Avatar The Last Airbender Full Movie 2

[Kenneth Melniczek]

Upondeath, the Avatar Spirit causes the Avatar to reincarnate into the next nation, dictated by the cyclic order: fire, air, water, and earth. Mirroring the order in which the first Avatar, Wan, learned the elements, this is also the traditional order in which any one incarnation is to master the elements, beginning with the bending art of the Avatar's birth nation. The reincarnation cycle can only be broken if the Avatar is killed while in the Avatar State, Raava is removed from the Avatar and severely injured, or the Avatar Spirit is compromised by a spiritual infection.

As part spirit, the Avatar possesses an innate connection to the Spirit World and is at their strongest in that realm, due to being surrounded by spiritual energy.[3] The Avatar used that connection to the Spirit World to be the bridge between the two worlds in order to keep peace between them and ensure harmony. After the Harmonic Convergence in 171 AG, however, Avatar Korra left the spirit portals open and renounced her role as the bridge between the two worlds to let humans and spirits live together in harmony.

The Avatar is also capable of recalling memories from past lives. This ability can be injured and even completely severed. Avatar Aang unintentionally weakened his connection to all his past lives who came before Avatar Roku when he broke off his relationship with the Fire Nation Avatar,[4] though he managed to restore the connection. When Raava was ripped out of Avatar Korra by Vaatu and subsequently destroyed,[5] Korra's link to her past lives was completely severed despite the light spirit's revival.[6]

The Avatar also possesses the ability to bend energy itself, although few Avatars have learned this technique, and even fewer have used it. Avatar Aang learned it from the last living lion turtle and used it to remove Phoenix King Ozai's firebending, ending the Hundred Year War. He later used it to end Yakone's reign of terror in Republic City by stripping him of his waterbending.[7][8] Korra was also taught this ability after connecting with Aang when she lost her bending. Aang used this ability to restore her bending and she likewise did the same for Lin Beifong and many other victims of Amon's unique technique.

Before Wan became the first Avatar, he was banished into the Spirit Wilds by the fire lion turtle after he had stolen the power of fire. Over the course of the two years following his banishment, Wan befriended the spirits, learned firebending, and decided to travel the world to find the other lion turtle cities. During his journey, Wan encountered Raava, the spirit of light and peace, fighting against Vaatu, the spirit of darkness and chaos. Unaware of Vaatu's identity at the time, Wan was tricked by the dark spirit into separating him from Raava, releasing darkness and chaos into the world.[10] Wishing to fix his mistake, Wan journeyed with Raava in search of other lion turtles for the purpose of gaining the elements of air, water, and earth and learning how to master them. About a year later, during their fight against Vaatu at the time of the Harmonic Convergence, Wan merged permanently with Raava, becoming the first Avatar and gaining the ability to bend all four elements at once. After he sealed away the dark spirit in the Tree of Time, Wan oversaw the departure of the spirits to their own world and closed the two portals to the Spirit World, so that no human would be able to physically travel there and risk Vaatu's escape. Wan took on the task of being the bridge between the two worlds, maintaining balance and peace. Years later, Raava assured a dying Wan that they would be together throughout all his lifetimes, heralding the beginning of the Avatar Cycle and ensuring the continuation of the Avatar's role as peacekeeper of both worlds.[9]

The Avatar Cycle continued for ten thousand years. The cycle was eventually interrupted on the next Harmonic Convergence, when Avatar Korra battled Unalaq, who attempted to create a new world under Vaatu's influence by fusing with the spirit to become the first Dark Avatar. During the battle, Vaatu was able to reach out of Unalaq and rip Raava out of Korra's body. Unalaq caused significant injury to the light spirit, which severed Korra's connection to her past lives and ended the Avatar Cycle. As a means of connecting with the cosmic energy of the universe, Korra meditated in the Tree of Time and was able to bend her own energy to release an astral projection of herself to battle Unalaq. With help from Jinora, who sped up Raava's growth within Vaatu, Korra managed to extract the light spirit from her dark counterpart and defeat Unalaq with his own pacification technique, purifying and dissipating the Dark Avatar. Returning to the Spirit World, Korra and Raava used the spiritual energy from the overlap of the spirit portals to fuse, seconds before the end of Harmonic Convergence. Although her Avatar Spirit had returned to her, Korra could no longer connect with her past lives, and the Avatar Cycle restarted with her as the originator.[11] After deciding to keep the spirit portals open, Korra declared that the Avatar would no longer be the bridge between worlds, but she would continue to use Raava's light spirit to guide the world toward peace.[6]

The Avatar Cycle is based on the passage of the four seasons, which coincides with the order in which Wan first learned the elements; fire related to summer, air to autumn, water to winter, and earth to spring.[12][9]

When an Avatar dies, the next Avatar will be born in the nation associated with the next element of the Avatar Cycle. For example, Avatar Yangchen, an Air Nomad, was reincarnated as Avatar Kuruk from the Northern Water Tribe, followed by Avatar Kyoshi from the Earth Kingdom, and Avatar Roku from the Fire Nation.

The Avatar Cycle also determines the order in which each Avatar is supposed to learn the four bending disciplines. The nation into which the Avatar is born identifies the first element that is to be mastered, often prior to the bender being revealed as the Avatar. For instance, an Avatar born into the Water Tribe first learns waterbending, before attempting to master the three remaining bending disciplines in the order of the cycle: earthbending, firebending, and finally airbending. There are instances of an Avatar learning the elements out of order. Kyoshi, having begun with her native earth, trained in firebending with her bodyguard and friend, Rangi, while simultaneously learning waterbending from her friend, Kirima. In order to keep some semblance of order in how she mastered the elements, Rangi made Kyoshi summon a breeze to at least get a taste of airbending before she began waterbending in earnest.[13] Similarly, due to his unique situation, Avatar Aang tried to learn fire as his second element under the tutelage of Jeong Jeong, who originally objected because of the cycle. Aang did learn to create fire, but he did not have the spiritual maturity to control it well enough, and after Jeong Jeong's camp was attacked by Zhao, Aang's firebending training ended. He eventually learned to bend the element under Zuko's tutelage, after learning the other elements in their proper sequence.[14][15] Similarly, Korra, despite already being able to bend water, earth, and fire to some extent at the age of four, was actively discouraged by Katara to hone her bending skill of the elements until she mastered waterbending.[16]

Each Avatar has a particular element with which a low affinity is established, dictated by the personality of that Avatar. This element can be difficult to learn, sometimes proving impossible to control until faced with a situation in which the Avatar is forced to reach within and manifest the power. The bending discipline is often the opposing element to the one of the Avatar's birth nation: Avatar Roku found mastering waterbending particularly difficult, and earthbending was difficult for Avatar Aang due to his predisposition to indirectly engage in combat and evade problems as often as possible.[17][18] Such symmetry is not always the case; despite being a native waterbender, Korra actually favored her opposite element and instead found mastering airbending the most challenging due to her brash and direct nature, contrary to airbending's philosophy of contemplation, measured action, and avoidance of conflict.[19]

Each nation has a method of recognizing the new Avatar.[20] The respective sages from their nation gather, using various rituals and processes to locate the avatar. The methods used by each nation for identifying the next Avatar are not unfailing, as there has been at least one instance in which a normal individual was misidentified as the Avatar: Yun, instead of Kyoshi, was named successor to Avatar Kuruk.[21] Traditionally, the child is told of their identity as the Avatar on their sixteenth birthday, although across history, it has also been common for Avatars to be discovered early and indisputably after bending a second element or exhibiting their spiritual gifts. Avatars Szeto, Yangchen, and Korra were among those who proved they were the Avatar before the age of sixteen.[22][23][24] Meanwhile, Avatar Aang was informed early at age twelve, in fear of an impending war due to the Fire Nation's growing aggression.[25]

Among the Air Nomads, their ritual entailed presenting infants with a selection of toys and watching for a child that selected the exact four that had belonged to past Avatars, known as the Avatar relics.

Earth Avatars were traditionally identified by directional geomancy, a series of rituals designed to winnow through the largest and most populous of the four nations as efficiently as possible. A special set of bone trigrams was cast and interpreted by the earthbending masters, ruling out half the Earth Kingdom as the location of the newborn Avatar. This ritual was repeated in the remaining territory, with the possible locations shrinking by halves each time until the searchers were brought to the doorstep of the Earth Avatar child.[26]

3a8082e126