The Avatar franchise remains popular among fans due to its great re-watch value, stemming from the show’s epic fights, comedic scenes, interesting array of characters, and superb plot. However, one of Avatar’s main specialties is its villains, with different goals and mannerisms. Villains like Azula, the Firelord’s daughter, gave the main characters occasional despair, Amon, the revolutionary, politicized the franchise, allowing viewers to see through the perspective of non-benders, and Vaatu threatened impending apocalypse. So, we are going to rank the best villains in Avatar based on their ideals, thought processes, and how well they impacted the story.
10 Hama The Twisted Blood Bender
The creator of the deadly blood-bending technique that was a terror to even Avatars started out as a water tribe girl, thriving in her little village. Hama’s villainous nature emanated from being incarcerated by soldiers of the Fire Nation. Captured alongside her tribe members, Hama created her pathway for her escape by creating a new water-bending sub-art, which she perfected using rats in the prison cells.
After practicing and perfecting the powerful bending technique, she escaped from prison and became the villain to the innocent citizens of the Fire Nation. Using blood-bending, she controlled innocent citizens, holding them hostage for the actions committed by the Fire Nation towards her and her deceased brethren. Although Hama was briefly introduced, her story was saddening, revealing how suffering can change someone’s personality and ideals.
9 The Crafty Long Feng And The Dai Li
Long Feng practically shows how a king’s authority can be twisted to benefit his most trusted advisors. The power-hungry advisor to the Earth King was able to charm the unassuming ruler of the Earth Kingdom into believing his wiles and less-than-ideal suggestions. Backed up by the Dai Li, Long Feng was undoubtedly the unofficial ruler of the Earth Kingdom.
Using his wits and intelligence and the Dai Li’s influence, he managed to brainwash and manipulate the citizens of the Earth Kingdom into believing that there was no existing war outside their imposing wall. Unfortunately, the façade he sets up crumbles after Aang visits. Still, he managed to wriggle out of the temporary problem, using his connection with Azula, showing his doggedness and mettle as a villain.
8 The Two-Faced Councilman Tarrlok
To the citizenry of the Republic City, Councilman Tarrlok was a charismatic politician and a fair-minded individual who had the interest of their nation at heart. However, in council meetings and as a council member, Tarrlok revealed his manipulative and extremist side, forcing Tenzin to convince Korra to use her bending skills to eliminate the Equalists.
At this point, viewers well-acquainted with the typical villain mannerisms could rightly guess that there was more to this manipulative councilman. Episodes later, he proves it by blood-bending the council members and Korra later in the series. Reviving the deadly art, he uses it to capture the Avatar and imprison her in his secluded home, showing his two-sided nature.
7 Zaheer The Anarchist
Zaheer brings back the air-bending narrative, but in a different way. Due to the world balance system finally recovering from the disaster wrought by the Fire Nation, new air benders like Zaheer showed up. Zaheer was a talented air bender, mastering how to fly without any supporting craft. However, apart from his bending skills, his ideals and character made him very unlikable.
Zaheer supported anarchy, claiming that the world was becoming more bureaucratic, and the regular people suffered because of the controlling leadership. At first glance, his ideals seemed reasonable, but on a closer look, you will discover that they benefited only him and his cohort greatly. To prove the extent of his conviction, he captured and poisoned Korra, so she could reveal the Avatar State, and he would destroy it permanently. This action places him above most villains in terms of cruelty.
6 Unalaq The Dark Avatar
Avatar: The Legend of Korra showed fans what a Dark Avatar looked like, using Unalaq. One of the most dangerous sets of villains are individuals who believe that their evil actions are righteous, with firm and unflinching conviction. Unalaq is one such villain. Starting out as the Korra’s reasonable uncle, Unalaq appears to be a level-headed and strategic leader.
However, this subtly gives way to the vicious villain with the goal of reviving Vaatu, Raava’s archenemy, during harmonic convergence. But to obtain his goal, Korra’s input was needed, so he tried to manipulate the young Avatar into doing his bidding. Even though his plan didn’t follow his original intention, he managed to secure his objective, fusing with the dark entity, Vaatu.
5 Kuvira The Dictator
Kuvira’s actions were an interesting redo of the Fire Nation’s attempt to conquer the world. However, from Kuvira’s perspective, the Earth Kingdom is the leading nation. The birth of Kuvira’s villainy resulted from the decline in the Earth Kingdom’s infrastructure after the Earth Queen’s death. Soon after the royalty’s death, she managed to spread her influence enough to conquer the Earth Kingdom.
Drunk on her newly-obtained power and unreasonable propaganda, she desired to conquer the United Republic, using war machines she devised, a tech-oriented approach different from past villain strategies in the Avatar Franchise. Even though she didn’t succeed, Kuvira impacted the story because she was Korra’s exact opposite, confident and self-assured, contrary to Korra and her perpetual self-doubt.
4 The Malevolent Vaatu
Vaatu ranks high on this list because the spirit is the incarnation of evil in itself. The character is introduced as the Spirit of Darkness and Chaos, contrary to Raava, the Spirit of Peace and Light, making both spirits archenemies since their existence contradicts each other.
Apparently, this spirit is a being from time immemorial, with the century-long goal of enclosing the world in perpetual darkness and chaos. Initially, his plan was foiled by the Wan-Raava fusion, which created the first-ever Avatar, and led to his imprisonment in the Tree of Time. Unfortunately, through Unalaq, the malevolent being struck again, almost succeeding if not for Korra’s actions.
3 The Power-Hungry Firelord Ozai
Ozai was the main antagonist of Avatar: The Last Airbender and was one of the most difficult opponents Aang subdued. It can be rightly assumed that Firelord Ozai’s greed for world domination resulted from the Fire Nation’s long-standing desire to rule the Four Nations even before his birth. However, despite his hunger for power, Ozai also displayed horrible traits as a father.
Proof of his bad parenting was his son, Zuko, who he treated disdainfully due to the absence of his fire-bending talent, like his sister Azula. While Zuko was still young, Ozai burned his son’s face, causing a permanent scar over his face and creating a permanent rift between both of them.
To complete the ideal villain formula, formidable strength must be involved. Ozai perfectly embodies this villain trait through his masterful and incredible fire-bending skill.
2 Amon The Revolutionary
Honestly, if this ranking was purely based on intelligence and impressive ideals, Amon would have placed first. Arguably, the best villain in Avatar: The Legend of Korra, Amon, was a nightmare for the teenage Avatar. Amon was the leader of the Equalist faction with the goal of eliminating bending using his supposed ‘spiritually-granted power’, which later turned out to be high-level blood-bending.
His ideals and mannerisms most likely stemmed from his oppressive and abusive father’s treatment of his younger brother, Tarrlok. It made him believe bending was a skill that shouldn’t exist, so he resolved to eradicate the art. Amon was unpredictable, intelligent, and was always one step ahead of Korra and Republic City’s authorities. Similarly, one of his best actions as a villain was his removal of Korra’s bending, which lurched the character into a state of despair.
1 The Talented Azula
Azula, the daughter of Firelord Ozai and the sister of Prince Zuko, is one of the best, well-written villain characters in the Avatar Franchise. From a young age, she displayed a high aptitude for bending with her blue-colored flames. Blue flames are hotter than red flames, so this rare trait possessed by Azula already signaled her undeniable talent as a fire bender.
Azula was always a thorn at Zuko’s side, finding ways to manipulate her blood brother even from their childhood. However, if Azula was a menace to Zuko, then she was the harbinger of despair for Aang and his group. After chasing Aang relentlessly through the Earth Kingdom, she struck him down with lightning while he was in the Avatar State, almost killing the Avatar, revealing how cold-hearted she could get. Still, it wasn’t till the end of Avatar: The Last Airbender that we saw how malicious Azula could become after she tried to attack Katara with lightning to cripple her brother.
Arguably, Azula was more of a threat to the Avatar group than even the Firelord, and the constant battles with this maniac at its center made the show a fan-favorite.
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