Avatar: The Last Airbender, in my opinion, is one of the greatest shows ever created.
That being said, I don’t like the series finale.
Okay, let me clarify: I don’t like the finale as much as I liked the rest of the show.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved the reconciliation between Iroh and Zuko, the Agni Kai between Zuko and Azula (and Katara), and the antics of the rest of the Gaang. I thought these plot elements were all well-handled and entertaining to watch.
I just don’t appreciate the approach they took to Aang’s character in the final episodes.
Up until the Southern Raiders episode, I though Aang was a sweet and lovable character. He wasn’t my favorite or the most complex, but he wasn’t badly-written either. He was heroic, funny, and had a warm heart.
Then everything changed when the false dichotomies attacked.
On its face Aang’s moral dilemma as to whether or not he should kill Ozai isn’t a bad conflict. It’s a very good conflict, actually. The bigger issue is how it is executed and what is-uh- “learned” from it.
After getting into a heated argument with his friends over the Fire Lord’s fate, Aang is kidnapped by a lion-turtle and he talks to his past lives to ask for their advice on what he should do about Ozai….
And by “ask them for their advice” I mean he literally goes down the line of previous incarnations until one will tell him what he wants to hear.
Unfortunately for him, their response is unanimously–
Even another Air Nomad Avatar Yangchen tells him he needs to get over himself.
Yangchen: Avatar Aang, I know you are a gentle spirit and the monks have taught you well. But this isn’t about you. This is about the world.
Aang: But the monks told me I had to detach myself from the world so my spirit could be free!
Yangchen: Many great and wise Air Nomads have detached themselves and achieved spiritual enlightenment, but the Avatar can never do it. Because your sole duty is to the world. Here is my wisdom for you: Selfless duty calls you to sacrifice your own spiritual needs, and do whatever it takes to protect the world.
This statement, in a nutshell, is why the lion-turtle cop-out is so infuriating.
In this episode, Aang doesn’t grow. He doesn’t make any sacrifices. He gets everything he wants at the expense of nothing.
Not only does Aang not have to kill the Fire Lord because he has been imbued with plot-convenience magic, he also gets the girl despite having no romantic chemistry with her.
Just to recap: The main character learns nothing, the strong female lead is treated like a trophy, and nobody sacrifices anything.
Okay, strike that, Zuko sacrifices himself to save Katara.
Yep.
Zuko, the former antagonist of the show, is more heroic in this special than the main character.
Yes, the core audience may be children, but this show has addressed genocide, war, hatred, prejudice, and death. At no point do they patronize the audience, assuming they aren’t intelligent enough to digest what is being shown to them.
I felt cheated by the finale. I didn’t want a nihilistic ending where everyone dies and the world is left with a gaping wound to heal (one of the things that makes Avatar so alluring is its general optimism). Nevertheless, not enough was lost in order for this ending (or at least Aang’s ending) to be deserved.
As an antidote to this cop-out, I propose two possible alternative endings:
- Aang is endowed with the plot-convenience powers to remove Fire Lord Ozai’s fire bending. However, in order to go into the Avatar state, he must let go of his attachment to Katara. Flash forward to the ending where Aang apologizes to Katara for forcing his feelings on her and explains to her that in order to reach his fullest potential as the Avatar, he has to let go of her. She forgives him and reminds him that while they can’t be lovers, they will always be friends. They embrace and the show ends.
- Aang is forced to kill Fire Lord Ozai in self-defense after he stubbornly refuses to back down in spite of all Aang’s warnings. Aang is distressed by his actions but is comforted by Katara who reminds him that his duty is to the world and he has brought about an era of peace. They kiss and the show ends.
Both of these endings would be bittersweet, but that’s kind of a good thing. This show demonstrates regularly that although there is a lot of darkness in the world, light will prevail in the end. That being said, people don’t always get what they want and even if they do (as with Zuko) it doesn’t always wind up what they thought it would be.
I still enjoy this series, but I think the ending would have been a lot more impactful if Aang had been forced to concede at least one of his desires.
The Crooked Pen 
I thought this was going to be about the rock asspull in the finale. That was easily the worst writing in the entire series. Pathik said that Aang would no longer be able to enter the Avatar State if he did not complete the process of opening all his chakras, and that he had blocked his seventh chakra by abandoning his training. Aang attempts to open his seventh chakra in the Crystal Catacombs, but Azula interrupts the process by killing him, causing the chakra to become blocked again.
The seventh chakra is only cleared when a rock accidentally hits Aang in the back, releasing a large amount of trapped energy that forcibly opens it and allows him to master the Avatar State without requiring him to let go of his attachment to Katara. Why was this mental challenge that Aang was supposed to overcome turned into a physical problem at the last minute and resolved with a random rock?
Many people have this misconception that Kataang was always planned to be endgame from the start. In reality, the original plan was them for them to not end up together. Katara never reciprocates Aang’s feelings because she loves him more like a brother and Aang eventually gets over his crush on Katara so he can dedicate himself to his responsibility as the Avatar. The two go their separate ways in the epilogue.
On the official website, it says that Aang never managed to clear his final chakra and master the Avatar State at the end of Book 2.
In Escape from the Spirit World, Aang himself literally tells Roku that he did not master the Avatar State:
In the commentary for The Crossroads of Destiny, the creators state that Aang did not master the Avatar State.
In the Sozin’s Comet: Final Battle novelization, Aang is confirmed to have never let go of Katara and prioritizes his attachment to her over his duty to the world. He masters the Avatar State when a rock strikes his back, releasing the trapped energy there and forcefully opening his final chakra, allowing him to achieve mastery of the Avatar State completely by accident.
The creators and writers reveal in the commentary for In Harm’s Way that not only did Aang never let go of Katara, but that the chakras were originally introduced to lead up to a greater arc for Aang to unlock “airbending secrets”.
While The Ember Island Players was being written, the writers state that it had not yet been decided whether Aang and Katara would end up together in the series finale. It’s pretty obvious that “embraced his monk lifestyle” means the alternate option of Aang choosing the world over his attachment to Katara.
This aligns with what what Shyamalan said when he met Bryke during the production of Book 3.
As for the other guy that Katara could have ended up with… it’s obviously Zuko. The writers have stated he was an option discussed, even though Bryke constantly deny the idea was ever considered.
Further confirmed by Joshua Hamilton…
The biggest and most sudden change in the story plan between Book 2 and Book 3 was the decision to have Zuko betray the Gaang. Originally, he was going to join at the end of Book 2. I think it’s really interesting that Aang was being told he needed to let go of Katara to master the Avatar State at the same time that Katara was bonding with Zuko in the Crystal Catacombs.
It is incredibly likely that Aang and Katara were not originally supposed to end up together and the creators butchered the chakra arc after they changed their minds. They realized they had written themselves into a corner with the chakras and had to throw in that asspull rock to make Kataang happen.
Why is Aang so adamant about adhering to Air Nomad philosophies like not taking lives, yet he can’t bring himself to release his attachment to Katara, when Air Nomad culture was also defined by detachment? And the only way airbenders can access the highest forms of their bending is by being detached? Aang is a goddamn hypocrite because he claims he needs to keep his culture alive, yet he only embraces the parts that align with his desires while ignoring those that challenge him.
Aang never wanted to be the Avatar, and his character arc was about learning to embrace his destiny. He was given a choice between selfish desire by maintaining his attachment to Katara or selfless duty by mastering the Avatar State. He was told he either had to kill Ozai to save the world or prioritize his own morals. A character who seeks a third option must actively work to achieve it. Aang never does because he’s simply handed two deus ex machina at the last minute to resolve his problems. The lion turtle grants him energybending so he doesn’t have to kill Ozai, and the rock provides him Avatar State mastery without needing to let go of his attachments. He doesn’t make any sacrifices for the sake of the world in either situation.
Despite being the protagonist, Aang is the most poorly written member of Team Avatar. Kataang is a terrible romance—not just because it lacks chemistry, has sexist undertones with Katara treated as a prize and her perspective barely considered compared to Aang’s, and features a creepy babysitter dynamic—but also because it undermines Aang’s character arc and damages the series as a whole by creating a massive plot hole. Just thinking about this trash writing gives me a fucking headache.
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Yeah, I thought the rock-hitting-the-chakra thing a bit cheap, but it didn’t irritate me to as much of a degree as the fact that Aang was able to have his cake and eat it to. Although it all ties together, I suppose.
It’s interesting in retrospect to see how much debate there actually was behind the scenes as to whether or not Aang would wind up with Katara. I remember in watching videos of cons from the early 2000s there was a lot of gaslighting on the part of Bryke about Zutara and how people were naive at best and stupid at worst for seeing Zuko and Katara as having romantic potential. I feel gratified that it’s all coming out now that Zutarians weren’t just imagining all the romantic coding going on throughout the series.
I agree, considering he is the main protagonist, I think Aang is one of the weaker characters of Team Avatar in so far as character progression goes.
Thank you for taking the time to comment! I apologize for taking so long to reply.
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