#atla huu

[onefail-at-atime]

Speaking of Vietnamese influence in the swampbenders...

Viet-Cajun cuisine is a thing. The fusion of flavors and culture came from the resettlement of Vietnamese immigrants along the Gulf Coast, specifically regions of Louisiana. Like the Gulf, Vietnam was colonized by the French. Shared cultural similarities, like French dialects, a sustainability from fishing, shared climate, and even religion (in Catholicism), emerged when the Vietnamese began to settle in the areas of Algiers and New Orleans.

I don't know if the creators were aware of this when they created the swampbenders and developed the storyline, but I find it incredible considering the Gulf Coast swamp lifestyle and accents that were given to those characters.

Is there any Vietnamese specific influence in the world of avatar that can be seen in atla or LoK?

The Swampbenders have Vietnamese-inspired names and homes:

The Cultures of Avatar: The Last Airbender | What’s in a Name: Water Tribe Pt. 3 (tumblr.com)

https://atlaculture.tumblr.com/post/646846228070612993/cultural-architecture-foggy-swamp-homes

The EK village that Zuko and Iroh begged in was very Vietnamese:

The Cultures of Avatar: The Last Airbender | Cultural Anatomy: “The Swamp” Episode (tumblr.com)

The Cabbage Merchant wears a Khăn Vấn (Vietnamese Headwrap):

The Cultures of Avatar: The Last Airbender | Cultural Fashion: Cabbage Merchant’s Headwrap (tumblr.com)

[polls4you]

Avatar The Last Airbender: Choose your favorite character! (Round 1)

[die-auster]

Which two characters do you think would have the most interesting convos while fishing?

Wow! A tricky one!

Guru Pathik and Huu. Huu is basicaly a Buddha in Avatar univerce. Have you ever thought about that?

They won't catch anything, but fish will have a great time listening :)

If you feel like it you can support me on Ko-fi. And your feedback will make the artist really happy!

[monsieur-kazzle-dazzle]

REAL

[gennianydots]

Aang: I get how the tree is one big thing, but the whole world?

Huu, the Swamp-bender: Sure. You think you’re any different from me, or your friends, or this tree? If you listen hard enough, you can hear every living thing breathing together. You can feel everything growing. We are all living together, even if most folks don’t act like it. We all have the same roots, and we are all branches of the same tree.

[berylofapples]

same energy

[blxckfirex]

how to forget when team avatar met Walt Whitman

[zuko-always-lies]

ATLA Overall Character Stats

One thing I have been wondering for a while is how many lines of dialogue each character has in ATLA. I recently figured out an easy way to calculate it, so here are the stats for the entire series. You can look at the stats for Book 1, Book 2, and Book 3 at those links.

There are 9985 total lines of dialogue in the series. They are divided up as follows:

Aang 1796 lines, 17.99% of total lines Sokka 1635 lines, 16.37% Katara 1433 lines, 14.35%(this increases to 1439 lines and 14.81% when you include "Young Katara") Zuko 776 lines, 7.77% (this increases to 809 lines and 8.10% when you include "Young Zuko) Toph 508 lines, 5.09% Iroh 337 lines, 3.38% Azula 211 lines, 2.11%(this increases to 232 lines and 2.32% when you include "Young Azula") Jet 134 lines, 1.34% Suki 114 lines, 1.14% Zhao 107 lines, 1.07% Mai 82 lines, 0.82%(this increases to 83 lines and 0.83% when you include "Young Mai") Hakoda 77 lines, 0.77% Roku 67 lines, 0.67% Ty Lee 64 lines, 0.64%(this increases to 66 lines and 0.66% when you include "Young Ty Lee) Bumi 55 lines, 0.55% Ozai 55 lines, 0.55% Yue 53 lines, 0.53% Hama 49 lines, 0.49% Long Feng 46 lines, 0.46% Piandao 43 lines, 0.430645969% Mechanist 42, 0.420630946% Kuei 40, 0.400600901% Bato 38, 0.380570856% Pathik 38, 0.380570856% Pakku 37, 0.370555834% Teo 35, 0.350525789% Chong 33, 0330495744% Warden of Boiling Rock 33, 0.330495744% Young Zuko 33, 0.330495744% Jeong Jeong 32, 0.320480721%

More obscure characters below

Guard 29 0.290435653 Haru 29 0.290435653 Joo Dee 29 0.290435653 June 28 0.280420631 Wu 28 0.280420631 Zhang leader 28 0.280420631 Xin Fu 27 0.270405608 Zei 27 0.270405608 Chit Sang 26 0.260390586 Sozin 26 0.260390586 Shyu 25 0.250375563 Gan Jin leader 23 0.230345518 Fong 22 0.220330496 Smellerbee 22 0.220330496 Ursa 22 0.220330496 Young Azula 21 0.210315473 Actress Aang 19 0.190285428 Gyatso 19 0.190285428 Yu 19 0.190285428 Arnook 18 0.180270406 Meng 18 0.180270406 Sun Warrior chief 18 0.180270406 Wan Shi Tong 18 0.180270406 Canyon guide 17 0.170255383 Captain 17 0.170255383 Jin 17 0.170255383 Lee 17 0.170255383 Oyaji 17 0.170255383 Tong 17 0.170255383 Actor Sokka 16 0.160240361 Actress Katara 16 0.160240361 Fisherman 16 0.160240361 King Bumi 16 0.160240361 Li 16 0.160240361 Tho 16 0.160240361 Tyro 16 0.160240361 Warden 16 0.160240361 Yon Rha 16 0.160240361 Bully guard 15 0.150225338 Due 15 0.150225338 Actor Zuko 14 0.140210315 Chey 14 0.140210315 Lao 14 0.140210315 Male guard 14 0.140210315 Pirate captain 14 0.140210315 Chan 13 0.130195293 Dock 13 0.130195293 Herbalist 13 0.130195293 Ghashiun 12 0.12018027 Huu 12 0.12018027 Ticket lady 12 0.12018027 Calm man 11 0.110165248 Female guard 11 0.110165248 Kay-fon 11 0.110165248 Lo 11 0.110165248 Lo and Li 11 0.110165248 Ying 11 0.110165248 Actress Azula 10 0.100150225 Earthbender captain 10 0.100150225 Gan Jin tribesman 10 0.100150225 Great Fire Sage 10 0.100150225 Headmaster 10 0.100150225 Jee 10 0.100150225 Kanna 10 0.100150225 Oh 10 0.100150225 Qin 10 0.100150225 Senlin Village leader 10 0.100150225 Song 10 0.100150225 Yung 10 0.100150225 Dai Li agent 9 0.090135203 Fisherman's wife 9 0.090135203 General Sung 9 0.090135203 Gow 9 0.090135203 Hahn 9 0.090135203 Haru's mother 9 0.090135203 Koh 9 0.090135203 Pipsqueak 9 0.090135203 Shinu 9 0.090135203 Soldier 9 0.090135203 The Boulder 9 0.090135203 The Duke 9 0.090135203 Xu 9 0.090135203 Gansu 8 0.08012018 Kenji 8 0.08012018 Kwan 8 0.08012018 Mother Superior 8 0.08012018 Old man 8 0.08012018 Shuzumu 8 0.08012018 Yagoda 8 0.08012018 Cabbage merchant 7 0.070105158 Fire Sage 7 0.070105158 Fung 7 0.070105158 General How 7 0.070105158 Koko 7 0.070105158 Male student 7 0.070105158 Man 7 0.070105158 Pao 7 0.070105158 Tashi 7 0.070105158 Than 7 0.070105158 Trainer 7 0.070105158 Villager 7 0.070105158 Warden Poon 7 0.070105158 Due to Tumblr limatations on length, I had to put the remaining characters(those with 6 or fewer lines) in a two separate posts .

[doyouevenshipbr0]

u know what. im in the mood to piss ppl off. heres my ranking of the 10 strongest waterbenders in atla and lok (not including avatars, and im not including anything from kiyoshi or yangchen’s era. i havent read those hehe. sowwy. strictly going off the shows).

now im doing this bc waterbending is by FAR my fav form of bending. and in MY OPINION!!!!!,,, people overlook some pretty important facts and feats and decide based more on who their favs are. this is my opinion anyways so im sure i inevitably did that too! but anyways. here we go.

10 strongest waterbenders:

honorable mentions: kya- listen. she is my GIRL. and also she is very strong, but at the end of the day, shes a healer. she has very little combat experience, and she was up against some real monsters in tlok. and shes known to be a great healer, but we dont even see that much of that. for this reason, she cant be top 10:/. eska and desna- they are GOOD. and their synchronized waterbending is super interesting. unfortunately i just kinda think everyone else in the top 10 is stronger. and i feel like the reason they are so strong is because they’re a unit. if they were separated, i have doubts.

10. tonraq- right off the bat im wondering if im going off biases LOL. but i love him. i love his style of bending. he is arguably my fav waterbender to watch waterbend. but unfortunately, in most of his fights, he’s kindaaaa getting worked (im on s2 of lok rewatch now. so i may be forgetting some stuff. but the big fights that stick out for me are him vs unalaq where he gets worked and him vs zaheer and korra where again, he gets kinda worked.) very clearly strong, but does not have all that much to show for it in the show. but he fights with all the big shots for a reason, and he led the water tribe army or something like that. so. hes good.

9. huu- i honestly don’t remember a whole lot of him, but swamp style of water bending is super interesting, and he clearly does it the best. i know we dont see a whole lot of him, but i cant overlook that he is THEE swamp bender.

8. pakku- obv. hes a member of the white lotus and was the master waterbender of the northern tribe. a slayer for his time but i do think he is outclassed by most waterbenders we see in tlok. cannot deny his strength tho. he was the goat at one time for a reason!

7. hama- as far as we know, she is the first blood bender. aka the strongest aspect of waterbending. she is a LEGEND. but again, i think she was a master for her time, but would have trouble holding her own in modern day bending esp without a fully moon.

6. ming hua- the way she uses waterbending as an extension of herself is clearly masterful. and i feel like we never see anyone utilize waterbending anything like how she does. unfortunately, she cant be any higher bc we dont see any extraordinary sub-water feats (healing… i think???? don’t remember lol. bloodbending, spirit healing). but clearly, she was an insane threat to everyone around her.

5. unalaq- so like. MAYBE he should be 4, but i really hate him lol. but i cannot deny he is an EXCEPTIONAL waterbender and pretty much no other waterbender (that we see in s2) can even TOUCH him. hes got the spirit healing, and hes got the skill. somethin somethin vaatu vaatu. idk. i hate him and i dont rly like this season lol. moving on.

4. katara- ok. she was the best in atla. no ifs and or buts. HOWEVER. she gets outclassed in lok and i think we know why. BUT. she was a complete prodigy as soon as she started training with pakku. there was no extension of waterbending that she could not do. she clearly thrived learning waterbending how she did, in such a fast paced, high pressure, and high stakes situation, and thats not even HER PRIME! she was waterbending for under a year when we see her. and we still got the greatest waterbender of that time. there was no one like her, and no waterbender could hold a candle to her by the end of atla. and once again, was only 14. only waterbending for a year. whos doing it like my sis?!

3. tarrlok- unfortunately for katara, the bloodbending family, without a doubt, outdoes her. bloodbending without a full moon? done and done. sorry! i believe katara COULD bloodbend outside of a full moon given the extensive training tarrlok and noatak were given but unfortunately, we will never know, so i cannot in good conscience put her any higher than 4. tarrlok was a master waterbender in itself and pretty much a master blood bender.

2. yakone- he bloodbent. a whole courtroom. with his mind. we dont see anything else from him, and we really dont need to. sorry. it is what it is.

1. amon- he bloodbends with his mind. and learned to take away someone’s bending ability with blood bending. katara, the best healer in the world, could not restore korras bending. granted, she was probably going about it wrong, but the point is, she couldnt do it. taking away someones bending with bloodbending just takes the cake. that aside, even in a combat setting, when he wasnt even trying he was wooping on all other benders of all kinds bc he was controling their movements w his mind. imagine him openly using waterbending AND having his mind control technique?! he would be unstoppable. im ngl i dont love how lok handles waterbending/bloodbending in general. i kinda think they made it TOO strong with little reasoning). also we do see him do an awesome lil water tornado at the end. so. not that we needed that, but its a cute lil cherry on top to his waterbending. hes the strongest waterbender. sorry!

want to finish this by saying had katara learnt to bloodbend outside of a full moon, she would be number one. and i do believe she could have learned. but she didnt. so she cant be first.

[narrativelysignificantturtleduck]

The more I see you engage with atla live action stuff the more I hope you're also taking plenty of time to focus on things you like - take care of yourself, ok?

Anyway here's a thought that occurred to me: I think Jeong Jeong would get along startlingly well with some of the foggy swamp benders.

1. 💕 that is so sweet of you anon. to be fully honest i am unemployed right now so i definitely need to be aware of how i'm spending my time. to some degree complaining about a show is a welcome distraction but i definitely need to keep an eye on it and this is a useful reminder.

2. at first i was like huh? and then i remembered huu, the guy who sat with them and told them how the swamp was all interconnected and how that was a metaphor for the world and its web of connections. that is someone jeong jeong could get along with. jeong jeong is living in the woods to isolate himself but the swampbenders' relationship to their environment is one of connection. he has some sense of that connection, some idea that he has a place in the interconnected web of things (his line about the sun being greatest source of fire and being in balance with nature) but he also very much feels that firebending has no place in the world. the swampbender teachings could be helpful for him. also, he likes waterbenders, so the swampbenders are definitely up his alley in that way.

the swamp is also the place toph goes in lok to isolate herself while also staying sort of connected to the world via the vines, and i've always thought he and toph would get along. they're both strongly individual, rebelling against their repressive societies to become their own people following their own beliefs. toph's approach of waiting and listening is a quintessential earthbender quality he clearly admires - his bending style is very earth, with strong walls and sturdy stances. not that a twelve-year-old would fix an old man, but i also think her groundedness would help get him out of his own head. she'd listen to him go off about bending and how fire is destructive and then say a very simple but wise thing about the usefulness of fire and how useless it is to wallow and complain. and it'd be so reasonable that jeong jeong would have to pause. toph also has such a close relationship to her bending because it's a disability aid, so she'd have insight into how bending isn't just fighting, it's a part of who you are and how you interact with the world. maybe firebenders can do a heat-sensing thing that's similar to seismic sense, and with her help jeong jeong learns to use it.

so yeah, i think you're right about the swampbenders and jeong jeong. you wouldn't expect it, but there is some overlap and some wisdom there.

[likealittleheartbeat]

i just think aang’s survival in the iceberg is such a powerful and multifaceted piece of iconography. it really succinctly visualizes the act of survival along with all the power and grief that go along with it. i can’t think of any iconic references we have for ‘survival’ as a concept in anglo-fiction (plenty of examples of sacrifice tho). i guess there’s some stuff with horses in fiction about enduring suffering, but they tend to emphasize how the suffering is necessary to strengthen the individual for the ultimate narrative resolution. the iceberg in avatar, tho, is so potent because it refuses to bless the suffering. instead, it acknowledges the strength of the survivor as something inherent that preceded the suffering. it also acknowledges that this kind of survival comes with a deep and painful toll, so it’s cruel to force upon someone. this is a very different concept than the parent teaching their child to toughen up or a ‘test sent by god.’ 

the iceberg has so many symbolic possibilities. even within the show. visually we see parallels crop up a few times: there’s huu concealed within his vines in the swamp, the library and Wan Shi Tong buried deep within the sands of the great desert, aang enduring ozai’s attacks inside a rock construction in the finale, and katara even creating her own frozen experience with Azula in that last episode. but we can go more metaphorical. we can symbolically connect this image of painful survival within an iceberg with how katara survives the attack on her village. She is saved but without any possible waterbending mentors to guide her forward--and at the cost of losing her mother and having her father leave to further protect their home. an arrested development happens for sokka because of the loss of those same adult mentors, too (although his is less representative of the fire nation’s attempt at complete cultural genocide of SWT waterbending). zuko and azula in their childhood find emotional and behavioral ways to survive the culture of patriarchal domination in their nation and their family and get locked into perfectionistic and self-hating modes due to the conditional love in their household. toph literally escapes like aang to find her own means of survival outside her parents’ coddling control, and for a long time, that escape is simply a way to split her life into two and cope rather than actually finding a way out and forward. 

it’s no surprise audiences connect with the show so much when it provides so many examples of surviving through different kinds of painful experiences. it’s easy enough to connect these experiences to real world survivors of abuse and imperialism and genocide. the queer closet analogy is another easy parallel that plenty of atla fans connect to the show. some of us have been forced to endure horrific things, and it is incredible that we were able to find a means to survive. and when we find ourselves on the other side of it, we can feel awed by the strength, agility, and cleverness we embodied at the same time that we’re finally safe to experience and accept the cruelty and pain we endured.

that image of the glowing boy in the iceberg is such a novel symbol to me, and there’s a reason it’s up there with the most famous images from the show.

[sokkas-instinct]

amidst these difficult times, let’s not forget something that avatar taught us about humanity:

“If you listen hard enough, you can hear every living thing breathing together. You can feel everything growing. We're all living together, even if most folks don't act like it. We all have the same roots and we are all branches of the same tree.” - Huu

[thingsirepeatfromtv]

Pants are an illusion, and so is death.

[cool-beans-quotes]

Pants are an illusion, and so is death

-Huu from Avatar the Last Airbender

[everycloudinatla]

Season 3, Episode 10, 3:00-3:25

"Pants are an illusion and so is death"

[your-royal-momoness]

pt 1/?

Part 2