Nickelodeon's animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender begins by introducing a couple of familiar enough kid-show stereotypes: Smart, capable Katara is almost a generic anime heroine, while her brash, foolishly arrogant brother Sokka serves as standard strident comedy relief. But very early on, Avatar starts to distinguish itself from other shows with its depth of story and the complexity of its characters.It begins when Katara, in a moment of annoyance at Sokka, accidentally uses her nascent elemental power over water to destroy an iceberg floating in the freezing waters near their South Pole home. Inside the iceberg are a 12-year-old boy and a giant wooly "flying bison," both frozen in a sort of suspended animation.
Narrative depths and visual homages alike are just gravy on the meat of the matter: The fact that Avatar is simply addictive.
The boy, Aang, is a casual, cheerful sort who takes his awakening in stride, even when Sokka stirs up local sentiment against him, and even when soldiers from the aggressive Fire Nation—whose people have elemental power over fire, just as some of Katara's Water Tribe kin control water—come to capture him. It seems Aang is the Avatar, a legendary figure reincarnated into every generation with the power to control all four elements: earth, water, air and fire. The Avatar's job is to maintain balance among the four tribes of the earth, but the previous Avatar disappeared a century ago, and in his absence the Fire Nation has come close to dominating the earth under the Fire Lord Ozai. Ozai's son Zuko and brother Iroh are in charge of the party who find Aang, and their attempt to seize him and take him back to Ozai reveals his true power for the first time since his awakening.Aang was raised as a monk of the Air Nomads, and his air-control powers are already considerable in spite of his youth—which is just as well, since the Fire Nation may have already wiped out all the other Nomads. But to fully come into his power as Avatar, he must learn to master each element in turn. So he, Katara, and Sokka set off together to evade the Fire Nation and learn what they need to know to stop the war.
Narrative depths and visual homages alike are just gravy on the meat of the matter: The fact that Avatar is simply addictive.
The boy, Aang, is a casual, cheerful sort who takes his awakening in stride, even when Sokka stirs up local sentiment against him, and even when soldiers from the aggressive Fire Nation—whose people have elemental power over fire, just as some of Katara's Water Tribe kin control water—come to capture him. It seems Aang is the Avatar, a legendary figure reincarnated into every generation with the power to control all four elements: earth, water, air and fire. The Avatar's job is to maintain balance among the four tribes of the earth, but the previous Avatar disappeared a century ago, and in his absence the Fire Nation has come close to dominating the earth under the Fire Lord Ozai. Ozai's son Zuko and brother Iroh are in charge of the party who find Aang, and their attempt to seize him and take him back to Ozai reveals his true power for the first time since his awakening.Aang was raised as a monk of the Air Nomads, and his air-control powers are already considerable in spite of his youth—which is just as well, since the Fire Nation may have already wiped out all the other Nomads. But to fully come into his power as Avatar, he must learn to master each element in turn. So he, Katara, and Sokka set off together to evade the Fire Nation and learn what they need to know to stop the war.
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