Avatar

The Avatar is the Spirit of the Planet and master of all four elemental bending disciplines (Airbending, Waterbending, Earthbending and Firebending), whose task it is to keep balance among the four nations of the world. The Avatar is also a link between the human world and the Spirit World. Throughout the ages, countless incarnations of the Avatar have served to maintain harmony in the world.

At any time there is only a single Avatar, who is the spirit of the world incarnated into human form. When the Avatar dies, the Avatar Spirit is reincarnated into a newborn, who becomes the next Avatar.

Each nation has a method of recognizing the new Avatar. Among the Air Nomads, this involved presenting all infants with a selection of toys to play with, and watching for a child that selected four specific toys that had belonged to past Avatars, called the Four Avatar Relics. Traditionally, the child is told of their identity as the Avatar on their sixteenth birthday (although the current Avatar, Aang, was told much earlier than this because of Fire Nation aggression).

Avatar Cycle
The reincarnations of the Avatar are controlled by the Avatar Cycle of the elements: water follows air, earth follows water, fire follows earth, air follows fire. The cycle is based of the passage of the four seasons (water is winter, earth is spring, fire is summer and air is autumn).

When an Avatar dies, the next Avatar will be born into the next nation in the Avatar Cycle (for example, Avatar Yangchen from the Air Nomads was followed by Avatar Kuruk from the Water Tribe, who was followed by Avatar Kyoshi from the Earth Kingdom, who was followed by Avatar Roku from the Fire Nation, who was followed by Avatar Aang from the Air Nomads, once Aang dies he will be reincarnated to someone in the Water Tribe).

The Avatar Cycle also determines the order in which each Avatar must learn the four bending disciplines. The Avatar begins by mastery of his or her native elements (so an Avatar born into the Water Tribe would first learn Waterbending). The Avatar then goes on to learn the three remaining bending disciplines in the order of the cycle (the Water Tribe Avatar would learn first Waterbending, then Earthbending, then Firebending, and finally Airbending, in that order). Avatar Aang, however due to his unique situation ends up trying to learn Firebending second (with Jeong Jeong) but ends up learning Firebending later after some advice from Jeong Jeong to master water and earth first.

Avatars also possess the unique ability to use Energybending, though very few Avatars learned this technique, and even fewer have used it. Avatar Aang used it to remove Phoenix King Ozai's Firebending during "Sozin's Comet, Part 4: Avatar Aang".

Known Avatars
The most recent Avatars (in the order of current to oldest) are:


 * Avatar Aang (Air Nomads, Southern Air Temple) 988 (112YA) - Present
 * Avatar Roku (Fire Nation, Roku's Island) 918 (182YA) - 988 (112YA)
 * Avatar Kyoshi (Earth Kingdom, now Kyoshi Island) 688 (412YA) - 918 (182YA)
 * Avatar Kuruk (Water Tribe, Northern Water Tribe) Years unknown
 * Avatar Yangchen (Air Nomads, Western Air Temple) Years unknown
 * Fire Avatar (Fire Nation) Years unknown

Speculation

 * If Aang truly is the last Airbender, then the cycle will be broken. If Aang dies before having a child (whether that child being an Airbender or just carrying the trait), then after the Avatar reincarnates through the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, and Fire Nation, there will be no one from the Air Nomads for the spirit to choose.
 * Even if the Avatar is reborn into the next nation, no Airbender will be able to teach them Airbending. If Appa is the last surviving Sky Bison, the ability to learn Airbending from the original source will be lost when Appa dies.
 * The only way that Airbending could be used in this scenario would be within the Avatar State, and if the next Avatar could learn to control the Avatar State, then perhaps Airbending could survive after all.
 * Considering that the Air Nomads were travelers by nature, it is possible that some of them had offsprings in other nations, therefore surviving the raids. While a character with progenitors from different nations has never been introduced, it's likely that one with Air Nomad ancestry would be able to learn Airbending, should he/she be properly taught.
 * In "The Deserter", Avatar Roku stated, "I have mastered the elements a thousand times in a thousand lifetimes, and now I must do it once more...". It can be speculated that Aang is the 1001st incarnation of the Avatar, although his words may also be a conservative estimate, an outright exaggeration or simply a metaphor. It might not be a metaphor, both in the Southern Air Temple sanctuary and in Aang's trip during "The Avatar State", it can be seen that there have been many Avatars.
 * If taken literally, this would mean that the first ever Avatar was an Air Nomad., which should not come as a surprise due to the high level of spirituality of the Air Nomads.
 * Since the Avatar State is a defense mechanism designed to empower the current Avatar with the skills and knowledge of all the past Avatars, it can be speculated that for each succeeding Avatar, the Avatar State becomes an even more powerful tool due to the continued adding of Avatars to the state.
 * In "Sozin's Comet, Part 4: Avatar Aang", Aang shows the ability to bend all four elements without the traditional movements. He even goes so far as to Earthbend without an earth connection.

The Avatar State


The Avatar State is a defense mechanism, in which an Avatar may freely access the knowledge and powers of all previous Avatars. This provides the Avatar with great powers, as well as mastery over all four elements (even if the Avatar has not yet learned all four bending disciplines). It was by entering the Avatar State that Aang was able to freeze himself and Appa into an iceberg for 100 years, by using a combination of Airbending and Waterbending. While in the Avatar State, the Avatar's eyes glow - as do their arrow tattoos in the case of Avatars from the Air Nomads, although if the body has received an injury deeper then the tattoo then that spot will not glow in the state, it is not known if re-tattooing the area (once the injury has healed) would enable it to glow again. It is unknown if any other type of tattoo may glow on an Avatar in the State, however it has been stated by series creators that Air Nomad tattoos glow when in the Avatar State because they follow chi lines in the body thus if a tattoo is not near a chi line or point it is unlikely it would glow.



It is possible for an Avatar to control the Avatar State, as Roku and Kyoshi have demonstrated in numerous flashbacks, but this requires great spiritual discipline and concentration (Guru Pathik attempted to teach Aang to control the Avatar State by helping him clear his chakras but Aang could not let go of Katara in exchange for cosmic power). More often, however, the Avatar State is activated by danger or emotional turmoil. In "The Southern Air Temple", Aang inadvertently enters the Avatar State when he discovers that his friend and teacher, Monk Gyatso, was killed by Fire Nation soldiers; in "The Avatar State", Aang entered the Avatar State when General Fong placed Katara in danger by pulling her into the ground with Earthbending. When an Avatar is in complete control of the Avatar State, when this is used, it glows momentarily, not constantly.



It is possible for an Avatar to channel a specific previous incarnation while in the Avatar State. When this happens, the Avatar briefly takes on the appearance and voice of that previous incarnation. Aang has done this on several occasions, channeling Roku in "Winter Solstice Part 2: Avatar Roku" and "The Deserter", and Kyoshi in "Avatar Day", and the four Avatars before him in "Sozin's Comet, Part 2: The Old Masters". The appearance of these incarnations seems to vary as Roku always appears as an old man while all the other avatar incarnations appear youthful and in their prime. While it is possible that the ages they appear to be represent their ages at death, it is unlikely since Avatar Kyoshi lived for 230 years and would not have kept the same appearance all that time.

Spiritual Link-up
The Avatar State also allows an Avatar to join with certain spirits. This was demonstrated in the episode "The Siege of the North, Part 2", when Aang enters the Avatar State in order to aid the frantic Ocean Spirit. Both Aang in his Avatar State and the Ocean Spirit combine their abilities to defend the Northern Water Tribe after all Waterbenders are rendered defenseless.

When Aang speaks in the Avatar State, his voice sounds like a cross between a few different voices at once, his and what is presumed to be past Avatars, whose voices appear to reverberate.

Weakness of the Avatar State
While Aang, or any other Avatar, is pretty much invincible in the Avatar State, having millenia of bending experience which can surpass an army of benders, there is one grave weakness. If someone does manage to kill Aang while he is in the Avatar State, the cycle will be permanently broken, and the Avatar will not be reincarnated.

In "The Crossroads of Destiny", Aang was fatally wounded by a lightning strike from Azula while entering the Avatar State. As a result, his connection with the Avatar Spirit was severed, resulting in the cycle being destroyed. Fortunately, as Aang was nearly dead, the spirit water given to Katara by Pakku was able to be used, resurrecting Aang and consequently the Avatar Spírit. The strain of the resurrection caused Aang to slip in and out of a coma numerous times over several weeks, and during that time, he managed to secure his connection to the Avatar State in the Escape from the Spirit World online comic, by meeting with the four Avatar incarnations before him.



Known Times the Avatar State was used

 * 100 years previously, Aang used it to save himself and Appa from their fall into the ocean. Both were sealed into an ice encrusted air pocket that eventually froze into an iceberg. Given Aang's tattoos and eyes were still glowing when he was released from the iceberg it is possible that he was in the State the whole time, which gives some hint to the incredible power available to the Avatar.
 * Aang used it in the episode "The Avatar Returns" to escape another fall into the ocean and to stop Zuko. He Waterbends a water spout in the form of a twister.
 * In the episode "The Southern Air Temple", Aang falls into the State after witnessing the skeleton of his former mentor and foster father Monk Gyatso. He airbends a small hurricane in his emotional distress.
 * In the episode "Winter Solstice Part 2: Avatar Roku", Aang meets Avatar Roku in the fire temple. Roku helped him and friends escape by directly taking over Aang's body and activating the volcano underneath the temple.
 * In the episode "The Storm", Aang almost enters into the Avatar State while telling Katara how he learned he was the Avatar.
 * In the episode "The Storm", Aang enters the state after saving Sokka and a fisherman, rounding up everyone that fell into the ocean and pulling them out of the water into the calmness of the storm's eye.
 * In the episode "The Siege of the North, Part 2", Aang combines power with the spirit of the Ocean, La, after all Waterbenders are rendered powerless.
 * In the episode "The Avatar State", Aang enters the Avatar State when the Earthbending General uses Earthbending to bury Katara underground to force Aang into the Avatar State. He uses airbending to knock the general to the floor, rises into the air on a tornado, and crashes down to the earth, releasing a powerful earthbending attack on the general, his guards, and his fortress. A small air sphere surrounds Aang before the spirit of Avatar Roku takes him to the Spirit World to explain to him about the true nature of the Avatar State.
 * In the episode "Avatar Day", we see Avatar Kyoshi enter the Avatar State in a flashback. In the Avatar State, Kyoshi splits her home land from the mainland creating Kyoshi Island.
 * In the episode "The Desert", Aang enters the Avatar State while confronting Appa's kidnappers (a group of Sandbenders). A large air sphere surrounds him, lifting him up into the air, but is brought down by Katara, who grabs his arm and embraces him.
 * In the episode "The Crossroads of Destiny", Aang finally is willing to give up Katara to open the last chakra and willingly go into the Avatar State, but he is soon struck by lighting from Princess Azula.
 * In the episode "The Avatar and the Fire Lord", the Avatar State is used many times by Avatar Roku. In flashbacks, Avatar Roku uses the Avatar State twice, first in a battle with Fire Lord Sozin, then as an attempt to stop a volcanic eruption.
 * In the episode "Sozin's Comet, Part 4: Avatar Aang", Aang finally reopens his chakra, and is able to effectively use the Avatar State, without letting go of his attachment to Katara, bending all four elements at once. He collected all four elements and compressed them in a sphere around him, moving at incredible speed. The sphere can be used both for offense and defense. Since the sphere contains all four elements, it allowed Aang to Earthbend and Waterbend while away from a source.

Meditation


Aang does not enter the Avatar State during meditation and harmony with the spirits around him, but his tattoos and eyes glow in the same way. In this method, he visits the spirit world with his own spirit, leaving his body a defenseless shell in the real world. An example of this was seen in "The Siege of the North, Part 1".

Known Times Aang used Meditation to enter the Spirit world

 * In the episode "Winter Solstice Part 1: The Spirit World", Aang is accidentally trapped in the Spirit World while chasing after a rampaging beast. The beast (later found to be an angry forest spirit) changed worlds at sunrise nearing the winter solstice, and Aang was too close when it happened.
 * In the episode "The Siege of the North, Part 1", Aang meditates into the spirit world to find a way to save the North Pole.
 * In the episode "The Swamp", Aang meditates at the center of the Swamp, and locates Appa and Momo by connecting with the whole swamp.
 * In the episode "The Avatar and the Fire Lord", Aang meditates on Avatar Roku's home Island to meet him in the Spirit world

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