Wu (fortuneteller)

:This article is about the woman who worked as a fortuneteller in Makapu Village. For the Earth Kingdom monarch, see Wu.
Aunt Wu was an elderly citizen of Makapu Village who worked as a fortuneteller. The people of Makapu were so confident in her abilities that they abandoned their yearly tradition of going up the nearby volcano to check if it would erupt and instead relied on Aunt Wu's predictions. Well-regarded for her free and accurate readings, every prediction she made was taken as gospel by the village at large. Her methods of divination ran from palmistry to osteomancyAvatar: The Last Airbender—The Art of the Animated Series, page 64. and cloud reading. She was helped in her hut by her assistant, Meng.
== History ==
When she was a little girl, Aunt Wu received a cloud reading book, and when she was old enough, she studied with other fortunetellers, learning different methods such as reading bones and clouds. She spent many years traveling the Earth Kingdom, telling people's fortunes in each town she visited. In 80 AG, she arrived in Makapu Village near the active volcano Mt. Makapu. She knew that the village was where she was meant to be, as the people in the town had become reliant upon her fortunes.
Team Avatar visited Makapu in early 100 AG, and Wu performed readings for them. She predicted that Katara would marry a powerful bender while Sokka would live a life of pain and misery, most of which would be self-inflicted. She also foretold Aang's future battle between the forces of good and evil. When a curious Aang asked about his potential love life, she told him to simply trust his heart and he would be with the one he loved.
When Aunt Wu's cloud readings predicted the nearby volcano would not destroy the village, Katara and Aang accepted the reading, while the skeptical Sokka grew frustrated with the populace's blind faith in the fortuneteller. After this, an enamored Katara returned to Wu for several more predictions, which began to annoy the fortuneteller. She finally shut Katara out after she asked if she should have mango or papaya for breakfast.
Later, after discovering that the volcano was in fact set to erupt, Team Avatar borrowed Aunt Wu's Book of Clouds and used a combination of water- and airbending to manipulate the clouds and convince the villagers their home was in danger. After they saved the town, Aang returned Wu's book to her. She initially appeared angry, accusing them of tampering with the clouds, though subsequently relented, remarking that it had been a clever ruse and that it showed that people really are the masters of their own fate rather than being controlled by it.
A short time later, June, Prince Zuko, and Iroh visited Makapu Village in search of the Avatar. Although the other villagers scattered in fear, Aunt Wu remained calm and flirtatiously noted that Iroh was handsome and asked if he wanted his fortune told.
== Appearances ==
=== Avatar: The Last Airbender ===
==== Book One: Water (水) ====
== Trivia ==
* Wu may be written in Chinese as , a surname meaning "shaman" or "sorceress". Shamanism was widespread in ancient China from the Shang dynasty until the Han. During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, their chosen divination technique was the reading of oracle bones, which Aunt Wu demonstrates in the show.
** Wu has the same pronunciation as "woo", a slang term used by skeptics to describe topics they consider superstitious nonsense, such as astrology and fortune-telling.
* Aunt Wu's headpiece is an inverted Mark of the Wise, the symbol Sokka earned after successfully completing the Southern Water Tribe's traditional rite of passage of ice dodging.
* Like many older women, she appeared to find Iroh attractive.
* In the Greek dub of the show, it is Aunt Wu instead of Avatar Roku who narrates the "Previously on Avatar" recaps.
== References ==
de:Tante Wu
es:Wu (adivina)
fr:Tante Wu
nl:Tante Wu
pl:Ciocia Wu
ru:Тётя Ву
Category:A to Z
Category:Characters
Category:Earth Kingdom characters
Category:Minor characters