Avatar: The Last Airbender/Awesome

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Series

Azula

  • From her second ever appearance in the season two opening episode

Azula: You said the tides would not allow us to bring the ship in. Do the tides command this ship?
Captain: No, princess.
Azula: And if I were to have you thrown overboard, would the tides think twice about smashing you against the rocky shore?
Captain: No, princess.
Azula: Well then, maybe you should worry less about the tides who have already made up their mind about killing you, and worry more about me, who's still mulling it over.

    • Considering that we're treated to a Surrounded by Idiots moment by this very same captain, it might be reasonable to assume that Azula was being when she claimed ignorance over the tides, especially since the ship did land completely safely, and knew then from her Captain's warning that he's really stupid. Thus making her threat both a Kick the Dog moment and a warning for him to just shut up and follow orders before he messes up... which he did in the same episode.
  • Single-handedly taking over Ba Sing Se in under 48 hours. Okay, she did have a couple of handmaidens for backup... powerless ones... who were a year older than her 14 at best...
    • Which also brought about this gem of an exchange:

Long Feng: You've beaten me at my own game.

Azula: Don't flatter yourself. You were never even a player.

  • If there was any doubt whatsoever about Princess Azula's Magnificent Bastard status after she demonstrated her ruthlessness and her Dangerously Genre Savvy in the second season finale, the start of the next season removed them:

Azula: You seemed so worried about how father would treat you because you hadn't captured the Avatar. I figured, if I gave you the credit [for killing him], you'd have nothing to worry about.

Zuko: But why?

Azula: Call it a generous gesture. I wanted to thank you for your help, and I was happy to share the glory.

Zuko: You're lying.

Azula: If you say so.

Zuko: You have another motive for doing this. I just haven't figured out what it is.

Azula: Please, Zuko. What ulterior motive could I have? What could I possibly gain by letting you get all the glory for defeating the Avatar? Unless somehow, the Avatar was actually alive... All that glory would suddenly turn to shame and foolishness. But you said yourself that was impossible. Sleep well, Zuzu.

    • Keep in mind that that scene opened with Zuko barging into her bedroom demanding to know, "Why'd you do it?" Her response? "You're going to have to be a little more specific." Because she's currently working on so many diabolical plots against Zuko, she can't possibly be expected to know off the top of her head which one he's referring to.
  • Swiftly avoiding and evading simultaneous bending attacks from Aang and Toph without even breaking a sweat during the Day of the Black Sun when she was rendered POWERLESS.
  • In "The Boiling Rock" when Azula started flying, using her firebending to turn herself into a small rocket.
  • In "The Southern Raiders" when Azula recovers from falling down a cliff by using firebending to reach a cliff and stopping with a hair pin. Leaving her hanging off the face of cliff, with her hair billowing in the wind. This also constitutes Azula's Crowning Moment Of Sexy.
  • "I am a 400-foot-tall purple platypus-bear with pink horns and silver wings." More specifically, Azula being able to say that without giving Toph any sign that she's lying. Even more awesome is that it's Truth in Television. Sociopaths are so accustomed to lying and faking normalcy that they can pass a polygraph - and it seems Toph uses some of the same physical cues as a lie detector does to reach her conclusions.
  • Azula's firebending in general. From her blue flames to the tricks and abilities she has at her possession, whether it's creating discs of fire ("Return to Omashu") or creating a flame shield around her that can BLOCK four simultaneous bending attacks all at once ("The Chase").
  • Princess Azula during "Crossroads of Destiny" for becoming pretty much the physical embodiment of Dangerously Genre Savvy. During the last fight. Aang realizes Katara and he can't beat Azula, Zuko and the Dai Li without some serious power. Aang goes into the Avatar State and rises into the air, encased in a pillar of light. Katara looks on with admiration and awe, the music gets upbeat and seriously epic, and it looks like we're about to see a repeat of the Book One finale...and then Azula fries him with a bolt of lightning, in the middle of the transformation sequence. While everyone else just gawked, she hit Aang with her most powerful attack, at the exact moment he was most vulnerable. It's nightmarish and shocking (even the soundtrack sounds stunned and frightened), and it's exactly what a cunning, dangerous villain should do. Bravo, Princess.

Toph

Lao Beifong: My daughter is blind! She is blind and tiny and helpless and fragile! She cannot help you.

Toph Beifong: (pulls her hand free) Yes. I can.

    • Note that she did that by herself because she wanted to: "Wait! They're mine!" ... and you're not having any.
  • Taking out the three girls who mock her make-up. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Funny.
  • The number of Mooks Toph takes out in droves -- whether they end up impaled to the ceiling on columns of Earth or bowled over by earthquake -- when the Gaang storm the Earth King's palace.
  • Using her Earthbending on metal (a feat which was said multiple times over the course of the series to be entirely impossible) to escape a metal cage, using the same "impossible" skill to trap her captors in their own cage, triumphantly yelling the completely accurate statement of "I am the greatest earthbender in the world!", and then riding away on a gigantic wave of ground. That is just too kickass.
    • And what really hammers in the quote above is that her captors claimed "Not even the greatest earthbender in the world can bend metal."
    • Not really completely accurate- she still can't earthbend with her chin...
      • Give her time...
      • We don't know that. Toph has been shown on two occasions within the series to be capable of bending with only her head/face. The first was during the episode "Tales of Ba Sing Se" when she bent her mud mask to scare the spa attendant using only her face. The second time was during the episode "The Runaway" when she used only a small movement of her head to make the "dice" she threw to go the way she wanted and thus cheat the gamblers out of their money. So in all likelihood, Toph is perfectly capable of bending with her chin, and might even be able to give Bumi a run for his money...
  • As said by the Trope Pantheons; Toph isn't blind, she's just unable to see anything less awesome than she is.

Zuko

  • Zuko first won the eternal loyalty and respect of fans by defeating Zhao -- a smug, experienced commander at least twice his age -- in an Agni Kai and clinched it with the proceeding Sword Over Head moment. As an added bonus, it was a Shirtless Scene.
    • Worth noting how he does it, specifically by not doing anything flashy. A previous scene had Iroh insisting he needed to master basic forms before moving onto advanced techniques. During the Agni Kai, Zuko appears to be beaten by Zhao using exactly that simple form, only for him to get up and respond in kind. Even in his third episode this 'villain' is being shown in an intelligent and, through the Sword Over Head moment, admirable light.
  • The Flash Back that shows the reason why Zuko got his scar. Too bad villains don't appreciate courage, loyalty, or respect for the sanctity of human life...
  • Saving Aang as the Blue Spirit without bending or making a sound.
  • The Showdown At High Noon in Zuko's Day in The Limelight. It starts with him taking out his first opponent without even fully removing his sword from the sheath, and ends with a classic My Name Is Inigo Montoya moment.
  • His Sword Fight with Jet: "You want a show? I'll give you a show!" He doesn't even need his Firebending to be awesome.
  • In a sick twisted way, his totally unexpected subversion of the Heel Face Turn in "Crossroads of Destiny." No fictional character should have the power to make real people feel so angry, shocked, dismayed, saddened, sickened, enraged, and betrayed.
  • Both Zuko's first successful redirection of lightning, Calling the Old Man Out and his true Heel Face Turn were pure, utter win.
    • Note that the lightning in question wasn't just regular lightning. It was double-strength lightning, fired at him by the most powerful firebender in the world. Zuko is BAD. ASS.
    • Even moreso, when he finally confronts Ozai and tells him what a terrible father he's been is a true testament to Zuko's character growth. The guy spent the first two seasons hunting the Avatar so that Ozai could restore his honor. You must admit, he has come a long long way.

Zuko: For so long, all I wanted was for you to love me. To accept me. I thought it was my honor that I wanted, but really, I was just trying to please you. You, my father, who banished me just for talking out of turn! My father, who challenged me—a 13-year-old boy!—to an Agni Kai. How can you possibly justify a duel with a child?!

Ozai: It was to teach you respect!

Zuko: It was cruel! And it was wrong.

  • The Zuko/Azula airship battle in "The Southern Raiders.
  • It's only a short sequence, but who could forget in "The Desert", when the Rough Rhinos ganged up on Fire Nation fugitives Zuko and Iroh, that Zuko could still chop an arrow in half IN MIDAIR and shoot a fireblast through the bow string, and that Iroh kicked aside a CANNONBALL on a chain and caused it to wrap around a rhino's leg. Did I mention that they were both weary and half-starved at the time?
  • After Zhao hires pirates to blow up Zuko's ship, Zuko ... shields himself from the explosion (but still gets injured); disguises himself as a soldier and hides on Zhao's ship (not just in the fleet, but on Zhao's personal ship); sneaks out when they reach the North Pole, managing to evade Fire Navy scouts and Water Tribe sentries; finds and navigates a series of underwater tunnels, then firebends underwater, at night, in the middle of the North Pole, while oxygen deprived to melt through what looks like half a foot of ice in order to get into the city; sneaks through the Northern Water Tribe without anyone spotting him; finds Aang in an out-of-the-way place in a city of probably a thousand people; fights a skilled waterbender (Katara) at night, and almost wins before she freezes him; beats her after the sun comes up and he can melt the ice; carries Aang, a good-sized twelve-year-old, up a cliff and who-knows-how-far across the Arctic tundra in a blizzard, wearing a thin ninja-parka and probably still damp; and finally delivers a heart-wrenching speech about his past, still visibly injured during all of this.

"There's always something. Not that you would understand. You're like my sister - everything always came easy to her. She's a firebending prodigy, and everyone adores her. My father says she was born lucky. He says I was lucky to be born! [beat] I don't need luck, though. I don't want it. I've always had to struggle and fight and that's made me strong. It's made me who I am."

  • Zuko risking his own life to save one of his crew members in "The Storm"--he catches the falling helmsman by the wrist while hanging on to a (wet and probably slippery) ladder in the middle of wind, rain, and rough ocean and manages to set him down safely. It's made especially awesome because he'd been acting like a Royal Brat for that entire episode (backstory reveal notwithstanding) but proved in that one moment that yes, he really does care about other people.
  • Zuko is pretty awesome in "The Waterbending Scroll," the one episode past the beggining of the series where he's a legitimately threatening villain. He manipulates the pirates into helping him find Aang by threatening to burn their precious scroll and is Genre Savvy enough to see through Sokka's Talking Your Way Out ploy.
  • This appropriately named AMV basically summarizes a few of Zuko's most badass moments.

Sokka

  • Making Zuko look like an idiot (in an otherwise completely one-sided fight) in the second episode when his boomerang came back and nailed him in the head.
  • In fact, that Sokka was fighting at all was a Crowning Moment of Awesome. I mean, he is a single non-bender standing his ground against an entire warship. And he literally stands his ground while a huge metal ship bears down on him until the ground itself moves! Sokka is badass!
  • ...throughout the whole series. For a "comic relief," he repeatedly shows, beyond shadow of a doubt, HE. HAS. BRASS. ONES.
  • Knocking giant owl spirit Wan Shi Tong unconscious with a heavy blow to the head with a book.

Wan Shi Tong: (about to attack Katara) I've studied Northern Water Style, Southern Water Style, even Foggy Swamp Style!
Sokka: (falls from the ceiling and knocks him out) That's called Sokka Style! Learn it!

School Principal: Thank you so much for coming Mr...?
Sokka: "Fire! Wang Fire. And this is my wife, Saph Fire!"

Katara: Sapphire Fire, nice to meet you.

  • Defeating a mook by running up onto his mount, using his new sword to cut the guy's spear in half the long way, then kicking him off to take his ride.
  • Killing Combustion Man. Pure, unadulterated win. "Yeah, Boomerang!"
    • Not only that, but throwing Boomerang around a corner for a dead center shot based on two angles of fire that he saw. Awesomness by Analysis anyone?
  • Shaking down Azula for information, having her by the throat and bellowing out pure, distilled rage, "WHERE...IS...SUKI?!"
  • Remember when Sokka sailed over a reef, with no actual experienced sailors? Pure smarts.
  • It's relatively minor, but Sokka's reaction when Aang accidentally burns Katara shows how much he cares for his sister; he tackles and gives a furious lecture to the Avatar!
  • In "Return to Omashu", the Fire Nation captures the titular city with the intention of holding all its citizens hostage. Sokka invents a plague using make-up and tells everyone to act like they're deathly ill. The Fire Nation soldiers not only release all of the hostages, but help escort them out of the city out of fear of the disease.
  • Sokka's Badassitude is summed up in this exchange:

Mai: (to a depowered Katara) "How do you expect to fight without your bending?"
Sokka: (boomerangs the knife out of her hand) "I seem to manage!"

  • To put it briefly, the episode 'Sokka's Master' shows that Sokka isn't capable in spite of his eccentric ways, he's that way (and so a Badass Normal) because of them. There's a trope for that? Oh, and don't forget the brilliant sword-fighting.
    • Crazy Awesome comes to mind.
    • That entire episode was one long Moment of Awesome for Sokka. For a guy who's constantly bragging about his skills and is the universe's designated comic relief and buttmonkey, he solemnly bows before Piandao and admits he's just a boy, and may be completely worthless as a student. Then we see him slaving to forge his own sword, something that is uniquely his, without a shred of his usual antics (usually when he's sharpening his weapons or preparing, something would go wrong and he'd be comically injured). Finally, after the long speech Piandao gave about his badassery, Sokka fully admits to being a fraud, and basically challenges his master to a one-on-one duel. For a brief moment too, it seemed like he would actually win.
  • Basically, at any given time Sokka is either a comic-relief goofball or arguably the single bravest character in the show. Or both.
  • Also in "The Painted Lady he stands up for his entire group against an ungrateful town whom they had saved from firebenders with Katara under the disguise of the town mythological figure.
  • Sokka's original CMOA came in Jet's introductory episode. After it becomes apparent that Jet is going to flood a fire nation village by blowing up a dam, it seems like the perfect setup for a Big Damn Heroes moment... that never comes. The bombs go off and the village floods. And that's when Sokka shows up and reveals that he had evacuated everybody in the village beforehand. He was able to do this because he had the vocal support of a single old man whom Sokka had stood up for earlier. In that scene he shows a great deal more maturity than Jet by protecting the villagers, even though he has just as much reason to hate the fire nation as Jet does. He also demonstrates his status as the most intelligent of the group by seeing Jet's true nature far far earlier than Aang or Katara do.

Iroh

  • First indication we get of Iroh being a formidable firebender is probably when he so casually stops Zhao attacking Zuko from behind, Accompanied by a lecture on how, even in exile, his nephew is 'more honourable' than the 'great Commander Zhao'. Doubles as a heartwarming moment to give Zuko such vocal support. Of course he promptly ignores it when questioned soon after.
  • Stepping in during the North Pole invasion.

"Whatever you do to that spirit, I'll unleash on you ten-fold! Let it go now!"

Iroh: Did I ever tell you how I got the nickname the "Dragon of the West?"
Azula: I'm not interested in a lengthy anecdote, Uncle.
Iroh: It's more of a demonstration, really. (takes a sip of tea, then breathes fire)

    • Note that he says these lines as lightly as if Azula and the Dai Li were who they were supposed to be meeting for tea. He then casually gets up and breathes fire at Azula and her guards, allowing him and Zuko to escape.
  • Preparing to bust out of jail while hiding behind Obfuscating Insanity. People have begun to refer to Iroh's workouts as "Irohbics."
    • Related: When he leaves the prison and removes his fake belly revealing a flat stomach. The amount of space the fake belly took up would have been a lot of weight. How would he get the a fake belly in prison? Simple he in great shape the whole time.
  • Convincing the guys who have captured him to tighten his handcuffs, then breathing on them with his Firebending skill and pressing a soldier's hand down on the red-hot metal. Then he rolls down a cliff while his hands and feet are still chained together. Very badass for a guy who appeared to be just a comic relief character until then.
    • The Avatar Extras commentary notes, "Earthbenders, 0; Naked Shackled Guy, 3."
  • In their first encounter with Azula, Iroh takes on a whole royal escort single-handily (without Firebending) then curb-stomps Azula in about a second.
  • During the retaking of Ba-Sing-Se, he one-shots the wall of Ba-Sing-Se with an utterly enormous fireball, then shields the rest of the Order of the White Lotus until they are inside the city.
  • It's hinted he broke out of the fire nation prison without his bending. For a old man of about 50-60, that's an incredible feat.
  • During Azula's Coup, Iroh comes in and defeats the entire Dai Li army and Azula. His pose at the end is especially meaningful: it's the rest pose for Kung Fu. The Dai Li was only able to capture him because he allowed them to.

Katara

  • In the first season, Katara takes on the male chauvinistic Master Pakku and, while she doesn't win, gives him one hell of a fight and, from what we see of later episodes, heralds a sea change in the Northern Water Tribe regarding girls and combat Waterbending.
  • "The Siege of the North" when Katara, Yue, and Sokka catch up to Zuko after he kidnapped Aang at the Spirit Spring.

Zuko: (assuming a Firebending stance) Here for a rematch?
Katara: (beginning to Waterbend) Trust me, Zuko, it's not going to be much of a match.

    • She then blocks a fireball that enters the screen just as she finishes her sentence while Sokka and Yue look on from Appa's saddle. She sends a shock wave of ice hurtling towards him. When it reaches Zuko, she encases him in a pillar of ice that she raises up high, then drops. Zuko falls to the ground unconscious.PWN!
  • "The Desert": With Toph's Disability Superpower nullified by the desert's sand, Aang depressed over Appa being kidnapped, and Sokka high out of his mind from cactus juice, Katara was the only character capable of competent leadership when they were forced to walk across the desert on foot.
  • The episode "The Painted Lady" climaxed in one long Crowning Moment of Awesome for Katara, starting with the line, "No! I will never, EVER turn my back on people who need me!"
  • Pretty much the entire sequence where she went after her mother's killer: "She was protecting the last waterbender...ME!", followed by her STOPPING ALL THE RAIN MIDAIR, making giant icicles and flinging them at the guy... but having enough control to stop in midair, deciding he was Not Worth Killing. Her speech and attack reduced the man to TEARS.
  • The Bloodbending fight in "The Puppetmaster," which included the line, "My bending is more powerful than yours!"
  • Her fight with Azula in "The Crossroads of Destiny."
  • Her "talk" with Zuko at the end of "The Western Air Temple." Look at how far we've come from the beginning of the series, when Katara's waterbending skills were quite poor. Two seasons later, she's standing in front of the man who raided her village and making it clear on no uncertain terms that she will strike him down without mercy if he even thinks about hurting Aang -- and she has the skills to back up that claim, too. It was awesome beyond words.

Katara: You might have everyone else here buying your "transformation", but you and I both know you've struggled with doing the right thing in the past. So let me tell you something right now. You make one step backward, one slip up, give me one reason to think you might hurt Aang and you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore. Because I'll make sure your destiny ends, right then and there. Permanently.

  • Breaking out of a (wooden) jail cell with her own sweat, followed by shoving an ice pillar onto Combustion Man's head.
  • After being instructed in Bloodbending by Hama -- who, by the way, spent more than 50 years perfecting the technique -- Katara uses it on the leader of the Southern Raiders. Also qualifies as High Octane Nightmare Fuel.
    • From that same episode, Katara hydrokinetically freezing thousands of raindrops in flight.
    • Remember when Hamma said it had to be done on a full moon? Remember when Katara did it to the new leader of the southern Raiders during the day time.

Aang

  • Showing us a glimpse of his real power by stopping an exploding volcano dead in its tracks - without entering his nearly all-powerful Avatar State. Mind you, his predecessor died while attempting a similar feat (although the circumstances were quite different at that time, granted).
  • Aang uses the ultimate insult, thus so enraging Zhao that he incinerates his own ship!

Aang: I don't know why, but I thought you'd be better than Zuko!

  • The finale of season one: Aang enters the Avatar State and merges with the spiritual embodiment of the ocean. The result is an awe-inspiring, gigantic Leviathan, which proceeds to annihilate hundreds of fully armed enemy warships in the span of a few minutes. The characters only refer to 'The Avatar State' as such because they lack the Genre Savvy to call it by its true name: "Crowning Moment of Awesome State."
  • Also from the season one finale: It may have been a lot more low-key than most Moments of Awesome, but Aang staring down Koh the face-stealer with a completely emotionless expression throughout his Nightmare Fuel tirade. Especially considering that he's a hyperactive twelve-year-old.
    • YMMV, but I thought that when he does get excited was pretty cool. He thinks about it, gets excited, and Koh whips around in like half a second... only to see Aang with his stoic face.
  • The way Aang ended the fight against Azula on top of the Drill, underscored by a rather awesome Theme Music Power-Up.
  • In "The Headband", Aang is undercover at a Fire Nation school and defeats the school bully in a fight in which all he does is dodge and side step the bully's attacks (well, he technically used his bum once).
  • Also where he performs a dance with Katara -- which in turn evolves into what looks like a very skillfully played Capoeira game -- that leaves his schoolmates staring in awe and Katara panting and sweating in his arms.
  • Fighting Combustion Man in the rock field, where he used Airbending to deflect an explosion with one hand, and then blew straight through a pillar he was sent flying into. Also later, when he covered himself in rocks and used one of the explosions to rocket away and escape.
  • In "Nightmares and Daydreams," Aang, after having multiple nightmares about facing Ozai, turns the tables on him. Cue Crowning Moment of Awesome and Crowning Moment of Funny:

Ozai: Do you really think you can take me down? You're not even wearing pants!
Aang: [After falling for it once before] No, Firelord Ozai. You're not wearing pants!
Ozai: [Looks down and screams, covering his shame] My royal parts are showing!

  • Aang channeling Roku's spirit in "Avatar Roku (Winter Solstice Pt.2)," where he turns several incoming fireballs into a swirling fire shield, then gathers it all into a massive fire wave that knocks back the mooks (and Zhao) and melts the chains binding Katara, Sokka, Zuko and the rogue fire sage, WITHOUT BURNING A SINGLE ONE OF THEM. He then melts several floors of the temple, reaching the magma chamber, and causes the whole thing to start erupting with one hand.
  • His fight with Ozai in the end. At this point he was just a 12 year old going up against the most powerful and ruthless warrior king in the world. And on top of that, he went in knowing he didn't have the Avatar State to help him.
  • Appropriately, Aang also gets the first one in the series. In Episode 8 (Winter Solstice Part 2 - Avatar Roku, the Gaang have to run a Fire Nation naval blockade to get to Avatar Roku's shrine. The Fire Nation are lobbing fireballs up at Appa. Aang? Jumps off of Appa's head, and spin-kicks the fireball into pieces. In Slow Motion. In mid-air. It's the first time we see anyone do any seriously impressive fighting, and it's just a harbinger of things to come.


Mai

  • Her very first scene where she chases the Gaang, who take out all her family's guards but not her. Aang collapses a scaffolding in her path that still fails to stop her, leading to an Oh Crap moment after one of her throwing stars nearly impales him.
  • Her Big Damn Heroes moment in "The Boiling Rock," single-handedly dispatching an entire squad of prison guards with her arsenal of knives, thus saving the heroes and their party. "What are you doing?" "Saving the jerk who dumped me."
  • "You miscalculated. I love Zuko more than I fear you." Such an awesome line it pushes Azula down the road to her Villainous Breakdown.
  • Coolly being rather above it all in "The Drill": "She can shoot all the lightning she wants at me -- I am not going in that wall-sludge juice." Almost as awesome as getting the last word: "We lost."
  • Grey Delisle once said in an interview that Mai was her favorite character because she has Zuko "totally whipped." Case in point: "The Beach," where she puts on a Well, Excuse Me, Princess!, including a Did You Think I Can't Feel? moment.


Other

  • Combustion Man's first fight, where he relentlessly pursues the Gaang and continuously blows up whatever they throw at him, be it a huge mass of water, deluge of rock, or stone pillars.
  • In "The Boiling Rock", Suki vaulted off the heads of numerous participants in a Fire Nation prison riot before scaling the walls like Spiderman, using the tips of her feet to somersault up to a higher platform, taking out several Fire Nation prison guards in less than a second, baseball sliding under the last guard and blocking the warden's attack to twist him around tying and gagging him, again, in less than a second. She wasn't even out of breath.
    • Made that bit more amusing because once everyone else catches up, they are out of breath.
  • Ty Lee, during The Drill, when an Earth Kingdom general sent out an "elite platoon of Earthbenders" to stop the Fire Nation's advance on Ba Sing Se. They do indeed prove to be formidable, destroying a decent amount of tanks initially... and then Ty Lee shows up and essentially defeats them all in a matter of seconds.
    • Also, Ty Lee taking out Azula in Boiling Rock. Considering how terrified she was of Azula, she finally stood up to her to save Mai.
  • Admiral Zhao, who was usually best at awesomely screwing up, in the first season finale: Hahn charges onto the deck of his ship intending to assassinate him. Without turning around, with no fuss, no warning, no acknowledgement whatsoever, Zhao casually throws him overboard, and without missing a beat, then says to Iroh, "As I was saying..."
  • The Warden of the Boiling Rock when he demonstrates just how dedicated he is to his job. Bonus points for having boasted about it in the first part of the episode, showing he puts his money where his mouth is.
  • The Yu Yan Archers in "The Blue Spirit" were pure awesome, despite not even being benders of any kind: Aang, pursued by them, jumps down a cliff to escape. After all, he's an airbender, so he can slow his fall. The Yu Yan Archers aren't - but without even a moment's hesitation they jump after him, shoot arrows with ropes tied to them at trees below them WHILE FALLING, and then use those ropes to swing down to the ground without breaking their pace. Oh, and they quickly proceed to capture the Avatar, something that even very experienced benders have great problems with.
    • Another awesome moment from the Archers comes later in the episode, when Zhao calls one of them in to snipe the Blue Spirit. from hundreds of feet away. Without hitting Aang. Did i mention that the Spirit was holding Aang hostage and they were literally less than a foot away from each other? And he did this in the dark.
      • Unfortunately, you don't get to see them again after this episode, unless you count the archer with the Rhinos who has the same facial tattoos.
  • Avatar Kyoshi (the Avatar before the Avatar before Aang): more-or-less the only scene she gets, showing us just how powerful a fully realised Avatar is. In the space of a few seconds, she humiliates the tyrant she is fighting, splits off part of the mainland, and uses airbending to blow it out to sea, creating Kyoshi Island.
  • Master Pakku demonstrates exactly why he is called "master" on an unsuspecting group of Fire Nation soldiers in The Siege of the North. It involves a water-spout.
  • During Bumi's fight with Aang, Aang tricks Bumi into sending a boulder flying at himself. Bumi then turned the boulder to dirt when it came in contact. Without. Moving. An Inch. He then proceeds to hurl a huge chunk of the stadium at Aang, but Aang sends it flying back with a tornado. Bumi then splits that piece in half as it comes at him, again without moving an inch. However, Aang uses this as an opening and makes his move! But wait! We then see that Bumi used the movement of sticking up his hand to hang a rock right above them both.
    • Bumi is basically the walking embodiment of Crazy Awesome, and in every episode involving him, there's at least one Moment of Awesome. When Aang rescued him, he willingly sent himself back because he wanted to be there to rescue his city the moment the opportunity presents itself. And he did it using his face. On said day he earthbended his way out of his cage (again, using only his face) and proceeded to level the entire city in one candy-fueled, maniacally laughing rampage. And this guy is at least 112 years old.
  • After spending weeks separated from Aang, enduring horrible physical and mental stress, imprisoned in an Elaborate Underground Base for who knows how long, Appa's first act after being freed in "Lake Laogai" is to swoop down on the Mooks surrounding the heroes, scaring all of them off, then chomping down on the resident Smug Snake's leg and effortlessly tossing him into the eponymous lake. Cue Crowning Moment of Heartwarming as he is finally reunited with Aang. Go Appa! Keep in mind that said bite's mark was the Final Nail in the coffin for said Smug Snake.
  • The Track Team deserves a special mention. The music of this series is spectacular, especially the music for Zuko’s and Azula’s Final Battle.
  • How about the class of Fire Nation children covering for Aang as he escaped, by all putting on red headbands - his only distinguishing feature at that point - so he could sneak through the crowd?
  • The Earth King, in his titular episode: "I've been a fool." It takes a true man to admit that.
  • The scene where Monk Gyatso's body is discovered, along with the bodies of at least half a dozen Fire Nation soldiers. He went down fighting. Don't forget that said soldiers were operating with the power of Sozin's Comet and that of all the bending disciplines, Airbending is specifically said to have no lethal finishing strike like the other three.
    • Made even more awesome when you apply Fridge Logic and realize an Airbender can make a massacre by just sucking the air out of his victims' lungs: he killed so many because he stopped defending and started attacking.
      • If more Airbenders did that, they probably crippled the Fire Nation military for decades.
  • Pretty much the last third of the episode "Warriors of Kyoshi" with Kyoshi Warriors galore and Sokka taking on the Fire Nation troops and Zuko. But things change when Aang figures out he's the reason their little peaceful island is being burned to the ground, and so he decides to leave to allow Zuko to follow him and leave the island alone. But not before Aang jumps off of Appa in MIDAIR and into the water to ride a giant dragon that he ran from in the beginning of the episode just to put out the fires and douse Zuko and his cavalry. It ends with Aang noting how stupid the act was to Katara and her agreeing, but also with her giving Aang a big hug, obviously glad that he survived the ordeal. Good Stuff.
  • The Blue Spirit. How'd we get this far without mentioning that embodiment of awesomeness? Zuko, under the guise of the spirit, infiltrates and rescues Aang from a heavily-guarded prison fortress, filled with Firebenders and Yu Yan archers (who took out Aang himself earlier) and he does it entirely without using his powers. Also without even saying a single word. Bonus points for holding Aang hostage at the end. Followed by the reveal, which is when Zuko changed from Wangsty emo-boy to a true Badass in the eyes of many viewers.
  • How about Piandao at the end of the episode "Sokka's Master"? Sokka is fighting for his life against a master swordsman. And Piandao? Piandao is critiquing his technique.
  • Tyro (Haru's dad) telling the warden from "Imprisoned" not to worry about drowning because "cowards float."
    • We can't forget Haru shortly beforehand: After Katara and the Gaang go through with their plan to give the earthbenders something to bend, her short encouraging speech appears to fail. The warden of the rig berates her failed speech, then walks away... only for a small rock to nail him in the head. Furious, he turns around, to find Haru with a fierce determined expression, earthbending a small circle of rocks. The warden attacks him, only for this to be the excuse the Earthbenders needed to fight back, and kick their asses. Nice job fixing it
  • Not a particular character, but a favorite episode was The Firebending Masters, primarily because of the scene with the dragons. The scene where they show Aang and Zuko the true nature of firebending is just remarkable, and in most kid shows would have heavy-handed or melodramatic and insulting to kids' intelligence. They did it with very little dialogue, allowing the expressions on Zuko and Aang's faces, the imagery, and music speak volumes. Truly a remarkable scene.
    • Most shows would have the character witness something supposidly beautiful, and later immediately declare they now know it's true meaning. You see the two dragons dance in harmony, with Zuko and Aang mirroring their movements. Then the two dragons breath in unison creating a fantastic display. The Chief sums it up pretty clearly: firebending is not destruction, but life and creation, and you see this happen.
  • Many from The Day of Black Sun - but little bits like the Foggy Swamp man turning up as the 'monster' and tossing tanks around, Hakoda's single-handed, successful attack on a watch-tower (Sokka inherited more than his dad's sense of humour, clearly), the resourcefulness of the Mechanist's inventions...even when it's ultimately turned against them.
  • Piandao's appearance at the final episode. Unlike all of the others present, he is not a bender in any way. He literally took a sword to a gun fight (against fire-breathing tanks no less) and it's hinted he won. It makes his comments to Sokka all the more awesome.
  • Fire Lord Sozin, of all people, had one of these. Seeing the avatar's village besieged by a volcano, his first instinct is to rush to the area to save the people, to fight alongside his then-arch enemy Roku (the two of whom haven't so much as spoken for 20 years) without so much as batting an eyelash. It ends up making his betrayal of the Avatar all the more horrifying and heartwrenching however.
  • How about when the sequel series The Legend of Korra was announced? I mean its kind of minor but to see that Mike Bryan and the team are making another series that takes place in the Avatar world is just awesome and nice to see that even though the story of the first series is over that the stories of the the world the series takes place in are far from over.
  • As of 2012, the show is still the only one to beat Spongebob for Favorite Cartoon at the Kids Choice Awards. I'd say that's worth a mention.


Sozin's Comet

  • Avatar Aang Vs. Phoenix King Ozai. All it needs is some Star Wars lightsaber fighting music to be perfect, especially after Aang hits his wound on a rock, unlocking the chakra and letting him go into the Avatar State, where he grabs Ozai's beard (YES THE BEARD), and gives him a Repeat Cut of him getting slammed into a pillar and proceeds to chase a Terrified Ozai through the previous battlefield he was Curb Stomping in. He then pulls off a spectacular display of Toph-O-Vision and retaliates against Ozai with his back turned. Then he "Spiritbends" Ozai and takes away his firebending! Perhaps Heart isn't so lame after all. To top it off, the last time we see Bending in the series is him pulling in the ocean to put out the fires, and bringing it back out, as the comet leaves and Momo returns. Signifying that, yes, the war is finally over.
  • Two words: Lion Turtle.
    • Not to mention Aang's courage in standing up to it. Anyone else would have mistaken it for an Eldritch Abomination and hightailed it out of there.
  • Zuko's Agni Kai with Azula, followed by his Awesome Moment of Crowning.
  • Azula even as she was losing, then forfeiting, her duel with Zuko. We hear Iroh's lessons about the generation of lightning requiring total calmness and dispassion/serenity in season two. So of course we see Azula, in the middle of a full-blown psychotic break, do it anyway. Crazy as she was at the time, Azula's proficiency with the technique would cause her to unconsciously focus on the task, even if her conscious mind was in turmoil.
  • Katara's defeat of Azula, binding her after she goes insane. Made even better by the fact that she does it without landing a single offensive blow. And FREEZING BOTH of them in ice, with Azula a millisecond away from blowing her head off! Pure pwnage by the primarily defensive Waterbending style. Bear in mind that Katara was facing, at worst, the third most powerful Firebender in the world, on a day that Firebenders' powers are vastly enhanced. And Waterbending is weaker during the day.
  • Toph metalbending a door into a full-body suit and using the contents of an airship's control room to take out the crew, all while dodging fireblasts and jumping around the metal cockpit like Spider-Man. The awesomeness really comes from the fact that to do what she does in that scene, she has to be metalbending with every motion. To repeat, she has to perform, with perfect dexterity, a feat that was thought to be impossible before she invented it, EVERY SECOND! Tony Stark would be proud. Oh, and she started this by knocking "Shave and a Haircut."
  • Sokka's willingness to take on Ozai if Aang couldn't get there in time. Let's recap, shall we? He was willing to take on OZAI, the Big Bad at the height of his power, who posed a serious challenge to even the Avatar, and Sokka is a Badass Normal at best. And he was willing to fight him. Alright, he would have had backup from fellow Badass Normal Suki and Cute Bruiser Toph, but that takes some straight up testicular elephantiasis.
    • And how calmly he realises it. Sokka asks Iroh what he, Toph and Suki should be doing when the group split up at the camp. Iroh asks him, and he simply states they need to do what they can do, together, to tackle Ozai. Once standing on the airship he says "Fire Lord Ozai, here we come." with a wonderfully determined/fierce expression on his face.
  • Sokka diverting the crew of an airship to the bomb bay by telling them it was a crewmember's birthday and then ejecting them. Bonus points for it actually being one of the crew member's birthday.
    • Then taking out the entire armada of Fire Nation air ships. AIRSHIP SLICE!
    • And then saving himself and Toph from a bunch of Firebenders with one hand (the other keeping Toph from falling) and a broken leg, sacrificing Boomerang and Space Sword to do so.
  • Suki proving that, like most of the things Sokka loves, she always comes back... piloting a crashing Airship, saving Sokka and Toph, who had accepted death.
  • Even though we didn't see him break out of prison on-screen, Iroh tore through Ba Sing Se's wall like it was toilet paper, and ended the siege by burning the flag of the Fire Nation hanging in the palace. The irony being that in his heyday when he was a famed General working for the Fire Nation, he couldn't pull it off (granted, he didn't have Sozin's Comet then and only retreated because his son died, but still). And now years later, he accomplished this in less then a day (ousting Azula's 48-hour takeover). Maybe fighting for something he really believes in helps.
    • Not to take away from the awesome, but that may have "only" been one of the inner walls, as Azula's coup brought down the outer walls. Then again, the Dai Li may have put the walls back up after the Fire Nation occupation began.
    • The Order of the White Lotus captured Ba Sing Se in less than an hour
  • King Bumi's Flash Back to waiting for the right moment during the Day of Black Sun, when he single-handedly pwned all the Fire Nation soldiers in the city. And he was completely blase about the entire ordeal. Oh, and he breaks a half-dozen Fire Nation tanks and stacks them all on top of each other. Without even looking in their direction.
    • Not to mention the way he punted buildings into the air and tossed a fifty-foot statue of Ozai into the gorge...after defacing it with a smiley face!
      • Even more badass is the fact that according to the Commentary, Bumi had NO IDEA that the Eclipse would strip Firebenders of their power at all, this also being an example of his neutral Jing strategy.
  • Masters Pakku and Piandao fighting against Firebenders ON ICE!!!! Piandao's performance was doubly Badass, given that the Firebenders were all powered up by the Comet, while he has no powers at all.
  • The Comet-powered Jeong Jeong hovering in the air with firebending jet-feet while using huge waves of flame to crash about two dozen Fire Nation tanks into big functionless pileups.
  • Hello, Zuko's reunion with Iroh. It has to take guts to face a guy after you betray him, especially when you feel like shit about it, not to mention when you know that same guy apparently PHYSICALLY broke through the bars of his prison and took out ALL the guards in order to escape. Even if it's not a Crowning Moment of Awesome, it definitely applies as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
    • Iroh's forgiveness of Zuko. Considering he'd been tossed in a filthy jail cell with cruel guards, due to the selfishness of someone he dearly loved, then had to work hard for weeks in order to bust himself out, the reunion scene is just all the more incredible. It's not a flying-acrobatic-combat sort of awesome, but that doesn't mean it doesn't fall under "awesome."
  • Oh, and let's not forget Aang TURNING INTO A MASSIVE BALL OF COSMIC ENERGY, SIMULTANEOUSLY BENDING ALL FOUR ELEMENTS AT THE SAME TIME, WHILE ATTACKING OZAI. See here for details.
    • And those rocks floating around him? They weren't that big to begin with. Aang ripped a bunch of enormous boulders out of the ground and COMPRESSED (as in, reduced the size without losing any of the mass) them with earthbending.
      • And Aang doesn't even need all those elements to defeat Ozai. Those compressed rocks are basically BULLETS. Aang only needs earthbending (and probably airbending) to pull it off. No amount of firebending skill could stop a bullet.
    • There should be a whole new trope for that level of awesome. Like, Crowning Moment of Epic Awesome.
  • After days of his friends, his mentors, and his own past lives telling him that he has to kill Ozai, Aang proceeds to ignore them all and Take a Third Option anyway, solving the conflict without breaking his own principles. The cosmic ball of elements was a Moment Of Awesome for the Avatar. The Spiritbending? That's all Aang.


Comic

  • First CMOA of the interquel. Katara takes out five of Zuko's personal guard in less than five seconds. It's like she has a waterbending Quicksilver Reflex Booster.

Katara: That's it! Stop (grabs 20 gal. from fountain) trying (20 gal. flies at two firebenders) to (two firebenders iced at once) set (1 gal. flies from hip flask at two fleeing firebenders) my (two firebenders get their feet frozen to ground) boyfriend (windup) on (firebender receives snowball One Hit KO) fire! (snowball hits firebender, firebender hits ground)

Aang: Whoa.

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