Netflix changes Avatar: The Last Airbender character due to “gender issues”

Netflix has changed another of the Avatar: The Last Airbender characters in its live-action adaptation due to “gender issues,” and fans aren’t too happy about the news.

The upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender is the second live-action adaptation of Nickelodeon’s anime-inspired show of the same name. However, there’s plenty of hype surrounding Netflix’s iteration, given the first – M. Night Shyamalan’s 2010 movie, The Last Airbender – was a critical and commercial flop.

As per the logline for the upcoming series, Avatar: The Last Airbender is a “live-action reimagining of the beloved animated series following Aang, the young Avatar, as he learns to master the four elements (Water, Earth, Fire, Air) to restore balance to a world threatened by the terrifying Fire Nation.”

With less than a month before it drops on streaming, focus has turned to some of the changes made to the original, as the showrunner opens up about the “gender issues” relating to waterbending master, Katara.

Avatar: The Last Airbender character changed over “gender issues”

Speaking to IGN, Avatar: The Last Airbender showrunner Albert Kim echoed comments previously made about some of the “sexist” elements they pulled in the Netflix adaptation, resulting in changes to Katara and Sokka.

“There are certain roles I think that Katara did in the cartoon that we didn’t necessarily also do here,” Kim told the outlet. “I mean, I don’t want to really get into a lot of that, but some gender issues that didn’t quite translate from the cartoon.”

Kim’s comments arrive after Sokka star Ian Ousley and Katara star Kiawentiio spoke to Entertainment Weekly about edits made to their characters, with the former stating, “There’s more weight with realism” in the Netflix version. 

Adding to this, Kiawentiio said, “I feel like we also took out the element of how sexist [Sokka] was. I feel like there were a lot of moments in the original show that were iffy.” Ousley agreed: “Yeah, totally. There are things that were redirected just because it might play a little differently [in live action].”

The decision to change these elements of the characters hasn’t gone down too well with the fans, with some citing the fact that former creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino spent two years developing the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender before exiting the project over creative differences. 

“It’s so obvious why the creators left the show. Netflix do not understand the characters at all,” wrote one on X, while another said, “Wonder what else they changed. No way the OG creators just up & leave after 2+ years of work.”

A third added, “I understand their point of view but the Sokka stuff helped his character grow within the original show.” While a fourth commented, “But Katara’s feminism is a major plot point of the first season?”

Elaborating further on why they believe these elements should be left in, one wrote: “Her gender things were literally the north water tribe not allowing women to train in combat bending and focus on healing when she needed combat training, and Sokka’s arc is him growing to accept that women are just as good as men and that he doesn’t need to do everything.”

Others are arguing that these characteristics are so minimal in the animated series that they’re not worth talking about. “It’s such a non issue that I wonder why it’d even need to be said,” commented a Redditor about the Katara comments.

“I imagine it’s about the sewing? If so, I don’t think anyone would notice that being absent. Avatar was such a clean show that the only thing I can think of that didn’t ‘age well’ was Iroh snuggling with Jun.”

Another stated that the sexism comprises “less than 1% of Sokka’s screen time, character arc, everything,” adding: “The fact that Sokka turns on a dime without a single look back, in the course of a day, shows that Sokka didn’t have deep-seated, real sexist beliefs. He was just a traumatized child, spouting the misguided, misinformed observations that he’d been given throughout his childhood.”