Avatar the Last Airbender’s Dual Protagonists

Avatar the Last Airbender was what I and many other people my age would probably consider a landmark piece of media. Especially for an animated show aimed at a younger audience, it managed to pull off some pretty amazing things.

And obviously the main reason for the success of Avatar was nothing more than the pure strength of its writing. Sure, the world was cool and exciting and it was cool to watch people throw fire and rocks at each other as a kid, but even if we didn’t know it at the time, most kids would probably have gotten pretty bored with that rather quickly. That's why you need to be able to tell an engaging story. And for my money’s worth, there is no better way to do that than with well-written characters.

This is something that The Last Airbender has in spades, of course, I could probably go on at length about any of the main cast of characters and why they are all so well written, but at the end of the day, what you really want and need to have is a strong protagonist. Someone the audience can root for and stand behind, someone whose core conflict is central to the plot, someone who embodies the main themes of the story. Someone like that is key in making your story work, and so it is good for Avatar that it happens to have two.

Now obviously, yes, you have Aang. The main character and titular Last Airbender. And I love Aang. Aang is fantastic, and for most other shows he would be more than enough of the leading character. But like many aspects of this show, Avatar the Last Airbender decides to go above and beyond and gives the story a whole other protagonist to root for as well, in the character of Zuko.

Now, some of you may recoil at that initially, Zuko isn’t the protagonist. He’s the antagonist, at least at first right? To that I have to ask, is he?

Now I will grant you that Aang and Zuko start off the show with opposing goals, which would usually indicate that one of them would be the antagonist here. But the way the show follows the story of each of them is incredibly similar. The treatment each of the characters get is that of the protagonist.

This is only made even more clear with the episode of “The Storm” which all but proves that this story is just as much about Zuko, as it is about Aang. It is the episode where we learn about the goals and motivations of our main characters, both of them.

The parallels between this two continue much more from there, even the characters within the show comment on this in the episode of “The Blue Spirit” when Aang comments on how he thinks he and Zuko would be friends if things were different, he knows the two of them share a lot in common.

The first season even gives us the character of Zhao to act as season one’s real antagonist. A true antagonist that works against both of the protagonist's main goals. He is trying to stop Zuko as much as he is Aang.

No other characters on the show get the same treatment as Aang and Zuko do, Zuko is the only character outside the main Gaang to ever really have continued story focus. Depending on the episode one of the supporting casts may get more of the spotlight here or there, but it is undeniable that the two most important characters are Aang and Zuko.

After the end of season one and Zuko's quest to find the Avatar seemingly becomes less important than trying not to be murdered by his own sister, the show continues to follow the story of him and Iroh, even though it otherwise has little bearing on the overall plot. At least if you consider Aang to be the only protagonist that is. Season 2 is a great season for the development of Zuko, and we really get to see him deal with a lot of moral dilemmas and allows the show to speak to some serious themes of self-discovery and acceptance of who you really are.

Which is really where the brilliance of having these two protagonists comes out, these two characters have some things in common sure. Their main motivations revolving around duty and responsibility mainly, but it's the things that make them different that are really interesting.

Because of its focus on two main characters instead of just one, the show can deal with many more ideas and concepts that it simply could not do with one of those characters. For example, Aang is a character that would never really have to deal with the struggle of self-discovery, it's fairly clear Aang knows and more importantly, enjoys who he is. And while he may struggle with the responsibility of being that person, he never has any problems with knowing what he has to do.

Likewise, Zuko is a character that I would never see having the same moral quandaries that Aang does at the very end of the show. Zuko has it in his nature to be ruthless and do what he thinks needs to be done, Aang, on the other hand, is a much more compassionate character, and one who refuses to do something he thinks is wrong just because everyone tells him its the only way.

Aang and Zuko are both deeply interesting characters that have some of my favorite arcs in any piece of fiction out there. And I think that we were all very blessed that the show focused on not just one of them, but both.