Avatar: The Last Airbender

There is also that grey area between "understood" and "explained." Boats were created long before mass distribution was comprehended. Magic in its traditional form is specifically tapping into a power beyond this mortal world, in the case of bending they never seem to quantify how individuals become benders and others don't, which is chalked up to a shrug.

I'm talking about the understanding of the people in-universe and the audience, not literal physics. Bending is treated as a skill that is learned and understood, while spirits are treated as magic hullaboo that should be left for the Avatar to deal with.

Perhaps but there are also hints that most of the weird stuff they do is energy bending of some kind. I imagine a human with perfect mastery of energy bending could replicate some of their feats or at least understand them. See Korra teleporting in the Spirit Realm, blocking the energy laser in the finale, and growing to Kaiju size.

So, I've got an idea, and I apologize if I or others have brought it up before, but I wanted to just throw it out there.

I know how some people have mentioned the idea of having the star of a hypothetical new series be someone who was already had a fair deal of experience as an Avatar...but what if instead, we did the opposite? What if our new Avatar is someone who just found out they were the Avatar - as in, during the very first episode. Perhaps Korra wanted her successor to at least have a few years of an ordinary life, or maybe something went wrong and the White Lotus or whoever lost track of them, or maybe for whatever reason they were never able to find the Avatar to begin with, so we start things off with a kid that has no idea they're the Avatar.

Or taking even further - and assuming that with another time skip, we end up in the equivalent of the modern day, give or take a few decades - what if our new Avatar begins the series as the Avatar world's equivalent of an Ordinary High-School Student?

Now, I'm not saying that you need to make a school the main setting, but it might at least make a fun starting point. Going off some other ideas I've bounced off really, what if we made this new Avatar bookish and introverted, a nerdy kid that often gets bullied, in order to better contrast him with Aang and Korra's more extroverted personalities. Mind you, that doesn't necessarily suit one's initial view of an Earthbender, but then, Korra wasn't your average Waterbender. Perhaps this kid represents earth as a way of putting up walls and burying yourself, and a part of learning the other elements is about learning how to break out of their shell. Throw in a similarly aged Team Avatar, and you could have some fun with throwing teenagers into adventure in world-saving and political intrigue.

...At least part of this, if not all, is making me think of Deku as the Avatar, and I can't say I find that wholly objectionable.

What do you guys think?

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Mar 8th 2020 at 11:59:34 AM

I love that idea!

Modern-day teenage students obviously are of a different breed than the usual ancient high-fantasy teenagers.

Seeing a laidback, loose-by-the-rulebook Team Avatar who concern themselves more with their school studies and/or personal lives and desires would be a fresh change from the usual kids who want to change the world for the better from the start.

Another idea similar to that would be the hero finds out that they're the Avatar when they enter the workforce. Meaning that they're 20+ and they have their own plans, their own identity, and their own life when they finally find out that life-changing piece of information.

Edited by BrightLight on Mar 9th 2020 at 5:13:52 AM

One would then have to ask what kind of antagonist best suits such an Avatar. For Aang, Ozai was someone whose very nature and threat level was the ultimate challenge to his pacifist Thou Shalt Not Kill beliefs. For Korra, every antagonist was a spiritual and mental challenge since she already had the physical fighting aspects down pat.

Edited by M84 on Mar 9th 2020 at 12:19:31 AM

The next Avatar would be on the Earth Kingdom, and the Kyoshi story proved how easy it is to lose track of the Avatar in there.

I’ve had some thoughts & I’ve been thinking like total orphan Avatar, been on her own since early childhood with no memory of their parents. As a result personality wise they are are very sullen & aloof, somewhat emotionally dead due to extreme poverty & loneliness.

Though at the same very determined with an unbreakable spirit so when they discover they are the Avatar, they become extremly committed & embracing of finally having a purpose. Unlike Aang & Korra who are short-term thinkers, this one kinda looks at the bigger picture of the world & takes stuff like politics into greater consideration.

Such as figuring out ways to permanently maintain the Avatar’s political power & influence in the face of an increasingly modern world. Bringing back the authority the position once had like how Roku can attempt to assassinate the Firelord & not somehow be arrested for it.

Edited by slimcoder on Mar 8th 2020 at 9:26:25 AM

Hmm...this is gonna be long.

On one hand, I think it would be a cool change of pace, but for some reason it’s hard for me to imagine the Avatar world equivalent to modern day society. I feel like Legend of Korra really pushed the boundary in that aspect. I mean, Kuvira’s giant mech was considered by a lot of the fanbase to be the moment where the franchise jumped the shark.

I feel like one of the only ways a “modern day Avatar” series would work is if bending was regulated in some way. For example, if it was illegal to use bending except for certain areas of training and the consequences were severe. It would be incredibly dangerous to be the Avatar at that point and it would be an interesting way for the Avatar to be hunted for reasons that would be similar to Aang and Korra but very different in a way.

Another thing is that while a nerdy, socially awkward Avatar would be a good foil to Aang and Korra (who were both pretty good at making friends and having huge social circles), I do wonder if they would be the right character for the story. Aang and Korra were the perfect characters for the themes of their respective stories:

Aang, a young spiritual monk who believes in the beauty of life and sacredness, gave the world hope and balance in its darkest hour. Korra, a headstrong, emotional force of nature that stood for justice and eventually empathy, proved that the ends do not always justify the means in the strive for equality. What would be the theme of this new Avatar’s story and how they relate to it? And that’s not even getting into the antagonists.

Last thing, and it’s small, but how would bending play into the whole high school aspect? Like, would there be classes for different benders? Is there semi-segregation? There’s a lot of things that could work but it also does raise more questions about how things worked and what previous Avatars actually achieved.

But yeah, those are my thoughts. I really love idea and the possibilities it would bring.

Edited by deuteragonist on Mar 8th 2020 at 9:43:50 AM

>>>Like, would there be classes for different benders?

There would have to be by default if anyone's gonna actually learn anything.

...It is? It's just the mechs we've already seen writ large. I fail to see how that "jumps the shark" — never mind that's really not what that term is supposed to mean.

And honestly, ever since the first season of Lo K it's been pretty obvious that the "modern time" we know of just isn't going to happen in the Avatar 'verse — no guns, half the population controls the elements, and both zeppelins and humaniod robot suits are both workable and practical. At this point, it would be hard to tell when their tech is supposed to be at the same level as ours, since they're so backwards from us in some aspects and then way ahead of us in others.

As for a hypothetical future Avatar, I throw in my idea from a few years back — the new Avatar being a very young kid who, at the start of the show, has no idea they're the Avatar, in contrast with Aang and Korra, who know at the start. They suck at bending, but have a powerful connection to the spirits. They live in a seemingly normal small town, and must investigate its dark secrets to uncover the truth behind their previous self's murder.

Korra mainly demonstrated that tech is advancing, even if it's not quite advancing the way it did in real life.

On further thought, I think theme of irrelevance & feeling worthless fits pretty well for what I'm thinking of. Kind of like an extension of the problem Kuruk faced.

You got someone who's lived their entire searching for some kind of purpose or meaning to their existence, & they find it by virtue of being the Avatar proving that their is a purpose to their life, but that purpose is now being considered as having lost its worth.

The nations becoming more united, the spirits adjusting, the Airbending hero force, & increasing modernization is all making the Avatar look apparently unnecessary like they are a relic of a bygone era.

But no era is perfect & problems crop up as the Avatar seeks to prove that no matter what the world will always need them.

A lazy Avatar would be an interesting change, just to expand on my own propositions.

An Avatar who has no interest in the wider world and only initially looks out for number one would make for lots of potential angst.

If there's another war, and the Avatar has no interest in participating, has dreams beyond fighting for themselves or for others, and just plain out wants to survive would be intriguing.

Or if there's a political upheaval and the Avatar has no interest in getting involved.

Stuff like that.

Yeah and it's not like it would be completely unprecedented either. Aang ran away from being the avatar because he wanted a life beyond that/a normal life, and Kuruk was a pretty hands-off avatar by his own account.

We kind of already saw this with Aang and Korra.

Aang got frozen in an iceberg in the first place because he was a kid who panicked at the magnitude of the responsibility and fled.

Korra suffered PTSD and more or less ran away from being the Avatar after the Red Lotus nearly killed her.

This idea kind of sounds like Cade Skywalker from the Legends Star Wars Legacy comics.

Edited by M84 on Mar 9th 2020 at 5:27:21 PM

Oh no I agree. The giant mech suit was a perfectly natural progression in my opinion and I didn’t get what people were talking about. But I definitely remember it being controversial.

I must say, I am still very partial to a Fallen Hero or morally grey kind of Avatar as a foil to not just Korra and Aang, but all of the Avatars we’ve seen before. Wan, Yangchen, Roku, and even Kyoshi were all pretty unquestionably good (keep in mind, I still have to read Rise of Kyoshi). And Kuruk was just kind of chill.

Edited by deuteragonist on Mar 9th 2020 at 4:07:39 AM

Something would have to go horribly horribly wrong for an Avatar to go bad.

Such as an AU where the Red Lotus actually managed to kidnap Korra and indoctrinate her.

I could actually see it happening, though. For one, an Avatar has a lot of power and while I’m not a fan of the whole “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely” thing, I’m quite surprised we haven’t heard of an Avatar getting Drunk with Power.

Plus,I honestly don’t think we’ve seen a Fallen Hero in the Avatar world before. The only one that comes to mind is Kuvira or Jet.

Don't forget about Hama.

With that in mind, an Avatar could have their outlook on life significantly darkened if they were imprisoned and tortured for a long time.

Of course, they would have to be captured before they master the other elements aside from their native one.

Which most likely would mean that they're a child or a teen, upon which brutal and inhumane imprisonment would really sour their moral stance and life philosophy.

So yes, that interesting concept would work. But on a meta matter, where is the best platform to tell that kind of story?

I assume the presence of a bonafide spirit of Peace and Light helps reduce the chance of an Avatar going bad.

I always liked the idea of an Avatar who's street kid, born and raised in the slums to contrast with Aang's peaceful upbringing and the fact Korra's dad was tribe chief. Someone who's not quite comfortable with the idea that the same people who would pass him by and spit at him would suddenly be trying to curry favor the second he uses a different element, making him distrusting and having him be very cynical.

I always liked how "Bitter Work" pairs with "The Avatar and the Firelord" in that it depicts Aang's struggles with earthbending and Roku's training in all four elements, Roku even says that his training in waterbending was "bitter work." In order to master the bending of the elements you had to understand and comprehend the societal mindset of the four nations, it's extremely difficult to do that and not assimilate the positive aspects of each one. When Sozin starts his war of conquest, Roku knows and loves the people of the Earth kingdom so of course he would oppose that.

So I think one of the more practical barriers to preventing an asshole avatar from happening is rooted in the training they need in order to become a fully realized avatar.

So basically Mako if he were an Avatar?

That kind of sounds a little like Avatar Aladdin Wan. Not so much the personality but the street rat part and rebelliousness.

Sidenote: I really love how varied and diverse each of the Avatars upbringings are. You have Korra and Roku who were born of royalty, Aang who was a nomad raised by monks, and Wan and Kyoshi who were born into poverty.

Edited by deuteragonist on Mar 9th 2020 at 5:03:40 AM