Avatar: The Last Airbender - Characters

Characters

Main article: List of Avatar: The Last Airbender characters

• Aang (Zach Tyler Eisen) is the twelve-year-old, fun-loving, Airbending protagonist of the series. Although averse to fighting, Aang is fiercely protective of his friends. He is the current incarnation of the planet's Avatar Spirit, and is therefore required to act as arbiter among the various people. According to the show's creators, the arrow-like tattoos on his forehead and arms mark Aang as an airbending master; Aang being the youngest airbender in history to have earned them. His mentor was one of the greatest airbenders who had ever lived, Monk Gyatso. Throughout the series Aang develops a huge, romantic crush on Katara. He attempts to tell her so, but fails continuously until the final kiss in the last episode. As the spirit of Roku did for Aang when he was alive, the spirit of adult Aang turns up in the next series The Legend of Korra to help and assist Korra as her mentor.

• Katara (Mae Whitman) (Originally named "Kya") is a fourteen-year-old Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. With her older brother Sokka, she accompanies Aang on his quest to defeat the Fire Lord and, eventually, becomes his Waterbending master. Katara is the only surviving Waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe and one of only two Waterbenders able to manipulate and control human bodies by bending the water and liquids therein, known as bloodbending (an ability used twice in the series). Katara is usually kind-hearted and generous, but is deeply hurt, hostile and often angered by the slightest betrayal and treachery. In an earlier version of the pilot episode, Katara's name was Kya; the name was later given as her mother's name and her and Aang's eldest child and only Waterbender daughter. Katara eventually begins to develop equally strong romantic feelings for Aang. She is eventually seen as an elderly woman in "The Legend of Korra," which takes place seventy years after the original series.

• Sokka (Jack DeSena) is a fifteen-year-old non-bender warrior of the Southern Water Tribe. With his younger sister, Katara, he accompanies Aang on his quest to defeat the Fire Lord. Sokka describes himself as "meat-loving" and "sarcastic", and is often a source of comic relief. At the end of Season 1, Sokka was in love with Yue, the princess of the Northern Water Tribe; and later shifted his affections to Suki, leader of the Kyoshi Island Warriors. Unlike his companions, Sokka does not have any bending ability; his skill lies largely in mechanics, and his chief weapons are a metallic boomerang, a blunt metal battle club, a Water Tribe machete, and later, a black jian created from the metals of a meteorite.

• Zuko (Dante Basco) is the sixteen-year-old exiled prince of the Fire Nation and original antagonist of the series. He is determined and strong-willed, and rarely shows compassion until the third season. Over time, Zuko struggles to deal with his anger, self-pity, and complex familial relationships, as well as the choice between good and evil. He is obsessed with regaining his lost honor, only to discover its true meaning at the end of the series. He takes on the vigilante identity of "the Blue Spirit" at the end of season one and beginning of season two. In season three, he defects from the Fire Nation to join the Avatar. At the end of the series, he is crowned ruler of the Fire Nation, in which position he ends the war, and promises to aid in rebuilding the other nations to peace and harmony.

• Toph Beifong (Jessie Flower) is a twelve-year-old blind female Earthbending prodigy who first appears in the second season of the show as a vision Aang received while in a swamp. Later, she is Aang's Earthbending instructor. Though blind, Toph "sees" by feeling vibrations in the ground through her feet using Earthbending. This ability also enables her to feel the pulses of one's heart, allowing her to tell if someone is lying. She is later shown developing a method of Metalbending by detecting earth-based impurities in the metal.

• Appa (Dee Bradley Baker in both the animated series and the live-action film) is Aang's flying bison, who serves as the protagonists' mode of transport around the world. He remains in suspended animation with Aang for one hundred years, and shares a very strong bond with him. He possesses the ability to fly and can use his tail to create incredibly strong and powerful gusts of air. According to Aang, the flying bisons were the first Airbenders.

• Momo (Dee Bradley Baker in both the animated series and the live-action film) is an intelligent and curious winged lemur, discovered by Aang at the Southern Air Temple. He often picks fights with other winged and smaller creatures and with Appa over food. He is capable of understanding Aang's speech; but less so of understanding others. In "Tales of Ba Sing Se", Momo’s name was written as 模模 (mó mó). Momo means "peach" in Japanese (he grabbed a peach out of Sokka's hand just as Aang was about to name him in episode 3), but it is written 桃, which also means peach in Chinese.

• Iroh (Mako Iwamatsu in the first and second seasons; Greg Baldwin in third season) is a former Great general of the Fire Nation, known as the Dragon of the West, and Prince Zuko's paternal uncle and mentor. Iroh was the heir to the Fire Nation throne until his younger brother, Ozai, usurped the throne after Fire Lord Azulon's death. On the surface, Iroh is a cheerful, kind, optimistic, eccentric old man; but remains a powerful warrior and a devoted surrogate parent to Zuko. Iroh is a Grand Master of the Order of the White Lotus, a secret society of men from all nations. Unlike most Firebenders, Iroh does not use anger as the source of his strength, relying instead on Firebending secrets learned from the Dragons.

• Azula (Grey DeLisle) is the princess of the Fire Nation. She is Zuko's younger sister and one of the major antagonists of the series. Azula is a Firebending prodigy and is one of the few living Firebenders capable of casting lightning. She is a cunning master at manipulation and a great leader, using fear to control her subjects and friends alike, reserving loyalty solely for her father. She is seen to be extremely capable and resourceful, bringing down the entire Earth Kingdom in her ruthless pursuit of the Avatar. She is meticulous and calculating, but also a megalomaniacal perfectionist. At the end of season three, she loses her sanity altogether due to deep rooted psychological problems and a fragile mental state broken by the betrayal of her friends and is subsequently defeated by Zuko and Katara. She is the primary antagonist of the second season.

• Suki (Jennie Kwan) is the leader of the young (and exclusively female) Kyoshi Island Warriors, a sect established by Aang's predecessor-once-removed. She is an exceptionally skilled fighter and staunch ally of the protagonists. She was imprisoned by the Fire Nation after the Kyoshi Warriors were defeated by Azula, but was ultimately released by Sokka, Zuko, Hakoda, and Chit-Sang. She remained with the protagonists thereafter and fought with Toph and Sokka to disable the Fire Nation's air force. She was Sokka's romantic love interest, lover, and girlfriend immediately following the end of the War.

• Mai (Cricket Leigh) is Zuko's romantic love interest and the best friend of Ty Lee. Mai herself lacks bending, but is agile, swift, and skilled in dart-throwing and knife-throwing. She assists Azula throughout most of her role; but she later abandons the Princess because of her deep romantic feelings and love for Zuko.

• Ty Lee (Olivia Hack) is an acrobat who fights alongside Azula against the protagonists, notable for her appearance of vivacity, innocence, and youth and for her ability to disable enemies by temporarily obstructing the chi from their limbs. Having abandoned Azula, she joins the Kyoshi Island Warriors, whom she had earlier impersonated.

• Ozai (Mark Hamill) is the father of Zuko and Azula, the much younger brother of Iroh, and ruler of the Fire Nation. Although he is the primary antagonist for the series, he does not appear regularly until its third season, in which he is defeated by Aang.

• Jet (Crawford Wilson) first appears in the first season episode, "Jet". He is a part of a resistance group who wants to rid the Earth Kingdom of the Fire Nation. He and his gang at first welcome Aang and his friends, though it is revealed that Jet has a plan to destroy an occupied town. When Sokka discovers that Jet isn't as kind as he seems, Aang and Katara do not believe him. They are tricked into helping Jet fill a reservoir, which he plans to destroy in order to flood the town. Sokka manages to foil Jet's plan and save the town, and they leave. Jet reappears again in Book Two, in which he travels to Ba Sing Se with some of his crew in order to start over. He meets Zuko and Uncle Iroh, and discovers they are fire benders. He is arrested later for attacking them, and is brainwashed by the Dai Li. He is mortally wounded by Long Feng, the leader of the Dai Li, after recovering his memory and attacking him.