Here’s a concept for a possible Earth Avatar series. Taking place in the Avatar equivalent of either the 1990s/2000s, we follow Earth Avatar Kazuya in his journey to maintain the balance in the world, as per his Avatar duties. However, the twist in this show is the way we’re supposed to view Kazuya.
Aang was clearly the one who we’re supposed to root for in his show. Korra, say what you will about how successful the show was in its attempt at more grey morality, but she was clearly supposed to be who we were rooting for. Kazuya, it’s up to the viewer whether they want to root for him or not.
The reason is that even though he’s “maintaining the balance”, he’s a lot colder and less empathetic. He views any sort of conflict as disrupting the balance and will side against the ones causing the disruption. Even if the troublemakers are the more sympathetic/righteous side, Kazuya views them as the threat.
Basically, this hypothetical Earth Avatar series explores an Avatar who judges people on a binary/black-and-white lens. He views maintaining the balance as maintaining the current world order, thus he views any attempt to disrupt the world order as a threat that he needs to shut down. So in his quest to maintain the balance, he ends up alienating the public that he’s supposed to protect. The show also explores what it means to maintain the balance, especially if the current world order that the Avatar is trying to maintain is corrupt to the core.
Examples of how the show could explore this concept:
1) Kazuya shutting down protests against the current Fire Lord because he doesn’t want a civil war to breakout. Even if the Fire Lord is legitimately corrupt, Kazuya takes their side because a war-torn Fire Nation will end up affecting the other 3 nations, thus “disrupting” the balance.
2) Kazuya establishing his own “Avatar Task Force” to maintain a constant presence in all four nations. This is meant to be a deliberate deviation from Aang and Korra since unlike his predecessors, Kazuya is a lot more proactive than reactive. Of course, this upsets the public since it feels like Kazuya established his own private army rather than a peacekeeping faction.
3) Kazuya deliberately questioning the effectiveness of his predecessors. Saying things like, “Aang wasted people’s time by not killing Ozai” or “Korra was too soft on her enemies”. While this obviously wouldn’t endear him to the audience, it does give us a clear picture of how he views his role as the Avatar.
So, the main arc of this series is obviously very different from the previous two shows. Aang and Korra’s arcs were both a coming-of-age, hero’s journey. Kazuya’s arc is a morality tale, in which he can either learn empathy and realize that you can’t judge people through a black-and-white lens…or continue down the path he’s on and permanently ruin the reputation of the Avatar.
As a side note, if the show ends with Kazuya ruining the Avatar’s reputation, the Fire Avatar show is gonna start off with the world already despising them. Not gonna lie…that’s a fucking interesting concept to explore, especially because Aang and Korra’s shows were about how much the people loved the Avatar. It’d be a dark as fuck ending to have Kazuya destroy all of the Avatar’s goodwill, but it’d make for juicy storytelling.
TL;DR Earth Avatar is an anti-hero who is a mix of Judge Dredd, Daredevil, and the Punisher. And I guess DCEU Batman.
