Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:21

If you haven’t seen Nickelodeon’s hit show Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix or on home media yet, then do yourself a favor and check it out. After having grown up with it and marathoning through the series several times, I honestly believe that Avatar is one of the best television shows ever created. What looks like a simple show targeted towards children turns out to be anything but that if you take a closer look at it. Mature themes of genocide, sexism, forgiveness, grace, and much more are woven throughout the entirety of the plot, which spans three seasons. I’m still pleasantly surprised that this 2005 animated series has aged so well, and it may be even more fitting to watch in today’s world of division and uncertainty.

If you’re unfamiliar with what Avatar is about or need a brief description of the show, it’s a story that’s set in a fictional world that’s divided into four different nations. Each nation is represented by a certain element: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. Individuals within these nations called benders can harness an element and control it using gestures and movements based on Chinese martial arts motions. One individual is born with the gift to be able to harness all four elements, and when they die they reincarnate into the next nation in an order called the Avatar cycle. The Avatar’s duty is to bring balance to the four nations, and act as a bridge between the Spirit world and the Earthly realm.

At the beginning of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the world has been divided into a brutal world war caused by the Fire Nation. For the past one-hundred years, they have decimated numerous villages in both the Earth Nation and Water Tribes, and have exterminated the Air Nomads. The story begins when the Fire Nation is on the brink of finally bringing the world to its knees, and opens when two siblings of the Southern Water Tribe (Katara and Sokka) unexpectedly find a boy trapped in a block of ice. Breaking him out, they discover that he is an Air Nomad named Aang. After a series of circumstances in the first couple of episodes, it is revealed that Aang is in fact the newest Avatar, and they begin on a quest to help him master all four elements in order to finally defeat the Fire Nation, and bring peace back into the world.

There is so much to break down in Avatar: The Last Airbender that it’s almost difficult to know just where to begin. As a Christian viewer, I find that there is something new that I can walk away with as I conclude each viewing. There are at least three broad points that I think people of faith can appreciate from this series, and can implement them in their daily walk with God. It helps that Avatar‘s multifaceted main cast of characters help to make these arcs and scenarios enduring so that the average viewer can appreciate them. So, just what can Christians take away from this show?

Taking Responsibility to Care and Learn from Others

It is important to draw wisdom from different places. If you take it from only one place it become rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements, the other nations, will help you become whole.

Uncle Iroh, to Zuko (“Bitter Work“)

Humility and pride are qualities that are portrayed predominately in the world of Avatar, and they are qualities that both the heroes and antagonists possess to varying degrees. One example of this involves one of the Sokka, Katara’s older brother and one of the only non-bending members of their group. When first introduced in the show, Sokka holds sexist views that promote men as warriors and guardians, while reducing women to roles of nurturer and homemaker, with nothing else to offer. This viewpoint is suddenly turned on its head when Sokka meets the Warriors of Kiyoshi, an all-female martial arts team tasked with protecting the island of Kiyoshi from invaders. Perhaps in a hybrid attempt to both flirt and show off, Sokka puffs himself up in their presence and attempts to take down their leader, Suki, in a demonstration of his ‘skills.’ The girls play along and easily take Sokka down, wounding his pride in their presence. Later in the episode, Sokka returns to the Warriors’ dojo and bows before them, humbly admitting that they are capable warriors, that he was wrong to insult them, and that he would be honored to train under them.

Another good example of a character who struggles with humility and pride is Zuko, the exiled prince of the Fire Nation, and an antagonist of Aang’s for much of the story. Zuko is fascinating as a character because although he is an antagonist and is zealous in carrying out an antagonistic role in trying to capture Aang as the Avatar, he is by no means an evil character. Aside from Aang, the biggest focus of the series is placed on Zuko and his own journey, and I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I probably enjoyed the scenes focusing more on him than I did on our main heroes. Traveling along with Zuko on his quest to capture the Avatar is the only family member that continued to support and encourage him after his exile, his Uncle Iroh.

Prince Zuko, pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote to shame.

Uncle Iroh, to Zuko (“Bitter Work“)

When Zuko is first introduced in the series, he is an angry and bitter young man, scarred both physically and emotionally. Iroh’s presence seems more like a hindrance than a help to Zuko at first; he’s laid-back, calm, and would rather drink his cup of tea than engage in battle. However, the more time they spend together, the more Zuko realizes that he needs his uncle and even listens to him from time to time. Zuko’s ongoing lessons in humility takes several seasons to undergo during his great character arc, filled with ups and downs as his choices have consequences for both himself and the people around him. As he slowly lets go of his pride and becomes more at peace with himself and his circumstances, the audience notices subtle changes in his appearance and attitude towards others. He becomes much more relaxed, and while not exactly happy, is more content.

There are many other examples I could share from the show, but I think what we can take away from these two examples is that pride is never serviceable for both ourselves and others. The Bible rightfully points out that pride leads to destruction and harm (Proverbs 16:18), and is ultimately selfish. When we focus more on others’ needs and less on our own, we may be surprised by how much we can learn from them, and how much happier we ourselves will be by the outcome.

Forgiveness and Reconciliation

It’s easy to do nothing, it’s hard to forgive.

Aang, to Katara (“The Southern Raiders“)

Aang is first introduced in the series a fun-loving, happy-go-lucky boy. Although the audience knows by his first appearance that he is the Avatar, he chooses not to reveal his identity to Katara and Sokka immediately, instead wishing to play and have fun with them, like any normal 12-year old boy would. However, we gradually learn that there is more to Aang than he shares with the siblings; they soon discover, for instance that he is really actually 112 years old, and is the last surviving member of the Air Nomads. Aang shares with Katara the truth of how he became trapped in ice for one-hundred years in the Season 1 episode, “The Storm,” where he is reminded once again of the consequences of his disappearance.

Aang ran away when he learned that he was the Avatar reincarnated. His entire life was turned upside down, and he was no longer treated like a child, but instead as a living weapon in need of training. The only one who continued to treat Aang just as he was was his mentor and father-figure Monk Gyatso. When the other monks admonished Gyatso for not taking steps to begin training Aang and for coddling him, they announced that they would take Aang and move him to another Air Temple, away from Gyatso and all that was familiar to him. Unfortunately, Aang overheard their plans for him and ran away that very night. As a result of his disappearance (and subsequent imprisonment in ice for a hundred years) he was not present when the Fire Nation came to the Air Temple and massacred all of the Air Nomads, Gyatso included. Aang felt great distress and remorse when he returned to the Air Temple and discovered Gyatso’s remains surrounded by dead Fire Nation soldiers, a visible sign that he had lost his life in a great last stand.

Aang’s grief and perceived failure is brought up several times in the series, and he finally makes peace with himself late into the second season after he meets the Guru Pathik for spiritual training. Under his tutelage, he learns to forgive himself of his perceived failure and for running away. He discovers that the love he has for Monk Gyatso and the other Air Nomads still live inside of him and through him, even if they were no longer alive. Through his friends, he learns that love is ongoing and never dies, no matter how much time may pass.

Katara wrestles with her own grief throughout most of the series; the Fire Nation killed her mother in a raid when she was very young, and she has never forgotten it. Her anger towards the Fire Nation is very personal and her loss very palpable. During her journey with Aang, however, she matures and grows alongside him, learning more about the world than what’s beyond her home. Her compassionate nature leads her to help others in their circumstances, even if they hail from the Fire Nation. Her character development sees her grow from a young girl, ignorant of the world around her, into a young woman who nurtures and heals all she comes across. Although her idea of forgiveness towards the one who killed her mother is different from Aang’s, she has enough willpower and self-control to know not to let it consume her, and to move past it.

The message of forgiveness and reconciliation is woven beautifully throughout Avatar, and acting on anger is never perceived as the correct response. Hatred against others in the Bible is seen as a poison and wicked (Ephesians 4:21), and to forgive others is Christ-like because of how God forgives us of our own sins. Much of the world in Avatar is conquered by the Fire Nation, and many victims and survivors consider anyone from the Fire Nation as an enemy that is to be avoided at best, and otherwise attacked. Aang and his companions gradually learn that the best antidote for finally ending the war isn’t just to defeat the Fire Lord, ruler of the nation, but to extend an olive branch and a chance of redemption for all who would accept it, thus finally ending the cycle of hate and creating a cycle of love.

Loving Your Enemy

Listen, guys, those kids at school are the future of the Fire Nation. If we wanna change this place for the better, we need to show them a little taste of freedom.

Aang, “The Headband“

In Book 3 of the series, the final showdown between the Avatar and the Fire Lord is closer than ever. Aang and the gang find themselves in the Fire Nation and their adventures lead them to interact with the citizens there. What the gang (and audience) finds is that the people of the Fire Nation are not unlike anyone else. They are ignorant of the harm their leaders have done to the world, but hold little to no power to change it or their own circumstances. They are regular people, living their own lives, trying to make a living day in and day out.

In “The Headband” Aang is mistaken for a truant student in the Fire Nation and is placed in a classroom during a lesson. He tries to blend in and learn more about his classmates during his day there. He learns that they are just like the children in the other nations, and knows that it’s his duty as the Avatar to bring balance back to all of the nations – including those in the Fire Nation. In an effort to help them experience a little bit of the freedom that the school system bans, he holds a dance party in the cave he and his friends had been hiding in. He teaches his new friends how to dance and to just be kids, and they all soon let loose.

They help other members of the Fire Nation in their travels, bettering their circumstances in a nation that takes advantage of their resources but not of their people. Team Avatar continues to learn and grow from one another, and from those on their travels. By the series’ finale, the team is strong both in their physical prowess, and in their trust in one another as well as their mission to save the world. When we see others in the world as brothers and sisters, created in the image of God, instead of enemies to be avoided, we might be surprised by how much good we can do and share with others, and create healing in this fallen world.

Sometimes life is like this dark tunnel. You can’t always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you just keep moving… you will come to a better place.

Uncle Iroh, to Aang (“The Crossroads of Destiny“)

I hope you all enjoyed this article focusing on Avatar: The Last Airbender. Honestly, there’s so much in the series to explore and digest that I could go on and on with exploring its different themes. If you haven’t already, do check out this wonderful series. And if you’ve already watched it like I have…watch it again! I find it remarkable that I find something new to enjoy each time I watch it. The characters are wonderfully written and fun to watch bounce off of each other, the world is imaginative and boundless, and the story is seamless and tightly woven. I hope that we all will continue to enjoy this marvelous story for many more generations to come.