Avatar: Seven Havens Season 2 Could Return to Ba Sing Se

Ba Sing Se endured a century-long war while pretending the conflict did not exist, only to fall to the Fire Nation during Avatar: The Last Airbender. The former Earth Kingdom capital survived further political turmoil through the era of The Legend of Korra, and a version of it endured even the Cataclysm.

Season 1 of Avatar: Seven Havens reveals a Haven called New Ba Sing Se, where people cling to old traditions while facing hunger. A detail in the finale suggests the series could visit the city in season 2.

Spoilers follow for Avatar: Seven Havens season 1.

In the season 1 finale, Avatar Pavi (Saheli Khan) sets out for the Floating Isles to solve the Haven’s problems and unlock her second chakra. The show’s creators have confirmed that future seasons will visit more than one Haven each.

Franchise co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino told IGN that although book 1 took place entirely in the fortified city of Ellora, the wider Seven Havens story is mapped out across four seasons. That means the journey will need to move faster.

“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.”

With six chakras left to open across three seasons, the story would need to cover an average of two per season. Pavi and Jae (Major Curda) may therefore visit at least two Havens next season.

Chakras must be opened in order. The sequence in Pavi’s cosmic vision suggests that, after the Floating Isles, she should head to the yellow Haven near the northeastern corner of the world map in the opening sequence. The Cataclysm reshaped the world with ongoing storms, but even before New Ba Sing Se was named, there were signs that the former Earth Kingdom capital corresponded to the yellow Haven.

New Ba Sing Se has a crisis waiting for Pavi

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 mocks them as “historians” who have left their “crumbling haven.” Their clothes are also almost indistinguishable from those worn in Ba Sing Se during Aang’s time.

When the Haven is introduced during the welcome parade in episode 8, Nisha (Aishu Devan) remarks from a distance that its people live as though it is still ancient times. New Ba Sing Se appears deeply attached to the world’s oldest traditions.

Its envoy at the summit, the politician Kuzon (Eric Bauza), seems protective of the Haven’s dignity. But when Chancellor Kayoko (Jennifer Sun Bell) asks the assembled Havens for benders in exchange for food, he admits that New Ba Sing Se is 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 effort to unblock her chakras appears connected to restoring that flow.

If New Ba Sing Se was founded where Ba Sing Se once stood, it may be associated with the yellow chakra. Yellow is third in the sequence, after Ellora’s red and the Floating Isles’ orange. In The Last Airbender season 2 episode “The Guru,” Guru Pathik explains that the fire chakra deals with willpower and is blocked by shame.

Those themes could fit a society trying to preserve its former greatness while failing to feed its people. Pride and shame are different, but pride can conceal shame. Holding on to old traditions may also take willpower, even if those traditions are less suited to survival than the more advanced technology used in Havens such as Akasha.

The original Ba Sing Se maintained a controlled illusion of safety while the Hundred Year War raged beyond its walls. Its successor could be holding on to another belief: that neglect of the old ways caused the Cataclysm and that preserving those ways is an answer to the apocalypse.

The Floating Isles and New Ba Sing Se may face different Anomalies

The creators also told IGN that the relationship between the Havens and chakras is central to the series’ design. DiMartino said “The Guru” moved quickly through those ideas, while Seven Havens gives the writers room to explore them across a whole story. Co-executive producer Sehaj Sethi called the task of aligning that structure with the characters’ emotional development one of the production’s greatest challenges.

The chakra colors may offer clues about both Pavi’s route and the challenges she will face along the way.

Before any possible return to Ba Sing Se, Pavi must reach the Floating Isles. DiMartino described the Haven as a “more chill place compared to Ellora,” with its own culture and customs. Many places might feel calmer than Ellora under Kayoko’s increasingly authoritarian rule.

Guru Pathik calls the second chakra the water chakra. He says it deals with pleasure and is blocked by guilt, a potentially fitting theme for an archipelago.

One possibility is that the Floating Isles have a culture devoted to food, revelry and entertainment, where people distract themselves from guilt they refuse to confront. Another is that the Haven is relatively comfortable, while its inhabitants know people elsewhere are starving. Both possibilities remain theories.

Either could contrast with the famine in New Ba Sing Se and give season 2 a conflict between 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 variation on Ellora’s fear-based Affliction. Rather than seeing threats everywhere, its victims might be overwhelmed by memories of people they have hurt. Whether that would involve orange eyes or another diamond-shaped energy spirit remains unknown. The same uncertainty applies to how New Ba Sing Se might reflect the third chakra.

Season 2 may see Pavi confront the guilt and shame she feels about abandoning Nisha. Those emotions also connect to the Avatar’s wider mission of letting go of worldly attachments at the end of the journey. Pavi may have to consider whether she can find joy in her quest and whether she has the willpower to overcome any shame associated with it.

The next chakra would bring themes of love and grief, perhaps at Feather Mountain, followed by truth and lies, possibly at Akasha. Beyond that lies a part of the world about which little is known. As with Aang, the fate of the world rests on a child’s ability to resolve their trauma.

Source: Polygon