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flashback to 2012 dude

I remember all the theories about Amon before it was revealed he was a completely new character. There were some really good ones. Like the one that he was really Zuko's mom, and the one that he was really M Night Shyamalan mad because nobody liked how he portrayed bending in his movie so he decided nobody should have bending.

The theory I bought was that Koh the face stealer took his face which explained the mask and gave him powers somehow (since he said he was gifted the powers by the spirits). BUT ALAS

I like this iteration, except for the whole bloodbending randomly is good or something, also bloodbending was a southern tribe legacy that hama invented??? how did yakone get "the strongest line of bloodbenders ever" ??

when did they say bloodbending was good?

also they clearly established it was a mutation that Yakone had, that's why it was genetic. Kind of like Combustion Man's powers. It wasn't bending the traditional sense, it was a psychic power that's why he could still do it with his hands handcuffed and Amon could do it while jumping around and stuff. Tarlokk was just a noob compared to his brother and father (as was also established in the flashback episode) so he had to actually bend. But he was still able to do it without a full moon.

also bloodbending apparently got big enough that Katara had to push for legislation to actually ban it. so it became well known at some point in the 70 year gap I guess. keep in mind that Hama was really not that special she only discovered bloodbending because she was in a desperate situation. so it's not unlikely to think that other waterbenders discovered the technique independently at some point

meant "bloodbending is randomly powerful"

you mean how it can prevent a person from bending?

Yeah, psychic bloods bending ok

idk it's just a new thing I guess, but it's not too much of a stretch

on a related note, do you ever feel like sequel series are kind of stuck in a box with what kinds of new lore/abilities etc. they can add? Avatar kind of had that problem and the Star Wars prequels and now sequels have it too. With the originals you can make the lore whatever you want and people will accept it because they're still learning about it for the first time. But once the sequel comes around, those rules are kind of set in stone and people don't want them to change.

I kind of caught myself doing it when I watched Star Wars 7 and Kylo Ren blocked the blaster bolt and could read minds somehow. I was thinking to myself "you could never do those things with the force, wtf" but that's when I realized that they were adding new things now. So it's kind of like in Legend of Korra, they were adding new abilities and stuff but some people might get kind of skeptical because they weren't established in The Last Airbender. I guess it's an even more precarious situation in Star Wars considering it's not the original creator making these new ideas.

I guess The Force is kind of nebulous in that regard because the whole point of The Force is that nobody completely understands it, so you can always throw in new things about it, but it does kinda hurt your sense of belief the more abilities they add to it. Whereas in Avatar new abilities can be introduced and be believable, if they are not too far of a stretch from their natural roots, like being able to bend lava since it has earth in it (and could be because Bolin's mother was a Firebender). It's not like they threw in a 5th bending power called Woodbending or something. Blood bending to block the flow of chi makes sense I guess, even though Waterbending is by far the most powerful bending. (And they could even make it more powerful tbh, like blood bending should make you able to just pop a dude's veins and kill him instantly but whatever)

It all goes back to the cardinal rule of writing a fantasy world which is that your magic needs to be clearly established and have clearly defined rules before you can use it often. That way all the uses of that magic are consistent with the rules and are just part of the world, rather than seeming like writing cheats. If a magic power comes out of nowhere unexplained, it seems like a total asspull. So in a way it's like a lesser version of Deus Ex Machina. So I guess it makes sense for people to get bothered by new abilities and lore being introduced down the line, because they end up being sort of setting a precedent for "amendments" to the rules, and you need there to be firm rules for your universe in order for it to be believable and dramatically engaging.

Blocking bolts and mind reading is sort of an extension of established abilities--and star wars has way more content basing what you can and can't do. Korra only has 1 show precluding it so they really did feel like they were adding something new every time. But I think they did a good job of making things believable

yeah I agree I was just taken aback at first. tried for a long time to figure out if that was supposed to be the same thing as Darth Vader blocking Han Solo's blaster or not but I don't think that was even the force, just his armor

nah that was The Force, i read it in the novelization. It says "a blaster is no match for the dark side"