#is that yangchen in the finale says that the avatar can't detatch themselves from wordly concerns like other air nomads can

[lovegrowsart]

something that's endlessly frustrating to me is that while you could make the argument that bryke didn't intend for their invocation of attachment to be taken in the buddhist sense, then that frankly makes their appropriation of buddhist and hindu aesthetics through aang and guru pathik in the guru even worse.

aang is undertaking a spiritual journey through unlocking his chakras (an explicitly buddhist and hindu concept) to achieve enlightenment through mastering the avatar state - the entire aesthetic, thematic and narrative structure of that episode is one of the most overtly buddhist episodes of the entire show. to then argue that "oh, actually, they're not talking about attachment in that way! they're just talking about love and aang shouldn't have to give up love!!" is frankly insulting.

if what bryke wanted was aang's conflict to be a conflict of love vs power (as framed in aang's conversation with iroh), then the guru should not have been written the way it was, because that episode explicitly frames aang's conflict as being about personal earthly attachment vs enlightenment, which is not actually the same thematic conflict as love vs power. and even if that was the intention, aang just, like, gains a massive amount of power thru the lion turtle and doesn't actually do anything spiritually, emotionally, or mentally to master the avatar state, and then also just gets love.

so. what was intended point and meaning of having aang master the avatar state at all, exactly? to hopefully being in the right place at the right time to get hit by the right rock?