Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s creators, Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, have revealed whether they knew how Aang’s journey would develop before they produced the show. It’s been 20 years since Avatar: The Last Airbender first premiered on Nickelodeon, changing Hollywood’s and the public’s perception of what children’s television and animation could be.
So, how many of Aang’s and his friends’ adventures were planned in advance? In an interview with Buzzfeed to celebrate Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s 20th anniversary, Konietzko and DiMartino explained how Avatar Aang’s story came to be. “We had the broad strokes of the structure of the series figured out,” DiMartino revealed.
“We had the device of Aang needing to master the elements — he’ll study water, and then he’s gonna learn earth and do something in the Fire Nation, and learn fire. That stuck through.” DiMartino continued.
“We had ideas for certain episodes. Of course, there were many episodes to fill in, so things get fleshed out and expanded on. Many new ideas not in the ‘Development Bible’ came to fruition in the show. But it’s cool to look back and think, ‘Oh yeah, we thought of that early on!’”
Earlier in the interview, Konietzko had mentioned looking back at their “Development Bible” after the series ended, and being similarly surprised by how many of their original ideas made it into the show.
“I hadn’t really looked at it in a couple of years at that point. Not to take away from the writers’ or artists’ ideas, or even our newer ideas, but there was a lot of stuff from that ‘Development Bible’ that we did know. For example, the detail of Aang cocooning himself in the stone during the Ozai fight was in there,” Konietzko said.
He continued, “We had other wacky ideas in that Bible that we left behind. We definitely didn’t have every single thing mapped out, but we knew there would be a counter-invasion in Book Three. We knew Aang would face Ozai during the comet, and Ozai would have supercharged firebending.”
Of course, even a well-paced, funny, adventurous, informative, and culturally significant cartoon can still be let down by a disappointing series finale. thank you Avatar: The Last Airbender stuck the landing. The comet-fueled showdown between Aang and the tyrannical Fire Lord Ozai was breathtaking, and Aang’s victory was wholly deserved.
But how did DiMartino and Konietzko decide how to depict the most visceral, important fight of Aang’s life? What “elements” were needed to bring the battle together in a narratively and emotionally satisfying way? “It came out of Aang’s character and his culture,” DiMartino said. “He’s from this monastic, non-violent community, and those are his values. He was always trying to make peace between people who were fighting.”
The ATLA co-creator continued, “At the end, the other characters assume he will kill Ozai, but that goes against everything Aang believes in. We recently re-watched the finale with some people at Nickelodeon, and that idea resonates through those four episodes. It’s this weight he feels of trying to find another way.”
Both DiMartino and Konietzko also revealed that the mythical lion-turtle’s involvement was decided on well in advance of creating the final few episodes. “The lion-turtle idea was something we tried to weave subtly through the series, so it didn’t feel completely out of the blue — though, I know some people think it came out of nowhere!” DiMartino shared.
Konietzko further explained, “Like Mike said, we knew it was going to relate to the lion-turtles. If you watch the test pilot that we did before we got the green light, we put the lion-turtles in the opening montage. Aang is out in this courtyard, and there are these big lion-turtle statues.”
“Early on, we knew he was going to need to learn from these different masters, and he’ll learn the ultimate technique from the lion-turtle. It plays on a lot of different myths, and we were inspired by statues in South Korea of these turtles with huge monoliths on their backs.”
Given the show’s continued cultural impact, it’s safe to say that Avatar‘s finale did exactly what it needed to do. Aang, Sokka, Katara, Toph, and Zuko’s stories have continued in ATLA‘s graphic novels (and will be further explored in multiple animated projects, including the upcoming The Legend of Aang theatrical movie), but that ongoing success wouldn’t have been possible without Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s memorable series finale.
- Release Date
- 2005 – 2008
- NETWORKS
- Nickelodeon
- Showrunner
- Michael Dante DiMartino
- Directors
- Giancarlo Volpe, Ethan Spaulding, Lauren MacMullan, Dave Filoni, Joaquim Dos Santos, Anthony Lioi
- Writers
- Tim Hedrick, Elizabeth Welch Ehasz, Joshua Hamilton, James Eagan, Joann Estoesta, Nick Malis, May Chan, Katie Mattila
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