Avatar: The Last Airbender has announced a brand new sequel series now in the works as one of the many ways the franchise is celebrating its 25th anniversary with Nickelodeon, and Avatar Studios is going to be facing a major problem head on with the debut of Avatar: Seven Havens. When Avatar Studios was first formed together with original franchise creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, it was announced that the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise would be expanding with brand new movies and TV shows. At last we’ve gotten the first details for the first of these new projects from the new studio now in the works.
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Avatar: Seven Havens is a brand new animated series set after both the events of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. This new series will be introducing the new Avatar in the next generation after Korra, and already faces a huge issue with this idea. The unfortunate matter of the fact that during her time as the Avatar, Korra had cut off the entire connection with every past Avatar. Meaning that she will be the only one this new Avatar can rely on for help in the future, and that could be a tough road.
Avatar: Seven Havens Will Have a New Kind of Avatar
The first story details for Avatar: Seven Havens tease that the next Avatar will be an Earthbender as next in the line, and will be set in a world torn apart by a cataclysm. It’s also teased that it’s going to be a future in which the Avatar as seen as the world’s destroyer, and not the savior as seen in the first two series. This new Avatar is likely already going to be much more isolated due to the nature of the world around her, but will also be isolated from her Avatar abilities as a whole as Korra kind of really limited anyone who would be following in her footsteps.
During The Legend of Korra, Korra unfortunately had her ties severed to the Avatars of the past following Raava’s extraction from her body. With the loss of this spirit that had all of the past Avatar’s knowledge and history within it, Korra unfortunately lost the past. But thankfully, Raava was able to rejoin Korra and start a brand new Avatar cycle. So it means that fans will see this next Avatar with the premiere of Avatar: Seven Havens in the near future, but Korra is going to be the only one that can help her.
This will also likely limit the new Avatar in more significant ways than just losing out on potential council (which was something that Aang or Korra didn’t always heed completely either way), but their abilities as well. Korra was one of the most powerful Avatars we had seen in action, sure, but the lack of the boost from the Avatar State means that the next Avatar is only going to be able to draw from one past connection when she uses it. It’s going to be a much weaker version than ever seen, and that will at least be thematically appropriate for such a torn apart world in the future.
It’s Not a Hard Problem to Fix
This will also be an issue in the meta-context too as Avatar: Seven Havens won’t get to do much of what The Legend of Korra did and utilize the past to help further advance the current story. It’s going to limit the characters from the franchise’s 20 year history that we might get to see referenced or appear, but that’s not totally a bad thing either. It means this new Avatar is going to need to stand on her own two feet, and will likely make her a more compelling Avatar for it (and thus a much better sequel that stands on its own overall). It’s also not that tough of a problem to overcome either.
Re-connecting this next Avatar with the others in the past is just something that can be written into the new series. It could even come when this new Avatar is at her lowest moment, and needs the power boost at just the right time. Picturing that climax with both a spiritual version of Korra and Aang appearing within a new version of the Avatar State, and that could make for a heck of an Avatar: Seven Havens episode. At the end of the day, it’s a “problem” that will ultimately make the narrative for this sequel much stronger regardless of how the team decides to move forward.
If this is indeed going to be a version of Avatar purposefully lacking those ties in order to move into the future, then Avatar: Seven Havens is going to be the best starting point for the franchise than fans have gotten for years.
