Aang

Appearances

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Upon death, Avatar Roku was reincarnated and Aang was born, and later raised by Monk Gyatso, a senior monk at the Southern Air Temple and friend of the late Avatar Roku. Even prior to learning he was the Avatar, Aang distinguished himself by becoming one of the youngest Airbending Masters in history by inventing a new technique. As a result of Fire Lord Sozin's increasingly hostile attitude towards the other nations, the senior monks decided to reveal Aang's nature as the Avatar four years before the traditional age (Avatars are usually told of their status once they turn 16) and relocate him to one of the other Air Temples. Learning that he was to be taken from Gyatso caused Aang to flee the monastery on his flying bison, Appa, before being caught by a storm; the life-or-death conditions triggered the Avatar State, encasing the young Avatar and his bison in an air-pocket among icebergs, where he remained suspended for a century. Although Monk Gyatso had snuck into Aang's bedroom late at night to tell Aang that he will not be relocated to the Eastern Air Temple, it had already been too late.

After one hundred years of suspended animation in an iceberg, twelve-year-old Aang was freed when found by Katara and Sokka, yet unaware of the events that occurred during his rest. His reawakening catches the attention of Prince Zuko, the banished son of current Fire Lord Ozai. After a failed attempt to capture him, Aang sets off to the Northern Water Tribe, alongside Katara and Sokka, the former of whom he promises to learn waterbending with. Aang and his new friends visit the Southern Air Temple, where they meet a winged lemur whom Aang later names Momo. It is there that Aang learns that the Fire Nation wiped out his people, including Gyatso, which causes Aang to enter the Avatar State, informing the other nations of the Avatar's return. After a series of misadventures, Aang meets his previous incarnation, Roku, who informs him that he must master all four bending arts and end the war before the coming of Sozin's Comet at the end of summer. Upon arriving to the Northern Water Tribe, Aang became an apprentice of Waterbending Master Pakku alongside Katara. After helping the Water Tribe drive off a Fire Nation invasion headed by Admiral Zhao, with Katara as his teacher, Aang and his group journey to the Earth Kingdom to find an Earthbending teacher. Ozai, angered that Iroh betrayed the Fire Nation, sends his daughter, Princess Azula, to hunt down Zuko and Iroh.

In the second season, Aang learns Earthbending from Toph Beifong after he has a vision of the blind Earthbender in a swamp telling him to find her. On their journey, they are chased by Zuko’s sister Princess Azula and her friends Mai and Ty Lee. The group learns about the Day of Black Sun in a secret underground library, and they attempt to reveal the information to the Earth King at Ba Sing Se. However, their flying bison, Appa, is captured by Sandbenders. Aang grows upset and angry and confronts the Sandbenders, learning that Appa has been sold. After stopping a Fire Nation drill threatening the safety of Ba Sing Se, they look for Appa only to find themselves dealing with the Dai Li before exposing their leader's deception. Team Avatar realizes that the people of Ba Sing Se don't know of the world war going on, and Ba Sing Se is actually a dystopia claiming to be perfect. The group reunites with Jet helping them find Appa at Dai Li headquarters. They expose the Hundred Year War to the Earth King, who promises to help them invade the Fire Nation. Soon after, Aang meets a guru who attempts to teach Aang to open his seven chakras in order to control the defensive 'Avatar State'; but when Aang perceives Katara in danger, he leaves before the seventh chakra can be cleared and blocks it, preventing him from entering the Avatar State. Aang later began to release the seventh chakra in the Crystal Catacombs but was unable to complete the process due to being fatally electrocuted by Azula. Consequently, Aang was prevented from opening the seventh chakra and mastering the Avatar State, leaving his attachment to Katara intact and blocking the seventh chakra again. He is later brought back to life by Katara, using the spirit water given to her by the Northern Water Tribe at the start of the second season.

The Legend of Korra

Being frozen in the iceberg for 100 years in the Avatar State drained much of Aang's life energy. While he did not feel the effects for many years, the strain of this exertion increasingly weighed upon his body as he aged. Ultimately, it resulted in Aang dying at the relatively young biological age of 66 in 153 AG. Aang was outlived by his wife, Katara, and his three children, but he did not live to see his grandchildren, all of whom would become powerful airbenders. As his death drew near, Aang tasked the Order of the White Lotus with finding and guiding the new Avatar after him.

When Aang died, the Avatar spirit reincarnated into Korra of the Southern Water Tribe. Aang intended for the Order to simply guide and guard Korra, but several mishaps in the aftermath of Aang's death (including a kidnapping attempt by the anarchist Zaheer) and the still-fragile state of relations between the now-Five Nations resulted in Korra's father Tonraq and Tenzin sequestering Korra in a compound at the South Pole, bringing teachers to her instead of allowing her to seek out her own.

In the sequel series' first season, Avatar Aang's spirit occasionally serves as the spiritual advisor to seventeen-year-old Korra (much like the previous Avatar incarnation, Roku, did for Aang). Korra struggles with the spiritual aspects of bending and being the avatar, so initially Aang is only able to give Korra glimpses of his memory concerning Yakone in relation to her confrontations with his two sons, Amon and Tarrlok, the products of Yakone's Bloodbending vendetta on the Avatar. It is only after she loses her ability to bend that Korra allows herself to listen to her past lives, at which point Aang is able to manifest more directly to her and helps to restore her powers by triggering the Avatar State and teaching her to Energybend.

The sequel series' second season reveals that Avatar Aang apparently treated Tenzin as his favorite child, due to his son's Airbender status; Kya and Bumi mentioned to Tenzin that Aang always took Tenzin on vacations with him, but never them. Aang's Air Acolytes also were unaware that Aang had two other children besides Tenzin. Tenzin himself insists that Aang loved all his children equally, but that Aang took more precedence in raising him since Tenzin would have to take care of future generations of airbenders. Aang himself later appears, along with Roku, Kyoshi and Kuruk, before Korra in a vision and encourages her to learn the origins of Wan (the first Avatar) and Raava. Aang, or possibly a vision of him, later appears in the Spirit World, encouraging Tenzin to move past the enormous legacy of being Aang's son and find his own path. Korra's connection to Aang and the other preceding Avatars is severed when Vaatu extracts and subsequently kills Raava, the divine Avatar Spirit entity within her. Even though Raava is reborn and fused again with Korra, she discovers, to her dismay, that her spiritual connection to Aang and all past Avatars is presumably gone forever.

Appearances in other media

Aang's character appeared in the Avatar: The Last Airbender Trading Card Game on a multitude of cards. He appeared in the Avatar: The Last Airbender video game as one of the four playable characters. Two sequels were made: Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Burning Earth, followed by Avatar: The Last Airbender – Into the Inferno. Aang also appeared in Escape from the Spirit World, an online video game found on Nickelodeon's official website. The game includes certain plot changes that are not shown in the show. The show's directors, Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, claim the events are canon.

Aang is also a playable character in Nickelodeon crossover titles such as Nicktoons Nitro, Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix, and the Nickelodeon Super Brawl series, including Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl and its sequel.

On April 12, 2024, Aang was released as a skin in the video game Fortnite. Aang is set to appear as a playable character via downloadable content in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds.

Tokyopop has published a films comic (sometimes referred to as cine-manga), in which Aang, being the main character of the show, appears repeatedly.

In 2010, director M. Night Shyamalan cast 12-year-old Tae Kwon Do practitioner Noah Ringer as Aang in the film adaptation of the series, The Last Airbender. His name in the film is pronounced [ɑŋ] instead of [eəŋ]. The casting of a presumed white actor in the role of Aang (as well as a primarily Caucasian cast) in the Asian-influenced Avatar universe triggered negative reactions from some fans, marked by accusations of racism, a letter-writing campaign, and a protest outside of a Philadelphia casting call for movie extras. The casting decisions were also negatively received by several critics, who stated that the original casting call expressed a preference for Caucasian actors over others. Noah Ringer later identified himself to Entertainment Weekly as an American Indian.

Creation and conception

Aang's character was developed from a drawing by Bryan Konietzko of a "balding human man in his forties wearing a futuristic outfit" based on Michael Dante DiMartino's appearance with an arrow design on his head. Konietzko later developed this man into a child with a flying bison. Meanwhile, DiMartino was interested in a documentary about explorers trapped in the South Pole, which he later combined with Konietzko's drawing.

There's an air guy along with these water people trapped in a snowy wasteland...and maybe some fire people are pressing down on them...

The plot they described corresponds with the first and second episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender, where the "water people" (Katara and Sokka) rescue the "air guy" (Aang) while "trapped in a snowy wasteland" (the Southern Water Tribe) with "some fire people [that] are pressing down on them" (Zuko and the Fire Nation troops). The creators of the show intended for Aang to be trapped in an iceberg for one thousand years, later to wake up to a futuristic world, wherein he would have a robot named Momo and a dozen flying bison. The creators eventually lost interest in this science fiction theme and changed it to an Asian-inspired fantasy world. Aang was changed to being stuck in a hundred years of suspended animation, his bald head was explained away by him hailing from a culture inspired by Buddhist monks, the robotic Momo became a flying lemur, and the herd of bison was reduced to one.

The show's distinctive art style was also influenced by anime, particularly the series FLCL (Fooly Cooly), which the creators have cited as an influence. Director Giancarlo Volpe has stated members of his staff "were all ordered to buy FLCL and watch every single episode of it." Aang's design language shares a clear lineage with the stylized, expressive characters of that series. The official art book explicitly notes that Aang's design was based on FLCL's protagonist, Naota Nandaba. Commentators and fans have also noted broader similarities between the two characters, including having a strong physical resemblance, personality, and sharing thematic struggles with childhood trauma and the pressures of prematurely assuming great powers and responsibility.

In the episode "Tales of Ba Sing Se", Aang's name was written as 安昂 (ān áng) in Chinese.

Personality and characteristics

Michael Dante DiMartino, the show's co-creator, said:

We wanted Aang to solve problems and defeat enemies with his wits as well as his powerful abilities.

According to the show's creators, "Buddhism and Taoism have been huge inspirations behind the idea for Avatar." As shown in "The King of Omashu" and "The Headband", a notable aspect of Aang's character is his vegetarian diet, which is consistent with Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism. In the Brahmajala Sutra, a Buddhist code of ethics, vegetarianism is encouraged. Furthermore, the writers gave Aang a consistent reluctance to fight and an aversion to killing. In "The Spirit World (Winter Solstice, Part 1)", Aang encounters an angry spirit destroying a village and kidnapping villagers; but instead of fighting the spirit, Aang negotiates. He is also depicted showing ethical reluctance in killing the Phoenix King, and eventually strips Ozai of his bending instead of murdering him.

Bending the elements

As the Avatar, Aang is capable of bending all four elements (air, water, earth and fire). The series' creators consulted a professional martial artist in the design of the show's fighting style; each of these styles' philosophies and set movements corresponds to a specific "bending arts".

The creators made bending a natural extension of consistent limitations and rules of the world. Everything in Avatar's world, whether it be clothing, culture or infrastructure, is influenced by bending. The City of Omashu uses a complex system of gravity and earthbending to transport supplies. The Water Tribes were a naval superpower: their buildings are made of ice and used waterbending as mechanisms for their walls and gates. Airbenders built temples atop high mountains and cliffs that could only be easily reached by Airbending and they have a hermetic ideology to reflect this isolation. The Fire Nation were the first to industrialize due to their ability to generate power and master metallurgy with their bending of fire and lightning.

At the start of the series, Aang is initially only proficient in air, having been able to bend it with ease since he was a young child. Through the teaching of Katara and Zuko, he gradually learns waterbending and firebending; but struggles with Toph's teachings of earthbending due to its rigid nature conflicting with his desire for freedom. Aang utilizes all elements equally, but heavily favors airbending for crowd control and non-lethal purposes, in accordance with his pacifism principles.

Airbending: The bending art Aang primarily uses in the entire franchise, is a Southern Temple Style based on an "internal" Chinese martial art called Baguazhang. Aang is the only person in living memory to have mastered this form of airbending, and would later pass down this knowledge to his son, Tenzin, who with the aid of Korra, would prove instrumental in the reconstruction and preservation of Air Nomad oral and intangible cultural heritage. Due to the genocide of his people, all other "styles of airbending arts" have been forever lost to history. This fighting style focuses on circular movements, and does not have many finishing moves; traits meant to represent the unpredictability of air and the peaceful character of Airbenders. Airbending represents the element of freedom, and is categorized as the most elusive of the "four bending arts". Airbending utilizes negative jing, which involves retreating and dodging attacks. Airbending involves "smooth coiling and uncoiling actions"; dynamic footwork, throws, and open-handed techniques; and swift, evasive maneuvers designed to evoke the "intangibility and explosive power of wind". These techniques are intended to increase the difficulty for opponents to attack directly or land a lethal blow—allowing airbenders to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury—a pacifist-philosophy that is prevalent among the Air Nomad people. Airbending lacks "finishing moves" or effective methods for permanently disabling foes, a weakness frequently exploited by opponents.

The Avatar State

As the Avatar, Aang serves as a bridge between "Material World" and the "Spirit World", the plane of existence where the universe's disembodied spirits dwell. His spirituality training progressed swiftly, granting visions and access to the various memories from his past lives.

Like his predecessors, his most powerful ability is the Avatar State, in which he receives a massive boost in raw power from the cosmic energy, enabling him to easily overcome any opponent that tries to fight him head-on. In addition, this state allows him to access bending techniques he would not have learned during his own lifetime but throughout those of his past lives. If he is killed in the Avatar State, then this would cause the Avatar to cease being reincarnated and end the Avatar Cycle.

Critical reception

Aang was well received by critics and fans. Kendall Lyons stated, "Aang seems to be the lighthearted kid that you can easily familiarize yourself with", and that he "seems to bring comfort in the most dangerous or hostile situations." There are many similar descriptions about Aang as a childlike character who is "reckless and excitable". Reviews point out that "as the Avatar, Aang seems unstoppable, but as Aang, he is just another Airbender"; the review states later that the show continues to focus on a more realistic character instead of a perfect one by revealing many character flaws.

In 2016, Screen Rant ranked Aang #15 on its "30 Best Animated TV Characters Of All Time" list.

At the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, Dutch windsurfer Kiran Badloe won the gold medal in Men's RS: X while having a blue arrow haircut inspired by Aang's design.