Vaatu

"spirit"

- I lived ten thousand lifetimes before the first of your kind crawled out of the mud. It was I who broke the bonds that separated the Spirits from the material world. To hate me is to give me breath. To fight me is to give me strength. Now prepare to face oblivion.

Vaatu is the spirit of chaos and darkness in the world. In 19,830 BSC, Vaatu began to combat his natural opposite, Raava, the spirit of peace, light and balance. His essence swayed the spirits to the dark side, transforming them into dark spirits.

History


Vaatu is one of the oldest known spirits, having existed over ten thousand lifetimes before the appearance of the first humans. He and Raava spent much of their existences combating each other, with neither able to fully vanquish the other; even if Vaatu were to destroy Raava and plunge the world into darkness, what little good was in him would magnify until a new Raava burst forth, beginning the cycle again, while the reverse would happen to Raava if she were victorious.

Vaatu was the first spirit to cross over into the mortal world by breaking down the barrier that separated it from the plane of spirits, subsequently allowing other spirits to do the same. In the ten thousand years since that breakthrough, Vaatu had been in conflict with Raava and was restrained by his light counterpart. However, when Wan arrived during their battle, Vaatu seized his opportunity and tricked Wan into separating him from Raava. Free to roam the world, he spread chaos wherever he went, growing stronger and weakening the light in the process.

One of his travels led him toward a village of men atop an airbending lion turtle. His presence transformed the peaceful spirits living there to rageful entities. However, Wan and Raava's intervention prevented him from laying waste to the village. He taunted Raava over growing weaker due to his spreading chaos and threatened to destroy her forever during the upcoming Harmonic Convergence, which would take place a year later.



Vaatu met with Raava and Wan once more at another conflict between spirits and humans. Vaatu turned the spirits' anger against them, turning them to darkness. After the battle was over, Vaatu told Wan that the humans had been slain and that he should enjoy his last days before he would destroy the world.

When the time for the Harmonic Convergence drew near, Vaatu used the northern spirit portal to travel to the Spirit World where he was set to battle Raava for supremacy. However, it was not the light spirit alone that he faced, as Wan had teamed up with her. Vaatu was challenged by Wan, though he brushed away the threat in the challenge, claiming that no human could stand against him. A battle between the two ensued during which Vaatu had the upper hand. When he was about to kill Wan, the human merged with Raava, and Wan managed to escape Vaatu for a moment. However, the dark spirit managed to beat his merged opponents down, pinning them to the ground next to the southern spirit portal at the moment the Harmonic Convergence began.



Vaatu looked up at the combining of the spirit portals, taking his focus off Wan, who used that time to merge permanently with Raava, increasing his power. In the ensuing battle, Vaatu was trapped by Wan in a sphere of air that was surrounded by the four elements. Trapped in this elemental cage, he was locked inside the hollow of a large tree, allowing the dark spirits he turned to regain the balance within themselves. Wan then closed both the Northern and Southern spirit portals to ensure that no human would ever release Vaatu.

Abilities


As the spirit of chaos and darkness, Vaatu has the ability to magnify the negative emotions inside other spirits, swaying them to give in to the darker sides of their natures. Feeding off this darkness, Vaatu grows bigger and stronger, and gains more tentacles. His airy and transparent body allows him to fly and be unharmed when his body gets severed by an attack, though it has enough substance to enter physical combat produce kinetic force. He also has the ability to shoot purple energy blasts from his "face".

Trivia

 * Vaatu and Raava appear to be representations of the yin-yang concept in Chinese philosophy, which is used to describe the way in which opposite forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world. In this case, the concept accounts for the duality associated with the fact that Vaatu represents darkness and chaos, while Raava represents light and peace. His attributes, however, are ironically closer in Taoist thought to the ideal of light (yang) than that of darkness (yin); Vaatu is male and aggressive, instead of female and calm.