A Review of Avatar: The Last Airbender

Growing up, cartoons were a huge part of my childhood. I remember getting up early on Saturday mornings just to catch an episode of shows like Jimmy Neutron or Spongebob Squarepants. While these shows were entertaining, they were not captivating enough for me to delve into in greater detail beyond enjoying what I saw on the screen. To be fair, this isn't detrimental, as many cartoons children watch at that age don't do this, and if they did, they presented information in such a convoluted way that it became difficult to follow.

This is where Avatar: The Last Airbender, stands head and shoulders above every other cartoon in existence.

To put it simply, it is my belief that Avatar: The Last Airbender is the greatest cartoon ever produced. Never has a show marketed for children been so universal in its approach to tackling dicey topics and incorporated important and surprisingly relevant philosophical discourse through its various character interactions. I shall elaborate on this later in the review, but for now, to give you a brief introduction to the show, the world of Avatar takes place in a universe where the earth is divided into four nations: The Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation and the Air Nomads. Certain people of each nation have the power to control the elements and these people are called 'benders.' The people of the water tribe can manipulate water in all its forms, the people of the Earth Kingdom can control the earth, people of the Fire Nation can create fire from nothing, and the Air Nomads can control the air. There are also non-benders, who are just normal people. In this world, there is a being known as the 'Avatar,' who is the physical manifestation of the spirit of the planet, and is the only person who can learn and master all four bending disciples. When the Avatar dies, the spirit of the Avatar passes on and he/she is reborn into the next nation in the Avatar Cycle: water, earth, fire, then air.

The four nations lived together in harmony, but everything changed when the Fire Nation waged war on the other nations in an attempt to conquer the world. It was believed by everyone that only the Avatar could stop the Fire Nation and restore balance to the world. However, just when the world needed him most, he vanished without a trace. The world fell into despair as the Fire Nation solidified their rule over the other nations. It was said that the Avatar was never reborn into the next nation in the cycle and that he was gone forever.

100 years after the start of the war, a young water bender from the Southern Water Tribe named Katara, along with her brother, Sokka, discover a mysterious boy frozen in ice while on a fishing trip. After breaking him out, he reveals his name is Aang, and what's more, he's an airbender. Katara's confusion is explained by the fact that no one has seen an airbender for the past 100 years, and they were thought to be extinct. It is soon revealed that not only is Aang an airbender, he is also the long-lost Avatar, and the only person who is capable of stopping the Fire Nation. Together, Aang, Katara and Sokka set out on a journey to make sure Aang masters the bending disciples in order to defeat the Fire Lord and bring balance to the world.

Don't let this show's appearance as a cartoon fool you into thinking that its just another show for children to be mindlessly entertained by for 25 minutes. What the creative minds of Bryan Koinietzko and Micheal Dante DiMartino have given us is an epic adventure saga that has fully realised characters, an engaging plot with various twists and turns, and constant dilemmas for our heroes and villains to explore as the war with the Fire Nation wages on. The story of this show is some of the best I've ever seen in any medium, and the way that the show handles the arcs for each of its characters is something aspiring fictional writers should take note of.

The show first aired on Nickelodeon on February 21st, 2005, and ran until July 19th, 2008. Throughout the entirety of its runtime, I can name only one truly bad episode, and even then, I feel like I'm being a little too harsh on the show (Avatar fans, you know which one I'm talking about). The animation, for its time, is quite engaging and vivid, and you easily get engrossed in the world that Aang and his friends are exploring. The show does an excellent job of work building as well, showing elements from each of the four nations in great detail to the extent that they really make you believe that this is one huge world. This proved to be a masterstroke, for when a sequel series titled, 'The Legend of Korra,' aired in April of 2012, fans of the original had no problem immersing themselves back into the world in all its intricacies and oddities. But even removing 'Korra' from the picture presents us with a fully realized world that you truly want to believe exists.

However, by far the best aspect of the show is the themes that the show has and what they mean for the audience. I can't say too much here, because I do not want to go into spoilers, but the show handles themes such as death, loss, acceptance, love and war so well that I actually find myself going back to it to understand any philosophical brooding that comes across my mind.

I could honestly go on and on about this show in great detail, but at the end of it all, I have no doubt in saying that Avatar: The Last Airbender is masterpiece and an example of how to create a series in the right way. It has everything you could possibly want in any work of fiction, and ever since it ended, I have not seen anything quite like it. Today, it has been 10 years since this magnificent show ended, but the memories that it has created will remain in the minds of young adults everywhere. I give it nothing but my highest recommendation, a solid 10/10, and I leave you with a request to do yourself a favour and watch it for yourself.

In addition to this post, in honour of the 10 year anniversary of the ending of this show, over on my personal blog, titled Mea Sanctum (https://measanctum.wordpress.com), I have written an article about what the series means to me on a personal note and how I fell in love with it. Check it out if you want to learn more about why I love this show so much.