King Bumi (Netflix)

King Bumi is a major supporting character of Netflix's 2024 live action remake of the Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender. He is the ruler of the kingdom of Omashu, who is a lifelong childhood friend of Aang shortly before Fire Lord Sozin started the war and in later years he became the king of his hometown, Omashu.
He is portrayed by Utkarsh Ambudkar as a old man and Pradnesh Prakash as child.
==History==
===Background===
Bumi grew up in Omashu, where he learned earthbending from a young age and eventually became friends with Avatar Aang. Aang visited Bumi in Omashu, where he would ask about his earthbending training. One day, Bumi presented a small rock he had attempted to shape into a badgermole to Aang, who thought it was a sky bison. Aang kept it and used it as a whistle that was able to call his sky bison, Appa, to his side.
After Aang disappeared and the Fire Nation declared war, Bumi however became resentful of Aang and felt as if he had abandoned the world. This also instilled the belief that he could not rely on anyone, especially his friends, into Bumi.
At one point in his life, Bumi became King of Omashu. During his reign, he made the decision for Omashu to stay out of the war in order to protect his people. Whilst they were successful in avoiding being conquered by the Fire Nation, Omashu still suffered from Fire Nation spies infiltrating their walls.
One-hundred years later, Bumi was still serving as King of Omashu, despite being well over a century old at this point.
===Season 1===
====Omashu====
Jet and his band of freedom fighters attempt to assassinate the king, but Bumi is saved by Katara and Sokka. Later, both Avatar Aang and General Iroh are arrested for causing disturbances in the town.
====Into the Dark====
Aang has been captured by Earth Kingdom soldiers and is in captivity with Iroh. The Omashu soldiers take Iroh and prepare to transport him to “The Pit”, a dangerous Earth Kingdom labor camp for prisoners of war, while Aang is taken to meet the king who Aang deduces is Bumi. Bumi throws Aang a feast, but the latter realizes that the former is angry at him for vanishing for 100 years. Bumi leads Aang into traps which avoids or uses airbending to escape from, while also trying to remind Aang of their past together.
Finally, Bumi challenges Aang to a fight to the death. While Aang constantly evades Bumi's attacks, Katara and Sokka arrive. Aang reminds Bumi of their past friendship and Bumi forgives Aang. Bumi is inspired to rejoin the fight against Fire Nation, helped by Sai who took Sokka's advice and betrayed the Fire Nation spies.
====Legends====
At the end of the episode, Fire Lord Ozai reveals that the attack on Agna Qel'a was a distraction for Azula to take over Omashu and capture King Bumi.
== Powers & Abilities ==
Just like in the animated series, Bumi is still an immensely powerful and skilled Earthbender, despite his advanced age.
== Personality ==
Bumi is bitter from all the responsibilities the war has caused him and puts Aang through "challenges" as a way to chew him out for disappearing when the world needed him most and showing him the rough burdens of being the Avatar. He eventually mellows out when Aang shows him the rock he gave him a hundred years ago, reminding him of their friendship and gives the embittered king newfound hope that the war will finally come to an end.
==Trivia==
*In the original animated show, Bumi was shown to be welcoming to Aang after he revealed his identity. In the Netflix version, however, Bumi is quite bitter toward Aang's disappearance.
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