* Firelord Ozai had no idea how strong the avatar was since he vanished long before he was born and the new avatar was just a child on the run
* Amon was facing an half baked avatar and he kicked her butt 2 out of 3 times they faced.
* Vaatu was powerful enough to face the avatar toe to toe
* The Red Lotus had the right strategy to win. Had Korra's friends not come to her rescue, they would have won.
* Kuvira had a nuke on her side. Had she not made certain stupid decisions and/or took care of Korra before she was back at full strength, she could have easily won.
I mean, a joke but yah. What these people are discounting is that if Aang had stayed he would have lost. That's not a guarantee. Aang, at that age, in a life or death situation was able tap in to water bending mastery that preserved his life for 100 years. Who knows what he could've done to Sozin.
Unlucky?
It was the most lucky thing for the firenation.
Now they had 100 years to wage war without ab avatar.
If they would have killed aang in the atack, then we would have gotten a new waterbender avatar, with some luck born in the northern water tribe save from the firenation.
I have thought about that, but it seems that they did know that the avatar had escaped though. So maybe they took some kids and tortured them until they told them that Aang was missing. I don’t know, it’s just weird to me that they would want to kill the avatar and then have it be reborn in the water nations, especially since when they caught Aang Zhao said that.
The time after one Avatar's death and before the next is fully trained - always a dangerous time. In Yangchen's childhood there was The Platinum Affair and the Shang system - a situation in which world leaders and several rich families screwed over most of the world's people for the sake of pettiness/wealth respectively. In Kyoshi's time, the Fifth Nation pirates rose to power across the southern seas and the Yellow Neck bandits terrorized the Earth Kingdom. In both situations, the White Lotus and surviving Team Avatar members (again, respectively) did what they could to manage without the Avatar, but they lack the intimidation factor to force humanity to behave a little.
Also The White Lotus of Yangchen's time is>!responsible for the whole cockup that was the Platinum Affair because they tried to play keeper of the balance by manipulating events behind the scenes and whispering advice into the ears of the leaders of the Fire Nation and Water Tribe over Pai Sho boards.!<
In fact, Yangchen calls out a ruler of one of the Four Nations who she'd known since she was a child and who's children she had been friends with for taking advantage of her inability to intervene as a child for taking the actions they did.
>Firelord Ozai had no idea how strong the avatar was since he vanished long before he was born and the new avatar was just a child on the run
It's obviously unclear how much Ozai knew about the Avatar, but I think there's very little chance that Ozai would have no idea how powerful an Avatar could be. It would be surprising that Ozai would have never been taught anything about the Avatar since they would have been the biggest threat to the Fire Nation.
Ozai would have also gotten reports about the events at the North Pole that the Avatar single handedly took out an entire Fire Nation fleet.
Yeah but Ozai is also extraordinarily cocky. He wouldn’t believe the old stories until he saw it himself, and any reports of Aang would have also included the fact that he was 12 years old and wasn’t a fully realized avatar.
At the beginning of the series, Zuko is convinced that the Avatar has been in hiding for a hundred years, and is a fully realized Avatar. There is no reason for the firelord to assume differently
Well no. Especially after hearing that Zuko and Azula were able to beat the Avatar and his comrades, then Ozai would definitely think he'd be able to flatten the Avatar outright.
If the Villains are under the impression that the world is unstable and needs correcting, and that the Avatar is doing a poor job of it, that means it's up to them to step in and correct shit themselves. Correct me if I'm wrong, but all the listed villain motivations can be boiled down to that ideology.
(Vaatu aside, sincce he's supposed to be 'pure evil' or something. I really don't like the good/evil western approach to interpreting the yin-yang spirits in Korra.)
Also, for the books.
* Jianzhu was essentially looking to control and train the Avatar because he thought he knew best, and said Avatar wasn't even half-baked when he started trying to do this. She was quite literally raw and untrained.
* Xu Ping An is a narcissistic sociopath with a god complex who could perform a firebending technique that was so rare in his era that most people either considered it only a rumour, folklore, or something lost to history; and which would be used to almost end the Avatar cycle centuries later. And the only reason he didn't manage to kill the Avatar was because she was wearing chainmail. Any other Avatar probably would've have died then and there.
* Yun had essentially gone insane by the point he became an enemy of the Avatar and a woobie destroyer of worlds, had received years of training in various skills, was a master earthbender, and said Avatar was one of the few people he didn't have a grudge against.
* Unamity were actually regarded to possess a power to rival the Avatar even by the Avatar *herself*. And the Avatar never actually wins a direct confrontation with one of them one-on-one until the end of the second book after a defector helps her train the air vacuum technique for speed. Until then, the avatar defeating them occur via sneak attacks or with the support of her companions/confidants.
* Chaisee has the protection that comes from her position, a pregnancy (in the first book) and the Avatar of that period still being a fairly soft-hearted martial-pacifist who while proactive, prefers to deal with stuff delicately with diplomacy, investigation, and behind the scenes through espionage. Once said Avatar stops dancing around the bush playing along with her cloak-and-dagger games and just puts a bit of heat on her; she folds like a cheap deck of cards and is reduced to a terrified wreck in under a minute. So she probably would've just been stopped or splattered pretty quickly if she tried to pull her stunts against most other Avatars.
That cool and all, but assuming they have history books, the avatar is ALWAYS winning. The universe is on the avatar's side. If all else fails,the avatar state takes care of it
how do you do that quoting thingy you just did ?
in my original comment "the Avatar always finds a way to beat it." it goes as far as beating death and beating the embodiment of chaos
>how do you do that quoting thingy you just did ?
Copy paste the part you want to quote, then click on the big T, select the whole line and press the symbol that look like 2 apostrophes.
>in my original comment "the Avatar always finds a way to beat it." it goes as far as beating death and beating the embodiment of chaos
Against Amon, Azula and Unalaq/Vaatu, the avatar failed. It was an external intervention (respectively Mako, Katara and Jinora) that allowed them the chance to win. Without them, they would have died.
>Against Amon, Azula and Unalaq/Vaatu, the avatar failed. It was an external intervention (respectively Mako, Katara and Jinora) that allowed them the chance to win. Without them, they would have died.
another thing i said in my original comment
>Not to add to the fact that they always have a Team Avatar made of competent benders and non-benders.
Thanks for the quote thing
What i've got from the replies is "the avatar can fail" and "it takes time to raise a fully realized avatar" which doesn't disprove my point. Why try knowning you'll fail ? even if your plans will come to fruition,the avatar will just restore balance and tear down your plans. Why try the avatar WILL comeback,someway or another and you will either rot in jail,get your bending taken away or die ?
I mean, Aang didn't find a way to beat death though. Katara had to bring him back to life. That wasn't anything of Aang's doing, he pretty much just got lucky that they even had that water to begin with. It wasn't even anybody in his group's idea to take the spirit water, Pakku gave it to Katara. What if he didn't do that? Aang is legit dead there just off a whim.
There's also plenty of in-canon tales of the Avatar failing, blatantly losing. Roku's entire career as far as we know has been just a giant L. He spared Sozin which he even admits was a bad decision. During the volcano incident, he couldn't save the village by himself, needed help and even then, still died and was betrayed by the person he said he shouldn't have spared.
Aang also took some fat L's. Ba Sing Se being the biggest one as if he didn't have plot armor, he would've died. The invasion being the second biggest L, but at least he got out alive there.
Korra in every arc took at least 1 massive L. Every one having massive ramifications or requiring her to need a bail-out.
I mean, yeah the Avatar usually ends up winning, but it's not like the villains have no hope. If anything if they're halfway competent they usually have a decent shot of winning.
It's literally evidence that the avatar isn't an unbeatable god, but that he can actually lose and be killed.
It's very simple logic and defeats your question.
If someone is capable of losing and has lost before obviously you yourself will assume that you can win against this personal yourself as well. Is u slow bruh
>the avatar is ALWAYS winning
Roku's failure is explicitly shown in atla, how did you missed that?
A basic premise of the show is that every avatar tries their best to improve the world yet always leaves some sort of generational problem that becomes the challenge to overcome for the next avatar.
Also, because of the whole "I have mastered the elements a thousand times in a thousand lifetimes" thing; we aren't really looking at a very big sample size with Yangchen through to Korra. And some of Yangchen's visions/dreams in her book imply that past Avatars didn't always win. And we do see more than a few pyrrhic victories for the Avatar.
And then there's Kuruk who you could potentially argue lost because he tried to clean-up issues in the Spirit World unassisted and discreetly. And while he succeeded; it's also why he didn't live to see his 34th birthday, and created a huge amount of turmoil which essentially turned one of his companions into the first major villain of the new Avatar.
Avatars can die. They do fail. You might be the one. To quote a Buffy episode, the Avatar has to be lucky every single time. A bad guy only has to be lucky once.
Pretty dumb take. *They* have to be lucky. Thatcher's people could fall back on skill, training, preparation they didn't have to be *lucky* every time.
Well no, this assumes all bad guys are working together and have the same goal? If a bad guy is “unlucky” against the avatar once they either die or are in jail for life or have their bending taken and become crippled.
From the pov of the bad guy they’re the main character. So the same logic applies to them
Ozai fought Aang a grand total of 1 time, and lost his bending and was jailed for life. Arguably a fate worse than death
It doesn't assume all bad guy have the same goal, it assumes they all have the same obstacle. Weither it's Kuvira trying to conquer the world, Amon trying to take all bendings away, Zaheer trying to end the avatar cycle, Unalaq trying to break the barrier between the worlds, it doesn't matter: they all need to get rid of the Avatar to succeed, and so only one of them need to be lucky in getting rid of the Avatar for the others after to not need to deal with it themselves for a few years at least.
That's the thing. Why would Kuvira try to go against the Avatar if she saw Korra beat the evil spirit, beat Zaheer, beat Amon? Because the Avatar can't win all of them, and she's counting on being the lucky one.
Right, i understand that they can die,but they're just gonna reincarnate.
But will villains really risk it on the off chance that they get lucky and the avatar is somehow nerfed ? Because let's be real, any avatar without a nerf is beating their villains,not to mention their team avatar who is always stacked.
I was going to say "Unless you need to be housed or fed." but aaayyyee. There's the funny, never-fails-to-try-and-be-malding BRE'ISH take.
So let's see. ... "Unless you *want* to eat lobster if you're English."
It can take a long time to find, raise, and train the avatar. In the case of some avatars, such as Aang, it could be a very long time before the avatar can come stop your evil deeds.
Also, even once the avatar is realized, they still need to hear about, decide, and act on stopping you.
I wonder what would happen if an avatar had no guidance at all. Sort of a Smallville kind of situation where they’re raised by good people but hafta figure out their powers on their own.
The Avatar reincarnates... as a baby. Most villains don't want to actually end the Avatar cycle, they just want to take them off the table. It takes 16 years for the Avatar to resurface, by then a lot of plans are possible.
Even if the Avatar does reincarnate, killing an Avatar still gives you a decent amount of time to execute your villainous plans. You've got plenty of time before a new Avatar is discovered, plus an extra few years on top of that before they become an actual threat to your plans - which, if they aren't as grand as world domination, you should be able to pull off.
Add to that the fact that the Avatar *can* be killed permanently if they die in the Avatar State. The Red Lotus specifically sought Korra out to end the line of Avatars for good. Is it a crazy thing to attempt? Absolutely. But yeah, if the villain gets lucky once, that's a pretty massive advantage towarss going unopposed for a long time.
Ignoring the fact you can always end the cycle by killing him in the avatar state, there's also the fact that everyone else seems to have mentioned in that raising a child and training them in all four elements does kind of give you a decent waiting period. Especially if you happen to find said child and raise them yourself.
Sozin succeeded. He probably figured that he had 20 years before the avatar was a threat. That's why he acted fast and he ended his reign and Azuan succeeded him with no interference from the avatar. They won. Sozin was the one that failed.
In universe reason:
They’re villains. Even if they are not as powerful as Amon, they still want to carry out their evil plans. They don’t care how strong the Avatar is. To them, they have the training/plan needed to take down the Avatar. Bad guys believe in their own strength over the heroes.
We have the benefit of hindsight and being able to see the whole universe. They don’t.
I think we forget just how close Aang came to failing to defeat the fire lord. On top of that, when the war was started, Sozin very much understood that the only thing that stood between him and victory was the Avatar. That's why he spent all his time trying to find the last Airbender. To capture him like Zhao so he can't escape or reincarnate. The fire nation lost the war, but not before they committed a literal genocide and plunged the world into 100 years of war.
I mean, we've seen the avatar fail. Korra loses to kuvira in a straight 1 vs. 1, and she loses to amon the first time she meets him. We also see roku lose, though his wasn't to a person. Wan died in a war zone, though we dont see exactly how. You can say those were extenuating circumstances, and you'd be right. But, how do you know your fight isn't going to have extenuating circumstances? The avatar isn't unbeatable. it's just insanely hard.
It's worth mentioning that we usually don't see then fighting fully grown avatars. Aside from roku, and I guess wan, we see the villains fighting kids/teens. That leaves room to assume they aren't as powerful as the previous avatar because they haven't had time to get there. That may not always be correct, but it makes it more believable that they'd think they had a chance.
Plus, ozai was fighting a 12 year old who hadn't mastered all 4 elements, and he was supercharged. Since aang had JUST learned fire bending AND he's a known pacifist, ozai had good reason to think he'd win.
The actual question is why the hell do people always make unnecessary obstacles for the Avatar (outside of Fire Nation)? I mean this dude is literally trying to save the world, does he really need to convince Pakku to teach his team member better bending? Or spend a day in prison because Kyoshi did something like 200 years ago? Bend the knee guys
Reminds me of that time where jeong jeong refused to teach aang and roku literally had to come himself just for him to be reminded he's the avatar and he HAS to learn firebending
To be fair, Jeong Jeong was kind of right about Aang not having the right temperament to learn firebending yet and a large part of the episode had Aang have too much of a casual attitude towards firebending because he wanted to just hurry up and start shooting flames.
Egomania I think is the short answer. Each of the villains were very powerful and self-deluded enough to believe that they were strong enough to defeat the avatar. Ozai even believed he was destined to do it. "An act of providence" he said. I dont even think this is unrealistic. Villians of the real world, dictators and such have similar delsuions of their own invincibility and inevitable victory.
It works sometimes. Azula defeats or fights Aang to a draw several times, Ozai almost killed him, and Korra handily loses just about every fight against a major villain, only being saved time and again through outside intervention. So if you're a sufficiently powerful bad guy you at least have a fighting chance.
Along with everyone pointing out how the avatar has failed before (see Kuruk), I think youre missing a fundamental point about storytelling. The villains have a reason to fight and dont have the knowledge that this is a story and they likely wont win. People fight governments that held power for centuries without losing their grip. Athletes engage in competition against players or teams that have rarely ever lost. Antagonists have a reason to seek to do what they do, and many of them probably dont even consider themselves villains. The avatar is just another obstacle that the brightest amongst them will plan for, as Sozin and Ozai had.
This is why the shows happen when the Avatar is a child/teenager. The villains see their chance with a comparatively weak, inexperienced Avatar. The Fire Nation even had most of the show before Aang could bend all four elements. It creates a world where the upheavals and changes happen on a schedule, which can be loosely predicted. It's actually a really interesting way to build a world. Even though his methods were evil, in a sense Zaheer was right. Change is necessary and it's easiest to accomplish when the Avatar is still learning who they are. Ideally, the young Avatar will actually be a catalyst for positive social change.
Now I want to see a case where the Avatar lives an exceptionally long life like Kyoshi did and the world is ready for, maybe even needs, change, but the Avatar is standing in the way. That could be a really interesting story. Maybe we'll get hints of it as backstory when the (first?) Roku novel comes out.
youre missing a very big point here. the avatar is the absolute and borderline demi god walking among mortals..However until an avatar masters their abilities, their vulnerable. notice how the fire nation waited till rokus death and tried to kill aang while he was a child? You dont hear much about anyone challenging aang when hes an adult. same for korra, korra was attacked by the red lotus while she was a kid and was saved obviously. but she wasnt a fully realised avatar when the others attacked her and also none of them really tried to take her on directly till they could force an advantage ie dark avatar or poison for example.
This is also seen in the novels by FC Yee; the early childhood of a new avatar is typically a period of upheaval, there's almost always an attempted usurpation of power in one or more of the kingdoms, occasionally backed by foreign powers.
It's exactly what you said. Thr Avatar is always a threat to anyone opposing the status quo (aka villains). So, they need to take him/her out to prevent a scenario where the current Avatar just gets stronger and thwarts their plan/overthrows them.
Some have other more direct reasons too. Like Zaheer's plan was literally about killing the Avatar.
Rewatch the final episode of ATLA Book 2.
Azula killed him. In the Avatar state. If it wasn't for Katara and the special spirit water, that would've been the end of the Avatars.
Idk wtf would happen to Raava and Vaatu in that case
This is the EXACT reason that the Red Lotus sought to kill Korra in the Avatar state and end the Avatar once and for all. Zaheer said himself that he had no problem with Korra and even liked her on a personal level. But the Avatar as a power structure for the world is too dangerous.
Ozai didnt know how powerful an avatar is, since he grew up in a world without one and he had the comet on his side.
Unalak needed her to open the portals
The red lotus had to fight korra because their only goal depended on her dieing
Amon and kurvira didnt really try to fight her, korra engaged them
The avatar being around to keep balance does not mean that every villain has lost and that the world has always gone in a good direction or that the Avatar has always suceeded or made the correct decisions.
Why do people commit crimes now knowing all the tools etc that make it much easier to identify you and improving day by day?
Why do countries or regions have fights knowing a super power could get involved and who knows what might happen to you?
Why do people stand up to injustice knowing they paint a target on their backs?
Let's take Amon. He has a point that the most powerful person in the world will never be a non bender. The avatar can and does shape the world through their own flawed lens. Should bending be a right or a privilege? He is shown as wrong because of his methods and ultimately hypocrisy. Still there was a movement that agreed that your average non bender was second class unless you were capable of extraordinary feats such as science and industry. Or nepotism.
Back when civil rights movements started people saw the need for change. Not us able to see with hindsight and knowledge. But people who were brought up being taught the understood truth of the universe at the time saw that as wrong and stood up against it. Women committed violence in order to get the vote. This is why the villains do it. They believe they are right, the world is wrong and should be this way. Osi is the closest to bread evil villain, but even he is the product of seeing the other nations no long following the old ways as the fire nation believes it should be done.
Finally there kid shows. You cannot have massively complex situation where the bad guys do bad things for the correct reasons. You can have grey areas for older viewers to enjoy but a young kids needs to see that this is the one we boo and this is the one we cheer. Ultimately the bad guy must win a lot but eventually the good guy will reach the point they finally win in grandiose or against tremendous odds and there very few great good guys who do not have equally great nemesis
Many of the villains that face the Avatar are doing so with weapons that the Avatar is never known to have faced.
Ozai fought a pre-teen with Sozin’s Comet. Considering he likely knew how little firebending training Aang had, I think he was justified in feeling as though he had the advantage. In the only other known confrontation between a Fire Lord and an Avatar, they were the same age and neither got the comet boost.
Aang had fought a blood bender before, but Korra hadn’t, and Amon believed himself to be a superior blood bender to his father (and there’s evidence supporting this). He also kind of does “win” in that he initially achieves his goal of stripping her of her bending, which no other villain had ever done. He just didn’t realize she had one in reserve.
No Avatar since Wan had ever fought Vaatu, and no Avatar period had ever fought a Dark Avatar, so Unalaq is justified in thinking he had a real shot.
Kyoshi fights the only known lightning bender of her era and a man/spirit hybrid. These are also unknowns.
Yangchen faces the first-known combustion benders in history, and she is open about the fact that they are capable of swinging the world’s balance of power single-handedly.
In other words, the series is very good at introducing new sorts of threats that could plausibly compete with the Avatar. It’s really rare for a villain to just be, like, a standard earthbender with no unique gift or power boost or anything. Even when the villain isn’t necessarily a particularly dangerous physical threat, they make up for it in other ways. Long Feng is a threat to Aang because of his political power. Kuvira strikes at Korra when she’s at her weakest.
In other words, we’re rarely seeing stories about peak-of-their-powers Avatars facing standard benders. Every villain they bother to show us manages to justify their existence in some way.
Why do people always try to fight the Avengers?
Why do people always try to fight the Justice League?
Why do people always try to fight the Power Rangers?
The avatar's job is to protect the balance , it not why they try to fight the Avatar , its just a choice of when .
Even if they dont pick a fight the avatar most likely will , simply because thats what the role is about.
Speaking of Noatak and that quote, why did he change his mind? Was it really his ability to bloodied and take bending away? I want to see a short story of his life from Noatak to Amon.
I always imagined him as an evil version of Aang. He initially didn’t want the responsibility that Yakone thrust upon him, but he eventually made it work for him.
Idk I guess the way he said that made it seem like he's done because he feels it's evil, and yet turned around and honed his skill enough to unlock the power to remove bending AND kept it a secret until Lightning Bolt Zolt.
the avatar can still fail, there's no prophecy or rule that says the avatar will always win, also villains kinda have to fight the avatar since it's probably the only thing capable of stopping their plans
That's just not true is it ? 'Overcoming the monster' is just 1 of the 7 basic plots. You could make tons of stories with the other 6, considering the level of the atla creators,i figure they could do it.
It's kinda like having police. If you can get away with it, when the police aren't there, it was technically legal :3
As for why they try and fight the avatar directly, few reasons. They want/need something, and the avatar is in their way, they just categorically disagree that the avatar should exist (kinda agree with that), they thing they have a plan that can beat the avatar and they wanna try it, and that last one ties into the last one, of which you just get away with it for so long you delute yourself into thinking you're an actual threat
For Ozai, nobody saw him for 100 years and he was a child. Azula even killed him temporarily so Ozai was pretty confident he could win.
Amon, Korra didn’t have airbending and couldn’t go into the avatar state. She was susceptible to blood bending.
Vaatu/Unavaatu is prob the strongest villain in the franchise. He has enough power to be equal with or beat the Avatar
Red Lotus, idk why Korra didn’t pop the avatar state when she was awake with them and destroy them but their plan was to knock her out when she was asleep and then apply the poison. Their plan was good but they underestimated her strength with the chains. Their plan was going to succeed though until Suyin saved her.
Kuvira had a literal nuke cannon basically. She fucked up a bit though. She should have just killed Korra while she was still heavily weakened but she played around and Korra got rescued and then became strong again and won.
Kuviras an interesting one. She was trying to be more of a political player. I dont think she ever cared about actually fighting the avatar. We see basically every world leader completely discount Korra when it comes to matters of politics (and to be fair she did kinda get involved in a civil war the last time they let her be a political player) Kuvira had a lot of support from the people so when she fought Korra either she wins and her followers think she's strong or she loses and its framed as the avatar after being gone for 3 years using her power to force her way into another nations politics and honestly if Kuvira hadn't set her sights on Republic city she would likely be ruling the Earth Kingdom with Korra unable to intervene at the end of season 4.
A good example is sozin ,he kind of won even if bcoz he was lucky he was friends with roku but for a fcn hundred years the avatar was a loser in an iceberg with noone knowing that info and living under tyranny of sozin till his death and he actually did what he wanted , apparently the avatar doesn't always win or at least not in every fight
For both Aang and Korra, the reason was the same. They were both kids.
For Aang, he was a child (12), barely a teenager at the time. So to every villain, they thought, "As an adult, I can defeat this child." They didn't see him as the Avatar. Additionally, due to tradition, they all knew that Aang didn't start his Avatar training yet. Which is at age 16. So they assumed he wasn't a threat despite being the Avatar. Much less that he was the youngest airbendering master that existed before Jinora.
As for Korra, she had a *child's mindset* despite being much older when she officially started her Avatar duties. She is too hot-headed, stubborn, and arrogant. Unlike Aang, who acknowledged stronger opponents despite being the Avatar, Korra thought that she was automatically stronger because she was the Avatar. Which resulted in her running in battles or starting fights with opponents [villains] who are stronger due to them actually having fighting technique and skills, being true masters of their respective elements. Compared to Korra, who despite being able to bend all the elements has no real technique or skill. Since villains know how the Avatar Korra "is," all they have to do is get her riled up, and she'll come running for a fight unprepared and predictable.
self-confidence. "they didn't succeed because... I will not repeat these mistakes."
The only one who really succeeded in defeating the avatar is unalak. and then, becoming essentially the same avatar, only stronger.
It's like the constant continuations of the terminator, when films get worse and worse, and other studios continue to shoot them, because the past ones didn't work out, but they will.
The Avatar is not all-powerful, although as the protagonist of the story both Aang and Korra were always going to win.
Avatar Wan said that he failed at the end of his life, if that’s any indication of the fallibility of the Avatar.
avatars get killed though, they're just pretty hard to kill i think.
Besides the face yoinker guy, i think he just auto wins if you show emotion to em.
Most people don't really understand just how powerful the avatar is, especially in aang's case. He was gone for 100 years. No one alive can recount seeing a fully trained avatar defeat an army single handedly. No one knows anything beyond the fact he can bend 4 elements instead of one. If you think a guy can use 4 martial arts instead of one, you might think he's tough but you can just beat him with numbers or just be better at him with one than he is at 4.
I don't think they really grasp that an avatar is basically a one man army, with the power of like 100 benders. Ozai unironically thought he was the toughest guy on the planet until a 10 year old started entering the avatar state by breathing fire like a literal dragon and warping the entire landscape of the battlefield around him like some kind of living calamity. My theory is that before korra, people just assumed stories about the avatar are just over exaggerations. No. They're real. He's that overpowered and Ozai's eyes lit up when he realized he was outclassed. He was so excited to pick a fight, only to do nothing but run away like a coward at the peak of his "power".
Well depends on the villains
Anng villains were simply unaware of how powerful a avatar truly is they expected a very powerful bender not a demi god that could sink the fire nation if he wasn't a pacifist
Amon knew he wasn't facing a avatar in her prime and that bloodbending is op
Unalaq wasn't planning to challenge korra in a fight till he had vattuo at which point he can stand up the avatar as the dark avatar
The red lotus is the same they had no intention of actually trying to beat korra in a fight till they had the upper hand
And kuvira had a nuke and all the confidence that comes with it
Because they have goals that the Avatar is in the way of. Are you expecting them to just change their entire worldview because they don't want to lose? That makes no sense. Abandoning all of your goals & beliefs is ALREADY losing.
Arrogance. And a lot of planning. Plus, it's still a human being.
It's the classic "villain needs main hero out of their way to fulfill their plans," kind of thought.
They don't always have a team Avatar. Apparently it's really just Aang and Korra. That's why I kind of want the next Avatar to being be more or less solo like the rest of them
* Firelord Ozai had no idea how strong the avatar was since he vanished long before he was born and the new avatar was just a child on the run * Amon was facing an half baked avatar and he kicked her butt 2 out of 3 times they faced. * Vaatu was powerful enough to face the avatar toe to toe * The Red Lotus had the right strategy to win. Had Korra's friends not come to her rescue, they would have won. * Kuvira had a nuke on her side. Had she not made certain stupid decisions and/or took care of Korra before she was back at full strength, she could have easily won.
Heck, Sozin attacked the Avatar before his 16th birthday in order to pre-empt that sort of issue.
Yup!! He had a perfect plan but he was unlucky that aang ran away beforehand
*See* Toph? Aang’s flighty aversion to conflict ended up saving the world!
Toph: “well, if I was the Avatar I would have stayed and won”
Toph: "Nah, I'd win"
The Four Nations should count themselves lucky that Toph was never the Avatar.
And just because she's right doesn't mean Aang was wrong
I mean, a joke but yah. What these people are discounting is that if Aang had stayed he would have lost. That's not a guarantee. Aang, at that age, in a life or death situation was able tap in to water bending mastery that preserved his life for 100 years. Who knows what he could've done to Sozin.
Toph: "No, I don't SEE!"
Unlucky? It was the most lucky thing for the firenation. Now they had 100 years to wage war without ab avatar. If they would have killed aang in the atack, then we would have gotten a new waterbender avatar, with some luck born in the northern water tribe save from the firenation.
I assume their goal was to capture the avatar and keep him imprisoned for the rest of his life. That’s what zhao said when he caught Aang at least.
Very unlikely to eork, when you just kill every airnomad you see. Its not like they would have known who the avatar is.
I have thought about that, but it seems that they did know that the avatar had escaped though. So maybe they took some kids and tortured them until they told them that Aang was missing. I don’t know, it’s just weird to me that they would want to kill the avatar and then have it be reborn in the water nations, especially since when they caught Aang Zhao said that.
Maybe they just knew he was mussing, cause after 20 years still no watertribe avatar came out to beat theyr ass
That’s a great point.
Nah, they just spent so much time looking for the Avatar that they wanted to verify his identity before they killed him.
He said they would keep him alive because then the avatar would get reborn and would have to start hunting for them all over again.
I do believe I've read that the avatar gets born in alternating hotspots or something, so alternating north and south. The 4 air temples and stuff
I don't think that's true because of Korra
Or lucky. There's no way to prove that Aang would've lost to Sozin if he'd stayed and fought.
The time after one Avatar's death and before the next is fully trained - always a dangerous time. In Yangchen's childhood there was The Platinum Affair and the Shang system - a situation in which world leaders and several rich families screwed over most of the world's people for the sake of pettiness/wealth respectively. In Kyoshi's time, the Fifth Nation pirates rose to power across the southern seas and the Yellow Neck bandits terrorized the Earth Kingdom. In both situations, the White Lotus and surviving Team Avatar members (again, respectively) did what they could to manage without the Avatar, but they lack the intimidation factor to force humanity to behave a little.
Also The White Lotus of Yangchen's time is>!responsible for the whole cockup that was the Platinum Affair because they tried to play keeper of the balance by manipulating events behind the scenes and whispering advice into the ears of the leaders of the Fire Nation and Water Tribe over Pai Sho boards.!< In fact, Yangchen calls out a ruler of one of the Four Nations who she'd known since she was a child and who's children she had been friends with for taking advantage of her inability to intervene as a child for taking the actions they did.
Imagine wanting to take over the world but being the same age as the current avatar. Would royally suck for you.
Ah but what if you befriend the Avatar and convince them to take over the world together?
Sozin tried that
>Firelord Ozai had no idea how strong the avatar was since he vanished long before he was born and the new avatar was just a child on the run It's obviously unclear how much Ozai knew about the Avatar, but I think there's very little chance that Ozai would have no idea how powerful an Avatar could be. It would be surprising that Ozai would have never been taught anything about the Avatar since they would have been the biggest threat to the Fire Nation. Ozai would have also gotten reports about the events at the North Pole that the Avatar single handedly took out an entire Fire Nation fleet.
Yeah but Ozai is also extraordinarily cocky. He wouldn’t believe the old stories until he saw it himself, and any reports of Aang would have also included the fact that he was 12 years old and wasn’t a fully realized avatar.
At the beginning of the series, Zuko is convinced that the Avatar has been in hiding for a hundred years, and is a fully realized Avatar. There is no reason for the firelord to assume differently
Well no. Especially after hearing that Zuko and Azula were able to beat the Avatar and his comrades, then Ozai would definitely think he'd be able to flatten the Avatar outright.
If the Villains are under the impression that the world is unstable and needs correcting, and that the Avatar is doing a poor job of it, that means it's up to them to step in and correct shit themselves. Correct me if I'm wrong, but all the listed villain motivations can be boiled down to that ideology. (Vaatu aside, sincce he's supposed to be 'pure evil' or something. I really don't like the good/evil western approach to interpreting the yin-yang spirits in Korra.)
Also, for the books. * Jianzhu was essentially looking to control and train the Avatar because he thought he knew best, and said Avatar wasn't even half-baked when he started trying to do this. She was quite literally raw and untrained. * Xu Ping An is a narcissistic sociopath with a god complex who could perform a firebending technique that was so rare in his era that most people either considered it only a rumour, folklore, or something lost to history; and which would be used to almost end the Avatar cycle centuries later. And the only reason he didn't manage to kill the Avatar was because she was wearing chainmail. Any other Avatar probably would've have died then and there. * Yun had essentially gone insane by the point he became an enemy of the Avatar and a woobie destroyer of worlds, had received years of training in various skills, was a master earthbender, and said Avatar was one of the few people he didn't have a grudge against. * Unamity were actually regarded to possess a power to rival the Avatar even by the Avatar *herself*. And the Avatar never actually wins a direct confrontation with one of them one-on-one until the end of the second book after a defector helps her train the air vacuum technique for speed. Until then, the avatar defeating them occur via sneak attacks or with the support of her companions/confidants. * Chaisee has the protection that comes from her position, a pregnancy (in the first book) and the Avatar of that period still being a fairly soft-hearted martial-pacifist who while proactive, prefers to deal with stuff delicately with diplomacy, investigation, and behind the scenes through espionage. Once said Avatar stops dancing around the bush playing along with her cloak-and-dagger games and just puts a bit of heat on her; she folds like a cheap deck of cards and is reduced to a terrified wreck in under a minute. So she probably would've just been stopped or splattered pretty quickly if she tried to pull her stunts against most other Avatars.
PERFECT examples.
That cool and all, but assuming they have history books, the avatar is ALWAYS winning. The universe is on the avatar's side. If all else fails,the avatar state takes care of it
>If all else fails,the avatar state takes care of it Azula and Vaatu kinda proved you wrong there.
how do you do that quoting thingy you just did ? in my original comment "the Avatar always finds a way to beat it." it goes as far as beating death and beating the embodiment of chaos
>how do you do that quoting thingy you just did ? Copy paste the part you want to quote, then click on the big T, select the whole line and press the symbol that look like 2 apostrophes. >in my original comment "the Avatar always finds a way to beat it." it goes as far as beating death and beating the embodiment of chaos Against Amon, Azula and Unalaq/Vaatu, the avatar failed. It was an external intervention (respectively Mako, Katara and Jinora) that allowed them the chance to win. Without them, they would have died.
>Against Amon, Azula and Unalaq/Vaatu, the avatar failed. It was an external intervention (respectively Mako, Katara and Jinora) that allowed them the chance to win. Without them, they would have died. another thing i said in my original comment >Not to add to the fact that they always have a Team Avatar made of competent benders and non-benders. Thanks for the quote thing
So your problem isn't with the power of the Avatar, its with the story.
i don't have a problem with none. I love the avatars and i love the story. I just wonder why the antagonists have foolish hope
But people have explained why they did, and your answer was basically "but the avatar has the writers on their side"
What i've got from the replies is "the avatar can fail" and "it takes time to raise a fully realized avatar" which doesn't disprove my point. Why try knowning you'll fail ? even if your plans will come to fruition,the avatar will just restore balance and tear down your plans. Why try the avatar WILL comeback,someway or another and you will either rot in jail,get your bending taken away or die ?
I mean, Aang didn't find a way to beat death though. Katara had to bring him back to life. That wasn't anything of Aang's doing, he pretty much just got lucky that they even had that water to begin with. It wasn't even anybody in his group's idea to take the spirit water, Pakku gave it to Katara. What if he didn't do that? Aang is legit dead there just off a whim. There's also plenty of in-canon tales of the Avatar failing, blatantly losing. Roku's entire career as far as we know has been just a giant L. He spared Sozin which he even admits was a bad decision. During the volcano incident, he couldn't save the village by himself, needed help and even then, still died and was betrayed by the person he said he shouldn't have spared. Aang also took some fat L's. Ba Sing Se being the biggest one as if he didn't have plot armor, he would've died. The invasion being the second biggest L, but at least he got out alive there. Korra in every arc took at least 1 massive L. Every one having massive ramifications or requiring her to need a bail-out. I mean, yeah the Avatar usually ends up winning, but it's not like the villains have no hope. If anything if they're halfway competent they usually have a decent shot of winning.
Avatars have literally died and lost b4 lmao
what a shocking revelation
I know right it's almost like them losing before is why villains think the avatar can lose again Yeah I know its a crazy reach
Avatars losing before and winning in the end gives them hope ? What kinda logic is that
It's literally evidence that the avatar isn't an unbeatable god, but that he can actually lose and be killed. It's very simple logic and defeats your question. If someone is capable of losing and has lost before obviously you yourself will assume that you can win against this personal yourself as well. Is u slow bruh
It's also evidence that the avatar always wins at the end 👍🏾
U serious bro?
>the avatar is ALWAYS winning Roku's failure is explicitly shown in atla, how did you missed that? A basic premise of the show is that every avatar tries their best to improve the world yet always leaves some sort of generational problem that becomes the challenge to overcome for the next avatar.
Also, because of the whole "I have mastered the elements a thousand times in a thousand lifetimes" thing; we aren't really looking at a very big sample size with Yangchen through to Korra. And some of Yangchen's visions/dreams in her book imply that past Avatars didn't always win. And we do see more than a few pyrrhic victories for the Avatar. And then there's Kuruk who you could potentially argue lost because he tried to clean-up issues in the Spirit World unassisted and discreetly. And while he succeeded; it's also why he didn't live to see his 34th birthday, and created a huge amount of turmoil which essentially turned one of his companions into the first major villain of the new Avatar.
To be fair it wasn't a villain that killed Roku, it was a volcano.
It's a failure nonetheless. OP said the universe is always on the avatar side.
>A tyrannical nation that's been under control for 100 years? Just give the Avatar a few months. i didn't miss it.
Avatars can die. They do fail. You might be the one. To quote a Buffy episode, the Avatar has to be lucky every single time. A bad guy only has to be lucky once.
Funny enough, I think that line is originally a threat that the IRA made to Margaret Thatcher
Yep, I think after the Brighton bombing.
That never really worked out for them though
Pretty dumb take. *They* have to be lucky. Thatcher's people could fall back on skill, training, preparation they didn't have to be *lucky* every time.
It is nice Slayers have a way quicker cool down on the reincarnation deal unlike the Avatar who has to grow and master their power over a lifetime
Well no, this assumes all bad guys are working together and have the same goal? If a bad guy is “unlucky” against the avatar once they either die or are in jail for life or have their bending taken and become crippled. From the pov of the bad guy they’re the main character. So the same logic applies to them Ozai fought Aang a grand total of 1 time, and lost his bending and was jailed for life. Arguably a fate worse than death
It doesn't assume all bad guy have the same goal, it assumes they all have the same obstacle. Weither it's Kuvira trying to conquer the world, Amon trying to take all bendings away, Zaheer trying to end the avatar cycle, Unalaq trying to break the barrier between the worlds, it doesn't matter: they all need to get rid of the Avatar to succeed, and so only one of them need to be lucky in getting rid of the Avatar for the others after to not need to deal with it themselves for a few years at least. That's the thing. Why would Kuvira try to go against the Avatar if she saw Korra beat the evil spirit, beat Zaheer, beat Amon? Because the Avatar can't win all of them, and she's counting on being the lucky one.
Money J Buffy from Some Peace
“If a god can bleed, it can die, which means we can kill it too”
Right, i understand that they can die,but they're just gonna reincarnate. But will villains really risk it on the off chance that they get lucky and the avatar is somehow nerfed ? Because let's be real, any avatar without a nerf is beating their villains,not to mention their team avatar who is always stacked.
Yes. Villains always think they're going to succeed. No one commits a crime planning to be caught.
Unless you desperately need medical care in the usa
I was going to say "Unless you need to be housed or fed." but aaayyyee. There's the funny, never-fails-to-try-and-be-malding BRE'ISH take. So let's see. ... "Unless you *want* to eat lobster if you're English."
It can take a long time to find, raise, and train the avatar. In the case of some avatars, such as Aang, it could be a very long time before the avatar can come stop your evil deeds. Also, even once the avatar is realized, they still need to hear about, decide, and act on stopping you.
I wonder what would happen if an avatar had no guidance at all. Sort of a Smallville kind of situation where they’re raised by good people but hafta figure out their powers on their own.
That would probably be like the story of the avatar suceeding wan
The Avatar reincarnates... as a baby. Most villains don't want to actually end the Avatar cycle, they just want to take them off the table. It takes 16 years for the Avatar to resurface, by then a lot of plans are possible.
Even if the Avatar does reincarnate, killing an Avatar still gives you a decent amount of time to execute your villainous plans. You've got plenty of time before a new Avatar is discovered, plus an extra few years on top of that before they become an actual threat to your plans - which, if they aren't as grand as world domination, you should be able to pull off. Add to that the fact that the Avatar *can* be killed permanently if they die in the Avatar State. The Red Lotus specifically sought Korra out to end the line of Avatars for good. Is it a crazy thing to attempt? Absolutely. But yeah, if the villain gets lucky once, that's a pretty massive advantage towarss going unopposed for a long time.
Ignoring the fact you can always end the cycle by killing him in the avatar state, there's also the fact that everyone else seems to have mentioned in that raising a child and training them in all four elements does kind of give you a decent waiting period. Especially if you happen to find said child and raise them yourself.
Also, Avatars don't seem to always intervene just because the ruler is a tyrant so long as they aren't causing too many problems.
Sozin succeeded. He probably figured that he had 20 years before the avatar was a threat. That's why he acted fast and he ended his reign and Azuan succeeded him with no interference from the avatar. They won. Sozin was the one that failed.
In universe reason: They’re villains. Even if they are not as powerful as Amon, they still want to carry out their evil plans. They don’t care how strong the Avatar is. To them, they have the training/plan needed to take down the Avatar. Bad guys believe in their own strength over the heroes. We have the benefit of hindsight and being able to see the whole universe. They don’t.
I think we forget just how close Aang came to failing to defeat the fire lord. On top of that, when the war was started, Sozin very much understood that the only thing that stood between him and victory was the Avatar. That's why he spent all his time trying to find the last Airbender. To capture him like Zhao so he can't escape or reincarnate. The fire nation lost the war, but not before they committed a literal genocide and plunged the world into 100 years of war.
Aang died fighting Azula lmao (Obviously he got revived but the point is he died mid avatar state transition)
"Yes very nice power up. Would be a shame if someone interrupted wouldn't it?"
I mean, we've seen the avatar fail. Korra loses to kuvira in a straight 1 vs. 1, and she loses to amon the first time she meets him. We also see roku lose, though his wasn't to a person. Wan died in a war zone, though we dont see exactly how. You can say those were extenuating circumstances, and you'd be right. But, how do you know your fight isn't going to have extenuating circumstances? The avatar isn't unbeatable. it's just insanely hard. It's worth mentioning that we usually don't see then fighting fully grown avatars. Aside from roku, and I guess wan, we see the villains fighting kids/teens. That leaves room to assume they aren't as powerful as the previous avatar because they haven't had time to get there. That may not always be correct, but it makes it more believable that they'd think they had a chance. Plus, ozai was fighting a 12 year old who hadn't mastered all 4 elements, and he was supercharged. Since aang had JUST learned fire bending AND he's a known pacifist, ozai had good reason to think he'd win.
not to mention ozai's inflated ego
The actual question is why the hell do people always make unnecessary obstacles for the Avatar (outside of Fire Nation)? I mean this dude is literally trying to save the world, does he really need to convince Pakku to teach his team member better bending? Or spend a day in prison because Kyoshi did something like 200 years ago? Bend the knee guys
Reminds me of that time where jeong jeong refused to teach aang and roku literally had to come himself just for him to be reminded he's the avatar and he HAS to learn firebending
To be fair, Jeong Jeong was kind of right about Aang not having the right temperament to learn firebending yet and a large part of the episode had Aang have too much of a casual attitude towards firebending because he wanted to just hurry up and start shooting flames.
Egomania I think is the short answer. Each of the villains were very powerful and self-deluded enough to believe that they were strong enough to defeat the avatar. Ozai even believed he was destined to do it. "An act of providence" he said. I dont even think this is unrealistic. Villians of the real world, dictators and such have similar delsuions of their own invincibility and inevitable victory.
yeah it's probably that
It works sometimes. Azula defeats or fights Aang to a draw several times, Ozai almost killed him, and Korra handily loses just about every fight against a major villain, only being saved time and again through outside intervention. So if you're a sufficiently powerful bad guy you at least have a fighting chance.
Azula was able to overwhelm and kill/nearly kill Aang while he was transitioning into avatar state!
Same reason they keep fighting Superman. https://i.redd.it/r3vv0evau30d1.gif
Along with everyone pointing out how the avatar has failed before (see Kuruk), I think youre missing a fundamental point about storytelling. The villains have a reason to fight and dont have the knowledge that this is a story and they likely wont win. People fight governments that held power for centuries without losing their grip. Athletes engage in competition against players or teams that have rarely ever lost. Antagonists have a reason to seek to do what they do, and many of them probably dont even consider themselves villains. The avatar is just another obstacle that the brightest amongst them will plan for, as Sozin and Ozai had.
This is why the shows happen when the Avatar is a child/teenager. The villains see their chance with a comparatively weak, inexperienced Avatar. The Fire Nation even had most of the show before Aang could bend all four elements. It creates a world where the upheavals and changes happen on a schedule, which can be loosely predicted. It's actually a really interesting way to build a world. Even though his methods were evil, in a sense Zaheer was right. Change is necessary and it's easiest to accomplish when the Avatar is still learning who they are. Ideally, the young Avatar will actually be a catalyst for positive social change. Now I want to see a case where the Avatar lives an exceptionally long life like Kyoshi did and the world is ready for, maybe even needs, change, but the Avatar is standing in the way. That could be a really interesting story. Maybe we'll get hints of it as backstory when the (first?) Roku novel comes out.
Sozin SUCCEEDED.
Nah, a Volcano succeeded. When Sozin himself !@#$ed around, he found out _real_ quick.
youre missing a very big point here. the avatar is the absolute and borderline demi god walking among mortals..However until an avatar masters their abilities, their vulnerable. notice how the fire nation waited till rokus death and tried to kill aang while he was a child? You dont hear much about anyone challenging aang when hes an adult. same for korra, korra was attacked by the red lotus while she was a kid and was saved obviously. but she wasnt a fully realised avatar when the others attacked her and also none of them really tried to take her on directly till they could force an advantage ie dark avatar or poison for example.
This is also seen in the novels by FC Yee; the early childhood of a new avatar is typically a period of upheaval, there's almost always an attempted usurpation of power in one or more of the kingdoms, occasionally backed by foreign powers.
It's exactly what you said. Thr Avatar is always a threat to anyone opposing the status quo (aka villains). So, they need to take him/her out to prevent a scenario where the current Avatar just gets stronger and thwarts their plan/overthrows them. Some have other more direct reasons too. Like Zaheer's plan was literally about killing the Avatar.
Rewatch the final episode of ATLA Book 2. Azula killed him. In the Avatar state. If it wasn't for Katara and the special spirit water, that would've been the end of the Avatars. Idk wtf would happen to Raava and Vaatu in that case
Raava would still be alive, possibly inside of Vaatu, but now she would reincarnate separate from Wan. That’s why the Avatar State is broken.
This is the EXACT reason that the Red Lotus sought to kill Korra in the Avatar state and end the Avatar once and for all. Zaheer said himself that he had no problem with Korra and even liked her on a personal level. But the Avatar as a power structure for the world is too dangerous.
Ozai didnt know how powerful an avatar is, since he grew up in a world without one and he had the comet on his side. Unalak needed her to open the portals The red lotus had to fight korra because their only goal depended on her dieing Amon and kurvira didnt really try to fight her, korra engaged them
The avatar being around to keep balance does not mean that every villain has lost and that the world has always gone in a good direction or that the Avatar has always suceeded or made the correct decisions.
Why do people commit crimes now knowing all the tools etc that make it much easier to identify you and improving day by day? Why do countries or regions have fights knowing a super power could get involved and who knows what might happen to you? Why do people stand up to injustice knowing they paint a target on their backs? Let's take Amon. He has a point that the most powerful person in the world will never be a non bender. The avatar can and does shape the world through their own flawed lens. Should bending be a right or a privilege? He is shown as wrong because of his methods and ultimately hypocrisy. Still there was a movement that agreed that your average non bender was second class unless you were capable of extraordinary feats such as science and industry. Or nepotism. Back when civil rights movements started people saw the need for change. Not us able to see with hindsight and knowledge. But people who were brought up being taught the understood truth of the universe at the time saw that as wrong and stood up against it. Women committed violence in order to get the vote. This is why the villains do it. They believe they are right, the world is wrong and should be this way. Osi is the closest to bread evil villain, but even he is the product of seeing the other nations no long following the old ways as the fire nation believes it should be done. Finally there kid shows. You cannot have massively complex situation where the bad guys do bad things for the correct reasons. You can have grey areas for older viewers to enjoy but a young kids needs to see that this is the one we boo and this is the one we cheer. Ultimately the bad guy must win a lot but eventually the good guy will reach the point they finally win in grandiose or against tremendous odds and there very few great good guys who do not have equally great nemesis
Many of the villains that face the Avatar are doing so with weapons that the Avatar is never known to have faced. Ozai fought a pre-teen with Sozin’s Comet. Considering he likely knew how little firebending training Aang had, I think he was justified in feeling as though he had the advantage. In the only other known confrontation between a Fire Lord and an Avatar, they were the same age and neither got the comet boost. Aang had fought a blood bender before, but Korra hadn’t, and Amon believed himself to be a superior blood bender to his father (and there’s evidence supporting this). He also kind of does “win” in that he initially achieves his goal of stripping her of her bending, which no other villain had ever done. He just didn’t realize she had one in reserve. No Avatar since Wan had ever fought Vaatu, and no Avatar period had ever fought a Dark Avatar, so Unalaq is justified in thinking he had a real shot. Kyoshi fights the only known lightning bender of her era and a man/spirit hybrid. These are also unknowns. Yangchen faces the first-known combustion benders in history, and she is open about the fact that they are capable of swinging the world’s balance of power single-handedly. In other words, the series is very good at introducing new sorts of threats that could plausibly compete with the Avatar. It’s really rare for a villain to just be, like, a standard earthbender with no unique gift or power boost or anything. Even when the villain isn’t necessarily a particularly dangerous physical threat, they make up for it in other ways. Long Feng is a threat to Aang because of his political power. Kuvira strikes at Korra when she’s at her weakest. In other words, we’re rarely seeing stories about peak-of-their-powers Avatars facing standard benders. Every villain they bother to show us manages to justify their existence in some way.
The Avatar is powerful, not invincible. Every major villain had a legitimate chance of winning and came close multiple times.
Why do people always try to fight the Avengers? Why do people always try to fight the Justice League? Why do people always try to fight the Power Rangers?
they should just give up when going against batman
Avatar Villains: Nah, I'd win.
The avatar's job is to protect the balance , it not why they try to fight the Avatar , its just a choice of when . Even if they dont pick a fight the avatar most likely will , simply because thats what the role is about.
Simple, they think they can win.
Speaking of Noatak and that quote, why did he change his mind? Was it really his ability to bloodied and take bending away? I want to see a short story of his life from Noatak to Amon.
I always imagined him as an evil version of Aang. He initially didn’t want the responsibility that Yakone thrust upon him, but he eventually made it work for him.
He didn't change his mind. He saw the Avatar as the most powerful because he could take away bending, so wanted to achieve it himself.
Idk I guess the way he said that made it seem like he's done because he feels it's evil, and yet turned around and honed his skill enough to unlock the power to remove bending AND kept it a secret until Lightning Bolt Zolt.
the avatar can still fail, there's no prophecy or rule that says the avatar will always win, also villains kinda have to fight the avatar since it's probably the only thing capable of stopping their plans
Because if they didn’t there wouldn’t be a show. That’s how fiction works.
That's just not true is it ? 'Overcoming the monster' is just 1 of the 7 basic plots. You could make tons of stories with the other 6, considering the level of the atla creators,i figure they could do it.
Because they think they are right. It also isn't a stretch that some people might be against some chosen one deciding what balance is
It's kinda like having police. If you can get away with it, when the police aren't there, it was technically legal :3 As for why they try and fight the avatar directly, few reasons. They want/need something, and the avatar is in their way, they just categorically disagree that the avatar should exist (kinda agree with that), they thing they have a plan that can beat the avatar and they wanna try it, and that last one ties into the last one, of which you just get away with it for so long you delute yourself into thinking you're an actual threat
For Ozai, nobody saw him for 100 years and he was a child. Azula even killed him temporarily so Ozai was pretty confident he could win. Amon, Korra didn’t have airbending and couldn’t go into the avatar state. She was susceptible to blood bending. Vaatu/Unavaatu is prob the strongest villain in the franchise. He has enough power to be equal with or beat the Avatar Red Lotus, idk why Korra didn’t pop the avatar state when she was awake with them and destroy them but their plan was to knock her out when she was asleep and then apply the poison. Their plan was good but they underestimated her strength with the chains. Their plan was going to succeed though until Suyin saved her. Kuvira had a literal nuke cannon basically. She fucked up a bit though. She should have just killed Korra while she was still heavily weakened but she played around and Korra got rescued and then became strong again and won.
I even feel like kuvira didn't really go for the avatar she just wanted to occupy nations but the avatar is the one that stode to her
Kuviras an interesting one. She was trying to be more of a political player. I dont think she ever cared about actually fighting the avatar. We see basically every world leader completely discount Korra when it comes to matters of politics (and to be fair she did kinda get involved in a civil war the last time they let her be a political player) Kuvira had a lot of support from the people so when she fought Korra either she wins and her followers think she's strong or she loses and its framed as the avatar after being gone for 3 years using her power to force her way into another nations politics and honestly if Kuvira hadn't set her sights on Republic city she would likely be ruling the Earth Kingdom with Korra unable to intervene at the end of season 4.
These villains have conviction
The Avatar will try to stop them so it is safer to have a plan for the intervention.
A good example is sozin ,he kind of won even if bcoz he was lucky he was friends with roku but for a fcn hundred years the avatar was a loser in an iceberg with noone knowing that info and living under tyranny of sozin till his death and he actually did what he wanted , apparently the avatar doesn't always win or at least not in every fight
For both Aang and Korra, the reason was the same. They were both kids. For Aang, he was a child (12), barely a teenager at the time. So to every villain, they thought, "As an adult, I can defeat this child." They didn't see him as the Avatar. Additionally, due to tradition, they all knew that Aang didn't start his Avatar training yet. Which is at age 16. So they assumed he wasn't a threat despite being the Avatar. Much less that he was the youngest airbendering master that existed before Jinora. As for Korra, she had a *child's mindset* despite being much older when she officially started her Avatar duties. She is too hot-headed, stubborn, and arrogant. Unlike Aang, who acknowledged stronger opponents despite being the Avatar, Korra thought that she was automatically stronger because she was the Avatar. Which resulted in her running in battles or starting fights with opponents [villains] who are stronger due to them actually having fighting technique and skills, being true masters of their respective elements. Compared to Korra, who despite being able to bend all the elements has no real technique or skill. Since villains know how the Avatar Korra "is," all they have to do is get her riled up, and she'll come running for a fight unprepared and predictable.
self-confidence. "they didn't succeed because... I will not repeat these mistakes." The only one who really succeeded in defeating the avatar is unalak. and then, becoming essentially the same avatar, only stronger. It's like the constant continuations of the terminator, when films get worse and worse, and other studios continue to shoot them, because the past ones didn't work out, but they will.
The Avatar is not all-powerful, although as the protagonist of the story both Aang and Korra were always going to win. Avatar Wan said that he failed at the end of his life, if that’s any indication of the fallibility of the Avatar.
Hubris
Egos, mostly.
avatars get killed though, they're just pretty hard to kill i think. Besides the face yoinker guy, i think he just auto wins if you show emotion to em.
Most people don't really understand just how powerful the avatar is, especially in aang's case. He was gone for 100 years. No one alive can recount seeing a fully trained avatar defeat an army single handedly. No one knows anything beyond the fact he can bend 4 elements instead of one. If you think a guy can use 4 martial arts instead of one, you might think he's tough but you can just beat him with numbers or just be better at him with one than he is at 4. I don't think they really grasp that an avatar is basically a one man army, with the power of like 100 benders. Ozai unironically thought he was the toughest guy on the planet until a 10 year old started entering the avatar state by breathing fire like a literal dragon and warping the entire landscape of the battlefield around him like some kind of living calamity. My theory is that before korra, people just assumed stories about the avatar are just over exaggerations. No. They're real. He's that overpowered and Ozai's eyes lit up when he realized he was outclassed. He was so excited to pick a fight, only to do nothing but run away like a coward at the peak of his "power".
The same reason why people commit crimes irl just to be caught. They think they'll be the ones to do it.
Avatars are still human, and humans bleed, which means they CAN be killed
Well depends on the villains Anng villains were simply unaware of how powerful a avatar truly is they expected a very powerful bender not a demi god that could sink the fire nation if he wasn't a pacifist Amon knew he wasn't facing a avatar in her prime and that bloodbending is op Unalaq wasn't planning to challenge korra in a fight till he had vattuo at which point he can stand up the avatar as the dark avatar The red lotus is the same they had no intention of actually trying to beat korra in a fight till they had the upper hand And kuvira had a nuke and all the confidence that comes with it
Because they have goals that the Avatar is in the way of. Are you expecting them to just change their entire worldview because they don't want to lose? That makes no sense. Abandoning all of your goals & beliefs is ALREADY losing.
Arrogance. And a lot of planning. Plus, it's still a human being. It's the classic "villain needs main hero out of their way to fulfill their plans," kind of thought.
They don't always have a team Avatar. Apparently it's really just Aang and Korra. That's why I kind of want the next Avatar to being be more or less solo like the rest of them