Dark Avatar

"water"

- When Harmonic Convergence comes, I will fuse with Vaatu, and together we will become the new Avatar. A Dark Avatar.

The Dark Avatar is the antithesis of the Avatar, and was created from the fusion of Vaatu and Unalaq, forming an embodiment of darkness and chaos. The Dark Avatar aimed to reunite the physical and spiritual realms as well as usher in a new world order of ten thousand years of darkness, but was defeated by Korra's astral projection during the Harmonic Convergence of 171 ASC.

History
Following Vaatu's escape from the Tree of Time during the Harmonic Convergence of 171 ASC, the dark spirit merged with Unalaq, and permanently bound himself to the waterbender's spirit using the energy provided by the overlap of the two spirit portals.



This process created the Dark Avatar, who promptly began to battle Avatar Korra for the fate of the world. Despite a strong showing from both sides, Unalaq managed to subdue Korra, at which point Vaatu emerged from his mouth, latched onto Korra's face and pulled out Raava. With the use of his waterbending, Unalaq destroyed Raava, severing Korra's connection to her past lives in the process. Having defeated Raava, Vaatu's spirit strengthened and the Dark Avatar grew significantly in size.

After declaring the era of the Avatar to be over, the Dark Avatar used the spirit lights to instantaneously manifest in Republic City, where he promptly wreaked havoc on the city's infrastructure using vine-like projections. Despite heavy bombardment by the United Forces, the Dark Avatar was able to use augmented waterbending to scatter the battleships as well as knock the lead police airship and a formation of biplanes from the sky, prompting President Raiko and Chief Lin Beifong to evacuate.



Shortly after, a large astral projection of Korra arrived and began to battle the Dark Avatar. Using cosmic energy, Korra was able to overwhelm the Dark Avatar and attempted to extract light from within Unalaq, to no avail. This setback allowed the Dark Avatar to subdue Korra by constricting her with vine-like projections and corrupting her soul, until Jinora's spirit appeared to intervene. The young airbender released a beam of light, allowing Korra to find Raava within the Dark Avatar and subsequently remove her, before cleansing Vaatu using her own uncle's pacification technique, destroying the Dark Avatar in the process.

Bending
Unlike the Avatar, the Dark Avatar does not have access to all four bending arts, since Vaatu was not given the power of the elements by the lion turtles, as Raava was. As a result, the Dark Avatar was limited to the use of waterbending, which Unalaq possessed prior to becoming fused with Vaatu.



Despite this limitation, the Dark Avatar's bending potential can also be significantly augmented by a variation of the Avatar State, in which Vaatu provides Unalaq an energy surge which allows him to accomplish great feats of waterbending, such as creating large waves capable of dispersing several battleships. In this state, Unalaq's eyes glow orange-red, as opposed to the white glow visible when the Avatar enters the Avatar State. Due to being fully aware of his spiritual capabilities, Unalaq has full control over the Avatar State, and is able to trigger the mechanism whenever he finds it appropriate to use.

Other abilities


After vanquishing Raava, the Dark Avatar underwent a physical transformation, becoming significantly larger in size, with powers and attributes present from both Unalaq and Vaatu. As a giant, the Dark Avatar's skin is black with Vaatu's red markings, and despite its humanoid appearance, also bears resemblance to Vaatu's spiritual form, possessing tentacle-like appendages and a triangular projection from his forehead, reminiscent of the top of Vaatu's body. Furthermore, the Dark Avatar's giant form possesses several abilities that the Avatar has not demonstrated, including vine-like projections as well as energy beams. These are all skills that Vaatu had prior to becoming fused with a human host.

Trivia

 * The Dark Avatar Cycle will cease to continue, as Vaatu's spirit was purified while the Dark Avatar was in the Avatar State.
 * Although the name was never used in the series, the Dark Avatar is credited as "UnaVaatu".
 * The Dark Avatar is similar to Malware's fourth form in the Ben 10 Omniverse animated series:
 * Both had a red/black color scheme with a similar body pattern.
 * Both managed to separate the main protagonist from his own self and destroy the self: The Dark Avatar extracted Raava from Korra and destroyed the light spirit, similar to how Malware extracted Ben from Freedback and destroyed the latter.
 * Both were capable of firing purple energy beams.
 * Both battled the main antagonist at a shore in a large form.
 * Both were close to defeating the main protagonist before their own demise.