There is something that has bothered me for as long as I've been familiar with the show.Why did the Fire Nation eradicate the Air Nomads in order to ensure the death of the Avatar? If Aang had been killed as a baby, he would have been reborn in the next nation in the cycle. Would they then have wiped out the Water Tribes? Would they have continued to do this until the Avatar was born Fire Nation? Or am I missing something?
They killed the Air Nomads who were confirmed as NOT the Avatar.
>>80882Why?
See also this thread: >>80682>>80882They probably didn't know that, they were just killing all the Airbenders in an attempt to kill the Avatar.
>>80882that doesn't even make sense
See? No one has an answer. Is this just a weird oversight?
Had the Fire Nation succeeded in killing Aang, it would've have mattered that Aang was going to be reborn. In order for the Avatar to achieve his ultimate power, he must master all four elements. Without an air bending master or any remaining sky bison he would never have learned to control air (or at the least, done so very poorly) and thus wouldn't be a huge threat to the Fire Nation. In any case, by the time he became old enough to BE a threat they'd have completed their conquest of the nations; someone in whatever town he was born into would have noticed that there was a random kid who could bend more than one thing, reported it to the nearest guard, and that would be the end of the Avatar. Rinse and repeat until it cycles back to Fire, in which case they could either attempt to raise him to be evil or just kill him and end the cycle once and for all. Probably the latter; there's less risk down the line.
The series itself has about a million continuity/plot errors. Is there a thread where someone has put up all the individual errors?
I'm sure actually succeeding in killing all the Airbenders and Sky Bison would cause a catastrophic imbalance in the spiritual forces holding the world together. Nothing to the extent of killing the moon spirit, but something bad nonetheless.
As a lot of people in /co/ say often, the complete erradication of the Airbenders has kinda broken the Avatar Cycle.Had Aang died, and with all AB dead, the next Avatar is one element short of becoming a fully realized Avatar. And since Sky Bizon are extinct, the art cannot be reinvented.After wards, the FN would just conquer everything and repeat the cycle 'till only FB remained if so the chose.What most on /co/ fails to realize, is that Aang survived, became a fully realized avatar and is eventually going to marry Katara and have kids, so the cycle can be repaired (though its dynamics is going to be rather different 'till a sufficient number of AB are developed naturally over the next 100/200 years).
>implying the new avatar couldn't have meditated and summoned the spirit of a previous Airbender to teach him.
>>80915OP here. I like this explanation.
>>80955I don't think the Avatar could do that. Wouldn't Aang have done that from the get-go if it were an option?
>>80929Well, Word of God did say post-series that Aang really will be the last airbender; none of his children/descendants will inherit the art. What that means for the balance of the spiritual makeup of their world, I don't know. I'm guessing that Aang was meant to usher in a post-Avatar age in light of the fact that increased trade/commerce with the fire nation will bring a previously unexplored level of technology and education to the other nations. It's already been stated by the creators that more tech = lower spirituality = fewer benders, so by the time Aang dies and the cycle rotates back to fire, the world's bending population would be so low that the Avatar would no longer be necessary.
>>80964>Well, Word of God did say post-series that Aang really will be the last airbender; none of his children/descendants will inherit the art. Source? I remember them clarifying that Aang was the Last Airbender but it sounded like in the context of there being no other Airbender survivors. The Q&A at the back of the Sozin's Comet novelization mentioned that any kids Katara and Aang would have would either be Airbenders, Waterbenders, or non-benders, so it sounded like the possibility was still open.
>>80965I checked, but I couldn't find the interview I thought I was thinking of, so you're probably right. Still, I'm not sure that the Avatar cycle would be as vital in a theoretical future with a decreased bender population. Nature would probably pop out some other creatures to replace the dragons and the sky bison, and let the animals keep the balance themselves; it's what they were doing before, anyway.
Word of God:>>80964Doing it wrong>>80965Doing it rightPeople really need to start paying attentiont to the stuff M&B expand upon on interviews/complementary material.