The series finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender concluded the show with an epic battle seldom seen among children's shows, but it also left a few of its more intimate and personal story elements open to interpretation. First beginning on Nickelodeon in 2005, Avatar takes place in the world of the Four Nations wherein the ability of some to "bend" the elements of either Water, Earth, Fire, or Air each comprise their own discipline of martial arts. The Avatar alone is capable of mastering the ability to bend all of the elements, with the series focusing on the efforts of the 12 year-old Avatar Aang to master each element in order to end the Fire Nation's war on the rest of the world.
Avatar ran for three seasons and concluded on July 19, 2008 with the four-part episode "Sozin's Comet." All four episodes aired one after another that same evening and concluded the show with Aang and his friend's final battle against the invasion of Fire Lord Ozai. Packaging the four individual episodes as one proved to be the right move for the series, with Avatar's finale having a truly cinematic scope and feel (which is certainly far more than can be said for the show's 2010 big-screen adaptation The Last Airbender.)
"Sozin's Comet" wrapped up Avatar on the highest of notes, but the show still left a few lingering mysteries along with leaving other elements of the finale open-ended enough for viewers to read between the lines for their deeper meaning. To be sure, some of these have been addressed in Avatar's subsequent follow-ups, like the comics and the sequel series The Legend of Korra, but with Avatar now available on Netflix (which itself has a live-action reboot of the series in the works), now is as good a time as any to revisit the ending of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
How The Lion Turtle Helped Aang Defeat Ozai
With the final battle against the Fire Nation approaching, Aang faces a crisis of conscience at the idea of killing Fire Lord Ozai due to his pacifistic upbringing as a monk of the Southern Air Temple. After Aang departs his friends with his flying lemur Momo, he encounters a giant talking Lion Turtle, who tells the conflicted Aang, "The true heart can tough the poison of hatred without being harmed. Since beginless time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purifying light." The Lion Turtle then grants Aang the power of "energybending," and though Aang comes close to killing Ozai while in the Avatar State in their final showdown, he manages to fight the urge to do so and instead uses his energybending to strip Ozai of his ability to Firebend.
The major role the Lion Turtle plays in Avatar's finale is one of giving Aang a means by which his own pacifism can meet the out-of-control inferno Ozai represents on equal footing. Aang's peaceful upbringing won't allow him to take a life, while conquest and domination consume Ozai's heart and spirit. With Aang and Ozai representing such opposites of light and dark, Aang's ability of energybending allows him to counter Ozai's darkness on an internal level. Zuko himself had to re-learn the true meaning of Firebending earlier in season 3, and with Ozai having clearly possessed the same misunderstanding on a far deeper level, this is what allows Aang to extinguish Ozai's ability to Firebend. In doing so, Aang fulfills his role as the Avatar to restore harmony and balance to the world.
The Importance Of Zuko's Mother
What became of Zuko's mother Ursa was a significant aspect of his story and feelings of abandonment. This was seen when Zuko learned that Ursa had saved him from execution in order to allow Ozai to ascend to the Fire Lord's throne, and the deal struck between Ursa and Ozai also resulted in her being exiled from the Fire Nation. Following Ozai's defeat, Avatar would conclude with one final loose end when Zuko, now the new Fire Lord, confronts Ozai in prison to learn what became of Ursa - but the series ends without providing an answer.
Though the show concluded its story with one plot element ending on a cliffhanger, Avatar keeping Ursa's ultimate fate a mystery added another layer to Zuko's story of redemption. When Ursa departed to save Zuko's life, her absence left him under the influence of Ozai, with Zuko's own exile leaving him determined to earn his father's love at any cost - including capturing the Avatar. However, Uncle Iroh's presence in Zuko's life after his exile provided the exact kind of guidance and love he had lost with his mother's departure, and allowed Zuko to find his way back to being the person she had intended to raise him to be. Though Avatar itself concluded without solving the mystery of Zuko's mother Ursa, that and other aspects of the story were later revealed in the comics.
Why Azula Becoming Fire Lord Drove Her Mad
Among the numerous converging character arcs in Avatar's finale, "Sozin's Comet" also zeroed in on the swift and dramatic rise and fall for Azula. With Ozai proclaiming himself the Phoenix King before heading into the final battle, he crowns Azula the new Fire Lord in his absence. Despite this promotion offering the very power that she's craved throughout the show, it also proves to be Azula's undoing when she suffers a total mental breakdown before she is finally captured by Katara.
Despite the big final battle, it was really Azula who defeated herself. Where Zuko's pursuit of Aang in the show's beginning was only a means to the end of reclaiming his place in the Fire Nation, his sister was far more deeply indoctrinated in Ozai's philosophy of conquest and domination. However, this ended up being her undoing as soon as she became Fire Lord, as she had now achieved the utmost power she had pursued her whole life, but still craved the thrill of wielding her might over the rest of the world in the heat of battle. In the end, without a war immediately in front of her to wage, Azula's stability was completely erased by becoming the Fire Lord, leaving her at her most vulnerable in the climactic Agni Kai and ending in her defeat.
How Did The Story Of Avatar Continue?
Following Avatar season 3 and the series finale, the story of The Last Airbender continued in graphic novel form, including in The Lost Adventures, a collection of various short stories previously published individually in such places as Nickelodeon Magazine and DVD sets and taking place within the show's continuity, save for two "Bonus Stories". Beginning in 2012, the show's story officially continued in a graphic novel series that began with The Promise, which followed the events after the show's end, with the series still continuing in the upcoming Katara and the Pirate's Silver. Additionally, The Search resolved the mystery of the disappearance of Zuko's mother, revealing she'd been granted a new face and the identity of Noriko by the Mother of Faces, while having her memories of her old life removed. Azula is also featured in The Search, where she manages to escape, and in the later story arc Smoke and Shadow, descending further into insanity as her story progresses. Avatar has also seen a number of prequel novels, including the upcoming The Shadow of Kyoshi.
2012 marked a revival of the Avatar franchise on TV with The Legend of Korra, set over seventy years after its predecessor and focusing the next Avatar, Korra. Aang himself appeared intermittently on the show either in flashbacks or in spirit form, while the grown-up versions of Toph, Katara, Sokka, and Zuko also appeared either in flashbacks or the present tense. Additionally, the elderly Toph would also prove to be an important, if cranky, mentor to Korra in Book Four of the series.
Avatar remains a beloved franchise in both its mainline series and its various animated and literary continuations, but one of the biggest factors in its continued popularity is how much it hit the bull's eye with its ending. In a four-part final episode that watches more like a full-fledged movie, "Sozin's Comet" raised the scale and the stakes of the show higher then they'd ever been before, delivering an action-packed series finale that also brought every character's story to a fully satisfying conclusion. Netflix's live-action reboot will give fans of the show a chance to see Team Avatar again after a long absence from our screens, but the emotional and epic farewell that the finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender provided viewers is exactly why they've been so missed to begin with.