I like how in Avatar it’s basically random on who gets it, also it’s a checkbox. There aren’t people who are just STRONGER at bending in a “they have the pure blood.”
Toph is a strong bender but it’s shown to be due to hard work. Aang is kind of mid as a bender, but can use all 4 and no one has fought an airbender in living memory so that’s his advantage.
Also bending is cool, but not all powerful, you can still get punched.
Sokka and Suki are regularly shown to be the strongest and smartest of the gang and they are just normal peeps with a boomerang and a tsudnere they stan.
Aang was a prodigy as an Airbender, he became a master at the age of twelve and invented new techniques. He was mid at the other 3 because he hadn’t had time to practice.
But I do agree with your overall point. Animes are usually good on this trope because they love the idea of training super hard. That has it’s own tropes of bootstrapping, but I love how in the DBZ verse you can just do martial arts hard enough and learn to fly.
I’m loving all these posts about writing.
And I’m pretty ambivalent to any magic system now where you’re born with it or you’re not, or there’s no way to learn magic. Avatar is the exception.
I like how in Avatar it’s basically random on who gets it, also it’s a checkbox. There aren’t people who are just STRONGER at bending in a “they have the pure blood.”
Toph is a strong bender but it’s shown to be due to hard work. Aang is kind of mid as a bender, but can use all 4 and no one has fought an airbender in living memory so that’s his advantage.
Also bending is cool, but not all powerful, you can still get punched.
Sokka and Suki are regularly shown to be the strongest and smartest of the gang and they are just normal peeps with a boomerang and a tsudnere they stan.
Aang was a prodigy as an Airbender, he became a master at the age of twelve and invented new techniques. He was mid at the other 3 because he hadn’t had time to practice.
But I do agree with your overall point. Animes are usually good on this trope because they love the idea of training super hard. That has it’s own tropes of bootstrapping, but I love how in the DBZ verse you can just do martial arts hard enough and learn to fly.