Commentary: ‘Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender’ Plot Armor Isn’t A Bad Thing
by Frank Martin
Plot armor can be a very annoying thing for audiences. It effectively means a character isn’t in danger during the course of the story because they are needed to progress the plot along. This often becomes the case, especially in prequels, where audiences know ahead of time how and when a character will die. But plot armor doesn’t necessarily invalidate a story. Just because a character is known to survive the dangers he or she is facing doesn’t mean the challenge can’t enrich their character. Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender is a great example.
The story takes place some years after the series. Aang (Eric Nam) has grown up into a young man. He is still traumatized from having his people wiped out by the Fire Nation a hundred years ago. While investigating an ancient Avatar with the power to create airbenders named Sonam (Freida Pinto), he accidentally releases an air nomad that was frozen in time. Tagah (Dave Bautista) is from a time when the Air Nomads were extremely powerful, and he wants to teach Aang about the strength of airbending. Unfortunately, he’s also mad with power and seeks to dominate the other benders by creating an airbender army.
Aang undoubtedly has plot armor during the movie. Audiences know from The Legend of Korra that he grows into an old man before passing away, so there’s no way he will die during the course of the film. Nonetheless, he’s struggling with the contradiction between bringing back his people and keeping the world safe. Aang has to toil with this emotional trauma and it’s very powerful to watch. So just because he has plot armor over the course of the entire film doesn’t mean that it isn’t great to see him fight or wrestle with the burden of being the Avatar.
Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender is now streaming on Paramount+.