Avatar Aang is the title lead character in Nickelodeon's animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender, Aang is the last surviving Airbender, a monk of the Air Nomads' Southern Air Temple.
He is an incarnation of the "Avatar", the spirit of light and peace manifested in human form. As the Avatar, Aang controls all four elements (water, earth, fire, and air) and is tasked with bringing balance and keeping the Four Nations at peace. At 112 years old (physically 12), Aang is the series' reluctant hero, spending a century in suspended animation in an iceberg before being discovered and joining new friends Katara and Sokka on a quest to master the elements and save their world from the imperialist Fire Nation.
Aang's character has appeared in other media, such as trading cards,[1][2] video games,[3][4] T-shirts,[5] and web comics.
Creation and conception
Aang's character was developed from a drawing by Bryan Konietzko, depicting a bald man with an arrowlike design on his head, which the artist developed into a picture of a child with a flying bison.[6] Meanwhile, Michael Dante DiMartino was interested in a documentary about explorers trapped in the South Pole, which he later combined with Konietzko's drawing.
- “'"There's an air guy along with these water people trapped in a snowy wasteland...and maybe some fire people are pressing down on them..."'”
- ―Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko[6]
The plot they described corresponds with the first and second episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender, where the "water people" (Katara and Sokka) rescue the "air guy" (Aang) while "trapped in a snowy wasteland" (the Southern Water Tribe) with "some fire people [that] are pressing down on them" (Fire Nation Troops and Zuko).[6][7][8] The creators of the show intended Aang to be trapped in an iceberg for one hundred years, later to wake inside a futuristic world, wherein he would have a robot named Momo and a dozen bisons. The creators lost interest in this theme, and changed it to one hundred years of suspended animation. The robotic Momo became a flying lemur, and the herd of bison was reduced to one.[6]
In the episode "Tales of Ba Sing Se", Aang’s name was written as 安昂 (ān áng) in Chinese.
History
Aang is the protagonist of the original series and the current Avatar, a cyclically reincarnating being who maintains world balance.[7][9] Aang often acts in a fun-loving, carefree manner.[10] His pacifism and vegetarianism are primary traits of Buddhism. The creators intended Aang to "defeat enemies with his wits" and be a "trickster hero".[11][12] Though Aang is often frivolous and enthusiastic, he becomes serious during a crisis.[13][14]
In the original series, Katara and Sokka rescue Aang from a century of suspended animation. Having already mastered his native Airbending, Aang learns Waterbending from Katara and later Pakku at the North Pole in Book One,[15] Earthbending from Toph in Book Two,[16] and Firebending from Zuko in Book Three.[17][18] Throughout the series, Aang aids the Water Tribes and the Earth Kingdom, whom the Fire Nation has oppressed. Unwilling to kill Fire Lord Ozai despite the past Avatars insisting on it, Aang ultimately learns the ancient Lion-Turtles' technique of energybending, which allows the user to give or take away a person's bending, and uses it to render Ozai a non-bender.
In The Legend of Korra, it is revealed that Aang, with the help of his friends, created the United Republic of Nations. He also married Katara and had three children, with his youngest son Tenzin restoring the Air Nomads while instructing the next Avatar, Korra. Like Roku before him, Aang appears at times before his reincarnation Korra prior to their connection being destroyed.
Abilities
As a reincarnation of the entity known as the Avatar, Aang possessed the power to bend all four elements, making him the most powerful bender of his time. Though Avatar Roku said mastering the elements could take many years, Aang was able to learn all four with considerable skill in a year, though technically, he did not completely master all four as stated by Zuko and Toph. As a result of his unconventional training, Aang never demonstrated most of the special subsets of the bending arts. However, he did display the abilities of lightning redirection and seismic sense, making him the first Avatar known to have learned these abilities. Most Avatars were not told of their status until they were sixteen years of age, but Aang had become a fully realized Avatar while he was still only biologically twelve years old. Thus, he became the youngest known Avatar to do so. As he was chronologically 112 years old, Aang also has the distinction of taking the longest to achieve this status.
References
- ↑ "Avatar Trading Card Game". Nickelodeon.
- ↑ "Avatar: The Last Airbender Trading Card Game". BoardGameGeek.
- ↑ "Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Burning Earth" (Flash). Nickelodeon.
- ↑ Nickelodeon. "Avatar Escape From The Spirit World" (Adobe Flash File). Viacom Corporation.
- ↑ "The Nickelodeon Shop — Avatar". Nickelodeon.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 DiMartino, Michael Dante (2006). "In Their Elements". Nickelodeon Magazine (Winter 2006).
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Director: Dave Filoni, Writers: Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko (2005-02-21). "The Boy in the Iceberg". Avatar: The Last Airbender. Season 1. Episode 1. Nickelodeon.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles> Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "The Boy in the Iceberg" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedThe Avatar Returns - ↑ Britt, Aaron. "On Language — Avatar — NYTimes.com", New York Times, August 8, 2008.
- ↑ Director: Giancarlo Volpe; Writer: Nick Malis (March 4, 2005). "The Warriors of Kyoshi". Avatar: The Last Airbender. Season 1. Episode 4. Nickelodeon.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ DiMartino, Michael Dante; Konietzko, Bryan (September 6, 2007). Interview with Eduardo Vasconcellos. "Interview: Avatar's Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino". IGN Entertainment. http://tv.ign.com/articles/818/818284p1.html. Retrieved November 11, 2007.
- ↑ DiMartino, Michael Dante (2006). "Myth Conceptions". Nickelodeon Magazine (Winter 2006).
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedThe Desert - ↑ Director: Joaquim dos Santos; Writer: Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko (July 19, 2008). "Sozin's Comet, Part 3: Into the Inferno". Avatar: The Last Airbender. Season 3. Episode 20. Nickelodeon.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ Director: Giancarlo Volpe; Writer: Michael Dante DiMartino (November 18, 2005). "The Waterbending Master". Avatar: The Last Airbender. Season 1. Episode 18. Nickelodeon.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedBitter Work - ↑ Director: Giancarlo Volpe; Writer: John O'Brien (January 4, 2007). "The Firebending Masters". Avatar: The Last Airbender. Season 3. Episode 13. Nickelodeon.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>
- ↑ Director:Ethan Spaulding; Writer: Michael Dante DiMartino (July 19, 2008). "Sozin's Comet, Part 1: The Phoenix King". Avatar: The Last Airbender. Season 3. Episode 18. Nickelodeon.<templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>