So I noticed in A:TLA, and it’s carried over in LoK, that Airbenders always seem to have an advantage in a fight. And at first, it felt like plot armour, particularly in A:TLA.
But when Aang fought Bumi, he lost most of that advantage. And I realised that this wasn’t just plot armour. Someone had sat and worked it out: nobody has had to fight Airbenders for generations.
None of the other nations have had to train to face them, or practised sparring with them, or anything. Apart from Bumi, no bender in the show has ever even met an airbender before Aang comes along. And in LoK, for the most part people still haven’t. We never see fights between those who have (for e.g. we never see Tenzin and Lin fight); when Korra and Tenzin use airbending, its a unique fighting style that people aren’t trained to manage.
It’s a really small detail, and it fundamentally works to give the heroes an advantage (and make up for Aang’s young age and lack of combat experience), but I love how it’s an advantage in combat for completely logical reasons.
The detail in these shows is amazing.
You can see the same principle in play whenever somebody fights somebody who uses a completely unfamiliar style. Combustion benders and lavabenders aren’t straight up more powerful, but they’re pretty much always something you haven’t dealt with which presents unique challenges. That red lotus lady with no arms is just a perfectly ordinary waterbender, but using forms and styles nobody else has seen before. Jet routinely smacks around benders and soldiers, but loses hard to the first person he met who had actually studied diverse styles of swordplay. When Toph invents metalbending, nobody can deal with that, but seventy years later the counters are pretty well known among people who might have to fight the cops.
And it’s why Azula, a genius prodigy who has thought long and hard about how to counter every kind of magic and martial arts out there, keeps getting messed up by a kid with a boomerang.
that last part really struck me. not just azula but combustion man and pretty much everyone. Boomerangs dont seem to be common in the world even among the water tribes. Its easy to train to be able to dodge something coming towards you but if youre not familiar with the weapon, youre not ready for it looping around for a second chance at hitting. basically, sokka has just as much of a great advantage in unique fighting style as aang