So youâve got this typical story about an average kid right? Only, surprise surprise, he actually turns out to be more than average. See, one day, when he was just minding his own business, heâs suddenly told that he is this super-being who has to save the world from evil. Again, itâs your basic tropes all lined up and ready to go.
Only hereâs the thing.
The kid?
He runs away.
And this isnât just a âOh, I need some time to think but Iâll come around in a day or two and fulfill my destiny.â
No this kid is gone. For the first time in his life, this kind and generous kid makes a selfish decision. He knows what the consequences are. He knows whatâs at stake. He knows that lives are going to be in danger. And he still chooses to run away.
Things take an abrupt turn when he gets into an accident and he ends up in a coma. He wakes up years later and guess what? Him running away from his duties that day? Yeah it kind of caused the entire world to be plunged into chaos. This kid, this kid, is now responsible for thousands upon thousands of deaths.
At the age of twelve, this kind pacifist single-handedly becomes a mass-murderer by association. All because he ran away.
A few older teenagers find him and immediately help him. They donât think much of it. Theyâre used to helping out anyone they can. After all, the war has killed people they love, family, friends. So they help this kid before they even realize that heâs destined. And this kid, this kid isnât even fully aware of just how many people he inadvertently killed.
Until they go to the âcityâ where he was from. He doesnât understand why theyâre so worried but when he gets thereâŠhe gets it. There is no âcityâ. Not anymore. Itâs abandoned ruins lined with skeletonsâhis friends, his family. He finds his fatherâs corpse. He finds signs of a struggle. Everyone he knew is dead. And there are so many more. Hundreds. Thousands. All dead. All because of him.
Heâs a good kid, a great kid. He wouldnât hurt a fly.
And he led to thousands of deaths.
All because he ran away.
And this entire story is just the first three episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender. (Four if you count borrowing some information from The Storm.)
Avatar showed all of this in just three episodes. Actually it showed this and more. Because this is just one characterâs story and they introduced us to half a dozen major characters, each with stories just as, if not even more, tragic than this one.
Long story short, we always talk about how amazing Avatar is for the representation and art and animation and music and morals but we rarely ever talk about how amazing the story is. The horrible irony that Aang, a pacifistic monk who was kind and generous to everyone he met, inadvertently led to thousands of people dying in a century-long warâitâs one of the greatest stories that Iâve ever heard of. This doesnât even include all of the other consequences we see throughout the seriesâvillages being destroyed, families living in fear, people being dragged off to concentration camps in the middle of the night, kids turning into terrorists, refugees being forced to walk thousands of miles to get to a safe haven, the injuries, the fear, the trauma. (And this is all just in Book One. Donât even get me started on the other two.) Itâs hard to say that itâs all Aangâs fault but his disappearance certainly had a huge impact on the horrible things that occurred.
And the worst part is?
He knew.
