Avatar: The Last Airbender Characters

Avatar: The Last Airbender Characters

The animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender features a list of characters created by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino. Taking place in a fictional universe composed of four sovereign nations, the series deals with a war started by the belligerent Fire Nation as an attempt to conquer the world. The Avatar, a being who represents the bridge between the physical and the spirit, and who alone holds the power to master all four elemental powers and counter the Fire Nation aggression, has been mysteriously missing for the past 100 years, plunging the world into a century of war. The first phase of war ended with a genocide of the Air Nomads, near extinction of the Water Tribes, and extensive colonization of the Earth Kingdom, thus setting up the world in which the characters of the series live.

The main protagonist of the series is Aang, a recent incarnation of the Avatar, who is released from an iceberg after being frozen for 100 years. With his new friends Katara and Sokka, and later Toph, Aang sets out to master the three unlearned bending arts and end the war that has ravaged the world during his absence. The series also focuses on Zuko, the crown prince of the Fire Nation.

Character designs were originated from a series of drawings by one of the show's creators, Bryan Konietzko. The main sketch depicted a middle-aged monk with an arrow on his head and later included a flying bison as his pet. Konietzko's partner, Michael Dante DiMartino, was interested in documentaries related to the South Pole at the time. They combined these ideas and created the concept of an "air guy" and "water guys" trapped in a snowy wasteland, with "fire guys" invading them. Additionally, the writers based the characters' different bending abilities on distinct styles of martial arts.