Avatar: The Last Airbender’s Aang remains a controversial character as many fans question if he really has not killed anybody despite the amount of fights and battles he has gone through. Surely, he has the skills and wits to control every element, but what about those who are not gifted like him?
The question still lingers: has Aang killed anyone? The general answer would be no, not explicitly. But certainly, fans cannot say he is completely innocent. Even though he is the Avatar and he follows certain tenets, he has still hurt a lot of people.
Reddit Fans Weigh In On Aang’s Total Number Of Kills
Avatar fans took their sentiments to Reddit and discussed Aang’s number of kills. One user noticed that the character did a lot of violent actions throughout the show, which implies that he could have killed some of them.
“I’ve noticed a few things that I never noticed before. The most important one is how many people Aang kills. I haven’t been counting, but I’ve noticed he’s thrown tons of people into the Arctic and Antarctic oceans. This isn’t immediate death, but it would be hard to survive. Also, in the Episode ‘Avatar Day,’ Aang throws one of the Rough Rhinos off of a cliff.”
It seems like Aang does a lot of throwing, doesn’t he? Another fan agreed with the original poster and quipped how the famed Avatar kept pronouncing himself innocent when he had been running around trying to take down Fire Lord Ozai.
“This is why I dislike Aang a little bit. He was so worried about killing Ozai and he kept saying that he’s never killed anyone, but he’s killed probably around hundreds.”
The issue is definitely debatable as there are factors to consider. Since people have not been explicitly seen murdered by Aang on the screen, the creators of the show certainly wanted to leave it all to the viewers’ imaginations.
The Avatar Did Not Fight With The Intention Of Killing
Meanwhile, another Reddit fan defended Aang and his methods. For this one, the answer lies in the intention. They could say that beating up guys is his form of self-preservation during intense confrontations.
“He says that he only uses violence for necessary defense, and has certainly never used it to take a life. My interpretation of this is that he has never gone into a battle with the express propose of killing someone.”
The original poster shared a specific example so other people could get the point.
“At the North Pole, his actions no doubt led to some deaths, but his goal wasn’t to kill them. He was defending the Water Tribe. During the eclipse, his goal was to defeat the Fire Nation. This one is more of an attack, but he still had only set out to put a stop to the Hundred Year War which is kinda defense of the world. During Sozin’s Comet, he had to go into battle with the goal being a dead Ozai.”
Aang is a complicated character that challenges the image of the Avatar. As to how many people he exactly killed, one will never know.
Avatar: The Last Airbender animated and live-action series are streaming on Netflix.
