Avatar: A Study in Worldbuilding - The Water Tribe 

Yep cool 😎

You should analyze Xenoblade series world building.

Okay -Me

Funny fact, I made a blogpost on food in worldbuilding.

I was here

And when you can literally freeze water at will it must be crazy easy to become rich off that.

Sokka getting an icemaker: I have matched your power at last, sister

​@@Markus2E5I6Traveling waterbender making ice for ice houses throughout the land.

True, and that's what Kristoff from Frozen did.

Arctic fish and pelts might also be major exports. The fur trade was kind of a big deal back in colonial times.

Hiiiiii 😅

Venice is always so beautiful. I first saw the scenery in Pokemon 4Ever but this was really great too.

Ice venice good name

@@cwcpants140 I'm sure it's in part because d o m e

I can't believe so much time has passed. Those videos are what led me to subscribe to this channel and it's been a fun ride.😌

The Sun Warriors, the Sand Benders, they gave us so many sub-nations/factions

Would love to see that. I really enjoyed these videos

How are these non-Avatar? Non-Avatar would imply they aren't from the show.

@@lainiwakura1776I think OP means nations the avatar cycle gets born into

Philippines uses that as well.

@@dxgeek95Absolutely true, I've seen some of the smartest people I've known fly abroad to settle down there ☹️ I'm happy for them, but we desperately need more smart people here

we suffer the same problem here in indonesia

Same for the Philippines

Maybe the blue thing could be for spiritual reasons too. This is one more thing I'd change; add more religion. The water tribes were supposed to be very connected to the spirits, so I'd expect something even more xamanistic or tribal forms of rituals, festivals (like Unalaq mentions there used to be) and stuff like that

Also, I don't understand how the nations managed to stay that separate for 10k years. I mean, naturally the services of healer waterbenders would be required everywhere in the world, so the earthbending builders, etc, which would spread at least a few of them around. Also wars have happened, stuff like the Shang system in Yangchen's novels, but we barely see any bender out of their native region. I guessed in ATLA nationalism would push people to be together in their own nations, but it's not very believable that civilization is older than 10 thousand years old in their settings, especially with the technology and advantage that bending brings. Back to the water tribe, Unalaq says that the open portals used to be a way to keep the two sister tribes together with similar culture and people move more easily between them, but the last time the portals were open was 10k years ago and the water tribes didn't exist yet, as people lived on lion-turtles. Despite of the fact that this would have been REALLY COOL, I mean, the fact that the water tribes were two portals away from one another, he had to have been lying (edit: my bad, Any avatar could have opened or closed the portals without harmonic convergence like Korra did, so they could well have been united byvthe portals for some time until an Avatar decided to close them.

Understand what your saying 100% but the show wasnt that deep

It would be easy t borrow from the real world with this. Snails are the source of the rare purple dye from the ancient world. This could be altered for fiction to be the ink sacs of arctic squid to make it more common and because the squid are edible, it would make sense for the southern tribes to use as a means of using every part of the animal they kill. You could take this a step further by making the Northern tribe either use snails for the dye or to enrich the ink with something else like kelp (something the Southern tribes would have no interest in doing). This would make a further visual distinction between the two where one uses simple ink to give a blue hue to their garments, possibly to blend themselves better against the backdrop of ice or ocean, the Northern tribe would be more decadent both in style and color. This would make a visual display of the cultural division and demonstrate, even at a glance, the deep schism between form and function that floats on the surface of the resentment between the tribes. This works particularly well because the more you explore why each would dress how they do, the more it reveals just how vastly different these two groups have become.

I think you are overthinking this a little 😂😂😂

This dynamic is not particular to indigenous groups. The entire world experiences this geographic flow of human talent from poor places to rich places. People from Nepal or Vietnam go to India or China. People from India and China go to Canada or Australia. And people from Canada and Australia head to the US. It's the main mechanism keeping rich countries rich and poor countries poor.

@@appa609 I didn't say it was only indigenous people. And even then, I assume if you were to see where many of those people come from, it's either just rural communities or indigenous people from those regions going to more densely populated areas.

they dont allow women to be benders and they achieve peak water bender architecture and civilization and were able to fend off the fireboiz coincidence!!???

You're from one of the Reservations? How would you say does the government owning the land, and therefore your people not being allowed to develop it the way you wish, affect you?

Good question, I'd like to know as well ​@@JMObyx

Yeah, Hama knew the traditional southern bending but focused on training Katara in her adaptable "find water wherever you are" style to ready her for bloodbending, so that one chance to learn directly was ruined by obsessive revenge. It is another layer of tragedy I didn't really think about

Wouldn't there be scrolls or books, Katura did steal a scroll from pirates maybe they still it was a Southern Water Tribe one for all we know?

@@infinitylord4901: There are, but that is nothing like learning the full choreography in a visual and tactile manner in-person.

I'm unsure if he'd pass on the knowledge, and I know it wouldn't be the same, but I re-call Wan Shi Tong saying he knew Northern Water, Foggy Swamp, and Southern Water bending

@@ajnebula6622: True, good point!

It's entirely possible they aren't reallyaware that there are multiple tribes. I always assumed there had to be, but they're so young that it's reasonable they wouldn't know.

Yeah, I took it as one tribe but one obviously made up by more than their village. Well, except when I was a kid and that was a little less obvious and I thought their village was the whole Southern Water Tribe, haha.

I think it is important to acknowledge that Avatar uses certain words like “Nation”, “Tribe”, or “Kingdom” differently than in the real world. So broadly speaking, there are four nations, however the use of “nation” is not something that denotes a unified country or even people, but a broad collection of various people who share a similar culture, values, world view, traditions, and of course, element. The Earth Kingdom for instance, despite its name, is not a unified state, but a broad collection of various kingdoms, tribes, and independent townships, united by their shared recognition of the Authority of the Earth King. However despite this, most denizens of the Earth Kingdom still strongly and proudly associate themselves with the idea and identity of the “Earth Kingdom”, rather than their village or with cities like Omashu. Despite their lack of centralized statehood, they still identify as part of a larger “nation”, a greater people, heritage, and tradition. This is similar to Germany before being unified by Bismarck after the Franco-Prussian War. Germany was a collection of various states, big and small, with a variety of different political structures, economies, and later even religious denominations. However despite all this, there was still a broad “German” identity, the people of these states still identified with a larger German heritage and nationhood, which is why despite not being one unified nation-state, they still had various forms of unifying social and political institutions such as the Holy Roman Empire (which is probably the closest IRL comparison to the Earth Kingdom) or the later German Confederation. So with that said, i think the reason why the characters in the show refer to the Northern and Southern Water Tribe as one monolith, is simply because that is the broad identifier and name that the people of this similar culture and people group use for themselves, and the name that members of other nations use for them.

I think they changed that around the comics from it being just that one village to other villages

@@darriongeorge5137 Though, Gran Gran’s friend from Katara’s ghost story was from outside their village. And when Sokka claims he’s kissed a girl, he tells her she just hasn’t met her, which all suggests there’s a bit more.

I learned that term from a Lazerpig video. Apparently Russia is suffering from it, too.

Brain drain is also a problem we see in Canada - we have a doctor shortage in part because doctors keep leaving to go to the US, where healthcare is privatized and you can make more money. (The other part of our problem is that we make it very difficult for foreign-trained physicians to practice medicine in Canada.)

Exode des cerveaux in French.

Yes its a real and sometimes preocupating thing i see as a private uni studentnin central México how many of my classmates plan on moving to europe once they graduate or move to northern México so they can get into American companies. They hate that México Is so far back economicaly and technologicaly but they dont ever thing about helping our country themselves

It's also a problem here in Brazil. The economy just doesn't give a lot of room for proper development, but it seems designed to allow for making ends meet just so people will stick around unless they're set for a brighter future overseas. Coincidentally, we also receive people from foreign countries for the same reason as students and workers leave it, which causes a whole other set of issues (a general feeling of "leeching" being performed by those immigrants). That makes me wonder whether there's a similar situation in the Avatar world, regarding people being marginalized by the locals due to their purpose in moving to a different nation. I know The Promise had something of the sort, but colonization is different from immigration, and Republic City's social issues seem to be mostly about benders and non benders.

*AVATER THEME INTENSIFIES*

Its weird but wholesome to think about how one person can have this much influence over another persons life with just one choice🤔😌. (in this case, the choice being to make a RU-vid Channel about avatar)

@@lassegrotkjr6326 Because I watched the show, I started writing ATLA fanfic. Thats how I met my best friend.

Republic city is honestly bad worldbuilding. They wanted so badly to create a Western liberal multicultural city that they just bodged the last 70 years of history to conspire to that goal.

@@appa609its good world building, read the comics

@@appa609 not really. I think it’s very interesting and it’s not purely western. It’s like Hong Kong, a combination of eastern and western culture

Korra should be decanonized

@@space_aceeI agree I have no problem with the technology advancement but I do with the overall story of korra. Korra herself and her “team” (her own personal harem)

Also, great video!

In the English Speaking Caribbean as well. It is a very common subject in social studies and geography from secondary to university level

I feel like the word has entered a wider consciousness here in Europe as well, in the context of Russia specifically.

Do you use any of the avatar world animal/creature mixes in your dnd world? Owl-bear? No it's a platypus-bear.

They got the power from the lion turtles, but each animal taught each tribe of people. Problem solved.

It should've been that the the lion turtles unlock the energy in the humans body allowing them to connect with nature and them learning to bend from the 4 sources

As the other replies mention, I see it more as the lion turtles giving the raw ability, and the Original Benders taught humans how to use their newfound abilities; this is the origin of the bending *arts*.

the way I always envisioned it when Korra added that lore was that the lion turtles only gave them the *ability* to use bending, but they learned how to use it and use it well from the badgermoles, or the dragons. if you watch the episodes closely, Avatar Wan learns to use bending from the spirits, whereas the firebenders from his village only know how to punch to make a small uncontrolled gout of flame. when they encounter Wan again, they make a point of showing how crazy good he is at bending now in comparison.

@@galenrichter41 I thought lion turtle lore was added back in atla, because aang got energy bending from lion turtle and didnt earn from any animal. So i didnt think of that theory.

It doesn't help many rural areas tend to be less friendly for many ethnic and social minorities, so we go to cities instead where it's often safer with larger communities

@@zenebean very true. It's why I left Indiana. Not a good place to be an out gay man. Add in highly educated people also tend to be more progressive and don't want to deal with those attitudes either...

Is that why the schools in flyover country often don’t have AP classes?

What a nothing comment lmao.

That's why is so popular as a show and as a source on how to write one.

the comics show how the world changes after the war and in one episode there are other tribes people shown who oppose what happens during that book. (rich north water tribe people help to "help" the southern water tribes. it's actually a pretty nice read)

I'm a Nigerian and the term was used regularly in local education (British curriculum) in the last 10 years.