This is a list of significant characters from the Nickelodeon animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender and its sequel The Legend of Korra, co-created by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, as well the live-action Avatar series. This list also includes characters from the comic continuations as well as the Kyoshi, Yangchen and Roku prequel novels by FC Yee, Michael Dante DiMartino and Randy Ribay.
Overview In The Last Airbender, a fictional universe composed of four sovereign nations, some people are "benders" and can control air, fire, earth or water. Only the Avatar—a being who represents the bridge between the physical and spirit worlds—can master all four elements and thus bring balance to the world, but has been missing for the past 100 years. During this absence, a one hundred year-long world war started by the Fire Nation resulted in the Air Nomads' genocide, the near extinction of the Southern Tribes' waterbending population, and the Earth Kingdom's extensive forced displacement and colonization.
Character conception Character designs were originated from a series of drawings by one of the show's creators, Bryan Konietzko. The main sketch depicted a middle-aged monk with an arrow on his head and later included a flying bison as his pet. Konietzko's partner, Michael Dante DiMartino, was interested in documentaries related to the South Pole at the time. They combined these ideas and created the concept of an "air guy" and "water guys" trapped in a snowy wasteland, with "fire guys" invading them. Additionally, the writers based the characters' different bending abilities on distinct styles of martial arts. The characters of Avatar: The Last Airbender were designed by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the co-creators of the series. The anime-styled character art was inspired by Shinichiro Watanabe's Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and FLCL (Fooly Cooly) of Gainax. The original character conception was derived from a sketch by Bryan Konietzko that depicted a middle-aged balding man with an arrow on his head. Studios such as Studio 4°C, Production I.G, and Studio Ghibli, which produced anime-styled cartoons, were also sources of inspiration.
Influences The greatest influences on the series were Asian art, culture and history; the characters' various personalities and traits are based on philosophical teachings such as Taoism and Buddhism. In the show, some characters have the ability to manipulate one of the four classic elements of ancient philosophy: Water, Earth, Fire and Air, although the Avatar has the ability to control all four. Each of these employ a different form of martial arts in their fighting choreography: tai chi for Waterbending, Hung Gar for Earthbending, Northern Shaolin for Firebending, and baguazhang for Airbending. These individual styles of martial arts also reflect on the personalities of the user and the nations as a whole. These starkly individual tendencies are explained in eighty-five distinct types of "jings", or internal energy. For example: baguazhang employs the "negative jing" to create erratic circular movements and capitalizes on centripetal force and defensive positions; Northern Shaolin follows the "positive jing" and emphasizes brute strength and aggression to generate power; and Hung Gar uses the "neutral jing" in its ability to predict an opponent's movements and heavily relies on patience and reacting to the opponent's fighting accordingly. The cultures of the four nations are also greatly influenced by East Asian and indigenous cultures. The Water Tribe is based on Inuit, Yupik, and Sirenik cultures; the Fire Nation on Imperial China and Imperial Japan; the Air Nomads on Tibetan Buddhist monks, Tibetan culture, Buddhism and Hinduism; and the Earth Kingdom on Imperial China with Korean cultural influences.
Personalities Many of the recurring characters of the series have received traits based on the respective element. Aang is carefree and childlike, as is commonly attributed to "wonder" of the unknown, or the "freedom" of the wind and the air. As a spiritualist, a pacifist and a vegetarian, he is very Yin, hyper-attuned to the spirit world, and prefers non-violent alternatives to solving problems. Toph, despite being blind, is extremely perceptive of the world around her due to her connection to the Earth. Unlike Aang, she is extremely brusque when criticizing others, as attributed to Earth's toughness.
Avatar: The Last Airbender main characters
Overview
Avatar Aang
Avatar Aang or simply Aang (Chinese: 安昂; pinyin: Ān'áng) (voiced by Mitchel Musso in the unaired pilot, voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen in Avatar: The Last Airbender, D. B. Sweeney in Books One and Two of The Legend of Korra, Eric Nam in Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, Sander Argabrite as a young boy in Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, portrayed by Noah Ringer in The Last Airbender, Gordon Cormier in the live-action series) is the main protagonist of the original series and the current Avatar, a cyclically reincarnating being who maintains world balance. Aang often acts in a fun-loving, carefree manner. His pacifism and vegetarianism are primary traits of Buddhism. The creators intended Aang to "defeat enemies with his wits" and be a "trickster hero". Though Aang is often frivolous and enthusiastic, he becomes serious during a crisis. In the original series, Katara and Sokka rescue Aang from a century of suspended animation due to being frozen in an iceberg. Having already mastered his native Airbending, Aang learns Waterbending from Katara and later Pakku at the North Pole in Book One, Earthbending from Toph in Book Two, and Firebending from Zuko in Book Three. Throughout the series, Aang aids the Water Tribes and the Earth Kingdom, whom the Fire Nation has oppressed. Unwilling to kill Fire Lord Ozai despite the past Avatars insisting on it, Aang ultimately learns the ancient Lion-Turtles' technique of energybending, which allows the user to give or take away a person's bending, and uses it to render Ozai a non-bender. In The Legend of Korra, it is revealed that Aang, with the help of his friends, created the United Republic of Nations. He also married Katara and had three children, with his youngest son Tenzin restoring the Air Nomads while instructing the next Avatar, Korra. Like Roku before him, Aang appears at times before his reincarnation Korra, serving as a spiritual advisor, prior to their connection being destroyed by Unalaq.
Appa
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