The Promise: The Omnibus (Parts 1-3)

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism, graphic violence, and death. In particular, this section deals with issues of colonialism, cultural appropriation, and genocide.

Aang is the protagonist of both The Promise and the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. He was raised as a monk at the Southern Air Temple and was a talented airbender from the start. After the previous Avatar, Roku, was killed, Aang was informed at a very young age by the senior monks that he was the next Avatar. They said he needed to begin training in earnest to master the other three elements and defeat the warmongering Fire Lord Sozin. This responsibility scared him, leading him to run away from home with his flying bison, Appa. Ironically, the decision to run away from the temple is what saved him from Fire Lord Sozin’s genocide against the air nomads and ultimately allowed him to defeat Fire Lord Ozai a century later.

In The Promise, Aang assumes his role as the arbiter of global harmony, leading the effort to help heal the world after a century of war. He is initially convinced that the only way to achieve this is by forcibly removing Fire Nation colonials from the Earth Kingdom.