#suddenly ending the avatar cycle doesnt sound like such a bad idea...

[abhorsenkatiel]

Thinking about Avatar stuff...

I totally overlooked this both the first and second time I watched LoK, but I've been thinking about it a lot this time.

Ok, so. Raava and Vatuu fight every 10,000 years, but neither can ever permanently destroy the other, because the vanquished spirit will be reborn within the victorious one and the unending battle between light and darkness will resume again at the next Harmonic Convergence. This wasn't the case for the last cycle because Vatuu was imprisoned instead of destroyed and therefore wasn't reborn from within Raava, but this time the battle ended in the usual manner with Vatuu being destroyed.

Which means that in another 10,000 years he'll be back.

Now, let's assume that things continue on as they have been and human society continues its existance with Raava bound to the Avatar being reborn every generation.

Judging from the evidence we've been given in cannon, it seems that although they all differ in their personalities and methods, every Avatar has overall been a good, selfless person completely committed to their duty of keeping balance and peace in the world. In fact, I think it would be safe to assume that, because the Avatar is bound to the Light Spirit, it would actually not even be possible for them to be any other way.

But what happens now? Over the course of the next 10,000 years, Vatuu will be growing again within Raava who remains bound to the Avatar. This means that with each successive generation, the Avatar will have incrementally more darkness inside them. Eventually, it would no longer be safe to assume that the Avatar would be an incorruptibly good person anymore, and as it gets close to the next Harmonic Convergence, it would be pretty much a certainty that the Avatar would be morally gray at best.

The only way the Avatar system works at all is if there is no chance of the Avatar ever being someone who would abuse their power, and that was only a guarantee while Vatuu was imprisoned allowing Raava, and therefore the Avatar to remain pure Light. What's going to happen to the world when the Avatar has just as much Darkness inside them too?

Over the next 10,000 years the Avatar would evolve from a beloved hero and beacon of hope into a terrifying threat to all people of the world.