A Historic Guide To The Avatar Cycle

When Netflix decided to add Avatar the Last Airbender to its library, the show instantly became one of the most popular titles on Netflix. Fans of the series were ecstatic to rewatch the adventures of Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph and their quest to save the world.

Due to its popularity, the streaming platform recently announced that the sequel series Legend of Korra is going to be added to its library soon. Both series tackle how to save the world from destruction and while our world does seem to need an avatar of its own to save it, let’s take a look back at all of the known Avatars in the Avatar universe and what they have achieved in their lifetime. Perhaps they have the answer to help us bring balance to the world?

Avatar Wan

Avatar Wan was the very first avatar, who lived ten thousand years before the premise of ATLA. In Wan’s time, the physical world was largely inhabited by spirits and they were extremely overprotective of their land. Due to their aggressive behavior, humans were forced to live in cities on the back of giant lion turtles.

Wan grew up poor in his hometown, and was eventually banished into the wilds after he abused the power of firebending. He struggled to survive in the wilds until the local spirits took him in. Wan decided to live amongst the spirits and as time went on, he developed his firebending skills and protected the spirits from hostile humans.

After several years, Wan decided to find the other lion turtle cities to learn more about the world. During his journey, he ran into two large spirits fighting each other. Wan broke up the fight and inadvertently let the spirit of chaos, Vaatu, free. He then traveled with the spirit of peace, Raava, to every lion turtle city to master all four elements. They eventually reached a northern portal that took them to the spirit realm, where they found Vaatu and fought the dark spirit.

During the fight Wan permanently bonded with Raava and created the Avatar Spirit, making Wan the very first Avatar. He defeated Vaatu, imprisoned him in the Spirit World, and closed the Northern portal to prevent any human from releasing him.

After the battle, more humans left the lion turtle cities and established towns in the wilds, however they were constantly caught in conflict with the nearby spirits. To prevent anymore conflict between the two sides, Wan guided every spirit in the physical world back to the spirit world and separated the two worlds. He announced that he was going to be the bridge between the two worlds and promised to keep it separated until he can teach all humans how to coexist with each other.

As time passed, humans waged war amongst each other and Wan tried to teach different groups of people how to coexist peacefully. However, Wan wasn’t able to and died during the aftermath of a war. Regretting that he wasn’t able to bring peace to the world, Raava assured him that his mission will continue and began the Avatar Cycle of reincarnation.         

Avatar Yang Chen

Thousands of years later, Avatar Yang Chen was an airbender nomad who grew up according to the Air Nomad culture. That was until the White Lotus announced her to be the next avatar and she began her training by traveling the world. During her time, she was excited to perform her duties as the avatar and solved every problem with wisdom and neutrality.

However, her avatar duties became more difficult because of her unwillingness to kill people. She eventually put aside her pacifism to fulfill her duties as the Avatar, believing that protecting the world was more important than her personal beliefs. Through her dedication as the avatar, she was able to ensure peace between the spirit world and the physical world. In addition to this, she created a treaty of the ongoing battles between a massive pirate fleet called the Fifth Nation and the Earth Kingdom.

When she died, her political deals had a long-lasting impact and it brought an era of prosperity. She was eventually regarded as a holy figure of protection in the Earth Kingdom and among the air nomads, and many large statues were built in her honor. While her decisions created an era of peace, those decisions inadvertently set up her successor with failure.

Avatar Kuruk

Avatar Kuruk was Yang Chen’s successor from the Northern Water Tribe. Due to the era of peace created by Yang Chen, there were no major conflicts to solve and he maintained the peace left by his predecessor. However, his laid-back attitude got the best of him and instead of vigilantly watching over the four nations, he let them resolve their own conflicts. During his free time, Kuruk would travel the world to compete against strong benders and impress women with his bending. The lack of vigilance in his duties would set up future revolts and conquest by opportunistic world leaders.

To punish his laziness, the spirit, Koh the face stealer, stole the face of Kuruk’s wife and imprisoned her in the spirit world to encourage him to act like a proper avatar. Koh plan’s backfired, as Kuruk dedicated the majority of his time to kill Koh to get revenge, but he was unable to because Koh’s death would result in the death of his wife as well.

He died at thirty-three years old and it has been speculated that his death was connected to his time spent in the spirit world when he hunted for Koh. After his death, the world fell into chaos as the new captain of the Fifth Nation decided to break off the treaty created by Yang Chen to ravage the Earth Kingdom coastlines and an organized bandit uprising would wreak havoc within the Earth Kingdom.

Avatar Kiyoshi

Due to Kuruk’s decisions to allow the four nations to resolve their own issues, the world fell out of balance, specifically the Earth Kingdom. The entire nation was under constant threat by organized bandit clans, a pirate fleet, and endless waves of corrupt politicians. It was all up to Avatar Kiyoshi to bring peace and balance back to her nation. In the two part novel series following her life, Kiyoshi grew up impoverished and alone, until she was taken care of by Kuruk’s old friends. When she fully acknowledged herself to be the avatar, she went out to bring balance back into the world.

In order to do that, she had to be the strictest avatar in history, and launched a one-person crusade against all injustice. Her crusade allowed her to destroy the Fifth Nation pirate fleet, prevented large scale bandit uprisings, and stopped corruption through force and intimidation. In the process, she established the Kiyoshi Warriors in her home town to empower women and to stand up against any local injustices. Her town was eventually put in danger when a warlord named Chin the Conqueror threatened it. Kiyoshi separated her home town from the mainland with her bending, inadvertently killed Chin, and created Kiyoshi Island.

After the event, the Earth King faced a peasant revolt due to his cruel and unpopular leadership and called Kiyoshi to end the rebellion. However, she denied his request and forced him to appeal to the needs of the peasants, and in return she created the Dai Li, an elite group of earthbenders to maintain the cultural heritage of Ba Sing Sae. She died at the age of two hundred and thirty years old, and while her political decisions brought in an era of peace, some of her choices backfired after her death, such as the creation of the Dai Li. In addition, her sense of justice made people fear the Avatar instead of revering her as a hero.  

Avatar Roku

As more people feared the Avatar than ever before, Kiyoshi’s successor Avatar Roku tried to restore discipline and restraint to the Avatar’s public image. When he became the Avatar, his biggest challenge was handling all of the political backlash from Kiyoshi’s strict sense of justice. This brought in decades of peace, however his best friend, Fire Lord Sozin, saw this as an opportunity to expand the Fire Nation’s territory in the name of peace and coexistence. Roku prevented him from doing so, arguing that conquering the four nations would lead to a cycle of violence.

However, Fire Lord Sozin ignored Roku and expanded the Fire Nation’s territory into the Earth Kingdom’s territory. It led to a fight between the two, where Roku won and showed mercy to Sozin. Due to Roku’s dedication to his restraint, it caused him to doubt many of his political decisions and it allowed many opportunistic people, like Sozin, a second chance to follow through with their plans.

Roku’s restraint became his downfall when Fire Lord Sozin left him to die in a volcanic explosion in order to expand the Fire Nation’s territory. After Roku’s death, Sozin started his campaign of the hundred year war and killed every single air nomad to prevent Roku’s successor from stopping his conquest. This left Roku’s successor to inherit all of the problems that came from his restraint and Kiyoshi’s aggression.  

Avatar Aang

In Avatar the Last Airbender, we are introduced to Aang, a young air nomad who ran away from his responsibilities as the Avatar and shortly after was caught in a storm and froze himself for one hundred years. When he awoke, he realized that he inadvertently allowed a hundred year war to wage on. He is then tasked with ending the war and bringing balance back to the world. Throughout the series, Aang saved many towns and villages under the threat of the Fire Nation and defended cities from large scales assaults such the siege of the Northern Water Tribe and Ba Sing Se.

He eventually mastered all four elements at a young age to fight against Fire Lord Ozai. In a final standoff between the two, Aang won the battle by taking away the Fire Lord’s bending, making him one of the select few avatars to master energy bending. In addition, he was able to restore the avatar’s public image by consistently remaining neutral and staying true to his Air nomad beliefs.  

After the end of the hundred year war, Aang acted as a mediator between Earth King Kuei and Fire Lord Zuko about the decolonization of Fire Nation colonies. However, due to the deep integration of mixed cultures within the colonies, Aang and the other world leaders decided to form a new city where everyone from the four nations could live together in harmony. This eventually became Republic City in Legend of Korra.

Aang would continue to watch over the development of Republic City, tried to restore the Air Nomad culture back to what it once was, and cared for his family with Katara. Due to the hundred years he spent frozen while in the Avatar State, his health to deteriorated faster than expected, and he died at the age of sixty-six.  

Avatar Korra

The White Lotus discovered Aang’s successor in the form of Korra, a water bender from the Southern Water Tribe. Soon after her discovery as the Avatar, Korra’s uncle commissioned a terrorist group called the Red Lotus to kidnap Korra and have her release the dark spirit, Vaatu. However, Sokka, Zuko, Korra’s father, Tonraq, and Aang’s son, Tenzin, rescued Korra and imprisoned her kidnappers. After the incident, they all decided to keep Korra in the South Pole to master bending all of the elements. After several years, Korra mastered fire, earth, and water bending and moved to Republic City to master air bending.

Throughout LOK, she is forced to deal with a society that doesn’t need an Avatar. She has trouble mediating the diverse modern day politics of Republic City and her presence was seen as an opportunity for political extremists to enact their plans. This came in the shape of an anti-bending revolution and a civil war between the water tribes.

The water tribe civil war led to the release of the dark spirit Vaatu and both spirit portals being reopened. Vaatu merged with Korra’s uncle and became a dark avatar, and together they destroyed Korra’s connections to all past reincarnations of the Avatar Cycle. After her fight with the dark avatar, Korra had to restart the Avatar Cycle. She also left the spirit portals open, connecting both the spirit and the physical world, believing that she needed to teach coexistence to everyone.

Reconnecting the two worlds led to a shift in the world’s energy and it gave many people the ability to airbend. Korra traveled across the Earth Kingdom to find the new air benders and to rebuild the air nation. This shift in the world’s energy also gave criminals the ability to air bend, specifically the leader of the Red Lotus, Zaheer. With his new powers he broke out of prison, freed his companions, and together the Red Lotus hunted down Korra and killed the Earth Queen. The Red Lotus attempted to kill Korra in the Avatar State through the use of mercury poison to bring in a new world where anarchy and natural selection reign. However their plans were foiled by the efforts of Korra and all of her friends.

Due to the assassination of the Earth Queen, the entire Earth Kingdom was thrown into chaos. Korra was unable to stabilize the Earth Kingdom due to her injuries and PTSD from her fight with the Red Lotus. The restoration of the Earth Kingdom was left to a master metal bender named Kuvira, however she declared herself to be the rightful ruler and established a fascist dictatorship. Korra eventually overcame her injuries and trauma to defeat Kuvira, her army, and her weapons of mass destruction. Their fight led to the creation of a third spirit portal in Republic City.

After the creation of the third spirit portal, Korra decided to take a vacation in the spirit world with her best friend/girlfriend, Asami. However, their vacation was cut short when Korra had to deal with the political blow back of the new spirit portal and to watch over the stabilization of the Earth Kingdom. She continued her duties as the Avatar and worried about the future of the Avatar Cycle.

How Do Avatars Know How To Save The World?

In order to save the world from destruction, the Avatar must understand what the social and political problems of their era are. They settle these controversial topics in an objective manner and face against anyone who threatens the safety of the entire world. However, coexistence is the one value that every Avatar tries to establish within their lifetime.

Coexistence establishes a general line of dialogue that will allow people to work through whatever differences they may have without instantly resorting to violence. As we have seen with every Avatar, their objectivity and dedication to teaching coexistence are what separates their role from everyone else. They may struggle to maintain their personal beliefs, but they soon learn that acting for the best interests of the entire world is a selfless and thankless act that will benefit future generations.