Real Life Cultural Influences of Avatar: The Last Airbender
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 29 июн 2024
- Avatar: The Last Airbender is set in an East Asian-inspired fantasy world which was inspired by variety of real-life cultures. This video showcases some of the influences real-world cultures had on the Avatar world. I hope that Netflix live-action Avatar series will do the original animated show justice!
#avatarthelastairbender #thelastairbender #atla
finally someone gets the fire nation right! too often people just say "fire nation = japan" and ignore all the tai and chinese aspects, thank you so much for getting it right
I pretty much already knew the Fire Nation was mostly equal to China in terms of armor and fashion. And if any nation is equal to Japan, it's Kyoshin Island.
Someone linked this in an attempt to tell everyone that Zuko isnt asian but white because of how... He looks??? Says he doesnt look asian and compares him to real images of asians, but he literally does! I..
I kind of did this too but mostly because I don’t know much about Thai culture and names like Zuko, Azula, Ozai, and Iroh at least phonetically match up to Japanese pretty well...
Though I understood Kyoshi island is probably closer to japan then the fire nation is, because you know, literal geisha samurais with names like “Suki”
Actually, the advanced military system, the royal palace of the fore nation and the caucasian features on people is a clearly signal that fire nation is based on imperial japan
@@carlossanchez-us9dl "caucasian features"??? East Asians are light skinned, but that doesn't make them caucasian lol
I feel like this video needs to be shown to the Netflix show makers to prove that for the show that they can use locations without green screen - great knowledge here, thanks for sharing!
Agreed
They gonna work along with its original creater who already knows it
That’d be one of a hella expensive budget
@@loneranger7271 Bryan Konietzko and the other original guy (name I forgot), left the cast
@@loneranger7271 thats a lie do some research
I’m convinced that ATLA was wayyy ahead of its time. This show was so well developed and thought out. Truly amazing.
It’s not exactly “cultural”, but according to the creators the geography of the Fire Nation was based on Iceland. Since this is more landforms and not culture perse, I am not sure it fits. Still thought it might be worth a mention.
Yes it is cultural. Are you saying that's depicted in the video as fire nation to be derived from Iceland or are you saying the geography of the physical land of the firenation is like Iceland?
J The Geography of the physical land
Yes they traveled there quite a bit for the geography. Almost forgot about that.
I always thought it resembled hawaii because of the volcanic islands
I thought it was supposed to be Japan considering how much volcanic/seismic activity there is in Japan and also because of how aggressive the Fire Nation was with superior technology just like Japan at the time of World War II
I was really shocked when I first saw people saying Fire nation = Japan. The most obvious contradiction is the concept of the Chinese dragon. Also Iroh’s favourite - Jasmine tea is originated from China, in one episode when he drinks jasmine tea, the background music is a Chinese song called “what a beautiful Jasmine”. Also Zhao is a Chinese name. I don’t understand why people wants to match each nation to a particular country, each nation is inspired by many countries and that’s what makes the avatar world unique and amazing.
Truly an amazing video. Never knew that there were THAT many influences in the design of this setting.
The knowledge of guru pathik was from india spiritual knowledge.
Even the his knowledge of Chakras
His accent is also Indian for me
@@dueknee True, I actually thought his voice actor was Indian. It turns out the person who voices him is Brian George, an Israeli Jewish man.
When the show was airing back in the day, one thing I know for sure was that I really liked the show because of how much I related to the cultures that were shown in this show. I felt like I was one of them~ Granted I'm one of the lesser-known Asian ethnic groups, but growing up in the US, I never really had a show that I could relate to (other than Sagwa The Chinese Siamese Cat, but I mean...cmon...it's a cat.) ATLA brought culture, entertainment, and beliefs that I have been exposed to before. I was so happy and was always excited to see this show
@The God Of Manga Miachael Dante DiMartino one of the authors of ATLA said, Fire Nation = USA, Ba Sing Se = Diverse mix race/culture/color China. Dimartino must be smoking something when he said that, or he must be ignorant of China's (CCP to be precise) track record of how they handle dissidents, minorities with different religion (Muslim Uyghurs) or simply people that has spiritual beliefs that has becomes too popular in China like those who practice a spiritual exercise similar to yoga (Falun Gong practitioner).
that is some serious heavy worldbuilding, not just taking inspirations from real world cultures but mashing them up and fit it within the story and making sense.
whats more jaw dropping is the architecture.
While I was watching the series, I was trying to pinpoint the cultural inspirations of the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation, so thanks for making that clear! One of my favorite things about the world of Avatar is the Water Tribes because I can’t think of any other fictional group that is based on Inuit and Native American cultures. They seem underrepresented in media, especially animation, so it’s fascinating to see shown in a series. Avatar does a fantastic job of drawing inspiration from cultures around the world without being disrespectful, and that’s really cool!
The Navi from the movie Avatar by James Cameron are inspired by Native Americans.
Finally someone that actually understands, lot of people keep saying that fire Nation is Japan but not a single katana or any Japanese weapon or clothing in any nation except kyoshi island only different era of chinese clothing and Korean and Thai and also Mongolian and Inuit all the weapons except for the water nation are chinese weapons air nation Is basically shaolin monks earth is qing dynasty and fire Nation is more of han dynasty water is Inuit
I'm pretty sure the massive desert library/Wan Shi Tong's Library is based on the House of Wisdom in Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate during the Islamic Golden Age, as it was the biggest and most important institution of learning and knowledge research, debates, and collection, in the world back then (even impressive for today's standards) that collected books and knowledge materials from all over the world and further expanded the research of said books. The architecture in the show seems to suggest that (makes more sense than just Taj Mahal as that's just a tomb), as well as the fact that it got burned down by Mongol invaders like the Fire Nation section by the Firebenders, and a lot of knowledge prior to the European "enlightenment" got lost (lile how the Owl buried it) or scattered around as they couldn't recover the place like it once was (hence how a lot of European researchers got reference materials).
Yup
In the fortune teller the cracked bone reading is also a part of ancient Chinese culture! I forgot what time period but they used turtle shells to make predictions about the future . There was also an actual movement called the white lotus rebellion during Qing China. Since your video talks about how Ba Sing Se was based of off that, it’s fitting that the white lotus come to liberate it in the end.
The Xia and Shang Dynasties of China (about 2200 BC - about 1100 BC)
So the necklace thingy that the water tribes do to propose someone, my family still do that thing until now
What country are you from??
@@emanuel-vw8rg japan
Yes u r right. As a Taiwanese(where we culturally link to china), it is weire for me to say Fire Nation is based on Japan. The armor ,cloth and building are more Chinese than Japanese to me
I think that Fire Nation is based on Japan in WW2. Names like Zuko sounds Japanese and the designs for the fire nation is a lot like Anime.
@@dorjiwang9467 nah fam
That’s just my opinion.
Dorji Wang but the culture is too far japen but more China
Wu Icarus That’s not true.
avatar got diversity right during a time when it wasn’t brought into question 👏
Wow you even got the war stuff like labor camps and Japanese far-right historical revisionism... Also, I totally missed all the differences in Earth and Fire Nation armors until now. Thanks for the video!
the kimono inspiration is actually based on the hanfu clothing principles (the y-shaped collar), in which the sinosphere commonly taken it from China. The Manchu culture later assimilated with the Han culture, which made hanfu vanished.
the one show with no white people and then everyone in the live action is white
No blacks either. It's all Asian origins and natives of Americas and Pacific Islander/Oceania. The desert people are brown.
What pacific islanders?
Pranav Yarlagadda like polynesians, eskimo people
Get me to 1 million subscribers Pleaseee oh u mean the water tribe? They were inuit
You mean the voice actors?
there're also other real life cultural influences, like pai sho (classic board game), the herbalist cat lady (oriental herbalist), travellers in omashu (hippies), haiku (japanese poetry), omashu love story (romeo and juliet), chinese coins, many traditional musical instruments (gong, veena, etc), performances (fire dance, lion dance, chinese fireworks, etc), foods & beverages, aang's glider (old chinese inventor's glider), fire nation airships (germany's zeppelin) and other technologies (cruisers, submarines, boring drill, wheelchair, etc), planetary room at the library (chinese zodiac calendar), reincarnation and guru pathik's teachings (spiritual concepts deeply rooted in india), lion turtle (world turtle myth), wan shi tong (owl as greek's symbol of wisdom), space sword (meteorite sword legends), pirates and the parrot (western pirate fictions), haru and the villagers (coal mine prison labors), fire nation polluted river and sky (poor industrial revolution waste management), etc, plus a geographical influence of grand canyon, the great divide
I love the mixture of all the asian cultures , it gives off a different vibe
Fire nation was originally depicted as Japan as you can see in the pilot of the series, but they changed their minds and I think it’s better
More like a rich North Korea
And Kyoshi Warriors were evil
i love the fact that all Asian nationalities and architecture is all into one nation, like there mixed together making it very nice!!
there is barely any Mongolic and Turkic and Siberian and Arabic and Southeast asian Aspect here
its basically just East Asia without Mongolia, and India, Siam, Burma
@@lhagvasurenbattulga3456 There are many Indians and Thai influences in the series. There are some Burmese influences too. So Indian and Southeast Asian are represented. Expecting Turkic and Arabic doesn't make any sense though. It's clear that the Asian influences are centred around Eastern philosophy and religion (Buddhis, Hinduism, Taoism etc.) and considering none of that is present in Turkic or Arabic culture, it's not surprising that they're not represented.
@@lhagvasurenbattulga3456 The presence of Guru Pathik makes it clear that some equivalent to India and its people does exist, we just never see.
My assumption is that the equivalent to India is the peninsula you can see on the map of the Avatar world, right above the Eastern Air Temple, East of Be Sing Se.
This is cool. The writers did actual research and paid so much attention to detail. Simply amazing.
This is such a great video! I like how you had the reference pics on the side. Great research on this too, it's really cool to see how most of the design and world is based on China.
I think the Venice part was less Venice and more aztec
fun fact: When the Spanish first arrived in Mexico, they called the Aztec capitol "The Venice of the new world".
No, it didn't really look much like Tenochtitlan, the bridges and everything were more like Venice.
The floating village concept is taken from a floating village of Bajau Laut tribe in the sea border of Malaysia - Philippines
thank you for making this! it irks me how a lot people keep saying the fire nation is japanese when for me the architecture, attire, culture looks more like chinese.
found this through reddit, thank you!
As a South Asian I feel so left out like why is there so little representation of us.....other then Guru Pathik and maybe combustion man with his third eye.... I feel like they could've added a small hidden island where Guru pathik came from and the people and culture based on mostly South Asia
Well, the show based on East Asian culture.
@@Nakarinification Except a lot of the spiritual influences came from south asian culture. The very notion of an avatar is indian. Avatar is based off of a Sankrit word. Also, while Buddhism was/is popular all across Asia, I don't think it should be forgotten that Buddhism originated from India and has many similar elements to Hinduism. There are also multiple words/names in ATLA that are taken from Sanskrit. Bumi means earth in Sanskrit while Agni means fire and is associated with a Hindu god. These are just some of the South Asian influences in ATLA so I don't think it's unreasonable to want some South Asian representation, especially when there were many influences taken from South Asia (in particular the whole idea of an avatar).
@@Nakarinification Most of the core concepts used are Indian in Origin.
Sanskrit, Hinduism and Buddhism all come from the Indian subcontinent.
Avatar is the name of the earthly descended for of Lord Vishnu.
This show uses Indian concepts without Indian representation.
Sanskrit is main languge for south asian buddhist(sri lankan and indian) too
@@whatdayisit5813 its mean thats main mean is buddhist culture
This deserves more views, it’s amazing!
I love how ATLA so rich of culture. I love it so much
It's pretty dope Avatar is based on many real life cultural inspirational and also highlights issues
Your video and research is amazing! I felt like I’m learning a Historical event tho, but it is inspired from ‘em, this is great, so many cultures and races in Avatar world :’)
Praise be to you for your deep research into this subject. The time invested into this video was well spent and very educational.
This should get more views, I've seen lot of this kind of videos but this one very detailed and more accurate
Great video! I can add quite a few more influences too, a list should be made perhaps :-) Also more specifically the avatar represents the dalai lama, not just any tibetan monk. They even shared the past life objects being chosen as part of the tests, and Raava (introduced in Korra) manifests itself in each reincarnation much like Avalokiteshvara.
very well made video! I enjoyed watching and learned a bit more about the world of one of my favorite shows :)!
Also the ending song of the show is native to south east asian culture (Indonesia) Kecak Dance! Cmiiw!
No you’re right i foudn another post in reddit describing the same thing
Loved the video. Very well done.
Wow. Really did your research well done
This video deserves more views...
It's all so amazing. This video has made me appreciate everything about Avatar: TLA even more than I already did. I always wondered why it felt so authentic and real, and now I know why. Great video and great work. I'm sure in a few years this video will have over a million views as it will no doubt find its way to the Avatar fan audience.
Yo I didn’t know they did that much research for this show! This is amazing
Lovely video, just shows how much went into the amazing show of avatar the last air bender. ☺
Amazing video & research! Thank you!
Very well done video! 👏🏽 You’re always learning something new in the atla universe! 🤣 The only thing that bothered me A LITTLE BIT was the running speed of the vid! It was too fast for me to read everything in time! I know hitting the pause button is a possibility but it kinda disrupts the flow of one watching the video after you do it too many times!
Have a nice day!
Very beautiful video ❤🌸🖤
It really explains wonderfully how everything is inspired from and honestly the Fire Nation is my favorite 🔥💖
Thank you for this wonderful video I loved it. You researched well I learned many things.
This was really cool! For a more in-depth analysis of the fashion, I recommend Mina Le's "Cultural influences in the clothing of Avatar.." Its a great watch
Foggy swamp tribe has some Vietnamese influence.
6:35 It's traditional Chinese clothing, not Japanese, they are different, Japanese Kimono is actually a copy of 7-8 century Tang Dynasty clothes, but not these.
Outstanding video of yours. And the music was lovely.
incorporating real life elements in your work, that's pure Art right there
Thank you for sharing this thorough research
Great video and love all of the references to different cultures around the world! I just wanna add that some of the ruins of the Sun Warrior Civilization also look like Angkor Wat. Also, the culture of the Sun Warriors with the Eternal Fire is reminiscent and directly linked to Zoroastrianism in Persia and in other areas of Central, West, and South Asia and Zoroastrian Temples. The Fire Sages and Fire Temples are also reminiscent of Zoroastrianism and Zoroastrian religious officials. Also, the Fire Sage Kaja on the Avatar Wiki states that Kaja's name is derived from a Persian word. The geography of the Fire Nation was based on Iceland according to the Avatar Wiki and individuals in the warlord era of the Fire Islands are based on the Ainu according to the Avatar Wiki. Also, on the Avatar Wiki it says: "The Sun Warriors' ancient city is based on the architecture of ancient Mesopotamia, taking special influence from the civilization's ziggurats, or "tiered pyramids". The designers also looked at Mayan ruins for inspiration."
Great job!!
I’ll never get tired of appreciating all the detail the show utilized.
very informative video! thank you!
Beautifully done
Damn. I thought I knew but to have a lot more laid out that’s awesome.
This video deserves 5 million views so much research and hard work and it’s under 100k?
Love this video! Glad to see a RUclipsr with thorough understanding of the Chinese culture, very educational❤
This is a great Video ^^
What an amazing video!
This was beautiful and so diverse
Love the thumbnail where you represent the four nations
Amazing video
Avatar World:
Beliefs:
-Water Tribe: Community & Love
-Earth Kingdom: Diversity & Endurance
-Fire Nation: Desire & Will
-Air Nomads: Peace & Spirituality
Bending:
-Waterbending: Tai Chi
-Earthbending: Hung Gar
-Firebending: Northern Shaolin Kung Fu
-Airbending: Baguazhang
Elements:
-Water Symbol: Change
-Earth Symbol: Substance
-Fire Symbol: Power
-Air Symbol: Freedom
Nations:
-Water Tribe: Inuit People
-Earth Kingdom: Chinese People
-Fire Nation: Japanese People
-Air Nomads: Tibetan Buddhist People
I don't think the Wan shi tong library was inspired by the taj mahal, but the House of Wisdom in Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate, it was a massive library whose books were then burned by the fire nation (mongols). and in the end the House of Wisdom / bayt al hikma disappears like being swallowed by the earth.
Nice vid!
와 중국에서 모티브가 된 문화가 진짜 많네요
볼 때마다 그 생각이 들긴 했지만 이렇게 사진과 함께 부연 설명 해주시며 일목요연하게 정리해주시다니ㅜㅜ!! 더 한눈에 들어와요!!
너무 좋아!!!!
Thank you for finding all the information one by one and making it into a video😍
This is made to press 👍 unconditionally!!!
👍👍👍👍👍👍💓💓💓
I hope someone in Korea can make a video like this and upload it😭😭
I watched the video while looking for words that were difficult to understand with a translator, and it took twice as long lolꉂꉂ(ᵔᗜᵔ*)
Buuut I love it🥰🥰❤
Now this show has even more meaning for me. Love it even more. Thank you🥹❤
The Avatar World literally includes every group of people. It's awesome.
-except whites. Which is good.
@@faithsaddy7255
Never mind the last sentence, the dragons of Avatar are actually very western. Western dragons breathe fire and have wings, but dragons of East Asia don't.
@@matthewpham9525 i think it's mix, the overall body influenced by traditional Chinese dragon, the wings and the ability to breathe fire based on western dragon
@@lin6705
Yep, the head is East Asian too.
Maybe Not all lol
Amazing Video. I really need to download this information and develop a video game about it.
So in its most simple form, they are basically Inuit, Chinese, Thai, and Tibetan
Inuits, late-China, Thaï/Old China, Tibetan.
Gryffin or perhaps late-china/Korea for earth kingdom
And japanese
sand banders were northern african
Tarek Ibn ziad ye
0:42 I heard somewhere that Toph's fighting style was a different kind of martial Arts to the usual earthbending.
Ayo Ogunsakin
Yes, Toph is using Southern Praying Mantis (it’s written in the video)
I didnt realize how much China influence the fire nation. I always saw the Earth Kingdom as China, the Air Nomads as Tibet with SE Asian influences, the Water Tribes of Indian, and I always saw the Fire Nation as Japan.
I remember when I was watching both atla and tlok I was just stunned by the amount of Chinese references. I thought they would just use something like google translate but when u see them you can really tell the writers put effort into learning it
Very thorough video! I'd only add a few things:
For the Sun Warriors, a lot of specific influence from Mesoamerica can be seen in their beliefs and history. Many, many tribes revered the Sun, for example, and the ceremony to the firebending masters resembles ceremonies the Mexica did to honor the gods (though, in this case, it would be a GOOD thing if Aang and Zuko died!). The fact that the masters were dragons is genius, too, since the feathered serpent god (which looks like a dragon) is a prevalent figure in many Mesoamerican cultures (Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan, etc). The fact that Aang and Zuko had to wait for the solstice in order to enter the Sun Warrior temple is also reminiscent of the Temple of Kukulkan where the shadow of a snake can be seen climbing down the pyramid during the equinoxes. Finally, the fact that the Sun Warriors are thought to have disappeared by the entire world when, in reality, they're still in existence is similar to the belief that many Mesoamerican groups (the Maya especially) "disappeared" when they're still around in the present day!
For the Foggy Swamp Tribe, I'd add that they're also influenced by Southeast Asia and Buddhist culture as well. The names of the tribesmen are all Vietnamese. And the story of Huu finding enlightenment under a banyan tree is very reminiscent of the story of the Buddha finding enlightenment under a bodhi tree. Likewise, the banyan tree looks a lot like a mangrove tree which, too, grows in swampy areas and has a complex root system. It also reminds me of Pando, the single quaking aspen colony that has spread for many acres which makes it the largest organism on Earth.
Great video!
Very great video respect
Wow. I really saw the Four Nations as having pretty cut and dry comparisons with Asiatic culture. Earth Kingdom is China, Fire Nation is Imperial Japan, Air Temples are Tibet/Nepal. Every Nation has a mixture of many countries, and China is somewhere in each of them.
Well in real life as well China had massive cultural influence on all surrounding Asian countries for centuries or even millennia.
this is soooooooooooooo coooooooooooooooooool
Thank you!
I think it would have been cool if they had a nation based on Rome and it was full of Metalbenders. It could be called the Iron Empire or something.
I think LoK had that
That would be too out of place alongside these cultures.
i just realized I can visit the atla world :)
airbending and the air nomads are also partially based on the Shaolin monks because of the whole Shaolin staff thing. They fight with staffs.
Also the fire nation had an empire like britain island based but many colonies and a strong navy as japan/britain.
The Thai clothes of Fire nation also similar with Indonesian clothes during Majapahit era
hey, may i use images from this video in a series i'm doing about western tropes depicting asia
Another interesting I noticed, the librarian’s name, Wan Shi Tong, is pinyin for “万事通”, which literally means one who knows ten thousand things in Chinese lol. And the panda spirit Hei Bai(黑白) means black and white. Also when Iroh taught Zuko how to push and pull, he mentioned it’s also called Tui and La, they are also pinyin for “推” and ”拉”.Those details are amazing.
I can't wait for its live-action series, I really hope they use these original location to film if possible and make it as culturally and ethnically correct as possible. Last live action movie they made was like a western washed spinoff of Avatar and they didn't bother to make it true to source material. Also this is something that happens in other countries too. There's many Japanese animes that are mostly based on eurocentric settings and characters like Full Metal Alchemist, Attack on Titan, Vinland saga etc. FMA and AOT even got their live action made but they didn't bother to use right settings and ethnically correct characters for them either. 🙏
I hope it won't turned out like the movie
Can you do a kung fu panda 1-3 real world influences maybe
Thanks This Is One Hell Of A Show Of All Time.
This show is just pure timeless masterpiece it is great now and it will still be in 100 years
I love this.
I think swamp is likely thailand becorse of how thay living and how food there is like food in thailand laos vietnam kambodja and malaysia
I thought they were Lousiana Cajun
@H S Some of the instruments they used seemed South East Asian tho
They're based off a population of Vietnamese in Louisiana and Florida.
The Fire Nation: geologically islandic, culturally chinese and southeast asian, and geopolitically japanese 🔥
So beautiful
The music in the background is like creepy to me even though I like history, gray pictures from the past even make me scared
Да,тут впрямь почти вся Азия смешана, я даже не догадывалась, замечала только китайские,корейские и чем-то напоминающие северных народов элементы.Ах, да ещё что-то из Америки.