Aang

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Character
Name: Aang
Occupation: Avatar
Relationships: Katara (love interest/wife) Bumi, Tenzin, Kya (children)
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Other:
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Aang is the protagonist of the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. He is voiced by Zach Tyler Eisen.

Canon

Aang is the Avatar - the only person who can use all four types of bending (a form of elemental magic inspired by martial arts) - and the last airbender after the others were massacred by the Fire Nation. He becomes frozen in an iceberg while attempting to run away from the Southern Air Temple, and is broken free by Katara, his canonical love interest. Aang is a cheerful character who initially struggles with his duty as Avatar, though he eventually overcomes this as he grows and steps into the role.

Fandom

Aang has been the target of Hero Bashing. This bashing is often related to the canon Kataang pair 'getting in the way of the way of' Zutara, which was the most popular fanon pairing up until 2020. While rare, it's not unheard of for an "Aang-antis" (as referred to by the fandom) to not ship Zutara. As a result of this bashing, recently an additional Tumblr tag was created for the character, "aanglove" so that fans who enjoy the character can browse content without running into mistagged hate.

This relatively low popularity among fans has led to Aang being sidelined in fanworks, despite being the protagonist of the series. For example, the "Aang-centric" tag on AO3 has less than 50 works as of 2/7/21, while the tag Zuko-centric has over 700 fanworks. This disparity is also found in the overall popularity of ships, though most ships in the fandom fall behind the runaway popularity of Zutara and as of 2020, Zukka.

This lack of popularity is most prominent within the Avatar X AU trope in fanworks, where another character is given the role of Avatar. Zuko is the most popular character for this trope, but there have been instances of both Avatar Sokka and Avatar Katara AUs as well. In these works Aang is often portrayed as either an ordinary airbender, or having died in either the Air Nomad Genocide or the iceberg he becomes frozen in before the start of the series.

Shipping

  • Aang/Katara - Kataang: The most popular Aang pairing, as well as the canon pairing. Kataang, like most parts of the fandom involving Aang, has a small-to-decently sized passionate following.
  • Aang/Zuko – Zukaang: The most popular m/m pairing for Aang, with most of the other pairings having under 25 works on AO3 as of 2/7/21.
  • Aang/Toph Beifong – Taang
  • Aang/Azula – Azulaang

Fanworks

Fanfiction

Fanart

Meta

Links & Resources

References

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