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Fictional character from Avatar: The Last Airbender From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Avatar Aang (Chinese: 安昂; pinyin: Ān Áng), or simply Aang, is the titular protagonist of Nickelodeon's animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender (created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko), voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen. Aang was the last surviving Airbender, a monk of the Air Nomads' Southern Air Temple, and the youngest ever airbending master (for his time).
| Aang | |
|---|---|
| Avatar: The Last Airbender character | |
Avatar Aang in Avatar: The Last Airbender, kneeling in a battle pose, holding his staff behind him. | |
| First appearance |
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| Last appearance |
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| Created by | Michael Dante DiMartino Bryan Konietzko |
| Voiced by |
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| Portrayed by | Noah Ringer (2010 film) Gordon Cormier (2024 television series) |
| In-universe information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Title |
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| Spouse | Katara (wife) |
| Children | |
| Nationality | Air Nomads |
| Animal guide | Appa |
| Bending element |
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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 chronologically 112 years old (biologically 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,[2][3] video games,[4][5] T-shirts,[6] and web comics.[7] Avatar Aang has also been portrayed by Noah Ringer in the live-action film The Last Airbender (2010)[8] and voiced by D.B. Sweeney in the sequel series The Legend of Korra. Gordon Cormier portrays Avatar Aang in the Netflix live-action adaptation of the same name.[9]
Upon death, Avatar Roku was reincarnated and Aang was born, and later raised by Monk Gyatso, a senior monk at the Southern Air Temple and friend of the late Avatar Roku. Even prior to learning he was the Avatar, Aang distinguished himself by becoming one of the youngest Airbending Masters in history by inventing a new technique. As a result of Fire Lord Sozin's increasingly hostile attitude towards the other nations, the senior monks decided to reveal Aang's nature as the Avatar four years before the traditional age (Avatars are usually told of their status once they turn 16) and relocate him to one of the other Air Temples.[10][11] Learning that he was to be taken from Gyatso caused Aang to flee the monastery on his flying bison, Appa, before being caught by a storm; the life-or-death conditions triggered the Avatar State, encasing the young Avatar and his bison in an air-pocket among icebergs, where he remained suspended for a century. Although Monk Gyatso had snuck into Aang's bedroom late at night to tell Aang that he will not be relocated to the Eastern Air Temple, it had already been too late.[12][11]
After one hundred years of suspended animation in an iceberg, twelve-year-old Aang was freed when found by Katara and Sokka, yet unaware of the events that occurred during his rest.[12] His reawakening catches the attention of Prince Zuko, the banished son of current Fire Lord Ozai, and Aang is forced to leave, with Katara and Sokka accompanying him after they learn that he is the Avatar.[13] Aang and his new friends visit the Southern Air Temple, where they meet a winged lemur whom Aang later names Momo. It is there that Aang learns that the Fire Nation wiped out his people, including Gyatso which causes Aang to summon his avatar spirit and the other 3 nations find out the avatar is back. After a series of misadventures, Aang meets his previous incarnation, Roku, who informs him that he must master all four bending arts and end the war before the coming of Sozin's Comet at the end of summer.[14] Upon arriving to the Northern Water Tribe, after a few conflicts, Aang became an apprentice of Waterbending Master Pakku alongside Katara.[15] After helping the Water Tribe drive off a Fire Nation invasion headed by Admiral Zhao, with Katara as his teacher, Aang and his group journey to the Earth Kingdom to find an Earthbending teacher. Ozai, angered that Iroh betrayed the Fire Nation, sends his daughter, Princess Azula, to hunt down Zuko and Iroh.[16]
In the second season, Aang learns Earthbending from Toph Beifong[17] after he has a vision of the blind Earthbender in a swamp telling him to find her.[18] On their journey, they are chased by Zuko’s sister Princess Azula and her friends Mai and Ty Lee.[19] The group learns about the Day of Black Sun in a secret underground library, and they attempt to reveal the information to the Earth King at Ba Sing Se. However, their flying bison, Appa, is captured by Sandbenders. Aang grows upset and angry and confronts the Sandbenders, learning that Appa has been sold. After stopping a Fire Nation drill threatening the safety of Ba Sing Se, they look for Appa only to find themselves dealing with the Dai Li before exposing their leader's deception. The group reunites with Jet helping them find Appa at Dai Li headquarters. They expose the Hundred Year War to the Earth King, who promises to help them invade the Fire Nation. Soon after, Aang meets a guru who attempts to teach Aang to open his seven chakras in order to control the defensive 'Avatar State'; but when Aang perceives Katara in danger, he leaves before the seventh chakra is opened, and thus loses his progress until the seventh is opened.[20] Though Aang manages to unlock the Seventh Chakra, he is fatally electrocuted by Azula. He is later brought back to life by Katara, using the spirit water given to her by the Northern Water Tribe at the start of the second season.[21]
In the beginning of third and final season, after he woke after being knocked out by Azula, Aang grew some hair. After that, Aang is unable to use the Avatar State for quite a while. Although reluctant with the plan at first, Aang accepts to have everyone think he had died and his remaining allies attack the Fire Nation's capital, but are thwarted by Azula.[22] However, Zuko has a change of heart, rebels against his father,[23] and offers to teach Aang Firebending. Aang and Zuko also improve their Firebending powers with the help of their world's last two dragons.[24] During the finale, finding himself on a strange island, Aang is reluctant to actually kill Fire Lord Ozai, despite his four previous past lives (Roku, Kyoshi, Kuruk, and Yangchen) convincing him it is the only way. But upon learning that he was actually on the back of a Lion Turtle, one of four that made the first benders by manipulating humans' chi, Aang receives the Lion Turtle's Energybending. During the final battle, Aang's scar is pressed against a jutting rock, opening his chakras and allowing him to enter the Avatar State. Aang wins the battle, but before he delivers the final blow, he stops himself. Instead, Aang removes Ozai's firebending ability, rendering him harmless and ending the Hundred Year War. Later, in the Fire Nation capital, Aang is seen beside Zuko, the new Fire Lord. The series ends with Aang and his friends relaxing at Iroh's tea shop at Ba Sing Se, where Aang and Katara share a kiss.[25]
After beginning the Harmony Restoration Movement, an event that was meant to remove Fire Nation remnants from the Earth Kingdom, Aang agrees to end Zuko's life should he go down a path similar to his father, after the latter requests it, being stopped by Katara from entering the Avatar State as he began a later encounter with Zuko[26] and then tries to mediate protestors and the Yu Dao resistance,[27] afterward assembling members of a fan club and forming the "Air Acolytes", a group that he intends to teach the ways of the Air Nomads.[28] Aang then participated in a search for Zuko's mother Ursa,[29] successfully finding her and entering the Spirit World to assist in locating the Mother of Faces,[30] convincing her to grant Rafa a new face.[31] After a period of entertainment,[32] Aang is contacted by his former life Yangchen,[33] who tried contacting him about Old Iron's return.[34] Aang also has a fight with the Rough Rhinos when they try to oust him from the Eastern Fire Refinery.[35] Aang then aids in preventing Azula, disguised as the Kemurikage, from stealing any more children.[36][37] He later returns to the South Pole and reunites with Katara and Sokka during the festival of the rebuilt and newly expanded Southern Water Tribe, with assistance from dozens of waterbenders and healers from the Northern Water Tribe.
While frozen in an iceberg for 100 years, the Avatar State drained much of Aang's life energy. While he did not feel the effects for many years, after he entered middle age in his 50s, the strain of this exertion increasingly weighed upon his body. Ultimately, it resulted in Aang dying at the relatively young biological age of 66 (since he was in the ice for 100 years, in 153 AG). Aang was outlived by his wife, Katara, and his three children, but he did not live to see his grandchildren, all of whom would become powerful airbenders. As his death drew near, Aang tasked the Order of the White Lotus with finding and guiding the new Avatar after him. When Aang died, the Avatar spirit reincarnated into Korra of the Southern Water Tribe. Aang intended for the Order to simply guide and guard Korra, but several mishaps in the aftermath of Aang's death (including a kidnapping attempt by the anarchist Zaheer) and the still-fragile state of relations between the now-Five Nations resulted in Katara and Tenzin sequestering Korra in a compound at the South Pole, bringing teachers to her instead of allowing her to seek out her own.
In the sequel series' first season, Avatar Aang's spirit occasionally serves as the spiritual advisor to seventeen-year-old Korra (much like the previous Avatar incarnation, Roku, did for Aang). Korra struggles with the spiritual aspects of bending and being the avatar, so initially Aang is only able to give Korra glimpses of his memory concerning Yakone in relation to her confrontations with his two sons, Amon and Tarrlok, the products of Yakone's Bloodbending vendetta on the Avatar. It is only after she loses her ability to bend that Korra allows herself to listen to her past lives, at which point Aang is able to manifest more directly to her and helps to restore her powers by triggering the Avatar State and teaching her to Energybend.
The sequel series' second season reveals that Avatar Aang apparently treated Tenzin as his favorite child, due to his son's Airbender status; Kya and Bumi mentioned to Tenzin that Aang always took Tenzin on vacations with him, but never them. Aang's Air Acolytes also were unaware that Aang had two other children besides Tenzin. Tenzin himself insists that Aang loved all his children equally, but that Aang took more precedence in raising him since Tenzin would have to take care of future generations of airbenders. Aang himself later appears, along with Roku, Kyoshi and Kuruk, before Korra in a vision and encourages her to learn the origins of Wan (the first Avatar) and Raava. Aang, or possibly a vision of him, later appears in the Spirit World, encouraging Tenzin to move past the enormous legacy of being Aang's son and find his own path. Korra's connection to Aang and the other preceding Avatars is severed when Vaatu extracts and subsequently kills Raava, the divine Avatar Spirit entity within her. Even though Raava is reborn and fused again with Korra, she discovers, to her dismay, that her spiritual connection to Aang and all past Avatars is presumably gone forever.
When Zaheer gave an ultimatum: Surrender to him or lose the new airbenders, Korra meditated into the spirit realm, she expressed her wish to call upon Aang's spirit and ask his advice in saving the new Air Nomads. Iroh's spirit assured her that, even though Aang was no longer able to guide her, she could ask one of Aang's closest friends: Lord Zuko.
Aang's character appeared in the Avatar: The Last Airbender Trading Card Game on a multitude of cards.[2][3] He appeared in the Avatar: The Last Airbender video game as one of the four playable characters.[38] Two sequels were made: Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Burning Earth,[4][39] followed by Avatar: The Last Airbender – Into the Inferno. Aang also appeared in Escape from the Spirit World, an online video game found on Nickelodeon's official website. The game includes certain plot changes that are not shown in the show. The show's directors, Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, claim the events are canon.[5]
Aang is also a playable character in Nickelodeon crossover titles such as Nicktoons Nitro, Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix, and the Nickelodeon Super Brawl series, including Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl and its sequel.[40]
On April 12, 2024, Aang was released as a skin in the video game Fortnite.[41]
Tokyopop has published a films comic (sometimes referred to as cine-manga), in which Aang, being the main character of the show, appears repeatedly.[7]
In 2010, director M. Night Shyamalan cast 12-year-old Tae Kwon Do practitioner Noah Ringer as Aang in the film adaptation of the series, The Last Airbender.[42] His name in the film is pronounced [ɑŋ] instead of [eəŋ]. The casting of a presumed white actor in the role of Aang (as well as a primarily Caucasian cast) in the Asian-influenced Avatar universe triggered negative reactions from some fans, marked by accusations of racism, a letter-writing campaign, and a protest outside of a Philadelphia casting call for movie extras.[43][44][45] The casting decisions were also negatively received by several critics, who stated that the original casting call expressed a preference for Caucasian actors over others.[46] Noah Ringer later identified himself to Entertainment Weekly as an American Indian.[47]
Aang's character was developed from a drawing by Bryan Konietzko of a "balding human man in his forties wearing a futuristic outfit" based on Michael Dante DiMartino's appearance with an arrow design on his head.[48] Konietzko later developed this man into a child with a flying bison.[49] Meanwhile, 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[49]
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" (Zuko and the Fire Nation troops).[49][12][13] The creators of the show intended for Aang to be trapped in an iceberg for one thousand years, later to wake up to a futuristic world, wherein he would have a robot named Momo and a dozen flying bison. The creators eventually lost interest in this science fiction theme and changed it to an Asian-inspired fantasy world. Aang was changed to being stuck in a hundred years of suspended animation, his bald head was explained away by him hailing from a culture inspired by Buddhist monks, the robotic Momo became a flying lemur, and the herd of bison was reduced to one.[49]
In the episode "Tales of Ba Sing Se", Aang's name was written as 安昂 (ān áng) in Chinese.
Michael Dante DiMartino, the show's co-creator, said:
"We wanted Aang to solve problems and defeat enemies with his wits as well as his powerful abilities".
— Michael Dante DiMartino[50]
According to the show's creators, "Buddhism and Taoism have been huge inspirations behind the idea for Avatar."[51] As shown in "The King of Omashu"[52] and "The Headband",[53] a notable aspect of Aang's character is his vegetarian diet, which is consistent with Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism.[51] In the Brahmajala Sutra, a Buddhist code of ethics, vegetarianism is encouraged.[54] Furthermore, the writers gave Aang a consistent reluctance to fight and an aversion to killing. In "The Spirit World (Winter Solstice, Part 1)", Aang encounters an angry spirit destroying a village and kidnapping villagers; but instead of fighting the spirit, Aang negotiates.[55] He is also depicted showing ethical reluctance in killing the Phoenix King,[56] and eventually strips Ozai of his bending instead of murdering him.[25]
As the Avatar, Aang is capable of bending all four elements (air, water, earth and fire). The series' creators consulted a professional martial artist in the design of the show's fighting style; each of these styles' philosophies and set movements corresponds to a specific "bending arts".[57]
The creators made bending a natural extension of consistent limitations and rules of the world. Everything in Avatar's world, whether it be clothing, culture or infrastructure, is influenced by bending. The City of Omashu uses a complex system of gravity and earthbending to transport supplies. The Water Tribes were a naval superpower: their buildings are made of ice and used waterbending as mechanisms for their walls and gates. Airbenders built temples atop high mountains and cliffs that could only be easily reached by Airbending and they have a hermetic ideology to reflect this isolation. The Fire Nation were the first to industrialize due to their ability to generate power and master metallurgy with their bending of fire and lightning.
At the start of the series, Aang is initially only proficient in air, having been able to bend it with ease since he was a young child. Through the teaching of Katara and Zuko, he gradually learns waterbending and firebending; but struggles with Toph's teachings of earthbending due to its rigid nature conflicting with his desire for freedom. Aang utilizes all elements equally, but heavily favors airbending for crowd control and non-lethal purposes, in accordance with his pacifism principles.
As the Avatar, Aang serves as a bridge between "Material World" and the "Spirit World", the plane of existence where the universe's disembodied spirits dwell. His spirituality training progressed swiftly, granting visions and access to the various memories from his past lives.
Like his predecessors, his most powerful ability is the Avatar State, in which he receives a massive boost in raw power from the cosmic energy, enabling him to easily overcome any opponent that tries to fight him head-on. In addition, this state allows him to access bending techniques he would not have learned during his own lifetime but throughout those of his past lives. If he is killed in the Avatar State, then this would cause the Avatar to cease being reincarnated and end the Avatar Cycle.
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Aang was received exceptionally by critics and fans. Kendall Lyons stated, "Aang seems to be the lighthearted kid that you can easily familiarize yourself with", and that he "seems to bring comfort in the most dangerous or hostile situations."[69] There are many similar descriptions about Aang as a childlike character who is "reckless and excitable".[70] Reviews point out that "as the Avatar, Aang seems unstoppable, but as Aang, he is just another Airbender"; the review states later that the show continues to focus on a more realistic character instead of a perfect one by revealing many character flaws.[71]
In 2016, Screen Rant ranked Aang #15 on its "30 Best Animated TV Characters Of All Time" list.[72]
At the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Dutch windsurfer Kiran Badloe won the gold medal in Men's RS: X while having a blue arrow haircut inspired by Aang's design.[73]
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