Kyoshi

History
An Avatar born into the Earth Kingdom 400 years before Aang and 230 before Avatar Roku, Kyoshi was a giant of a woman, possessing the largest feet out of all the past lives of the Avatar. She was also the oldest Avatar ever, living to 230 years. Her traditional weapons were golden metal fans which, in addition to her manner of dress and style of fighting, have been adopted by the young warrior women of Kyoshi Island. Kyoshi lived on a peninsula that was once about to be conquered by a short-tempered (and short-statured) general known as Chin the Great (or Conqueror, according to Kyoshi). When he refused to listen to Kyoshi and her people, she confronted him and separated the peninsula by using a combination of all four elements to spilt from the mainland, 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 the Chin Village on the mainland founded Avatar Day to vilify Kyoshi and all the other Avatars for the death of their leader, until 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 current (forty-sixth) Earth King. A peasant revolt was raging, and he demanded that she stop it by whatever means necessary. Kyoshi quickly 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 the subsequent corruption of the Dai Li weighed heavily on Kyoshi during her time in the Spirit World.

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 "Avatar Roku (Winter Solstice, Part 2)") to testify in a trial proving the Avatar's innocence (though ironically she confessed to killing Chin during her "testimony"). She later gave a good-humoured apology to Aang when he met up with her during his trek through the Spirit World.

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 outstretch arm, is the word 士. In Japanese, 京士 is pronounced as 'kyoshi' and translate as 'capital samurai.' It can also mean 'Teacher' in Japanese. However, on the mural in Avatar Day, right after the familiar word Avatar (降世神通), appears to be the words 處女 (chǔ nǚ) which in Chinese means 'virgin.'