King Bumi - Blog Posts
You know what? Fuck you.
Terrible White Lotus sketches be upon ye'.
From the memebenders discord, brought to you by our Melon Lord @neuronary
The amount of times I said something along the lines of "They would not fucking do/say that!" while watching the live action atla series is insane. It felt so weird to watch because the acting was pretty fantastic and the set design/costumes weren't bad for the most part either, but the writing and direction itself was painfully bad.
I think King Bumi is probably one of the worst offenders of being written completely ass backwards, which is a shame because the guy portraying him did a great job and I think he would have made a fantastic Bumi if the writing was better.
It feels like they missed the entire point of his character. They took his goofy/slightly mad front from the original show and dialled it up to 11 all the while completely ignoring all the nuance behind that front.
Bumi isn't just the mad king they portray him as in the live action, he's a mad genius. Despite his quirks, he's a fucking fantastic fighter and a brilliant ruler. Despite what you may believe from first impressions, it really does feel like he always knows what he's doing.
Even when he's being antagonistic towards the gang in the show, he's never actually putting them in significant danger. The crystals he trapped Katara and Sokka in were ultimately harmless and all the trials he gives Aang were more akin to games than anything. Even when he fights Aang in his episode he's very clearly not giving it his all, as seen when he single handily takes back his city from the fire nation during the eclipse and when he takes back Ba Sing Se with a small group during Sozins comet, when the opposing forces would have been at their most powerful. My point is that if he actually wanted to beat book 1 Aang, he could wipe the floor with him easily. But this version is fucking furious with Aang (wrongfully so this time around because he explicitly did not run away from his duties in the live action) And very much seems like he wants to cause Aang as much pain as possible, but can barely manage to land a hit on him when he's not pulling cheap tricks with the crystals.
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I'm getting very side tracked but god damn it! This is the man Aang eventually decides to name one of his children after. Their friendship was so sweet and meaningful in the original. Bumi was such an interesting character in the original! And all of that meaning is lost here.
Ironically in an attempt to make Bumi's arc more dramatic and dark, they ended up making it significantly less interesting, along with also missing major parts of his character.
I get that being frozen for 100 years is a tough thing to go through but honestly Aang should have used it for comedy more
The White Lotus Group Chat
Pakku: (post picture of him and gran gran)
Bumi: Ohhhhh!! SoMEONe just got hitched! 🤪
Jeong Jeong: I wish you joy. Love is so rare and difficult to find, protect, and cultivate.
Iroh: What a blooming bride! 😊
Piandao:
Piandao: I think your new grandson just showed up at my house for sword training
Piandao: he doesn't know shit
Best Benders?
Um okay um. Saying it, no order because I can't make up my mind in terms of raw power or skill.
Airbenders: Aang, Yangchen, Kelsang, Gyatso, Tenzin and probably Jinora due to spirituality. Honorary mention to Zaheer (I still don't think he could have beat any of those in a fair fight except 11yo Jinora) and maybe Kai for being the best of the new Air Nation. Maybe Korra too, EoS Korra was a pretty good Airbender and among the best in LoK, but nowhere near the level of Kelsang is what I mean.
Earthbenders: Toph, King Bumi, Yun, Kyoshi and Jianzhu. Honorary mentions to Ghazan and Bolin because lavabending is cool and for Su, Lin and Kuvira who are great too (I still don't think they could beat any of the others I mentioned though).
Waterbenders: Noatak/Amon, Yakone, Pakku, Tarrlok, Katara, Korra, Kuruk, Unalaq, Ming-Hua-- btw can anyone explain why the waterbenders in LoK were all so fucking OP. Honorary mentions to people like Tonraq who are pretty good. Oh and Yue, I guess-- with the whole moon spirit thing.
Firebenders: Ran and Shaw. Okay, now seriously. Ozai, Iroh, Sozin, Jeong Jeong, Azula and probably Hei-Ran and potentially Adult Zuko. If we speak about potential, Azula is probably the strongest Firebender in the franchise, but she was 14 years old and I don't think she could have beat someone like Ozai or Iroh —much older and more experienced— even being a prodigy. Honorary mentions to Combustion Man and P'li (because boom, but tbh we didn't see that much of their bending skills), Show Zuko, Rangi, Mako and Korra because tbh they were all very good, too. Xu Ping An too, I guess. Zhao has good raw power too but that guy sucked at everything else.