Obviously lots of these to The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, being in the same universe.
- The Yellow Necks that are brought up more than once are akin (or at least inspired by) to the Yellow Turbans of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
- Guru Shoken's proverb, "If you meet the spirit of enlightenment on the road, slay it!", is based on Linji Yixuan's koan, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."
- The Kang Shen acolytes, who believed their spiritual practices made them immune to bending, are reminiscent of the Chinese Boxers of the Boxer Rebellion who believed their practices made them Immune to Bullets.
- The Flying Opera Company have mastered dust-stepping (or in Kirima's case mist-stepping) which is akin to running on air, and which they likely developed from watching Jesa's airbending. This is very akin to the qinggong and Roof Hopping found in Wuxia literature and films.
- At one point Jianzhu brings up a Fire Nation proverb to Hei-Ran: "All warfare is based on deception". This is taken directly from The Art of War (Sun Tzu).
