Avatar: The Last Airbender was a creative Nickelodeon series that took the world by storm. It continues to be interesting and relevant to this day, and its successor Legend of Korra did not disappoint.
The original protagonist, Aang, was a lovable kid who was totally unprepared for what the world had in store for him — so much so that he ran away for an entire century rather than take up the overwhelming responsibilty of being the Avatar. A lot of his character made sense when considered through the lens of him being a child, but other times, it got really hard to like him at all.
10 He Can Be Really Possessive Over Katara
Aang was a kid, and Katara was very clearly older than he was, both physically and mentally. She was a capable fighter and a strong character, and rarely actually needed Aang at all. In fact, more often the reverse was true: he needed her to help him.
Unfortunately, Aang displayed a pretty consistent "I like her, so nobody else can" attitude every time someone expressed even the slightest interest in Katara. If they weren't all friends, that couldn't happen either. Sometimes it was a little unsettling to watch.
9 Aang Tends To Make Friends In All The Wrong Places
Generally, Aang was a pretty good kid. He wanted to be friends with and save as many people as he could. His kind heart even earned him the respect and friendship of his former enemy Zuko.
The problem was that he didn't know where the line was. He'd try too hard for people who could never be redeemed, and not hard enough for the others. And if he couldn't make someone his friend, they were nothing but an enemy.
8 He Has Inappropriate Timing With Jokes
The series tried so hard to write Aang as lighthearted and silly that sometimes one of his cracks would disrupt the overall tone pretty badly. Messing around, playing, and cracking jokes in a life-or-death situation really hurt him in more instances than one.
Sokka was made to be the comic relief, and he did great at it. There wasn't much need for two jokers vying for the spotlight, especially since Sokka had much better timing with the majority of his gags.
7 Whenever He Brags About How Easy Bending Is
Everyone understands that Aang is the Avatar and thus has the capacity to learn and perform bending across all four elements. It even becomes a point of contention with his friends, especially when he starts to brag about it.
Then as soon as one of them chides him about it, he backpedals and acts more like the victim instead. If everything was so easy, he wouldn't have needed them in the first place. A few more acts of gratitude, especially to make up for his behavior, would have been nice.
6 He's Not Very Supportive Of His Friends' Achievements
Unless they were Katara, Aang had more of a tendency to overshadow his companions with his own ideas and achievements. He might have gotten excited for a little bit, but he rarely would hype up his friends the way they did for him — even if they had developed entirely new methods of bending. He was happy for them for a time, but then seemed to want to pretend he didn't know they had special powers at all.
5 Aang Plays Both The Scapegoat And The Know-It-All
Aang played both the naive kid who needed everything explained to him and an "I'm the Avatar, therefore I know best" sort of mentality. There was little sliding on that scale, just tilting to one extreme or the other.
Sometimes it made sense, but other times it was really awkward. He should have been the know-it-all about airbenders because he was the last one. About much else? Probably not.
4 Aang's Overdone Actions And Expressions Can Be Annoying
This was kind of a staple of the Avatar art style, but Aang had a lot of exaggerated expressions. He was highly animated in a way that could have worked in his favor had it been less frequent. Instead, he ended up being over the top more often than not, especially during the earlier Books.
This makes a little more sense when considering the tonal shift in the series, but it was pretty all or nothing with him when it came to expressions and movements outside of his active bending and fighting.
3 The Avatar Rarely Tries To Make Anything New
Both Toph and Katara figured out other ways to use their bending. They even found entire groups of people who had very specific niches. But Aang stayed pretty standard for the most part when he really could have created some amazing combined abilities.
He relied so heavily on the fact he could learn the four elements that he never once bothered to try and make something good with any of them. He eventually grew up and started teaching, but even that phase of his life never appeared on screen.
2 Aang Pays Little Heed To Those Around Him
A problem found in a lot of action-focused media is that there's little care for the world outside the protagonists. Protagonists cause massive amounts of damage to structures, to the world itself, and to the people around them, and Aang is no exception. There are only a few times through the series where he worries about his actions affecting other people or stopping to try and help a faceless nobody — to say nothing of the amount of cracks directed at the poor cabbage merchant.
1 His Maturation Comes In Weird Sprints
It's awkward how Aang's still a kid and making major relationship decisions. Sure, he was technically over 100 years old, but he makes it clear multiple times, especially during Book 1, that he's still a kid. Thus, the romantic subplot seemed a little awkward and forced, and would have been better suited for Sokka or else set after a time skip.
The problem is, there literally isn't enough time to do a logical time skip, as the fate of everything is at stake on a tight timeline. Because of that, Aang does all of his character maturation in sudden bursts with very little gradual incline, and these changes don't always make a lot of sense.
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