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Being the last Airbender and having no living family or friends from one hundred years ago, Aang cares deeply for those close to him, even to the point of decieving and hurting others to keep the group together. In "]", Aang heard that Katara and Sokka might leave the group to visit their father, so Aang hid the map showing his whereabouts and lied about ever having it in the first place. In "]", Aang destroyed three Sandbender gliders when he found out they had kidnapped Appa and sold him. Being the last Airbender and having no living family or friends from one hundred years ago, Aang cares deeply for those close to him, even to the point of decieving and hurting others to keep the group together. In "]", Aang heard that Katara and Sokka might leave the group to visit their father, so Aang hid the map showing his whereabouts and lied about ever having it in the first place. In "]", Aang destroyed three Sandbender gliders when he found out they had kidnapped Appa and sold him.


Recent events in the Earth Kingdom, however, have begun to take a toll on his care-free personality. Aang's attitude changed dramatically when Appa, his air bison, was captured and taken away while Aang, Katara, and Sokka were searching an ancient library buried in a desert. Aang become visibly enraged and hostile, particularly toward Toph, who was 'keeping an eye on' Appa while they were gone. Despite attempts by Katara to calm Aang down, his anger continued to grow until finally he flew off to search for Appa alone. Eventually Aang returned to the group and a short time later they confronted the 'Sandbenders' who had taken Appa. When one of the benders revealed that they had sold Appa, Aang lashed out and smashed all their sand boats in a matter of moments. He then turned his sights on the earthbenders and transformed into his 'avatar state'. Aang's rage was only stopped when Katara grabbing hold of him and held him in an embrace till he finally calmed and returned to normal. Recent events in the Earth Kingdom, however, have begun to take a toll on his care-free personality. Aang's attitude changed dramatically when Appa, his air bison, was captured and taken away while Aang, Katara, and Sokka were searching an ancient library buried in a desert. Aang become visibly enraged and hostile, particularly toward Toph, who was 'keeping an eye on' Appa while they were gone. Despite attempts by Katara to calm Aang down, his anger continued to grow until finally he flew off to search for Appa alone. Eventually Aang returned to the group, but was still visibly upset. Aang violates the principles of ] when Momo is snatched up by a bee-vulture. He follows the creature and rescues Momo, but then unneccesarily strikes down, and potentially kills it out of anger and vengeance. After Aang returns with Momo the group is confronted the 'Sandbenders' who had taken Appa. When one of the benders revealed that they had sold Appa, Aang lashed out and smashed all their sand boats in a matter of moments. He then turned his sights on the earthbenders and transformed into his 'avatar state'. Aang's rage was only stopped when Katara grabbing hold of him and held him in an embrace till he finally calmed and returned to normal.


== Avatar == == Avatar ==

Revision as of 18:47, 14 September 2006

Fictional character
Aang
File:Avatar-book 1 Chapters 1 And 2 0003.jpg
Voiced byMitchel Musso (Pilot Only)
Zach Tyler Eisen
In-universe information
GenderMale
PositionAvatar, Airbending Master
NationalityAir Nomads

Aang is a fictional character who was originally voiced by Mitchel Musso and later voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen, the eponymous hero of the American animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Twelve-year-old Aang is an Airbender monk of the Air Nomads' Southern Air Temple, and the current incarnation of the Avatar, the spirit of the planet manifested in human form, who can control all four elements and whose job is to keep the Four Nations in harmony. With friends Katara and Sokka, and pets Momo and Appa, Aang journeys on a quest to master the elements, defeat the Fire Nation, and bring peace to the war-torn nations.

Aang is marked as an Airbending Master by his bald head and blue tattoos striping along his head and limbs, terminating as arrowheads on his forehead, the backs of his hands, and the tops of his feet.

Template:Spoilers

History

A Century Past

Raised by Airbender monks, Aang grew up in the idyllic surroundings of the Southern Air Temple. Aang was a carefree young boy, given to frequent travel and play and possessing an almost effortless mastery over his native element. His world irrevocably changed when the monks revealed that he was the Avatar, destined to master all four elements and bring peace to the world.

Usually, the Avatar is told of his/her true identity only after turning sixteen; however, Aang's caretakers feared that a war between the Four Nations was on the horizon, and that the Avatar would be needed to help maintain balance. Aang soon began to feel overwhelmed with the burden of his position. His peers ostracized him for his airbending skill, while his caretakers pressured him to mature into his responsibilities too quickly.

The only monk sympathetic to Aang's feelings was the elder Monk Gyatso, Aang's airbending mentor and guardian. When the burden weighed heavily on his favorite student, Gyatso worked to instill a sense of fun through jokes and games. He sincerely believed that Aang should be allowed to grow up as a normal boy. The other monks disagreed. Citing Gyatso's attachment to the boy as an interference, they decided to send Aang away to the Eastern Air Temple to focus on his training, oblivious to the fact that Aang had overheard their caucus.

Confused and frightened by what he'd learned, Aang fled from his home on his flying bison, Appa, towards the South Pole. While over the Southern ocean, a sudden storm caused Appa to plunge deep into the sea. Entering the Avatar State, Aang reflexively used airbending to surround himself and Appa in an air bubble that quickly froze into a glowing blue iceberg, putting them in a state of suspended animation beneath the surface of the icy waters surrounding the South Pole for one hundred years.

Present tense

File:Avatar - The Last Airbender 101-102 The Avatar Returns - Aang Iceburg.jpg
Aang within the Iceberg

In the present day, two teenage siblings from the Southern Water Tribe - Katara, a Waterbender, and her brother Sokka - discovered and freed Aang from his iceberg prison. Aang soon saw that in his absence, fears of war had became a reality. The very year he vanished, the then-leader of the Fire Nation, the ruthless Fire Lord Sozin, took advantage of both the Avatar's absence and the firebending-enhancing powers of a mystical comet to launch a war on the three other nations. To Aang's shock and disbelief, the Fire Nation's opening gambit had been a genocidal assault on the Air Nomads. The Air Temples were stormed and the monks and Air Nomads slaughtered in an effort to break the Avatar Cycle, leaving him as the last known Airbender in existence.

Aang has since realized that the future of the Four Nations rests in his hands. It is his duty to defeat the Fire Nation and restore peace and harmony. To achieve this goal, Aang and his newfound friends (and pets) set off on a quest to find and learn from Master Benders, while evading capture by the Fire Nation.

Future deadline

Although it takes years of discipline and training to master any particular element, Aang must master them all and defeat the current Fire Lord, Ozai, before summer's end, when the return of Sozin's Comet will grant the Firebenders the power needed to win the war. If these events come to pass, not even the Avatar will be able to restore balance to the world. The urgency to gain his full mastery of all the elements and confront the Fire Lord has been even more hightened due to a recent revelation. Aang and his friends have discovered that, shortly before Sozin's Comet reaches their world, there will be a complete solar eclipse. This eclipse has the exact opposite effect of the comet. While the comet greatly increases a firebender's power, the eclipse will take a firebender's power away, and provide Aang an advantage in confronting Ozai.

Personality

Aang is fun-loving, naïve, and adventurous. He craves the stimulation of new people and places; in short, he's the consummate tourist. His frequent off-course detours frustrate both allies and pursuers alike. Yet Aang has always prided himself on a complex social network of friends extending over all four nations, and a little thing like war won't stand in his way. As well, he looks forward to playing with all the exotic fauna in each place he visits. Whether it's penguins, hog-monkeys or gigantic eels, no fit animal Aang sees goes un-ridden. But while Aang can be a showoff and a jokester, therein lies his fatal flaw of taking foolish risks. Relatively cavalier in the face of danger, Aang can get into terrible trouble. Luckily for him, his friends are there to help him out.

Aang feels a terrible guilt and burden in his duties as Avatar. Very much the reluctant hero, he wishes he'd been there to help his people a century ago, but he'd still rather live a child's carefree life. This initially caused him to conceal his true identity from friends, and still has a tendency to slack off in his studies of the Bending Arts, even though he naturally excels at it.

Being the last Airbender and having no living family or friends from one hundred years ago, Aang cares deeply for those close to him, even to the point of decieving and hurting others to keep the group together. In "Bato of the Water Tribe", Aang heard that Katara and Sokka might leave the group to visit their father, so Aang hid the map showing his whereabouts and lied about ever having it in the first place. In "The Desert", Aang destroyed three Sandbender gliders when he found out they had kidnapped Appa and sold him.

Recent events in the Earth Kingdom, however, have begun to take a toll on his care-free personality. Aang's attitude changed dramatically when Appa, his air bison, was captured and taken away while Aang, Katara, and Sokka were searching an ancient library buried in a desert. Aang become visibly enraged and hostile, particularly toward Toph, who was 'keeping an eye on' Appa while they were gone. Despite attempts by Katara to calm Aang down, his anger continued to grow until finally he flew off to search for Appa alone. Eventually Aang returned to the group, but was still visibly upset. Aang violates the principles of Airbending when Momo is snatched up by a bee-vulture. He follows the creature and rescues Momo, but then unneccesarily strikes down, and potentially kills it out of anger and vengeance. After Aang returns with Momo the group is confronted the 'Sandbenders' who had taken Appa. When one of the benders revealed that they had sold Appa, Aang lashed out and smashed all their sand boats in a matter of moments. He then turned his sights on the earthbenders and transformed into his 'avatar state'. Aang's rage was only stopped when Katara grabbing hold of him and held him in an embrace till he finally calmed and returned to normal.

Avatar

Bending

File:Avatar - The Last Airbender 115 Bato Of The Water Tribe - Aang.jpg
Aang airbending

As the Avatar incarnate, Aang possesses the ability to manipulate all four elements. He is already an airbending master, so incredibly skilled that he's able to invent new techniques, like his "Air Scooter," a propelled sphere of air currents he can ride. His waterbending is substantially less polished. Though he's able to master techniques with more ease than his young Waterbender friend Katara, his lack of focus allowed her to surpass him. Now he must learn from her, as their teacher Master Pakku deemed her a master. Thanks to Toph, he has received some earthbending training and in the end of the episode, Bitter Work, he is seen shooting huge boulders at a cliff. He has little to no skill with fire, but has received a rudimentary object lesson in breath control and firebending. When he was briefly instructed by the fugitive firebending master Jeong Jeong, he ignored warnings to restrain himself and accidentally burned Katara. Newly respectful of fire's destructive power, he hasn't used firebending since.

As the Avatar, Aang is quite possibly the most powerful Bender in the world; he once used his airbending skills to halt a massive lava flow, without entering the Avatar State. However, Aang is loath to use his skills in battle, preferring to solve problems non-violently. Even when forced into combat, Aang typically holds back, fighting defensively and trying to disable opponents without seriously hurting them, even if they are just wild animals. This attitude was apparently common among Airbenders, who were all vegetarians and taught that all living things are precious.

The only exception to Aang's pacifism is when his friends are threatened; in which case, he gets very angry and relentlessly attacks his opponents, sometimes even entering the Avatar State.

Spirit

Aang is the newest incarnation of the spirit of the planet, which has been continually reincarnated since time immemorial. In life-threatening situations or instances of extreme emotional stress, Aang involuntarily channels the power of all his past lives, entering the powerful Avatar State. His tattoos, eyes and mouth glow blue, and he either uses bending as an immediate means of self-preservation, or lapses into a dangerous fit of elemental volatility until Aang is calmed down.

File:Avatar - The Last Airbender 103 The Southern Air Temple - AvatarState.jpg
Aang in the Avatar State

This spiritual state is the manifestation of all the Avatar's previous incarnations, which allows Aang to tap into the sum total of their power. When in this state the Avatar is at his most powerful, but also his most vulnerable. If the Avatar dies while in the Avatar State, the previous incarnations of the Avatar will die along with him, and the cycle of reincarnation will be permanently broken.

Aang often receives advise and guidance from Avatar Roku, the previous Avatar incarnate. Born into the Fire Nation in life, Roku is a benign force in spirit, serving as Aang's advisor and protector. On the Winter Solstice, he informed Aang of the impending return of Sozin's Comet, and manifested to defeat a group of Firebenders holding his friends hostage. (When Roku manifests, his voice can be heard behind Aang's when he speaks.) He's guided Aang several times since, appearing to Jeong Jeong to persuade him to teach Aang, offering critical wisdom in the ways of the Spirit World during the siege of the North Pole, and most recently, revealing to Aang the nature of the Avatar State.

Medium

The Avatar also has the capacity to act as a medium, a bridge between mortal world and the Spirit World, the plane of existence where the universe's disembodied spirits dwell. Through inducing a deep meditative state, Aang can separate from his body and travel the physical world's astral plane in astral form, or, with the help of a gateway, travel completely to the Spirit World. Once in the Spirit World, Aang can travel freely and communicate with beings such as Avatar Roku or Koh the Face Stealer. This position as intermediary also allows him to channel other spirits while in the Avatar State. He once acted as the Avatar of the Ocean Spirit to defeat the Fire Nation during the siege of the North Pole.

Family

Monk Gyatso

The closest person to a father-figure in Aang's days at the Southern Air Temple, Monk Gyatso was a caring and understanding teacher. He seems to have been the source of Aang's love for fun, games and jokes. When Aang returns to the temple after a century in suspended animation, he is devastated to find the corpse of his beloved mentor surrounded by the remains of Fire Nation soldiers. This prompts Aang to enter the Avatar State, causing a violent emotional episode of involuntary airbending, which only abates when his friend Katara promises that she and her brother will be his new surrogate family.

Avatar Roku

Avatar Roku, while not "family" per se, is a facet of Aang's self, the previous incarnation of the Avatar. He serves in much the same capacity as Monk Gyatso before him, guiding Aang through the difficult process of becoming a fully realized Avatar. Though a deep relationship has not yet been established, each knows the other instinctively, and both are pleased to communicate with one another when the opportunity arises.

Relationships

File:KataraKissAang.jpg
Katara kisses Aang on his cheek.

Katara

The first face Aang sees upon waking from suspended animation, the young Waterbender Katara was his liberator from the iceberg. Aang gradually develops a crush on the fourteen-year-old. This unrequited infatuation has deepened as Aang progresses from making amateurish gifts to eavesdropping on Katara's meeting with the fortuneteller Aunt Wu (Wu's prediction that Katara will "marry a powerful bender" prompted a silent celebratory fit of glee). The episode, "The Cave of Two Lovers," has an ambiguous scene where Katara and Aang lean in to kiss. The scene then goes black until the two are seen, with their hands locked, looking up at the glowing crystals on the cave ceiling. Katara, however, is known to have kissed Aang (though on the cheek) at the end of the episode "Bato of the Water Tribe."

Sokka

Aang and Sokka have had their rough patches. While Aang has since disproved the young warrior's initial suspicions that he was a Fire Nation spy, his occasional carelessness can raise Sokka's hackles. For his part, Aang often makes light of Sokka's serious demeanor. Along with Katara, he views Sokka's skeptical favoring of science over magic with some bewildered amusement, though he has grown impressed with Sokka's engineering skills.

Appa

Appa the flying bison is both Aang's dear pet and the group's primary means of travel. Appa is not only a skilled flyer but also an adept swimmer, and he seems fairly impervious to adverse weather. Aang loves his fellow survivor of a century of sleep, as they both may be the last of their kind. Aang possesses a flying bison whistle (inaudible to humans) to summon Appa from a distance, and he commands him to fly with a cry of "Yip-yip!"

Appa is a natural Airbender, and it is speculated that his species, like the badgermoles, inspired the locals to develop their own airbending skills. The Airbenders even tattoo themselves with the flying bison's arrow-shaped markings. Appa seems to be able to communicate with animals of other species, such as Momo, and he hates going underground (as seen in the episode "The Cave of Two Lovers").

Appa is very faithful and protective of Aang, and on various occasions he has actively entered into battle to protect his little friend.

As seen in "The Desert", Appa means a lot to Aang, since he has been with Aang for over 100 years. When Appa is taken by Sandbenders, Aang is driven mad in his anger, reverting to his Avatar State and destroying all the Sandbender skiffs and almost killing the Sandbenders.

Momo

Aang discovers Momo, a winged lemur, while wandering about the ruined Southern Air Temple. Aang quickly claimed him as a pet and named him after the peach Momo was holding at the time (momo is Japanese for "peach"). Aang is very fond of the creature, because he represents the small hope that other fragments of Air Nomadic culture, even other Air Nomads, could have survived somewhere in the world.

Prince Zuko

The Firebender Prince Zuko is ostensibly one of Aang's greatest enemies. His quest to capture Aang, thus ensuring the Fire Nation's victory, is a threat to Aang's work and the world at large. Yet each has worked in the other's service. Because Zuko's throne and right to return home from exile are forfeit if he does not find the Avatar, he must protect Aang from other potential threats. When Aang was captured by Zuko's rival, Admiral Zhao, Zuko posed as a blue-masked, dual-broadsword-wielding vigilante named The Blue Spirit to free Aang from custody. In turn, Aang rescued Zuko from capture when he was knocked unconscious in their escape attempt. Afterward, reflecting on an old Fire Nation friend named Kuzon, Aang asked Zuko if they could ever be friends, only to receive a fire blast in reply. Aang also saved Zuko from freezing to death in the icy tundra of the North Pole. It is interesting to note that Aang typically treats Zuko with more kindness and respect than most of Zuko's own family, with the exception of Uncle Iroh.

Admiral Zhao

Since the Firebender Admiral Zhao had an even bigger temper than Zuko, Aang knew just how to push his buttons. Exploiting Zhao's low impulse control, ego, and hatred of being humiliated by those younger, Aang once mocked and egged Zhao on until he destroyed a convoy of his own ships. Aang is currently unaware that Zhao apparently met his end at the hands of the ocean spirit.

King Bumi

So far, King Bumi, the Earthbender ruler of the Earth Kingdom city of Omashu, is the only known peer of Aang's still living. Aang fondly remembers how a young Bumi taught him to use Omashu's mail chutes as a giant roller coaster. Now a supercentenarian, Bumi maintains the eccentric and unconventional thinking that caused Aang to dub him, "a mad genius." In the second season premier it is revealed that Aang plans to receive teachings in Earthbending under King Bumi, but after he is taken prisoner in "Return to Omashu," Aang is forced to find a new teacher.

Meng

Meng had a crush on Aang in the episode "The Fortuneteller". However Aang did not really care for Meng, seeing as he likes Katara. During the episode, Meng "stalked" Aang to the point that she actually admitted to Aang that she liked him. Meng was very jealous of Katara, seeing as Aang likes her. At the end of the episode when Aang, Katara, and Sokka leave, Meng quietly says "floozy" to herself, most likely referring to Katara.

Koko

Koko was another young girl who had a crush on Aang in the episode "The Warriors of Kyoshi". Koko and her little friends liked to chase Aang all over the island. In fact, Koko and her friends made an Aang fan-club, affectionately calling him "Aangie".

Toph

Toph is a blind twelve-year old who is exceptionally skilled at earthbending. Based on the nature of their relationship, it is possible that a friendly rivalry will persist in future episodes. Toph is Aang's earthbending teacher, although she has a much different teaching approach than Katara, more akin to that of an army drill sergeant.

Toph first appeared in "The Swamp" as a vision to Aang. The vision was simply a message that he would meet her in the future (as Aang correctly concluded in the episode).

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