Warning, this is LONG. But I had IDEAS, and I needed somewhere to PUT them, and then I remembered I have a word doc and a dreamwidth account. So here we are. And hey, I suspect this is far from the strangest "first post" on this site.
So, I’ve long been of two minds about (so far as I can tell) the only controversial element of Avatar: The Last Airbender’s finale: the conclusion to Aang vs Ozai, and specifically the conclusion to the “should Aang kill the Firelord” conflict. For a while, I was wholly against the way they handled it, because I saw it as yet another “you just gotta find the third option” plot, which I have seen far too many times before, and am honestly quite sick of. Those plots feel both derivative and… cowardly, I suppose. You present a genuine philosophical challenge, and then decide “eh, just pick the easy, morally convenient third option we failed to mention until now!” It's a way to solve the problem without truly answering the question you raised.
However, time has gone on, and I’ve been made to realise how important it is that Aang refuses to kill the firelord, and how it lines up with the themes of the show and Aang’s character arc. As I see it, Aang refusing to kill the firelord achieves a few critical things:
- It keeps the spirit of the Air Nomads alive, preserving their values even when facing the embodiment of their demise. It shows that the Air Nomad philosophy is superior to that of the Fire Nation, and Aang is superior to Ozai in more than just power.
- By forcefully halting the death blow he was about to inflict in the Avatar State, Aang exerts true control over his bending and the Avatar State, both of which have deeply frightened him in the past – his firebending harming Katara, his downright terrifying ‘Avatar State rage’ moments in the first two books, especially in “The Avatar State” and “The Desert” and his failure to gain full control of the Avatar State in ‘The Guru.’ When he shows mercy to Ozai, he proves he has control, and can stop himself, and his predecessors, from harming others with their power.
- Aang’s arc through the entire show is about him running away from difficult things. It began with him fleeing the Southern Air Temple and being frozen for a century, it progressed with him struggling with confrontation when learning Earthbending, and it even showed up in a brilliant way in the Book 3 opener, where he believes he’s overcoming his flaw by going off to challenge the Firelord alone, but he’s really just running from his own guilt, burying it beneath a foolish quest for redemption that won’t accomplish anything but his own death. Finally, after all these lessons, Aang’s habit of running away rears its head once more when the question of Ozai returns. He avoids the issue every time it’s brought up, eventually running off altogether and finding refuge on the Lion Turtle. Even there, he seeks the easy way out, looking for confirmation bias in his past lives, which they refuse to grant him.
All this to say, by actively refusing to kill the Firelord and deciding to energy-bend him instead, Aang stands up to the past Avatars, asserts his own beliefs, and truly becomes his own Avatar, without relying on the wisdom of his previous lives. He claims agency over his role, instead of running from it or hiding behind his previous lives via the Avatar State.
So, there are a number of reasons why Aang not killing the Firelord makes perfect thematic sense. However…. That still doesn’t make energy-bending any less of an 11th hour asspull.
I mean, seriously, we gotta be honest here. It’s a cop out. Lion turtles have never been more than a background easter egg before this, energy-bending has never been mentioned before, and arguably the worst part in all this… it’s really just given to Aang. He doesn’t figure any of it out himself, nor does the act of energy-bending Ozai really show any of his growth or internal strength. We see his spirit overpowers Ozai’s, but… why? What was going on between their two spirits that made Aang get nearly consumed, before bursting back out and overcoming Ozai’s? We don’t know. We can guess, but the story offers nothing. It’s basically just a DBZ beam clash, but out of the eyes and mouth this time.
So, I decided to figure out, in a theoretical rewrite of certain parts of ATLA Book 3, how one could allow Aang to defeat and de-power Ozai in a way that feels logical, earned, and speaks directly to his character and his growth. Here we go:
We’ll begin with 3x1, where everything is the same, except that when Katara first tries to do healing on him, and he gets the flashback of him rising into the Avatar State, this time she begins with the base of his spine, and we show the flashback of Azula striking him. In the skeletal outline, we see the base of the spine, his Earth chakra, be struck. Then we jump back to reality. Katara and Aang have the brief convo about how he died, he wasn’t just hurt, and then he asks Katara to try again, saying he trusts her. She saved him, after all. He tells her to try a bit higher up, and she does, this time around where his scar was in canon, but this time it’s also on his front. Basically, we’re right over his heart. He has another flash, this time of the moment right before, when he embraced the ‘cosmic energy’ image in the catacombs to save Katara. In another flash of Aang’s skeleton, we see his Air chakra, located in the heart, right where Katara is healing. It’s twisted and blocked. Aang cries out, and we return to reality. He pulls away from Katara, and says he needs to rest. This slightly re-contextualizes his decisions in the rest of the episode, but the actual content plays out as normal from here.
Next change is in 3x6, the Avatar and the Firelord. Everything is basically the same, except that instead of simply ‘showing Aang his past’ without explanation (not a criticism, btw, it feels perfectly natural in the show) he says it’s time for Aang to know his past, Aang asks how, and he explains that the Avatar can see into the spirits of others, especially their former lives, because their spirits are so closely intertwined. He invites Aang to place his hands on Roku’s head and heart, and when Aang does, he goes into Roku’s memory. From there, the episode plays out as normal.
3x9, Nightmares and Daydreams, should include a few more references to the chakras, beyond Phatik’s nonsensical little appearance, but honestly I don’t have any good ideas. It doesn’t help that I don’t much like that episode.
Either way, the next change comes in 3x12, the Western Air Temple, where after the Sparky Sparky Boom Man fight, when Zuko again begs to join the group, this time Aang steps forward and tells Zuko he still has a hard time trusting him, after everything. He says that he wants to try something, and it might not even work, and Zuko might not be super comfortable with it, etc. and Zuko immediately says it’s fine, go ahead, do whatever it takes. Aang places his hands on Zuko’s head and heart, and he sees Zuko’s Fire Chakra is churning and twisting, blocked by immense shame. It mirrors Aang’s own shame, for burning Katara, to such an extent that we see a visual of their skeletons aligning, their chakras interlinked over twin shames. This is what persuades Aang to let Zuko teach him. Essentially the same reason as in the show, except much more visually dramatic.
In 3x13, the Firebending Masters, the “previously on” shows that ‘twin shames’ moment, and then at the end of the episode, when Zuko and Aang do the dragon dance, we see their Fire chakras again, silhouetted in the dragon’s flames, as the chakras are opened. Both of them forgive themselves at once, cleansed by the flame of life.
No more changes whatsoever until the finale. Then, well… obviously, all of this has been setup, and I suspect you might be starting to see where this is going. So let’s knock the dominoes down, shall we?
This time, when Aang goes off to meditate on how to handle the Firelord in Sozin’s Comet Pt. 1, he isn’t called down to the water by the Lion Turtle. In fact, we’re cutting the Lion Turtle entirely. It’s awesome, don’t get me wrong. I like to think they’re still out there in the world, and were still the original benders, even in my telling. They just aren’t gonna show up in this finale. Instead, Aang meditates on the porch long after the others are asleep, and just like in canon, he calls up previous avatars for guidance.
So instead of Aang disappearing and the Gaang searching for him, this time he actually is going on a Spirit World journey, and just like in the Book 1 finale, his body is defenceless and must not be disturbed. We can have some fun moments of Katara and Zuko as they work to protect Aang, instead of last time this happened, where they fought over him. Anyways, no search for Aang, but just as in canon, they decide that if they can’t figure out when Aang will be back, they should seek out Iroh instead. Maybe he’ll have advice, being a very spiritual person. So Old Masters stuff happens, and the group eventually decides that Aang must be taken by Sokka’s group to stop Ozai’s armada, so that if/when he wakes up, he’ll be where he needs to be.
Meanwhile, Aang has his visions, speaking to the previous avatars. During their speeches, Aang gets to touch their spirits and see the events they're describing (Chin the conqueror, Koh the face-stealer, etc.). Otherwise, it plays as normal. The Yangchen conversation plays out exactly as normal, and I want y’all to remember it. It’s going to be very, very important. The episode ends with Aang exiting his trance after Yangchen’s vision, and seeing the airship armada above him, and Sozin’s Comet beginning to streak across the sky.
Part 3 actually goes almost exactly the same as in canon. I considered trying to squeeze things a little, truncating the Aang vs Ozai fight and/or the airship sequence with Sokka, Toph, and Suki, in order to buy myself as much extra time in Part 4 as possible. But honestly, Into the Inferno is a perfect episode, and I don’t think I’ve the heart to change it. So let’s just… assume Nickelodeon gave them resources for a 5 part finale, and add a whole extra episode. That works.
So, the new Part 4 is titled “The Avatar and the Phoenix King” in reference to the Avatar and the Firelord, and it’s got the lion-turtle’s share of the changes (if you’ll pardon the pun). The episode goes normally until Ozai breaks Aang’s earth ball, and this time instead of the scar on his back being struck, Ozai fires a concentrated bolt of flame directly at the crown of his head. We see the canon intercuts - the ‘Cosmic Aang’ and the previous Avatars opening their eyes. Pure white eyes open, along with a third eye on the crown of his head, like Sparky Sparky Boom Man’s but glowing. This time, as Aang chases Ozai, he speaks in the voices of past avatars, each of the ones who advised him before, judging Ozai for his sins. Aang’s voice, however, is nowhere to be found. He has been swallowed. To save his life, the previous Avatars basically ‘forced’ his 7th chakra open, ripping him from his earthly attachments and taking over.
So, Ozai runs, is eventually caught, placed in crucifixion pose by the Avatar, and the voices all come together for the canon line about how Ozai will pay the ultimate price. Just as in canon, at the last moment… it stops. In this case, it’s more explicit that Aang actively overcame the wills of the previous Avatars, taking back control and stopping them from killing Ozai. Ozai attacks him, Aang senses it, binds his arms, and then touches his head and heart. This time, the audience knows damn well what he’s doing. He’s trying to enter Ozai’s spirit. But nowhere, ever, has it been suggested that you can enter the spirit of an unwilling individual. And it’s not yet clear what Aang is trying to achieve with this. So hopefully it should still be fairly surprising and dramatic.
Anyways, instead of the orange and blue light beams, this time we zoom into Aang’s third eye, and then through it, we see Ozai’s head, Aang’s hand atop it. Camera zooms into it, and we see a similar visual to what we saw in The Western Air Temple, where the silhouettes of Aang and Ozai, with their chakras highlighted, fuse into one. We dive into Ozai’s mind, and see his memory of the last few minutes. He is running from a terrifying monster, with impossible power and no semblance of pity, mercy, or humanity. He is helpless, and his Earth chakra is blocked by fear. Aang appears, putting a hand on his shoulder, and says that he understands. He’s been afraid of who he is in the Avatar State too. But power doesn’t have to be a terrible thing. You can choose to use power to hurt people, yes, but not everyone who has power is destined to do harm. Aang chooses not to kill, not to be a monster, and Ozai could too. Neither of them has to be afraid.
Ozai growls, as his fear fades (opening the Earth Chakra) but is replaced by anger. He lashes out, calling Aang a weakling, a failure, who couldn’t accomplish anything at all, despite his power. He throws Aang’s failure at Ba Sing Se in his face, and Aang agrees, accepting that he failed, that he couldn’t save the city then, no matter how hard he tried. But he tells Ozai that what matters is that he tried. He didn’t choose to run away, nor did he choose to fight for evil. He stood up for what was right, and tried to defend the world, and the people he loved. That’s what matters.
With this acceptance of his failure, which has been the source of his guilt all season, Aang forgives himself, opening the Water Chakra, and then turns to Ozai. He says that surely, Ozai must have some regrets, some understanding of the evil he has done. We see a flash of memories - flames all around him as his father, Firelord Azulon, tells Ozai he must know the pain of losing a firstborn son. A furious, desperate Ursa, proposing a plan. A vial of poison pressed into his palm. We see Ozai standing over his father’s bed, and a genuine look of conflict and distress pass across his face. ‘Am I really going to kill my own father?’ We can imagine him thinking. ‘Is there truly no limit to the depths I will go to claim the throne I deserve?’ Aang watches as Ozai narrows his eyes, grits his teeth, and opens the vial of poison, holding it over Azulon’s mouth. The vision disappears, and Ozai turns on Aang, insisting that Azulon was weak, that he was a cruel, foolish old man, too blind to realise his son’s potential. Ozai spits at Aang, saying that if he ever had such a thing as shame, it has long since been cleansed by the flames. The Fire chakra opens, and Ozai grins.
He stalks towards Aang, telling him that a man like Ozai was born to grab power, to take command, to burn anything or anyone that stands in his way. He is destined to have everything, to claim the entire world for himself. Aang, by contrast, is destined to have nothing. His people are gone, his entire civilization reduced to cinders. Even if Aang wins today, Ozai says, he will never regain all that he has lost.
Aang closes his eyes, allowing himself to remember the Air Nomads once more, and he smiles, to Ozai’s surprise and confusion. Aang opens his eyes again, and explains that his people will never be entirely gone. He carries them with him, in every battle, every hard decision. Their wisdom, their love, has brought him here. In fact, he says, the guidance of the Air Nomads is the only reason Ozai is still alive.
With that, Aang opens the Air chakra, and continues speaking to Ozai. He says that Ozai’s worldview makes no sense. Power doesn’t make you any more deserving than anyone else, and doesn’t give you the right to hurt anyone. Furthermore, even if it did… Ozai is not the one with power. He only lives because of Aang’s mercy, because someone else with power chose to use it well, and use it kindly. Aang says that Ozai tells himself that he has all the power in the world. But really, he’s just a man. No more, and no less.
Ozai thinks about this for a long moment, recalling the way the Avatar threw him around like a ragdoll, the way he laid helpless before it. He remembers losing to his brother Iroh as a child, and having his lightning redirected by his own son as an adult. He hangs his head, and admits that it’s true. He is only a man. He himself, he admits with disgust, is a weakling. This confession opens the Sound chakra.
While Ozai stews in self-pity and anger, Aang smiles and places his hand on Ozai’s forehead. He explains that there’s no shame in being human, and it doesn’t make you weak. Being a normal person means you’re in good company with every other person, animal, plant, and spirit in the entire world. Everything has a place in the world’s harmony, and every little person is part of something of unimaginable beauty. Even Ozai has a place in this world. That’s why Aang doesn’t kill. Because all life is sacred, including Ozai’s. He just needs Ozai to understand that he doesn’t belong above the world, ruling over it. His attempts to do so threatened to destroy the wonderful balance of the world entirely.
Aang opens the sixth chakra, and leads Ozai through into the cosmic plane. Ozai, rather lost by this point, asks where they are. Aang explains that the seventh chakra, located at the crown of the head, is pure cosmic energy, and blocked by earthly attachment. He looks up, as does Ozai, to see the Cosmic figure, but this time it’s a more generic male silhouette, less specifically Aang’s, and with a third eye on the crown of the head instead of an airbender tattoo. He explains that he made it here once before, but he wasn’t willing to give up love to open the chakra. Ozai looks up at it, then back at Aang, and grins wickedly. He says that Aang, in all his wisdom and foolishness, had granted Ozai the key to ultimate victory. He might not have been all-powerful before, he explains… but he certainly can be now. Aang is too soft, too loving, to abandon his little friends. But Ozai understands that in pursuit of perfection, no cost is too great. He declares grandly that he casts aside his brother, his children, his nation, and every single other living thing. He will become something greater, an enlightened God, and then he will more than deserve his place at the centre of everything!
The episode ends, and we move to the final episode, Sozin’s Comet Part 5: Avatar Aang.
Ozai runs down the path to the giant three-eyed silhouette, Aang racing to stop him, and with a cry of triumph, the man reaches up to touch it. But to his surprise, it fades to nothing under his palm. He desperately grabs for any shred of it, any shadow, and finds nothing. Aang watches Ozai fumbling about on the starry ground, desperately claiming that he is pure, he is enlightened, he is willing to abandon his attachments to everything, why won’t it WORK?!
He watches Ozai, and remembers Iroh’s words, that perfection and power are overrated, and he was wiser to claim happiness and love. He remembers how when he abandoned his friends to chase after his honour alone following his defeat at Ba Sing Se, he nearly died, and his friends came to find him, helping him return to himself. He remembers Monk Gyatso defying the other monks who said he needed to be removed from his attachments in order to learn his role as the Avatar. Aang places a hand on Ozai’s shoulder, as the latter kneels on the ground, and explains that the seventh chakra isn’t about leaving other people behind. Ozai believes perfection and enlightenment comes from isolation. The Guru Phatik did too. But it’s the opposite. To be one with pure cosmic energy is to be connected to everything, to love the entire world, and everything in it.
Across the starry sky, we see images of all the people Aang has helped. A grandmother in a small tundra village, a spirit in black and white, a cranky old fisherman under a stormy sky. A young man flies on wings built by his father, while a white-haired maiden watches from the moon far above. Singing nomads play a merry tune and a group of swamp-dwellers dance along to it, while deep below them, a scholar reads a hundred different variants of the tale of two lovers. A group of wrestlers yell out challenges and jibes, none audible over the others. A tiny baby looks up at Aang, waving from her mother’s arms, and then turns her young eyes to a thousand happy animals, bounding around within their little zoo. A man, no longer a king, grins a silly grin alongside his pet bear.
Fire nation children dance freely across the sky, and one of them accidentally knocks over a cart of cabbages, to the dismay of its poor owner. A man with many hats holds up a healthy, one-headed fish. A bitter old woman stares up at the night sky from within a small, dry cell, and even as she curses the world, she cannot deny its beauty. The chief of a forgotten tribe smiles as his honoured Masters fly out in the open, unafraid for the first time in years, knowing already that a new era has begun. A fire nation criminal stands beside a water tribe war hero, and they both feel the joy of freedom. An actor recites comedic lines to his colleagues, and though they receive only groans, he’s certain that he’s improving.
Wise old men stand proudly over a freed city, while far away, a pair of imprisoned traitors know they made the right choice - to fight for those they love. A brave warrior battles firebenders with nothing but a fan, covering her brilliant boyfriend, who leads the greatest earthbender in the world through the winding halls of a crashing airship. With a single twist of her foot, the airship rights itself, saving them all from a fiery end. Halfway across the world, a prince looks down upon his fallen sister, and resolves to be kinder than either of his parents, to shower his children with love.
At his side, Aang sees a girl, with beautiful blue eyes and the strongest heart he’s ever seen. She supports the injured prince with her arm, and Aang knows that just like him, she is filled with enough compassion for the entire universe. He knows neither of them would ever leave a person in need, or abandon the ones they love. He knows that’s what makes them wise.
Aang smiles up at the cosmic silhouette. “I’m the Avatar.” He says with a gentle confidence. “That means my sole duty is to the world, and everything in it. I don’t treasure wealth, or power, or vengeance. I don’t need to be the centre of anything. All I want is to serve the world, and to help my friends.”
Three eyes glow brightly, until they envelop the entire screen, and then we see Aang’s silhouette, with each of his chakras flowing clearly, and his Airbender tattoos glowing a vibrant blue. He looks over his friends and loved ones once more, smiling fondly, and then down at the once-proud Phoenix King.
Ozai, still muttering crazed pleas to the universe, cannot see any of this. He can’t see anyone or anything but himself. Aang sighs, and approaches him once more. He tells Ozai that he’s sorry. But a man like him will never find the power he so desperately craves. Then, he places a hand on the crown of Ozai’s head. Ozai screams, somewhere between pain and terror, and we see him fall from the starlight path, tumbling down, down, down. He passes through the planet below, like it’s not even there, and falls into the void.
We return to reality, and Aang looks upon a scared, shaking shell of a man. He tries to lash out with a gout of flame, but nothing emerges from his palm. He demands to know what Aang has done to him, and Aang replies that he’s locked Ozai’s chakra, forever. He’s taken his bending away. Now he won’t be able to use it to hurt or threaten anyone else, ever again.
Aaaaand, there we are! We’re back in sync with the canon! But hopefully with the victory more earned, consistent, and dramatic, and maybe even more thematically cohesive. This was definitely sappy, and perhaps a little overexplained - I’m sure a good editor would have a field day with this. But I think the core concept is sound. I wanted to meld the energy-bending concept with the ideas the series has already set up. Namely, Chi, and the chakras through which it flows. We know chi-blocking can take away bending temporarily, we know that blocking chakras in certain contexts can lock someone out of certain spiritual abilities (e.g. the Avatar State) and we know what each of the Chakras represent, and why they are necessary. There is an apparent contradiction, I find, between the wisdom of Guru Phatik: that you must abandon attachment, including love, to attain enlightenment and cosmic Avatar State power - and that of Yangchen: that the Avatar must embrace the world in order to serve it. So I expanded on that. What was important here, really, was Aang asserting his own philosophy, one he truly considered and developed, using all his experience and the things he has learned. That he defines what being the Avatar means for him, and confidently stands behind his beliefs. Aang begins the series as an immature boy who runs from difficult decisions, difficult problems. He must end it as a wise young man who has his own answers for the hardest questions in life.
It also, as a bonus, ties his romance with Katara neatly into this thematic core. I wasn’t crazy about their kiss as the final shot of the series - I liked their romance well enough, better than some, but it didn’t feel like the heart of the series. But here, I think I worked it all in a little better. See, in the Book 2 finale, Aang chooses Katara twice. Once when he runs from the Guru to save her, the second time when he tries to abandon attachment to gain the power to protect her. Both were snap decisions, poorly considered and hardly defended. In other words, they were immature. But Aang wasn’t wrong in choosing to protect Katara, or wanting to be with her. He was immature because he didn’t know why that was the right thing to do. In this finale, Aang finds a much better answer to the same question. He stands by his love for Katara as his ultimate strength, not an impurity. And I think this makes the kiss between them being the final shot of the series feel… a little more earned.
So, yeah! I hope this made sense, I hope some people had the patience to get through it, and I hope it sparks some conversation. I really think this idea has potential, but it’s also very raw. If anyone has other elements to work in, or sees elements of the rewrite they don’t think work, I’d truly love to hear them!
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