Aaron Ehasz Reveals More Details About the Canned 4th Season of AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER
Several months ago, fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender found out some plans that head writer Aaron Ehasz had for a fourth season of the series. Those details talked about a redemption arc for Azula which could have been interesting. Well, at San Diego Comic-Con, Den of Geek caught up with Ehasz while he was promoting The Dragon Prince and asked for more details about this canned fourth season of ATLA. Here’s what Ehasz said:
“In my mind I was always thinking this was going to be a four season arc. Mike and Bryan’s initial plan was three seasons, but there was a period where they were open to the possibility of a fourth season. There was a period where Mike said, “Hey, can you run season four?” Then some of those plans got interrupted.
My feeling about that was like there’s always a cost, right? There’s always some balance. You can’t just be like I’m the Avatar, taking your powers away. It’s a great power, but part of it is you just took all this evil into you. To take it away from someone else you’re holding onto it to protect the world.
The story I wanted to tell with Aang was about him struggling with taking some of that inside and probably a considerable amount of anger and guilt and big feelings. By the way, guess who would be the best person to have a mini vacation with? It’s Zuko! Someone who’s processed a lot of anger on his own, right?”
Ehasz also told them that there would be storylines about Iroh in the spirit world and people thinking a newborn was an Airbender that Aang would think is Gyatso reincarnated.
“[A] story about a child being born that people were wondering if this was another Airbender or not. In particular Aang started to wonder if this was the reincarnation of Gyatso. That was something I wanted to do and talk about the idea of friendships lasting beyond lifetimes.”
First, I love the allusion to the famous Zuko trips that happened in the third season of the show that helped the main characters bond with Zuko. Second, I love this idea of showing more of a consequence to Aang taking away Ozai’s bending. While I do not think the show needed a fourth season and I don’t want it to be revived for a fourth season, it could’ve been interesting to see this fourth season play out with these arcs.