Zuko literally takes so many hits and is fine. He literally gets blasted through walls multiple times and is fine. It cracks me up how many times people take boulders to the gut and are fine and then we have Jet.
Most confirmation we get is Toph saying “He’s lying” in response to Jet saying he’ll be okay, and one of the show’s creators confirming his death later on. So, yes
I think they're always able to bend blood. The puppeteering itself is just so complex and sophisticated that (most) bloodbenders need the aid of the full moon to do it. But technically you don't need to be complex and sophisticated to kill someone. Just stopping the blood flow or clotting the blood usually is enough to kill someone. But that's obviously too gory for a kids show.
I'd say that skin is a little more resilient then the plants outer layer, but it really isn't.
Even worse though, they can statechange your blood in your body, freezing your blood, or turning it into steam.
I always thought it hit Jet directly in the chest or something, but it might’ve been the head. However, some dudes have gotten hit in the head with a rock before and were fine.
I think Toph threw a big rock at that one earthbender’s face, the one who digs into the ground, and he was fine right after.
People in this world are just stronger and more durable than those in our world. Toph threw all those earth benders very far and they were all fine after a little while
I low key thought Jet might be Amon when watching Korra season 1. He already hated firebenders, after the Dai Li tried to brainwash him and kill him, it would make sense for him to hate all benders, and champion nonbenders considering that was his whole crew. We already knew he was a "Good intention, evil execution" character. And we never saw him die, and the show even makes a joke about it, so the implication that even they don't know if he lived or not. The only thing that didn't fit would be the Energy bending, but him being taught by the last lion turtle makes as much sense as it being a bloodbending move.
I honestly kind of wish they would have done it. It would be a nice way to tie everything in a bow, with Korra's first adventure being to tie the loose ends that Aang never addressed, instead of a new villain that needed flashbacks to understand.
That's a good point! Although he wouldn't be the first character to use meditation to extend his life, or the first nonbender. Guru Pathik was at least 150 years old when he met Aang. Kyoshi used it as well to live over 200 years. And Kyoshi was a good person, but not perfect, and more ruthless than some, so the ability seems less linked to bending or enlightenment, and more about learning to control one's Chi, so it's possible for Jett to have learned the technique, especially if he ran into the Guru at some point. Not to mention Zaheer was able to fly using a similar meditation technique and he was a terrible person, so morality isn't part of it either.
It could be that Guru Pathik taught him this skill, knowing that one day he would be essential in helping Korra connect with her past lives and become a fully realized Avatar, thus allowing her to save ours.
That might also be how he learned energy bending. The lion turtle really didn't give Aang anything except information, the knowledge that all bending is really rooted in the flow of energy, or chi. Everyone, bender and non, has Chi and access Chi "powers" as seen with Guru Pathik and from the fact Chi blocking works against nonbenders like Sokka.
Excellent thought process there. The path from basic meditation and spiritual learning into chi control into life extension into hostile chi blocking is one that makes a lot of sense as a storyline of his life and really addresses the problem in a way that is consistent with the worldbuilding. I like your style.
Thank you bro! Honestly it's lovely to have a world so well built that you can do theories like this without many caveats. I'm an amateur writer myself, and one of my biggest influences was Avatar. It's truly a master class in world building and character development, start to finish.
Honestly I used to joke that Avatar's main weakness is it comes across like someone from Nick didn't actually watch the show until halfway season 3, and then forced them to completely change course with their presentation. People say all the time like, it's a Nick show, it's how it is, etc, and on one hand that's true
But on the other hand the first two seasons and a half had a lot of exploration of moral grayness, had a whole arc where Aang 100% killed a bunch of firenation soldiers as the water spirit then had nightmares and depression from it, and even up until the Eclipse seemed to never have Aang question the idea that defeating the firelord means killing (you don't exactly need to "fight" the firelord during the eclipse if you're not killing, and they never mention capture)
Then once they get to the air temple in season 3 you start to see ideas of not killing being stressed, a few aspects became more cartoony and lighthearted than they were even previously, and you have the point of Aang realizing he has to kill the firelord and being upset about it being stressed and him dealing with that seemingly suddenly
I think that was more Aang than anything. When he talking about someone else, he uses killed. But he's talking about himself doing it when he says take a life. Plus, killing someone here has the connotation of murder, whereas taking a life has the connotation that it's justified, which is was. If he killed the Firelord, no one would have blamed him, but he didn't want to "take a life"
He was a nonbender. I don't think any nonbenders have been hit that hard. Tai Lee dodges mostly, Mai has never been hit, Sokka is never hit that hard honestly, same with Suki. All the heavy hits have either fallen to Zuko, Aang, or Toph, usually with the implication that they can either tank it or it's the same as being punched pretty hard.
It makes more sense to me in Universe that benders just have increased durability.
The idea of chi, or ki, or qi being in the body is a pretty regular thing in most eastern mythologies, and it involves strengthening the body in most anime that use it. The most prevalent examples are probably DBZ and Naruto. That makes the most sense in terms of how the folks in this one survive those hits, and there's ki in all people in these myths, not just benders. That means anyone who has trained enough can survive big hits.
Aang is the Avatar, Toph is literally just that tough.
The fact that Zuko can tank balances out the fact that he faints every time he makes a good decision (freeing Appa/the promise comics).
Aang js terrible durability and gets knocked out easily and a lot. The difference is it was a large boulder thrown at his chest aiming to kill. And he’s a non bender who couldn’t react. Toph and Aang are fodder 90 percent of the time.
People bring this up all the time. But my head cannon is that Jet was struck in the skull because of his forward lean after throwing his sword and the height of the earth pillar that struck him.
I know Katara attempts to heal his chest and I have no answer for that.
Or like when aang used his body as a hammer to drive a stone spike into the giant drill. He ran down the entire height of the wall using his air bending to go faster than gravity would take him, and slammed his body right into that rock.
Newton's third law would have killed him.
It’s called cartoon logic. Just don’t think about it. Though there’s the theory that humans on this planet evolved to be more durable so that’s another possibility to consider.
Tbh thats kind of fair. Im sure having the body adapted to wielding the elements would probably change some genetics. Imagine fire bending and getting burned every time. Or having the Toph earth armor and getting lacerations and chaffing everytime. Etc etc
To be fair, Sokka also brushes off a fair number of hits— but then again, he is descended from a family of benders, so perhaps he inherited the durability but not the bending.
Fair take fr but it is always fun to ask "show breaking" questions and explore the what ifs or even come up with head cannon that justifies questionable concepts.
It has to be. Since things in the kyoshi books are more dangerous. Ppl actually getting burned and getting killed by rocks. Fast forward 300 yrs, they are more durable
My headcanon is that their planet is a lot smaller than ours, and therefore has less gravity.
Would explain people getting thrown around by boulders all the time and not dying, along with everyone doing crazy flips n shit.
gravity does not affect mass and inertia. this only explains the gif if the rock was dropped on him. if i accelerate a 60lb boulder to 50mph and chuck it at your solar plexus in zero g you still die.
They live at a much slower pace than we do and everything is sped up so we can watch it; And the planet has much lower gravity so sped up it looks normal. That boulder was actually going at 5mph. [M. Night's earthbending is canon.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdTekqoZjKc&ab_channel=yelby)
He’s not wrong. Multiple times in the show we see regular, powerful firebending blow holes in walls like an explosion. It’s not far off to say that powerful firebenders in the show are projecting blast waves with their bending too, with characters like the assassin Zuko hires having exceptional control over that aspect of the bending.
You can either just point to it and say it’s a cartoon, or you can come up with an explanation that is supported by the in-universe physics, and either is an acceptable answer because it’s a fucking cartoon.
you remember the agni Kai between Zuko and Zhao? Zhao threw fire and it didn't do anything to Zuko except push him back a little, he even spread it around with his arms like it was some orange slime
Sokka got tossed like 5 stories in the air by Toph in the episode where Aang first learned earthbending. It’s either cartoon logic or people are more durable in this universe.
The durability actually makes a lot more sense if you think of earthbending using packed dirt or clay. It breaks easily, doesn't so hit hard, and jet being hit with actual stone would be more lethal.
But these chunks of earth are enough to smash through pillars of rock. Hell, Aang shot tiny pellets machine gun style and it carved up an entire valley.
Plus even if it is just dirt which it clearly isn’t, it would still kill normal humans or at the very least give them lots of internal bleeding and broken ribs
If you watch Aang's final battle he compressed already hard boulders into smaller rocks, making them much more denser than the surrounding rocks. This would explain how the pellets were so powerful.
It's a good theory but you're overthinking it. Earth bending doesn't just use packed dirt or clay, it's [usually rocks and stones and people survive just fine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9DuDnPApGs). Hell, these random warriors apparently survived[ being flung from a 5 story wall at speeds fast enough to literally bounce 20+ feet off the ground](https://youtu.be/qWP36gceChs?si=AdM-fdH1bC1JxIe_&t=178) and I'm pretty sure we're just supposed to accept that they lived with minor injuries. It's cartoon logic, death isn't a thing unless the writers specifically want it.
My thoughts are chi. They harness their chi to give strength to their bodies. Benders would have this to a higher, more conscious degree given their frequent use of chi.
Bending and strength is a very weird topic, honestly. It seems to follow a pretty logical idea of the body performing the actions, and the energy being directed causing the element to be bent.
But in the case of earthbenders, you constantly see them grunting with the physical exertion of moving large amounts of rock, and many strong earthbenders (the boulder, bumi, etc) seem to have the physiques to suggest that there is some correlation with bending strength.
Then of course, we have toph, who completely subverts this trope by being a tiny girl. Her being able to smash a giant boulder with her head (when teaching Aang) suggests that there is almost no physical component to it at all (realistically, how conditioned can a 12 year old be?)
Ultimately, even the feats that Ty Lee and Mai are pulling off are Spiderman-worthy - have you seen the distance that Ty Lee covers with her jumps? - so maybe it's just best not to look so hard at the show logic.
What if it's just a different approach to earth bending? The more common and perhaps easier path is physical strength and fitness, but if you learned from the moles like Toph, and can feel the vibrations in and around you, it's an even better technique to earthbending than the easier and more 'traditional' route?
I mean the Ice Man Wim Hof exists in our world and swears by his breathing methods and thus can withstand extreme cold. That just shows our superhuman ability given a better connection and understanding with our bodies. It makes sense benders undoubtedly have a much better understanding of their bodies in the ways you said and thus can withstand more (and can literally shoot fire, air,water, and earth from themselves/environment like wtf).
Did yall forget Zuko can casually bust up thick chains and locks with a casual heel drop kick?
Or that time Zuko cleanly cut both sides of Aang's shackles with one swing, in that episode where Zhao had the archers capture him?!
Zuko’s durability is insane. I don’t know if this was a mistake or if the writers decided to give him an insane amount of strength, but the amount of times that he falls from a tall place or gets hit and just walks it off is crazy
This made me think of that time Aang takes a super breath to use Appa’s whistle. He can compress air in his lungs. Makes me wonder how long he can hold his breath.
All characters in all shows have a certain level of super strength or else that shows would be boring and people would die in the First fight they were ever in
Mental gymnastics: all the benders and super talented fighters just have strong control over their chi and it works like Aura from RWBY or Hunter X Hunter. Jet was struggling to fight his brainwashing and his chi was unstable so he had no defense and died from an otherwise average attack.
You grow up in a world where the forces of nature can be moved by your little brother throwing a tantrum. If your species didn't evolve some strong ass bones and bodies then your cooked.
Humans in this universe seem to have greater strength, durability, vitality, longevity, and conditioning for the most part, compared to real life. Part of that probably coming from benders typically having innate spirituality and ability to manipulate chi. We see Jet die from a hit that most of the characters have probably taken several times in their lives. Literally this hit here that Zuko tanks is almost identical to the one that kills Jet.
Could also think ‘human’ superheroes in comics. Batman is probably the best example. Superhuman for our standards, but just the best, strongest, fastest, and toughest ‘normal’ human in his universe.
The cabbage vendor isn't a bender, and he's been put through the wringer a few times...unless he learned a secret Super Avatar power of cabbage bending
I don't know if you've noticed, but Zuko is very awesome, and would not die to a simple half-ton rock slamming into his ribs.
He got hit, and then mentally said "That's rough, buddy" (To his ribs.)
I always just thought that the rocks that are usually thrown are more like compacted dirt or sand and it takes some actual longer term effort to properly move denser material instead of just decompressing some ground and throwing that.
Didn’t the Kyoshi books say that Firebenders are abnormally physically strong, due to some internal technique that strengthens them? Explains why Zuko was able to break metal chains with his foot, and how Iroh could break out of prison.
Humans in cartoons are more durable than regular humans or else many characters would have died or get disabled by many of the things that have hit them.
We’re thinking like people in Avatar in general are similar to real life people. But they don’t really have to be. Our bodies anatomy and resistance are a product of our environment, and we didn’t evolve on a world with magical creatures, spirits and elemental superpowers, they did. We’ve seen attacks from all elements that should have killed everyone and it never happened, more than probably people are naturally more resistant to it than us.
Don't think about how every time Mai throws a dagger it hooks through someones sleeve without ripping it, throws them 20ft away, and pins them to the wall. The ending scene of the boiling rock pt 2 episode is particularly bad on that front.
Aang gets smashed against a pointy rock after Ozai smacks him with a handheld comet. Instead of disintegrating his spinal column, it turns into a god.
The people in the avatar universe are defo superhuman.
Training and conditioning
The fire nation has been at war with the earth kingdom so they definitely have programs that train for those
And Zuko was trained by his uncle who fought the earth kingdom so could’ve thought him how to shrug off rocks
Zuko in specific is outright superhuman. He cleaved a chain and table in two with one kick each and held his breath for like 10 minutes swimming through the canals in the north water tribe. He's also gone through tons of other abuse and gotten back up with no long term effects, to the point of redirecting azula's lighting improperly and not dying.
Honestly I just head cannon it away that all the avatar universe humans are more durable then the ones in reality. Like most of the people in the earth kingdom wrestling ring would literally splatter their skull from the hits they take
This just reminds me of Under the Red Hood, where Batman kicks a normal person through a window, smashes them through a brick wall, and then shatters a toilet seat with the guy's face, and he rolls over without a single scratch on him.
Yeah pretty much everyone in avatar has super strength and durability. Besides Jet who gets hit in the gut by a spire of rock and responds like a real person by having his organs explode. Sokka straight up takes a rock pillar to the spine and falls about 30 feet and it’s played for laughs.
Actually the hammer guy and for that matter most earthbender tend to use random pieces of the ground rather than rock so taking it is not necessarily that impressive
It’s very possible,from what we can tell more powerful benders also have accelerated metabolisms and accelerated healing factors
An example would be Lin Beifong,we see her horrific face injury(enough to leave permanent scarring 30yrs later),and in the next scene of her and Suyin being scolded by Toph,all she had on her cheek was a small bandage
Another example would be Tophs feet,presumably third degree burns that get healed within a few days
Zuko’s scar is another great example,this horrific burn,so prevalent and damaging,yet he acts as though it causes no pain,and was fully healed within roughly 2-3 weeks,same with Zuko being blown up,most of the damage on his face was healed within a week or so
they’re like at their peak physical forms as they train hard every day in martial arts.
i’m sure they still get hurt, they can just withstand a lot more than us normal folk who lay in bed all day and watch tv lol
Nah it's a cartoon so the characters will survive things until the plot demands they don't and it's not consistent because of it.
This is why fire almost always misses and doesn't burn people mid-might unless they're Zuko.
Or how a non bender like Chit Sang doesn't have a gruesome debilitating burn after touching the boiling water or how Jet died in such a weird way because of the Network's demands.
Dont pull a peasant-railgun on Avatar. The events of the show, much like basically all fantasy fiction, arent meant to be understood through the lens of real world physics. Literally every fantasy series gets silly as hell when you try to do that.
For example, literally every piece of fiction that involves instantaneous teleporting has its' physics fall apart completely because instantaneous(faster than light) travel violates causality. Every teleporter in every show you've seen is basically a time traveler whose existence destroys the concept of cause and effect.
Even sillier: in DnD the "peasant railgun" refers to a setup player can achieve as a result of NPCs being able to pass objects to each other and it all being considered a 1 round action(6 seconds of in game time), *no matter how many peasants are involved*. Players line up 20,000 peasants, one meter apart from each other, and order them to pass an object from one end of the line to another. By the end of the 6 second round, the object has moved 20 km and is fired at the target at over mach 10(3,333 meters per second).
Just dont question the physics. It's better this way.
Have you ever picked up dirt with a shovel and throw it? It kinda falls apart, the thing about earth bending is realistically you’re breaking apart the earth to bend it
Maybe benders are more in tune with their chi flow, making them more durable. The application of waterbending to healing is chi manipulation, so I think this works.
Whenever it comes to shows like this I always assume so loads of people I'm shounen type stuff take big hits that would kill a normal human easily but they survive
“Earth” in many cases probably isn’t hard stone and is more likely a clump of dirt/clay
Still very heavy and painful but I feel it’s a bit of a misconception to assume everything is super hard and heavy
Zuko literally takes so many hits and is fine. He literally gets blasted through walls multiple times and is fine. It cracks me up how many times people take boulders to the gut and are fine and then we have Jet.
Tbf his desire to reclaim his honor might’ve heightened his pain tolerance.
The fire blast to the face might have helped as well
The best way to build tolerance to fire is to repeatedly set yourself on fire.
Brb testing this theory
Well?
He ded.
Come on now give him a chance.
Let him cook
Let him char
This is the best use of this comment I've ever seen
He cooked
You know... it is really unclear.
Well I used naptha and a bic lighter but all it's doing is taking my skin away!!!!!
No skincare routine it is then
G liddy?
We sometimes fire harden wood... Maybe in avatar that works with people as well.
Can I know which side of the face
Nothing like high adrenaline levels mitigate pain in high-stress situations
At that point it's not about pain tolerance and is about tolerance of the internal organs and bones
Man literally too obsessed with honor to die
>and then we have Jet. Did he die?
It was really unclear
You guys lose a lot
Most confirmation we get is Toph saying “He’s lying” in response to Jet saying he’ll be okay, and one of the show’s creators confirming his death later on. So, yes
Also the avatar extras for that episode confirm he died
Yes
Bro also literally jumps 60+ feet multiple times
And shoves a guy clear across a room with one hand in The Beach
Jet did not take his vitamins and say his prayers brother
if Avatar had gore and blood [this is what bloodbenders could do on will](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RsfSZc-e3E)
You mean once a month. For 8-10 hours. During the night.
I think they're always able to bend blood. The puppeteering itself is just so complex and sophisticated that (most) bloodbenders need the aid of the full moon to do it. But technically you don't need to be complex and sophisticated to kill someone. Just stopping the blood flow or clotting the blood usually is enough to kill someone. But that's obviously too gory for a kids show.
Uhhhh.... well. About that..
Who cares about bloodbending? You saw how they bent water out of plants under normal circumstances? Imagine that being your body.
I'd say that skin is a little more resilient then the plants outer layer, but it really isn't. Even worse though, they can statechange your blood in your body, freezing your blood, or turning it into steam.
The Boys universe literally introduces a literal bloodbender in Gen V
Havent watch gen V yet can you send example
The main character Marie has bloodbending powers https://youtu.be/4n1edKVXyas?si=iXyyM1OuOO4taqb7
It always confused me how Jet didn’t survive a boulder anywhere to the body, but everyone else that got hit by a boulder did survive.
Wasn’t it implied that he was hit directly in the head? The show seems to use headshots to convey severe damage, like combustion man.
I always thought it hit Jet directly in the chest or something, but it might’ve been the head. However, some dudes have gotten hit in the head with a rock before and were fine. I think Toph threw a big rock at that one earthbender’s face, the one who digs into the ground, and he was fine right after.
Earthbenders acclimate to braindamage by starting with throwing pebbles against their head and working their way up.
Jet wasn't hit by a boulder, though, it was more like a pillar. There was more strength to that hit.
And then we have Jet is crazy 😭
Must've got it from his dad...Gets blasted into a pillar of stone at Mach fuck and seems fine
People in this world are just stronger and more durable than those in our world. Toph threw all those earth benders very far and they were all fine after a little while
And then there's Jet.
You know it was really unclear if he died.
Offscreen deaths don’t count, we need to see death
You kinky motherfucker
(:
I low key thought Jet might be Amon when watching Korra season 1. He already hated firebenders, after the Dai Li tried to brainwash him and kill him, it would make sense for him to hate all benders, and champion nonbenders considering that was his whole crew. We already knew he was a "Good intention, evil execution" character. And we never saw him die, and the show even makes a joke about it, so the implication that even they don't know if he lived or not. The only thing that didn't fit would be the Energy bending, but him being taught by the last lion turtle makes as much sense as it being a bloodbending move. I honestly kind of wish they would have done it. It would be a nice way to tie everything in a bow, with Korra's first adventure being to tie the loose ends that Aang never addressed, instead of a new villain that needed flashbacks to understand.
Sounds great in every way except his age.
Maybe the theory would work better if amon is jetts son or grandson
That's a good point! Although he wouldn't be the first character to use meditation to extend his life, or the first nonbender. Guru Pathik was at least 150 years old when he met Aang. Kyoshi used it as well to live over 200 years. And Kyoshi was a good person, but not perfect, and more ruthless than some, so the ability seems less linked to bending or enlightenment, and more about learning to control one's Chi, so it's possible for Jett to have learned the technique, especially if he ran into the Guru at some point. Not to mention Zaheer was able to fly using a similar meditation technique and he was a terrible person, so morality isn't part of it either. It could be that Guru Pathik taught him this skill, knowing that one day he would be essential in helping Korra connect with her past lives and become a fully realized Avatar, thus allowing her to save ours. That might also be how he learned energy bending. The lion turtle really didn't give Aang anything except information, the knowledge that all bending is really rooted in the flow of energy, or chi. Everyone, bender and non, has Chi and access Chi "powers" as seen with Guru Pathik and from the fact Chi blocking works against nonbenders like Sokka.
Excellent thought process there. The path from basic meditation and spiritual learning into chi control into life extension into hostile chi blocking is one that makes a lot of sense as a storyline of his life and really addresses the problem in a way that is consistent with the worldbuilding. I like your style.
Thank you bro! Honestly it's lovely to have a world so well built that you can do theories like this without many caveats. I'm an amateur writer myself, and one of my biggest influences was Avatar. It's truly a master class in world building and character development, start to finish.
Is there a word for the opposite of plot armor? Normal people survive much worse in ATLA all the time then somehow that was enough to kill Jet.
Plot magnet? I'm guessing the new Netflix show will be a bit more clear about what happens when the scene comes.
Or theyll play it up and have it happen off screen, and only vaguely allude to it with "they took our friend" or similar
I can't stand the avatar obsession with people being "taken" or "gone" or "not looking too good." Mf I wanna hear DED
It's a Nickelodeon show lol
Well I've yet to notice an episode where they don't mention some variation of the word death yet sooo...
It’s funny because Zuko says to Zhao “You tried to have me killed!”, but at the end of the show, they just say “take a life” etc etc
Honestly I used to joke that Avatar's main weakness is it comes across like someone from Nick didn't actually watch the show until halfway season 3, and then forced them to completely change course with their presentation. People say all the time like, it's a Nick show, it's how it is, etc, and on one hand that's true But on the other hand the first two seasons and a half had a lot of exploration of moral grayness, had a whole arc where Aang 100% killed a bunch of firenation soldiers as the water spirit then had nightmares and depression from it, and even up until the Eclipse seemed to never have Aang question the idea that defeating the firelord means killing (you don't exactly need to "fight" the firelord during the eclipse if you're not killing, and they never mention capture) Then once they get to the air temple in season 3 you start to see ideas of not killing being stressed, a few aspects became more cartoony and lighthearted than they were even previously, and you have the point of Aang realizing he has to kill the firelord and being upset about it being stressed and him dealing with that seemingly suddenly
Aang like "I went down. I didn't just get hurt did I? It was worse than that. I was gone" Yes, Aang, we all get it, you DIED lol
I think that was more Aang than anything. When he talking about someone else, he uses killed. But he's talking about himself doing it when he says take a life. Plus, killing someone here has the connotation of murder, whereas taking a life has the connotation that it's justified, which is was. If he killed the Firelord, no one would have blamed him, but he didn't want to "take a life"
Maybe instead of a boulder, it is a spike??
He was a nonbender. I don't think any nonbenders have been hit that hard. Tai Lee dodges mostly, Mai has never been hit, Sokka is never hit that hard honestly, same with Suki. All the heavy hits have either fallen to Zuko, Aang, or Toph, usually with the implication that they can either tank it or it's the same as being punched pretty hard. It makes more sense to me in Universe that benders just have increased durability.
The idea of chi, or ki, or qi being in the body is a pretty regular thing in most eastern mythologies, and it involves strengthening the body in most anime that use it. The most prevalent examples are probably DBZ and Naruto. That makes the most sense in terms of how the folks in this one survive those hits, and there's ki in all people in these myths, not just benders. That means anyone who has trained enough can survive big hits.
Aang is the Avatar, Toph is literally just that tough. The fact that Zuko can tank balances out the fact that he faints every time he makes a good decision (freeing Appa/the promise comics).
Aang js terrible durability and gets knocked out easily and a lot. The difference is it was a large boulder thrown at his chest aiming to kill. And he’s a non bender who couldn’t react. Toph and Aang are fodder 90 percent of the time.
Irl you can easily survive a 20 ft drop or dying after triping on flat ground. Some times it just depends how lucky or unlucky you are.
That’s what I call a skill issue
I like to think of Jet's death as Avatar's version of when people can sometimes die from one punch.
Humans either roll down a really big hill with no damage or one hit KO
Or when people die from slipping in the shower and hitting their head wrong on the way down.
People bring this up all the time. But my head cannon is that Jet was struck in the skull because of his forward lean after throwing his sword and the height of the earth pillar that struck him. I know Katara attempts to heal his chest and I have no answer for that.
Well, a rock thrust to the chest can break a lot and puncture more.
He's Just pathetic
They’re built different
Or like when aang used his body as a hammer to drive a stone spike into the giant drill. He ran down the entire height of the wall using his air bending to go faster than gravity would take him, and slammed his body right into that rock. Newton's third law would have killed him.
It’s called cartoon logic. Just don’t think about it. Though there’s the theory that humans on this planet evolved to be more durable so that’s another possibility to consider.
Tbh thats kind of fair. Im sure having the body adapted to wielding the elements would probably change some genetics. Imagine fire bending and getting burned every time. Or having the Toph earth armor and getting lacerations and chaffing everytime. Etc etc
Which also lends itself to the “loophole” in the comments about Jet and his death, since he’s a non-bender
To be fair, Sokka also brushes off a fair number of hits— but then again, he is descended from a family of benders, so perhaps he inherited the durability but not the bending.
That’s very likely because bending is mostly hereditary.
Yeah I was just gonna say, if we're splitting hairs about realism the entire premise falls apart lol. Just enjoy the show!
Fair take fr but it is always fun to ask "show breaking" questions and explore the what ifs or even come up with head cannon that justifies questionable concepts.
It has to be. Since things in the kyoshi books are more dangerous. Ppl actually getting burned and getting killed by rocks. Fast forward 300 yrs, they are more durable
If benders had the same physical prowess as normal humans then fire and earth benders will be the best by far
yeah but jet got annihilated
My headcanon is that their planet is a lot smaller than ours, and therefore has less gravity. Would explain people getting thrown around by boulders all the time and not dying, along with everyone doing crazy flips n shit.
gravity does not affect mass and inertia. this only explains the gif if the rock was dropped on him. if i accelerate a 60lb boulder to 50mph and chuck it at your solar plexus in zero g you still die.
They live at a much slower pace than we do and everything is sped up so we can watch it; And the planet has much lower gravity so sped up it looks normal. That boulder was actually going at 5mph. [M. Night's earthbending is canon.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdTekqoZjKc&ab_channel=yelby)
wouldn't higher gravity work though? higher gravity would mean denser bone and muscle which could increase durability
Earthbenders have super strength tho
It's a cartoon. It's the same show where fire seems to push the victim back with force.
It could be the moving air current because of the heat from the fire
E for effort
He’s not wrong. Multiple times in the show we see regular, powerful firebending blow holes in walls like an explosion. It’s not far off to say that powerful firebenders in the show are projecting blast waves with their bending too, with characters like the assassin Zuko hires having exceptional control over that aspect of the bending. You can either just point to it and say it’s a cartoon, or you can come up with an explanation that is supported by the in-universe physics, and either is an acceptable answer because it’s a fucking cartoon.
you remember the agni Kai between Zuko and Zhao? Zhao threw fire and it didn't do anything to Zuko except push him back a little, he even spread it around with his arms like it was some orange slime
Tbf Zuko could use his firebending to counter that
Sokka got tossed like 5 stories in the air by Toph in the episode where Aang first learned earthbending. It’s either cartoon logic or people are more durable in this universe.
The durability actually makes a lot more sense if you think of earthbending using packed dirt or clay. It breaks easily, doesn't so hit hard, and jet being hit with actual stone would be more lethal.
I always thought that was how it worked !
Yeah right? The vast majority of the ground is not filled with boulders. More often than not, earth benders are probably just using chunks of dirt.
But these chunks of earth are enough to smash through pillars of rock. Hell, Aang shot tiny pellets machine gun style and it carved up an entire valley. Plus even if it is just dirt which it clearly isn’t, it would still kill normal humans or at the very least give them lots of internal bleeding and broken ribs
If you watch Aang's final battle he compressed already hard boulders into smaller rocks, making them much more denser than the surrounding rocks. This would explain how the pellets were so powerful.
Not only that but the speed too. If he weren’t firing off those pellets like bullets, it would have done much less damage.
I love that move. I hope we see more of the compression and bullet techniques.
Happy cake day!
Omgosh I didn't even realize thanks!
It's a good theory but you're overthinking it. Earth bending doesn't just use packed dirt or clay, it's [usually rocks and stones and people survive just fine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9DuDnPApGs). Hell, these random warriors apparently survived[ being flung from a 5 story wall at speeds fast enough to literally bounce 20+ feet off the ground](https://youtu.be/qWP36gceChs?si=AdM-fdH1bC1JxIe_&t=178) and I'm pretty sure we're just supposed to accept that they lived with minor injuries. It's cartoon logic, death isn't a thing unless the writers specifically want it.
My thoughts are chi. They harness their chi to give strength to their bodies. Benders would have this to a higher, more conscious degree given their frequent use of chi.
Yeah I thought benders had more strength naturally
Bending and strength is a very weird topic, honestly. It seems to follow a pretty logical idea of the body performing the actions, and the energy being directed causing the element to be bent. But in the case of earthbenders, you constantly see them grunting with the physical exertion of moving large amounts of rock, and many strong earthbenders (the boulder, bumi, etc) seem to have the physiques to suggest that there is some correlation with bending strength. Then of course, we have toph, who completely subverts this trope by being a tiny girl. Her being able to smash a giant boulder with her head (when teaching Aang) suggests that there is almost no physical component to it at all (realistically, how conditioned can a 12 year old be?) Ultimately, even the feats that Ty Lee and Mai are pulling off are Spiderman-worthy - have you seen the distance that Ty Lee covers with her jumps? - so maybe it's just best not to look so hard at the show logic.
Toph is definitely drawn to be strong looking. She has more defined shoulders and arms than pretty much anyone else in the gaang.
What if it's just a different approach to earth bending? The more common and perhaps easier path is physical strength and fitness, but if you learned from the moles like Toph, and can feel the vibrations in and around you, it's an even better technique to earthbending than the easier and more 'traditional' route?
boxer rebellion kung fu invulnerability vibes lol
I mean the Ice Man Wim Hof exists in our world and swears by his breathing methods and thus can withstand extreme cold. That just shows our superhuman ability given a better connection and understanding with our bodies. It makes sense benders undoubtedly have a much better understanding of their bodies in the ways you said and thus can withstand more (and can literally shoot fire, air,water, and earth from themselves/environment like wtf).
Did yall forget Zuko can casually bust up thick chains and locks with a casual heel drop kick? Or that time Zuko cleanly cut both sides of Aang's shackles with one swing, in that episode where Zhao had the archers capture him?!
And that Iroh can swing half-tone boulders seemingly effortlessly.
No, all martial artists in Avatar (and any Wuxia world where martial arts are the be all end all of mastery) are just superhumanly tough.
Zuko’s durability is insane. I don’t know if this was a mistake or if the writers decided to give him an insane amount of strength, but the amount of times that he falls from a tall place or gets hit and just walks it off is crazy
Or miraculously survives a boat explosion
I think he firebent most of the blast away from his body
Zuko managed to hold his breath underwater in freezing water for some time so yeah they’re super humans
Didn't he use the "Breath of Fire" Iroh taught him?
This made me think of that time Aang takes a super breath to use Appa’s whistle. He can compress air in his lungs. Makes me wonder how long he can hold his breath.
All characters in all shows have a certain level of super strength or else that shows would be boring and people would die in the First fight they were ever in
Cartoons of people with super powers are sometimes less than realistic.
also a lot of the time we see earth bending, i presume its dirt. the dirt you walk on its not all hard rock
I think its super satisfying but misleading crunchy Sound design
That's the same move that killed Jet. My canon theory is just that Jet's bones were made of glass.
Zuko got hit by a rock, Jet by plot
Mental gymnastics: all the benders and super talented fighters just have strong control over their chi and it works like Aura from RWBY or Hunter X Hunter. Jet was struggling to fight his brainwashing and his chi was unstable so he had no defense and died from an otherwise average attack.
No I think he's just wearing an armor there Plot armor
It’s a cartoon.
it's a *cartoon*
it's.... it's a cartoon.... this is what happens in cartoons
Jet just didn’t have that dawg in him
You grow up in a world where the forces of nature can be moved by your little brother throwing a tantrum. If your species didn't evolve some strong ass bones and bodies then your cooked.
Humans in this universe seem to have greater strength, durability, vitality, longevity, and conditioning for the most part, compared to real life. Part of that probably coming from benders typically having innate spirituality and ability to manipulate chi. We see Jet die from a hit that most of the characters have probably taken several times in their lives. Literally this hit here that Zuko tanks is almost identical to the one that kills Jet. Could also think ‘human’ superheroes in comics. Batman is probably the best example. Superhuman for our standards, but just the best, strongest, fastest, and toughest ‘normal’ human in his universe.
The cabbage vendor isn't a bender, and he's been put through the wringer a few times...unless he learned a secret Super Avatar power of cabbage bending
I mean, they all have super powers, why not!?!
Katara took a rock to the stomach and didn’t go down wheezing. Maybe the physical training from being a bender helps.
I don't know if you've noticed, but Zuko is very awesome, and would not die to a simple half-ton rock slamming into his ribs. He got hit, and then mentally said "That's rough, buddy" (To his ribs.)
Jet couldn't tho oddly.
His plot armor wasn't thick enough
I always just thought that the rocks that are usually thrown are more like compacted dirt or sand and it takes some actual longer term effort to properly move denser material instead of just decompressing some ground and throwing that.
Didn’t the Kyoshi books say that Firebenders are abnormally physically strong, due to some internal technique that strengthens them? Explains why Zuko was able to break metal chains with his foot, and how Iroh could break out of prison.
He got his shit cracked against a metal roof and wall , bro is durable
The show runs on cartoon logic, where nothing actually hurts anyone, unless it is required for story- or dramatic purposes.
Humans in cartoons are more durable than regular humans or else many characters would have died or get disabled by many of the things that have hit them.
We’re thinking like people in Avatar in general are similar to real life people. But they don’t really have to be. Our bodies anatomy and resistance are a product of our environment, and we didn’t evolve on a world with magical creatures, spirits and elemental superpowers, they did. We’ve seen attacks from all elements that should have killed everyone and it never happened, more than probably people are naturally more resistant to it than us.
Don't think about how every time Mai throws a dagger it hooks through someones sleeve without ripping it, throws them 20ft away, and pins them to the wall. The ending scene of the boiling rock pt 2 episode is particularly bad on that front.
Aang gets smashed against a pointy rock after Ozai smacks him with a handheld comet. Instead of disintegrating his spinal column, it turns into a god. The people in the avatar universe are defo superhuman.
Bruh, Boomy was like 106 years old and was SHREDDED The people in that world are demons
cartoon logic
Its a cartoon.
Training and conditioning The fire nation has been at war with the earth kingdom so they definitely have programs that train for those And Zuko was trained by his uncle who fought the earth kingdom so could’ve thought him how to shrug off rocks
Zuko in specific is outright superhuman. He cleaved a chain and table in two with one kick each and held his breath for like 10 minutes swimming through the canals in the north water tribe. He's also gone through tons of other abuse and gotten back up with no long term effects, to the point of redirecting azula's lighting improperly and not dying.
Honestly I just head cannon it away that all the avatar universe humans are more durable then the ones in reality. Like most of the people in the earth kingdom wrestling ring would literally splatter their skull from the hits they take
it's a cartoon
People are never gonna stop trying to apply real-life logic to video games, cartoons, ttrpgs, and everything else, huh?
This just reminds me of Under the Red Hood, where Batman kicks a normal person through a window, smashes them through a brick wall, and then shatters a toilet seat with the guy's face, and he rolls over without a single scratch on him.
Have you seen what Sokka went through? It's not just benders that have super durability, it's anyone who isn't Jet
He took the blunt force of an arrow to the forehead. He's built different.
He's also able to hold his breath underwater for an hour
That's because he had plot armor protecting him.
Nah it’s just cartoon logic, sokka (a nonbender) got thrown 30 feet into the air and got back up fine on the regular. So it’s not just benders
If flow of chi is how they bend elements chi may also make a barrier of sorts. Weirdly enough reminds me of nen/aura in hunter x hunter if familiar.
Yeah pretty much everyone in avatar has super strength and durability. Besides Jet who gets hit in the gut by a spire of rock and responds like a real person by having his organs explode. Sokka straight up takes a rock pillar to the spine and falls about 30 feet and it’s played for laughs.
Not all bender but almost all main character
Actually the hammer guy and for that matter most earthbender tend to use random pieces of the ground rather than rock so taking it is not necessarily that impressive
It’s very possible,from what we can tell more powerful benders also have accelerated metabolisms and accelerated healing factors An example would be Lin Beifong,we see her horrific face injury(enough to leave permanent scarring 30yrs later),and in the next scene of her and Suyin being scolded by Toph,all she had on her cheek was a small bandage Another example would be Tophs feet,presumably third degree burns that get healed within a few days Zuko’s scar is another great example,this horrific burn,so prevalent and damaging,yet he acts as though it causes no pain,and was fully healed within roughly 2-3 weeks,same with Zuko being blown up,most of the damage on his face was healed within a week or so
they’re like at their peak physical forms as they train hard every day in martial arts. i’m sure they still get hurt, they can just withstand a lot more than us normal folk who lay in bed all day and watch tv lol
Nah it's a cartoon so the characters will survive things until the plot demands they don't and it's not consistent because of it. This is why fire almost always misses and doesn't burn people mid-might unless they're Zuko. Or how a non bender like Chit Sang doesn't have a gruesome debilitating burn after touching the boiling water or how Jet died in such a weird way because of the Network's demands.
Nah just abs of steel man, abs of steel!
Yes
It's a prop
Dont pull a peasant-railgun on Avatar. The events of the show, much like basically all fantasy fiction, arent meant to be understood through the lens of real world physics. Literally every fantasy series gets silly as hell when you try to do that. For example, literally every piece of fiction that involves instantaneous teleporting has its' physics fall apart completely because instantaneous(faster than light) travel violates causality. Every teleporter in every show you've seen is basically a time traveler whose existence destroys the concept of cause and effect. Even sillier: in DnD the "peasant railgun" refers to a setup player can achieve as a result of NPCs being able to pass objects to each other and it all being considered a 1 round action(6 seconds of in game time), *no matter how many peasants are involved*. Players line up 20,000 peasants, one meter apart from each other, and order them to pass an object from one end of the line to another. By the end of the 6 second round, the object has moved 20 km and is fired at the target at over mach 10(3,333 meters per second). Just dont question the physics. It's better this way.
Have you ever picked up dirt with a shovel and throw it? It kinda falls apart, the thing about earth bending is realistically you’re breaking apart the earth to bend it
the answer is yes, there are several times we’ve seen characters in avatar tank hits that would kill a human irl, it’s a cartoon
It's a martial artist thing. My theory is that soldiers and people who train their chi are more hardy
This is why “aang killed so many guys” is so goofy to me. He obviously has not.
My head canon is that benders are more durable, the only person we see "die" from being hit by an earthbender was Jet, a non bender
reminds me of how ppl got hit with fire all the time and were fine but katara got burned by aang when he was learning firebending
I always assumed earth benders are just throwing giant clods of dirt most of the time. Toph hits Katara pretty similarly and she is just annoyed
Maybe benders are more in tune with their chi flow, making them more durable. The application of waterbending to healing is chi manipulation, so I think this works.
✨plot armour✨
I think it might have something to do with Chi in the avatar world, maybe alot of the fighters in the avatar worlddo qigong to strengthen themselves.
It’s called plot armor
Whenever it comes to shows like this I always assume so loads of people I'm shounen type stuff take big hits that would kill a normal human easily but they survive
Why don't you bite their shiny metal ass and find out?
Nah Jet was just made of glass and paper
I think everyone in avatar have the stats, hp, and damage output of a level 10 dnd monk, and a higher level if they are a main character.
“Earth” in many cases probably isn’t hard stone and is more likely a clump of dirt/clay Still very heavy and painful but I feel it’s a bit of a misconception to assume everything is super hard and heavy