r/TheLastAirbender • u/Aqua_Master_ • 2d ago
Meme Don’t throw nets at these guys, it’s their one weakness
I know it a kid’s show and they can’t be more gruesome but nets? Really? Like tbh it kinda makes this whole scene kinda goofy lol
They are literally surrounded by ice, snow and water and they get foiled by nets?
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u/No_Sand5639 2d ago
In fairness of you dont have free movement you cant bend
Bit in seriousness, I always took it as more symbolic than literal
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u/Iamthechristian 2d ago
Bumi would like to have a word with you on that whole “free movement” notion
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u/Boanerger 2d ago
Bumi's also a genius. Its often shown to be a sign of mastery to be able to bend the elements with minimal movements.
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u/No_Sand5639 2d ago
Bumi?
Earthbending is different then waterbending.
Earth is hard and direct
Water is fluid and needs fluid movements
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u/tempestzephyr 2d ago
Use that tongue👅 then
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u/NutmegGaming 1d ago
What the fuck is this show. I have never watched it and I have seen so much weird shit
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u/forthewatch39 2d ago
Yakone and Noatok were able to bloodbend without moving. Ming-Hua was able to bend without arms.
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u/Amazingqueen97 2d ago
Yakone’s family has freaky genes that are not even remotely close to normal. That’s what lets them get their BB during anytime they want it. And Minghua had to adapt like Toph, seeing as how she was also born without any arms.
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u/triple4leafclover 2d ago
We don't know if it's genetic. Could very well be Yakone was just that good, and he taught both of his children personally. We'd only know if it's genetic if he taught someone who wasn't his child or if a child of his wasn't taught by him
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u/Pope-Foxx 2d ago
It’s a bit of both, for example Combustion Benders need to both have genetically large lungs and go through extreme “training”
Hama’s “training” was being forced to feel every source of water and having the desperation to do so while also being a fairly powerful natural water bender. Most likely Yakone also went through a horrible experience, probably also in prison, and did the same to his sons. Aka, probably pushing a water bender to the point of dehydration where their natural instincts to find water goes overdrive.
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u/lucaswarn 2d ago
Also he did have movement in his face.
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u/CipherPolAigis 2d ago
Which is still less movement than someone under a net would have.
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u/MalikVonLuzon 2d ago
Bumi is one of the best earthbenders to ever live. That he is able to earthbend with minimal movement is a testament to that mastery.
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u/lucaswarn 2d ago
Bumi had 100 years of training and learning. These water benders maybe have a few rough and pieced together lesson of 10-20 years. Bumi is on level beyond any earth bender.
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u/Pope-Foxx 2d ago
Bumi was also learning and surviving the 100 year war. There’s a reason Omashu stood so long in the war. He didn’t even lose the city, he strategically gave it up because he knew he could take it back 😂.
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u/althawk8357 1d ago
I think you need to be really good at bending to bend without moving - named character or greater.
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u/Sea_Tangerines 2d ago
I also think morale is a huge factor, both in the show and in real life war.
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u/Boxtonbolt69 1d ago
In fairness of you dont have free movement you cant bend
Bloodbending.
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u/No_Sand5639 1d ago
Yeah i really need to add an edit.
Bloodbending doesnt count since it hasn't been invented yet and average waterbenders before the yakone family came out, needed to move, like katara and hama
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u/NorthGodFan 1d ago
In fairness of you dont have free movement you cant bend
Not true.
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u/No_Sand5639 1d ago
Okay show me a restrained waterbender fighting
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u/impeccably-stressed 1d ago
Easy: when Katara froze herself and Azula during the latter's agni kai with Zuko.
I can't think of anything more immobilizing than literally freezing yourself and your enemy in a giant ice wave, and yet Katara was able to bend the ice back into water just by breathing out. It was only after she had turned the ice directly around ber back into water that she able to move her arms or the rest of her body.
I bet she truly made Bumi proud that day. 🥲
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u/NorthGodFan 1d ago
No adding additional qualifications but obviously the psychic bloodbenders.
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u/No_Sand5639 1d ago
Thats bloodbending.
We're talking regular waterbending, which we haven't seen without movements.
And even then yakone and his family were weird compared to others, when katara bloodbent she had to make the movements
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u/NorthGodFan 1d ago edited 1d ago
Blood bending is water bending. Hard Stop. The fact that you have had to shift the goal post means that you are wrong.
Edit: got blocked.
Adding yet another qualification. No. I said you can bend without moving. Which is an objective fact I did not say that it only applied to offensive water bending. That is what you said you cannot assign qualities to my argument that I did not add to it
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u/No_Sand5639 1d ago
Youre right i made a mistake.
Now the problem with your argument is we were talking about the southern benders being captured. And blood bending hadn't been invented yet so its a moot point.
We are talking about actual offensive waterbending.
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u/atheistic_channel69 1d ago
I think people are just point out how your statement is wrong.
It is not impossible to bend without movement albeit only the most skilled people are able to do so.
Ofc some regular southern tribe waterbenders wouldnt be as skilled but people are correct that it is still possible
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u/No_Sand5639 1d ago
Can you name one? One offensive moment from a skill that acrully exsisted back then?
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u/atheistic_channel69 1d ago
Wtf do you even mean. It is factually incorrect to claim that waterbenders cant use bending without moving when we know for a fact its possible.
Now whether or not anybody in the tribe possessed those skills is a different story.
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u/AtoMaki 2d ago edited 2d ago
I have two theories:
- Hama, uh, did not bother the kids with the itty-gritty details and only gave a highly streamlined rundown that still delivered the intended feel.
- Before the throwdown with the Fire Nation, the Southern Water Tribe had zero fighting experience beyond hunting dangerous beasts in the bumf-ck tundra and while their non-bender warriors could use some of that (trying to boink a polar bear dog with a club is the same kind of suicidal as doing the same with a firebender) their waterbenders could not (polar bear dogs cannot shoot back, firebenders can) and they did not get the chance to adopt.
The Kyoshi books kinda allude to this too.(edit: it doesn't)
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u/Chimera0205 2d ago
The second part is not true. Numerous sources have stated that priracy and raiding were rampant in the south and had been for a long time. A lot of Southern water Tribe members should have had some degree of combat experience from doing stints of piracy. The Kiyoshi books outright spell this out. There's a whole 5th nation of pirates that Kiyoshi puts downthat'ss nothing but SWT and some Firenation pirates. This continued to a lesser degree until the war started. Probably during the early war, too, but they'd be Privateers, not Pirates, then.
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u/AtoMaki 2d ago
I thought those guys left the SWT? That's what I was thinking: there were no proper fighters because anyone who could fight left to be a pirate, and they were probably wrapped up separately by the Fire Nation and did not participate in the defense of the tribe.
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u/Chimera0205 2d ago
No. The lore states most turned to piracy to support thier family's back home. Alot of the pirates were likely based out of isolated small ports in the south. Also once the fire nation makes it clear that their goals are genocidal towards the SWT, why wouldn't pirate groups align themselves with the proper SWT military? Pirate groups turning into legal privateers when their home country goes to war is far from un heard of in our own world. Why wouldn't that apply to Avatar too?
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u/Nyxelestia 1d ago
Hama, uh, did not bother the kids with the itty-gritty details and only gave a highly streamlined rundown that still delivered the intended feel.
That's my own take on it.
Especially since the RPG book confirms that she actually wasn't the last waterbender alive in the prison. It's not clear whether the remaining ones just happened to be captured after her escape or if she'd left some of her comrades behind in her escape, but there were some survivors who were released from the prison after the war.
Methinks that there is a lot that Hama left out.
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u/True_Falsity 2d ago edited 2d ago
That’s the big weakness of all bending, though.
If you cannot move, you cannot bend.
Aang got caught in a pirate’s net, got trapped by the archers and was stuck in that goop.
Azula was left to impotently breathe fire just because Katara tied chains around her arms.
Even Iroh was rendered powerless when Earthbenders captured him and restrained his hands and feet.
Edit: Yeah, I know. Bumi can bend with his face. But we are talking about a guy literally as old as Aang.
Seriously, every bender that can utilise their abilities without the freedom to move is limited.
Yakone and Noatak could bloodbend without moving. But one claimed to have a special gift. And the other needed years of training on top of that gift.
Combustion Man and P’Li still require to have their head free for a blast. And if you hit them in that mark on their face, they will only hurt themselves.
Ming-Hua can bend without her arms, which is impressive. But so far she is the only known example of such skill.
I don’t really count Zaheer because while he can fly (which required him to lose everything tying him to life, mind you), he doesn’t seem have any less restraints than a regular airbender otherwise.
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u/RaginBlazinCAT 2d ago
King Bumi earthbends with precision using his face, put some respeK on that name my friend. Otherwise, yes, immobilized benders are mere humans.
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u/JeffersonStarscream 2d ago
If they were really good they could just learn to bend with their face like King Bumi.
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u/True_Falsity 2d ago
If they had 100 years to learn to do that, you mean.
Like… Major respect to Bumi and all. But that’s like saying that Katara is lazy or weak because she didn’t learn how to bend blood with her face two weeks after they started the journey.
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u/redbird7311 2d ago
Also, Bumi only showed fairly basic bending when he was restrained. Sure, still impressive, but it is like saying you are fast on your feet for a guy with a single leg. Someone with 2 is just gonna be faster 99% of the time, sorry.
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u/True_Falsity 1d ago
Exactly!
Like you said, major respect to him for being able to bend with his face. But there’s a reason why he broke out of the restraints when he decided to free Omashu.
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u/Maleficent-Row6580 2d ago
Except advanced blood bending. Or boom boom man who burned through a paper scroll just by looking at it through his 3rd eye. Or Korra and Mako keeping a plane aloft mid air with a sustained fire bend without continual movement/martial arts. There are in universe exceptions.
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u/True_Falsity 2d ago
Advanced blood bending literally required you being a genius like Yakone. Plus years of training under the full Moon in case of his two sons.
Combustionbending requires a torturous training and you will start malfunctioning from so much as getting a pebble thrown at your mark.
Korra and Mako were still doing this with their limbs free. If their arms and legs were restrained, then you might have a point. But alas, they weren’t.
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u/Alizaea 2d ago
Bumi
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u/True_Falsity 2d ago
Yeah, I mention him in an edit.
Major respect to him for being able to bend with his face. But we are literally talking about the guy who spent the last 100 years mastering the earthbending.
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u/Alizaea 2d ago
Yeah, so what you are saying is with enough training, like with literally anything and everything, it is possible. Hell, I'm sure Toph could probably bend with her body immobile as well. Granted we never see it, but with being the prodigy that she is and it being a literal extension of her senses and a part of her literal life, unlike other Earthbenders who see it as a tool Bumi included, I wouldn't be surprised if she could just scrunch her face and earthbend.
Edit: that kind of came off as confrontational. Not meaning it that way at all. I agree with you but also disagree 😂
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u/Maleficent-Row6580 2d ago
She never would. Also stylistically and from a storytelling pov, it wouldn't work either. She is more tactile because of her disability. Having her bend without significant body movements/just a face scruch, as a blind bender, would be counterintuitive to that character.
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u/True_Falsity 2d ago
With enough training, a lot of things are possible.
Problem is, training isn’t something that just magically happens out of nowhere.
It’s not like Fire Nation came to their village and said “Hey guys, we are going to attack you in 100 years. Feel free to train yourself however you want!”
They raided South Pole out of nowhere and overwhelmed the waterbenders with superior numbers.
Let me put it this way:
If someone sneaks up behind you and hits you with a baseball bat, are you weak because you didn’t train yourself to detect any danger around you and block any attack? Or are you stupid because you don’t walk around wearing a helmet 24/7?
Of course not.
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u/Maleficent-Row6580 2d ago
Original comment was if they could move, not if they were restrained. Korra and Mako were STATIONARY and not moving / not in a continuous state of movement yet could still bend. You bringing up training for Yakone or combustion benders is still immaterial to the fact they can bend without moving/using martial arts. But forsooth, they were. So what's your point?
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u/True_Falsity 2d ago
You bringing up training for Yakone or combustion benders is still immaterial
Only if you don’t understand something as simple as exceptions that prove the rule.
It took Yakone and his sons YEARS to develop the skill. And it took nearly deadly training for Combustion Man and P’Li to get their power.
This fact is material because those are the things that the waterbenders in the picture and most regular benders in general did not have.
You are looking at exceptional benders that acquired their abilities under very different circumstances. And you somehow expect regular waterbenders to do the same thing as them? Do you not understand how ridiculous that is?
Might as well ask why they didn’t invent a new type of bending immediately like Toph had. Or why they didn’t just discover bloodbending out of nowhere.
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u/Maleficent-Row6580 2d ago
I never mentioned water benders. Only that in this universe, there are instances of bending without MOVEMENT or martial arts to deploy bending, unrestrained or restrained. Speaking of comprehension.
Speaking of water benders, we see Katara ice and mist bend, convert solid ice to water, etc by simply breathing, while restrained and unrestrained.
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 2d ago
Also Ming Hua who didn’t have any arms, but she was still able to bend.
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u/AutisticPenguin2 2d ago
She still seemed to use movement, it was just a very different style of movement, even using her water-arms for the movement at times, which seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse, but also is objectively cool so don't read too much into it.
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u/Ok-Temporary-8243 2d ago
Eh, azula suffered a psychotic break though. If she were more away, I imagine she would have just melted the chain with her hands
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u/Outrageous-Truth-345 2d ago
but melting ice doesnt require hand moves, they could have melted the ice underneath them, o they would create a space to move and ben lots of water by diving into the water they created by melting the ice ground.
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u/Alizaea 2d ago
However Bumi throws that entire thought out the window... Remember, he was able to bend, and I mean actually bend not just a one off, with only his head. So the body being immobile does not mean a bender cannot bend.
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u/True_Falsity 2d ago
Bumi is as old as Aang, though. He had a literal century to learn how to do that. He is the exception that proves the rule.
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u/Alizaea 2d ago
So you are essentially saying, he is only able to do it because he has trained well... Yeah... Just like anything... Humans know how to walk and run. Others can do it better and faster than others, due to training.
So just like with literally any and everything, with enough training it is possible. So again, that argument is completely hollow.
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u/True_Falsity 2d ago
with enough training it is possible
I will explain it slowly for you:
See these benders in the picture?
None of them are over 100 years old. They all look to be in their twenties or thirties at most. Let’s say that they start training when they are fourteen. They would have around 5 to 15 years of training at most.
Keep in mind, they were all a relatively small village who most likely didn’t even expect to get involved in the war.
And you are comparing them to Bumi, who is not only the king of Omashu but also spent the last 100 years training with his earthbending?
Do you not see the problem here?
You asking why the waterbenders didn’t learn how to bend without using their limbs is about as hollow-headed as asking why every earthbender doesn’t learn how to use seismic sense that Toph does.
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u/Alizaea 2d ago
Also, is it stated anywhere that it took Bumi 100 years to learn to do that? Or are you just stating it took him that long and can only do that because he is over 100 years old? What if he learned that in his youth and it only took him a year to master it? You got a remember, Earth Bending is one of the more rigid forms of bending, focus on traditional forms and what not. What if it just took somebody like Bumi, to constantly think of the possibilities, to think, "you know what, do we really need these forms?"
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u/Alizaea 2d ago
Ok and?
To use your own logic against you, it took Toph her entire life, up to that point, to come up with metal bending. Why doesn't it take others 12+ years to learn the same skill? Ie training becomes easier over time as it becomes more efficient...
Your logic is flawed.
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u/True_Falsity 1d ago
The same reason why not everyone has the radar senses like Daredevil, genius.
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u/Alizaea 1d ago
You are equating talent to innate ability. For your comparison, it works only when you actually compare ability to bend and Daredevil's radar perception.
But also, question, where is it stated that Bumi took his entire life to learn to do that? For all we know he could have learned that in his youth. You need to remember, Earth Bending, is the most rigid of bending disciplines. What if it took somebody like Bumi, somebody who continually thinks of the possibilities, to think "you know, do we really need our entire body to bend?" Are you just assuming it took him his entire life to be able to bend with just his head? Hell, even Toph can bend by literally smashing her head into a rock, at 12. Hell, she doesn't even have to move. Literally push her over and pull her back up and she can pull the ground with her as a coating without moving a muscle. Even Aang can do that. Remember, all they do to do that themselves is literally smack themselves against rock, and the only movement they do is flip to their other side. Is it truly so hard?
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u/dvasquez93 2d ago
Nets are lowkey a great weapon against benders, especially if they can’t see it coming. Restricting freedom of movement prevents them from bending.
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u/SpookyScaryBlueberry 1d ago
I feel like this is being majorly ignored in this debate. It’s like saying benders are incompetent cause they got Chi blocked for the first time. Zuko and Iroh are the only benders we see demonstrate nonbending combat skills. Even Ozai sits his ass back down when he realizes Zuko outmatches him during the eclipse and results to mind games.
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u/I_Say_Lots_Of_Words 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think exhaustion of fighting and knowing you’re outnumbered contributed to the ease of the fire nation capturing them with nets. Also taking into consideration that water is a very fluid element. Their style of fighting depends on fluid movement which they can’t do while severely restricted like they were.
Also, these waterbenders are not trained soldiers within an army. They are benders from a small generally peaceful village who were taken by surprise. At least they fought though even if they were ultimately bested by nets.
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u/yokaishinigami Shoots more lightning than any bender, buy Maliwan. 2d ago
Yeah, when they’re caught off guard and overwhelmed by numbers and frequency of raids. It literally shows Hama cutting one of the nets that’s fired at her.
The problem isn’t that the water benders never won the battles/fended of the raids. They just couldn’t replace the 2-3 casualties they took per raid.
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u/SpookyScaryBlueberry 1d ago
We’re also kinda led to believe by Hama’s statement she was one of the last waterbenders left in the South Pole since the Southern tribes were spread out or at sea, which makes Hakoda’s entire arc make way more sense if you consider their Navy was founded on the idea waterbenders would be on their ships to give them the upper hand. But if we take Kanna and the swampbenders into account there was at least some movement between a plethora of tribes.
Iroh also says he learned from the waterbenders which likely was Kya’s generation of POWs, as I feel like Zhao would of never let Iroh live it down if he successfully attacked the Northern Water Tribe where he failed.
Though they describe them as sister tribes, it doesn’t seem like a lot of aid was offered to the South Pole at this time if they even had a reliable means of communication between tribes at all. I’m reading way into your original statement but yeah they were basically out gunned and outmanned in every regard.
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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 2d ago
The point is, they were captured, which I think we agree is something that could happen and was necessary for the story to happen. Just because they didn't have time or resources to animate it in a way consistent with your understanding is unfortunate, but a part of all TV stories that you should probably get used to.
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u/AffectionateAnt2617 2d ago
I think networks are symbolic
The Fire Nation took away her mobility (her freedom)
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u/unluckyknight13 2d ago
Ironically most benders can be bested by nets, this is due to the nets being good for limiting their movements and thus can’t always bend efficiently
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u/ChefArtorias 2d ago
Just like the fish they descended from!
Nahh but when I was a child I constantly wondered what it was about a net that made them the ultimate trump card. They really are OP in cartoons.
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u/Morrighan1129 1d ago
To be fair, while the show has a few minor plot holes that can be easily ignored, the lack of Waterbenders in the Southern Water Tribe is definitely not a small one.
Because from what we're told? The Fire Nation never invaded. There were raids. A raid could presumably be one or two ships, maybe three, but the entire purpose of raids is lightning strikes: you hit fast, you run. You can't do that with a thousand troops. But somehow, you're telling me that Waterbenders, in ice, surrounded by water, somehow got captured and dragged off one by one until there wasn't a single one left. That in their home territory, surrounded by their element, against an opponent particularly weak to water, somehow these people were all taken or killed by what was most likely a significantly smaller force.
On top of that, no new ones but Katara were born for a hundred years, or that every single one was somehow picked up in a Fire Nation raid?
The odds of both are so ridiculous as to be impossible. Again, love the show. Most plot holes are small enough, or inconsequential enough to be easily overlooked. This one... wasn't.
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u/Fifteen_inches 1d ago
It’s a montage sequence. Sometimes fandom needs to understand what an abstraction is.
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u/EnycmaPie 1d ago
It is more to show that just because you are a bender, without proper combat training, you won't be able to do much.
The Fire Nation has a bunch of trained soldiers experienced in combat, VS this group of Southern Water tribe villagers that, at most will just be using their water bending for day to day tasks.
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u/Professional_Key7118 1d ago
Its probably not fully accurate, just a quick visual representation of them being picked off one by one
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u/Sirdroftardis8 1d ago
Well duh, water just goes through the nets. It's like the Mandalorians using real bullets against the jedi, they try to deflect them, but it just melts them and they end up with molten lead all over
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u/dorksided787 1d ago
I always thought that was mostly artistic shorthand instead of a literal reenactment of how they were captured.
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u/ToeOfTheTrucks 1d ago
i like to imagine this scene looks dumbed down because its meant to just be a quick visual of what happened, i imagine the real fight was much more intense than this
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u/UnAnon10 1d ago
TBF I think nets are most benders weakness if they can’t do the proper stances they can’t bend
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u/WeAreChecking6 1d ago
I took it as more of a figurative display of what happened than literally a replay
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u/HipsterFett The Blind Bandit 16h ago
“You are surrounded. Lay down your water and surrender.”
“Nets!”
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u/Thelordofprolapse 5h ago
Imagine being beaten whilst surrounded by and even standing on your own element. You have the ultimate home field advantage and all decide to stand clumped together immobile allowing easy capture. Southern water tribe benders were complete jobbers
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u/forthewatch39 2d ago
The way they were captured was pretty sad. They have a nearly limitless supply of water and instead of riding atop waves and waterspouts and raining down ice on their enemies, they let themselves stay on ground level to be captured by some nets?