Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender Finally Gives Kyoshi Her Due
This article contains spoilers for the live-action "Avatar: The Last Airbender."
"Avatar: The Last Airbender" is one of the best and most influential American cartoons of the past 20 years. It's a show that Mark Hamill once worried was "too smart" for TV, delivering the kind of worldbuilding we normally associate with George Lucas' "Star Wars" or J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" while telling a story full of complex themes like war and genocide through the lens of a children's cartoon series. "The Last Airbender" even gave us the golden standard for redemption stories on television.
One particularly great aspect of the cartoon is the idea of the reincarnation cycle, which makes the Avatar stand out from other fantasy heroes. Throughout the original animated show, we learn about different incarnations of the Avatar, who provide wisdom and different perspectives. They also expand the world and history of "The Last Airbender," as we see how different Avatars were made for their respective eras and problems, making the show's setting lived-in and fleshed-out.
Unfortunately, Netflix's live-action remake does many things wrong. It tries to combine the child-like sense of fun and humor of the original cartoon with a gritty and violent "Game of Thrones" tone, yet the two never fully blend together. It also removes the complexity and idiosyncrasy of many characters in favor of a more generic fantasy adventure. At the same time, the live-action "Last Airbender" does some things right, like giving bigger roles to Aang's past lives. That includes the single best Avatar there is, Avatar Kyoshi.
Enter Avatar Kyoshi
We meet Kyoshi in episode 2 as Aang and the team travel to Kyoshi Island, the birthplace of the former Avatar, looking for guidance. While there, Katara and Aang learn about Kyoshi's life, how she was an orphan who worked as a house girl for a rich family, and how she trained an elite force of women to protect her homeland. This is information we didn't really get in the cartoon, which only shows Kyoshi twice in the entire three-season run.
When Aang finally communes with Kyoshi's spirit, she is immediately hostile. Rather than provide wisdom, she tells him to figure things out himself before scolding the young Airbender for running away from his responsibilities. She doesn't care one iota that Aang is a kid, but tells him to suck it up and be the "mighty, merciless, warrior" she believes the Avatar has to be.
Of course, the mighty Kyoshi doesn't just talk; she also possesses Aang and uses his body to utterly obliterate a Fire Nation squadron using all four elements. It's a short appearance but it serves to show how different Aang is from her. Kyoshi is an unmovable, unbreakable Avatar, the kind that never hesitates to attack first. Even Roku acknowledges this, as he later tells Aang that she is a bit too much.
A mighty, merciless Avatar
As cool as Aang's past lives are, the animated "Avatar: The Last Airbender" really only shows Roku — Aang's immediate previous life. It makes sense, seeing as he was directly responsible for the Hundred Year War that Aang is now fighting, but it sadly means that Kyoshi is relegated to getting very little screen time.
This is a shame because Kyoshi is possibly the coolest Avatar, and definitely the strongest. Her story has been chronicled across novels and comic books, revealing how she learned bending at a much older age than Aang, and how she spent most of her life fighting. We knew that Kyoshi single-handedly stopped an Earth Kingdom tyrant by throwing him to the bottom of the sea, but she was also involved in plenty of turmoil. In her private life, Kyoshi was an openly bisexual Avatar and fought for gender and sexual equality during her lifetime — which lasted a while, as she lived to be 230 years old.
The inclusion of Kyoshi this early in the live-action "Avatar: The Last Airbender" is the kind of fun adaptation choice that makes the future of the show exciting. Since the cartoon gave us a flashback episode exploring Roku's past, why not do the same with Kyoshi?
Season 1 of the live-action "Avatar: The Last Airbender" is now streaming on Netflix.