Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-4141313-20181229081856/@comment-25936766-20190104182223

Sinjoh wrote: 1) Aang still took away Fire Lord Ozai's ability to firebend without getting anything from Ozai in return.

2) Plus if Marcus could utilize the Semblances he's stolen, shouldn't he be alive instead of Merc? He'd be pretty damn powerful if so. 1) This isn't Avatar.

2) That's the thing. If he can just take other people's Semblances, and not merely prevent them from using them considering that he can give them back said Semblance, then he by all means should be able to use them.

"Took it away" and "get it back" implies the Semblances are really stolen, and if they are stolen they should be able to be used by him if he still has them, assuming they don't have some weird restriction that he's lacking like requiring hands when he has none. It's simply logical.

Because again: Stealing an apple and preventing others from taking said apple are different things.

The only explanation I can find is that the writers screwed up again with the phrasing and the semantics, like when they said the Dragon was frozen (it was petrified, very different) and when Salem said Cinder was weak to SEW because she became the Maiden (which made a lot of people think Maidens in general were weak to Silver Eyes).