Avatar: The Last Airbender/Headscratchers/The Finale: Difference between revisions

** Making sure Zuko was dead ASAP would be the logical, rational decision to make in Azula's position, and at that point Azula is anything ''but'' logical and rational. She's a cackling madwoman during that fight, not the careful tactician.

** Point taken. I guess I've been watching too many movies and games where [[Ax Crazy|ax crazy characters]], heroes and villains alike, use their insanity to [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill|make extra sure their target feels their wrath and dies...]]

 

* Something that has stuck to me for a while... when Zuko was injured and Katara getting chased by Azula, Azula at what one point does this exagerrated salute at Katara, what was that about? I mean, the gesture was obviously meant sarcasticcally, but what is it supposed to mean regularly? I don't recall any specific movements that are meant show allegiance or respect being demonstrated, besides bowing or kneeling, and suddenly someone is doing something that looks like a cross between the American Salute and the Nazi Hail ( What? Go watch the clip, that is totally what she does). I guess she might have just come up with it on the fly, but if she had enough presence of mind to snark and verbally taunt the two, she would have enough presence of mind to pick a gesture that would have gotten the message of "I'm using this sign of respect mockingly" across clear enough to catch.

*** Yes, disqualification. It's still an official duel, because it's presented as a challenge explicitly as Agni Kai. That means it's under whatever the Code Duello is in the Fire Nation--and there's nothing to suggest that Agni Kais normally have a method to prevent "accidental" death--it's a duel where you're ''hurling fireballs at each other''. Death is probably an implied, and expected, possibility.

*** If there was any disqualification, it was on Azula's part when she attacked Katara in the first place.

 

* When Sokka, Toph, and Suki infiltrate one of the Fire Nation airships, Toph uses metal armor to protect herself from the firebending. Shouldn't she have been badly burned since metal is a good heat conductor?

** I think benders can control over the temperature of the element they're bending on some level. That would also explain waterbenders' ability to switch between ice/water and Azula's ability to switch between blue/orange fire as well.

*** You're also not taking into account that that metal was on a Fire Nation airship. If the ship is powered by firebenders, it would stand to reason that the metal, which, as mentioned above, was very thick, would be designed to absorb minimal heat.

* In the finale, couldn't Katara just have bloodbended Azula into submission instead of running around the palace until she found a chain? Even if she has objections to bloodbending, she's been shown using it when she really has to, or is really pissed off, such as against Hama and the retired Southern Raider captain.

**** Somebody did a count. 26 of the 61 episodes feature a full moon.

**** Hama mentions that the cycle is monthly. Chalk it up to simple background animation instead of dealing with a full lunar cycle.

*** The whole series takes place over the course of something like 11 months. There's a lot of subtle timeskips too that aren't explicitly acknowledged. Like "The Waterbending Master" shows the moon as a thin crescent (I can't tell if it's waxing or waning because I don't know much about the moon), and the Siege of the North, the next episode, has it full, so there's at least a couple weeks if not the better part of a month between the two episodes.

** She ''really'' hates the fact that she can and only used one other time in the whole series. Even then it was when she {{spoiler|was hunting down her mother's killer.}}

** The archeologist/scholar he and the Gaang abandoned in the sinking library of the Knowledge Spirit.

*** To be fair, the professor simply ''refused to leave''. This troper likes to think that after Wan Shi Tong calmed down, he recognized a true kindred spirit in the professor and decided not to kill him after all.

** While he did shoot the ship down, it went down fairly slow. The deaths were likely minimal, if at all. Aang's only shown a problem with killing as a conscious decision. Shooting the ship down the way he did gave the crew a chance. Also, he only raised the ocean for a minute at most, then put it back. He specifically has nightmares about the Ocean Spirit controlling him, so it's not like he doesn't care. Finally the archaeologist wanted to stay. Not Aang's problem.

*** There's also a shot that shows the crew of one of the downed airships huddled on top of it to avoid the water.

**** Actually, before Zuko got frozen against the wall, there was a point in the battle where he was completely encased in a sphere of ice by Katara, but he still managed to blast free despite having injuries from the explosion that destroyed his ship and having just swam through freezing Arctic water. He was utterly exhausted but still managed to bust free, so it stands to reason that Azula could have done the same as well. It really didn't make any sense why she didn't, especially since her firebending was enhanced by the comet, making it likely easier to break free.

*** Zuko was encased in a ''hollow'' sphere of ice. He even ''speaks'' while in it. He could both move AND breathe.

*** When Zuko was breaking into the Northern Water Tribe, he swam underneath the palace and was trapped under the ice, so he didn't have any air to breathe either but still managed to superheat his hands and melt through the ice. Azula could have done the same, seeing as how Zuko did so without any breath. So why didn't she?

**** Zuko could still move, and had the benefit of a teacher who trained him in doing that sort of thing. Azula was already batshit insane and completely immobile.

** She ''didn't'' care about them. Azula is all about controlling every aspect of her life. She trusted that Mai and Ty Lee could be ''controlled'', not that they were her friends. She knew that Mai didn't like her, and expected Mai to do treacherous things. Mai betrayed her for Zuko's sake, and Ty Lee proved that she'd side with Mai over Azula any day (in Azula's head, anyway). Second, she's about perfection. In her first episode, she redoes a kata that was executed purposely, because one of her hairs was out of place (See also: Katara slicing her hair in the Season 2 Finale, and then Azula butchering her own hair in Season 3 finale). She strives to ''be'' perfect, by any means necessary. That's her [[Fatal Flaw]]. After Mai and Ty Lee betrayed her, she suddenly finds Zuko able to fight her to a standstill in every encounter they had, and then ''defeat her'' in the end. Third, [[Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas|Even Azula Loves Her Mama]]. And she always thought that her mother liked Zuko more than her. And as of ''The Boiling Rock,'' She ''knows'' that Mai likes Zuko over her. That opened up the mommy wound from the [[Beach Episode]]. So she connects all of this in her mind: ''Zuko's the reason I lost control over Mai, as well as the reason that mommy left me. Now Zuko is better than me, where did I go wrong, now my hair's not listening to me I can't trust anyone OMGBLARG!''

*** ...I still don't get it. Going by your line of reasoning, the cause of all her problems and imperfections is Zuko, so shouldn't she just want to kill him even more (thus ridding her of imperfection)? I fail to see how "Zuko is the cause of my problems" translates into "everyone is untrustworthy, randomly banish innocent people". Shouldn't it be "I will torture him to death while laughing" instead?

*** This troper thinks that you're on the right track, but there's more to it than that. Azula is [[Daddy's Little Villain]] through and through; she's dedicated her life to pleasing her father. Her [[Mommy Issues]] were all created because she acted sociopathically amoral and without love ''because Ozai taught her too'', and she had how he treated Zuko as a contrast. And just when she thinks she's proved herself to him once and for all, that she's done ''everything'' right, he tells her that she can't come with him to the final battle, because she has to stay at home and basically be a governor. She's sacrificed everything for this man who doesn't seem to care about her much at all.

** She always thought of them as friends, she just couldn't concieve of a way to deal with her 'friends' that wasn't based in control, fear, and domination, because she was raised by a sociopath with a raging Nietzchean Strong Rule The Weak complex and thought that was just how the world was. Look at the beach episode - the girl has no concept of how to interact with people other than crushing them with her iron, flaming fist. Once that stopped working, she had no idea what to do.

** Also, I like to believe that Azula's madness started with Zuko's treachery. I like to believe that, on some level, she wanted Zuko around. She appreciates him. She even loves him, to the extent that she can express that. Yes, she set him up with that whole "the Avatar is dead" thing, but remember: that's ''Zuko's'' fault. Zuko ''lied'' to her about the Avatar being definately dead; all Azula did was make sure that if he was lying, he'd take the fall for it. Remember, Azula was ''worried'' about Zuko when he kept going to see Iroh, possibly because she could see that Iroh was getting to Zuko. So when Zuko betrays her, she takes it ''very'' personally.

** There is no "reason" that she went crazy - she just is. Always has been. Her mother even recognized that there was something wrong with her (as revealed in "The Beach," among others). Trying to figure out what "triggered" her break is wrong, like asking why a rock falls out of the sky after you throw it up. Azula is a rare fictional representation of psychopathy - she's not a "psychopath" the way we use the term generally, but the true clinical definition. It wasn't being betrayed by Mei or Zuko or anyone else that did it. It's not inheriting a now-empty title. It's certainly not being left at home. She didn't go crazy "at the end." She'd always been that way. Azula is - truly, literally and at her core - a crazy person. She's been one since her first appearance, and in the end she couldn't mask it any longer.

*** Azula always had sociopathic ''tendencies'', but she wasn't always totally insane. For most of the series, she was a smart and competent villain who never did anything without a reason. Then, in the finale, she started having hallucinations and banishing people for absurdly trivial reasons. She would never have come as close as she did to winning if she'd been that irrational all along. The question remains--what made her snap?

**** I think that is the easiest of all; the character sheet refers to her mass banishments as 'Macbethian.' That is exactly who she becomes, [[Macbeth]]. She started 'seeing daggers' everywhere, her meglomania blowing it all out of proportion to the point that, what seems rational to her to protect her crumbling world, is absolutely batshit insane to us. What made her snap? The fact that she realized she had no human connection that she could trust drove her into a self destructive paranoia. Snap.

***** These are interesting points, but this troper would like to add in something. In the Beach Episode, she sat there looking vulnerable and bothered by the fact that her mother thought she was a monster. A psychopath/sociopath, as this troper understands the concept, does not care about a lot of things, including people's opinions of them. So the question this troper would like to raise is this: if Azula is truly a psychopath/sociopath, then why would she care about her mother's opinion of her (Something that evidently occurred years ago, as opposed to a few minutes or seconds ago)?

***** One of the traits of a psychopath is immense egotism and exaggerated sense of entitlement, which requires that not only must Azula believe that she is superior to everyone, but also believes that ''everyone else'' must also do so. Azula might not care that mere inferior beings think less of her, but her mother, who is supposed to adore her, instead criticizes who she is and favors ''Zuko'' (an obvious inferior) over her. Then later on her father essentially casts her aside, meaning that in her own mind ''both parents'' refuse to see Azula as the god-child that she knows she is. Her entire mind-set and world view simply ''will not'' abide by that.

* <ref> The following was moved from the main page, as it was under [[Fridge Logic]].</ref> Sozin's Comet lasts only a day. There was no way, NO WAY, that Ozai's little fleet of airships could have burned up the entire Earth Kingdom in that amount of time. And they started in an area of virtually empty wilderness. Environmental damage notwithstanding (which Aang later demonstrated that he could have fixed with a couple of breaths), they wouldn't have even been within miles of any population center of any kind by sunset. Aang and co. could have just waited out the day, ambushed the firebenders that night when they were tired from a day of fire-based lumberjacking (and no sun), and taken out the lot of them, with less than 1% of the Earth Nation's land area damaged and not a single human being yet harmed by the fire barrage.

*** Everything said and done certainly suggests that Ozai meant full well to burn the entire region to the ground. This troper attributes it to [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]].

*** This has already been covered before. Considering Sozin's Comet lending a power boost, and with strategic burn-paths, the fire would have easily continued on and overwhelmed anything in its path. Just because Sozin's Comet would only last several hours, if that, doesn't mean that Ozai and the rest of the fleet would have stopped their attack nor would it mean the fire currently burning would either stop.

* The same issue of timing could be applied to the "Day of Black Sun". The eclipse lasts 8 minutes! No one in their right mind would plan a military invasion of somebody's CAPITAL CITY with a window of eight minutes, even if they had an army of Terminators and air support from a fleet of B2's.

** It's specifically stated that the invasion was all about getting into the city for Aang to ''spend'' said eight minutes beating the Fire Lord's ass. I'm pretty sure Second, they ''weren't'' in their right minds. This was a ragtag group's last-ditch effort, and the only chance they'd get to have a ''remote'' chance of winning. It was an all-or-nothing kind of battle.

* In the finale, how did Zuko have the slightest idea where to look for Jun to use the shirshu and track Aang? More to the point, if, at the start of the finale, Sozin's Comet was three days away, how did they have time to get to that tavern from Ember Island, then to Ba Sing Se, THEN to the base with the airship fleet?

** They flew overhead, looking for whatever bar had tough guys crashing through windows and onto the ground?

*** Reinstall the guy with no Firebending? Reinstall the girl gibbering in a padded cell? As of the end of the series there are only two people of the royal Fire Nation bloodline who are physically capable of acting as sovereign, and they're both on the Avatar's side. Their rebellion has no claimants to back.

**** Monarchs always want to have more than one child, in case something happens to their first kid. Sozin and Azulon probably had siblings, so I'm sure that Ozai has cousins, second cousins, etc. who could claim the throne.

*** Yeah, you know the whole "no firebending" and "in a padded cell" thing? That happens '''after''' the battle is effectively over. Iroh and the White Lotus are old and wise, ''but they're not clairvoyant.'' They'll have no way of knowing that Aang is going to strip Ozai of his firebending or that Azula will go nuts. All they know is that there's a huge number of Fire Nation troops in Ba Sing Se, and they'll cause trouble if they're not dealt with, and may attempt to reinstall either Ozai or Azula. Ozai loses his firebending and Azula goes completely nuts after the Lotus made the decision to focus on Ba Sing Se.

*** Um, the White Lotus was ''entirely aware'' that Aang was going to take on Ozai, and Zuko & Katara were going after Azula. It was all part of a coordinated attack plan. The overall scheme assumed that all three mission teams would be successful... which, yes, is somewhat minus on "plan B", but its the last hour before the apocalypse and its all down to the band of plucky heroes to save the world, that's not exactly uncommon in such situations.

*** And? They didn't know that both Ozai and Azula would be left A) alive and B) be incapacitated. And regardless of whether Ozai or Azula survived and were left in a capacity to cause trouble, there is the fact that you've still got a large number of well-armed, fanatical and loyal soldiers in a fortified position that withstood a century of assaults by the most heavily-armed force in the world. They ''have'' to be dealt with at some point.

*** Ah, I think we're talking past each other. I entirely agree with you that Ba Sing Se needs a mission team to go after it and neutralize the forces there, I'm just saying that they did so with full confidence that the other two teams would also get their end of the job done and no further action beyond Ba Sing Se would be needed.

** Aren't the Fire Nation planning to wipe out the Earth Kingdom, which would include Ba Sing Se? The White Lotus needs to be there to prevent the massacre in that city.

** You guys ever heard of a power flux? You take out a leader of a very powerful, otherwise unrestrained, group of people, and they start going batshit insane. The firebending force in Ba Sing Se would've been -very- large, and they could have easily killed every inhabitant of the city in hours. A group of old people walking in and kicking ass would've been a very powerful deterrent.

*** Also, Zuko didn't actually stage a coup against Azula. She challenged him to a duel for the title of Firelord and forfeited the duel when she attacked Katara. Forfeiture counts as a loss, so Zuko won the duel and the right to be Firelord.

**** I always assumed that the main reason that a de-powered Ozai isn't a threat is that the Fire Nation seems to have an [[Asskicking Equals Authority]] mindset; every high-ranking officer we've seen has been a Firebender, and usually a powerful one, at that. It's entirely likely that a non-Firebender wouldn't even be considered eligible for the throne, much less have enough support to claim it.

* Near the end, when all the nations are gathered to hear Zuko and Aang's speech, we see The Duke hug Toph. I could understand if he likes her or they like each other, but nothing about that was ever explained before or after! I doubt it was just a friendly hug because he was eight or so and I don't think he would be giving girl a friendly hug.

** She puked in his helmet. At his suggestion. Bonding.

** Yes, he's known her all his life. That's ''why'' there's no real reaction from him. He ''knows'' Azula is insane, so her breakdown is not terribly shocking to him.

*** Agreed. Zuko didn't see her breakdown coming, but it didn't surprise him, either.

* Wouldn't the fact that it was Katara rather than Zuko who defeated Azula be totally against the rules of Agni Kai? Shouldn't there be huge protests against Zuko grabbing the throne from Azula, since he never really defeated her in a legitimate way?

** There's three witnesses to the whole thing, and one of them is frothing-at-the-mouth insane. If you want to get really technical, Azula cheated first by attacking Katara anyway.

****** Also, ''someone'' needs to claim the empty throne, and I doubt the Fire Sages would crown Azula, given her being literally foaming at mouth insane.

****** The other Agni Kai we saw showed it was a Man to Man (or to girl) Firebending battle. Anything beyond that is cheating, thus losing. She attacked Katara, the referee or something. That should count as cheating in any kind of honorable duel, which the Agni Kai is.

* Comets are made of ice. Why would a dirty snowball from space enhance firebending, of all things? Sozin's ''Asteroid'' would make more sense.

** Two possible explanations: Either the fact that the dirty snowball is burning up in the atmosphere and releasing heat, or that [[A Wizard Did It|A Spirit Did It]].

** As has been said many times over: [[Word of God]] is that Azula was put in an asylum where she is very carefully watched.

* I'm surprised that no one has said this yet, but why was everyone so worried about Sozin's comet and its effect on Firebending, and the relation of that to Aang's fight with Ozai? Did no one realize that the comet would increase Aang's firebending as well?

** 2x10 = 20. 100x10 = 1000. ''That's'' why.

* In "The Old Masters," June is right. The whole "Nyla is running around in circles because Aang no longer exists" thing _is_ a real headscratcher. IIRC, explanation for Nyla's talent isn't given, so my theory for how it works is this: First, Nyla smells around to "see" if the person she's tracking has been there before, then follows the scent trail. If the person being tracked _hasn't_ been there before, she smells the other people nearby, in case they already have the scent on them. She then tracks the scent trail of the second person until she finds the trail of the first. Obviously, she doesn't have some sort of laser-tracking, instantly-detect-scents-from-miles-away super sense, or else she wouldn't need to go everywhere her trackee has been. So how does her sudden panic mean that Aang doesn't exist? This troper's theory is that June is lying.

 

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[[Category:Headscratchers]]

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