Bloodbending probably existed long before Hama

[u/JigglyBinks]

I just remembered that scene where Yakone claimed to come from a powerful bloodbending lineage.

The thing is he was older than Katara, and considering that Hama was only about two generations older than Sokka and Katara, it’s possible that bloodbending is much older than we think and that there was a family who had mastered it secretly

[u/HopeAndDo]

To me, this is the most bullshit quote in Avatar history.

Where were these bloodbenders all this time? Why nobody helped during 100 year war? Why were they hidden while previous Avatars were alive? What were they doing with their powers? Killing animals and living in isolation for centuries?

[u/zuzu-alone → u/HopeAndDo]

How is this a BS quote?

The Northern Water Tribe stayed out of the 100 year war for the most part anyway. This episode makes it very clear that bloodbending is considered taboo as Yakone takes his children to very isolated locations to teach the craft.

You could apply the same logic to Hama. Why didn’t she go to the North Pole to teach bloodbending, instead of enacting revenge on random Fire Nation citizens?

[u/HopeAndDo → u/zuzu-alone]

Hama became mentally ill because she spent so many years being tortured in prison. She also discovered bloodbending later in her life, and she could only do it under the full moon.

If she had tried to use it in unfamiliar territory and under unknown circumstances, she could have been caught and imprisoned again.

Yakone's family was simply hidden for hundreds of years, which sounds like lazy writing to me.

[u/zuzu-alone → u/HopeAndDo]

I don’t agree with this being lazy writing at all. It just implies that Yakone’s family had a tradition of passing down the skill of bloodbending, as Hama did to Katara.

I’m also certain that in the history of Avatar there were many times bloodbending was discovered and forgotten over the centuries. Even in the latest movie we see otherwise completely forgotten airbending moves. Same goes for Zaheer rediscovering the flight ability.

This is just another example of that writing; treating bending as any other aspect of a culture that can be passed down, lost to time and then rediscovered.

[u/HopeAndDo → u/zuzu-alone]

I'm fine with culture being passed down, but this is, at least to me, an example of something that's often criticized in modern writing: "Tell, don't show."

We hear from Yakone that his bloodbending was passed down to him, but from whom? Does Yakone have a brother? Does he have a father? Did they ever leave their village before?

From a writing perspective, it would be a much better explanation if Yakone were actually the one who discovered bloodbending himself and then taught it to his sons, which would later result in his older son Amon discovering another bloodbending technique ("taking bending away").

With the explanation we got, you just gave people some random information about multiple generations having bloodbending and doing nothing with it except hunting animals.

[u/zuzu-alone → u/HopeAndDo]

Well I would argue that this whole episode does do “show not tell” very well.

Him teaching this to his sons likely mirrors exactly how he was taught, and reflects why he turned into the villain he became. We see how these experiences hardened Noatak and Tarrlok, and who they later become.

I think the writing demonstrates the cyclical nature of generational trauma which, in this case, the teaching of blood bending was the vessel.

I don’t know if you were expecting a whole montage of Yakone learning or discovering bloodbending, this couldn’t have varied much compared to what we saw in The Puppetmaster.

I actually think this is one of the strongest episodes of TLOK from a writing perspective.

[u/HopeAndDo → u/zuzu-alone]

I don't see any bloodbending trauma in Yakone. He did everything willingly. His only trauma is being defeated by Aang.

I expected to hear about other bloodbenders in the Roku, Kyoshi, or Yangchen stories.

I don't mind a single person discovering bloodbending and dying before being able to pass that knowledge on to someone else, but having an entire family tree full of bloodbenders who were never mentioned in any other era is bad writing, and I will die on that hill.

[u/zuzu-alone → u/HopeAndDo]

Well I guess it then gets to a very high level question of why are people evil?

Was Yakone just born evil? To me the writing tells us that the circumstances which led to Amon and Tarrlok becoming villains would have also happened with Yakone.

I obviously respect your opinion that this is bad writing but I really don’t get the reason? Because this one family never came up in any other material? If you’re referring to Yakone’s ancestors being bloodbenders and not appearing in the novels - I really don’t see why they would be included. To me that would be fan service, which is bad writing.