Top 20 Darkest Avatar and Korra Moments Ever

The grand finale of book two of “Avatar” sees Aang and Katara fighting against Azula and Zuko underneath the city of Ba Sing Se. When the Dai Li army arrives to back the fire nation royals, Aang enters the Avatar state to give him an advantage in battle. But before he can make any moves, Azula strikes him with her lightning. It’s later implied that this bolt doesn’t merely injure him – it briefly ends his life. Thankfully, Katara is there to heal him. When the underage protagonist nearly meeting his end barely makes our list, you know things are about to get dark!

After Avatar Korra is captured by a villainous group called the Red Lotus, a group of her strongest allies come to rescue her. While she takes on the formidable Zaheer, her friends Mako and Bolin take on two vicious opponents. Mako fights Ming-Hua, a waterbender who creates prosthetic liquid arms for herself. But her unique bending style is ultimately her undoing. Mako takes advantage that her arms can conduct electricity by firing a bolt of lightning at her. Ming Hua can’t avoid or survive the attack. Although “Korra” is aimed at a teen audience, it was still willing to show a villain being taken out in a grisly way.

While she may be a militant villainess, Azula is still human. Towards the end of the series, her best friends turn against her. Azula’s father also gives her a huge amount of responsibility by naming her the Fire Lord. In the wake of these events, Azula begins to lose her grip on sanity and becomes increasingly paranoid. She even hallucinates visions of her mother. As satisfying as it is to see Azula’s perfect façade crumble, we can’t help but pity her. Although the former princess did some monstrous things, no one wants to celebrate her struggles with mental illness.

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Top 10 Best Toph Moments on Avatar & The Legend of Korra

The Red Lotus asks Korra to surrender to them to save the lives of a group of kidnapped airbenders. During the exchange, a fight ensues. Although Lin and Suyin Beifong try to rescue Korra, they’re held off by P’Li, a combustion bender who can fire explosions through the eye on her forehead. Her explosive attacks initially give the metalbending sisters a lot of trouble. But they finally take advantage of a grim opening. Just as P’Li’ is about to fire a blast, Suyin encases the villain’s head in metal. This explosion backfires and instantly ends the villain’s life. While the metal prevents us from seeing anything, the unseen implications of this scene are positively brutal!

In season 2 of “Avatar,” Aang and company go to Ba Sing Se, a walled city that has mostly stayed out of the war. The Gaang discovers one major reason citizens have stayed out of the conflict – anyone who speaks publicly about the war or causes too much trouble is brainwashed. The process is carried out by the Dai Li, Ba Sing Se’s secret police force. These agents bring their victims to Lake Laogai. There, the Dai Li hypnotize the captives until they behave exactly as the agents want them to. Did “Avatar” depict a totalitarian government that silences dissent through reconditioning the populace and spreading disinformation to retain power? Yep! This show sure liked to hit kids with some heavy stuff…

During Korra's second season, the avatar faces off against her evil uncle Unaloq. He allies himself with the dark spirit Vaatu. Meanwhile Korra sides with Raava, the light spirit that lives inside her body and makes the existence of the Avatar possible. Although the good guys try their best, Vaatu and Unalq eventually tear the light spirit out of Korra’s body. Raava is then destroyed piece by piece. The spirit’s destruction also severs Korra’s connection to all the past Avatars, including Aang. Raava’s absence also meant that the avatar cycle couldn’t continue after Korra’s life ended. Although the light spirit returns later on, seeing her destruction was quite traumatic for Korra and the audience.

The Spirit World of the “Avatar” franchise can be pretty dang scary. Although Tenzin, Korra and Bumi’s trip through the fog of lost souls was terrifying, (*Xref) a spirit introduced in “Avatar” is far spookier. Koh the Face Stealer is a being who has the body of a large centipede and a constantly changing face. In the season one finale, Aang needs to find this spirit to gain vital information. But he’s informed that Koh will take the face of anyone who shows the tiniest hint of emotion. This leads to a tense scene where Aang struggles to remain expressionless. Koh’s creepy body, shapeshifting faces, and unsettling voice add up to a spirit that is straight up nightmare fuel.

Hoo boy…get ready to weep! Iroh spends a day journeying through Ba Sing Se collecting items while helping everyone from a child to a mugger along the way. Eventually, the purpose of his excursion is revealed. He wanted to build a small memorial to honor his late son Lu Ten’s birthday. Lu Ten lost his life during Iroh’s six hundred day siege of Ba Sing Se. The idea that he’s mourning in the same city where Lu Ten lost his life is sad. But our tears really flow when Iroh sings a heartbreaking song. Plenty of children’s programming features missing parents or guardians who have passed away. But few deal with a parent losing their child in such a mature and heartbreaking manner.

Katara enlists Zuko’s help to find the Fire Nation man that took her mother’s life. During the pair’s revenge quest, the normally kind waterbender is unexpectedly ruthless. Eventually, Katara finally catches up to her target— a man named Yon Rha. Consumed with fury, she forms a ton of icicle spears by waterbending the rain around her and unleashes them all at once. However, Katara stops them from hitting Yon Rha just before they caused irreparable damage. Although she didn’t commit a crime she couldn’t take back, she came extremely close. Katara’s shocking journey with Zuko brought her to the edge of a very dark place.

Before the Fire Lord Sozin and Avatar Roku were enemies, the two of them were close friends. They drifted apart after the royal expressed his desires to expand the Fire Nation past its existing borders. Since Sozin’s goals conflicted with Roku’s duties to maintain balance between the nations, the two had a major falling out. The two reunited after a long time apart when the volcano on Roku’s island erupted Sozin helps his old friend contain the destruction at first. But when poisonous gases weakened Roku so much that he could barely move, the fire lord leaves his former friend to perish on the volcano. Sozin completes his betrayal by starting a long and devastating war against the other nations.

Iroh was once the heir to the fire nation throne. But things changed after he lost his son. While Iroh mourned, his brother Ozai asked Fire Lord Azulon if he could become next-in-line. The fire nation ruler is understandably furious at his son’s callousness. But Azulon’s response to this ridiculous request was much worse. He orders Ozai to take Zuko’s life so the prince can understand what losing a child is like. In true family tradition, Ozai decides to do something much worse. Instead of going through with the order, he has his wife Ursa take Azulon out with poison. Ozai could’ve just stood up to his old man. But instead, he used his loved ones as pawns just to seize power.

Jet is a fairly dark character in general. The young freedom fighter is willing to take innocent lives just to get revenge on the Fire Nation. But the darkest part of his story is how it ends. After being brainwashed by the Dai Li, Jet leads Aang and company right into the stone hands of the secret police force. Aang helps the freedom fighter break free from his mind control. But after Jet attempts to lash out at the Dai Li leader, he receives a fatal blow. Although he claims that he’ll be alright, Toph can tell he’s lying. We never see Jet again. Despite happening offscreen, his demise is clearly one of the show’s bleakest moments.

One of the hardest episodes to rewatch is the one focused on Aang’s flying bison, Appa. After being stolen from the Gaang by sandbenders, Appa has to endure a series of awful events by himself. One of the most disturbing parts of his story occurs after he’s imprisoned in a Fire Nation circus. The ringmaster refuses to feed Appa and threatens him with fire until the animal obeys the performer’s commands. Children’s programming doesn’t always devote time to tackling how cruel humans can be towards animals. Almost a decade after the episode premiered, the issues this story raised are unfortunately still relevant.

Zuko is an angry young man. We all know this. Despite that fact, his uncle Iroh is always trying to help the prince improve and find balance in himself. Iroh even opts to show him how to redirect lightning. But he refuses to let his nephew try out the technique for real. Desperate to prove himself, Zuko decides to seek lightning elsewhere. He climbs to a mountaintop and rails at a storm to strike him. Thankfully, he is never hit by any lightning. Although the storm held back, the show didn’t pull any punches. The teenage Zuko was so damaged that he openly welcomed the potentially painful and fatal consequences of being struck by lightning.

We’ve already touched on Korra being kidnapped by the Red Lotus. But their ultimate goal was significantly more messed up. They wanted to poison Korra to trigger her Avatar State. If her life was taken while she was in this powerful form, the Avatar Cycle would end. Watching her get poisoned is incredibly gruesome. But the aftermath is equally grim. Korra has trouble walking after the ordeal and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Even after she makes a big physical recovery, she’s plagued by nightmares and hallucinations. Korra’s PTSD lasts past the episode she’s poisoned and well into the next season. The show handles this subject well by depicting this mature struggle in a realistic way.

Messed up families are par for the course in the “Avatar” franchise. “Korra’s” first season features one of the worst examples of both series. While the villainous Noatak A.K.A. Amon terrorizes Republic City, his brother, Councilman Tarrlok tries to protect it in his own twisted way. After both of them become wanted men, they escape the city on a boat. Noatak is optimistic that the two can start a new chapter of their lives. Although Tarrlok plays along at first, he eventually decides to bring their stories to an end. The former councilman uses one of Noatak’s weapons to blow up the boat. It’s safe to say that no one saw the two brothers going out in such a sudden and grim way.

You’d be forgiven for mistaking the“Puppetmaster” episode for a horror film. The darkest part of this grim story occurs when Hama and Katara confront each other. Hama is a bloodbender, a waterbender who is able to control the blood inside of the bodies of living things— effectively turning them into puppets. After using this technique on Katara, she uses it on Aang and Sokka. Hama controls their movements and nearly makes them wound each other. Katara uses bloodbending to put an end to the dark tale. The fact that Katara had to become what she fought against is disturbing. Although she never wanted to learn this twisted technique, she later bloodbends a man when she’s blinded by rage and her own darkness.

Airbending was generally seen as the most gentle of the bending disciplines… until the brutal Zaheer became an airbender. As part of his plan to capture the avatar, Zaheer makes a deal with the Earth Queen. But she turns on him and orders her loyalists to attack him. When Zaheer and his allies win the battle, he decides to get rid of the Earth Queen. He uses a horrifying airbending technique on the queen that swiftly leads to her demise. The disturbing scene leaves us breathless every time we watch it. Zaheer’s brutal bending is far and away one of the most wicked acts in the entire franchise.

Zuko goes through some dark times throughout the story of “Avatar”. But one of his lowest points happened before the show began. During a storm, Iroh recounts how Zuko got his infamous scar. After speaking out of turn during a war meeting, Zuko was forced to duel his father. But he refuses to fight. Ozai punishes Zuko’s refusal by using firebending to give his son a painful scar. The Fire Lord’s actions would even be disturbing in a show aimed at adults. Seeing how despicable Ozai was to his own son took the story to a very dark place. But what could be darker than a parent giving their child a scar? Well…

Although “the last airbender” is right in the show’s title, it can be easy to forget the dark reality behind those words. Aang is the only airbender around because the rest of his people were decimated by the fire nation at the start of the 100 Year War. The full reality of this situation first hits home for Aang and the audience when he returns to the air temple he once called home and only finds bones. It’s an utterly heartbreaking scene. The amount of offscreen horror that had to occur before this moment makes us shudder to contemplate. We’re still stunned “Avatar” could convey the magnitude of such a heinous act so simply and effectively.