WORLDWIDE FANTASY MONTH #1: Avatar: The Last Airbender, by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko (2005)
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Type of Media: Animation
Avatar: The Last Airbender is a wonderful anomaly. A cartoon aimed at kids with deep lore and complex characters that tells an ongoing story with increasing levels of maturity, it’s like an animated TV show version of the Harry Potter phenomenon, only with better writing. Even more impressively, it had a unique look that drew from Asian traditions and spirituality, and while that would condemn it to being woefully niche in the eyes of most TV executives it pretty quickly found an audience and started a robust franchise.
In Avatar: The Last Airbender, the world is divided into four lands based on the classical elements: the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom, the Water tribes, and the Air nomads. Some people have the power to manipulate the element associated with their homeland, using a martial art called bending. The four lands are kept in relative balance by the Avatar, a spiritual leader who continually reincarnates with the power to bend all four elements. In the story, the Fire Nation has been attacking the other lands and trying to conquer them for 100 years, and for some reason the Avatar has been missing the entire time.
The main plot involves two teenagers from the Water tribes, waterbender Katara and her brother Sokka, who stumble upon the Avatar trapped in a glacier. They revive him, a young airbender named Aang, and together they set out to give Aang the training he needs to fulfill his role as Avatar and restore balance to the world. As they find masters who can teach Aang to bend the other three elements they’re pursued by the exiled prince of the Fire Nation, Zuko, and his easy-going uncle Iroh.
While Avatar initially just sounds like a cool fantasy adventure show with an Asian spin, what makes it great is that the creators and writers put so much thought into the worldbuilding and characters. Things start slow, but the complexity of the universe steadily ramps up, introducing mature themes into what is ostensibly a show for kids. The Fire Nation uses technological superiority to commit genocide. A leader is revealed to be a puppet, kept in the dark by his confidants while the secret police turn his city into an Orwellian state. A member of Team Avatar finds out about a powerful but horrific forbidden bending technique, and has to decide whether or not to utilize it.
The character arcs as well are way better than you would expect from a Nickelodeon cartoon, giving even highly-regarded prestige TV shows a run for their money. Aang has to grow up and accept the realities of this new world and his place in it, putting his crush on Katara behind his duties as Avatar. Katara learns how to think outside of her own little box, dealing with people and situations she isn’t used to. Sokka has to find his place as the only non-bender on the team. Zuko, probably the character with the best development in the whole show, goes from a moody, one-note antagonist to a tragic outsider, torn between his father’s wishes and his own conscious.
Further distinguishing Avatar from other adventure shows is its setting. The bedrock of this world is distinctly Asian with a small amount of Inuit thrown in, borrowing from many different Asian cultures and traditions in the same way typical 'sword and sorcery' fantasy draws from a bunch of different European ones. The process for finding the new incarnation of the Avatar is based on the way Buddhists test if someone is a reincarnated Lama, all of the bending styles use techniques from real life martial arts, and Uncle Iroh’s outlook on life is heavily inspired by Taoist philosophy. As a show with such compelling characters and a unique universe, Avatar probably could’ve phoned in the details and gotten away with it. However, creators DiMartino and Konietzko tried to represent the Asian cultures they were borrowing from accurately, hiring consultants to make sure the anthropology, fighting, and even styles of calligraphy they used were all legit. It’s clear that they weren’t just mining Asian culture to be different, and that they have a genuine respect for Chinese Wuxia, Eastern philosophy, and anime. Their love for their source material shines through the show.
A lot of people pass judgement on Avatar: The Last Airbender because of its art style and the channel it comes from, but it is probably one of the best shows to grace the 2000s. If you like well-written, character-driven TV and you don’t mind some cartoon goofiness, Avatar is a nice deviation from a slate of grim dramas.