The Avatar cycle is a complex yet diverse phenomenon in the Last Airbender series. Generally, the Avatar world is based on the theory of the cycle. Cool Avatars have come and gone and as this is based on a reincarnation concept, we see a lot of different personalities. The question is who is THE cool Avatar?
The good part about the cycle is their individuality and similarity in character where it counts as standing for justice and upholding balance. Cool Avatar incarnations have come and gone. This article aims to list the cool Avatar as far as the information we have been provided with and why they are so cool.
Avatar Wan
Let’s all admit that without Wan, the whole cycle in itself would not have become. It also takes a ton of bravery and courage to take on a challenge that seems next to being impossible.
You have to be very cool to even so much as consider doing what has never been done before. Wan thought differently and thus, Avatar cycle was birthed into existence.
Avatar Wan is at the top of our list for being the coolest Avatar ever. Without him, there is no cycle. It goes without saying that he is at the top of our list.
As the very first Avatar, it is expected that there would be a learning curve that might have put Wan little ways down on the totem pole for coolness. He earns his cool status for more than one reason. Aside from being the first Avatar, he is also one of the most powerful too. With no milestone to draw from at that time, Wan still managed to attain great power as a result of years upon years of mastering the elements.
Wan not only advanced in the bending arts more than any human ever had before in his time but he also learned to shape elements rather than merely blast them. This was a skill that told volumes of his mastery and finesse at doing this.
We can say he is the first and coolest Avatar due to his climactic battle with the evil spirit Vaatu where he showcased the full force of his abilities. Not only is Vaatu far more powerful than anything in existence, but Wan decisively beat him rather than ending with a bargain. I mean, let’s face it. He put him in an elemental cage and trapped him in the tree of time. That is as cool as it gets.
Avatar Korra
Avatar Korra is the second on the list for the next cool Avatar. What especially makes Korra so cool is not her stubbornness. It’s her refusal to give up. She constantly stayed strong despite all the adversaries that came her way. Even when she was in a wheelchair, she would not stop thinking about how to get stronger and overcome the obstacles.
One would expect maybe a much older Avatar to be the second on this list for cool Avatar. Korra not only gained mastery of the other three elements quite early but she also mastered it faster than most Avatar, second to Avatar Aang who despite spending time in the iceberg mastered between age twelve and thirteen. Korra was well on her way to being a fully realized Avatar at sixteen.
Another thing that makes her cool is she is also the second Avatar after Wan to have done several impossible things. We see in the Legend of Korra series how she undoes some of the mistakes Wan made. She is the first Avatar to master metal bending and the second Avatar to fight Vaatu in an even more powerful form. Korra is on the list for one of the cool Avatars of all time.
Avatar Kuruk
Another cool Avatar that often receives very little attention in the fandom is none other than Avatar Kuruk. At first, all we really know of Avatar Kuruk is that was really awesome water bender. We knew about Kuruk’s abilities at first when there was a flashback showcasing the tidal wave he both produces and surfs on.
We find out later on that there was more revealed about his backstory, fleshing out his arrogance as he traveled the Fire Nation winning Agni Kai duels and besting the Earth Kingdom’s greatest in contests of strength, but it was not until The Rise of Kyoshi that Kuruk’s best feat appeared. He is a strong Avatar who had an easy-going way about him although his arrogance and confidence left a little to be desired. He still makes the list for being a cool Avatar.
In the novel, Kuruk’s mentor tells the young Kyoshi about Kuruk first learning to master the Avatar State. He says Kuruk became “a human natural disaster” who unleashed elemental destruction on a grand scale.”
The first time he entered the Avatar State he went to an uninhabited atoll to practice, and destroyed the entire island by the time he snapped out of it.
Okay, destruction and human natural disaster aside, that has to be one of the coolest Avatar we’ve come across.
Avatar Yangchen
Avatar Yangchen is also another Avatar we may not be too familiar with. Little of her was seen in the series. She however has more roles in the games and comics. In the scene where we see her, she commands a gust of wind that sweeps over a yawning field of grass. The power is extraordinary in itself.
In the comics, she goes one further and enters combat with the colossal spirit, General Old Iron.
It was in this battle that we see her ability to surround herself in the same sphere of elements. This is a technique that Avatar Aang later uses against Fire Lord Ozai, and her advice to Aang to end Ozai’s life makes it clear that she was a deadly and formidable force.
Avatar Yangchen or ‘The Great Yangchen’ as she would come later come to be known as widely revered as not only the most powerful Avatar, but also the most compassionate. There has to be two very unique combinations that earn her a cool status.
Avatar Yangchen was in fact so very loved by the people of every nation that she became a sort of a deity.
Citizens of the Earth Kingdom would pray to her for protection and luck.
Her mastery of airbending was said to be so developed that she could even change the weather.
Avatar Aang
The list would be incomplete without mentioning our favorite Avatar of all. Avatar Aang. If serving one hundred years in an iceberg is not cool, then taking down the big bad has to do the trick. Aang warned his way into our hearts with his goofy but efficient problem-solving methods. It goes without saying that due to the rate at which he needed to master the elements, he is the weaker of the bunch but cool regardless.
