Avatar: What Bending Powers Aang & Katara’s Children Have

Avatar: The Last Airbender ended with young hero Aang, the titular Avatar and last airbender, officially beginning a romance with his friend Katara, a highly skilled waterbender. Aang and Katara went on to have three children and several grandchildren, and in doing so answered fan questions about what exactly happens when benders from two different tribes start a family together. All three of Aang and Katara’s children eventually acquired bending powers, but they were skilled in different ways.

After the end of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which saw Aang defeat Fire Lord Ozai and end the Hundred Year War, the story continued in a series of sequel comics and the TV show The Legend of Korra. It’s in the sequel show that Aang and Katara’s children appear, now middle-aged themselves, and help to guide the new Avatar on her journey.

The Avatar: The Last Airbender comics set up the idea of a new age in which the lines between the Four Nations are less sharply drawn, with Aang and Katara’s union serving as a symbol of how the different tribes might mix and start new families. The Legend of Korra picks up 70 years later, and sees benders of different disciplines living alongside one another in the United Republic of Nations. Aang and Katara’s children are a quintessentially family of mixed tribes, and that’s reflected in their bending abilities.

Tenzin – Airbender

Surprisingly, only one of Aang and Katara’s kids was born an airbender: Tenzin, their youngest. This proved to be a mixed blessing for Tenzin, as it meant that he got more attention from Aang than his siblings did, and travelled around the world with his father learning how to preserve the Air Nomad legacy. However, it also meant that he was under an enormous amount of pressure to keep airbending alive, which is likely why Tenzin is the most serious of the three children. Tenzin married a non-bender Air Acolyte, Pema, and had four children: Jinora, Ikki, Meelo and Rohan. The first three are all skilled airbenders, but it’s still unconfirmed at the end of The Legend of Korra whether or not Rohan is also an airbender.

Kya – Waterbender

The middle child of the family, Kya, is named after Katara’s mother and is a powerful waterbender. Whereas Tenzin wears the orange robes of the Air Nomads, Kya wears the blue clothes of the Southern Water Tribe. Kya was trained by her mother and has a particular aptitude for using waterbending to heal both physical and spiritual wounds. She has no children and isn’t married when she’s introduced in The Legend of Korra. In the sequel comics, Kya reveals to Korra and Asami that she’s a lesbian, and that when she told Aang he was “nothing but supportive,” since Air Nomad culture doesn’t discriminate based on sexual orientation.

Bumi – Non-Bender Turned Airbender

Aang and Katara’s oldest child, Bumi, was born without any bending powers at all. Named after Aang’s childhood friend (and later King of Omashu), Bumi was as wild as his namesake and went on to become a commander in the United Forces. Bumi eventually became an airbender as an adult after Avatar Korra opened the portals connecting the mortal and spirit world. This released an influx of spiritual energy into the world that caused a number of non-benders to suddenly develop airbending abilities, Bumi among them. Through Bumi and the other new airbenders, the culture of the Air Nomads and the art of airbending was able to rebuild for the first time since Fire Lord Sozin’s purge at the start of the Hundred Year War.

About The Author

Hannah Shaw-Williams
(3313 Articles Published)

See also  God of War Ragnarök Is Still Releasing In 2022, Says Insider

Hannah has been with Screen Rant since 2013, covering news, features, movie premieres, Comic-Con and more! You can follow her on Twitter @HSW3K

More From Hannah Shaw-Williams