Kyoshi

Avatar Kyoshi is a previous Avatar from the Earth Kingdom. She was the Avatar immediately preceding Avatar Roku, 400 years before the events of the series. Kyoshi was a giant of a woman, possessing the largest feet of any Avatar, and she lived to be 230 years old. Her traditional weapons were golden metal fans which, in addition to her manner of dress and style of fighting, were adopted by the young warrior women of Kyoshi Island, her homeland.

Kyoshi lived on a peninsula that was once about to be conquered by a short-tempered (and short-statured) general and warlord known as Chin the Great (or Chin the Conqueror, according to Kyoshi). When he refused to listen to Kyoshi and her people, she confronted him and separated the peninsula from the mainland through a combination of all four elements, forming Kyoshi Island to protect her people from subsequent threats. An indignant Chin was left standing on the edge of a cliff, which then crumbled beneath his feet where he drowned in the sea. For this act, the people of Chin Village on the mainland founded Avatar Day to vilify Kyoshi and all the other Avatars after her for the death of their leader, though Avatar Day was rededicated in "Avatar Day" to commemorate Aang for saving the village from Fire Nation invaders who were planning on destroying their village.

Some time after her confrontation with Chin, Kyoshi was summoned to Ba Sing Se at the request of the 46th Earth King. A peasant revolt was raging, and he demanded that she stop it by whatever means necessary. Kyoshi staunchly refused, knowing that it was not right for her to do so. Incensed by her defiance, the Earth King ordered that she be arrested, but a display of her power and a warning caused him to agree to a compromise. The Earth King agreed to give the peasants a voice in his ruling, while Kyoshi in turn agreed to train up a group to protect Ba Sing Se's cultural heritage from further disruption. She trained a platoon of elite Earthbenders who would later come to be known as the Dai Li, though their subsequent corruption weighed heavily on Kyoshi's mind afterward.

Avatar Kyoshi made several cameo appearances throughout Books 1 and 2, the first of which as a series of statues in "The Southern Air Temple" and "The Warriors of Kyoshi." She thereafter appears in a vision in "The Avatar State" as the most recent earthbending Avatar when Avatar Roku is explaining the nature of the Avatar State to Aang. Kyoshi makes her first speaking appearance in "Avatar Day" when she manifests herself through Aang (like Roku had in "Winter Solstice Part 2: Avatar Roku)") to testify in a trial proving the Avatar's innocence (though she confessed to killing Chin during her "testimony").



Trivia



 * On the golden button on the right arm guard of the Kyoshi Warriors and on the fan that the statue of Avatar Kyoshi holds to her face is the word 京. The other fan, the one on her outstretched arm, is the word 士. In Japanese, 京士 is pronounced as 'kyōshi' and translate as 'capital samurai.' However, on the mural in Avatar Day, her name appears as 虛子 (xū zǐ).
 * In the Episode "The Southern Air Temple," Kyoshi is seen to the right on the painting in the Earth Kingdom's Avatar Temple
 * Avatar Kyoshi lived to be 230 years old, making her the longest living Avatar in history. She was also the Avatar with the largest feet.
 * In The Southern Air Temple, we can see that the statue beside Avatar Roku is not Kyoshi.