Avatar: The Last Air Bender
A Show that gives proper clouser
Avatar: The Last Air Bender is not the best-animated show around. It is excellent, regardless of the format. But this might not be apparent from the first episode.
There is no denying the fact that it is targeted to hook the younger audience. Skepticism is okay! but don't just pass it on without watching it. The show starts off as light-hearted show but it matures as the characters do and the stakes become higher.
"Avatar" was just a cool show for me when I was a kid. But I never really followed the series, I never gave this series the attention it deserved. As a kid, I liked the exhilarating animations. Appa and Momo were cute and fun, even though human-like teeth of Appa were horrifying. But revisiting the show as an adult gave me a chance to understand the deeper meanings and the complexity that the show has: the show possesses massive questions about free will, fate, and destiny and sometimes a touch of horrors of war and imperialism.
Avatar: The Last Air Bender meant just a show when I was a kid but it means a lot more now.
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| Avatar state of Aang |
For the uninitiated, in Avatar there are four nations, each based on the mastery of a different element of nature: fire, water, earth, and air. These nations are populated by laypeople, you know common people who do day to day tasks like selling cabbages and some gifted people called the 'benders'. These benders can manipulate the elements of there native regions by performing really cool martial arts.
The fire nation declares war on others and the story is about children caught in that war. Most of the episodes focus on 'Aang', the titular Avatar, he is the only one who can master all four elements and is prophesied to restore the balance of the world. The problem is he is a kid and not quite in command of every element. The series follows Aang and his young friends on his journey to master the elements, while pursued by Fire Nation and stymied by adults in power.
But the show is much more than this. For me revisiting the show was like remembering my childhood and realizing that it is now gone. The fact that I could now understand a completely different message compared to what I did when I first watched it made me realize that it's neither bad nor good. It's just reality.
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| Characters of Avatar: The Last Air Bender |
The show, considering is meant for kids, does not shy away from showing the flaws that its world has. The world of Avatar: The Last Air Bender is flawed and the show portrays it in the best possible way. To give you a hint, one of my favorite episodes is the 'The city of walls and secrets'.
In this episode, Aang and the gang arrive in the city of 'Ba Sing Se' to deliver some important information to the Earth King, but the layers of Bureaucracy and corruption stifle their attempts. It turns out that it is prohibited to mention the war there. And a secret police force, Dai Li, brainwash citizens into thinking it doesn't exist.
This is one of my favorite episodes because the city of BA Sing Se does not shy away from showing the worst aspects of human society. The citizens of BA Sing Se might not know about the war or the Fire nation's quest to dominate them but they are still being oppressed by their own leaders. This episode gives faces to the citizens that are affected by imperialism and unnecessary violence. It reveals that even the nations that are not directly embroiled by combat are affected buy fascism.
The show never really simplifies anything as 'good' or 'evil'. It lets it protagonists be selfish and wrong at times and giving its antagonists depth whenever possible. The fact that all the main characters are kids only justifies all of this. The frequent fun and goofy pranks and moments of weaknesses are all part of growing up, and as much as we like it to be, growing up does not take place in a fully protected environment. It happens in the harsh world. It happens in a world where there are conflict, pain, and war. That is what makes Avatar different from any other show, its ability to grow its characters.
Talking about the world of Avatar, it is beautiful. It is expansive and fanciful. It has dense forest, rocky mountains, upside-down temples hanging from cliffs, deserts, and much more. It is just as good as the world of some much bigger franchises like Lord of the rings, Star Wars, and Harry potter. The 'bending' styles are inspired by real martial arts and some of the places in the show are also developed using real-life places as references.
Avatar: The Last Air Bender is not a show about good or bad or someone's revenge. It ends up being a show about the human being's extraordinary ability to empathize with anyone, given the right conditions. Every character of the show gets a redemption arc or a chance to prove their strengths in times of adversity.
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| Zuko and Iroh in show |
Even the villains are given redemption arcs. Zuko, who throughout the season one is obsessed with finishing the Avatar and restoring his honor finds acceptance with his uncle and with Team Avatar despite his horrible past mistakes, helping to heal the history of bad will between the Firelord and avatar of the previous generation.
Rewatching show as an adult, I understood one thing that show's only true villains are those who do not engage in Empathy and Humanity. The Firelord Sozin is so blinded by the ego that he launches a war and Firelord Ozai banishes his son and scares his face permanently. Thus showing no humanity and becoming the actual villains.
Conclusion:
When Aang fails to master the Avatar State because he goes to rescue Katara, Iroh reassures him that picking love and friendship was the right decision—that love trumps access to immense power. Thus, despite all the dark topics that Avatar: The Last Air Bender has built its story upon, the core message remains to be about love, optimism, and people who care about each other.
There is a very good lesson that I took from the show- it's those who are involved in injustice who must work the hardest to end it, and the oppressed must do their best to not spread their traumas to the next generation.
Avatar: The Last Air Bender is streaming now on Netflix.
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