Film Theory: END the Avatar Cycle! (Avatar the Last Airbender)

Game, Movie, Food, htclig. Long ago, the four channels lived together in harmony. But everything changed when the YouTube algorithm attacked. Only Matpat, master of the four theories, could balance the channels. But when YouTube needed him most, he disappeared. But I believe Matpat can save the world. Hello Internet! Welcome to Film Theory, the show that's here to reveal your secret power: subscription bending. Test it. Click the button below the video to transform it. Now, I don't usually call many things perfect. Almost everything can be improved in one way or another. But right up there with Chrono Trigger, The Lord of the Rings, and the sweet, delicious burn of Diet Coke is Avatar: The Last Airbender.

If there was ever a perfect animated series, it might be Avatar. In case you need a little refresher. In the world of Avatar, people live in one of four nations, each built around one of the four traditional elements. You have the water tribes at the north and south poles, the vast land kingdom that covers most of the world's landmass, the hardworking and aggressive fire nation, and the elusive, flying nomadic air monks. Some people are born with the ability to control one of these four elements, but only one person can master all four. That person is known as an Avatar and is tasked with keeping the world in balance, as the first

avatar

Wan explains: Each

avatar

is born in a

cycle

, from water to earth to fire to air, so that when the previous avatar dies, a new One is born in the next nation.

And throughout the various seasons, we watch this exact

cycle

unfold. Avatar Kyoshi of the Earth Kingdom gives way to Roku of the Fire Nation, who then dies and opens the door to Aang of the Air Nomads and finally Avatar Korra of the Water Tribe. It's a great setup that allows stories and characters to be explored outside of the original series, expanding the world even further. I mean, that's basically what happened with the sequel series, The Legend of Korra, and it seems to be Nickelodeon's strategy with the franchise going forward. There have been several novels and comics dedicated to other avatars and secondary characters.

They've even set up an entire production studio dedicated to more Avatar content. Many of these new things are rumored to also focus on different avatars. Sure you have the OGs, Aang and Korra, as well as the fan favorite, Kyoshi, but also the next avatar that we don't even know about yet. There's even a live-action Netflix series on the way. Let's hope it goes better than the previous one. Anyway, in my excitement for new Avatar content, I decided to rewatch the series and catch up on a bunch of spin-off stories they've released over the years. And you know what, theorists?

The more I look, the more I realize that having an avatar sucks. This world is much worse because of the avatar cycle. When you really break down what each avatar does during their life and how it compares to what each avatar is supposed to do. You realize that each and every one of them has largely failed, enough to make you wonder: is it worth having an avatar? Climb aboard your flying bison and pour on some cactus juice, loyal theorist. I'm about to make you listen to this old and broken tradition. Let's start by establishing our ground rules, shall we?

Remember, the important thing about the Avatar is that his main goal is to keep the world in balance, both physically and spiritually. What that means exactly could be up for debate. But the way I see it, an Avatar's duties are largely divided into four main tasks: 1) help maintain international peace between the four nations 2) help maintain internal peace within each of those nations. 3) Protect the innocent and do justice to the unjust. And 4) close the gap between the human world and the spiritual world. So let's start at the beginning of our list. One of the main parts of an avatar's duty is to help maintain international peace between the four nations.

And it's true that some of them are good at it. For example, we see that Ang has helped establish an international government to help the four nations stay at peace with each other. But literally from the first seconds of the show, we know that at least one avatar made a big mistake in this area. The entire premise of the entire franchise starts with a gigantic international war, and it all happened because of the failure of the Avatars. On the one hand, we could blame Aang, who ran away from duty, which in turn opened a power vacuum that allowed the 100 Year War to begin.

But he was also literally 12 at the time, so it's hard to blame him for that. Instead, the real failure falls on Aang's predecessor, Avatar Roku. Roku was a childhood friend of Fire Lord Sozin, the Fire Lord who started the war. And what's worse, Roku knew that Sozin wanted to conquer those other nations. So what did Roku do to stop it? He basically gave Sozin a slap on the wrist and a stern talking to with, by his own admission, Roku's indecisiveness and, let's be honest, favoritism towards his friend and his home nation was a major weakness that ultimately led to tons of unnecessary deaths.

Instead, his actions led to Sozin's betrayal, his own death, and a war that

last

ed for generations. His failure led to the complete annihilation of the Air Nation, as well as all the loss of life that comes with a war of conquest. It's not exactly going to make WatchMojo's top ten moments that brought balance to the world. And here's the thing. We don't have to look at Roku or Aang to see the avatar's flaws here. In the prequel novels, we learned that Avatar Szeto, the avatar of the Fire Nation before Roku, was born during a time of great conflict for the nation.

And instead of working internationally, like most of the other avatars, Szeto decided to focus on domestic politics, becoming a bureaucrat within the Fire Nation to help his people. Although he did help bring the Fire Nation back to prosperity. He did it at the expense of all other nations. This eventually led to an event known as the Platinum Affair shortly after his death, in which the Fire Nation and Water Tribes secretly backed a challenger to the Earth Kingdom throne. When this was discovered, all three nations became incredibly isolationist. Because of this, Szeto's immediate successor, the air nomad Avatar Yangchen, would consider Szeto's legacy to be messy.

So, as you can already begin to see, having one person solely responsible for monitoring the entire world of control is like an impossible task. Time will be the avatar's most limited resource, and the decisions he makes about how to spend that time inevitably mean that he will have to sacrifice a significant portion of his duty. Obviously, for Szeto, focusing all of his attention on bringing prosperity to the fire nation meant that he allowed conflicts to arise within other kingdoms with the Platinum Affair. We see a similar situation arise in the Avatar Kyoshi books. The Avatar before her had a singular focus on dealing with the spiritual duties of the role.

This meant that he neglected his responsibilities as a politician. Her abandonment of the physical world allowed the Earth kingdom to become destabilized by infighting and Kyoshi was basically forced to spend her entire life cleaning up that mess. But don't feel so bad for her. She caused even more problems than she solved. For example, Chin the Conqueror. Now this guy was a warlord facing off against a corrupt king. That said, Chin was far from a hero, as Kyoshi herself says. This seems like the exact kind of situation where an avatar should stand up and help make peace.

Good? A rebellion threatens to destabilize an entire kingdom and both sides are led by horrible people. The guardian of peace and balance should probably look to solve this problem. Even Kyoshi herself says so. There is the word balance. So what did Kyoshi do to stop Chin? Nothing. Literally nothing. Chin was able to conquer almost the entire continent. Kyoshi only decided to intervene when she appeared on her doorstep to take over the peninsula she called home. Yes, of course, Kyoshi. It seems like you were going straight to that. So now that Chin is literally in front of her, you'd think this would be a good opportunity to try and stop her conquest and restore balance to the Earth Kingdom.

No! Kyoshi uses her power to disconnect the peninsula from the mainland and then proceeds to take it to the middle of the ocean. Seriously, in what is arguably the most impressive display of an avatar are the powers we see throughout the entire franchise. All Kyoshi does is pull a giant, "Okay, I'm going out." Chin's conquest was only stopped because he was too stubborn to stray from Kyoshi in her path, falling to his death as Kyoshi Island formed. Really Kyoshi? It sure seems like you have a massive revisionist history there because you did nothing in the months before he arrived on your peninsula.

And that philosophy runs deep in the village Kyoshi leaves behind. Towards the beginning of Last Airbender, Team Avatar lands on Kyoshi Island, where the guiding wisdom of all Kyoshi fans is found. “Yeah, it’s not my problem.” Heck, even the Earth Kingdom Capitals slogan “There is no war in Ba Sing Se,” follows the same attitude. Ignore the problem. Deny. She closes her eyes and just disappears. It's true that things seem to be going much better under Roku's rule. And after Aang ends the Hundred Year War, things again seem to be going well. But under Korra there was one civil conflict after another.

She was Avatar during the Water Tribe civil war. Under her supervision, the Red Lotus assassinates the Earth Queen, and Korra's inaction due to injury and PTSD subsequently allows Kuvira to take control of much of the Earth Kingdom. Not a great track record in a long sequence of avatars dropping the ball. So let us now move on to the next criterion: protecting the innocent and giving justice to the unjust. This one is a little harder to judge because we don't see much of each avatar's day-to-day life. And while yes, we do see some heroic moments like Aang Fighting Yakone and Korra chasing criminals on the streets of Republic City.

There's a rotten core here that starts to peek out as we get deeper into the franchise. Most of the plot of The Legend of Korra revolves around the idea of ​​justice and what it takes to defend everyone. Korra's first major adversary, Amon, is the leader of a group called the Equalists, whose goal is to level the playing field between benders and non-benders by taking away their ability to bend. Sound crazy? It is. But the movement has been shown to resonate with many citizens of Republic City. Life in the world of Avatar can be incredibly difficult for non-benders, even in the supposedly harmonious new society that Aang created.

If you are a voice actor, you have easy access to jobs. Power plants use fire benders to operate. The trains are powered by earth benders and the policemen are almost exclusively metal benders. Masters also find it much easier to commit acts of violence, as we are frequently shown groups of violent masters such as the triple threat triad, the Red Lotus. Hell, even the Republic City Police, who treat the use of force like it's second nature. Non-benders are overlooked. They are ignored. They are frequently threatened. In one particular scene, Republic City's metal control police force herds a group of nonbenders like cattle using force to break up a nonviolent protest.

These people are attacked because the police force has cut off the electricity to their homes and they are peacefully resisting being profiled as members of the Amon uprising just because they are not teachers. A woman in the crowd desperately asks for Korra's help and says: And Korra does help. A bit. Unfortunately for the common people, Korra considers the problem resolved after she exposed Amon as a bender and a fraud, effectively derailing a movement that began and grew out of genuine concern from a large portion of Republic City's non-bender population. . So that one doesn't look so good for Korra.

But when you think about it, this is Aang's city. He created the system that Korra inherited. In fact, this goes way beyond Korra and Aang. The imbalance between masters and non-masters is a flaw of all previous avatars that appeared or exploited the same system. Which brings us back to Kyoshi, who honestly might have been the worst of the group. See, Kyoshi had a difficult childhood. She was an orphan and worked as a maid until it was discovered that she was the avatar. She later joined a criminal gang founded by her parents. And it's not like she suddenly stopped committing crimes after the Avatar joined.

No. They decided to involve Kyoshi in the crimes. And that's not all, Kyoshi's youthful anger greatly influenced her way of thinking. Even after learning that she was her avatar, her thoughts were more focused on revenge than duty. The Rise of Kyoshi affirms that quote: “Her hunger to learn the four elements had nonothing to do with becoming a fully realized avatar. “Fire, air, and water were simply more weapons I could use against a single target.” end of quote. And much later in his life, he wasn't so bothered by taking a life that he didn't see the difference between accidents and intentional murder.

As for protecting the innocent. Here again we have some problems. In Shadow of Kyoshi, Kyoshi threatens to crush a mother and her adult son with a rock while he tries to get a false confession out of them for something they didn't do. But his worst decision is revealed in the canonical flash game Escape From the Spirit World. It is here that Kyoshi confesses to Aang his greatest failure. You see, one of the Earth Kings during Kyoshi's lifetime was incredibly unpopular. His leadership was seen as ineffective and corrupt, and eventually led to a peasant uprising against him.

During the riots, the King ordered Kyoshi to put an end to the uprising, and to her credit, she refused. Instead, she encouraged the king to listen to the people's complaints and reach an agreement. He seems pretty good so far, right? But here's the thing: Kyoshi admits that he didn't like people opposing the kingdom. In fact, throughout the entire story, Kyoshi seems less concerned with the human rights abuses committed by the king and more concerned with the fact that the peasants are destroying historical artifacts and disrupting the stability of the monarchy. So, in exchange for the king listening to his people and ending the unrest, Kyoshi agrees to train an elite group of earthbenders for him.

They would be, quote, “silent, precise and feared by all.” It was a force that would eventually be known as Dai Li. Yes. Remember that creepy secret police from the animated series? The Rock Gloves whose loyalty could be bought and sold, and who sided with Azula and the Fire Nation during the invasion of Ba Sing Se? They were Kyoshi's idea. He even admits that he regrets not having foreseen the long-term consequences of giving future Earth Kingdom monarchs access to an elite secret police force. But here's the thing: that move didn't make sense even in his time. This king, the one who was willing to crush his own people, should not have had access to that secret police either.

Imagine what he would have made the peasants do if they were present to begin with. On the other hand, when you're as powerful as Kyoshi and you treat your powers like a big hammer, I guess everything seems like a nail. Again, for many of the avatars, protecting the innocent and bringing justice to the unjust is simply a failure. So it's three by three where a lot of avatars fail. But what about our fourth criterion here? Bridge the gap and maintain peace between the human and spiritual worlds. This is basically WHAT avatars are supposed to be good at.

Surely there is no legacy of failure here either. Well, you would think, and then you would be wrong. We hear in the prequel novel dedicated to Avatar Yangchen that when humans and spirits came into conflict, she reached agreements that would make the spirits leave the humans alone as long as they took care of the physical world. And of course, the humans didn't keep their end of the deal. As a result, the spirits ended up committing a lot of violence against humans who broke their oaths. This, in turn, created a huge mess that the next avatar, Kuruk, had to clean up.

We find out in the Kyoshi novels that Avatar Kuruk would end up spending most of his short life fighting dark spirits empowered by Yangchen's decisions. Finally, let's move on to Avatar Korra, who might have been the avatar that failed the most in this one. At the end of the second season of Legend of Korra, Korra is subdued by her uncle Unalaq, who fused with the Dark Spirit Vaatu. Unalaq is able to rip the spirit Avatar Raava from Korra's body, severing his connection to past avatars forever, thousands of years of knowledge extinguished in an instant. Additionally, during this battle, we witness a world-changing event called Harmonic Convergence.

Basically, a portal opens between the spiritual and human worlds, allowing people and spirits to pass freely between them. In the end, Korra decides to keep the portals to the Spirit World open, a decision that reverses the first avatar's stance and fatefully merges the human and spirit worlds. At first glance it seems brilliant, right? Wouldn't peaceful coexistence between humans and spirits create a more meaningful bond between them? Well, not necessarily. The unintended consequence of these two very different worlds colliding is complicated and doesn't really scream balance. First, the world's overlapping geographies create enormous territorial problems. Houses in Republic City are overrun with vines and entire city blocks are destabilized.

It doesn't matter if you're a teacher or a non-teacher, finding your living room destroyed and your building about to collapse is definitely on the list of the five worst breakfast surprises. And second, Harmonic Convergence gives Zaheer, one of the world's most dangerous warriors, the power of Airbending, which he quickly uses to begin assassinating world leaders and throwing the world off balance. I'm going to write him off as a big fool, Korra. When you stop and look at the totality of what we know about the Avatars, one thing becomes clear time and time again. This is a vicious cycle.

Each of these avatars tackled difficult problems, but their solutions ended up creating more problems for the immediate successor. Szeto focused too much on his own country. Yangchen has to confront and end isolationist policies. Yangchen helps make peace between the four nations, but at the cost of angering the spirits. Well, Kuruk has to spend his life fighting dark spirits and ends up neglecting the nations of the real world. Kuruk dies early in the battle with the spirits, leaving an unstable political situation. Kyoshi creates a secret police to try to hide the country's problems from him. Roku shows favoritism towards his home nation, Aang has to deal with a century-long war and the death of his entire people.

Everyone ignores the non-benders, Korra has to deal with the consequences and the Equalists. The Avatar cycle is a cycle of violence. It's a broken system and honestly, that makes a lot of sense. Ask yourself, why does the avatar have to have a monopoly on balance in this world? The very concept of avatar is unbalanced. At the end of the day, the avatars possess the power of a god, literally a god of light, but they are still only human. Aang was a 12-year-old boy facing the solution to a 100-year war. Kyoshi was a poor orphan. In the end, she will defend her house so that it is not taken from her again.

Roku was Sozin's friend. Of course, he will act slowly and be more lenient in his judgment. A person with so much power, so much influence, is a recipe for disaster. I feel like I've heard this somewhere before. In the end, the truly successful or perhaps the least unsuccessful avatars are the ones who don't do it alone. Aang saves the world from Fire Lord Ozai because he trusts his friends to help him do the job. Sokka, Toph, Suki, Zuko, and Katara play key roles in stopping the Fire Nation. While Aang has his cool Dragon Ball Z fighting Ozai.

And those friends are equally essential after the war to help him restore balance. His friends helped create and maintain international peace in ways Aang could not do alone. He simply demonstrates that controlling all the elements of this world is meaningless if you don't also control the element of friendship. But hey, if you want more Avatar: The Last Airbender content right now, check out our previous

theory

that talks about the science of controlling water. Yes, believe it or not, but what you see Katara and Aang do in the series is not that far out of the realm of possibility.

Or if you want something a little different, I actually teamed up with Nickelodeon and made a video looking at whether or not a creature as big as Appa could actually fly. It's different, but it was a really fun collaboration with the people who made this show possible in the first place. As always, don't forget to subscribe to receive all new Avatar content. You know, we're going to have a lot more to cover here on the channel. But until then, my friends remember that everything is just a

theory

, A MOVIE THEORY! aaaaaand cut.