What Happened to Aang's Parents

Who are Aangs parents? How did the monks raise their children? What happened to Aangs parents? What is Aangs family tree? All of those things are answered in this video!

#avatarthelastairbender #atla

[Wojtek_Ch]

Aang's dad went out for some flying bison's milk once and never came back.

[bluegirl]

The people who raise the children are monks. The rest of the air-benders are travelling nomads. When one get pregnant they go to the temple to give birth and give the child to the monks to be raised and then leave to travel again. That’s how airbender societies work according to some sources from people who worked on the show. Zuko even mentioned that Aang wouldn’t know of fathers since he was raise by monks and he got no reaction from aang as this is normal for airbender children. They may have workshopped many ideas before coming to this one but this is the canon way their society functions.

[panduino]

I was under the impression that Air Nomads when actually being, well, nomads, would have relationships with people along their journey and would eventually have a kid, and if they were an airbender they’d send them to a temple

[Jay-kxjf]

I don't think there needs to be breeding festivals. They were nomadic and travelled through all 4 temples. That means men and women would have had opportunities to meet eachother along the way.
Aang had himself travelled a ton, especially for a 12 year old boy.
The adults must have travelled way way more than that. They probably live on the road largely.

[ConcealedWeaponry]

FINALLY! This is the first time in a while I've heard someone actually talk about what could've happened to Aang's parents.

[kalvinpratama]

Me right after reading the title: "Easy, dead."

[paranize]

Aang states in S1E17 at around 7 mins that he's seen the Northern temple when the monks where there. He was also going to be sent to the Eastern Air Temple, not the Western, that's why the Eastern Temple is the one with the most damage, it was where the Avatar was supposed to be. He also knows a lot about the Western Temple, so he moat likely had visited all the Air Temples.

[vashythewabbit]

One thing to add, the writers was originally going to reveal what happened to Aang's parents in a flashback in Book 3, but they couldn't find a appropriate time.

[l.c.]

People always forget that they're technically nomads, while they come back to the temples every now and then they would have largely lived on the road (on the bison), this gave them plenty of opportunity to join up with other air nomads and also to hook up, they'd come back to the temple to give birh and for early childcare, and leave the rest for the temple to deal with, the temples are staffed with old masters, young apprentices and people who are stopping there for a while on their journey through life.

The distruction of the temples was so monumental because they had no way to organise themselves and fight back as a group, which is how the fire nation was able to hunt them down, not because it destroyed every last airbender at once.

[tierk]

I am so interested in the new generation of Air Nomads. Tenzin being raised by a Water Bender and a majority of Air Nomads were from the Earth Kingdom. It would be so interesting to see what this mixture of cultures and beliefs would turn the Air Nation into.

[eeveeongirl]

The creators did comment that initially they were going to have an episode discussing aang's biological family in season one but it was dropped in favor of other episodes. Shame that we could have had that one but we got the great divide....

[misfits]

Personally? I just thought the gender-division wasn't so strict that nuns and monks would never come into contact. Clearly there was communication and visits throughout all the air temples, it's just at the end of the day they spend your average day at home if you will, at their respective air temple. Field trips clearly happen, since Aang and his peers met their bison at the Eastern Air Temple like you mentioned, so I don't know why adult male airbenders couldn't visit for important moments, or hell, just to check up on the air bison, because If I recall, they were raised at the Eastern and possibly Western Air Temples.

[ishayagam]

The theory about the breeding festival makes sense and fits into the nomad’s culture perfectly!! Very interesting video!!! Well done!

[silrana]

Y’know I never wondered about this...because I know in *some* places, children whose families can’t afford to keep them end up going to the temple to become monks and train, even if their family really loves them. So for whatever reason, I never questioned Aangs parentage because I figured it’d be sad, because if his parents didn’t give him away, they don’t seem to be around.

[digitaladventurer]

Yeah odds are he never knew his biological parents due to how the air nomads were raised. And honestly based on some of the minor disfunction in Aang and Tenzin's families it actually makes sense why Air Nomads choose to seperate blood family members. Kya and Bumi definetly had some resentment toward Tenzin for getting more attention from Aang then them. True it never boiled over into haterd by any means but you could tell they were somewhat miffed about it. The same with Tenzin's family. Ikki and Milo did show minor hints from time to time of being somewhat jealous of Jinora's rapid advancement compared to them. Again it was never anywhere close to hatred but by making sure no one knew what bloodline they came from no one would really have any expectations of anyone else.

[Lupinemancer]

This is why I want to see more of the Air Nomad culture and I hope whatever series the studio plan to make will take place back when they were still around so we can learn more about them.

[howardlanus]

I think that the Air Nomads would have had some means of tracking lineages, or at least pairings, lest they succumb to inbreeding.

[bleflar]

Wait, did Air nomads only live in temples? That seems kinda not very nomad-like. I always thought there were just the temples and monks living there and the rest of the air nomads were just, well, nomadic.

[G.F.SF]

That tradition seems to make sense, but imagine if siblings met there and didn't know who they were to each

[FaultyPhenomena]

I personally don’t like the idea of there being a festival that air nomads can breed since the air nomad are all about freedom. Since we know that the air nomads traveled the world I like the idea that they breaded with who they wanted in their travels.