I just finished watching Avatar: The Last Airbender (the show)(open spoilers on the entire series)

[Miller]

Also, as a princess of the Fire Nation, she could probably have her arrested if she refused.

[Kizarvexius]

Originally Posted by llcoolbj77

My favorite scene in the entire series has to be in the episode, Crossroads, where Zuko and Iroh have been asked to serve tea to the Earth King, but it is really just a trap. When surrounded by guards and confronted by Azula, Uncle Iroh asks, "Do you know why they call me the dragon of the West?" Azula blows him off, saying, "We're not here for a history lesson, Uncle." Then he breathes/blows fire in a circle at the guards surrounding them. It just looked so intense and bad ass. He is my favorite character.

That's my absolute favorite scene as well. Even before I got into the show, my daughter would introduce me to her friends as "My Uncle Iroh Daddy". Little did I realize how much of a compliment she was paying me. Of course it had slightly more to do with my rounded belly, laid-back parenting style, and sense of humor than my fire-bending prowess.

[Lady of the Lake]

Chronos and Miller,
That does make sense - thanks!

(Only two more hours until it's 'Avatar' watching time!)

[Drunky Smurf]

Bumping Zombies. (band name)

I Just wanted to let all the fans know that I just saw a commercial that the channel Nicktoons, I hope you guys have it, is re-airing the series but with extra awesomeness.

They are doing the thing where blurbs pop-up during the episode with hints, recalls to past episodes and behind the scenes stuff. They did this a couple of years ago which was my first time to watch the entire series through and it was way cool.

SPOILER:

Two of the things I remember:
1. Serena Williams, the tennis star, loved the show so much she practically begged to be on the show. She was a one off character. I forget who.

And B. The voice actress of Toph was originally a one off character and the creators or producers loved her so much they brought her back to voice Toph.

[TheBoltEater]

Originally Posted by Oldeb

I also like how they handled Toph's blindness and using her earthbending to "see." They were consistent with her only being to use it on the ground.

Speaking of favorite scenes (and I'm doing this from memory here), I laughed my freaking head off when they're all flying on Appa and looking for the hidden library in the desert. Toph yells something like, "there it is!" and everyone turns to look - then she waves her hand in front of her own face as if to say, "thanks for forgetting I'm blind here, morons." I simply loved how they were never afraid to make jokes about her being blind, and she's generally the one making them. Sort of like how South Park let's Timmy and Jimmy get made fun of and even beat each other up - the point is that the other kids see them as just kids, no more or less deserving of a good put down than anyone else.

[Chronos]

Or when they're watching the meteor shower in S3: "Eh, once you've not seen one meteor shower, you've not seen them all."

[Drunky Smurf]

Bumping again to remind everyone that the series is replaying with those extra hints and blurbs starting right now on my DirectTV at 6pm PST.

Like for example when Aang and Appa first come out of the ice and they are talking to Sokka and Katara for the first time and Appa sneezes all over Sokka the blurb says, "did you know that bison snot is made of 10% water, 3% dust particles and 87% bison mucus"

[Drunky Smurf]

I gotta say watching the first episode again and knowing how the characters are going to end up from how they compare to the first episode is fun.

[Cisco]

Originally Posted by TheBoltEater

Speaking of favorite scenes (and I'm doing this from memory here), I laughed my freaking head off when they're all flying on Appa and looking for the hidden library in the desert. Toph yells something like, "there it is!" and everyone turns to look - then she waves her hand in front of her own face as if to say, "thanks for forgetting I'm blind here, morons."

I paused that scene, rewound it, and called my wife in the room to watch it. She didn't laugh. I laughed again.

[Kizarvexius]

Another favorite scene of mine, from (I believe) the penultimate episode.

As Aang confronts Fireloard Phoenix King Ozai, Sokka, Suki and Toph go into action to take down the fleet of airships. When they reach the command cabin of the first airship, Toph grabs hold of the metal door, bends it into a suit of armor, and proceeds to clear the room of all hostiles in a matter of seconds.

It was most impressive.

[Drunky Smurf]

Yeah and Sokka says something like, "Toph, did I ever tell you how awesome it is that you learned metal bending."

[HardlySanguine]

Originally Posted by Chronos

Presumably, we'll also see Aang appearing to her in spirit form, similarly to how Roku appeared to Aang. I'm also a little curious how the Avatar state would manifest for a waterbender, and if they have a... patron megafauna, I guess you could call it, like the flying bison for airbenders, or the dragons for firebenders.

The Northern Water Tribe, at least, learned waterbending from the moon - they saw how she/it pushed and pulled the tides and then emulated. I want there to be an animal waterbender, though, since the other three elements had 'em.

[BunnyTVS]

Originally Posted by HardlySanguine

The Northern Water Tribe, at least, learned waterbending from the moon - they saw how she/it pushed and pulled the tides and then emulated. I want there to be an animal waterbender, though, since the other three elements had 'em.

There was the sea serpent from "Serpents Pass". And the huge fish that Aang tried to ride at Kiyoshi island.

[Mahaloth]

Originally Posted by Drunky Smurf

SPOILER:

Two of the things I remember:
1. Serena Williams, the tennis star, loved the show so much she practically begged to be on the show. She was a one off character. I forget who.

And B. The voice actress of Toph was originally a one off character and the creators or producers loved her so much they brought her back to voice Toph.

I don't know why it is a spoiler, but I guess I'll spoil box my response since you spoiled the comment.

SPOILER:

1. Serena played Ming, the girl that Uncle Iroh tells to leave when he is about to go nuts and break out of prison. She brings him his food in prison.

2. Toph's voice actress played that girl that liked Ang. With the missing tooth.

Originally Posted by TheBoltEater

Toph yells something like, "there it is!" and everyone turns to look - then she waves her hand in front of her own face as if to say, "thanks for forgetting I'm blind here, morons.".

I like when they go in that tunnel. Sokka says, "I can't see anything! It's so dark!"

Toph responds, "Yeah, that must be soooo tough for you."

[HardlySanguine]

Originally Posted by BunnyTVS

There was the sea serpent from "Serpents Pass". And the huge fish that Aang tried to ride at Kiyoshi island.

Neither of these are (obvious) waterbending animals, though. Appa can fly with out wings, by airbending. We see the badgermoles close up their tunnels with earthbending, and the dragons firebend to breath fire. Lionturtles might be benders of some sort but to my knowledge, we don't see any animals waterbend.

ETA: We see other flying animals, but they have wings. The serpents move around in the water with fins and whatnot. They could be moving around by bending water, but it isn't shown.

[Tsarvena]

Bumping this I guess

The original waterbenders were two spirits who manifested themselves in two Coi fish along with being the Moon and Ocean. Their spirit names are Tui ad La (I think) and they reside in the spirit oasis where they encircle each other in an eternal dance - pushing and pulling one another just like the Ocean and Moon will always do to make waves

The Lion-Turtles are suspected to be the original "Energy benders" the newest form of bending introduced to us. Energy bending has only two known functions: to take away someone's bending(this is different from chi blocking I believe) and to give them knowledge or memories instantly. The lion turtle energy bent(?) Aang to... teach him energy bending. And Aang then went on to defeat the firelord by energy bending him >

In the future, Aang also energybends an evil blood bender which is shown in a flashback in Legend of Korra

so yeah. lol. I decided to post here because I actually just watched the season finale of Avatar the last airbender and was feeling super sad D:

[Tanbarkie]

Originally Posted by Tsarvena

Bumping this I guess

The original waterbenders were two spirits who manifested themselves in two Coi fish along with being the Moon and Ocean. Their spirit names are Tui ad La (I think) and they reside in the spirit oasis where they encircle each other in an eternal dance - pushing and pulling one another just like the Ocean and Moon will always do to make waves

"Tui" and "La" are indeed their names - and, not coincidentally, the Chinese words for "push" and "pull."

Just finished my second time through A:TLA. And I only started watching the show about two months ago! What a brilliant, funny, moving series.

Also, has anything ever done self-parody as well as "The Ember Island Players"? I just about died laughing at the on-stage version of Toph and "her" way of seeing - especially given Toph's hilariously positive reaction to the whole thing.

[squeegee]

Originally Posted by Tanbarkie

Also, has anything ever done self-parody as well as "The Ember Island Players"? I just about died laughing at the on-stage version of Toph and "her" way of seeing - especially given Toph's hilariously positive reaction to the whole thing.

Sorry, what? I do not recall an episode with that name, and I'm sure it never happened.

Seriously, I hated that episode. Never happened.

[Rhaegar]

I thought it was a great series. My favorite is Uncle Iroh. The movie version was just abysmal and ruined the characters of Uncle Iroh and Sokaa completely. Haven't seen the new series with Korra yet, but I will probably catch it soon.

[Chronos]

Also, has anything ever done self-parody as well as "The Ember Island Players"? I just about died laughing at the on-stage version of Toph and "her" way of seeing - especially given Toph's hilariously positive reaction to the whole thing.

"Wow, I sound really buff. "

It only worked as a one-off, and only because they'd done such a good job of already establishing the characters, but it did work.

[Electric Warrior]

I just watched this about a month ago, on the recommendation of several friends. Loved it! The Fire Nation characters quickly became my favorites - I think the show did a good job keeping the villains from being pure evil, and actually making them nuanced characters. I also adore Katara and Toph.

Someone in the thread asked about Ty Lee and why she fights on Azula's side, despite being sweet and nice. I think she's a really interesting character and I wish we could have seen more of her. In her introductory episode Azula intimidates her (by setting her safety net on fire) into joining up with her, but it seems like Ty Lee is less frightened and more having fun with it. She seems to like the challenges Azula puts her up to, and I think she's caring enough to genuinely like Azula despite Azula's cruelty to her--up until the last moment on the prison island when she realizes Azula is willing to go much further than she ever will. Also, she and Mai are Azula's bodyguards - they're doing their job and protecting their friend, who is facing enemy combatants. Though the Fire Nation are on the less sympathetic side of imperialist conquerors, they still do see Aang & co. as enemies.

I think the one thing that bothered me about this show the most was that the pronunciations of the Chinese names are Anglicized. Like Long Feng - 'Feng' should be pronounced like the first part of fungus. I mean, it is how Americans pronounce the names, but my friends had trouble figuring out which characters I was talking about because I kept using the more Mandarin-like pronunciations.

Well that and some of the filler episodes were less than inspiring. The episode where Aang has anxiety-induced nightmares and the aforementioned Ember Island Players were pretty dull.

Other than that though this show is basically perfect. I still need to watch Korra, and I'm hoping I'll feel the same way about it as I did about its predecessor.

[Tsarvena]

The show has always been so extremely moving to me, as I almost feel like I grew up with it and all the characters in a way!

I also loved the fire nation characters so much. I loved how they had a very distinct look about them (unique facial hair, typically monolids, pale skin, black/dark brown hair etc).

I feel like Bryke actually worked very hard drawing his parallels with ancient chinese culture in atla. The different pronunciation of the mandarin words were probably just a way to prevent confusion among non-mandarin speaking viewers, because personally, I'm thinking they had a surplus of knowledge about Asian culture lol!

can I also just say that Zuko is a sexy beast and that everyone in his family line are basically the sexiest characters in the entire series(including lok, we're introduced to a **handsome** fire nation character we think could be Zuko's grandson

And about Ty Lee... I always assumed that Ty Lee had a very dark past and that her perkiness was just her way of coping with things, Lol. But she ended up playing an important role (becoming a chi blocking master)

Also, Mai and Zuko broke up (in The Promise) so he's still available ladies or just for me. Lol.

edit: I think the filler episodes were really needed for some additional character development along with keepig the show from being such a downer Some really deep stuff happened and if they all happened with no comic relief, we'd all be bawling our eyes out. Lol(ie every sokka joke)

[grude]

Cool little tidbit:

Watch the intro when they do the four elements, we see four benders. I read somewhere that the silhouette we see was the original idea for Toph, a large male earthbender. But they later decided on another direction, and the idea for the original Toph became The Boulder(if you were curious why a minor character ended up in the intro).

[Chronos]

Also, Mai and Zuko broke up (in The Promise) so he's still available ladies

I'm pretty sure they got back together again in the final episodes.

[Tsarvena]

Maybe, if they show a flashback in Korra.

but The Promise is set right after Zuko's coronation.

If he didn't marry Mai, I'm super curious who he did ;D
same with Sokka and Toph. I get the feeling Sokka and Suki broke up

[Balance]

Originally Posted by Chronos

I'm pretty sure they got back together again in the final episodes.

Heed the voice of experience, here: do not get between shippers and their ships. Even the power of canon will not protect you.