List The 5 Most Abundant Elements In The Human Body State: Fill & Download for Free

Chemistry is a fascinating science, full of unusual trivia! The following is a list of some of the most fun and most interesting chemistry facts for you.The only elements that are liquid ​at room temperature are Bromine and Mercury. However, you can melt Gallium by holding a lump in the warmth of your hand.Fig- BromineFig - MercuryFig- GalliumUnlike many substances, water expands as it freezes. An ice cube takes up about 9% more volume than the water used to make it.If you pour a handful of salt into a full glass of water, the water level will actually go down rather than overflowing the glass.Similarly, if you mix half a liter of alcohol and half a liter of water, the total volume of the liquid will be less than one liter.There is about 1/2 lb or 250 g of salt (NaCl) in the average adult human body.A pure element can take many forms. For example, diamond and graphite both are forms of pure carbon.Many radioactive elements actually do glow in the dark.The chemical name for water (H2O) is dihydrogen monoxide.The only letter that doesn't appear on the periodic table is J.Lightning strikes produce O3, which is ozone, and strengthen the ozone layer of the atmosphere.The only two non-silvery metals are Gold and Copper.Although oxygen gas is colorless, the liquid and solid forms of oxygen are blue.Fig - Liquid OxygenThe human body contains enough carbon to provide 'lead' (which is really graphite) for about 9,000 pencils.Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, while oxygen is the most abundant element in the earth's atmosphere, crust, and oceans (about 49.5%).The rarest naturally-occurring element in the earth's crust may be astatine.Astatine is the rarest naturally occurring element.The total amount of astatine in the Earth's crust (quoted mass 2.36 × 10^25 grams) is estimated to be less than one gram at any given time.Hydrofluoric acid is so corrosive that it will dissolve glass. Although it is corrosive, hydrofluoric acid is considered to be a Weak acid.One bucket full of water contains more atoms than there are buckets of water in the Atlantic ocean.Approximately 20% of the oxygen in the atmosphere was produced by the Amazon rainforest.Heliu balloons float because helium is lighter than air.Bee stings are acidic while wasp stings are alkaline.Hot peppers get their heat from a molecule called capsaicin. While the molecule acts as an irritant to mammals, including humans, birds lack the receptor responsible for the effect and are immune to the burning sensation from exposureDry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide, CO2.Liquid air has a bluish tint, similar to water.You can't freeze helium simply by cooling it to absolute zero. It will freeze if you apply extremely intense pressure.By the time you feel thirsty, you've already lost about 1% of your body's water.Mars is red because its surface contains a lot of iron oxide or rust.Sometimes hot water freezes more quickly than cold water! A high school student documented the effect, which bears his name (the Mpemba effect).The properties of phosphorus depend on the allotrope, they share common nonmetallic characteristics. Phosphorus is a poor conductor of heat and electricity, except black phosphorus. It's a solid at room temperature. The white form (sometimes called yellow phosphorus) resembles wax, the red and violet forms are noncrystalline solids, while the black allotrope resembles graphite in pencil lead. The pure element is reactive, so much so that the white form will ignite spontaneously in air. Phosphorus typically has an oxidation state of +3 or +5.Natural phosphorus consists of one stable isotope , phosphorus-31. At least 23 isotopes of the element are known.Image source- GoogleThanks for Reading.

Salish Coast (18 severed feet have washed up on this stretch of US-Canada coast)To love the ocean is to accept the death that accompanies it.[1]Colors shifting across the ocean's surface, waves calming and destructive, and myths of fantastical creatures living in the darkest depths have fascinated mankind from the beginning of time. The oceans are a continuous source of nourishment, inspiration, progress, beauty and mystery. It gives life and takes it away- through, personal violence, inclement weather and shipwrecks. Once its cargo has been released, all sorts of strange and mysterious items wash up along the shorelines in the weeks, months and even years to follow.In his book Flotsametrics, the oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer writes:“Floating tales bracket human life in a fateful symmetry. Babies float into the world, and the dead return to their origins in the floating world.” [2]And in between birth and death, humans have a tendency to cast many, many things into the sea, not least of all messages. As early as 310 BCE, humans were sending messages this way, some more poetic than others.[3] In 1177, a poet named Yasuyori, banished to a remote island from Japan, engraved poems on pieces of wood and set them free in the ocean hoping they would reach his parents.[4] Centuries of high-seas dispatches followed, with people filling bottles with messages of struggle, hope, and salvation. Religious operations would set advertisements for free Bibles adrift, hoping to reach those ready to seek redemption.[5] During the summer of 1954, the Irish beer company Guinness dropped more than 50,000 bottles containing the message of their dark and delicious ale into the sea hoping to entice drinkers abroad and instead finding an audience in oceanographers who are still discovering the bottles today and using them to study Atlantic currents.[6]Oldest message in a bottle found on beachBut bodies, not bottles, have provided some of the oldest forms of oceanographic data. Beachcombers, perhaps gathering shells or out for some exercise, and treasure hunters with their metal detectors spot a flashy, nonpelagic lump that, upon closer inspection, turns out to be a human foot still nestled in its shoe, detached from its owner's body. The feet, both lefts and rights, come in all sizes — sometimes wearing New Balance or Nike, occasionally a hiking boot, and sometimes still attached to leg bones, a tibia sticking out like a stake in the ground.[7] The parts that have and continue to wash up on the shores of the Salish Sea carry information as well. Beyond the forensic, the feet send a message:“To love the ocean is to accept the death that accompanies it, and to study it is to embrace mystery as the center of your practice.”[8]In 2009, during a storm in the Pacific Ocean, a tanker lost a container overboard holding more than 28,000 bath toys (ducks, frogs, turtles, and beavers).[9] The toys, designed to float, took to the sea, mostly landing on the shores of Oregon and Washington, but some traveled as far as Alaska. The ducks, frogs, beavers, and turtles continued to beach themselves for the next 16 years.[10]To the horror of Pacific Northwesterners, in 2007, feet began washing up along the shores of the Salish Sea, an inland ocean spanning nearly 500 miles from Olympia, Washington, the state’s capitol, to Desolation Sound, in British Columbia, Canada.[11] Today the tally is 21 feet and counting (15 in BC, six in Washington).So prevalent are the gruesome discoveries that the BC coroner’s office has a map marked up with each new find: Foot #1 — a right — found in August 2007 floated up to Jedediah Island in a generic white sneaker with navy blue accents; Foot #5 in a muddy Nike; Foot #13 wore black with Velcro. New Year’s Day 2019 delivered the most recent foot, number 21, to a beach in Everett. It tumbled ashore in an aging boot, its condition indicating it had been out to sea for “some time,” according to local officials.[12] All feet found had no signs of actual ‘severing’ or ‘cutting’ with the tendons being cut.The Macabre Case of the 21 Severed Feet of the Salish SeaA pattern of body parts washing ashore has all the trappings of a serial killer, horror movie or, in the very least, of an otherworldly phenomenon. Earned or not, the Pacific Northwest has a haunting prestige — the home of Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, and Ted Bundy.[13] Some morbid element of the region has arrested our imaginations. It could be the skies: So gray and responsible for all the rain that keeps everything perennially damp. Or perhaps it’s the abundance of old-growth timber — plenty of dense and protected woods for stashing bodies. Rivers, branching across the state are another nature-made means of evidence disposal. It is rumored that Ridgway discarded the bodies of as many as 70 women around the Green River, 65 miles long descending from the Cascades and entering the Puget Sound just west of Seattle.[14] In Washington State, geography and meteorology conspire to creep us out. But perhaps most lurid is the ocean itself, not just because it continues to spew body parts to its surface but also because of its infinite and perplexing nature.These foot discoveries are not the first ones on British Columbia’s coast. One was found in Vancouver in 1887, leading to the place of discovery being called Leg-In-Boot Square.[15] On July 30, 1914, the Vancouver Sun reported that recent arrivals from Kimsquit reported a human leg encased in a high boot was found on a beach near the mouth of the Salmon River.[16] It was thought the remains were from a man who had drowned on the river the previous summer.The Mystery of the Salish Sea Disembodied Feet - The National Paranormal SocietyThe Salish Sea, is one of the world’s largest inland oceans and the second biggest estuary in the United States. It is an international body of water shared across the Canada–United States border, zigzagging through a mess of islands, and is also home to more than 60 tribes and First Nations.[17] The southern portion of the Salish Sea is more familiarly known as Puget Sound, a body of water servicing the Seattle metropolitan area, home to about 3.8 million residents and plenty of industry — Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, among others — all luxuriously settled in one of America’s most beautiful and diverse oceanic ecosystems.[18] The birthplace of Grunge now has a median home value of more than $700,000 and mostly functions to accommodate well-compensated tech workers.[19] It’s still weird though — after all, feet keep floating ashore.Only 10 of the 15 feet have been identified and linked to missing persons, but they are “no reason for public concern,” according to a press release from the coroner’s office.[20]#1. August 20th, 2007, Jedediah Island, BC. “Canvas”, size 12 shoe dated 2005 (9), Linked to Depressed Man, Name Withheld (2)#2. August 26th, 2007. Gabriola Island, BC. “Reebok”, size 12. Dated to 2004 production (9), Linked to a man Missing since 2006. Name Withheld.#3. February 2nd, 2009. Valdes Island, BC. Blue/White Nike, size 11. Dated to 2003 (9), Linked to Missing man, name withheld, and matching to Shoe #5.#4. May 22, 2008. Kirkland Island, Fraser River. New Balance, Size 7 (female). Pattullo Bridge Suicide. Name withheld. (DNA Match to #7.) (9, 2)#5. June 16th, 2008. Westham Island, Fraser River. Blue/White Nike, size 11 (9), Linked to Missing man, name withheld, and matching to Shoe #3.#7. November 11, 2008. Richmond, BC. Fraser River. New Balance, Size 7 (female) Pattullo Bridge Suicide. Name withheld. (DNA Match to #4.) (9, 2)#8. October 27, 2009. Richmond BC. Fraser River. Size 8½ Nike running shoe (mens) (9), Linked to missing man from 2008, name withheld.#12. November 4, 2011. Port Moody, BC. Stefan Zahorujko, Fisherman missing since 1987 (9).#18. December 8, 2017. Vancouver Island, BC. Lower Leg and foot found. Identified as Stanley Okumoto (15, 22).#21. January 1, 2019, Jetty Island, Everett, Washington. Antonio Neil, Missing since 2016 (21).[21]Instead, they are the unfortunate side effect of the disappeared: Most feet, upon discovery, are generally matched to missing persons reports providing sad but necessary closure to loved ones. It is not unusual for the body part of a missing person to eventually wash to shore, but what is unaccounted for is the abundance and proximity.#11. November 4, 2011. Port Moody, BC. (The Macabre Case of the 21 Severed Feet of the Salish Sea)“It seems like this is fairly unique to the British Columbia coastline. I certainly haven’t heard of this phenomenon happening in other areas. That’s not to say it hasn’t. But it seems very specific to where we are,” Watson explained. “It’s just another phenomenon that’s interesting about our coast and the Pacific Northwest, and another thing that just makes us unique and in a different place to live.”Why the body parts only started to wash up after 2007? It seems that the answer may lie in developments in shoe design.Most sneaker brands incorporate elements which serve to improve their buoyancy – allowing them to float to the coastline.[22] The prevailing winds around the Salish Sea are west to east, allowing floating items in this part of the Pacific to be blown to the coast effectively. This makes it easy for decomposing body parts to wash up on shore in the area.Experts may not know why feet continue to wash ashore, but they can rule some things out: The feet are not the work of a serial killer, nor are they flotsam from a plane crash. A Reddit thread on the matter is a tangle of speculators, who find just about everything about the anomaly fishy, and naysayers who want to litigate the cold, hard facts.[23]Origin theories focus upon human trafficking, plane crashes, suicides, and coincidence.[24] Speculation that the feet may have originated from a boating accident or plane crash has been put forward. Four men were killed in a plane crash in the area in 2005, who may account for some of the unidentified appendages.[25] From a study on the fate of pig carcasses in water, Gail Anderson from British Columbia’s Center for Forensic Research at Simon Fraser University has issued the most plausible scenario.“Feet easily disarticulate and when they are attached to a flotation device such as a running shoe, they are easily washed ashore,” she said. “Notice there are no feet washing ashore in stiletto heels or flip-flops.[26]AFP | Kempton ExpressIn all likelihood, the feet are coming from people drowning or falling in to Vancouver waters, getting trapped between the ocean and the shore due to the islands off Vancouver’s coast, which then leads the more buoyant and durable parts of the decomposed specimen to find their way back to shore.[27]While the fate of a human body in water is not well understood, local medical examiners assert that the feet are perfectly natural phenomenon that has been happening for years and will continue to happen.[28] After an extended period in the water, feet become detached from the rest of the body at the relatively weak ankle joint, with the feet continuing to float while the rest of the corpse sinks.[29] Bodies are thought to be able to remain intact in the cold waters of the Salish for up to three decades and can drift anywhere up to 1,000 miles, making it extremely difficult to pinpoint a date and location that a person may have entered the water.[30]There are simply a lot of corpses in these waters. Kathy Taylor, a forensic anthropologist at the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, which has jurisdiction along the Seattle-Tacoma coast of Puget Sound, explained that this is a consequence of having a densely populated area on the coast. The metro area along the shores of the Salish Sea is home to 7 million people.[31] Suicides and drownings are somewhat regular events around any body of water, and as shoreline populations go up, the number of water mishaps also increases. Coastal metropolises like New York City regularly go through the grim ritual of fishing floating corpses out of the water in the spring as water temperatures rise.[32]No. 21 (Salish Sea Foot Mystery)In early February 2019, the Salish Sea had once again produced a talisman heralding the latest iteration of old news: The shoe was the lacing type and seemed like a more recent model of Nike, one of those lightweight designs with the woven fabric that almost makes them look as if they are a shoe-shaped knitted sweater.[33] It had not yet been matched to a missing person although the protocol of DNA testing and database searching had been initiated.“It does prompt our interest because it does look a little bit newer and at this stage. It’s probably a left foot,” listing the limited but established facts. “And that’s all the information we have right now.”[34]Some DNA found on the washed up feet has been so severely damaged by salt water that it actually often cannot be tested.[35] Furthermore, any identifying bodily marks including tattoos are likely to have been worn away by sea water. Officials are campaigning to have shoe size included as a category in missing person reports so that a foot might be more easily identified next time one washes up on shore.[36]There is very little comfort to be found in a mystery, especially when it revolves around a missing person, whose final moments and whereabouts may never be known. But the facts have begun to add up, starting with some very concrete ones. It’s hard to know anything with certainty when it comes to the ocean — but one thing is clear: When millions of people live by the sea, they die by it, too.Footnotes[1] The Academy[2] Flotsametrics and the Floating World[3] Beached Trash Tells A Story About The Oceans[4] Query: Chunosuke Matsuyama: legend or reality?[5] A Message in a Bottle: Texting the Scriptures[6] 11 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Guinness - Food Republic[7] The Curious Tale of the Salish Sea Feet [8] The Curious Tale of the Salish Sea Feet [9] 'Moby-Duck': When 28,800 Bath Toys Are Lost At Sea[10] What Can 28,000 Rubber Duckies Lost at Sea Teach Us About Our Oceans?[11] 18 severed feet have washed up on this stretch of US-Canada coast[12] 18 Severed Feet Have Washed Up On This Beach And No-One Knows Why[13] 4 Washington State Serial Killers Just As Interesting As Ted Bundy[14] 48 murders: The hunt for Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer – Film Daily[15] Leg-In-Boot Square [16] http://next.owlapps.net/owlapps_apps/article?id=18036482&lang=en[17] Land Rights and Environmentalism in British Columbia[18] https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2015/11/the-puget-sound-economy-at-a-glance-the-most.html[19] Seattle WA Home Prices & Home Values | Zillow[20] Human foot found on Canadian coastline — the 15th since 2007[21] The Macabre Case of the 21 Severed Feet of the Salish Sea[22] The Strange Mystery Of The Human Feet In Sneakers That Keep Washing Ashore In Canada[23] Can we talk about the Salish Sea human foot discoveries?[24] The Macabre Case of the 21 Severed Feet of the Salish Sea[25] The Mysterious Human Feet in the Salish Sea[26] The Strange Mystery Of The Human Feet In Sneakers That Keep Washing Ashore In Canada[27] The Salish Sea Feet Mystery[28] Salish Sea Foot Mystery[29] Decomposition Changes in Bodies Recovered from Water[30] The Mysterious Human Feet in the Salish Sea[31] The human feet that routinely wash ashore in the Pacific Northwest, explained[32] Grim sign of Spring: This is why dead bodies float to surface of NYC waterways[33] The Mysterious Human Feet in the Salish Sea[34] Coroners use new tool to crack mystery of the floating feet in the Salish Sea - Peninsula News Review[35] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.newhaven.edu/_resources/documents/academics/surf/past-projects/2014/ema-graham-paper.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiCvL6KqrnqAhUWOs0KHbg-C3gQFjAAegQIBRAC&usg=AOvVaw1NEGz_O8gCf5gs3X1rpN2t[36] ‎Olympia Oddities: Salish Sea Feet Mystery on Apple Podcasts

Well, let’s see…But first, a word from our sponsors, endorsed by Boulder Ltd.!Boulder, thank you for giving us a cameo appearance. What’re your thoughts on comparing The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra?“Ahh, the Boulder is grateful for being given an opportunity to promote himself. The Boulder has conflicted feelings, you see, he thinks that one show cannot exist without the other, that they should each be balanced in their merits and individual entertainment points - “But you’re not in the sequel.“And he’s ready to bury The Legend of Korra in a ROCK-A-LANCHE!”There you are folks, The Boulder has spoken.Also, come on Avatar fans, the Boulder alone proves why The Last Airbender is the God-tier quality it is. And if you didn’t read the Boulder’s lines in Mick Foley’s voice, we can’t ever be friends.I’m from the ‘elder’ generation that had it good with all of the top dog TV shows on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Disney XD and CITV in the mid to late 2000s.One of those was Avatar: The Last Airbender. My love for it is so strong that naturally any successor series, spinoff or non, is going to have an extremely hard time trying to equal it.I’ve already done a critical analysis of the flaws of The Legend of Korra which pretty much highlights the many strengths more of its predecessor. But I won’t leave you hanging.Allow me to copy and paste most of my answer from that question and take you in depth as to why each core element of The Last Airbender worked so well where its sequel would have a hard time trying to expand or dive deeper into established things in meaningful ways (which every decent sequel should do) to the effect that it cannot match up, which ultimately results in why I like The Last Airbender the most.Again, The Legend of Korra is fine on its own. I like it. Compared to The Last Airbender, the winner is clear.One - The StoryThis is the first major advantage The Last Airbender had over its sequel simply because of the story it wanted to tell and, more importantly, whom it was told to.The Legend of Korra’s narrative structure was more serialised, where episodes in the overall story arc set up each of the next few with a typical cliffhanger to keep us on edge and make us binge it if we had it on immediate demand, á la Game of Thrones.The problem here, however, is that serialised narratives in a television series exist to connect to previously established story thread(s), relying on the power of those threads to achieve its own cohesive strength, whilst setting up new ones which will sooner or later be resolved.This is not a bad way to tell a story by any stretch, and The Legend of Korra is a decent serialised television series.But that’s the problem as well. It places too much focus (not entire focus, I’ll grant it) on telling a larger story instead of creating smaller and meaningful stories which add substance to the overall media product.They have a hook to grab the viewer’s attention, the plot of said episode plays out in a typical three-act structure, ending with a epilogue cliffhanger which feeds directly into the following episode, and can exist to give further cohesion to the overall package if a character recounts the event of that episode.Rarely does The Legend of Korra take the time (even if it’s allowed to) in creating something innovative for itself that fleshes out the characters (primarily the more important element) and elaborates on the greater details of the lore of the World of Avatar, some (like Raava and Vaatu) being weaker answers than others (platinum to counter metalbending).This is where The Last Airbender shines in the quality of its storytelling. The plot of the story is very simple.Avatar Aang, our chosen one, is reawakened after a hundred years and needs to master the four elements to defeat the Fire Nation, with the help of his friends. That is it.It works so well because of whom it was being told to. The Last Airbender was primarily aimed with children in mind, at least as young as 7 and possibly as old as 11 or 12. Boom, more digestible storyline, wider appeal and bigger audience with more episodes = a megaton of critical acclaim.You can have children watch it for the comedy, likeable characters, cool action and mind-bending (see what I did there?) animation and the more obvious life lessons.The adults can watch it for the same thing whilst being able to analyse and appreciate the heavier, mature themes that increase the quality of the storytelling and character development, being able to think more critically about each character, their arcs and the world they live in, how they change it or vice versa.The Legend of Korra, with its concurring elder target audience of teens and young adults, coupled with themes and villain motivations that have the concurring grace of a teen’s introspective monologues, cannot afford the same luxury.The majority of Avatar’s episodes - particularly in Book One, though not entirely isolated - were more episodic in nature.Sure, they did have episodes that set up plot, character development and worldbuilding junctures requiring a future resolution, but most episodes could exist by and large as a self-contained story.You wouldn’t need much prior knowledge or understanding to understand the characters, their abilities, personalities and the overall story as these episodes would appear to be “filler”; having no larger effect on the greater story arc.In this instance, The Last Airbender can do what its sequel cannot and devote crucial time to give the world and our characters something akin to a unique identity.As a little aside, let’s compare one incredibly bad and one incredibly masterful self-contained episode in The Last Airbender. It would be much more difficult to compare episodes directly between the shows (with LoK having its own bad, mediocre and good episodes, but very few if any amazing ones) whereas the quality of the majority of The Last Airbender’s episodes are at least average, and extend to absolute platinum.These episodes are purely filler episodes. They have minimal influences on the large plot arc of Aang mastering the elements and defeating the Fire Nation.What highlights a bad filler episode from a good or amazing filler episode is what it tries to do with its runtime.The best possible thing it can do, as the latter example does fantastically, is use its time wisely in fleshing out a character or a characteristic of the fantasy world, making it as compelling as possible, so it remains with you thereafter.Firstly - apologies in advance - The Great Divide.Team Avatar set up their personal binary conflict between Katara and Sokka with the greater binary conflict of two warring tribes, the Gonjins and the Zhangs, exacerbated when they travel trough the titular canyon mass and Aang struggles to find a common ground between them.Not only was this episode repeatedly aired on Nickelodeon frequently, exacerbating its inconsequentiality even more ruthlessly, this was just a bad episode overall. It was primarily boring for me, personally.The conflict between the two tribes is so one note, believing one to have wronged the other in two very polarising fabricated stories (Jin Wei and Wei Jin), then Aang resolves the whole feud by making up his peaceful resolution.It didn’t flesh out the world in any deeper meaningful fashion, nor did it do much for the characters except have Katara and Sokka further entrenched in their differences until the plot demanded their co-operation, and had a very conflicting message that was just a mess.So, where there’s a horribly written episode, there is also one that is absolutely perfected.I present - Zuko Alone.Everything in this episode - from the neo-Western influences, to the characters, to the drama, to the disturbing and heart-breaking backstory of Zuko, to the fight scene at the climax, and the nuanced ending - is Avatar perfection.I suppose it depends on your taste, but being an adult who appreciates more complex means of storytelling, who loves seeing organic conflict and gaining a deeper understanding of a teenager struggling so hard to find himself, being able to choose his own way, embodying the thematic symbols that define his character in this grand story, is so compelling to me.I’ll provide a deeper analysis of this episode at some point, but I’m sure we can agree Zuko Alone is Avatar’s best example of all of its greatest qualities, whilst being able to stand alone (ironically) entirely apart from the main plot.The Legend of Korra, on the other hand, has a repetitive serialised narrative arc for each season. Granted, it was originally intended to be a spinoff, and then future series got commissioned, but as a whole package, it shows.Korra must face the villain of the story that has some mature theme attached to them that reflects a real world issue and something about her character which she must resolve, all whilst her friends help her out and they develop somewhere off to the side.It’s not completely straightforward or unique, and has no clear, achievable goal for the entirety of the show, with each new season bringing forth a new stream of questions and answers, some of which are never addressed and left as a loose end by the finale of Book Four.Two - The CharactersThere is a more specific Quora thread that directly compares Aang and Korra in a more subjective light, so I’ll save that for later.But, to start this section off, let me list the number of characters I believe to be so compelling in their respective backstories, motivations, personalities, abilities and developmental arcs. Characters that have layers to them.Sure, some characters in The Last Airbender aren’t as fully developed as their fellows, but The Legend of Korra just has so many more characters to deal with and less time to do it in that we can only feel attached to a smaller group of characters, which leaves other, equally significant characters on the side-lines.For The Last Airbender, these are the characters that feel real to me:Aang.Katara.Sokka.Toph.Zuko.Iroh.Azula.Appa.Ty Lee.Mai.Jet.Hakoda.Suki (at a stretch)And The Legend of Korra?Korra.Tenzin.Lin Beifong.Zaheer.Asami (at a stretch).Tonraq.Kuvira (at a stretch)Amon (at a stretch).The sequel has nearly half the most fully developed characters as its predecessor, and it shows, three of them being generous. Characters like Jinora, Mako, Bolin, Unalaq, Raava and Vaatu, Amon, Opal, Kai, Bumi, Kya, Varrick, Tarrlok, Raiko, Suyin and her family… all of these characters do offer meaningful moments in their respective interactions with their closely affiliated equals.But they lack any greater depth that The Last Airbender took the precious time to truly allow the audience to gain the most understanding and appreciation of each of its characters, where they come from and where they end up.Aang is the brilliant central protagonist that wants to have fun as a 12-year-old whilst also coming to grips with the responsibilities that his destiny as the world’s only hope for balance throws upon him.Katara is one hell of a strong female character because she has her flaws, experiencing a push to quite morbid extremes, whilst still being a badass and embracing the traditional aspects of her femininity which make her character more endearing and thoughtful.Plus, she’s fecking gorgeous.Sokka is the comic relief character that also has significant growth over the course of the series. His identity centres around a thoughtful display of the flaws of masculinity, what it truly means to be a warrior that can fight, a leader that can inspire, and a man who knows where he is needed the most.Sokka learns to become the warrior, leader and man he is destined to be when he typically gets his ass handed to him, or when he needs to think big.Although, if you still have any dignity, don’t drink cactus juice.Toph Beifong is the toughest character of the team quite literally and figuratively. Yet, as much as she shows the group how to stand their ground in any fight, they also teach her to open up a little, ‘erode’ the barriers she puts up to cope with her status as a blind 12-year-old girl.And being able to experience the world outside of her neglectful parents, it’s no wonder she grows to be the greatest earthbender in the world.This girl be like “Cane touch dis.”Zuko… oh man, Zuko…He is undisputedly the majority of people’s favourites in the show. So much about Zuko’s redemptive development and the complexity surrounding his identity is so layered.We see so many different sides of him that he grows beyond three dimensions and becomes omni-dimensional. There is so much to love about the character of Zuko that you just can’t hate on him forever.It’s okay hun, we know you be tryin’.But then we have Azula.Easily the most complicated character of the show, Azula has a much deeper analysis of the extremes people will go to achieve acceptance or power. Azula is so out of touch with reality due to her malignant perfectionism - in order to not be “treated like Zuko” - and being shaped by her abusive father to be the prodigious weapon he only sees her as.The history between herself and her mother Ursa is astounding too. She cannot comprehend how someone whom she believes thinks of her as a monster can still call out to her in a hallucination and say she loves her.She cannot understand how her ‘friends’, Mai and Ty Lee, can choose to go against her where love and empathy overruled fear and control. If she can’t rely on intimidation to control people, she is powerless. It unravels her, and as much as you can easily hate her, you feel only harrowing pity at her final defeat.Heck, even Appa the flying bison has an episode devoted entirely to him, exploring how the emotional pain of being separated form Aang, the memories of his infancy and the unflinchingly horrible treatment he receives at the hands of despicable human beings and violent animals, made him feel as real as an actual person.Appa’s Lost Days is so emotionally heart-breaking, but it is necessary to make you really care about Appa, more than just being Team Avatar’s means of traversal.The Last Airbender’s greatest strength is its characters, so much so that it effortlessly yeets itself into the top 10 best television shows of all time, whereas The Legend of Korra cannot dive as deep with its own cast to fully flesh them out, or at least as much as the ‘more important’ ones.Not that the majority of the sequel’s characters aren’t interesting to see talk, banter, fight, triumph or lose, but compared to the writing behind each of The Last Airbender’s cast, they seem more shallow in comparison.Three - The WorldAvatar’s greatest strength is the characters. What allows them to achieve that greatness is the world in which they live.Of course, The Legend of Korra does take things further with the worldbuilding and 70 years of technological innovation and automation, but it sort of dilutes the charm of everything that makes the World of Avatar during the Hundred Year War so visceral and beautiful.To build and set-up a fantasy world, you need at least three fundamental elements:History.Culture.Magic system.What makes the worldbuilding in Avatar so great is the fact that so many features overlap with others. The politics, the history, the agriculture, the aesthetics, the societal and cultural layers, the militaries, the technology, the fashion, the governmental structures, the geography and the spirituality of the World of Avatar is so compelling.What makes each of the four nations a joy to delve deep into is because they are so endearingly taken from real-life East Asian cultures (not just Japan and then drummed up with Western aesthetics), incorporated into this world, and we see the characters interact with the world, serving to make the world a character in and of itself rather just a backdrop where the story takes place in.Let me give you an example as to how I mean the features in the worldbuilding overlap with other qualities of the show, like story and character beats, which increase the overall quality of the story.The Water Tribe’s built their civilisations on community and love. Water being the elemental archetype of change and flexibility, so too are the Water Tribe’s loving and adaptable nature so enduring.Owing to the fact they are mostly concentrated to the North/South Poles, and the Foggy Swamp, makes sense due to the abundance of water in the ice and plants, respectively.Waterbending was mastered by humans from the moon, said to push and pull the tides. It is modelled after t’ai chi, which is practised for its slow, flexible movements.Brute force is met with softness whilst turning the energy of the aggressor against them, much like how the current of the water just flows naturally, emphasising push and pull, layered with the yin and yang symbolism of Tui and La, the Moon and Ocean Spirits.The Earth Kingdom is the largest sovereign identity in the world, creating the biggest diversity of ethnic groups whilst still sharing a common heritage. Earth being the element of substance and endurance, so too are the hailers in the Earth Kingdom immovable in their spirit and their combative pride.A rigid, impassable and stable stance, modelled after the Hung Gar style of kung fu, defines the earthbender.The earthbenders learned from badger-moles, blind hybrid animals that use the bending discipline not just as a martial art but as a means of traversing the world. You can delineate the essence of earthbending to everything in the Earth Kingdom, being used for so many different national services (transportation, postal services in Omashu, train tanks in the military, construction etc.).Earthbending is structured around a combative prowess of defence, being able to take a lot of damage before finally being eroded. It demands that an earthbender confront their obstacles head on whilst maintaining a defensive position.The Fire Nation is arguably the most unique out of all the nations simply due to what it was able to achieve.Having the most advanced technology and military at the start of the Hundred Year War, it possessed the capabilities it needed to be able to launch the full-scale total war which propels the whole plot of The Last Airbender into outer space.Fire is the element of power. Power is extrapolated from this at all levels of the Fire Nation’s identity. The inspiration of Northern Shaolin kung fu characterises a firebender’s strikes with the fists and sweeping legs which emphasise aggressive speed and power.The earliest humans learnt their discipline from the ultimate firebenders - the dragons - who were themselves the embodiment of power whilst maintaining a harmonious spirituality with the rest of nature.From their tundra tanks, warships and war balloons, to their spicier cuisine and uniform architecture, symbolising their attention to formality and forbidden expressions outside of “I love Ozai”, the Fire Nation displays the energy and drive which is symbolic of fire, overlapping with its superiority in industrial sectors and global modernisation.The Air Nomads were a much more reserved and secular race, basing themselves high and away at the four corners of the world in air temples, philosophising about spirituality and enlightenment.They are ruled by a theocratic council of monks, aiming to teach their fellow monks about the sanctity of life, nonviolent ways of living, and being able to see the illusions of people living unequally to others.Air being the element of freedom, it is modelled off of Baguazhang, which has historical roots in Buddhism (also an inspiration for the Air Nomads as a cultural and sovereign identity).Airbending focuses on utilising a bender’s agility and evasiveness as a combative technique in outsmarting the opponent, feeling as free as the wind, whilst the spiritual facet of it practices frequent meditation aiming to achieve inner peace, tranquillity and feel in tune to the rest of the world.What I have just outlined is a fraction of how the worldbuilding elements within Avatar overlap with one another, like how each classical element influences the identities and inner workings of each different nation.I haven’t even touched on the sub-forms of each bending style, how they are used by each different character and what it says about them, how the non-bending characters of Avatar still get to kick ass, or the spirit world and the mysterious mysticism behind it (which The Legend of Korra kind of tarnished).The greatest success of Avatar’s worldbuilding, in my opinion, is the details.They are important because they can have an impact both on the characters and their development as well as the larger plot arc or episodic narrative of a self-contained story.Where it gets even better is how the details add layers to the characters in the show and the world of Avatar.I’ll give you one more example. Take the Avatar State.When we first see it in The Avatar Returns, it is simply Aang gaining a massive power increase to save him from drowning. When we see it again in the subsequent episode of The Southern Air Temple, Katara notes that Aang’s ‘Avatar Spirit’ must have been triggered when he found Monk Gyatso’s skeleton amidst a group of decomposed Fire Nation soldiers.This is our first layer. Our next layer comes in the Book Two premiere, The Avatar State.After Aang is pushed by General Fong to trigger it, Avatar Roku appears to Aang and explains the exact mechanics of what the Avatar State actually means:“The Avatar State is a defence mechanism, designed to empower you with the skills and knowledge of all the past Avatars. The glow is the combination of all your past lives, focusing their energy through your body. In the Avatar State, you are at your most powerful, but you are also at your most vulnerable. If you are killed in the Avatar State, the reincarnation cycle will be broken, and the Avatar will cease to exist.”This also adds another layer to the nature of the Avatar Cycle; how the Avatar is reincarnated into the successive nation every time they die, but can be irreparably killed should they be fatally wounded whilst using the Avatar State.Oh, and what do you know? In the Book Two finale The Crossroads of Destiny, this detail is addressed when Aang is forced to trigger the Avatar State to defend himself and Katara, but is fatally shot with lightning by Azula whilst he’s in it, causing the Avatar Spirit to fall from the plane of existence and nearly kill Aang.Thankfully, Katara uses her Spirit Water gifted to her by Pakku to revive him, which was also set up in the premiere to this season.Because of this, Aang’s chakra is blocked, disabling his access to use the Avatar State.He can still talk to his past lives, but his ability to use the State is impaired. It is only unlocked during the heat of his battle against Phoenix King Ozai, where a jagged slab of rock stabs his wound and triggers it:It also coincides with Aang finally becoming the Fully-Realised Avatar he needed to be when he masters the Avatar State for the first time, using it to bend the oceans to put out the flames of the charred forest below him.The gradual layering of what the Avatar State is and what it can do connects intrinsically to the character of Aang; him being such a fun-loving person who is afraid of having to deal with the consequences of possessing such destructively awesome power.The layers of the Avatar State connect to Aang’s arc in being able to learn to control himself and the powers he wields for the benefit of everyone.His ability to master it in the last episode proves how much he has grown from ‘The Boy in the Iceberg’ to ‘Avatar Aang’, both of which are the story titles of the first and last respective episodes.This is just one thread of a multitude of story threads and character arcs that are influenced by the world they live in, but, for argument’s sake, I’ll leave it there.Whilst The Legend of Korra does go deeper into the mythos and revisits things the previous series established, it sort of diminishes the mystery and beauty of the more primitive world in 100 AG.It also doesn’t pay attention to the minute details in the more connected world and more politically forceful atmosphere of each nation and the characters. It waters most of it down with American steam/dieselpunk aesthetics and give us weak answers to unneeded questions á la Raava and Vaatu.Four - The ThemesThis is where the children and adults benefit greatly.The Last Airbender is packed with so many thoughtful and tactful messages about life, redemption, identity, love, family, grief, friendship, teamwork and forgiveness. Some of them overt, some of them buried beneath layers of poignant dialogue and animation.In comparison, The Legend of Korra does have its own share of thematic philosophy hiding underneath the surface… but not by much. I don’t have to dig deep beyond its superficiality of “democracy good, extremism bad”.This can be most obviously traced to the ideologies of each season’s villain. They are again very shallow messages that don’t hold as much weight as the themes do in The Last Airbender.The ideologies of the villains can be summated as “Yeah, they have a point, but they take it too far, so they’re bad.”The Legend of Korra doesn’t show us a more nuanced and critical take on the extreme lengths that Amon, Unalaq, Zaheer and Kuvira’s take in order to bring about a genuine positive change for the world. I know that’s why they are painted as the villains, and they’re meant to develop Korra’s arc further as the Avatar, but I love some grey morality.Let’s unpack the biggest theme in The Last Airbender: the cycle of war.What makes The Last Airbender so good with its handling of such larger-than-life concepts like imperialism, war, genocide, governmental corruption, abuse and propaganda is that they are grounded by human experiences. We are connected to these themes by the characters that react to them.Take the most obvious example of the Fire Nation.Fire Lord Sozin’s wish to “expand his nation’s prosperity and wealth” to the rest of the world resulted in a century of warfare, with the near extinction of an entire culture. His nation’s unique advances in technology and industrialisation corrupted his moral ground.It even led to the corruption of one of the four elements, twisting fire into something devastating; a monstrous aberration of nature.War never changes. But it always changes people.Being raised in such a toxic culture surrounded by warmongers and grandiose narcissists, as well as her emotionally neglectful father who only sees her for whatever use he needs, Azula cannot socially function outside of warfare or domination.She tries to compliment Chan’s outfit in The Beach, but overenthusiastically compares it to possessing the ability to puncture the hull of a Empire-class Fire Nation battleship, leaving thousands to drown at sea.“Because… it’s so sharp.”And did I mention she’s only fourteen-years-old?A central motif of Katara’s character is the death of her mother, Kya, which she holds very personally to her heart. When she discovers from Zuko in The Southern Raiders that he can help her find the man who killed her, she is filled with such corrosive hatred that forgiveness is the furthest from her mind, despite Aang’s warnings.She is filled with so much vengeful anger that when they find the supposed commanding officer of the Southern Raiders, she bloodbends him.The last time she bloodbended was to stop Hama from fatally wounding Aang and Sokka, and she broke down in tears. Her hatred of the man who killed her mother, all of which comes back to the war, overrides her hatred of bloodbending.You want more? I’ve got some.Because of the war and its heavily destabilising effects on morale and economics, Long Feng and the Dai Li elected to keep any mention of the war within the walls of Ba Sing Se a strictly guarded secret.They reasoned that constant news of an escalating war would throw the entire city into chaos, ruining their way of life. We are connected to this abominable abuse of power, akin to totalitarianism, when Jet is brainwashed by the Dai Li into forgetting about the war.During his struggle to grasp his sense of who he is and what he’s living for, Zuko gets to travel the length of the Earth Kingdom, meeting various people like Song in The Cave of Two Lovers, who shows him the scars of firebending on her leg. They share a connection from physical abuse by the warring power.He stays with Lee and his family in Zuko Alone, learning of how Lee’s older brother is off fighting in the war, and the Earth Kingdom thugs Zuko met earlier threaten to send Lee off to the front lines when Lee flashes a knife at them. Despite Zuko being able to stop the thugs with his firebending, Lee and the villagers reject him with cries of outrage and hatred.Travelling with his uncle Iroh to Ba Sing Se as ‘refugees’ allowed the prince to gain a deeper understanding of why all the other refugees were seeking asylum inside the city’s walls. They wanted a better and safer life where the Fire Nation could not hurt their families.Zuko’s arc becomes much more layered as the theme of his exploration of his identity and what he wants from his life is called into question. Iroh says it best:“Is it your own destiny, or is it the destiny someone has tried to force on you? It’s time for you to look inward, and begin asking yourself the big questions! Who are you? And what do you want?”(Lake Laogai)Because of his banishment by his toxic father and the horrors of war extending to all corners of the world, Zuko was able to experience the true way of life beyond the Fire Nation. He was exposed to the true nature of the Fire Nation ‘sharing its greatness’ with the rest of the world.His redemptive growth into a more heroic character came around because he became disillusioned with what his country was doing to the world, which would never have happened had he had the moral conscience (something his fellow countrymen had lost) to speak out of turn.“Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilisation in history. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don’t see our greatness. They hate us! And we deserve it!”This is just one theme amongst many which highlights how The Last Airbender is able to touch the hearts of minds of both children and adults, being able to enlighten them about life’s greater hardships and triumphs.The Legend of Korra is an enjoyable show for the most part, but it lacks the complex depth of its predecessor to discover something about human beings we might not have seen before.All of this should sum up why I will always like The Last Airbender more than its sequel.Peace and Love.A short life and a merry one.