Between Last Airbender and Legend of Korra, Avatar has seven seasons with seven villains that run the gamut from hot garbage to top quality. I’m not even counting Zuko, who’s frankly in a different category altogether. So before Nickelodeon’s new Avatar studio expands this list by making something other than a YouTube channel of highlight reels, let’s look at all the Avatar villains and discover what makes them succeed or fail.
7. Unalaq
It’s only natural that the franchise’s worst season would also have its worst villain. That’s season two of Korra, which wastes an entire episode giving Korra amnesia when it was already badly squeezed for time. But to give credit where credit is due: Unalaq doesn’t seem too bad at first. In fact, he appears to be an antagonistic mentor, someone who wants to teach Korra about the spirits but also has goals she opposes. Specifically, Unalaq wants to occupy the south pole and force its residents to observe northern customs.
I’m a big fan of the antagonistic mentor trope, so Unalaq actually had me excited at first, but that excitement doesn’t last. You see, Unalaq’s real plan is to open the north and south spirit portals, which will let him merge with the evil spirit Vaatu and essentially become a god. He needs Korra’s cooperation to open the portals, and he has it until he invades her home at the south pole and puts her father in prison. This is a rare instance of a villain defeating himself, and I cannot fathom what his motivation is supposed to be. If he merges with Vaatu, he’ll be nearly all-powerful, and he can make the south do whatever he wants. If he doesn’t, he can always invade a few days later. Launching the invasion before Korra has opened both portals just makes Unalaq’s job harder.
There’s something far worse about Unalaq’s plan though: everything associated with him, from his monster children to the poorly advised retconning of Avatar’s history. What’s that, did you forget the monster children? His two kids, Eska and Desna, are not only drawn differently than the other characters, but they love murder to an almost Snidely Whiplash degree. Unalaq seems to have raised them fairly well, so I have no idea where those personality traits came from. It seems the writers didn’t either, as the siblings get less and less extreme the longer they’re in the show. I’m guessing they’re supposed to be a parody of teenagers in a goth phase, but it just does not work.
The setting retcons are even worse. I know you thought that humans learned bending from studying the world’s mystical creatures like dragons and badgermoles* but no, it was actually a group of lion turtles handing out elemental control like candy. Well, that’s a lot less cool. Maybe in the next series, we can reveal that bending actually comes from midichlorians. Unalaq’s evil plan also reveals that when humans and spirits originally came into conflict, the first Avatar’s solution was to banish all spirits from the material world forever. And we’re supposed to like the first Avatar. Gross.
The capstone of this awful pyramid is that thanks to Unalaq, we now know that the Avatar setting is divided into a good/evil binary. Remember Vaatu? Turns out he’s the great spirit of darkness and chaos. His opposite, Raava, is the great spirit of light and peace. Now, it’s possible to present darkness and chaos without moral judgment, but that’s not what Legend of Korra does. Instead, it’s very clear that if Vaatu ever wins his battle with Raava, the world will immediately go to crap. That’s just our popular image of God and Satan repackaged as East Asian–sounding spirits.
To be clear: good/evil binaries are not inherently bad. You can have a great story about banishing the dark god back from whence they came. The problem is that Avatar has always taken a more balanced approach, and I mean that literally. None of the forces in Avatar, be they element types or nation states, are inherently evil. In Last Airbender, the problem wasn’t that fire was supernaturally bad; it’s that the Fire Nation was invading everyone else. The world was out of balance.
Vaatu and Raava don’t fit with the setting’s established themes, and frankly they’re a lot less interesting. Fortunately, they all but disappear after this season, but they’re around long enough to drag Unalaq down with them. Also, it’s really unclear what Unalaq thinks he’s gonna get from merging with Vaatu. Unalaq’s stated goal is to bring spirits back into the world, but Vaatu is obviously super evil, and it doesn’t seem like Unalaq had a plan for dealing with that.
6. Zaheer
Hey look, it’s Zaheer, leader of the Red Lotus Society! The Red Lotus has always been around, and if you’ve never heard of them, it’s only because they’re so good at hiding. Okay, I might still be a little annoyed that Legend of Korra’s third season introduced a big anti-Avatar conspiracy without any buildup in the previous seasons. Just a little.
Zaheer’s first problem is just that: he and the rest of the Red Lotus are incredibly rushed. Unalaq was introduced out of nowhere, too, but he was just Korra’s uncle and chief of the Northern Water Tribe. That doesn’t take a lot of explanation. In season three, we have to explain the concept of an anti-Avatar secret society, then get into the backstory of Zaheer and his special team of evil PCs. All in a 13-episode season.
Zaheer’s second problem is that he’s a straw anarchist. And I don’t just mean he wants to cause chaos. His many speeches make it clear that he subscribes to anarchist political philosophy. The straw part is that his philosophy seems to only go as far as killing political leaders, then hoping the rest will sort itself out. Historically, there have been anarchists who took that view, but the vast majority of anarchist political energy has always focused on organizing workers. Most anarchists know and have known that without working-class unity, assassinating kings and presidents will just cause chaos and destruction.
Not Zaheer though. He wants to jump straight to the fun murder bit. This is annoying for two reasons. The first is that if you know anything about anarchist political thought, Zaheer looks incredibly incompetent. What good does it do for him to suffocate the Earth Queen if there are no worker collectives to take her place? The second is that real anarchists often face harsh discrimination specifically because so many people think their ideology is nothing but violence and chaos.
Even once we accept Zaheer’s half-baked politics, his plan to kill Korra and end the Avatar cycle doesn’t make sense. Anarchists oppose those who hold political power: rulers and the like. The Avatar doesn’t fit that description. The Avatar’s actual job is to keep the peace between four nations, not to enforce those nations’ political systems. In fairness, Korra also enforces the law, but Zaheer was intent on killing her long before that. Also, the plan itself requires Korra to go into the Avatar State, but only after Zaheer has poisoned her. If she enters the Avatar State earlier, perhaps to avoid being poisoned, he’s up a creek without a paddle. Fortunately, Korra mostly forgets about the Avatar State in season three.
Finally, Zaheer just isn’t that threatening as a bad guy. He’s a skilled airbender, but his big technique is learning how to fly. That’s something all other airbenders could already do using their gliders. How intimidating. Still, he scores higher than Unalaq because none of Zaheer’s silliness undermines the very world of Avatar.
5. Amon
From the moment Amon and his Equalists first appear in season one, it’s clear there’s a problem: Legend of Korra has created a conflict of systemic oppression, then made the oppressed group into villains. That conflict is between benders and non-benders, with Amon fighting on the non-bender side. I won’t say it’s impossible to do this well, as being a revolutionary does not automatically make you a good person, but it’s very difficult. Sadly, Legend of Korra is not up to the task.
To the show’s credit though, it does get the power dynamics right. We see that benders with their magical martial arts form a privileged class, while non-benders are often mistreated or neglected. There are clear grievances here, which is better than pretending that people support an uprising for no reason, but it turns into a problem when the show can’t follow through. After defeating Amon, our heroes do nothing to alleviate the problems that caused his uprising in the first place. The closest we get is some exposition explaining that Republic City is now governed by an elected president instead of a council formed by the other nations.
At best, that’s a lateral step. The only change we see is that Republic City now has political independence, which was never something the Equalists or their supporters cared about. While the new president is a non-bender, there’s nothing to indicate he has any interest in remedying the systemic issues we saw earlier. The lack of follow through might stem from the writers not knowing how many episodes they’d actually have to work with when planning the series, but that doesn’t fix the problem.
What about Amon himself though? Here’s where he draws ahead of Zaheer and Unalaq, as Amon is one scary customer. Both his background and his appearance are mysterious, as he wears a spooky mask at all times. Somehow, he can take people’s bending away, or at least suppress it. That’s something only the Avatar could do before. Questions ring in the air as each episode of the first season unfolds: Who is Amon? Why does he want to rid the world of benders? Where did he get his powers? Mystery is a major factor in keeping a villain scary, and Amon has loads of it.
Then the reveal arrives and everything comes tumbling down. Amon turns out to be… the son of a mob boss that Aang fought back in the day. He only covered his face so a side character wouldn’t recognize him. That’s what we call a Some Guy reveal. Who was Amon? You know, some guy. Learning Amon’s true identity doesn’t change the story in any way, nor does it shed light on his motivation. We learn that his father abused him, but his father wasn’t even a bender by then, thanks to Aang. That makes Amon’s hatred of benders super arbitrary. He might as well hate all male authority figures or everyone from the Water Tribe, as that’s where his father raised him.
As to how Amon did what he did: it was blood bending all the way down. Despite previously established limits, Amon can blood bend at any time, and he doesn’t even have to use martial arts moves like every other bender. And his blood powers can take away his victim’s bending, somehow. I guess bending really depends on unclogged arteries.
When you intentionally hide something about an important character, especially the main villain, you create expectations that need to be fulfilled. If you don’t have a suitably impressive reveal, then don’t conceal those things in the first place! Political issues aside, Amon could have been great if his secrets had stuck the landing. Instead, he’s yet another example of writers promising way more than they can deliver.
4. Ozai
Admit it: you’re surprised to see Last Airbender’s final boss at the midpoint of this list. Last Airbender is a great show, and its third season is particularly good, so how can its villain possibly be anything but top shelf? Mainly because he’s boring, and not even Mark Hamill’s voice acting can fix that.
For the first and second season, Ozai is kept very mysterious. We never see his face or hear him talk, even when he appears in Zuko’s flashbacks. This creates a situation similar to Amon’s, though not as intense. By keeping Ozai intentionally mysterious, the show raises expectations of what he’ll be once he’s finally present.
That moment comes in season three, and he’s just a guy. A mean guy to be sure, but about what you’d expect from the ruler of an expansionist empire at war. There’s nothing surprising about him, which makes viewers wonder why he was kept so mysterious in previous seasons. It also means he doesn’t stand out. Compared to some of the franchise’s more flamboyant villains, Ozai is kinda bland.
What about his threat level? He could make up for a lack of personality by being super scary. Unfortunately, he’s once again average. The characters say he’s very powerful, and as someone related to powerful firebenders like Zuko, Iroh, and Azula, that’s certainly plausible. But we’ve never actually seen him do anything. Instead, he’s been cloistered in the imperial palace since the show started. His only fight that we know about is when he burns a 13-year-old Zuko in a flashback, and Zuko doesn’t even fight back.
Nor does he get any threat as leader of the Fire Nation. We know he goes to war meetings, but whenever we see his army in action, its leaders seem to be acting on their own initiative, with little or no directive from the capital. Maybe he’s great at organizing logistics, but if so we never see it. The one time we see one of his plans in action, it doesn’t make any sense, as he orders his airship fleet to burn down all of the conquered Earth Kingdom using the power boost from Sozin’s Comet.
It’s immediately obvious this plan won’t work because the comet’s power only lasts a short while. Given the fleet’s starting location, they’d have run out of time before they reached a populated area, even if Aang hadn’t shown up. More fundamentally, this doesn’t serve the Fire Nation’s interest. Even the most brutal conqueror doesn’t want to burn down all the stuff they just conquered. That’s why Nazi Germany would exterminate or deport people from land it wanted rather than setting everything on fire.
With a disappointing introduction and little action to his name, Ozai feels more like a video game boss than anything else, patiently waiting for the heroes to finish their side quests before they fight him. That all said, he doesn’t have any of the truly disappointing mistakes of previous entries; he’s just not that interesting. The perfect average.
3. Zhao
Admiral Zhao is an unusual villain: in a show about elemental martial arts, very little of Zhao’s threat comes from his physical prowess. Before the first season is over, it’s clear that both Aang and Zuko can beat him in a fight, and it seems likely Katara could do the same once she finishes leveling up at the north pole. And yet, he maintains a decent threat level for his entire run on the show. How does he do it? Minions.
As his rank implies, Zhao is a military leader. He has both fleets and armies at his disposal, meaning the best our heroes can do is run away when he shows up, even if they can easily take him in a one-on-one fight. In fact, some of Zhao’s minions are actually too powerful for their own good. The Yuyan Archers in particular make short work of Team Avatar without breaking a sweat, and then we never see them again. Seems like something the Fire Nation would use more often.
Other than issues with disappearing archers, Zhao generally puts his minions to good use. He captures Aang a few times, and while the Avatar always escapes, it’s a difficult matter. Zhao also deals Zuko a blow by blowing up the exiled prince’s ship, giving Zuko some major injuries by cartoon standards. You can tell things are serious when a character’s bruise takes two whole episodes to fade away!
But Zhao’s crowning glory is the finale of season one, when he brings an unstoppable fleet to conquer the Northern Water Tribe. We see his forces relentlessly push through the Water Tribe’s defenses, but there’s more to it than that: Zhao has a plan to end waterbending forever by slaying the moon. Never mind all the damage that will cause to the rest of the world, including the Fire Nation; Zhao’s got a battle to win. And he does it, too, making it seem like all is lost. That’s a serious accomplishment for a villain, even if the heroes do find a way to win later.
Personality wise, Zhao is nothing to write home about. He’s got your standard-issue evil conqueror traits like ambition and ruthlessness, but nothing that really makes him stand out. That’s okay though, as Zuko is the season-one antagonist with emotional depth. Zhao gets the army instead, because if Zuko had it, he’d be too powerful to sympathize with.
All told, Zhao is a good introductory villain. He’s threatening, but not so threatening that the fresh-faced heroes have no chance against him. His motivation is realistic, but not particularly complex, which is helpful when viewers are still learning the ins and outs of a world. Most importantly, Zhao doesn’t overstay his welcome.
Attacking the north pole is clearly Zhao’s high water mark. Once he fails there, he’ll never be a serious threat again, no matter how many tanks and battleships the Fire Lord gives him. Fortunately, the writers knew better than to leave a defeated villain wandering around to cause trouble, and so Zhao is pulled beneath the waves by an angry ocean spirit, never to be seen again. Well, never to be seen again until Korra’s airbending teacher meets him wandering around a cursed fog bank in the spirit world, but we’ll let that slide.
Zhao’s departure opens room for a new villain to take his place, more than enough to earn him a third place slot. And what about his replacement? Don’t worry, we get to her, but first we have to dash back over to Legend of Korra for a moment.
2. Kuvira
Hey look, it’s a Legend of Korra villain who isn’t a straw leftist. Things are looking up! They’re looking up even more because unlike the other entries from her show, Kuvira is a great villain. The most immediate reason is that she doesn’t spring fully formed from the head of Zeus. Before her season-four villainhood, Kuvira is a minor ally on team good. We see her running around in the background quite a bit before she finally takes off her helmet and gives us a name.
In complete fairness, I’ll admit this isn’t the best villain setup I’ve ever seen. Even with the three-year time jump, it’s a bit jarring to see this capable soldier transformed into a general who can take down the Avatar. However, it’s still miles better than the buildup that any of Korra’s other villains get, which is none. It’s enough that I’m at least not left wondering where the heck she came from. It also means that Kuvira’s lieutenants are mostly characters we’ve already seen, as she recruited them from Team Good rather than inventing an entirely new minion squad. You won’t believe the time savings!
But Kuvira’s status as a former good guy helps her in another, more foundational way: it gives her an emotional connection to the heroes. This time they’re not fighting some rando they’ve never heard of. Kuvira is a comrade in arms. Some on Team Avatar even owe her their lives. This connection helps make Kuvira the best sympathetic villain in the Avatar franchise since Zuko. Legend of Korra tried and flopped with all three of its previous villains, but fourth time’s the charm I guess.
The other factor that makes Kuvira sympathetic is her motivation: she doesn’t want to see the Earth Kingdom turned back over to an incompetent monarch. That’s what created the country’s problems in the first place! Naturally, things would be better if she had absolute power instead by appealing to Earth Kingdom nationalism and casting the other nations as enemies to be defeated. You can see how a reasonable person would arive at Kuvira’s conclusions even though it’s clear that she’s wrong.
Kuvira’s villainous plan is also refreshingly coherent: after uniting the Earth Kingdom under her rule, she sets her sights on Republic City. She feels justified because Republic City is built on land originally taken from the Earth Kingdom by the Fire Nation in its hundred-year war. Again, you can see where she’s coming from here. Her nation was a victim in that war, and when it was over, they had to give up rights to a chunk of territory in the name of peace? Even if xenophobic conquest isn’t the solution, that’s a legitimate grievance.
And in another first for Legend of Korra, some of Kurvira’s grievances are actually addressed once she’s defeated. The Earth King isn’t restored to power, and instead abdicates in favor of a transition to democracy. That’s a huge step up from Amon and Zaheer, whose issues were just ignored once the season ended. Granted, Republic City is still built on land stolen from the Earth Kingdom, and it doesn’t seem like anyone is in a hurry to address that thorny problem. Even so, I’ll take what I can get.
Finally, Kuvira has an excellent threat level throughout the fourth season. She has Zhao’s powerful army but is also a badass in her own right, besting the heroes several times through both brute strength and clever tactics. It’s a pleasure to watch her work.
1. Azula
In second place, Kuvira showed us how well a sympathetic villain can work. Now, Azula is here in first place to show us that a villain doesn’t have to be sympathetic at all. She’s cruel and vindictive, evil down to her core, and she basks in it. For most villains, such traits would come off as cartoonish, but Azula makes them work, and there are two reasons why.
The first is that we get enough context from Azula’s background to understand why she acts like this. She was raised as the favored child of a genocidal conqueror. Her father, Ozai, got his title through patricide, and it’s clear that he instilled an inherent sense of superiority in Azula. From there, Azula’s unparalleled talent did the rest. Obviously she really is superior to everyone else. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be so much better at firebending!
Perhaps more importantly, Azula turns her cruelty into an asset. Too often, writers think that random acts of malice will make their villains more threatening, when it really makes the villain look incompetent. Azula’s malice is anything but random. She uses it to pressure allies into her cause, as they’re afraid of what she might do to them. We first see this when she recruits Ty Lee from the circus via implied threats of burning the whole place down, and then again when she wins over the Dai Li* secret police by convincing them that only she is ruthless enough to win the day. We also see Azula cleverly shift blame for Aang being alive onto Zuko, which secures her political position and messes with her brother’s head at the same time. It’s a win-win!
Beyond her intimidating manner, Azula is a cut above when it comes to threat level. When she first appears, she runs the heroes ragged just to get away from her. The only way the good guys can defeat her is by ganging up on her six to one, and even then she manages to escape with some quick thinking. More importantly, she’s the only Avatar villain to succeed at her season finale goal: she captures the Earth Kingdom capital despite all our heroes’ efforts to stop her. Naturally, she does this both by being a nearly unstoppable firebender and by recruiting key allies at precisely the right moment. As someone who thinks we should write villains thinking on their feet more often, I love to see it.
Azula’s only real downside is that Last Airbender doesn’t let her live up to her full potential. At the end of season two, she is well positioned to be the final boss of season three. She has a personal connection with our heroes after fighting them for an entire season, not to mention being Zuko’s sister, and she’s already defeated them once. That would make payback so much more satisfying. Instead, Azula is pushed aside in favor of Ozai, who is not nearly as interesting. Zuko and Katara’s final battle against Azula is still one of the best fights to ever grace our screen, but it leaves me wondering what could have been if only the lady of blue fire had been allowed to take her rightful place.
With that bit of nostalgic theorizing, we draw this ranking to a close. My only regret is that there are a mere seven Avatar villains to rank. Even though I was often disappointed with Legend of Korra, I’d still love to see more from the Avatar franchise. I just hope our next villain is more like Kuvira than Unalaq.
P.S. Our bills are paid by our wonderful patrons. Could you chip in?
The points made about some of the LoK villains reminds me of a series of videos i watched a while ago and really liked which analysed the politics of each season of Korra. It also brought up points like how the Vatuu and Ravaa introduced a good/evil binary which wasn’t really present before and how Zaheer is something of a straw anarchist.
Mostly felt like bringing this up because this post reminded me of the videos.
You mean Kay and Skitties’s 4 episode series on LoK, it’s really great and it influenced some of my views on this show as a whole. I cannot recommend it enough.
Yup that’s right, I was thinking of Kay and Skitties. I also second that recommendation, it’s a very good series of videos which brings up some interesting points.
I do agree with the central thesis of the Kay & Skittles video – that each season pits Korra and friends, the champions of neoliberal democracy, against an antagonist that represents a competing 20th century political philosophy – but I don’t agree with how the video classifies all of the antagonists. Zaheer is a straw anarchist and Amon a straw populist, no question, but the videos claim that Unalaq is an ecoterrorist and Kuvira is a fascist. I would argue that Unalaq is the fascist, wanting to reunify the Northern and Southern Water Tribes under his control and return them to their “traditions;” Kuvira is an authoritarian communist in the mold of Stalin and Mao, trying to unify, modernize, and reeducate her nation for the ostensible good of all its people.
Unaloq is more of a traditionalist and a demon lord in the end. Kuriva however doesn’t promote the idea of Communism and she is more modeled after the Nazis than anything else.
I do disagree with Kay on some things, like that Korra is supposed to be a christ figure. Which is as I laid it out(albeit flawed) that she isn’t and that Raava is more akin to Vishnu than she is to Jesus. Vaatu would be the Demon Kali (not the goddess) or even Hundun from Chinese mythology.
For me, the thing that clinches Kuvira as a communist and not a Nazi is her “reeducation camps,” which I associate with various authoritarian communist regimes in Asia. If we are meant to understand Kuvira’s regime as fascist and not communist, why “reeducation?” Why not “internment” or “concentration?”
While I will at least give the series credit for trying when most fantasy works just portray monarchy without much criticism, the trouble is that The Legend of Korra is largely a product of the late 20th century End of History mindset in which democracy controlled capitalism is the end all be all political system. This was the root of the problem with every villain other than Kuvira, especially Amon and Zaheer.
While I have no idea what they would do from a technological standpoint given that The Legend of Korra was already sort of straining against the fact that bending had become less relevant, I almost think that this could be corrected if the next Avatar faced a cyberpunk world in sort of a deconstruction of the idea. Because Korra herself came from a place of power and privilege(and presumably married into even greater wealth), inequality was something of a blindspot for her. She could have instead focused on more or less achieving world peace by eliminating international conflict for the rest of her life. Most Avatars wind up creating problems for the next one by having blindspots like this as they focus on a different problem. Aang similarly focused on ending the war with as little bloodshed as possible, instead of fully addressing the injustices that were caused by it.
I also think that Amon would have been a more interesting antagonist if his brother Tarrlok were actually just his own secret identity. Instead of being a true believer, he is manipulating the Equalists as a false flag operation in order to keep them oppressed under benders in the long run. It would actually give him a reason to wear the mask, as the characters obviously knew who Tarrlok was and that he was supposed to be opposed to Amon. I wonder if he could have gotten by with much less use of his powers in this context, as he is able to use manipulation instead of raw power.
What if Azula had actually continued the tradition of patricide and taken her father out of the picture to take the position as fire lord (or lady?) by herself and then been the ‘surprise’ final boss in the series? She’s handed that position only because Ozai is creating a new, higher one for himself, what if she’d taken it by force instead?
I actually like Azula a lot – even her end in season 3 seems fitting. Zuko spends a lot of season 3 realizing that what he always thought he wanted is not what he really wants, that he wants to be Team Avatar more than he wants to be Crown Prince. He breaks away from his family and joins Team Avatar to make up for his past deeds and assist them. Azula has a downward arc, perhaps because she never questions what she’s been told. Once she’s on her own, with her father having taken his new position, once the first of her friends desert her, her self-esteem plumets and she becomes less dangerous because she loses her confidence. It makes sense in the ‘be careful what you wish for and what it could cause’ kind of way.
What, though, if she had instead taken Zuko’s departure from the family as a sign of fate? Zuko is no longer the crown prince – which he became again after the end of season 2. Before he comes back and takes that position again, she has to act, so she takes out her father (family tradition, after all) and takes his place. She’d be a dangerous enemy for Aang, given how much more she can do that Ozai seems to be capable of (is he ever bending lightning?).
Ozai is able to bend lightning, but both times we see it it ends up being redirected: During the Day of Black Sun, when Zuko confronted him, and during Sozin’s Comet, when Aang redirected it.
Otherwise, Ozai doesn’t actually have any accomplishments to his name alone. (His wife got him the throne and his daughter achieved the greatest victory of his reign with no input from him) Loser Lord indeed.
Ozai bends lightning significantly faster than Azula and since he is her father, it can be assumed that all of her tricks and skills come straight from him, kinda ike with Gabriel having learned all of his tricks from Lucifer from Supernatural.
Ozai suffers more from a lack of lists of awesome feats than anything, but in the story, he is the most dangerous enemy Aang ever faced.
Ozai suffers from severe ‘tell don’t show.’ If he is that powerful, just saying so or implying it was the wrong way. If you want for people to fear your villain, you need to show the audience why he’s so powerful. Yet, it is Azula whose powers we really see – she’s the one who easily keeps up with Team Avatar in season 2. That’s why they have to deconstruct her towards the end, so being defeated by Zuko and Katara looks realistic.
Taking Azula out of the story or making her a good deal weaker while putting Ozai in scenes where he’s showing his powers would have been the better way.
That is true and they could have fixed that by having us seen him in battle defeat the good guys single handely after the solareclipse ended.
I would also be 100% down for Azula offing Ozai and being the final boss herself.
I mean, it would make sense. Azula wants to rule and her father got the throne by killing the fire lord before him, so why not let her do it as well? She’d definitely be a dangerous enemy for Aang to fight.
The problem is that they already set out the fire lord as final boss for Aang and Azula is not a good character foil to Aang, as she is to Zuko and Katara.
Ozai was always meant to be the final obstacle and even Iron was ot sure, if he can handle him. Ultimately he works as final antagonist more than Azula, because Azula was always a lakey with perfectionist views on life, but deep down has no real confidence and power to really rule over anything really, not even as an evil tyrant.
Azula needed to be written as more competent than she is, which is in a way, ironic and hilarious considering her downfall.
Yes, that is the problem. They wanted for Ozai and Aang to fight in the final battle, but they didn’t manage to show the audience why this would be an awesome one. Ozai should have done stuff on screen beforehand, showing his powers, showing he’s even stronger than Azula – which would make sense, as he’s her father. Instead, we have a lot of ‘telling’ us that the fight against Ozai will be the hardest possible.
When the first season of Korra was first airing, a lot of fans theorized Amon was actually Bumi, Aang’s not-yet-seen, supposedly non-bender son. The idea was he could’ve inherited the Spirit Bending given to Aang at the end of ATLA, and he might’ve had an interesting perspective on bending living as the son of an Avatar. Some of the visions Aang gave to Korra even seemed to emphasize father-son pairs fighting one another (Aang against Yakoone, then Bumi against Tarrlok).
I was disappointed when Korra didn’t go in that direction, but it probably would’ve been too dark for the show.
My theory was that he’d made a deal with Ko the Face Stealer. That would explain his weird powers, as “spirit bending” feels like the domain of spirits, and it would explain why he wears a mask: because he has no face! The mask *is* his face.
Oooooo that would’ve been cool!
My takeaway:
Female villains are better than male villains
This take is about as true as the lies of a fascist, the gender of the villain on its own doesn’t make them good characters, but the execution. For instance is Cia in Hyrule warriors worse than Ganondorf, because her motives are unempowering as villain. Azula is a better villain than Ozai, because she plays her role better than him, but it would be true if the genders are swapped.
Editor’s note: Dave is making a joke about how Avatar’s female villains are much better written than its male villains. He’s not suggesting women are inherently evil. Please consider context before attacking other commenters.
I didn’t wanted to insult Dave, I wanted to make a joke, but I apologise, if Dave is hurt by this, I didn’t mean to harm or attack him.
However I do not see how I implied that he suggests that women are inherently evil, he never said that and that was not what I criticised. I was against the take, because it wasn’t clear to me that it was a joke, until you and Cay told me otherwise.
Yes, it was just meant as a joke
Thanks for the clarification/moderation. Dave’s intentions were unclear to me, as well.
It is, in general, rare that female villains in a long-running series beat their male counterparts that clearly, taking the first two spots in a ranking. From that point of view, the female villains here are better than the male villains – for once, because they’re not reduced to their female side. They do not use ‘female’ traits or skills to win (like the femme fatale), they’re competent and know mostly what they’re doing.
Yes, they’d be the same when male, but it is interesting that in this series, the female villains are better written than the male ones, because it’s rare.
In hinsight, I apologize again, that was unnecessary harsh of me to make a joke. Mythcreants can still delete the original comment, I won’t stand by it.
This is a good ranking of the Avatar main villains, here is my reservation for your points on the westernization of Avatar with Raava and Vaatu:
Raava And Vaatu are not an attempt at westernized the Avatar setting, it was never on this huge pedestal on Asian mythology and culture either. There were many moments with western influences like some of the music choices, to the cool armour Aang wore in season 3 and the usage of Zepellins. Even without all of this, the existence of Good and Evil is not against the setting and actually fits with the idea of an Asian inspired setting as well. There are many religions and mythologies which feature battles between Good and Evil like in Zoroastrianism, which was one of the earliest stories with a good God facing an evil God, Shintoism which states that Humans are born innocent and pure but become evil due to evil spirits influencing them, something that very much fits with the story of Unaloq, if the writers were a bit more clever with him and Vaatu.
Then there are many Chinese myths with heroes defeating evil villains like the story of the Emperor Shun, who is considered a legendary saint by Confucian philosophers and is one of the mythical Emperors of China, who defeated 4 evil Kings who later reincarnated as the four evil perils, evil creatures of doom and, well, perils. One of them, the most evil is called Hundun, who is the personification of Chaos and sometimes viewed as an evil God, who can not distinguish between right and wrong and allies himself with evil people and opposes good people. Many versions differs, but the fact that he is part of an evil Quartett shows us that evil exists in Chinese culture, but not in the way it does with Abrahamic religion.
Now that we have China and Japan out of the picture, we go now to India, where Hinduism was born, a religion just as much of an influence for Avatar’s world building as China and Japan, because the word “Avatar” comes from Sanskrit and means vessel for a god. Also Raava, Vaatu, Guru Pathric and Chakras are also words and names from Hinduism, but now to the Heroes and villains of this mythology:
There the preserver of good and balance is called Vishnu, who fights against the evil Kali, a Goddess and/or Demon of evil and Chaos. Vishnu always vanquished Kali to restore balance. Thus balance is understood as the victory of good over evil.
Unsurprisingly in Hinsight, there exists also a concept similar to that of Harmonic convergence in Hinduism, a cycle of creation and destruction if you so will. You see, there are ages called Yugas, where there are four of them with each beings worse than the last. The final one is the Kali yuga, an age of evil and darkness, where humankind became sinful and ignorant of their true spiritual potential. At the end of the Kali Yuga, the God of destruction, Shiva, will destroy the world after the end of this yuga and the god of Creation, Brahma, will recreate the world and Humanity, who will once again become the good and virtuous beings of the Satya Yuga, the first and greatest of all the ages in this never-ending cycle and eventually, humans will fall back again and the cycle repeats.
So we see that good and evil is not a western idea and saying so is both very reductive of morality and a huge misprensentation of these cultures believes and virtues and I mean not only East-Asian religions but the Abrahamic ones as well. Christianity is not simply God vs Satan, its also a religion about the Apocalypse and the salvation by Jesus Christus, who will send you to heaven, if you follow his teachings as well as the idea of original sin, which is inherent in all of humanity, which can only be washed away literally by Holy Water. Also breaking news: All Abrahamic religions are near-eastern and thus are technically Asian as well. They are only called western, because they are appropriated by many western powers in order to justify themselves as rulers supreme of this world.
I understand you Oren that true good and true evil can be tiresome conflicts and that Avatar as show had a more fluid view on this but even then, Avatar was always black and white. Sure the heroes had flaws and the villains had some virtuous moments, but at its core, it’s a story about good defeating evil to restore balance, just like with many stories in literature and spec fic. Zuko’s whole dilemma is choosing between good and evil, with good being put down by Iron as the blood of Romulus fighting against the evil influence of Sozin’s blood, with the marked prince’s job being to redeem his family’s name and nation from the evil which Sozin created. So as final fazit:
Unaloq sucks and so does Raava and Vaatu, but it’s not because of western colonialism, it’s because of bad writing.
While you’re right in general, “The Last Airbender” did very well without going back on pure ‘good and evil’ ideas.
Villains in many stories have their good sides – especially if they’re supposed to be redeemed, such as Zuko. Yet, Zuko chooses between his upbringing, throwing in with his family and getting what he always thought he wanted (be reinstated as his father’s successor, be the prince of the Fire Nation again), or his own heart, joining Team Avatar and stopping the damage his father is doing. It’s not clear ‘good and evil,’ it’s more of a growing up by realizing that one’s own way lies in a different direction than thought. Zuko grows up, confronts his father – remember, he was exiled for refusing to duel his father -, and walks away from an abusive parent.
The spirit world had spirits who could be both good and evil, depending on how one interacted with them – or how the mood struck them. Narrowing that down to ‘this spirit is good and this spirit is evil’ is taking quite something out of the established setting. Yes, ‘good and evil’ dichonomies are older than Christianity (interestingly, the Jewish religion doesn’t have an equivalent to the Devil as God’s counterpart – there are devils and demons, but they’re not ‘equal’ to God). Yes, heroes are generally good and villains are generally evil. That has nothing to do with a necessity for ‘good and evil’ in general, but with the fact that heroes are supposed to show us good examples and villains need to show us bad examples. That a children’s show – which ATLA was – doesn’t go into the grey area a lot, is to be expected, yet it was going deeper before that.
That is a much fairer point to make here, the heroes have faults and the villians have some virtuous moments, as I said in my response.
I wanna ask you this: What are “pure good and pure evil” supposed to be? Even within Abrahamic traditions, sinners are not always seen as purely bad and even Satan is treated in Islam as a true believer, who is only against humanity because they are not of the same race as he is and is in a way, a fanatic who worships god as the one true god of this world, which is his one of his few good character traits in Islam.
As to Zuko’s character struggle and choices:It’s still a very normal, but compelling tale of an internal struggle about Good and evil as laid down by Iroh:
Iroh:”You have more than one great-grandfather, Prince Zuko. Sozin was your father’s grandfather, your mother’s grandfather was Avatar Roku.”
Zuko:[Zuko’s is shocked and horrified]”Why are you telling me this!?”
Iroh:” Because understanding the struggle between your two great-grandfathers can help you better understand the battle within yourself. [Zuko sits down, with his head facing down.] Evil and good are always at war inside you, Zuko. It is your nature, it is your legacy. But there is a bright side. [Zuko looks up.] What happened generations ago, can be resolved now, by you. Because of your legacy, you alone can cleanse the sins of our family and the Fire Nation. Born in you, along with all the strife, is the power to restore balance to the world.”
There you see that the conflict is born due to his bloodline being in conflict with each other and not simply being a story about him leaving an abusive father, because Zuko is not an ordinary child, he is both the heir to the Fire Nation and descendant of Roku.
Sozin’s influence on Zuko is manifested as Ozai, who compelling him to do evil, whereas his mother, Ursa, is the representative of the good coming from Avatar Roku, since she was raised by his child. Bloodlines and destiny are an important theme of this story, Avatar Aang is destined to bring balance to the world as he is the Avatar, the bringer of balance to this world. This is not a story simple about characters, it’s about the destiny of the world and Zuko plays the role of being in a crossfire between good and evil and after a huge slip up, he chose the bright side. Even without it, choosing to leave a bad father, who compelling you to do bad stuff or choosing the potential friends trying to stop him and are good people is a standart dilemma between choosing the bad side or good side, you can’t make it more complex than this.
Also Spirits had always been very a mixed bag in Avatar, there are good ones like Bai Bai, the Water lady and Roku’s Dragon, but there are bad ones like Koh the face stealer and Gloomworm. Again that our heroes are not purely good and purely evil is not under my radar, but it’s still inherently black and white and the existence of an evil spirit and a good counterpart is not against this series message and even LoK acknowledged that Raava is flawed, contrary to the views of the fanbase.
‘Pure good and evil’ is a world with black and white, but without grey. It’s the kind of storytelling you get, for instance, in pulp stories or fairy tales. The latter is more fitting in comparison here – fairy tales are considered ‘for children’ today, although they originally weren’t.
In a fairy tale (or pulp story or Disney movie), the villain is irredeemably evil and the hero uncorruptably good. There is not character who may be helpful, even if generally evil (in Western Europe at least, some Slavic fairy tale monsters can be helpful if they feel like it and the hero treats them probably). The world is clearly split between those who are good and those who are not. Even modern stories for children don’t do it that strictly.
On the other hand, some of the grittier pulp stories (and some less pulpy but still gritty action media) make the heroes more morally dubious, but the villains are usually still exaggeratedly evil to make the heroes look better by comparison (and so the heroes can do whatever they want to the villains without feeling guilty).
I’m not an expert on Hindu mythology, but I never thought Kali was meant to be evil. Dark, yes, terrifying, yes, destructive, yes, but not evil. She is, in a sense, the ‘crone’ to Durga’s ‘maiden’ and Parvati’s ‘mother’.
She is often seen as evil and her age is the one where humanity is the most depraved and sinful, so the idea that she is evil is one that makes sense within Hindu mythology. Hinduism is diverse, so in some versions she is a bit more complex, but these ones do not speak for all traditions and streams and it would still prove my point.
The view of Kali as evil might very well be the colonist influence in India, though – for the British, Kali was evil, because they couldn’t or wouldn’t put in energy to understand the complexity of Indian religion. To them, Christianity was the only religion worth having and in a Christian world, Kali is evil.
This is a deep misunderstanding of Hinduism and of Kali.
For one, the Kali Yurga is named after the demon not the goddess, so that is a dangerous misunderstanding.
The goddess is seen differently and widely worshipped in different ways, you aren’t wrong, but almost all of them portray her as a loving and good goddess who sometimes gets overwhelmed by her sense of justice. She has done wrong, like many of the gods, but overwhelmingly she is a good goddess, and one of the most widely worshipped gods throughout India.
Some sects of Hinduism believe her to be the greatest and holiest of all the gods. Some view her as a divine protector. Others as a sacred mother figure. Some a fierce warrior who can save others from the brink of death. While some definitely portray her as scary, none portray her as evil.
British colonialists were racist and misconstrued everything about her. She is not evil. Saying that is hateful and racist and deserves to be buried in the past with other colonialist beliefs.
Hinduism DOES show and qualify absolute evil, Ravana comes to mind, but Kali isn’t even close.
If you would look at the comments, you would see that I already acknowledged it.
My mistake was mixing up these 2 entities because they had the same name. It was not because of british colonial propaganda or racism and more because of not doing enough research. I promise to make my research more accurate next time and not mixing up stuff.
There’s also a (male) demon Kali, who does pretty much qualify as pure evil. Though he has no major connection to the goddess Kali, and their names only look similar when written in English.
Gah, I missed your second paragraph. Sorry.
Does Long Feng count? ‘Cause I’d put him pretty high on the list.
Yeah Long Feng is great. I didn’t include him cause he’s not really a season length villain but I’d probably put him just below Zhao.
I looked it up and turns out I made a grave mistake:
There are 2 Kalis, the goddes Kali, who is a maternal goddess who vanquished evil, but has a bloody temper and needs to be calmed down by Shiva from time to time. She is even born from a fight against an evil demon called Ravana, an Asura from hinduism and the word Asura meant once divine beings but over time they became demons and even lesser beings of the power-seeking demons later in hinduism, but that was before European colonisation.
The other is the demon Kali, who is pure evil and the ruler of the Kali Yuga and as such the evil, who will be defeated by Avatar Kalki at the end of this Yuga.
There are other demons Vishnu fought as Krishna are Putana and Narakasura.
So no ultimate evil Satan, but there are evil demons, whoms existed is believed also by Hindus living in rural areas.
Hinduism is a complex religions either many traditions and different believes, so not all what I said here will be true for every tradition.
“And we are supposed to like the first avatar. Gross”
Considering that in that context the spirits had driven humanity to near extinction and only survived thanks to the Lion Turtles, what the first avatar did sounds to me more like the expulsion of an invading, nearly genocidal force than anything. No wonder so many fans despise the spirits and their entitled attitude.
In fact, I was more upset than Korra didn’t close the gates again when I first watched the show. But then again I was pretty young back then so maybe there’s something I missed.
Otherwise I really liked this post, it was quite an eye opener in some cases (Zhao is very underrated as a villain, so thanks for giving him justice)
Oddly enough I never had a problem with Amon’s mask, because I assumed its purpose was to look intimidating rather than conceal his identity. My main problem is that were were never shown any systemic oppression of the Equalists.
The closest we get is the curfew, which is a direct response to Amon’s attacks, and is proposed by the only council member we “know” (wrongly, but at the time) is a non-bender, and opposed by the only member we know is a bender (the other three could have been either). Before that, no laws in Republic City are shown to favour benders, and no leniency is shown to be given to bender criminals who target nonbenders.
So right from the start, Amon’s claim comes across as saying that benders are oppressive just by existing. Which *is* a claim made by the powerful against the marginalised.
It would have made more sense to replace his stated goals with independence for Republic City, which is a justifiable grievance we see from the beginning.
Sorry, “systemic oppression of the Equalists” should have read “systemic oppression on nonbenders.”
I agree, for all the talk about the power imbalance betweem benders and non-benders we never saw enough to imply it exists on any meaningful scale. Also – even with the combustion engines many labors do depend on the benders. One earth bender can easily do the job of the multiple heavy machines and more. Just the ability to shape the solid rock into given shape would be indispensable for the architecture.
What I mean by this talk about the bender economics – the magical powers like the bending would likely become fillars of many industries and because the bending is inborn power, this would make these jobs accessible only for the benders. If euqualists got strong bender enemy, such as the earth bender guild opposing the construction of the greater number of the combustion powered building equipement, they would have at least some rational motive for fighting against the benders.
Bending guilds could also add another interesting dimension to the world: an observation I saw elsewhere was that bending had grown more powerful in a techniques-known kind of sense, but at a cost to its culture and spirituality.
In the time AtLA, lightning bending was an elite technique known only to the highest in the Fire Nation – and redirecting it was limited only to those with enough insight to learn from other nations – while in the like of LoK, lightning benders earn pennies supplementing Republic City’s power grid.
If benders are inherently better at certain jobs, they’d experience pressure to go into those jobs – but at the same time, doing so might put them at odds with those who spill believe in bending as something spiritual rather than a talent to help out with certain industries.
Your idea of putting bending guilds against the Equalists is a great fix for the first season – and also allows factions of Equalists to have non-nuclear-option goals of keeping benders out of industries where they naturally dominate, rather than all of them going for mass spiritual mutilation.
Meanwhile, the second season’s conflicts could be replaced with a clash between those with economic and spiritual views of bending – which sets the stage for season 3, where someone wants to eliminate the most blatant conflation of bending and spirituality – the cycle of the Avatar.
(If it had been Zaheer rather Unalaq who managed to destroy Korra’s connection with her past lives, it would have made her low point at the end of season 3 even lower, while not giving us so many dark nights of the soul in succession).
That’s great idea! Another factor would be question of the old bending institutions. After all about every city in the earth kingdom has the earth bending dojo, and the same stands true for the other nations. How do old masters cope with the growing amount of the economic pressure? Do they embrance the changing economy focusing on the practical applications of their art? Do they fight to preserve the spiritual traditions?
You forgot Sparky-Sparky-Boom Man. :(
(I know he was probably omitted because he’s not deep enough to analyze, but he’s still my favorite ATLA villain)
I LOVE this comment :)
7. Lion turtles gave humans the ability to bend. Humans learned how to use the ability with the moon/badger moles/dragons/ sky bisons. In Beginnings, Wan is no match to human soldiers even though he could produce fire and the others couldn’t. He only learns how to bend fire properly with a dragon, also shown in this episode.
6. Zaheer (and every Korra villain, to be fair) is an extremist. He truly believed the Earth Kingdom commoners would take over without the Queen, but it blew on his face because of the reasons mentioned in this article. Then, again, you can’t expect an extremist to be reasonable. Also, every other airbender can glide, but only Zaheer and Laghima can fly, which is a big thing as they don’t rely on weapons to do so. Lastly, Zaheer resented the Avatar because he felt like they held uneven power compared to others, which isn’t a lie, as they’re able to bend every element + energy + spiritual powers.
5. Amon comes from a Southern water tribe specialized in blood bending, which explains why his abilities top Katara’s and Hana’s.
4. I can agree with many things in here. We get to see a bit of Ozai’s power when he quickly shoots lightning at Zuko, who would’ve died had he not learned how to redirect it. Also, most of Ozai’s power stems from being able to manipulate people around him and making them fear him, to the point where even Azula was afraid of him.
3. I can’t believe Zhao got third. He’s just a plain colonialist.
2. Agree with this. Kuvira was judged for her war crimes and had a redemption arc in the comics.
1. I think the reason Azula is a fan favorite is because she is a complex character and there is so much that she could’ve been had she not been abused by Ozai her entire life.
7. It was said that before the age of the Avatar people bend the energy within themselves and not the elements. It is still a retcon, but not the worst in the universe. A retcon nonetheless. Vaatu would have worked as villain better had the writers stuck to the original plan and revealed the origins of the Avatar before Korra. Then he would not have felt out of place.
6. Zaheer is a mockery of an ideal that doesn’t exist and is just offensive to anarchists. I find him rather unenlightened and not really as someone who has a point.
5. He also was trained at that art in a tender age, so that is why he is so powerful, but his bloodletting making him a hypocrite and thus invalidating his revolution makes no sense whatsoever. Karl Marx having a rich friend doesn’t invalidate communism at all, you have to criticize it without being focused on their life journey’s too much.
4. Most of Ozai’s power comes from his firebending and nothing else, which is why he lost the throne. He lacks a counter to Aang’s techniques of redirecting lightning and instead of really overwhelming Aang, he fights someone holding back. Not a good fight. Ozai’s manipulation tactics are pretty non-subtle and unless you are really in a bad situation, you have no way of being tricked by him.
3. He is cool, shows how destructive firebending can be to an individual and how the desire for glory can doom the entire world. By your logic, almost all Avatar villains are bad, because the majority are colonialists such as Kuriva and Azula as well as her ancestors.
2. Kuriva is rather boring as a villain with her threat level only being this high because Korra had been crippled for 2 seasons straight for her to lose to Kuriva. On top of all of this, she is a bigot and deserves little sympathy, less so than Amon and Zaheer, who had more sensible goals.
1. There is nothing complex about Azula: She is evil and believes in fear more than love. She would have never turned out fine regardless of Ozai’s absence. From a young and tender age she had without him enjoyed acts of cruelty that go beyond what most children do and can be argued to be the most evil character in the original story. She was the one who suggested the genocide after all, how is that complex? Also Ozai’s problem with her was that he pampered her and did not encourage her Kinder nature, but that wasn’t a master plan, that was his way fo shoving love for someone and it’s toxic.
No offense but my big issue with the Lion turtles giving humans the power to bend to that it is said in the season finally of the last episode that the moon was the first waterbenders… so how did the lion turtles go all the way up to the moon to give it the power to bend water and you could say its a metaphor for the moon controlling the tides but the moon spirit was clearly a water bender in the same sense that Katara was or Hama was because the destruction of the moon spirit means the destruction of water bending so it was an actual water bender.
If only they didn’t depict Azula as crazy in the end…
Yeah they could have just make her act like a petty child in the end and it would be much better. Personally I didn’t found her so sympathetic at all and in fact found it as child pretty awesome seeing her this way. Now that I am older I see that this show was ableist with that and my reaction back then was the result of the show depicting her this way.
Anyway I have little sympathy for her and I like her as villian still, but her fans try too hard to make her look like an innocent girl who had no choice but to act cruel.
This was a fun read, thank you! Your points about Zaheer being a straw anarchist were really interesting, and weren’t things that I’ve seen or heard elsewhere, so that was cool, and you expressed some things that I couldn’t put my finger on about why his character was lacking something for me. I’m glad to see that Kuvira and Azula top the list :) they really are fantastic characters. One thing I differ from you on is the placement of Ozai. I’m actually a big fan of the “don’t show the villain onscreen for a really long time” trope, and I can see what you mean about it being telling not showing (telling the audience that Ozai is scary instead of showing) but for me it worked really well. Still, I also enjoyed the idea that somebody brought up of Azula committing patricide and becoming the big bad – that would have been really interesting too.
The issue with Ozai isn’t so much that they waited too long to introduce him, but that by waiting so long, they built up expectations that they couldn’t live up to. It’s possible to create a version of Ozai that’s worth the wait, but this guy isn’t it.
Correct me if I am wrong but didn’t it say at the end of LOK season 2 that Korra couldn’t go into the Avatar state anymore because even though Raava was reunited with Korra she was temporarily destroyed so it’s a plot hole that she can enter the Avatar state at the end of season 3?
If they said that, I don’t remember it.
I think that I think that is what happened because I a massive fan of the channel MovieFlame and he thinks that it was what happened and has talked about it several times most notably in his video on the life of the different Avatars but again I am not exactly sure if that is what happened. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOajpsI8t3Eg-u-s2j_c-cQ