‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Imagines a World Free of Whiteness

‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Imagines a World Free of Whiteness
by Maya Phillips for The New York Times.

The animated adventure series, which recently returned to TV, offers complex characters, an epic narrative and a reminder that stories don’t always have to be of the same white America.

In “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” Aang, a 12-year-old air-bending monk, travels the world with a water-bender named Katara and her brother, Sokka.

Anyone unfamiliar with “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” the animated adventure series that ran on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008, was probably surprised by the buzz that greeted its arrival on Netflix last month.

It was the most-watched show on the service for days, and became a trending topic on Twitter as long-simmering debates about the series (Who wins the title as the avatar GOAT: Aang or Korra?) were reignited, funny GIFs were created, hashtags were shared.

But “Avatar” always stood out; I dipped into it years ago, during its original run, drawn in during the marathon blocks of the show Nickelodeon sometimes aired in the afternoons. Its allure was its visual proximity to the anime series I loved, but it was also endlessly bingeable. Not simply a series of short episodic adventures, “Avatar” was an invitation to immerse yourself in an epic journey with conflicts, characters and long-running jokes (like the misfortunes of an unlucky cabbage vendor, a fan favorite) that built on what came before.

When “Avatar” premiered on Netflix, I jumped back into the mythology to re-examine its longstanding reputation as one of the best animated shows of the past two decades. I rewatched it from beginning to end and discovered a fresh comfort in the series — something that I hadn’t consciously clocked in my first watch but that underscored my renewed affection for it right now.

Though often celebrated for its sophisticated storytelling and complex characters, “Avatar” most notably dreams up a world free of whiteness, a cultural haven from and refreshing salve in a country that has, especially in recent months, shown marginalized communities its most gruesome face.

Created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, “Avatar” is set in an Asiatic world comprising four nations that are each defined by a single natural element — earth, fire, water and air — and gifted citizens known as “benders” who are able to manipulate the elements of their homelands. This world is menaced by the Fire Nation, ruled by a totalitarian regime that attacks, exploits and oppresses the other lands.

The only one who can bring balance to the world is the Avatar, who in the lore of the story is reborn as a different member of the four nations during each lifetime and has the ability to master all four elements. In the series the Avatar is a precocious 12-year-old air-bending monk named Aang, who reappears, after a hundred years trapped in a state of hibernation, to complete his bending training and defeat the megalomaniacal fire lord.

Aang teams up with two members of the Southern Water Tribe, a water-bender named Katara and her brother, Sokka, and travels the world in search of masters of the elements, while also having side adventures, thwarting Fire Nation troops and evading the fire lord’s son, Zuko, who has a Captain Ahab-esque obsession with defeating the Avatar. Meanwhile, secondary characters reappear throughout the series to help Aang and his friends prepare for a final war against the Fire Nation, to bring harmony back to the four nations.

The world of the show is expansive and fanciful — with rocky terrains, formidable canyons full of oversized insects, dense Amazonian forests, upside-down temples carved into the sides of cliffs, a vast desert hiding a Borgesian library of limitless knowledge, and even a mystical island on the back of an ancient beast. Though the creators were inspired by Anglocentric world-building franchises like “Lord of the Rings,” “Star Wars” and “Harry Potter,” the cultures, philosophies and aesthetics of “Avatar” were influenced almost exclusively by Asian traditions.

In order to master the elements, Aang draws from lessons based on the principle of yin and yang and the workings of chakras, and his values are borrowed from Eastern belief systems like Buddhism. (Aang promotes peace, a respect for all life, and is a reincarnation of previous avatars.) The fashions and music were inspired by Chinese and Japanese styles, and many of the grand vistas and architectural models in the series, like the impenetrable city of Ba Sing Se, were inspired by real-world sites like China’s Great Wall and Forbidden City.

Aang, Katara and Sokka attempt to defeat the megalomaniacal fire lord.

But it’s the magical “bending,” so named to describe how its wielders manipulate, tease and strong-arm their element into submission, that is the most entrancing adaptation of Eastern cultural traditions. Each bending style is inspired by a classic Chinese martial art, which the show’s creators developed under the direction of a martial arts consultant. The flighty, variable and evasive air-bending of Aang resembles Baguazhang; the soft, fluid water-bending takes cues from tai chi; earth-bending, with its stability and immovable stances, is grounded in hung gar; and the fierce, aggressive fire-bending style is adapted from Northern Shaolin kung fu.

Aang is corrected by his masters as he learns: He must deepen his stance or turn his arm just so; he must clear his mind and direct the energy through him. Movement is key; the citizens of each nation move differently, so movement is linked to culture, a national disposition, a history within the narrative and a larger, real-life context, of the cultures and traditions that inform these fictional styles.

DiMartino and Konietzko’s admiration for Eastern culture surfaces throughout the series, a loving pastiche of allusions and inspirations: anime, Kung Fu flicks, world mythologies, Native tribes, Studio Ghibli films. In one episode, when Aang is plagued by a series of nightmares about his imminent face-off with the fire lord, the animation playfully morphs to mimic that of other famous anime series, like “Dragon Ball Z.”

“Avatar” managed to embrace all of the above while also conscientiously navigating the tricky minefield of cultural appropriation. The writers were mindful of any inadvertent links the show might make between one of the fictional nations and real Asian countries. Designs and artwork more explicitly based on those of actual countries were reworked so as to avoid any negative inferences that could come with the association. The show also brought in Edwin Zane, the former vice president of the Media Action Network for Asian-Americans, as a consultant to make sure questions of cultural sensitivity would be addressed.

After all, “Avatar” is unique in its approach to world-building. The show could have easily placed its world in proximity to whiteness by having the four nations be just one part of a larger landscape still occupied by white people, so that even if the story starred Asian characters, whiteness would still be a prominent feature. Instead, the show built a world with its own history and culture outside of that, where the characters seem, by default, Asian and view life through an Eastern lens rather than a white Western one.

The coronavirus, which first spread through China, has invited racist associations of Asianness with disease and spurred a surge in anti-Asian rhetoric and abuses. The pandemic has also exacerbated the divide between the white majority and the nonwhite minority: Already disadvantaged demographics have been hit especially hard by Covid-19 infections, job losses and business struggles, and, most troubling, harassment and death at the hands of the police. The so-called land of opportunity lately has become better known as a land of opportunities for hatred and violence. What “Avatar” provides is a world untethered from any definition or perspective that values whiteness above all else.

Despite its meticulous care and sensitivity, “Avatar” still bears Western characteristics. The animation, though inspired by Japanese anime (the creators cited the bewitchingly loony cult favorite “Fooly Cooly” in particular), with its exaggerated features, outsized reactions and dynamic action scenes, nevertheless sports the glossy American style of other Nickelodeon cartoons. (DiMartino and Konietzko originally aimed to do a coproduction with a Japanese studio but said that they found the studios unresponsive. They eventually teamed up with the small Korean studio Tin House for the pilot, and many of the studio’s artists continued working on the series throughout its run.)

Most egregious, the voice actors are mostly white, a glaring misstep for a production that was otherwise conscientious about cultural representation. (The limp 2010 live-action movie adaptation by M. Night Shyamalan was even more whitewashed, sparking a controversy over its casting.) The show’s dialogue is also rife with American idioms, and allusions to U.S. regionalism abound, as in one episode featuring a tribe of swamp-based water-benders who sound like they’ve been transplanted from the Deep South.

But whatever the instances of assimilation and translation, they never come across as a result of a Western superiority complex. Rather, as the United States continues to navigate a querulous relationship with China — not to mention a bloody history of war and forceful intervention with other countries in the East — and contend with its inequalities here, perhaps it’s more accurate to think of “Avatar” as delivering something that never sought to adapt or transcribe East to West, but respectfully marry and unify the two.

Its return to television offers a timely reminder: The story doesn’t always have to be of the same white America. There’s a whole wide world of narratives and traditions that resonate because of, not despite, the alternative view they present.

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More Nick: Netflix to Host Open Casting Call for Live-Action 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' Series!

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