use are the incredibly determined and strong willed people? Because neither of those qualities has any bearing on morality. The worst dictators and killers throughout history have been determined and strong willed.

By teaching to everyone, you're basically guaranteeing that somewhere down the line, an immortal tyrant is going to spring up. Maybe not genuinely immortal, but 200-300 years is a long ass time to be stuck with them. While it's true that good people will also gain the technique and can resist the tyrant, that only ensures that more conflict will exist, for a longer time. The normal (read: most) people will suffer more than necessary.

Secret techniques are kept that way usually because you want to carefully judge the moral capacity of each individual who wields it. With great power comes great responsibility, and most people are simply not responsible enough for something like this.

3

u/Enfireno May 23 '20

That's a very, very good (and eloquently delivered) point.

1

u/Wan-Shi_Tong Jun 11 '20

Imagine said unkillable tyrant and hero have to stop mid fight to do their daily immortality workout routine.

2

u/kquizz Jun 23 '20

And then they are like, wait were you trained by Loa soa too? The food he used to feed us... What year did you graduate? Do you remember a guy named Jake? He was a little older than you....

1

u/Jrock2356 Jul 02 '20

That's some Kill Bill shit.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '20

One hot squat.

Two hot squats

Threeee hot squats.

2

u/Wan-Shi_Tong Jun 11 '20

And so they taught it to the Avatar who is so famous for her love of violence that fighting is her version of honor or tea.

​

Regardless, that is an excellent point.

1

u/SlytherKitty13 Oct 01 '20

She found the 'immortal' and knows he's 'immortal' and he likes her and helps train her

1

u/supremacyisfoolish Jul 12 '20

But... would one assume that knowledge shouldn't be shared, and that there wouldn't be more people dedicated to stopping or opposing an undying (as opposed to unkillable) tyrant?

Then again... an ever-living Amon would be too powerful, and I'd love it.