Boomstick: But somehow, these kids can master them with a vengeance.
Wiz: Like Aang, the Avatar.
Boomstick: And Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist.
As the seventh season enters its second half, it opens with a match between two spirited youths combating the corrupt governments of their world, the very elements theirs to shape as they see fit. Controlling the elements may be limited to the legacy of one's soul or the depth of their knowledge, but today, Aang and Edward Elric match their wits and might, for only one can emerge alive out of a death battle.
The first of the two combatants, the episode opens on Aang, mediator of both the mortal and spiritual planes. In the world Aang hails from, society is divided into four populaces, each able to "bend", or manipulate one of the classical elements. It is the Avatar and the Avatar alone, however, who is capable of controlling all four elements; as such, it is their responsibility for keeping peace between the numerous peoples of the world. When an Avatar passes, they are reincarnated into another body to carry on their predecessor's legacy, and Aang is a strict adherent to this rule. Aang was only twelve when the Air Nomads he lived with realized his status as Avatar, and with the rising threat of the militaristic Fire Nation, the Nomads informed Aang of his true purpose. Unsure of the duties he would have to burden and how they would upend his life, the young Avatar fled his home before being caught in a storm shortly after. Thankfully, the spiritual energies of the Avatar kept Aang in stasis for a hundred years; during this time, the Fire Nation committed genocide against the remaining Air Nomads and furthered their campaign for global supremacy. Almost a century after he fled the Air Nomad temples, the iceberg that held Aang was discovered in the southern Water Tribe. Katara and Sokka, the siblings that found Aang, helped him regain consciousness and informed him of the state of affairs at the current time. They took it upon themselves to escort Aang across the globe, master the elements of the other three nations, help him accept his role as Avatar, and thwart the Fire Nation's ambitions before their reign became absolute.
In his travels, Aang discovered he was more than worthy of inheriting the Avatar mantle. Being born to a nation rife with airbenders meant Aang had no shortage of tutors from which to refine his skill; so adept were his capabilites that he became the most proficient airbender in the Nomads' history by age ten. Through airbending, Aang can create pressurized wind currents to attack and defend with, as well as generate hurricanes for larger-scale attacks. Airbending is also versatile in terms of mobility, as the Avatar can form condensed spheres of air to ride around on or mount his winged gliding staff and manipulate air currents to emulate flying. Airbending is the spiritual talent Aang was literally born into and to call it it his forte is justified, but as the Avatar, Aang had a duty to learn the other three bending disciplines of the world. From Water Tribe masters such as Pakku and even Katara, Aang learned how to waterbend; controlling water in all its shapes and adopting a fighting style as versatile as the very element itself is at the crux of waterbending. Meanwhile, it was the rebellious sole child of the Beifong family, Toph, that taught Aang how to control the earth. Forming earthquakes and sinkholes, sensing the whereabouts of others beings through seismic vibrations in the earth, forming pillars and walls of solid stone, such are but a few examples alongside standard geokinetic projectiles as to the possibilities of earthbending. With air, water, and earth, Aang had only firebending left to master, and for a tutor, there was none more fitting than his former hunter, the disgraced Fire Nation prince Zuko. Aang learned the ways of firebending from Zuko, and with it, how to shape and redirect fire and even lightning. Ultimately, the four elements give Aang no shortage of ways to do battle, but his final ace lies whenever he calls upon Raava, the spirit of light bonded with the Avatar, to unleash the Avatar State. The Avatar State permits its user to tap into the experience, powers, and wisdom of all their previous lives, amplifying their own bending prowess to prodigious extremes as all the preceding Avatars focus their energy through the current incarnation at once. While such a menagerie of elemental powers and even the Avatar State would be enough for any Avatar, Aang was gifted the secrets of energybending through the last survivor lionturtle, the progenitor of bending and the one who gifted it to mankind; energybending allows the user to manipulate a target's spiritual energies.
Aang may have had his doubts regarding his position as Avatar, but over the course of his journey to foil the Fire Nation, these insecurities have been quashed chiefly by his showings of power. Without the Avatar state, the Air Nomad has bent stone spires weighing roughly nine and a half thousand tons, while in the Avatar State, he has demonstrated enough might to create a canyon surrounding Ba Sing Se, one of the largest cities in the Earth Kingdom. His feats of speed are just as impressive, being able to run at 67 mph and even redirect Fire Lord Ozai's own lightningbending; assuming it to have the same speed as real lightning, this puts Aang's reflexes at 155 thousand times over the speed of sound. Having said all this, it is important to note that Aang, for all his impressive achievements, still has his own shortcomings that plague him. Bar firebending, any bending practice must have some nearby supply of the corresponding element to manipulate. The Air Nomads were among the most pacifistic on the planet, and Aang follows in their ideals, thus meaning he is relatively inexperienced in the ways of combat. While Aang has some training in advanced bending techniques, the vast majority, such as waterbending-based healing or bending impurities in metal, are outside his scope. Likewise, energybending can threaten to backfire, harming if not outright destroying Aang's soul at the slightest misstep. Even the Avatar State, for all the cosmic might it wields, is and should be treated as a last resort for a vital reason; to kill a State-active Avatar is to destroy the cycle of reincarnation for all time. For the good of the world, Aang persevered, coming close to but never being felled by these weaknesses in his self. As a result, he was able to defeat Ozai, quell the Fire Nation's desires for global conquest, and usher in a worldwide era of peace; and when the time came for Aang to succumb to his own mortality, he was reborn into another Avatar, once again ready to carry on the duties of his life and those who came before him.
From Aang, the focus of the episode moves on to Edward Elric, one of the many alchemists from the nation of Amestris. Alchemy, the metaphysical art of reshaping matter's molecular structure, requires drawing upon natural energy around them and a transmutation circle as a conduit to channel that energy; for the Elric brothers Edward and Alphonse, it is through alchemy that their lives would be drastically and irrevocably and set to the course they were. When their mother Trisha proved to be one of the innumerable victims of an outbreak spreading across Amestris, the brothers sought alchemy as a means to return her to the land of the living. Resurrecting the dead, sadly, is one of the few feats alchemy is entirely incapable of performing. The ensuing cataclym as their transmutation circle backfired on them resulted in Edward losing his left leg and Alphonse his entire body. Before he lost his brother as well, Edward also sacrificed his right arm in exchange for containing his brother's soul within a suit of plate armor. As the siblings recovered from their wounds, they caught wind of an artifact christened a philosopher's stone, said to bypass the standard limitations of alchemy. Ed received a set of prosthetic limbs and joined the state army of Amestris as a chief alchemist to begin searching for the philosopher's stone in the hopes that he and Alphonse could return to fully human bodies.
The journey across Amestris that awaited Ed would prove to be a long and perilous one, but the state alchemist was well-prepared as far back as the fateful night he dabbled in the darker side of alchemy. The three-step process behind alchemy is understanding the molecular structure of a given subject, breaking it down into a more easily manipulated form, and reassembling it into whatever the user wishes; more simply, the stages of alchemy are respectively known as comprehension, deconstruction, and reconstruction. With his own intelligence, prior experience in alchemy, and the additional knowledge from passing through the Gate, Ed is capable of utilizing alchemy and constructing anything he can fathom through it. Swords, spears, cannons, only a few of the possible armaments Ed can supply himself with through alchemy. His practices can even be used for more defensive measures; for example, disarming a foe by reconstructing a held shotgun into a trumpet. The transmutation circle from his and Alphonse's failed attempt to rescue their mother brought them to the Gate, said to be the entryway to God's own domain. This trip into the Gate may have cost Ed his leg, but in turn, it granted him otherworldly knowledge of alchemy, to such an extent that Ed no longer needs to design a transmutation circle for his craft. Instead, merely pressing his palms together serves as enough of a conduit through which he can reshape matter. Because of this unique facet of Ed's alchemy, he is able to instantaneously utilize his alchemy, changing the matter of objects around him at a moment's notice. Ed is so talented with alchemy, that he has in fact weaponized the deconstruction stage of the alchemical process, and can utilize it on organic beings to destroy their internal organs and kill them instantly. Meanwhile, the automail which serves as Ed's prosthetics are made of high-quality metals such as chrome and aluminum-carbon alloy. In addition to being just a mobile as a flesh and blood limb, Ed's automail arm doubles as a blank canvas from which he can shape a number of blades and shields, if not directly hardening its molecular structure.
Alchemy is the centerpiece upon which Ed's skillset rests, and for good reason. With as versatile an array of powers as the older Elric brother has demonstrated, there are a number of feats that verify his talent with the craft is talent indeed. Ed is capable of summoning golems so large that their punches carry over three thousand tons of force behind them, and his speed permits him to dodge point-blank gunfire. His durability is of a similar level, given his history of facing chimera attacks and numerous explosions powerful enough to level buildings and being none the worse for wear afterward. The state alchemist of Amestris is one of the most talented in its history, but just alchemy follows a specific set of rules, Edward follows that most vital rule of any respectable hero, to have his own share of flaws. One of the key tenets that alchemy adheres to is the principle of Equivalent Exchange: in order to create anything through alchemy, something of equal value must be sacrificed. In addition, equivalent exchange prohibits drastically changing the makeup of a material between the deconstruction and reconstruction stages, such as turning solid metals into water. These laws that are founded by equivalent exchange are rules that not even Edward with all his skill and wisdom with alchemy can bend. While Ed can channel his own life energy to generate effects similar to a philosopher's stone, doing so whittles away at his own lifespan. On a more humorous note, Ed has a notoriously severe inferiority complex regarding his short stature; any comment with even the faintest resemblance of mockery will result in Ed's uncontrolled and unmitigated fury. Insecurity about his height aside, Edward manages to make do even when faced with the laws of alchemy he still remains bound to and the truths behind the makings of philosopher's stones. Ultimately, Ed gave up his prowess with alchemy to restore his brother's body; an ending both well-earned and poetic as a quest that began with the misuse of alchemy and ended by forsaking its practices.
Two youthful prodigies, talented in the ways of the elements, have been introduced, analyzed, and are finally clear to engage. One advertisement for the Blue Apron cooking service later, and now, it's time for a death battle!
Ba Sing Se, capital of the Earth Kingdom. A quiet marketplace in the middle of day is abandoned save for Avatar Aang of the Air Nomads and Momo, his winged pet lemur. The jovial atmosphere between the two bears witness to Aang accidentally launching the lemur into a stall carrying ceramic busts; the Avatar playful ribbing Momo for his diminuitive size, however, marks an unexpected turn. From underneath the stall lies Edward Elric, the crown jewel of Amestris' state alchemists. Faced with Edward's enraged hollering, Aang sheepishly attempts to save face, but to no avail, as the Elric brother lunges towards Aang...
FIGHT!
... and grabs hold of a stray bust before transmuting it into a massive kanabo. Aang parries every swing of the cudgel with his trusty gliding staff. Momo departs from the battleground as Aang scores the first clean hits of the fight, disarming Ed of the club and knocking him into an adjacent stall. The alchemist soon recovers, and with a flash of lightning accompanied his compressed palms, he shifts his automail arm into a double-edged blade. Ed lunges at Aang again, but once more, every swipe of his bladed arm yields no result; the nimble Air Nomad merely swerves around his every move. Vaulting backwards, Aang pushes his own offensive by using earthbending to send the remaining busts towards Ed. Each bust fails to hit the Amestrian before he creates a series of impromptu blockades around him. Stones from the wall behind him jut out to smash the busts into rubble while the ground in front of Ed erupt into a wall of spikes. Aang leaps further away still, landing on the tip of a nearby fountain. Waterbending becomes the plan of attack as the Avatar directs the fountain water into a cascading river headed directly towards Ed. The Elric teen clasps his hands together in response to transmute the stall next to him into a pipe, rerouting the stream back to its sender. Right before impacting him, Aang bends the water into a thick haze that blankets the marketplace.
Surrounded on all sides by mist, Aang attempts to console his new foe by citing the virtues of a short height. His efforts fall on deaf ears if Ed's continued shouting is any indication. The noise the pint-sized alchemist produces, however, gives Aang a clear indication as to Ed's position. Indeed, Aang can spot Elric's silhouette through the misty fog, standing perfectly still. The Avatar reacts by kicking a fireball at the Amestrian's position, and it seems to knock his head clean off on impact, to Aang's mortification. Any horror the Air Nomad may have had upon decapitating his foe soon dissipates as the stone ball jarred loose from the fire rolls to a halt in front of Aang. The mist clears, and Ed, standing behind Aang this whole time, lauds himself for the successful diversion. Aang is still too far caught in shock to react to Ed trapping him inside a stone cage. Closing the distance, the Elric brother primes an arm with the energy of alchemy, but the Air Nomad breaks free from the cage right before Ed can unleash the destruction alchemy upon him. Ed's frustration at this setback is only fleeting as he soon spots Aang hovering in the skies above atop a sphere of air. Regaining his composure, the Amestrian primes his alchemy on the stones beneath him and Aang is taken aback once again at the cannon Ed now stands atop.
An enormous cannonball blasts from out Ed's improvised artillery, but Aang centers himself in its trajectory before unleashing an inferno at the cannonball. The sheer heat exuded from Aang's firebending burns a hole in the cannonball large enough for him to soar through. Although this display of power proves more surprising to Ed, he hardens his focus in time to watch Aang press the attack. The alchemist backs away from both the Avatar's airbending and firebending before transmuting his automail arm into another sword and vaulting from a erupting spire to face Aang. This second exchange of weapons has a similar result as the first, that of Aang swatting away all of Ed's attempts to confront him and sending him into the jagged stone. As Ed primes his destruction alchemy, Aang stomps on the ground, forming an extension to the rocks behind Ed that trap the alchemist in place. The stones that grip Ed's automail arm in place shift downward, snapping the alchemist's prosthetic in half. The Amestrian tumbles down in agony, but reflexively, he balances himself using his other arm, inadvertently sending destruction alchemy through the cannon. Aang can only react in horror before the cannon shatters, sending fragmentation everywhere, including the wagon of an unfortunate cabbage salesman. The two youthful heroes, however, are sent skyward, staring each other down until they reach terra firma.
The battleground, enveloped this time by a thick blanket of dust, hinders their field of vision, but Aang, his expression that of stern determination, closes his eyes and waits. The faint vibrations of a finger running along the cobblestone street are picked up by the Avatar's seismic sense, and Aang rushes to his location. With the dust buying him time, Ed has prepared a full transmutation circle and presses his remaining hand against its edge. Aang's approach is stopped by a plethora of stone pillars surrounding him from all sides. The columns plummet downward and Aang can only dodge them for a brief while before being smothered by their numbers. One dangling half of his glider staff, broken from the assault, snaps off and tumbles towards the kneeling Edward. Brief satisfaction is what Ed indulges in before an all-consuming light seeps through the gaps in the collapsed pillars. Bursting free from the pile, Aang rises into the air, surrounded by a cyclone of wind as his eyes and tattoo shine brilliantly. The Avatar State has been awoken. The remains of Ed's stone cannon, a stream of fire, and what little water remains from the fountain joins the barrier as Aang surrounds himself and Ed in a final dust storm. Within the center, the alchemist resists the pull of the gale force winds around him. The Avatar, meanwhile, shows no difficulty in sending a combined attack of all four elements through the air and directly towards Ed. Ed tries to find some solace in Aang being shorter than him, but that comfort can only go so far as Aang's attack reaches its target, culminating in a tremendous explosion that clears the skies around the market. Ed's body has been entirely obliterated, justified by the vindictive tone of Aang and all the Avatars before him that his temper ultimately led to his defeat.
K.O.!
In the aftermath of the fight, the elements, these being in the metaphorical, are laid out as to explain Aang's victory. Ed was a quick thinker with unique strategies being one of his specialties, and if only on a technicality, he also had more combat experience than Aang. However, those were his only real advantages. Aang's own elemental abilities were more versatile and required less preparation time than even Ed's hand-clasping alchemy. While the alchemist could produce cannons, Aang has reacted to lightning, which is far faster than Ed's cannons and even the pistol fire Ed himself has been shown to dodge. Ed withstood a blast that leveled a ten-story building. Comparing the size of the building to the resulting crater, the explosion is measured at being 30 kilotons, which, while a respectable feat on its own merits, pales in comparison to Aang forming a canyon around the Earth Kingdom city of Yu Dao in the Avatar State. Measuring the size of the crater and the city surrounding it, there would be nearly 160 kilotons of energy put into its creation, a touch over five times greater than Ed's known durability limits. Theoretically, Ed could use his own soul as a philosopher's stone to reach this level of strength, as other alchemists have been shown to do. However, this would cut Ed's lifespan and last too short to level the playing field; compounding matters is that a philosopher's stone relies on numerous souls for its power, hinting that it's highly likely even utilizing his soul in such a manner wouldn't even give Ed the same sort of power boost as a normal philosopher's stone. The Avatar State was the true clincher in this fight, as it lacked such life-threatening properties and with it, Aang could tap into the skills and wisdom of previous Avatars, many of whom have survived volcanic eruptions that dwarf Ed's durability further, and his own combat experience would be no match for the millennia of combined lives and the battles the past Avatars have gone through. Even Aang's own pacifism would prove a non-issue in the fight, as by relieving him of his hesitation for violence and killing, there would be nothing stopping him from unleashing the full might of the Avatar. In short, both manipulators of the elements had plenty to offer, but Ed's creativity and wits could only take him so far.
Wiz: The winner is Avatar Aang!
Aang vs. Edward Elric contains examples of:
- The Cameo: The cabbage merchant whose wares kept getting destroyed in The Last Airbender has a brief appearance in the fight. As expected, his wares are destroyed as collateral damage from Ed's cannon exploding."No! My cabbages!
- Composite Character: For the most part, Ed's bio gives priority to the original manga; however, feats and abilities from the 2003 anime are included within reason (that is, nothing that contradicts the original manga or its Brotherhood adaptation).
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Another infamous one where people predicted Aang would win even before the battle started! Aang was clearly on a different level than Ed thanks to his versatile bending moves and more experience thanks to the past Avatars. And the Avatar State itself turns him into a Physical God capable of curb-stomping the Fire Lord himself where Ed had nothing to even compare to that. Even the fight animation reflected this: Aang was clearly in control of the entire fight, either dodging or blocking Ed's attacks while also trading blows with him before annihilating him in his Avatar State.
- Magic Versus Science: Representing magic is Aang, born to a line of reincarnated mystics that bonded with a light spirit and controls the classical elements through Supernatural Martial Arts. For science, we have Ed, whose series treats alchemy as a scientific process with specific rules, results, and limitations in order to manipulate the chemical elements. Thanks to having better showings and an ace in the form of the Avatar State, this round goes to magic.
- Mythology Gag:
- Like with Samurai Jack and Ben 10, several portions of the Opening Monologue from The Last Airbender are quoted during Aang's analysis.
- This isn't the first time someone who can control earth provokes Aang into unleashing the Avatar State and pays the price: one-off antagonist General Fong did so in the episode The Avatar State before being knocked unconscious trying to weaponize it.
- There's a handful of scenes in the fight featuring a poster of Aang's flying bison Appa; these resemble the missing posters put up around Ba Sing Se when he's kidnapped for most of book two.
- Noodle Incident: Whatever the hell Boomstick ever drank that could be worse than presumably several dozen glow sticks, he doesn't clarify.
- Shout-Out: Boomstick briefly assumes that Fuhrer King Bradley is the Fuhrer. Namely, the Downfall portrayal, memetic ranting and all.
- Super Mode: Both of them have one, each utilizing the soul in some way.
- Aang has the Avatar State, where he taps into the power and skills of all previous Avatars in the cycle of reincarnation to unleash god-like feats of bending.
- Ed is the more unconventional, where he sacrifices some of his very soul in order to amplify his alchemy under the same principles of a Philosopher's Stone, which uses the harvested souls of living beings as fuel.
- A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Ed's infamous Berserk Button acts as the catalyst for the match, as him taking Aang's comments about being short personally is what gets him itching for a fight and ultimately killed.
