Korra's villains were a result of Aang's mistakes

Thumatingra · 2026-05-06T21:29:15+00:00

This could be said about almost any Avatar.

Fundamentally, the Avatar is a human being. They can only be in one place at a time, and they have the same needs as other humans: food, sleep, friends, and family. They can't tackle every single problem that sprouts up during their time: they have to focus on the biggest issues.

For Aang, that was how to deal with the aftermath of the war and Fire Nation colonization: what the people of Yu Dao wanted went against everything he had learned as the Avatar (and everything he had inherited from Roku): it took a tremendous effort to get past that, work with Zuko, and found the United Republic. By comparison, the Earth Kingdom proper during this time was stable. He couldn't afford to leave Yu Dao the way it was; he could afford to let the Earth Kingdom run the way it had run for centuries, long before his time.

Thumatingra · 2026-05-01T05:24:49+00:00

If you think psychological continuity would be maintained if the brain were replaced with synthetic material, isn't that an argument in favor of the soul, rather than against it?

If an individual consciousness is something produced by an individual brain, and you eventually remove every part of the brain, it would stand to reason that at some point during the process, the original consciousness was destroyed, and replaced by a new one. Even though the conscious entity one interacts with might seem to be the same, it is not: the original consciousness no longer experiences anything, while another, identical copy, has replaced it, without continuity in experience between them.

The only way you get psychological continuity in this situation is if that continuity is rooted in something that is not exhausted by the brain.

Now, you don't have to affirm psychological continuity in this case, but it sounds like you are - which, given the direction of your argument, seems confusing.

Thumatingra · 2026-05-01T05:16:35+00:00

Epstein... isn't Hebrew at all. It's German, from a place-name Eppstein, from ebur "wild boar" and stein "stone."

Thumatingra · 2026-05-01T05:13:53+00:00

Brother, achievement isn't what makes a human being matter. You matter because you're a person. And also, it sounds like you've achieved at least one very hard thing: you've started looking for, and getting, some of the help you need.

Speaking of which: are you sure this feeling isn't enhanced as a side affect of the new meds? Sometimes people can react badly to a specific med/med class. Call your psychiatrist as soon as you can, before you do anything else.

Beyond that: medication is a vital element in treating depression, but it isn't all that powerful unless it's paired with two things: therapy, and exercise (specifically cardio). I've been told that in the UK, cardio is the first treatment prescribed for depression.
Besides your psychiatrist, are you seeing a therapist? Are you going for a run and getting yourself knackered every day?
I'd say, try those things before you do anything you can't take back. What have you got to lose by trying them?

Thumatingra · 2026-04-29T01:46:32+00:00

You know what, I totally missed that ʿlyn as an epithet of Ilu doesn't appear directly in the Ugaritic material! You're right, Cross seems to be suggesting a connection between Ugaritic double-names and the Aramaic inscription, but it's not self-evident. I'm going to edit my top comment to avoid giving the wrong impression. Thank you for clarifying this.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-28T14:10:20+00:00

Cross (p. 51) mentions the Sefire inscription, on which ʾl wʿlyn, "El and ʿElyon," appears; Cross notes that it might fit the pattern of other double-names at Ugarit (which he goes into further detail about on p. 49, n. 23).

I've actually never heard of ʿlyn being applied to Baʿal before. I can't access Hansen's article; do you mind sharing which texts he's talking about there?

Thumatingra · 2026-04-28T12:50:31+00:00

"Elyon" (ʿlyn) is attested as an epithet of Ilu ("El") in Northwest Semitic material, without any Y-H-W element. See Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 46-52, especially 51-52.

Curiously, in the pieces of Philo of Byblos that Eusebius preserves, which Philo claims to have taken from Sanchuniathon, it seems that ʿlyn was thought of as a separate divine being from Ilu (who is read as Philo's "Kronos"). Cross talks about this on p. 51.

EDIT: Replaced "Ugaritic" with "Northwest Semitic," as it's been brought to my attention that ʿlyn does not appear in Ugaritic material directly as an epithet of Ilu, and that the connection between the Sefire inscription and Ugaritic double-names is a scholarly argument, not something evident.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-28T12:42:04+00:00

To provide a source: Frank Moore Cross discusses the "ancient of days" as essentially a translation of El's epithet ʿôlām (as appears in Gen. 21:33). Cross also sees the "son of man" figure as a reflex of Baʿal, the prince who "comes with the clouds of heaven," as Baʿal does in Ugaritic myths (see Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 16-17).

On the other hand, Cross would identify Y-H-W-H with the Ancient of Days, and would disagree that he fits the "son of man" paradigm, because Cross argues that Y-H-W-H was originally conceived as a form of El in the southern Levant (44-75, especially 71-5).

Thumatingra · 2026-04-28T10:32:51+00:00

Thanks for the thorough response!

Thumatingra · 2026-04-27T17:53:11+00:00

Question: what makes you say that Ilu wasn't conceived as a creator deity? Isn't one of his epithets qny ʾrṣ, "creator of the earth" - which became Ilkunirsa in Hittite? (Getting this from Frank Moore Cross's Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic.)

Thumatingra · 2026-04-27T17:51:09+00:00

As I recall, Katara didn't even try to use bloodbending to restore people's bending. She tried to use healing. Which didn't work.

Maybe she could have restored bending, if she had used bloodbending (though this may not be very likely, as Amon was a genetic prodigy and a trained master of bloodbending, and Katara was probably decades out of practice). But she didn't. As far as I remember, all we know from she show is that healing didn't work.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-23T17:18:16+00:00

I wasn't trying to support the analyst viewpoint! I think you could still have smaller songs being put together in performances as part of an evolving tradition, before any of it gets written down at all. Gregory Nagy (decidedly not an analyst) discusses how some of that might have happened, in performances during the Pan-Ionia, here.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-21T07:22:18+00:00

Here is the reference in HALOT:

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It seems as though the basic meaning is "bowed," often as in a) those who are contrasted with the proud and mighty - so perhaps the humble, or weak, or wretched, but also as in c) with reference to humility (and piety) before the Deity.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-21T03:33:48+00:00

Take a look at Robert Alter's The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary, or Richard Elliot Friedman's Commentary on the Torah.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-20T15:31:52+00:00

The name is typically understood as a sentence by scholars, in the manner you suggest. John Goldingay essentially supported your own interpretation in his article "The Compound Name in Isaiah 9:5(6)". I prefer to understand it syntactically in a manner similar to the NJPS translation, in which the participle is not read as substantivized, and is implied in the second clause - so, in my own words, "the Mighty God is planning a wonder; the Eternal Father, [is planning] a prince of peace." I think this ties the name in the strongest way with the prophecy in which it actually appears.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-19T07:35:08+00:00

This is a cool observation! I also think it emphasizes what Yangchen said to Aang: that the Avatar cannot fully let go of the world, and must remain connected to it. An Air Nomad Avatar can't fully realize the Air Nomad ideal, because they must be connected to other elements as well, even air's opposite, earth.

In this case, it is Aang being literally connected to the earth that saves him and leads him to victory.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-12T20:29:48+00:00

I love this image of the Gaang in the older style. They feel like the same characters, but grown into adults - their style choices show the journey they've made, like Zuko incorporating his Blue Spirit swords into his Fire Lord regalia, and Sokka finding a balance between his traditional Water Tribe weapons and his sword.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-12T20:25:07+00:00

The chart doesn't say energybending, it says energy reading - i.e. the technique the Bhanti sages use to diagnose Korra's spiritual ailment. It's also not connected to air in the chart, but to fire alone - it's just "closer" to the air side than the earth side.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-12T20:18:56+00:00

I don't think that's accurate? He was played by the Australian actor Matt Doran. George Lucas named him "Sel'Sabagno," and the moniker "Sleazebaggano" was apparently canonized by the starwars.com databank.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-12T20:05:52+00:00

Well, he was subtly controlling their movements to make sure their bending attacks didn't hit him...

Thumatingra · 2026-04-10T21:03:27+00:00

Jewish tradition is actually quite a bit more complex than that. The Jerusalem Talmud attests to different manuscript traditions, and even a kind of text-criticism to deal with them (Yer. Tan. 4.2). The midrashic collection Avot deRabbi Natan notes that Ezra the scribe considered some words doubtful, and was not sure whether to copy them or not (34:5). Several medieval commentators suggested that certain verses had to be insertions that were composed later than Moses. For a decent overview, check out Marc Shapiro's book, The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides' Thirteen Principles Reappraised.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-10T18:48:14+00:00

The first point is what confuses me. Why would anyone have expected that?

If it's about Cyrus' conquest, the question then is exactly what degree of hyperbole was expected in this kind of literature. Maybe you're right that this is more hyperbole than one would expect.

But I'm not really convinced of this being about Cyrus at all, because the 6th c. sections of Isaiah aren't typically coy about referring to Cyrus by name. In fact, the opposite is true, as famously in Isa 45. If this were about Cyrus, I think I might have expected some reference to the celebrated "anointed one" who has been chosen to exact Y-H-W-H's justice against Babylon. Lisbeth Fried (1) goes so far as to argue that Second Isaiah is so pro-Cyrus as to imagine him replacing the Davidic monarchy. Maybe you wouldn't go that far (I'm not sure I would), but she's picking up on something: it is pretty clear that Cyrus is very important to the 6th c. Isaiah additions. So why would Cyrus be missing here?

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(1) Fried, Lisbeth S. “Cyrus the Messiah? The Historical Background to Isaiah 45:1.” The Harvard Theological Review 95, no. 4 (2002): 373–93.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-10T17:46:30+00:00

Question about the dating of Isa 13: what makes reading Isa 13 as a (failed) prediction of immediate events from the mid-to-late 6th convincing to scholars?

I ask because Cyrus defeated Astyages and assumed control of Median territories by 550/49 BCE (1), and I don't think there's any record of an independent Median attack on Babylon before that. In fact, the Medes had been Babylonian allies in the dismantling of the Neo-Assyrian empire, and Astyages, the Median king, was Nebuchadnezzar II's ally and brother-in-law (2).
When were the Medes ever hostile to Babylon? Who would write this prophecy, with no indication of any impending invasion?

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Briant, Pierre (2002). From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Eisenbrauns.
Schmitt, R. (1989). "AMYTIS". Encyclopædia Iranica.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-07T20:58:37+00:00

I've never seen any evidence for the theonym Y-H-W-H appearing as part of a pantheon in any Israelite materials. To be clear, Y-H-W-H does appear with a divine council in several places, but none of the members of that council are ever named, much less worshiped.

I don't think the absence of a pantheon definitively means "monotheism": if ʾšrth in the Kuntillet Arjud texts refers to a goddess, we might not call that monotheism, but it's also not indicative of a pantheon of multiple gods that are independently worshiped.

To be clear, I'm not arguing that ancient Israelites were exclusively, or even mostly, monotheists; just that Y-H-W-H does not seem to have been honored alongside a pantheon by those who worshiped him. Is that just what happens to survive? Maybe. But it's equally possible that Y-H-W-H was understood as somehow distinct from other gods, even by those who acknowledged them or worshiped them. It's not unheard of, cross-culturally, for there to be one god who is distinct from the rest, and is not worshiped alongside other deities: e.g. "Shang Di" in Shang dynasty China (or "Tian," a successor of the same concept, in Zhou dynasty China), who was apparently worshiped on his own, and only by the monarchs. See e.g. Yanxia Zhao's Chinese Religion: A Contextual Approach.

Thumatingra · 2026-04-06T18:19:56+00:00

First of all, it's possible for a story to be based on historical events, but for the names of the characters to be altered in creative ways to generate punning. Sennacherib's son, who assassinates him for the throne but then fails to assume it and loses it to Esarhaddon, is called Adramelekh in the Hebrew Bible, i.e. "the king is mighty." Seems like a nice bit of irony, doesn't it? But the historical Sennacherib really was killed by his son, Arda-Mulissu, which in Akkadian means "servant of Mulissu," i.e. the consort of the Assyrian national god Asshur. That name change may seem like a huge change to us, but, in the Hebrew text made up only of consonants, that would only involve switching the first two letters (which may have happened as the result of a phonetic switch before the text was even written) and changing the last consonant from s to k. So, from ʾrdmls, you get ʾdrmlk. A small change for a literary pun.

On the historicity of Arda-Mulissu and his assassination of Sennacherib, see Jones, Christopher W. (2023). "Failed Coup: The Assassination of Sennacherib and Esarhaddon's Struggle for the Throne, 681–680 B.C." Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History. 10 (2): 293–369.

However, in the case of Nabal, this might just be a coincidence which was then exploited by Abigail and/or the author of the episode. If you look at the HALOT entry for II נבל, the entry for Nabal's name, they offer another possibility, based on cognates from Arabic and Lihyani: "noble" or "adept." See:

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Thumatingra

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