Avatar: The Last AirbenderLooking closer at the animated series that follows Avatar Aang, the only person who can use all four bending arts: earthbending, waterbending, airbending, and firebending.
December 10, 2020 26.6K votes 4.9K voters 306.1K views
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Vote up the 'Avatar' and 'Korra' headcanons that just make sense.
Stories never really end. Once creators release their work into the world, that universe and the characters that live there don't entirely belong to them anymore because those elements now live rent-free in the minds of fans for the rest of their lives, often asking, "what if?". The universe created in the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra is a prime example of this fandom phenomenon known as headcanon.
It's impossible for storytellers to fill in every single gap and preemptively answer any questions someone down the line might have, and that's totally fine! A lot of the time, fans will come up with a cleaner, simpler, and more in-depth solution because they've spent so much time absorbing and obsessing over the final product. This is a collection of those headcanons for Avatar and Korra.
Vote up the headcanons that make the most sense to you!
Since Zuko has never had any friends his age, he doesn't raelly have a model of how to act around the Gaang when he first joins them. He's been around Azula and her friends, but he's not about to try to mirror that behavior. So, he spends a lot of time observing how the Gaang is around one another. So, when Sokka opens up to him about losing Yue, he remembers all the times he's heard Aang speak to Appa and mimics it- "that's rough, buddy."
[Firelord] Zuko visiting Baby Korra. When they see each other the pair would play hide and seek and when Zuko finds Korra he’d hold her up over his head and shout, “I’VE CAPTURED THE AVATAR!”
I have a personal one: each new avatar is what the previous one wishes they were.
Roku wished he'd been more aware of his responsibility as the Avatar. Aang was too aware of it.
Aang wished he'd been more unabashed (thank you, Peter Spering) about being the Avatar. Korra came into the world kicking and screaming “I'M THE AVATAR!”
It's like they're trying to fix the mistakes of the previous incarnation.
Mirrors are Significant. Throughout the series, Azula never looks at herself in a mirror; until the end that is. Even when they were taking off the Kyoshi Warrior make up, or when you see the shot of Ty Lee at the circus in the mirror with Azula pictured behind her she isn’t looking in the mirror, rather at Ty Lee. She never looks at her reflection in the water or anything. This is because Azula looks a lot like her mother.
When Azula looks in the mirror she doesn’t see herself— she sees her mother and she’s reminded of the inconsistency that her mother brought to her life; and the fact that she obviously thought her mother saw her as a monster and favored Zuko. So when she does destroy the mirror in the final episode before her coronation she’s trying to destroy bits of her mother in her identity, but also unintentionally destroys the final bits of her sanity along with it.
In the episode “Winter Solstice, Part Two: Avatar Roku,” we witness Roku’s spirit briefly return to the material world to fight Zhao, his army, and the rogue Fire Sages, effectively protecting Aang, Katara, and Sokka from all danger.
However, Roku’s Firebending also allows Zuko to escape from Zhao, forcing me to believe that Avatar Roku sought to protect Zuko even as he chased the Avatar all across the world.
In this scene, Roku is like a God expertly protecting those in need, so there’s no reason to think Zuko’s escape was an unintended side effect of his actions. He very well could have ensured that Zuko remained in Zhao’s custody.
From this scene, I assume that Roku knew both who Zuko was and where he was going to end up.
Roku knew that Zuko was his great-grandson and that he was good-natured which is why he was included in the Avatar’s escape plan.
