M. Night Shyamalan’s Last Airbender actually got firebending right

M. Night Shyamalans The Last Airbender is infamous for the changes it made to the environment Avatar: The Last Airbender – as if to say: “Uhhh” instead of Aang or “Eee series” instead of Iroh, or like making everyone white.

But there’s one completely arbitrary and unnecessary change that’s actually kind of interesting: it makes it so that firebenders always have to have an open flame nearby because they can’t actually create fire.

I can remember the fateful day almost 15 years ago when I sat down in a theater and subjected myself to Shyamalan’s films The Last Airbender, with its sleep paralysis demon Appa, its ’90s Power Rangers fight scenes, and its main character with a functionally different name. And maybe it was just the delusion of an overwhelmed mind, but I remember thinking to myself: Wait…it’s kind of interesting that firebenders can only bend the fire that’s present in their environment.

Let me finish

Image: Nickelodeon Animation Studio

Firebending has always been the odd element; it’s just that Avatar: The Last Airbender Cartoon did a good job of making it seem interchangeable with water, earth and air. But of the four, fire is the only one that does not occur in nature in a stable form. You can’t put some fire in an oiled leather bag and uncork it at the start of the fight like Katara does with her waterskin. Even flashlights only last a few hours. (Lava and magma are subject to earthbending, We know that.)

One of these things is not like the other. Fire is the only element in Avatar that is immaterial: it is not fire Things, it is a chemical reaction. Thus, firebenders are the only people in the world who have the phenomenally powerful ability to make their element appear out of thin air.

If firebenders cannot generate fire from their surroundings, they are simultaneously placed on the same level as the rest of the nations. And gives them a clear disadvantage. It’s the kind of thing that could give the Fire Nation some kind of deep-seated inferiority complex, because it represents the weird element, a cultural quirk that fits well with their descent into xenophobia and imperialism.

In addition, restrictions create tension

The key to an interesting superpower is a good counterattack. You can take away Batman’s belt, you can expose Superman to kryptonite, or you can restrain Wolverine’s severing claws by pointing them at one of his friends. Curtailing or removing a character’s special powers is a baked-in method of ratcheting up the tension – and it makes them look even cooler when they stick it out anyway, like when Toph develops metalbending or Katara figures out how your own sweat or a bunch of earthbending prisoners finally get close enough to a pile of coal.

To be clear: Shyamalan’s Airbender doesn’t implement this idea particularly thoughtfully. Functionally, it just seems to mean that Fire Nation soldiers are constantly carrying lit torches or lugging around heavy braziers. It seems like a huge disadvantage compared to earthbenders and ice-floe-dwelling waterbenders who throw parts of their own roads through the air as spikes, or Aang’s ability to use something as ubiquitous as air as a weapon. And that fire must be present in order for it to be bent raises questions about the nonviolent uses of firebending we see in the world Avatar Cartoon like warming up the body in cold environments.

So it’s not like Shyamalan showed us firebenders how to stealth with hooded lanterns, or how they develop steampunk workarounds like automatic flint bats or strike-anywhere matches – or how their clothing or architecture changes, because They always require a lot of space in every open flame.

Shyamalan’s Airbender seems to have made this change Only to juice up one of his climactic scenes in which he reveals that he’s sometimes a firebender may Create fire from the air, but only if they do something like a total blast.

Fifteen years later, Shyamalan’s only moment Airbender I still remember the moment after Admiral Zhao stabs the Moon Spirit when Iroh completely breaks free of the leash and shoots a fountain of flames from his hands. Shyamalan sells the moment in the images and in the reaction of the extras: even experienced Fire Nation soldiers immediately flee. The only fire in The Environment belongs to Iroh.

It’s over the top and silly and a little quiet, but it gets the point across: In a world where you can take out most firebenders by taking away their fire, the ones who can bend fire Despite it are frighteningly powerful. Honestly, this makes firebender Azula’s fancy blue flames seem harmless in the cartoon.

Was Shyamalan secretly a genius for this? Probably not. Would this change have significantly improved the original? Avatar: The Last Airbender? No, it’s still a masterclass in world-building. But it goes to show that even a broken watch once or twice a day can provide a lesson in upping the ante.