Avatar: The Last Airbender creators reveal how much of Aang’s story was planned from the start. Details revealed

2025 is special for Avatar: The Last Airbender fans, as the first episode of the beloved Nickelodeon animation show aired on February 21, 2005. This week, creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino were interviewed by BuzzFeed to celebrate two decades of this iconic animated show. In this interview, the duo discussed the show and its legacy even twenty years later.

But one of the highlights of the interview is when the creators discussed how much of their initial ideas from the Development Bible (the production document containing the outlines and rules of the fictional world) made it into Avatar: The Last Airbender in its final form. They also discussed whether they knew where the characters were headed from the very beginning.

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Avatar: The Last Airbender: Creators Konietzko and DiMartino address initial plans that made it into the show:

Nickelodeon's Avatar ran for three seasons, or "Books," between February 2005 and July 2008. Each book of the animated series followed Airbender Aang mastering the rest of the three elements: water, earth, and fire. Book One: Water is about Aang mastering waterbending; Book Two: Earth sees him learning Earthbending under visually challenged Earthbending prodigy Toph Beifong, and Book Three: Fire sees Aang finally master firebending under Prince Zuko.

The season 3 finale of Avatar: The Last Airbender delivered on the moment the previous two seasons had been building towards. This is the first time Aang and the Fire Lord, now the "Phoenix King" Ozai. Aang has to stop Ozai from carrying out his genocidal schemes against the Earth Kingdom. One of the most iconic moments of this confrontation is when Aang forms a cocoon made of rocks.

Thus, in this BuzzFeed interview, fans were surprised to learn that this moment was a part of the Development Bible even before the first season was created. Bryan Konietzko was the first to reveal this to the BuzzFeed reporter:

"When we got to the end of the series, I went back and looked at our "Development Bible," and it was surprising! I hadn't really looked at it in a couple of years at that point. Not to take away from the writers' or artists' ideas, or even our newer ideas, but there was a lot of stuff from that "Development Bible" that we did know. For example, the detail of Aang cocooning himself in the stone during the Ozai fight was in there. We had other wacky ideas in that Bible that we left behind. We definitely didn't have every single thing mapped out, but we knew there would be a counter-invasion in Book Three. We knew Aang would face Ozai during the comet, and Ozai would have supercharged firebending."

To Konietzko's answer, fellow Avatar: The Last Airbender co-creator DiMartino added:

"We had the broad strokes of the structure of the series figured out. We had the device of Aang needing to master the elements — he'll study water, and then he's gonna learn earth and do something in the Fire Nation, and learn fire. That stuck through. We had ideas for certain episodes. Of course, there were many episodes to fill in, so things get fleshed out and expanded on. Many new ideas not in the "Development Bible" came to fruition in the show. But it's cool to look back and think, "Oh yeah, we thought of that early on!""

After this, the reporter asked the creators about how they came up with the memorable conclusion for the original Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series. For those who don't remember, the series ended with Aang not killing Ozai, despite the world expecting him to do so. Instead, the young Avatar defeats his opponent by taking away the latter's firebending powers, leaving him alive.

Addressing this exciting climax, Michael DiMartino was the first to talk:

"It came out of Aang's character and his culture. He's from this monastic, non-violent community, and those are his values. He was always trying to make peace between people who were fighting. At the end, the other characters assume he will kill Ozai, but that goes against everything Aang believes in. We recently re-watched the finale with some people at Nickelodeon, and that idea resonates through those four episodes. It's this weight he feels of trying to find another way."

Then, addressing the lion turtle idea, which many felt came out of nowhere seventeen years ago:

"The lion-turtle idea was something we tried to weave subtly through the series, so it didn't feel completely out of the blue — though, I know some people think it came out of nowhere!"

Then, Bryan Konietzko added:

"Like Mike said, we knew it was going to relate to the lion-turtles. If you watch the test pilot that we did before we got the green light, we put the lion-turtles in the opening montage. Aang is out in this courtyard, and there are these big lion-turtle statues. Early on, we knew he was going to need to learn from these different masters, and he'll learn the ultimate technique from the lion-turtle. It plays on a lot of different myths, and we were inspired by statues in South Korea of these turtles with huge monoliths on their backs."

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What's next for Avatar: The Last Airbender?

The Avatar Universe is one of the most prolific fictional franchises in the fan circles. As the original animated series continues to be in conversation, there are countless books, comics, and games that have fans engaged with the franchise. Then, there is the live-action Netflix adaptation, also titled Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is set to end with a third season, much like the animated series.

While Bryan Konietzko and Michael DiMartino are not involved in the Netflix adaptations of Avatar: The Last Airbender, it does not mean that they are not at all involved in the Avatar universe. This universe will head to the big screen for the first time in sixteen years since the reviled 2010 M. Night Shyamalan movie. Titled The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender, fans will get an Avatar movie with an adult Aang.

But the most exciting entry is the second Avatar: The Last Airbender spin-off after The Legend of Korra, called "Avatar: Seven Havens." Seven Havens is set decades after The Legend of Korra and takes this universe where the previous shows did not go; the Avatar is now feared by the world, rather than worshipped. The official logline states that Seven Havens takes place in:

“A world shattered by a devastating cataclysm. A young Earthbender discovers she’s the new Avatar after Korra – but in this dangerous era, that title marks her as humanity’s destroyer, not its savior. Hunted by both human and spirit enemies, she and her long-lost twin must uncover their mysterious origins and save the Seven Havens before civilization’s last strongholds collapse.”

Thus, it seems that the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise will continue to live for the next few decades.

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The original Avatar: The Last Airbender and its spin-off, The Legend of Korra, are accessible via streaming on Paramount+.