Over the series run of The Legend of Korra there have been quite a few posts and thoughts regarding the significant changes that bending had undergone in the seventy years that span the gap between it and The Last Airbender. Here, reddit, forums, you name it, somebody has pointed it out. Many of you remember ATLA as having titanic fights with massive feats of bending. And why shouldn’t you? Avatar Kyoshi made her own fucking island centuries before Aang’s time even began.

And who could forget that time Aang fused with the ocean spirit and destroyed an entire Fire Nation armada?

Or the time the Gaang assaulted the Earth King’s palace…

…The Last Agni Kai…

…The Hamster Ball of Doom…

Yes, I do like this gif feature. Thank you for asking! Anyway, these were all freaking awesome instances of bending.

It is also important to note that everything you see here, with the technical exception of Zuko’s Dancing Dragon style (because it was lost for who knows how long), are feats performed by traditional bending styles. Ancient techniques refined over millennial. This was how Korra was trained since she was a toddler, but we’ll come back to that.

These examples also share some very important traits that aren’t commonplace in TLOK. For now, we’re going to focus on the first and most obvious.

They all exhibit massive amounts of casual property damage.

The Last Agni Kai actually cleverly subverts this by having Azula banish everyone so the fight can be as huge as it became without people asking questions about how many people did those two burn to death, but the rest of this, and the show proper, for the most part…yeah, things explode. A lot. And that was just the way things were back then.

Without very much of a centralized government or law enforcement outside of the Fire Nation, there wasn’t really any stopping this kind of thing. If you had power, you could destroy villages. Sure, the locals will rise up, but most of them probably aren’t benders, so it’s gonna be hard to stop warlords from raising hell whenever they feel like it. Because these warlords can toss giant rocks and waves and set a forest on fire on a whim. They’re no joke!

Sorta sounds like the kinda of thing the Equalists were so pissed about, eh? Well. It was. That’s literally what it was before Amon perverted it into a militant, genocidal extremist group.

Fast forward seventy years after the end of the war, and things have changed. In fact, they’ve changed so much that Bryke included an entire sequence into 1x01 “Welcome to Republic City” to show everyone how and why bending has evolved.

(gif source: http://giffingkorra.tumblr.com/, couldn’t find in the search)



“Let’s see… multiple counts of destruction of private and city property, not to mention evading arrest… You’re in a whole mess of trouble, young lady.”

Yeah, so Korra destroyed an entire city block to bust some heads. Which is, y’know, bad. Vigilante justice isn’t okay, even if she is basically a super hero. She beat up cops, probably hospitalized a few, and made them bring out their airships just to catch her and Naga. All because of one little shopkeeper.

Feel like a lot of people missed the extreme importance of this scene, especially Lin’s introduction. Times have changed. The Gaang’s old style of doing things, ie the old show’s style of storytelling, ain’t gonna fly in this ‘brave new world’. Because the Gaang were a bunch of vigilantes running around the world doing stuff, which makes it even more poignant that it’s Lin Beifong, daughter of Toph, that sets Korra straight in her misconceptions about how the world works. Korra is very much the stand-in for the audience in this moment, as she is for the first few episodes. But this part here, which I’ll be stressing indirectly a lot, takes the cake as the giant blaring red flag of the how and why of Korra’s time period.

There is an organized police force. There is bureaucracy. There is order. There is a government that’s not tyrannical and is actually trying to make things work. People own property now, and that actually means something. Private citizens aren’t just background fodder, and collateral damage isn’t just a laugh and a half.

There is consequence to the abuse of bending power.

Again, sounds like an Equalist thing, because it is. Of course, Korra learns pretty quickly that she shouldn’t be destroying roads or resisting arrest, and her idealized vision of what the Avatar does out and about slowly starts to crack, which is an arc that takes the rest of the series to complete. And Lin, in so many ways, starts it off. You’re probably all wondering what this has to do with this essay proper, and we’ll get there….right now, thanks to our man Bolin!

Remember back in 1x02 “A Leaf in the Wind”, when Bolin gives Korra a few pointers in proper probending form? Yeah, that was about ten thousand times more important to world building than you probably caught.

“That was great! Good power! But in a real match, you’d be a sitting turtle duck. Not so upright and flatfooted! Stay light on your toes, right up until the moment when you need to dig in and strike. Then…pop, pop!”



“Okay, let me try it again.”



(gifs by lokgifsandmusings​. Thanks!)



That’s it. There it is. Look, we already know that Fire Lord Sozin succeeded in his ambition to bring Fire Nation culture to the rest of the world (the fact that the United Republic even exists is proof enough), but this is a huge factor that he probably didn’t recognize as a possibility. Bolin is not earthbending in any traditional sense, and Korra is sort of shocked by this notion. He’s kind of doing the complete opposite, and that’s something that Korra probably thought was totally impossible. All her life she’s had the old ways drilled into her head, and they are effective, but this new style, well, it’s just like firebending. And boy does she love firebending.

Thus, she ‘adapts’, and we very quickly see that all probending is based upon firebending. Quick, short movements, and always attacking. Positive jing up the wazoo. So, yeah, Sozin won in spades. Modern forms of bending trump the traditional forms in so many ways, because they are, first and foremost, efficient.

Benders have learned how to accomplish far more, with much less.

Y’know what wasn’t efficient? Traditional bending and the entirety of ATLA. Just because a move is flashy, doesn’t mean it’s better or more effective. Typically, it’s not. Hell, people take cover in TLOK, which was pretty rare in ATLA if memory serves.

Necessity is the mother of invention, just as limitations inspires innovation. As society grew more modernized, benders had to adapt and become more controlled. More accurate. They had to learn how to accomplish the same thing with a tiny fraction of what they used to have. And they did.

The Metalbending police force is a perfect example of this. Minimal collateral damage, tight control, agility, and prizing immobilization over personal injury. Those cables they use aren’t just for show. Additionally, the RCPD (okay, Tarrlok’s Task Force) employs modern ‘SWAT’ style tactics when dealing with the Equalists, which includes synchronizing earth and waterbenders, because it is really damn efficient.

This is exactly what Iroh was talking about in “Bitter Work” when he taught Zuko about the other elements, and how waterbenders showed him that redirecting lightning was possible. Republic City is a melting pot of culture in every facet, so it’s only natural that bending would be a huge part of that. These new styles are a direct result of the closer connection different cultures have to one another thanks to the United Republic, which shows even more just how far the Avatar world has progressed since Aang’s time.

But really this is just scratching the surface. Sure, it’s easy to understand the rationale behind the less destructive feats of bending in TLOK on an analytical level, but the bigger question is what does this tell us about character? How does the manner in which a person fights inform us about who they are? And how does it do so in such a crazy effective way?

Stop wonderin’, ‘cause I’m about to lay it all out. Now that we understand the how and why of bending in TLOK, we can dig deeper into how these things characterize the Krew, and how it reflects in the cultures around them. For the purposes of simplicity, well for me, I’m going to take a moment here to clarify a little style system I cooked up for classifying the mentality behind each character’s approach to combat.

First, is the dual jing classification. We’ll just be focusing on the three important ones: Positive, Neutral and Negative. For those who may not recall:

Firebending - Positive Jing (Attack/Aggression) [Passion/Life/Breath]

Airbending - Negative Jing (Dodge/Retreat) [Freedom/Agility]

Earthbending - Neutral Jing (Block/Grounded) [Wait n’ Listen/Substance]

Waterbending - Positive + Negative Jing (Counter/Adapt) [Flow/Change]

For the purposes of this piece, the primary jing a character relies on will be ordered first, and the secondary one being…well, second. Then, we have the Element Mentality classification, which is essentially what their combat style is most similar to in terms of traditional bending forms. What tactics they use the most, that kind of thing. So, the classification will read something like this:

Tahno

Positive/Neutral, Waterbending

Tahno, the doofus that he is, is extremely adaptable in the ring. Blah blah blah, stuff about rocks in the water, things regarding his arrogance and aggression making him an ideal probender etc.

Obviously the real ones will be much more comprehensive and interesting than that, but Tahno serves as a more than appropriate test subject. Pbbth, just look at him. Dumbass. All right, then. Let’s get started.

(Just gonna preface this by saying I’m approaching this from a place of non-bias, and all conclusions here are based on the show’s internal logic and not on my personal feelings. And let me tell you: it didn’t change much.)



Avatar Korra (Book 1)

Positive/Positive, Firebending

This should come as no surprise, but Korra’s primary method of approach in the first season is to overwhelm the enemy with brute force until they surrender or are no longer in a position to fight. It is textbook Hundred Year War era firebending, in a sense. Though thankfully it’s clear as day that she’s drawing her fire from her breath, not her anger. She may be headstrong, but she’s not one to make that mistake. She’s constantly aggressive, and combative even in conversation. A skill that she very much lacks at this point is foresight.

She doesn’t plan ahead, nor does she, outside of probending or very specific instructions, really adapt to a new situation in way that suits it. Antithesis of waterbending, which is of course a big part of the point here. Her style is, in some ways, archaic, as she learns very quickly while fighting chi-blockers, mecha-tanks, and other probenders. What she was taught is inherently resistant to adaptation and change because that’s just ‘the way things are’. Or rather, were.

For example, when Tarrlok attacks her (important to note that he struck first, not her), she basically curb stomps him and keeps fighting even though Tarrlok is, from her perspective, defenseless. Sure, he plays the bloodbending card, but she was going to set him on fire. Not a great plan, since that is well beyond what would be considered self-defense.

At 17, we all know Korra had a lot of problems with restraint (they explicitly say it during her Firebending training), which gives her some unfortunate parallels with Zhao, as her bending (and behavior) can be just as destructive to herself as it is to everyone else around her. As the season goes on, she does indeed change, and tries to fight smart against Amon. Sort of. Of course…psychic bloodbending, so it didn’t matter, but the point is that her mentality changed. Slightly. Though, in the end, her primary tactic won.

(I could go on for a looooong time about how thematically awesome this one moment is, but that’s not what this post is about.)

Avatar Korra (Book 2)

Positive/Neutral, Firebending



Yes, Korra gets one of these for each season (and two for Book 4), since as I said before her arc is inherently tied to all of this. Her biggest physical change here, between Books 1 and 2, is that she’s essentially mastered airbending, and now has access to the Avatar State. And, now this is important, she has learned to think ahead. Now, the plans she comes up with aren’t exactly ideal, or even the best, nor do they really work out in the end, but she’s making a goddamn effort and that’s half the battle right there. She’s still quite aggressive, as we can see from her casual and frequent use of the Avatar State, and using Naga as a clever method of interrogation. However, the growth she’s undergone allows her to see that dark spirits aren’t inherently evil, and eventually masters Unalaq’s spirit bending technique. She’s more patient, and waits for what she believes is the right moment to attack, even if her actions in getting to the point of combat were inherently antagonistic and hostile.

This also translates to how she deals with the Water Tribe Civil War, and the constant bargaining and negotiations she participates in. She’s on the offensive, but she’s fully aware of the consequences her actions will most likely have. For the most part. She ain’t perfect.

Really, though, the best examples of how her altered mentality affects her combat is every single freaking time she dodges or counters an enemy attack. She very, very rarely did that back in Book 1, and that was only because she was co-opting airbending forms, which anyone could do. In fact, her use of airbending in Book 2, and other non-lethal tactics (the fight with her tribesmen in “Civil Wars, Part 1″ being a perfect example) is visual shorthand for how emotionally invested she is in what’s around her.

Air, for the most part, won’t leave lasting damage, and she doesn’t attack anyone with fire unless she fully intends to end them, which is a huge change from Book 1, where fire was her bread and butter. It’s also worth noting that this new adaptability is especially apt considering how the Water Tribes are so prominent in Book 2. Korra’s reconnecting with her culture, and preserving it, while co-opting it into her already established mentality. And, well, then this piece of thematic brilliance happens:

(Yet another thing I could go on about for hours and hours.)

If Korra were still as headstrong and resistant to different tactics as she was in Book 1, they’d have 10,000 years of darkness. She would be closed off and, even if she tried to do this, would fail. She’s spent the entire season trying to hit Unalaq where it hurts, but wasn’t the best at waiting for the right moment. In fact, her tendency toward aggression nearly destroyed the world. However, even in those failures, she was still able to fight with renewed perspective, and adapted. Not to mention going beyond the impossible.

Avatar Korra (Book 3)

Neutral/Positive, Earthbending

Now, here is where things start to get very, very interesting. This change may seem slight, but it makes a world of difference. Korra’s default response to most frustrations is still, well, frustration, but most of the time it’s not paired with violence, unlike previous seasons. It’s not quite that she’s cooled off, but moreso that she’s learning to pick her battles. Raiko? Sure, she gets in his face, but she doesn’t airbend him into the next city. The Earth Queen? She keeps threatening to beat her up, but we all know she won’t. She’s just venting.

Air and earthbending are her go-to elements in Book 3, with fire almost entirely absent outside the finale. Polar opposites, yet they work rather well in tandem thanks to Korra’s execution of them. The addition of metalbending is notable, and we’ll get more in depth when we get to Bolin’s profile. Short version: Korra’s traditional earthbending training is what makes metalbending possible for her…besides the fact that she’s like the greatest kinesthetic learner who’s ever lived.

She’s more tactical, more patient, and her newfound respect for Raava and the abilities that she’s been blessed with aren’t just toys or ‘booster rockets’ to her anymore. In fact, it’s only after the Red Lotus infiltrate Zaofu that she even starts looking for a fight at all. The plot of Book 3 moves not at the speed of the Krew, but of the Red Lotus. Korra’s totally content to just keep gathering up airbenders…even if her stubborn moral compass lead her to literally start a giant war between the Southern Water Tribe, the United Republic and the Earth Kingdom.

(sorry, no gif of this)

…which thankfully never happens because a certain dumbass got impatient and wanted to show off a new trick.

Still, though. That would’ve been bad. But hey, Korra chose stealth and foresight over just blowing a giant hole in the ground to get the airbenders out, so that’s something. Teamwork and unity are huge concepts in Book 3, and that reflects in Korra’s ever-changing approach to combat. The airbenders help themselves escape, the Krew goes on a stakeout (that actually works), that debacle with the airship, and the airbenders even come back to help her defeat Zaheer in the finale. But, there’s one sequence that really stands out in this regard.

Korra is perfectly comfortable in letting her father do the heavy lifting, which is a drastic change. Korra’s always seen herself as the one to do the big job, the one who fights the bad guy and wins. Even when she has help, it’s still mostly her victory. But here, none of that matters, because she is totally focused on saving the airbenders. That’s her goal, and she’s gonna stick to it. Even if it kills her. Which it very nearly did.

Avatar Korra (Book 4, pre-Reunion)

Negative/Negative, Airbending

You really do have to split Book 4 into two sections for Korra, because she is just not herself for more than half of it. Every bit of combat she sees before she gets to Republic City is her running. Running from herself, from that dark not-quite-a-hallucination version of her, from her past foes, from random jerks in the Earth Kingdom. She leaps, she rolls, she dodges. Conflict is hell for her because she knows she’s going to lose any fight she gets in, because that’s what she’s internalized. Even against Kuvira, when she tries to go back on the offensive, she’s so out of it that she’s just..slow. It doesn’t look or feel natural. And frankly it reminds me a lot of Aang whenever he was forced into conflict with something. He’d cut and run, or find some way to just bow out so it didn’t even matter. Korra’s reluctant usage of the Avatar State, which isn’t even ‘whole’ at the time, to defeat Kuvira is really just another ‘out’. And a failed one at that.

Avatar Korra (Book 4, post-Reunion)

Neutral/Positive, Waterbending

Few words are necessary, since the show was pretty damn clear already. She’s proactive, uses her enemy’s strength against them, waits ‘n listens, adapts on the fly, plans ahead and gets her groove back. I mean, she really gets her groove back.

Bolin “Nuktuk” Beifong



Neutral/Negative, Airbending

Bolin is a special case. From the very beginning, he’s shown to be accurate, efficient, and rejecting basically everything that Toph taught us about earthbending in ATLA. He’s light on his feet, and works best in tight spaces, which is very unique for an earthbender. This is a direct result of his upbringing with Mako. Since they were both orphans on the street, they had to learn how to survive, and often times that probably meant hiding and running away. They had to be fast, or they’d be dead. His style is cobbled together from probending, the stuff he made up himself, and watching his brother. It’s chaotic and at the same time very tight and contained. It’s constantly flipping from one to the next, just like him.

Bolin is the guy who can headshot a terrorist from twenty yards, through smog, in the middle of the night with a fucking pebble.

He’s also the guy who can strap himself to a goddamn plane, hundreds of feet in the air, and sling plastic explosives like frisbees.

He’s even the guy who can tear a street up into a barrage of rocks while riding in the back seat of a roadster going well over 60mph. None of that qualifies as conventional earthbending. This is the kind of thing Toph would probably laugh at.

What’s more is that he’s far from stubborn, and tries to avoid conflict at most opportunities. Jokes, distractions, food, Pabu, his vast reserves of pure charisma. Bolin wants everyone to be happy, and he’s the most ‘opposite’ earthbender in either series by a massive margin.

Which is exactly why his ability to lavabend makes so much sense. Lavabending is crazy. It’s liquid rock. It takes an absurd amount of energy to phase shift rock into lava, but it can be done. However, you can’t do something like that by following traditional methodology. You’ve got to get creative and crazy with it. Ghazan embodied this as well, though he wasn’t quite as fast or accurate.

Bolin picking up lavabending, combined with his inability to metalbend, only supports the notion that you need a background in classical earthbending to even start to understand metalbending. How can Bolin focus on the bits of earth inside the metal if that’s not how he earthbends in the first place? He can’t. That wouldn’t make sense.

But for Bolin, lavabending does. Because he’s not your typical earthbender.

Mako

Positive/Negative, Firebending

Mako is one of the few firebenders who can actually dodge. He’s cool under fire, sometimes literally. Like his younger brother, his style is based almost entirely on survival, even if it’s just a small permutation of regular probending. He approaches nearly every fight with a cool head, because fighting stupid will get him killed. The fact that he’s so much more aggressive than his younger brother in a fight tells us that, along with his rather awkward social hangups, his little bit in 1x03 “The Revelation”, when he says he did what he had to do protect Bolin, was quite a bit more meaningful than it initially appears.

Essentially, Mako fought through their childhood so Bolin didn’t have to, which makes their disparity in both combat and social interactions far more interesting to watch because it makes perfect sense. Mako’s own self-imposed role is that of the guardian, more often than not of Bolin. This doesn’t translate well to everyone else, but his first instinct is almost always to protect those who are at the greatest risk. The most visceral example being pulling Asami to the ground when Aiwei bombed his house.

There are plenty more examples of Mako’s protective instinct, but we’d be here all day if I just listed all of them here—oh fine here’s a few more.

Mako’s the guy who steps up when somebody’s gotta die, and there’s no other way out. Because that’s instincitual to him, since it carried over from all those years of looking after Bolin. Other people’s lives matter more than his, in his mind. Of course, he lives, but he was still willing to make that sacrifice. A lot. Basically all the time.

Now, in direct contrast to this, Mako is capable of both redirecting and generating lightning, as we see above. Lightning generation is no joke, even in Korra’s era where it’s a far more common technique, which in itself is a fantastic example of just how much further bending has evolved. There are multiple cases where Mako uses lightning to disable or distract, without the intent to kill, so he must have some control over the power that he’s generating.



It’s this restraint, and full awareness of the power that he possesses, that makes the choice kill Ming-Hua all the more powerful. Sure, he was backed up in to a corner, but he was trying to find a way to win, as he always does, without resorting to something that he knows will kill them.

Asami Sato

Negative/Neutral, Waterbending

Asami doesn’t get hit. No, really. She doesn’t take a single hit that doesn’t involve crashing aircraft, mecha-tanks (which wasn’t technically her) a psychic bloodbender or an invisible electric fence. Through the entire series, that’s it. Everyone else gets hit a lot, Korra the most, and this is not a non-bender thing. Sokka and Suki got hit all the time! It’s completely insane at just how fast she is, and how many different principles she applies to the way in which she fights. And not just fights, but how she operates in general.



Asami’s been in ‘self-defense’ classes since she was six, ie right after she lost her mom. Half of that statement is mostly bullshit. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure self-defense classes don’t let you fight essentially on par with a goddamn Kyoshi warrior.

You think she just grabbed that spear for kicks? Uh, no, that doesn’t make any sense. Dude is already down. She knows how to use that thing. We don’t see it, but what other explanation is there for her actually holding it correctly after pulling a stunt like that? It really makes you wonder what kind of other weapons she’s proficient in (ie, the implication that Kuvira knows swords and staves due to her fight with Suyin in 4x10) because clearly the glove is all about efficiency. Which, as we’ve already explored, is the foundation that all bending, and combat in general, is based upon in Korra’s time period.

For her, every strike is a KO. Every. Single. One. She doesn’t waste energy, and exploits every weakness she can find. What’s more is that her primary shortcoming here is that it takes time to ‘close the gap’ between her and benders, since she doesn’t have any sort of ranged attack. Yes, the Equalists again, because they’ve always been sort of right (sans Amon’s genocide, of course) So, she was trained to fight benders. She counters basically everything that’s thrown at her, and overwhelms the opposition.

Asami’s not an inherently aggressive person. In fact, she tries to defuse conflict before it can really take off, and often searches for alternative explanations for things that would force her into a position to get in a fight. Though, unlike Bolin, she does not shy away from conflict, and in a sense even embraces it when given no other choice. Well, more specifically, she tries to end the fight before it even starts by outsmarting everyone. And not ‘outsmart’ as in a preemptive strike, but more in the sense that she’s taking the gun out of the other guy’s hand and field stripping it. Additionally, her ability to take on five mooks at once without batting eye is a pretty telling look into how she deals with stress. When the odds are stacked against you that much, and that often, that you just sort of expect it, you’re really not dealing with your issues in good way, which Asami…mostly doesn’t.

She can dodge and counter all she wants, but the fact that people are still taking shots at her means those problems are still there, even if she keeps trying to avoid them and keep herself occupied with literally anything else. So, yes, Asami flows like water, she adapts, in life and in a fight, but just because a river moves, doesn’t mean it’s going to the right place.

And that, folks, is essentially how combat informs character, cultural progress, and vice versa. I hope this was as interesting for you to read as it was to write, even if I’m pretty sure it got a little rambly at times, but that’s me, so, aheh. If you want another character written up in this style, or think I done goofed somewhere in here (it’s very likely because this post is huge) drop me an ask and I’ll see what I can do!