Avatar the last airbender gay marriage

The Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise always tackled difficult issues and big concepts, and The Legend of Korra comics expanded on those issues by revealing that the Fire Lord who first set the Hundred Year War in motion wasn't just genocidal; he was homophobic. But the latest installment in the franchise, Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Gameintroduces a new character to Avatar lore who sheds light on Sozin's reasons for his intolerance: his sister had a same-sex relationship with an Airbender.

Well, he’s definitely evil! - Bryke and LGBT issues in LOK comics

Just who is this cool chi-blocking defector from the Fire Nation, and how does her existence change everything we knew about Sozin? Fire Lord Sozin was always a towering tyrannical force in the Avatar franchise. First launching the Hundred Year War that began with the Air Nomad genocide, the more the audience learned about the Fire Lord, the less there was to like.

He began the practice of hunting dragons, driving them to near-extinction, and abandoned his friend Avatar Roku in his moment of greatest desperation during his old age. In The Legend of Korra comic Turf Warsfans learned that he even banned same-sex marriage, but it wasn't until the recent release of the Avatar Legends core book that fans gained much insight into what Sozin's motivations could have possibly been.

In the original series episode "The Avatar and the Fire Lord," Sozin touted his reasons for war as a desire to "share" the wealth and culture of the Fire Nation with the rest of the world. The propaganda he disseminated following the war portrayed the Air Nomads he hunted down as murderous and conspiratorial monsters he needed to protect the world from.

But Avatar Legends introduced a new character to the franchise that casts far more personal motivations on Sozin's actions. Princess Zeisan was Sozin's non-bending sister, and her abdication avatar the last airbender gay marriage her royal status combined with her romantic relations with an Air Nun put everything about Sozin's actions in a new light.

Princess Zeisan is one of Avatar Legends ' most unique charactersdescribed as growing up with an antagonistic relationship with her brother and eventually abdicating her royal titles to pursue Air Nomad training with an Air Nun named Sister Rioshon. Rioshon was a master chi-blocker who passed her skills on to Zeisanand as they trained together, they eventually fell in love.

Yet it seems that Zeisan's lessons in spiritual detachment did not exorcise her desire to topple her own family's dynasty, and she eventually arranged a political marriage to a leading member of the Air Nomads' Guiding Wind in order to destabilize her brother's influence throughout the Fire Nation.

Especially given the Guiding Wind's antagonistic relationship with Sozin's regime, as the group set themselves on divorcing the Air Nomads from the politics and material concerns of the Four Nations, there was now more reason than ever to see the motivations behind Sozin's later actions.

After fostering such a venomous relationship with his sister, it is possible to understand Sozin's demonization of the Air Nomads and outlawing of same-sex marriages as far more than just political tactics to further the Fire Nation's influence. Avatar has always been a franchise that shows the complex motivations that make even its most villainous figures more than flatly evil tyrants.

Avatar Legends fleshes Sozin out better than ever before, and it does so by giving fans Princess Zeisan, who stands out as one of the most intriguing characters introduced to the franchise in years. Sign in now.