Avatar: The Last Airbender/Tropes A-H

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Tropes for Avatar: The Last Airbender, A-H

A

  • Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: Wan Shi Tong.
  • The Abridged Series: "The Ember Island Players" is a rare, possibly unique, canonical abridged series.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade:
    • Sokka's Space Sword. The sharpness of the sword actually works against Sokka in the finale. When he tries to slow himself and Toph down by stabbing into the hull of an airship, it shears through the metal until they reach the bottom and keep falling.
    • To a lesser extent, Zuko's sabres. Zuko uses them to deflect rocks without them suffering so much as a dent.
    • Also Mai's throwing daggers, being capable of nailing people to solid metal just by throwing them.
    • Waterbenders can use water to cut through metal, sort of like a water jet cutter. In the first season finale, Aang slices apart the metal superstructures of Fire Nation ships using this.
  • Abusive Parents:
    • Fire Lord Ozai. That scar on his son Zuko's face and his daughter Azula's heartless, sadistic nature are both his doing.
    • Toph's parents are mostly just neglectful, sheltering and coddling their girl instead of respecting her earthbending skills, but sending bounty hunters after her when she runs off (and assuming she must have been kidnapped by the Avatar) crosses over into stupidity.
    • Mai's parents—though not as bad as Zuko's or Toph's cases, it's revealed that she couldn't do much of anything except sit still and be quiet. If she made a comment at a dinner party, she got in trouble, if she fidgeted, she got in trouble. Heck, if she hugged her dad in public, she probably got in trouble. All because her parents just wanted to get higher and higher on the social ladder...and then they pretty much put her aside when her little brother Tom-Tom was born.
  • Action Girl: More often than not, any A and B character who has two X chromosomes is an action girl.
  • Actor Allusion:
    • The 'four elements' wizard in the first episode of Book 2: Earth is based directly on Akiro, Mako's early role in the movie Conan the Barbarian.
    • When Piandao tells Sokka to think of the sword as "a part of your own body", it may come to the mind of certain viewers that his voice actor, Robert Patrick, has also played a character in Terminator who actually has swords as a part of his body.
    • In the episode Ember Island Players, Actor Zuko is voiced by the older brother of Dante Basco, the voice of the real Zuko.
  • Adaptational Personality Adjustment: Discussed in-universe when the Gaang sees "The Ember Island Players". Aang complains that the bald woman portraying him shows a mischievous Avatar that can't resist playing jokes on his friends. Katara becomes prone to tears, Sokka is obsessed with food, Iroh is a Lazy Bum and so forth. Zuko, despite his protests to the contrary, is probably the most accurate in the Ember Island show, as he is dark and brooding and goes, "How can you say that?!" dramatically. Katara smirks when the actor proves her point.
  • Adaptational Weakling: happens in-universe during "The Boy in the Iceberg," the play that the Ember Island Players perform that the Gaang watch incognito. Ember Island-Aang goes from a cheerful badass to a mischievous "bald woman" in Toph's words, Katara becomes an Inelegant Blubbering Soapbox Sadie that goes on about hope, Sokka loses his leader skills in favor of an obsession with food, Iroh is a Lazy Bum who wants to lie around and eat cake, and Zuko becomes a whining teenager who gets his ass kicked by the Blue Spirit. (Funnily enough, Zuko in-universe is the Blue Spirit who actually teamed up with Aang to break the latter out of General Zhao's custody, leading to a hilarious Reaction Shot when they see the Ember Island reenactment). Suki and Toph are the only ones who avoid this, owing to Suki not having any onscreen lines that we see, and Toph being reimagined as a giant male wrestler that uses echolocation to see and earthbend. The end of the episode deconstructs this, however; owing to the playwright's sources -- the Cabbage Merchant-- and the audience -- a brainwashed Fire Nation that believes in the rights to colonize the world-- the Gaang realizes that they're not being seen as the heroes but as the villains. The play also ends with Azula killing Zuko and Ozai killing Aang, and the audience cheers about children being murdered onscreen as well as siblings fighting to the death.
  • Adjective Animal Alehouse: Iroh's tea shop, The Jasmine Dragon.
  • Adorkable: Zuko. It's especially noticeable in the second half of the third season, but he shows signs of it before then. One of his Crowning Moments of Dork is his date with Jin in Season 2.
  • Adrenaline Makeover: Katara.
  • Aerith and Bob: The names for most cultures seem to be Chinese and Japanese mixed together, with a few other things thrown in (Zuko, and Iroh look like Japanese names, Zhao and Ozai are Chinese; they're all from the Fire Nation). This trope happens if you're Chinese or Japanese - names that sound normal to you mixed with names that really don't. There are also a few names that seem "normal" to Western audiences, like Lee, Mai and Jet.
    • Mai is a Vietnamese name, quite possibly the only one in the series. Song is a Chinese surname.
      • Actually the 3 guys from the Foggy Swamp Tribe also have Vietnamese names, and presumably the rest of the tribe do too.
    • There's also a few that don't fit in anywhere - most notably Toph, Azula secondarily (looks Japanese but couldn't be since Japanese doesn't have /l/).
      • According to the characters written in certain episodes, Toph is an alternate spelling/pronunciation for either of the Chinese names Tuòfú or Tuofu. No word on whether that was the intention from the beginning or if it was just trying to find characters that fit. The Other Wiki says that Toph's name is actually means 'supported Lotus' in Mandarin. Her mother's name is Poppy however.
      • Also, if you use the r/l switch, as sometimes happens, you get a Meaningful Name for the girl that slings blue fire around.
        • Already meaningful, as Azula's name was to be "Zula" (to mirror Zuko), but was changed to Azula to capture the Spanish word Azul (blue), which is equally left-field in a world that is obviously South and East Asian-themed.
        • It would seem that Azula was named after her grandfather Azulon, who is named after Azulong, or The Azure Dragon of the East, a Chinese constellation symbol.
    • Double points for Zuko, whose name is not only both a Japanese and Chinese name, but is also a Meaningful Name in both languages. In Chinese, the name Zuko means "Conceited, proud of one's self", which seemed to fit his character rather nicely for a good portion of Season 1. In Japanese, the name 'Zuko' also means "sound of swishing swords", clearly in reference to both his swords and skilled swordsmanship.
      • Zuko is also fairly close to the Filipino word "Suko", which can mean "madness" or "angry" in one dialect, or "surrender" in another. While the second meaning doesn't fit him, the first meaning definitely fits him, especially in the first season.
    • In the episode "The Serpent's Pass" the travelers who are being escorted through the serpents pass decide to name their child born just after they reach the other side Hope.
    • One of the partygoers in "The Beach" is named "Ruon-Jian". It's pronounced "Ron Jon".
  • An Aesop: Lots of them. Many, many episodes have morals to impart, such as "The Kyoshi Warriors" ("sexism is bad"), "The Fortuneteller" ("we make our own destiny") and "The Deserter" ("impatience is bad"). Few of them are broken, lost, or otherwise faulty—or so Anvilicious as to feel like being on the receiving end of a sermon.
  • Affectionate Parody: The Boulder, a paper-thin parody of pro wrestlers Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Hulk Hogan, and Randy Savage. And he's voiced by another wrestler (and friend of The Rock) Mick Foley, who you can tell was having a grand olde time providing the voice.
    • "The Ember Island Players", has the gang attend a play based on their adventures, with Character Exaggeration of the traits of all characters.
  • Air Vent Passageway: Parodied in Season 1, Episode 5 "The King of Omashu". Aang and the gang are imprisoned in a cell and try to use the air vents to escape. Even Momo couldn't fit through one.
  • Alice Allusion: "The Swamp"

Aang: I heard laughing and I saw some girl in a fancy dress.
Sokka: Well, there must be a tea party here and we just didn't get our invitations!

  • The Alcatraz: The Boiling Rock
  • All Deserts Have Cacti: in the entire episode "The Desert", we only see one cactus… the one responsible for Sokka and Momo's Mushroom Samba.
  • All Monks Know Kung Fu: Every single one of the Air Nomads knew airbending due to their culture's high level of spirituality. Also, the Fire Sages are all master firebenders.
  • All There in the Manual: The main purpose of the Nickelodeon site is to provide supplementary information while not using up valuable air time.
    • The Avatar comics which appeared in various Nickelodeon publications throughout the run of the series also fill in some important details, particularly the ones set between Seasons 2 and 3, which reveal what happened to Ba Sing Se after Azula conquered it, and how Zuko and Mai got together.
  • Exclusively Evil: The rest of the world's general opinion of firebenders, along with Bad Powers, Bad People.
    • Occasionally subverted throughout the series, and then fully subverted as the third season goes on and we meet the citizens of the Fire Nation; Aang even lampshades the subversion at the end of "The Avatar and the Fire Lord": "Everyone is capable of great good and great evil." And then there's Hama, the southern Waterbender who subverts Always Lawful Good.
  • Always Save the Girl: Aang decides saving Katara is more important than finishing opening the chakras for the Avatar state, which was something that Iroh fully agreed with.
  • Amazon Admirer:
    • At first, Sokka makes a bad first impression on Kyoshi Warrior leader Suki when saying there's no way a bunch of female warriors could have defeated him in an ambush. Then after Suki tosses him on his ass a few times, Sokka humbles himself before her to ask for proper combat lessons. It's not until season two that Sokka realizes he has feelings for her, while dealing with PTSD from losing Yue and becoming terrified that Suki will die in front of him the way that Yue did. When Suki does the gruntwork to take a prison warden hostage in season three, Sokka has a lovestruck look at how awesome she is.
    • Zuko admits that part of his attraction to Mai, in addition to them being childhood friends, is that he loves how she fights. He also loves when she breaks her usually stoic exterior to express her true feelings.
    • Gender-inverted when Ty Lee develops a Villainous Crush on Sokka. This happens after Appa saves a sleep-deprived Katara and Sokka from Ty Lee and Mai, and when Sokka kept fighting to the bitter end to protect his little sister. As Ty Lee and Mai wash up on the other side of the river, Ty Lee asks Mai if she thinks that Sokka is cute.
    • Subverted when Azula tries to hit on guys in "The Beach". She is certainly attractive, and Chan even kisses her when they talk in the privacy of his family's balcony, but her lack of social skills scare guys away from her.
  • Amazon Brigade: The Kyoshi Warriors.
  • Ambiguously Bi: Ty Lee shows unusual interest in Azula, which goes almost to the point of obsession. On Ember Island, several boys took interest in Ty Lee on the beach, to which she was completely oblivious and preferred the company of Azula. She also had a brief interest she took in Sokka.
  • Anachronism Stew: In "The Avatar and the Firelord", Firelord Sozin's portrait has several soldiers near the bottom, wearing uniforms that supposedly didn't come around until about a century after the portrait would have been painted. The soldiers should be wearing the uniforms the Northern Water Tribe had at the end of Season 1.
    • Those were Fire Navy uniforms that the Northern water tribe had, the Fire Army presumably had different uniforms.
  • Ancient Keeper: Wan Shi Tong.
  • Ancient Tradition: The Order of the White Lotus.
  • And Then What?: Uncle Iroh's confrontation with Zuko over trying to kidnap Appa in Season 2, as well as Sokka's escape plans from the boiling rock in Season 3.
    • Iroh's example is noticeable in being one of two instances in the show where he visibly loses his temper.
  • And Zoidberg: Sokka once in a while. "Three on Three plus Sokka".
    • An episode in Season 3 focuses on Sokka's consternation over getting saddled with this. By the episode's end, has Taken a level in Badass and got a fancy sword.
    • The Avatar Extras get into it too. At the end of "The Chase", when the Gaang plus Zuko all attack Azula, it says, "This is the first time we've seen all four elements attacking at once." A beat later, it adds, "...Plus Sokka."
  • Angrish: Sokka's reaction towards Toph waking him up in "Bitter Work." After considering the sleepless marathon he had to go through in the previous episode, his frustration is well justified here. The Avatar Extras note that the writers did have actual dialog for Sokka, but the voice actor improvised the grumbled angrish instead.
  • Angst Dissonance: An in-universe example; while Sokka and Zuko are heading towards the Boiling Rock and bonding, Sokka says, "My first girlfriend turned into the moon." After a pause, the only thing Zuko can say is, "That's rough, buddy." What else can he say to something like that?
  • Angst? What Angst?: Aang tries to invoke this in "The Serpent's Pass," after completely freaking out in the previous episode over losing Appa. Don't worry, he snaps out of it.
  • Animation Bump: The Grand Finale has a few shots of a higher quality, though the series itself is already unusually at a higher quality than most Korean studios.
  • Animesque: Asian setting, multi-national cast, art style similar to Cowboy Bebop, face faults, etc.
  • Anti-Villain: Zuko.
    • As well as Mai, Ty Lee, Jet (if you consider him a villain) and Iroh.
  • Angels Pose: Ozai's Angels during the play in Ember Island Players, playing on their nickname.
  • Angst Coma: In Season 2, Zuko undergoes a severe fever and enters a coma in which he has vivid dreams in which his uncle and sister appear as dragons and argue over his life choices. Iroh says that this is "not a natural illness" and the whole thing is apparently caused solely by Zuko's premature Heel Face Turn.
  • Anxiety Dreams - An episode is devoted to these. It's mostly Played for Laughs, but at least one can reach serious Nightmare Fuel territory.
  • Apologetic Attacker: "Sorry, we just need to see the Earth King!"
    • Katara in "The Puppetmaster" when Hama manipulates Sokka and Aang into attacking her.
  • Apotheosis: Princess Yue sacrifices her life to revive the Moon Spirit since it gave her a portion of its life. When the Moon Spirit was vivified, she became the new Moon Spirit.
  • Arc Words: "I must regain my honor." There are story sequences built around this phrase for Zuko, Aang, and Sokka ("the Boiling Rock")
    • "Destiny" is another major theme, seeing as the show is primarily influenced by Eastern Philosophy. It ends up applying to every single character, and together their stories send the message that while you always have a destiny, you are the only one who can choose to follow it.
    • While not exactly a major theme, the word "crazy" is used repeatedly: It's associated with Azula several times ("...crazy blue firebending", "Girls are crazy!", "She's crazy and she needs to go down.") and is also used to dismiss ideas and people as unimportant. Sokka uses it a lot during "The Fortuneteller"; during "The Beach", Toph says: "Guys, you're all gonna think I'm crazy, but it feels like there's a metal man coming." By the end, Azula becomes the sort of person who's a shorthand for "unimportant" and "easily dismissed."
      • Which can lead to Unfortunate Implications, as some of this indicates a perhaps unconscious attitude that people with mental illnesses are dangerous, evil, and/or insignificant.
    • The first season is bookended by Iroh telling Zuko "A man needs his rest."
  • Armor-Piercing Question: "Who are you and what do you want?" Iroh to Zuko. Vorlon and Shadow in one sentence.
    • Mai, Ty Lee and Azula want to know, "Who are you mad at?"
    • "What are you going to do when you face my father?"
  • Arranged Marriage: Hahn and Yue, and according to Word of God, Ozai and Ursa.
    • Also, chronologically first, Kanna (Gran-Gran) and Pakku.
  • Arrogant Kung Fu Guy: Prince Zuko, especially in the first season; Zhao; Xin Fu, the tournament runner tracking Toph with Master Yu; and Toph herself.
    • He's not a bender, but Jet knows martial arts and could be considered one of these as well.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In the Season 2 episode "Avatar Day", the punishment wheel is an excellent example, showing the Torture machine, boiled in oil, eaten by sharks, several other fates equally painful and fatal, and... community service.
    • Lampshaded by Katara crossing her fingers and repeating "communityservice". Gotta love it.
    • The Earth King's first line in his titular episode also makes good use of this trope.

Earth King: You invade my palace, lay waste to all my guards, break down my fancy door, and you expect me to trust you?!
Extras Popup: And he loved that fancy door!
And do I even need add "the malicious destruction of cabbages?

  • Artistic License Astronomy: Sozin's "Comet" is something of a misnomer. Comets are seen for days or possibly weeks as they take their sweet time to fly around the sun, are made of much more ice and earth than fire, and rarely intersect the atmosphere and live to tell their tale again. There is a class of objects that do—Earth-grazing fireballs—but "Sozin's Earthgrazer" isn't anywhere near as poetic, and doesn't carry that ancient "comets are harbingers of doom" mystique. In addition, the distinction wasn't always as clear in our world, either, so a culture with no advanced astronomy could easily just call any flying space object comets, and the word "comet" comes from Ancient Greek, the language of a culture in which people also thought the world consisted of a total of four (guess which) elements.
    • Word of God owns up to the eclipse's visibility all over the world being impossible.
      • It is plausible if Omashu and the Fire Nation Capitol just happened to both be in the swath covered in total eclipse. Intercontinental total eclipse zones are possible in real life.
    • A similar issue appears in "The Siege of the North." Despite being located at the north pole, the sun rises and sets as it would below the arctic line. As mentioned in "The Boy in the Iceberg" by Sokka, midnight sun does in fact exist in the world of the Avatar. As such, for day and night to cycle during a normal twenty four hour period in the north pole is not plausible around the solstices. That said, it was not said how long after the winder solstice it was until the GAang reached the North Pole.
      • It can be argued that, seeing as the Northern Water Tribe capital is on the coast, they could still be fairly far from the "true" North Pole.
  • Art Major Physics:
    • Fire does not have a concussive effect unless it is part of an explosion, and even then it's the rapidly expanding gases (fire is a form of plasma) that cause the person or object to be pushed back.
    • Mai's daggers should not cause people to go flying back into walls unless she's somehow Gambit in disguise. Also note that at the speed she throws them, they should just cut right through the clothes instead of dragging people with them.
    • Though there are some uncommon aversions as well: Azula's fire is extra hot and therefore blue, and Aang makes a point to cut the surface tension of the water he falls into, also averting Soft Water.
  • Art Evolution: In a short series like this, and an animated one to boot, one normally doesn't find art evolution. However, it does occur; for instance, compare the size and shape of Katara's eyes (They shift from a noticeably Tibetan (or maybe Inuit) appearance to the more standard large anime eyes) in the first few episodes to the last few episodes, Sokka's entire facial structure and even Aang's face changes somewhat.
    • Also, in a more subtle example, as time goes on, Zuko's scar seems to become a much less dominant feature of his face, partially because he loses his Bald of Evil and lets his hair grow long enough that it covers a lot of the scar.
  • Art Shift: The flashbacks in Season 1, Episode 11, "The Great Divide".
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Princess Yue becomes the Moon Spirit.
  • Ascended Extra: Jet, and to a lesser extent Longshot and Smellerbee, in Season 2. Suki may count as well.
    • In a more literal case, the couple Zuko decides not to rob in "Zuko Alone" when he sees the woman is pregnant are the same couple that the gAang helps out in "The Serpent's Pass".
  • Ascended Fridge Horror: In "The Puppetmaster", Katara learns she can use her waterbending on the blood in people's bodies to control them like puppets.
  • Ascended Meme: one of the trophy heads in "The Library" is the Untooned Mudkip.
  • Asleep for Days: Aang is knocked unconscious by Azula's lightning bolt so long that his hair had enough time to grow back.
  • Asshole Victim: All signs point to Fire Lord Azulon not being a very nice person. Word of God and background material show him as ruling the Fire Nation with an iron fist and carrying out the war against the other nations with brutality only matched by Ozai. Of particular note is the genocide carried out against the Southern Water Tribe's Waterbenders and the raids carried out against said tribes. (These raids eventually resulted in the death of Katara's mother.) Not to mention the fact that he was willing to have his innocent grandson killed just to prove a point to Ozai. Other than possibly Iroh, it's unlikely anyone really missed him when Ozai and Ursa killed him.
  • Astral Projection
  • The Atoner: Zuko after his Heel Face Turn.
    • Jet in his second appearance.
    • Iroh seems to be atoning throughout the show for things he did before it even started.
  • At the Crossroads: The Season 2 finale is The Crossroads Of Destiny where Zuko and Aang make their tough choices.
  • Attack Its Weak Point: Sokka defeats Combustion Man by throwing his boomerang into the center of CM's eye tattoo. This causes it to malfunction and explode when he tries to fire his lasers again.
    • Also, the Gaang use this tactic against the drill attacking Ba Sing Se, in the episode The Drill.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: King Bumi, the entire Fire Nation royal family.
  • Aura Vision: Ty Lee has the ability to see other people's auras. Hers is pink and Mai's is gray. No word on the other characters, though.
    • Although, this could just be her... unique way of talking about their moods or personalities.
  • Averse Adept: Aang has this attitude about being the Avatar and having the Avatar State in the first episode. When he goes into the Avatar State he can kick ass, but season two reveals that he has nightmares about the chaos he causes while out of control. He also tells Katara that he didn't reveal to her or Sokka at first that he was the Avatar who went missing a hundred years ago because he never wanted this role. (It's justified when his friends stopped playing with him when he was revealed to be the reincarnation of Roku, and the monks planned to separate him from his mentor and father figure Gyatso, believing that Gyatso would not be able to train Aang sufficiently.) Part of Aang's Character Development is balancing his will to become the savior the world needs with his desire to stay a kid.
  • Awesome Moment of Crowning: I believe it goes, "ALL HAIL FIRE LORD ZUKO!"
  • Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other: The couples all get their moments.
  • Axe Crazy: Azula. There is a review in which she is referred to as "the most terrifying 14-year old girl you will encounter in any medium."

B

  • Back for the Finale: June, Iroh, Pakku, Jeong Jeong, Bumi, Piandao, Mai, Ty Lee, and a number of other characters for minor appearances.
    • While not quite the Finale, Day of the Black Sun has an equally impressive list of minor characters return
  • Backstab Backfire: Twice. The first time is in "The Southern Air Temple", while the second occurs in the finale. Neither time ends well for the one doing the backstabbing.
  • Badass: Several characters; Toph, Iroh, and Azula being the biggest ones.
    • And Zuko. All else aside, anyone who can scale a sheer cliff with their fingers almost as fast as an airbender can fly over it deserves an honorable mention.
      • The Blue Spirit, The Siege of the North, I rest my case. Zuko is BADASS.
    • It can pretty much be agreed that literally every character in the show is a badass in some way.
    • And quite a few badasses are really, really cute. (see Badass Adorable for more details)
    • No love for the titular character? seriously...yes, he might've had the advantage of being a Physical God, but think about it; a 12-year-old-martial-pacifist-warrior-monk-child went and ended a 100 year conflict after surviving the genocide of his people, and did it without killing his primary nemesis. That's pretty damn badass I'd say.
  • Badass Family: The Fire Lord's family, and Hakoda's family.
  • Badass Grandpa/Cool Old Guy: Iroh. See him break out of jail and you'll know what I mean.Fanart example.
    • You would have to be badass to become an old man in that family.
    • Practically required to be in the Order of the White Lotus.
    • Especially Bumi. Bumi does not escape from the army occupying his city and holding him captive; the army escapes from Bumi.
      • In addition to retaking his own city (and escaping captivity with only his face) Bumi used this to his advantage when he first met Aang after the 100 year time skip. Knowing Aang would try to outsmart him, Bumi put himself in a position where Aang can try to Loophole Abuse his way into fighting a frail old man instead of his two large and muscular guards. Aang learned the hard way why Bumi was king.
  • Badass Normal: Sokka, Hakoda, Suki, Ty Lee, Mai, Jet and his freedom fighters, Piandao.
    • The "Sokka's Master" episode may count as a lampshade When Sokka is dissatisfied with his being normal, the group suggests that he Take a Level In Badass.
  • Bad Bad Acting: The Ember Island Players. Also, when the Gaang tries to get Katara arrested for earthbending.
  • Badbutt: Toph, especially while training Aang, and Jet.
  • Bad Guy Bar
  • Bad Powers, Bad People: The overall public opinion of firebenders.
  • Bare Your Midriff: Quite a few ladies in the show.
    • Pretty much every non-main character female soldier in the show is an example of this trope.
      • All of the main girls have done this at least once.
  • Batman Gambit: Azula has quite a few of these.
  • Battle Couple: There are a couple in the forms of Aang/Katara, and Suki/Sokka.
  • Beach Episode: Fittingly named "The Beach", although in a variant, the Beach Episode is given to the Villains Out Shopping.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: General Fong deliberately provoking the Avatar State.
  • Berserk Button:
    • Aang is very attached to Appa, and Katara, and putting either in danger is a very good way to have him go Avatar-state crazy on your ass.
    • Sokka loses it when Azula taunts him with descriptions of his captured girlfriend. For context, he knew she was taunting everyone to get them to run out the clock and he still lost control. Granted, Azula's just that good at manipulation.
      • He ends up fighting with Hahn over Yue, who the warrior clearly doesn't appreciate.
      • When Aang accidentally burns Katara, Sokka tackles him to the ground. Nobody hurts his little sister.
    • Anything that reminds Katara of what happened to her mother is enough to send her flying out of control, to the point where she bloodbends a man whom she thought was the murderer. She eventually learns to rein in this part of herself.
      • Harm to Aang is her second berserk button.
    • Iroh rarely gets truly upset throughout the entire series. However, he has a deep connection with the spirits, which is why we see him none too pleased when he realizes Zhao's plan to defeat the Northern Water Tribe by killing the moon spirit.

Iroh: (to Zhao) Whatever you do to that spirit, I'll unleash on you tenfold! Let it go NOW!

    • Jet and absolutely anything having to do with the Fire Nation. His inability to let go of his intense Fantastic Racism is what inadvertantly leads to his death.
  • Berserker Tears: When Sokka discovers Azula captured Suki and the rest of the Kyoshi Warriors (including referring to Suki as "[her] favorite prisoner") during Day of Black Sun, Sokka gets these and flips his shit.
  • Beta Couple: Sokka & Suki, Zuko & Mai.
  • Big Bad: Fire Lord Ozai is the series' prime antagonist, but each season also has its own chief villains:
    • Season 1 - Zhao and Prince Zuko, in a Red Oni, Blue Oni Big Bad Duumvirate sense.
    • Season 2 - Another villain duo: Princess Azula for the entire season, Long Feng for a Story Arc starting late in the season and extending towards the end.
      • Long Feng is more of a Big Bad Wannabe. At the very least, Azula overshadows him without even trying.
    • Season 3 - Arguably Ozai, Azula, or both at different points.
    • Bigger Bad: Fire Lord Ozai in the first two seasons, before taking a much more direct role in the third.
  • Big Badass Bird of Prey: The Fire Nation uses hawks as messengers.
    • Even more badass is Combustion Man's bird.
  • Big Brother Is Watching: "There is no war in Ba Sing Se."
  • Big Damn Heroes: This is Appa's main role, seriously.
    • Not to mention Suki and Mai.
  • Big Eater: Even though comically exaggerated in the play, Sokka does seem to like food more than the rest of the team.
  • The Big Damn Kiss: At the ending. The first time she kisses him.
  • Big No: Zuko pulls off one in the finale, when Azula attempts to strike Katara with lightning. Also, Actress Aang in "The Ember Island Players".
    • Iroh gives one of these as well, though it's played more for laughs than anything the one time he does it.
    • Also Sokka in "The Cave Of Two Lovers", when he finds he's stuck in the titular caves with a bunch of hippies.
  • Big Shadow, Little Creature: Momo in his first appearance.
  • Bilingual Bonus: All the calligraphy in Avatar is real Chinese.
  • Biological Mashup: Almost all of the fauna in the Avatar world is this. So much so, that simple, non-mashup animals are considered weird and inexplicable.
  • Bishonen: Oddly enough, Fire Lord Ozai is one. Makes more sense when considering that, according to Bryke, he's supposed to look like an older, eviler un-scarred Zuko.
  • Bits of Me Keep Passing Out: Sokka during the fight with Ty Lee; she was paralyzing his limbs one by one, yet he still tried to fight. Another similar incident happened when he was paralyzed by June's beast, and just when he started to gain some control over his hand, a pile of blocks fell on top of him.
  • Bizarrchitecture: The Western Air Temple.
  • Black and White Morality: Played straight at the extremes: Aang and company are good, Ozai and Azula are bad. Subverted with prejudice practically everywhere else, as a wide variety of sympathetic Fire Nation characters are introduced, while both the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribe each get at least one villainous figure. One of Aang's most important lessons is that good and evil can come from anywhere.
  • Black Sheep: Zuko, right from the childhood, Iroh because of circumstances.
  • Blade Brake: Twice. Subverted in the finale. See Absurdly Sharp Blade.
  • The Blank: The victims of Koh the Face Stealer.
  • Blatant Lies: Played very straight with Azula.

"I am a four hundred-foot tall purple Platypus Bear with pink horns and silver wings."

    • And yet, in a curious way, that particular line subverts it at the same time. Meta.
    • And with Zuko, when Zhao asks him if he's skilled with a sword.
  • Blind Seer: Toph
  • Bluff the Eavesdropper: Azula has Mai and Ty Lee purposely reveal that they're Fire Nation in disguise... to the pair of Dai Li agents they knew were eavesdropping, overhead. She knows they'll ferry the news back to Long Feng, and that he won't be able to resist the opportunity to use it against her. So she isn't surprised when those same agents bring her to his cell, where he coerces her into helping him under threat of exposing her to the Earth King. Azula "reluctantly" agrees. It doesn't end well for Long Feng.
  • Bolivian Army Ending: Invoked in "Appa's Lost Days" with Suki going up against Azula.
    • Subverted in that we eventually find out how the fight turned out.
    • A very subtle example may occur in "Lake Laogai". With Jet mortally wounded, his comrades Longshot and Smellerbee tell Aang's group to go on ahead. This is followed by a shot of Longshot notching an arrow in anticipation of incoming enemies. The trio are never seen again, not even when nearly every living good guy teams up near the end of Book 3.

"Y'know, it was really unclear..."

      • This one was also subverted as of the sequel comic "The Promise", where Smellerbee and Longshot make an appearance.
  • Bond Villain Stupidity: The Fire Nation in general. For a nation dedicated to wiping out everyone with Elemental Powers besides themselves, they seem remarkably intent on leaving the Benders from other nations sitting around in prisons rather than just executing them - and confirmed traitors like Iroh, as well.
    • It should be noted that imprisonment would be a more viable choice since execution of the benders may turn more people against them including the very citizens of the Fire Nation. From the public's point of view, killing an enemy in the battlefield is different from executing an already defeated and imprisoned foe.
    • It should also be noted that this is a kid's show that tends to take a Never Say "Die" attitude with respect to named characters. Execution is a bit... adult.
    • It still can be justified in-universe: Keeping in mind than the War lasted one hundred years, killing each new generation of benders would establish the entire Fire Nation as unbelievably evil from the point of view of non-benders, that they can't subdue due to their sheer number (The Air Nomads being the exception, since they were a sufficiently small population to Kill'Em All at once). Simply neutralizing them work better from a P.R. stand-point.
  • Book Ends: A pillar of light shooting into the sky in the first and last episode.
  • Book-Burning: In The Library episode, Admiral Zhao and his army gone to Wong Shi Tong's library and burned down the Fire Nation section to prevent their foes from obtaining intelligence.
  • Boring but Practical: Very commonly used throughout the show. Weapons and armor worn by the characters tend to be much closer to actual equipment used in history with very few unnecessary frills.
    • The Fire Nation Navy used to have shoulder spikes on their uniforms, but eliminated them soon during the war due the spikes constantly getting stuck into things.
    • Parodied in one episode where Aang finds a large, unwieldy, stereotypical anime suit of armor that he can't move in because of the weight.
      • The best part? This was the creator's answer to Nickelodeon's request for them to give Aang armor so they could make it into a toy.
  • Boobs of Steel: Ty Lee has a rather sizable chest, the largest in Azula's group, and is easily the physically strongest and most agile character in the series who isn't using bending, male or female (her name even means "extreme strength").
    • Also the leader of the Gan Jin tribe from The Divide. She's a fairly buxom lady and holds her own against the canyon crawlers without any bending.
    • Entirely averted with regards to bending. Neither Katara, Toph nor Azula are especially well endowed for their ages, but all are among the best in the world in their respective elements. Indeed, Toph may well be one of the greatest Earthbenders in history and she's as flat chested as one would expect a 12 year old girl to be.
  • Bottomless Magazines: Mai's robes are stocked with an endless hidden supplies of shurikens and arrows, the kicker is that they aren't impeding her movement.
    • Lampshaded in the Ember Island Players, where "Mai" draws her knives from her hair, throws it and has another replacement waiting.
  • A Boy and His X: A boy and his flying bison.
  • Brain Bleach: Zuko alone goes through a lifetime supply of the stuff. His grey-matter must have been white by the end of the series:
    • After seeing Uncle Iroh hit on a large woman in "The Drill": "I'm gonna forget I saw that." Complete with Face Palm.
    • Very much the same reaction from Zuko when Uncle Iroh stands up from the hotspring in his birthday suit.
    • When Li and Lo try to do the same pose they did when they were young women, Zuko practically throws up.
      • Mai is kind enough to cover Zuko's eyes when the pair later remove their robes to show off their bikinis. The audience probably did the same.
    • Heh, "Zuko Alone".
  • Brain Fever
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Jet. Which also falls into the Manchurian Agent and Mind Control Eyes tropes (see their entries for more information).
  • Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Subverted in Ba Sing Se.
  • Break the Cutie: Pretty much every character ever. Katara, Sokka, Aang, Zuko, and Jet all get flashback scenes showing them as cute, chubby-cheeked little kids that have horrible things happen to them. The rest of the Freedom Fighters, Ty Lee, and Mai are implied to have gone through this - all of the Freedom Fighters are orphans who have been hurt by the war, Mai withdrew into herself as a result of her oppressive childhood, and Ty Lee snapped and ran away to the circus because she was treated like she had no personal identity. Even Azula could arguably fall under this - her deep desire for her parent's affection, likely based on her mother's unspoken preference for Zuko, is part of what makes her the monster she is during the show.
    • Don't forget Appa and Hama. Appa had an entire episode showing him being treated as a universal punching bag. It was horribly depressing.
  • Break the Haughty: Zuko over the course of most of the series, which leads to serious character development on his part; while Azula (who starts out even haughtier) gets it all crammed into a few episodes and doesn't take it as well.
  • Breather Episode:
  • Brick Joke:
    • In the Book 1 episode "The Deserter", Sokka tries some Fire Flakes, which are pretty hot, but it's made much funnier when we meet Mai a season later in "Return To Omashu" and she snacks down on them like they're nothing.
      • Sokka developed a taste for them by the time "Ember Island Players" rolled arond.
    • Zuko mentioning the tsungi horn in Book 1 seems like an offhanded comment at first, if you don't remember that it actually appeared in "The Waterbending Scroll"; later we see Aang playing one in "The Headband". Iroh himself plays one in the last episode (presumably it's the one they bought).
      • You can hear the tsungi horn in Zuko's Leitmotif.
    • From that same episode, Iroh can be seen admiring a ruby-encrusted ape statue which then appears in his possession in "The Blue Spirit".
    • In the beginning of Book 3, Aang makes a picture of Fire Lord Ozai at school. In "Daydreams and Nightmares" it's put on a tree so Aang can train.
    • "Boomerang! You do always come back!"
  • Broken Bird: Zuko and Mai.
  • Broken Glass Penalty: In the Iroh segment of "Tales of Ba Sing Se", a few kids are playing with a ball, and a window is broken. Iroh appears and the following dialogue occurs:

Iroh: It is usually best to admit mistakes when they occur, and to seek to restore honor.
A large man appears inside the house
Large man: When I'm through with you kids, the window won't be the only thing that's broken!
Iroh: But not this time! Run!

  • Brotherhood of Funny Hats: In the comic book story "No Benders Allowed" (printed in The Lost Adventures), Sokka starts a club like this along with the Gaang's non-bender allies. They eventually let the benders into the club, provided they "pledge allegiance to my bendless brethren, and admit that no bending can equal the might of the noble boomerang".
  • Bubble Pipe: Sokka when he's doing his Sherlock Holmes impression.
  • Bullet Time: Ample examples throughout the show, with Aang having the most.
    • Prominent in Toph's first episode; time freezes many times, showing how she feels the vibrations in the ground to "see" what's going on. In that same episode, a rock flies by her face in slo-mo.
  • Bullying a Dragon: When Aang encounters Zhao in The Deserter, the whole battle is Aang antagonizing Zhao so the latter will try to blast the former with fire. Zhao didn't realize he had been blasting his own boats until Aang pointed it out.
  • Bunny Ears Lawyer: Bumi.
  • The Bus Came Back: This show is notable for bringing characters who appeared at first to be one-shot extras back for reappearances (often spoiling the surprise with a Spoiler Recap at the beginning of the episodes in which they reappear).
    • Most notably, in "Day of Black Sun", characters from "Jet", "The Northern Air Temple", "The Swamp", and "The Blind Bandit" show up… as well as Hakoda, Bato, and the warriors of the Southern Water Tribe. A number of characters in the finale, too (see Back for the Finale, above).
    • Jet, Longshot, and Smellerbee in Season 2.
    • Also, Suki at various points: "The Serpent's Pass", "Appa's Lost Days", then becoming a Guest Star Party Member from "The Boiling Rock" until the end of the show.
    • On the villain side, the pirates from "The Waterbending Scroll" showed up again in "The Waterbending Master".
    • June the Bounty Hunter, first appearing in Season 1's "Bato of the Water Tribe", and then reappearing in Season 3's "Sozin Comet, Part 1: The Phoenix King".
    • My Cabbages!
  • But for Me It Was Tuesday: When Katara finds the man who killed her mother. He doesn't remember at first.
    • Also Azula in "The Awakening".
  • Butt Monkey: Sokka, on several occasions, particularly during the first half of the series. Sokka actually displays considerable growth over the course of the show, something few Butt Monkeys in other shows ever get to do.
  • By Wall That Is Holey: the Earth Kingdom's trademark disc projectiles with square holes in them (based on Chinese coins) turn out to be rather impractical, particularly in "The Avatar State".

C

Zuko: What are you doing here?
Azula: Isn't it obvious? I'm about to celebrate becoming an only child!

  • Call a Smeerp a Rabbit: "Penguins". Played for laughs and subverted with the Earth King's pet bear; the crew goes on to name various animals that could be combined, but are left perplexed as it just says 'bear'. This trope is pulled throughout the entire universe of Avatar, which lends more humor to the situation.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: Katara to Hakoda, and more significantly, Zuko to Ozai.
  • Calling Your Attacks: In "The Runaway".

Sokka: HAAA! SNEAK ATTACK! *A blindfolded Aang whomps him with an earth pillar*
Aang: Sokka, sneak attacks don't work if you yell it out loud.

  • Call to Agriculture: Subverted. The man who killed Katara's mother has a garden and it is implied that he spends quite some time on it, but he is still the cold and heartless man he was when he was an Admiral. It's just hard to tell because Katara is being really scary, and he's already a coward anyway.
    • During Season 2 and at the end of the Grand Finale, Uncle Iroh is "Called To Tea Service".
  • Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: The children that Sokka is trying to train in the first episode, just to illustrate how young they are and how hopeless Sokka's task is.
  • The Caligula: Azula as Fire Lord assumptive.
  • Cannot Tell a Joke: Zuko, Katara and, in one blatant example, Suki.
  • Can't Catch Up: Poor Sokka. Though he's The Smart Guy, occasionally gets a lucky hit in, and has a lot of non-combat skills, he's dead weight in any real fight because he doesn't have any elemental powers. Later, when he trains to become a swordsman, he's STILL outclassed. Even a skilled swordsman simply can't compete with people who can bend the elements to their whims... As a few have said, "Sokka is the Krillin of Avatar..."
  • Captain Ersatz:
  • Captain Oblivious
    • The "Cave of Two Lovers" episode involves a rather spaced-out, hippie minstrel who hangs around with beautiful women. Said minstrel's name happens to be "Chong".
    • Inverted with monster-form Hei-Bai and another misunderstood monster.
  • The Caretaker: Iroh.
  • Cassandra Truth:
    • Jet goes through this when trying to warn people that Zuko and Iroh are firebenders that are trying to infiltrate the city. After spending several days trying to get proof, he loses all credibility when he decides to suddenly attack them in front of a bunch of customers to get them to firebend in defense, which leads to his capture and Brainwashing by the Dai Li.
    • In Jet's first appearance, Sokka also went through this while trying to convince Aang and Katara that Jet planned on wiping out an entire village just to take out some Fire Nation soldiers stationed there.
  • Cast Calculus: depends on the season.
  • Casual Danger Dialog
  • Catapult Nightmare: Both Aang and Zuko.
  • Catch Phrase: "MY CABBAGES!"
  • Cat Smile: Jin, who owes a lot of her popularity to this.
  • Charles Atlas Superpower: Anyone with an extended lifespan is doing so through nonbending means; for instance, the Guru and Avatar Kyoshi both lived over 150 years, even though the Guru has no bending ability.
  • Charge Into Combat Cut: This trick is used a few times n the finale to cut between Aang's battle with Fire Lord Ozai and Zuko's battle with Azula.
  • Chase Scene: "The Waterbending Scroll".
  • Character Exaggeration: "The Ember Island Players" is an in-series example where just about everyone is absorbed by some single trait, often a comparatively minor one that they may not even have anymore.
  • Character Witness: The old Fire Nation man in the episode "Jet".
    • Subverted with Haru in the episode "Imprisoned". He saves an old man with his illegal earthbending. Old man turns him in...
  • Chekhov's Gag: In the earliest episodes, Katara had a tendency to mess up her waterbending, and Sokka would get drenched. In "The Waterbending Master" Katara redirects a stream of water during a fight. Sokka gets blasted away by it, even though everyone else around him is just fine.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • The warden's word that he would sooner jump into the boiling lake than tarnish his prisoners' escape record (then, zero). One episode later he is willing to have the gondola cable cut to prevent our heroes from escaping, even when it means his own demise.
    • Zuko's twin swords (seen on his wall early in the series), schematics for a drilling machine, a prototype war balloon, Katara's necklace twice (one used by Zuko to track the Gaang and once when Master Pakku realizes it belonged to Kanna, Katara's amulet of water from the North Pole oasis, the Lotus tile, Iroh's sandal, the scroll with the Lion Turtles at the Library and the bison whistle in particular since Sokka initially chided Aang for wasting money on it. One season later, it's still important.
      • The bison whistle is more of a Chekhov's Boomerang: It apparently serves its purpose at the end of the episode it first appears in, only to show up again halfway through the next season.
      • In the same episode, Zuko's ship stops in port so that Iroh can replace the White Lotus tile from his Pi Sho set.
      • The war balloon is a special one that deserves mention because it takes two seasons to resolve.
    • After Katara steals the waterbending scroll, she attempts to learn the water whip. Look at the diagram. It's the same waterbending move in the intro every week.
    • A minor one in "The Avatar State," Zuko and Iroh cut off their top-knots with a knife Zuko has on him. Guess what pops up six episodes later in "Zuko Alone?"
  • Chekhov's Skill:
    • Redirecting lightning.
      • Made even more brilliant when you watch The Storm. Iroh redirects lightning during the titular storm. In season one. Mike and Bryan, I worship you.
    • Zuko using firebending to hold off hypothermia in "The Siege of the North" comes in handy when he gets locked in the cooler in "The Boiling Rock". (Which is arguably less fatal than freezing water, but still impressive.)
    • Katara's use of bloodbending in "The Southern Raiders".
  • Chekhov MIA: Koh the Face Stealer's parting words to Aang are "We'll meet again..." They don't, though given that Koh doesn't differentiate between individual Avatars, he probably meant eventually.
    • They do... just not in the televised bit of the series. There's a canon game that was online taking place between Books 2 and 3 where Aang goes to the spirit world to make sure that the Avatar line wasn't broken when Azula killed him. Koh both helps him find his former selves and acts as an impediment in his search.
  • The Chick: Katara qualifies but also has elements of The Lancer.
  • Chick Magnet: Sokka, enough said.
  • Child Soldiers: Most of whom fit under the talented and tragic categories.

Katara: I haven't done this since I was a kid!
Aang: You still are a kid!

  • Chirping Crickets: Sometimes with a cough, but mostly with animal sounds - a duck in "The Fortuneteller", a defrosting frog in "The Blue Spirit" and a badger-toad in "The Western Air Temple", among others.
  • Chosen Family: The Gaang: we have an orphan Airbender that realizes he lost his family a hundred years ago, two Water tribe members that lost their mother while having a father at war, a runaway Earth Kingdom noble that hates her family limiting her, and later on, a Kyoshi Warrior leader with her fellow Warriors imprisoned and separated.
  • The Chosen One: Aang, although the reincarnation system makes it a bit muddled whether he's chosen or just following all his lives.
    • Katara was destined to be Aang's waterbending master. She always believed the Avatar would return and she released him from the iceberg. Gran Gran told her that their destinies "are now intertwined."
    • Toph was first seen as a vision and was therefore destined to be Aang's earthbending master.
    • Zuko (who, in keeping with the pattern of this series' use of this trope, is destined to be Aang's firebending master) just happened to be passing through the South Pole when Aang was discovered in the iceberg. He also found out that Avatar Roku was his great-grandfather and that his destiny was intertwined with that of the the Avatar. Aang even admits this outright.
  • Cincinnatus: Iroh turns down the offer of Fire Lord if his brother was defeated, since he knew Zuko would have to do it.
  • City of Canals: The Northern Water Tribe's capital city.
  • Cliff Hanger: Zuko confronts his father and demands to know where his mother is, but the answer is never displayed on screen for the viewer...hmm...
  • Close-Call Haircut: Happens to Azula in the Season 2 finale, thanks to Katara's master waterbending skills.
    • In a fight between Zuko and Jet, a close miss by Zuko shaves the blade of grass sticking out of Jet's mouth.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Iroh is set up to be one of these but turns out to be a case of Obfuscating Stupidity. Bumi is legitimately one of these, but no less badass. The greatest example of this, however, is Ty Lee.

Ty Lee: Hey, look at that dust cloud. It's so...poofy. Poof!

  • Color Coded for Your Convenience/Color Motif/Color-Coded Elements:
    • The clothing styles of Four Nations: Denizens of the Fire Nation wear red, gold, and black; The Water Tribes wear blue and white; the Air Nomads wear yellow and orange, and members of the Earth Kingdom wear greens and browns. The Air Nomads' colour is actually known as kavi, a variation of yellow worn by priests and monks. The writers did their research.
    • Also, Azula's blue fire, which indicates her cold, cruel detachment (It also shows her as a firebending prodigy since blue fire burns hotter) vs. Zuko's red (to indicate his heated emotional nature). Interestingly, the color combination was reversed for Aang and Ozai when they were energybending in the Finale.
    • There are exceptions to this rule:
      • In Book 2, Zuko and Iroh relocate to Ba Sing Se. In order to blend in they wear the customary clothing of the Earth Kingdom.
      • At the start of Book 3 the gaang captures a Fire Nation ship and pose as Fire Nation. In the second episode, the Gaang steals Fire Nation clothing in order to blend in.
      • In the final episode the Gaang is dressed in Earth Kingdom clothing. This symbolizes the integration of the four nations.
      • Jet and his gang wear clothing not matching any of the four nations. (However, this could actually still work with this trope by going along with the fact that while they live in the Earth Kingdom, they are really more of a law unto their own, signified by their patchwork, lost boys-style clothes.)
      • Ty Lee wears pink and at the end of the series is dressed in the customary uniform of the Kyoshi Warriors since she joined them despite being Fire Nation.
        • Pink is technically a shade of red and thus not really a subversion.
      • Though, arguably, these "exceptions" are actually just showing how the series conforms to this rule, since all people had to do to fake their nationality was change their clothes (and in Aang's case, hide his tattoos).
    • The color of benders' eyes correspond to the color of their element (green for earthbenders, blue for waterbenders, gold for firebenders, grey for airbenders) and to some degree, everyone's eyes tend to correspond to their nationality as well (which makes one wonder why no one suspected the blue/green/grey-eyed bunch of youngsters tramping around the Fire Nation of being the exact bunch of foreign youngsters they were expecting to try to overthrow the Fire Lord).
      • It could also be noted that, within the fire nation, eye colour does differ from person to person, often appearing to be coded by the characters alliance, for example, Zuko's eyes are light amber, signifying that, while he starts on the bad side, he is really good, Zhao's are dark orange, showing that he is ultimately corrupted, Azulas are so dark they are almost brown, and Iroh's are a nice pumpkiny yellow, showing his true alligence to the light.
  • Color-Coded Patrician: Princess Yue wears purple, when everyone else in the water tribes wear blue, including her father.
  • Combat Compliment: Sokka's Master.
  • Comet of Doom: Sozin's Comet (even if it's not REALLY a comet), although the prediction of doom is hardly mystical; its arrival increases the Firebenders' power by a hundredfold. Fire Lord Sozin, for whom the comet was named, used it to launch a first strike against the Air Nomads, which completely eradicated them. His grandson, Fire Lord Ozai, attempted something similar in the finale.
  • The Comically Serious: Zuko, Mai, Sokka (when not being sarcastic), and even Azula on one occasion
  • Coming of Age Story
  • Commuting on a Bus: In the third season, this happened to Uncle Iroh... for the first few episodes, he didn't even get any speaking parts! (Word of God is that this had already been planned that way and was not because of the sudden death of his prior voice actor, Mako.) Then he had exactly two speaking appearances in the entire rest of the season.
  • Companion Cube: Sokka's Boomerang and later, Space Earth Sword. Complete with "death".
  • Competitive Balance: The bending arts work this way.
    • Fragile Speedster: Airbending: Its attacks and defensive abilities aren't particularly strong, but it puts more of an emphasis on mobility and speed.
    • Mighty Glacier: Earthbending: The bender makes slow, gradual movements but deals and takes attacks like a tank.
    • Glass Cannon: Firebending: It lacks effective defensive moves but hits hard to make up for it.
    • Stone Wall: Waterbending (ironically enough): It's not particularly offensive in nature; it focuses more on defensive tactics, usually only countering as an offensive move.
  • The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Played with Sokka. Sometimes he's the Brains of the group. Sometimed it's played straight, but in such a ridiculous manner that it's parodying this trope. He tends to be right when it matters, though.
  • Conflict Ball: Passed around a few times, usually involving Katara.
  • Constructed World
  • Consummate Liar: Azula. She can even impress Living Lie Detector Toph.
  • Constantly Curious: The farmer's son in "Zuko Alone".
  • Continuity Nod:
    • Many, many examples. The umbrella from "The Fortuneteller" is found in Appa's luggage by sandbenders in "Appa's Lost Days". The eye-patch wearing Fire Nation commander from "Jet" shows up again in "The Cave of Two Lovers". The tsungi horn and ruby encrusted monkey statue Iroh buys in "The Waterbending Scroll" appear several times. War Minister Qin turns up at least once a season, usually prior to or during the unveiling of a new Fire Nation war machine. Sokka's attempt to reveal himself to Suki with a kiss in "The Boiling Rock" is a callback to when she did the same to him in "The Serpent's Pass". And so on.
    • Katara mentions in "Bitter Work" that the reason Aang is having so much trouble learning Earthbending is because Earth is the natural opposite of his element (Air). Later, in "The Avatar and The Firelord", Roku mentions conversationally that out of all the four elements, Water (the natural opposite to his element, Fire) was the one which was hardest for him to master.
    • The married couple first appears in Zuko Alone before appearing in the Serpent's Pass.
    • Iroh's journey to the spirit world was first referenced in the Winter Solstice Part 1 when he sees Spirit Aang. It is not actually mentioned until the Siege of the North.
    • The Badger Moles make their first appearance in the Cave of Two Lovers. Toph later mentions how she learned earthbending from the Badger Moles.
      • Additionally, the Badger Moles are seen briefly in season 2, episode 6 when Aang first decides that Toph should be his earth bending master. The moles are fixing the arena after the previous battles.
    • Characters often seen for brief moments make larger appearances in later episodes.
    • While Zuko and Iroh are hiding in Ba Sing Se, Zuko takes on the name Lee. While this is just a random name at that point, a season later we learn from Piandao that "There's a million Lees", so Zuko was essentially going by his world's version of "John Smith".
    • In The Boiling Rock, Zuko spends some time locked in a chilled prison cell, designed specifically to punish Firebenders, as part of a Batman Gambit by him and Sokka. He used the same chi technique that he learned at the end of the first season to stay warm, as demonstrated by his exhaled puff of flame when he is retrieved.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: Inconsistently played straight and averted.
    • A particularly egregious example can be found in "The Awakening": Aang is standing among streams of lava, some of which flows literally between his feet. He sticks his wooden glider to the ground and leaves, and the glider immediately catches a fire and burns, but somehow this terrible heat doesn't bother Aang (or the other members of his gang) at all. So convection clearly exists, but it doesn't appear to affect humans.
  • Conveniently Interrupted Document: Zhao burned away references to The Day Of Black Sun, and indeed, any references to the Fire Nation at all in Wan Shi Ton's library (which served as the last straw for the spirit, and caused him to become hostile to humans).
  • Cooldown Hug
  • Cool Tank: The Fire Nation makes wide use of Steampunk tanks with Firebenders as their weapons, but the coolest are the Earth Kingdom's tanks, which are incredibly tough worm-like contraptions powered entirely by Earthbending. As such, they can scale cliffs and staircases, attack conventionally with Earthbent rocks, or Earthbend their hulls to crush enemy tanks.
  • Cosmic Forces Trio: Mainly Aang (The Creator), Zuko (The Preserver), and Ozai (The Destroyer).
  • Could Have Been Messy: Many, many cases, on both sides. Aang will not kill people. He will, however, dump an avalanche of snow on top of masses of enemy soldiers while they're walking across a sheer mountain pathway seemingly very high up, sending them hurtling off. Just so long as the aftermath is unseen we can safely assume no one got hurt. Right?
  • Covered in Mud:
    • Katara and Toph take full body mud baths in their spa day in "Tales of Ba Sing Se". Toph uses earthbending to traumatize the spa employee during her Cucumber Facial.
    • "The Runaway" Katara and Toph get into an argument that turns into something of a mudwrestling match because of their water and earthbending abilities respectively.
  • Cowboy Episode: "Zuko Alone" has a very western feel, with the classic plot of a mysterious stranger helping a town in need.
  • Crap Saccharine World: Ba Sing Se.
  • Creepy Child: Flash Back-Azula.
  • Creepy Twins: Lo and Li. That is until "The Beach", when they only creep Zuko out.
  • Cross-Dressing Voices: Not used in the show itself (12 year old Aang is voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen), but Lampshaded in the play in The Ember Island Players, where Aang is played by a (visibly adult) woman (voiced by Rachel Dratch).
    • This doubles as a reference to Peter Pan, where the eponymous eternal child is traditionally played by a petite woman rather than a prepubescent boy.
  • Cruel Mercy: To both Ozai and Katara's mother's killer.
  • Cry for the Devil
  • The Cuckoolander Was Right: In the Siege of the North Part 1, when talking about getting the Ocean and Moon Spirits' support, Aang says that, "Maybe they'll unleash a crazy amazing spirit attack on the Fire Nation." Both Yue and Katara give him weird looks. Guess what happens next episode?
  • Cucumber Facial
  • Culture Chop Suey: Sokka carries a boomerang, despite his water tribe culture being based off of the Inuit people.
    • The entire series is a mixture of cultures including but not limited to, Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, and Inuit culture. The notion of the Avatar comes from India and the Hindu religion. There is also quite a bit of American Influence, as the show, following the style of Japanese Anime, is an American Cartoon.
  • Cultured Badass: Many examples, but Iroh is undoubtedly the greatest.
  • Culture Clash: Zuko's sensibilities don't entirely align with Aang's even after he joins Team Avatar. For instance, in order to make up for having wronged Katara in the past, Zuko offers to help her murder an old man (who killed her mother, but still). Aang himself is subject to this as his upbringing taught him that killing was absolutely taboo, meanwhile his friends, who've all grown up in a world that's only known a century of war, have no problem with killing in battle.
  • Curb Stomp Battle: Avatar Aang + La wiping out Zhao's fleet at the North Pole.
    • Less Curbstompy, but still pretty much one sided, Pakku vs Katara shortly previous. Justified since he's an Old Master while she's a largely self-taught 14 year old.
  • Cursed with Awesome: Aang never wanted to be the Avatar, and ran away when the monks tried to separate him from Gyatso.
  • Cut Apart: In "Lake Laogai", Team Avatar opens the door to where they think Appa is, and Appa looks up at the opening door to see... Zuko. A mild Lampshading follows as Zuko snarks, "Expecting someone else?"
    • Also happens in "Imprisoned": Fire Nation troops walk around menacingly as the Gaang sleeps, the troops then knock on a door... which is opened by Haru.
  • Cute Bruiser: Toph. While not physically strong, she has a Boisterous Bruiser personality, shatters boulders with casual ease and is usually the go-to team member for sheer brute force.

D

  • Daddy's Little Villain: Azula.
  • Dance Line: in "The Headband", Aang is trying to teach some Fire Nation kids how to relax and have fun and does this at his secret dance party.
  • Dangerously Genre Savvy: Azula is very cunning, and has no reservations about resorting to the most dirty, underhanded tactics available if it will help her win. Case in point: in the second season finale, she sneaks up behind Aang while everyone else is busy staring in awe at his Transformation Sequence and sends a bolt of lightning into his back. After Zuko blatantly lies to her, saying that there's no way he could have survived, she sees through the obvious lie... and is summarily proven right. And then she turned Zuko's lie back against him.
  • Dangerous Sixteenth Birthday:
    • The Avatars are supposed to be told about their identity on their sixteenth. Aang didn't get that luxury.
    • Sixteen is also the age in which Northern Water Tribe girls become eligible for marriage, much to poor Yue's dismay. It is unclear whether the same custom carries on to Katara's tribe. Though it seems unlikely since Kanna (Gran-Gran) ran away to the Southern Tribe specifically to avoid her arranged marriage.
  • Dark Action Girl: Azula and Mai. Ty Lee sort of counts, in that she's a bad guy and an action girl, but her personality is anything but dark.
  • Darker and Edgier: The series as a whole is much darker and more serious then one would think for a daytime Nickelodeon show. There is direct mention of people having died before the series, a handful of people who die during the series, multiple mentions of mass genocide (strictly along racial lines). There are also rather mature themes throughout, such as parental abuse, murder, scandals, and having one of the main protagonists nearly kill someone of their own free will.
  • Darkest Hour: "The Crossroads of Destiny" and "Day of Black Sun" featured two of the cruelest Downer Endings in the entire series.
  • Daydream Surprise: "Nightmares and Daydreams"
  • Day in the Life: "Tales of Ba Sing Se"
  • A Day in the Limelight: "Zuko Alone", "Appa's Lost Days", "Sokka's Master", "The Boiling Rock".
  • Dawson Casting: aversion Aang and Toph are voiced by actors of about the correct age. The actors who play Katara and Sokka are not much older than their characters, either.
    • Played straight in Chile with Aang, whose male voice actor (René Pinochet) was almost 30! Justified that he was born prematurely and his voice hadn't changed much since childhood.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Several characters fit this one, including Sokka, Toph, Iroh, Azula and of course Mai.
    • Even Zuko gets in on it at times:

Zuko: Yeah, and then you can show [the Fire Lord] his baby pictures and all those happy memories will make him good again.
Aang: Do you really think that will work?
Zuko: No!

  • Deadly Dodging: several examples, like Aang vs Zhao in "The Deserter", but the one taking the cake would be that scholar being attacked by the platypus-bear in the beginning of "The Fortuneteller". Aunt Wu wasn't that far off.
  • Death Faked for You: Iroh claimed to have killed the last dragon, but he instead found them and didn't tell anyone, so they could live in peace.
  • Declarative Finger: Zuko had one when he was impersonating his Uncle giving him sage advice.

Zuko: How am I supposed to convince these people that I'm on their side? What would Uncle do? [Impersonating his Uncle, pacing and holding up his finger] Zuko, you must look within yourself to save yourself from your other self. Only then will your true self reveal itself. [Dropping the impersonation and getting frustrated] Even when I'm talking for him I can't figure out what he means!

  • Deep South: All the swampbenders have hillbilly accents and seem adamantly opposed to wearing pants/shirts/shoes.
  • Defanged Horrors: This show has many scenes and creatures that are scary even to adult viewers, but stay clear of blood or violence, or monsters jumping at you from the screen. It also portrays a century long war quite realistically and does not shy away from discussing (and within limits showing) genocide and war crimes against civilians, while still remaining safe to watch for children.
    • Prisoners never seem to be executed. It's claimed by one Earth Kingdom soldier that the Fire Nation sometimes dresses prisoners of war in Fire Army uniforms and sends them unarmed to the front lines, essentially executing them by friendly fire, but it's never made clear if this is actually true.
  • Defense Mechanism Superpower: The Avatar State is explicitly identified as a defense mechanism by Roku, though it's also possible for an experienced Avatar to enter it at will. Aang doesn't quite master this until the very end of the series. Well, he tried in the second season finale, but that didn't go so well.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Mai in Season 3. She still acts plenty frosty, but is actually capable of showing emotion when either a) Zuko is around or b) it's just her and Zuko.
  • Deliberately Monochrome: In "The Siege of the North" arc, when the moon spirit is killed, everything becomes black and white, except when lit up by light from fire or water bending.
  • Demoted to Extra: Teo, The Duke, and Haru in late Season 3. At the end of "Day of Black Sun" they escaped on Appa with the rest of the gAang... according to the commentary, because the writers felt that sending children to a Fire Nation prison would be too harsh. But the writers couldn't figure out anything else to do with them, despite Teo being a great glider pilot and inventor and Haru being a decent Earthbender in his own right… so they only appeared in the background, or the focus of "road trip with Zuko" episodes was set away from the Western Air Temple where they were encamped, until they could be Put on a Bus (along with the just-rescued Hakoda) in "The Southern Raiders". (In later commentary, the writers joked about wanting to do an episode entirely about their adventures exploring the Western Air Temple.)
  • Deus Ex Machina: The series finale had a few.
    • The lion-turtle was a type 2. Although in Book 2, The Library, there was a set up for the lion-turtle. If not for the fact that this line was said just over a year before the finale was released this could be a type 3. But it is more than likely a type 4.
    • The energy-bending was a type 1. Sort-of. The information regarding it was given by the Lion-Turtle. Although no prior mention of energy-bending existed there was prior mention of the Lion-Turtle and the creators confirmed that they had planned for that ending (if not the specific mechanism) from early on.
  • Development Gag: "The Ember Island Players" is full of them.
  • Diagonal Cut: Many minor examples, but on a more significant note, Aang does this to a battleship.
  • Didn't Want an Adventure
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Sokka, of all people, gets this moment defending the Gaang from the beserk Owl Guardian in "The Library".

Sokka: That's called "Sokka Style." LEARN IT!

  • Die or Fly: Used twice. Toph Invokes this by rolling a boulder at Aang in an attempt to get him to learn earthbending. Aang jumps out of the way to keep from being squished. The scene is mirrored later in the episode, when he has to defeat an angry Saber-Toothed Moose Lion, and successfully gets the "stand your ground" mindset required for earthbending. Season 3 has a semi-straight example: Katara learns Bloodbending on her first attempt to stop Hama from making Sokka kill Aang.
  • Digging Yourself Deeper:
    • Zuko lets drop that he was the one who sent Combustion Man after them, which he thought they had figured out already. Oops.
    • Katara in The Runaway while defensively asking Aang if she acts motherly, demands, "Stop rubbing your eye and speak clearly when you talk!"
  • Dirty Coward: Yon Rha.
  • Disability Superpower:
    • Toph's enhanced senses and earthbending prowess as a result of her blindness.
    • Often lampshaded and parodied with lines such as "Your feet need their eyes checked", "I'll tell your feet what's going on", and "Not being able to see with your feet stinks!"
    • Also, the Mechanist's son Teo is paraplegic, but has a glider attachment to his wheelchair that lets him fly almost as well as Aang. Though unlike Toph, this flight ability is never overtly suggested to be because of his handicap.
  • Disabled Snarker: Toph.
  • Disc One Final Episode: "The Day of Black Sun".
    • Not the best example since it takes place almost at the end of the series. The finale of Season 1 would be a better example; marking a significant victory for the good guys but not one that actually changes the status quo of the war in general.
  • Disc One Nuke: The trope is toyed with after Aang finds out about the coming comet; he ALMOST learns fire-bending (sequence breaking the order he is supposed to learn the elements). He's actually quite powerful with just a small bit of instruction, but after he loses control and hurts Katara, both he and his teacher decide he is not ready.
  • Discontinuity Nod: In "The Ember Island Players"

Actor!Aang: Look, it's the Great Divide -- the biggest canyon in the Earth Kingdom!
beat
Actor!Sokka: Eh... let's keep flying.

  • Disorganized Outline Speech: Sokka's courtroom defense of Aang in "Avatar Day", and his attempt at briefing the invasion plan in "Day of Black Sun".
  • Disproportionate Retribution: It seems to be a common response to perceived "disrespect" in Zuko's family.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: In "The Drill", Sokka leaves himself wide open to attack when Ty Lee flirts at him. Katara pulls him out before anything bad happens, though.
  • Disturbed Doves: Zuko manages to summon them just by taking off his shirt. While overly dramatic theme music plays in the background. See the picture on that page.
    • Also happens here and there in the series; once when Appa and the Porcupine-Boar raise hell with their fight in "Appa's Lost Days", and in the beginning of "The Southern Raiders"; Disturbed Doves flying off the water fountain is what warns Aang that something is wrong, about half a second before they are bombed by Azula's Airships. Most notably in the finale, in which an entire fleet of birds scatter off from just about everywhere when Ozai begins his attack. To be fair though, he was burning down their entire forest...
  • Ditch the Escorts: Zuko persuades Mai's escorts to bring her a "fruit tart." This turns out to be a complicated order, leaving her and Zuko with her place all to themselves.
  • Diving Save: Zuko to Katara in "The Southern Raiders"
  • Do I Really Sound Like That?: Comes with the territory in "The Ember Island Players". Katara is particularly defensive.
  • Does Not Like Shoes: A Justified Trope for Toph, since she "sees" through her feet.
    • Drawn to the forefront when they steal Fire Nation clothes, she punches her feet through the shoes to remove the soles.
      • This bites her in the ass (or the soles, if you will) just after Zuko's Heel Face Turn (like, right just after), when she spooks Zuko at night in the woods, then doesn't respond when a wary exile with no one in the world he can trust calls out "who goes there". Predictably, the lack of response makes Zuko assume he's under attack and try to scare off his attacker by scorching their boots; boots which you may remember Toph doesn't wear.
  • The Doll Episode: "The Puppetmaster"
  • Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud: Averted. During "The Swamp" when the tornado closes in on Appa the wind catches Sokka before they touch the funnel cloud.
  • Don't Touch It, You Idiot!
  • Doomed Hometown: The Southern Air Temple for Aang. The Northern, Western, and Eastern ones did not fare too well either.
  • Double Consciousness: Being both the son of the Fire Lord and the destined ally of the Avatar has got to be tough.
    • Don't forget being the great-grandson of both the man who started the war and the first to speak out against it (that is, the past life of the person he worked years to capture).
  • Double Edged Answer: Toph tries to explain how her feet got burned: she surprised and startled Zuko in the middle of the night and he reflexively flung fire at her before he realized it was one of the Gaang. He was immediately contrite and apologetic, but Toph, in pain, bailed.

Toph: Well, he did and he didn't.

  • Downer Ending: Several episodes of Season 2, most significantly the Season 2 finale.
    • Also, an in-series example: The ending of the Ember Island players' play (where the Avatar is killed, the Fire Nation wins the war and Ozai and Azula take over the world) was a downer ending for the Gaang.
  • The Dragon: Zhao in the first season, Princess Azula in the second and third; she was even portrayed as a blue dragon within a hallucination her brother was experiencing.
    • ...while their uncle was portrayed as a red dragon.
  • Drama Bomb: The second season finale is infamous because of this. There had been a gradual build up of conflict and drama in the episodes leading up to it, but it all came to a head in that episode with the force of a nuclear explosion.
  • Dramatic Thunder: First type in "The Storm" and second type "The Southern Raiders"
  • Dressing as the Enemy: Done in all three seasons.
  • The Drifter: "Zuko Alone", which is pretty much an homage to Shane and the Dollars Trilogy.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Jet. See article.
  • Dual-Wielding: Both Zuko and Jet prefer dual wielding style (and of course, they end up in a dual-wielding duel in one episode).

E

  • Early-Bird Cameo: Tons of them:
    • Guru Pathik makes a short appearance in 'Appa's Lost Days' well before meeting Aang. Hakoda also appears in the same episode, but only for a few seconds.
    • Also, Azula is seen in the Storm flashback of how Zuko got his scar.
    • The benders seen in the opening credits (aside from Aang) are not introduced for some time:
      • the waterbender is Pakku,
      • the earthbender was the original design for Toph before the creators decided to make her a girl instead (which got reused for Avatar Roku's earthbending teacher). It is also speculated that the Earthbender is the Boulder.
      • the firebender is Azula
      • Roku also appears in the opening credits despite not being named until three episodes in, and he didn't even get any lines until four episodes after that.
    • A vision of Toph in "The Swamp".
    • Imagery of the Lion Turtle has constantly reappeared throughout the entire series, but never in a way that would make its true purpose apparent.
    • The married couple that Zuko almost attacks in Zuko Alone reappear as refuges in the Serpent's Pass.
  • Early Installment Weirdness: Without getting into the differences in characterization, the pilot episode gives Zuko the ability to use flame jets as Reverse Gripped daggers and has Aang consciously activate the Avatar State for a quick boost despite the episode ostensibly taking place sometime during the equivalent of the beginning of the first season. Fire Nation soldiers wear Spikes of Villainy galore and Katara is also named Kya.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: The entire third season, especially the invasion arc and the finale.
  • Easily Forgiven: Averted hard, especially by Katara. Betraying her in any way will set her default reaction to you to "near-homicidal rage" and it will stay that way unless serious amends are made. The girl can hold a grudge.
  • Eat the Dog: Sokka offers up Momo to a sea monster as a "humble and tasty" sacrifice.
  • Elaborate Underground Base: One situated beneath Lake Laogai, plus a war bunker under the Fire Nation capital.
    • Under Omashu there is an underground war base.
  • Elemental Absorption Although not considered an element in universe, redirecting lightning surely counts.
  • Elemental Baggage: Primarily the firebenders because they can create their own fire, the other bending styles require the appropriate amount of their element to use.
    • Airbenders could be considered as well, since their element is so abundant.
    • Earth is a pretty commonly-found element as well, frequently found underfoot in convenient throwing-sized blocks (though there's still the matter of being able to create passages and raise blocks of earth without massive displacement or destabilisation of the immediate area). Katara is the only one who actually has to carry her element around with her.
    • Eventually, Katara learns how to get water from pretty much anywhere, starting mainly in the third season. She uses her own sweat to escape the wooden cell keeping her and Toph locked up and in the episode "The Puppetmaster" she learns to blood bend and to draw water from nearby plants and even the air itself while empowered by the full moon.
      • And waterbenders come back with a vengeance because you really dont want to face one in the sea.
    • This is what makes firebending arguably the most powerful form of bending. You can separate a waterbender from a water source or an earthbender from the earth, but firebenders makes their own fire. Though this could apply to airbenders as well because there's really no way to separate them from their element. And even if that were possible, they'd probably be more concerned with not being able to breathe rather than not being able to bend.
  • Elemental Eye Colors
  • Elemental Powers: Duh.
  • Element Number Five: Energybending.
    • Actually, it's not that bad, since Energybending is just like Ki/Chi/Qi manipulation, which, according to the giant Lionturtle, people were doing long before people bended the elements.
  • Eleventh-Hour Superpower: Energybending. Some say an Ass Pull, but it does fit in with the mythology the show was drawing from and was foreshadowed in subtle ways. Also notable in that it wasn't required to win, only to allow a scenario in which Ozai could be realistically held in prison.
  • Elite Mooks: The Dai Li and Yu Yan archers.
  • The Empire: The Fire Nation.
  • Enemy Mine: "The Blue Spirit" saves Aang from Zhao because neither wants Zhao to take him back to the Fire Nation.
  • Epic Fail: Hahn, a conceited water tribe leader, uncovers his disguise and charges at Iroh and the Fire General Zhao on their ship. What happens? Iroh and the General Zhao just step out of the way, Zhao easily flings him overboard, and Hahn falls in the water. Then Iroh and the General resume their merry war conversation as if nothing happened.
  • Ermine Cape Effect: Bumi wears his robes all the time, unless he's showing off how great an earthbender he is.
    • For the Fire Nation, the fancy robes are often war armor, so it often makes sense to wear them a lot.
    • Also justified for Bumi, since his basic political strategy relies on convincing people he's a demented old figurehead-until suddenly it's time to show them that he's actually a demented old earthbending master, and also replace "demented" with "alarmingly savvy".
  • Escalating Brawl: Subverted. Hakoda tries to cause a prison riot by shoving the stereotypical huge tattooed guy... who responds with words because he's working on controlling his anger.
  • Et Tu, Brute?: Azula starts to lose it after Mai and Ty Lee do their Heel Face Turn.
    • Also, Sozin left Roku to die on a volcano after helping him contain the eruption, around the time it was clear Roku had inhaled too much of the fumes to escape on his own. The look of betrayal on Roku's face says it all.
    • Iroh feels this way after Zuko betrays him for Ozai's approval.
  • Evasive Fight Thread Episode: "City of Walls and Secrets" for Zuko and Jet.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: in "Zuko Alone", Zuko is starving and sees a camp set up by the side of the road, with a roast on the fire. He reaches for his dagger. He then sees that the camp belongs to a young refugee couple, the wife of which is heavily pregnant. He takes his hand off his dagger and leaves.
    • In his backstory, the incident that resulted in his scar started because he objected to sacrificing a division of new recruits for tactical expediency, despite not necessarily opposing the war.
    • Possibly subverted by Azulon, who objects to Ozai callously asking him to make him successor instead after the death of Iroh's only son. Azulon, if Ozai and Azula are to be believed, then went over the moral event horizon by telling Ozai to kill Zuko.
  • Exposed to the Elements: Averted with Sokka and Katara, who wear heavy fur coats at both poles. Played straight with Aang, who never seems to be cold even though he always wears the same outfit (though this is Hand Waved by him knowing a special breathing technique). Averted and Justified with Zuko, who is seen using a special technique that allows him to breathe fire. He also dresses appropriately and is in very real danger of freezing to death after he gets knocked unconscious, prompting Aang to take him with them.
  • Everything Makes a Mushroom: Aang creates a mushroom cloud while airbending in The Desert.
  • Everything's Better with Penguins: Incidentally, they're also otters.
  • Everything's Better with Princesses: Subverted by Azula, but definitely played straight by Yue.
  • Everything's Worse with Bears: Averted. Judging by Bosco, normal bears are pretty nice. Non-normal bears (platypus-bears, spirit pandas, and women named Ursa) aren't.
  • Everything's Worse with Bees: Vulture bees! Encounters with them do not go well.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Let's see here...
    • The Mechanist, who is actually referred to as such by Sokka at one point.
    • The Earth King, though All There in the Manual has his name as Kuei.
    • Combustion Man, although Zuko has acknowledged this isn't really his name, and apparently knows what CM's real name is.
    • The Cabbage Merchant.
    • Most of Jet's Freedom Fighters have rather bizarre monikers which could only be nicknames (seriously, who names their kid Longshot? Or Pipsqueak?).
  • Evil Counterpart:
    • Zuko served as this to Katara in Season 1. Both lost their mothers at a young age, lost contact with their fathers for several years, and were forced to grow up very quickly as a result. Also, both have serious anger issues. Even their families are a twisted mirror of each other: a distant father, a lost mother, and a sibling who is eager to fight. Adopting each other's strengths in order to overcome their individual weaknesses helps them to grow as people.
    • Zhao was the Eviler Counterpart of Zuko in Season 1. Both favored power over control with their firebending and obsessed with gaining honor and reputation. Zhao was so obsessed though that it actually led to his Moral Event Horizon.
    • Jet, the Well-Intentioned Extremist who bore a hatred toward the Fire Nation due to his village being attacked as child, served as this toward Sokka. While they both harbored prejudice, Jet's was so extreme that he jumped off the slippery slope.
    • Similar in effect to Jet, Hamma served as this toward Katara; harboring deep hatred towards the Fire Nation because of what they did to her in her childhood. Hamma's unwillingness to let it go led to her becoming no better than the ones who persecuted her.
    • Azula became this toward Zuko in Season 3. Both suffered Parental Abandonment, although in Azula's case, it may only be from her perspective. Zuko however was able to get a Parental Substitute in Iroh while Azula was shaped by other parent, the super-evil Ozai.
    • For the ultimate example: Sokka, Katara, Hakoda and Kya versus Zuko, Azula, Ozai and Ursa. Their whole family is a counterpart: the older brother struggling to live up to his father's position, but overshadowed by the talents of his little sister, the bending prodigy; meanwhile, both siblings are still affected by the loss of their mother several years ago. Except Zuko's father is an unpleasable psychopath who exiled him, while Sokka's father is wise, kind and had to leave Sokka behind; Katara is hot-tempered but a total Team Mom, while Azula is cold-hearted and controls people with fear; and Kya sacrificed her life to protect her daughter, while Ursa murdered an old man in cold blood to protect her son (though, she also had to give up her life too, in the form of banishment, so she probably serves more as a Shadow Archetype).
  • Evil Is Burning Hot: The Fire Nation is initially played up to be this, but it's later subverted in that some become allies to Aang.
  • Evil Me Scares Me: Aang actually says, "I was scary" when reflecting on the Avatar State. A little different since the Avatar State isn't evil but rather an implacable force of nature.
  • Evil Old Folks: Fire Lords Sozin and Azulon, though the former came to regret his decisions and at least believed (or convinced himself) he was working for the good of the world. Ozai may or may not count, depending on how old he is. A few other Fire Nation villains are a respectable age too. Non-Fire Benders include Old Lady Hama, the vengeful and deranged Water Bender who abducts innocent Fire Nation civilians and locks them in an underground cave on the basis that they were born in the wrong country.
  • Evil Prince: Ozai was a classic example of this trope before he became Fire Lord. Subverted with Zuko, who ends up trying to overthrow his father not to seize power for himself, but to end the war. Azula is a complete aversion of this, because despite being evil, she remains completely loyal to her father.
  • Eviler Than Thou: Zuko was plenty threatening during the first season, but Azula is superior in just about every way (except, you know, morals). She also manages to completely outmaneuver Long Feng in the Season 2 finale.
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: Most major characters went through hairstyle changes over the course of the show, in stark contrast to many cartoons' habit of keeping hairstyles exactly the same to make it easier to animate. There were so many hairstyle changes, in fact, that it gave rise to the fan term "hairbending".
    • Zuko's hair changed from an exotic, Samurai-inspired shaved-with-a-topknot look in Season 1 to a shaggy mop by the end of Season 2 while his character becomes less and less the villain and more and more three-dimensional. Said mop was thus long enough to tie back into a dignified Fire Nation topknot just in time for Zuko's coronation.
    • Katara's hairstyles in Season 3 were more elaborate than the ones she wore in Season 1 and 2, making her appear more mature… matching the way she grew as a "team mother" over the course of the show.
    • For the first two thirds of Season 3, Aang actually had hair (having been too busy being unconscious to shave, and determining it made a good way to disguise his head tat while sneaking around in the Fire Nation afterward).
  • Eyes of Gold: The Fire Nation people.

F

  • Face Palm: "Why's your forehead all red?"
  • The Faceless: Fire Lord Ozai in Books 1 and 2.
    • And Toph in a scary-ass nightmare Aang had.
  • False Start: The Earth King. See Moment Killer.
  • Fan Art: Gotten to the point where some of the directors have set up their own active DeviantArt accounts. The staff has managed to compose an impressive fan art wall. One particular fanartist came to be hired as a storyboarder for the show.
  • Fan Nicknames
  • Fan Service: In full force by Season 3, especially in the Beach Episode.
    • In a memorable moment in Season 2 there was a sick Zuko in bed sweating and shirtless begging for water, when Iroh finally gives him a taste, he then takes the container and basically pours it all over himself.
      • That uh, could have been worded better.
    • It's probably worded that way because of Does This Remind You of Anything?.
  • Fan Girl: Zuko got a whole collection of them in the 3rd season, probably a Shout-Out to the Estrogen Brigade.
  • Fantastic Foxes: The servants of Wan Shi Tong.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Although each nation has other elements mixed in, the main parts of the cultures are derived from:
    • Air Nomads: Tibet, some elements of the Shaolin Temples of China.
    • Water Tribes: Inuit, with a little Pacific North West Indian (Northern Tribe).
    • Earth Kingdom: Qing (Manchu-dominated) Dynasty China with a little bit of Korea (Song's family from "The Cave of Two Lovers", Ba Sing Se's...unique worldview) and Japan (Kyoshi Islands) in the mix.
    • Peasant Clothing in the rural parts of Earth Kingdom is predominately Korean hanboks.
    • Fire Nation: Tang Dynasty China/Taisho (Imperial) Japan/Mongolia. There are also Indian touches (agni kai, for example).
    • The original fire-bending civilization, the Sun Warriors, borrow from Native American cultures, specifically Aztecs and Mayans, but are predominately based on the Candi Sukuh of Indonesia, with architectural designs coming from Angkor Wat and Phanom Rung and headdresses resembling those of Iban warriors.
  • Fantasy World Map: The official Avatar site at nick.com has a nice world map documenting the Gaang's travels during the series.
  • Fate Worse Than Death: Zuko and Iroh, while on the run as fugitives of the Fire Nation, were left with a choice: seek help in the Earth Kingdom, which mostly views all firebenders as war criminals and would likely be killed; or return to the Fire Nation, where they would be captured by Azula. Zuko quickly decides on the former.
    • Ozai's receiving Cruel Mercy can be considered one after losing his ability to firebend.
  • The Federation: The Earth Kingdom.
  • Fiction 500: Toph's family.
  • Field Power Effect: The moon and sun to waterbenders and firebenders respectively. Also, Sozin's Comet.
  • The Fighting Narcissist: Azula to the nth degree.
  • Filler: Not in abundant amounts, but present.

Sokka: Come on, a day at the theater? This is the kind of wacky time-wasting nonsense I've been missing!

    • Not abundant in the first two books, but jarringly common in Book 3. It's especially odd feeling because many filler episodes are put right in the middle of what would normally be the darkest arc of the series (or even worse, right before the finale like 'Ember Island Players').
  • Find the Cure: "The Blue Spirit".
  • Finger-Poke of Doom: The stronger a bender is, the more they can do with a little physical action. Toph in particular loves this.
    • Bumi can earthbend with just his face.
    • Also, in "The Beach", Zuko sends Ruan-Jian flying backward into a vase with a mere palm strike.
  • Finger-Snap Lighter: Just about every firebender.
  • Fire-Forged Friends: Aang and Zuko, literally.
    • Also Zuko and Katara; she comes to forgive him after he helps her find her mother's killer.
  • The First Cut Is the Deepest: Yue for Sokka.
  • First Girl Wins: Three times over.
  • Fish Out of Temporal Water: Aang's entire culture is extinct, he's unaware of the war that's been going on for the past century, and his attempts to blend in in the Fire Nation are a mix of Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe and Totally Radical.

"Flameo, hotman!"

Sokka: That's Avatar stuff. It doesn't count.

  • Flaunting Your Fleets: In the Season 1 finale, a pan up from Zhao's command ship to the fleet he intends to destroy the Northern Water Tribe with. Also, the airship fleet in the grand finale.
  • Flechette Storm: Mai has arrow launchers in her sleeves. She can't quite pull it off with kunai, but she usually only needs one or two of those anyway.
  • Flight of Romance: Sokka takes Yue out for a ride on Appa, resulting in an Almost Kiss.
  • Flying Firepower: in the later season, high level Firebenders are suddenly able to fly with bursts of fire from their hands or feet as an extension of Explosion Propulsion.
  • Flopsy: One of the scams pulled by Toph and Sokka in "The Runaway". Also the name of King Bumi's Gorilla Goat.
  • Fluffy Tamer: King Bumi.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: King Bumi's beloved goat-gorilla, Flopsy, is a subversion - despite his fearsome appearance, he's as sweet-natured a Gentle Giant as his name suggests.
  • Flynning: A deliberate, justified case on the part of one character. In Sokka's Master, Sokka and Piandao have a swordfight that lasts about three minutes. on the DVD Commentary, Sifu Kisu (the martial arts director) says that if this were a real swordfight, it would last under five seconds, but Piandao is just testing Sokka.
  • Foe-Tossing Charge: There's some cases and episodes where this trope happens:
    • Similarly in a later episode, to gain an audience with the Earth King, Aang and the Gang are forced to plow through an innumerable amount of Royal Earthbender guards, apologizing the whole way. The creators note that the biggest point of this was to demonstrate how by this point their powers have reached super-human levels even by standards of a world with people that control the elements.
    • In the second season finale. After Aang is shot with lightning and is falling to the ground, Katara rides a gigantic wave over Zuko and the Dai Li to catch him.
    • Prince Zuko once simultaneously took down multiple "elite" Royal Procession Firebenders to get to his sister in the second season premiere. One might argue that said sister proceeding to smack him around like a red-headed stepchild served to weaken the overall effect of said charge, or confirm that she was even scarier. They could also be holding back because Zuko is a member of the royal family. Or it could be because good ole Uncle Iroh was tossing them about too.
    • Subverted in episode 2 when Sokka prepares for one of these against Zuko and is unceremoniously kicked into a snowbank.
  • Food and Animal Attraction: Whilst traveling with two feuding tribes across a grand canyon, everyone is told not to bring food because it will attract vicious giant insects. Both tribes sneak food hidden in their clothes, assuming that the other tribe would also do so.
  • Foot Focus: Toph gets some shots of these.
  • Foreign Wrestling Heel: Parodied expertly as part of a pro-wrestling send-up.
  • Forging Scene: Happens with Sokka's "space sword."
  • Forgot I Could Fly: Sokka when he's high on cactus juice.
  • The Four Loves: A driving force for multiple characters.
    • After running away from the pressure of being the Avatar, then being frozen for 100 years, Aang awakened in front of Katara. At first, he fell in Love At First Sight and all he wanted to do was play games or show off to her, all the while unaware of what he should be doing. Hanging on her every word, he gets on the right track in the Southern Air Temple. He finds friendship and camaraderie all around him, and comes to love the world selflessly. But it's always Katara he loves the most.
    • Zuko hunts the Avatar all around the world for his father's affection. When he returns to his father in Book 3, he not only regains a sense of belonging, he enters a happy relationship with Mai. But he later realizes his uncle Iroh loves him more than his father ever would. In the end, he comes to love and respect all four nations, is reunited with Iroh, keeps the Gaang as his first true friends, and gets to stay with Mai.
  • Free-Range Children: A Deconstruction. The kids have free reign to go on adventures because, with the exception of Toph, their parents are either dead or busy fighting in the war.
  • Freudian Excuse: Definitely Zuko, and it seems Azula as well.
  • Freudian Slip: Zuko asking Iroh for help in defeating the Fatherlord.
  • Fruit Cart: The Cabbage Merchant, who manages to be the Fruit Cart regardless of where the main gang go.
    • Lampshaded in a couple of episodes where he mentions that the new city is worse than the last place the gang encountered him.
    • And was a source for the Ember Island Play.
  • Full Boar Action: Appa's battle against the Boarquepine in "Appa's Lost Days".
  • Full-Contact Magic: Bending is something between this and Supernatural Martial Arts.

G

  • Gadgeteer Genius / Engineer Exploited For Evil: The Mechanist from "The Northern Air Temple" and "Day of Black Sun" is a classic lift right out of the Steampunk genre, a highly eccentric genius with steam and mechanisms who reluctantly lends his talents to making weapons for the Fire Nation when they threaten his home and people.
    • Sokka also shows some signs of inventive talent while at the temple and the submarines from "Day of Black Sun" were also his idea, and his father invented the "stink and sink" mine.
  • Gaia's Vengeance: The ferocity in which Aang attacked "Phoenix King" Ozai when he was not himself in the Avatar State indicates that the World itself (with Aang as its Avatar) wanted Ozai dead in the worst way.
    • Hei Bei is a localized example. After the Fire Nation burned down an entire (assumably ancient) forest, the guardian spirit flies into a rage and terrorizes the (innocent) population of the countryside until the Aang shows it the acorns that will regrow the forest in time.
    • For all intents and purposes, this is generally what the Avatar's job is, and even then it's only when it gets that bad.
  • Generational Trauma: ATLA practically runs on this trope. A hundred years ago, Avatar Roku's death provided a window of opportunity for the Fire Nation to launch global colonialization on the other kingdoms, under the guise of "improving" them. While the instigator Firelord Sozin had good intentions initially, he realized too late that wiping out all the Airbenders in search of Aang was not going to win him any brownie points or spiritual karma. Each generation of his descendants became worse than the last, with Azulon willing to murder his grandchildren to make a point, and Ozai showing no compunctions about scarring his fourteen-year-old son in front of an Agni Kai audience when said son refused to fight him. It's no wonder that Zuko is a Jerkass after suffering that, and his redemption only starts in season 3 when his imprisoned uncle gives him scrolls of Sozin's diaries, that show where his great-great-grandfather went wrong.
    • Legend of Korra continues this with the new blood:
      • Avatar Aang was a good person, a cheerful guy, and a doting father, but Tenzin felt immense pressure from Aang since they were the last two Airbenders in existence. Aang couldn't forget that he was the only survivor of the Airbender clans, having found many skeletons where he expected to find friends, and passed that anxiety onto his only airbending child. Kya and Bumi felt that they were ignored in favor of Tenzin, and both resented their little brother while still showing they would protect him with their life.
      • Firelord Izumi and her son General Iroh bear the emotional scars of what their ancestors did. Iroh leads fleets to protect the innocent while knowing the implications of declaring war. Izumi herself refuses to launch preemptive strikes against Kuvira in Season 4, pointing out that decisions like that led to the Fire Nation destroying entire cultures.
  • Genius Bruiser: Sokka
  • Genki Girl: Ty Lee is eternally energetic, cheerful, and randomly walks around on her hands. In one episode, she even tries teaching a bear to do the same.
  • Genocide Backfire: Sozin's extermination of the Air Nomads in order to prevent the Avatar from reawakening there.
  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Sokka does this to an Earth Kingdom general in "The Drill", no less. Spoken word for word.
  • Get a Load of That Square: Aang's use of outdated Fire Nation slang to fit into a school doesn't impress anybody.
  • Get Into Jail Free: Katara gets herself arrested for (bogus) Earthbending so she can find the Fire Nation's Earthbender-proof prison and free the prisoners.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: Has its own page.
  • Giant Flyer: Appa
  • Gilded Cage:
    • "The King of Omashu".

Katara: This is a prison cell? But it's so nice.
Aang: He did say it was newly refurbished.
Sokka: Nice or not, we're still prisoners.

    • This is how Toph grew up. She lived in luxury and had the run of the whole estate. But she wasn't allowed to travel outside the estate or exercise her incredible potential at Earthbending—her parents thought this was too dangerous for their "helpless little blind girl." Nobody other than her family and her Earthbending teacher even knew that she existed.
    • The Gaang's experience in Ba Sing Se. They were allowed to indulge in all the luxury they wanted, as long as they didn't try to leave, or break the rules, or evade the constant surveillance, or search for Appa, or tell anyone about Long Feng's Government Conspiracy or the war with the Fire Nation...
  • The Gift: Azula and Toph
  • Gilligan Cut: In "Runaway", Aang solemnly gives his Avatar promise not to go scamming people again. Cut, and we see a montage of them doing exactly that.
    • In "The Cave of Two Lovers", the Gaang decline entering the cave for Appa's sake. Cut, and the Fire Nation are bombarding them in the sky. They go to the tunnel instead.
  • Girl of the Week: Jin and Song for Zuko. On Ji for Aang.
    • Subverted with Meng, to whom he doesn't give the time of day.
  • Giving Up on Logic: Sokka never fully does this, but he starts off as almost a Flat Earth Atheist who says that bending is magic and a flying bison could never exist to casually accepting all the various genuinely supernatural experiences the gaang goes through.
  • Glacier Waif: Toph.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: Aang whenever he is in the Avatar State.
  • A God Am I: While Sozin was more or less an Evil Overlord and nobody saw enough of Azulon to know what went on with him, Ozai fits this during the finale, just by crowning himself Phoenix King before he's even won. The hammiest example of this, however, was Zhao at the North Pole:

Zhao: I am... a legend now. The Fire Nation will for generations tell stories about the great Zhao, who darkened the moon! They will call me Zhao the Conqueror! Zhao the Moon Slayer! Zhao, the INVINCIBLE!

  • God Guise: One episode has Katara disguising herself as a local guardian spirit (not exactly a deity though), The Painted Lady, in order to attack a Fire Nation outpost and inspire the locals who used to look to the spirit as a patron and guardian. Though she's eventually exposed, the villagers forgive her.
  • Godiva Hair: Katara has this during her bathing scene in 3x7, "The Runaway", used in conjunction with just staying underwater.
  • Gone Horribly Right: In the Season 2 opener, General Fong convinces Aang to attempt to use the Avatar State to take on the Firelord without having learned all the elements. After many failed attempts of bringing on this state however, Fong grows impatient and tricks Aang into the Avatar State by pretending to harm Katara. He gets his wish alright, and a good chunk of his fortress is destroyed in the process.
  • Good Angel, Bad Angel: Zuko's uncle and sister in the Season 2 finale; in the episode before, Zuko goes into an Angst Coma and dreams about a Red dragon that speaks with Iroh's voice and a blue dragon with Azula's. This is a neat foreshadowing of Avatar Roku and Fire Lord Sozin being his implied historical and psychological Good Angel, Bad Angel in The Avatar and the Fire Lord - Roku (Ursa's grandfather) owned a red dragon and Sozin (Ozai's grandfather) owned a blue-green one.
  • Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Aang holds this view for the majority of the first season, in keeping with his pacifistic views. Even at the end, when he's facing Ozai, he can't bring himself to kill him.
  • Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Zuko's scar shows that the writers and character artists are well aware of this trope.
    • Aang's eyes are by far the widest of all the characters.
    • By Season 3 Zuko's eyes become wider and less menacing.
  • Good Is Dumb: Lampshaded when, Right after getting into Aang's group, Zuko finds his firebending suddenly lacking and guesses, "I bet it's because I changed sides." He had been using anger to fuel his bending up to that point and had learned to let go of it, temporarily leaving him without a proper conduit.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Zuko's facial burn actually covers 2 variations of this trope. When he is evil, it makes him look that much more menacing, but in the episodes where he is good(ish), it makes him look more noble—it is actually taken as a cue by Song and Jet that he is a fighter against the Fire Nation.
  • Gondor Calls for Aid: "The Invasion".
  • Gory Discretion Shot: Zuko's backstory in "The Storm".
  • Government Conspiracy: "There is no war in Ba Sing Se."
  • Grand Finale
  • Great Wall: The wall around Ba Sing Se. Although Ba Sing Se is officially a city, it is actually large enough to contain nearly a quarter of the entire Earth Kingdom -- between its outer and inner walls is enough farmland to make this nation-sized city self-sufficient, as well as a small mountain chain and a substantial lake inland sea. Its walls are so massive that they are considered a geological feature and are depicted in scale on world maps. Its gates can only be opened with earth-bending, and the only time it was actually penetrated, it was because there was a mole on the inside helping the invaders. How General Iroh actually besieged Ba Sing Se effectively for 600 days is unimaginable.
  • The Great White North: The Water Tribes.
  • Grapes of Luxury: Azula gives this a try while in power.
  • Great Escape: "The Boiling Rock".
  • Green Aesop: The Fire Nation's industrialism seems like this, but it was most clear in "The Painted Lady".
    • However, it was subverted when the Gaang first meets Teo and The Mechanist.
  • Groupie Brigade: Aang acquires a groupie brigade of young girls on Kyoshi Island. Then he loses them when they get bored with his half-hearted attempts at showing off.
  • Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Averted. Benders of both genders freely mix long- and short-range attacks, as does Sokka. Mai might only do ranged attacks, but Ty Lee and Suki are strictly melee fighters.
    • A more proper divider would be "Muggles Smash, Benders Shoot". It seems if you know any bending, then you can only fight at all with Bending—the only people who throw physical attacks that connect are the non-benders. Any bender will only ever make contact with an enemy with their element except, occasionally, to block.
      • Except Zuko, who takes out a few Earth Kingdom soldiers without bending in "Zuko Alone" not to mention his escapades as the Blue Spirit
      • Coinciding with the above statement, although Muggles Smash, Benders Shoot is the better descriptor. In terms of the Gaang this really only applies to Katara who is not at all versed in hand to hand combat and really is at a bad disadvantage when she can't bend or has no water to draw from. Generally however, the more talented benders seem to be rather capable at handing out beatdowns or at least getting by without their element; Zuko [as noted above), Aang (a rarity, but can go on a really good dodging defensive), and Iroh for sure and highly possible for Azula and Toph.

H

  • Hair Decorations[context?]
  • Halloween Episode: "The Puppetmaster" was obviously meant to be one, and was first aired a few days before Halloween.
  • Hands-On Approach: Katara teaches Aang the Octopus form this way.
  • Hands Play in Theater:(regular theater, here)in the episode "Ember Island Players". Played stright with Sokka and Suki (his arm around her shoulders), and averted with Aang and Katara (Zuko sit between them.).
  • Happy Ending: Basically the entire finale.
  • Hard Work Hardly Works: Subverted. It looks as though Aang learns waterbending faster than Katara (which would at least be justified by being the avatar), but when Katara and Aang get an actual instructor instead of relying on self-teaching and the scroll, Katara masters it even faster than Aang. Furthermore, Aang has trouble with earthbending since that is the counter to air. Of course Aang is shown goofing off during the waterbending lessons.
    • For the brief moments we view Iroh in his prison cell, you gradually see him transform from a badass sack of lard into a even more badass chissled bodybuilder. This also parallel's Sokka's sword training.
  • Harsh Life Revelation Aesop:
    • "The Western Air Temple": As Zuko himself acknowledges, a simple apology for all of his terrible actions won't undo the harm he has caused to others. He has to show that he is sorry, and fails miserably at his first attempt because the Gaang brings up a List of Transgressions. (It doesn't help that he lets slip that he sent the Combustion Man assassin after the Gaang to make sure the Avatar was dead.) Even when the Gaang lets him join under probation after he helps fight off Combustion Man to call off the assassination, it takes several episodes for him to bond with them and show he truly has changed.
    • "The Southern Raiders": Zuko delivers it to Aang when the latter begs Katara not to give into a need for vengeance when Zuko, in an attempt to redeem himself to Katara, offers to help track down her mother's killer. Aang brings up He Who Fights Monsters using an analogy about a two-headed snake that keeps biting itself and getting poisoned. Zuko says nice moral, but they aren't in Airbending school, rather in the real world. Indeed, Aang acknowledges that Katara needs to find the man who killed her mother for closure, and says he trusts that she will do the right thing. Katara ends up not taking the man's life, but the quest does give her closure over the trauma.
    • The Series Finale deals with Aang's moral quandary as the Gaang, Zuko included, tell him that he has to kill Emperor Ozai, the Firelord, before he burns the Earth Kingdom to the ground. Aang is a Technical Pacifist who follows Thou Shall Not Kill teachings; he still has nightmares about the Avatar State going on a rampage in the book one finale when he was out of control. He protests that there has to be another way, pointing out that Ozai is a monster but he is still a human being, one who wasn't born evil. Eventually, his angst leads him to finding a mysterious island where his past selves tell him that no matter what he decides, he cannot hesitate. Aang does find a solution -- to strip Ozai of his bending-- and finds he has to commit wholly to it or he will die in the process.
  • Heavy Mithril: Parodied. When the gang is shopping for weapons, Aang puts on a massive, gaudy suit of armor. Ominous Latin Chanting and and Epic Riff are heard.
  • He Who Fights Monsters: The series provides two examples of this in Jet and Hama, two individuals whose hatred of the Fire Nation blinded them to the point where they could no longer distinguish between friend and foe. Hama was even worse than Jet, because he at least tried to justify it as doing the right thing by making sacrifices, and he did redeem himself in the end. Hama was treated so badly that she targeted anyone within reach, mostly civilians. Both of them served as a warning to Sokka and Katara about what they could become if they continued to hold on to their own prejudice and anger.
  • He's a Friend: Sokka needs to do this for Zuko. Twice.
  • Head-in-The-Sand Management: Several different takes on this trope, including Long Feng.
  • Heart Symbol: In "The Boiling Rock". Sokka exhibits it when he realizes Suki is a prisoner there, so his mission with Zuko is not in vain, and he gets his Love Interest back.
  • The Heavy: Azula in Book 2.
  • Heel: Fire Nation Man.
  • Heel Face Turn: If you watch the first season you will not be too surprised by Zuko turning. But it is played with and at least initially subverted in several instances, the second season finale being the most infamous.
    • Mai and Ty Lee also turn later in the third season.
    • The spirit Hei Bai is one of the earliest examples, though all it took was reassurance that his forest would grow back.
  • Heh Heh, You Said "X": Aang and Sokka snicker when the professor admires the buttresses in Wan Shi Tong's library.
  • Held Gaze: the series has a few of these. One with Mai and Zuko in the Boiling Rock episodes after being forced to lock the cell door on her [this one is more of deep hurt though], one with Suki and Sokka on the Serpent's Pass leading to an Almost Kiss. Then finally the one between Aang and Katara which leads to the Big Damn Kiss and end of the series.
  • Hero-Killer: Azula.
  • Hero's Muse: Princess Yue takes this role after sacrificing her mortal life to become the moon spirit. In the episode "The Awakening", she provides encouragement and help to Aang at a time when he desperately needs it.
  • Hero with an F In Good Zuko.

Why am I so bad at being good!?

  • High Fantasy: An epic that involves the fate of the world, a young boy and his Ragtag Bunch of Misfits who are Walking the Earth, politics that change the course of the world, gods (called spirits but act as deities) that interact with the protagonists and, as a refreshing twist, takes place in a mythical world insipired by Eastern culture rather than Western. It would go in Wuxia save for the fact that it holds very little in common with the genre.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Zhao and Long Feng.
  • Honor Before Reason: A least a thousand times.
  • Hook Hand: Actor Jet in "The Ember Island Players".
  • Hope Spot: Happens in the second season finale when Aang enters the Avatar State intentionally for the very first time and looks ready to wipe the floor with everybody... only to be electrocuted by Azula.
    • The entire episode right before the last two episodes of the second season. Appa's back, the Earth King has sided with the Gaang, Long Feng has been arrested, and each of the characters have personal issues that are looking up. Unfortunately, Long Feng has allies and is planning in the background, Toph is captured, and Azula, along with Mai and Ty Lee, has disguised herself as a Kyoshi Warrior and about to show how good of a Chessmaster she is.
  • Horsing Around: Appa.
  • Hot Amazon: Suki and the rest of the Kyoshi Warriors, but their namesake took it to the extreme, being both beautiful and extremely tall. (She even reportedly has the largest feet of any Avatar so far!)
  • Hot Dad: Ozai was designed to look like an older bishie-ish, unscarred version of Zuko.
    • Also Hakoda could certainly qualify.
  • Hot Mom: Zuko's mother.
  • Human Popsicle: Aang, in the iceberg.
  • Humanoid Abomination: The Avatar State borders on this, especially during the fight with Ozai in the finale. Since the state is basically allowing a force of nature to act through you instead of yourself, it's much more brutal and ruthless than Aang is normally.
  • Humiliation Conga: Ozai, quite a bit near the end.
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