Momo

"Someone's missing from your group, someone very important... Where's Momo? - Bumi talking to Sokka"

Momo is a Winged-Lemur, and a loyal companion of Aang and his companions. He is the only Winged-Lemur seen during the series, however being that he is recognized by different characters thought out the series, he may not be the last of the species.

Momo is an intelligent creature, but is either incapable or selective of understanding human speech. He is also a glutton for any available fruit. Momo's behavior is more cat-like than that of real life lemurs. His wings appear to retract within the fur of his arms and he appears to have four fingers and two additional ones within the wing membrane that can be seen when he has his wings extended.

History


In "The Southern Air Temple", Momo was discovered wandering about the ruined Southern Air Temple. Although Sokka initially wanted to eat him, Momo won him over by bringing a pile of food for him to eat. After this, the lemur was quickly named and claimed as a pet by Aang - Aang and Momo, together with Appa, are considered the last remnants of the Southern Air Temple, and represent the small hope that other fragments of Air Nomad culture, even other Air Nomads, survive somewhere in the world.

Momo is very curious, which often gets him into trouble or causes problems (unknowingly) to the group. Like Sokka, Momo will eat mysterious items to see what they are. Momo also gets in trouble at Omashu by leading Mai's brother Tom-Tom to the Omashu resistance. Unlike Appa, Momo doesn't always understand human speech. When a part of an episode is shown from his point of view, he hears humans talking in unidentifiable mumbles.



Momo is very loyal to Aang, helping him with tasks and even in joining Aang in battle. He is shown to be an omnivore, as he eats fruits and fish. He seems to like bugging Sokka.

Momo seems to be very compassionate to others, even if they have done him wrong. In "Tales of Ba Sing Se", a trio of Pygmy Pumas chased after Momo until the four of them were captured by a man hoping to sell them for meat. Momo easily escaped due to his opposable thumbs, but as he left, he turned to see the pygmy pumas leaning against the cage, wishing for his help. Without a second thought, Momo freed them as well and they repaid his kindness by leading him to a footprint of Appa.

When Sokka bought a Messenger Hawk named Hawky in "The Runaway", the two often fought during Hawky's brief stay with the gang.

In the play shown in "The Ember Island Players", Momo is depicted by a hand puppet, which talks and is incorrectly stated to be a "flying rabbit monkey".

Momo accompanies a sleepwalking Aang to the "island" (later revealed to be a giant Lion Turtle) in "Sozin's Comet, Part 1: The Phoenix King". When the rest of the gang discovers this, Sokka believes that Appa ate Momo ("I knew it was only a matter of time!"). When the group meet Bumi at Ba Sing Se, he notices that someone "very important" is missing from the group, and then comically asks, "Where's Momo?" Sokka informs him that both Momo and Aang have gone missing, and Bumi, relieved, says that they'll be fine as long as they have each other.

Aang tells Momo to leave as he prepares to face Phoenix King Ozai. Momo returns to Aang's side after the battle.

Speculation

 * The gang found Momo in the abandoned Southern Air Temple. Since he was not preserved along with Aang, he has to have a family somewhere in the temple or winged-lemurs have extremely long life-spans.

Trivia



 * Aang named Momo for the Japanese word for "peach," the fruit which Momo seized from Sokka shortly before being named. The creators later revealed that they had actually named him that way because it apparently just seemed to fit, as he was originally supposed to be a robot called "Momo 3". He had even already been drawn eating a peach only for them to later find out that 'momo' was 'peach' in Japanese. The name Momo is also a common name for pets and such in Japan, much like "Fido" or "Lucky" are in America. Momo is also short for the Japanese dwarf flying squirrel, Momonga (モモンガ). A character from the anime Samurai Champloo has one named thus. In "The Tales of Ba Sing Se," Momo was written as 摸 摸 (Mō Mó) which means "touch imitate" in Chinese. It also can be seen as the phase in Chinese in which when a word is repeated twice it become a cute reference. So Mo meaning fur is repeated.
 * Avatar co-creator Bryan Konietzko has admitted that Momo is his favorite character to draw, and that a lot of his poses, mannerisms, and overall body language stem from the memories of his childhood cat, Buddy. This explains why Momo is so reminiscent of a typical housecat.
 * Momo resembles a mix between the Townsend's Big-eared Bat and a Ring-tailed Lemur.
 * In the commentary for "The Western Air Temple", one of the ideas, Mike and Bryan had was for the group to find a whole group of Momos.

Momo