Growing up as a kid with little to no access to cable channels outside of PBS, trips to Grandma and Grandpa's house were especially exciting because that meant I got to watch my favorite shows again. You had your goofy staples like SpongeBob with it's now lost pizazz (a topic for another article), the weird but enjoyable shows like Courage the Cowardly Dog show and the action oriented "thrillers" like Samurai Jack and Codename: Kids Next Door.
But then you had a little ditty called Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was this show that decided to bend the idea of what cartoons could be.
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Now I will be up front and honest, I wasn't too hyped about it at first. The ideas seemed to odd for me to really understand and the art style was so different from the caricatures of the funny cartoons I watched. But something else caught my attention that helped draw me in. This cartoon was funny and had action-packed sequences but more importantly, it pushed to make an emotional impact.
The other shows I watched were mostly mindless comedy. Sure, they would have a few jokes that were actually very clever, but few of them tried to make any emotional connection. But then you have Avatar.
Avatar, as a show, tugs on your heartstrings. You have tales of lost love, childhood neglect, genocide and the emotional strain that is put on someone who is expected to "save the world". You also deal with ideas of when tradition can injure the future, how revenge can only be stopped by your decision, and how people can change.
You get a rainbow of characters to see the world from many perspectives. You have the childlike innocence of Aang, the caring of Katara, the inventiveness of Sokka, the toughness of Toph, and the divided worldview of Zuko. The sheer individuality found in the characters is enough to ensure you have at least one character you are rooting for.
And finally, Avatar makes its biggest contribution in how there is no big super villain. Yes, I suppose the Firelord counts as the villain but he does not truly come into play until the final season. Instead, what we get are sympathetic antagonists who we never really dislike. Zuko we find whiny at first but slowly see him for who he is. Iroh is never seen as a villain yet he is always out to help his nephew. Even crazy Azula travels with her two best friends, both of them true and good people, and we also see that she is also broken by the past and was only driven mad due to her pressing father.
By not avoiding emotion and by integrating it so well into their story telling, Avatar: The Last Airbender changed the idea of how cartoons are perceived. Not just as opportunities for mindless enjoyment, but capable means of heavy storytelling.
