So I've started watching Avatar...

[VanBuren]

So I decided to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender recently. When I first saw a few episodes a couple years back, I thought it was pretty cool for a kid's show. Then I kept hearing about it on these forums so I eventually decided to take a serious look at it.

I don't regret that decision.

It's an excellent show in general, let alone as a kid's show. It's been a pleasure to get this far, and by the time I'm done catching up, it should almost be time for the last set of episodes to run. I'm really looking forward to how it ends.

That said, I've had a few issues with it. Mainly concentrated at the beginning.

1. Pacing.

This was mainly a problem at the beginning, but it still bothered me. It felt like they hadn't decided on the speed of things at first. Granted, this evened out pretty quickly after the first few episodes. And though I remember feeling this way again during an episode of season 2, I can't recall which one and so I feel it is of little consequence.

Example-
Katara: Aaang! Don't you get it? The reason you don't know about the war is because you've been frozen for a hundred years!

Aang: WhoamyGodYou'reRight. I will accept this without question because that is clearly the most logical explanation for my ignorance of the war and could not be sufficiently explained by being raised in a monastery. This will later be handwaved by occasional mentions of my worldly travels at the time which are peculiar as I was still training to be an Airbender and the other monks didn't seem to want me to be raised like a normal child so I'm not sure how I found time to go everywhere.

Katara: Let's just go back to the camp.

Aang: Er... yeah, sorry.


2. It's the Avatar!

He's been missing for a hundred years and then he shows up. Sure that rumor spreads and people expect him, but they still tend to buy it a little too quickly. (He has Airbender tatoos! He's the Avatar! No one could imitate those despite that they are common knowledge by now!)

Eventually this situation did arise on the way to Ba Sing Se where Aang's identity was not believed for this exact reason. I'm just surprised it took so long.

Also, why is there only one person in the world who actually bothered to mention to Aang that he abandoned them a hundred years ago? I think I'd expect a little more bitter from the people. Are they just that desperate for hope?

[Gungnir]

I always figured that Aang did his world traveling right after he left the monastery, and didn't find out about the FN's sneak attack because, well, it was a sneak attack.

[Otempora]

I've recently started watching Avatar as well, but I'm only halfway through Book One. So far it seems pretty slow and, while pretty good, not the amazing gift from God I'd been led to believe. I hear it gets better in the second season, though.

[Kato]

Yeah... I didn't notice but that's really kinda strange... I just think they didn't want to get hung up at cerain things such as searching for proof of the 100 year slumber and not always repeating the 'you left us, avatar!' rant... It'd be boring in no time, I think.

[H. Zee]

MST3K Mantra (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MST3KMantra), dude. Avatar is good enough that it merits a "Get Out of Jail Free" card on all such minor quibbles.

[Artemician]

MST3K Mantra (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MST3KMantra), dude. Avatar is good enough that it merits a "Get Out of Jail Free" card on all such minor quibbles.

On plenty of occasions though, it's beyond a minor quibble. How come Aang can bend enough air to uproot trees and hurl monstrous beasts around, but can't bend it enough to slam a piddly human into the ground repeatedly?

How come Bumi can bend through rock faster than a human can run in one episode, yet is unable to escape from Fire Benders on ground level?

How come about half the population recognizes Aang instantly by his Air Bender tattoos, yet the other half explicitly doesn't, even though he never makes the slightest attempt to disguise himself?

etc.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I've recently started watching Avatar as well, but I'm only halfway through Book One. So far it seems pretty slow and, while pretty good, not the amazing gift from God I'd been led to believe. I hear it gets better in the second season, though.It does definitely get a lot better starting in the second season. For one thing, Toph shows up. The plots also get a lot more emotional depth and intrigue. Also, Toph.

Make it at least to the first season finale, which has some cheesy moments, but is still genuinely awesome. Hopefully, that will get you excited enough for the much better second and third seasons.


On plenty of occasions though, it's beyond a minor quibble. How come Aang can bend enough air to uproot trees and hurl monstrous beasts around, but can't bend it enough to slam a piddly human into the ground repeatedly?

How come Bumi can bend through rock faster than a human can run in one episode, yet is unable to escape from Fire Benders on ground level?

How come about half the population recognizes Aang instantly by his Air Bender tattoos, yet the other half explicitly doesn't, even though he never makes the slightest attempt to disguise himself?

etc.Allow me to try and address this:

1) The slams aren't in the fighting style. Airbending is a martial art, so it's the same reason a judo practitioner doesn't punch people in the head. Also, they want to keep the violence kid-friendly, which is silly but necessary.
2) It's been a while, but didn't he want to be captured?
3) It's a question of whether or not the civilians choose to believe him, really. We see a few offhand references to Avatar impersonators, so some people are just less gullible than others. And in Season 3, he does start making an effort to disguise himself.

[TheLogman]

To be fair, the Air Nomads were reclusive at times, so not all the population would be aware of them.

Also, the King let himself get caught.

[EvilElitest]

Avatar has some flaws, and i admit a few real bad moments in terms of writing, but generally it is a really good show. I mean, it is better than a lot of teen aimed shows. Hell, i wish they did a Avatar styled Buffy the Vampire slayer, because that would be amazing


Also A full metal alchemist Avatar but still

from
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[Ubiq]

This will later be handwaved by occasional mentions of my worldly travels at the time which are peculiar as I was still training to be an Airbender and the other monks didn't seem to want me to be raised like a normal child so I'm not sure how I found time to go everywhere.

I don't see how that conflicts with anything. The Air Nomads probably moved to another temple every so often (if nothing else, Appa wasn't from the same Air Temple as Aang originally) and doing so would have provided Aang with the opportunity to visit other places. Even then, in The Storm, we see Aang being left out of a game because the other children were aware that he was the Avatar. That heavily suggests that his status as the Avatar wasn't determined until a short while before then; as such, the idea that he wasn't to be treated as a normal child was probably also something that didn't come up until then either.


(He has Airbender tatoos! He's the Avatar! No one could imitate those despite that they are common knowledge by now!)

Quite a few people don't identify him as the Avatar until they actually see him Airbend though, tattoos or not. Plenty of people (especially in the Earth Kingdom) interact with him without ever commenting on them; beyond that, well, I'm guessing not too many people wear those sort of tattoos on account of the fact that the Fire Nation probably tends to kill anybody they see with them.

[VanBuren]

On plenty of occasions though, it's beyond a minor quibble. How come Aang can bend enough air to uproot trees and hurl monstrous beasts around, but can't bend it enough to slam a piddly human into the ground repeatedly?

Because each style of bending is based on a real-world martial art (actually Earthbending is actually based off two. Most just use one, but Toph uses a different martial art style for her bending on account of her blindness). That real world martial art does not involve a move like that.

In addition, Airbending is the only style to lack a finishing move since Air Nomads weren't really fond of the whole killing thing.


How come Bumi can bend through rock faster than a human can run in one episode, yet is unable to escape from Fire Benders on ground level?

Same reason he refused to leave with Aang.

There's positive Jing when attacking and Negative when retreating. There's a third--well over 80 actually, but let's just focus on the third--Neutral when you do nothing. The point was that, like a true Earthbender, he was waiting and listening for the right time to strike and, judging from some previews of the next couple of episodes, he found it.

[Arioch]

It does definitely get a lot better starting in the second season. For one thing, Toph shows up. The plots also get a lot more emotional depth and intrigue. Also, Toph.

Yeah, Toph's my favourite. I hope she doesn't get killed. Not only is she, in my opinion, the most awesome of the main four in terms of powers (avatar state excluded), it's also good to have some non-Sokka comic relief once in a while, and Toph provides that.

Avatar has something over other shows from the start: It isn't censored nearly as harshly. For example, characters can be killed, rather than knocked unconscious, banished to a different dimenson or sent to the shadow realm. It isn't shown explicitly often, but it does happen.

[FoE]

Because the first season is mostly Monster of the Week standalone episodes, it does seem a bit weak for about the first half dozen episodes or so. When Aang visits Avatar Roku's Island, however, the series starts taking on a serious tone, and the individual episodes start becoming more of a over-reaching storyline, and the character development gets dialed up to 11. I was officially hooked with the Season One finale, when the Fire Nation besieges the Water Nation.

[Arioch]

When Aang visits Avatar Roku's Island, however, the series starts taking on a serious tone, and the individual episodes start becoming more of a over-reaching storyline, and the character development gets dialed up to 11.

Avatar gets character development for the villains, not just the heroes. This is relatively uncommon even in adult shows, let alone kids' ones.

[Rogue 7]

To be fair, the villain with the most character development was set up to be a main character from the start.

And the finale's in two weeks- the 14th through the 19th. You've all got that much time to catch up. If you've bought the DVD or torrented, you don't have to start watching until Thurday the 17th. Finale's a 2-hour event that will be pure, epic win on Saturday. And they've finally started airing ads again (a bit...)

[Killersquid]

I watched the show when I was younger, and still do watch it to this day, however I have been absorbed by other programs (Mythbusters, Daily Show and Colbert), and I HAVEN'T SEEN A NEW EPISODE AIRED IN MONTHS!

[Nerd-o-rama]

Well, lucky for you, there hasn't been a new episode aired in months. Unless that's what you meant. The last five or six episodes are all happening in a rush in the second half of the month.

[Killersquid]

Yea, they decided to push back the start of the season to an absurd time, and because of that I've lost interest in seeing it. If it doesn't start soon, I may forget to even forget to see the new season.

[VanBuren]

To be fair, the villain with the most character development was set up to be a main character from the start.

And the finale's in two weeks- the 14th through the 19th. You've all got that much time to catch up. If you've bought the DVD or torrented, you don't have to start watching until Thurday the 17th. Finale's a 2-hour event that will be pure, epic win on Saturday. And they've finally started airing ads again (a bit...)

I've just been watching streams, actually. I just finished The Beach.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Yea, they decided to push back the start of the season to an absurd time, and because of that I've lost interest in seeing it. If it doesn't start soon, I may forget to even forget to see the new season.Actually, it's the middle (or rather the 3/4 mark) of Season 3 that we're in right now. It's all to do with the finale being delayed, and Nick deciding to only have one really big schedule lapse instead of two really big ones, one right before the series finale.

[Otempora]

Just finished Book One. The finale was awesome (cheezy, yes. But cheese goes well with awesome). I like the bending system a lot -- the elemental powers may be cliche, but I like the tangibility of it. I've had to repeat the MST3K Mantra to myself at times (but, seriously. Like diverting lava into a river isn't going to cause huge problems), but, overall, fairly solid show, and I'm looking forward to watching Book Two.