Hotzo Thotzo

One thing I remember thinking when I watched Legend of Korra all those years ago was just how tragic it must have been for Tenzin to inevitably become the last Airbender just like Aang did, but having no experiences of how the Air Nomads and Air Nation in general used to be. Aang at the very least had the benefit of spending his younger years growing amongst other Air Nomads, playing games and flying in groups, meditating and participating in the everyday culture they still had before the genocide.

Tenzin had Aang, he had his father for many years, but that’s it. There were no old monks to imbue wisdom, no crowded festivals and feasts, no other air-bending children to play with, no voices to add into songs, no way to recall their lyrics if Aang didn’t know them fully, no memories of people filling the air temples. Aang saw them buzzing with activity as a child. Tenzin saw them empty of any airbenders. And the Acolytes are there, but they can’t race you on air scooters when Aang has other duties to attend to. They can be there, but they can’t understand, and that had to have been so horribly lonely.

Jinora’s tattoo ceremony was of course a lovely moment in the show, but then you think of how it must have been for Tenzin. His father and his daughter both had other airbenders present and performing the ceremony in restored temples with plenty of company. Tenzin’s ceremony must have been so painfully empty of a-lot of that. Did Aang have to access previous Avatars to tattoo Tenzin properly? To even perform the ceremony? Did Tenzin look out at any who watched and saw only onlookers watching like he was a spectacle if they weren’t his close family and friends? Did they see this teenager standing there and ooh and ahh at seeing the only two living airbenders in the entire world?

And then Aang dies, and suddenly Tenzin is the last Airbender. Do you think he had to be hyper-paranoid everytime he left the island, knowing that any threat or accident against his life would mean the end of airbending? Knowing that if he died, the next Avatar would have no airbending teacher, and what about the next Air Nation Avatar? Would there no longer be one? All the remaining tendrils of a culture and people entirely dependent through Aang’s word of mouth and archaic trips to crumbled temples and old relics, resting entirely on Tenzin’s shoulders. And yes, his siblings are absolutely Air Nomads, but they still cannot shoulder the responsibility of keeping air-bending itself alive. And what of personal freedom? Tenzin had to represent the Air Nation. He’s the only air-bender alive, who else can represent them politically? The years of political training regardless of if he ever truly wanted to have that job.

I can only imagine how hard it was to make any kind of friends. Nobody can play with you in the way your body is wired to want to. You’ll see groups of Fire Benders, and Earth Benders, and Water Benders, and even Non-Benders, surely, all celebrating in the city, in their Kingdoms and Tribes, and here you are as this single tattooed orange and yellow blinking beacon that screams “look at me, I’m the only one, I’m different, you’ll only ever know me for what I’m the last remainder of.”

Do you think Tenzin sat and watched Pro-Bending matches growing up and seeing how celebrated bending was, except for his, because there’d never be enough air-benders to join a single team, let alone multiple teams. That if he ever wanted to play and hear crowds cheering with joy and feel the fun of the game, that he could never be allowed to?