Many, if not most of us, are tired of the constant sequels, reboots, and remakes coming out of Hollywood. Too often, they either retread their superior original story’s territory or lose the heart and meaning of what made audiences fall in love with the story and characters in the first place. However, the announcement of the new sequel series, from the original creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko with their team at Avatar Studios, Avatar Seven Havens, promises a strikingly fresh story in the Avatar’s world.
In Avatar Seven Havens, currently slated for two seasons, 13 episodes each, the world is ravaged after a terrible cataclysm. Now, humans see the Avatar, justifiably or not, as a harbinger of doom rather than salvation. Throughout the series, we follow a new young Earthbending Avatar who must find her long-lost twin and, once again, save the world. And perhaps most surprisingly, the Four Nations no longer exist, now remade into the titular “Seven Havens,” which are barely hanging on to survive. While overall shocking, it’s also an exciting and bold premise that already promises to break free of the constant retreads of the remake/reboot/sequel culture Hollywood executives have imposed on us.
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Yet the premise has already prompted harsh reactions from some fans online. Some have suggested that the show’s creators are “ruining” their creation by upending the status quo so much. They’ve even accused the creators of demeaning Avatar Korra’s character by making her responsible for the world’s apparent destruction. While some concerns are, of course, valid, sweeping assumptions that this sequel “breaks the canon” or “ruins” the original stories of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra are premature. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clearer that Seven Havens in fact fits Avatar’s themes of transience, unity, sacrifice, perseverance, and balance.
The Avatar series has always reflected how the real world changes over time.
Seven Havens could have been a safe and likely boring series with nostalgic bait hankering constantly back to the original series. Or it could have been a serviceable follow-up to The Legend of Korra, but see the world technologically evolve even more into one that resembles ours and potentially dilute the fantasy. But like The Legend of Korra before it, it is already taking the Avatar’s world in a bold and striking direction. The creators decided to break and renew their world’s very foundations and have already had copious room for new and original storytelling in the Avatar franchise.
While many franchises are lagging into staleness, obscurity, and boredom, Avatar Seven Havens offers something fresh and exciting. While the era of Aang was dire with the Fire Nation’s empire, Seven Havens provides a new take on the world in complete apocalyptic flux, making the story directions it could take boundless, particularly with the new Avatar uncovering the answers that fans already have.
How exactly has humanity adapted to its new dire state? Will they work with spirits to survive? What happened to Avatar Korra’s friends and family? What was the cataclysm exactly, and what was Avatar Korra’s role in it? On that particular last point, we know that Korra had to restart the Avatar cycle without access to her past lives, meaning that the new Avatar will only be able to communicate with Korra. This makes for an even more intriguing prospect of storytelling as the two must refound the Avatar cycle.
The loss of the Four Nations isn’t that surprising given that Avatar has always reflected our real world, drawing from not only East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian, Indigenous American, and other cultures but also their histories. The Fire Nation’s war on the world, for example, is based on Imperialist Japan and US neoconservatism. Virtually no nation or civilization on earth has remained static, changing in borders, systems of government, political systems, and more.
It’s too early to assume the worst about Korra.
Empires always rise and fall, and oppressed peoples always seek liberation. Likewise, the Four Nations have not always existed in the Avatar’s world, forming only after the proliferation of the bending arts and the separation of the human and spirit worlds in Avatar Wan’s time. Now, with Seven Havens, the titular strongholds are simply the next incarnation of human civilization.
We began seeing the United Republic of Nations change in Avatar Korra’s time. Last we left Korra in her series, she left the Spirit Portals open, allowing spirits and humans to enter each other’s worlds freely and, more crucially, reviving the Air Nation by awakening Airbending in hundreds of people. While her actions might have brought about some chaos, they were necessary to save a culture that Sozin nearly entirely eradicated in his genocide.
Further, in the previous Avatar, it should be clear that her creators would never actively demean Korra’s character by having her actively want to harm the world in any way. Korra is a core character of the franchise, and they put copious amounts of work into her storyline, particularly in learning to let go of her ego and become a more spiritually balanced Avatar.
It will more likely than not be revealed that Korra, by the end of her life, simply had to do something drastic to save the world from a worse fate and, in doing so, created a new status quo for humans and spirits alike. Unfortunately, her necessary actions to reshape the world and effectively abolish the Four Nations earned her and her successor the title “humanity’s destroyer.”
But that would be a sacrifice Korra was willing to make. When she started out in her series, she wanted to be an undisputed hero going on fun adventures, not grasping the sacrifices she would be required to make as the Avatar. Her journey in the show was all about internalizing and growing from that. Korra learns her duty of balancing the world requires sacrificing any ego and preconceived notions on what the Avatar is supposed to be. Thus, she wouldn’t care less if she were viewed as a villain for her actions to save the world, for there would still be a world to save. By this logic, the creators are not in any way “ruining Korra’s character.”
Avatar Seven Havens sticks to the series thematic throughline.
What was the initial cause of the shattering cataclysm? A shattering earthquake? A vengeful evil spirit ravaging the entire world? Did Sozin’s Comet crash into Earth and split it open? We will surely discover exactly what happened throughout Seven Havens, as our new Avatar must save the world again, making it even more exciting to watch.
In keeping with the Avatar tradition of fixing mistakes accidentally caused by the previous Avatar (such as Roku and Aang, with the former failing to stop Sozin), the new Avatar must fix the mess that Korra had to leave behind. From that perspective, Avatar Seven Havens simply magnifies a story aspect that was already there, albeit to drastic levels. But once it debuts, it will likely look just the right level of drastic for its revolutionary story.
When analyzed with closer inspection and understanding of the trajectory of the Avatar’s universe, Avatar Seven Havens fits more in line with the series than it might initially appear to even the most diehard fans. Of course, the series could still go either way regarding overall quality. Still, based on what we know now, the potential is full of possibilities for rich and exciting quality storytelling. But above all, it’s refreshing and bold. And those are the stories we need most today.
What are your thoughts on the announcement of Avatar Seven Havens? Is it a natural follow-up to Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra or does it stray too much? Let us know on Bluesky at @butwhytho.net.
