Why It Sucks To Be the Avatar in Seven Havens

0:00 Intro

Imagine being the most powerful person alive. The only human who can bend all four elements. The bridge between our world and the spirit world. Now imagine that if anyone finds out… you go to prison. Or worse. For thousands of years, being the Avatar meant being the hero. In Avatar: Seven Havens, it means being the villain of everyone's history lessons. The world has been broken for two hundred years, and almost everyone believes the last Avatar is the one who broke it.

0:32 Why it sucks to be the Avatar

So today, let's talk about why it absolutely sucks to be the Avatar in Seven Havens. Quick warning: this covers the premise from the first three episodes. No spoilers beyond that.

0:44 Setting the scene: 225 years after Korra

First, let's set the scene. Seven Havens takes place two hundred and twenty-five years after The Legend of Korra. And the world you remember is gone. No Fire Nation. No Earth Kingdom. No Water Tribes. Not even the bright, industrial cities of Korra's era, with their radios and cars and skyscrapers. About two hundred years ago, something happened that the show simply calls a cataclysm. It reshaped the world, and much of its history was lost along with it. The people who survived didn't rebuild nations. They built havens: isolated settlements surrounded by walls. In the first episodes, we spend most of our time in one of them, a walled desert city called Ellora. Those walls aren't decoration. They're there to keep out bandits, natural disasters… and incursions from the Spirit World. So before we even talk about you, the Avatar, understand this: you're born into a world that's smaller, poorer and more frightened than any era we've seen in this franchise. People don't travel between nations anymore, because there aren't any. They hide.

2:07 Reason 1: Your last life is the villain

Here's the first reason it sucks. In every earlier era, your past lives were your greatest asset. Aang could talk to Roku. Korra could, at least for a while, talk to Aang. Past Avatars were legends: statues, temples, stories told to children. In Seven Havens, your most recent past life is Korra. And the world blames Korra for the cataclysm. Think about what that means for you. Your predecessor isn't a hero in the history books. She's the reason the history books are full of holes. And because so much was lost, nobody can easily check whether that story is even true. Reviewers have pointed out that the survivors' history is shaky at best. But shaky history is still history. It's what the teachers teach and what the soldiers believe. So every time someone in your haven curses the Avatar, they're cursing you. Not a stranger. You.

3:15 Reason 2: Two elements = a crime

In this world, the Avatar isn't a protector. The Avatar is a boogeyman: the monster parents use to scare their kids. And the rule is simple. If anyone sees you bending more than one element, you can be imprisoned. Or worse. Let that sink in. For an ordinary Avatar, learning the second element is the moment the real journey begins. For Aang, it was learning waterbending at the North Pole. For Korra, it was the airbending that took her an entire season to unlock. Those were triumphs. For you, the moment you bend a second element in public is the moment your life as a free person ends. Every breakthrough is a risk. Every lesson has to happen in secret. And the thing that makes you special is the exact thing that can get you killed.

4:12 Reason 3: Everyone is hunting you

Even the people who don't bend at all are part of it. Benders and non-benders, who spent the entire Korra era at each other's throats, finally agree on something: finding the next Avatar before history repeats itself.

And this isn't just angry villagers with torches. It's organised. Every bender in this world has to register with the government. And benders are drafted into the military, a force the show calls the Brigade, as early as middle school. Picture that. The kids you grow up with, the ones who can bend, are taken, trained and turned into soldiers. Soldiers whose job includes hunting down people exactly like you. The Brigade is led by a commander named Karthik, and in the very first episode he believes he's found the Avatar.

5:11 Reason 4: Your twin takes the fall

Which brings us to the strangest part of all.

Our hero is a girl named Pavi. She's the Avatar. She's hiding it. And she has an identical twin sister named Nisha. In the first episode, Commander Karthik finds Nisha, and believes she's the Avatar. So now imagine you're Pavi. The soldiers are looking for the Avatar. They've found someone who looks exactly like you. And that person is your sister. Do you stay hidden and let her take the blame? Do you reveal yourself, knowing what happens to people who bend more than one element? And it gets stranger. The show suggests Nisha may also be an Avatar. There has only ever been one Avatar at a time. One spirit, Raava, joined with one human, reborn into one new body each lifetime. That's the rule since Avatar Wan. Two Avatars at once breaks the most basic law of this entire universe. Why it's happening is the show's central mystery. Reviewers have described the twins almost like two halves of the past: one with Aang's playfulness and pacifism, the other with Korra's fight and fire. If that's deliberate, the show is asking a big question: what happens when the Avatar is split in two?

6:34 Reason 5: No teachers left

Every Avatar before you had teachers. Aang had Katara, Toph, Zuko, and the monks before them. Korra had Tenzin, the White Lotus, and a whole compound built just to train her. You? The nations that taught each element are gone. The great masters are long dead. Much of the history is lost. And anyone who teaches you more than one element is helping a criminal. The show does give Pavi some help. The Order of the White Lotus, the secret society that has protected Avatars since the original series, is still around, quietly. There's an airbender in the Brigade named Jae, who rides a hoverboard. And there's Pavi's giant cat-monkey companion, Geet. But think about the difference. Aang's teachers were the best benders alive. Your support system is a secret society hiding in the shadows and a hoverboard-riding kid in the army that's hunting you.

7:38 Reason 6: The job is forbidden

Remember why the havens have walls? Bandits, disasters… and the Spirit World. At the end of The Legend of Korra, Korra left a spirit portal open in the middle of Republic City. She'd also left the portals at the poles open, so humans and spirits could live side by side again. It was an act of hope. Two centuries later, this world is defending itself against spirit incursions. And whose job is it to keep peace between the human world and the Spirit World? The Avatar's. That's the whole reason Raava chose Wan in the first place. So the job you were born to do is the one thing people are most afraid of, and the one thing you're forbidden to do openly. The world needs an Avatar, and has made it illegal to be one.

8:34 Reason 7: The cycle is breaking

And finally: you might not even know what you are. The Avatar cycle has been nearly broken before. At the end of the original series' second season, Azula struck Aang with lightning while he was in the Avatar State. The show had established that if the Avatar is killed in the Avatar State, the cycle ends forever. Aang only survived because Katara brought him back with spirit water. Then in Legend of Korra, the dark spirit Vaatu tore Raava out of Korra. Korra lost her connection to every one of her past lives. Aang, Roku, Kyoshi: gone, for good. Raava was reborn, but those links were never restored. And the Red Lotus tried to end the cycle again, by killing Korra while she was in the Avatar State. So you're inheriting a spirit that has been ripped out, rebuilt and nearly destroyed. And now, for the first time, there may be two of you. Whatever happened in the cataclysm, the Avatar of Seven Havens might be the most uncertain Avatar who's ever lived.

9:49 Let's add it up

So, let's add it all up. You're born into a broken world. Your last life is blamed for breaking it. Bending a second element can get you imprisoned. Your friends are drafted into the army hunting you. Your twin is being hunted in your place. Your teachers are gone. The spirits are at the walls. And the cycle that made you might be falling apart.

10:14 Next video

There's never been a harder time to be the Avatar. But here's the thing. Every Avatar before you faced something that should have been impossible. And to understand just how dangerous this job has always been, you have to look at how every one of them died. That's the next video.