Who is he?[]
Aang is the main protagonist of Avatar The Last Airbender. Although voted PG when he got his PG proposal, I have noticed a glaring character flaw in him that in my opinion, should disqualify him immediantly.
Why he cannot qualify as PG[]
Aang is one of the most irresponsible heroes, if not THE most irresponsible hero I have ever enciountered. He never learns from his mistakes, never takes into consideration how being the Avatar effects everyone else. Now you might say that's his core concept, the constant struggle between the spirit and the human. But he often doesn't give considerations to one when he needs to, preferring to make excuses about it. He disappoints people around him all the time because something more important was happening in the other side of his life. But instead of trying to find ways to balance his two lives properly, he just makes excuses, and is sad that being th Avatar hurt his personal life, or that being Aang hurt his duties as the Avatar. If he places more importance on being the Avatar, then he should distance himself from relationships that would hurt that. If he places more importance on being Aang, he needs to sacrifice his time as the Avatar.
Now that's not going to be the case for everyone in the real world, but Aang never really changes as a result of his actions. He never learns anything, never grows, and this is a crucial aspect of the heroes journey. The heroes journey is a metaphor for growing up, and growing up means learning responsibility. Responsibility is a trait I greatly admire in heroes, and a trait I think needs to be taken more into account. But the boy neglected them too much for me to consider him PG. If he had been responsible, perhaps the Nomads, Yue, and Jet would still be alive. Alas their all dead, and I blame their deaths on Aang.
Plus, he is unwilling to make the sacrifices and difficult choices that come with being a hero. He ditches his responsibility as the Avatar to waste time with fun and games, and all his people, and everyone who died in the war or on screen is dead because of him. He dodges responsibility for his own selfish desires again and again throughout the show, just for fun and games. The worst case of Aang’s refusal to make hard choices was when he refused to give up his feelings for Katara and open his final chakra. Instead, he refuses and once again the world pays for his stupidity. And he has to rely on a deus ex machine to get his chakra open and get the girl. Him giving up his feelings for Katara would have been the responsible chance for him to do so. Imagine this, in the final battle against Ozai, Aang realizes that as long as he holds onto his feelings for Katara, he will never win. So he gives up his feelings for her, opens his final chakra in the right way, saves the world, but now he and Katara can’t be with each other. BOOM! That is selflessness, that is responsibility, that would make him better qualified to be PG.
How do I know this could work? Because I’ve seen it before. In the fantasy book “The Last Unicorn”, and it's film adaptation the titular character is turned into a human to hide from an evil king’s pet demon. But this makes her vulnerable to human emotion, since Unicorns have a very different sense of morality than humans. As a result, she falls in love with a human prince, and the two have a shot at happiness with each other, but the cost is that the rest of the unicorn population will remain the king’s prisoners forever, which will cause great harm to the world as enchanted forests will no longer be protected, and are in danger of being destroyed. She gives up her happiness and humanity, turns back into a unicorn, saves her people from a fate worse than death, but now she and the prince can’t be with each other.
Or in “The Inheritance Cycle”. In book 2 of this 4 part fantasy series, the main character falls in love with an Elven princess. But she can’t return the feelings. Because A. Elves don’t marry. And B. If she returned the feelings, the evil king the two are fighting will know that he or she is the others weakness and will use it to undo everything they’ve worked to achieve. She rejects him, and he learns to cope with it, and this develops him even more. Hell, in the final book, in order to unlock the final power he needs to defeat the king, the main character goes through something similar to Aang. with the chakras. He has to accept that when this is all over, life won’t go back to normal, too much has changed. He is not the young, naive, innocent human farm boy who left his village to seek revenge on his uncle’s killers back in book 1. He’s now a older, wiser, grown-up, half-elven dragon rider who’s about to decide the fate of the world.
In those stories I’ve mentioned, both heroes made hard, difficult, and selfless choices. They chose what was best for those they loved, even if it meant removing themselves from the picture. And one of them even came to terms with the fact that life will never go back to normal, because he’s a completely different person by the end of the series. But Aang chose what was best for him. A true PG hero chooses what is best for EVERYONE, even if it means giving up what they want the most.
I'm sorry this was so long, but I have to make my case as clear as possible. I just think he's too irresponsible to be PG, and I think responsibility needs to be a factor taken into account when making PG or PG removal proposals.