The GENIUS of Aang’s Immature Maturity - Avatar The Last Airbender

in my many many years of re-watching Avatar I've often found myself asking the question of what is it exactly that keeps me coming back year after year what is that part of the series that keeps it so so Timeless but also so timely at the same time is it the message of Avatar itself or is it just a comfort show that I grew up with is it the beautiful animation and the intense bending battles or is it just the world of Avatar itself well let's be honest there is no Intrigue here you've read the title I think it's a mixture of those things and countless others which no doubt warrant a video of their own but at the very very heart of all of that I think is ang himself the thing with writing main characters especially in stories that are not aimed at mature audiences is that they must be some sort of role model something that naturally imposes limits on the types of stories you can really tell even if they do something badish it will more so serve as a lesson rather than a distinct character trait or flaw or on the flip side other stories purposely make their main characters extremely Bland to allow the audience to project themselves onto the main role there is a very very good reason why people often meme certain anime protagonists being copy pasted it's not just lazy writing or copying or whatever it is purposely meant to be a self-insert it is a intentionally muted character that is often just meant to be an Escapist power fantasy for the viewers Ang in that sense falls in the former Camp of functioning as a almost perfect role model but there too we encounter another problem that being that a character can just too perfect and become uninteresting in episodic stories this isn't really a huge problem there you can tell stories of smaller challenges where the character can grow within that self-contained little narrative with stories like that you don't really need to worry about the continuity of that growth in a long running series with A continuous story however Perfect characters are just very very boring think of someone like light from Death notes he is perfect in every sense of the word except that he is a massive narcissist and has as a God complex it's that part of his character that drives basically the entire story if it wasn't for those flaws there really is no death notes but okay Death Note isn't exactly a story that is aimed at non-mature audiences so think of someone like Hermione from Harry Potter she too is a perfect student she can overcome just about every problem etc etc but she can also be very opinionated and often too blunt which drives many of her interpersonal conflicts and that only becomes more prevalent as she grows up onside the audience with the later books and movies having far more conflict than the first which are all about just solving the Mysteries and problems within Hogwarts so even with these almost perfect characters they usually must have some sort of flaw to make them engaging but again you've read the title so you already know that that's not what we're talking about so how does Avatar tackle this problem of bang being extremely good in just about every situation yet still telling enthralling story of many ups and downs because you're watching a croto video it is time to go on another tangent because I also think it's worth noting that at the heart of ank's character is also a Coming of Age story but one that I think puts a significant spin on it as an example I mentioned Hermione a second ago but Harry's story is just about the most straightforward Coming of Age story with it quite literally detailing the story of his growth from a young child learning of his potential to him later becoming a full-fledged Wizard and eventually sending his own kids to Hogwarts it spans many years and details all the twists and turns of going from a first year to growing up in a world that turns out to be far darker than May initially seem with avatar on the other hand we have to remember that the entire story takes place over the course of like 6 to 10 months so by default there really isn't an explicit coming of age if you will but that's only a technicality and I think is actually secondary because I think the most important twist it puts on that is with Ang's different responsibilities beliefs and identities if you can call them that as in the monk Ang the Avatar Ang and the 12-year-old kid Ang all represent different themes of his story and the story of Avatar as a whole you know that Meme of watching SpongeBob as a kid and enjoying his and Patrick Shenanigans but as you get older your appreciation slowly shifts to Squidward's characterization in stance yeah well I think much of what keeps us coming back to Avatar is unironically because much of that same shift in perspective is present within just Ang and is even further accentuated by the likes of Zuko iro and everyone else I think the monk side of Ang is that role model I mentioned before the sort of perfect outlook on life that I think many of us strive for he's a pacifist through and through to the point that he even becomes a vegetarian he doesn't wants wealth fame or power he strives for peace and treats everyone with absolutely no Prejudice and so on though despite its seeming Simplicity I think this is one that has changed the absolute most as I've grown older and my perspective on the world has evolved while the Aeron noad way of life paints this idealic image of no earthly attachments and a simple and humble way of life I think the natural question that arises is is it really that simple could it be throughout Ang's story we see him grapple with the question of whether or not the Aeron noad way of life is truly sustainable especially for the Avatar somewhat paradoxically from a certain point of view their way of life can seem more than a little self-absorbed because they purposely aim to detach themselves from The World At Large they also turn a blind eye to the many injustices of that world during the Kyoshi era they were accused of just that not caring about the outside world and simply distracting themselves with their own little isolated perfect ecosystem so from that perspective it seems like their existence is somewhat naive at the same time though we also know that their way of life isn't just with the aim of reaching this enlightened state with no care for the world no far from it it is actually to preserve spiritual knowledge and offer guidance for generations of avatars to come so in that sense that supposed selfishness is actually the purest form of selflessness they give up their own desires and goals with the one sing single goal of helping the world maintain balance and again while I talk about the wider Avatar lore I think all of these themes and questions are present within just Ang story so when I watch the series today I no longer see the monk way of life as this Pinnacle of existence but rather as I think the strive for while acknowledging the realities of the world one part of my brain tells me that it's a doggy dog world people do whatever it takes to get ahead and if I don't do it why am I handicapping myself for literally no tangible reason that person struggling why would I help them no one helped me and this constant escalation of quote unquote Improvement in every Avenue of life is not slowing down so why should I but on the other if everyone thinks like that then what's the point we're not robots surely there must be someone to preserve traditions and a less go go go type of Lifestyle right which very very nicely leads us on to the second third of an's character that being the Avatar unlike the monk that is this n idealistic depiction of values and morals the Avatar very much depicts that more balanced and far more complex in adult angle one that is full of conflicting and often self-contradictory thoughts and emotions it is a doggy dog world but how do we coexist in such an environment I mean the Avatar as a concept is explicitly planted right in the middle of every single clashing ideology and worldview it is their literal job to balance them and find a way to coexist we in the real world aren't exactly stopping fire nations in our day-to-day but the Ang faces in his role as the Avatar I think could be lik into a crisis of self for just about any person out there in the very very first episodes when qara asks Ang why he didn't tell them that he was the Avatar he straight up says because I never wanted to be he is placed in a position that scares him he is forced to live up to an impossible Legacy and while in the world of Avatar he is carrying the weight of the entire world on his shoulders on a strictly personal level I think each and every one of us have been in a similar situation where each it feels like you are carrying that same weight we are talking about cartoons so I don't want to get like super dark but a tragedy happens and suddenly you find yourself caring for someone trying to fill in the Gap that is now left behind you never chose this position and you clearly never wanted any of this but it is now forced upon you you can't stand by because someone else needs you just like it is Ang's duty to take up the mantle of the Avatar it is yours to help your loved ones friends acquaintances or just about anyone else who might need your help but at the same time we are not Heroes Ang ran away after he learned that he is the Avatar and now a 100 years of war later there is a lot of regrets what if he hadn't ran away what if he was never the Avatar would things be different would a different Avatar avoided the war altogether surely Roku would be better at solving the problem it is again a deeply personal story of insecurity regrets imposter syndrome and all of those sorts of things jumbled up into a big old ball of anxiety what if you had noticed those early signs of whatever might have happened would it have been different is it your fault for not noticing them again these are all things we've all probably thought about countless times at 3:00 a.m. exactly because Ang's regrets about not embracing his Avatar Hood exploits that core human doubts I distinctly remember that in my little Walnut brain many years ago I thought the storm was kind of a mid episode it deals with all sorts of regrets and stuff but I was a small Walnut brain like give me the action right but watching it now it is one of my absolute favorites of book one precisely because how much deeper it truly goes it is no longer just a childish surface level explanation of oh so that's why Ang was in the iceberg for a long time and he misses his friend gatso that's very sad no it is a very very real identity crisis and the impossible weight of living up to a great legacy you think your grandpa is like really really cool well you'll have to be just like him or better not to be a disappointment right all those things you've been taught well maybe maybe there'll come a day when you will have to be the teacher it is a heavy heavy burden one that I think each and every one of us carries to a certain extent and one that is distinctly different from that idealistic monk perspective of detaching yourself from the world and not really lingering on what everyone else thinks of you in Ang's position perception is very very important he can be just a peaceful monk he needs to be the Avatar and in a similar vein walking the path of an avatar can be a very very lonely walk even with the most basic of things the air scooters Ang was immediately shunned because of the preconceived notions that the mere title of the Avatar carries it is something that is completely out of Ang's control and in terms of their friendship it changes absolutely nothing but still their entire Dynamic is suddenly flipped upside down and later in the series that is made even more explicit with Guru patik saying that in order to become a fully-fledged Avatar Ang must give up his feelings for Katara the Avatar is forced to detach themselves from their personal feelings and emotions yet still has to Anchor themselves to the World At Large or you know just like an adult must sometimes make very very hard decisions as to who they may be forced to cut out of their lives for the betterment of everyone else it is often the Avatar who has to make sacrifices to ensure that everything keeps going smoothly or worse yet someone isn't endangered there are about a dozen other smaller things that you could talk about with Ang's role as the Avatar but to loop back to that question why I think it keeps us coming back I think it's that more balanced and introspective adult angle that again shifts our perspective on how we view the series underneath that always pure and honest monk is a far more complex often confused and conflicted person which also neatly brings us to the final part of Ang's character because at the end of the day Ang is just a kids a prodigy to be sure but a goofy little guy for much of what I've just talked about it is a bit Doom and Gloom the purity of the monks being somewhat naive the painful regret and self-doubt out of the Avatar all might make you think that I am actually talking about berserk but we have all seen the series and that is not at all the majority of it much of it is a collection of whimsical Adventures that only occasionally get super deep and exactly as I talked about with the other parts of Ang's character the wacky goofy unagi riding guy is just as important with it representing that funloving childlike wonder that lives within each and every person there is a genre in anime and manga called Yash probably butcher the pronunciation but when translated literally it means healing these stories typically involve very little to no conflict and deliberately focuses on things like nature the mundane and the many little Delights of life to as the name suggests heal or Soo the audience the most obvious examples of this is something like laidback camp but series like mushishi and freed and more or less fit the bill as well which by the way if you like the swamp episode and Ang spirit world Shenanigans watch mushishi you will love it it's like a whole series of just that but yes the reason why I went off on this little tangent is that while Avatar's big picture story doesn't really fit the genre as it's commonly described I still think that it's the best way to summarize why we all love Ang's Whimsical side so so much it's those oneoff Adventures where we kind of sort of get into trouble but not really that gives the story this oddly peaceful and soothing Vibe little stories of personal growth like Ang getting a little bigheaded on Kyoshi Island and of course his famous marble trick him wanting to know his fortune and whether or not qara likes him even his very creative disguise when entering omashu all of them have just the perfect amount of goofiness so as to be endearing but not come off as too childish and perhaps most importantly of all it is that light-hearted blow stakes and adventurous spirits that accentuates the more serious sides of the story The Genius thing about Ang is that it interweaves all three of these personalities to take you on an emotional roller coaster all the way through with his tail embossing say working as the perfect small scale example of that the overall story isn't exactly a joyous one with Ang still searching for Opa but stumbling upon the bossing seu which is not doing so great but that's when the episode is flipped on its head and we get a little bit of that healing Vibe again with Ang after some Controlled Chaos of course creating a whole new little Zoo it combines the 12-year-old Whimsical side of Ang not really thinking things through that much with the m CP just wants the animals to have a nicer living space with the more mature Avatar side more so using this opportunity to reflect on his search for Opa and also side note about this little healing thing I also don't think it's a coincidence that Ang's story comes after iros I think this was very much meant to destroy you emotionally but then as you're still crying you watch Ang sort of make people a little bit happier and get better himself and then of course you just get slapped with Saka goofiness but yes point being that much like with bluffy for example it's because of that light-hearted VI all throughout that the serious and touching moments really hit you like a truck but okay why does the thumbnail Andor video title say perfect but flawed what does that even mean and more importantly what is so genius about it well I think the character of Ang can very easily be seen as too perfect in that he has no bad traits he is a bending Prodigy and overcomes every challenge put in front of him he's a likable wacky little guy and generally well he is perfect but the thing is while that is still true he has doubts not flaws per se but very very human doubts the genius thing about Ang's character is exactly that the fact that I went from being a little Walnut brain laughing at Ang's Antics and wanting to paint a blue arrow across my forehead to now sitting here and talking about the uncertainties of the monk ideologies and the conflicts of the Avatar perfectly demonstrates how those comparatively tiny additions to his character have made his story Timeless I I think it's those three sides of Ang's character that we've been talking about that also sort of mirror stages of maturity and how one's perspective might shift over time you start as that little boy and those marble tricks just some Childish fun as you grow older and develop a more rounded personality the monk seems like a perhaps slightly idealized image but one worth striving for one with no explicitly bad or malicious traits just a image of Purity and fairness but as you enter adulthood the Avatar a more complex and not so perfect perspective and the impossible burden that the title carries is the one that sticks out the most fears over not being the right one fears of not being good enough fears of Never Getting It of never living up to your forefather's legacies fears of ruining the cycle altogether of somehow having to Traverse a world full of uncertainty malice and often hatred I think the reason we keep coming back to Avatar is because it has struck the balance of having this perfect protagonist whose perspective is worth striving for but instead of giving him some explicit flaw to to give him depth he's rather grounded with this more ambiguous fear of uncertainty to put it differently rationally speaking Ang running away from his Avatar hood is not a flaw firstly well he's a literal kid but far more importantly everything that came afterwards was outside of his control he didn't know that Solan would launch a war and literally attempt to wipe out his kind I mean how could he even imagine something like that but couldn't you say the same exact thing for just about every single worry you have on a day-to-day basis in the age of always wanting to be informed about everything we are probably exposed to things that add nothing but wh ifs to our lives that we could never even control but okay that's just one thing for things happening right now at least there are the arguments of being informed but what about worries about the past we all know it's pointless right thinking about those things you said or didn't say like 5 years ago why worry about that the reason why I brought up that healing angle is because even this pseudo character flaw that's not really a flaw shows us that even the perfect monk has doubts fantasy is just an extension of The Human Condition stories told about people wrapped up in a slightly shinier form and what better way to explore that human condition than to go straight for fundamental human insecurity and fear just like an immortal elf girl can stun loock you a monk boy crying in a cave about not being a good Avatar has the same power to tell you that it's okay bad things happened and it is an uncertain world out there but right now try to be the best you can strive to be like that humble monk don't lose yourself in that endless pursuit of what once was and what you believe you should be keep your head high be that wacky goofy 12-year-old in the words of a certain someone we can't concern ourselves with what was we must act on what is the genius thing about Ang is that depending on what stage of life you are in inside of you there is always a part of that marble spinning goofy guy the Monk and the Avatar what keeps us coming coming back is that immature maturity that we see within Ang we don't relate to him because he's a blank page he's not just like me for real for real because of some quirky character flaw no it's because within all of us there is a fun loving carefree and adventurous Spirit just like the male shoot writing Ang and generally speaking I think we all try to be good and to treat others fairly but every now and then that more balanced perspective kicks in for a quick reality check sometimes a very unwelcome one that breaks you out of that stride and perhaps calls you to some urgent Duty the thing that truly connects the young versions of us following the gangs Adventures for the very first time the adult versions of us watching it for the 100th time and Ang himself is that eventually we all become the Avatar just trying to maintain balance be in the world or maybe just within ourselves and that's the video can you tell that I'm in an avatar mood because I am definitely in an avatar AR Boot and the wait for the liveaction version is lowkey killing me but anyway with that I want to say a massive thank you to our current patrons and YouTube members who allow me to produce even more of these for you all and let's also give a warm welcome to the newest members of the team JT Hill Malika Fury and Elias luftig I am so sorry if I matured the names I absolutely did but without you there' be a whole lot list of my rambling so seriously thank you thank you and also side notes when and if we get any more Avatar news anytime soon I'm covering all of that on the second chat Chann so if you're interested in the latest developments do give that a look other than that I want to say thank you very much for watching I hope you have a great day and hopefully I'll see you in the next one bye-bye

Channel: Korotos Mystery Shack

Views: 132,612

Keywords: Koroto's, Mystery, Shack, Korotos, Koroto, Avatar, ATLAVerse, Avatar Studios, Aang, The Last Airbender, ATLA, Avatar The Last Airbender, The storm, book 1, the guru avatar, essay, analysis, tales of ba sing se, Gyatso, Roku, Avatar Roku, Avatar Aang, Book 3, Uncle Iroh, video essay, retrospective, team avatar, aang character analysis

Id: 6k4ez7Euchw

Length: 20min 41sec (1241 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 09 2023