The original animated series, the comic continuation, the M. Night Shyamalan film adaptation,🎐🅷 and The Legend of Korra. Long ago, 🅰the four installments lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when Nickelodeon attacked. Only the෴ Showrunner, master of all four entries, could stop them, but when the world needed them most, they vanished. Three years passed and TheGamer and I discovered twenty crazy pieces of Avatar trivia. And althou🐓gh most of them pertain to the original series, I believe they shine a light on the entire series as a whole.
It’s actually kind of crazy to t🐎hink about how quickly Avatar fell off the face of the Earth. There’s a Korra comic curren🌳tly running, apparently, but you’ll be hardpressed to find much information about it online. This is a series that was once so popular, Nickelodeon dedicated an entire two-hour blওock to its series finale. By the end of Korra’s run, thꦿe show wasn’t even airing new episodes on television anymor🐈e. Avatar is an interesting francꦯhise as is, but it gets all the stranger once you start digging and discover what was going ꦐon behind the scenes.
20 The Series Was Originally A Sci-Fi Instead Of A Fantasy
It's incredibly hard to imagine The Last Airbender without its Asi꧟an influenced fa⭕ntasy aesthetic. It makes sense for The Legend of Korra to have its steampunk elements since 🐬it's set in the future, but those pseudo-sci-fi design choices simply don't mesh with the original series. Oddly enough, those design choices were actually meant for the original series.
Avatar: The Last Airbender w🦂as envisioned with a science fiction setting in mind, not fantasy. Presumably, the series still would have involved bending and martial arts to an extent, but it certainly wouldn't ha✨ve that same mystical feel if it was like Korra right out the gate. What we instead got was a magical journey of ܫpersonal, and worldly, growth all thanks to a fantastical aesthe🌠tic.
19 The Series Finale Was Planned To Be Much Shorter
Sozin’s Comet isn't just one of Avatar’s bes💙t episodes, it's one of the best series finales ever created. It's a four-part culmination of everything Aang’s journey has been building up. Aang’s gang has finally invaded the Fire Nation, Zuko is finally confronting his family, and Aang is finally have his showdown with Fire Lord Ozai. It uses every episode to its advantage and anything less would have killed the finale. Which is exactly what could have happened.
Sozin’s Comet was always supposed to be three episodes. With three, every season would have ended with twenty episodes making each book equal as a beginning, middle, and end. Given how much the creators needed to cover, however, three just wasn't going to cut it. We're actually lucky. Usually, these stories end with🦩 the finale cramped in a designated runtime (i.e. Samurai Jack), but Avatar got one more episode to round things out.
18 No One In Team Avatar Was Supposed To Survive Between The Last Airbender And The Legend of Korra
Isn't it sad that Aang and Sokka are the only characters who die in between the two shows? It makes sense for 🌼Aang to die since the whole concept behind becoming an Avatar involved reincarnation to some extent, but there really was no need for Sokka to die while the rest of the cast gets 🔴to survive. The thing is, the rest of the cast was supposed to dღie. Katara, Zuko, and Toph: none of them were going to make it to Korra but, after Sokka’s death in th🍎e show, the writers changed their mind, and there was no way to bring Soꦏkka back.
Oops.
17 Azula Was Originally A Man
Brother vs brother is an incredibly common thread in just about any piece of media. Sasuke and Itachi want each othe𒀰r dead in Naruto, the Star Wars trilogy is about the deterioration of the 🍷brotherly relation between Obi-Wan and Anakin, and Metal Gear Solid dedicates several games to the rivalry betwee🥀n twin brothers Snake and Liquid. Avatar goes in an entirely new direction💎 by having the sibling rivalry take place between an older brother and his antagonistic younger sister. It’s a novel concept, but it was originally far more൲ generic.
Azula wasn’t always designed as a woman. It was only later on ꦚin development that she went from Zuko’s brother to Zuko’s sister. The decision likely stems from a desire to give the series a wider array of women. After all, does Zuko’s sibling have to be male? It’s far more interesting and unique if he’s antagonized by a sister since that kind of relationship seldoജm gets the same attention as brother-on-brother.
16 Zuko Was Going To Have His Own Momo
Remember Sokka’s bird buddy Hawky? He only appeared in Book 3, but he was actually slated to be around from the very beginning. Not just that, he was going to be Zuko’s pet and act as a foil to Momo. What’s particularly interesting about Hawky is that he’s not a case of the writers scrapping him early. He actually made it all the way to the final draft of the Pilot before losing his spot as Zuko’s bird. While it would have been n𓂃ice to see Zuko interact with a feathery companion, the absence of Hawky in the first two books allows Zuko’s loneliness and isolation to shine clearer along with designating Uncle Iroh as Zuko’s emotional outlet. If Zuko’s attention was divided between Hawky and Iroh, we likely wouldn’t have gotten so many amazing moments with the latter. Besides, Momo doesn’t need an evil counterpart.
15 Nickelodeon Did Not Want Korra To Succeed
It’s honestly surprising that The Legend of Korra actually ma🌼naged to tell its whole story without getting canceled since Nickelodeon did not want this series to do well. It might be because of the female lead or the series’ darker 𒈔tone, but Nick did everything i൩n its power to make sure Korra woౠuld die. Giving it a terrible timeslot? Check. Ensuring it wouldn’t have a consistent schedule? Double check. Taking it off the air altogether and forcing it to conclude online? Triple check. Korra easily could have been as big as The Last Airbender, but Nickelodeon was more interested in pushing Spongebob reruns than letting their content creaꦓtors work in an accommodati💞ng environment. While it was sucky for fans to watch Korra while it was airing, nothing 🧸compares to what the team behind the show must have felt watching their baby get disrespected by Nick.
14 There Were Going To Be Three Live Action Movies
The only good thing about M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender is that it did terribly at the box office and he couldn't film the trilogy he plan꧒ned on making. Yes, there's an alternate timeline where we got three of those movies, and the human ✱race presumably went extinct shortly after. O🌱ne movie was bad enough, but three?
Imagine how much material M. Night would have to cut. Books Two and Three are far denser than Book One and the live action film, which only adapted Book One, stripped the source material bare. Want to know the real worst thingꩵ about the trilogy plan, though? It convinced the creators to make the series three seasons long instead of four like they'd been planning. Granted, the show’s story is perfectly told in just three seasons, but it's crazy to think M. Night was the reason their original plan derailed.
13 Each Book Would Have Been Named After A Season
Long before M. Night got his slimy hands on the serꦫꦏies, Avatar: The Last Airbender was going to name its four seasons after the four seasons. It makes quite a lot of sense when you think about it. The original series takes place over the course of one year. Season one would be the start of Winter and season four would go to the tail end of Autumn. It's an easy and effective way of illustrating the passage of time while als🌺o grounding each book in the span of a few months. Of course, the writers didn't go with that, probably realizing that going one literal season at a time would lock them out of rushing to the finale in case they got canceled early.
12 Katara And Aang Weren’t Supposed To End Up Together
Aang and Katara are the couple when it comes to Avatar.꧋ They get three seasons of development, the series ends with their kiss, and their relationship is one rooted in companionship. It makes sense they would end up together, especially considering Katara is the first person Aang meets when🎀 gets thawed out of his ice prison. The weird thing is, though, Aang and Katara weren't planned to end up together.
Katara’s original love interest was actually Zuko. They're wonderful foils for each other, the former representing water and the latter fire, so it makes sense to some degree, but it requires Katara forging romantic feelings for someone w🌳ho has antagonized her for the better part of a year. The reason Aang and Katara feel so organic as a couple is because the writers were learning about these characters as they were learning about each other in the series.
Besides, Zuko’s heart clearly belongs to Hawky.
11 Momo Was Supposed To Be Monk Gyatso’s Reincarnation
As Aang’s father figure, Gtayso plays a rather important role despite his lack of appearances. He’s a kind man whose pers🐼onality clearly lives on in Aang and he’s said to be the greatest Airbender of his time. It’s only fitting that the showrunners would plan something big for him at some point. And they did! He was supposed to be reincarnated into Momo!
Yes, Aang’s smallest furry friend was going to be his surrogate daddy all along. It makes sense when you remember one of Gyatso’s defining features was his off the cuff humor and that Momo is basically a flying meme. The🐭 writers didn’t follow through with this plan, but that’s probably for the best. Sometimes dead father figures should stay just that: dead.