ATLA Rewrite: Aang's Abandoned Character Arc, Part Two
Here, we shall tackle the issue of what went wrong in not only Aang's character arc, but also the end of ATLA in general, and what needs to be fixed.
Anyway, this is pretty long, and so I have divided it into parts. This is part two, by the way. Links to the other parts are here, but if you want to read this in chronological order, the links to the next and previous is at the bottom.
Table of Contents:
What Abandoned Character Arc?
What Went Wrong and How to Fix It?
Rewrite: S2E19- S3E13
Rewrite: S3E16-S3E21
You don't need to read all the parts, but I'd recommend it for a full experience.
Anyway, back to the meat of this post!
The thing about Aang’s abandoned character arc is that, well, it really didn’t have to remain abandoned. You can have a satisfying ending and not have to sacrifice Aang’s character development. For this to work, we need to outline what didn’t work in the finale/season 3 and what the rewrite aims to do.
What Went Wrong?
1. Hey, so… Aang is still attached to Katara.
An argument I have seen a lot online is one that insists that by the series's end, Aang has let go of his attachment to Katara. It goes like this:
In The Crossroads of Destiny, Aang apologises to Katara, meditates and gets into the Avatar State. By virtue of the fact that he has entered the Avatar State, a feat he can only accomplish after letting go of Katara and unlocking his seventh chakra, he must have let go of Katara!
This is a very, very, very generous reading of the text, I’ll give you that.
Anyway, I obviously disagree with this take, but before I make my case, I would like us to define what ‘being attached’ means. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
Being attached means being emotionally connected: having strong feelings of affection or connection
Now, let’s examine how Aang acts in relation to Katara post The Crossroads of Destiny:
In The Headband, he notices Katara sitting alone and asks her to dance with him. Nothing wrong with this in any way, shape or form, but try replacing Toph in that scene and ask yourself if the same vibes are given.
In The Painted Lady, he tells Katara (though he doesn't know it's Katara) that she's attractive. Again, nothing wrong with this, especially because he's correct, but still.
In Nightmares and Daydreams, Aang daydreams about CONFESSING HIS LOVE TO KATARA and calls her his FOREVER GIRL.
In Day of Black Sun, Part One, Aang KISSES KATARA.
In The Ember Island Players, Aang tells Katara he thought they would be together by then, continues to ask her about her feelings when she clearly wants this conversation to end, and then KISSES HER AGAIN.
Oh yeah. Super detached. Not a strong feeling of affection or connection in sight.
No matter how you spin it, Aang is still attached to Katara post The Crossroads of Destiny, and honestly, the only problem with this is that the show is either acting like he isn’t or like the Guru never said anything about letting go of attachments. I have no issue with Aang’s character regressing this way and actually prefer to read it like that, but ignoring it altogether isn’t the way to go.
Especially when letting go of Katara is an important part of Aang’s character arc.
2. It's All Azula's Fault, Blame Her!
In The Crossroads of Destiny, when cornered by Azula, Zuko and the Dai Li, Aang decides to try to let go of Katara and enter the Avatar State. They don't show it on screen, but we are to assume, by his emerging a few seconds later in the Avatar State, that he is successful (I’m doubtful, but I digress).
As he ascends, Azula strikes him down with lightning, and Aang falls to the ground. Katara rushes to save him. Iroh suddenly appears and allows Katara to escape with an unconscious Aang in her arms. She finds Sokka and Toph, and as they fly away, she uses the spirit water on Aang's back. Aang groans, and his tattoos glow, signalling that he's alive.
The Avatar State isn't brought up until The Day of Black Sun, Part One. Toph asks Aang if he is going to use the Avatar State against Ozai, but Aang explains that his seventh chakra was locked when Azula struck him with lightning, so he can't use it. Which… Huh?!
How did that happen? When did Guru Pathik ever say that the seventh chakra can be locked by earthly attachment or, on very rare occasions, lightning?! And okay, even if I suspend my disbelief, are we then saying that Aang has been able to let go of Katara and everything should be fine, but now that Azula shot lightning at him, he can't even access the Avatar State?!
This just removes any responsibility Aang had when it comes to his internal conflict. Like, what does one do when lighting locks their chakra? Aang doesn't even seem that concerned about it, and the narrative, in turn, doesn't seem concerned with fixing this issue. Are we to just accept that Aang will never be able to enter or control the Avatar State? Is the Avatar State even needed anymore?
Clearly, this isn’t the case as Aang gets into the Avatar State in the finale when a pointy rock hits him in the back, where Azula hit him with the lightning. Which, again… Huh?!
This robs Aang of even more responsibility! He has no hand or say in being able to enter the Avatar State again. And worst of all, the narrative just… gives him that power back. Just like that. No struggle or lesson needed. Nope. Not for Aang.
Secondly, Aang … isn't being exactly truthful here. In The Crossroads of Destiny, Toph asks Aang if he was able to master the Avatar State (it seems like Toph cares more about the Avatar State than the writers do at this rate), and Aang lies and says he did. It's not totally out of character for Aang to lie (see Bato of the Water Tribe), but it's the first time the narrative has let him get away with it.
This isn't great for Aang because, if you can recall (God knows the writers can't), letting go of Katara is more about Aang learning to be responsible and put the needs of others above his. Lying is not in line with that at all. In fact, it's seen as a very immature and irresponsible thing to do (again…see Bato of the Water Tribe).
There are a lot of things I dislike Bryke for, trust me, but this one is high up there. For all the love they say they have for Aang, they did not do him any justice here.
3. To Kill or Not To Kill Ozai... When Was That The Question?
In theory, I have no issue with this question. I think, on its own, it's interesting. However, it didn't need to be the last and perhaps most important issue Aang was to face, nor to be handled so abhorrently.
For starters, how was this not discussed before? This question should have been brought up during or before The Day of Black Sun. We are purposefully not told what Aang plans to do to Ozai during the Invasion, but we can infer that he's either going to imprison him in the palace or capture him. This makes sense, given that Ozai can't firebend for eight minutes, giving the Invasion enough time to secure the palace.
But you could easily have some foggy swamp bender or one of the Southern Water Tribe warriors ask during the meeting at the Black Cliffs if Aang is going to kill Ozai and have him give that excuse. It makes sense, and most importantly, it sets up that problem for later. Because clearly, during Sozin's Comet, imprisonment or capturing Ozai is near impossible.
Another grievance I have is with Aang asking his past lives for advice. I really don't know what the writers were going for here. All the lives he asks, in one way or another, tell him he needs to kill Ozai. All of them. Obviously, Aang doesn't do that, so what was the point of having him ask them? Narratively speaking.
This would make sense if the struggle Aang had was not being steadfast in his beliefs. If it were shown that Aang does not believe in himself and is very wishy-washy when it comes to what he deems is right or even what he should do, then having him disregard his past lives' advice to find his own way would make sense.
The only problem is that Aang doesn't have this issue. His belief system is almost unshakeable. That's like half the plot of The Northern Air Temple. Aang is so steadfast in his beliefs that it leads to the first argument he has with Katara that isn't played for laughs and isn't resolved (The Southern Raiders). And so, the only thing you achieve by having Aang disregard his past lives is discrediting them. Which is a weird way to end your series, I'll tell you that much.
Now I'd be okay-ish with those first two problems… if they didn't commit the cardinal sin of having Aang's problem solved by a deus ex machina.
Seriously.
How do you bring up the last problem your character will have to face, have him, against his will mind you, or at least subconsciously, swim onto a lion turtle's back and then be told some mumbo jumbo from said lion turtle, have him fight your primary villain in the last fight of the series, and have him solve the problem by doing something we’ve never seen or been told of before?
4. Lion Turtles… Not the Biggest Fan
I don’t even know where to start here.
First off, to anyone defending the lion turtles by saying they appeared in a scroll Aang read during The Library, yes, I understand that, and I also quite appreciate that, because the writers could have just gone with the tradition set in this finale and just pulled the idea of lion turtles out of thin air.
My problem with the lion turtles is two-fold:
For one, even though we saw them in The Library, they were still a last-minute addition. We didn’t even know that lion turtles were that huge, or that they had mystical powers. But even without that… what exactly did the lion turtles tell Aang? Like, seriously, this is a question I ask myself, and for that reason, let me just pull out exactly what the lion turtle says:
The true mind can weather all the lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can tough the poison of hatred without being harmed. Since beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void. But always yields to purifying light. Wait for him, we will come.
Now, okay, let me put my own frustrations aside and try to understand what the lion turtle is saying regarding Aang’s dilemma of whether or not he should kill Ozai.
The first two lines imply that someone with a true mind and heart can overcome anything. Again, this would make sense if Aang had a problem with being steadfast in his beliefs. Or if that was part of his arc. As neither is the case … what’s the point of this?
The next two are even worse, but I digress. He's basically saying that evil shall bend to good. Now, it should be noted that though there are good and bad guys in ATLA, I wouldn’t say this show is about good vs evil. In the external conflict, Aang’s fight against Ozai isn’t treated as a holy war, or even a war between the forces of pure good and pure evil, as compared to, say, the fight between Korra and Unalaq in the LOK season 2 finale.
If Aang fails to defeat Ozai, the war continues on, and this would be a terrible fate for the world, but the force of evil wouldn’t have won. This is an idea ATLA actively rejects: that the Fire Nation is all bad. We’ve seen the Dai Li be bad, Hama be bad, and by Aang defeating Ozai, these bad forces wouldn’t be automatically stopped.
And so when the lion turtle mentions good and evil, even though it’s been made clear that this isn’t a fight between ultimate goodness and ultimate evil… It’s a bit confusing at best.
I won’t even attempt to decode that last line. Who is Aang waiting for? Genuinely?! No one else comes within ten feet of Ozai and Aang as they fight. Did the lion turtle mean the Avatar State? Is that a he now? Before the introduction of Raava, the Avatar State was defined as a combination of all the previous Avatars.
Okay, I said I wouldn’t try to decode that line, so let me stop while I’m ahead.
Anyway, my second and much larger gripe with the lion turtles is the fact that they are a clear stand-in for the Spirit World or the spiritual elements on ATLA. This is more of a season 2 and 3 problem at large, but I’m going to blame the lion turtles regardless.
I have a personal fondness for the Spirit World in season 1, and so, seeing it be forgotten really irks me. I talk more about this in my rewrite, but I believe Aang should have gone into the Spirit World as his last journey before facing Ozai.
This is a sentiment I believe the writers share. On the lion turtle’s back, Aang is alone, introspective and can easily communicate with his past lives. In what other context have we seen Aang be alone, introspective and easily communicate with his past lives? The Spirit World! Why include the lion turtles when you already have an in-universe way to separate Aang from the Gaang?
And yes, of course, his body would remain in the physical world, but his body remaining without his soul would cause a pretty similar dilemma to the one the Gaang face in the actual finale. Instead of looking for Aang, they can still look for Iroh, have the all masters thing and worry about Aang’s soul being able to get back into his body in time to save the world.
This enables Aang to talk to his past lives in a way that is consistent with what was established in season one, and you can still have your lion turtles in the spirit world if they’re that near and dear to you. A giant lion turtle doesn’t have to make sense in the Spirit World! Have all the giant lion turtles you want there!
5. The Downfall of Kataang
I think this is where I may start sounding anti-Kataang, even though I'm not. I am anti how they were written, not particularly anti the idea of them being together. I don't care either way, to be honest.
One of the running ideas out there is that Kataang vs Zutara was going on in the writer's room well into Ember Island Players, which I can see, but to be honest, has never sounded like the full picture to me.
In my opinion, the writers, at the very least Bryke, had to make a decision at the end of season 2. Have Aang detach himself from Katara and let her go, or keep the possibility of them being a canon ship. They obviously chose the latter, to the detriment of both characters, but mostly Aang.
Before the Guru, Kataang had the option of being a very sweet, low-stakes kind of ship, but The Guru forced their specific dynamic under a microscope for analysis for the sake of Aang's character. It also, by definition of the conflict, established that whatever Aang does, his relationship to Katara wouldn't be the same.
It's one thing for the show to abandon this altogether, fine, whatever, who needs character arcs anyway, definitely not Aang. But then start giving Kataang issues stemming from nowhere? What kind of logic is that?
I mean, you'd think after ignoring the Guru, you'd go back to the sweet, happy-go-lucky dynamic they had before, but no, those last few episodes all Aang and Katara do is fight.
In The Southern Raiders, they fight over what Katara should do about Yon Rha. In Ember Island Players, they fight about the nature of Katara's feelings for Aang. In Sozin's Comet, Part One, they fight about whether Aang should kill Ozai.
Which is not a bad thing, by the way. That's not the argument I'm making. But if you're going to have them argue and then have them get together in the end, shouldn't they resolve their conflicts?!
Especially if their last spoken interaction is that last fight in Sozin's Comet, and their very last interaction, right after the fight, is to kiss.
Anyway, even though I don't care either way if they get together, this was just really bad writing in general.
How to Fix It
For starters, this fix-it will tackle only Aang's character development. I feel like this kind of ties to Katara's (Aang's idealisation is not a one-way street, but that's a topic for another day), but I'll stick strictly to Aang, because for the most part, Aang isn't even that relevant to Katara's arc.
1. Aang detaching from Katara
This is the most vital step as it relates to Aang’s character development. Aang must let go of Katara.
However, I will admit that 'letting go of Katara' is quite the nebulous task. Like, what does that actually mean?
Well, let's start by looking back at some examples of Aang being in the Avatar State. In The Desert and The Southern Air Temple, Aang is shown to depend on Katara to come out of the Avatar State and stop destroying the things around him.
This emotional dependence on Katara isn’t just there when Aang is in the Avatar State. In episodes like The Southern Air Temple, The Storm, Bitter Work, The Serpent's Pass … I could literally go on, we see Aang process his emotions with Katara's help.
This isn't a novel way to have a character process their emotions; in a TV show or film, they either have to talk to another character or narrate their feelings. It's just interesting that Aang only ever does this with Katara and no other character.
And so, a natural way to show that Aang has detached himself from Katara, especially when it comes to the Avatar State, is by having Aang purposefully get himself in and out of the Avatar State without Katara’s help and for a reason removed from Katara.
In addition to this, you also have Aang understand the difference between love and attachment. When the Guru asks Aang to let go of his earthly attachments in The Guru, the first thing Aang says in response is: "What? Why would I let go of Katara? I, I love her."
It’s clear that Aang sees these two as the same, and for the most part, they are. The Merriam-Webster dictionary has multiple definitions of this word, but the most relevant definition of love when it comes to Aang’s journey might be:
Love is an unselfish, loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another, such as empathy, concern or care for others.
This definition sets apart love and attachment very well. Aang’s attachment to Katara is largely selfish. It focuses on his needs and wants, and more often than not has Katara be the comforter and Aang the comforted.
This isn’t me bashing Aang, but drawing attention to a dynamic that was established as early as in The Southern Air Temple. Almost every time Aang is facing an emotional problem, Katara is there for him. This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but just look at these specific examples:
In The Southern Air Temple, Katara tells Aang about her mother’s death for the first time in an effort to empathise with him, to which Aang brushes her off and insists the Air Nomads are just fine. In The Deserter, Aang burns Katara, then becomes withdrawn and angry with himself. Katara flees when burnt, doesn’t blame Aang as Sokka does, heals herself and goes out to look for Aang to comfort him.
Another thing to note is that in the very few moments we see Katara emotionally distraught (seeing her mother’s vision in The Swamp, remembering her mother’s death in The Crossroads of Destiny, fighting to keep her friends alive in The Desert), Aang is either not around to comfort her or too busy with his own issues to do so. (Don't worry, I talk more about The Southern Raiders in part four)
Seriously, the one time I’ve seen Aang comfort Katara was at the end of The Puppeteer, where he and Sokka hug her after she bent Hama’s blood to save them. If you can remember another instance that I have forgotten, please let me know.
Lastly, it’s worth noting that Aang heavily idealises Katara. This is clearly seen in episodes like The Fortune Teller, where they quite literally add sparkle sounds when showing how Aang views Katara, and in more subtle ways when Aang insists Katara doesn't mean the hurtful things she tells Toph (The Chase) and that she's fighting Pakku for his sake (The Waterbending Master)
Aang's idealisation of and emotional dependence on Katara feed on each other. Aang's rose-tinted view of Katara is supported by her near-constant emotional availability, and her near-constant emotional availability makes it very easy for Aang to maintain this rose-tinted view of her. It's kind of like a chicken-and-egg situation, if you ask me.
Therefore, have Aang realise that what he thought was love —his idealisation and emotional dependence— was really just an attachment. Not the love that is defined as unselfish, loyal and invested in the care of others. But a rosy-tinted view of someone who does most of the emotional labour in your relationship.
A straightforward interpretation of 'letting go of Katara' would mean letting go of his idealisation of Katara and understanding that the emotional labour between them has not been fairly split. This will make the task of Aang letting go of Katara not just mature for the sake of Aang doing something he doesn’t want for the sake of the world, but also mature in and of itself.
Aang would be letting go of his selfish desires to put his comfort first by choosing to let go of attachment to enter the Avatar State, and by understanding that his attachment to Katara isn’t the love he thought it was, which is, in and of itself, a mature and responsible thing to do.
2. Aang Being at Fault for Locking His Chakra
Instead of blaming the locking of chakras on Azula, have Aang at fault. Azula should still shoot him down, but by placing the blame on Aang and his failure to unlock his seventh chakra, he will gain back his agency in the story and give him a tangible way of unlocking it.
It also has the added benefit of not going back on the logic already established. Just an added bonus, really.
3. The Ozai Question
Again, there’s nothing wrong with this question; it’s just the fact that it came out of nowhere, took so much of Aang’s screentime, and then was solved kind of offscreen.
I’m okay with this question as long as it’s either asked before i.e in DoBS, or is solved easily. Don’t waste Aang’s final moments in the show on a question that no one even thought to ask before. How to go about solving this problem shall be discussed in the rewrite (part three in particular)
4. No Lion Turtles Please
I stand by what I said when outlining what went wrong; the lion turtles were only there to give Aang a Deus Ex Machina, and since we won’t need those, we won’t need the lion turtles.
If you personally feel like the story couldn’t and shouldn’t end without the lion turtles, keep them, but know that I won’t.
5. The Fate of Kataang
According to the first aim of letting go of attachment, at least in the series proper, we can’t have a Kataang kiss or get together at the end. I’m not saying it’s not possible, but we simply don’t have the time to deconstruct Aang’s attachment to Katara and then reconstruct a (good) romantic subplot for Katara and Aang.
Again, if you feel very strongly about this, you can opt to keep the kiss, but I personally will not be doing so.
And now with all that out of the way, we can finally get into the rewrite!
Previous: Part One
Next: Part Three
Part Four
