With some surprisingly well-thought-out casting choices, Netflix's interpretation of the Avatar: The Last Airbender has given fans a small amount of hope that it will not turn out as "misguided" as the movie that does not exist. With Maria Zhang and Elizabeth Yu being cast as Suki and Azula respectively, hopes are high that Netflix's writing department can do these characters the justice they deserve.
The Avatar series has long since been commended for its well-rounded and dynamic characters. The women in Avatar are all strong in different ways, showcasing a range of personalities and abilities, but when it comes down to pure fighting strength, there are some that clearly outrank the others.
Updated on November 5th, 2022 by Amanda Bruce: Strength comes in many forms in the world of Avatar. While most of the strongest characters are impressive fighters, it can be just as impressive not to engage in the fight, to move to an entirely new continent and start over, or to make a huge sacrifice for the good of one’s people. The women in Avatar: The Last Airbender exhibit those types of strength just as readily as they do abilities in a one-on-one fight. Fans are eagerly anticipating seeing the different kinds of strength on display when Netflix debuts its live action Avatar series.
Aunt Wu
Plenty of fans wouldn’t necessarily think of Aunt Wu first when thinking of strength. She’s not a bender, but she’s an incredibly well-respected community leader. She guides the people around her with her interpretations of prophecy, even if she’s not always exactly right.
Aunt Wu does, however, correctly predict what will happen to Aang one day. Every so often, she demonstrates a larger display of her own power than fans expect.
Princess Yue
Princess Yue isn’t a bender. She also isn’t a fighter as guards are employed to keep her safe on a regular basis. Despite that, she is definitely one of the strongest women in the franchise.
Yue makes the choice to give up her first love and her own life to make sure the Water Tribes can continue to thrive. She takes the place of the Moon Spirit. Without Yue’s sacrifice, Water Benders would no longer have power and the Fire Nation would have ruled over everyone. Despite her young age, Yue believed she had found her purpose and could do the most good by becoming the spirit of the moon herself.
Kanna
The audience better knows Kanna as “Gran Gran” since that’s what Katara and Sokka most often call her. She essentially raises her grandchildren after the death of their mother while their father is often away. That’s not where her strength lies though.
Kanna was originally a member of the Northern Water Tribe. She gave up everything she knew when she married a member of the Southern Water Tribe and relocated to the other side of the world. That’s a huge leap for a young woman to make, especially when the show demonstrates that the two tribes aren’t always on the best of terms. Gran Gran does her best to coach and protect Katara from those who would seek to harm her for her gifts as well. She demonstrates extreme bravery in the series.
June
June made her debut in Avatar when Prince Zuko contracted her to use the necklace Katara lost to help him track down and capture the Avatar Aang. She was able to do this through the help of her pet Shirshu Nyla whose tracking ability was said to allegedly be able to "smell a rat a continent away."
While June is not a bender of any kind, she's a strong hand-to-hand combatant and uses a whip to great efficiency. Her greatest strength is that she fights alongside Nyla who has a poisoned tongue capable of paralyzing large beasts with a few scratches. The combo of immobilizing whip and paralyzing tongue make June a top-rated bounty hunter.
Smellerbee
SmellerBee is introduced as one of the main lieutenants of Jet's Freedom Fighters, a group of Earth Nation refugees who had their homes destroyed by the Fire Nation Army. SmellerBee is known for her usually casual attitude and being one of the few Freedom Fighters, besides Jet's #2 Longshot, who has the guts to stand up and disagree with Jet when she feels his goals are misguided.
As a Freedom Fighter whose base lies in the forest, Smellerbee is adept at jungle warfare, trap setting, and is proficient in stealth combat. She is also adept at using poisons and is a proficient swordsman complimented by her speed and exceptional ability. She was shown to be able to fight off multiple armored combatants single-handedly.
Hama
Making her debut in one of Avatar's best episodes " The Puppetmaster", Hama initially gives the impression of a kind, if not creepy old lady. She reveals herself to be a Water Bender from the Southern Water tribe similar to Katara and Sokka, who was once captured by the Fire Nation but escaped through her development of Blood Bending.
Blood Bending is a Water Bending style developed by Hama and allows her to manipulate the blood in her opponents body which when used, makes the target twist and bend in grotesque and horrifying ways. Against single combatants, Blood Bending is the ultimate form, as it can only be countered by other blood benders as seen when Katara won their fight through counter blood bending Hama.
Mai
Mai is a childhood friend of Azula and Ty Lee who teams up with the other two at Azula's "request" to hunt down the Avatar. Mai is best known for her sarcastic deadpan and general reluctance to do anything, only joining Azula because she literally had nothing better to do.
Mai is a master of various throwing weapons, usually taking the form of throwing knives but she also carries a gauntlet that allows her to shoot small bolts as well as Senbon or "acupuncture needles." She is also proficient hand-to-hand fighter which is scene on occasion, but she typically prefers to pin enemies in place for others to deal with.
Suki
Suki is the Captain and leader of the Kiyoshi warriors as well as being one of the members of the "GAANG", the Avatars group. For a greater part of the series she is mainly an honorary member as she is usually traveling around the Earth Kingdom alongside the other Kiyoshi warriors helping wherever she can.
Suki is adept at using one-handed Katana's that can be paired with a large shield. The main weapons of the Kyoshi warriors are their dual-weld metal folding fans that are used non-lethally for both offense or defense. Her true strength however lies in her exceptional hand-to-hand combat skills and masterful acrobatics which have only been seen to be rivaled by Ty Lee.
Katara
Katara is one of the female protagonists of the Avatar series and the reason why Aang is found to begin with. As she travels with the Avatar, Katara encounters many fights and accumulates an exceptional amount of battle and bending experience. Katara becomes the strongest Water Bender in the series even surpassing master Pakku through the incorporation of other bending styles into her own.
Katara is a diligent student and spends a significant amount of time and effort learning and perfecting any Water Bending skills she happens to learn or think of. She also acts as the Water bending master to Aang and beat Azula in one-on-one combat, though Azula was fairly unhinged at this point. Katara is also an exceptional healer showcased when she brought Aang back from the dead, as well as being the only Water Bender alive that is able to Blood Bend besides Hama.
Ty Lee
Ty Lee is one of Azula's trio alongside Mai, though in contrast to the others, she has a very kind and fun-loving personality preferring to literally cartwheel herself through life. Normally she wouldn't hunt down the Avatar to begin with, but through Azula's "persuasion", Ty Lee joins the group on their hunt.
Ty Lee is the sole known practitioner of Chi Blocking, an exceptionally rare martial art that targets an enemies pressure points to block their abilities to bend as well as paralyze their bodies. Ty Lee's use of Chi Blocking along with her second-to-none flexibility and dexterity makes her an almost unbeatable hand-to-hand combatant, and she scores many victories over even master-level benders.
Avatar Kyoshi
Kyoshi is a fan-favorite Avatar from two incarnations before Aang and was the Earth cycle incarnation. Kyoshi was the tallest Avatar at 2.1 meters or 7' tall and by far lived to be the oldest of any Avatar dying at approximately 230 years old. Contrary to belief, Kyoshi was not a violent Avatar and pursued justice through her creation of the Kyoshi Warriors and the Dai Li.
As the Avatar, Kyoshi mastered all four bending styles which she accomplished through many years of training. She was an excellent hand-to-hand combatant known for fighting with her distinguishable war fans. Though little is shown of her actual battles or fighting, the feats she does display show she had the power to move entire islands and mountains single-handedly.
Azula
Princess Azula is introduced as the younger sister of Prince Zuko and daughter of Fire Lord Ozai. She is a prodigious tactician and bender who is supremely confident in her abilities and never doubts herself. She is often seen accompanied by Mai and Ty Lee but is more than capable of handling any threat herself.
Azula was born an exceptional Fire Bender and as a result had a significant amount of pressure on her from a young age to be a perfect bender. Her perfectionist qualities led her to be a dangerous combatant and the only bender known to have unique blue flames which are produced when a fire has perfect combustion and no waste is produced, in essence, perfect fire. Her perfectionist quality causes her to stop at nothing to catch the Avatar making her a supremely dangerous adversary.
Toph
Toph Beifong is the sole daughter and heir to the Beifong family who are one of the wealthiest families in Avatar. However, as she is blind, her parents smothered her with overprotection as they believed she was helpless and never allowed her to do anything on her own. This drove Toph to run away and learn Earth Bending which transformed her blindness from a disability to her greatest strength.
As she is blind, Toph relies on the vibrations of the earth rather than her eyes to see and fight through earthbending which she learned from blind badgermoles. Her unique style of earthbending causes her to have the strongest connection to earth seen in any bender alive and eventually leads Toph to develop the never-before-seen metal bending. Toph is a pioneer in earth bending and has rarely is ever lost a fight no matter how outmatched the fight may seem.