‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Imagines a World Free of Whiteness

The animated adventure series, which recently returned to TV, offers complex characters, an epic narrative and a reminder that stories don’t always have to be of the same white America.

Anyone unfamiliar with “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” the animated adventure series that ran on Nickelodeon from 2005 to 2008, was probably surprised by the buzz that greeted its arrival on Netflix last month. It was the most-watched show on the service for days, and became a trending topic on Twitter as long-simmering debates about the series (Who wins the title as the avatar GOAT: Aang or Korra?) were reignited, funny GIFs were created, hashtags were shared.

“Avatar” always stood out; I dipped into it years ago, during its original run, drawn in during the marathon blocks of the show Nickelodeon sometimes aired in the afternoons. Its allure was its visual proximity to the anime series I loved, but it was also endlessly bingeable. Not simply a series of short episodic adventures, “Avatar” was an invitation to immerse yourself in an epic journey with conflicts, characters and long-running jokes (like the misfortunes of an unlucky cabbage vendor, a fan favorite) that built on what came before. When “Avatar” premiered on Netflix, I jumped back into the mythology to re-examine its longstanding reputation as one of the best animated shows of the past two decades. I rewatched it from beginning to end and discovered a fresh comfort in the series — something that I hadn’t consciously clocked in my first watch but that underscored my renewed affection for it right now.

Though often celebrated for its sophisticated storytelling and complex characters, “Avatar” most notably dreams up a world free of whiteness, a cultural haven from and refreshing salve in a country that has, especially in recent months, shown marginalized communities its most gruesome face. Created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, “Avatar” is set in an Asiatic world comprising four nations that are each defined by a single natural element — earth, fire, water and air — and gifted citizens known as “benders” who are able to manipulate the elements of their homelands. This world is menaced by the Fire Nation, ruled by a totalitarian regime that attacks, exploits and oppresses the other lands.

The only one who can bring balance to the world is the Avatar, who in the lore of the story is reborn as a different member of the four nations during each lifetime and has the ability to master all four elements. In the series the Avatar is a precocious 12-year-old air-bending monk named Aang, who reappears, after a hundred years trapped in a state of hibernation, to complete his bending training and defeat the megalomaniacal fire lord. Aang teams up with two members of the Southern Water Tribe, a water-bender named Katara and her brother, Sokka, and travels the world in search of masters of the elements, while also having side adventures, thwarting Fire Nation troops and evading the fire lord’s son, Zuko, who has a Captain Ahab-esque obsession with defeating the Avatar. Meanwhile, secondary characters reappear throughout the series to help Aang and his friends prepare for a final war against the Fire Nation, to bring harmony back to the four nations.

The world of the show is expansive and fanciful — with rocky terrains, formidable canyons full of oversized insects, dense Amazonian forests, upside-down temples carved into the sides of cliffs, a vast desert hiding a Borgesian library of limitless knowledge, and even a mystical island on the back of an ancient beast. Though the creators were inspired by Anglocentric world-building franchises like “Lord of the Rings,” “Star Wars” and “Harry Potter,” the cultures, philosophies and aesthetics of “Avatar” were influenced almost exclusively by Asian traditions. In order to master the elements, Aang draws from lessons based on the principle of yin and yang and the workings of chakras, and his values are borrowed from Eastern belief systems like Buddhism. (Aang promotes peace, a respect for all life, and is a reincarnation of previous avatars.) The fashions and music were inspired by Chinese and Japanese styles, and many of the grand vistas and architectural models in the series, like the impenetrable city of Ba Sing Se, were inspired by real-world sites like China’s Great Wall and Forbidden City.