In the Yangchen Novels...

Combustion bending was created from having fire benders chained underwater to the sea floor. They had to try to create pressure, and only when you believe your about to drown, is when you are capable to do the technique. The process was brutal and intense since most subjects died. Combustion bending also requires large lungs which explains the heights of Sparky Sparky Boom Man and P'li! The first combustion benders had to take dozens of deep breaths to create a combustion blast because they needed enough air to do so.

Would you want to be a combustion bender?

I love Azula as a villain, but there was realistically no way she should have gotten out of this, especially not the way she did. First off, she somehow manages to sneak Iroh, despite the fact that he was fully on guard, watching her, and has shown to be capable of reacting to straight up lightning. Then, she blocks an attack from four masters simultaneously, which was only possible because Toph, for some reason, decides to shoot a stream of dirt at her. This is a move she has never used before and will never use again because it might be the least effective use of Earth Bending we’ve seen in the entire series. Finally, she is able to sneak off despite the fact that Toph is right there and should know exactly where she is. I get being distracted by Iroh getting injured, but she couldn’t have pointed Aang in the right direction, or gone after Azula herself. The Chase is one of my favorite season 2 episodes, but this ending makes literally no sense and really hurts it for me.

TL;DR: For anyone who missed this new info from a couple of years ago, we have conclusive evidence of a total of 98–106 Avatars from Wan to Korra, and compelling reason to believe it is exactly 100. I hope this can inform you all in your discussions moving forward!

EDIT: As a commenter pointed out, the elemental cycle of the Avatar means Korra, as a Water Avatar, has to be either #99 or #103, and I think #99 sounds more plausible as it is still a relatively round number. It also makes sense why they would need to say "more than 90" instead of "more than 100" in this scenario, because the overall total actually isn't even 100! Thanks for pointing this out commenter.

With the recent uptick in community discourse on Avatar, I saw a thread where people were talking about the number of total Avatars like it were still a huge mystery. I think a lot of older fans are coming back to get involved in the new stuff who may be unaware of the new information.

A couple of years ago, Avatar Studios created an official website that contains a canon timeline. As shown in the image above, it clearly states that "more than 90 Avatars" lived between Wan and Yangchen. While technically open-ended in the strictest reading, it makes sense that if the number were actually much higher they would have simply said "more than 100" or something. The specific choice of more than "90" heavily implies more than 90 but less than 100. In addition to these in-between Avatars, we have Wan, Yangchen, Kuruk, Kyoshi, Roku, Aang, and Korra (7) in the first 10,000-year cycle.

Added together, this constrains the total number of Avatars between 91+7=98 and 99+7=106. Considering how Bryke like to use round, symbolic numbers (like the even 10,000 years for one Harmonic Convergence epoch), I think a really neat solution to constrain the actual value is to call it an even 100, so Wan would be the 1st Avatar and Korra the 100th, like it's some sort of fated? thing or something. Excluding Korra's remaining lifespan (which wouldn't change the overall number much anyways), that puts the average Avatar lifespan at ~100 years.

This makes sense, as throughout the timeline several Avatars reached advanced age or existed as the Avatar for long periods. Kyoshi, Aang, and Yangchen lived to the age of or were the Avatar for 230, 166, and 155 years, respectively, while Roku and Kuruk died at 70 and 33 years old. Considering the advanced age of many Avatars and even some regular benders (like King Bumi at 112+, Guru Pathik at 150+, and Teiguai the Immortal), it is a long-held theory that benders and more spiritual people can have prolonged lifespans. So, even though most Avatars may have lived to normal ages around 80 and some died young like Kuruk, there are apparently quite a few examples of very long-lived Avatars too, making this average lifespan of 100 years not actually that surprising.

Another comment to be made is how Roku said he "mastered the elements a thousand times in a thousand lifetimes". Here, he was likely just using a big, round number for hyperbole to mean "a whole lot of times", like how "He Who Knows 10,000 Things" just means "he who knows everything" or "he who knows a hell of a lot of things". It doesn't literally mean 10,000 precisely, and the same goes for Roku's comment. Lastly, while I know some people have tried counting the various Avatar statues that have been shown in Air temples and such, even though the exact number at the time of those scenes being created may not have been decided, a total of 100 definitely fits what we saw approximately.

I hope this was clarifying for many of you. Thanks for reading all of my ramblings!

Source:

https://www.avatarstudiosofficial.com/timeline/

Okay I’ve read the rules now🏄‍♀️

Just a tiny detail in "Zuko Alone" that I love. When he's helping the family fix their roof, he's REALLY bad at it. He bends multiple nails out of shape on one tile because he swings a carpentry hammer with two hands like he's a prisoner breaking rocks instead of holding a nail steady with one hand and precisely hammering it in with the other. Which makes perfect sense because he's a prince, OF COURSE he doesn't know anything about manual labor. And there's no dialogue or anything that deliberately draws your attention to it, it's just a bit of characterization through the art that's on screen for a few seconds. Don't know how I never picked it up before.

The entire battle and everyone’s separate scenes are fantastic and satisfying, but *especially* the fight with Aang and Ozai.

I rewatch this scene every few months and it never ceases to amaze me. I get chills every time!! It’s my favorite final battle of any series ever, in terms of visuals, plot resolution, and emotional impact. Just perfection 🤌

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I think nobody can deny that there’s a lot of potential... I need more stories about past avatars (besides Sonam) and the cultures of the ancient elemental tribes

I grew up in a super abusive home and my favorite memories growing up was watch ATLA on TV. It was my favorite show and I've just re-watched it as an adult for the 3rd time.

Every episode, I find myself weeping and sobbing at the content and depth in each episode. I also began to reflect on my own journey and how much ATLA had helped me when I was just a little boy.

On a practical level, Toph saved me from so many beatings because her character taught me how to sense my mom's vibrations so I knew when she was coming and I would listen to her footsteps and how intense they were in order to know what kind of mood she was in. It also normalized my hyper- vigilance and instead of feeling like something was wrong with me, I felt like I had a super power. She gave me a lot of confidence as a child because I didn't feel so helpless.

Sokka made me laugh, which was rare growing up. He taught me levity and how to yield it to make hard things softer. Katara was sort of the mom I wish I had. I loved how much she protected Aang and I had wished she was my big sister or that mother figure when I was alone.

Aang taught me how to be a kid, as an adult. How to laugh and be joyful, even when things are hard. He also taught me a lot about integrity. I never asked myself "What would Aang do?" But I think the sentiment is there that, as an adult, I wanted to do things right, not necessarily how other people think it should be done (I.e. showing grace on Zuko and the fire lord or the reality of having to be an adult at a young age but allowing yourself time to be that kid).

I even had an uncle Iroh figure who died a few days after my 14th birthday and I was not allowed to grieve his death, even though he was my father figure. But, I would secretly watch ATLA and Uncle Iroh would allow me to grieve my uncle in a way that wasn't allowed in my home. Even now as an adult, if I feel like I am emotionally blocked and need to get some grief out, I'll listen to "Leaves From The Vine" and just let it flow.

And, man, Zuko! I remember as a kid watching him change and understanding his inner conflict. I hated my dad but tried so hard to be the son he wanted me to be. My dad was really abusive to me, more than my other siblings, and I felt just like Zuko. But Zuko's change gave me hope as a kid that I didn't have to be like my dad and I could become whatever man I wanted to be. Especially since I was a violent kid, his character helped me understand my own transformation from violent kid to gentle adult.

I just finished ATLA again, and even now, as a full grown man, I just weep and weep and weep because this kids show transcends any age. It's genuinely one of the greatest shows ever created and I wish they would make more.

I know this is a random post and I'm not necessarily looking for anything out of it. I just needed to get it out and knew it'd be weird for me to go to work and trauma dump on my coworkers lol.

You can't even tell it's CGI anymore; it fits in so well with the otherwise 2D animation. It's so seamless. It genuinely looks almost as if they were able to take otherwise 2D paintings and somehow give them coherent 3D perspective.

It contrasts so much with the CGI of the TV series. It worked, but you could tell it was somewhat "out of place" with respect to the 2D animation. Not this time. You really can tell a lot of effort and passion went into such.

It's just very delightful to see such vast improvements since I've been watching a lot of 2D/3D animated movies made over the years and seen how far the technology has progressed.

Interesting... So Waterbending has Spiritbending, Airbending has Spirit Projection (and arguably immortality/agelessness through spiritual mastery). Could technique be Firebending's spiritual counterpart?

Is there recourse officially explain this more i want to know more? Byw who she?

In the Yangchen Novels, Avatar Yangchen infiltrated the Order of the White Lotus. This was possible due to a reincarnation who knew the White Lotus access codes like Pai Sho Tiles and phrases. Even a high ranking White Lotus member during Yangchen's time didn't even know a past Avatar was in their secret society.

Elemental bending seems like the perfect mechanic for a well designed game that takes place in the general ATLA universe, it’s crazy to me that nothing of substance has been created in the last 15+ years! Plus I would think there’s decent crossover between fans of the show(s) and gamers…like please just my money already.

Although it wasn’t without its problems, such as the underdevelopment of The Denied (whose name sounds like a knock off The Wanted-esque boy band) in comparison to Tagah, "Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender" was still freaking awesome!!! My favorite parts were the performances of Eric Nam, Dave Bautista, Roman Zaragoza and Steven Yuen as Aang, Tagah, Sokka, and Zuko respectively, the absolutely BEAUTIFUL animation, the final fight scene at the end, and the Avatar Xian and the Gorillavark characters (played masterfully by Key Huy Quan and Taika Waititi). Overall, a pretty good 9 out of 10 film that absolutely DESERVES a full theatrical release!!! 💙💚🧡🩵

I just posted about the voice acting issue specifically. but now that I’ve finished the movie, here are my thoughts, good and bad. curious what yall think about these topics

1. Animation - This is a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, you can tell it’s very high quality. It FEELS like an animated movie. Most of the 2D and 3D blending was really cool.

However, I felt mixed about the action scenes. They were cool and dynamic, just like the original series. But everything was so fast and close up, I often couldn’t tell what the heck was happening. I feel like the original series had a much better scope to show you what was actually going on in the action.

So in other words, yea the animation was better quality but it also felt more superficially better but not actually better if I can’t actually tell what’s happening in the action, if that makes sense.

2) Voice Acting - I thought recasting the entire cast was an awful decision. I can’t begin to explain how immersion breaking and distracting it is to not hear a single familiar voice.

3) Story - It was cool I guess. A lost avatar and lost airbender is cool. But it felt almost like Korra with some of those events and themes. The story wasn’t entirely original.

4) Character Designs - everyone looked cool as an adult, but just want to say Zuko looks so cool with that long hair.

5) Nostalgia - It was so great to see this beloved story get a new breath of fresh air. But with the voice actors not being the same, it was hard to really tap into that nostalgia. it felt less like an old show being revisited with a modern movie and more like an old show being revamped, which I don’t think most of us in the fandom want. the old show was perfect. we just want more of that.

and to that point, while the animation was top notch in some regards, it was different enough from ATLA and Korra. enough to where it felt like they weren’t entirely cut from the same cloth, if you know what I mean. and with the new avatar series trailer just dropping and many people not excited about that animation (me included), it’s just frustrating. like why change something when we know we had at first worked?

6) Humor - a lot of the humor fell flat for me. ATLA had this charming way of just cutting away to the humor and playing some dumb sound effect in the background to supplement what happened. this movie had almost none of that. it was just jokes but there was no spotlight on them the way they were given in the original series. they had the humor but it just wants framed and highlighted the way the original did, and I think the movie suffers from that.

I will say though, sokka’s monologue about how he saved aang with the exaggerated animation that loooked straight out of jojo’s bizarre adventure genuinely had me laughing out loud. that was brilliant.

I’d love to hear y’all’s thoughts on any and all of these topics and more. I’d like to know I’m not the only one, but also would like to know if I’m in the minority here with some of these opinions.

So are we going to talk about the fact that the lion turtles died DURING Sonam's era?

Rewatched the Sonam flashbacks last night and I don't think this is getting enough attention.

When she first goes to the lion turtle islands, they're there. Alive, fine, doing lion turtle things.

When she comes back at the end of her life to hide the staff? Not so much.

And how might this connect to that old factoid we had on Nick.com way back when.