Aang vs Thor

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Well, as of Guardians 2 we also know they have space suits that are effectively invisible when worn. I mean, I'd be shocked if the vacuum of space can harm Thor, but we can't really take that bit out of context as a sure thing.

Very true, then again. Guardians 2 was ... lackluster. Only saw it the once.

[Captain Morgan]

Very true, then again. Guardians 2 was ... lackluster. Only saw it the once.

Yeah, definitely wasn't my favorite. Still fun and all, but not especially high up the Marvel list.

[Username taken]

Current MCU Thor is ol' One-Eye Thunderfist, yea ?

Not sure Aang has a chance, here. Unless he tries to suffocate him or something.

One-Eye Thunderfist.

That's what I'm calling MCU Thor from now on.

[LordAllMIghty]

One-Eye Thunderfist.

That's what I'm calling MCU Thor from now on.

Not sure why that sounds like a porn name to me...Lol

I like it.

[rhyvurg]

redirecting lightning is a technique that doesn't require the Avatar state. Iroh and Zuko both used it more than once and they don't even have an Avatar state to fall back on. the Avatar state amps up Aang's durability but... not THAT much!

now, the lightning that Aang redirected from Ozai WAS pretty impressive - and I think would be comparable to the best lighting feats that Thor got BEFORE Ragnarok.

but it doesn't take lightning that powerful to kill Aang. and Thor can spam that stuff really, really fast at the end of Ragnarok. I don't think Aang has a way of winning this one if Thor goes all out.

pre-Ragnaork this could have been a pretty interesting rumble. I think Thor would still take a solid majority - but Aang would make him work for it.

It takes Aang time to redirect lightning. Which is fine, it takes firebenders time to throw it. But ol' One-Eye Thunderfist...not so much. He can zap Aang again as he's redirecting. Or just...punch him. Don't forget how quickly Thor mastered his power. During the fight against the Einherjar zombies he charged two dudes with lightning, threw them over their buddies, and power arced down from them to new targets.

[Nik Hasta]

in terms of gaining a lot of new powers that operate on a generally lower level than Aang did? yes. Aang's high-end feats for bending are still arguably better than Korra's best bending feats. where Korra ends up being better than Aang is in the more esoteric secondary techniques.

in terms of being a sympathetic character that treats friends and family well? it's a bit of a step down. once you strip away the natural tendency to favor the protagonist and look at what Korra actually does to her friends and family - some of it looks pretty bad. almost border-line Azula levels of bad. sure, she's nice when compared to guys like Ozai and Unalaq... but that's like saying somebody's a better father than Gendo Ikari. that's setting the bar really, really low!

Sorry, just clocked this.

Umm, Azula executed a coup against her own brother, attempted to murder him and her own allies and specifically noted that she knew her behaviour was transgressive and hurtful but she didn't care.

How exactly does Korra come even close to that? She's kind of a shitty teenager at times but she's nothing like Azula.

[The MunchKING]

She threatened to murder that judge guy and go on a roaring rampage of revenge if he punished her parents, you know, despite them being guilty and all.

[Nik Hasta]

She threatened to murder that judge guy and go on a roaring rampage of revenge if he punished her parents, you know, despite them being guilty and all.

That's still not on level of Azula. Korra threatened someone who was subverting the course of justice to protect her family. While that is morally ambiguous, her intentions were motivated by positive emotions.

Azula was only motivated by her own lust for power.

[Blue22]

She threatened to murder that judge guy and go on a roaring rampage of revenge if he punished her parents, you know, despite them being guilty and all.

I mean...those were her parents being screwed over by a screwed up justice system. She handled that whole situation with a lot more tact than I would have if I was in her position. She only threatened to feed that judge to Naga XD

That's not really the same as smiling while your brother is being horribly disfigured by your father, killing a 12 year old (and I'm sure countless others), conquering an entire nation in the name of a dictatorship, and not only helping someone in their attempt to commit mass genocide but giving them the idea to do it in the first place.

[Totoro Man]

Sorry, just clocked this.

Umm, Azula executed a coup against her own brother, attempted to murder him and her own allies and specifically noted that she knew her behaviour was transgressive and hurtful but she didn't care.

How exactly does Korra come even close to that? She's kind of a shitty teenager at times but she's nothing like Azula.

I don't remember that ever happening on the show. is that from the comics? I enjoyed the first one but didn't follow them after that. I felt like some of the characters were getting hit with PIS a bit too much - and sometimes it felt like they were literally writing the characters in regressive or incongruous ways to advance the story or have a fight scene. it sounds like they're trying to make Azula even 'crazier' than she was at the end of the original series.

but, back to Korra:

they're both insanely competitive: Korra used the Avatar state to win a race against children. sounds like something Azula might do as well.

Korra's disregard for Tenzin and Tonraq isn't as bad as Azula's disdain for Iroh.... but the general contempt she shows for her elders is surprisingly similar. both of them are quite prepared to brashly disregard the advice of their elders in pursuit of things they consider more worthy or attractive. which leads me to my next point:

Korra is consistently attracted to power. when Unalaq shows he has more power over the spirits Korra decides to follow him against the advice and wishes of Tenzin and Tonraq.

she also has this almost pathological need to ignore advice: just look at how she treats Tenzin, Mako, Tonraq, Lin Beifong, Suyin Beifong. ignoring Suyin's advice about Kuvira seems the most ridiculous on the face of it. I know it was supposed to demonstrate that Korra had matured beyond wanting to fight all the time. however, they did this in a scenario where fighting was the only realistic option. it didn't make her look more mature - it just made her look like even more of a contrarian and disrespectful idiot than she was in earlier seasons!

Azula and Korra are both fiercely competitive and determined young women with a PROFOUND sense of entitlement. they are both obsessed with acquiring and maintaining power. everything else in their life is typically a secondary or tertiary concern. Azula, being born as a royal firebender, does this through political and military strategy (and killing). Korra has the luxury of being the reincarnated Avatar: as such, she is constantly seeking out new bending techniques to augment her arsenal in this role. (she does this while killing decidedly fewer people)

one of the major plot points in Season 1 was she wanted to master air bending. in season 2 she wanted to learn how to manipulate and control the spirits in the way that Unalaq did. in season 3 she sought to learn metal-bending. in season 4 her big mission is initially to regain all of her powers at their former level. if you look at the major plot points I think you could argue that Korra is even more obsessed with power than Azula. Azula already knows that she's effectively the most powerful young woman in the world. she also knows that she can only gain more power by becoming the Fire Lord and crushing all of her enemies. so her main focus is using what power she has to accomplish the goals of her father and advance her personal agenda and influence.

when Korra doesn't have power she shuts people down, or shuts them out altogether. (what other reason could she have for rejecting Mako in the last episode of season 1. does having her powers magically restored suddenly make Mako's offer more appealing? and why else would she refuse to correspond with Mako, Bolin, and her parents at the start of season 4? why does Asami, who she has shown no particular preference towards in the past, become the only person that Korra could confide in?) she basically lies to Tenzin and her parents about where she is and what she is doing. Azula lies to family members as well. the main difference between these two is how often, and what the exact nature of the deceit is in a given situation.

while Korra isn't as cunning as Azula - her ambition, sense of entitlement, and often ruthless behavior aren't as far removed from Azula as you might think. in their own way they both want to be the most powerful woman in the world. not only that they want everybody else to KNOW it. they both want to be admired by everyone. in the event that they can't have someone's admiration they want to be feared by their enemies. the catch here is that Azula is so relentlessly manipulative and cruel that nobody can bring themselves to admire her in the way that she wants them to. it's part of why she declares that fear is the only reliable way. it's easy to admire the Avatar because of their job description... but that doesn't mean that we need to overlook their awful behavior.

I suppose you're right: I overstated my argument that Korra is almost as bad as Azula.

Korra merely possesses ALL of Azula's personal vices on a comparable or smaller scale. in their zeal to make Korra the opposite of Aang they wrote her in such a way as to be halfway towards being Azula.

back to the OP: you'd need Korra, Aang, and Roku at their Avatar-state best to even give post-Ragnarok Thor a serious work-out. with his durability, speed, and lightning AOE he's probably still going to win more often than not. (I don't think Thor is fast enough to straight-up speed blitz them... but he's fast enough where they can't do much more than block or dodge. hence the numbers advantage is necessary for the avatars to actually get a chance to win)

[Nik Hasta]

I'm just honestly kind of amazed at this wrote up.

You seem to be determined to interpret Korra's behaviour as the worst possible iteration of what it couldd be while ignoring that Azula was all like "Oh yeah, I'm super down with genocide by way of literally burning an entire country to the ground,"

Like, Korra is headstrong, sometimes a bit selfish and sometimes immature and stupid, but she is not the manipulative, genocidal, literally mentally unstable, murderous person that Azula is. Not even close.

To touch on her desire to gain power, Korra wanting to gain power is both derived from her own ambition but also, more directly, from her destiny and being directly tied to her personal growth. She is sent to learn Air Bending and mastering all four elements is literally one of the reasons she exists, she wants to master Spirit Bending because of her role as the bridge between the physical and spiritual worlds, she sought to regain her powers in the fourth season as a method of overcoming massive personal trauma and resuming her responsibilities as the Avatar.

Korra is aware that her development and powers are tied to the fate of two worlds. She doesn't just want power because she feels entitled to it like Azula does.

Above all, Korra is motivated by trying to do what is right. Azula is not. Azula knows she is doing wrong and hurtful things and doesn't care and, in fact, revels in it.

Also, she's super cool with genocide. Just because that bears repeating.

[Nik Hasta]

Also, are you seriously linking Korra's decision to run away from basically everyone between seasons three and four to Azula's consistently manipulating everyone around her through deceit and intimidation?

Really? Like, let me break this down real quick.

To recap, a seventeen year old girl is kidnapped by a terrorist group who poison her and attempt to kill her. Said teenager is essentially a quasi-religious figure who is used to having literally the entire world look to her guidance, leadership and strength. She is already in an incredibly vulnerable place as her actions in the last world altering crisis that she had to deal with broke the cycle of reincarnation that had been running literally since the times when mythology were true. She has intense guilt over this matter but has persevered anyway. She survives the murder attempt, but is temporarily paralysed from the waist down.

So, robbed of the majority of her powers, physically infirm and surrounded by people whom she feels judgement from, whether that is accurate or not, she decides to run away from her life to try and get some space from her responsibilities and her cosmically appointed role in the world.

The only person she feels able to talk to is someone who knows has undergone a similarly worldshattering event in their personal life, someone who she didn't feel judged by and someone who she was starting to feel attraction and romance toward.

Do you not see why she did the things that she did? Korra also apologised for not telling people where she was going but she needed space.

Conversely, Azula lied so much it was practically her default response because she wanted power and because it amused her.

These two things are not remotely the same.

[Carabas]

She threatened to murder that judge guy and go on a roaring rampage of revenge if he punished her parents, you know, despite them being guilty and all.

1) The judge was completely corrupt and in the pocket of the world-destroying villain, who had ordered the guilty sentence before the trial.
2) Her parents were not actually guilty, didn't get to even speak during the 'trial'.
3) She was an immature teenager at the time.
4) It turned out that this was actually the correct course of action here.

[Carabas]

You know, I just finally got around watching this and finished it like last week.

I don't remember that ever happening on the show. is that from the comics? I enjoyed the first one but didn't follow them after that. I felt like some of the characters were getting hit with PIS a bit too much - and sometimes it felt like they were literally writing the characters in regressive or incongruous ways to advance the story or have a fight scene. it sounds like they're trying to make Azula even 'crazier' than she was at the end of the original series.

I do believe it's from the comics, which I haven't read (yet).

they're both insanely competitive: Korra used the Avatar state to win a race against children. sounds like something Azula might do as well.

She's a teenager.
This is exactly the sort of thing Aang would have done as well (you know, if he ever had actual control over the Avatar state like Korra does).

Korra's disregard for Tenzin and Tonraq isn't as bad as Azula's disdain for Iroh.... but the general contempt she shows for her elders is surprisingly similar. both of them are quite prepared to brashly disregard the advice of their elders in pursuit of things they consider more worthy or attractive.

Really? She tried to murder Tenzin and Tonraq? I didn't notice.
Korra is an immature teenager (who largely grows out of that after season 2). Azula is a murderous psychopath who kills because it is fun.

Korra is consistently attracted to power. when Unalaq shows he has more power over the spirits Korra decides to follow him against the advice and wishes of Tenzin and Tonraq.

She's not attracted to power. She's attracted to being able to do her job, and Unalaq was the only one who appeared to be able to even affect the rampaging spirits.
She's the Avatar. She has the responsibility to learn that. And she used what she learned to save the world.

she also has this almost pathological need to ignore advice: just look at how she treats Tenzin, Mako, Tonraq, Lin Beifong, Suyin Beifong. ignoring Suyin's advice about Kuvira seems the most ridiculous on the face of it. I know it was supposed to demonstrate that Korra had matured beyond wanting to fight all the time. however, they did this in a scenario where fighting was the only realistic option. it didn't make her look more mature - it just made her look like even more of a contrarian and disrespectful idiot than she was in earlier seasons!

She does get a lot of terrible advice from these people...
And she is the Avatar. when all is said and done it is her call, nobody else's.
Also, Suyin's advice was to go out and murderise Kuvira. I'm pretty sure you would have held that against Korra if she had done that.

Azula and Korra are both fiercely competitive and determined young women with a PROFOUND sense of entitlement.

But Korra largely grows out of that by season 3.

...they are both obsessed with acquiring and maintaining power.

I am not seeing it.

everything else in their life is typically a secondary or tertiary concern. Azula, being born as a royal firebender, does this through political and military strategy (and killing). Korra has the luxury of being the reincarnated Avatar: as such, she is constantly seeking out new bending techniques to augment her arsenal in this role. (she does this while killing decidedly fewer people)

And these two things are not even remotely similar.
It's like saying Iron Man is obsessed with power because he keeps upgrading his suits.

one of the major plot points in Season 1 was she wanted to master air bending.

Was Aang powermad because he wanted to master water-, earyh-, and firebending?
She's the Avatar. Learning to Airbend is part of her job.

in season 2 she wanted to learn how to manipulate and control the spirits in the way that Unalaq did.

And this is bad how?

in season 3 she sought to learn metal-bending.

She did do no such thing. Suyin offered to teach her out of the blue.

in season 4 her big mission is initially to regain all of her powers at their former level.

And this is being obsessed with power? Are you serious? Was Barbara Gordon obsessed with power because she wanted ti get out of her wheelchair?

if you look at the major plot points I think you could argue that Korra is even more obsessed with power than Azula. Azula already knows that she's effectively the most powerful young woman in the world. she also knows that she can only gain more power by becoming the Fire Lord and crushing all of her enemies. so her main focus is using what power she has to accomplish the goals of her father and advance her personal agenda and influence.

Her main focus is pleasing daddy.

when Korra doesn't have power she shuts people down, or shuts them out altogether. (what other reason could she have for rejecting Mako in the last episode of season 1. does having her powers magically restored suddenly make Mako's offer more appealing? and why else would she refuse to correspond with Mako, Bolin, and her parents at the start of season 4? why does Asami, who she has shown no particular preference towards in the past, become the only person that Korra could confide in?) she basically lies to Tenzin and her parents about where she is and what she is doing. Azula lies to family members as well. the main difference between these two is how often, and what the exact nature of the deceit is in a given situation.

Nobody in the history of the universe has not lied to family members.
And if you think Korra hasn't been a lot closer to Asami than to the rest of team Avatar, you have not been paying attention.
Also, why would she correspond with her parents when she was living with her parents?

[Agent Z]

[QUOTE=Carabas;3285210]

She's not attracted to power. She's attracted to being able to do her job, and Unalaq was the only one who appeared to be able to even affect the rampaging spirits.
She's the Avatar. She has the responsibility to learn that. And she used what she learned to save the world.

While Korra may want to do her job, she seems to ignore there are right and wrong ways to do it.

She does get a lot of terrible advice from these people...

Like what?

And she is the Avatar. when all is said and done it is her call, nobody else's.

This is how tyrants tend to think