u/Kind_Cauliflower160

Am I the only one who feels like her crimes get glossed over a bit?

Authority got reworked, but Charm didn't? Why?

Also, hope he doesn't end up becoming death later on.

10/10 movie, no notes (person whose never seen the entire movie)

"How many broads is this guy dating?" - said the collective readerbase

One of the more notable aspects of ATLA is how self contained it is in the current media space of neverending franchises and cinematic universes. Now, while ATLA leaves some questions and plot points unresolved (i.e. Zuko's mother), the original show wraps up all of its major plot points in a decently neat bow by the end of the series. Now, its not like there cannot be any more stories in this world or that this cast of characters cannot go on other adventures, the original show wasn't built for endless sequels and spinoffs.

One of these aspects of the original show not being built as an endless franchise is the Avatar state. The Avatar state in the context of the original show was an uncontrolable powered up state which made our happy go lucky protagonist into an emotionless killing machine. Whenever the Avatar state appeared in the original show it was for something major as it made Aang the strongest character in the world, but he couldn't properly control it and he might hurt people he loves, not to mention how it goes against his pacifist beliefs.

This is why Aang doesn't unlock the full Avatar state until the end of the show because nobody could challenge the person who was able to move islands. Aang became OP, so the show ends, it works perfectly fine. However, this creates problems when you're making a sequel.

You see, the Avatar state just fundamentaly doesn't work with for future stories with the way it was handeled in the original ATLA. In ATLA the Avatar state made a 13 year old Aang able to easily trounce the strongest firebender in the world while he was boosted by Sozin's comet. That's why Aang doesn't get it properly until the very end of the show as he became too strong to be challenged.

Even if future generations after the one Aang was present in get significantly stronger that still doesn't erase the fact that Sozin's comet was considered a huge power boost for firebenders and Aang still trounced him easily in a fully awakened Avatar state, so nobody is ever going to be able to challenge a fully realised avatar without the equivalent of an Iron Man suit.

But, since avatar is an action cartoon this creates problems, as how can you have stakes if the main character has a super mode that can immediately kill any bad guy? Well, the original series simply said "You can't!" and ended the story. How do the sequels solve this conondrum? NERF THE AVATAR STATE!

The Avatar state got nerfed in all future stories due to Aang & Korra being able to effectively eliminate any stakes the story would have if he uses it. In TLoK and the new movie it doesn't feel like this awe inspiring transformation as it got explicitly nerfed.

Now, this was actually handeled well in TLoK Book 3 as Korra was poisoned and dying (which is weird that the Avatar state still activated for her in that circumstance considering that it didn't activate when Roku was dying from poison), so she couldn't just immediately kill Zaheer, but still had some presence and grandiosity to it despite that.

This presence is never felt again, while I understand that the intention was to show how Korra's opponents were stonger than the ones Aang faced, it in turn just feels like the Avatar state got nerfed. Its like Super Sayian now, it was a huge deal when it first appeared, but now everybody has gotten stronger and its not as special anymore. And no, Korra's Avatar state explicitly isn't weaker than Aangs (Source: Does anyone have Bryke's quote where they compared the destruction of the past lives with rebooting a hard drive? : r/legendofkorra)

And sometimes, it just forgets to activate. Like, Korra has the Avatar state at the end of Book 1, but then she just uses it at the beginning of Book 3 and not while she was getting kidnapped or while poisoned by a knockout dart. Like, Zaheer had her restrained as a part of the ransom, but there was no reason for Korra to not just immediately go into the Avatar state and kick his ass, restrained or not. And one of my favorite uses of it in Book 4 was when the giant mech was attacking Republic City, Korra activates the Avatar state to dodge an attack, but then just deactivates it.

No spoilers for the new movie, but with the way its handeled there its essentially now cannon that the Avatar state is moreso just a minor power boost currently.

Its just become a chain around the neck of the franchise, it cannot ever feel like it was in the original because it was too strong there, you have to include it in some way out of obligation, its an action cartoon so you cannot have the main characters avoid fighting like in some HBO drama and the franchise revolves around the Avatar, so they have to be one of the major characters.

Its unfortunate, but it kinda makes sense that if you want to continue the franchise that the Avatar state had to get hit by the nerf hammer, wether I like it or not.

Can you imagine if the president of the USA was some well known criminal?

At this point even the characters know that the Penance Stare is useless

This isn't jerk BTW. A trans woman was actually the head of Hydra for a bit

Smh, I can't believe they made my facist organisation woke

Martian Jobberman at it again

Honestly, I wish that Stevil didn't manage to gaslight Zemo into believing the two were friends and Zemo had to pretend that he was akways friends with him.