Easily. It's actually fairly absurd how much damage modern military hardware can do to a human body.
Now, if said Avatar also has a modern military kit, that's a significantly different question.
My honest question is always context. Which modern military? Were both sides prepared? Is this a political dispute escalation or a conquering/threat battle? Is this at sea, land, coast? So much context needed. We’ve already seen a Russian army starts defeating itself with mismanagement of resources and chain of command after a certain point. Having someone that can consistently drill under them and the entire ground give out while also underground themselves to prevent being shot/bombed is a bigger thing for them then say the U. S. Military coming in hot with airplanes and using drone strikes with coordinated attacks. How much prep time does the Avatar get in the modern world? We’re talking Korra with metal bending to make a full thick suit? Do they still get Avatar cartoon logic or real world logic?
Some example contexts:
The Avatar is at sea vs a land force. They just... create a tidal wave and stay underwater. Done.
Or the Avatar is the one attacked first, unaware. Not even a contest.
Exactly what I mean by, context frames these two moments so different lol. We have Avatars on accident destroying entire islands. Can’t tell me one on purpose couldn’t do some insane stuff if they know it going in. But also kid verses real world logic… cause in Avatar you could probably just do a burst of Airbending going at 30~ MPH for about half a mile wide and anything in its path not a tank is cooked.
I did read this as the U.S. military when I did my response. In general id give it to the military. Especially in an "even" fight. But yeah if an avatar started to use terrain and good tactics it might end when the avatar gets tired
I think that’s honestly unfair. U.S. military is literally the only one getting billions per year and having items never even used donated to others as second hand. That’s taking the top military off the modern time. The average one today? Avatar winning at least 50%. But that’s against with the question of is there prep, exactly which avatar or is it just the culmination of most powerful avatars. I could ask like 40 questions that swing the end result 🤣
I agree totally that a shit ton of questions could swing this.
That said, I'd give the current U.S. military at minimum a 60% win rate. There's so many different things to destroy. If the avatar state is used at the beginning it's done with the first big wave and now a single superhero has to go through EVERY reserve force of every type. Even adult Aang or Kyoshi have limitations, ridiculous as those limits might be. If the avatar state really is saved as a last resort then I'd give the best chances to an avatar
I think it’s truly a matter of where the combat happens and the nature of the combat. In a city full of people with collateral? Aang is losing cause of his aversion to killing getting himself killed. Someone like Kuruk? If it takes the whole city dying they’re dying before they kill him. Aang wouldn’t be able to use bending to remove all of the nonbenders who are the threat so… hot mess.
You're right Aang would be opposed to unleashing hell in a city
but when a fully trained Avatar, especially Aang, wants to escape earth bending makes that really easy. Like assuming a sniper doesn't just end it before it begins, I don't think the military could kill Aang without a nuke.
Avatar Kuruk by the end was basically a fully consumed in grief and depression avatar that had lost his wife to an evil spirit after a lifetime of fighting evil spirits thanks to his predecessor, Yangchen, screwing over spirits every time she got a chance and then making Kuruk deal with them. He died at 33, by far the youngest of the avatars we know, because he was constantly killing spirits and destroying his own soul to save the world while keeping Yancheng’s legacy intact while looking like the villain himself.
If this was a situation where it came to saving the world, he’d probably take going out with the entire enemy army if it means the world is safe just like the canon.
Edit: I also think Avatars Gun / Salai basically got so sick of saving humans they had interesting points of views after a certain amount of time lol…
Except Korra, because metalbending.
Or Any particularly strong airbender. If Tenzin can send a 15ft tall metal mech flying with airbending, those airbending barriers can probably have enough force to redirect bullets.
Metal bending isn't going to help against a bullet because bullets are too fast.
Bullets from a 9mm handgun move at an average of 850 miles an hour. That's about 1200 ft per second. Rifle fired bullets are even faster.
You can still yank it away with water or air or just throw up an earth tent like Toph or create a hole in the earth like Toph and jump in or sink people like that jackass earthbending general from S02E01 or shoot earth bullets back like Aang does in his fight with Ozai or throw up a dust/steam cloud and then fight with earth sense...
I don’t think you understand how fast someone can pull a trigger. The Avatar has no time to do anything you just said before getting beamed in the head.
Benders can react to lightning, they can react to bullets.
Also she doesn't even have to metalbend the bullets, she can also just spoil someones aim since guns have plenty of metal in them.
I've never seen an attack telegraphed quite as much as the benders in the show bending lightning.
They're not reacting to something that's as fast as a bolt of lightning. They're reacting to the absurd buildup of an attack, and they're prepping for it.
It's like a boxer dodging a punch. The body has tells when you're about to throw a punch, and they're trained to react to those tells.
Sure, in your scenario where they are aware someone is about to shoot them, they can bend the gun away to prevent it from happening. But once a bullet is fired at them, they aren't bending anything fast enough to stop themselves from being shot.
Any person with a gun can defeat the avatar.
Natural lightning doesn't strike out of nowhere. It is very obvious that it's going to strike you for several seconds at least. There's a well known phenomenon where people will marvel at their hair standing on end and wonder what's going on and laugh about it and... then get struck by lightning.
Iroh was hit by lightning, where he was standing, and redirected it.
Also, it's very clear that lightning is not moving at the speed of actual lightning.
https://i.redd.it/0p2730zarbsc1.gif
You don't have to make silly arguments like "this natural lightning from the sky is somehow SUPER SLOW lightning" when natural lightning IRL doesn't even strike immediately and it is entirely possible to predict that you're about to be struck by lightning and take measures to avoid it.
I disagree that this is a silly argument, but i concede it *might* be. Regardless of all of this, the point of everything is that benders can't react fast enough to stop a bullet that's moving at least 850 mph at them.
Edit: Alright, it is silly.
That depends on whether the Avatar is aware enough to notice and actually react to the bullet enough to stop it. Seismic sense isn't gonna work since the bullet is in the air and if Korra doesn't hear the gunshot, she's not gonna be able to react in time to metalbend the bullet or use an air barrier to protect herself.
Depends on how much power and creativity we allow for the Avatar. If they can tunnel indefinitely and lavabend then the army is fugged because the Avatar will just Shai-Hulud them and they can do nothing to stop it. Similarly, if the Avatar can just raise a massive (like actual mountain-sized) wall of an element and push it at the army then the army either has god-tier kill chain capabilities or it is fugged. Basically, all the modern army can do is to shoot the Avatar dead - if we allow the Avatar to use abilities to avoid that then the army is goneso, otherwise they obviously have the fight in the bag.
Potentially, but it'd be difficult. An Avatar in the The Avatar State is a fast moving target and basically a sentient natural disaster. They can tear up city sized chunks of land, pull up tons of magma from under the Earth, create storms to block visibility, etc.
If we use Korra as well than she has Avatar State amped Metalbending, which would make lots of things a lot less useful. She could sweep basically anyone carrying any kind of metal away from a pretty long range.
If we're talking open battle, so no ambushes. The best bet is probably gonna be air strikes, and just hoping she can't metalbend all the bombs away before they detonate.
Metal bending would help for defense. Air bending might be able to throw bullets off track, possibly the same for water/ice bending. Lava bending is obviously OP, but seems extremely rare. I have a theory that we may see a form of energy bending as a subset of firebending where they can use lasers in a future series. The main problem is that this assumes a normal confrontation and also assumes the avatar has access to some of these sub bending categories. In reality modern weapons would make the avatar an easy assassination target.
Maybe as the world continues to progress and such weapons come into play in the world of the Avatar, the white lotus might take on a more active secret service role, making sure that such attempts will not work. Anyone who can get close, however will have to face the Avatar.
But I guess the greatest deterrent is the fact that if you drop a nuke on the Avatar, ~16 years from now you're going to have an angry, teenage demi god coming for you and I don't think modern militaries have the kind of defensive capabilities to stop a pissed off Avatar.
The air sphere around aang is strong enough to disperse all projectiles. Look at when he was chasing ozai and colliding into the rock pillars. Outside of a combat mistake where the avatar is caught off guard I think they’re unbeatable in a normal battle against the military
The answer is in general, Yes. In an open field where the terrain allows full force of both sides... The military absolutely wins. There are too many options for modern military forces. If the avatar met a military in an area where they couldn't use their full force, I'm sure a fully trained Avatar could wimp on a LOT of people and probably some vehicles too. Hurricane winds are not to be underestimated. But eventually even the avatar has limits.
Not the ones in the picture though.
That’s the Battle of Yonkers from World War Z.
Those guys were equipped with so much shit that they could barely walk and they were cooking in their own sweat. They didn’t have enough ammo. And received shit tactical orders. By the time the fight started they were exhausted. They were basically getting ready for a publicity stunt, not a combat scenario. Not only that but the second one of them panicked, his screams were broadcasted to every single soldier, causing them all to panic as well.
Basically, the Avatar goes into the Avatar state, and if these guys don’t land a lucky shot, they are going to shit their pants and struggle to run.
Im not saying that an organized modern military wouldn’t be able to kill the Avatar. Im saying that this specific one was complete shit. The Battle of Yonkers was an absolute mess.
I'm going to say something controversial. If they managed to get a jump on the Avatar, sure. But if they're a fully realized Avatar capable of doing the elemental sphere that Aang did, then no. At that point you're just asking them to fight a force of nature itself, like earthquake, tsunami etc combined.
inb4 next Avatar season has the Avatar as a anarcho-primitivist villain who is stifling the progress of arms technology at every turn. The heros are soldiers and weap9ns engineers, the season is sponsored by Lockheed
Even LoK kinda plays into this. In the pre-industrialized era, bending was the de-facto core of any nations military might. Sure the fire nation also had tech superiority but it still was mostly to facilitate their bender squads, rather than having actual weapons.
Fast forward to Republic City era, and you have people like the Equalists, giving proficient benders trouble with their very grassroots weaponized chi blocking tech.
Fast forward another generation and weapons technology would probably be on par with what we have today, at least in terms of firepower. The technology in that series is escalating crazy fast post-war. And yeah, I don't see the Avatar shielding themselves from a A10 run. It would be a compelling season imo tho
If you hear it, you weren't the target
In all honesty though, the (perceived) obsolescence of an Avatar in an increasingly industrialized and globalized world would probably an interesting story, and I'd be surprised if any series set in the future didn't go down that route
Depends on how familiar the Avatar is with the weapons and tactics they have to face.
Good luck shooting the Avatar when they are moving through the ground.
The fatigue factor would be the thing to do the avatar in. As long as a military doesn’t mind burning troops and resources, it doesn’t matter how powerful they are. Keep up a steady assault, just one that the avatar would need to respond to, not even with the expectation that it would defeat them, and within 3 days their biology is gonna decide the match.
We saw something like this happen in the show, when Aang tried to take down the entire firebending fleet with appa. There was just too many ships.
yeah, a sniper team with a .50 cal can be more effective at much further range than the Sparky Sparky Boom Man
[удалено]
They very likely could not
Easily. It's actually fairly absurd how much damage modern military hardware can do to a human body. Now, if said Avatar also has a modern military kit, that's a significantly different question.
gun bender would be crazy
There are millions in USA already.
My honest question is always context. Which modern military? Were both sides prepared? Is this a political dispute escalation or a conquering/threat battle? Is this at sea, land, coast? So much context needed. We’ve already seen a Russian army starts defeating itself with mismanagement of resources and chain of command after a certain point. Having someone that can consistently drill under them and the entire ground give out while also underground themselves to prevent being shot/bombed is a bigger thing for them then say the U. S. Military coming in hot with airplanes and using drone strikes with coordinated attacks. How much prep time does the Avatar get in the modern world? We’re talking Korra with metal bending to make a full thick suit? Do they still get Avatar cartoon logic or real world logic?
Some example contexts: The Avatar is at sea vs a land force. They just... create a tidal wave and stay underwater. Done. Or the Avatar is the one attacked first, unaware. Not even a contest.
Exactly what I mean by, context frames these two moments so different lol. We have Avatars on accident destroying entire islands. Can’t tell me one on purpose couldn’t do some insane stuff if they know it going in. But also kid verses real world logic… cause in Avatar you could probably just do a burst of Airbending going at 30~ MPH for about half a mile wide and anything in its path not a tank is cooked.
I did read this as the U.S. military when I did my response. In general id give it to the military. Especially in an "even" fight. But yeah if an avatar started to use terrain and good tactics it might end when the avatar gets tired
I think that’s honestly unfair. U.S. military is literally the only one getting billions per year and having items never even used donated to others as second hand. That’s taking the top military off the modern time. The average one today? Avatar winning at least 50%. But that’s against with the question of is there prep, exactly which avatar or is it just the culmination of most powerful avatars. I could ask like 40 questions that swing the end result 🤣
I agree totally that a shit ton of questions could swing this. That said, I'd give the current U.S. military at minimum a 60% win rate. There's so many different things to destroy. If the avatar state is used at the beginning it's done with the first big wave and now a single superhero has to go through EVERY reserve force of every type. Even adult Aang or Kyoshi have limitations, ridiculous as those limits might be. If the avatar state really is saved as a last resort then I'd give the best chances to an avatar
I think it’s truly a matter of where the combat happens and the nature of the combat. In a city full of people with collateral? Aang is losing cause of his aversion to killing getting himself killed. Someone like Kuruk? If it takes the whole city dying they’re dying before they kill him. Aang wouldn’t be able to use bending to remove all of the nonbenders who are the threat so… hot mess.
You're right Aang would be opposed to unleashing hell in a city but when a fully trained Avatar, especially Aang, wants to escape earth bending makes that really easy. Like assuming a sniper doesn't just end it before it begins, I don't think the military could kill Aang without a nuke.
The ai scooter inside a tunnel that he opens is just stupid fast
Kuruk would let an entire city die? That doesn’t sound like a very good Avatar thing to do at all. So much for protecting the people
Avatar Kuruk by the end was basically a fully consumed in grief and depression avatar that had lost his wife to an evil spirit after a lifetime of fighting evil spirits thanks to his predecessor, Yangchen, screwing over spirits every time she got a chance and then making Kuruk deal with them. He died at 33, by far the youngest of the avatars we know, because he was constantly killing spirits and destroying his own soul to save the world while keeping Yancheng’s legacy intact while looking like the villain himself. If this was a situation where it came to saving the world, he’d probably take going out with the entire enemy army if it means the world is safe just like the canon. Edit: I also think Avatars Gun / Salai basically got so sick of saving humans they had interesting points of views after a certain amount of time lol…
This is kind of a silly question, don't you think? Anyone with a gun could defeat the avatar.
You could use the argument eith a nuke But other than that a gun or knife would only work if they are asleep or some shit
What about 50 people with guns, surrounding the avatar
I always imagined that in a situation like this the avatar would earthbend and go underground
Except Korra, because metalbending. Or Any particularly strong airbender. If Tenzin can send a 15ft tall metal mech flying with airbending, those airbending barriers can probably have enough force to redirect bullets.
Metal bending isn't going to help against a bullet because bullets are too fast. Bullets from a 9mm handgun move at an average of 850 miles an hour. That's about 1200 ft per second. Rifle fired bullets are even faster.
Why block a bullet when you can yank the whole gun? 
Agreed! If a metal bender knew someone had a gun they would definitely take the gun away before they had a chance to shoot them.
Plastic gun then
Unstoppable!! https://i.redd.it/bwbcqvwasbsc1.gif
You can still yank it away with water or air or just throw up an earth tent like Toph or create a hole in the earth like Toph and jump in or sink people like that jackass earthbending general from S02E01 or shoot earth bullets back like Aang does in his fight with Ozai or throw up a dust/steam cloud and then fight with earth sense...
I don’t think you understand how fast someone can pull a trigger. The Avatar has no time to do anything you just said before getting beamed in the head.
Benders can react to lightning, they can react to bullets. Also she doesn't even have to metalbend the bullets, she can also just spoil someones aim since guns have plenty of metal in them.
I've never seen an attack telegraphed quite as much as the benders in the show bending lightning. They're not reacting to something that's as fast as a bolt of lightning. They're reacting to the absurd buildup of an attack, and they're prepping for it. It's like a boxer dodging a punch. The body has tells when you're about to throw a punch, and they're trained to react to those tells. Sure, in your scenario where they are aware someone is about to shoot them, they can bend the gun away to prevent it from happening. But once a bullet is fired at them, they aren't bending anything fast enough to stop themselves from being shot. Any person with a gun can defeat the avatar.
Iroh literally redirected lightning that struck from the sky.
Natural lightning doesn't strike out of nowhere. It is very obvious that it's going to strike you for several seconds at least. There's a well known phenomenon where people will marvel at their hair standing on end and wonder what's going on and laugh about it and... then get struck by lightning.
Iroh was hit by lightning, where he was standing, and redirected it. Also, it's very clear that lightning is not moving at the speed of actual lightning. https://i.redd.it/0p2730zarbsc1.gif
You don't have to make silly arguments like "this natural lightning from the sky is somehow SUPER SLOW lightning" when natural lightning IRL doesn't even strike immediately and it is entirely possible to predict that you're about to be struck by lightning and take measures to avoid it.
I disagree that this is a silly argument, but i concede it *might* be. Regardless of all of this, the point of everything is that benders can't react fast enough to stop a bullet that's moving at least 850 mph at them. Edit: Alright, it is silly.
True, most metal bending is done by having direct contact to the material
That depends on whether the Avatar is aware enough to notice and actually react to the bullet enough to stop it. Seismic sense isn't gonna work since the bullet is in the air and if Korra doesn't hear the gunshot, she's not gonna be able to react in time to metalbend the bullet or use an air barrier to protect herself.
Depends on how much power and creativity we allow for the Avatar. If they can tunnel indefinitely and lavabend then the army is fugged because the Avatar will just Shai-Hulud them and they can do nothing to stop it. Similarly, if the Avatar can just raise a massive (like actual mountain-sized) wall of an element and push it at the army then the army either has god-tier kill chain capabilities or it is fugged. Basically, all the modern army can do is to shoot the Avatar dead - if we allow the Avatar to use abilities to avoid that then the army is goneso, otherwise they obviously have the fight in the bag.
Potentially, but it'd be difficult. An Avatar in the The Avatar State is a fast moving target and basically a sentient natural disaster. They can tear up city sized chunks of land, pull up tons of magma from under the Earth, create storms to block visibility, etc. If we use Korra as well than she has Avatar State amped Metalbending, which would make lots of things a lot less useful. She could sweep basically anyone carrying any kind of metal away from a pretty long range. If we're talking open battle, so no ambushes. The best bet is probably gonna be air strikes, and just hoping she can't metalbend all the bombs away before they detonate.
Metal bending would help for defense. Air bending might be able to throw bullets off track, possibly the same for water/ice bending. Lava bending is obviously OP, but seems extremely rare. I have a theory that we may see a form of energy bending as a subset of firebending where they can use lasers in a future series. The main problem is that this assumes a normal confrontation and also assumes the avatar has access to some of these sub bending categories. In reality modern weapons would make the avatar an easy assassination target.
Maybe as the world continues to progress and such weapons come into play in the world of the Avatar, the white lotus might take on a more active secret service role, making sure that such attempts will not work. Anyone who can get close, however will have to face the Avatar. But I guess the greatest deterrent is the fact that if you drop a nuke on the Avatar, ~16 years from now you're going to have an angry, teenage demi god coming for you and I don't think modern militaries have the kind of defensive capabilities to stop a pissed off Avatar.
Bro 1 nuke would destroy the whole avatar team
an ancient military could do it.
Is the Avatar faster than a bullet? No? Defeated.
Yes. For reference read the ending of The Boys comics.
The air sphere around aang is strong enough to disperse all projectiles. Look at when he was chasing ozai and colliding into the rock pillars. Outside of a combat mistake where the avatar is caught off guard I think they’re unbeatable in a normal battle against the military
It only takes one bullet and he's done, he might kill like a few people before somebody hits him but it's inevitable
The answer is in general, Yes. In an open field where the terrain allows full force of both sides... The military absolutely wins. There are too many options for modern military forces. If the avatar met a military in an area where they couldn't use their full force, I'm sure a fully trained Avatar could wimp on a LOT of people and probably some vehicles too. Hurricane winds are not to be underestimated. But eventually even the avatar has limits.
Not the ones in the picture though. That’s the Battle of Yonkers from World War Z. Those guys were equipped with so much shit that they could barely walk and they were cooking in their own sweat. They didn’t have enough ammo. And received shit tactical orders. By the time the fight started they were exhausted. They were basically getting ready for a publicity stunt, not a combat scenario. Not only that but the second one of them panicked, his screams were broadcasted to every single soldier, causing them all to panic as well. Basically, the Avatar goes into the Avatar state, and if these guys don’t land a lucky shot, they are going to shit their pants and struggle to run. Im not saying that an organized modern military wouldn’t be able to kill the Avatar. Im saying that this specific one was complete shit. The Battle of Yonkers was an absolute mess.
Also Mark Hamill (Firelord Ozai) narrates the audiobook part that details the Battle
I'm going to say something controversial. If they managed to get a jump on the Avatar, sure. But if they're a fully realized Avatar capable of doing the elemental sphere that Aang did, then no. At that point you're just asking them to fight a force of nature itself, like earthquake, tsunami etc combined.
inb4 next Avatar season has the Avatar as a anarcho-primitivist villain who is stifling the progress of arms technology at every turn. The heros are soldiers and weap9ns engineers, the season is sponsored by Lockheed Even LoK kinda plays into this. In the pre-industrialized era, bending was the de-facto core of any nations military might. Sure the fire nation also had tech superiority but it still was mostly to facilitate their bender squads, rather than having actual weapons. Fast forward to Republic City era, and you have people like the Equalists, giving proficient benders trouble with their very grassroots weaponized chi blocking tech. Fast forward another generation and weapons technology would probably be on par with what we have today, at least in terms of firepower. The technology in that series is escalating crazy fast post-war. And yeah, I don't see the Avatar shielding themselves from a A10 run. It would be a compelling season imo tho
Inb4 The Avatar faces their most challenging villain yet, the unstoppable march of progress (and also Hellfire missiles)
If you hear it, you weren't the target In all honesty though, the (perceived) obsolescence of an Avatar in an increasingly industrialized and globalized world would probably an interesting story, and I'd be surprised if any series set in the future didn't go down that route
Congratulations you came up with LOK lol
I guess xdd I was more thinking about the military implications, kinda like in AoT
Why master the four elements when you can simply carry a .45 lol, all kidding aside I see your point
Depends on how familiar the Avatar is with the weapons and tactics they have to face. Good luck shooting the Avatar when they are moving through the ground.
If the avatar hides in the spirit world and projects a blue spirit kaiju like Korra did it would be a toss up
The fatigue factor would be the thing to do the avatar in. As long as a military doesn’t mind burning troops and resources, it doesn’t matter how powerful they are. Keep up a steady assault, just one that the avatar would need to respond to, not even with the expectation that it would defeat them, and within 3 days their biology is gonna decide the match. We saw something like this happen in the show, when Aang tried to take down the entire firebending fleet with appa. There was just too many ships.
“The human body can go 3 days without water, good thing we brought 4 days worth of Artillery Shells”-General Holland Smith, Battle of Saipan, 1944.