Series Overview:
Avatar: The Last Airbender takes place in a world home to humans, hybrid animals, and spirits. Human civilization is divided into four nations: the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation, and the Air Nomads. Each nation has a distinct society, wherein people known as "benders" have the ability to manipulate and control the element of their nation using the physical motions of martial arts. The show's creators based each bending style on an existing martial art, leading to clear visual and physical differences in the techniques used by Waterbenders (T'ai chi ch'uan), Earthbenders (Hung Ga kung fu, for the most part), Firebenders (Northern Shaolin kung fu) and Airbenders (Baguazhang). In addition to these four types of bending, there are several minor subcategories of bending within them, including but not limited to: Metalbending and Sandbending (Earth); Lightning generation and redirection (Fire) and Bloodbending, Healing and Plantbending (Water). There is also an ancient and lost bending art called Energybending only known to the lion turtles who then teach it to Aang.
At any given time, there is only one person in the world capable of bending all four major elements: the Avatar. As revealed in theLegend of Korra, bending was originally bestowed to humans temporarily by gigantic Lion Turtles via Energybending, during a time when spirits freely moved in the physical world, which the Lion Turtles protected humans from. The Avatar, born at the end of that era, is an entity that was created from the union of a human named Wan with the light spirit Raava to seal away the latter's dark counterpart Vaatu and guiding the spirits back to their plane of existence. With their purpose over, the Lion Turtles left humans to their own devices, allowing those they made benders at the time to keep their powers permanently, and Wan, as the Avatar, spent the rest of his life maintaining peace between humans. Eventually, the true origins of bending were forgotten, and bending itself was nearly lost to the world, as the inhabitants from the four different nations have different legends that supposedly explain how bending came into being: the Water Tribes believe that the first Waterbenders learned Waterbending by studying the tidal effects of the moon, while the Earth Kingdom believes that the first Earthbenders learned Earthbending from the badger moles. The Air Nomads believe that the first Airbenders learned Airbending from the sky bison, and the Fire Nation believes that the first Firebenders learned Firebending from the dragons (who were later hunted by the Fire Nation to near extinction).
Because of Raava's nature as a spirit, the Avatar is continually reincarnated into one of the four nations in the Avatar Cycle, which appears to have an implied correspondence to Wan's journey and the seasons: Summer/Fire Nation, Autumn/Air Nomads, Winter/Water Tribe, and Spring/Earth Kingdom. An Avatar incarnation is born either male or female, and is required to master each bending art in seasonal order, starting with their native/birth element. Additionally, the Avatar can access Raava's power to enter what is known as the Avatar State. This is when the Avatar is their most powerful, normally a defense mechanism until they are able to master it to the point of activating it on will, where the current Avatar is endowed with the knowledge and abilities of all past lives for a certain amount of time. But should an Avatar ever be killed in the Avatar State, the reincarnation cycle would be broken with the Avatar ceasing to exist. Through the various incarnations, the Avatar functions in keeping a relative equality among the nations while at the same time serving as an intermediator between humans and spirits to maintain balance between the two worlds.
Backstory:
The events 100 years before the beginning of the show are revealed gradually and out of order throughout the series.
More than a century before the beginning of the series, the ruler of the Fire Nation, Fire Lord Sozin, planned a world war to expand his territory and bring the world the Fire Nation's prosperity. Despite their friendship, Avatar Roku prevented him from carrying out his plan in order to maintain the balance of their world. However, Sozin bided his time and resumed his campaign once Roku died.
On Roku's death, the Avatar was reincarnated as an Airbender named Aang, who learned of his Avatar status while still twelve years old when his power was needed to stop Sozin. Aang, frightened of his new responsibilities and of separation from his mentor Gyatso, fled his home on his flying bison, Appa. The two were subsequently forced into the ocean by a storm, but Aang became scared, entering the Avatar State and encasing them both in an iceberg, where they remained in suspended animation for one hundred years.
Soon after, Sozin, knowing the nature of the Avatar reincarnation cycle, carried out genocide of the Air Nomads during the passing of a comet that increased the Firebenders' firepower abilities, which was later named after him. However, Aang evaded his grasp, and Sozin spent his remaining days searching for the eponymous "last Airbender". In time, as the Fire Nation's Hundred Year War continued, Sozin was succeeded as Fire Lord by his son Azulon, who in turn passed the title to his youngest son Ozai, the current ruling Fire Lord at the time of the series and the father of fire prince Zuko and princess Azula. The title was originally meant for Ozai's older brother Iroh, but Iroh's birthright was taken from him in light of his absence from the Fire Nation at the time, laying siege on the Earth Kingdom capital of Ba Sing Se, which lasted for 600 days until he ended it upon the loss of his only son.
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