| By Neo Bahamut | Part of the Republic City Renaissance continuity. |
Overview[]
Dr. Avici was meant to explain how the Purists develop their weapons, who tends to their injuries, and the medical advances that led Amon to discover how to sever bending. He draws from controversial 1920's scientific practices, mostly as the Avatarverse equivalent of "Dr. Lobotomy," but also things like forced feeding and secret experiments. I try to refer to him by his surname as much as possible, to avoid confusion with the aforementioned bloodbender.
Background[]
Born to a pair of immigrants from the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se, Dr. Avici spent the bulk of his early life working in industry jobs. Though poor at physical labor, he was adept at understanding systems, such as electrical grids, chemicals, and the like. Realizing this, he pushed to be recommended to the Republic City University at age 16, where he studied the burgeoning fields of biology, chemistry, and engineering. Soon after, his parents died of lung disease. By 20, alongside classes, he was working in medical research, though he had difficulty getting the grants necessary to pay for his endeavors.
Book 0[]
He was studying a surgical method to remove bending, the lobotomy, and had been secretly approached to provide weapons for the Purists, telling them where to find the machines to create the experimental plastics he'd developed, and rerouting dangerous chemicals to them from his place of employment. When the gang associated themselves with his highly public rants about bending being a disorder, the police became suspicious of him. Between the Council rejecting his research proposal and approving a warrant to search his property, he quickly disappeared.
When Aroma used herself as bait to infiltrate the gang's hideout, he was found working as mob surgeon in a makeshift clinic underground. Though not exactly a patient instructor, he planned to teach her his methods, and did leave her with some knowledge of medical chi blocking. Ultimately, he escaped the raid, destroying most evidence of his research in the process.
Book 0.5[]
Using information gathered by Lilith, Euryale's team tracked the Purist remnants to an old fort in the mountains. Dr. Avici was discovered in the basement, still practicing his lobotomies and other medical experiments. In fact, the doctor had apparently started performing experiments on himself, due to a shortage of subjects. Between this and the unsafe conditions in which he worked, his health was severely drained. When he attempted to "operate" on his "patient," threatening to destroy the building using pre-rigged explosions if stopped, Barbatos killed him.
Legacy[]
His experiments formed the basis for Amon's bending removal technique. The firebows he invented were also briefly used by corrupt metalbending police, but they were destroyed in the attempted coup and none of the remaining conspirators knew quite how to make them. These and many other inventions weren't replicated for the remainder of the diesel age.
Some of his few constructive methods were adopted by other researchers, like Thiera. His studies in advanced plastics and surgical methods allowed for the invention of new, more viable forms of internal surgical pins. Phorcys Rakshashi became the first patient of this method, giving him more stability in the leg that was permanently injured at the end of his career.
Personality[]
Dr. Avici is a real piece of work. He was known as being quiet and introverted while working in medicine and would react curtly if anyone tried to communicate with him for anything other than work. He also had a reputation for being arrogant, accused of arguing with his superiors over methods and filling his writing with jargon just to make readers feel intellectually inferior. Since his funding was cut and he went to work with the Purists full time, he only got worse, prone to mood swings and aggressive outbursts.
Dr. Avici believes that most statistical abnormalities, including bending, are diseases which need to be purged. So devoted was he to this theory and his feelings of his research being constricted by the petty whims of society that he was already designing anti-bending weapons even before the Purists contacted him. Still, it's unlikely he would've made it very far on his own, due to his lack of influence and preference to stay shut in doing experiments.
Though he has many, many, many faults, lacking scientific knowledge cannot be said to be among them. He is known to be quite brilliant, publishing new findings in several fields. He has a strong distaste of ethical guidelines, feeling they hold back progress, and whether his research benefits anyone is more of an afterthought, but he never fails to obtain results—even if he should have to experiment on himself.
Abilities[]
Even in subpar conditions, he worked medical miracles that kept the Purists in fighting form, despite their devastating bending-inflicted wounds. His scientific and engineering skills were so prized that he had seniority roughly equivalent to the Purist Lieutenants, despite having no martial arts skills to speak of. If he found himself in a fight, he would rely on his inventions, such as poison bombs or firebows. Often, he would rig explosives ahead of time, so he could escape while burying evidence, or at least take his enemies with him. Despite his foresight, he was incapable as a leader, as the Purists fractured between him and Amon, and he drove his faction to ruin in pursuit of his ambitions. Aside from his obsession, it could be said that his inability to recognize his opponents' intelligence was his downfall, as he failed to consider that Aroma could fool the Purist Leader or that the police could evade his traps.
Origin[]
Aamon was conceived as a mad scientist, originally working under Senthose, who in this story is the head of the Red Monsoons. "Aamon" is a spelling of a servant of Astaroth, which by odd coincidence could also be spelled "Amon." "Avici" is the lowest hell in Buddhism, where the most evil/impure go to be purified. He had a prematurely aged appearance, the result of experimenting on himself. In Book 0, his health can be seen rapidly deteriorating as he performs research in increasingly unhealthy situations.
Reflections[]
I wanted Dr. Avici to give a sense that there was some kind of scientific community in the Avatarverse. Part of this meant that there would be published papers surviving him that would be used and debated well after his death, much like any controversial scientist. I particularly had in mind the Nazi research that was used after the fall of the Third Reich. A lot of it isn't terribly useful because it was "shits and giggles" research, but in some areas, it influenced a lot of what we know. This is why I had Thiera go over his materials after his death and take some of what she found useful to develop medical interventions. In the end, science is a tool, and the scientists choose how they use it.
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