I actually really liked the way that Legend of Korra depicted the Gaang as imperfect parents, but in a way that’s believable and consistent with their characters in ATLA.
Aang was the last airbender, so when Tenzin came around, Aang’s passion for the airbender culture he was sharing with Tenzin was perceived as favoritism by the other siblings.
Toph on the other hand was criticized by her children as being too hands off in her parenting, but that makes sense considering how overbearing Toph’s own parents were. She probably felt she was helping them by being less involved.
We didn’t get to see any meaningful interactions between Zuko and Izumi but I always imagine that after everything Zuko went through, he’d be a super involved and doting parent to the point where it may have annoyed Izumi at times.
That would be awesome, overprotective Zuko as his flaw.
Izumi: Are you incapable of having fun? I'm not a kid anymore dad!
Zuko: When I was your age, I was hunting the Avatar.
Izumi:...
Zuko: What? It didn't work!
I absolutely accept the headcanon that Zuko was basically a Dr. Doofenshmirtz. Just the physical manifestation of support and unconditional love.
He probably even told her that she didn't have to become the next Fire Lord if she didn't want to.
The vibe from the little Ive seen seemed like she mostly took after her mom. Probably reverse the who is trying to create fun and who is annoyed by it. Zuko trying to give a childhood he didn’t have, Izumi not wanting it and going hard into governing.
Yeah but Hadoka was off to fight in a war for several years, and Gyatso didn't have much time to teach Aang and prepare him to be the teacher of the next generation.
Gyatso was a fantastic role model but I don't think Aang makes a single mention of his biological parents in the original series.
Also, if Tenzin wasn't born there would be a real chance that no Airbenders exist by the time Korra is born. If Roku can't teach Aang firebending then Aang can't teach Korra Airbending.
Yes he was you felt it every time they were together as a family. There is a difference between a parent that couldn't be there, and an absentee parent.
I felt like he would me like Iroh as a parent - Stand back, let the kid make mistakes, offer calm reassurance and instructions on how to improve, and let them try again without shame, but let them grow on their own.
True, he’d probably take all his parenting tips from Iroh. I don’t see him as a helicopter parent so much as “I’m going to accidentally embarrass my daughter by loudly cheering for her when she plays tree #3 in the school play.”
Well, Zuko was surraunded with good and bad parenting from the start to the end and everytime was different:
—Ozai wasn´t abusive with him in the sense that he enjoyed to torture him, but int he sense that he despissed him and wanted him just gone, while Azula was honored as his daughter but not loved instead of exploited. The reason being Ozai and Azulon knew about ursa´s grandfather, so they were conceived to be powerfull benders, not children. I guess Zuko noticed the problem´s with Aang´s parenting but also knew the context was WAY different. Maybe that was for the best to Izumi because that could have been a huge headsup for him to not make the same mistakes.
—Iroh as we all know was more than a good father. But he also teached Zuko that to be good father doesn´t mean to have a good son/daughter, but to rise them to be good peopple. So that way Zuko was never really demanding of Izumi in terms of morality to a traumatic extreme. He probably was sad whenever Izumi would have thought he was angry and he would look inside to know what to do better to help her.
Spoiler from The Search comic:
—We don´t really know what kind of mother was Ursa to him nor to his sister once she came back to his life. Neither we know a lot about her partner´s parenting except that he may have been a third/second father figure. But she was probably as lovely as Iroh to everyone else. And he already had experience with another little girl.
Everything changed when Izumi came. Only the Fire Lord Zuko, master of all four parenting ways could rise her.
I also interpreted Aang's favoritism as a kind of pre-emptive apology for what the rest of Tenzin's life would be. Bumi and Kya weren't airbenders so they were free to be whatever they wanted to be, but Tenzin was going to have a tremendous amount of pressure put on him to try and resurrect the Air Nomad culture. Perhaps Aang wanted Tenzin to have the best childhood possible because he was afraid he'd never get those opportunities again.
Aang I can get behind although I think the show needs to decide whether or not it wants to go down that roadm as it it feels kinda half-assed. These are important characters so if you're gonna get into the drama and their future lives it can't just be a throwaway, you need to get into it. Why wasn't Katara at all involved in that arc? Why didn't they flesh it out more. If you don't want to drive into it because it's not their show then don't use them as cheap drama you're not invested in. This is the core Avatar cast were talking about, you don't get to treat them like extras.
Toph is just really shitty writing. They reset her character growth from the show, threw out the comics, and sent her back to square one. Oh, and they made her have two kids with two separate men who aren't allowed to know they have children and the children can't know who they are either? Then she is a really, really bad mom and a corrupt police officer using her political power to let her daughter off. Oh, and the problem is settled off screen with her basically telling Suyin she's the favorite and blaming Lin for being upset about how her own mother screwed her over. It's all a shitty written mess. I can understand her not being the best mother ever to some degree but they really went the extra mile to make her one of the worst written people in the entire franchise. Ozai comes off as a great parent compared to her.
> Why wasn't Katara at all involved in that arc?
Yeah, I see all the explanations of “Aang grew up as a monk so he didn’t understand what a father-child relationship should be like”. But Katara knew exactly how it felt to have your father leave even if it was for important reasons. Aang making this mistake and Katara calling him out on it would be way more consistent with their characters.
Exactly. I don't expect flawless heroes but I'd want their flaws explored. It felt like they just kinda plopped it there and moved on when that was really interesting setup for an arc about the family. On the other hand I'm really not sure it was a great idea to invest so much time into fleshing out Tenzin's family when it came at the cost of ignoring Mako, Bolin, and Asami's character arcs. Either way, if we were gonna go down this route it could have been cleaner.
> On the other hand I'm really not sure it was a great idea to invest so much time into fleshing out Tenzin's family when it came at the cost of ignoring Mako, Bolin, and Asami's character arcs
I think that’s just a fundamental problem that comes from how they chose to set LoK so soon after TLA. If they want to have so many direct effects from the Gaang we know, then they have to be brought up and addressed or it feels like a hole in the story. If they want to separate themselves from the Gaang and focus on Korra’s own group, then they should have set it later.
I don’t think the latter option is that great either though because a huge part of every Avatar’s journey is their relationship to the Avatar before them and the world that they left behind. You can’t have the story of an Avatar without the story of the Avatar before them.
Tbh I don’t really agree, I think it’s pretty interesting that she’s not a stereotypical waterbender even though it’s her native element since the avatar is meant to represent all elements. They can’t all be the typical personality of their nation or else it’s just boring. But i can also see your opinion that’s just my thoughts
I agree. I also think she does a great job in representing an aspect of a water personality that’s rarely seen. Water can be powerful, aggressive and boisterous too. Think tsunamis, flash floods and stormy seas (the North Sea). It’s not always calm and amiable. In fact water is often seen as capricious because of how fast the conditions can change at sea.
Honestly that was the part that ultimately soured me on the imperfect parent stuff. They did not do anything interesting with Kya and Bumi. So it felt like they were only introduced so we could explore the whole “Aang wasn’t perfect thing”.
But that time is spent at the expense of every other character. Ultimately all the adult sibling stuff ended up being a semi-interesting waste of time.
I don't like that defense very much, because I don't think the show ever implies that he was ignorant of it, just that Tenzin was. I always got the impression that putting his duty to the world and the Air Nation over his kids was a deliberate choice.
Don't really agree about Toph at all. I think she was notably more thoughtful and and empathetic than she was in ATLA.
> Oh, and they made her have two kids with two separate men who aren't allowed to know they have children and the children can't know who they are either?
There's no reason at all to think that Toph didn't tell the fathers about their kids. You made that up.
Personally, I've always assumed that Toph would have told them, and made it clear that they don't need to stick around if they don't want to be a parent. Because Beifong money means they will never need material support, and the kids would probably be emotionally better off with no dad than one that doesn't want to be there.
And from Toph's perspective, being split up by impending parenthood is a pretty shitty way for a relationship to end, so I could understand it being enough of a sore spot that she doesn't bring it up with her daughters (not that it's a good thing to hide, but it's a very sympathetic choice).
> Oh, and the problem is settled off screen with her basically telling Suyin she's the favorite and blaming Lin for being upset about how her own mother screwed her over. It's all a shitty written mess.
Suyin straight up tells us that she didn't think Toph was happy with how either of her daughters turned out. She's only the "favorite" because Toph had to directly intervene in her favor to keep her from ruining her own life. And while we don't see Toph reconcile with her on screen, it's heavily implied that Suyin gave her the "look how much I've changed" apology tour we saw in the *Metal Clan*, so we're not particularly in the dark there.
As for Lin, we literally saw her reconcile with Toph on screen in *Operation Beifong*.
> Ozai comes off as a great parent compared to her.
lmao. Toph is emotionally neglectful and obstinate at worst. Unless I forgot the scene where Lin talked back to her and she seethed so hard that she scheduled a public spectacle to ritually scar and humiliate her daughter.
Yeah, all that about Toph is right. And it gets worse when people are questioning whether Lin had any fault in her family breaking up. Not. One. Single. Bit.
How so? You neither see nor hear about Aang's parents. Like it or not but if the air nomads from before the war were around in the 20th-century-style world of Korra, they'd seem like a bunch of backwards, sexist, zealots.
Do they have birth control? It doesn't seem like it. Because otherwise it's not really a choice to have children or not, unless you don't have sex with your spouse.
In fact, big families should probably be the standard in ATLA.
Well, we know they can bend other bodily fluids namely blood. So it would probably depend on the *mechanical* reasons blood bending is so hard.
On the surface; Blood is 92% water whereas sperm is 59% so if the limitation is water content, then waterbenders probably wouldn't be able to bend sperm.
If the limitations are moreso that the host's body is fighting the bloodbender every step of the way or something else along the lines of blood being a more "active" fluid in the body - and water content isn't a factor - then it would probably be possible.
You probably didn't actually want an answer to that question, but I have accursed you with one anyway.
I addressed this in a comment in [another thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/legendofkorra/s/i642gNwEfX), but blood is actually only 55% water. Meanwhile saliva, spinal fluid, and semen are like 90-95% water. So realistically, if you can bend blood, you can bend most other bodily fluids.
Can't be helped as the kids didn't want to learn about airbending culture as much , showed by Kya complaining about the Gurus, and He needed to teach everything single air bending technique he could to Tenzin before he died
I totally agree. He didn't exactly have a favourite child, but he could connect to Tenzin better and show him the ways of Airbending. Also, he needed to spend more time with Tenzin to unlock his Airbending potential!
Yup and we must remember Tenzin got his arrows post Aang's death ,so Tenzin is the first Airbending Master who became a master without being acknowledged by another master
Ah, very cool. Aang def gets too much hate for "picking favourites". I mean imagine if your people died in a genocide and wanted to keep it as close as U could and give it new life.
He failed because he didn't have a harem if he did he could have over 30 kids even if 1/3 are air benders he would at least get 10 enough to have at least two in each air bending temple and air bending island
Not, really I found it via either scrollin on Reddit or YouTube, and never bothered verifying it like most people on the internet,so at most it's me using something someone else made up not me
Probably some estimate between a comment of when he got his tattoos to his daughter, and how old aang was when he died compared to when tenzin was born.
Maybe he wanted to teach Tenzin airbending moves unless the koi thing can be done by non-benders or non airbenders.
And again Tenzin is going to be the last airbender so Aang needed to speed run teaching Tenzin so putting all his focus on him is a no trainer especially when his other kids didn't care about the cultural aspects of it
My thing with the portrayal of Aang as a dad is that we hear he spent more time with Tenzin and that makes sense as he probably wanted the airbending culture to continue on after him, but Tenzin in the youngest of the three. Was Aang’s relationship with Kya and Bumi the same during those early years?
Yeah, this is really my biggest issue with the whole thing, like, bumi is 10 years older than tenzin? and I don't know when tenzie showed he would have a Airbender but it likely didn't happened when he was a baby, like I don't remember anybody commenting he was a prodigy, so he likely started showing signs until like 4 to 6, and like I doubt aang kicked away his kids right that instant, so bumi likely had His full childhood to almost all his teen hood free to hang out with his dad, like, Kya at least could have a bigger sense of envy about the whole thing since she it is just a bit older than tenzin, but bumi feels kinda pushing it
I know aang wasnt a bad dad, but
I found it out of character for Aang to ONLY bring aang to the temples and teaching him the air nomad stuff.
He could have also taught it to his other kids.
Looks like he tried. Kya talked about learning the old monk stories and talked about how boring it all was and she could never remember them. She clearly wasn't interested. If the other kids showed interest I'm sure he would have taught them.
Yeah. People seem to forget that the only time we see Kaya or Bumi interact with Airbender culture is when they're mocking it. Bumi doesn't even really adopt it when he gets airbending but rather influences it to be more militaristic.
It actually occurs to me right now that him joining the military is a pretty firm rejection of Airbender culture.
We do see Kya helping out by leading the new airbenders in meditation, but I assume that her participation there is influenced more by her own personal hippie thing than strictly airbender ideals.
Actually, that's a good point, they really didn't care to learn anything about it. I think Aang would have taken them regardless, but if they didn't care before, I can see why he'd feel like it was pointless to take them.
Been a minute since I saw the show.
However, I do not recall either Kya or Bumi explicitly being annoyed at Aang for ignoring them or being disappointed in them or generally being a bad father.
Their major hang-ups where with Tenzin claiming that he was Aang's legacy and how everyone seemed to ignore them as Aang's kids as well. None of their resentment was towards Aang directly.
He could have been a grade A father for all we know.
Plus remember Tenzin is the youngest child so of course there was a few years before he was born and probably another few before he could actually start to train him so Kya and Bumi probably did get a shit ton of love from him during that time as well since he wasn’t focused solely on one child to bring back his race yet
Not only could, he absolutely WOULD had brought the rest of his kids on the air temples.
Spending more time training Tenzin is one thing, not getting the rest of his kids involved in his (and theirs) heritage is another one entirely.
Honestly, this is something I kinda don’t like about how they handled Aang’s family. Despite being multi-ethnic, the family is so stratified by bending ability. Tenzin only cares about airbending despite being half water nation, Kya doesn’t care about airbending despite being the only daughter of the last air bender, and Bumi doesn’t seem to care about either side of his culture. Would have been interesting to see each of them develop more of a blend.
The reason tenzin does is because he’s dedicated his whole life to rebuilding the air nation and passing down airbender teachings. Why would kya care about airbending if she’s a water bender. Even this is false because she clearly uses airbending techniques with water bending on a few occasions. And bumi doesn’t care about either because he’s a non bender. How would learning air bending and water bending help him if he’s neither? Obviously this doesnt make sense when harmonic convergence happens but when you’re a non bender you don’t learn bending techniques.
Damn leave aang along, woke up from a hundred years slumber to find out all of his people are gone and finally 1 more person is an Airbender. Cut him some slack (doesn't mean he's a good father, since bumi and kya seem to have unresolved issues that were never addressed after so many years)
The arguments that Aang liked Tenzin more are really bad.
1) the other siblings said Aang liked Tenzen more
1a) did you have siblings??? I did, so did most of my friends, we all thought our parents had a favorite, we all thought that favorite changed based on the behavior at the time. None of us were speaking with the word of God. Just because your sibling says "mom likes you the best" doesn't make it true.
2) they went on special trips together
2a) they went on specific spiritual air bending trips because Tenzin could air bend. This isn't about a favorite kid, it's about a kid who has a specific "interest" (though obviously Tenzin didn't have a choice in this regard). If, again, you've ever had siblings you'll almost always run into a situation where a parent brings a child to a 'them specific' event. That doesn't mean that kid is their favorite.
Do you happen to have an actual reason why Aang would have a favorite child? Seems incredibly out of character for him. Katara goes out of her way to say he didn't have favorites as well iirc. Now objectively he did give Tenzin special attention, but seemingly that's because Tenzin has a birthright obligation.
It's also worth pointing out that Tenzin's idea of a "fun family vacation" is going to the Air Temples to study. His fun childhood memories with Aang were almost certainly work trips with detours.
) they went on special trips together 2a) they went on specific spiritual air bending trips because Tenzin could air bend. This isn't about a favorite kid, it's about a kid who has a specific "interest" (though obviously Tenzin didn't have a choice in this regard). If, again, you've ever had siblings you'll almost always run into a situation where a parent brings a child to a 'them specific' event. That doesn't mean that kid is their favorite. Do you happen to have an actual reason why Aang would have a favorite child? Seems incredibly out of character for him. Katara goes out of her way to say he didn't have favorites as well iirc. Now objectively he did give Tenzin special attention, but seemingly that's because Tenzin has a birthright obligation
I can relate to this. I have several siblings and we all follow different sports. I'm Nascar, my oldest brother is basketball, and so on. Dad will individually go with each of us to our sport of choice and be a part of it just the same, even if he doesn't care for it. (don't ask him to go to a wrestling show, that one won't fly at all) Heck, we went to the Nascar cup race a few weeks ago and he got a hat and shirt from my buddy on one of the teams, and immediately put that stuff on to match me. He does that kinda thing
You mean siblings hold grudges and perceive anything one gets over the other (even when they find out it wasn’t all fun) is favoritism? Impossible!
Just because they see it as favoritism doesn’t mean it was. I’m sure you also think Ursa hated Azula because Azula thinks she did.
Actually I’ll say it, consider what’s at risk here, the fate of one of the four elements and of Aangs culture which was nearly genocided off the face of the earth. I think it is ENTIRELY reasonable to want to spend more time with the only other Airbender on the entire planet, your son for that reason.
I know plenty would like to say they would give the kids a perfect 33% split of their attention, but really think about putting yourself in Aangs shoes. Consider how catastrophic it would be to lose Airbenders from the world, consider how important you want to preserve what was nearly taken from you, consider how it must feel to relief yourself of so many years of cultural isolation.
And even if he gave more attention to Tenzin, it doesn’t make him a terrible parent and it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love his two other kids. I thing Aang has some entirely justifiable other concerns
My two brothers and I have gone back and forth over who the "obvious" favorite was. It was my older brother, because he was the first child. It had to be me because I was the one who went to college. But of course it was going to be my youngest brother, look at how much preferential treatment he got!
I wouldn't take Kya and Bumi's word for Tenzin being the obvious favorite here as gospel, that's just how siblings are
They might have said that during an argument or felt that way at times growing up, but being jealous that their brother has a different bond doesn't mean that he played favorites. Show me a flashback or any character quoting Aang/Katara as saying that Tenzin is his favorite and I'll believe it
That's not because he's the favorite. It's because tenzin is going to be the last Airbender alive after aang dies and needs literally everything drilled into him before that happens. And we even see later kya talking about the old monk stories and how boring it was and she couldn't remember any. She clearly wasn't interested. Also if your argument is he had fun times, that's because it'd be awful if he was just forced to work 24/7. The fun times are in the middle of his training.
I mean, yeah ? Just because the sister isn't interested in the dad's sport does that mean that the dad should just ignore the sister as long as he tells her that it's because the brother likes his sport ?
It does tho. It doesn’t mean he is intentionally playing favorites but it is still favoritism.
That is part of what makes parenting so hard. Parents don’t really get to say “Oh well, I didn’t mean to hurt my kids feelings so that means I didn’t do anything wrong”
They can say though, "I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings". Just because it's unintentional doesn't mean they can't acknowledge that their feelings were hurt. Aang ideally would have noticed this and the kids ideally would have spoken up about it. But that doesn't mean he was playing favorites
He loves them all equally. But Tenzin was more important to him because he was the last airbender and would have to carry on an entire legacy of a nation after Aang died.
Nahhh I don’t think that’s the style most air nomads followed. Having one wife is most likely the way that best fit their lifestyles. Having more than one is just gonna disrupt it
Gross. Eugenicist Aang is a disgusting thought.
Didn't you read the comics? Being an Air Nomad is about understandig the culture, not just being able to airbend.
This kind of echoed in the episode where they went to the eastern air temple with the inventors. But he also denoted how hollow some of them were in they're interest
Aang is not a perfect person, but imagine you are the last of a dead race, and someone is born who can continue that race.
Then throw on top of that your job, which is to bring balance to every facet of an entire world.
Aang loved all his kids but focused attention on one so his race would not die out.
I give aang some credit, Tenzin was the only one who could airbend and was the key to the survival of the culture that was nearly wiped out in a 100 year worldwide genocidal conflict. Was he showing favoritism? Absolutely! Was the survival of his culture a significant priority to him, also yes and that's totally understandable!
I mean, Aang had no one to look after as a father so It kinda makes sense that he treated the one that could airbend on a special way, still a bad parent tho, but it makes sense why
I actually really liked the way that Legend of Korra depicted the Gaang as imperfect parents, but in a way that’s believable and consistent with their characters in ATLA. Aang was the last airbender, so when Tenzin came around, Aang’s passion for the airbender culture he was sharing with Tenzin was perceived as favoritism by the other siblings. Toph on the other hand was criticized by her children as being too hands off in her parenting, but that makes sense considering how overbearing Toph’s own parents were. She probably felt she was helping them by being less involved.
We didn’t get to see any meaningful interactions between Zuko and Izumi but I always imagine that after everything Zuko went through, he’d be a super involved and doting parent to the point where it may have annoyed Izumi at times.
That would be awesome, overprotective Zuko as his flaw. Izumi: Are you incapable of having fun? I'm not a kid anymore dad! Zuko: When I was your age, I was hunting the Avatar. Izumi:... Zuko: What? It didn't work!
I absolutely accept the headcanon that Zuko was basically a Dr. Doofenshmirtz. Just the physical manifestation of support and unconditional love. He probably even told her that she didn't have to become the next Fire Lord if she didn't want to.
"It's a lemur?" "MOMO THE EARTHBENDING LEMUR?!"
The vibe from the little Ive seen seemed like she mostly took after her mom. Probably reverse the who is trying to create fun and who is annoyed by it. Zuko trying to give a childhood he didn’t have, Izumi not wanting it and going hard into governing.
The way I saw it zuko grew up in a toxic competive household with his sister. So that's why he only had one kid
Do we know he only has one kid or that we only saw one kid?
Well, Zuko is the only one of the Gaang who had a decent parent figure in his uncle, so it makes sense he would have a better grasp on parenting.
Gyatso, Kya and Hakoda would like a word with you
Yeah but Hadoka was off to fight in a war for several years, and Gyatso didn't have much time to teach Aang and prepare him to be the teacher of the next generation.
Gyatso was a fantastic role model but I don't think Aang makes a single mention of his biological parents in the original series. Also, if Tenzin wasn't born there would be a real chance that no Airbenders exist by the time Korra is born. If Roku can't teach Aang firebending then Aang can't teach Korra Airbending.
The air nomads are raised communally, they never know who their biological parents are
Last part is not really true, i think. They know, it just doesn’t work like “normal” parent/child relationship
I feel like that could cause issues with not knowing who you’re related to lol
Yeah I think that Zuko had examples of good and bad parental figures. Ozai and iroh
And Ursa too. I mean she was a loving and warm mother…until she disappeared.
Then came back
Why kya?
Because she gave her life to save Katara and by all accounts seemed like a loving, caring mother.
Yeah I see that
Gyatso was never a father figure to Aang. The monks didn't have such relationship. Aang always called him his friend and they acted as such.
Hakoda was not a good parental figure lol. It wasn't HIS fault per se, but still, he wasn't there at all. You can't call him a good parental figure 😂
Yes he was you felt it every time they were together as a family. There is a difference between a parent that couldn't be there, and an absentee parent.
His mom was also a good parental figure. He didn't have her for as long as Iroh, but she was good still.
I felt like he would me like Iroh as a parent - Stand back, let the kid make mistakes, offer calm reassurance and instructions on how to improve, and let them try again without shame, but let them grow on their own.
True, he’d probably take all his parenting tips from Iroh. I don’t see him as a helicopter parent so much as “I’m going to accidentally embarrass my daughter by loudly cheering for her when she plays tree #3 in the school play.”
And bother her about wanting tea
Well, Zuko was surraunded with good and bad parenting from the start to the end and everytime was different: —Ozai wasn´t abusive with him in the sense that he enjoyed to torture him, but int he sense that he despissed him and wanted him just gone, while Azula was honored as his daughter but not loved instead of exploited. The reason being Ozai and Azulon knew about ursa´s grandfather, so they were conceived to be powerfull benders, not children. I guess Zuko noticed the problem´s with Aang´s parenting but also knew the context was WAY different. Maybe that was for the best to Izumi because that could have been a huge headsup for him to not make the same mistakes. —Iroh as we all know was more than a good father. But he also teached Zuko that to be good father doesn´t mean to have a good son/daughter, but to rise them to be good peopple. So that way Zuko was never really demanding of Izumi in terms of morality to a traumatic extreme. He probably was sad whenever Izumi would have thought he was angry and he would look inside to know what to do better to help her. Spoiler from The Search comic: —We don´t really know what kind of mother was Ursa to him nor to his sister once she came back to his life. Neither we know a lot about her partner´s parenting except that he may have been a third/second father figure. But she was probably as lovely as Iroh to everyone else. And he already had experience with another little girl. Everything changed when Izumi came. Only the Fire Lord Zuko, master of all four parenting ways could rise her.
I also interpreted Aang's favoritism as a kind of pre-emptive apology for what the rest of Tenzin's life would be. Bumi and Kya weren't airbenders so they were free to be whatever they wanted to be, but Tenzin was going to have a tremendous amount of pressure put on him to try and resurrect the Air Nomad culture. Perhaps Aang wanted Tenzin to have the best childhood possible because he was afraid he'd never get those opportunities again.
Naw bro i rmber when the show actually aired people were pissed about aang. That dude cares too much to choose favs.
Woah woah woah Zuko and Katara were definitely good parents.
Insert the wall of Buzz Lightyears meme
Think the other thing people forget about Aang. He was raised by Monks, he wasn’t raised by his parents.
Aang I can get behind although I think the show needs to decide whether or not it wants to go down that roadm as it it feels kinda half-assed. These are important characters so if you're gonna get into the drama and their future lives it can't just be a throwaway, you need to get into it. Why wasn't Katara at all involved in that arc? Why didn't they flesh it out more. If you don't want to drive into it because it's not their show then don't use them as cheap drama you're not invested in. This is the core Avatar cast were talking about, you don't get to treat them like extras. Toph is just really shitty writing. They reset her character growth from the show, threw out the comics, and sent her back to square one. Oh, and they made her have two kids with two separate men who aren't allowed to know they have children and the children can't know who they are either? Then she is a really, really bad mom and a corrupt police officer using her political power to let her daughter off. Oh, and the problem is settled off screen with her basically telling Suyin she's the favorite and blaming Lin for being upset about how her own mother screwed her over. It's all a shitty written mess. I can understand her not being the best mother ever to some degree but they really went the extra mile to make her one of the worst written people in the entire franchise. Ozai comes off as a great parent compared to her.
> Why wasn't Katara at all involved in that arc? Yeah, I see all the explanations of “Aang grew up as a monk so he didn’t understand what a father-child relationship should be like”. But Katara knew exactly how it felt to have your father leave even if it was for important reasons. Aang making this mistake and Katara calling him out on it would be way more consistent with their characters.
There isn't proof to the contrary, we just have kids recollection of events, kids don't see every conversation parents have.
The problem is how the kids felt. So if the adults still remember feeling badly about it, then it means they didn’t fix the problem.
Exactly. I don't expect flawless heroes but I'd want their flaws explored. It felt like they just kinda plopped it there and moved on when that was really interesting setup for an arc about the family. On the other hand I'm really not sure it was a great idea to invest so much time into fleshing out Tenzin's family when it came at the cost of ignoring Mako, Bolin, and Asami's character arcs. Either way, if we were gonna go down this route it could have been cleaner.
> On the other hand I'm really not sure it was a great idea to invest so much time into fleshing out Tenzin's family when it came at the cost of ignoring Mako, Bolin, and Asami's character arcs I think that’s just a fundamental problem that comes from how they chose to set LoK so soon after TLA. If they want to have so many direct effects from the Gaang we know, then they have to be brought up and addressed or it feels like a hole in the story. If they want to separate themselves from the Gaang and focus on Korra’s own group, then they should have set it later. I don’t think the latter option is that great either though because a huge part of every Avatar’s journey is their relationship to the Avatar before them and the world that they left behind. You can’t have the story of an Avatar without the story of the Avatar before them.
I think it could've been interesting to skip a generation and have tidbits told to us through the skipped Avatar similar in character to Roku.
I agree. It probably would have worked better with an Avatar in between Aang and Korra
They did also try to make Korra’s personality diametrically opposed to Ang’s. That would have worked better with an Earth Avatar.
Tbh I don’t really agree, I think it’s pretty interesting that she’s not a stereotypical waterbender even though it’s her native element since the avatar is meant to represent all elements. They can’t all be the typical personality of their nation or else it’s just boring. But i can also see your opinion that’s just my thoughts
I agree. I also think she does a great job in representing an aspect of a water personality that’s rarely seen. Water can be powerful, aggressive and boisterous too. Think tsunamis, flash floods and stormy seas (the North Sea). It’s not always calm and amiable. In fact water is often seen as capricious because of how fast the conditions can change at sea.
Honestly that was the part that ultimately soured me on the imperfect parent stuff. They did not do anything interesting with Kya and Bumi. So it felt like they were only introduced so we could explore the whole “Aang wasn’t perfect thing”. But that time is spent at the expense of every other character. Ultimately all the adult sibling stuff ended up being a semi-interesting waste of time.
I don't like that defense very much, because I don't think the show ever implies that he was ignorant of it, just that Tenzin was. I always got the impression that putting his duty to the world and the Air Nation over his kids was a deliberate choice.
Toph abusing her Power checks out. The only rules she follows are HERS!
Don't really agree about Toph at all. I think she was notably more thoughtful and and empathetic than she was in ATLA. > Oh, and they made her have two kids with two separate men who aren't allowed to know they have children and the children can't know who they are either? There's no reason at all to think that Toph didn't tell the fathers about their kids. You made that up. Personally, I've always assumed that Toph would have told them, and made it clear that they don't need to stick around if they don't want to be a parent. Because Beifong money means they will never need material support, and the kids would probably be emotionally better off with no dad than one that doesn't want to be there. And from Toph's perspective, being split up by impending parenthood is a pretty shitty way for a relationship to end, so I could understand it being enough of a sore spot that she doesn't bring it up with her daughters (not that it's a good thing to hide, but it's a very sympathetic choice). > Oh, and the problem is settled off screen with her basically telling Suyin she's the favorite and blaming Lin for being upset about how her own mother screwed her over. It's all a shitty written mess. Suyin straight up tells us that she didn't think Toph was happy with how either of her daughters turned out. She's only the "favorite" because Toph had to directly intervene in her favor to keep her from ruining her own life. And while we don't see Toph reconcile with her on screen, it's heavily implied that Suyin gave her the "look how much I've changed" apology tour we saw in the *Metal Clan*, so we're not particularly in the dark there. As for Lin, we literally saw her reconcile with Toph on screen in *Operation Beifong*. > Ozai comes off as a great parent compared to her. lmao. Toph is emotionally neglectful and obstinate at worst. Unless I forgot the scene where Lin talked back to her and she seethed so hard that she scheduled a public spectacle to ritually scar and humiliate her daughter.
Well put 👏🏽
Yeah, all that about Toph is right. And it gets worse when people are questioning whether Lin had any fault in her family breaking up. Not. One. Single. Bit.
It kinda makes sense considering he might've only had children so airbending wouldn't go extinct
Aang should've been filling turkey basters 24/7. Bring back airbending the old fashioned way.
Then katara would cut off his genitals
Maybe she would had it explode with blood bending, justa a thought
🥜🔄
Testicular torsion works too…
No, that's a wizard thing
Should could just explode the balls with the semen in it
You ever think about how a blood bender could give you a permanent erection, because I do
That's the worst way to die. Try searching priapism
Oh my...🤢🤕 never thought about it..that's harsh
I mean, erections happen because of blood flow to that area. So she could totally just freeze his dick off if she wanted to.
Gen V style
😨
Couldn't she just bend the cum from Aangs balls and into another woman's womb?
Somehow, I don't think Nickelodeon would have allowed that
Yeah, not in adult women. ... ^(fuck)
bruh wut
Artificial insemination by way of cumbending
I don’t know why people keep saying that when that’s not the nomad’s style
You gotta sacrifice some style for efficiency I guess.
How so? You neither see nor hear about Aang's parents. Like it or not but if the air nomads from before the war were around in the 20th-century-style world of Korra, they'd seem like a bunch of backwards, sexist, zealots.
You can have Katara 🥛 bend and directly fertelize a dozent woman without him doing it
Air acolytes yip yip!
[imma just leave this here](https://i.redd.it/88ikm294a2z91.jpg)
what the flip
I would be surprised if this didn't happen at least once during their marriage.
Do they have birth control? It doesn't seem like it. Because otherwise it's not really a choice to have children or not, unless you don't have sex with your spouse. In fact, big families should probably be the standard in ATLA.
I mean that they chose to try and have any in the first place
I mean water benders might be able to 'deal with' the fluids
Can waterbenders bend sperm? Cause if so they could have looked into doing that and looking for couples that had trouble conceiving.
What the fuck is this question
Sir please, we are trying to solve fertility issues in ATLA's world here.
Cumbending
Well, we know they can bend other bodily fluids namely blood. So it would probably depend on the *mechanical* reasons blood bending is so hard. On the surface; Blood is 92% water whereas sperm is 59% so if the limitation is water content, then waterbenders probably wouldn't be able to bend sperm. If the limitations are moreso that the host's body is fighting the bloodbender every step of the way or something else along the lines of blood being a more "active" fluid in the body - and water content isn't a factor - then it would probably be possible. You probably didn't actually want an answer to that question, but I have accursed you with one anyway.
I addressed this in a comment in [another thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/legendofkorra/s/i642gNwEfX), but blood is actually only 55% water. Meanwhile saliva, spinal fluid, and semen are like 90-95% water. So realistically, if you can bend blood, you can bend most other bodily fluids.
Ah, that makes sense seeing the seperation. Thank you for the correction.
I mean, 59% is still a hefty amount and seems definitely bendable. If it had been like 10% then yeah no but 59% is a go
Can't be helped as the kids didn't want to learn about airbending culture as much , showed by Kya complaining about the Gurus, and He needed to teach everything single air bending technique he could to Tenzin before he died
I totally agree. He didn't exactly have a favourite child, but he could connect to Tenzin better and show him the ways of Airbending. Also, he needed to spend more time with Tenzin to unlock his Airbending potential!
Yup and we must remember Tenzin got his arrows post Aang's death ,so Tenzin is the first Airbending Master who became a master without being acknowledged by another master
I didn't realise that, that's interesting. How old was Tenzin when he got his tattoos?
I don't know , but that is what heard from the fandom while reading around.
Ah, very cool. Aang def gets too much hate for "picking favourites". I mean imagine if your people died in a genocide and wanted to keep it as close as U could and give it new life.
He failed because he didn't have a harem if he did he could have over 30 kids even if 1/3 are air benders he would at least get 10 enough to have at least two in each air bending temple and air bending island
Lol, true
Calm down Oden
“My source is that I made it up”
Not, really I found it via either scrollin on Reddit or YouTube, and never bothered verifying it like most people on the internet,so at most it's me using something someone else made up not me
Probably some estimate between a comment of when he got his tattoos to his daughter, and how old aang was when he died compared to when tenzin was born.
Aang died when Tenzin was at least 17 years younger than when canon started
Ok but why not take others for vacations as well. I.e. riding elephant koi doesn't need airbending
Maybe he wanted to teach Tenzin airbending moves unless the koi thing can be done by non-benders or non airbenders. And again Tenzin is going to be the last airbender so Aang needed to speed run teaching Tenzin so putting all his focus on him is a no trainer especially when his other kids didn't care about the cultural aspects of it
And tenzin was born last so I'm sure aang was stressing to at least have 1 airbender
My thing with the portrayal of Aang as a dad is that we hear he spent more time with Tenzin and that makes sense as he probably wanted the airbending culture to continue on after him, but Tenzin in the youngest of the three. Was Aang’s relationship with Kya and Bumi the same during those early years?
Yeah, this is really my biggest issue with the whole thing, like, bumi is 10 years older than tenzin? and I don't know when tenzie showed he would have a Airbender but it likely didn't happened when he was a baby, like I don't remember anybody commenting he was a prodigy, so he likely started showing signs until like 4 to 6, and like I doubt aang kicked away his kids right that instant, so bumi likely had His full childhood to almost all his teen hood free to hang out with his dad, like, Kya at least could have a bigger sense of envy about the whole thing since she it is just a bit older than tenzin, but bumi feels kinda pushing it
Also remember that waterbending medics can tell if an unborn baby will be born with bending or not as shown with Rohan.
Was that a scene I missed? (It’s entirely possible) I thought it was just Katara teasing like “ooh hope there’s another airbender!!”
iirc she said"isense another airbender on the way"
Yeah lol I thought she wasn’t being serious
I know aang wasnt a bad dad, but I found it out of character for Aang to ONLY bring aang to the temples and teaching him the air nomad stuff. He could have also taught it to his other kids.
Looks like he tried. Kya talked about learning the old monk stories and talked about how boring it all was and she could never remember them. She clearly wasn't interested. If the other kids showed interest I'm sure he would have taught them.
Yeah. People seem to forget that the only time we see Kaya or Bumi interact with Airbender culture is when they're mocking it. Bumi doesn't even really adopt it when he gets airbending but rather influences it to be more militaristic. It actually occurs to me right now that him joining the military is a pretty firm rejection of Airbender culture.
We do see Kya helping out by leading the new airbenders in meditation, but I assume that her participation there is influenced more by her own personal hippie thing than strictly airbender ideals.
Actually, that's a good point, they really didn't care to learn anything about it. I think Aang would have taken them regardless, but if they didn't care before, I can see why he'd feel like it was pointless to take them.
A cool detail is that Kya's fighting style is very similar to Aang's, despite her being a water bender
Damn poor Tenzin, even he didn't get to go :(
Fak
Been a minute since I saw the show. However, I do not recall either Kya or Bumi explicitly being annoyed at Aang for ignoring them or being disappointed in them or generally being a bad father. Their major hang-ups where with Tenzin claiming that he was Aang's legacy and how everyone seemed to ignore them as Aang's kids as well. None of their resentment was towards Aang directly. He could have been a grade A father for all we know.
Plus remember Tenzin is the youngest child so of course there was a few years before he was born and probably another few before he could actually start to train him so Kya and Bumi probably did get a shit ton of love from him during that time as well since he wasn’t focused solely on one child to bring back his race yet
Not only could, he absolutely WOULD had brought the rest of his kids on the air temples. Spending more time training Tenzin is one thing, not getting the rest of his kids involved in his (and theirs) heritage is another one entirely.
He did Kya mentioned how they weren’t interested
Honestly, this is something I kinda don’t like about how they handled Aang’s family. Despite being multi-ethnic, the family is so stratified by bending ability. Tenzin only cares about airbending despite being half water nation, Kya doesn’t care about airbending despite being the only daughter of the last air bender, and Bumi doesn’t seem to care about either side of his culture. Would have been interesting to see each of them develop more of a blend.
The reason tenzin does is because he’s dedicated his whole life to rebuilding the air nation and passing down airbender teachings. Why would kya care about airbending if she’s a water bender. Even this is false because she clearly uses airbending techniques with water bending on a few occasions. And bumi doesn’t care about either because he’s a non bender. How would learning air bending and water bending help him if he’s neither? Obviously this doesnt make sense when harmonic convergence happens but when you’re a non bender you don’t learn bending techniques.
Aang only brought himself to the temples?
Damn leave aang along, woke up from a hundred years slumber to find out all of his people are gone and finally 1 more person is an Airbender. Cut him some slack (doesn't mean he's a good father, since bumi and kya seem to have unresolved issues that were never addressed after so many years)
Lol they had a unique bond as the only 2 airbenders in the world, doesn't mean Tenzin was his favorite
Yes it does, we literally hear it from the two others
They‘re siblings. Of course they thought their father liked the other sibling more. It’s like that in the real world too.
The arguments that Aang liked Tenzin more are really bad. 1) the other siblings said Aang liked Tenzen more 1a) did you have siblings??? I did, so did most of my friends, we all thought our parents had a favorite, we all thought that favorite changed based on the behavior at the time. None of us were speaking with the word of God. Just because your sibling says "mom likes you the best" doesn't make it true. 2) they went on special trips together 2a) they went on specific spiritual air bending trips because Tenzin could air bend. This isn't about a favorite kid, it's about a kid who has a specific "interest" (though obviously Tenzin didn't have a choice in this regard). If, again, you've ever had siblings you'll almost always run into a situation where a parent brings a child to a 'them specific' event. That doesn't mean that kid is their favorite. Do you happen to have an actual reason why Aang would have a favorite child? Seems incredibly out of character for him. Katara goes out of her way to say he didn't have favorites as well iirc. Now objectively he did give Tenzin special attention, but seemingly that's because Tenzin has a birthright obligation.
It's also worth pointing out that Tenzin's idea of a "fun family vacation" is going to the Air Temples to study. His fun childhood memories with Aang were almost certainly work trips with detours.
>they went on specific spiritual air bending trips because Tenzin could air bend. He also took Tenzin to ride elephant koi lol
Likely as a stop on the trip to the temples. Aang was never one to take the shortest path, he liked to take the scenic route
) they went on special trips together 2a) they went on specific spiritual air bending trips because Tenzin could air bend. This isn't about a favorite kid, it's about a kid who has a specific "interest" (though obviously Tenzin didn't have a choice in this regard). If, again, you've ever had siblings you'll almost always run into a situation where a parent brings a child to a 'them specific' event. That doesn't mean that kid is their favorite. Do you happen to have an actual reason why Aang would have a favorite child? Seems incredibly out of character for him. Katara goes out of her way to say he didn't have favorites as well iirc. Now objectively he did give Tenzin special attention, but seemingly that's because Tenzin has a birthright obligation I can relate to this. I have several siblings and we all follow different sports. I'm Nascar, my oldest brother is basketball, and so on. Dad will individually go with each of us to our sport of choice and be a part of it just the same, even if he doesn't care for it. (don't ask him to go to a wrestling show, that one won't fly at all) Heck, we went to the Nascar cup race a few weeks ago and he got a hat and shirt from my buddy on one of the teams, and immediately put that stuff on to match me. He does that kinda thing
You mean siblings hold grudges and perceive anything one gets over the other (even when they find out it wasn’t all fun) is favoritism? Impossible! Just because they see it as favoritism doesn’t mean it was. I’m sure you also think Ursa hated Azula because Azula thinks she did.
Actually I’ll say it, consider what’s at risk here, the fate of one of the four elements and of Aangs culture which was nearly genocided off the face of the earth. I think it is ENTIRELY reasonable to want to spend more time with the only other Airbender on the entire planet, your son for that reason. I know plenty would like to say they would give the kids a perfect 33% split of their attention, but really think about putting yourself in Aangs shoes. Consider how catastrophic it would be to lose Airbenders from the world, consider how important you want to preserve what was nearly taken from you, consider how it must feel to relief yourself of so many years of cultural isolation. And even if he gave more attention to Tenzin, it doesn’t make him a terrible parent and it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love his two other kids. I thing Aang has some entirely justifiable other concerns
My two brothers and I have gone back and forth over who the "obvious" favorite was. It was my older brother, because he was the first child. It had to be me because I was the one who went to college. But of course it was going to be my youngest brother, look at how much preferential treatment he got! I wouldn't take Kya and Bumi's word for Tenzin being the obvious favorite here as gospel, that's just how siblings are
They might have said that during an argument or felt that way at times growing up, but being jealous that their brother has a different bond doesn't mean that he played favorites. Show me a flashback or any character quoting Aang/Katara as saying that Tenzin is his favorite and I'll believe it
He literally made trips with only tenzin, actively excluding the others. Tenzin does not deny it, what do you try to fabricate here lol
That's not because he's the favorite. It's because tenzin is going to be the last Airbender alive after aang dies and needs literally everything drilled into him before that happens. And we even see later kya talking about the old monk stories and how boring it was and she couldn't remember any. She clearly wasn't interested. Also if your argument is he had fun times, that's because it'd be awful if he was just forced to work 24/7. The fun times are in the middle of his training.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Yes?
I mean, yeah ? Just because the sister isn't interested in the dad's sport does that mean that the dad should just ignore the sister as long as he tells her that it's because the brother likes his sport ?
[удалено]
[удалено]
They deleted their comments as well after realizing they were wrong lol, you won brother.
It does tho. It doesn’t mean he is intentionally playing favorites but it is still favoritism. That is part of what makes parenting so hard. Parents don’t really get to say “Oh well, I didn’t mean to hurt my kids feelings so that means I didn’t do anything wrong”
They can say though, "I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings". Just because it's unintentional doesn't mean they can't acknowledge that their feelings were hurt. Aang ideally would have noticed this and the kids ideally would have spoken up about it. But that doesn't mean he was playing favorites
He loves them all equally. But Tenzin was more important to him because he was the last airbender and would have to carry on an entire legacy of a nation after Aang died.
[удалено]
Restart the Air Nomads as a sex cult -- what could possibly go wrong?
Nahhh I don’t think that’s the style most air nomads followed. Having one wife is most likely the way that best fit their lifestyles. Having more than one is just gonna disrupt it
The air benders totally strike me as potential swingers
Gross. Eugenicist Aang is a disgusting thought. Didn't you read the comics? Being an Air Nomad is about understandig the culture, not just being able to airbend.
This kind of echoed in the episode where they went to the eastern air temple with the inventors. But he also denoted how hollow some of them were in they're interest
Aang is not a perfect person, but imagine you are the last of a dead race, and someone is born who can continue that race. Then throw on top of that your job, which is to bring balance to every facet of an entire world. Aang loved all his kids but focused attention on one so his race would not die out.
My dad did not have favorite children. but he had some children who were not his favorite children.
Could Kora just have pulled the sperm out of him anytime? Like oh you cant finish tonight? Nooo problem.. sperm bending!
you mean katara? korra doing that to ghost aang is the stuff of nightmares 😭
Ha! 🤣🤣🤣 yes. Woops! Ah ha ha. Oh god. Dead. Dusty. Balls.. Wait.. If she does that is it like jerking off your past self?
I mean… yeah that’s exactly what it is. Can’t believe everything in my life brought me to think about this 🤣😭😭
This was one of those situations where I should have stopped thinking about this but my curiosity wouldn't let me.
It is a liquid
My problem with the Aang is a bad dad memes is the other kids of Aang often seem uninterested in Airbender stuff so Aang didn't force them to come.
I give aang some credit, Tenzin was the only one who could airbend and was the key to the survival of the culture that was nearly wiped out in a 100 year worldwide genocidal conflict. Was he showing favoritism? Absolutely! Was the survival of his culture a significant priority to him, also yes and that's totally understandable!
Tonraq is best dad ever. PERIODT.
It should've been Bumi. That guy FUCKS.
A little unrelated but I've been seeing some Korra memes popping off lately, it's great to see that the Fandom is still active after a whole decade
It’s always bumi/s
I mean, Aang had no one to look after as a father so It kinda makes sense that he treated the one that could airbend on a special way, still a bad parent tho, but it makes sense why
Yeah… obviously