Bumi (King of Omashu)

"earth"

- I hope you think like a mad genius!

Bumi was the wild-eyed, eccentric, elderly King of Omashu. As a child, Bumi had been a close friend of Aang, and he remained Aang's only friend from before the War to be confirmed still alive. He had become an old and eccentric man, prone to cackling and snorting laughter at unfunny jokes. Despite his supercentenarian age status and his apparent frailty, Bumi was an Earthbending Master and quite fit for his old age, himself claiming at one point to be "the most powerful Earthbender you'll ever see".

Bumi's eccentricity arose out of the fact that he always kept his mind "open to the possibilities". As a child, Bumi decided to use the Omashu mail delivery system as a chute ride, for which Aang dubbed him "a mad genius", a name that Bumi seemed to appreciate. Although Bumi seemed senile, he was in fact a brilliant and patient tactician, willing to wait until the opportune moment to strike to best effect. Bumi acted the same during a quiet, peaceful meal as he did when his city was under attack and he rarely explained his actions, which tended to infuriate his underlings.

Testing the Avatar
After being freed from his iceberg, Aang returned to Omashu in order to show his friends Sokka and Katara the mail delivery system, or rather, he wished to use it as a slide. After accidentally destroying a cartload of cabbages belonging to the Cabbage Merchant, they were arrested and brought before King Bumi. However, Aang did not recognize his old friend, who was now 100 years older than when they last met. When asked what their punishment should be, Bumi told his guards to "throw them ... a feast!"

During the feast, Bumi tricked Aang into Airbending by throwing a chicken wing at him. Now refusing to let them leave, Bumi demanded that they be thrown in the chamber, only to be asked by his guard whether he meant the good chamber or the bad one. He told him to take them to the chamber that used to be bad, but was newly refurbished. Bumi noted that he should number them and ordered that the three be taken to "the refurbished chamber that was once bad" - in fact a comfortable sleeping chamber. After a relaxing night's sleep, Aang woke up to find his friends gone. King Bumi blackmailed Aang into completing three tasks for him, or Sokka and Katara would be encased in jennamite.



Aang successfully completed the first two tests, which involved collecting a key from inside a waterfall and finding Bumi's pet, Flopsie. King Bumi then instructed Aang to choose an opponent to duel as the final test. The King presented two different opponents for Aang to choose from, both intimidating in appearance and bearing both armor and weapons; he told Aang to "point to [his] opponent." Aang pointed to the apparently frail King but quickly realized his mistake when Bumi threw off his robes and flexed his muscles, revealing himself to be a powerful and muscular Earthbender who declared "Wrong choice!" Although Bumi had the upper hand during the fight, particularly against the run-and-evade tactics typical of Airbenders, Aang eventually impressed the old man by creating a tornado to counter a powerful attack from the Earthbender. While Aang seemed to have Bumi in a corner after this, ready to strike with his staff, he failed to notice that Bumi had summoned a large mound of rock a few feet above Aang's head. Bumi, however, was satisfied with Aang's performance and allowed the match to be called a draw.

Old friends reunited
Before releasing Sokka and Katara, the King demanded that Aang guess his name and gave him a few minutes to think on it, leaving Sokka and Katara minutes before becoming permanently encased in jennamite. At first, Aang was clueless, but as he thought about the challenges, he realized that each one was designed to make him think differently than he normally would; he solved the riddle with the words, "Bumi, you're a mad genius." Bumi said that he knew it was Aang the whole time and that he hadn't changed, literally. He then explained to Aang that strength and bending alone would not be enough to defeat the Fire Lord and that when it came time for Aang to face him, "[he] hope[s] [Aang] will think like a mad genius." After Bumi freed Aang's friends from the jennamite, he and Aang spent an enjoyable day using the Omashu mail delivery system as a chute ride, just like old times, and destroyed the same cabbage cart from earlier. Aang and his friends then left Omashu to continue their journey.



Imprisoned
Aang, Katara and Sokka later returned to Omashu, hoping that Bumi would act as Aang's Earthbending teacher; however, the group found that the city had been taken over by the Fire Nation. The group later learned from the Omashu resistance that Bumi surrendered without even putting up a fight. After helping Omashu's citizens and army to escape their imprisonment within the city, Aang attempted to free Bumi as well.

After a chase down the city's large mail-delivery chutes, Aang and Bumi managed to escape a pursuing Azula. However, Bumi disappointed Aang with the statement that he could not leave Omashu just yet, as he was waiting for the proper time to strike against the Fire Nation from within, revealing that he, despite the metal cage he was kept in, was still capable of bending. Bumi did however teach Aang about the importance of neutral jing, and advised Aang to seek an instructor skilled in neutral Jing, or doing nothing (as Bumi himself put it, someone who "waits and listens"). It was this advice that eventually led Aang to accept Toph Bei Fong as his Earthbending instructor.

Liberation of Omashu
Bumi told how he spent several weeks imprisoned in his city, waiting for the right moment to escape. That moment came on the Day of Black Sun where he broke out of his prison by Earthbending with his face. Taking advantage of the Firebenders' loss of power, he single-handedly liberated Omashu and destroyed Ozai's statue at the top of the city, sending it sliding down and off the edge of the city, before laughing and taking a bite of jennamite, retaking his city in minutes; Suki was amazed how he did that so easily by himself. He later joined other members of the Order of the White Lotus to retake the city of Ba Sing Se.



Order of the White Lotus
Before the arrival of Sozin's Comet, Bumi met with the Avatar's gang again at Ba Sing Se, along with Master Pakku, Piandao, and Jeong Jeong and was revealed to be a member of the Order of the White Lotus. Bumi was the only one to notice that the group was missing a "very important member", as Aang and Momo had disappeared, but comically asked the group where Momo was. He then stated that as long as Momo and Aang were together, they had nothing to worry about. Sokka asked why they were all together and Bumi said "All old people know each other. Don't you know that?"

He joined in the Order's successful liberation of Ba Sing Se in the name of the Earth Kingdom, using impressive displays of his Earthbending to destroy many Fire Nation tanks, in one instance by stacking them atop each other. He presumably returned to Omashu after the War ended.

Abilities


King Bumi was a master Earthbender, one of, if not the best in the world, though this was contested by Toph Bei Fong. His style was very conservative and stressed waiting for exactly the right moment to strike; however, when said moment did come, he demonstrated extremely powerful techniques. Bumi could levitate entire houses, extremely large pieces of stone, create fissures with kicks into the ground, turn ordinary dirt into quicksand, quickly tunnel through the ground, and, most extraordinarily, Earthbend exclusively with his face with little-to-no handicap. With rock pillars Bumi could launch himself or heavy metal objects such as tanks into the air, and once toppled a large metal statue from underneath. Bumi can also bend jennamite.

Trivia

 * Bumi did not appear in the live action film.
 * The name "Bumi" means "Earth" in the Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, Telegu (and other Indian Languages), Malaysian and Indonesian language, which is in turn derived from the Sanskrit "Bhumi", meaning "Earth". However, since the word "bumi" with that exact meaning does not exist in Chinese, the negotiation letter in "Return to Omashu" had his name transliterated as 布米 (bù mǐ) which translates 'to spread rice'.
 * Bumi appeared to have (to some degree) knowledge of Airbenders, as when he and Aang fought he stated that Aang's strategy of "avoid and evade" was a typical Airbender fighting style. Given he was an old friend of Aang's, this is possible.
 * Bumi's voice actor, André Sogliuzzo, also voiced Hakoda.
 * Bumi was one of the few people who lived throughout the entire war, since he knew Aang before he was in the iceberg. He was the second oldest living man in their world for being 112 years old, after Guru Pathik, who's 150 years old. There was the possibility, though, that Bumi was one or two years younger than Aang, making him somewhere around 110 or 111 years old. Nonetheless, Bumi and Guru Pathik were the only people mentioned in the series to have lived long enough to have possibly witnessed both wartime arrivals of Sozin's Comet.
 * Bumi was the only character in the series with red hair (even though it is now whitish gray color).
 * Although Bumi told Aang that he'll see him when the time was right, Aang never met Bumi again during the series. They most likely met again off-screen after the war.
 * When Aang was preparing to leave, Bumi said that they will be needing Momo. Later he said that they were missing someone important and asked where Momo was.
 * Although he claimed to be the "most powerful Earthbender [Aang] will ever see", Toph Bei Fong displayed two skills which Bumi didn't seem to possess. One was her Seismic Sense, which not only allowed her to see despite her blindness, but also gave her a deeper connection with the Earth than most Earthbenders have. The other and most prominent one was her Metalbending, something which Bumi never displayed any knowledge of. However, he was able to Earthbend without having physical contact with the Earth (something Toph was incapable of), so the claims both Bumi and Toph made are still debatable.
 * When Bumi was first introduced (in a flashback), there was no indication that he was royalty, hinting that he somehow earned the title of King of Omashu.
 * Bumi was the oldest and first Master Earthbender shown in the series.
 * King Bumi's advice to Aang about thinking like a mad genius to defeat Fire Lord Ozai was followed, as Aang was able to avoid murdering Ozai while removing his chances of being a future threat by using Energybending, a previously unknown technique, to take away his Firebending.
 * Bumi was the only main-character member of the Order of the White Lotus who never physically trained anybody from Team Avatar. However, the tasks he made Aang complete to make him think "like a mad genius" could be considered as mental training, as well as his advice on jings.
 * Bumi was the only old friend of Aang who was still alive after 100 years.