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10 Responses to “A Podcast with Ross and Nick #56 - Avatarcast!!! Airbender, That Is...”

1. 1 Andrew Kilian
   July 8, 2010 at 11:44 am

   You guys really encapsulated all of my feelings about the Avatar movie. I remember on the running commentary for Fire Island Players that at the end of the episode they basically commented that the movie was most likely going to suck.

   As a kid I loved Jedi because of the whole climax with the Emperor, Luke and Darth. The emotion is So there!

   Nick, great commentary on the Lion Turtle and the energy bending. I didn't feel that the foreshadowing was as strong as it should have been, but I still love the conclusion. I loved the Lion Turtle quote so much I committed it to memory. It's such a great encapsulation of Eastern thought.

   (btw I saw Jaws when I was four, I wasn't going to see anything coming)

   I bet Legend of Korra is Aang and Katara's kid. Did it bother anyone that at the end of the series there was a contingent representing the air nation at Zuko's coronation? I thought they were all wiped out.

2. 2 nick marino
   July 9, 2010 at 8:13 am

   huhwha? there's Air peeps at the end??? okay, i'm watching right now to find out!!!

   hmmm Justique says she thinks gonna be it's Fire, two Water, and Earth. but as we're watching, we're thinking it's two Earth, Water, and Fire. it's really hard to tell.

   okay, it's on. so left to right, it's Fire, Water, and then i guess two Earth rows. i definitely saw the peeps from the one Air temple that built the flying stuff. i didn't see anyone in Air garb or anything that suggested Air to me, but there were four distinct sections. it's sorta like "since there are no airbenders, we ought to just break into four sections anyway..."

   i never noticed before!

3. 3 ross
   July 9, 2010 at 1:03 pm

   i remembered there was one thing i didn't like about the Lion Turtle, that he had one part of his speech where he talked about darkness yielding to purifying light or something like that. i hate that shit. XD. was that the quote you reiterated in the podcast, Nick? i can't remember.

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4. 4 nick marino
   July 9, 2010 at 2:21 pm

   whoa: http://avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Energybending people really get into it on that page.

   @ross: anyway, the quote i dropped (which wasn't exact, but close to the original) was: "before people learned to bend the elements, we bent the very energy within ourselves" or something like that. turns out the original is "In the era before the Avatar, we bent -- not the elements -- but the energy within ourselves."

   and i hate the dark vs. light BS almost as much as you do, but overall, Avatar is so brilliant as a story (and certainly not a part of the same cultural deficiency that propagates the "dark vs. light" theme in fiction), that i have no problem ignoring it in the very few instances where it appears.

5. 5 ross
   July 13, 2010 at 1:07 pm

   Nick: yeah, i don't mind it so much, it doesn't break the show or even the episode, but i was expecting something more philosophically in line with the rest of the show i guess. something more Buddhist or Taoist, you know? i think that's pretty reasonable.

6. 6 nick marino
   July 21, 2010 at 1:05 pm

   Legend of Korra is confirmed: http://www.toonzone.net/news/articles/34425/new-series-avatar-the-legend-of-korra-premieres-in-2011 (plus a picture!)

   The Legend of Korra takes place 70 years after the events of Avatar: The Last Airbender and follows the adventures of the Avatar after Aang – a passionate, rebellious, and fearless teenaged girl from the Southern Water Tribe named Korra. With three of the four elements under her belt (Earth, Water, and Fire), Korra seeks to master the final element, Air. Her quest leads her to the epicenter of the modern “Avatar” world, Republic City – a metropolis that is fueled by steampunk technology. It is a virtual melting pot where benders and non-benders from all nations live and thrive. However, Korra discovers that Republic City is plagued by crime as well as a growing anti-bending revolution that threatens to rip it apart. Under the tutelage of Aang’s son, Tenzin, Korra begins her airbending training while dealing with the dangers at large.

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7. 7 Andrew Kilian
   September 15, 2010 at 10:29 pm

   "The true mind can weather all the lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can touch the poison of hatred without being harmed. Since beginning-less time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purifying light."

   Although the line about darkness and purifying light could be considered more western perspective whereas an eastern philosophy would speak to how both are necessary for a complete worldview. The preceding lines about piercing illusion and dispassionate grounded objectivity do speak to eastern thought. Even Buddhism recognizes the existence of "the four evil paths" (see Ten Worlds) though they're recognized as more of a stage of development or lower level of enlightenment than being consciously evil. So darkness is present in eastern thought, but not as the binary evil opposite to good.

   Btw, how come I'm never alerted to your responses via email alerts or whatever?

8. 8 neallllll
   September 16, 2010 at 12:32 am

   andrew - i'm not sure that wordpress does email alerts for comments by default. i think the disqus comment engine has that built in though.

   the best way to get comment updates is by subscribing to the site's comment rss feed (which is what nick and i do).

9. 9 nick marino
   September 16, 2010 at 5:58 am

   @neal: DISQUS BLOWS!

   @AK: yeah, you gotta go old school and subscribe to the comments RSS. however, maybe there's a way we can turn on email notification as an opt in sort of thing (tons of other wordpress blogs have it). i'm kinda busy right now, but i'll try to get that going soon (and by try to get that going i mean i'll beg for neal's help ASAP).

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10. 10 nick marino
    September 16, 2010 at 6:19 am

    @AK: okay, i did it anyway. i added a plugin that will allow you to subscribe to comments on specific posts. thx the suggestion!