Like many contemporary works of fantasy for children and young adults, Avatar is a coming-of-age story built upon universal themes of duty, love, honour, and redemption.
It has since grown to become one of my favourite television shows, animated or otherwise, of all time. Intrigued, I decided to catch up on the series from the beginning. But on one Sunday afternoon, I happened upon an episode (now known to me as Bitter Work) and was caught off-guard by the show’s blend of Eastern influences, subtle characterizations, sharp dialogue, slapstick humour, layered mythology, and most important of all, excellent storytelling. The series was first brought to my attention by a good friend of mine I initially paid little heed to his initial sales pitch of “it’s really good!” because we generally have very different tastes.
I’ll simply refer to the show as Avatar in this and other subsequent posts. Instead, this series will be devoted to the popular animated television show titled Avatar: The Last Airbender. Nor is it about The Last Airbender, the live-action adaptation by M. Just to make it clear, this will not be about James Cameron’s Avatar.
