‘When the World Needed Him Most, He Vanished’: How Long Was Aang Frozen In ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’?

Everybody who grew up watching Avatar: The Last Airbender knows that Aang was trapped in ice. At the beginning of every episode, Katara would tell us that the Avatar disappeared when the world needed him most. Years would pass, and the Fire Nation would have grown in power.

But Avatar Aang wasn’t stuck inside an iceberg for just a few years. Out of greed, Fire Lord Sozin commanded a genocide against the Air Nomads to kill the Avatar. Aang was able to escape the assault but was trapped in an iceberg with Appa through the Avatar State. The Fire Nation would continue to oppress other nations, even after Fire Lord Sozin’s death at age 102.

Aang was born in the year 12 BG (before the Genocide), and he would emerge from the iceberg 100 years later. He would be found by Sokka and Katara, who were in the middle of an argument at sea.

Episode One Recap

What could change in a hundred years? A lot, especially when one nation is busy colonizing its neighbors. The Fire Nation would continue to search for the Avatar and monitor lands that were once Air Nomad territory. History is told by the victor, and the Fire Nation would launch widespread propaganda against the Air Nomads after the Fire Nation committed the genocide. The Fire Nation distorted information and framed the Air Nomads as people who plotted to take over the world.

They simply had to stop such tyranny, and Fire Lord Sozin “valiantly” fought against the “Air Nation Army.” This would all be true if it were in reverse, and the Air Nomads didn’t even have an army to begin with. It was the Fire Nation that perpetrated the extermination of the Air Nomads to kill the Avatar and take over the world. But Aang ironically survived, even when every other airbender was hunted to extinction.

(featured image: Nickelodeon)