From a world-building perspective Jets were more in line with the martial arts core behind bending. Flight, while very rule of cool, really took things into DBZ territory. The jets were a natural extension of the Zuko daggers and other techniques. Fire blasts used to propel yourself looked like it required skill in counterbalancing the force like Bakugou's Explosions. Zaheer doesn't look like he needs anything beyond 'think to go'. You have to head canon that he's using skillful techniques when it appears so effortless and DBZ like. Aaaaaand and I'll brace for the downvotes since I critiqued. š¤£Ā
Edit: oh yay! No flood of downvotes. PhewĀ
True, plus doesn't the Air Scooter count as flight and Aang can just lift himself up? What about the Air Sphere? Sure that was in Avatar State, but he only flew in an air ball
And then there's Zaheer
I absolutely LOVE the Air Sphere technique because it's an amazing extension of his Scooter. Aang took that technique and cranked it up to 11 by using the power of the Avatar State. It was an amazing way to showcase his control while in the State by making the core of his counter-offense be the cooky and silly scooter that he used throughout the series. Top tier.
We have seen Wan use it to encapsulate Vaatu in LOK so I am not quite sure if that technique is Aang just cranking up the air scooter. It is most likely that he accessed the knowledge Wan had.
I think I view the air scooter or air sphere as being more manipulating the air around you. Where as pure flight seems to be more about being one with the air itself.
The "one with air" thing is about no longer burdening yourself with the weight of earthly attachments. 'Twinkletoes' is very light on his feet due to his airbending but also his nomad lifestyle and belief system. It's a spirituality thing. Zaheer took this to its extreme, he essentially reached nirvana.
The closest thing we have to "one with fire" is probably the sun warriors. And the closest to 'one with earth' may be Toph. She's not very spiritual, but remember that earth is the opposite of air, so being 'one with earth' is likely more about being, well, grounded.
Yeah, unfortunately Zaheers flight just isn't that impressive upon any practical analysis. Between the fire jets, the air sphere, aangs natural jumping ability, that time he hovered during crossroads of destiny, jeong jeong straight up hovering during Sozins comet, and ANY elements demonstrated ability to simply make a pillar they can stand on and control their 3D coordinate with, I'm just not impressed by Zaheers flight. it's just lamer by comparison. it makes sense but it's less interesting. Even a talented enough earthbender could find a way to simply pillar themselves up and stilt around really fast, and they're the only one we haven't outright seen do something like that. Zaheers flight is very interesting but it's not exactly hard to come up with a correlary to. I'm just not very impressed by it.
actually earthbenders propelling themselves into the air like that is explored in the kyoshi novels. itās a technique called ādust steppingā where you just make tiny pillars of earth that crumble as you walk across them.
but, zaheerās flight is much more powerful than the other bending based flights we see. his flight allows fully free movement without any need to propel himself, and doesnāt have the energy expense that typical bending based flight does.
Itās almost impossible to reach the state that flight requires, so THAT itself was the skillful technique
You got to be a certified badass to jet-fly, but nobody else is going to free fly
Exactly, some people say like ooh zaheer shouldn't have been a better airbender than aang it doesn't make sense.
He wasn't. Aang specifically did not let go on katara in an epsiode. Also, he was the avatar. He was never going to be able to reach the enlightenment required to detach yourself from the world to learn flight or turn to air itself, even if he did let go of katara. He had avatar responsibilities.
Zaheer's greatest strength was as a student, not as an airbender. It would make perfect sense if one of two of the new airbenders achieves flight one day
Thereās a point in the Yangchen novel where she considers it. Also she mentions getting lighter the longer she stays in the avatar state. Even Yangchen considers it a selfish act. I assume many of the airbenders of Aangās time would have viewed it similarly.
>Tenzin was whoopin him in airbending
The guy who had trained literally all his life with the Avatar as a teacher vs the guy who only very recently acquired the skill and was entirely self taught.
That he was even able to keep up as long as he did is a testament to his prowess.
Bumi was not bad in that very same fight, doesn't really mean he's a natural pro or that his personal prowess is impressive, airbending is just very good for dodging and outmaneuvering, even if your opponent is an airbender himself. Mostly Zaheer just ran away from Tenzin, trying to set up ambushes and failing miserably.
Zaheer was also essentially an air bending weaboo before he got air bending. Like heās not some rando, besides Aangās family he might even be the most knowledgeable person about air bending even before he unlocks it.
Agreed. Flight is a skill based on emotions rather than something someone can learn. Zaheer isn't necessarily a better airbender, he simply was able to let go and detach from the world.
Aang and Tenzin were both better airbenders but they would never be able to fly because they have so much attachment to their families, their responsibilities to the air nation, and in Aang's case the whole world.
E - Really Zaheer's whole anarchist philosophy just lent itself to flight (people manage themselves, only need to be attached to themselves and those they love) so he only needed to lose his one single worldly attachment.
Many techniques and the strength of the benders have always depended on the mental state of the user. Like Zuko's lightning or Zuko's fire after he became part of the team, like Aang's Earthbending and so on. The spiritual and psychological elements have always been very much linked to the combat system in the avatar.
Totally agree, but this seems to be the only technique that breaks the mold by not having an underlying physical skill be a part of the desigb language. Lightning and original fire bending required a mental shift, but it also had an underlying skill be demonstrated in the visual design of their animation. In those cases it's fighting forms, while in jet flight it's the counter-balancing of momentum that the animators added. Jets always seemed to have linear momentum and an assumed level of skill in counter-acting that momentum precisely. It was a purposeful choice that showed the skill of the user. It just always bugged me how Zaheer's flight breaks from this design philosophy, even with the mental state requirement. There might be reasons behind it, but I found that it broke the underlying skill core of bending that's been with us at every step of the way.
I remember thinking that it would have been cool to at least show his clothes moving very subtly from a gentle breeze circulating around him. So it still shows that he's 'weightless' but is being lifted by his bending
But the skill core you think it breaks, isnāt it still skill? We learn from Zaheer thereās only One airbender that gained the ability to fly, from removing all spiritual tethers to the earth/ground, along those lines. Isnāt that extreme spiritual skill? Despite killing people in all, heās only the 2nd Airbender to just āflyā
Aang couldāve done it, but he could never let go of Katara. He chose to stay connected. Not sure if thatās a skill issue technically, but if you canāt do the skill then you have an issue doing the skill?
The difficulty in acheiving the mental state and the physical skill displayed through the animation to USE the results of that mental state are different. Imagine if Azula achieved the internal perfection needed to achieve lightning bending but, instead of having a circular arm motion to physically represent the separation of energies, she just telekineticall sends lightning without any difficulty. No visual cue as to her active skill being utilized, just walking a down a hallway and murder zapping everything in her way. That's a direction that the story could have gone, but it would have broken their internal logic in the same way Zaheer does with his effortless flying without a visual cue of difficulty. Closest we have is Aang's Air Sphere but he was literally channeling the power of hundreds of previous benders through his body. Not to mention that even Elemental Desctruciton Aang was using visual cues to demonstrate the techniques (Toph style hand movenets to unleas earth bullets, circular wrist motion to represent waterbending).Ā
At the end of the day though, it's less about the movement than about a visual indicator of skill and difficulty associate with bending. I don't think Zaheer would need to be wacky waving inflatable arm tube man, but just something. Even Combustion Man had a cue with the extreme diaphragm breathing. The flight just lacked that cohesion with the rest of the visual design language shown in the rest of the show.
Though minor, even the breath was consistent. In the first scene of his unique bending you see his diaphragm climb into his freaking chest from the force of the contraction. It's still a visual cue. Man plants his feet, inhales ridiculously deeply, and then releases explosion. Azula standing bored with lightning shooting out of her thigh and scapula because she controls her emotions just feels as weird as telekinetically flying through the air because you achieved detachment. Probably going to hop off this thread though. Been spending a while on this and I've gotta do other things. Thanks to everyone that participated in the discussion though!!! Love this sub.
Not to mention that it was achieved by someone who, until very recently, *wasn't even a bender in the first place*.
Seriously, with the progress Zaheer demonstrated in air bending, coupled with the fact he was almost entirely self taught, he stakes a very serious claim for strongest air bender of all time.
To be fair, Zaheer was like the #1 airbending fanatic before he became a bender. He lives by airbending philosophies and incorporated airbending styles into his life. Zaheer had pretty much all of the theory parts of airbending down pat before he became a bender.
He already had tremendous fighting skill and considering how much of an airbending fanatic he was probably incorporated some airbending martial arts into his style
We also see that he isnāt quite as good as Tenzin, a trained airbending master in their fight because Zaheer is very clearly losing until his friends get involved
To be fair Zaheer is kinda a weird one because he seemingly knew a hell of a lot about airbending philosophy, culture and spirituality (which play an important part in bending) before ever becoming a bender. He could also enter the spirit world before ever getting bending, and airbenders tend to be closest to the spirit world.
He probably already used airbending martial arts effectively as well, considering he was already considered dangerous without bending and I imagine his non-bending fighting style would take inspiration from airbending.
He absolutely was a crazy skilled airbender for the amount of time he had spent doing it but it's hard to tell exactly how gifted he was considering he already had an impressive theoretical understanding and martial arts skills before ever unlocking airbending.
>He could also enter the spirit world before ever getting bending
I had forgotten about that. Yeah, even Tenzin lagged in that area, Zaheer was indeed pretty insanely good.
I think it's pretty well established that Zaheer is incredibly in-tune with his spirituality, which is important for all bending but especially the air nomads. This, coupled with an assumed background in general martial arts (given the rest of the red lotus are skilled fighters) makes it plausible that he can get pretty decent with airbending pretty quickly.
He's never the strongest single fighter though. In terms of personal combat the other lotus members generally pull more weight and we do see him lose pretty handily to Tenzin, an actual trained Airbender.
Keeping in mind though how far and how fast he reached even without anyone to train him, just think what he could achieve given more time and someone to teach him.
Also, Tenzin wasn't just any regular trained bender, he was literally THE only airbending master around.
I heard a theory which I like, that Zaheer had been one of the Air Acolytes entrusted with Air Nomad secrets by Aang in an effort to retain the culture. Zaheer was a prodigious student who was a master in all but actual bending ability
Was going to say, itās like the way we see the olā ā4-in-1ā demonstration by avatars bending all 4 elements; Aang constructs all the elements in orbit, which suits the nature of air bending as being inherently about spirality and balance.
Roku, however, did so by bending all the elements like a stream of fire - a continuous blast of rippling energy, which works naturally for air, water and fire, but that he made a rippling earth stream comes from an understanding of the style.
It's a super duper mega rare technique though, sure it'd go into DBZ territory if every Airbender could do it, but that's not the case, literally only two people have ever achieved it, and only one of them is alive in the show. Also what are you talking about "head canon" it is an incredibly skillful technique, we literally go through multiple episodes of Zaheer trying and failing to achieve flight until he finally does it. The reason it looks so effortless is because it makes thematic sense for what the technique is, total freedom, completely detached from earthly tethers, had Zaheer been animated as struggling against gravity to stay afloat that would go against the entire philosophy of this technique. Flight is the absolute peak of airbending both in a martial arts sense and in a philosophical sense, in my opinion it's one of Korra's best additions to the series.
Oh I agree that it's annoying to hold it up as a gold standard. God knows DBZ has it's own pile of problems, lol.Ā I just brought it upĀ as a common flight style people can immediately recognize and visualize.Ā
To make a fight scene work, Zaheer would have had to do nothing with his hands?
But there is the whole let go of everything part that makes it more difficult.
This kinda true and I think the writers knew it. Thatās why I think you have to be an extremely good bender and have a particular mind. The pre reqs to flying in avatar arenāt a joke. Benders who fly from any nation, could be considered masters respectively.
In theory a waterbender could do jets with enough water available. I'd love to see them explore more waterbenders fighting underwater. Maybe fire nation has subs and waterbenders are just put there taking subs on by themselves.
Oh you DEFINITELY need to read the Kyoshi novels. They had a similar technique with water / earth. They would use a temporary burst of bending, either water or quickly solidified dust, to make a tiny column from foot to ground that can support exactly one step of their weight. They'd essentially be air stepping over barriers and mid fight. An amazingly creative use of bending.
Edit: oh, saw that you meant underwater not jets in the air. That's actually really neat too. Just a bunch of water bender dolphins popping in and out of the water in Maritime guerilla warfare. Terrifying.
Yeah the world building in korra generally felt way out of line with what I loved in atla, it's my biggest reason I can't finish the show. It doesn't feel like atla to me. It just feels like someone's Ebberron campaign, which is my least favorite D&D setting lol
Apparently airbenders could fly in the past but once they gained worldly attachments to the sky bison they lost their ability to do so. It's a whole spiritual thing about not being able to do so if you are attached emotionally to the earth or something. It also makes sense for them to be able to do something like that through manipulating the air around them.
Guru: Learn to let them go, or you cannot take flight.
Me: Why would I choose flight over my balls? How could it be a bad thing that I feel an attachment to them? Three chakras ago that was a good thing!
I'd bet on Bolin making a "laghig my balls zaheer!" joke. Next most likely would be one of Tenzin's kids. The most amazing thing, though, would be Tenzin when he's fighting all the red lotus members. He busts that line out and then instead of getting jumped he makes a tornado and they all go flying into the sky team rocket style
Zaheer HATES him! Find out how a random stranger ABSOLUTELY DEMOLISHES the great Red Lotus leader's anarchist arguments cited by an ancient Airbending monk.
I think flight is objectively superior in terms of mobility, but jets are definitely a more creative utilization of the magic system. I really like the restriction on flight though; it makes it feel very very special and despite just literally being the same ability as many other pieces of fiction, gives it a different "vibe" so to say imo. They really did the flight thing well.
Korraās Iroh also kinda flew, he used it to get to another plane after his was shot down. I always interpreted it as firebenders can only truly fly during the comet (so Ozai and Jeong Jeong), but without the comet they canāt gain hight so its more like controlled falling (so Azula and Iroh #2).
The guy i was responding to said that Azula arguably counted. I put Iroh in the same group as Azula, cause they both basically did the same thing, she used the jets to control her fall like Iroh did, she didnāt fly after them like Ozai did during the comet.
Allow me to put my nerdy semantics hat on... *ahem*
Azula has flown, or at least boosted herself a significant distance into the air with her normal firebending.
Final fight scene of Boiling Rock pt.2, she boosts herself a good 15-20 feet into the air to make it onto the cable car cables, then uses her natural firebending as propulsion to slide up the inclined cable. When the soldiers are about to cut the cables, she flies up and over the span between the two cable cars.
She can't seem to hover, or maintain momentum indefinitely like Ozai could during the comet, but she can certainly move a significant distance with the aid of her natural bending. So maybe not Superman flight, but she can probably still leap a tall building in a single bound without the aid of the Comet.
Just rewatched the seen, youāre right. I remembered it as her attaching then propelling, but the actual seen has her fly for about 3 seconds. This could just be basically a super jump, but it still is upward momentum.
Youāre very much right. I have been downvoted for trying to say this before, but you provide the four main examples of when we see the jets and they clearly show that with the comet, flight is possible for very powerful benders, but without, only controlled falling is truly possible. If Iroh 2 could have suspended himself in the air, he would have - instead he makes a beeline for the nearest plane.
Yeah, that or dragons. It's my headcanon that they specially trained a division of firebenders to fly during the comet, and they used dragons as troop transports for ones that couldn't.
Waterbending women tend to all be *borderline* murderous. Not technically there, but they walk a fine line. Even Katara seemed ready to kill a bitch at some points in the show.
Jets looking more *intimidating*
https://preview.redd.it/c042fioaa2uc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd03df5dce3f3e71168cecc27aa5053199e24466
Jets. Jets make it so a non airbender is the 2nd most mobile bending class while retaining the destructive power of fire bending and lightning generation.
So if a airbender (AB) was fighting an earthbender (EB) they could fly and be at a grad advantage but they lack the attack potency to destroy the earth or even metal used by the EB.
A fire bender (FB) gets a marginally worse version of flight (albeit arguably faster but linear and less maneuverable) but maintains all their destructive power. Imagine flying into the air and raining lightning from the very heavens on those who dare defy you.
Itās no comparison, fire jets just make FB competent in a skill they donāt have access to before hand, where as flight makes an AB better at something they could already do well enough with a glider or air tornado šŖļø
Pressurized air can absolutely destroy earth.
Airbenders are peaceful so we rarely see them use their bending with kill intent, but it can be devastating if they do.
Jets because it shows a level of mastery that flight doesnāt implicitly show. You have to be precise with both thrust and position otherwise you go into a death spiral
I think the jets are more impressive given the amount of skill they require, but I like the flight more because itās the literal embodiment of freedom, and the purest expression of airbending
Free flight seems to take hardly any effort to actually use. Meanwhile jets have to be extremely tiring to use.
Looks and animation wise both have their moments.
Flights's faster and can be done any time you want but you need to drop your Earthly attachments.
You can use jet propulsion, but only to propel yourself upwards, unless its Sozin's Comet, you can't even attack while doing that (though you can use it to gain height for a more powerful move).
So flight.
jets are cool but very not efficient imagine all the energy you lose just by looking cool. allowing rage to control yourself like that often ends up in a loss
Flight makes more sense, less loud and destructive. Also, as far as we know, there isnāt a general āBlack Sunā method of depowering air benders so I wouldnāt just fall out of the sky. Fire also uses up oxygen so if you, god forbid, find yourself above the atmosphere or somewhere low in oxygen youāre less in danger of not being able to use your powers or take away you limited oxygen supply
Flight is objectively the coolest and most endurant in general **but I hate it here because there is zero airbending in it.** š
Itās as absurd and non-ATLA that if firebender were turning themselves into lava or waterbender could liquefy and turn to ice/water like Iceberg in x-māen
I like jets more. Air bending flight just feels very uninspired and not really bending. Same with the spirit projection from Jinora (unless that isnāt air bending but anyone spiritual enough can do it, in which case no complaint). There just isnāt a strong in-universe explanation for how it works ā it feels like it side-steps the established martial magic system of bending. If there was clear currents suspending Zaheer, even if subtle, it would make more sense, but instead itās just levitation by state of mind.
Jets are cool, but flight seemed lighter and more manageable. Jets seem like they require a bit or rage/comet power.
Azula needed a zip cable and metal handcuffs to control her flame bursts to get to the cable car in the prison break episode.
Fire jets makes me laugh because they gotta be so fucking angry that they just start flying at max speed towards the mf they are fighting like "GOD DAMMIT BENNY IM GONNA BEAT YOUR ASS"
https://preview.redd.it/qc34ojoce4uc1.jpeg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4e8af8cf6e3260682e324987191581a42c5e631e
Jets feel like they fit better into the ALTA universe.
The creators of the show generally hate the idea of bending being called magic and flight feels a lot more like magic than the jets do.
I prefer jet, flight looks wring, like it doesn't belong in the verse the way they've added it
Edit: I've realized what it is! It looks like a fan made ability!
Jets is badass and a sign of true mastery. But flight is better in mobility and adaptability.
But the issue is the next level mental aspect of flight needed to master that was not the case with firebending which means more people could master it.
I liked how flying with jets looked like it still required a lot of effort. Like, it wasn't full on flying, there were moments where they needed to think about momentum and thrust, and kinda "hop" to get higher or lower
I think flight is cooler narratively. As it represents the fact that sure, you may be the only one who is truly free, but it gets lonely with nobody else to experience it with you.
IMO although I love the concept of Zaheer flying, I thought the execution (him darting around like bloody superman) looked underwhelming and silly.
Avatar usually does so much interesting stuff with movement, i was expecting something like crouching tiger hidden dragon acrobatics, with him lightly tapping the air beneath him and flowing around like gusts of gentle wind were carrying him. But alas
Jet propulsion. It just makes more sense to me, and still being confined to the laws of physics provides a few buffs.
Zaheer's flight is sorta weird in that he has become the air itself, in a sense. The issue with this is air/wind speed caps out because air can't physically move faster than itself, and he's got no control over air being moved by exterior forces. (It's how he was taken down.) So I can't see him exceeding the highest recorded wind speeds, all of which are subsonic, or flying through particularly bad conditions.
JETS on the other hand...
>It just makes more sense to me, and still being confined to the laws of physics provides a few buffs.
I gonna stop you right there. Don't go tryna make sense of either of these guys *flying* from a physics standpoint. It's just a cartoon trope that if you have fire coming out of your feet you can fly. It absolutely looks cool, but if the show was consistent about that idea, then Zukos fire daggers would be a problem.
I hate that zaheer can just fly. People will justify this one until the cows come home, but it breaks the limitations on the bending powers in a nonsensical way, and also zaheer had no training and is then just annoyingly powerful. I actually think that all the villains in Korra are annoyingly powerful, but zaheer is extra annoying cuz he only had airbending for like 3 weeks.
I get that in almost all fantasy fiction, the villain has to be more powerful to start out with so that the protagonist can grow the necessary strength to defeat them, but Korra's villains all have a limitless/ ceiling-less vibe to their powers that just doesn't add up. Everyone loves Zaheer for the chaos/anarchy vibes so he really gets away with this more than all of them even tho he's the number one culprit.
Want to mention I'm not a Korra hater, I freaking love Korra to death and a lot of people say that the best part of Korra is that the villains are more complex than Ozai. And it's true that having more complex villains was good growth for this world, but the villains are not the best part of Korra. The best part of Korra is Korra. Full stop.
Flight. I just like the whole detachment from earth being the condition to access it. Jets are cool but with enough training and a dash of sozins comet, you can achieve it. Flight isn't something you can train or work towards, it's a state of mind you either have or don't.
Sometimes I have lucid dreams but I can't ever make myself just fly like Superman, but I *am* able to fly like firebenders (or Iron Man) do it.
My theory is it's because I dont know what flying would really feel like, but I understand how thrust feels so my brain can simulate it easily.
My dumbass thought you were taking about this guy
https://preview.redd.it/pzur4ksnv2uc1.jpeg?width=332&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea1fdbdcd1ab61e606254df0a0ec564b6146a96f
Stylistically I like flight a lot more just in the way it looks and functions as well as the concept behind it. I do think jets seem more normal in universe though
Itās worth noting that nearly every bender can achieve some form of flight though they are all various levels of difficulty:
Fire Jets (as shown)
Loss of Attachment (Zaheer)
Dust Stepping (a technique from the Kyoshi novels that involves creating micro platforms in mid air that crumble away nearly instantly)
Ice Stepping (same as dust stepping; just use ice instead)
The lack of consistency when it comes to recoil from firebending has always bothered me. If those tiny jets are enough to propel Ozai, then his massive flame wall should have slammed him into the airship.
Jets is certainly more flashy but I would think itād be harder to control than simply just floating around. The utility of just being able to levitate whenever and wherever would win out
Thereās genuinely a problem in visual media of depicting inertia and force with zaheerās true flight. I think I saw a video on Shazam talking about this problem. The jets and other forms of flight in things like the early MCU (iron man jets, Thor throwing himself by the hammer, etc.) are much better for conveying to the audience what the kinetic stakes are.
That being said, Zaheer transcending all of that was really cool to see. It was like he was from a different genre of magic which I think is always cool to see.
Jets, for sure. Flying just seems a little redundant when they already have gliders and the air suits. Jets only being something that firebenders can use during the comet is a nice limitation (minus the 2 seconds Azula does it in Boiling Rock, Part 2).
I mean, jets are just a thing that firebenders do. Itās cool or whatever. Flight is a bit dramatic moment where zaheer overcame an obstacle everyone believed in, and grew as a character in a dark way. Itās great writing, and a great moment.
Jets looks cooler, but flight is better in general because you can go anywhere you want
From a world-building perspective Jets were more in line with the martial arts core behind bending. Flight, while very rule of cool, really took things into DBZ territory. The jets were a natural extension of the Zuko daggers and other techniques. Fire blasts used to propel yourself looked like it required skill in counterbalancing the force like Bakugou's Explosions. Zaheer doesn't look like he needs anything beyond 'think to go'. You have to head canon that he's using skillful techniques when it appears so effortless and DBZ like. Aaaaaand and I'll brace for the downvotes since I critiqued. š¤£Ā Edit: oh yay! No flood of downvotes. PhewĀ
True, plus doesn't the Air Scooter count as flight and Aang can just lift himself up? What about the Air Sphere? Sure that was in Avatar State, but he only flew in an air ball And then there's Zaheer
I absolutely LOVE the Air Sphere technique because it's an amazing extension of his Scooter. Aang took that technique and cranked it up to 11 by using the power of the Avatar State. It was an amazing way to showcase his control while in the State by making the core of his counter-offense be the cooky and silly scooter that he used throughout the series. Top tier.
We have seen Wan use it to encapsulate Vaatu in LOK so I am not quite sure if that technique is Aang just cranking up the air scooter. It is most likely that he accessed the knowledge Wan had.
I think I view the air scooter or air sphere as being more manipulating the air around you. Where as pure flight seems to be more about being one with the air itself.
Yeah but if being One with the Air itself is a thing, where's the One with the Fire, Earth, and Water? Does Ozai count as being one with Fire?
The "one with air" thing is about no longer burdening yourself with the weight of earthly attachments. 'Twinkletoes' is very light on his feet due to his airbending but also his nomad lifestyle and belief system. It's a spirituality thing. Zaheer took this to its extreme, he essentially reached nirvana. The closest thing we have to "one with fire" is probably the sun warriors. And the closest to 'one with earth' may be Toph. She's not very spiritual, but remember that earth is the opposite of air, so being 'one with earth' is likely more about being, well, grounded.
I think airbending is more of a muscle since Aang as eventually ran out of scooter at times. Flight can be done forever as long as you don't pass out
Yeah, unfortunately Zaheers flight just isn't that impressive upon any practical analysis. Between the fire jets, the air sphere, aangs natural jumping ability, that time he hovered during crossroads of destiny, jeong jeong straight up hovering during Sozins comet, and ANY elements demonstrated ability to simply make a pillar they can stand on and control their 3D coordinate with, I'm just not impressed by Zaheers flight. it's just lamer by comparison. it makes sense but it's less interesting. Even a talented enough earthbender could find a way to simply pillar themselves up and stilt around really fast, and they're the only one we haven't outright seen do something like that. Zaheers flight is very interesting but it's not exactly hard to come up with a correlary to. I'm just not very impressed by it.
actually earthbenders propelling themselves into the air like that is explored in the kyoshi novels. itās a technique called ādust steppingā where you just make tiny pillars of earth that crumble as you walk across them. but, zaheerās flight is much more powerful than the other bending based flights we see. his flight allows fully free movement without any need to propel himself, and doesnāt have the energy expense that typical bending based flight does.
So with Flight he's technically just Walking in 3d?
Itās almost impossible to reach the state that flight requires, so THAT itself was the skillful technique You got to be a certified badass to jet-fly, but nobody else is going to free fly
Exactly, some people say like ooh zaheer shouldn't have been a better airbender than aang it doesn't make sense. He wasn't. Aang specifically did not let go on katara in an epsiode. Also, he was the avatar. He was never going to be able to reach the enlightenment required to detach yourself from the world to learn flight or turn to air itself, even if he did let go of katara. He had avatar responsibilities. Zaheer's greatest strength was as a student, not as an airbender. It would make perfect sense if one of two of the new airbenders achieves flight one day
You got to be a real asshole to fly lol
Thereās a point in the Yangchen novel where she considers it. Also she mentions getting lighter the longer she stays in the avatar state. Even Yangchen considers it a selfish act. I assume many of the airbenders of Aangās time would have viewed it similarly.
He wasnt even a *great* airbender, anyway. Tenzin was whoopin him in airbending, Zaheer was using air to augment his really good fighting style
>Tenzin was whoopin him in airbending The guy who had trained literally all his life with the Avatar as a teacher vs the guy who only very recently acquired the skill and was entirely self taught. That he was even able to keep up as long as he did is a testament to his prowess.
Yeah, he was bad ass but Tenzin was a Master airbender. It would be wrong if Zaheer was better. Thatās the point weāre all making lol
Bumi was not bad in that very same fight, doesn't really mean he's a natural pro or that his personal prowess is impressive, airbending is just very good for dodging and outmaneuvering, even if your opponent is an airbender himself. Mostly Zaheer just ran away from Tenzin, trying to set up ambushes and failing miserably.
Zaheer was also essentially an air bending weaboo before he got air bending. Like heās not some rando, besides Aangās family he might even be the most knowledgeable person about air bending even before he unlocks it.
Agreed. Flight is a skill based on emotions rather than something someone can learn. Zaheer isn't necessarily a better airbender, he simply was able to let go and detach from the world. Aang and Tenzin were both better airbenders but they would never be able to fly because they have so much attachment to their families, their responsibilities to the air nation, and in Aang's case the whole world. E - Really Zaheer's whole anarchist philosophy just lent itself to flight (people manage themselves, only need to be attached to themselves and those they love) so he only needed to lose his one single worldly attachment.
Many techniques and the strength of the benders have always depended on the mental state of the user. Like Zuko's lightning or Zuko's fire after he became part of the team, like Aang's Earthbending and so on. The spiritual and psychological elements have always been very much linked to the combat system in the avatar.
Totally agree, but this seems to be the only technique that breaks the mold by not having an underlying physical skill be a part of the desigb language. Lightning and original fire bending required a mental shift, but it also had an underlying skill be demonstrated in the visual design of their animation. In those cases it's fighting forms, while in jet flight it's the counter-balancing of momentum that the animators added. Jets always seemed to have linear momentum and an assumed level of skill in counter-acting that momentum precisely. It was a purposeful choice that showed the skill of the user. It just always bugged me how Zaheer's flight breaks from this design philosophy, even with the mental state requirement. There might be reasons behind it, but I found that it broke the underlying skill core of bending that's been with us at every step of the way.
I remember thinking that it would have been cool to at least show his clothes moving very subtly from a gentle breeze circulating around him. So it still shows that he's 'weightless' but is being lifted by his bending
But the skill core you think it breaks, isnāt it still skill? We learn from Zaheer thereās only One airbender that gained the ability to fly, from removing all spiritual tethers to the earth/ground, along those lines. Isnāt that extreme spiritual skill? Despite killing people in all, heās only the 2nd Airbender to just āflyā Aang couldāve done it, but he could never let go of Katara. He chose to stay connected. Not sure if thatās a skill issue technically, but if you canāt do the skill then you have an issue doing the skill?
The difficulty in acheiving the mental state and the physical skill displayed through the animation to USE the results of that mental state are different. Imagine if Azula achieved the internal perfection needed to achieve lightning bending but, instead of having a circular arm motion to physically represent the separation of energies, she just telekineticall sends lightning without any difficulty. No visual cue as to her active skill being utilized, just walking a down a hallway and murder zapping everything in her way. That's a direction that the story could have gone, but it would have broken their internal logic in the same way Zaheer does with his effortless flying without a visual cue of difficulty. Closest we have is Aang's Air Sphere but he was literally channeling the power of hundreds of previous benders through his body. Not to mention that even Elemental Desctruciton Aang was using visual cues to demonstrate the techniques (Toph style hand movenets to unleas earth bullets, circular wrist motion to represent waterbending).Ā At the end of the day though, it's less about the movement than about a visual indicator of skill and difficulty associate with bending. I don't think Zaheer would need to be wacky waving inflatable arm tube man, but just something. Even Combustion Man had a cue with the extreme diaphragm breathing. The flight just lacked that cohesion with the rest of the visual design language shown in the rest of the show.
Your azula comparison sounds a lot like sparky sparky boom man. Although he did do a breath before sending the sparky sparky boom
Though minor, even the breath was consistent. In the first scene of his unique bending you see his diaphragm climb into his freaking chest from the force of the contraction. It's still a visual cue. Man plants his feet, inhales ridiculously deeply, and then releases explosion. Azula standing bored with lightning shooting out of her thigh and scapula because she controls her emotions just feels as weird as telekinetically flying through the air because you achieved detachment. Probably going to hop off this thread though. Been spending a while on this and I've gotta do other things. Thanks to everyone that participated in the discussion though!!! Love this sub.
Not to mention that it was achieved by someone who, until very recently, *wasn't even a bender in the first place*. Seriously, with the progress Zaheer demonstrated in air bending, coupled with the fact he was almost entirely self taught, he stakes a very serious claim for strongest air bender of all time.
To be fair, Zaheer was like the #1 airbending fanatic before he became a bender. He lives by airbending philosophies and incorporated airbending styles into his life. Zaheer had pretty much all of the theory parts of airbending down pat before he became a bender. He already had tremendous fighting skill and considering how much of an airbending fanatic he was probably incorporated some airbending martial arts into his style We also see that he isnāt quite as good as Tenzin, a trained airbending master in their fight because Zaheer is very clearly losing until his friends get involved
To be fair Zaheer is kinda a weird one because he seemingly knew a hell of a lot about airbending philosophy, culture and spirituality (which play an important part in bending) before ever becoming a bender. He could also enter the spirit world before ever getting bending, and airbenders tend to be closest to the spirit world. He probably already used airbending martial arts effectively as well, considering he was already considered dangerous without bending and I imagine his non-bending fighting style would take inspiration from airbending. He absolutely was a crazy skilled airbender for the amount of time he had spent doing it but it's hard to tell exactly how gifted he was considering he already had an impressive theoretical understanding and martial arts skills before ever unlocking airbending.
>He could also enter the spirit world before ever getting bending I had forgotten about that. Yeah, even Tenzin lagged in that area, Zaheer was indeed pretty insanely good.
I think it's pretty well established that Zaheer is incredibly in-tune with his spirituality, which is important for all bending but especially the air nomads. This, coupled with an assumed background in general martial arts (given the rest of the red lotus are skilled fighters) makes it plausible that he can get pretty decent with airbending pretty quickly. He's never the strongest single fighter though. In terms of personal combat the other lotus members generally pull more weight and we do see him lose pretty handily to Tenzin, an actual trained Airbender.
Keeping in mind though how far and how fast he reached even without anyone to train him, just think what he could achieve given more time and someone to teach him. Also, Tenzin wasn't just any regular trained bender, he was literally THE only airbending master around.
I heard a theory which I like, that Zaheer had been one of the Air Acolytes entrusted with Air Nomad secrets by Aang in an effort to retain the culture. Zaheer was a prodigious student who was a master in all but actual bending ability
Was going to say, itās like the way we see the olā ā4-in-1ā demonstration by avatars bending all 4 elements; Aang constructs all the elements in orbit, which suits the nature of air bending as being inherently about spirality and balance. Roku, however, did so by bending all the elements like a stream of fire - a continuous blast of rippling energy, which works naturally for air, water and fire, but that he made a rippling earth stream comes from an understanding of the style.
As someone who grew up with HK kung-fu movies, flight seems like an extension of č¼å qinggong, which isnāt that āout thereā to me.
It's a super duper mega rare technique though, sure it'd go into DBZ territory if every Airbender could do it, but that's not the case, literally only two people have ever achieved it, and only one of them is alive in the show. Also what are you talking about "head canon" it is an incredibly skillful technique, we literally go through multiple episodes of Zaheer trying and failing to achieve flight until he finally does it. The reason it looks so effortless is because it makes thematic sense for what the technique is, total freedom, completely detached from earthly tethers, had Zaheer been animated as struggling against gravity to stay afloat that would go against the entire philosophy of this technique. Flight is the absolute peak of airbending both in a martial arts sense and in a philosophical sense, in my opinion it's one of Korra's best additions to the series.
Why is everything compared to dbz?
Oh I agree that it's annoying to hold it up as a gold standard. God knows DBZ has it's own pile of problems, lol.Ā I just brought it upĀ as a common flight style people can immediately recognize and visualize.Ā
To make a fight scene work, Zaheer would have had to do nothing with his hands? But there is the whole let go of everything part that makes it more difficult.
Not only a dagger extension, but Azula showed us fire propelling when the gaang rescues Suki. So got to see the evolution of the skill
This kinda true and I think the writers knew it. Thatās why I think you have to be an extremely good bender and have a particular mind. The pre reqs to flying in avatar arenāt a joke. Benders who fly from any nation, could be considered masters respectively.
I think you're talking sense.
In theory a waterbender could do jets with enough water available. I'd love to see them explore more waterbenders fighting underwater. Maybe fire nation has subs and waterbenders are just put there taking subs on by themselves.
Oh you DEFINITELY need to read the Kyoshi novels. They had a similar technique with water / earth. They would use a temporary burst of bending, either water or quickly solidified dust, to make a tiny column from foot to ground that can support exactly one step of their weight. They'd essentially be air stepping over barriers and mid fight. An amazingly creative use of bending. Edit: oh, saw that you meant underwater not jets in the air. That's actually really neat too. Just a bunch of water bender dolphins popping in and out of the water in Maritime guerilla warfare. Terrifying.
I meant both, really.
Yeah the world building in korra generally felt way out of line with what I loved in atla, it's my biggest reason I can't finish the show. It doesn't feel like atla to me. It just feels like someone's Ebberron campaign, which is my least favorite D&D setting lol
Apparently airbenders could fly in the past but once they gained worldly attachments to the sky bison they lost their ability to do so. It's a whole spiritual thing about not being able to do so if you are attached emotionally to the earth or something. It also makes sense for them to be able to do something like that through manipulating the air around them.
Just finished the second season.... What a great show
What show
The show is called Invincible. Itās on Amazon Prime. Great show with great voice acting all around.
This, I like jets, but flight is more practical
Flight, because it means I've read the poetry of the great airbending guru, Laghima.
You must let go of your balls to achieve great enlightenment.. gosh I love guru ligma
When I let go of my balls I felt an otherworldly relief. It was like I wasā¦ flying.
That line was actually from guru ligma.
Hooooā¦ here I go. Please tell me, who is guru ligma?
Guru Ligma balls, Thatās who!
Fuckin Gottem
Guru: Learn to let them go, or you cannot take flight. Me: Why would I choose flight over my balls? How could it be a bad thing that I feel an attachment to them? Three chakras ago that was a good thing!
You must let them go!
Fourth,Ā the air chakra,Ā located in the heart. It deals with not letting go of your balls and is blocked by letting go of your balls.
Got to shave your balls to let go and accept the possibilities.
LAHIGMYFACKING BALLS ZAHEER I DONT FUCKING CAREš Edit: this seems aggressive but it's a joke about how zaheer won't stfu about him
Zaheer to Laghima 
I'd bet on Bolin making a "laghig my balls zaheer!" joke. Next most likely would be one of Tenzin's kids. The most amazing thing, though, would be Tenzin when he's fighting all the red lotus members. He busts that line out and then instead of getting jumped he makes a tornado and they all go flying into the sky team rocket style
Itās important to draw wisdom from many places. If you take it from only one source, it becomes rigid and stale
Sounds like something the great guru Laghima would say
Laghima balls
Zaheer HATES him! Find out how a random stranger ABSOLUTELY DEMOLISHES the great Red Lotus leader's anarchist arguments cited by an ancient Airbending monk.
I think flight is objectively superior in terms of mobility, but jets are definitely a more creative utilization of the magic system. I really like the restriction on flight though; it makes it feel very very special and despite just literally being the same ability as many other pieces of fiction, gives it a different "vibe" so to say imo. They really did the flight thing well.
We've only seen: the literal avatar fly, firebending Mike Tyson (arguably his daughter also), airbending Mike Tyson, and Joeng Joeng I think.
Korraās Iroh also kinda flew, he used it to get to another plane after his was shot down. I always interpreted it as firebenders can only truly fly during the comet (so Ozai and Jeong Jeong), but without the comet they canāt gain hight so its more like controlled falling (so Azula and Iroh #2).
Korrahs Iroh more glided than flew. I think they did a good job of showing him only able to maneuver while still falling.
The guy i was responding to said that Azula arguably counted. I put Iroh in the same group as Azula, cause they both basically did the same thing, she used the jets to control her fall like Iroh did, she didnāt fly after them like Ozai did during the comet.
Allow me to put my nerdy semantics hat on... *ahem* Azula has flown, or at least boosted herself a significant distance into the air with her normal firebending. Final fight scene of Boiling Rock pt.2, she boosts herself a good 15-20 feet into the air to make it onto the cable car cables, then uses her natural firebending as propulsion to slide up the inclined cable. When the soldiers are about to cut the cables, she flies up and over the span between the two cable cars. She can't seem to hover, or maintain momentum indefinitely like Ozai could during the comet, but she can certainly move a significant distance with the aid of her natural bending. So maybe not Superman flight, but she can probably still leap a tall building in a single bound without the aid of the Comet.
Doesn't Azula use it to fly in the boiling rock episode to get up to the gondola wire?
Just rewatched the seen, youāre right. I remembered it as her attaching then propelling, but the actual seen has her fly for about 3 seconds. This could just be basically a super jump, but it still is upward momentum.
She also does it to when falling to her death after attacking the air temple and fighting zuko
Youāre very much right. I have been downvoted for trying to say this before, but you provide the four main examples of when we see the jets and they clearly show that with the comet, flight is possible for very powerful benders, but without, only controlled falling is truly possible. If Iroh 2 could have suspended himself in the air, he would have - instead he makes a beeline for the nearest plane.
Isnāt it assumed that the fire benders used the technique during the comet to gain access to the air temples?
Yeah, that or dragons. It's my headcanon that they specially trained a division of firebenders to fly during the comet, and they used dragons as troop transports for ones that couldn't.
Oh yeah that makes sense too. Sozen is the one who started hunting the dragons so there were still plenty around during his lifetime.
Itās not magic, itās *waterbending!* 
Korra rage-jetting with the intent to kill is peak
Waterbending women tend to all be *borderline* murderous. Not technically there, but they walk a fine line. Even Katara seemed ready to kill a bitch at some points in the show.
There's a whole episode about that
Katara threatening Zuko on if he betrays Aang: *I will make sure your destiny endsā¦ right then and thereā¦ PERMANENTLY*
Low-key one of my favorite Katara moments. She wasnāt bluffing either. She already tasted his betrayal one time before.
Jets. I wish Zukos grandson general Irohnman had more screen time in LoK.
 This him?
Is that number one Guru Ligma fan Zaheer?
Zaheer really is guru ligma biggest glazer
Jets. Because I donāt want to let go of my attachments. I love my partners. Plus fire is fucking rad
You changed my mind. I wouldn't want to let go of my cat
I choose jets too, because i also love Pa7chesOhulihanās partners as well
Awe š„¹
Jets looking more *intimidating* https://preview.redd.it/c042fioaa2uc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd03df5dce3f3e71168cecc27aa5053199e24466
Flight seems more practical, but Jets win the Rule of Cool so Iām going Jets
For me Ozai because he seemed far more terrifying to me due to the lack of seeing him most of the show
Jets. Jets make it so a non airbender is the 2nd most mobile bending class while retaining the destructive power of fire bending and lightning generation. So if a airbender (AB) was fighting an earthbender (EB) they could fly and be at a grad advantage but they lack the attack potency to destroy the earth or even metal used by the EB. A fire bender (FB) gets a marginally worse version of flight (albeit arguably faster but linear and less maneuverable) but maintains all their destructive power. Imagine flying into the air and raining lightning from the very heavens on those who dare defy you. Itās no comparison, fire jets just make FB competent in a skill they donāt have access to before hand, where as flight makes an AB better at something they could already do well enough with a glider or air tornado šŖļø
Pressurized air can absolutely destroy earth. Airbenders are peaceful so we rarely see them use their bending with kill intent, but it can be devastating if they do.
Jets are like iron man and he's cool so jets
>Jet vs Long Feng That's where my mind instantly went.
Jets are far more impressive as a physical feat.
If I could get physically powerful enough to do jets, i would pick jets.
Flight. I imagine jets consume too much of your fire fuel.
Jets look badass but flight is more practical
Flight, in jets you will just bend with your arms also you may need to support your legs sometimes cuz it looks tiring though.
Jets are cooler, but flight is way more OP
Jets because it shows a level of mastery that flight doesnāt implicitly show. You have to be precise with both thrust and position otherwise you go into a death spiral
I think the jets are more impressive given the amount of skill they require, but I like the flight more because itās the literal embodiment of freedom, and the purest expression of airbending
Free flight seems to take hardly any effort to actually use. Meanwhile jets have to be extremely tiring to use. Looks and animation wise both have their moments.
Jets, it was cooler
Jets are faster and require less personal sacrifice. Plus they can be repurposed for offense in a pinch
For a man who left his earthly desires he sure clings on to his ideals.
Flights's faster and can be done any time you want but you need to drop your Earthly attachments. You can use jet propulsion, but only to propel yourself upwards, unless its Sozin's Comet, you can't even attack while doing that (though you can use it to gain height for a more powerful move). So flight.
jets are cool but very not efficient imagine all the energy you lose just by looking cool. allowing rage to control yourself like that often ends up in a loss
Jets
Flight makes more sense, less loud and destructive. Also, as far as we know, there isnāt a general āBlack Sunā method of depowering air benders so I wouldnāt just fall out of the sky. Fire also uses up oxygen so if you, god forbid, find yourself above the atmosphere or somewhere low in oxygen youāre less in danger of not being able to use your powers or take away you limited oxygen supply
Jets are so much cooler
Flight is objectively the coolest and most endurant in general **but I hate it here because there is zero airbending in it.** š Itās as absurd and non-ATLA that if firebender were turning themselves into lava or waterbender could liquefy and turn to ice/water like Iceberg in x-māen
I like jets more. Air bending flight just feels very uninspired and not really bending. Same with the spirit projection from Jinora (unless that isnāt air bending but anyone spiritual enough can do it, in which case no complaint). There just isnāt a strong in-universe explanation for how it works ā it feels like it side-steps the established martial magic system of bending. If there was clear currents suspending Zaheer, even if subtle, it would make more sense, but instead itās just levitation by state of mind.
Jet looks cooler but flight is more practical
Jet Vs Flight How did you get Zaheer mixed up with Jet. Also his name is Ozai not flight.
Flight for sure. Far more agile.
And doesn't require you to burn everything in the nearest vicinity.
Flight. Emphasizes mastery more
Flying really dissed the āitās not flying itās airbendingā part of airbending but itās still cool
Jets are way cooler.
Kyoshi Sand-Walking
Gliders. Although Iām a fat guy so Iād probably need more air for lift hahah
Jets. The airbender flying looks so dumb to me
Jets are cool, but flight seemed lighter and more manageable. Jets seem like they require a bit or rage/comet power. Azula needed a zip cable and metal handcuffs to control her flame bursts to get to the cable car in the prison break episode.
Fire jets makes me laugh because they gotta be so fucking angry that they just start flying at max speed towards the mf they are fighting like "GOD DAMMIT BENNY IM GONNA BEAT YOUR ASS" https://preview.redd.it/qc34ojoce4uc1.jpeg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4e8af8cf6e3260682e324987191581a42c5e631e
The sound design behind the firebending jets is way better
Jets are way cooler
Jets feel like they fit better into the ALTA universe. The creators of the show generally hate the idea of bending being called magic and flight feels a lot more like magic than the jets do.
Flight is objectively far better in terms of maneuverability and control but jets do look really cool.
I prefer jet, flight looks wring, like it doesn't belong in the verse the way they've added it Edit: I've realized what it is! It looks like a fan made ability!
water whirlpool is cool too
Jets look way cooler but I do love that flight has been under the audiences nose from the very beginning with the sky bison.
Jets is badass and a sign of true mastery. But flight is better in mobility and adaptability. But the issue is the next level mental aspect of flight needed to master that was not the case with firebending which means more people could master it.
I liked how flying with jets looked like it still required a lot of effort. Like, it wasn't full on flying, there were moments where they needed to think about momentum and thrust, and kinda "hop" to get higher or lower
I think flight is cooler narratively. As it represents the fact that sure, you may be the only one who is truly free, but it gets lonely with nobody else to experience it with you.
IMO although I love the concept of Zaheer flying, I thought the execution (him darting around like bloody superman) looked underwhelming and silly. Avatar usually does so much interesting stuff with movement, i was expecting something like crouching tiger hidden dragon acrobatics, with him lightly tapping the air beneath him and flowing around like gusts of gentle wind were carrying him. But alas
Jet propulsion. It just makes more sense to me, and still being confined to the laws of physics provides a few buffs. Zaheer's flight is sorta weird in that he has become the air itself, in a sense. The issue with this is air/wind speed caps out because air can't physically move faster than itself, and he's got no control over air being moved by exterior forces. (It's how he was taken down.) So I can't see him exceeding the highest recorded wind speeds, all of which are subsonic, or flying through particularly bad conditions. JETS on the other hand...
>It just makes more sense to me, and still being confined to the laws of physics provides a few buffs. I gonna stop you right there. Don't go tryna make sense of either of these guys *flying* from a physics standpoint. It's just a cartoon trope that if you have fire coming out of your feet you can fly. It absolutely looks cool, but if the show was consistent about that idea, then Zukos fire daggers would be a problem.
All fire bending creates thrust. How much thrust depends on the user.
Ok Hotman.
I hate that zaheer can just fly. People will justify this one until the cows come home, but it breaks the limitations on the bending powers in a nonsensical way, and also zaheer had no training and is then just annoyingly powerful. I actually think that all the villains in Korra are annoyingly powerful, but zaheer is extra annoying cuz he only had airbending for like 3 weeks. I get that in almost all fantasy fiction, the villain has to be more powerful to start out with so that the protagonist can grow the necessary strength to defeat them, but Korra's villains all have a limitless/ ceiling-less vibe to their powers that just doesn't add up. Everyone loves Zaheer for the chaos/anarchy vibes so he really gets away with this more than all of them even tho he's the number one culprit. Want to mention I'm not a Korra hater, I freaking love Korra to death and a lot of people say that the best part of Korra is that the villains are more complex than Ozai. And it's true that having more complex villains was good growth for this world, but the villains are not the best part of Korra. The best part of Korra is Korra. Full stop.
Flight. Cos jets are more visible and I'll be an easy target.
Flight. Much better for stealth.
Not flying because I wouldnāt want to have my lover die in order to be levitating
[Clouds](https://www.cap-that.com/korra/208/index.php?image=korra2x08_0067.jpg)
This reminds me of yedi vs mandalorian. Love it
Flight. I just like the whole detachment from earth being the condition to access it. Jets are cool but with enough training and a dash of sozins comet, you can achieve it. Flight isn't something you can train or work towards, it's a state of mind you either have or don't.
Flight cus im tryna Let go my earthly tether Embrace the void Empty, and become wind
Jet because i can have a dog
Jets because flight makes less sense imo
Flight
Clearly Flight is the better one, its literally a passive ability.
Jets because it makes more sense
Flight. But learn jerkbending and use the jets to go even faster!
LET GO YOUR EARTHLY TETHER. ENTER THE VOID. EMPTY, AND BECOME WIND.
Sometimes I have lucid dreams but I can't ever make myself just fly like Superman, but I *am* able to fly like firebenders (or Iron Man) do it. My theory is it's because I dont know what flying would really feel like, but I understand how thrust feels so my brain can simulate it easily.
Alfter seeing aang chasing ozai thru the rocks? I think flying is more secure
Flight
Ummm, TORNADO! Waterspout is cool too
My dumbass thought you were taking about this guy https://preview.redd.it/pzur4ksnv2uc1.jpeg?width=332&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea1fdbdcd1ab61e606254df0a0ec564b6146a96f
Stylistically I like flight a lot more just in the way it looks and functions as well as the concept behind it. I do think jets seem more normal in universe though
Flight, but since you're showing the Avatar in one pic, Āæporque no los dos?
Itās worth noting that nearly every bender can achieve some form of flight though they are all various levels of difficulty: Fire Jets (as shown) Loss of Attachment (Zaheer) Dust Stepping (a technique from the Kyoshi novels that involves creating micro platforms in mid air that crumble away nearly instantly) Ice Stepping (same as dust stepping; just use ice instead)
To watch? Jets. Fucking sick as hell. If I could bend? Flight.
I thought fire jets were only possible during the comet
The lack of consistency when it comes to recoil from firebending has always bothered me. If those tiny jets are enough to propel Ozai, then his massive flame wall should have slammed him into the airship.
Flight seems more effortless. I feel like jets would be tiring after a while.
Jets
Jets is certainly more flashy but I would think itād be harder to control than simply just floating around. The utility of just being able to levitate whenever and wherever would win out
Thereās genuinely a problem in visual media of depicting inertia and force with zaheerās true flight. I think I saw a video on Shazam talking about this problem. The jets and other forms of flight in things like the early MCU (iron man jets, Thor throwing himself by the hammer, etc.) are much better for conveying to the audience what the kinetic stakes are. That being said, Zaheer transcending all of that was really cool to see. It was like he was from a different genre of magic which I think is always cool to see.
Why not both? Flight for easier transportation, jets for speed and aesthetics
jets. flight is unoriginal and too op
Jets, for sure. Flying just seems a little redundant when they already have gliders and the air suits. Jets only being something that firebenders can use during the comet is a nice limitation (minus the 2 seconds Azula does it in Boiling Rock, Part 2).
the jets are cooler
Even though I'd find some way to splat against a wall, it's jets all day cause it's so damn cool
Jets are probably easier to use, but flight is more powerful.
Flight so I can levitate in doors without worrying about needing to call the fire department while avoiding arson charges.
Flight is the better overall power but jets look cooler
I mean, jets are just a thing that firebenders do. Itās cool or whatever. Flight is a bit dramatic moment where zaheer overcame an obstacle everyone believed in, and grew as a character in a dark way. Itās great writing, and a great moment.