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.
February 18, 2021 7.2K votes 1.3K voters 171.0K views
Over 1.3K Ranker voters have come together to rank this list of 15 Things You Probably Didn't Know About The Earth Kingdom
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Vote up the most interesting bits of Earth Kingdom trivia.
The world of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra is filled with rich history, and the average viewer can tell the four nations draw heavily from our own world. The Earth Kingdom stands out in a lot of ways, the most important being the amount of time spent there between both series.
Whether you're an expert in Earth Kingdom trivia or not, these Avatar facts will deepen your appreciation for the world. Take a look below and vote up the most interesting bits of trivia about the Earth Kingdom!
The meteorite Toph was gifted during the gang's Fire Nation days remained pretty special to her as she grew up. The metal was shaped into a bracelet that she wore on her person at all times, and came in handy when finding new metalbending pupils.
In the Avatar: The Last Airbender graphic novel The Promise Part Two, Toph's meteorite bracelet would rattle around an earthbender with strong metalbending instincts. The idea was that they were subconsciously bending the bracelet, since the metal was particularly easy to manipulate. Suyin Beifong reinstates this practice with Korra, having her start out with large chunks of the same foreign metal.
Kyoshi was an interesting Avatar, for plenty of reasons as seen in The Kyoshi Novels. Another Earth Kingdom boy, Yun, was actually thought to be the Avatar after Kuruk. Kyoshi wasn't around to go through the traditional Avatar test given by the Earth Kingdom sages because she was an orphan, unfortunately raised in poverty. As fate (and plot) would have it, Kyoshi and Yun crossed paths, becoming his servant no less.
Her true identity was discovered soon after, but that created a new world of problems. People had already accepted Yun as their new Avatar, so Kyoshi wasn't welcomed overnight.
Lavabending appeared a second time in Avatar: The Last Airbender during the brief introduction of Avatar Szeto. In a vision guided by Avatar Roku, Szeto is seen lavabending the magma from four volcanoes (above). This was done through the Avatar State.
Toph is the greatest earthbender alive, and that's a fact. She did invent metalbending, and not long after the end of The Hundred Year War she began teaching others the new subset of earthbending. It's pretty incredible to think about the humble beginnings of metalbending when The Metal City Of Zaofu is revealed in The Legend of Korra.
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Kuruk’s Former Earthbending Master Was Regarded As A Hero
The Kyoshi Novelsare worth picking up for obvious reasons, being as they give the reader a plethora of context about Kyoshi's reign and the state of the Earth Kingdom. The name Jianzhu comes up quite a bit. A hero turned villain, he was credited for bringing some stability to the Earth Kingdom after Kuruk's early demise, being his Earthbending master and a sage in his own right.
However, Jianzhu became one of Kyoshi's first real enemies after summoning dark spirits to help him with worldly matters.
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Political Instability Left The Nation Defenseless Against Sozin
After Avatar Roku's death, the Earth Kingdom didn't stand a chance against Fire Nation forces. The insistence of a monarchy failed the nation since its start, so when the wall of Ba Sing Se was breached in Avatar: The Last Airbender, it was completely unprecedented. Throughout history, life inside the walls of Ba Sing Se was guaranteed security from serious foreign threats.
The Legend of Omashu and "The Cave of Two Lovers" is proof of this, telling the story of a man and woman from warring Earth Kingdom villages.
