Avatar

""There's this bald boy, who can control the wind... Oops! Wrong Avatar...""

- Chester A. Bum's Bum Review of James Cameron's Avatar

"Avatar" is a Sanskrit word that usually implies a deliberate descent from higher spiritual realms to lower realms of existence for special purposes. It is often translated into English as "incarnation", meaning the physical incarnation of a divine or higher power. In the modern world the term has picked up a number of other meanings, and is the namesake for many fictional works. Its broadest definition is "some sort of remotely controlled entity which is present in the role of its controller". Naturally, that all means there are a lot of different tropes and works that use "Avatar" in their names:

Tropes

 * Author Avatar: The higher being is the author, who has a character in the work that represents him- or herself.
 * Digital Avatar: The sort you find in games as the Player Character, by way of Cyberpunk (specifically Snow Crash) influence.
 * God in Human Form: One of the ways it happens is through an avatar projection. See also A Form You Are Comfortable With. As mentioned above, examples from certain mythologies are the Trope Namer.
 * Fighting a Shadow: In general, using an avatar means that if something kills it, what had the avatar doesn't completely die.

Works

 * American cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender
 * Avatar: The Legend of Korra, in international markets. The American title is just The Legend of Korra to avoid conflicting with...
 * Avatar, the 2009 feature film by James Cameron.
 * Ultima IV: The Quest of the Avatar, where the player seeks to become "the Avatar," basically their version of Crystal Dragon Jesus.
 * The Avatar, a book by Poul Anderson, which involves a group of explorers commandeering a space freighter. The best-known cover has three characters on the cover—two humans (presumably viewpoint characters Daniel Brodersen and Caitlín Mulryan) and a four-armed alien vaguely resembling a humanoid sea lion (Fidelio).
 * Avatar, an old Role-Playing Game on a multi-university computer network back in The Seventies.
 * Avatar, the sixth book in the Indigo fantasy series.
 * Avatar, the first book in the Star Trek Deep Space Nine Relaunch.
 * Law & Order, Season 17, Episode 2: "Avatar".