Avatar: The Last Airbender was partly inspired by ancient Chinese culture, which had a five-element philosophy - so why does Avatar only have four?
The premise of Avatar: The Last Airbender is based on the existence of four natural elements, but why only four? In Avatar, the world is divided into four separate nations based on four elements: earth, water, fire, and air. Within each of these nations, some unique people have supernatural bending abilities that allow them to manipulate their respective elements. The pilot episode of the series lays this premise outright from the beginning, but the reason that there are only four elements is not explained within the show.
Of course, in Avatar, there are other elements that benders can control, but they all fall under the category of one of the four main elements. For example, earthbenders can learn metalbending, waterbenders can learn bloodbending, and firebenders can learn lightning bending. But what’s interesting is that one of these subskill elements exists as part of Wuxing (also written Wu-Hsing), an ancient Chinese philosophy – while air does not. The common English translation of Wuxing is Five Phases, referring to five natural elements: wood (mu), fire (huo), earth (tu), metal (jin), water (shui). Since so many other parts of Avatar were inspired by Chinese culture, why weren’t these five elements used in the show?
According to Bryan Konietzko in the book Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Art of the Animated Series, it was mostly due to simplicity, and the fact that the Five Phases philosophy is not the only element-based philosophy that exists in ancient Chinese culture. As Konietzko notes:
"People often assume the "four-element theory"... we brought to bending is exclusive to ancient Greece, and that in ancient China only a "five-element theory was used"… in our research we found the four-element theory was prevalent in ancient cultures all over the world, including ancient Buddhist teachings. While the five-element theory is interesting in its own right, we were attracted to the universality of the four simple elements."
Elemental theories indeed exist around the world – and have for thousands of years. While each culture has its own beliefs and history behind the elements (and slight variations as well as additions), the four elements featured in Avatar are frequently included in element-based philosophies. It’s also worth noting that Wuxing does not approach the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water) with the same fixedness as Avatar. Wuxing represents ever-changing materials, thus it’s translated to English as Five Phases rather than Five Elements.
In the end, it makes a lot of sense that the showrunners made the choice they did. For one, including the element of air obviously changes the premise of the show dramatically. And including a fifth element would have meant including a fifth nation and respective bending ability, which (while certainly intriguing) might have overcomplicated a show directed at young children. Using only four elements allowed Avatar: The Last Airbender plenty of time to explore the intricacies of each culture and bending style within the show while honoring the real-life cultures that inspired them.
The pilot of Avatar: The Last Airbender can be watched here, and the recently released second printing of Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Art of the Animated Series is now available from Dark Horse. The follow up, The Legend of Korra: The Art of the Animated Series-Book One: Air, will receive a second reprint in February 2021, also from Dark Horse.
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