7 Predictions For Season Two Of 'Avatar: The Last Airbender'

TV & Film

Mar 27

Image Source: IGN

Season one of Netflix’s adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender is in the books, and by all indicators, it was a success. Numbers released by Netflix show that the new hit was streamed for almost 2.6 billion minutes, nearly double that of their adaptation of One Piece, in just the first four days of release.

Due to several reasons, the first season was a truncated version of the story, having to tell it in eight episodes instead of 22 like the original animated series’ first season. It did this well, for the most part, telling a mostly coherent narrative. It left out parts that were in the original and incorporated parts of the animated show’s second season (like the secret tunnel under Omashu, or the introduction of Azula and Ozai, who were not in season one of the original) because it served the narrative they were telling, or it makes room for storytelling in, at the time of writing, the anticipated season two (now confirmed).

So what does that leave for us in season two? What’s going to happen? What will they keep from the original, and what will they ditch? Let’s predict!

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7. Toph Beifong

The most obvious and easiest thing to predict for season two is that Toph Beifong will join the group. For the uninitiated, she’s a young earthbender who will eventually teach Aang earthbending. What’s so special about her? For one, she’s blind and is arguably the greatest earthbender there is. She uses heightened senses and earthbending to “see” the world around her and fight. Secondly, she’s also brash, spoiled, and blunt. She’s, arguably, the best character in the show. There’s a chance they don’t do the return to Omashu, given the way the first season showed Azula conquering it. That return served as a motivator for Aang to find another earthbending teacher, and then he receives a vision of Toph in the swamp. There are ways to include those plot points, but I don’t think they’re necessary, especially given the fact about Aang’s training below. One question remains: who will they get to play her? It would be really top-notch casting if they cast someone who is blind.

6. Aang Needs To Start Learning Other Forms

Image Source: CBR

Part of the urgency to learn the other elements, as is the purview of the Avatar, was the impending return of Sozin’s Comet, which pushed him to the Northern Tribe in the original series. This time, he doesn’t know about it yet. He also hasn’t learned waterbending, and now we’re on to book two, so he has two bending forms to learn before season three, which should be fire. So far he’s relied on other ways and entities to get him to the Avatar State. I doubt the writers are overlooking this, and it will be addressed, but it needs to be a strong motivator and focus on the second season.

5. Azula Let Loose

Image Source: ComicBook

Another easy one to predict, supported by the end of the first season, is that Azula and her friends will be unleashed to find the Avatar. It’s unclear if the adaptation has established that Zuko and Iroh are wanted by the Firelord and will go into hiding in the Earth Kingdom, but in all, Azula will be the central antagonist for the season. This should add an air of urgency and tension to the second season, which was kind of lacking in the first, maybe due to the lack of the Sozin’s Comet plot. Now that Sozin’s Comet has been revealed to be coming, and Azula’s joining the fight, it puts pressure on Aang to get to work on mastering the elements.

4. Ba Sing Se

The massive Earth Kingdom capitol served as an important setting for the second half of season two in the original and there’s no reason it shouldn’t in the adaptation. Its inclusion in the show was full of politics, betrayal, and subterfuge. All the things you need to make a season exciting and viewers guessing. It also allows the writers wiggle room for storytelling, the kind they did in Omashu in season one.

3. Sozin’s Comet

A major change from the original is the looming danger of Sozin’s Comet. Sozin’s Comet gave Sozin and his army the power needed to overwhelm the airbenders 100 years prior, and it is returning now. In the original, because it was a cartoon, they could avoid the risk of aging, as shows take time to develop and produce. The showrunners for the adaptation said they addressed that in their approach to the show, and as we now know, Sozin’s Comet was shown at the end of the season. Roku warns Aang about the return of the comet in the original first season. That didn’t happen this time. If the writers include the Si Wong Desert in the course of season two, they can accomplish this by still having Sokka want to search the library for something to use against the Fire Nation, and discover the reference to the Darkest Day, or find something referring to the comet. There’s opportunity there.

2. The Dai Li

Something that could really serve as a nice subplot for the time they will certainly spend in Ba Sing Se is the Gaang’s entanglement with the Dai Li, the secret police of the Earth Kingdom capital. In the original, they act as spies in the city and work to keep the population under control and calm by managing the information they receive. In the adaptation, they could serve a role similar to that of Admiral Zhao in season one and be another antagonist that Aang and the group have to figure out how to deal with.

1. Zuko Midpoint Reversal

It’s well established, both in the adaptation and in the original, that Zuko is a man of honor. His idea of the world is shattered and shaken at the end of the first season, and one of the strongest parts of the original season two, and the series, was Zuko’s battle with his demons. It tears at him the whole time, going back and forth in the torment of wanting to redeem himself to his father, but trying to heed the advice of his uncle. It leads to the betrayal beneath the Earth Kingdom palace that really propels his story in season three. I think the show has to lead to that by the end. It’s a fundamental aspect of his change by the end of the series.

There still is no word on season two’s release date, but it is happening, so stay with us as we learn more.

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