The release of the new live-action Netflix adaptation of “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is an opportunity to ask what was so great about the original series, which aired from 2005 to 2008 on Nickelodeon. Our answer? Community.
The first season of the Netflix show has many strengths. And with more seasons to come, it can still get better. But while critics have noted some problems with the new show, none have identified what we take to be its main issue: its clumsy treatment of friendship, the deft exploration of which was so captivating about the original.
Despite the title, the original show was never just about the Avatar: It’s about a circle of friends on a mission, helping one another to become whole as individual persons and as a community. In neglecting to tap into the longing for community that gave the original show such a universal significance, the new adaptation fails to capture what made the original not only exquisitely beautiful, but also of great interest for Catholics.
‘Avatar’ and the quest for community
“Avatar: The Last Airbender” takes place in a world built upon the harmony of the four elements —water, earth, fire and air—and in turn between four nations, each of which is associated with an element. The nations have “benders” who telekinetically control, or “bend,” the element connected with that people. In every generation a bender arises who can control all four elements, an “avatar” who helps to maintain order between the four nations.
Aang, the show’s young protagonist, discovers that he is the avatar and that he must put an end to the Fire Nation’s conquest of the world, despite not having mastered the four elements. By the end of the three seasons, Aang finds himself in a community whose members have helped him to master the elements and to find the courage to face his mission. Thus the true protagonist of this story turns out to be not one lonely hero, but a band of friends. “Avatar” becomes less about the avatar and more about “Team Avatar.”
This dynamic is put to the test by Aang’s chief nemesis, Prince Zuko, the crown prince of the Fire Nation. While Zuko seeks to free himself from exile through a quixotic attempt to capture Aang and thus earn his father’s respect, eventually this pursuit changes Zuko. His redemption arc expresses the power of goodness more convincingly than any other part of the show, to the point where he becomes Aang’s most powerful ally. Zuko’s story shows there is no one beyond the valence of goodness. It’s bigger than even the avatar.
Like Zuko, each friend moves closer to his or her truest self by letting go of false idols of autonomy, coming to see themselves as more whole in becoming part of something bigger. This is most obvious with the brother-and-sister duo who are Aang’s closest friends: Sokka and Katara from the Southern Water Tribe. Sokka, whose all-too-obvious sexism, immaturity and arrogance mask his deep-seated inferiority complex, becomes a humble leader, learning to listen to and trust those he once did not respect. Katara’s many gifts at first seem fruitless in her frustrating role as the group’s nagging mother-figure. But she soon becomes a true nurturer and healer, and thus her fuller self, in being able to put those gifts to the service of the group more freely. In healing her former enemy, Zuko, of a life-threatening wound, she illustrates perhaps better than any character the mutual dynamic between healing and being healed, forgiving and being forgiven.
While the original “Avatar: The Last Airbender” explores community as a place through which each member can find his or her own identity, the new version offers it as a means whereby the characters can support Aang in his solo quest. For the most part, the Netflix adaptation removes most of Aang’s formative interactions with his friends, even entirely cutting Katara’s role as Aang’s waterbending teacher, and replaces them with protracted conversations with ancient wisdom figures and flashbacks to Aang’s past. The wisdom figures obsess over Aang’s duty to save the world and particularly over the need for him to save the world by himself, forcing Aang to protest desperately that he needs his friends.
Community takes time to be formed and to form its members, and that’s part of the problem of the new show: the first season didactically emphasizes the need for community when that community is still coming together, whereas the original show explores the importance of community over all three seasons through the characters themselves becoming aware of their need for each other. No surprise, then, that thus far the new show does more telling than showing, and that the results are contradictory and unsatisfying.
To be fair, the original “Avatar: The Last Airbender” set a high standard. Even if the new Netflix show does not clear that bar, it is quite good. And it has done the great service of renewing interest in the first series, both for those rediscovering their childhood favorite and for people of all ages watching it for the first time.
Is ‘Avatar’ a Catholic show?
Of all the people enjoying the “Avatar” renaissance, Catholics should be first in line. Over and over again, the original “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is able to make viewers feel what Catholics mean when they talk about community. And in this way, the show gets something very right. For millions of fans, its image of friendship, community and love is deeply attractive and moving. And like so much Catholic art, “Avatar” seeks out those fundamental human experiences even when they are painful and heartbreaking. Through beautiful stories of amazing characters coming together on mission, the writers gesture in story form toward the heart of our faith: the parish around the altar, the Holy Spirit dwelling among us wherever we are, and even the Trinity, which shows that God himself is loving community.
For all its incredible fantasy, “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is not special because it created a new world. Rather, it is a great television show because of how it helps to break open our own world. The new show thus far reflects the crushing loneliness of our time without offering a way out, and without giving us hope that it will in its future seasons. The original series names that loneliness and cultivates our longing for something better—not for escape from our world, but for reconciliation and communion in its very heart.
For that reason, “Avatar: The Last Airbender” offers a kind of standard for Catholics to live up to. Just as we can name what the show is searching for, so too can the show help us to imagine what we are naming—and to strive to live it out.
