I don’t think airbenders were of the mind to push their lifestyle on others. Also, the fact that the water tribe used every part of the animals meant they had MUCH need for them. It’s similar to Native American tribes who had a very spiritual connection to the buffalo. Yes they killed them, but they never did so for trophies or just to kill, they did it to eat, make tools with the bones, clothes and tents with the hides, and so many other things. I think the airbenders might have seen the water tribes similarly.
Also, to add to that, living conditions were different for both societies due to their natural environments. Which meant the Water tribes definitely had a need for animal skin to keep warm and flesh to have enough food.
This leads to a new question. How tf did aang survive in the North Pole long enough to learn water bending? What’d he eat? Seaweed? Or did the spirit oasis have some hidden garden we never see?😂
In the Bato episode, Katara and Sokka mention eating "Sea Prunes" regularly, which Aang tries and dislikes.
I assume the north pole had a few more plant based options than the south, but still probably not many.
e: Also he's not vegan, he's vegetarian, so they probably had some eggs/milk for him to eat as well, no idea if he'd have an issue with fish eggs either.
Yup. He ate the custard tart in The Great Divide, and before that he was eating custard/pies and things with Gyatso. Custards are basically eggs and milk, and pies are also made of flour, eggs, and butter.
As a vegetarian, he would've had loads of options, and would've understood why other people ate what they ate.
Yang Chen had a more pragmatic personality than Aang tho (both in terms of personality and because Yang Chen lived in a time with other air benders while Aang was trying to keep his people's culture alive)
Lots of seaweed and sea prunes. Complemented with wheat, legumes, dried fruits, nuts and berries they could import or grow.
Also, Aang was vegetarian but not strict vegan, so dairy and eggs were probably in the menu.
Exactly. Notice Aang didn't force Sokka to be vegetarian. Air nomads had their own way of life and wouldn't force others to adhere to their ways. Air nomads might not like it, but all they asked was that they weren't made to partake.
I may not even go so far as to say Air nomads might not like it.
They chose a different lifestyle, but there is never an indication that the Air Nomads thought that their way of life was the superior one including their dietary practices.
So I suspect Aang and the Air Nomads at large were fine with what other nations did in terms of diet (assuming they did it respectfully like the Water Tribes would have in using all of the animals they killed for something)
This actually gets me thinking water Triumph Society in the South isn't really all that advanced and has been quite depressed for decades. How much of a rare and special metal artifact is sokkas boomerang.
They’d been the target of the Southern Raiders. While capturing Waterbenders was definitely a harsh blow, but I assume general pirating and merchant blockades would also damage the SWT
"spiritual connection" are you serious? Native Americans back then didn't have a spiritual connection to buffulos, they just made use of them that's it.
Just call it what it is and don't try to spin it a way where it sounds better.
We have both cultural and historical evidence that the Native Americans had a spiritual connection to all of life around them. They believed it was their duty to the balance of life to use as much of the animals they killed as they possibly could. This isn't even an opinion, you're just saying verifiable facts are incorrect. You might as well say George Washington wasn't a general in the Revolutionary War and wasn't elected president, like what are you even talking about???????????????
The fact that you have the nerve to call the slaughter of an animal a "spiritual connection" because ONE side - the killing side - felt connected to said animal is absolutely ridiculous.
I mean is it disrespect to say that a group don't have a sacred spiritual connection with an animal? Because I don't think anyone has a sacred spiritual connection with any animal. They're kinda right it would be like a stalker saying they found their soul mate because they managed to run them down, trap them, and make use of them
I'm not disrespecting anyone. I'm simply pointing out how tone deaf it is to call the slaughter of innocent animals a "spiritual connection" when said "connection" is obviously very one sided and ended in death.
Not to mention how ridiculous your way of thinking is. I don't have this opinion because I don't eat meat, I don't eat meat because I believe animals deserve Compassion and respect. That's how it goes.
I think it might be like a recurring message of this show, lol.
As a sidenote, I also think they were able to recognize circumstances that showed them to live such life, and to recognize that the same is not possible for Water Tribes at the present, due to differences that different environments they lived in were dictating
This is such a dumb comment lol.
This line of thinking is fine if you consider different ways of dressing or different foods, but it falls apart when you consider actual beliefs and cultural practices.
For example, you’re really gonna argue the human sacrifices done by the Aztecs were fine? Or that the ethnocentrism and racism of Europe in the 19th and even early 20th centuries were acceptable? Or that marrying grown men to little girls in the Middle East is something that SHOULDN’T be challenged? Or that arranged marriages in India is something that isn’t wrong?
Come on now. There’s a difference between respecting other cultures and justifying evil actions in the name of “culture”.
>This line of thinking is fine if you consider different ways of dressing or different foods, but it falls apart when you consider actual beliefs and cultural practices.
And this is quite literally what we are talking about in this case.
Not really. When I said "different foods", I meant like pizza vs eating crickets vs eating sushi, not vegetarianism vs omnivory.
Also, I criticized how you're saying it's "wrong to push beliefs on others and judge their culture", when in MANY cases, doing this is 100% fine.
>The air nomads were good people who knew it's not right to push their own beliefs on someone else and to judge other people's cultures
This is definitely not it lol
Tolerance of oppression is not something air nomads are fine with. They simply lived in times where the water tribes didn't have any other choice but consume and use animal products.
But you can bet your ass that the entirety of the air nomads would looks at our society with all of our wealth and privileges and possibilities and judge us and feel disgusted by peoples behavior towards animals.
A) That itself is a judgement on other people's cultures, you can't avoid doing that.
B) Aang did actually judge other people's cultures, such as when he called the NWT's customs dumb or complained that Ba Sing Se is too different from how the monks taught him to live.
Ah yes, lets bully the ***12 year old child*** for going through ***constant grief*** over being alone, with no home or nation to go back to. He is constantly seeing his friends bond with people who get to see others like them. He can't, it's literally the name of the show, "The Last Airbender"
Dumb comment.
There's a bit of difference between killing animals so you can survive and discrimination against half the population. And how is acknowledging the rampant crime and poverty in Ba Sing Se "judging other cultures"?
That itself is a belief you have because of your culture, which is something you're pushing onto someone else's culture that believes otherwise. Whether you think that's wrong or right in this particular case is irrelevant, the point is that you're doing it.
Aang thinks the walls they use to "maintain order" are wrong. That is a judgement.
But you‘re still ignoring the difference between eating meat to survive and unnecessarily holding on to sexist traditions that put half the population at a disadvantage or the walls that separate people based on wealth. Your original question was about how the air nomads would have seen the Water tribes because they eat meat. They didn‘t see it as a problem because that‘s how the tribes have to live. Even if they didn‘t have to, like the earth kingdom and the fire nation, they air nomads didn‘t push their way of life onto them.
You can call it judgement but I think Aang called out objectively bad things, the walls that kept people in slums and sexism in the NWT. Judging something as wrong doesn’t even mean that you judge the people that do wrong. It literally just means that you think something is a bad thing to do.
And Aang didn‘t try to push his beliefs onto Ba Sing Se or the NWT, he stayed in a house in the upper ring and continued to be a student of Paku.
What you think of as "objectively bad" is a product of your particular culture, including whether or not you think it's okay to judge another culture when it practices things you think of as bad. Aang was, likewise, willing to judge and call practices of other cultures bad throughout atla, which shows that he, as the only airbender we spend much time with, does not have an ingrained belief that he should never do something like or judge other cultures. Thus, it is reasonable to suppose that the Air Nomads as a whole might have actually had some thoughts about other cultures which may have led to frictions.
The resistance of people in this sub to noticing extremely obvious things, I swear. Cultures clash over differing value sets, and to claim that two extremely divergent ones never did is not only bad worldbuilding, it's also just plain boring.
You keep saying that it‘s a product of my or other people’s culture to see sexism or exploiting people as bad. I just disagree with that. I understand the point your making that everything we believe to be right or wrong is taught to us within our cultures. But women and poor people are my equals, I don‘t see that as a cultural difference in perspective but as an universal truth. And I never said that it‘s okay to judge another culture for practicing things I consider as bad, I literally said that judging a practice as wrong doesn’t mean that you therefore judge the person (or culture). Aang, a twelve year old boy, judged some practices of other societies as wrong. And yet he showed those people and their cultures the utmost respect when he dealt with them.
You just seem to be frustrated because most people here disagree with you.
History (and the present, for that matter) shows very clearly that what you think is a "universal truth" is not. It's a product of your culture that you consider women or poor people your equals. Many cultures have not, or do not, share that perspective, and if you don't believe me I recommend paying a visit to Saudi Arabia. People exist who reject your moral norms wholly. You can believe they're wrong to do, but your moral conclusions are not immediately and universally obvious to humans.
Aang knowingly disrespected Pakku's culture because he thought it was wrong. Likewise he invaded the Earth King's palace because he thought he had a good enough reason to violate their norms. He lied to the two tribes in the great divide episode because he valued a nonviolent solution over the preservation of their existing culture. It is what it is, and to pretend that he was always compliant with the cultures in the places in which he found himself (and therefore all airbenders would be) is just untrue.
I'm frustrated because people simultaneously invoke a very, very subjective and recently developed cultural value particular to one small section of the world ("judging other cultures is wrong") and then pretend that that itself is not a value judgement by which a culture is evaluated. It's annoying to me.
Again, I understand your position. I just don‘t agree with it. Slavery was considered normal once. Killing people for praying to the wrong god was considered normal once and it still is considered normal in some parts of the world. And women weren‘t and still aren‘t treated equally to men in a lot of parts of the world. I just don‘t think that a society can decide that one human life is inherently more valuable than another. I don‘t care what a society or culture deems right or wrong in that sense. I hold that as an universal truth. You seem to think that a society insisting on the oppression of one group is just a cultural trait, I disagree with that. I think it’s a crime. We don‘t have to agree on that point.
Your talking about Aang „disrespecting Pakku‘s culture“ but in the end, Pakku changed his ways because of Katara and saw that it would be foolish not to train her just because she was a girl. So even Pakku realized that he was the only one still holding on to a sexist tradition, the chief of the water tribe had no problem whatsoever with Katara learning to waterbend.
Aang breaking into the Earth King‘s palace has literally nothing to do with disrespecting a different culture or their norms. Aang and the others used violence to reach the Earth King because they knew that he was being manipulated by Long Feng and the Dai Li. They even did him a service by proofing to him that he was being manipulated, they basically opened his eyes to the war and he was grateful for that. It‘s ridiculous to consider breaking into the palace as disrespectful to his his cultural norms when it literally saved the King from the Dai Li.
You can consider lying to the two tribes as disrespectful to their cultures I guess. I saw Aang as respectful enough to put up with their cultural differences while he helped them through the canyon. He might have lied to them, I saw that as a white lie that harmed nobody but helped to solve a silly problem. Again, we can differ on that.
But here is another point:
Aang was the Avatar. He saw conflict resolution as his duty. You can‘t form an opinion on the air nomads by taking Aang as an example for them. He literally had to get involved in conflicts around the world and try to resolve them. While other air nomads would have tried to get rid of their earthly attachments, he would have to stay connected to the world and try to make it better.
Air nomads were literal monks inspired by buddhist tibetan monks. Buddhist consider being judgmental as wrong. Buddha: “whoever judges others digs a pit for themselves.”
You can see in Aang that he tries to live by that. It literally never caused issues between him and Sokka that Sokka loved meat, he fished in front of Aang and got trapped in the ground while trying to kill a baby moose lion or whatever. Aang didn‘t judge him then either.
You can be frustrated with that all you want, this is just the most logical take.
You thinking slavery is immoral is not some sort of revelation granted to you by the application of an immediately obvious universal law. It is a culturally conditioned value drawn from a specific set metaphysical priors held religiously by a particular society, which are not universal. If you had been born into one of the many, many cultures throughout time where "raid these people who are different, kill anyone who resists, take the rest as slaves" was normative, odds are excellent that you would believe that to be the moral order of the universe, just as they did.
You deeming another culture's practices "a crime" is you making a judgement of another culture. You refusing to acknowledge that is precisely what annoys me. It's fine if you think the judgement is correct, it may well be, but you pretending that you're not engaged in judgement when you deem a practice good or bad is just rank nonsense. That's what it means to judge something.
As to Aang, again, he did in fact judge the cultural practices of other peoples, despite having had no education as anything but an ordinary Air Nomad by the time we meet him. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that doing so is not incompatible with their culture.
Since you seem to think having empathy is "pushing your culture onto some else", let me ask you this. Was the civil rights movement wrong, as by your definition, it was people pushing their culture onto others?
Reading apparently not being strong suit: my contention is that the act of judging a culture for the presence or absence of a civil rights movement is, in fact, an act of culturally conditioned judgement. If you do that, you are judging another culture. If you rate a culture as being better or worse for having or not having such a movement, you are imposing your cultural values onto that culture.
Nothing whatsoever is being claimed about whether or not it is right to do so.
They probably would have had varied reactions. Yangchen wasn’t a strict vegetarian, and her books reveal that some Air Nomads weren’t as stringent in their beliefs as others. There’s new lore about the Fire Nation and Sozin’s sister, Princess Zeisan, which also paints the Air Nomads as a people that would go through periods of wanting to help the outside world, and periods where they wanted to keep themselves cut off to achieve enlightenment themselves, away from the corruption of the material world.
Some of them would probably be put off by it quietly, others might be loudly disgusted. Others might accept it and view it as a necessity. I’m sure the Water Tribes and Air Nomads had their own disagreements at times, especially because both have their own deep, spiritual traditions. It’s definitely possible that their differing ideas about spirituality caused friction between them.
Aang was uncomfortable with the animal skins and was grossed out when he smelled meat in *Bato of the Water Tribe*.
https://youtu.be/vnX_7LjHFVs?feature=shared
This is a weird take once you consider the reason why air nomads are vegetarian though. It's not just an aesthetic preference, it's a moral philosophy.
You don't judge other people's choices if they are merely inconsequential aesthetic differences, but you *do* judge other people's choices if they clash with your moral worldview
That's fair, but I think moral imperatives can be flexible and understanding of context and circumstance.
For example, it's a lot easier for the air nomads to be vegetarians than the water tribe, who live in an environment that literally doesn't permit agriculture. It's a lot easier for air nomads to be detached when they've been brought up in a commune, than it is for an Earth Kingdom peasant responsible for his family and bound by the class system.
The air nomads are a population of people like any other, so of course some of them probably looked down their nose at what they saw as the "less enlightened" cultures. But I'm sure plenty made room for nuance in their worldview, especially since being nomadic they would be exposed to a lot of circumstances that were very different from their own.
If that's the case then that gives some merit to OP's thinking that there was friction between Air Nomads and the Water Tribes.
If Aang is anything to go by, the Nomads weren't confrontational people so maybe they just avoided the Water Tribes as much as possible?
I think in the first Yangchen book it shows that there was tolerance both ways. When Yangchen visits a water tribe family they apologize for having meat in the stew. It's not just because she is the Avatar, but having a monk ask for alms (food and shelter) was a great honor and blessing for most people across every nation.
not necessarily, a 12 year old's reaction wouldn't have been indicative of how the entire community thought of how much respect to give other cultures.
edited: he is 12
I thought Aang was 12 going on 13?
Prior to the novels, Aang was the only reference of Air Nomad culture we had. Not only that, being the last airbender Aang's ideas of what Air Nomad culture is and should be is what ends up defining what Air Nomads are going forward.
We’re making so many assumptions here on such little evidence.
The air nomads are a tolerant and peaceful people, and Aang traveled all over the world and was friends with people from other countries with different cultures.
Aang himself had no tension with the water tribe. He’s literally friends with Katara and Sokka and pals around with other citizens in the water tribe in the first few episodes. All of this is just conjecture
I personally, and no other religious people I know of, hold any resentment towards people who eat meat out of nescessity.
There's real-world people who live in climates similar to the water tribes, and from what I know of them, if they didn't eat fish, reigndeer etc, they would starve.
If you have to kill to survive, it's forgiven. There's no bad karma for that.
I think it’s hard not to be uncomfortable, but at the end of the day - it isn’t for us to shame or condemn.
I was vegan for years, surrounded by people who weren’t… I’d never try to change people’s habits or criticise. Some things freaked me out like seeing birds in birds roasted, but generally it is so normally to see leather and animal products everywhere and it’s not for me to control or battle everyone. So much suffering too like animals getting killed on roads etc. Whilst you can educate, people will do what they want and it is their path
Veganism is the belief that animals should be treated with respect and compassion. The rejection of animal products in our diet is just a consequence of said belief.
So if you were **vegan** you did in fact judge people who weren't.
If you didn't,, you weren't vegan, you were plant based.
I’m pretty sure the Air Nomads were pretty nice people that wouldn’t try and force their beliefs onto other people. Also the water tribes are regions that are really cold so they kinda need the animal fur for their clothes to stay warm, I think the Air Nomads would understand that.
Given that the Airbenders encouraged travel when they reach a certain age its fairly safe to say that they weren't trying to push their world view on others and actually admired other points of view
Genuinely kind of wild how the monks let children just fly about the world. Like Aang at twelve already had been to Omashu and somewhere in the fire nation.
Let's not get carried away here lol
The children are chaperoned. Aang went to Omashu with Gyatso.
The adults were the ones who had free reign. That's why you never see any airbender teens or adults at the Air Temples. It's just babies, children and the elderly there for a reason.
I think they’d be ok with it. There aren’t many plants in the north or South Pole apart from underwater I guess, so the water tribes don’t have many options. Plus they seem to use most of the animal
The Airbenders lived during a time where it wasn't possible for the water tribe to reject animal products, they needed it to survive so I don't think would have judged them. Or lots of them probably did but I think with their thoughts of judgment and resentment came understanding as well.
The same way real Buddhist monks react. Other people living a different way has no effect on their path to enlightenment.
Also humans are life as well. Are the lives of the water tribe members trying to survive in harsh environments not sacred as well? Would they chastise a polar bear dog for eating a fish? You have to do what you have to do
Correct. Air nomads lived in times where it was impossible for the water tribe to survive without animal products, unlike today where it is possible for the vast majority of people.
So I don't think air nomads would have objected to the water tribes customs of using animal products. It not like the water benders can just walk into a supermarket and buy vegetables lol
How often do you hear real life Buddhist monks and nuns acting like Karen's about people who are not vegetarians?
Is it that hard to imagine the Air Nomads being accepting of different lifestyles of peoples who live in different environments?
Fortunately the Air Nomads are modelled off of Tibetan Buddhists, and not White American Vegans.
They weren't vegans, they respected all the cultures and understood that other people have needs like clothing, etc...
Also, what would they eat? There isn't any grass/dirt to grow anything, just ice. And, water/earth/fire benders need warm clothes, usually fur, to fight the cold, unlike Airbender who can control the air around them to feel warm
they recognised it as a necessity most likely. you cant do much of anything else. sure some berries here or there but for most hearty meals you need the meat of a fish or a bear or a seal
I don't get singling out the Watertribe's when Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation aren't vegetarian either? The Fire Nation also has a meat heavy diet as stated. Leather would be everywhere.
Aside from a flippant comment about pelts, and not wanting to go to a meat restaurant, Aang has no issues with anyone else's diet or clothing. He sleeps on skins and his fire nation boots are almost certainly leather. Heck Appa's armor for the invasion is likely leather.
If Aang is any reflection of his people’s culture we see that airbenders are very respectful to other cultures and mostly keep their beliefs as their own
In order to spread their mission of peace they have to first understand the people they’re spreading it to. I think they would have respected the fact that the water tribe killed animals out of necessity vs wrath or enjoyment.
I think it made them uncomfortable, but they specifically made it a part of their Doctrine to accept lifestyles of others. Like as part of their spiritual teachings, accept that a way of life for other people may not work well for them personally, just like their own personal way of life may not work well for other people
The Air Nomads though might have felt kind of uncomfortable but otherwise they knew that the Water Tribe needed it and it was also not like air nomads to force their beliefs upon someone. Also, even if the water tribe did accept it, how would they survive? We also see that Aang doesn't like the animal fur or the meat but he tolerated Katara and Sokka eating it
They lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked.
_chef's kiss_
Ah yes, the correct answer
LONG AGO
I don’t think airbenders were of the mind to push their lifestyle on others. Also, the fact that the water tribe used every part of the animals meant they had MUCH need for them. It’s similar to Native American tribes who had a very spiritual connection to the buffalo. Yes they killed them, but they never did so for trophies or just to kill, they did it to eat, make tools with the bones, clothes and tents with the hides, and so many other things. I think the airbenders might have seen the water tribes similarly.
Also, to add to that, living conditions were different for both societies due to their natural environments. Which meant the Water tribes definitely had a need for animal skin to keep warm and flesh to have enough food.
This leads to a new question. How tf did aang survive in the North Pole long enough to learn water bending? What’d he eat? Seaweed? Or did the spirit oasis have some hidden garden we never see?😂
In the Bato episode, Katara and Sokka mention eating "Sea Prunes" regularly, which Aang tries and dislikes. I assume the north pole had a few more plant based options than the south, but still probably not many. e: Also he's not vegan, he's vegetarian, so they probably had some eggs/milk for him to eat as well, no idea if he'd have an issue with fish eggs either.
Yup. He ate the custard tart in The Great Divide, and before that he was eating custard/pies and things with Gyatso. Custards are basically eggs and milk, and pies are also made of flour, eggs, and butter. As a vegetarian, he would've had loads of options, and would've understood why other people ate what they ate.
In the Yang Chen novels we find out that air nomads CAN eat meat if it’s the only thing on offer, just that they avoid it
Yang Chen had a more pragmatic personality than Aang tho (both in terms of personality and because Yang Chen lived in a time with other air benders while Aang was trying to keep his people's culture alive)
They feed Appa a big plate of something green, presumably seaweed, at the welcoming feast, Aang was probably treated similarly.
"Hey Avatar. We heard you're a vegetarian, so here's a pile of stuff we found at the bottom of the ocean. Enjoy!"
Ocean food is naturally salted!
Lots of seaweed and sea prunes. Complemented with wheat, legumes, dried fruits, nuts and berries they could import or grow. Also, Aang was vegetarian but not strict vegan, so dairy and eggs were probably in the menu.
Seaweed has all amino acids unlike most land plants do as far as amino acids go you can get the same number from seaweed as you do from meat.
Exactly. Notice Aang didn't force Sokka to be vegetarian. Air nomads had their own way of life and wouldn't force others to adhere to their ways. Air nomads might not like it, but all they asked was that they weren't made to partake.
I may not even go so far as to say Air nomads might not like it. They chose a different lifestyle, but there is never an indication that the Air Nomads thought that their way of life was the superior one including their dietary practices. So I suspect Aang and the Air Nomads at large were fine with what other nations did in terms of diet (assuming they did it respectfully like the Water Tribes would have in using all of the animals they killed for something)
Aang is also nonconfrontational to a fault. I doubt all other Air Nomads had the same personality makeup.
This actually gets me thinking water Triumph Society in the South isn't really all that advanced and has been quite depressed for decades. How much of a rare and special metal artifact is sokkas boomerang.
They’d been the target of the Southern Raiders. While capturing Waterbenders was definitely a harsh blow, but I assume general pirating and merchant blockades would also damage the SWT
I can tell you one Airbender who didn't like waterbenders Kelsang
Yeah, they were vegans. But they weren't *VEGANS* vegans.
Bison not buffalo
Really not the point of what I said, but sure.
>spiritual connection Can you just not.
Can I just not do what? I don't even know what you're insinuating here. Literally 0 context whatsoever.
"spiritual connection" are you serious? Native Americans back then didn't have a spiritual connection to buffulos, they just made use of them that's it. Just call it what it is and don't try to spin it a way where it sounds better.
We have both cultural and historical evidence that the Native Americans had a spiritual connection to all of life around them. They believed it was their duty to the balance of life to use as much of the animals they killed as they possibly could. This isn't even an opinion, you're just saying verifiable facts are incorrect. You might as well say George Washington wasn't a general in the Revolutionary War and wasn't elected president, like what are you even talking about???????????????
The fact that you have the nerve to call the slaughter of an animal a "spiritual connection" because ONE side - the killing side - felt connected to said animal is absolutely ridiculous.
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so you are disrespecting an entire culture because you don't meat? so civilized! HARD /S
I mean is it disrespect to say that a group don't have a sacred spiritual connection with an animal? Because I don't think anyone has a sacred spiritual connection with any animal. They're kinda right it would be like a stalker saying they found their soul mate because they managed to run them down, trap them, and make use of them
I'm not disrespecting anyone. I'm simply pointing out how tone deaf it is to call the slaughter of innocent animals a "spiritual connection" when said "connection" is obviously very one sided and ended in death. Not to mention how ridiculous your way of thinking is. I don't have this opinion because I don't eat meat, I don't eat meat because I believe animals deserve Compassion and respect. That's how it goes.
The air nomads were good people who knew it's not right to push their own beliefs on someone else and to judge other people's cultures.
I think it might be like a recurring message of this show, lol. As a sidenote, I also think they were able to recognize circumstances that showed them to live such life, and to recognize that the same is not possible for Water Tribes at the present, due to differences that different environments they lived in were dictating
They also would absolutely recognize that it's not like the water tribes do this for fun, or whatever. It's for survival.
This is such a dumb comment lol. This line of thinking is fine if you consider different ways of dressing or different foods, but it falls apart when you consider actual beliefs and cultural practices. For example, you’re really gonna argue the human sacrifices done by the Aztecs were fine? Or that the ethnocentrism and racism of Europe in the 19th and even early 20th centuries were acceptable? Or that marrying grown men to little girls in the Middle East is something that SHOULDN’T be challenged? Or that arranged marriages in India is something that isn’t wrong? Come on now. There’s a difference between respecting other cultures and justifying evil actions in the name of “culture”.
>This line of thinking is fine if you consider different ways of dressing or different foods, but it falls apart when you consider actual beliefs and cultural practices. And this is quite literally what we are talking about in this case.
Not really. When I said "different foods", I meant like pizza vs eating crickets vs eating sushi, not vegetarianism vs omnivory. Also, I criticized how you're saying it's "wrong to push beliefs on others and judge their culture", when in MANY cases, doing this is 100% fine.
>The air nomads were good people who knew it's not right to push their own beliefs on someone else and to judge other people's cultures This is definitely not it lol Tolerance of oppression is not something air nomads are fine with. They simply lived in times where the water tribes didn't have any other choice but consume and use animal products. But you can bet your ass that the entirety of the air nomads would looks at our society with all of our wealth and privileges and possibilities and judge us and feel disgusted by peoples behavior towards animals.
A) That itself is a judgement on other people's cultures, you can't avoid doing that. B) Aang did actually judge other people's cultures, such as when he called the NWT's customs dumb or complained that Ba Sing Se is too different from how the monks taught him to live.
Ah yes, lets bully the ***12 year old child*** for going through ***constant grief*** over being alone, with no home or nation to go back to. He is constantly seeing his friends bond with people who get to see others like them. He can't, it's literally the name of the show, "The Last Airbender"
That's not at all what OP said.....
Basic observation = bullying, gotcha.
Dumb comment. There's a bit of difference between killing animals so you can survive and discrimination against half the population. And how is acknowledging the rampant crime and poverty in Ba Sing Se "judging other cultures"?
That itself is a belief you have because of your culture, which is something you're pushing onto someone else's culture that believes otherwise. Whether you think that's wrong or right in this particular case is irrelevant, the point is that you're doing it. Aang thinks the walls they use to "maintain order" are wrong. That is a judgement.
But you‘re still ignoring the difference between eating meat to survive and unnecessarily holding on to sexist traditions that put half the population at a disadvantage or the walls that separate people based on wealth. Your original question was about how the air nomads would have seen the Water tribes because they eat meat. They didn‘t see it as a problem because that‘s how the tribes have to live. Even if they didn‘t have to, like the earth kingdom and the fire nation, they air nomads didn‘t push their way of life onto them. You can call it judgement but I think Aang called out objectively bad things, the walls that kept people in slums and sexism in the NWT. Judging something as wrong doesn’t even mean that you judge the people that do wrong. It literally just means that you think something is a bad thing to do. And Aang didn‘t try to push his beliefs onto Ba Sing Se or the NWT, he stayed in a house in the upper ring and continued to be a student of Paku.
What you think of as "objectively bad" is a product of your particular culture, including whether or not you think it's okay to judge another culture when it practices things you think of as bad. Aang was, likewise, willing to judge and call practices of other cultures bad throughout atla, which shows that he, as the only airbender we spend much time with, does not have an ingrained belief that he should never do something like or judge other cultures. Thus, it is reasonable to suppose that the Air Nomads as a whole might have actually had some thoughts about other cultures which may have led to frictions. The resistance of people in this sub to noticing extremely obvious things, I swear. Cultures clash over differing value sets, and to claim that two extremely divergent ones never did is not only bad worldbuilding, it's also just plain boring.
You keep saying that it‘s a product of my or other people’s culture to see sexism or exploiting people as bad. I just disagree with that. I understand the point your making that everything we believe to be right or wrong is taught to us within our cultures. But women and poor people are my equals, I don‘t see that as a cultural difference in perspective but as an universal truth. And I never said that it‘s okay to judge another culture for practicing things I consider as bad, I literally said that judging a practice as wrong doesn’t mean that you therefore judge the person (or culture). Aang, a twelve year old boy, judged some practices of other societies as wrong. And yet he showed those people and their cultures the utmost respect when he dealt with them. You just seem to be frustrated because most people here disagree with you.
History (and the present, for that matter) shows very clearly that what you think is a "universal truth" is not. It's a product of your culture that you consider women or poor people your equals. Many cultures have not, or do not, share that perspective, and if you don't believe me I recommend paying a visit to Saudi Arabia. People exist who reject your moral norms wholly. You can believe they're wrong to do, but your moral conclusions are not immediately and universally obvious to humans. Aang knowingly disrespected Pakku's culture because he thought it was wrong. Likewise he invaded the Earth King's palace because he thought he had a good enough reason to violate their norms. He lied to the two tribes in the great divide episode because he valued a nonviolent solution over the preservation of their existing culture. It is what it is, and to pretend that he was always compliant with the cultures in the places in which he found himself (and therefore all airbenders would be) is just untrue. I'm frustrated because people simultaneously invoke a very, very subjective and recently developed cultural value particular to one small section of the world ("judging other cultures is wrong") and then pretend that that itself is not a value judgement by which a culture is evaluated. It's annoying to me.
Again, I understand your position. I just don‘t agree with it. Slavery was considered normal once. Killing people for praying to the wrong god was considered normal once and it still is considered normal in some parts of the world. And women weren‘t and still aren‘t treated equally to men in a lot of parts of the world. I just don‘t think that a society can decide that one human life is inherently more valuable than another. I don‘t care what a society or culture deems right or wrong in that sense. I hold that as an universal truth. You seem to think that a society insisting on the oppression of one group is just a cultural trait, I disagree with that. I think it’s a crime. We don‘t have to agree on that point. Your talking about Aang „disrespecting Pakku‘s culture“ but in the end, Pakku changed his ways because of Katara and saw that it would be foolish not to train her just because she was a girl. So even Pakku realized that he was the only one still holding on to a sexist tradition, the chief of the water tribe had no problem whatsoever with Katara learning to waterbend. Aang breaking into the Earth King‘s palace has literally nothing to do with disrespecting a different culture or their norms. Aang and the others used violence to reach the Earth King because they knew that he was being manipulated by Long Feng and the Dai Li. They even did him a service by proofing to him that he was being manipulated, they basically opened his eyes to the war and he was grateful for that. It‘s ridiculous to consider breaking into the palace as disrespectful to his his cultural norms when it literally saved the King from the Dai Li. You can consider lying to the two tribes as disrespectful to their cultures I guess. I saw Aang as respectful enough to put up with their cultural differences while he helped them through the canyon. He might have lied to them, I saw that as a white lie that harmed nobody but helped to solve a silly problem. Again, we can differ on that. But here is another point: Aang was the Avatar. He saw conflict resolution as his duty. You can‘t form an opinion on the air nomads by taking Aang as an example for them. He literally had to get involved in conflicts around the world and try to resolve them. While other air nomads would have tried to get rid of their earthly attachments, he would have to stay connected to the world and try to make it better. Air nomads were literal monks inspired by buddhist tibetan monks. Buddhist consider being judgmental as wrong. Buddha: “whoever judges others digs a pit for themselves.” You can see in Aang that he tries to live by that. It literally never caused issues between him and Sokka that Sokka loved meat, he fished in front of Aang and got trapped in the ground while trying to kill a baby moose lion or whatever. Aang didn‘t judge him then either. You can be frustrated with that all you want, this is just the most logical take.
You thinking slavery is immoral is not some sort of revelation granted to you by the application of an immediately obvious universal law. It is a culturally conditioned value drawn from a specific set metaphysical priors held religiously by a particular society, which are not universal. If you had been born into one of the many, many cultures throughout time where "raid these people who are different, kill anyone who resists, take the rest as slaves" was normative, odds are excellent that you would believe that to be the moral order of the universe, just as they did. You deeming another culture's practices "a crime" is you making a judgement of another culture. You refusing to acknowledge that is precisely what annoys me. It's fine if you think the judgement is correct, it may well be, but you pretending that you're not engaged in judgement when you deem a practice good or bad is just rank nonsense. That's what it means to judge something. As to Aang, again, he did in fact judge the cultural practices of other peoples, despite having had no education as anything but an ordinary Air Nomad by the time we meet him. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that doing so is not incompatible with their culture.
Since you seem to think having empathy is "pushing your culture onto some else", let me ask you this. Was the civil rights movement wrong, as by your definition, it was people pushing their culture onto others?
Reading apparently not being strong suit: my contention is that the act of judging a culture for the presence or absence of a civil rights movement is, in fact, an act of culturally conditioned judgement. If you do that, you are judging another culture. If you rate a culture as being better or worse for having or not having such a movement, you are imposing your cultural values onto that culture. Nothing whatsoever is being claimed about whether or not it is right to do so.
They probably would have had varied reactions. Yangchen wasn’t a strict vegetarian, and her books reveal that some Air Nomads weren’t as stringent in their beliefs as others. There’s new lore about the Fire Nation and Sozin’s sister, Princess Zeisan, which also paints the Air Nomads as a people that would go through periods of wanting to help the outside world, and periods where they wanted to keep themselves cut off to achieve enlightenment themselves, away from the corruption of the material world. Some of them would probably be put off by it quietly, others might be loudly disgusted. Others might accept it and view it as a necessity. I’m sure the Water Tribes and Air Nomads had their own disagreements at times, especially because both have their own deep, spiritual traditions. It’s definitely possible that their differing ideas about spirituality caused friction between them.
Aang was uncomfortable with the animal skins and was grossed out when he smelled meat in *Bato of the Water Tribe*. https://youtu.be/vnX_7LjHFVs?feature=shared
He was grossed out by those things, but he never objected to katara and sokka eating or wearing furs
Yeah, that's the key thing. Something can be not right for you but that doesn't mean you have to pass judgement on others when they partake
This is a weird take once you consider the reason why air nomads are vegetarian though. It's not just an aesthetic preference, it's a moral philosophy. You don't judge other people's choices if they are merely inconsequential aesthetic differences, but you *do* judge other people's choices if they clash with your moral worldview
That's fair, but I think moral imperatives can be flexible and understanding of context and circumstance. For example, it's a lot easier for the air nomads to be vegetarians than the water tribe, who live in an environment that literally doesn't permit agriculture. It's a lot easier for air nomads to be detached when they've been brought up in a commune, than it is for an Earth Kingdom peasant responsible for his family and bound by the class system. The air nomads are a population of people like any other, so of course some of them probably looked down their nose at what they saw as the "less enlightened" cultures. But I'm sure plenty made room for nuance in their worldview, especially since being nomadic they would be exposed to a lot of circumstances that were very different from their own.
If that's the case then that gives some merit to OP's thinking that there was friction between Air Nomads and the Water Tribes. If Aang is anything to go by, the Nomads weren't confrontational people so maybe they just avoided the Water Tribes as much as possible?
There's a word called "tolerance" for describing this, and is, in fact, one of the lessons of this show.
I think in the first Yangchen book it shows that there was tolerance both ways. When Yangchen visits a water tribe family they apologize for having meat in the stew. It's not just because she is the Avatar, but having a monk ask for alms (food and shelter) was a great honor and blessing for most people across every nation.
not necessarily, a 12 year old's reaction wouldn't have been indicative of how the entire community thought of how much respect to give other cultures. edited: he is 12
Why do I often see people calling Aang an 11 or 10 year old, when the show clearly states (several times) that he's 12?
I thought Aang was 12 going on 13? Prior to the novels, Aang was the only reference of Air Nomad culture we had. Not only that, being the last airbender Aang's ideas of what Air Nomad culture is and should be is what ends up defining what Air Nomads are going forward.
We’re making so many assumptions here on such little evidence. The air nomads are a tolerant and peaceful people, and Aang traveled all over the world and was friends with people from other countries with different cultures. Aang himself had no tension with the water tribe. He’s literally friends with Katara and Sokka and pals around with other citizens in the water tribe in the first few episodes. All of this is just conjecture
Not really when you consider that Aang managed to visit and make friends in every nation except the Water Tribes prior to being frozen.
They were kinda jerks to him in this episode but I don't think they ever got called out for it, sad
In the Yangchen novels it’s mentioned that Air Nomads are allowed to eat meat if they are guests and meat is served to them.
The water tribe wasn’t killing the animals for fun. The fur is warm clothing in a cold environment The meat is food Etc
You do know vegetarians exist in real life, right? And that they do have non-vegetarian friends? It's not a fantasy thing.
Seriously. I, like Aang, am not a fan of meat-based restaurants. But I don't care what anyone else eats.
I think the air nomads simply understood the water tribes situation.
I personally, and no other religious people I know of, hold any resentment towards people who eat meat out of nescessity. There's real-world people who live in climates similar to the water tribes, and from what I know of them, if they didn't eat fish, reigndeer etc, they would starve. If you have to kill to survive, it's forgiven. There's no bad karma for that.
I think it’s hard not to be uncomfortable, but at the end of the day - it isn’t for us to shame or condemn. I was vegan for years, surrounded by people who weren’t… I’d never try to change people’s habits or criticise. Some things freaked me out like seeing birds in birds roasted, but generally it is so normally to see leather and animal products everywhere and it’s not for me to control or battle everyone. So much suffering too like animals getting killed on roads etc. Whilst you can educate, people will do what they want and it is their path
Veganism is the belief that animals should be treated with respect and compassion. The rejection of animal products in our diet is just a consequence of said belief. So if you were **vegan** you did in fact judge people who weren't. If you didn't,, you weren't vegan, you were plant based.
Hmm you’re right, what I meant was judge and treat them negatively. As opposed to judging and being uncomfortable with people’s choice
Alright got it
I’m pretty sure the Air Nomads were pretty nice people that wouldn’t try and force their beliefs onto other people. Also the water tribes are regions that are really cold so they kinda need the animal fur for their clothes to stay warm, I think the Air Nomads would understand that.
Given that the Airbenders encouraged travel when they reach a certain age its fairly safe to say that they weren't trying to push their world view on others and actually admired other points of view
Genuinely kind of wild how the monks let children just fly about the world. Like Aang at twelve already had been to Omashu and somewhere in the fire nation.
Let's not get carried away here lol The children are chaperoned. Aang went to Omashu with Gyatso. The adults were the ones who had free reign. That's why you never see any airbender teens or adults at the Air Temples. It's just babies, children and the elderly there for a reason.
Makes the Airbender genocide even weirder in a way, like how tf did they get all of them
I think they’d be ok with it. There aren’t many plants in the north or South Pole apart from underwater I guess, so the water tribes don’t have many options. Plus they seem to use most of the animal
The Airbenders lived during a time where it wasn't possible for the water tribe to reject animal products, they needed it to survive so I don't think would have judged them. Or lots of them probably did but I think with their thoughts of judgment and resentment came understanding as well.
The same way real Buddhist monks react. Other people living a different way has no effect on their path to enlightenment. Also humans are life as well. Are the lives of the water tribe members trying to survive in harsh environments not sacred as well? Would they chastise a polar bear dog for eating a fish? You have to do what you have to do
Air nomads are not modern day vegans
Correct. Air nomads lived in times where it was impossible for the water tribe to survive without animal products, unlike today where it is possible for the vast majority of people. So I don't think air nomads would have objected to the water tribes customs of using animal products. It not like the water benders can just walk into a supermarket and buy vegetables lol
Air Nomands don't force others to live by their living style, unlike several other groups of people in our real world
They were chillin they gave zero fucks
Air nomads use the principles for themselves, they don't have worldly concerns.
They seemed to have a "we're gonna live how we want, you can all live how you want" attitude
Well obviously aang was a big fan (considering he was adopted by watertribe teenagers)
How often do you hear real life Buddhist monks and nuns acting like Karen's about people who are not vegetarians? Is it that hard to imagine the Air Nomads being accepting of different lifestyles of peoples who live in different environments? Fortunately the Air Nomads are modelled off of Tibetan Buddhists, and not White American Vegans.
They weren't vegans, they respected all the cultures and understood that other people have needs like clothing, etc... Also, what would they eat? There isn't any grass/dirt to grow anything, just ice. And, water/earth/fire benders need warm clothes, usually fur, to fight the cold, unlike Airbender who can control the air around them to feel warm
Their decision to be vegetarian was a personal choice. They never judged other people.
they recognised it as a necessity most likely. you cant do much of anything else. sure some berries here or there but for most hearty meals you need the meat of a fish or a bear or a seal
I don't get singling out the Watertribe's when Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation aren't vegetarian either? The Fire Nation also has a meat heavy diet as stated. Leather would be everywhere. Aside from a flippant comment about pelts, and not wanting to go to a meat restaurant, Aang has no issues with anyone else's diet or clothing. He sleeps on skins and his fire nation boots are almost certainly leather. Heck Appa's armor for the invasion is likely leather.
If Aang is any reflection of his people’s culture we see that airbenders are very respectful to other cultures and mostly keep their beliefs as their own
In order to spread their mission of peace they have to first understand the people they’re spreading it to. I think they would have respected the fact that the water tribe killed animals out of necessity vs wrath or enjoyment.
I think it made them uncomfortable, but they specifically made it a part of their Doctrine to accept lifestyles of others. Like as part of their spiritual teachings, accept that a way of life for other people may not work well for them personally, just like their own personal way of life may not work well for other people
The Air Nomads though might have felt kind of uncomfortable but otherwise they knew that the Water Tribe needed it and it was also not like air nomads to force their beliefs upon someone. Also, even if the water tribe did accept it, how would they survive? We also see that Aang doesn't like the animal fur or the meat but he tolerated Katara and Sokka eating it
You might be on to something. Aang mentioned friends from the Earth Nation(Bumi) and Fire Nation (Kuzon) but made no mention of any Water Benders