Avatar: The Last Airbender/Tropes I-P


Tropes for Avatar: The Last Airbender, I-P

Zuko: Zuko, you must look within yourself to save yourself from your other self. Only then will your true self reveal itself.

    • Also from Hue:

"Pants are an illusion, and so is death." (spoofing an earlier koan of his that said time was an illusion)

    • Zuko does it again in "The Boiling Rock".

Zuko: Clouds have a light side and a dark side, and a silver lining in the middle. So it's kind of like a silver sandwich. So when life gets you down, just take a bite out of the silver sandwich!

  • An Ice Person/Making a Splash: Waterbenders
  • Iconic Item: Sokka's boomerang and club. Katara's necklace, water pouch and "hair loopies".
    • This is why Aang has to destroy his staff at the beginning of Book 3.
  • Idea Bulb: Sokka gets an idea - there's an audible ding, and the shot pulls back to indicate the light over his head...which also is the vehicle for his idea to use lamp oil.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every episode title card has been "Book: Element (Season) -- Chapter: Title (Episode)". The title cards have also remained consistent with a white background and detailed border (The sole exception is season 1, episode 3, "The Southern Air Temple", which superimposes the title over the sunrise rather than a white card.)
  • Idiot Ball: After learning that "Three female warriors from the island of Kyoshi" have arrived at Ba Sing Se, none of the Gaang bother to actually speak to them face-to-face. Justified for Aang and Sokka but not for Katara, who was actually staying at the palace to help plan the invasion. This Idiot Ball later leads to the failure of the Invasion in "Day Of The Black Sun".
    • Zuko had a pretty firm deathgrip on his up until the third season, anyway. He does things he knows are stupid, and is always shocked when his plans backfire.
  • If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: In a non-romantic sense, Katara says this to Zuko about Aang at the end of "The Western Air Temple".
  • I Have My Ways: In "The Blind Bandit", Katara is asked how she got information from two uncooperative boys and replies suggestively, "A woman has her ways." Cut to the two boys covered up to their necks in ice.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Aang.
  • I Just Want to Be Special: Sokka sometimes, especially in "Sokka's Master".
  • "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Aang to Jet in "Lake Laogai".
  • I'll Kill You!
  • I'm Not Angry: "I'M COMPLETELY CALM!"
    • "I DON'T NEED ANY CALMING TEA!"
    • Katara after a fight with Toph. "BOTH?! I AM COMPLETELY CALM!"
  • Impairment Shot: The Shirshu in "Bato of the Water Tribe" after Sokka has the sisters and Katara overwhelm its scent-sight with perfume.
    • "Zuko Alone" has Zuko's vision fading in and out of focus due to hunger and lack of sleep.
    • Also, scenes of Toph (and later Aang) "seeing" through earthbending use an impairment-shot-like format, showing the characters in greyscale with expanding rings depicting vibrations from people's movements.
    • We get another one when Zuko goes into his Angst Coma.
    • And another when Combustion Man, woozy from a smack by Sokka's boomerang, tries to target the Gaang.
  • Implacable Man: Combustion Man.
  • Important Haircut:
    • The usually shaven-headed Aang grows some hair between Seasons 2 and 3, and later gives himself an Important Haircut when he's about to face off with the Big Bad.
    • Also Zuko and Iroh cut off their topknots when they are marked as traitors.
    • Happens again in the Season 3 Finale, only it isn't a turn for the better for Azula, who's suffering from a bad case of Sanity Slippage.
    • Though not literally a haircut, some of the characters' hair grows out throughout the series (such as Katara's, Sokka's, and Zuko's). While this is a way of showing time passing, it also signals character development and gives the character a more mature air (notably Katara).
  • Improbable Age
  • In a Single Bound: Justified with Airbenders, a bit less so with Earthbenders. However, for whatever reason, the Citizens of the Fire Nation seem to have abnormally [dead link] powerful legs [dead link] .
  • Incest Subtext: Azula towards Zuko. Sort of an odd combo of 'can't connect to anyone else' and her seeing seduction and sexual appeal as just one more thing to use for manipulating people.
  • Indy Ploy: Prince Zuko's efforts to capture the Avatar. Also, almost any of Sokka's plans.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: Said to the fan-blade wielding Kyoshi Warriors:

Azula: What are you, the Avatar's fan club?

  • Inevitable Waterfall: In "The Waterbending Scroll". Aang and Katara actually manage to stop the ship from going over, but the pirates in Zuko's boat crash into them and send everybody careening over the edge. Good thing Aang got that bison whistle.
    • Since those same boats had gotten from the shore to above the waterfall, there must have been a lock system somewhere, right?
  • Instant Plunder, Just Add Pirates
  • In the Blood: Zuko, revealed by Iroh in Season 3, has inherited his paternal great-grandfather Sozin's "evil" and his maternal great-grandfather Roku's "good".

"Evil and good are always at war inside you, Zuko. It is your nature, your legacy."

    • On the other end of the spectrum, Azula seems to have inherited her insanity from her father's side of the family.
  • In Medias Res: the opening of "The Runaway".
  • The Insomniac: Aang in "Nightmares and Daydreams".
  • Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Averted in "The Northern Air Temple". Teo might be an excellent pilot, but this is never suggested to be because he is paraplegic, nor does anyone seem to consider him in any way unusual. The only notice anyone takes of Teo's handicap is when Sokka is impressed by his "glider chair".
    • Similarly, Toph's blindness is never treated as a reason to pity her… and the writers are not afraid to lampshade her blindness with good-natured ribbing by other characters or Toph herself.
      • Especially Toph. She's so good at it, references to her blindness are more hurtful to other characters than they ever could be to her.

Toph: It looks just like him to me.
Sokka: Thanks, I worked really- Why do you feel the need to do that?

    • In fact, shortly after Toph joins the group, she must get over her trouble understanding that people can want to do nice things for her because they like her, rather than the pity over her disability that characterized her relationship with her parents.
  • Inspired By: A number of things in the show are inspired by examples from real-life Asian culture. However, some things come from other sources.
    • In "The Blue Spirit", the idea of sucking on frogs for medicinal purposes very likely traces its origin to real-world toads such as the Colorado River toad, which secrete a psychoactive hallucinogenic venom through their skin. In the 1970s, rumors were widely propagated of hippies and other teenagers sucking on or licking these toads to get high; but these rumors were never found to be true. Also, the practice would not actually work for humans, because the human digestive system cancels out the venom… it would have to be injected, inhaled, or smoked in order to have an effect. (This is apparently not true for dogs, however.)
    • One could also take it as a Shout-Out to an episode of Family Guy that Mike and Bryan worked on.
    • In "The Northern Air Temple", Sokka and The Mechanist's idea of adding the scent of rotten eggs to the gas to identify the source of the leak is similar to the real world process of adding ethanethiol to otherwise odorless LPG to make it detectable for humans. In fact, many of the Mechanist's inventions are inspired by real life. People told time with grooved candles before clocks (albeit not ones with gunpowder spaced along the fuse); hot air balloons have similar vents to those proposed by Sokka.
    • In "The Desert", Sokka and Momo's "quenchiest" cactus-juice-induced Mushroom Samba can be traced to a commonly known fact that all cacti collect water - excellent for quenching a desert traveller's thirst in a pinch. Less commonly known is that many cacti contain poisonous or psychoactive substances such as mescaline. Everyone's heard of Peyote, and now you know it's a cactus. And Knowing Is Half the Battle.
  • Instant Armor: Frequently used by earthbenders, usually out of ordinary rock. Aang did it with snow in the first season finale (as a joke), with crystal in the second, and Toph did it with a metal door in the third. Both have also used the normal rock variation at least once. Curiously, Toph's only use of the rock version, while training Aang in "Bitter Work", left an opening for her eyes (which she doesn't actually use for anything.
    • In the Artbook, Toph's Rock Armor only had a hole on her mouth/nose, for breathing. It was a mistake of the animation crew.
  • Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: Guess who the first firebenders were?
  • Instant Expert: Due to the compressed time frame of the show, not a whole lot of time was dedicated to showing the characters train. Katara and Sokka in particular seemed to pick up waterbending and swordfighting extremely quickly, often over the course of a single episode. Aang is sort of an exception given that he doesn't exactly master any of his skills until the very end, and he has the advantage of having mastered all the elements a thousand times before in his past lives. Likewise, Toph had already mastered earthbending before she even met the Gaang, and Zuko is shown steadily progressing in his firebending over the course of the series.
    • Katara is something of an exception as well, during Season 1. Although she masters waterbending instantly in time for the finale, that was only after she got a teacher. Over the course of the whole first season, what waterbending she knows, she teaches herself, and there is a very clear and steady progression from Katara trying hard just to bend a fish out of water in the first episode, and Katara actually putting up a fight against Pakku, the most powerful waterbender in the world.
  • Insult Backfire: Since most of the characters have absurdly sharp wits, this happens quite a bit.

Zuko: I've spent years preparing for this encounter. Training. Meditating. You're just a child!
Aang: Well, you're just a teenager.

  • Intergenerational Friendship:
    • Cute Bruiser Toph and Badass Grandpa / Cool Old Guy Iroh.
    • Aang and Bumi could also count. They are technically the same age (or close), but Aang was frozen for one hundreds years while Bumi grew and experienced life.
    • Aang and Gyatso which is a friendship that carried over from Roku.
  • Intoxication Ensues: Sokka in the desert episode.
  • Inverse Law of Sharpness and Accuracy: In the first two series, Sokka hits quite a few mooks with his club and boomerang. After he gets a sword in series three, the only thing he cuts is some ropes, lots of things made out of metal, and a melon. This trope also appears in regard to Mai and Ty Lee - Mai uses knives, and specialises in not hitting the actual person. Ty Lee, on the other hand, fights unarmed and is very good at knocking out and paralysing her opponents. Also, Zuko's broadswords have never touched human skin, but he doesn't have a problem with slamming people against walls, or lifting them with one hand on their necks. Also, his elaborate, deadly looking punches and kicks never seem to make the target.
    • Actually Zuko's broadswords have touched human skin when as the Blue Spirit he threatened Aang so they both could get away. They haven't cut skin, though.
  • Inverse Law of Utility and Lethality: Aang is free to whack people with air blasts, rocks, and such, and Toph is free to smack people about with rocks, but Zuko's fire attacks always seem to JUST miss and Katara's sharp icicles never seem to connect...
    • People slamming against hard surfaces are all over the show, yet seemingly no one gets a broken skull or snapped spine. And all surfaces are completely flat, even in a jungle or a forest where branches would offer plenty of impalement opportunity, people end up slamming against the bole. The only impact on a pointy object is in the series finale.
    • Katara often uses her icicles like Mai uses her knives - just to pin people in place, so at least she gets some use out of them.
  • Ironic Echo: When Katara gives her stern, and threatening, lecture to Zuko in 'The Western Air Temple', her speech almost completely mimics the ultimatum which Avatar Roku delivered to Fire Lord Sozin a century earlier, to within a few words of being verbatim. Especially toward the middle.
  • Ironic Name:
    • Pipsqueak is anything but small.
    • Mai's name means "Smile". She's pretty much played as a Goth who finds everything boring.
      • Actually, according to the pronunciation, it should be spelled "Mei", which means anything from "Beautiful" to "merry" in Chinese. Probably not canon, but this troper speaks the language.
  • It Got Worse: The second half of the second season.
  • It Makes Sense in Context: "Shhh! Not in front of the fox; it's with the owl."
    • "Get out of the bison's mouth, Sokka"
  • It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Happens to Aang several times throughout the series, though a few standouts are when he returns to the Southern Air Temple in Season 1 and in Season 2's finale when he discovers that in order to control the Avatar State he has to give up his love for Katara.
  • I Surrender, Suckers: Azula.
  • It Was a Gift: Katara's necklace, from her grandmother by way of her mother. Also, "The Avatar State" opens with a gifting scene reminiscent of (and slightly parodying) Galadriel's gifting of the party in The Lord of the Rings.
  • I Uh You Too:

Mai: (Watching the sunset together at a romantic picnic): Orange is such an awful color.
Zuko: You're so beautiful when you hate the world.
Mai: I don't hate you.
Zuko: I don't hate you, too.

  • I Want Them Alive: Zhao said it when the Blue Spirit came and freed Aang. Cue the Blue Spirit placing his swords at Aang's throat.
  • I Was Quite a Looker: Lo and Li. Zuko is... less than thrilled when they tell him this.
  • I Will Show You X: In the finale: "I'll show you lightning!"
  • The Jailer: Hama.
  • Kangaroo Court: "Avatar Day".
  • Karma Houdini: Fire Lord Sozin, though he at least regrets some of his actions and wasted a fair portion of his life on a wild goose chase.
    • A more proper example are the pirates, who nearly killed Zuko, got paid for it, and are never seen again afterwards.
  • Karmic Death: Admiral Zhao, to avoid an Embarrassing Rescue. Given a rather contemplative ethical Lampshade Hanging in Kyoshi's flashback in the finale.
  • Kick the Dog: When Zuko and Iroh are refugees in the Earth Kingdom, they are shown kindness by a woman named Song who invites them home for dinner. Afterwards, she has a heartfelt talk with Zuko about how the Fire Nation's war has severely hurt her and her family. In his storm of confused feelings, Zuko...steals Song's family's ostrich horse.
  • Killed Off for Real: The Moon Spirit; Admiral Zhao; Jet (although his death is left somewhat ambiguous because of Executive Meddling); Combustion Man.
    • The ambiguity of Jet's death is lampshaded in "The Ember Island Players".
  • Kill Us Both: The warden of the Boiling Rock is willing to do this rather than suffer the shame of having prisoners escape his inescapable prison.
  • Know When to Fold'Em: Done by a lots of characters in numerous episodes. When things get bad, almost no character is too proud to admit defeat and escape to fight another day.
  • Know Your Vines: In the second season, Iroh has a run-in with some of these.

"Delicious tea?... Or deadly poison?"

  • King of All Cosmos: The lion-turtle from the finale, while not God, is the oldest, largest, and wisest living thing in the world, older than even the Avatar cycle itself.
    • Arguably, Aang himself also fits. The Avatar spirit is the soul of the planet (or something), continually reincarnating into human bodies...and in this incarnation, it's a 12-year old boy with giant arrow tattoos and a penchant for riding wild animals.
  • Knife Outline: Mai's signature trick. Katara pulls this trope off with ice.
  • Koan: Half the things that Iroh says to Zuko, to Zuko's annoyance.
    • Also Hue: "Pants are an illusion, and so is death."
  • Kubrick Stare: Hama pulls off a pretty terrifying one after her true nature is revealed.
    • Doubles as Foreshadowing when Katara gives Zuko this exact same look at the end of "The Western Air Temple".
  • The Ladette: Toph is a prepubescent version. In the play based on the group's adventures, she's cast as a very large, muscular man, and she's ecstatic.
  • Lampshade Hanging:
    • "The Ember Island Players" contains a lot of this.
    • In the 12th episode, "The Storm", Sokka wakes up with a "What's happening? Did we get captured again?" He's lampshading the fact that the party has collectively been captured in four episodes already, and individual members have been captured far more than that.
    • Any discussion of field trips with Zuko in the last half of the third season.
    • The Gaang is baffled and disturbed at the existence of a plain old, non-mix-and-matched bear.
  • Last-Minute Baby-Naming: Ying and Than, the expectant couple whom Aang helps in The Serpent's Pass, don't name their baby until she is born. The child, Hope, becomes the only character in the show with a non-Asian name.
  • Last of His Kind:
    • Aang. He happens to be The Last Airbender.
    • Also, Katara, since she's the last waterbender in the Southern Water Tribe.
    • Also, Appa, since he's apparently the last air bison. Though Word of God is that after the end of the series, Aang finds a small colony of surviving bison.
      • Confirmed: Appa's descendants are in the sequel.
  • Leitmotif:
    • Aang's theme is most pervasive.
    • Momo has one which serves as a Mood Motif to lighten the mood.
    • Ba Sing Se, the City, has one, which varies in instrumentation and style, doing double duty as multiple Mood Motif.
      • Regal for the king's presence.
      • Tinkly and creepy for the Joo Dee situation.
      • The Dai Li too.
      • Regal with a subtle note of creepy for Ozai's Angels pretending to be the Kyoshi warriors.
    • The Fire Nation has a Leitmotif.
    • Zuko has one specifically.
      • Several, actually.
    • Azula has one, far more sinister.
    • That twangy banjo music that plays whenever the focus is on the waterbenders from The Swamp.
    • The Blue Spirit theme plays whenever Zuko goes lurking around in his alter ego.
      • Or even just the mask hanging on the side of a peddler's cart trundling by.
    • The song Iroh sings at the start of "The Waterbending Master" becomes the leitmotif for Sokka and Yue's love theme.
  • Leave the Camera Running: Minor example, but there's a lot of scenes that keep going for two or three seconds after the action is finished, typically focusing on the characters acting fairly mundane, such as Zuko, left behind when his uncle and another White Lotus member have a secret meeting, standing looking bored before sniffing a flower.
  • Le Parkour: Aang uses airbending and earthbending to get an edge on this. Zuko just wall-runs the old fashioned way to avoid a spike trap.
  • Let's Get Dangerous: For the first few episodes of the show, Iroh was primarily a comedy relief character. When he got kidnapped by earthbenders, however, he showed them exactly why he used to be feared as the Dragon of the West. At the end of the second season, after spending most of his time making tea and serving as his nephew's conscience, he shows us exactly how he got that nickname.
  • Let's Split Up,Gaang
  • Like Father, Like Son: Sokka has exactly the same offbeat sense of humor as his father (remarked upon twice: in "Bato of the Water Tribe" and "The Guru"), as well as the same knack for invention and leadership skill. (What he does not have is his father's knack for public speaking.) Zuko averts the trope with his father (at least, his biological one), though Azula plays it straight.
  • Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Averted; Sokka went from a decent warrior to a great one over the course of a single episode, just like some of the benders.
  • Lint Value: Aang, who only has three copper pieces, tries to haggle with a pirate who is selling a waterbending scroll for 100 gold pieces. He offers one copper piece. Then, okay, how about two copper pieces? (He gets kicked out of the shop.)
  • Little Miss Badass: Toph, the self-proclaimed "Greatest earthbender of all time" (and spirits help you if you disagree).
  • Little Miss Con Artist: Toph proves quite adept at this in "The Runaway", and eventually draws Katara into it as well.
  • Little Miss Snarker: Toph
  • Living Lie Detector: Toph... although it turns out not to work well on Azula. She's also only able to tell whether or not the person believes what they are saying, so she can't tell if a brainwashed person is telling the truth or just what they've been programmed to believe.
    • The reason her ability doesn't work on braiwashed people or Azula is because it works like a real lie detector- by detecting phyiscal signs of anxiety (ex. increased heartrate) that most people have when they lie. In real life, people who believe that what they're saying is the truth (brainwashed) or psychopaths whose lying doesn't cause them anxiety (Azula) generally pass lie detector tests with flying colors. Which makes this an example of Shown Their Work.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Subverted and played straight. The kids have a variety of outfits depending on where there are, what they're doing, and what season it is, but if they can get away with it they'll just wear the same thing for as long as possible before being forced to change.
  • Limp and Livid: Used as a sign of Azula's progressing insanity.
  • Live Action Adaptation: The Last Airbender
  • The Load: Impressively averted with Sokka, at least until he Took a Level in Badass. Despite having no powers, few specialized skills, minimal fighting ability and not that much more intelligence than the others, he's a surprisingly useful member of the group. "Sokka's Master", where this is lampshaded, could have gone like this-

Sokka: I feel so useless!
Katara: Remember that time you saved hundreds of villagers from being drowned by terrorists?
Sokka: Oh yeah!

  • A Load of Bull: Aang briefly hallucinates Appa talking.
  • Locked in a Room: Subverted: Katara and Zuko get trapped in a cave, but no moral is learned and no loyalties change.
  • Loophole Abuse: While standing on a platform with an elderly Earth King, Aang is presented with a really strong looking warrior and a very deadly looking assassin and told he must choose an opponent from the people on the platform. Aang chooses the elderly king. This turns out to be a mistake as the elderly Earth King turns out to be one of the strongest earthbenders Aang has ever met.
  • Love At First Sight: Aang towards Katara; Sokka and Yue. Also in the backstory, Avatar Kuruk and his wife Ummi.
  • Duty First, Love Second: Zuko with Mai in "The Boiling Rock"
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: Roku, Aang's spiritual predecessor, was Zuko's great grandfather on his mother's side, which might explain why his mother felt something was wrong with Azula.
    • Played with in the episode where this fact is revealed, when Iroh tells Zuko to study the history of his great-grandfather and see what he can learn from it, Zuko undertakes a detailed study of the life and times of Fire Lord Sozin, and learns just short of fuckall. When Zuko complains at Iroh about the wild goose chase, Iroh basically says, "No, you idiot, your other great-grandfather" and drops the bomb.
  • Luminescent Blush: Wavers between this and Blush Sticker marks.
  • MacGuffin: The frozen frogs in "The Blue Spirit" were mostly a method to separate Aang from the group and give the episode a race against time.
  • Machiavelli Was Wrong: "I love Zuko more than I fear you.", which follows the trope, but not Machiavelli's teachings. While he taught that if you can't both be feared and loved, fear is more effective as a control mechanism, he made it clear that you should not do anything that makes your subjects hate you. Azula failed this when she tried to make Mai kill Zuko, and again when she was going to kill Mai in front of her best friend, Ty Lee. This prompted their Heel Face Turn and started Azula on the way to her Villainous Breakdown and ultimate defeat.
  • Madden Into Misanthropy: Toph.
  • Made of Iron: Pretty much everyone, to some degree or another; especially when earthbending gets involved, or after falling 50 feet.
  • Mad Dictator's Handsome Son: Zuko. Subverted with Azula.
    • Only Zuko's Heel Face Turn wasn't prompted by love (no matter what Zutarians will tell you)--instead, it interfered with his canonical love relationship.
  • Magic A Is Magic A: Even though bending isn't exactly realistic with the way it portrays elements behaving, it is at least consistent.
    • However, spirit-related magic and other things are more mystical and less consistent. Sokka lampshades this on several occasions when Weird Stuff happens (he has no problem with bending, but doesn't believe in magic).
  • Magic by Any Other Name: Bending.
  • Magical Girlfriend: Arguably, Princess Yue. She's beautiful, a princess, and falls for Sokka pretty quickly. Then she becomes the moon.
  • Magic Is Mental: Subverted. The mechanics of bending are never clearly explained, but while mentality has a certain part in it, physical motions are also necessary, as pinning someone's arm can prevent them from bending.
  • Magitek: The use of bending as industry and as a proxy for modern technology. The Fire Nation still has some very advanced technology in comparison to what the rest of the world is using, though.
    • On the Day of Black Sun, the Water Tribe submarines used a combination of machinery and waterbending to get where they were going. Same with the Earthbender tanks, which were a flexible design moved by bending the earth under them.
    • The first licensed game revolved around a character called "The Maker" who created multiple steampunk robots that each were designed to replicate the powers of a particular kind of bender. Culminating in a monster tank called "The Ultimation", which could mimic the powers of Water, Earth and Firebending all at once.
    • Earthbending is used as a form of locomotion, allowing many Earthbending cities to have a fully working metro system and an efficient mail-delivery system by bending rock trains across rails and boxes made of stone through chutes. Likewise, the development of much of the Fire Nation's tech is based around applications of fire, namely hot air balloons are powered by fire benders heating up the air, while their tanks are little more than steam-powered bunkers on wheels, with the "gunners" being fire benders shooting from portholes.
      • Becomes increasingly important after the TV series ends and progresses into The Legend Of Korra.
  • Malfunction Malady: Aang's sneezes launch him 10 feet into the air, though he may be doing this on purpose (and explicitly does so at one point).
  • Mama Bear: Ursa. Katara, the Team Mom, has moments of this (her threats to Zuko in Season 3).
    • Ursa is actually the Latin word for a female bear.
    • The mother Saber-tooth Moose-lion, and the mother Turtleduck.
    • Kya (Katara's mom) actually claimed to be the last Waterbender in her village, so she would be killed instead of Katara.
      • Technically, she believed she would be imprisoned as all the previous waterbenders were; she is visibly shocked when Yon Rha tells her otherwise.
    • Avatar Kyoshi is a Mama Bear to her village.
  • Manchurian Agent: The brainwashing done by Dai Li is activated by saying "(name), the Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai." to which they respond by gaining Mind Control Eyes and saying "I am honored to accept his invitation."
  • Manipulative Bastard: Azula, who likes to lampshade her ability to read people (which doesn't work quite as well as she thinks) and uses it to her advantage, notable examples being the way she played Long Feng, and telling her father that Zuko killed the Avatar so that, if it turned out Aang were still alive, Zuko would get the blame. She learned everything she knows about manipulation from her father, Fire Lord Ozai. There is a reason that just about everybody in the show has their life affected by the guy, even though most of it is offscreen. Perhaps the greatest example is when he managed to manipulate his wife into killing his father for him, for which he banished her as his thanks. This allowed him to assume the throne despite his brother Iroh being the first born and the favored son.
    • He didn't manipulate her into anything; it was her idea. Ozai's idea was to do as his father told him- execute his own son- which is why she proposed the idea in the first place. The banishment, likewise, was probably part of the plan from the get go. She only proposed the plan after she found out the plan overhearing Azula gloating to Zuko about his fate. Ozai is manipulative only on occasion; normally, he doesn't care enough about someone to manipulate him, because he thinks they aren't important enough to matter.
      • There are people who theorize that Azula was lying when she said Ozai was going to kill Zuko and that Azulon was actually going to make Zuko Iroh's heir and Ozai saw an opportunity and ran with it when Ursa came to him after hearing Azula taunting Zuko.
  • Manly Tears: Uncle Iroh, indisputably a Badass, but also completely unafraid to weep openly for his lost son in "Tales of Ba Sing Se".
    • When Aang is locked up in jail in "Avatar Day", after a lengthy dialect about love lives, one of the inmates pleads that Aang tell Katara how he really feels about her while openly weeping.
  • Marionette Motion: Bloodbending.
  • Martial Pacifist: Iroh. He only fights when he has to, but when he does, it's clear that he is one of the most skilled characters on the show.
  • Market-Based Title: Avatar: The Legend of Aang in the UK, where "bender" is derogatory slang for a male homosexual.
  • Master of the Mixed Message: Katara.
  • Mating Dance: Katara with Aang in "The Headband".
  • Meaningful Echo: It's easy to miss, but in the episode "Avatar Day", Sokka suggests Aang break out of jail, demonstrating by yelling "Airbending SLICE!" Two seasons later, in the finale, Sokka decides to take down the airship fleet with an "Airship SLICE!"
  • Meaningful Name: By way of Bilingual Bonus; the hanzi used in characters' names often has some significance to the character.
    • Ganjing means "clean" in Chinese. Zang means "Dirty". What on earth made these people name themselves so literally?
    • Subverted in the case of Toph, who is very much not the lotus she is named after. But on the other hand, her name does resemble the English word "tough", which is lampshaded in "The Ember Island Players".
    • Ursa means "female bear".
    • Qin the Conqueror from "Avatar Day" takes his name and much of his character from China's first Emperor.
    • Monk Gyatso's (and Tenzin's, from The Legend of Korra) name comes from the current Dalai Lama.
      • Gyatso is, strictly speaking, name of all Dalai Lamas, Tenzin is the specific one.
    • Azula is a derivation for "azul", portuguese and spanish version of "blue"
    • Haru means spring in Japanese.
  • Melee a Trois: The end of "The Chase".
  • The Men in Black: The Dai Li wear green, but other than that they fit the trope perfectly as sinister government agents who base their power on intimidation and brainwashing.
  • Mentor Ship: Aang got shipped with all 3 of his bending teachers -- Katara, Toph, and Zuko.
  • Metaphorgotten:

Suki: The king of... guys... who... don't win?
Toph: ...leave the nicknames to us, honey.

Zuko: I don't need luck though, I don't want it. I've always had to struggle and fight and that's made me strong. Its made me who I am.

  • The Missing Faction: There are four people, of which Water, Earth and Fire remain. The three of them used to live in harmony with one another and with the Air Nomads, but the Fire Nation attacked everyone and exterminated the Air Nomads.
  • Mr. Fanservice: Zuko: extremely Lampshaded in "The Beach". He takes off his shirt, and a flock of doves flies past from out of nowhere.
    • Arguably also Sokka, Jet and Haru, to a lesser degree.
    • Inarguably Sokka! Especially when he was played by Jackson Rathbone in the live-action film adaptation.
    • Not to forget about Iroh.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: Started off for fun by Bryan Konietzko, but it wasn't long before the writers caught on. Now he and the character designers are mostly trying to keep up with their own ideas. Lampshaded when it was mentioned a certain character wanted to exhibit his bear. The characters who weren't reading the announcement immediately assumed Katara meant some hybrid animal.
    • May also apply to some vegetables, like tomatocarrots.
  • Moe Couplet: Zuko and Mai.
  • Moment Killer: Quite a few.
  • Momma's Boy: Zuko, far from being in a My Beloved Smother relationship, loves and misses his mother very much, and thinks of her constantly when he begins to question what would be the right thing to do.
  • Mood Swinger: Katara, to the point of a meme about how "it must be her time of the month."
    • Doubly interesting due to waterbenders' close connection to the moon.
    • If anything, Zuko is worse about this (See "The Warriors of Kyoshi" for a great example.)
  • Mood Whiplash: In "Tales of Ba Sing Se", the sorrowful Tale of Iroh is followed up immediately by the funny Tale of Aang.
    • Within the Tale of Iroh itself. Most of it is Iroh being his usual funny/awesome self (stopping his own mugging by giving a mugger career advice, calming a baby, playing with some kids), with only the last 30 seconds or so where it turns sad.
    • The main action stories of Book 3 ("The Day of Black Sun" and "Sozin's Comet") are both preceded by fluffy episodes ("Nightmares and Daydreams" and "The Ember Island Players").
    • The Season 2 Finale is quite a whiplash. The heroes lose the deciding battle, Azula gains control of the most powerful earthbenders in the earth kingdom, Zuko betrays everyone, and Aang not only permanently lost the Avatar state, he also died for a good few hours
  • Motivation on a Stick: In "The Great Divide", the heroes use this to ride fearsome creatures up a cliff.
  • MST: The Nicktoons channel's Avatar Extras indulges in this from time to time. Especially for The Ember Island Players.
  • Mugging the Monster: Subverted, actually. In "The Tales of Ba Sing Se", Iroh is threatened at knife point by a mugger. The audience expects him to open up a can of unholy whoop-ass on the mugger. At first, Iroh lectures him about his poor stance, then lightly knocks him to the ground while taking his knife. What makes it a subversion is that he gives the knife back, corrects the mugger's stance, and then makes him tea and gives him career advice, telling him he'd make a great masseur. For his part, the mugger is excited about this because no one has ever believed in him before.
    • Played straight by Zhao in The Siege of the North: he knew that the Moon Spirit was vulnerable and harmless in the form of a Koi fish and that he could have destroyed Waterbending by killing her, and while Iroh had warned him to not do it or he would have punished him a hundredfold he was apparently just a bumbling old man, but then learned the hard way that Iroh could trash him in his sleep (cue Oh Crap and running for his life) and that the Ocean Spirit took exception to his act by becoming Koizilla (cue even bigger Oh Crap and being too busy crapping himself to try and run for his life).
  • Mundane Utility: Bending is used for all sorts of things.
    • In one episode Katara uses her waterbending to stir soup and feed the soup to Appa.
    • Iroh uses his firebending to heat a cup of tea. This eventually gets him into trouble.
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: For example, when Jun defeats some huge guy at arm wrestling.
    • Toph is a perfect example of this. She is a pre-pubescent girl, she's short, and she has no muscles. She faces the Boulder in battle, a large, muscular man, and in only a few swift movements she defeats him. (NOTE: Most Earthbenders are shown to be large muscular men, in fact very few female earthbenders are shown in the series.)
  • Mushroom Samba: "Cactus Juice; it'll quench ya." Also an example of Truth in Television: all cacti concentrate water, so most (including Sokka, a freakin' Eskimo Fictional Counterpart) believe that it can be easily extracted by desert travelers in need. What most don't know is that cacti also concentrate poisons and/or hallucinogens to deter herbivores (which Sokka and Momo found out). Ever heard of Peyote? Now you know that it's a cactus.
    • The whole episode "Nightmares and Daydreams".
    • Sokka spends most of "The Blue Spirit" sick and delirious.
  • Musicalis Interruptus: Used several times to place emphasis on certain sentences, especially CMOFs. Usually subtle and fitting.
  • Named After Somebody Famous: Chong, the leader of the New Age Retro Hippies in "The Cave of Two Lovers".
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Sabre-tooth Moose Lions.
    • Also Combustion Man, Koh the Face Stealer, and Long Feng (which means "dragon phoenix" in Chinese, and also sounds like "long fang"). Wang Fire deserves brief mention as well.
  • The Napoleon: Qin the Conqueror from "Avatar Day" - possibly justified as he was only short in comparison to Kyoshi, who was huge.
  • A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Fire Nation was heavily inspired by Imperial Japan, which conquered almost all of the islands in the Pacific and launched several invasions into China, eventually becoming one of the Axis powers in WWII.
  • The Needs of the Many: Aang's final internal struggle was for him to put his principles aside for the sake of saving the world from Firelord Ozai, who was willing to destroy it unless Aang stopped him - permanently.
  • Negated Moment of Awesome: Aang gets shot with lightning right after entering the Avatar State in the second season finale, sending everything straight to hell.
  • Never Say "Die": Averted with everyone that died before the series started, as well as death threats. On the other hand the fate of the three named characters that died during the show was systematically pussyfooted around (though all three were confirmed by Word of God). They even managed to lampshade the ambiguity without actually saying that the characters died.
    • In the Grand Finale, Ozai even said "Prepare to Die" in the usual dramatic fashion, but with none of the Narm involved. Probably because of the awesome Hannibal Lecture / Reason You Suck Speech.
      • That said, it's also played with in one very specific case. While talking with his previous incarnations about how to not kill Ozai, they heavily insinuate that he must but never outright *say* he has to kill Ozai. That's because it turns out he doesn't have to.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer for the Season 2 finale.
  • New Age Retro Hippie: The "nomads" the Gaang run into during "The Cave of Two Lovers". Bonus points for naming the main one "Chong".
  • New Old Flame: Mai, to Zuko.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • Politically destabilizing Ba Sing Se may have felt right, but it was a very, very, bad idea.
    • Then a few episodes later, Katara sees Zuko serving tea and instantly runs to inform the authorities. If she had investigated further, confronted him herself or thought about the situation for more than a second, Zuko never would have been put in a position to turn to Azula's side to begin with. (And Aang probably would have finished his last chakra.)
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In the finale, Ozai manages to break through Aang's protective shell and proceeds to slowly walk towards him, ready to finish him off. However, all he managed to do was unblock Aang's seventh chakra, allowing him to enter the Avatar State. Much asskicking ensues.
    • Ozai has a second helping of this that deserves a medal for just how astoundingly long it takes to come around and bite him, compared to just how much it does. The simple act of banishing Zuko provides Aang with an extremely powerful ally without which Aang never would have learned Firebending, let alone True Firebending. Even before the heel face turn, how many times has he -saved- Aang from someone else because of his obsession with being the one to bring him in.
  • The Nicknamer: Toph, and also Sokka. Lampshaded with "Leave the nicknames to us, honey."
  • Ninja: Inverted. The play in "The Ember Island Players" features authentic Japanese theater-style stagehands dressed in the all-black outfits that inspired the theatrical version of the ninja's costume.
    • Characters dress in ninja-style outfits for infiltration a number of times in the show: Zuko in "The Siege of the North", Zuko and Katara in "The Southern Raiders"...
    • Zuko's "The Blue Spirit" persona is a ninja in all but name.
  • Ninja Log: Zuko pulls this in "Lake Laogai" as part of an Indy Ploy to gain access to the Dai Li's headquarters.
  • Non-Lethal Warfare: Somewhat averted by the fact that lots of violent death is explicitly mentioned, though never shown on screen.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Several Professional Wrestlers in "The Blind Bandit", most obvious "The Boulder".
  • No Conservation of Energy: Bending itself.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
  • No Guy Wants an Amazon: Happens to Azula in "The Beach".
  • Non-Indicative Name: The geographical feature "The Great Divide" in the episode by the same title is the Avatarverse equivalent of the Grand Canyon. The "Great Divide" in the real world is exactly the opposite: the North American mountain range that divides the Pacific and Atlantic watersheds.
  • Noodle Incident:
    • The Blubber Incident
    • "The darkest day in Fire Nation history"
    • The time Sokka got two fishhooks stuck in his thumb [1]
    • What exactly is "Love Amongst the Dragons" about, and how did the Ember Island Players "butcher" it?
    • The event that kicked of the Gan-Jin/Zhang rivalry
    • From "The Warriors of Kyoshi":

Katara: No, Appa! Don't eat that!

    • Iroh's journey to the Spirit World.
    • "Miyuki, did you get in trouble with the Fire Nation again?"
  • No One Could Survive That: After Aang's apparent death by lightning in the second season finale, Zuko claims, "There's no way he could have survived"... but he's lying, and the Dangerously Genre Savvy Azula knows this. He actually did die, but Katara revives him with the spirit water.

Azula falls off the blimp.
Zuko: She's not gonna make it.
Azula saves herself from falling to her death.
Zuko: ...of course she did.

  • Nothing Can Stop Us Now: Invoked by Sokka in "The Earth King".
  • Not Wearing Pants: Aang's most humiliating nightmare in "Nightmares and Daydreams". At the end of the episode, he turns it around on the dream version of Ozai.
  • Not Worth Killing
  • Now or Never Kiss: Before he sets out to play his part in the Invasion on the Day of Black Sun, Aang voice his concerns that he might not survive to to Katara- and then kisses her before he flies off. It's Aang's First Kiss too( Katara's first kiss was with Jet, according to avatar extras on the episode named after him.)
  • No, You:

Azula: No YOU miscalculated! You should have feared me more!
Aang (in a dream): No, FireLord Ozai, it is YOU who are Not Wearing Pants!

Actor!Ozai: No, it is YOU who are going down!

Suki: I lost someone I care about. He didn't die. He just went away. I only had a few days to get to know him, but he was smart, and brave and funny.
Sokka: Who is this guy? Is he taller than me?
Suki: No. He's about your height.
Sokka: Is he better looking?
Suki: It is you, stupid!

  • Official Couple: Aang and Katara, Zuko and Mai, Sokka and Suki.
  • Offing the Offspring: Ozai almost did it to Zuko when he was 10, and tried to do it again in "The Day of the Black Sun."
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Iroh's escape from the Fire Nation prison in Season 3 was never seen (although there was plenty of action in the invasion arc already). We're just told he was a One-Man Army. And this might have even happened during the eclipse, when he couldn't firebend. This is largely why the fans consider him so awesome.
  • Oh Crap: Whenever anyone is stupid enough to provoke Aang into the Avatar State, this is usually their feelings in general as they realise what they're in for.
    • During the series finale, the look on Ozai's face during his fight with Avatar-State Aang says it all.
      • Actually even before Aang regained his Avatar state, Ozai had pretty much the same look when he thought that Aang was going to serve up his own lightning right back at him using the redirect he had learned from Zuko. Ozai stopped using lightning for the rest of the fight.
    • To really put things into perspective, that's the Oh Crap look on the face of the world's most powerful firebender who's also gooned on the juice of a hundred suns.
  • The Ojou: Mai, and Toph might fit. She at least acted like one before she revealed her skills to her family.
  • Older Than They Look: Aang is technically 112 years old.
  • Old Master: Bumi, Iroh, Pakku, Gyatso, Roku and others. Also the entire frikkin' Order of The White Lotus.
    • The second part of the four-part series finale, which has emphasis on the White Lotus, is even named this.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: Several scenes in the finale related to Aang on the giant lion-turtle; 'cept they're chanting the Nenbutsu in Japanese.
    • This has actually happened several times: once before Roku pwns the Firebenders in "Winter Solstice, Part 2", and another time when Aang fuses with the ocean spirit's One-Winged Angel form in "The Siege of the North, Part 2".
  • Ominous Walk: Azula engages in this on top of the drill in Season 2 after pummeling Aang into near unconsciousness.
    • Ozai does it as well in the finale.
  • Omniscient Morality License: Everyone believes that the Avatar has the right to kill Ozai...except for Aang himself.
    • Justified (though not specifically killing) by Iroh, who explains that while he's the only other firebender who might be capable of defeating Ozai, history would look at him doing so not as an act to restore peace and balance (the Avatar's role in the mortal world) but as one brother killing another for power. Their aims at the end may be overly optimistic - we know things went wrong in the past, they will do again - but under the circumstances emphasising the Avatar's duty was probably the better way of handling things.
  • Once a Season: A character is violently (Albeit mostly off-screen) Killed Off for Real. Zhao in Season 1, Jet in 2 and Combustion Man in 3. And, obviously, Aang learns a different form of bending.
  • One Hero, Hold the Weaksauce: Aang, as the Avatar, is the only one who can bend all four elements.
  • One-Scene Wonder: since Foamy Mouth Guy got more than one scene, this honor goes to Freestyle Guy from "The Headband".
    • Koh counts too.
  • One-Winged Angel: Koizilla.
    • Hei Bai is an interesting subversion-- his One-Winged Angel form is the one we first see him in. He has a normal form, it's just that the heroes arrive in the middle of his Freak-Out.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Combustion Man, though Zuko apparently knows what his real name is.
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: In the first season, Zuko needs to capture Aang to regain his honor, and will go as far as invading a prison and breaking Aang out when somebody else from his nation catches him.
    • In fact he fights Azula over this very point in "The Chase."
    • Mentioned in a way when Zuko confronts his father during the solar eclipse: while both of them are temporarily bending-less, Zuko is armed with his broadswords. Ozai asks why Zuko doesn't just kill him right then and there; he responds by saying that that is the Avatar's destiny, not his.
    • Also stated by Iroh in the finale, where he says that while he could potentially defeat Ozai, he can't, because the Avatar is the generally recognized arbitrator. According to Iroh, if he kills Ozai, the world will simply see it as a brother killing a brother for control of the throne, while if the Avatar defeats Ozai, it will be seen as a restoration of balance.
  • Only Sane Man: Sokka in "The Cave of Two Lovers".
  • OOC Is Serious Business: Longshot speaks just once... and it literally stuns everyone who hears him because it's so rare.
  • Opening Narration

Katara: "Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them. But when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed, and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar -- an airbender named Aang. Although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world."

"Leaf me alone, I'm bushed!"

  • Orphan's Plot Trinket: Although she's technically only half an orphan (her father is still alive, but off fighting a war in another part of the world), Katara's grandmother's necklace functions as this on a couple of occasions: lost on a prison platform, found by Zuko, used to track the band by scent, retrieved by Aang; revealed Katara's grandmother's history with the Northern Water Tribe and the man who becomes Katara's waterbending master.
  • The Other Marty: Aang himself was a victim of this trope, in the unaired pilot he was voiced by Hannah Montana's Mitchel Musso.
  • Other Me Annoys Me
  • Outscare the Enemy: Azula is scarier than the tide.
  • Overly Long Name: In "The King of Omashu", while disguised as an old man, Aang identifies himself as "Bonzu Pipinpadaloxicopolis III", and says that Katara and Sokka are his grandkids. Katara then immediately says her name is "June Pipinpadaloxicopolis". Somehow, she manages to pronounce the name exactly the same way.
  • Overly Polite Pals: Aang and Sokka briefly in the episode "The City of Walls and Secrets", as they are trying (and failing) to behave like high society folk.
  • Overprotective Dad: Toph left the Beifong family's Big Fancy House for a reason.
  • Owl Be Damned/The Owl-Knowing One: Wan Shi Tong.
    • Apparently the designated Halloween episode "The Puppetmaster" wasn't complete without a shot of (presumably) an owl-fox in a tree.
  • Pan-Up-To-The-Sky Ending: In the final episode.
  • Pandaing to the Audience: Subverted at first with Hei Bai, and played straight after his Heel Face Turn.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Also done in all three seasons.
  • Parental Abandonment: A good number of heroes and bad guys, but especially Zuko, whose father practically disowned him.
      • He *did* disown him! And disfigured him, and kicked him out of the country!
    • Disappeared Dad: All the adult males in Katara and Sokka's entire village; Aang's father-figure, Gyatso.
    • Missing Mom: Katara and Sokka. Zuko and Azula. Yue. Just for starters.
  • Parental Bonus
  • Parental Obliviousness: Toph's parents have no idea how good she is at earthbending.
  • Parental Substitute: Zuko finds his parental substitute in his eccentric Badass Grandpa uncle, Iroh.
    • Also, shown in flashbacks, Monk Gyatso for Aang.
    • Katara is the parental substitute for Sokka, Aang, and Toph. Sokka even mentions that when he tries to remember his mother the only face he sees is Katara's.
  • Parenthetical Swearing: In fine examples of Getting Crap Past the Radar:

Sokka: [Season 1, Episode 1] Leave it to a girl to screw things up!
Aang: [Season 2, Episode 7] I've been training my arrow off!

  • People Puppets: Bloodbending.
  • Perfect Pacifist People: The Air Nomads were a great example of this, having no army and preaching peace and harmony. But they could still fight if needed. When you see Monk Gyatso's body, he is surrounded by the remains of Fire Nation soldiers.
  • Perky Female Minion: Ty Lee is this to Azula and Mai
  • Person of Mass Destruction: Some benders, more often than not earthbenders, can be quite destructive. And a fully realized Avatar is like this with all the elements... and that's before they go into the Godlike Avatar State.
  • Personality Powers: Bending is easier for people with certain dispositions. Earth benders are serious, fire benders tend to be angry/passionate, etc. This is why Aang has such a hard time learning earth bending.
  • Pet the Dog: Zuko puts his men (and Uncle Iroh) first before catching the Avatar (season 1). We see thatZuko got his trademark scar basically because he spoke out against one Fire Nation general's plan to deliberately sacrifice an entire division of new army recruits.
    • Reinforced when, after trying to prove himself a Jerkass, gives up on a chance to catch Aang to protect his crew from a storm.
    • In another flashback-heavy episode, we see Zuko befriend a young boy, even going so far as to give him a dagger that has quite a lot of sentimental value. This makes it that much more heartbreaking when the boy rejects Zuko after finding out he's a firebender.
  • Pietà Plagiarism: Katara holding Aang's lifeless body after Azula "kills" him in the Book 2 finale.
  • Pillar of Light: When Aang gets released from the iceberg after 100 years. This is what alerts Zuko to his awakening.
    • Repeated in a Meaningful Echo at the end when Aang succeeds in taking away Ozai's bending in the finale.
  • Pimped-Out Cape: King Bumi their first time through Omashu.
  • Phlebotinum Battery: Waterbenders are at their peak under a full moon. Firebenders are at their normal peak under the sun. When a comet passes through the atmosphere it supercharges the firebenders' abilities, which is a major plot point throughout the series.
  • Physical Scars, Psychological Scars: Zuko's father issues are represented physically through the scar over his eye, and Zuko suffered both as part of a confrontation with his father. The connection between the two is even discussed in-universe, when Katara laments that she didn't get the chance to heal the scar because it may have helped clear up his emotional issues as well.
  • Playing with Fire: Firebenders, obviously.
    • And Aang, who thought it was cool at first, until he learned better.
  • Plot Parallel: Several, most obviously in "The Great Divide" and "Bitter Work". The whole series can be considered one with Aang's and (most prominantly) Zuko's parallel Coming Of Age Stories.
  • Politically-Incorrect Villain: Zuko, though only in the first season, when he's the most outright antagonistic. In particular, he calls both Katara and Sokka "peasant" as an insult on several occasions.
    • To say nothing of Azula's last (coherent) line: "There you are, filthy peasant!"
  • Posthumous Character: Monk Gyatso, Avatar Roku (And by extent, every other avatar except Aang), Fire Lord Sozin, Fire Lord Azulon, Lu Ten, and Kya.
  • Potty Dance: An unnamed Water Tribe boy does this in the second episode.
  • The Power of Friendship: Naturally, Aang couldn't have gotten by without his True Companions. Azula's disbelief in this power along with The Power of Love is also the main reason for her Villainous Breakdown.
  • Power Floats: Aang when in the Avatar State. Justified, because he's airbending.
  • Power Glows: Again, Aang when in the Avatar State. In the second season premiere, Roku explains that the glow is the combined power and experience of every Avatar that came before him being channeled through his body.
    • Which makes each successive Avatar more powerful than the previous one, when in the Avatar State. Must have sucked for the first few.
  • The Power of Love: See Machiavelli Was Wrong above.
    • Mocked in "The Cave of Two Lovers":

Sokka: How did you guys get out [of the caves]?
Aang: Just like the legend says, we let love lead the way.
Sokka: Really? We let huge, ferocious beasts lead our way.

  • The Power of the Sun: Firebending is much stronger during daylight hours than at night, and firebending is completely disabled during the solar eclipse. The true firebending practiced by the Sun Warriors follows the power of the sun even more.
  • Power Perversion Potential: Toph gets to see everyone naked all the time.
    • Squick: Toph gets to see everyone naked all the time.
      • The longer you leave the fridge open on Toph's vibration-vision, the worse it gets. She lived with her parents, 'seeing' every vibration they made together, not to mention images of what Aang, Katara and Sokka were getting up to alone in their tents at night. Get that poor girl some Brain Bleach!
        • Even deeper in the fridge, after Suki comes back, and ... erm... Gets Crap Past the Radar with Sokka. Quite an embarrassing moment, if either of the two come to that realization, too.
      • Toph is unable to make out specifics, only the general shape and movement of whoever's there. It's explicitly stated she cannot see faces due to this. As far as she's concerned, everyone's a faceless barbie/ken doll. Although it kinda does explain how she catches on to everything so fast.
    • A waterbending move called the Octopus.
  • Power Tattoo: Aang.
  • Power Trio: Azula, Mai and Ty Lee. Also Aang, Sokka and Katara in Book 1.
  • Praetorian Guard: Azula has one when she's introduced, but they're not too useful.
  • Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: In Season 1 when Haru's father is about to throw the warden of his prison overboard.

Warden: Please, no! I can't swim!
Haru's father: Don't worry, I hear cowards float.

Sokka: Boomerang! You really do always come back!

    • Subverted in the Grand Finale, when it doesn't. And subsequently lampshaded.

Sokka: I don't think boomerang's coming back.

  • Pretty in Mink: The Water Tribes. Justified, considering where they live, but their coats seem to be made for style as much as warmth.
    • Mai has a fur trimmed robe.
    • Toph's Earth nation outfit has two white furry puff balls on her head.
  • "Previously On...": Starting in Season 2.
  • Princess for a Day: Katara and Toph in "City of Walls and Secrets", of the non-royalty variety. Somewhat subverted with Toph, who actually is a member of a very wealthy and prominent family, but was posing as someone else.
  • Prisons Are Gymnasiums: Iroh working himself back into shape in "Sokka's Master".
  • Prison Episode: The show seems to enjoy using this trope, perhaps because the show is about fighting a totalitarian state:
    • Season 1 has "Imprisoned", where Katara deliberately gets herself imprisoned by the Fire Nation in an attempt to free friend from said prison, and "The Blue Spirit", where Aang is captured by the Fire Nation.
    • Season 3 has "The Runaway", where Toph and Katara end up in jail, and "The Boiling Rock", where Zuko and Sokka infiltrate a Fire Nation prison.
    • In the "Puppet Master" episode, Hama tells the gang how she, and the other water benders from the Southern Water Tribe, were rounded up and taken prisoner by the Fire Nation. There, they were kept in cages, with their hands shackled, so they couldn't bend. The warden even pumped in dry air as an added measure. And while they were given food and water, it only enough to keep them alive, but just barely. Clearly a POW Camp of the Hellhole Prison variety.
  • Prison Rape: Defied. In "The Boiling Rock: Part 1," a female guard catches Zuko (disguised as a male guard) loitering in the female prisoners' block, seemingly standing watch for a buddy. The female guard silently glances at Suki's cell before demanding Zuko let her check inside.
  • Pro Bono Barter: At one point, Sokka takes an odd job, and rather than getting paid in coin as he was expecting, he got handed a large, wet, dead fish.
  • Prodigal Hero: Zuko was forced to leave home, but otherwise fits here.
  • Professional Wrestling: Brilliantly skewered in "The Blind Bandit", complete with Kayfabe and a guy who talks like The Rock (himself played by pro-wrestler Mick Foley, friend of The Rock). Because of of all the pro wrestling references, it counts as a Pro Wrestling Episode.
  • Prophecy Twist: Iroh mentions that when he was young he had a vision of himself taking down the walls of Ba Sing Se, which he believed meant his destiny was to conquer it. It is only in the finale that he realizes he wasn't meant to take over the city as an invader, but to liberate it from the Fire Nation.
  • Psycho Electro: Azula and Ozai.
  • Psychological Torment Zone: The Foggy Swamp.
  • Psychosomatic Superpower Outage: After Zuko does his Heel Face Turn, he loses his firebending powers for a while, since he no longer feels the anger that fueled them.
  • Psychotic Smirk: Azula does this a lot, as does her father Ozai and Long Feng. Joo Dee is somewhere between this and Stepford Smiler.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Sokka: "WHERE?! IS?! SUKI?!?!" Zuko: "Where. Is. My mother?"
  • Punishment Box: in "Boiling Rock", the titular prison has "The Cooler", a small refrigerated cell designed to contain fire benders.
  • The Purge: A century before the start of the series, Firelord Sozin massacres the Air Nomads, largely in hopes of killing the new Avatar. (Unbeknownst to Sozin, Aang was frozen underwater in his Avatar State and thus remained unharmed.) As the series draws to a close and Sozin's Comet returns, Sozin's grandson Firelord Ozai attempts an even larger-scale massacre of the vast and powerful Earth Kingdom, with the ambition of thereby becoming ruler of nearly the entire world.
  • Put on a Bus: Zuko's ship crew, The Earth King and his Bear.
    • Sokka's one-episode pet Hawky, was never seen again. At the end of the episode Toph and Katara attempted to send a letter to Toph's mother. It is likely that the Hawk was either intercepted, never reached its destination, or never returned once the gAang relocated. Either way Toph's mother never reappears, nor does Hawky.
  • Putting on the Reich: Toyed with and subverted. In the first season, the Fire Nations uniform is very Mongolian in design and visually defines them as the show's villains. The uniforms are shown to be but one design of many as the culture itself opens up and they and the people wearing them are given a bit more depth as the series progresses.
  • Pyromaniac: Azula, especially post-Villainous Breakdown.
  1. ↑ he tried to get the first fishhook out with another fishhook.
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