Yeah and Sokka says something like, “Toph, did I ever tell you how awesome it is that you learned metal bending.”
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.
I don’t know why it is a spoiler, but I guess I’ll spoil box my response since you spoiled the comment.
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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.
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Toph’s voice actress played that girl that liked Ang. With the missing tooth.
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.”
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.
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 >:D
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:
“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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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)
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).
I’m pretty sure they got back together again in the final episodes.
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
Heed the voice of experience, here: do not get between shippers and their ships. Even the power of canon will not protect you.
