Ten Reasons Why Steampunks (And Everyone Else) Should Watch Avatar: The Last Airbender

January 12th, 2011 by Guest Contributor

By Guest Contributor Ay-leen the Peacemaker, cross-posted from Beyond Victoriana

Avatar: The Last Airbender (A:TLA) is easily one of the best US-created animated shows in the last ten years, and not just because I consider it a great example of Asian-inspired steampunk (though it helps). In terms of steam-worthiness, A:TLA not only creates what Asian steampunk could look like, but it places its steampunk technology within a cultural and political setting that speaks about technological development’s relationship with empire-building and the ramifications of global warfare.

Pretty complex for a children’s show that aired on Nickelodeon. But its depth of storytelling, detailed world-building, and strong characterization attests to its wild popularity across all age groups.

There are other assessments of the world of Avatar: the Last Airbender (A:TLA)–particularly Jha Goh’s article on “Kyriarchy in Avatar: The Last Airbender – Perpetuating & Challenging Oppression & Imperialism” and the Tor.com roundtable re-watch–so I highly suggest you go to them for a more highly detailed reading of the series as a whole. So instead, I’ll answer the question: Why do I think steampunks should watch Avatar: The Last Airbender? Warning: spoilers for the series after the jump.

10) It has Asian steampunk.

Well, this is a bit of a “duh” reason, since I stated it was steampunk in my first paragraph, but let’s take a moment to see how steampunk is used.

The world of Avatar is one based on Asian and Indigenous cultures. It’s split into four different nations based on the elements of earth, fire, water & air. In each nation, certain people have the ability to manipulate the said element of their nation and are called “benders” (metal also plays a role as a “bendable element” later on, for those wonder about use of five elements in Chinese folklore). All four nations are kept in balance by the Avatar, a reincarnated person born every generation who has the ability to control all four elements. The last known Avatar was Aang, from the nomadic Airbender nation, who mysteriously disappeared.

The Fire Nation has sophisticated industrial technology & metallurgy skills, technology developed in part with their Fire-bending training, and so they have all sorts of crazy steampunky tech. And what does it decide to do with all this tech? Well, why not try to take over the world, especially with the Avatar gone.

Below are some shots of the steampunk tech the Fire nation and other peoples use.