Full spoilers follow for Avatar: Seven Havens Season 1, Episodes 10-13!
One thing that’s abundantly clear in the final four episodes of Avatar: Seven Havens “Book 1: Survival” is that between all the mysteries, theorizing, and big plot questions – how are there two Avatars? What did Korra do to cause the Cataclysm? What happened to Pavi (Saheli Khan) and Nisha’s (Aishu Devan) parents? – the far more important question is, and has always been, how this will impact the relationship between the twins? And to answer that, the finale is a heartbreaker, featuring one of the darkest, most upsetting endings in the Avatar franchise, while still somehow providing hope, heart, and above all, humor.
That’s a lot to tackle, and to be clear we do still get movement on the overarching mysteries of the series that should take us all the way through Book 4. That includes the reveal of what’s needed to heal the world… While fans sort of guessed what was going on, and there is likely much more to come, it turns out that the Seven Chakras that coincide with Seven Havens are directly tied to Pavi. Specifically, as the Faceless Queen Agam (Sakina Jaffrey) discovers during a spiritual alignment in Episode 11, “Battle of the Ruins,” Pavi’s chakras are all messed up. And once she’s able to face her fear of being revealed as the Avatar in the finale, “The Root Chakra,” she unlocks – guess what – her Root Chakra.
Both we, the audience, and Nisha are surprised that it’s Pavi who can unlock these alone; it was completely reasonable to speculate that the only way of stopping the fear literally bubbling under the Haven of Ellora was through Nisha and Pavi working together. Instead, the additional shocker is that somehow Nisha summoned that fear, killing her and Pavi’s parents in the process. Pavi was protected from the resulting rock slide by some sort of green energy, which took her leg… And Nisha, while able to hold back an energy dome about to consume the Haven in Episode 12, “The Dome,” is nowhere near as strong as Pavi, who single-handedly dispels the fear and begins to reconnect with past Avatars, as well as charting her path to her next destination, The Floating Isles (or Wilds – there are no closed captions on the screeners provided by Paramount).
(Side-note: there’s a ton of lore we could get into here, but we’ll save it for the section below.)
But in between all that, these episodes are really about two things: Pavi and Nisha, and how we react to fear. On the former, the show has managed to craft a powerful sisterly bond over the course of 13 episodes that feels real… Pavi is gutted by the revelation that Nisha killed their parents, but she’s far more upset that Nisha lied to her about it. And we’re left in a place where Pavi is finally owning up to her destiny, but seems harsher and more closed off (despite unlocking the Chakra) than the goofy weirdo who befriended rocks and bugs in the initial episodes. Meanwhile, Nisha is being cheered by the crowd in Ellora at the end, a flip on the fear of the Avatar that dogged her every move. But she’s just seen Pavi display more power than she ever has, and that clearly alarms her. They haven’t exactly changed positions, but it’s clear this resolution isn’t as simple as “hooray, fear cured!”
That gets to the second part, which we’ve been harping on all season: fear. The show hasn’t necessarily been subtle about how it’s reflecting our current world (or at least the world of several years ago when they were writing, developing, and animating this), but when a character says “We can’t just hide from this scary bubble” or “Freedom of choice is all I’ve ever wanted” they’re basically putting it out there what metaphorical levels the show is working on. And what works about it is that the series still functions as a rollicking adventure show and a sweet all-ages animated show while still being very blunt about where it leans politically.
And that’s what the best of entertainment should be doing, right? Commenting on our real world while also working as, you know, entertainment. Seven Havens has absolutely nailed that balance over 13 episodes. Not only that, but these final four address a number of fan “concerns” that have bubbled up. One of them has been about the “weak” bending, which one could venture comes from the fact that bending is disappearing from the world (as stated multiple times) and which we now know at least in part comes from these seven Chakras being blocked. But also, Pavi taking on the fear energy dome in the finale rocked. No pun intended on earthbending, but saving up your big bending stunts for the finale makes sense in terms of the build of a season.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/avatar-seven-havens-season-1-finale-episodes-10-13-review-and-recap
