Storytelling Principles I Learned from Avatar: The Last Airbender

 

I'd be surprised if anyone hasn't seen the original Avatar: The Last Airbender series yet, but if you haven't, then stop reading this blog and go get a Netflix subscription and watch it NOW! There are very few series, if any, that have better worldbuilding, character development, and storytelling than Avatar, and I hope by exploring its storytelling tools, I can reverse-engineer ways to add engagement in my own stories and roleplaying games. The main aspect I'm going to be discussing is variety and contrast. The variety of places, things, concepts, characters, and pacing in the show are what I think make each episode and season unique, and what contribute to a rich narrative that is hard to stop watching.

The Four Nations

The world of Avatar is characterized by four nations, each with a different distinctive style. Each nation in the show is very distinct from the others and easy to recognize, from their color of clothing to their real-world cultural influence. The contrast of each nation makes it easy to tell who Team Avatar is interacting with and where they are in any given episode. Besides the four main nations based on each of the four elements, there are subcultures that give the world even more flavor.

The Water Tribe

• Inuit culture focused on survival
• Waterbend, which is strengthened by a full moon and is based on the Chinese martial art Tai Chi
• Generally have brown hair, blue or gray eyes, and tan skin
• Wear blue clothing
• A chief-based government
• Live in icy areas like the North and South Pole. The Foggy Swamp subculture lives in a swamp and can bend plants.
• Can bend water, ice, and mud. Some waterbenders can use waterbending to heal.
• Mostly good, but very divided as a culture, and one evil waterbender knew how to waterbend blood.

The Earth Kingdom

• Chinese Ming and Qing dynasty culture focused on order
• Earthbend, which began with the badgermoles and is based on the Chinese martial art Hung Ga
• Generally have brown or black hair, brown or green eyes, and varied skin tones
• Wear green clothing
• A semi-confederate monarchist government
• Live in scatter villages and in enormous cities. The Sandbender subculture live in deserts and can bend sand.
• Can bend dirt, rocks, and mud. Particularly skilled earthbenders can sense seismic vibrations and heartbeats, and even bend metal and lava.
• Varied alignments. Sandbenders are brigands, and the dark side of the Earth Kingdom is the conspiratorial Dai Li, who puppet the king and enforce a tyrannical level of order

The Fire Nation

• Japanese culture focused on honor
• Firebend, which is strengthened by the sun and comets and is based on the Chinese martial art Northern Shaolin
• Generally have black hair, golden or brown eyes, and light skin
• Wear red, yellow, and brown clothing
• An absolute monarchist government
• Live in large urban centers and industrial establishments
• Can bend fire and heat. Skilled firebenders can bend lightning and use fire as propulsion, and some can create combustive explosions using their mind.
• Generally evil due to evil leaders, a warped sense of honor, and fueling firebending through rage. The lighter side of the Fire Nation is the Sun Warriors, who fueled their firebending through fire's life-giving and creative properties.

The Air Nomads

• Indian culture focused on inner peace and spirituality
• Airbend, which began with the sky bison and is based on the Chinese martial art Baguazhang
• Generally have black hair which is shaved bald, gray eyes, and light skin.
• Wear orange and yellow clothing
• A government based on a counsel of elders
• Wanderers, but also lived in four hard-to-reach temples
• Can bend air and fly
• Good and pacifistic

There is also the Order of the White Lotus, an ancient secret society of scholars that transcends the boundaries of the four nations.

Characters

Despite the cohesion that links members of the same nation together, Avatar does a great job giving variety to the vast roster of characters in the series. The characters' personalities and skills vary widely, of course, but the complex interactions between the four nations bring characters who approve of their nation ideals, directly oppose them, or take those ideals to an extreme. If every member of the Fire Nation was an elitist tyrant like General Zhao, the series wouldn't be nearly be as interesting. Instead, you see Fire Nation children who aren't yet indoctrinated by Fire Nation propoganda; the firebending master Jong Jong, who considers firebending a curse; and Azula, who's just a straight-up manipulative monster. More interesting still are the villanous characters who come from normally good nations, such as the earth general Fong who wants to force Aang into the Avatar State, the tyrannical brainwashing conspiratorial royal counselor Long Feng, the earth freedom fighter willing to kill Fire Nation civilians, and the bloodbending hag Hama.

Aside from variety within large nations that Team Avatar travels in throughout the entire series, there's even variety within the smaller groups that they encounter. For example, Azula and her entourage consist of:

• The cocky, manupulative firebender who's so skilled that she stands out by bending blue flames; the leader of the group
• The cute acrobat who knows how to block qi flow in her opponents, paralyzing people and blocking their bending; not necessarily evil but is forced to follow Azula
• The cold, bored noble girl who is skilled at throwing knives; follows Azula's evil ways because there's nothing more interesting to do

This group of Fire Nation girls would simply not be interesting at all if all three were firebenders. Instead, each has a unique personality and fighting style that creates ample opportunities for social interactions and battles. 

And most important of all, there's Team Avatar itself, which has representation from each of the four nations with vastly different personalities:

• The airbending kid who wants to just be a kid, but who is burdened with the responsibility of saving the world
• The waterbending girl whose skills are adept and who has leadership skills, but who is sometimes too overbearing
• The non-bender guy who acts as comic relief and comes up with intelligent yet sometimes risky plans
• The earthbending girl who is the greatest earthbender in history, but is sassy and sometimes limited by blindness
• The firebending guy who was once one of the main villains, but who went through great and painful change to oppose those he once honored and to help those he once hunted

I love the contrast of Team Avatar's members. It is simply perfect how each of the characters can bounce off of each other member due to connections like family and conflicts in personality.

Locations

Another thing I love each time I watch Avatar is the varied locations that Team Avatar travels through. Rather than focusing only on significant story moments and beats, Avatar assigns different locations to each of these story moments to make them even more memorable. And each location often has some aspect of one of the four elements that makes it fascinating.

Team Avatar explores almost every different type of biome: ice, ocean, island, desert, canyon, mountain, swamp, desert, urban metropolis, and volcanic, not to mention the spirit locations that Aang travels to. Each city, from the incredibly vast walled city of Ba Sing Se to ghost mining towns to the city with earthbending cargo transportation systems, Omashu, is memorably unique. Even places with the same story purpose, like prisons, are distinct. They range from a seabound vessel that prevents earthbending to an underground crystal cavern to a prison in the middle of a boiling lake. Fantastic locations like Wan Shi Tong's Library, the Spirit Oasis, and the ancient Sun Warrior city add flavor and make the world of Avatar feel interesting and engaging.

Another interesting use of contrast is the recurring theme of Team Avatar visiting one of the four Air Temples—one for each cardinal direction—at different times throughout the series. Each temple is visited during a time between big adventures in the storyline, and each abandoned Air Nomad temple stands out:

• Southern Air Temple. Aang's former home, with sanctuaries, an airball arena, statues of past avatars, and a population of winged lemurs.
• Northern Air Temple. Similar to the Southern Air Temple originally, but taken over by the mechanist and outfitted with inventions and steam technology to house Earth Kingdom refugees.
• Eastern Air Temple. A temple spread across three mountain peaks and connected by bridges. The home of sky bison that the airbenders would keep as lifelong companions, and the home of Guru Pathik.
• Western Air Temple. Hidden on the underside of a cliff with buildings that appear to be upside-down. 

Battles

One essential aspect of Avatar are the battle sequences, amazingly animated and fantastically paired with the bending arts. Each battle sets itself apart pacing-wise and each bender uses incredibly resourceful ways to bend their element, which makes each fight fun to watch. There is also an interesting formula I've seen in battles for the purposes of pacing, however. Usually, Team Avatar fights a group of other fighters, fairly easily beating off each one, sometimes with a single hit. But after the main "minions" are fought off, there's always one more powerful enemy at the end that takes significantly longer to beat. This is a good principle in D&D games to add variety to the pacing and the challenge level of an encounter.

Avatar: The Last Airbender is fantastic. And Legend of Korra's third season was good. I highly recommend them if you want to learn how an incredible story is told and presented with inspiring levels of variety and contrast.