Avatar: The Last Airbender

*Avatar: The Last Airbender* is an animated series created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. It aired on Nickelodeon from February 2005 to July 2008, telling its story across 61 episodes. Its three seasons are called “books”: Water, Earth, and Fire. In the series’ world, some people can manipulate one of four elements through a practice called bending. The Avatar alone can master all four and is meant to maintain balance between the nations. When the story begins, the Fire Nation has been waging war for a century, and the Avatar has been missing for just as long.

Siblings Katara and Sokka find twelve-year-old Aang trapped in an iceberg near the Southern Water Tribe. Aang is the last surviving Air Nomad and the current Avatar, but he ran away before learning to control all four elements. He and his flying bison, Appa, had been frozen for one hundred years. Katara, a waterbender, and Sokka travel with Aang as he seeks teachers and tries to end the war. Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation pursues them, hoping that capturing the Avatar will restore the honor he lost when his father, Fire Lord Ozai, banished him. Zuko’s uncle Iroh accompanies him.

The journey takes the group to the Northern Water Tribe, where Admiral Zhao attacks during a lunar eclipse and kills the Moon Spirit. Princess Yue gives up her life to restore it. In the Earth Kingdom, Aang meets Toph Beifong, a blind earthbending prodigy who becomes his teacher. Toph later discovers how to bend metal. The group also reaches Ba Sing Se, a city whose rulers conceal the war from much of its population. Fire Nation princess Azula eventually takes control of the city, while Zuko chooses to support her rather than join Aang.

The final season follows a failed invasion of the Fire Nation during a solar eclipse. Zuko subsequently leaves his father and teaches Aang firebending. With Sozin’s Comet approaching—a celestial event that strengthens firebenders—Aang must confront Ozai before he can devastate the Earth Kingdom. Aang defeats him by taking away his bending rather than killing him. Meanwhile, Katara defeats Azula, and Zuko becomes Fire Lord. The series ends with Aang and Katara together, but its world continued in comics and in the later television series *The Legend of Korra*.