Role Playing in Avatar.

K · Post by K » Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:09 am

So I just watched the blood-bending episodes. I don't think blood bending was powered up from those episodes, but it was probably always the province of high-end benders. The full moon only seems to add power and the old witch needed the extra power because she kinda sucked.

Does anyone else think that the chi-blockers are just a cell of heart-benders? Maybe even heart-benders made by Amon?

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:41 am

Well, Ty Lee was a chi-blocker, and she didn't need any supernatural empowerment to do it. I think it's just a mundane skill.

EDIT: Tarrlock being Amon really doesn't make sense. Tarrlok is a water-bender, and Amon is a non-bender. Also Amon's face was burned, while Tarrlok's is still there. Yes, I suppose technically Tarrlok could be pretending to be a nonbender with a burned face, but it would be sort of lame is the super non-bending antagonist turned out to be a bender after all.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 7:09 am

Orion wrote:Well, Ty Lee was a chi-blocker, and she didn't need any supernatural empowerment to do it. I think it's just a mundane skill.

EDIT: Tarrlock being Amon really doesn't make sense. Tarrlok is a water-bender, and Amon is a non-bender. Also Amon's face was burned, while Tarrlok's is still there. Yes, I suppose technically Tarrlok could be pretending to be a nonbender with a burned face, but it would be sort of lame is the super non-bending antagonist turned out to be a bender after all.

Amon uses Energy Bending, which we already know from the previous show is a form of Bending. Amon's claims to be a non-bender are already known to be a lie. Amon's face is never shown, and we have only his word to say that it is burned. But we already know that he is lying about his backstory, so there's that.

-Username17

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 9:35 am

His story is that he was a non-bender until he spirits granted him the power to remove bending from benders because they were misusing it. That his power to take away bending is technically a form of bending itself is a detail he's brushing aside. He's a robot killing robot who won't have to kill himself at the end, because once there's no more bending to take away, he won't have a special power over others, which is what he's crusading against in the first place.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 9:49 am

Except that his spirit bender can, I think, give people the ability to bend, so he'll still have special power over others, because he can make more benders.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 12:14 pm

He's probably just a massive hypocrite. Also, odds are high that his claims to have recieved powers from the spirits are full of shit. If they were willing and able to do that sort of thing, they'd probably have done it during the century-long war.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:03 pm

Amon is totally Aang and Katara's middle child (Bumi).

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:29 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Amon is totally Aang and Katara's middle child (Bumi).

Unlikely unless Amon bleaches his fingers.

-Username17

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 3:37 pm

The biggest support for the Amon Tarrlock hypothesis is pretty much:

"If Amon isn't Tarrlock, then why is Tarrlock so fucking stupid."

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 3:52 pm

There is the possibility that Tarrlock and Amon are working together towards some end. Tarrlock seems dictatorial in the latest episode, maybe he wants to become dictator of Republic City. Why would Amon help him do that?

Maybe Tarrlock will help Amon greatly reduce the amount of benders in the city. Or some other payoff, like ending the legacy of the Avatar. With Amon's help Tarrlock can keep a small cadre of benders to keep the non-benders in check. Having Amon around will keep the benders in check. This is just a pet theory of mine but Tarrlock seems powermad.

Taishan · Post by **Taishan** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 4:55 pm

I don't get the feeling that Tarrlock and Amon are in cahoots. More like Tarrlock is irrational where bender-rights are concerned, to the point where he doesn't even care what non-benders do or don't do so long as benders stay on top. Tarrlock's game seems pretty upfront in that respect. Amon's got a deeper game to play.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 5:34 pm

Well, Tarrlok knew in advance that the Chi Blockers were going to be able to overwhelm the police at the arena and baited Lin into staking her reputation on holding them out. This strongly indicates that Tarrlok at least knew that Amon had an anti-metalbender weapon and the ability to get them into the arena. Which in turn strongly indicates that he knew that Sato was an equalist. Because if he didn't know that, why would he put such a large bet on the equalists being able to win that fight?

Without knowing that the city's biggest industrialist was building weapons for the equalists and also sponsoring the arena, it would be pretty damn silly to expect that Amon would be able to smuggle in enough weapons to overwhelm the police. And yet, that's exactly what Tarrlok did. So either Tarrlok is psychic or he knows a lot more about Amon's organization than he is letting on.

Then there's the issue that he was rather obviously attempting to let a group of Chi Blockers escape and got pissed off that Team Avatar stopped them. If Amon and Tarrlok aren't working together, there are some pretty big plot holes.

-Username17

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 5:51 pm

Oh, my money has been on them collaborating for a long time. But it's way more interesting to have two antagonists than one antagonist.

Saxony · Post by **Saxony** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 7:25 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: Then there's the issue that he was rather obviously attempting to let a group of Chi Blockers escape and got pissed off that Team Avatar stopped them. If Amon and Tarrlok aren't working together, there are some pretty big plot holes.

-Username17

Perhaps a dramatic reveal will later show that he was letting them escape for whatever good reason. And those meddlesome kids really were screwing up his good plans.

Taishan · Post by **Taishan** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 10:28 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:Well, Tarrlok knew in advance that the Chi Blockers were going to be able to overwhelm the police at the arena and baited Lin into staking her reputation on holding them out. This strongly indicates that Tarrlok at least knew that Amon had an anti-metalbender weapon and the ability to get them into the arena.

-Username17

Are you sure Tarrlok knew in advance? I just rewatched the bit where they were voting to put on hold the tournament, and 1) Tarrlok voted to put the tourney on hold with Tenzin, 2) was surprised when Korra showed up to the closed council meeting and 3) didn't switch his vote until Beifong brought up the argument that standing up to Amon would be a show of bender strength and unity. As far as setting up Beifong to take the blame, what conniving politician wouldn't do that? As far as Tarrlok knows, having Beifong and a bunch of benders at a bending tournament attacked by Amon would result in Amon getting his ass-handed to him, esp. if the strongest benders in the city (himself, Tenzin, the Avatar, and two teams of tournament benders and Beifong and her police) were in the audience.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 11:51 pm

Taishan wrote:(himself, Tenzin, the Avatar, and two teams of tournament benders and Beifong and her police) were in the audience.

And he was absolutely in the audience, and prepared to fight the equalists.

Say... Where was he during that whole fight with Amon thing?

Pretty much everything so far:
1) The whole tournament debacle.
2) randomly knowing where equalists hide outs are.
3) trying to let equalists escape.

shows that he is in the know with Amon in one way or another. That's basically a given.

The primary argument for Tarrlock being Amon given that is that if he is cooperating with Amon, then he's a fucking dumbass.

All his pissing off non benders/overly draconian law/avatar manipulation means he either is Amon, because all that stuff just makes Amon's victory easier, or he's so stupid that he thinks Amon will not take away his bending after they "win" at whatever their goal is, or he gives less than two shits about benders or being in power, and is just Amon's flunky who is willing to have his bending removed when it is no longer useful to his master.

So basically, Tarrlock is either not Tarrlock, or he's an idiot, or he's Amon.

Taishan · Post by **Taishan** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 2:24 am

Kaelik wrote:
Taishan wrote:(himself, Tenzin, the Avatar, and two teams of tournament benders and Beifong and her police) were in the audience.
And he was absolutely in the audience, and prepared to fight the equalists.

Say... Where was he during that whole fight with Amon thing?

doh, yeah, just re-watched that part. No Tarrlok at all in the audience.

Kaelik wrote: Pretty much everything so far:
1) The whole tournament debacle.
2) randomly knowing where equalists hide outs are.
3) trying to let equalists escape.

shows that he is in the know with Amon in one way or another. That's basically a given.

Sorry, while its possible you're right, I don't think its an ironclad argument given the info we have so far. Tarrlok opposed the tourney and manuevered Beifong into taking the fall for it if it went south, at which point he was for the tourney. He could have done that just because of some beef with Beifong. As for knowing equalists hide outs or letting them escape, you're assuming both those things; having intel on the equalists and not sharing that with Beifong doesn't make him an equalist co-conspirator, it makes him someone who doesn't want Beifong to succeed. As far as trying to let them escape, do we know for sure that's true? He could just be mad that Korra upstaged his special taskforce, which would be a blow to his prestige and perceived competence in running the special taskforce.

Kaelik wrote: So basically, Tarrlock is either not Tarrlock, or he's an idiot, or he's Amon.

I would definitely say that he's irrational, so among those three choices, I guess he's an idiot. I'd say he was a case of Hanlon's razor.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 3:12 am

It would be interesting if it turned out that Amon really did have a spiritual backer, and that was the library owl guy that lost faith in humanity during the previous Avatar cycle. Their stated philosophies seem pretty compatible.

(I'm midway through episode 5 right now, and I don't know if later stuff will touch on this or not)

K · Post by K » Tue Jun 05, 2012 3:21 am

Avoraciopoctules wrote:It would be interesting if it turned out that Amon really did have a spiritual backer, and that was the library owl guy that lost faith in humanity during the previous Avatar cycle. Their stated philosophies seem pretty compatible.

It'd be kind of cool if the spiritual mentor turned out to be that Face-stealer guy mentioned in the last episode of the first series. The reveal when Amon showed that he didn't have a face would be awesome.

Anyway, I think the big reveal of the series is going to be that anyone can learn bending. It would totally explain why two brothers have different kinds of bending and the whole bender/non-bender conflict.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 4:04 am

I am suspecting a bit more the likelihood of Tarlokk not being in cahoots simply by Korra triggering what looked like a berserk button when she likened him to Amon.

As for his blood-bending, maybe he has a former history with Amon, who boosted his bending prowess; Heart-Bending can't possibly only take away bending.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 4:18 am

What makes you so sure the berserk button wasn't "crap, they're onto me?"

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 4:34 am

K wrote:Anyway, I think the big reveal of the series is going to be that anyone can learn bending. It would totally explain why two brothers have different kinds of bending and the whole bender/non-bender conflict.

Yeah, I hope that's the surprise, because other wise, there is no way short of secret adoption for the Bolins to make sense.

I mean, they are called the Water Tribe because all their kids end up being either water benders or not benders. It's either genetic or it's cultural, it's not random.

Under the genetic theory maybe their parents were a Fire and Earth benders, but it's certainly unlikely, so much better that they just learned different bending because they were in Republic City, and unlike the Water Tribe/Earth People/ect they had access to more than one bending type.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 4:54 am

Actually, I think Mako and Bolin are strong evidence in FAVOR of elemental affinity being genetic rather than cultural. The idea that they might be descenced from Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom ancestors wouldn't unusual, it would be dead fucking common. Remeber, Republic City is a part of the old Earth Kingdom which was occupied by the Fire Nation during the war, and which had acclimated sufficiently to Fire culture that they didn't want to go back to Earth Kingdom after the war. So you have longterm mixing of military and civilian populations plus a shift in cultural values, you're going to see intermarriage left and right, not to mention other less savory origin stories.

Mako and Bolin grew up on the streets together, so they're as close as it gets to having identical cultural exposures. If they ended up bending different elements, that suggests that they had biologically different aptitudes. Since Bolin even LOOKS earthier than Mako, I think it's clear that biology plays a major role.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 5:19 am

name_here wrote:He's probably just a massive hypocrite. Also, odds are high that his claims to have recieved powers from the spirits are full of shit. If they were willing and able to do that sort of thing, they'd probably have done it during the century-long war.

You're assuming benevolent spirits - which is not really the case in the prior series.

If we assume that Amon isn't lying about the origins of the power, the way he is about being the kid from "Zuko Alone" then there are three spirits from the first series who might have granted him this knowledge. The Lion Turtle has the secret, but seems benevolent, so seems unlikely. The next option is that he pilfered Wan Shi Tong's sunken library - which seems rather implausible. Personally, I find it far more likely that the man who always wears a mask bargained with Koh, The Face-Stealer.

Either that or the flashbacks are going to explain how he keeps Aang's spirit captive.

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 5:24 am

K wrote:It'd be kind of cool if the spiritual mentor turned out to be that Face-stealer guy mentioned in the last episode of the first series. The reveal when Amon showed that he didn't have a face would be awesome.

Also pretty viable. I don't think this show is going to have the scope for there to be a twist involving a war between the spirits over whether humanity needs to be "fixed", but I really like the possibility that some want to make things happen in the human world and are doing so via mortal proxies/allies.