Avatar:TLA Miscellaneous Ideas Thread

If you want an Avatar with a god complex without resorting to original characters you could always have Azula be the Avatar.
 
Dark Knight Gafgar said:
If you want an Avatar with a god complex without resorting to original characters you could always have Azula be the Avatar.
Canon Azula doesn't strike me as the God Complex type. Azula seems to have pretty serious issues of emotional abandonment; someone with a God Complex would be "above" those kinds of emotional flaws, because emotions are for mortals.

You want a character with a God Complex, look at Ozai. He's pretty damn close -- I wouldn't say he's actually there, but he's on the way. Before his downfall, that is.
 

Carandol

Well-Known Member
So, suppose Ozai wins his energy bending duel with Aang, and steals his avatar powers (which would need a little hand-waving, admittedly). In that position, I could easily see Ozai demanding worship.

Of course, he'd find that gaining the powers didn't actually make him the Avatar, it just created an horrendous spiritual imbalance, making him a magnet for trouble. He'd probably end up dying in a vain attempt to master the storm, with Aang trying to save him from himself.
 
Carandol said:
So, suppose Ozai wins his energy bending duel with Aang, and steals his avatar powers (which would need a little hand-waving, admittedly). In that position, I could easily see Ozai demanding worship.

Of course, he'd find that gaining the powers didn't actually make him the Avatar, it just created an horrendous spiritual imbalance, making him a magnet for trouble. He'd probably end up dying in a vain attempt to master the storm, with Aang trying to save him from himself.
To me the end of that scene suggests he *did* win the battle of wills, and the past Avatars collectively shouted "No yuo!" and pwned him.

Seriously, I doubt he'd be able to steal the Avatar powers; they're tied to the planet itself. Worst case, I think Aang would have died and the Avatar spirit would have taken a Water incarnation again, as it's supposed to when he eventually dies.
 
nuclear death frog said:
Dark Knight Gafgar said:
If you want an Avatar with a god complex without resorting to original characters you could always have Azula be the Avatar.
Canon Azula doesn't strike me as the God Complex type. Azula seems to have pretty serious issues of emotional abandonment; someone with a God Complex would be "above" those kinds of emotional flaws, because emotions are for mortals.

You want a character with a God Complex, look at Ozai. He's pretty damn close -- I wouldn't say he's actually there, but he's on the way. Before his downfall, that is.
I dunnoh. I agree that as she was in the series, yeah I agree. But there is a difference. Aang, it's not just that he isn't God-Complex as he is, it's that I can't see how he gets there. Azula at least has the ego and commanding orders. I can sort of see it happening in an AU. Especially if you assume her insanity was not the result of extreme stress but an indication of genuine mental problems that were finally brought to light (in which case it becomes a matter of "when" it will happen, not "if").

On the other hand, the two big traits that would lead to god-complex. Being better than everyone else and knowing you were 'special/above them' were already present in canonZula and she didn't have the complex.
 

foesjoe

Well-Known Member
I think one could argue that Azula had a God complex.

When there's talk about a doctor or a police man with a God complex, it's usually because they think they can fix everything and feel responsible for everything that happens. One could argue that Azula thinks she can manipulate everyone and influence everything.

Azula in the series is a megalomaniac. She thinks herself to be the centre of her close friends' and associates' worlds, and sees herself becoming the rightful new Fire Lord after Ozai becomes Emperor. She breaks down when her friends turn their backs on her and shatter her illusions about being the star around which they orbit.

Her whole manner and behaviour is arrogant and condescending. She manipulates, strong arms and blackmails her friends without scruples, then taunts them for being powerless to do anything about it. And she does it because she thinks herself to be superior to anybody else.

Some of her behaviour is probably justified. She is a superb strategist and tactician who can outmanoeuvre anyone, and she is an insanely talented firebender. She's probably been told from an early age that she is superior to her brother and, as such, is the rightful heir to the throne, and that the Fire Nation were the rightful rulers of the world. This combined with her incredible talents probably led to her megalomania.
 

knight_of_ni

Well-Known Member
Master of Squirrel-Fu said:
Idea: Bending not based on nationality or ethnic goup.
I was actually thinking about doing something with that. Where it was more dependent on the spiritual connection, and lifestyle influenced that. It was supposed to be kind of dark, because the Fire Nation, losing it's spiritual connection, was beginning to have a sizable portion of earth benders being born within it's borders. This led to them killing those earth benders that were found and their mothers because they never quite figured out that it wasn't a genetic thing. It also explained, in my mind anyway, why all of the monks had bending while no other nation had that going for them.

It was only supposed to be a one-shot. Ah well, it was a thought.
 
Idea: Aang isn't and never was the Avatar. He was just an prodigious Airbender boy who happened to be visiting his old friends in the south during the raid and was frozen. Surviving thanks to super monk powers and dues ex machina he awakens and confused for a new avatar due to his lost bending powers.
 
Master of Squirrel-Fu said:
Idea: Aang isn't and never was the Avatar. He was just an prodigious Airbender boy who happened to be visiting his old friends in the south during the raid and was frozen. Surviving thanks to super monk powers and dues ex machina he awakens and confused for a new avatar due to his lost bending powers.
If Aang wasn't the Avatar, then presumably the Air Avatar in his place was killed and the spirit reincarnated into the Water Tribes. Presumably that Avatar would have been fighting the Fire Nation for upwards of eighty years, and there would be no chance for confusion. The war might even have been long ended.

This is ignoring that if Aang were not the Avatar, he and Appa would have simply drowned when they fell into the ocean from the sky.
 

zeebee1

Well-Known Member
The water avatar was a coward and never revealed his powers.
 
zeebee1 said:
The water avatar was a coward and never revealed his powers.
The Avatar has to be informed they hold the position first. The secret would not hold.
 
zeebee1 said:
Just how does one know who's the avatar anyways?
The Air Nomads tested all babies born around the time of the previous Fire Nation Avatar's death. The other three cultures must also have ways of knowing, but they are not shown or mentioned.
 
nuclear death frog said:
zeebee1 said:
Just how does one know who's the avatar anyways?
The Air Nomads tested all babies born around the time of the previous Fire Nation Avatar's death. The other three cultures must also have ways of knowing, but they are not shown or mentioned.
Well obviously he failed. Likely one of his friends was chosen. For the curent Avatar it is possible for the interveining avatars to have died enough so that the curent avatar is around his current age.
 
zeebee1 said:
Just how does one know who's the avatar anyways?
Didn't all the Avatar temples in the world light up when Aang came into his powers? I'm guessing the monks and priests who maintain those places have ways of finding him somehow.
 
Master of Squirrel-Fu said:
Well obviously he failed. Likely one of his friends was chosen. For the curent Avatar it is possible for the interveining avatars to have died enough so that the curent avatar is around his current age.
Assuming that Aang is not the Avatar and that the Air-born Avatar in his place died in the wake of Sozin's Comet, depending on how old he is, the next Avatar might well have been Pakku. He's at least eighty or so, and there's nothing that prevents him being a hundred or more. You know, that might be interesting. Avatar Pakku. Hmm...
 
Dark Knight Gafgar said:
zeebee1 said:
Just how does one know who's the avatar anyways?
Didn't all the Avatar temples in the world light up when Aang came into his powers? I'm guessing the monks and priests who maintain those places have ways of finding him somehow.
They lit up when Aang activated the Avatar State at the Southern Air Temple. And that shouldn't tell who the Avatar was, or where; just that he or she was out there somewhere, alive, and in some kind of danger.
 

crazyfoxdemon

Well-Known Member
Flamewolf said:
zeebee1 said:
Just how does one know who's the avatar anyways?
the avatar plays with the same toys as the other avatars
Somehow.. I doubt that's the only test they have for finding the Avatar..
 

biigoh

Well-Known Member
Of course, the fire nation could have slaughtered their way back to what should have been the -air- bender.

ie
Unknown Air Bender avatar - killed in Sozin's comet attack
Unknown Water Bender avatar - killed in a raid on the water tribe or attacking fire nation
Unknown Earth Bender avatar - killed in fire nation expansion
Unknown Fire Bender avatar - didn't know he was avatar and got killed on the frontlines (might have been just another "faceless" soldier)

And now it's back to what should be the air benders... but there aren't any air benders left alive, are there? And until Aang is found, they might even believe the cycle had been broken...
 

grant

Well-Known Member
crazyfoxdemon said:
Flamewolf said:
zeebee1 said:
Just how does one know who's the avatar anyways?
the avatar plays with the same toys as the other avatars
Somehow.. I doubt that's the only test they have for finding the Avatar..
That was the only one the monks mentioned when they told Aang. It's actually fairly similar to how various religious groups (such as some Buddhist ones) believe they find the reincarnations of religious leaders.

If you needed some way to tell someone who they were you could also use that mental thing the Avatar has with their past lives. Of course why Aang didn't use them to learn the different styles is beyond me.

IIRC there is something about bending being cultural as well.
 
grant said:
If you needed some way to tell someone who they were you could also use that mental thing the Avatar has with their past lives. Of course why Aang didn't use them to learn the different styles is beyond me.
The rationale for that is that the Avatar needs to live, grow, and learn as humans do: from other humans, so that it remains human and remembers how to be human. If the Avatar continually only learned from its past selves, the spirit wouldn't gain anything. In the online "Escape from the Spirit World" game, Avatar Yangchen talked about this issue.
 

zeebee1

Well-Known Member
If Aang wasn't the avatar he wouldn't become one just because it's an air bender's turn. You are born the avatar, you don't become one.
 

biigoh

Well-Known Member
zeebee1 said:
If Aang wasn't the avatar he wouldn't become one just because it's an air bender's turn. You are born the avatar, you don't become one.
I never said that he -was- the Avatar, only that people see an air bender long after the extinction of all air benders, and it's the turn for an air bender to be the avatar....

What do you THINK they'll think Aang is? Althou, it could be amusing if the avatar ends up his kid because he's managed to spawn a new air bender... :lol:
 
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