Ba Sing Se once survived a century-long war by pretending the war didn’t exist at all, only to get taken over by the Fire Nation during Avatar: The Last Airbender. Despite ongoing political turmoil extending through The Legend of Korra’s era, the Earth Kingdom’s former capital persisted — and one version of it even survived the Cataclysm. Avatar: Seven Havens revealed the existence of a Haven called New Ba Sing Se during season 1, offering a glimpse of a society still clinging to old traditions while its people go hungry. And based on one specific detail from the season finale, there’s a very good reason to suspect we’ll get to see the city of New Ba Sing Se firsthand in season 2.
Spoilers follow for Avatar: Seven Havens season 1.
Avatar: Seven Havens’ season 1 finale sends Avatar Pavi (Saheli Khan) on a quest to the Floating Isles to solve that Haven’s problems and unlock her second chakra. The show’s creators have confirmed that future seasons will visit more than one Haven each. In an interview with IGN, franchise co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino revealed that while book 1 was set entirely in the fortified city of Ellora, the overarching Seven Havens story is mapped out across four seasons, which means speeding up the journey moving forward.
“We had to split it up a little differently, but we’ll get through all the Seven Havens by the end of this series for sure,” DiMartino said. “That’s the full story.”
That’s six more chakras across only three seasons with an average of two per season, so it’s increasingly likely that Pavi and Jae (Major Curda) will visit at least two Havens next season.
Based on what we know about chakras, they have to be opened in order. According to the sequence laid out in Pavi’s cosmic vision, her next destination after the Floating Isles should be the yellow Haven toward the northeastern corner of the world map shown in the series’ opening sequence. We know that the Cataclysm reshaped the world with ongoing storms, but even before New Ba Sing Se was named outright, signs pointed toward the former Earth Kingdom capital as the yellow Haven on that map.
New Ba Sing Se already has a crisis waiting for Pavi
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Image: Paramount Plus -
Image: Paramount Plus
New Ba Sing Se’s representatives arrive at Ellora’s summit on sky bison decorated with an emblem resembling the Earth Kingdom’s square-holed national emblem. An Akashan visitor mockingly calls them “historians” who have ventured out of their “crumbling haven.” Their clothing is also virtually indistinguishable from what the people of Ba Sing Se wore during Aang’s time. When the Haven is properly introduced during episode 8’s welcome , Nisha (Aishu Devan) remarks from afar that they live as though it’s still ancient times. It’s abundantly clear that New Ba Sing Se clings to the oldest traditions this world knows.
A politician named Kuzon (Eric Bauza) serves as New Ba Sing Se’s envoy at the summit, and his behavior makes it seem like his Haven is protective of its dignity. When Chancellor Kayoko (Jennifer Sun Bell) asks the assembled Havens for benders in exchange for food, Kuzon admits that their own circumstances are desperate.
“New Ba Sing Se has experienced the worst famine in our long history,” he says, offering to trade benders for some of Ellora’s harvest.
Bender birth rates are declining worldwide, presumably because the Anomaly has stagnated the flow of spiritual energy. Pavi’s quest to unblock her own chakras seems intrinsically connected to restoring the flow of spiritual energy in this broken world.
Assuming that New Ba Sing Se was founded in the former location of Ba Sing Se (how could it not be?), then it’s likely associated with the yellow chakra. That’s the third color in the sequence, following Ellora’s red and the Floating Isles’ orange. In The Last Airbender’s season 2 episode called “The Guru,” Guru Pathik explains that this is the fire chakra that deals with willpower and is blocked by shame.
That sounds like fertile ground for a society struggling to preserve its former greatness while failing to feed its people. Pride isn’t the same thing as shame, but pride can be a way for people to hide their shame. It certainly takes a kind of willpower to cling to old traditions that are probably less suited to survival than embracing more advanced technology used in Havens like Akasha.
The original Ba Sing Se maintained a carefully controlled illusion of security while the Hundred Year War raged beyond its walls. Its successor could be clinging to a different delusion: that neglecting the old ways is what caused the Cataclysm, and preserving them is somehow the antidote to the apocalypse.
The Floating Isles and New Ba Sing Se probably have a different kind of Anomaly
The show’s creators also told IGN that the relationship between the Havens and chakras is central to the series’ overarching design. DiMartino explained that “The Guru” moved through those ideas quickly, whereas Seven Havens gives the writers room to explore them across an entire story. Co-executive producer Sehaj Sethi described aligning that structure with the characters’ emotional development as one of the production’s greatest challenges.
In other words, the chakra colors offer clues about both Pavi’s itinerary and what she’ll need to confront when she gets there.
Before any potential return to Ba Sing Se, Pavi has to reach the Floating Isles. DiMartino described it as a “more chill place compared to Ellora” with a distinct culture and customs. To be fair, most places would feel chill compared to Chancellor Kayoko’s increasingly authoritarian rule. Guru Pathik calls the second chakra the water chakra (fitting for an archipelago), saying that it deals with pleasure and is blocked by guilt.
What might that look like across an entire society? One possibility is a hedonistic culture devoted to food, revelry, and entertainment where people distract themselves from guilt they refuse to confront. Another is a comparatively comfortable Haven whose inhabitants know people elsewhere are starving.
That’s just a theory, but it does draw an interesting contrast with New Ba Sing Se’s famine, which in turn could give season 2 a compelling conflict: one Haven struggling to enjoy what it has and another ashamed of what it can no longer provide.
An Anomaly that amplifies guilt would also offer a disturbing variation on Ellora’s fear-based Affliction. Instead of seeing threats everywhere, its victims might become overwhelmed by memories of everyone they’ve hurt. Whether that would involve orange eyes or another diamond-shaped energy spirit is anyone’s guess. The same could be said of New Ba Sing Se’s third chakra. Season 2 will likely see Pavi confront and overcome the guilt and shame she feels about abandoning Nisha.
In a way, that resonates with the Avatar’s overarching mission of abandoning worldly attachments at the end of their journey. Is it okay for Pavi to find joy and satisfaction in her quest? Does she have the willpower to overcome the shame associated with that? It is therefore fitting that the next chakra (possibly Feather Mountain?) will see her explore love and grief before truth and lies (maybe Akasha?) before she reaches a part of the world we know virtually nothing about. As with Aang, the fate of everything rests in a child’s ability to resolve their trauma.