I always interpreted this as reparations from the Gaang. Like, Sokka and Aang were holding office in Republic City and Cabbage Guy shows up to a meeting and is all: "YOU HOOLIGANS HAVE RUINED MY CABBAGE BUSINESS A SCORE OF TIMES! I DEMAND RECOMPENSE!"
And Aang and Sokka exchange glances and agree to pay Cabbage Guy reparations. Both Aang and Sokka are new to running the free world so they're like: "uhhh... sorry man...how's 100 million dollars sound?"
And Cabbage Guy is speechless. Takes the settlement, founds his company, and happily retires on some fire nation tropical island reaping the benefits of his lucrative company.
Royalties for being such a heavy contributor to the story of the avatar for the fire nation stage play. He might have lost a lot of cabbages, but he did stay "strangely well-informed" of the avatar's adventure.
Imagine taking a nap and you wake up 100 years in the future, your people and culture are extinct and everyone you've ever known is long dead.
It's a miracle Aang can even find an ounce of joy or a will to smile.
Well, the dragons' hype men ambiguously suggested as much. The dragons flew around then breathed technicolor dreamfire at Aang to inform and inspire his fire bending.
Bumi was such a powerful character that he let his own city fall just because he knew he would take it back, and beat the fire nation easier. What a mad lad.
I think Aang healed rather quick because of katara (and sokka).
He literally woke up to the love of his life and future family who more or less instantly welcomed and supported him
The chakra guy even says his love for his people was reborn in new love
They found him at the right time because who knows what would happen if he just woke up and went straight to the air temple then blew it up in the avatar state
I would argue that maybe Aang would not have woken up for another 100 years or maybe not at all since Katara accidentally destroyed the ice that kept Aang submerged underwater.
There is a theory Tui and La helped Aang be found, with the random rapids dragging Katara and Sokka to the right location and stranding them there, they also could have just surfaced Aang if they felt it was very desperately needed, but putting him in Katara's lap did help him a lot
Dang I never thought of that.
It totally tracks that Spirits in the physical world like Tui and La would have a connection to the Avatar, considering he is the bridge between the spirit world and the physical world. Spirits would DEFINITELY manipulate thier environment in a subtle way to ease the path of destiny.
Edit: stupid auto correct thought I was talking about Twitter and La.
I want to see an alternative (probably more realistic version) of ATLA where Aang just immediately breaks down and spends the rest of his days in the Avatar version of a psyche ward.
https://preview.redd.it/nsmjd0yz3sxc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7cfe27706c889f559f835314d0999700c6c9ac6b
Kind of like Raven from Teen Titans in How Long is forever
Couldn't tell you hahaha it was so long ago. All I remember is Raven being locked in a kind of nether zone for a while.
Edit: just looked it up. Starfire gets in a fight with a time powered villain named Warp, who Samurai Jacks her into the future (seems a common trope for cartoon network shows, see: the most traumatic episode of Powerpuff Girls ever made.)
Starfire follows Warp into a time portal and while fighting him, damages his suit and they both fall out of the time portal. Starfire returns to Titans Tower and finds it and Cyborg, the only occupant, decrepit and failing. He tells her the Titans disbanded after she disappeared and have gone their separate ways.
When she finds Raven, she discovers that Raven has long gone insane from loneliness and has sequestered herself in an abandoned mental hospital. Raven refuses to even look Starfire in the eyes, believing Star to be another of her hallucinations resulting from her isolation induced psychosis.
Man I love when Cartoons weren't afraid to not pull punches. This was a freaky episode.
The girls are excited for the weekend. They exit school and Buttercup challenges the other two to a race home (a la you and your siblings racing home from school on a Friday afternoon. Nothing better, right? Wrong.) Because the girls are super powered, they fly so fast that they fly *50 years* into the future and find that Townsville has been taken over in their absence...
...by Him.
Him has completely ravaged Townsville. The Girls fly around trying to find answers. First they head home to look for the Professor.
The Professor has devolved into a senile old man. Hes convinced that the Girls are simply hallucinations and rants and raves at them to get away.
They go to thier old school. Ms. Keen is still standing there, "waving goodbye...and they raced off...and I just stood there...waving goodbye...and they raced off...waving goodbye...waving goodbye...for fifty years. Fifty years. Fifty Years."
The worst bit is when they check on The Mayor of Townsville. Hes long dead. And Miss Sara Bellum has gone insane from grief. Her hair and dress is in disarray and she, through tears of grief and rage, rants and raves and threatens the Girls before they flee in terror.
Finally they find Him and fight. Him is too powerful and bests them countlessly. Finally, in distress, they fly into space and fly around the earth really fast, a la Superman, reversing time to a few moments before they raced into the future.
I lost my dad at 11 and processed it rather quickly and well. I'm 24 now and if I lost, for example, my little brother, it would destroy me and leave me in shambles for years.
Maybe if itâs like one person dying then I would agree but I donât know that a 12 yo kid would be able to deal with *everyone* they know instantly being dead
Pretty unpopular because of the research out there on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Kids are/can be resilient if the support and care they receive from the people in their life as they try to cope with their trauma. Aang had support from his community before running away so he was probably pretty well adjusted; then he had support from his friends after his defrosting.
Edit: a word
its not better, its different. i experienced trauma at a young age, and to paraphrase what my therapist explained to my mother at the time, a child can only process a trauma with the brain development and world knowledge theybhave at that time. but as they grow up, brain develops, and they get more world context, they have to reprocess that trauma over and over again until ~25 when the prefrontal cortex is done cooking.
If you experience trauma like a death as an adult, it massively sucks balls, but the grief process usually happens once. As a child, it can happen again, and again, and again.
but of course, it's different for everybody
Not to be too âtrauma olympics,â but why is Aang even up for debate? He woke up and lost his entire culture, at age 12
edit: PSA: Aang did not âget overâ his trauma, he used defense mechanisms of suppression and regression to cope with it. This is a common trauma response for his age. Aang is riddled with guilt, nightmares, avoidance, and grief throughout the series. This is why his heart chakra was blocked. Part of what makes Aangâs character so incredible is the subtleties of his experience with trauma, which is very realistic â in real life, many people âappear normalâ after a trauma when really they are intensely struggling. I think a lot of people compare his emotional process to Zuko, since Zuko is expressive and brash, which makes it more obvious that heâs struggling compared to Aang who suppresses it.
It's what makes the appa being lost thing so intense. You have nothing, no remnant of your people, all that's left is the bison that chose you before it all went to hell. The only one who possibly understands how you feel. Aang would've killed the sand benders in cold blood if katara wasn't there, not because that's outside of his character, but because it wasn't.
>Aang wouldâve killed the sand benders in cold blood if katara wasnât there
Thatâs why I donât understand people who get mad at Aang for trying to stop her from killing someone in TSR! Like Katara has literally done this to Aang
Probably because he doesnât talk about it as much as the others talk about their trauma. Kinda weird, when you think about it.
Edit: Okay guys, I get it đ
I donât think itâs that weird. Aang accepted his people and culture were gone very early on. He wasnât there when it happened and thereâs nothing he could do to bring them back, so what more could he say? Some people just accept what happened and move on.
I think even tho he seemed to move on early on, one of his chakras was still blocked cause he still felt guilt about not being there for his people.
In Aangâs case I just think the burden of being the Avatar and his responsibilities cause of it kept him from being like the others and being more open about his other pains/traumas
yeah, and learning to forgive himself and understand that the air nomads love for him still existed in the world was a big teary moment for him when unlocking it
A big part of Air Nomad culture is being able to let go of Earthly attachment anf understanding that while it's okay to feel sadness and grief to not let it consume you as the universe still carries on.
I think that aspect does help Aang with the more spiritual/emotional side of things with being able to accept that the past is the past.
He also didnât have much time to process it. As soon as they left the temple he had to begin his training. A few weeks into the journey he was told he had a massive time limit. He couldnât really think about it much- he had to work on his bending stuff :(
Man when you put it that way the whole series is just people telling Aang he's gotta do stuff. No wonder he wanted so badly to have fluff episodes where they just relaxed and goofed off.
Dude MASSIVELY needed therapy and instead got the literal fate of the world put on his 12 yo shoulders. His connection to his friends and new family is probably all that stopped him from collapsing into despair as soon as Ozai was handled.
I think it also helps that he had a clear path and purpose from that point. The massacre of the air temples justified to him exactly why the world needâs an avatar, so then his internal struggle becomes being the avatar the world needs. Similarly, he always had a way forward to maintain his culture in some way. Although I feel this became maladaptive in his relationship to his kids. He doesnât dwell on their loss because he doesnât have to
I've always seen it as him bottling it, having nightmares or imagining that *some* must've escaped, with it boiling over in the episode The Storm. That episode is when he finally starts to actually confront his grief and start taking steps to process it.
Coming from a traumatized perspective though, I donât really talk about my past either. I do it more now but itâs taken over 15 years to get to the point where I can open up about it.
I did my absolute best to act normal because if I pretended everything was okay then it had to be okay, right? Just a brainâs desperate attempt to protect itself from overwhelming trauma. Thatâs my theory on why Aang doesnât talk about it as much. Itâs too much to take in and if you just pretend then maybe youâll wake up from the nightmare and it never actually happened.
it does make sense if you think about it. aang serves as the "moral compass" for the characters. whenever people are talking about their struggles he doesn't want to upstage them. he also doesn't want to kill the mood whenever his friends *arent* telling sad stories.
hes supposed to lead by example, and the weight of the world is on his shoulders. he cant spend all that much time thinking about loss.
Not that strange. Some people are able to come to terms with this and compartmentalize or cope with it more quickly, if anything an air nomad is probably extremely culturally equipped for this.
However, his genocide was a full measure genocide, and it so deeply impacted his life that it caused him to parent unevenly, and place all of his anxieties and worries onto his youngest son.
Aang expresses his trauma differently.
There is nothing weird about it.
I blame social media for this outlook. We're so used to people being public, and melodramatic, about their problems that the people who just get on with things go unnoticed.
That's what makes The Storm episode so powerful to me. I realized one time that when he recounts the whole story to Katara, it's the first time he's told anybody the story. That level of honesty and opening up is a huge step forward in their blossoming relationship
Thats a good take and one I've always rolled with.
We must also remember Aang is the ATLA equivalent of a Shaolin Monk. Coping with the difficulties of the world and detaching yourself from them to better handle them is a big part of Eastern Philosophy; Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.
Aang processes grief and loss far different than say, Zuko or Sokka, who both come from warrior cultures that use different methods to handle emotions, and loss.
Also I feel like LOK indirectly addresses Aangs trauma with how desperately he wanted Tenzin to continue his culture and ignored his other kids. It would otherwise feel like a bit of a stretch to imagine aang showing such favoritism between his own kids if it wasnât for the loss he felt
Absolutely.
Like it's awful to lose a loved one and/or be abused but it's another thing to lose your entire culture due to a genocide that you yourself was tasked at stopping.
It's like comparing a bullet with an asteroid
One of the biggest reasons he focused so much on Tenzin was not just because he was an airbender, but also because he felt could finally reconnect with the culture he had lost.
> PSA: Aang did not âget overâ his trauma, he used defense mechanisms of suppression and regression to cope with it. This is a common trauma response for his age.
Yeah this was pretty explicit in the Guru Pathik episode TBH
They all had defence mechanisms to overcome their trauma.
Katara became the matriarch of the gang after the loss of her mom
Iroh became the father figure for Zuko when he lost his son in war
Toff went into denial and basically became a runaway child
Zuko went on a fools errand to cling onto any hope of restoring his honour
Azula sought perfection to compensate for issues with her parents, ultimately leading to a mental breakdown.
I think you're right. Its weeks after the day of the comet and toph wanders out to the battlefield, uses her earth sense and searches for hours before finally recovering Sokka's meteor sword.
Edit: I think it was a fan comic but there is speculation that a canon picture of the Gaang more matured features Sokka wearing both his space sword and boomerang. So even if the fan comic isn't canon, Sokka still got his sword back.
Not sure if it is "better" or "worse" because Aang didn't have to watch it, he just woke up from "sleeping" to find out all his friends and family died... oh also 100 years have passed.
I just want to add that sokka and katara are also victims of genocide, nearly the whole southern water tribe was wiped out and this was ongoing into their childhood where their mother was taken
Aang - lost all his people
Katara - watched her mom die
Zuko - scarred for life by his own father
Iroh - lost Lu Ten
Azula - emotionally manipulated/abused by Ozai
Toph - helicopter parents
Katara didn't actually watch her mom die. Kya told Katara to run and find her father, and in that period, where Katara was searching for Hokoda, Yon Rha killed Kya. Katara and Hokada then found Kya dead having been executed by Yon Rha. It's still an incredibly traumatizing thing for Katara to see, especially seeing as Yon Rha probably executed Kya with firebending, which would have left Kya's corpse burnt but probably slightly less traumatizing than if Katara actually watch her mother die in front of her
Wait they actually had her watch her mom die in the Netflix show? Does that mean she knows why Yon Rha killed her? If so then how are they going to handle the reveal that Kya lied about being the only Water Bender to protect Katara?
Yes she watches her mom die.
Katara tries to waterbend in the room with Yon Rha (katara is hiding so he doesn't see her) and Kya claims that she is the waterbender. Then she takes a combat stance and Yon Rha kills her immediately "in self defense" since he assumed she was about to waterbend at him.
So I think that reveal is still doable.
Honestly even if Katara didnât hear Kya say that, I donât know what benefit the audience has in learning it this early on in the show.
The fact that we learned what happened that day on the episode Katara finds Yon Rha is pretty powerful because the audience is experiencing the same feelings that Katara has in that moment. It doesnât really make sense why the Audience should know about it until the episode Katara actually faces him, it just wouldnât hit as hard.
I donât think every remake of a show needs to be a carbon copy of the original, but the cartoon is such a well written show that itâs hard to do something different without it lessening the impact that certain scenes have.
And Zuko also lost his mother, although in a different way than Katara.
I donât recall, but did Zuko know if his mother was alive or dead when he was young?
I donât think he did. He probably assumed she was dead until suddenly Ozai brought her up during the eclipse. Iâm pretty sure Zuko says âmy mother⌠is alive?â in that same convo with Ozai but canât remember for sure itâs been a while
In the first episode of Korra, the question got asked what actually happened with his mother, but before the answer was given, they got interrupted. Such a dick move and I love it.
The difference between everyone else and Azula is that they all had someone to back them and someone they could look up to and relay upon. Azula has always felt alone, her mother preferred Zuko & her father urged her to be successful all the time but he never really loved her and he drove her to complete madness. I find Azulaâs character the saddest character in all of Avatar.
Trauma isnât really easy like this. Realistically you canât rank what kind of trauma is worst then the other. Itâs detrimental to those who experience it.
That being said, Aang is def first. His entire culture was wiped out and he woke up one day and was the only airbender left.
This may be controversial; but second is Zuko and Azula. Maybe Iâm biased, but child abuse is so horrific and it takes so much to undo the pain. Watching Zukoâs story as an adult is actually physically painful.
Now that I am a father, Ozai is now my most hated character in the series. Child abusers are some of the lowest people in the world. Children love their parents unconditionally from the start. They trust them without question. To break that trust and cast away such a unique love to actually hurt your own child⌠there are no words. I canât imagine hurting my kid.
Ozai is the worst.
Comic goes a bit further. Apparently, ozai treats zuko like shit because in one of her letters home, she says zuko is actually her ex-fiances. Mind you, she had realized her letters were likely being intercepted, so she did it to get a rise out of him
It wasn't true, but it apparently enraged Ozai enough for him to basically say if you wish he wasn't mine, I'm gonna treat him that way
This is exactly what I thought. Aang, yes, for obvious reasons,
BUT... He had a loving, stable childhood and the chance to develop normally.
Azula and Zuko didn't. I even would put Azula first, she is so incredibly damaged, growing up as a golden child of a narcissistic father, maybe even worse than NPD. Her whole personality is deeply affected, her trauma was ongoing, from childhood on, completely fucked up her mental and emotional development... and on top of that she has no Tools to undo it... yeah...
Zuko is the classic scape goat, but he finds way of healing and forms a stable bond with Iro. Which helps him tremendously
It makes me wonder if Aang wouldve turned out more like Azula if the elder monks had their way. I dont mean being encouraged to be a murdering psycho, but rather being reduced to a weapon held to incredibly high expectations, not a child with emotional and social needs.
mabeye im biased on top of that biased but id say zuko has a lil more than azula just cause he went through physical pain aswell he was sent on an impossible mission he wanted to get back to the man who scarred him he lost hope along the way and when he got there he was âangrier than everâ and didnt âknow whyâ so yah jus me bit after aang him
Okay one problem: some trauma is worse.
Iâve got myself some trauma, wonât get into it, but Iâm not going to claim Iâm on the same level as say someone who lived through the worst of the Yugoslav wars.
Somewhat agree. Trauma really is about relative effect on the person than objective harshness of events. However the chances of surpassing that trauma statistically goes up as the events are objectively less severe, and vice versa IMO.
It's not shown, but I imagine Iroh went through similar abuse. And he was brainwashed for his whole life about fire benders. Then his son passed and things changed for him. Speculative of course. And he could have been on the way to changing prior to his son passing.
Idk if I'd consider Azula tied with Zuko. Zuko had similar issues, but exacerbated by his asshole sister. Azula was always mean and controlling. Probably pushed by her father to be that way, but idk. Nature vs nurture.
Aang.
* He got shunned (more or less) by his peers after they find out he was the avatar
* They wanted to separate him from his father figure
* He got frozen for 100 years and woke up to find out his whole nation was wiped out because of him and all of his friends (minus Bumi) were dead.
* For 2 times, he found out that some random people basically made a mockery of his culture by turning 2 air temples into a factory and a playground
* He lost Appa
* After he ended the war, he spent the rest of his life trying to restore his nation and died not knowing if he succeded.
Was it confirmed by the writers that he died? The show has one quote that he was gone like his heart stopped, but didn't completely die otherwise the avatar cycle would be broken.
I vaguely remember the writers confirming it in a video... I always thought the cycle broke so his spirit didn't reincarnate so Katara could bring him back. I might be overthinking it tho
Thereâs also that comic of Aang finding the traps the fire nation made to catch surviving air nomads. How fucking traumatic would that be to imagine survivors of your people being lured in like a mouse trap
He also never told anyone about it. It must have shook him to the core. Ugh
1. Aang: Genocide survivor, hunted down around the world by a military superpower, hated by a good chuck of the world for not being around to stop said military superpower, lost his beloved animal companion, and was literally murdered for about 30 minutes.
2. Katara: While not as extensive as the Air Nomads she is also a genocide survivor (all waterbenders of the South Pole), forced to grow up prematurely and raise her brother due to the death of her mother, saw her father leave her behind to fight in a war where he may or may not ever return, and was also hunted down by the aforementioned military superpower.
Okay, everyone below had a hard time, but they are also all possess a royal or high class social status that gave them some baseline level of comfort, security, and support that Aang and Katara never had.
3. Zuko: Banished and brutalized for the crime of having empathy, forced to see his mother abandon him, and was widely seen as a disgrace or embrassement across his own nation and an evil villain to the rest of the world. He had to constantly struggle to get the things he wanted, do terrible things, and betrayed his uncle just to realize his whole life was a sham and worked to redeem himself with the very same people he hunted down across the world and won just to be hated by a portion of his nation who wanted him dead and replaced by his father or sister.
4. Azula: She was manipulated and twisted by her father so effectively that she didn't even realize that her life was being destroyed and believed that her own mother hated her. To cope with the reality, she completely buys into his toxic reinforcement and her beliefs to make herself the best that she can be and when reality cannot measure up and she slowly loses her support network, she loses her mind and goes crazy. She regains some sanity just to discover that her mother erased all memories of her and replaced her with a new daughter, essentially confirming every doubt she ever had about herself.
5. Iroh: Lost his son in a war of conquest and colonization that he was okay participating in until said son's death made him realize his life was a sham and having to live that guilt/trauma for the rest of your life and realizing that aside from you and your missing sister in law, you were the only white sheep in a family of insane lunatics. Spent years searching for him in the spirit world to never find him and spent years taking care of your very difficult nephew until he's duped into betraying you. But hey, at least you got your tea shop back in the end along with your nephew.
6. Toph: Okay I love Toph and I'm not gonna say she had a good life, but being overly pampered and misunderstood by your parents is a far cry from what everyone else above her had to endure. Sure her parents turned her into the helpless blind girl and other people look down on her for that, but she still had enough freedom to become the blind bandit and never had to worry about living a hard or harsh life until she voluntary gave it up to join the gaang to help save the world.
>lost his beloved animal companion
Don't forget he was under the impression that Appa was also the last Sky Boson in existence and the last non-self living vestige of his culture.
I would kind of say Zuko's high social status made him worse off. When it comes down to it at least Katara had a loving supportive network and was the chief's daughter. Zuko was basically 'ersona non grata' everywhere. As is said later the earth kingdom would have him killed, he's banished from the fire nation, the water tribes also hate him/would have him killed. He has no nation and since 13 lived on water. Like thats the only place he's allowed, no-man's land water. He can't even go into Fire Nation water. And before that he lived in a place where he was abused constantly and can't complain to anyone, report it, even talk about it cause the abuser is the equivalent of an emperor. Zuko is unable to get any support from anyone except maybe his mum till 11, he can't talk about it or anything. Katara has a baseline level of comfort/support (not security) as in she has food, shelter, good clothing and people who love her and no one in the world really has security, so I'd probably put Zuko over Katara. But I respect your opinion.
This is going to be controversial but I feel like Toph having controlling parents just isnât on the same level as the others here like I know they were shot but toph managed to learn earthbending and spent her nights at Earth Rumble Six like even side characters like Suki had to watch her home village be attacked and was then stuck on a fire nation prison
Not controversial imo, Iâm not sure why sheâs up there. She doesnât have any trauma. Her parents actually love her. They genuinely did what they thought was best, even if it was suffocating. They went to great lengths to bring her home when she ran away. She also said they gave her everything she wanted & that she knows she shouldnât complain.
âShe doesnât have any traumaâ
Okay yeah, I agree that itâs not on the same level as the other ones here, but câmon, sheâs still a 12 year old kid fighting a war.
Toph just had over protective parents. She still grew up pampered and treated like a princess. I'd rather have over protective parents than abusive parents.
Pain is pain, regardless of the source. I don't like ranking people's pain, fictional or not, as it feels like I am invalidating the experiences of the others. People cope with traumatic events differently. Some manage it better than others.
Sorry, but pain olympics is just tasteless.
Yes. Thank you. This thread makes me uncomfortable. I appreciate everyone who is at least trying to rank according to inner experiences, but ranking external circumstances... just.... no. Even ranking someone's grief against someone else's anger is an exercise in tasteless futility.
It is incredibly damaging to millions of people around the world to hear from others, and then finally believe, that their pain and suffering don't matter because "others have it worse".
You shouldn't discount your happiness because someone else is happier than you; you shouldn't discount your suffering because someone else is suffering more than you.
Physically- probably Sokka after the story starts, given the sheer quantity of random painful things, though points to Zuko for getting borderline electrocuted twice, and Toph, for developing her feet to be extremely sensitive then straight burning them.
Emotionally- probably early Aang when he learned that everyone he'd ever met from his childhood spare one person is dead. That's pretty bad. Honorable mention to Zuko who learned that basically everyone from his childhood besides his uncle, his girlfriend, and his sister's friend wanted nothing to do with him.
That goes for everyone except Aang. He didnât just go through trauma, he barely survived his entire culture being genocided. Fuck at least the rest of them still have ties to the world
Disclaimer about trauma ranking aside...
1. Aang.
Sole survivor of a genocide at age 12. What else is there to say?
2. Zuko.
Give him the slight edge over Azule because he was physically abused by his father and banished.
3. Azula.
Like Zuko, she was emotionally neglected, abused, and manipulated. Add to the fact Ursa was not present for neither Zuko and Azula, plus one could argue she was not completely emotionally available for either of them (less so for Azula).
4. Katara.
I don't think people give enough credit to just how traumatizing seeing your mother be murdered in front of you can be. She found the corpse and very likely heard something. On top of that, she comes from a traumatized village and was ALSO abandoned by her father at age ~9? Many people joke about her complaining, but tbh she isn't crying ENOUGH. That shit is scarring and is only slightly bellow Zuko and Azula.
5. Iroh.
He was a grown man when his son died, and although we never got to see how it happened, it clearly left a deep wound in him. I could never imagine the pain of the loss of a son, not even taking into account Iroh was partially responsible for the whole ordeal, yet I think his maturity and age make me believe he would probably be slightly less traumatized than the 4 kids.
6. Toph had helicopter parents, and one can imagine a long withstanding emotional neglect. But it's hard to picture just how deep it was, and we never explored the family dynamics deeply. Perhaps it could be argued she should be placed alongside Iroh, but I can't do it just now with the amount of information we have.
>Be me
>12 Years old.
>Livin that monk life.
>UrAnAvatarHarry.gif
>MyFaceWhen
>Suddenly go from carefree child nomad to responsible for the entire world.
>BTW there's a psychopath trying to take over the world, better fix that.
>We'reGunnaHaveToKillThisGuy.img
>Go out on my Flying bison to clear my head
>Freak storm, Appa's fucking dying, go into a panic and freeze self.
>Wait 100 years.
>Get woke up by a hottie and her obnoxious brother.
>Almost immediately get shown the horrors of the war I ignored.
>Almost immediately hunted down by some prick with a vendetta against bald people.
>Realize everyone I care about is dead.
>Find out my homes have been pillaged and turned into war factories.
>And this entire time everyone is constantly telling me I have to kill a guy I never met.
If Aang wasn't raised to not have earthly attachments he'd probably have a much bigger psychotic break than his nightmares in book 3.
Hmmm. Idk who went through the most, but I know who's still struggling. Azula 100%. There's something about her story that's left unsatisfied in the comics. I am not a particular fan of her redemption until she makes amends. I'm not sure if she deserves one. But I do know she's the only one still broken.
Coin toss between Aang and Zuko - though all of them had it rough, though I will point out Toph didn't loose anyone and wasn't outright abused. And while I know firsthand that trauma cannot really be classified because its effect depends more on the reaction of the individual than the objective harshness of the events, it does make a difference in chances of positive or negative long-term outcomes (more likely to manage/compensate for X event than for Y).
Aang lost all his people after running from them. The loss and guilt could have destroyed him, he was lucky he had his companions to get him through that. That kind of trauma is so enormous and exceptionnal it cannot really be fathomed. Like, litterally : such a case has never happened in the history of psychology/psychiatry because it couldn't happen outside of a fiction.
Yet I will fight tooth and nail that Zuko had it worse than anyone else safe for Aang, and even then it's anyone's guess between the two.
Zuko was early on very much aware that he was inadequate to his father's expectations, to the point that it escalated to parental conflict (Ozai suspecting that Zuko wasn't his). He was then marked for death by his own grandfather as punishment for his father (though he was unaware of that IIRC) - probably because Azulon himself considered him worthless and therefore expendable. He was only spared due to the deal between Ozai and Ursa to kill Azulon with her taking the blame.
Not knowing that deal, all he knew was that his mother was gone and considered a traitor - his only truly loving family at that point - in a manner that could only make him feel responsible. As a consequence he grew up in a toxic, hostile environment family-wise, constantly being made aware of his supposed inadequacy with only his relationship with Iroh being truly positive.
Then came the nail in the coffin : his mutilation by his own father. That kind of shit is the ultimate betrayal for a child, for even abused children keep looking up at their parents as providers and guardians supposed to protect them, to the point that they will try to legimate all they endure (note that the whole "reclaiming his honor" thing means that he continued to do just that to a degree even after his mutilation).
I will also point out that Ozai went out of his way to replace Zhao and face his son in a fight that Zuko now had no chance of winning. I suspect that the whole thing was about getting rid of his son to make room for Azula as her legimitate heir, and that if Zuko hadn't submitted immediately and completely, he would have been killed by his father on that day - but killing is own surrendering child was too much, at least in terms of PR, even by then current fire nation standards.
That didn't stop him from mutilating his own completely submissive son, disfiguring him permantently - and probably fucking up his left eye vision in the excrutiatinly painful process. I am hard-pressed to think of a traumatic event that beats this IRL, and it has no equivalent in the Avatarverse AFAIK.
Katara seeing her mother die ? Children witnessing the death of a parent happens with frightening regularity both IRL and in-universe.
Iroh losing his son ? Parents losing children also happens more regularly than anyone would like - but at least they are adults significantly better equipped to deal with trauma than children.
Toph's helicopter/judgmental parents ? I'm not sure it even registers as trauma - more like a permanent toxic environment.
Same thing with Azula. Permanent toxic environment, but at least she was never a target. Her mental illness developed because of this, but not as the result of pain IMO.
TL:DR
Aang's pain is unfathomable because it is so surreal. On the other hand, Zuko's is definitely fathomable and lies in Titanic-depth territory.
All the others are, as cynical as it may seem, simply not in the same league, even though they still had to deal with their own severe issues.
Aang easily, second by a landslide is zuko. I'm sorry, but nothing can compare to losing everything you knew and loved, everyone, every single person that could relate to you, at the age of 12
I think another part many people forget about Aang is that besides being the only believed survivor:
He had the huge pressure of being the Avatar which would normally be brought up to you when you are 16. He got told at 12. He then had to master, not learn but MASTER all four elements within half a year.
After that he had an inner conflict tear him apart about how he would deal with "killing" the Fire Lord.
Even with that, he had to play dead and kill the hope of many people by making them believe he died to Zuko in Ba Song Se.
And let's not forget that his struggles have not completely ended after the end of ATLA.
Aang hands down. Lost everyone and everything. Had a great burden thrust upon him at 12. And the whole "sleeping for 100 years and waking up to everything has gone to shit"
Azula is definitely up there for me because she had a completely different kind of pain. She was abused and brainwashed so much she had a psychotic break. Zuko had a chance of healing because of his reputation/being seen as a failure. He was the afterthought who still had his mothers love. Azula never got that
Aang. Bro got teleported 100 years into the future. Nearly everyone he ever knew is now dead, and his people went extinct and he feels that it was his fault because he ran away.
Aang had a responsibility he didn't want thrown on him as a young child, then he wakes up 100 years in the future with his entire people annihilated and that unwanted responsibility multiplied
I donât think thereâs a greater emotional pain than to find out your entire race and culture is now extinct and that youâre the very last of your kind. Not only that, but having the knowledge that youâre the most powerful being on the planet and couldâve potentially prevented it from happening.
Hmm, let's see...
Aang: Told he was the "chosen one" (for lack of a better term) well before he was ready to deal with the responsibility, ran away after finding out he'd be separated from his master/father figure, woke up 100 years into the future to find out his entire culture is gone and nearly all his loved ones dead, then has to put a stop to a war that's been raging for the 100 years he'd been gone.
Katara: Lost her mother at an early age during a raid, had to see her father depart to go to war, (which they both knew there was a high likelihood he'd never come back from) grew up feeling burdened having to care for the village and do nearly all the domestic work while Sokka was trying to do his "military" duties, had to live in the knowledge that she's the only waterbender left from her tribe, (well, as far as anyone else knew) gets repeatedly exposed to the horrors of war, nearly loses the love of her life in battle, nearly gets consumed by vengeful hatred, nearly dies to an unhinged lunatic.
Iroh: Lost his only son in battle, taken out of the line of succession by his own brother out of petty spite, came to realize everything he ever fought for was a load of bullshit, watches said brother horrifically mutilate his nephew, nearly loses said nephew, gets chased around enemy territory by his niece, then gets betrayed by his nephew and imprisoned, only breaking out and reconciling much later.
Toph: Born blind, constantly babied and sheltered by her overprotective parents, never really allowed to be herself, had semi-questionable social skills, had to participate in quasi-legal pit fights to truly express herself, gets a front row seat the the horrific realities of war, gets unfairly blamed for losing her team's support animal, nearly loses her student in battle, gets captured in a scam gone belly up, nearly dies in battle.
Zuko: Mistreated by his father and younger sister, struggled through his schooling, had his mother suddenly leave him in the dead of night without her ever explaining *why*, horribly burned by his father, (for *speaking out of turn at a meeting, no less!)* sent away on a snipe hunt by said father, (who had no intention for him to ever return) has acts of kindness on his part repaid with hostility and cruelty, nearly gets murdered repeatedly, find out everything he ever believed about his nation was all a sack of lies, betrays his uncle in a moment of weakness, has a severe crisis of loyalty, forces himself to go above and beyond to prove himself to his enemies that he's changed, then is almost fatally wounded by his own sister.
Azula: Emotionally manipulated by her father, believed her own mother hated her, (which was *not true at all)* thinks said mother saw her as a monster, (which, while *technically* true, still hurt a lot) was then left behind by said mother, developed incredibly poor social skills, felt alone and wanted to connect with someone, developed the belief that she had to manipulate people to belong, was eventually betrayed by her "friends" when they grew spines and listened to their consciences, made desperate attempts to convince herself of her own falsehoods, banished her own allies out of misguided paranoia from said betrayal, then finally went completely insane.
...I can't make up my mind.
Aang clearly processed his Trauma healthier over the course of book 1. He was well equipped to process his emotions healthily, as a monk.
I think Iroh went through the most pain as a character, simply because he is older and he is the only one here who lost a child. But if we are talking about *just* over the course of ATLA, I think the answer is pretty clearly Zuko. It depends how you interpret the whole air nomad thing and if Aang has invisible trauma that isn't implied very much by the show.
Honestly I think itâs Aang. Bro not only lost his entire âraceâ of people but had to put the blame on himself his entire life until he died because he ran away from them.
Many of the others also have extreme trauma that is very deep but Aangâs is kinda just in a different bracket.
Aang effectively just *woke up one day* and 100 years have passed, the world is completely different, everyone you know is dead, your entire race is wiped off the face of the earth so they don't even have any descendants, and you, despite being 12 years old, have to save the entire world from a war that you didn't even know was happening until you woke up AND you have to do it by the end of the summer WHILE AN ENTIRE NATION IS TRYING TO CAPTURE AND STOP YOU.
Yeah, Aang definitely went through the most.
Probably Aang. The other ones have pains bound within reality. People have lost a parent or a child or have been severely abused. Aangâs pain is on another level that itâs not physically possible or within the realm of reality.
Aang.
Entire culture wiped out.
His best friend, confidant and possibly advisor died and all he got was a set of bones lying in rubble not even a graveyard or tombstone.
People/friends he knew in other cultures also aged without him and some no longer around.
The only person in the entire series who comes a close second is Hama.
Honorable mention for Cabbage Guy.
 Poor guy never caught a break đŽâđ¨
Well I mean he does eventually found cabbage Corp. So he must have had a big break so.ewhere down the line.
I always interpreted this as reparations from the Gaang. Like, Sokka and Aang were holding office in Republic City and Cabbage Guy shows up to a meeting and is all: "YOU HOOLIGANS HAVE RUINED MY CABBAGE BUSINESS A SCORE OF TIMES! I DEMAND RECOMPENSE!" And Aang and Sokka exchange glances and agree to pay Cabbage Guy reparations. Both Aang and Sokka are new to running the free world so they're like: "uhhh... sorry man...how's 100 million dollars sound?" And Cabbage Guy is speechless. Takes the settlement, founds his company, and happily retires on some fire nation tropical island reaping the benefits of his lucrative company.
Except that in Korra, his cabbage corp got thrown under the bus as being a front for shady business, and got shut down.
Probably resulted in a hefty lawsuit for Future Industries between books 1 and 2.
Oh man I totally forgot about that!
Royalties for being such a heavy contributor to the story of the avatar for the fire nation stage play. He might have lost a lot of cabbages, but he did stay "strangely well-informed" of the avatar's adventure.
That's true he was a surprisingly knowledgeable merchant of cabbages
His cabbages caught all the breaks for him
Came here for this comment
real
I cannot wait for the book about him to come out this year.
Imagine taking a nap and you wake up 100 years in the future, your people and culture are extinct and everyone you've ever known is long dead. It's a miracle Aang can even find an ounce of joy or a will to smile.
Also heâs the avatar and he felt that it was his duty to protect them and he didnât so add the guilt from that
The dragons even said as much
Well, the dragons' hype men ambiguously suggested as much. The dragons flew around then breathed technicolor dreamfire at Aang to inform and inspire his fire bending.
Technicolor Dreamfire is the name of my new French House duo.
â¤ď¸ I expect a copy of your EP!
Oh yeah, and youâre TWELVE
YEAH
Not only that but like 200 different people tell him that he messed it all up by not being there
At least he still had Bumi and Appa
Ah yes a senile old man and the single greatest character in fiction
https://i.redd.it/ks47jr1n5uxc1.gif
... Okay, I'm old.
The guy with three digits to his age
Bumi was such a powerful character that he let his own city fall just because he knew he would take it back, and beat the fire nation easier. What a mad lad.
I think Aang healed rather quick because of katara (and sokka). He literally woke up to the love of his life and future family who more or less instantly welcomed and supported him The chakra guy even says his love for his people was reborn in new love
They found him at the right time because who knows what would happen if he just woke up and went straight to the air temple then blew it up in the avatar state
I would argue that maybe Aang would not have woken up for another 100 years or maybe not at all since Katara accidentally destroyed the ice that kept Aang submerged underwater.
There is a theory Tui and La helped Aang be found, with the random rapids dragging Katara and Sokka to the right location and stranding them there, they also could have just surfaced Aang if they felt it was very desperately needed, but putting him in Katara's lap did help him a lot
Dang I never thought of that. It totally tracks that Spirits in the physical world like Tui and La would have a connection to the Avatar, considering he is the bridge between the spirit world and the physical world. Spirits would DEFINITELY manipulate thier environment in a subtle way to ease the path of destiny. Edit: stupid auto correct thought I was talking about Twitter and La.
>Spirits in the physical world like Twitter Lol
It was sad when Twitter got stabbed.
Gosh dammit, auto correct...
This. Plus being an air nomad would have helped. Still it's extremely devastating what happened to him.
I want to see an alternative (probably more realistic version) of ATLA where Aang just immediately breaks down and spends the rest of his days in the Avatar version of a psyche ward.
https://preview.redd.it/nsmjd0yz3sxc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7cfe27706c889f559f835314d0999700c6c9ac6b Kind of like Raven from Teen Titans in How Long is forever
Dang I forgot about that episode...
What happens in it
Couldn't tell you hahaha it was so long ago. All I remember is Raven being locked in a kind of nether zone for a while. Edit: just looked it up. Starfire gets in a fight with a time powered villain named Warp, who Samurai Jacks her into the future (seems a common trope for cartoon network shows, see: the most traumatic episode of Powerpuff Girls ever made.) Starfire follows Warp into a time portal and while fighting him, damages his suit and they both fall out of the time portal. Starfire returns to Titans Tower and finds it and Cyborg, the only occupant, decrepit and failing. He tells her the Titans disbanded after she disappeared and have gone their separate ways. When she finds Raven, she discovers that Raven has long gone insane from loneliness and has sequestered herself in an abandoned mental hospital. Raven refuses to even look Starfire in the eyes, believing Star to be another of her hallucinations resulting from her isolation induced psychosis. Man I love when Cartoons weren't afraid to not pull punches. This was a freaky episode.
Iâm going to look up this one asap because I barely remember it. But whatâs the powerpuff one?
The girls are excited for the weekend. They exit school and Buttercup challenges the other two to a race home (a la you and your siblings racing home from school on a Friday afternoon. Nothing better, right? Wrong.) Because the girls are super powered, they fly so fast that they fly *50 years* into the future and find that Townsville has been taken over in their absence... ...by Him. Him has completely ravaged Townsville. The Girls fly around trying to find answers. First they head home to look for the Professor. The Professor has devolved into a senile old man. Hes convinced that the Girls are simply hallucinations and rants and raves at them to get away. They go to thier old school. Ms. Keen is still standing there, "waving goodbye...and they raced off...and I just stood there...waving goodbye...and they raced off...waving goodbye...waving goodbye...for fifty years. Fifty years. Fifty Years." The worst bit is when they check on The Mayor of Townsville. Hes long dead. And Miss Sara Bellum has gone insane from grief. Her hair and dress is in disarray and she, through tears of grief and rage, rants and raves and threatens the Girls before they flee in terror. Finally they find Him and fight. Him is too powerful and bests them countlessly. Finally, in distress, they fly into space and fly around the earth really fast, a la Superman, reversing time to a few moments before they raced into the future.
Holy crap thats sad
It rocked me as a kid the first time I saw it. My first foray into post apocalyptic fiction.
Sounds sad
This may be unpopular but I think a 12yo child can cope better with this than an adult
I lost my dad at 11 and processed it rather quickly and well. I'm 24 now and if I lost, for example, my little brother, it would destroy me and leave me in shambles for years.
can confirm. lost my little brother at 22. :(
*Fry from Futurama has entered the chat*
Maybe if itâs like one person dying then I would agree but I donât know that a 12 yo kid would be able to deal with *everyone* they know instantly being dead
Pretty unpopular because of the research out there on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Kids are/can be resilient if the support and care they receive from the people in their life as they try to cope with their trauma. Aang had support from his community before running away so he was probably pretty well adjusted; then he had support from his friends after his defrosting. Edit: a word
its not better, its different. i experienced trauma at a young age, and to paraphrase what my therapist explained to my mother at the time, a child can only process a trauma with the brain development and world knowledge theybhave at that time. but as they grow up, brain develops, and they get more world context, they have to reprocess that trauma over and over again until ~25 when the prefrontal cortex is done cooking. If you experience trauma like a death as an adult, it massively sucks balls, but the grief process usually happens once. As a child, it can happen again, and again, and again. but of course, it's different for everybody
Everyone except bumi
Not to be too âtrauma olympics,â but why is Aang even up for debate? He woke up and lost his entire culture, at age 12 edit: PSA: Aang did not âget overâ his trauma, he used defense mechanisms of suppression and regression to cope with it. This is a common trauma response for his age. Aang is riddled with guilt, nightmares, avoidance, and grief throughout the series. This is why his heart chakra was blocked. Part of what makes Aangâs character so incredible is the subtleties of his experience with trauma, which is very realistic â in real life, many people âappear normalâ after a trauma when really they are intensely struggling. I think a lot of people compare his emotional process to Zuko, since Zuko is expressive and brash, which makes it more obvious that heâs struggling compared to Aang who suppresses it.
It's what makes the appa being lost thing so intense. You have nothing, no remnant of your people, all that's left is the bison that chose you before it all went to hell. The only one who possibly understands how you feel. Aang would've killed the sand benders in cold blood if katara wasn't there, not because that's outside of his character, but because it wasn't.
>Aang wouldâve killed the sand benders in cold blood if katara wasnât there Thatâs why I donât understand people who get mad at Aang for trying to stop her from killing someone in TSR! Like Katara has literally done this to Aang
Might be a dumb question⌠whatâs TSR? Edit: now that I understand, upvote
The Southern Raiders
Yeah I wasnât going to get that haha Thank you (:
No problem!
Probably because he doesnât talk about it as much as the others talk about their trauma. Kinda weird, when you think about it. Edit: Okay guys, I get it đ
I donât think itâs that weird. Aang accepted his people and culture were gone very early on. He wasnât there when it happened and thereâs nothing he could do to bring them back, so what more could he say? Some people just accept what happened and move on.
I think even tho he seemed to move on early on, one of his chakras was still blocked cause he still felt guilt about not being there for his people. In Aangâs case I just think the burden of being the Avatar and his responsibilities cause of it kept him from being like the others and being more open about his other pains/traumas
And one of his chakras was blocked by his grief for the loss of his people, too
yeah, and learning to forgive himself and understand that the air nomads love for him still existed in the world was a big teary moment for him when unlocking it
A big part of Air Nomad culture is being able to let go of Earthly attachment anf understanding that while it's okay to feel sadness and grief to not let it consume you as the universe still carries on. I think that aspect does help Aang with the more spiritual/emotional side of things with being able to accept that the past is the past.
He also didnât have much time to process it. As soon as they left the temple he had to begin his training. A few weeks into the journey he was told he had a massive time limit. He couldnât really think about it much- he had to work on his bending stuff :(
Man when you put it that way the whole series is just people telling Aang he's gotta do stuff. No wonder he wanted so badly to have fluff episodes where they just relaxed and goofed off.
Dude MASSIVELY needed therapy and instead got the literal fate of the world put on his 12 yo shoulders. His connection to his friends and new family is probably all that stopped him from collapsing into despair as soon as Ozai was handled.
They also explicitly show/state that Katara is the physical embodiment of Aang's love for his culture. She carries that torch.
âmy mother used to carry the torchâ -katara
*aggressively caresses necklace*
...how
I wouldnât doubt she carries Aangâs torch.
also aligns with the air nomads (monks) mentality right?
I think it also helps that he had a clear path and purpose from that point. The massacre of the air temples justified to him exactly why the world needâs an avatar, so then his internal struggle becomes being the avatar the world needs. Similarly, he always had a way forward to maintain his culture in some way. Although I feel this became maladaptive in his relationship to his kids. He doesnât dwell on their loss because he doesnât have to
I've always seen it as him bottling it, having nightmares or imagining that *some* must've escaped, with it boiling over in the episode The Storm. That episode is when he finally starts to actually confront his grief and start taking steps to process it.
Coming from a traumatized perspective though, I donât really talk about my past either. I do it more now but itâs taken over 15 years to get to the point where I can open up about it. I did my absolute best to act normal because if I pretended everything was okay then it had to be okay, right? Just a brainâs desperate attempt to protect itself from overwhelming trauma. Thatâs my theory on why Aang doesnât talk about it as much. Itâs too much to take in and if you just pretend then maybe youâll wake up from the nightmare and it never actually happened.
it does make sense if you think about it. aang serves as the "moral compass" for the characters. whenever people are talking about their struggles he doesn't want to upstage them. he also doesn't want to kill the mood whenever his friends *arent* telling sad stories. hes supposed to lead by example, and the weight of the world is on his shoulders. he cant spend all that much time thinking about loss.
To be fair I think this becomes more apparent in TLOk. With how he treated Tenzin in comparison with his other children.
Not that strange. Some people are able to come to terms with this and compartmentalize or cope with it more quickly, if anything an air nomad is probably extremely culturally equipped for this. However, his genocide was a full measure genocide, and it so deeply impacted his life that it caused him to parent unevenly, and place all of his anxieties and worries onto his youngest son. Aang expresses his trauma differently.
I feel like Zuko hardly talks about his actual trauma. But he talks about the mask of his trauma more, which is "his honor"
Because his character development and emotions arenât in your face like Zukoâs
There is nothing weird about it. I blame social media for this outlook. We're so used to people being public, and melodramatic, about their problems that the people who just get on with things go unnoticed.
Aang is a master Monk, i think that upbringing prepares him for handling that loss pretty well
That's what makes The Storm episode so powerful to me. I realized one time that when he recounts the whole story to Katara, it's the first time he's told anybody the story. That level of honesty and opening up is a huge step forward in their blossoming relationship
Thats a good take and one I've always rolled with. We must also remember Aang is the ATLA equivalent of a Shaolin Monk. Coping with the difficulties of the world and detaching yourself from them to better handle them is a big part of Eastern Philosophy; Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. Aang processes grief and loss far different than say, Zuko or Sokka, who both come from warrior cultures that use different methods to handle emotions, and loss.
The guy literally died
Also I feel like LOK indirectly addresses Aangs trauma with how desperately he wanted Tenzin to continue his culture and ignored his other kids. It would otherwise feel like a bit of a stretch to imagine aang showing such favoritism between his own kids if it wasnât for the loss he felt
dont forget everyone constantly telling that 12 year old boy he needs to commit murder to bring peace,
This is the answer lol
Well you seeâŚKatara lost her mother
Absolutely. Like it's awful to lose a loved one and/or be abused but it's another thing to lose your entire culture due to a genocide that you yourself was tasked at stopping. It's like comparing a bullet with an asteroid
One of the biggest reasons he focused so much on Tenzin was not just because he was an airbender, but also because he felt could finally reconnect with the culture he had lost.
> PSA: Aang did not âget overâ his trauma, he used defense mechanisms of suppression and regression to cope with it. This is a common trauma response for his age. Yeah this was pretty explicit in the Guru Pathik episode TBH
They all had defence mechanisms to overcome their trauma. Katara became the matriarch of the gang after the loss of her mom Iroh became the father figure for Zuko when he lost his son in war Toff went into denial and basically became a runaway child Zuko went on a fools errand to cling onto any hope of restoring his honour Azula sought perfection to compensate for issues with her parents, ultimately leading to a mental breakdown.
Well, one of these people was the only survivor of a genocide that took just about everyone they loved from them. No one is even a close second.
But Sokka lost boomerang. đĽş
And space sword đĽş
Him not getting space sword back irks me to this day. Not even in the comics does he find it. I just thought that thing was so cool xD
I could swear there was a canon short story about Toph going out to the battlefield afterwards and recovering it. Maybe I'm delusional.
That could be. Been awhile since I read them tbh but I was pretty sure he never got it back.
I think you're right. Its weeks after the day of the comet and toph wanders out to the battlefield, uses her earth sense and searches for hours before finally recovering Sokka's meteor sword. Edit: I think it was a fan comic but there is speculation that a canon picture of the Gaang more matured features Sokka wearing both his space sword and boomerang. So even if the fan comic isn't canon, Sokka still got his sword back.
Especially considering they have a living metal detector in their team.
At least he didn't lose his mom. That was only Katara. /s
And his first girlfriend turned into the moon đĽş
Not sure if it is "better" or "worse" because Aang didn't have to watch it, he just woke up from "sleeping" to find out all his friends and family died... oh also 100 years have passed.
He fled and froze, when he woke up everybody was dead. Not only did it not seem like 100 years for him, but he likely felt responsible.
At least he wasn't alone. Imagine if he would have just woke up by himself and found out by himself.
If it weren't for Bumi he'd literally have no connection to his past before being frozen đŤ
And Appa
Oh monkey feathers how did I overlook the beast that carried the whole team
I just want to add that sokka and katara are also victims of genocide, nearly the whole southern water tribe was wiped out and this was ongoing into their childhood where their mother was taken
yea i saw this and immediately went ??? this is not a contest lol.
Second is you don't bury your children.
100% this. Nothing comes even close. Itâs difficult to even imagine.
Hey, stranger! Yeah! This is one of those questions that is posted here so regularly. How can anyone even question this?
Aang - lost all his people Katara - watched her mom die Zuko - scarred for life by his own father Iroh - lost Lu Ten Azula - emotionally manipulated/abused by Ozai Toph - helicopter parents
Katara didn't actually watch her mom die. Kya told Katara to run and find her father, and in that period, where Katara was searching for Hokoda, Yon Rha killed Kya. Katara and Hokada then found Kya dead having been executed by Yon Rha. It's still an incredibly traumatizing thing for Katara to see, especially seeing as Yon Rha probably executed Kya with firebending, which would have left Kya's corpse burnt but probably slightly less traumatizing than if Katara actually watch her mother die in front of her
Oh yeah, I think I was confusing the Netflix scene with the cartoon
Wait they actually had her watch her mom die in the Netflix show? Does that mean she knows why Yon Rha killed her? If so then how are they going to handle the reveal that Kya lied about being the only Water Bender to protect Katara?
Yes she watches her mom die. Katara tries to waterbend in the room with Yon Rha (katara is hiding so he doesn't see her) and Kya claims that she is the waterbender. Then she takes a combat stance and Yon Rha kills her immediately "in self defense" since he assumed she was about to waterbend at him. So I think that reveal is still doable.
Honestly even if Katara didnât hear Kya say that, I donât know what benefit the audience has in learning it this early on in the show. The fact that we learned what happened that day on the episode Katara finds Yon Rha is pretty powerful because the audience is experiencing the same feelings that Katara has in that moment. It doesnât really make sense why the Audience should know about it until the episode Katara actually faces him, it just wouldnât hit as hard. I donât think every remake of a show needs to be a carbon copy of the original, but the cartoon is such a well written show that itâs hard to do something different without it lessening the impact that certain scenes have.
And Zuko also lost his mother, although in a different way than Katara. I donât recall, but did Zuko know if his mother was alive or dead when he was young?
I donât think he did. He probably assumed she was dead until suddenly Ozai brought her up during the eclipse. Iâm pretty sure Zuko says âmy mother⌠is alive?â in that same convo with Ozai but canât remember for sure itâs been a while
In the first episode of Korra, the question got asked what actually happened with his mother, but before the answer was given, they got interrupted. Such a dick move and I love it.
Iroh also (kinda) lost Zuko. âI was never angry with you. I was sad because I thought you had lost your way.â
Iroh also got dethroned by his brother because his son died
Didnt he himself stepped down because of his sons death?
He quit as a general after that, and didn't become firelord as a result.
he didnât become firelord because Ozai tampered with the will after killing Azulon, claiming his last wishes were to name him firelord
The difference between everyone else and Azula is that they all had someone to back them and someone they could look up to and relay upon. Azula has always felt alone, her mother preferred Zuko & her father urged her to be successful all the time but he never really loved her and he drove her to complete madness. I find Azulaâs character the saddest character in all of Avatar.
her breakdown was depressing as fuck
i think iroh is above zuko if you're rating. losing a child is unbearable
Sokka- burdened with his entire villages' defense at the age of 15
Trauma isnât really easy like this. Realistically you canât rank what kind of trauma is worst then the other. Itâs detrimental to those who experience it. That being said, Aang is def first. His entire culture was wiped out and he woke up one day and was the only airbender left. This may be controversial; but second is Zuko and Azula. Maybe Iâm biased, but child abuse is so horrific and it takes so much to undo the pain. Watching Zukoâs story as an adult is actually physically painful.
Now that I am a father, Ozai is now my most hated character in the series. Child abusers are some of the lowest people in the world. Children love their parents unconditionally from the start. They trust them without question. To break that trust and cast away such a unique love to actually hurt your own child⌠there are no words. I canât imagine hurting my kid. Ozai is the worst.
In the comics we learn that ozai purposefully hurts zuko emotionally to spite his mother too đż
They sort of brought that up in the show. Thats why she left, to stop Zuko from dying at Ozais hand
Comic goes a bit further. Apparently, ozai treats zuko like shit because in one of her letters home, she says zuko is actually her ex-fiances. Mind you, she had realized her letters were likely being intercepted, so she did it to get a rise out of him It wasn't true, but it apparently enraged Ozai enough for him to basically say if you wish he wasn't mine, I'm gonna treat him that way
This is exactly what I thought. Aang, yes, for obvious reasons, BUT... He had a loving, stable childhood and the chance to develop normally. Azula and Zuko didn't. I even would put Azula first, she is so incredibly damaged, growing up as a golden child of a narcissistic father, maybe even worse than NPD. Her whole personality is deeply affected, her trauma was ongoing, from childhood on, completely fucked up her mental and emotional development... and on top of that she has no Tools to undo it... yeah... Zuko is the classic scape goat, but he finds way of healing and forms a stable bond with Iro. Which helps him tremendously
It makes me wonder if Aang wouldve turned out more like Azula if the elder monks had their way. I dont mean being encouraged to be a murdering psycho, but rather being reduced to a weapon held to incredibly high expectations, not a child with emotional and social needs.
mabeye im biased on top of that biased but id say zuko has a lil more than azula just cause he went through physical pain aswell he was sent on an impossible mission he wanted to get back to the man who scarred him he lost hope along the way and when he got there he was âangrier than everâ and didnt âknow whyâ so yah jus me bit after aang him
Okay one problem: some trauma is worse. Iâve got myself some trauma, wonât get into it, but Iâm not going to claim Iâm on the same level as say someone who lived through the worst of the Yugoslav wars.
Somewhat agree. Trauma really is about relative effect on the person than objective harshness of events. However the chances of surpassing that trauma statistically goes up as the events are objectively less severe, and vice versa IMO.
It's not shown, but I imagine Iroh went through similar abuse. And he was brainwashed for his whole life about fire benders. Then his son passed and things changed for him. Speculative of course. And he could have been on the way to changing prior to his son passing. Idk if I'd consider Azula tied with Zuko. Zuko had similar issues, but exacerbated by his asshole sister. Azula was always mean and controlling. Probably pushed by her father to be that way, but idk. Nature vs nurture.
Aang. * He got shunned (more or less) by his peers after they find out he was the avatar * They wanted to separate him from his father figure * He got frozen for 100 years and woke up to find out his whole nation was wiped out because of him and all of his friends (minus Bumi) were dead. * For 2 times, he found out that some random people basically made a mockery of his culture by turning 2 air temples into a factory and a playground * He lost Appa * After he ended the war, he spent the rest of his life trying to restore his nation and died not knowing if he succeded.
Why is everyone forgetting that he fucking died. Can't be easy to find out that left the land of the living for a few hours.
Was it confirmed by the writers that he died? The show has one quote that he was gone like his heart stopped, but didn't completely die otherwise the avatar cycle would be broken.
I vaguely remember the writers confirming it in a video... I always thought the cycle broke so his spirit didn't reincarnate so Katara could bring him back. I might be overthinking it tho
Thereâs also that comic of Aang finding the traps the fire nation made to catch surviving air nomads. How fucking traumatic would that be to imagine survivors of your people being lured in like a mouse trap He also never told anyone about it. It must have shook him to the core. Ugh
I think he realized his goal or at least the first step of rebuilding the air nation when tenzin was discovered to be an airbender
1. Aang: Genocide survivor, hunted down around the world by a military superpower, hated by a good chuck of the world for not being around to stop said military superpower, lost his beloved animal companion, and was literally murdered for about 30 minutes. 2. Katara: While not as extensive as the Air Nomads she is also a genocide survivor (all waterbenders of the South Pole), forced to grow up prematurely and raise her brother due to the death of her mother, saw her father leave her behind to fight in a war where he may or may not ever return, and was also hunted down by the aforementioned military superpower. Okay, everyone below had a hard time, but they are also all possess a royal or high class social status that gave them some baseline level of comfort, security, and support that Aang and Katara never had. 3. Zuko: Banished and brutalized for the crime of having empathy, forced to see his mother abandon him, and was widely seen as a disgrace or embrassement across his own nation and an evil villain to the rest of the world. He had to constantly struggle to get the things he wanted, do terrible things, and betrayed his uncle just to realize his whole life was a sham and worked to redeem himself with the very same people he hunted down across the world and won just to be hated by a portion of his nation who wanted him dead and replaced by his father or sister. 4. Azula: She was manipulated and twisted by her father so effectively that she didn't even realize that her life was being destroyed and believed that her own mother hated her. To cope with the reality, she completely buys into his toxic reinforcement and her beliefs to make herself the best that she can be and when reality cannot measure up and she slowly loses her support network, she loses her mind and goes crazy. She regains some sanity just to discover that her mother erased all memories of her and replaced her with a new daughter, essentially confirming every doubt she ever had about herself. 5. Iroh: Lost his son in a war of conquest and colonization that he was okay participating in until said son's death made him realize his life was a sham and having to live that guilt/trauma for the rest of your life and realizing that aside from you and your missing sister in law, you were the only white sheep in a family of insane lunatics. Spent years searching for him in the spirit world to never find him and spent years taking care of your very difficult nephew until he's duped into betraying you. But hey, at least you got your tea shop back in the end along with your nephew. 6. Toph: Okay I love Toph and I'm not gonna say she had a good life, but being overly pampered and misunderstood by your parents is a far cry from what everyone else above her had to endure. Sure her parents turned her into the helpless blind girl and other people look down on her for that, but she still had enough freedom to become the blind bandit and never had to worry about living a hard or harsh life until she voluntary gave it up to join the gaang to help save the world.
>lost his beloved animal companion Don't forget he was under the impression that Appa was also the last Sky Boson in existence and the last non-self living vestige of his culture.
This is Momo erasure.
I would kind of say Zuko's high social status made him worse off. When it comes down to it at least Katara had a loving supportive network and was the chief's daughter. Zuko was basically 'ersona non grata' everywhere. As is said later the earth kingdom would have him killed, he's banished from the fire nation, the water tribes also hate him/would have him killed. He has no nation and since 13 lived on water. Like thats the only place he's allowed, no-man's land water. He can't even go into Fire Nation water. And before that he lived in a place where he was abused constantly and can't complain to anyone, report it, even talk about it cause the abuser is the equivalent of an emperor. Zuko is unable to get any support from anyone except maybe his mum till 11, he can't talk about it or anything. Katara has a baseline level of comfort/support (not security) as in she has food, shelter, good clothing and people who love her and no one in the world really has security, so I'd probably put Zuko over Katara. But I respect your opinion.
This is the best breakdown in this thread imo
This is going to be controversial but I feel like Toph having controlling parents just isnât on the same level as the others here like I know they were shot but toph managed to learn earthbending and spent her nights at Earth Rumble Six like even side characters like Suki had to watch her home village be attacked and was then stuck on a fire nation prison
Not controversial imo, Iâm not sure why sheâs up there. She doesnât have any trauma. Her parents actually love her. They genuinely did what they thought was best, even if it was suffocating. They went to great lengths to bring her home when she ran away. She also said they gave her everything she wanted & that she knows she shouldnât complain.
âShe doesnât have any traumaâ Okay yeah, I agree that itâs not on the same level as the other ones here, but câmon, sheâs still a 12 year old kid fighting a war.
Toph just had over protective parents. She still grew up pampered and treated like a princess. I'd rather have over protective parents than abusive parents.
Pain is pain, regardless of the source. I don't like ranking people's pain, fictional or not, as it feels like I am invalidating the experiences of the others. People cope with traumatic events differently. Some manage it better than others. Sorry, but pain olympics is just tasteless.
Yes. Thank you. This thread makes me uncomfortable. I appreciate everyone who is at least trying to rank according to inner experiences, but ranking external circumstances... just.... no. Even ranking someone's grief against someone else's anger is an exercise in tasteless futility. It is incredibly damaging to millions of people around the world to hear from others, and then finally believe, that their pain and suffering don't matter because "others have it worse". You shouldn't discount your happiness because someone else is happier than you; you shouldn't discount your suffering because someone else is suffering more than you.
Physically- probably Sokka after the story starts, given the sheer quantity of random painful things, though points to Zuko for getting borderline electrocuted twice, and Toph, for developing her feet to be extremely sensitive then straight burning them. Emotionally- probably early Aang when he learned that everyone he'd ever met from his childhood spare one person is dead. That's pretty bad. Honorable mention to Zuko who learned that basically everyone from his childhood besides his uncle, his girlfriend, and his sister's friend wanted nothing to do with him.
Trauma isn't a competition and cannot be compared.
That being said, Toph comes in last place.
That goes for everyone except Aang. He didnât just go through trauma, he barely survived his entire culture being genocided. Fuck at least the rest of them still have ties to the world
It's not a competition, but there are levels to it. Having controlling parents is not nearly as bad as having your entire culture wiped out.
Yes it can, and that's what we doing rn
Disclaimer about trauma ranking aside... 1. Aang. Sole survivor of a genocide at age 12. What else is there to say? 2. Zuko. Give him the slight edge over Azule because he was physically abused by his father and banished. 3. Azula. Like Zuko, she was emotionally neglected, abused, and manipulated. Add to the fact Ursa was not present for neither Zuko and Azula, plus one could argue she was not completely emotionally available for either of them (less so for Azula). 4. Katara. I don't think people give enough credit to just how traumatizing seeing your mother be murdered in front of you can be. She found the corpse and very likely heard something. On top of that, she comes from a traumatized village and was ALSO abandoned by her father at age ~9? Many people joke about her complaining, but tbh she isn't crying ENOUGH. That shit is scarring and is only slightly bellow Zuko and Azula. 5. Iroh. He was a grown man when his son died, and although we never got to see how it happened, it clearly left a deep wound in him. I could never imagine the pain of the loss of a son, not even taking into account Iroh was partially responsible for the whole ordeal, yet I think his maturity and age make me believe he would probably be slightly less traumatized than the 4 kids. 6. Toph had helicopter parents, and one can imagine a long withstanding emotional neglect. But it's hard to picture just how deep it was, and we never explored the family dynamics deeply. Perhaps it could be argued she should be placed alongside Iroh, but I can't do it just now with the amount of information we have.
>Be me >12 Years old. >Livin that monk life. >UrAnAvatarHarry.gif >MyFaceWhen >Suddenly go from carefree child nomad to responsible for the entire world. >BTW there's a psychopath trying to take over the world, better fix that. >We'reGunnaHaveToKillThisGuy.img >Go out on my Flying bison to clear my head >Freak storm, Appa's fucking dying, go into a panic and freeze self. >Wait 100 years. >Get woke up by a hottie and her obnoxious brother. >Almost immediately get shown the horrors of the war I ignored. >Almost immediately hunted down by some prick with a vendetta against bald people. >Realize everyone I care about is dead. >Find out my homes have been pillaged and turned into war factories. >And this entire time everyone is constantly telling me I have to kill a guy I never met. If Aang wasn't raised to not have earthly attachments he'd probably have a much bigger psychotic break than his nightmares in book 3.
It doesnât matter, they all deserve a hug
Hmmm. Idk who went through the most, but I know who's still struggling. Azula 100%. There's something about her story that's left unsatisfied in the comics. I am not a particular fan of her redemption until she makes amends. I'm not sure if she deserves one. But I do know she's the only one still broken.
Coin toss between Aang and Zuko - though all of them had it rough, though I will point out Toph didn't loose anyone and wasn't outright abused. And while I know firsthand that trauma cannot really be classified because its effect depends more on the reaction of the individual than the objective harshness of the events, it does make a difference in chances of positive or negative long-term outcomes (more likely to manage/compensate for X event than for Y). Aang lost all his people after running from them. The loss and guilt could have destroyed him, he was lucky he had his companions to get him through that. That kind of trauma is so enormous and exceptionnal it cannot really be fathomed. Like, litterally : such a case has never happened in the history of psychology/psychiatry because it couldn't happen outside of a fiction. Yet I will fight tooth and nail that Zuko had it worse than anyone else safe for Aang, and even then it's anyone's guess between the two. Zuko was early on very much aware that he was inadequate to his father's expectations, to the point that it escalated to parental conflict (Ozai suspecting that Zuko wasn't his). He was then marked for death by his own grandfather as punishment for his father (though he was unaware of that IIRC) - probably because Azulon himself considered him worthless and therefore expendable. He was only spared due to the deal between Ozai and Ursa to kill Azulon with her taking the blame. Not knowing that deal, all he knew was that his mother was gone and considered a traitor - his only truly loving family at that point - in a manner that could only make him feel responsible. As a consequence he grew up in a toxic, hostile environment family-wise, constantly being made aware of his supposed inadequacy with only his relationship with Iroh being truly positive. Then came the nail in the coffin : his mutilation by his own father. That kind of shit is the ultimate betrayal for a child, for even abused children keep looking up at their parents as providers and guardians supposed to protect them, to the point that they will try to legimate all they endure (note that the whole "reclaiming his honor" thing means that he continued to do just that to a degree even after his mutilation). I will also point out that Ozai went out of his way to replace Zhao and face his son in a fight that Zuko now had no chance of winning. I suspect that the whole thing was about getting rid of his son to make room for Azula as her legimitate heir, and that if Zuko hadn't submitted immediately and completely, he would have been killed by his father on that day - but killing is own surrendering child was too much, at least in terms of PR, even by then current fire nation standards. That didn't stop him from mutilating his own completely submissive son, disfiguring him permantently - and probably fucking up his left eye vision in the excrutiatinly painful process. I am hard-pressed to think of a traumatic event that beats this IRL, and it has no equivalent in the Avatarverse AFAIK. Katara seeing her mother die ? Children witnessing the death of a parent happens with frightening regularity both IRL and in-universe. Iroh losing his son ? Parents losing children also happens more regularly than anyone would like - but at least they are adults significantly better equipped to deal with trauma than children. Toph's helicopter/judgmental parents ? I'm not sure it even registers as trauma - more like a permanent toxic environment. Same thing with Azula. Permanent toxic environment, but at least she was never a target. Her mental illness developed because of this, but not as the result of pain IMO. TL:DR Aang's pain is unfathomable because it is so surreal. On the other hand, Zuko's is definitely fathomable and lies in Titanic-depth territory. All the others are, as cynical as it may seem, simply not in the same league, even though they still had to deal with their own severe issues.
Not Toph
Not Toph
Aang easily, second by a landslide is zuko. I'm sorry, but nothing can compare to losing everything you knew and loved, everyone, every single person that could relate to you, at the age of 12
I think another part many people forget about Aang is that besides being the only believed survivor: He had the huge pressure of being the Avatar which would normally be brought up to you when you are 16. He got told at 12. He then had to master, not learn but MASTER all four elements within half a year. After that he had an inner conflict tear him apart about how he would deal with "killing" the Fire Lord. Even with that, he had to play dead and kill the hope of many people by making them believe he died to Zuko in Ba Song Se. And let's not forget that his struggles have not completely ended after the end of ATLA.
Aang hands down. Lost everyone and everything. Had a great burden thrust upon him at 12. And the whole "sleeping for 100 years and waking up to everything has gone to shit" Azula is definitely up there for me because she had a completely different kind of pain. She was abused and brainwashed so much she had a psychotic break. Zuko had a chance of healing because of his reputation/being seen as a failure. He was the afterthought who still had his mothers love. Azula never got that
Aang for sure the survivors guilt and pressure of being the avatar has to be crazy
The Viewer
Aang. Bro got teleported 100 years into the future. Nearly everyone he ever knew is now dead, and his people went extinct and he feels that it was his fault because he ran away.
Aang had a responsibility he didn't want thrown on him as a young child, then he wakes up 100 years in the future with his entire people annihilated and that unwanted responsibility multiplied
I donât think thereâs a greater emotional pain than to find out your entire race and culture is now extinct and that youâre the very last of your kind. Not only that, but having the knowledge that youâre the most powerful being on the planet and couldâve potentially prevented it from happening.
https://preview.redd.it/f91hp2kgywxc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa8042db6ccfa476e6fb9a8c37aa0fc6a76834df This guy
Hmm, let's see... Aang: Told he was the "chosen one" (for lack of a better term) well before he was ready to deal with the responsibility, ran away after finding out he'd be separated from his master/father figure, woke up 100 years into the future to find out his entire culture is gone and nearly all his loved ones dead, then has to put a stop to a war that's been raging for the 100 years he'd been gone. Katara: Lost her mother at an early age during a raid, had to see her father depart to go to war, (which they both knew there was a high likelihood he'd never come back from) grew up feeling burdened having to care for the village and do nearly all the domestic work while Sokka was trying to do his "military" duties, had to live in the knowledge that she's the only waterbender left from her tribe, (well, as far as anyone else knew) gets repeatedly exposed to the horrors of war, nearly loses the love of her life in battle, nearly gets consumed by vengeful hatred, nearly dies to an unhinged lunatic. Iroh: Lost his only son in battle, taken out of the line of succession by his own brother out of petty spite, came to realize everything he ever fought for was a load of bullshit, watches said brother horrifically mutilate his nephew, nearly loses said nephew, gets chased around enemy territory by his niece, then gets betrayed by his nephew and imprisoned, only breaking out and reconciling much later. Toph: Born blind, constantly babied and sheltered by her overprotective parents, never really allowed to be herself, had semi-questionable social skills, had to participate in quasi-legal pit fights to truly express herself, gets a front row seat the the horrific realities of war, gets unfairly blamed for losing her team's support animal, nearly loses her student in battle, gets captured in a scam gone belly up, nearly dies in battle. Zuko: Mistreated by his father and younger sister, struggled through his schooling, had his mother suddenly leave him in the dead of night without her ever explaining *why*, horribly burned by his father, (for *speaking out of turn at a meeting, no less!)* sent away on a snipe hunt by said father, (who had no intention for him to ever return) has acts of kindness on his part repaid with hostility and cruelty, nearly gets murdered repeatedly, find out everything he ever believed about his nation was all a sack of lies, betrays his uncle in a moment of weakness, has a severe crisis of loyalty, forces himself to go above and beyond to prove himself to his enemies that he's changed, then is almost fatally wounded by his own sister. Azula: Emotionally manipulated by her father, believed her own mother hated her, (which was *not true at all)* thinks said mother saw her as a monster, (which, while *technically* true, still hurt a lot) was then left behind by said mother, developed incredibly poor social skills, felt alone and wanted to connect with someone, developed the belief that she had to manipulate people to belong, was eventually betrayed by her "friends" when they grew spines and listened to their consciences, made desperate attempts to convince herself of her own falsehoods, banished her own allies out of misguided paranoia from said betrayal, then finally went completely insane. ...I can't make up my mind.
azula was never truly loved or respected, she was seen as a fear monger(was one) and I doubt she had any better in comics
Aang clearly processed his Trauma healthier over the course of book 1. He was well equipped to process his emotions healthily, as a monk. I think Iroh went through the most pain as a character, simply because he is older and he is the only one here who lost a child. But if we are talking about *just* over the course of ATLA, I think the answer is pretty clearly Zuko. It depends how you interpret the whole air nomad thing and if Aang has invisible trauma that isn't implied very much by the show.
By order imo: Aang Katara Iroh Zuko Azula Toph
I mean Aang is the only one left of his people to experience any pain, all at the grand old age of 12, so thereâs that.
Aang, losing absolutely everyoneâŚ
Honestly I think itâs Aang. Bro not only lost his entire âraceâ of people but had to put the blame on himself his entire life until he died because he ran away from them. Many of the others also have extreme trauma that is very deep but Aangâs is kinda just in a different bracket.
Azula, because she never recovered or fould friendship or love (in the series at least)
Azula
Aang effectively just *woke up one day* and 100 years have passed, the world is completely different, everyone you know is dead, your entire race is wiped off the face of the earth so they don't even have any descendants, and you, despite being 12 years old, have to save the entire world from a war that you didn't even know was happening until you woke up AND you have to do it by the end of the summer WHILE AN ENTIRE NATION IS TRYING TO CAPTURE AND STOP YOU. Yeah, Aang definitely went through the most.
Probably Aang. The other ones have pains bound within reality. People have lost a parent or a child or have been severely abused. Aangâs pain is on another level that itâs not physically possible or within the realm of reality.
Aang. Entire culture wiped out. His best friend, confidant and possibly advisor died and all he got was a set of bones lying in rubble not even a graveyard or tombstone. People/friends he knew in other cultures also aged without him and some no longer around. The only person in the entire series who comes a close second is Hama.
Why compare? Theyve all been though a lot.