Avatar: Seven Havens is a far more mystery-driven series than its predecessors, The Legend of Korra and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Avatar Korra supposedly caused a cataclysm that destroyed most of the world, but it’s unclear why she would do that and how the new Avatar might be able to fix things. The first episode of Seven Havens premiered on Oct. 9, and the writers may have already provided some big hints about what’s going on.
This article contains spoilers for the first episode of Avatar: Seven Havens.
In the series premiere, “On the Horizon,” Ellora — the Haven where this season takes place — celebrates a festival to mark its founding in the wake of the cataclysm. The actors in a play explaining the history are dressed in a rainbow of colors. Those colors also appear in charts of the seven chakras. An overhead image of Ellora shows the Haven of Wind and Sand appears to be made of red-hued rocks, the color associated with the root chakra. “The Root Chakra” is also the name of the season finale.
The Avatar franchise is based on Buddhist mysticism, following the cycle of reincarnation that Aang, Korra, and the new Avatars Pavi (Saheli Khan) and Nisha (Aishu Devan) are all part of. Series co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko previously dove into chakras as a meditation aid in the Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2 episode “The Guru,” when Guru Pathik trained Aang to cleanse blockages from his seven chakras in order to gain control over the Avatar State.
The root or earth chakra is the very first chakra Aang learns to open. As Pathik explains, that chakra, found at the base of the spine, deals with survival and is blocked by fear. Ellora’s motto is “For the survival of Ellora” and its people are constantly vigilant to new threats. Fewer benders are born each year, and all of them are conscripted into the Bending Brigade to protect the Haven. The imbalance is clearly becoming critical, manifesting in the angry red energy appearing in Ellora in the Seven Havens trailer.
Each season of Avatar: The Last Airbender was named for the element Aang was focused on mastering. The Legend of Korra deviated with that model through seasons subtitled Spirits, Change, and Balance. Avatar: Seven Havens season 1 is Book 1: Survival, indicating that Pavi and Nisha will need to figure out how to bring Ellora back into balance. Given that they are both earthbenders, it makes sense that they would start their journey with the earth chakra. If each Haven represents a different chakra, traveling across the world to help them could potentially repair the damage the cataclysm caused and restore harmony.
Is Korra really the villain of Avatar: Seven Havens?
Most people in Ellora think of Korra as a monster and fear the return of the Avatar. Historically, we know that the Avatar is a bridge between the mortal and spirit worlds who derives their power from an ancient bond with the primordial spirit Raava. Rather than close the pair of portals to the spirit world located at the North and South Poles in the material plane, Korra left them open after the Harmonic Convergence at the end of season 2. That led to people around the world becoming airbenders, restoring the natural balance between the elements that was disrupted when the Fire Nation killed almost all the Air Nomads at the beginning of the Hundred Year War. If fewer benders are being born every year during Seven Havens, that is likely a sign that the connection to the spirit world is now too weak.
In the final season of Korra, the Avatar stopped the earthbender general Kuvira from using spirit vines to power a weapon of mass destruction. It’s possible that in the 225 years since then someone else tried to exploit the power of the spirit world and Korra had to stop them. Similar to how Korra created a third portal to the spirit world when she redirected the energy from Kuvira’s weapon, it’s possible that some kind of similar confrontation involving spirit energy triggered the cataclysm accidentally.
Korra had a unique relationship with Raava, perhaps the single strongest since the original Avatar Wan. The spirit was pulled out of her and seemingly destroyed, but Korra was able to find Raava’s spark inside her cosmic opposite, Vaatu. While Korra was then able to reunite with Raava and regain her Avatar powers, she remained cut off from the memories of every previous Avatar. This phenomenon may have had other side effects.
For the first time ever, there are two Avatars alive at the same time. It could be that one twin is imbued with the power of Raava and the other with the energy of Vaatu, leading to a classic evil twin arc. But it’s also possible that the twin Avatars were the universe’s attempt to achieve balance. Without the wisdom of numerous generations to draw on, Pavi and Nisha will need each other to heal a broken world — and perhaps the spirit of Korra herself.