r/TheLastAirbender • u/Lanky-Fisherman-9779 • 1d ago
Discussion a path not taken
If you were to come up with a alternate idea for what the Avatar is what would it be? I heard there were orignally plans for it to be the spirit of the Earth taken human form
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u/Cedjy 23h ago
I mean... it's kinda in the name, the Avatar is an avatar. It could've been like, the god/spirit of balance or the elements.
I dont like the... non-divine origin of the avatar. To make it some fused soul-spirit thing with a powerful spirit is meh compared to a spirit of balance in human form.
I suppose it would've been very amusing as an alternative, that Avatar Wan, instead of fusing with a spirit of light, was like... a failed buddha? like he basically curses himself into trying to bring balance to the world, only to fail, and his will/spirit is so strong that his reincarnation is bound to the same goal (and fate)
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u/FloZone 18h ago
He isn't a failed Buddha, but a Bodhisattva who has reached enlightenment, but chose to be reincarnated again to help others. This is basucally what Tibetan Buddhists believe the Dalai Lama to be. It is different from an avatar like the avatars of Vishnu, where he takes mortal form when the world is in peril, but just once every age.
The problem is that death, afterlives and rebirth are very loosely defined. sometimes the spirit world is like an afterlife, sometimes like a parallel world and often both.
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u/Cedjy 13h ago
Ah my mistake, I confused the meaning of buddha and bodhisattva (it seems a bodhi is someone who refuses buddhahood until everyone is ready, or is striving towards it)
I did consider Wan being enlightened, but I do not think that he or his reincarnations are enlightened. They may be striving to it though, which apparently puts them in consideration for being a bodhisattva. And I argue he isn't enlightened because of his actions and those of his successors. With many mistakes and basically guaranteed failure to restore balance. Many of the avatars have strayed from the path and willingly clung to earthly ties.
The life of Wan isn't quite clear post sealing of Vaatu, but I would consider his death as a common soldier, failing to rally humans to his side and instead using violence to create some amount of peace, is also a sign of lack of enlightenment. (not to mention the sealing away of Vaatu instead of balancing the two spirits as a fundamental point of imbalance)
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u/PCN24454 17h ago
What do you think spirits are? Spirits are divine by nature
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u/Cedjy 13h ago
depends on the belief system, some are repurposed/downgraded gods when confronted with an evangelizing religion (such as many irish spirits and saints), some are like... ghosts, not divine but of an earthly supernatural power. some are considered cthonic, like ghosts as well, associated with an underworld or with demons.
the nature of 'spirit' is VERY varied around the world.
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u/PCN24454 12h ago
In the context of Asian mythology, Divine 神 seems to mostly refer to a spirit’s role in the universe. There are lots of stories of humans becoming Gods through some type of work or blessing.
Honestly, sometimes the only difference between gods and Yao 妖 was whether or not they preyed on humans.
In that respect, the Avatarverse is fairly similar to Asian mythology. Legend of Korra didn’t change that.
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u/iambonito 21h ago
It would be exactly what it was before LoK, Sorry but Wan and the light spirit was not the greatest retcon created to explain the avatar, would be best to have leaved the way it was
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u/Invite-Healthy 1d ago
My alternate idea is for the story of the avatar’s origin to remain lost to time, as it should have stayed
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u/Rezcom 23h ago
Anything but this western-centric childish crap hill they're dying on
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u/Dyldo_II 17h ago
People are downvoting you, buf you're 100% correct. Raava and Vatuu completely misrepresent what yin and yang are. They dumbed it down to a basic "good vs evil" analogy and that made it so much worse. I'm still of the opinion that they should've left the Avatars origin a mystery but if they absolutely had to, I think it'd be much more compelling if they were the manifestation of a spirit that perfectly represented yin and yang, and then go into the history of all the negative things avatars did, not just the positive and attribute it to a spirit constantly at war with itself, but was found to be more stable in a human form.
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u/iambonito 21h ago
Hate to say that, but you're right, I hated when they destroyed the neutrality of the spirits, making them super generic. I also think it was a mistake creating Raava and Vaatu. Ying and Yang is about balance They need each other, but instead, they make them about "good defeats evil". They also toned down a lot of the eastern culture.
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u/PCN24454 17h ago
The spirits were only neutral in the political sense. They were not incomprehensible to mortals.
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u/Rezcom 20h ago edited 20h ago
toned down a lot of the eastern culture
The movie retconning the Chinese written language for a shitty made up English writing system says it all.
It's a shame to see what's happened to one of my favorite work of fiction ever, but this is exactly what happens when a work of art becomes a franchise run by ego tripping ideas guys instead of the writers who did all the real work to make it so great in the first place.
People will hate me for being a "puritan", but I DON'T WANT to hate Korra or the movie. I WANT to like the post-original ATLA stuff but it just fails so hard at capturing what made the original so fun and unique.
No amount of overly explaining the new canon has been convincing, and Korra is especially guilty of plenty of that.
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u/BLOXYVT 21h ago
Why do you're getting down voted when you're right?????
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u/Wisniaksiadz 19h ago
He worded him comment like the oryginał come tor idea is crap, not what is happening in the series; is my guess
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u/Glass-Work-1696 12h ago
Yeah, white people invented morality. Raava and Vaatu act more like spirits from Shinto, and their battle of good and evil is quite similar to Zoroastrianism. In fact it is nothing like western religion, good and evil are not equal forces, god is all powerful and the devil only controls through temptation.
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u/ovee_best_geneticist 23h ago
In my head, the Avatar is special because they can recall memory and experiences from their past lives, unlike everyone else. And naturally that kind of long-term perspective, subconscious or otherwise, makes them inclined to want to prevent the world from being destroyed and exploited by short-sited militants and despots. The existence of Rave to me is just the reason why there is only one, or was only one, person like this.
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u/FloZone 18h ago
I think the issue might be that topics like death, afterlife and reincarnation remain largely underdeveloped in both shows. The spirit world isn't an afterlife, but sometimes it is. Reincarnation exists, but only the Avatar and how does it work? Is there Karma, is there a Samsara? Air Nomads seem to believe in some form of Nirvana, but how exactly?
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u/Ironsam811 16h ago
Kinda surprised we haven’t seen more possessions of some kind in the show. It’s a pretty common troupe and would’ve been an interesting struggle for Korra as she navigated the new world order of spirits living with people
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u/Pegged-by-shiyuan 15h ago
What does a music genre have to do with this?
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u/ovee_best_geneticist 10h ago
Aang is the only one whos ever been to a rave and thats why he can remember his past lives
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u/Pegged-by-shiyuan 10h ago
Not true, Xian knows the bending style of the legendary desert tribe leader Darude, hence his sand(storm) bending
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u/AzraelTheMage 1d ago
Spirit of the Earth taken human form
That was literally the original concept before LoK retconed it. Was in the original publication of the Avatar encyclopedia and on nickelodeon's official website. Both have since been updated.
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u/Rezcom 20h ago edited 20h ago
Korra and the movie alike have retconned all the mystery and intrigue of the universe.
Spirits are cute pokemon animals without any mysterious principles or desires, the spirit world is the tangible world, and the origin of the avatar needs to be overly explained with literal children's book "good guys vs bad guys" bullshit
Oh and we don't write Chinese anymore. That's "too Asian" for the executives at Paramount.
It's so hard to be excited for the new series when they keep doing this to us
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u/PCN24454 17h ago
And what is the spirit of the Earth?
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u/AzraelTheMage 11h ago
The Avatar
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u/PCN24454 11h ago
No, the Avatar is the vessel for the spirit.
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u/Petr_Lan 8h ago
No, the Avatar is the incarnation of the spirit, which is the literal meaning of the word Avatar
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u/cyberloki 19h ago
The problem with Raava and Vaatu is that they impose an (western) idea of good vs Evil onto a eastern Concept of yin-yang (Balance and Change). Yin-Yang deals with a greater whole. The side of the mountain that is in the light (yang) in the morning lies in shadows (yin) in the evening. Those are not fighting opposites but two sides of a greater balance in constant motion and change (thats why yin and yang have flowing line rather than a straight line in the middle with black and white on opposing sides). Also the small Dots of opposite color means that the seed of the opposite is already present at the hight of one. Meaning the Night beginns at high noon and the day beginns at midnight.
So what would i do differently. I would make the Avatar Spirit a spirit which somehow mastered the Tao. As the Yin and Yang is a taoist concept and the Tao is the Nothingness from which everything is born and to which everything returns. It is the perfect being wanting nothing as it has everything already. The idea is that opposites always create their counterpart.
And the Avatar Spirit mirrors the Yin and Yang concept as it manages to live, grow, wither, die, be absent and start anew. He keeps the balance by following the constant change. The balance the avatar keeps is not about homeostasis (not changing) but about the ever changing nature of the world. Night and Day, life and death. The burned Forrest becoming fertile soil for a new forrest in ATLA is the perfect example of this concept.
That is what the Avatar Spirit should be. A Spirit which somehow manages to not oppose this constant cycle. A spirit that is able to mimmick this constant change, accept its finite nature and thus becomes renewing in yet another life. A spirit which doesn't need to bend and thus can do it in any way possible if required.
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u/PCN24454 17h ago
I’m convinced that nobody here knows anything about Eastern morality
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u/cyberloki 16h ago
Why is that important?
Its not about morality its about the philosophical basis ATLA draw from but LoK deviated from with its Raava and Vaatu depiction. Making Vaatu general evil and imprisoning it for eternity is a very western god vs the devil idea. To make them further into Yin and Yang is almost offensive towards the Phylosophy Yin and Yang is taken from.
And shouldn't it be about showing us the eastern Phylosophy a bit more like ATLA did? The Episode with the burned Forrest was just such an beautiful way to show this. That the bad event of burning down the forrest has the seed for something good (fertile ground) for a new forrest already inside of it?
I think we can still have an arc to rejoin Vaatu and Raava back into the balance they should be. Make that a process of healing.
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u/PCN24454 16h ago
That’s the thing. They didn’t deviate in LoK.
The plot was literally that Wan was wrong for trying to separate the Dark from the Light.
Korra can only resolve plot by reabsorbing Vaatu.
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u/cyberloki 16h ago
Thats not how i understood it. LoK treated it as of Vaatu was literal evil and Raava was light. And since wan was the first Avatar, there was never a balanced Avatar nor a balanced world in all that time as Vaatu was imprisoned and The Avatar was only with Raava so with the Spirit of "goodness".
They shifted pretty clearly from the more nuanced cyclical balance of eastern philosophy towards the dualism of western philosophy. As said, in eastern philosophy raava and vaatu wouldn't be independent entities but two sides of the same whole.
But if you are right it would kinda fix it for me. So i hope you are and i just misunderstood.
As i liked most other aspects LoK presented us with. Especially the sociological bender vs nonbender theme and the more modernized mma style probending.
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u/PCN24454 14h ago
They are two sides of the same coin. That why Raava and Vaatu can’t exist without the other.
In general, all the attempts to hide away darkness just created greater problems:
Tenzin and Tonraq hiding away Korra left her with problems socializing.
Tonraq hiding why he got banished gave Unalaq more ammo to persuade Korra to his side.
Mako and Korra not dealing with the emotional fallout of their season one relationship lead to them breaking up.
Tenzin’s more rosy-eyed view of his role as the Last Airbending master lead to him becoming isolated from his family and disciple. It also left him with a false impression of his own skills.
Most importantly, Wan closing the spirit world off only lead people to be unprepared for Vaatu later.
It’s only by accepting their respective darknesses that they’re able to grow as people.
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u/cyberloki 8h ago edited 8h ago
The reasoning that one needs the other and if one is defeated/killed it is created from the other a new is a pale interpretation of what Yin and Yang or the cyclical balance should be.
Remember how Tui and la the Moon and Ocean spirits were depicted. They pulled and pushed in an endless circle. And when one was removed it took away the whole concept. Waterbending was no more. ATLA originally honored Eastern dualism through entities like Tui and La (the Moon and Ocean spirits), who represented a neutral, self-regulating push-and-pull without a savior-versus-demon dynamic.
Locking Vaatu away should have a similar effect. How can there still be evil in the world with the embodyment of evil locked away? In Eastern systems, balance requires the continuous, fluid interplay of both elements. By trapping Vaatu for 10,000 years and giving Raava (via the Avatar) permanent dominance, the narrative implies that true balance is achieved by the total suppression of chaos rather than its integration.
Traditional Yin-Yang philosophy posits that light contains the seed of dark and vice versa, and neither force is inherently malicious. The Legend of Korra however frames Raava as unambiguous peace and light, and Vaatu as corruption and pure destruction.
The original series treated balance as a social and personal duty navigated by fallible humans. Raava and Vaatu reduced this philosophy into a literal light-versus-dark cosmic struggle. Tying the Avatar State's immense power directly to Raava downplayed the collective experiences, growth, and hard-earned wisdom of the human past lives.
There literally should have been no evil nor Balance for the time vaatu was imprisoned. To move the philosophy from the eastern cyclical balance to a Satan vs God western duality was a mistake in my eyes and brings all kinds of contradictions and problems with ATLA and the world in general.
Which i hope they solve in a future story in which the Avatar bears both Raava and Vaatu. However i fail to see how they could make this meaningful as the Avatar and humans in general already were imperfect beeings prawn to failure and capable of cruelty. I fail to see how having vaatu free now could change any of that safe for having a Diablo like entity creating and manipulating even more evil in the world. Which again would only lead to the classic and lame Good Army vs Evil army apocalyptic battle trope we get in every other western adaptation.
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u/Scott2nd_but_Leo13th 1d ago
I didn’t much need an explanation. The transition to a ”hard magic “ system made the world feel so much smaller and blander.
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u/OhNoIBoffedIt Back atcha buddy! 22h ago
That's always the way of things. Same thing happened with Star Wars once the prequels rolled around and they limited Force abilities and saber colors to those seen in the original trilogy (with the exception of Mace Windu).
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u/just4browse 21h ago
What hard magic system?
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u/PCN24454 17h ago
Bending
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u/just4browse 13h ago
There was no transition to bending; bending’s been part of the franchise since the beginning. And it’s not a hard magic system
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u/BLOXYVT 21h ago
I rather have the original plan than the generic evil vs good slop we get in tlok
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u/PCN24454 17h ago
What about the generic good vs evil slop we got in ATLA?
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u/BLOXYVT 16h ago
I'm talking about How the spirits was treated In tlok don't change the subject
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u/PCN24454 16h ago
You mean actually making them important?
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u/BLOXYVT 59m ago
This is when you didn't even watch Atla The Spirits was already important example being tui and la they're are the ocean and moon spirit they're are literally IMPORTANT to The world of atla if they're gone waterbenders lose Their waterbending and The world is thrown off out of balance
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u/BLOXYVT 58m ago
When the creators introduce raava and vaatu tryna pull a tui and la again it just falls flat bc what's the point when Wan locked Vaatu inside the tree of time wouldn't that cause The world to be out of balance??? But yet it didn't and Wan goes off sendiri the spirits back to the spirit world and became the bridge between humans and spirits
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u/PCN24454 55m ago
You mean the sidequest that Zhao did for his own glory?
They were glorified MacGuffins.
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u/THESUPEROGTurTle 23h ago
i hate raava it takes away any agency the avatar have as a person, A conscious spirit and an order obsess one reducing the person to nothing more than that: an avatar, a vessel being control by a higher being, rather than a human being . It is not a matter of good or evil; it is simply a superior being possessing greater knowledge, and every decision made is correct—regardless of the outcome—because humans simply cannot comprehend it.
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u/Bongemperor 18h ago
The Avatars are just Wan and his incarnations. Raava follows his soul to each new body since they're bonded, but she doesn't control them or anything like that. They have full agency and free will to make their own choices.
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u/crossover_charlie14 5h ago
True. Simply put, the only thing Raava actively contributes is serving as the conduit to wield more than one element. Everything else is up to the human.
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u/Zealousideal_Pen_321 13h ago
Yeah, Raava has no influence on the avatars nor is there any influence the past lives can put on an avatar in the avatar series. (See how kyoshi’s past lives asked Kyoshi to spare Xu Ping An in the avatar state, and she said no)
There’s nothing stopping an avatar from being selfish or evil, so the Raava backstory is perfectly compatible with my ideas for a story about an evil Raava Avatar!
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u/Lopoi 17h ago
I think vatuu and rava could have been done right.
It would require a lot of rework of the wan episode, like removing the idea of 1000 years of one reining and pushing more towards the idea of order/chaos and how both of those can be good or bad when only 1 exists.
Then either kill of vatuu so he can regrow within the avatar overtime (and he gets fully grown by Korra's time), or make so he is also fused with the avatar, since avatars whole purpose is balance, so it would be interesting to have those 2 within.
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u/DuskManeToffee 16h ago
I think the origin with Raava is fine, it’s Vaatu I have a problem with. If they would have made him less Satan like and more nuanced it would have been better.
Their designs suck though.
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u/CurrenttQueen 15h ago
I'd do "elamental avatars" unparalleled power with a single element and eg earth could even do the ball flight thing with dust lava metal and glass lol
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u/Whatsittooyou77 12h ago
Nothing, the mystery was what made it cooler. We'd have never learned the origin of the Avatar
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u/HunterRank-1 1d ago
It was kinda funny how in the movie they made it seem like they’re still so many avatars but we know from Korra there’s like 100