Iroh as of the end of Book Three: Fire, Yun as of The Shadow of Kyoshi
Win by any means
Basic knowledge; Iroh knows Yun is an earthbending assassin, Yun knows Iroh is a general from the Fire Nation Royal Family, as well as knowledge of the location
In character
Start 50 ft apart
Fight in Republic City
This is a CaV, only Viking and I will be participating in this debate and you can only vote, which you may only do after we have both finished openers, counters and finishers.
Iroh was the son of Firelord Azulon and general of the Fire Nation Army before he lost his son to war and resigned his position. He trained his nephew, Zuko, during his exile searching for the Avatar.
Yun and Iroh are masters of different elements; Yun of earth, Iroh of fire. Both among the best that ever wielded the power these elements bestow. I hold Iroh on a higher pedestal than Yun, however, and would like to prove why with this debate.
Physical Ability
Firebenders specialize in using the physical aspect of bending and fighting others in close quarters, and Iroh's physical capability is superior to Yun's own by a notable amount. The closer the fight gets to Yun, the better odds get for Iroh.
Book 1: Water, Episode 7
Iroh shattered large, earthbent boulders with a metal chain and even threw one against it's own momentum created by two earthbenders working together in tandem, shattering it, too. He did this so fast that the earthbenders couldn't even react.
Book 2: Earth, Episode 1
There a couple of ways to interpret this feat. Based on what I can see, Iroh intercepted Azula's lightning bolt as it was beginning, redirected it, and before Azula could do anything about it, turned around, put her in a vulnerable position with a twist of the wrist, and kicked her multiple meters through the air off a boat. This is also a decent feat of skill.
Book 1: Water, Episode 3
More clearly, Iroh intercepted a fire blast before it could travel practically any distance, despite being a great distance from the other firebenders, then caught a navy admiral's kick and effortlessly shoved a grown man several meters away with a casual flick of the wrist.
Book 2: Earth, Episode 8
Iroh was only somewhat sore from a warning, surprise attack from Toph Beifong, a comparable (if not superior) earthbender to Yun, that sent up a massive dust cloud.
Book 2: Earth, Episode 20
Iroh practically ignored Dai Li agent stone gloves shattering against his shoulder and kneecap, then smashed a glove between his hands.
Now we know that Iroh was a strong, fast, and tough dude, one who would actually destroy the likes of Yun in hand to hand combat. But that was the Iroh who was in the first two books of The Last Airbender. In Book 3, he trained himself physically until this was his before-and-after picture:
We don't have exact figures on how much better Iroh got, but we know he escaped from his cell during the Day of Black Sun and there were no scorch marks, and he waited for that specific day, plus he had guards watching to make sure he didn't firebend himself out (which physical training shouldn't have helped much,) so it seems likely he broke the metal bars of his prison with physical strength. If there's solid proof Iroh did use firebending I'd like to see it, but this seems like a natural progression from the inhuman feats he was performing as a fat man anyway. There's absolutely no reason Iroh would have gotten slower or softer, if any change happened he'd just be better in both categories.
Firebending
Overall Mastery
Iroh's firebending mastery is of incredible note. When Aang disappeared, Iroh was the only other option Zuko could think of for beating Ozai. While this did have part to do with Iroh's unique lightning redirection ability he taught Zuko, it wouldn't be possible for Iroh to be considered as the candidate for beating Ozai if he himself wasn't close to his brother in vanilla firebending skill, especially since Ozai is directly stated to as the most powerful firebender on the planet. This makes sense when considering not only the physical abilities of the brothers but Iroh's personal command of the element of power, a mastery second to none.
Iroh learned from the dragons Ran and Shaw as well as took the philosophy of the Sun Warriors, who taught firebending in a starkly different way to the firebenders in the main Fire Nation, as life-giving energy rather than destruction. In the little Iroh showed us, he bent pure heat, bent flames out of the ground with negligible motion (that he then compressed into a ball of flame he used as a beam,) breathed fire in combat with enough force to blast through a wall, generated lightning rapidly and invented the redirection of lightning through his understanding of waterbending philosophy. On top of all these things, Iroh should also be capable of everything Zuko showed given that Zuko learned firebending from the basics up directly from him, and Zuko has shown techniques such as flame whips, fire jets (2), fire shields and flaming punches.
This total mastery of fire is among the best we've seen of anyone's mastery of an element. While "earth is Yun's element," he hasn't shown Iroh's level of command over his element. He died young, many generations before metalbending was discovered and he couldn't lavabend, the two greatest techniques of earthbending. Iroh not only knew the greatest technique of fire, lightningbending, he innovated it, crafting one half of the technique all on his own. For the liquid earth that Yun can bend, Iroh can bend fire from the ground. For the spouts Yun can ride on, Iroh can rise on jets of flame. Iroh can do things more impressive, unique and esoteric than Yun can.
Combat Skill
Iroh rarely fights and the few fights he had were mostly against fodder. In contrast to Yun's big climax brawl with Kyoshi's team, it would seem that Yun is at quite the advantage. But I think it's important to look at a few things, and for this section I want to start off by looking at Yun rather than Iroh.
Yun's fight began with just Avatar Kyoshi, who on her own would just barely make it in the top 10 of Aang or Korra's era, if at all. Later, Kyoshi got help from Rangi and the Flying Opera Company. Rangi is around Zuko's level, admittedly, but the other three? One didn't fight at all, Jinpa, and the other two, Kirima and Wong, weren't even remotely impressive. The greatest threat was Kyoshi, an earthbender directly inferior to Yun, and besides that Kyoshi's elements weren't even close to the same tier of impressiveness as Yun's earthbending. Rangi's firebending was more comparable to what we've seen from Iroh's pupil, albeit more powerful in at least one feat performed during that battle.
I'm not saying that Yun's showing is unimpressive, but it's not the big, unbeatable showing that it gets hyped up to be by many.
Moving on to Iroh, there's only two things that give us a true sense of his combat ability. The first is his fight in the Crystal Catacombs, where he held off a small army of Dai Li from advancing:
The Dai Li, in the same episode, were so impressive that just two of them curbstomped Zuko, who was then shown as impressive enough to hold his own against Katara. While Katara would handle the Dai Li much better thanks to elemental and stylistic difference, it's important to note that not only did Zuko have to face Katara through an elemental disadvantage, he shares the exact same element with Iroh, so Iroh directly, if predictably, outperformed Zuko by miles against a superior threat of the same ilk. Not one of the roughly 56 Dai Li earthbending masters could make it through Iroh to touch Katara and Aang.
The other, as mentioned, was the statement that Iroh could beat Ozai. No other character, not Toph or Katara, not pre-EoS Aang, not even someone like a White Lotus master was ever considered by anyone else as capable of defeating Ozai; only Iroh.
Notice that Iroh did not rule out this possibility, even if he wasn't sure of himself. I can examine the fight between Ozai and Aang from a skill perspective to show why this is so incredibly impressive, if it wasn't already obvious. Azula said herself that she couldn't beat her father, and Azula is one of the best firebenders and combatants in the series, plus until Aang mastered the Avatar State and/or all four elements (including lightning redirection,) he wasn't going to beat Ozai. Again, this wasn't purely a product of lightning redirection; Ozai only used lightning a few times, all in quick succession, against Aang during their duel, but started the fight off and ended it using primarily firebending, so it's not in character for Ozai to use lightningbending early. All in all, Iroh's ability to duel his brother in at least a close match speaks volumes to Iroh's overall firebending ability, which is consistent with the unmatched versatility he has, as shown in the "Overall Mastery" section. Note that Ozai got this statement:
During Sozin's Comet, of course, but this still means that a Comet boosted Ozai vs a Comet boosted Zuko, a Comet Aang, Toph and Katara would be a close match. Well what do you know; a powerful master bender fighting four benders, including an Avatar, a firebender, and two relatively weak earth and waterbenders. While this can't be perfectly compared to Yun, I still think it speaks to Ozai's power, as scaling this down, Ozai could still have a close fight with Aang, Zuko and two weak earth/waterbenders, but considering Aang's vast superiority over Kyoshi and that Ozai's best technique is directly countered by Aang and Zuko, I would honestly say that this is more impressive conceptually than what Yun did. And Iroh might be able to beat this man.
Now that we've established Iroh's own high standing in combat while also prematurely addressing Yun's greatest combat showing, I want to end by briefly discussing the dynamic of a fight between an earthbender and a firebender. And fortunately, Yun gives us an idea himself in his fight with the Company, where he maintained an advantage primarily when he used the environment to his advantage but wasn't quite so well off when he tried to defend against some of their stronger attacks, one of which Yun allowed Rangi to charge for several seconds. This cockiness doesn't speak well for Yun when charging attacks allows Iroh to create attacks like this:
Of course, Iroh doesn't need such time to charge, considering he can create lightning on the fly, but it certainly doesn't hurt if Iroh gets to charge it a little bit, even if not as long as the bolt above. Lightning, of course, is far stronger and faster than the fireball that Rangi used to blast through Yun's defenses like they weren't even there, so it could spell doom for Yun if he acts in character in an in character match. And it's not like Iroh's regular attacks wouldn't pressure Yun into defense and evasion, which Iroh will be getting more of into the fight with his superior speed. No matter what, though, there's little Yun can do against lightningbending of Iroh's calibre.
Conclusion
I think this is enough for an opener. Just to recap my thoughts on the match so far:
Iroh is physically ahead of Yun by a notable degree
Iroh's mastery of fire is greater than Yun's mastery of earth
Yun's fight with the Flying Opera Company isn't quite as impressive as its seen by some
Iroh is a master combatant in his own right from what we've seen and heard
Yun's character may interfere with his chances of winning this match
Lightningbending is an advantage that Yun has little answer for
Excited to see what you bring to the table, Viking!
Before you read the post, just wanted to say, for some reason, uploading scans in CV and attaching them as links doesn't work, so I've used the spoiler blocks to post multiple successive feats so that reading would be better.
Biography:
Yun, an earthbender that hails from the village of Makapu, was falsely identified as the successor of Avatar Kuruk, is among the greatest earthbenders to have graced the avatar world. He was known for his smart tactical prowess along with his talent in earthbending -- two talents he had in common with the previous avatar, which led to Jianzhu assuming Yun was the apparent successor.
He is up against General Iroh, someone I view to be among the three finest firebenders in history, but lets get on with why I believe Yun would beat the grand lotus in a battle.
Under Jianzhu’s orders, Yun was a trained assassin and with every subject excluding firebending, Yun became quite skilled in it.
He managed to infiltrate the Royal Palace’s security during a yearly festival, without anyone’s notice.
He assassinated Lu Beifong during the same festival sneaking up into his room, Lu Beifong was higher up the earthbending hierarchy than Jianzhu and I’ll post some of what Jianzhu is capable of when I use him for some scaling.
Managed to escape a fire nation encirclement after defiling the palace.
1. Hei Ran describing Yun's training to become a skilled assassin.
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The Ritual - The Shadow of Kyoshi
2. Yun holding Lu Beifong's body and statement placing Lu over Jianzhu
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The Crash - The Shadow of Kyoshi, The Test - The Rise of Kyoshi
3. Kyoshi, Hei Ran and Rangi conversing about Yun escaping a full-scale lockdown in the Caldera city.
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Aftermath, The Ritual - The Shadow of Kyoshi
Yun is as much efficient in the arts of stealth as he is in a direct bending fight. With Republic City offering so much cover in it’s buildings, has his options of winning a fight that are not just limited to a direct duel, similar to how he fought Kyoshi in her mansion before Kyoshi’s friends showed up -- Hiding in the rooms in the building so that Kyoshi couldn’t see where he was, while he could comfortably make his moves.
Home Again - The Shadow of Kyoshi
Further to this, we know how stealthy the Dai Li are, capable of evading Toph’s seismic sense in DoBS, a group of earthbenders that were trained in stealth and precision by Kyoshi herself and the companions of Kuruk had trained with one another, practicing perfection, which Jianzhu ensured Yun had.
Avatar Kyoshi - Escape from the Spirit World, Part - 3
Before we get into this section, I just thought it'd be better to know Yun's bending style, so that it'd be easier for everyone to visualize it. I'm copying and pasting two sections from this blog. Not that it would have a great effect in the debate, if you feel, you disagree or it isn't needed, then sure, I don't mind. It was only for the hand gestures and movement similarities.
Yun:
The most well known practitioner of this style was the False Avatar, Yun himself. He has achieved finesse over earthbending that would possibly rival the likes of the Blind Bandit, the Mad Genius and possibly, Avatar Kyoshi, during his later years. This was on full display during his final battle against the avatar and her friends. Although he hadn’t displayed the firebending simulation he did during his training days, Yun made earth flow like a liquid all through the struggle, which even made Kyoshi consider the possibility of him being able to bend two elements.
Despite not having seen Avatar Kyoshi in her physical prime, the glimpses we got during her later avatarhood, around the time she had to train the Dai Li for the Earth King.
Earth kingdom was hit with a peasant revolution, to which Kyoshi’s proposed solution as a part of a deal was to train an elite force of earthbenders – The Dai Li. The Dai Li are amongst the elite police forces in all of avatar and could rival the technologically aided threat that Amon and Kuvira had at their disposal. Most of what made the Dai Li so feared was their lethal and precise modes of operation, as mentioned by Kyoshi herself when she trained them.
Avatar: The Last Airbender - Escape from the spirit world - Avatar Kyoshi
It’s not a coincidence that these elements are directly taken out of the gravedigger’s book. Jianzhu even received the name 'Architect' for his precision, which was in full display when he killed his friend Kelsang, by precisely navigating a shard of earth through the airbender's wind.
The Rise of Kyoshi - The Spirit
Even beyond the stress on precision, their bending movements mirrors that of Yun. The most striking example of that was shown in the show, during the Day of Black Sun, when the Dai Li were protecting Azula. In all the showings in the collage below, the agents' stances are low and wide compared to the Southern Praying Mantis style of Toph and Aang, while their hands are far looser relatively, in line with Jianzhu's style of bending.
The Shadow of Kyoshi - Home Again/Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book 3 Eclipse
It isn’t a coincidence that their trainer has lived during the era of the man that invented the style, Avatar Kyoshi herself. Precision was something she had greatly struggled in her earlier years and had to resort to using metal fans to augment her in that aspect, to the point where she could precisely catch a tiny earth bullet shot.
The Rise of Kyoshi - Return
From the small tidbits we've known from Kyoshi's later life when she trained the Dai Li, she seems to have mastered Jianzhu's style based on:
The Dai Li's expertise in methods that Jianzhu specialized coupled with the fact that Kyoshi trained them.
Kyoshi's take down of the earth kingdom guards involved Yun's trademark earth pulse.
Avatar: The Last Airbender - Escape from the Spirit World - Avatar Kyoshi
As mentioned earlier Yun excels in the art of earthbending to the point where he was falsely identified and his precision was directly compared to the previous avatar, a fully realized version at that. Jianzhu describes that Yun is amongst strongest earthbenders of his generation and remarked that he is always in connection with earth -- he is referring to Yun’s seismic sense here, which he has shown numerous times across the two novels. Yun has earthbent across huge range in the novels, including
Uprooting every tree in swamp by washing away the top soil -- The location was described as a dead swamp since all the water was washed away, but that was mostly due to his rage, whereas Yun had himself uprooted the top soil when he incapacitated Father Glowworm.Yun had turned the soil of the Royal Palace into quick sand, sinking every single Fire National in it, to their knees.
Lastly, he had demolished the avatar Mansion in Yokoya, during his final battle with Kyoshi and her companions -- Some descriptions and comparisons of the avatar Mansion annihilated with other buildings in the same estate and rest of Yokoya are attached here. The Townhall of Kyoshi Island is twice the size of each building on either side of the village and the novels' description of the estate, each gatehouse in the avatar estate is larger than the meeting hall of Yokoya.
Beyond all this, he is a stronger earthbender than Jianzhu and Kyoshi, by Kyoshi’s own admission and her getting overpowered in a direct tussle while he tried to kill Hei Ran.
Jianzhu’s highest display of earthbending was during the battle with the Fifth Nation pirates when he managed to create a bridge using graystone floor, condense the rocks strong enough to break through a squadron of ships, through free fall.
Kyoshi herself has fractured a cliff while trying to interrogate Chaejin to get information about Yun’s whereabouts -- this feat is something replicated only by two other earthbenders, Toph Beifong and King Bumi during their friendly tussle -- while Kyoshi was directly overpowered by Yun, in an earthbending battle. Another display of his earthbending superiority over her was when he dusted off and walked through her attempt to incapacitate him -- I have attached the description of the location and matched it with what we got from ATLA, so from the description of the novels, Kyoshi fractured and was brining down a part of the cliff on the left along the coastline and the cliffs towards the edge of the coastline were taller than the tower in the harbor.
1. Yun battling Father Glowworm and washing away the entire top soil while uprooting trees in the swamp which the spirit used as cover.
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Interlude: Survival - The Shadow of Kyoshi
2. Yun demolishing The Avatar Mansion by collapsing it's basement.
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Home Again - The Shadow of Kyoshi
3. Descriptions about the Avatar Estate.
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Nine Years Later - The Rise of Kyoshi
4. Kyoshi Island and its town meeting hall
The Warriors of Kyoshi, The Avatar Day - Avatar: The Last Airbender
5. Yun overpowers Kyoshi's earthbending and Kyoshi claims Yun is stronger than Jianzhu
Resignation - The Shadow of Kyoshi
6. Jianzhu constructing a huge bridge in an icy location and collapsing the bridge to destroy a squadron of ships.
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The Iceberg - The Rise of Kyoshi
7. Kyoshi threatening to collapse a cliff while interrogating Chaejin and Huezo
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The Edge - The Shadow of Kyoshi
8. Landscape of the Cliff as we saw in TLA and the relative size of tower to the cliff.
Art of the Animated Series - Avatar: The Last Airbender
9. Matching descriptions about the cliff that Kyoshi threatened to destroy.
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The Companion - The Shadow of Kyoshi
Yun’s raw strength through the novels rivals that of the best earthbenders in all of history and I’m comfortable in saying he’s a stronger than his opponent here, Iroh, who I hold above his niece in strength.
Not just raw bending strength, but Yun received a full avatar training, for earthbending during his days in Yokoya. His earthbending style is an amalgamation of other elemental arts and he is a skilled earthbender, good enough to bend earth, a solid substance, as fluid as water.
Home Again - The Shadow of Kyoshi
He has manipulated earth in several forms like liquid, dust and several substances in salt, ceramic, paint.
Escalation - The Shadow of Kyoshi
The only medium he hasn’t shown was metal, which he never really tried to bend. Given how he is capable of manipulating earth and his 24*7 connection with it, his connection with earth is above Iroh’s connection with fire and rivals Iroh’s brother himself.
Beyond being able to bend earth in various manners, Yun also has all the means and finesse required in combat to beat someone like the retired General. Yun could move in the air through spouts or could even make bridges with stone like Jianzhu and Kyoshi did -- two earthbenders that are inferior to Yun while he could also move underground, where he could move comfortably without Iroh noticing him with enough finesse that he could properly block his entry point, like he did in the Royal Palace, or while fighting Kyoshi inside the mansion, when he escaped her airblast, but Kyoshi couldn't properly identify which direction he went.
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The Crash, Home Again - The Shadow of Kyoshi
This is an invaluable ambush trick executed without a single flaw, since Iroh wouldn’t be able to find whether he burrowed underground or vanished between the buildings, something the likes of Old Toph, Roku and King Bumi have done.
The Avatar and the Firelord, Operation Beifong, The King of Omashu - Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra
The showing with Roku is even more significant to consider since Roku ambushed the firelord with the exact same trick. I genuinely believe that Iroh is a skilled firebender and could propel himself with jets, but given the fact that jet propulsion cannot be done forever without an aided boost, as shown in the novels and the significant difference between the speed at which Ozai operated during the comet and Azula did in the boiling rock, Iroh’s jets wouldn’t be superior to Yun’s spouts or underground tunneling both in speed and effectiveness. Not to mention, Iroh never used it during the show, so it’s more likely that he would only use it when Yun actually pushes him to the corner, rather than starting off with it.
With that out of the way, I would like to emphasize Yun’s precision. He has managed to accurately strike an airbender that was travelling on a flying bison, take down a firebender on jets -- using tunneling -- and taken down a squadron of fire nation’s finest with the earth present in dozens of portraits hanging on the walls of the royal palace, turning the paint into pellets and condensed them hard enough to lacerate soldiers’ with armours, ceremonial pieces and even snap Avatar Kyoshi’s chainmail armor links, all this while he used paint to create misty situation for his escape.
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The Crash, Aftermath - The Shadow of Kyoshi
Lastly, Kelsang emphasized that he was chosen as the avatar only because he was as good as Avatar Kuruk in the same field. Kuruk was a warrior that had fully completed his training and fought a monstrous spirit in its flesh. Given Yun’s bending range, it would be virtually impossible for Iroh to actually get out of his range. I would extend the same vice versa too, but the location and Yun’s seismic sense offers him means to know where Iroh would be.
Revelations - The Rise of Kyohshi
After all the talk about their bending, I wanted to lay emphasis on Yun’s signature earthbending move, earth pulses, which completely annihilates the basement of structures rendering it impossible to actually stand on it or raise any sort of constructions, as experienced by Kirima, Wong, Rangi and Kyoshi herself and only Kyoshi and Rangi managed to finally get out the earthquakes that devastated the entire avatar mansion, which is the largest building in the avatar estate -- To make a note of this, each gatehouse in the estate were described to be larger than the meeting hall of Yokoya, later renamed Kyoshi Island, the feat might be redundant since I have already put it above -- through jets. Even that was only possible because he paused and gave them a moment to stand up.
To follow with this, he has himself shown the ability to bury benders by creating pitfalls under their feet accurately while the said benders try to run and he could even localize these pulses beneath the feet of benders.
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Home Again - The Shadow of Kyoshi
Outside of that, Yun could turn earth into quicksand -- which he did on the scale of royal palace's garden, the area of which is bigger than the palace itself -- trapping Iroh in it or incapacitate him with liquid earth, like he did against Kyoshi. To break it down, being a grounded fighter that isn’t an earthbender on his level, against him would eventually lead to downfall one way or the other. Iroh could get out of the traps through jet propulsion, but Yun has struck a faster character -- Jinpa while was flying on a bison, which are the fastest means of transport in avatar -- he would have no issues trying to strike Iroh along with the fact that so many pre-existing buildings means Iroh might be struck from any direction tailor made for Yun.
For reference, description of the Royal Palace in the novels matches with what we saw in the show and the official artbook, Yun turned at least the half the palace garden into quicksand to trap the Fire Nationals.
1. Yun traps the entire fire nationals in quick sand in the royal palace.
The Crash - The Shadow of Kyoshi
2. Description of the Royal Palace in the novels.
Reunion - The Shadow of Kyoshi
3. The Royal Palace and Caldera city as we saw during Sozin and Ozai's time. The Palace is much bigger than every single campus/building in the capital city and Yun managed a bend a large portion of it.
Art of the Animated Series - Avatar: The Last Airbender
Coming to how he could deal Iroh’s offense, Yun has shown he could evade a white flame barrage chasing him by skating through earth or he could raise a wall and tunnel underground, which would once again keep him from harm while giving him the perfect opportunity to land a sneak attack, that could both be blunt strikes or lethal strike that could kill/leave people close to dead. He could also raise denser walls than the last minute one he raised after Kyoshi caught him off-guard, due to her woeful lack of precision and could likely condense earth hard enough, the way he did with paint, or the way Jianzhu condensed rock cuffs as strong as iron -- description of Jianzhu's feat attached below, because attaching scans as links doesn't work for some stupid reason.
Home Again - The Shadow of KyoshiThe Spirit - The Rise of Kyoshi
Coming to talk about lightning, Jianzhu had already imprisoned a lightning bender in Xu Ping An, who can shoot instant lightning and stream of it and Yun knew about him through Jianzhu. Even if Xu isn’t remotely in Iroh’s ballpark, his lightning draw speed is comparable if not quicker -- since Iroh has demonstrated quick charged lightning when he escaped the Dai Li. Yun would know what Iroh is doing the moment he charges up a bolt and Yun’s underground tunneling after raising a defense is a reliable way to ensure Iroh can’t liberally use his lightning, which he hasn’t demonstrated in the first place.
Initially, I could see the fight relatively even, with earth bullets, fire blasts earth surfing, with no advantage going to either of the two. Eventually, Yun would likely move into the shadows, by forming a mist/dust cloud before Iroh could see, like he did against Kyoshi in the palace and the mansion, trying to strike him while Iroh navigates through the city searching for him. This is really where things get difficult for Iroh since he wouldn’t be able to know where Yun is and would only play defense against his boulders or spikes. Either Iroh tries to navigate into the broader roads, giving him open field or he might try to scale the buildings to the top with jets, searching for him.
In the first case, Yun would simply try to incapacitate him with liquid earth like he did to Kyoshi, from a distance away from Iroh’s notice and the trap could come from any direction which Iroh might not anticipate -- he trapped Kyoshi by sending a wave behind her, use quicksand to trap himor violently disorient the ground making it impossible for Iroh to stay on ground, pushing Iroh to either use jets(which I will go in the next case) or he’d part the ground below and end it then and there. Iroh did escape out of the Dai Li’s trap, which might be similar to the incapacitation I described earlier it took him some time to get out of it with nobody was actually guarding him which isn’t the case here, the moment Yun notices Iroh tries to do something, he would likely put an end there. Yun is a trained killer who’s morals allow that to happen. The only reason Kyoshi and co survived everything was because he explicitly stated that he never wanted to hurt her, like atleast twice and held himself back a lot, which he didn’t do when he did what he did in the Fire Nation.
If the second case happens, Yun would know where Iroh is -- due to seismic sense which ranges as much as the royal palace or a swamp, Yun is likely going to bring down the building the way Kyoshi brought down a cliff by just interrogating someone and Yun is the stronger earthbender of the two, or the way Yun collapsed the avatar mansion using his earthbending. From there on it’s only downhill for Iroh since he’d either be disoriented during the fall and would need to gather himself leaving him wide open for a strike. Remember Iroh has never shown jet stepping, which is a far more effective technique, allowing Iroh to levitate mid air, while letting him launch his strikes, whereas in jet propulsion, he’d constantly forced to stay on the move making it easier for Yun to target given his precision in striking a bender flying on a bison -- the bison might a large target, but Jinpa isn’t a larger target, but he was moving on the bison, meaning Yun had to target someone moving as fast as a flying bison -- which Iroh definitely isn’t when it comes to travel speed on jets, all this while Yun could evade Iroh’s flame through tunneling, earth surfing et al.
Lastly, if Iroh gets to be the aggressor of the fight, from the start, he can raise walls larger than the ones he did to Rangi since he has manipulated lot more earth than those particular instances. Adding to this, an inferior earthbender in Jianzhu was able to condense earth as hard as iron, which is quite dense and Iroh would struggle to break through that, at higher amounts. Since their raw power in their respective elements are more or less comparable, Yun would effectively defend himself or evade from anything Iroh sends his way.If that doesn’t work, Yun could simply tunnel after raising his defenses, effectively setting up for an ambush, like Roku did or this would simply lead to the case 1 I described earlier. Iroh could probably counter tunneling by setting the ground on fire, ala Jeong Jeong, but Yun could effectively use his spouts or liquefy the ground and turn off the flames. This would once again, lead back to the two cases described above and I have already explained how he could counter lightning, in the previous section, if Iroh ever opts to use it, which he very well can.
Simply put, despite the large possibilities the fight could proceed at the start, Yun has the means to negate them and eventually there are only two ways the battle would proceed, leading up to a victory for the false avatar, in both situations.
Firebenders specialize in using the physical aspect of bending and fighting others in close quarters, and Iroh's physical capability is superior to Yun's own by a notable amount. The closer the fight gets to Yun, the better odds get for Iroh.
Iroh might be the stronger character up close, but Yun is a trained assassin, could use earth as melee weapons and he could condense earth hard enough, giving him an advantage even up close.
Iroh shattered large, earthbent boulders with a metal chain and even threw one against it's own momentum created by two earthbenders working together in tandem, shattering it, too. He did this so fast that the earthbenders couldn't even react.
Yun has fought a spirit in a battle that nearly went 3 days or so, he’s got the stamina and endurance that he needs to win this.
He has his own showing for speed when he quickly used an inkslab to stop Tagaka from slashing him with a sword, which Kyoshi couldn’t process with her eyes. So he isn’t outmatched in any way up close against Iroh in anything other than raw strength. And his movement with earthbending -- both tunneling and skates should be as fast Rangi's jet propulsion, which was described as a blur in the Royal Palace.
The Iceberg - The Rise of Kyoshi
Iroh was only somewhat sore from a warning, surprise attack from Toph Beifong, a comparable (if not superior) earthbender to Yun, that sent up a massive dust cloud.
Toph might or might not be better than Yun, but Yun is capable of performing much much better than what Toph did there and if Iroh is caught in a position like that against Yun, Iroh would be hit with something worse than what Toph did.
I just want to add another point as we are in this topic, Yun can use earthbending to make rock gloves that stay perfectly fine against a sword, he could simply skate through using earthbending, the same way he did against Kyoshi when she tried to hit him with nonbending strikes.
I do believe Iroh is amongst the top skilled firebenders and his knowledge on fire is second to none.
This total mastery of fire is among the best we've seen of anyone's mastery of an element. While "earth is Yun's element," he hasn't shown Iroh's level of command over his element. He died young, many generations before metalbending was discovered and he couldn't lavabend, the two greatest techniques of earthbending. Iroh not only knew the greatest technique of fire, lightningbending, he innovated it, crafting one half of the technique all on his own. For the liquid earth that Yun can bend, Iroh can bend fire from the ground. For the spouts Yun can ride on, Iroh can rise on jets of flame. Iroh can do things more impressive, unique and esoteric than Yun can.
How does Yun not bending lava or metal matter in a fight though? Bumi doesn’t bend metal either and he’s the most basic earthbender we’ve known, but he’s also the best earthbender we’ve seen. For what it’s worth, Yun can bend paint, ceramics, salt and bend earth like a liquid, solid and dust, powerful enough to condense earth enough to make it as hard as metal, that’s just so many ways he can control his element with proper finesse and is skilled enough to reorient earth after he tunnels and make it look as if nothing happened -- the amount of control he puts into it is only shown by three other benders -- Avatar Roku, King Bumi and an Old Toph Beifong, this is a perfect ambush tool executed right there. I still don’t see how these things except the last point would be relevant in a fight though. If he is efficient enough to do with earth what others can do with metal, he’d still end up with a better result.
Iroh can do more than Yun? Like? Both can bend across long ranges, both can shoot powerful projectiles, Iroh can set the ground on fire, Yun can control the ground over far wider area than Iroh, they both can fly, Yun can go underground, Iroh can't. Iroh hasn’t shown the connection that Yun did with his element, in fact no other firebender excluding Ozai have.
I'm not saying that Yun's showing is unimpressive, but it's not the big, unbeatable showing that it gets hyped up to be by many.
I really wasn’t going to say Yun wins because he curbed Kyoshi and co. it’s about what he did in the battle. Yun left the whole avatar estate in ruins after the fight, destroying the mansion with little effort. Struck an airbender that was running on a flying bison, which is faster than Iroh, dusted off and walked through Kyoshi’s earthbending like it was nothing.
Moving on to Iroh, there's only two things that give us a true sense of his combat ability. The first is his fight in the Crystal Catacombs, where he held off a small army of Dai Li from advancing.
The Dai Li, in the same episode, were so impressive that just two of them curbstomped Zuko, who was then shown as impressive enough to hold his own against Katara. While Katara would handle the Dai Li much better thanks to elemental and stylistic difference, it's important to note that not only did Zuko have to face Katara through an elemental disadvantage, he shares the exact same element with Iroh, so Iroh directly, if predictably, outperformed Zuko by miles against a superior threat of the same ilk. Not one of the roughly 56 Dai Li earthbending masters could make it through Iroh to touch Katara and Aang.
The Dai Li individually aren’t nearly the same threat as Yun. Iroh isn’t standing back if he gets hit by a serious strike from Yun. The Zuko-Katara-Dai Li isn’t a right equivalence either since Katara quite literally washed away all the agents. Also, you must note Azula’s personal agents, the ones that stopped Zuko are stronger than the average Dai Li.
The other, as mentioned, was the statement that Iroh could beat Ozai. No other character, not Toph or Katara, not pre-EoS Aang, not even someone like a White Lotus master was ever considered by anyone else as capable of defeating Ozai; only Iroh.
Iroh was the only one capable because of the comet. Katara, Bumi all stand a proper chance and I might even argue Bumi would beat Ozai without the comet. Aang retreated back in DoBS because the Fire Nation was prepared. Ozai had a platoon of imperial soldiers, Azula had 7 Dai Li agents during her coronation, yet there were only two beside her during DoBS and Mai and Ty Lee weren’t even shown. Very much possible everyone were hiding and waiting for the right moment like the two Dai Li were when Aang, Toph and Sokka confronted Azula It wasn’t just facing Ozai that made the Gaang retreat, but the entire fire nation. Sure, Iroh being capable of Ozai is a high pedestal he was placed and I don’t disagree he has his chances, but using that statement in this context is entirely wrong. You must also not forget that, despite knowing lightning redirection, Iroh was not confident on beating his brother. Yes, having a chance of beating Ozai is a huge statement in support of Iroh, but that doesn't put Iroh "above" benders like Airbending Aang Yun, Bumi, Toph, Katara, waterbending Korra, Convergence Unalaq, Azula. He is above certain people in this list, which I don't want to get into since it'd deviate the debate. But the crux is, all the characters listed here, along with Iroh, except pre-insanity Azula and maybe Toph have a chance to beat or engage in an even fight against Ozai, without the comet. Iroh still has the chance during the comet because he'd also be amped by it.
Yun does receive similar amount of statements and combative showings backing his position. He was claimed to be a fully realized avatar’s equal in one element, has fought a demonic spirit albeit weakened, for days nonstop -- when he was poisoned, even sacrificed his body parts cleverly. It wasn’t just the battle against the flying opera company that proved Yun’s status, but his other showings, in combat, which I listed above. Iroh has no statements as good as this.
Note that Ozai got this statement
Ozai vs the Gaang would be a close match in the comet and is nothing but Yun vs Flying Opera company in disguise of the comet. The avatar is badly outmatched against the enemy when it comes to their most powerful element, the next best candidate is direct equal, to the firebender in flying company and the other two don’t nearly offer much against the opponent of this tier. The only difference is Yun decimated Flying Opera Company while Ozai vs Gaang would close, during the comet. And no, Aang and Zuko vs Ozai isn’t remotely close if Aang has Kyoshi’s morals against enemies. He would likely drop Ozai on his own, adding Zuko would comfortably mean Ozai’s doom.
Yun gives us an idea himself in his fight with the Company, where he maintained an advantage primarily when he used the environment to his advantage but wasn't quite so well off when he tried to defend against some of their stronger attacks, one of which Yun allowed Rangi to charge for several seconds. This cockiness doesn't speak well for Yun when charging attacks allows Iroh to create attacks like this:
Yun’s in character stuff? He specifically stated he didn’t want to hurt Kyoshi, twice, because she was the one innocent part in the whole affair. He upped the ante the moment Rangi did her white flame barrage and even in that moment, he wasn’t even touched in the slightest. Regardless of how much more powerful Iroh is, his firebending would be as fast as Rangi’s and Yun could avoid it, through skating, tunneling, spouts or creating larger walls than what he did against Kyoshi/Rangi’s combo, coming to talk about that, Yun was entirely caught off-guard due to Kyoshi’s complete lack of aim and precision without her fans, which Rangi deviated. His shield was more of a last minute structure, which is why he immediately tunneled away after raising it. If he does the same here, there’s a decent chance that Iroh might end up the same way Rangi was, after that -- stabbed in his gut, because the location offers more cover to Yun than the avatar estate, which was an open land. Yun has also dropped better benders like Lu Beifong, who scale above Jianzhu, by authorial intent without any fuss, so if he sees Iroh’s strength, there’s no reason why he wouldn’t show his own.
Coming to talk about in character, they both have basic knowledge, Yun knows he’s up against a general, who has decades of experience in combative fronts. He would never get cocky knowing who he is up against. He only went easy on them because they never were his targets in the first place, which is why Kyoshi was alive all through the fight, as it would extend for everyone else. Also, since we are at it, why do you think Iroh wouldn’t hold back, because, you know, he is “in character”, against a teenager no less and Iroh’s morals would give Aang and Jeong Jeong a run for money. Half the stuff that you said he is capable(which I believe he is) weren’t done by Iroh “in character” across 3 seasons of the show.
Yun might not be as strong physically as Iroh, but he can also use earthbending in close quarters combat to both avoid, defend and attack.
He could move around Republic City sneakily away from Iroh’s eyes while Iroh would not able to achieve that.
He has overpowered earthbenders like Kyoshi and Jianzhu who have themselves shown high amounts of raw strength, so in a battle of raw strengths, Yun can win.
Iroh has absolutely limited counters Yun’s signature pulses, which can’t be stopped with raw power and the technique is something Iroh never used “in character”.
Yun can deal with lightning which Iroh needs to charge up atleast for a second or two and he has never shown a liberal use of it as his brother. Even then, Iroh would be dumb to spam lightning against someone that could underground.
Yun would get as much cocky when he knows he’s facing a retired General as Iroh would hold back against a teenager.
@viking1205: I read as much as I could atm, I’ll read the rest later but good job so far! Scan links don’t work when taken from CV, if you put thor images in another side and linked them it would work.
good luck you two, nice arguments, but holy heck when did the avatar verse get so messed?
and how do you fake being an avatar?
He was wrongly identified as the avatar instead of Kyoshi lol, mostly due to his tactical expertise in Pai Sho and brilliance in Earthbending, both of which were hallmarks of Kuruk, Kyoshi's predecessor. The novels expand a lot of it, so you could read it if you wish to!
good luck you two, nice arguments, but holy heck when did the avatar verse get so messed?
and how do you fake being an avatar?
Not sure what you mean by messed. If you're talking about the earthbender, Yun's part of the Kyoshi novels, where Kyoshi's early time as the Avatar is detailed. Kyoshi = violence.
Nobody knew Yun wasn't the Avatar, not even him. During Kyoshi's time, Yun was misidentified as the Avatar and everyone thought he was just struggling with the other elements, even though he could use earthbending to simulate them with perfect form. Eventually, Kyoshi sang a song or something that was recognized by an old friend of Kuruk's. Jianzhu, the main villain of The Rise of Kyoshi, took Yun and Kyoshi to a spirit who identified Kyoshi as the Avatar. Yun was left to die but beat the spirit and came back to kill Jianzhu.
@viking1205:That's actually a pretty good story point, then. Seems to me like some character assassination from historians to name him the 'false avatar', which I love when that kind of historical imperfection in the lore is used.
@cocacolaman: Just that Kyoshi's time period is pretty nutty from what I've seen. Not a big fan of Kyoshi, though. Yang Chen best canonical female avatar 4 life.
He is up against General Iroh, someone I view to be among the three finest firebenders in history,
He has achieved finesse over earthbending that would possibly rival the likes of the Blind Bandit, the Mad Genius
and possibly, Avatar Kyoshi, during his later years.
Counters
Yun has been proven a mighty earthbender. However, I would like to go through and pick at some of Viking's claims.
With Republic City offering so much cover in it’s buildings, has his options of winning a fight that are not just limited to a direct duel, similar to how he fought Kyoshi in her mansion before Kyoshi’s friends showed up -- Hiding in the rooms in the building so that Kyoshi couldn’t see where he was, while he could comfortably make his moves.
If Iroh loses track of Yun, I doubt his first idea would be to go inside a building, especially if the inside just happened to be made of earth. It would be like fighting Ming Hua and jumping in a pool; only an exceptional idiot would do that. Yun would have to force Iroh into such a situation. And if Yun just tries to throw lazy attacks from behind cover the whole time, it will be a stalemate until he comes out.
Kyoshi herself has fractured a cliff while trying to interrogate Chaejin to get information about Yun’s whereabouts -- this feat is something replicated only by two other earthbenders, Toph Beifong and King Bumi during their friendly tussle
I'm not entirely convinced that Kyoshi's feat is fully comparable to the side effect of Toph and Bumi's match. I'm reading the passage straight from the novel and it seems that she only cut off a "small" bit of the land rather than wrecking the entire cliff. The series of events is that Kyoshi lands near the hut with her captive, Chaejin, and on the far end of the cliff is his mother, Huazo, with a gap between them too big to leap across (though Kyoshi did toss Chaejin across it later.) Then Kyoshi starts to disturb the platform Huazo is on by throwing "one of her hands at the cliffside. Cracks ran around the rock Huzo stood on, puffing out thin lines of dust. The entire platform lurced, threatening to plunge into the sea." I don't see how this implies that Kyoshi did something similar in scale to this, as you argue:
Overall, my interpretation of this is that Kyoshi was breaking off a small part of a cliff rather than an entire face of it, which does make the feat a bit less impressive than one may originally think.
The only medium he hasn’t shown was metal, which he never really tried to bend. Given how he is capable of manipulating earth and his 24*7 connection with it, his connection with earth is above Iroh’s connection with fire and rivals Iroh’s brother himself.
I'm not certain that "connection" to an element on its own is very relevant in cross-element battles, at least in the way you're talking about, especially since firebenders can't really have a connection with fire the way that Yun or Toph have a connection with earth, or Ming Hua with water. It would be relevant in a pure bending discussion, but in combat, the practical uses of that connection are all that really matter, and I believe that for just about any skill Yun has mastered, Iroh has an equivalent to match.
Yun could move in the air through spouts or could even make bridges with stone like Jianzhu and Kyoshi did -- two earthbenders that are inferior to Yun while he could also move underground, where he could move comfortably without Iroh noticing him with enough finesse that he could properly block his entry point, like he did in the Royal Palace, or while fighting Kyoshi inside the mansion, when he escaped her airblast, but Kyoshi couldn't properly identify which direction he went.
Iroh should be able to use fire jets/"spouts" to match Yun's own spouts, such as Zuko and Korra have done. I admit that Iroh doesn't have anything equivalent to tunneling but I don't recall any circumstance where an earthbender successfully used tunneling against another character comparable to them as a combatant.
The showing with Roku is even more significant to consider since Roku ambushed the firelord with the exact same trick.
Avatar Yangchen's reincarnation using a technique successfully against Firelord Sozin by surprise does not mean that Yun will use the same technique as effectively against Iroh in open combat.
I genuinely believe that Iroh is a skilled firebender and could propel himself with jets, but given the fact that jet propulsion cannot be done forever without an aided boost, as shown in the novels and the significant difference between the speed at which Ozai operated during the comet and Azula did in the boiling rock, Iroh’s jets wouldn’t be superior to Yun’s spouts or underground tunneling both in speed and effectiveness. Not to mention, Iroh never used it during the show, so it’s more likely that he would only use it when Yun actually pushes him to the corner, rather than starting off with it.
Iroh doesn't necessarily have to use the jets to fly like Ozai did. He could do temporary leaps and propulsion to keep Yun from having the constant high ground on his spouts, which should be more than effective since, as far as I remember, Yun has no feats of fighting effectively on his spout the way Unalaq and Korra do. I do believe that this fight will be grounded more often than not, since that's the style these characters prefer, even if they have the means to easily stray from that for a moment. For example:
After all the talk about their bending, I wanted to lay emphasis on Yun’s signature earthbending move, earth pulses, which completely annihilates the basement of structures rendering it impossible to actually stand on it or raise any sort of constructions, as experienced by Kirima, Wong, Rangi and Kyoshi herself and only Kyoshi and Rangi managed to finally get out the earthquakes that devastated the entire avatar mansion, which is the largest building in the avatar estate -- To make a note of this, each gatehouse in the estate were described to be larger than the meeting hall of Yokoya, later renamed Kyoshi Island, the feat might be redundant since I have already put it above -- through jets. Even that was only possible because he paused and gave them a moment to stand up.
I'm sure we can agree that Iroh will quickly find the counter to the earth pulses. Now as you noted, Yun did give them an opening, but it's rare for benders of Iroh and Yun's eras to spam their moves non-stop. And if Yun gets Iroh stuck in an earth pulse, that's not going to beat Iroh, who is tougher than either Kyoshi or Rangi. The Flying Opera Company members were able to stand and run during the initial pulse, and only after Yun had concentrated the pulse were Kyoshi and Rangi stuck.
Yun's quicksand is perhaps a bit better practically, but Iroh is strong enough to break rock, so I could honestly see him escaping that.
Iroh could get out of the traps through jet propulsion, but Yun has struck a faster character -- Jinpa while was flying on a bison, which are the fastest means of transport in avatar -- he would have no issues trying to strike Iroh along with the fact that so many pre-existing buildings means Iroh might be struck from any direction tailor made for Yun.
Iroh may not be as fast in air as a bison but he will actually be attacking Yun, which will require either a dodge or a defense, something that takes his focus off of attacking Iroh while he's midair. Even if Yun gets an attack off, Iroh could match them with a quick bending strike.
Coming to how he could deal Iroh’s offense, Yun has shown he could evade a white flame barrage chasing him by skating through earth
This will mainly help in running away from Iroh's strikes but I doubt that Iroh will take the time to do something like Rangi did, so I hardly see this coming into play.
or he could raise a wall and tunnel underground, which would once again keep him from harm while giving him the perfect opportunity to land a sneak attack, that could both be blunt strikes or lethal strike that could kill/leave people close to dead.
If this happens, Iroh is more than knowledgeable enough to understand that an earthbender like Yun can tunnel. Yun's not going to get the opportunity to sneak attack Iroh too often even if he's out of sight. I'd also like to note that any of Iroh's attacks are at least close to as lethal as Yun's best due to the searing temperatures of it. Look at the damage Hei Ran caused Yun. Iroh can take anything but Yun's sharp attacks without damage; Yun cannot risk being touched by any of Iroh's attacks.
Coming to talk about lightning, Jianzhu had already imprisoned a lightning bender in Xu Ping An, who can shoot instant lightning and stream of it and Yun knew about him through Jianzhu. Even if Xu isn’t remotely in Iroh’s ballpark, his lightning draw speed is comparable if not quicker -- since Iroh has demonstrated quick charged lightning when he escaped the Dai Li. Yun would know what Iroh is doing the moment he charges up a bolt and Yun’s underground tunneling after raising a defense is a reliable way to ensure Iroh can’t liberally use his lightning, which he hasn’t demonstrated in the first place.
Overall this is fair, I don't see Iroh using lightning the way Xu Ping An does since he's not the murderous sort. But Iroh is certainly smart enough to find ways to use it, such as tagging Yun when the moment presents itself or breaking through a particularly annoying defense.
Counter-Counter
Iroh might be the stronger character up close, but Yun is a trained assassin, could use earth as melee weapons and he could condense earth hard enough, giving him an advantage even up close.
In this same manner, Iroh could enhance his attacks with concussive force of his bending, so I see this cancelling itself out or at best making them equal when and if Yun does this.
How does Yun not bending lava or metal matter in a fight though? Bumi doesn’t bend metal either and he’s the most basic earthbender we’ve known, but he’s also the best earthbender we’ve seen. For what it’s worth, Yun can bend paint, ceramics, salt and bend earth like a liquid, solid and dust, powerful enough to condense earth enough to make it as hard as metal, that’s just so many ways he can control his element with proper finesse and is skilled enough to reorient earth after he tunnels and make it look as if nothing happened -- the amount of control he puts into it is only shown by three other benders -- Avatar Roku, King Bumi and an Old Toph Beifong, this is a perfect ambush tool executed right there. I still don’t see how these things except the last point would be relevant in a fight though. If he is efficient enough to do with earth what others can do with metal, he’d still end up with a better result.
This is fair.
Iroh can do more than Yun? Like? Both can bend across long ranges, both can shoot powerful projectiles, Iroh can set the ground on fire, Yun can control the ground over far wider area than Iroh, they both can fly, Yun can go underground, Iroh can't. Iroh hasn’t shown the connection that Yun did with his element, in fact no other firebender excluding Ozai have.
I'm dropping this argument anyway but just to clarify, this was about Iroh being able to do more within the constrains of his element than Yun could. I realize this doesn't really matter, though, so again I'm dropping it.
The Dai Li individually aren’t nearly the same threat as Yun. Iroh isn’t standing back if he gets hit by a serious strike from Yun. The Zuko-Katara-Dai Li isn’t a right equivalence either since Katara quite literally washed away all the agents. Also, you must note Azula’s personal agents, the ones that stopped Zuko are stronger than the average Dai Li.
I agree that the Dai Li aren't as impressive as Yun but we see consistently that large groups of them are an incredible force to be reckoned with.
To reiterate what I was saying, I understand that Katara is well beyond the Dai Li, or even Zuko. But the elemental matchups made it such that Iroh holding off that small army is a notable feat.
Iroh was the only one capable because of the comet. Katara, Bumi all stand a proper chance and I might even argue Bumi would beat Ozai without the comet. Aang retreated back in DoBS because the Fire Nation was prepared. Ozai had a platoon of imperial soldiers, Azula had 7 Dai Li agents during her coronation, yet there were only two beside her during DoBS and Mai and Ty Lee weren’t even shown. Very much possible everyone were hiding and waiting for the right moment like the two Dai Li were when Aang, Toph and Sokka confronted Azula It wasn’t just facing Ozai that made the Gaang retreat, but the entire fire nation. Sure, Iroh being capable of Ozai is a high pedestal he was placed and I don’t disagree he has his chances, but using that statement in this context is entirely wrong. You must also not forget that, despite knowing lightning redirection, Iroh was not confident on beating his brother. Yes, having a chance of beating Ozai is a huge statement in support of Iroh, but that doesn't put Iroh "above"benders like Airbending Aang Yun, Bumi, Toph, Katara, waterbending Korra, Convergence Unalaq, Azula. He is above certain people in this list, which I don't want to get into since it'd deviate the debate. But the crux is, all the characters listed here, along with Iroh, except pre-insanity Azula and maybe Toph have a chance to beat or engage in an even fight against Ozai, without the comet. Iroh still has the chance during the comet because he'd also be amped by it.
My sentiment about Ozai goes well beyond the constraints of the finale. Nothing, absolutely nothing about the series implies that Ozai was anything less than a monster beyond the capabilities of even the best benders to beat. The story is not about Aang beating the Firelord and a hundred Fire Nation ships, it is about Aang beating the Firelord, and doing so by mastering the four elements. While I won't deny that other characters are incredibly powerful and stand a chance in certain contexts, it is more than just "destiny" and history that made other top tiers realize they needed the Avatar. While you're not wrong that the Comet was what made Iroh the only one who could be considered, the idea that Iroh could beat Ozai alone is an incredible testimony to his standing in the world, as no other character had the portrayal of being capable of doing so under fair circumstances.
Ozai vs the Gaang would be a close match in the comet and is nothing but Yun vs Flying Opera company in disguise of the comet. The avatar is badly outmatched against the enemy when it comes to their most powerful element, the next best candidate is direct equal, to the firebender in flying company and the other two don’t nearly offer much against the opponent of this tier. The only difference is Yun decimated Flying Opera Company while Ozai vs Gaang would close, during the comet. And no, Aang and Zuko vs Ozai isn’t remotely close if Aang has Kyoshi’s morals against enemies. He would likely drop Ozai on his own, adding Zuko would comfortably mean Ozai’s doom.
I don't think they're as similar as you make it seem (I think that Ozai had a far tougher fight all things considered) but the more I look at this, the less relevant I feel it is to this debate so I'm dropping this argument.
Yun’s in character stuff? He specifically stated he didn’t want to hurt Kyoshi, twice, because she was the one innocent part in the whole affair. He upped the ante the moment Rangi did her white flame barrage and even in that moment, he wasn’t even touched in the slightest. Regardless of how much more powerful Iroh is, his firebending would be as fast as Rangi’s and Yun could avoid it, through skating, tunneling, spouts or creating larger walls than what he did against Kyoshi/Rangi’s combo, coming to talk about that, Yun was entirely caught off-guard due to Kyoshi’s complete lack of aim and precision without her fans, which Rangi deviated. His shield was more of a last minute structure, which is why he immediately tunneled away after raising it. If he does the same here, there’s a decent chance that Iroh might end up the same way Rangi was, after that -- stabbed in his gut, because the location offers more cover to Yun than the avatar estate, which was an open land. Yun has also dropped better benders like Lu Beifong, who scale above Jianzhu, by authorial intent without any fuss, so if he sees Iroh’s strength, there’s no reason why he wouldn’t show his own.
Coming to talk about in character, they both have basic knowledge, Yun knows he’s up against a general, who has decades of experience in combative fronts. He would never get cocky knowing who he is up against. He only went easy on them because they never were his targets in the first place, which is why Kyoshi was alive all through the fight, as it would extend for everyone else.
And I just have to give this one to you, I don't know what I was talking about with Yun allowing Iroh to charge up.
Also, since we are at it, why do you think Iroh wouldn’t hold back, because, you know, he is “in character”, against a teenager no less and Iroh’s morals would give Aang and Jeong Jeong a run for money. Half the stuff that you said he is capable(which I believe he is) weren’t done by Iroh “in character” across 3 seasons of the show.
I don't think Iroh's going to go all out from the start, nor do I think Yun would, since characters don't do that. And we both agree on Iroh's capabilities in a vacuum, you know good and well the writers never allowed Iroh to be in a position to fight properly throughout the show.
Conclusion
Though I have changed my mind on a couple of my arguments and conclusions, I do hold the end outcome to be the same. Both are monsters, but I believe that Iroh just has that little extra "something" to give him the win.
If Iroh loses track of Yun, I doubt his first idea would be to go inside a building, especially if the inside just happened to be made of earth. It would be like fighting Ming Hua and jumping in a pool; only an exceptional idiot would do that. Yun would have to force Iroh into such a situation. And if Yun just tries to throw lazy attacks from behind cover the whole time, it will be a stalemate until he comes out.
I didn't say Iroh would go into the room, I said Yun would do that like he did when he fought Kyoshi. It's going to be hard for Iroh if Yun is at a closer distance, he might be able to trap if the moment hits right. Anyway, Iroh isn't bad enough to go down to such easy traps all the time, so I still expect a proper fight to take place to decide the victor.
Overall, my interpretation of this is that Kyoshi was breaking off a small part of a cliff rather than an entire face of it, which does make the feat a bit less impressive than one may originally think.
That was what I intepretted as well lol. Kyoshi broke a part of the cliff, the surface of area at the top must be around the size of the hut Huazo was in. The reason it's impressive was because the height was the thing is much larger than the building/plaza tower which made regular houses look like ants which I posted in my previous post. For reference:
Art of the Animated Series - Avatar: The Last Airbender
I never argued Kyoshi fractured the whole thing lol. That would be a clear avatar state tier showing on it's own. Coming to the Toph/Bumi thing, the cliff that they broke is much smaller in height than this and it was a joint showing while Yun is outright stronger than Kyoshi who did this all by herself. All of this is to only show Yun is in the same ballpark of power as anyone from the top tier during the hundred year war were, so if we could accept that, I guess we could move on from this topic.
I admit that Iroh doesn't have anything equivalent to tunneling but I don't recall any circumstance where an earthbender successfully used tunneling against another character comparable to them as a combatant.
I'm sorry, but we can use the same argument for every feat in that case lol. We've never seen a high tier firebender escape from incap attempt from someone of equal level either. We have never seen a high tier firebender escape an earthquake from an earthbender from similar tier either, the list could go on. It's actually why we have evidence in the form of showings, statements, word of God, etc. and use our common sense and logically get to conclusions. I actually didn't expect you'd say this to be honest.
Anyway coming to tunneling, it's not going to be effective if an earthbender starts off by burrowing, it will be effective in situations similar to what Roku or Yun were in. Both tunneled when their respective opponent tried to scorch them out of existence. Both of them covered the floor and it seemed as if they had vanished and it took a second or two for the opponents to get an understanding of what had happened. Yun also has an additional advantage here because his method of coming out is also totally silent. He turned the floor into mud spout and came out of it instead of breaking out similar to what Roku did. Iroh would have a hard time figuring out where he vanished because Yun would time his moments to perform these acts and not do it as frequently as Ozai shoots lightning. Coming to talk about this, I also think I should address something else here.
I'm sure we can agree that Iroh will quickly find the counter to the earth pulses. Now as you noted, Yun did give them an opening, but it's rare for benders of Iroh and Yun's eras to spam their moves non-stop. And if Yun gets Iroh stuck in an earth pulse, that's not going to beat Iroh, who is tougher than either Kyoshi or Rangi. The Flying Opera Company members were able to stand and run during the initial pulse, and only after Yun had concentrated the pulse were Kyoshi and Rangi stuck.
The flying opera company did not have any clue about how to evade it at the start. Kirima and Wong took their sweet time after multiple strikes to find the frequency of them to time their jumps. It was mentioned as much in the novel. He wouldn't wait for a long time here because he isn't playing around here.
Also,
Yun's quicksand is perhaps a bit better practically, but Iroh is strong enough to break rock, so I could honestly see him escaping that.
Iroh isn't punching out of this lol. This isn't solid rock for Iroh to break and escape. Quick sands are entirely different. He'll have a hard time trying to move upwards and simply blasting it would result in anything and Yun would also not stand by and watch Iroh try to escape it. He might as well try to sink Iroh the same manner Fong sunk Katara.
Iroh may not be as fast in air as a bison but he will actually be attacking Yun, which will require either a dodge or a defense, something that takes his focus off of attacking Iroh while he's midair. Even if Yun gets an attack off, Iroh could match them with a quick bending strike.
Yun has also shown that he is capable of battling at high intensities, his entire fight with Kyoshi started when the two were going against one another, shooting bullets of earth at each other constantly at high intensity, non - stop. Sort of similar to the Dai Li blasting earth continuously or Tarrlok's rapid fire exchange with Korra. He's not new to a back and forth exchange as you suggest and has enough experience to pull off the win.
I'd also like to note that any of Iroh's attacks are at least close to as lethal as Yun's best due to the searing temperatures of it. Look at the damageHei RancausedYun. Iroh can take anything but Yun's sharp attacks without damage; Yun cannot risk being touched by any of Iroh's attacks.
Uhmm, Iroh isn't taking Yun melting earth and incapacitating him to the point where he can't move; Iroh isn't taking Yun turning earth underneath him into quicksand; Iroh isn't taking earthquakes below his feet. Iroh most definitely isn't taking pillars from below him without sustaining any injury, enough to disorient him, at least. Part of what makes Yun so much more dangerous is that unlike other earthbenders, he isn't the type to engage direct attacks all the time. He uses the battlefield to the fullest advantage and takes the momentary advantages in fights in the best possible way to tilt the tides in his favour. A serious Yun isn't simply shooting small handcuffs or boulders the way someone like Aang, Lin, Suyin, Korra, Kuvira, Ghazan, Bolin, Dai Li would do.
Nothing, absolutely nothing about the series implies that Ozai was anything less than a monster beyond the capabilities of even the best benders to beat. The story is not about Aang beating the Firelord and a hundred Fire Nation ships, it is about Aang beating the Firelord, and doing so by mastering the four elements. While I won't deny that other characters are incredibly powerful and stand a chance in certain contexts, it is more than just "destiny" and history that made other top tiers realize they needed the Avatar. While you're not wrong that the Comet was what made Iroh theonlyone who could be considered, the idea that Iroh could beat Ozai alone is an incredible testimony to his standing in the world, as no other character had the portrayal of being capable of doing so under fair circumstances.
I don't have any problem if you consider Ozai as a monster, but there's nothing in the show that suggests he's untouchable as a bender for anyone that isn't Aang. He was the strongest firebender of his time, Iroh was unsure how a fight between him and his brother would go and Azula was afraid of facing him in an agni kai. Beyond these three evidences, there's nothing favouring Ozai. Looking at each of the three statements:
Ozai is the strongest firebender of his time: All right, this puts him above Azula and Combustion Man in terms of raw power since they are the two firebenders with the strongest showings from their time. When Yun's own battle with Father Glowworm demonstrates equally good power, I don't see why Yun isn't on Ozai's level, which places him on or above Iroh in power.
Azula was afraid of facing Ozai: This puts Ozai rightly over Azula which was demonstrated multiple times in the series as well, in the form of Ozai sensing sun come out which Azula couldn't; Ozai's performance during Sozin's comet being a direct upgrade over Azula, although that had the insanity play a major role. Anyway coming back to the point at hand, this is probably Ozai's biggest credential of the three. But Yun himself has better showings than Azula, be it skill or power. By skill, I meant both conventional bending and combative skill. Yun is a master of the fundamental and advanced earthbending techniques, including seismic sense, tunneling, quicksand(a technique which Toph thinks is impossible without use of water, so bonus points), liquefied earthbending, spouts, bending earth in all three states of solid, liquid and gas; showing his wide array of bending skill. His own combative showings rival his bending prowess in the same way, since he's an assassin, fought a monstrous spirit for days on the trot, decimated team avatar without breaking a sweat, beaten an earthbender that was the stated to be the best of his time(Lu Beifong), capable of exchanging rapid fire assaults at high intensity on more than one occasions both of which involved Kyoshi as an opponent(once in fire nation palace, second time in mansion). With a huge array of accolades that rival and surpass Azula's showings, I don't have any problems in saying Yun is easily a peer to Ozai in every regard.
Iroh was unsure how an agni kai would go between him and Ozai: This essentially places Iroh right on Ozai's table, but as I had mentioned in my previous point, so is Yun, infact even more dangerous with lack of morals and higher lethality to begin with.
He is as much a threat as someone Iroh thinks is his equal.
Yun has a huge array of options in his arsenal that are extremely unconventional and will be hard to figure out even for someone like Iroh.
He is both skilled in playing the fast paced exchange battle and has the precision, lethality to complement it as well as the power to take it if it comes down to a game of power.
Outside of this, his mode of operation using environmental manipulation would also make it hard for Iroh since he has options that aren't direct and would cause huge amounts of problems for even someone like Iroh.
For context I have watched ATLA/LOK, but have not read the novels, so make of that as you will. I initially held of on voting because I feared I may have a inflated view of Yun, having voted for him in a previous CaV and again siding with him here, despite not having read the books, but now I just figure I vote so that this great CaV finally gets a vote and leave it to the reader to decide on how biased it is. In short my vote goes to @viking1205
Despite having 3 seasons and comics to pull from it felt like CocaColeMan had less to draw upon due to how restrained Iroh was used and how much lavish attention Yun's feats got. Even with Iroh being a versatile firebender, firebending tends to generally offer less versatility than earth and Yun in particular seems ridiculous in that regard.
Both were acknowledge as prodigous and intelligent masters of their elements so I would reckon they function at a somewhat similar level, but Yun's liquid earth presents more of an unknown quantity to Iroh than anything he has for Yun. Tunneling, Earth Impulses and quicksand were advantages that imo were well defended, with me havin a hard time seeing Iroh muscle out of quicksand and havin a easy time imaging tunneling+seismic sense facilitating either a ambush or tactical retreat.
I agree that Iroh would not fall for cheap ploys or enter a house in a fact against a earthbender and Yun being able to snipe a fleeing airbender of a skybison, while impressive does not translate to Iroh not being able to react to him imo.
Basically while competitive I think Yun stands to win a mid-long range fight, especially with his stamina of fighting for days and ability to better monitor Iroh through seismic sense. It would probably be a lengthy fight in which Yun would eventually catch Iroh slipping up or tire him out.
In regards to close-quarter Iroh's advantage in strength and toughness was not really in-doubt, although his speed kinda relies on upscaling him off his earlier feats against Azula and Zhao to a somewhat unquantifiable extent. Yun being specifically trained in assassination attempts with spiked earth weapons and using stone gloves does imo close the gap between them, but I still see Iroh as having an overall cqc advantage.
Basically Long Range 3/3 Yun, Mid Range 2/3 Yun and CQC 2/3 Iroh is kind of the impression I got left with, hence me favouring Yun overall.
@viking1205@cocacolaman, I finally got around to reading this. Good work from the both of you! After seeing this, I feel like two-round CaVs should be popularised. They are much easier to commit to and follow as well, making it easier for everyone.
Cola, it needs to be said that, even with your opponent sharing plenty of common ground with you from the get-go, you were at a disadvantage on the fact that Iroh is simply not as active as Yun in regards to action sequences, regardless of screentime. You did an excellent job analysing what he did have, and I was also impressed by your creativity in drawing equivalences to compare the characters. That said, I think that this overtook your arguments, because there seemed to be no other clear way you tried to work around this disadvantage; by relying plenty on Iroh's restrained on-screen showings while also trying to establish his threat level on lore information, without very apparent balance or connection made between the two, contradictions were bound to happen. Iroh's firebending showings just don't match his true standing. I think a better way than to fight Viking's character's showings pound-for-pound, which you tried to do after a point, would've been to focus on just a few of Iroh's own feats, then build onto his accolades to try and paint a good picture -- and I mean picture not in an entirely figurative fashion, but also visually -- of what and how he could operate in a fight like this, and why exactly he would win. I think in the end, these central questions were not answered, and it led to a foggy picture for both the reader and, correct me if I'm wrong, you. Because arguments such as an overreliance on Iroh's physicality, I think, sourced from this.
Something else that cost your control over the flow of the debate, and it needs to be said for everyone to look out for, was that you wrote the first post attempting to predict and counter arguments that your opponent, in the end, was evidently never going to rely on. This opened way to you being put on the defensive quite soon.
Finally, I don't know if I'm right to say this, but it didn't seem like you gave it your all here. Just an observation.
Viking, your posts were some of the most well structured and to the point I've read in any Avatar debate. And I think you should be given credit for mitigating what you should and staying level-headed. Exactly because your opponent was at the aforementioned disadvantage, you could've easily abused it or just generally gone overboard yourself, even subconsciously, but you instead relied entirely on your own strengths throughout, opening with an extensive -- but not exhaustive -- disposition on Yun's abilities, then simply defending them steadily to weave a strong web one can't really stretch enough to tear apart. I don't have a lot of things to talk about really. Obviously I don't agree with everything you said, but that's far from the point.
On the gist of it, I'm going to vote for @viking1205. This was a really good read!
To me, Cola had the stronger opening, really awesome job! Particularly in the physicals part - really showed how much of a threat Iroh is there. However, later on some arguments seemed more reliant on speculation like he could use fire jets or he could escape quicksand – where I feel Viking had the stronger case with more concrete feats on what Yun's proven to do. I also found Cola agreeing to several of Viking’s points - which is fine and nice to see because it shows you're open to other views, but it does add to Viking’s side a bit. When it came to the counters this is where Viking really shined and ended on a high. So my vote goes to @viking1205.
I also agree with Anthp on the two round posts. Everything felt more concise.
Thoughts: I personally don't like 2 Round CaVs because like here I felt like the arguments didn't have much space to truly "become whole" it feels like Viking spent a lot of time just to say that Yun is on Iroh's level, which is just pretty obvious from what was posted. So by the end that's the biggest impression I was left with. Although in regards to the actual argument, Viking did well to show how Iroh has no substantial counter to Yun's environmental manipulation or tunneling. Although I was pretty strongly convinced by Cola that Iroh would win if the fight ever got to CQC.
@korraalone: thanks for the vote and i understand the feedback regarding the two post CaVs. It’s probably because we planned it for three initially and later changed it.
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