Avatar Aang

**Avatar Aang**, also known as **Aang**, is the main protagonist from the *Avatar: The Last Airbender* series.

## **Charactah Account**

The twelve-year-old (well, technically a hundred-and-twelve-year old) plucky Airbending boy destined to save the world. When he learned of his status as the Avatar, followed by the monks trying to take him from his teacher/father figure, he couldn't handle the pressure and ran away from home. When he was caught in a storm, he defensively used his powers to seal himself in an iceberg, which protected him for a century while the other Air Nomads were exterminated by the Fire Nation in an effort to kill him. After being freed from the iceberg by Katara and Sokka, he now must face his destiny by mastering all four elements and defeating Fire Lord Ozai to restore balance to the world.

Aang was fun-loving, somewhat naive, and adventurous with a sense of humor. He possessed a deep respect for life and freedom, refused to eat meat and was often reluctant to fight in his younger years. He craved the stimulation of new people and places. His frequent off-course detours frustrated both allies and pursuers alike. He typically wished to forget his duties as the Avatar and would long for the normality that others possessed. Yet Aang had always prided himself on a complex social network of friends extending over all four nations, and war did not stand in his way. In addition, he looked forward to playing with all the exotic fauna in each place he visited. Whether it was otter penguins,[3] hopping llamas, hog monkeys, or giant koi fish, no fit animal Aang saw went un-ridden.

Within this carefree exterior, however, Aang hid a great deal of guilt and a heavy mental burden in his duties as Avatar. As the reluctant hero, he wished he had been there to help his people a century earlier. This initially caused him to conceal his true identity from friends, and he still had a tendency to slack off in his studies of the bending arts, even though he naturally excelled at them. He also tended to become distressed when he saw destruction caused by the Hundred Year War, believing that as the Avatar, it was his job to prevent such events from happening. Eventually, Aang decided to stop dwelling on the past; however, on several occasions, his desire to end the War caused him to take desperate action such as attempting to induce the Avatar State or facing Fire Lord Ozai before he had fully mastered the elements.

## **Appearance**

### **Cartoons**

* Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book One: Water
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book Two: Earth
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book Three: Fire
* The Legend of Korra - Book One: Air
* The Legend of Korra - Book Two: Spirits
* The Legend of Korra - Book Four: Balance

### **Comics**

* Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book One: Water
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book Two: Earth
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - Book Three: Fire
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - Imbalance
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - Katara and the Pirate's Silver
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - North and South Part One
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - North and South Part Two
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - North and South Part Three
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - Smoke and Shadow
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Promise
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Rift
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search
* Team Avatar Tales
* The Legend of Korra - Clearing the Air

### **Video Games**

* Avatar: Legends of the Arena
* Avatar: The Last Airbender
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - Into the Inferno
* Avatar: The Last Airbender – Quest for Balance
* Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth
* Escape from the Spirit World
* Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl
* Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix
* Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway
* Nicktoons MLB
* Nicktoons Nitro
* Super Brawl
* Super Brawl 2
* Super Brawl 3: Good vs. Evil
* Super Brawl Universe
* Super Mini Puzzle Heroes
* The Legend of Korra

## **Trivia**

* Chronologically, Aang has the second-longest lifespan of any known Avatar, dying 165 years after his birth; he is beaten by Kyoshi, who lived to the age of 230.
* Since Avatar Roku was the maternal great-grandfather of Zuko, Azula, and Kiyi, and was the previous Avatar, Aang, Zuko, Azula, and Kiyi were all spiritually related. Also, since Roku was Ursa's grandfather, Aang was also spiritually related to Ursa.
* Aang is written in Chinese, meaning "peaceful soaring".
* Aang's stature and bodily proportions were inspired conceptually by the forms and Gung Fu movements of a young boy named Arjuna. Photographed for reference by Bryan Konietzko at age six, Arjuna's contribution was one of the early collaborations between the *Avatar* team and Sifu Kisu, Arjuna being Kisu's son.
	+ Though Bryan Konietzko did not design Aang's shaved, bald head with his fellow co-creator, Michael Dante DiMartino, in mind, he did base Aang's beard as an adult off of DiMartino's.
* After Aang was shot in the back with Azula's lightning, he had two scars: one on his back where the lightning entered his body and the other on the sole of his left foot where the lightning left his body.
* Aang choosing four toys out of thousands – to identify him as the Avatar as these four toys were the same ones that past Avatars had chosen for generations when they were children – was the same procedure used by the Tibetan Buddhist monks to recognize the next reincarnation of the Tulku Lama. According to the book Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David-Néel, "a number of objects such as rosaries, ritualistic implements, books, tea-cups, etc., are placed together, and the child must pick out those which belonged to the late Tulku, thus showing that he recognizes the things which were in his previous life.
* The names of the first episode, "The Boy in the Iceberg", and the last episode, "Sozin's Comet, Part 4: Avatar Aang", show Aang's growth and maturity throughout the series, how he went from being a goofy, naive kid in the beginning to becoming a fully realized Avatar by the end.
* Aang was left-handed in one of his past lives, as mentioned by Katara.
* Aang passed away before Jinora was born and thus never met any of his grandchildren.
* Aang was portrayed by Noah Ringer in *The Last Airbender*.
* Considering that Aang did not officially begin his Avatar training until he was released from the iceberg, he became a fully realized Avatar more quickly than any other known Avatar, doing so in only twelve months.
* Aang was seen wearing a necklace, similar to the one that was on Gyatso's skeleton, at Zuko's coronation.
* Aang encased in a submerged iceberg is reminiscent of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory on the Id, Ego, and the Superego as a whole, which was contextualized as an iceberg. The small part of the iceberg is the ego, the conscious self, and was represented by the large block of ice destroyed by Katara's waterbending at the beginning of the episode. The Id, the unconscious self, is the submerged portion of the iceberg and thus is represented by the sphere of ice Aang encased himself in while in the Avatar State. An interesting revelation is that roughly 90% of an iceberg is submerged, and the Id, therefore, exerts much more influence than the Ego on one's mind; the Id is represented by the Avatar State.
* When the creators first pitched the series, Aang was a ten-year-old boy; however, after a suggestion from Eric Coleman, they "aged him up" to be two years older.
* Aang and Piandao are the only two confirmed characters in the original series to have had both their parents as benders.
* Aang has met the original source of every bending art: a flying bison for air, the Moon Spirit for water, badgermoles for earth, and Ran and Shaw, two dragons, for fire.
* Aang was originally voiced by voice actor Rob Paulsen in *The Legend of Korra* before being revoiced post-production by D. B. Sweeney.
* Aang is shown as the airbender in the opening sequence of *The Legend of Korra*.
* Aang was the first known Avatar to be bloodbent.
	+ He was also the second known person to break free of a bloodbender's hold by their own doing, although he was only able to do so by entering the Avatar State.
* Aang was shown energybending at the end of the original series and in the last episode of the first book of *The Legend of Korra*.
	+ Although in the original series, Aang took Ozai's bending away, in *The Legend of Korra*, he restored Korra's bending.
	+ Aang was the first person known to be capable of restoring another's bending.
* Aang was the first known Avatar to have an interracial marriage.
* Aang appeared in every episode in the original series except for "Zuko Alone".
* *Avatar Extras* for "The Great Divide" stated that the egg custard tart was Aang's favorite food, which was evident when he discovered it in the Great Divide.
* Aang is the only known Air Nomad to be considered an honorary member of the Southern Water Tribe.
* Aang is the first known Air Nomad to have a waterbending child through his daughter Kya.
* An image of Aang is printed on the obverse side of the yuan bill.
* A vendor in the Earth Kingdom renamed his seaweed wraps "Aang rolls" after noticing how much the Avatar liked them.
* Michael Dante DiMartino stated that Aang was the hardest character to find a voice actor for across both series.
* Aang is the only known non-metalbending earthbender in the *Avatar* franchise with the ability to use seismic sense.
* Aang is the first known Avatar to have his photograph taken.
* Aang is a playable character in Nickelodeon's video game titled *Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix*.
* In July 2020, the game SMITE launched a battle pass that featured two skins with which the player could alter the appearance of Merlin, a wizard who uses different elements in battle, to look like Aang did in Book One or like he did during his final battle against Ozai, complete with access to the Avatar State.
* Aang made a cameo in *Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots* as a Master Model, meaning that he was captured.