‣ avatar: the last airbender real life cultural influences; a thread

keep in mind that the series mixed some cultures into one nation and that you can analyze it’s lore the way you want. this is just my personal analysis and i hope everyone enjoys it!

about the nation’s cultures, i’m a museology student and one of the things i study is how to recognize differences between cultures through art. i’ll divide each nation individually in habits, traditions, architecture, weapons and geography

the air nomads: they‘re based on tibetan monks and their beliefs are very similar to buddhism and hinduism. along with that, they’re vegetarians, which is a dietary habit practiced by a lot of hindus and buddhists. also, let’s talk about the concept of what being an avatar is

the concept of avatar was taken from hinduism and it’s the material appearance or incarnation of a deity on earth. this material appearance is sent to help humans. the word avatar itself is derived from the sanskrit “avatāra”

also, the way they determine the next avatar is pretty similar to how they determine the next dalai lama: to test the next dalai lama, they give him the objects of the previous dalai lama. the air monks gave aang the previous avatar’s toys

the avatar achieves his/her full power when they open all of their chakras and chakras are another hinduism concept. the person who teaches aang about the chakras is guru pathik and he’s not an air, fire, water or earth bender. ethnically, he resembles south asian ethnic groups

in one scene he can be seen making a reference to the hindu goddess durga, since the deity is described as a goddess with many arms riding a lion/tiger, each arm carrying a weapon

one of her weapons is the chakras

when talking about architecture, the western air temple resembles the pagoda forest at the shaolin temples. the difference is that in atla it’s upside down

according to the description of the air temples, typically it‘s located in isolated and almost unreachable areas like the top of mountains or islands. geographically, tibet is surrounded by mountains, so it’s another geocultural similarity of the air monks with the tibetan monks

the airbending is based on baguazhang, a martial art. it’s known that the airbenders likes evasive movements to avoid their opponents attacks, much like baguazhang

the water tribes: they are based on a mixture of the inuits + aztecs + aboriginal cultures. they’re located in the north and south pole, both arctic climates, and are the only nation that is not inspired by asian regions

their clothes are very similar to the clothes typically worn by inuits: skin coats (anoraks) and fur boots (mukluks). also, they use weapons made of bones and other animal materials, even though the boomerang used by sokka is a weapon used by australian aboriginals

in inuit culture, men tended to hunt and fish (as we can see sokka fishing in the first episode and being the son of a warrior) and women were in charge of home (when katara talked about her experience helping deliver children and taking charge of their house after her mom died)

the architecture of the north pole resembles the ancient aztec architecture, specially their use of the pyramids, very similar to the aztec’s constructions

the northern water tribe presents the existence of the moon and ocean spirit, named respectively tui and la, represented by two koi fishes. in the inuit mythology, there’s a god of the moon (igaluk) and a god of the ocean (agloolik)

also, the spiritual rituals and facial painting for battles (sokka did it in episode 1) resembles more the costumes of the native americans

the waterbending is based on tai chi, a martial art. their movements are smooth like a wave, always adaptable to the environment

the earth kingdom: they are based on china. there are some exceptions like the kyoshi island, but it’s clearly china when you look at the diversity of the nation (skin tones, clothing) and it’s huge advanced cities

the earth king kuei shares some similarities with the last chinese emperor, puyi. they both were used as the ruler of a puppet state, since ba sing se was actually ruled by long feng aka the grand secretariat

the hairstyle long feng uses was originated from the ethnic group manchu, who influenced chinese history a lot. almost all of the clothing found in the earth kingdom seems inspired by the qin dynasty

ba sing se’s royal palace architecture was based on the meridian gate to the forbidden city (home of the already mentioned emperor puyi)

also, another thing that immediately catches our attention is the massive walls of ba sing se, a clearly reference to the great wall of china as well as the si wong desert being a reference to the gobi desert

the kyoshi island’s architecture, fighting style and clothing resembles japan, so we might be able to say it’s influenced by japanese culture, but the fact that avatar kyoshi separated the island from the mainland also can be interpreted as a taiwan reference

the earthbending is based on hung far style of kung fu. to bend the earth, you must be strong minded and wait for the right moment, as well as be connect with the earth. the movements are tough and intense

the fire nation: they are heavily based on japan, specifically imperialist japan. many of the war crimes the fire nation have committed can be compared with japan’s war crimes during the world war II

their clothing style isn’t really sooo japan inspired like the other nations. the japan influence can be found in their attitude, their costumes, geography, architecture and their concerns (like zuko worrying about his honor and why this is so important to him)

as we watched in atla’s book 3, the fire nation scholar system censor their crimes changing the history facts, which isn’t so different from japan’s history textbooks regarding the world war II

this article is pretty good to understand japan’s censorship: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21226068

geographically, the fire nation is located on an archipelago of tropical volcanic islands called the fire islands, which again, resembles japan since the country is an archipelago located in the northwestern ring of fire on multiple tectonic plates, surrounded by volcanoes.

in one of the episodes, zuko meets a family that by their clothes you can tell they’re korean, and the girl talks about how she doesn’t like fire nation for killing her people while not knowing zuko is part of it

a reference to korea’s colonization

the episode zuko and uncle iroh were determined betrayals by the fire lord and almost captured by azula, they cut their hair. this is a reference to the samurai’s that cut their hair as a ceremony

the samurai’s chonmage (what we would call ponytail) is a status symbol. when a samurai cuts it, it means they have lost their honor and power.

zuko and uncle iroh cut their hair because they betrayed the fire nation, so, they were dishonored

another thing is the mask the blue spirit uses being very similar to the hannya mask, used in the noh theatre

thai architecture seems to be the main inspiration for the fire nation’s aesthetic, even though we can see many constructions more similar to japan’s architecture (not only in the fire nation but in kyoshi’s island too)

also, the habit of drinking tea is often represented in the show, but uncle iroh is always remembered for being a huge fan of tea. the flavors are pretty common flavors in asia: jasmine, green, ginger

the firebending is based on the northern shaolin style of kung fu. it’s very aggressive and decisive, fitting well the power of destruction fire has

...end of thread

i hope everyone enjoyed this and i’m always open to debate about this topic

important

i was called out for using the word “costumes” and this is the reason why. my apologies, i didn’t knew it would be offensive, but i’m happy someone told me and educated me. thanks @eIihal for calling me out!

https://twitter.com/orbitshidae/status/1286800917703122948?s=21 https://twitter.com/orbitshidae/status/1286800917703122948