There are very few shows that are as universally beloved as Avatar: The Last Airbender, and with the announcement of Avatar Studios and the long-awaited return to the world of elemental-benders, fans' excitement has reached an all time high.
That said, despite being one of the most renowned shows of all time (and deservedly so) the series isn't flawless (because no show ever is). Aang and Team Avatar might have given audiences some of the best lines, fights, episodes, and seasons that television has ever seen, but there were more than a few moments where fans just decided to sweep their questions under the rug.
10 How Easily Aang Entered The Avatar State
This flaw wasn't completely inherent until the series spin-off, Legend of Korra, came out and Korra struggled to enter the Avatar-State until the final 2 minutes of the season 1 finale.
It was always known that mastering all four elements took time and discipline and lots of hard work, but the show also showed that it took that same amount of time and discipline to even enter the Avatar State. Yet, Aang managed to enter the Avatar State repeatedly whenever he needed it as a "defense mechanism" when other Avatars like Korra or Roku still couldn't until they had trained for years. Though Aang did struggle with it at points, at other times, it seemed like something that came to him too quickly.
9 Hawkie Never Came Back
During the season 3 episode when Toph decides to start using her earthbending to scam a few gamblers, Sokka uses some of the money she earned to buy himself a messenger-hawk (named Hawkie). Then at the end of the episode, Toph asked Katara to send a message to her parents using Hawkie and he took off into the night... and never came back.
To be fair with this one, Sokka never really learned how his messenger-hawk worked in the first place, but fans would like to know if her parents ever got her message.
8 Combustion Man's Powers/Weaknesses
This one was so cool everybody just let it slide. Every other sub-set of bending (metal, blood, flying, lava) made sense in the Avatar universe, but Combustion Man's abilities not only made zero sense but they were never explained in the slightest.
Zuko hired a mysterious assassin who ended up having the ability to shoot a sonic-blast from his mind. Not only was the power barely close enough to be considered fire-bending, it didn't tie into the premise that bending was a martial art and extension of people's senses. All that said, not a single fan cared because it was so cool.
7 Sozin Showing Up To Help Roku
There are two primary episodes that cause the most flaws/plot holes in the entire Avatar series - this episode is one of them. While a backstory tying Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin together was a fan-favorite turn and incredibly mind-blowing, a closer look will reveal many flaws (some mentioned later) and this was a huge one.
Roku's home-island was being destroyed by a volcano so Sozin showed up in the middle of the night to save him, only to leave him for dead after doing so. One might argue that he showed up to "ensure" Roku died, but then why would he have helped him in the first place instead of just taking him out?
6 Jet Dying
One of the saddest moments of the series was when Team Avatar teamed up with the Freedom Fighters to take down the Dai-Li and Long Feng, ultimately resulting in Jet's death. The only problem - no one ever actually confirmed that Jet died.
Thanks to the show being produced on Nickelodeon, they couldn't explicitly say/show a child dying on an animated series, so it was left incredibly ambiguous as to what end Jet met. In fact, it was so bad that the show even addressed the flaw in the season 3 recap-episode "The Ember Island Players."
5 Imprisoning Hama
Easily the scariest sub-set of bending was revealed in season 3 when Team Avatar ran into Hama, a blood-bender. Hama spent the episode trying to get on Katara's good-side so that she could pass along her knowledge of blood-bending and explained how she acquired the ability when imprisoned in the fire-nation.
So, at the end of the episode when Katara blood-bends Hama and the townspeople take her away in chains for her crimes... wouldn't she just free herself during the next full-moon as she had before? In LoK they address how Aang literally had to take a blood-benders bending away in order to stop him, so how'd they keep Hama imprisoned? They may have bound her hands, but other benders developed the ability to blood-bend without their hands, and Hama was certainly a strong bender.
4 Sozin Slaying Dragons To Earn The Title "Dragon"
As stated earlier, the episode showing the background between Sozin and Roku gave the shows a lot of flaws. However, this wasn't a flaw until the season 3 episode "The Firebending Masters" when Zuko told Aang that Sozin began the tradition of hunting down dragons in order to earn the legendary title "Dragon".
The only problem, Sozin was riding a dragon in the flashback episode! Sozin also declared during that episode that he spent the rest of his life preparing for the comet to arrive and then searching for the missing avatar... So at what point did he decide to kill his flying pet for sport?
3 Time It Took The Characters To Fly Across The World During The Finale
It was the finale and a lot had to happen over the course of 4-episodes... but come on. When Aang goes missing just before the comet arrives and the rest of Team Avatar finds Iroh at the walls of Ba Sing Se, they make their plans for the battle that lies ahead, eventually deciding that Zuko and Katara should confront Azula before she becomes Fire Lord.
So, naturally, Appa turned on his turbo-charge and Zuko and Katara managed to make it from the walls of Ba Sing Se to the Fire Nation palace (literally across the entire world) in a matter of minutes. Appa may be an incredible sky-bison, but this was pushing it.
2 Time-periods Between Fire-Lords
This is another issue that stems from the "The Avatar and the Fire Lord" episode. When Roku died and Aang was born, Sozin himself was already pretty old. After that, he had to wait 12 more years for Sozin's comet to arrive (that's how old Aang was) and then spent the rest of his life searching for the missing avatar.
But, it was revealed in the season 2 episode "Zuko Alone" that Zuko's father had only been fire-lord for roughly 8 years at the start of the series. There was only one fire-lord in between Sozin and Ozai and that was Azulon... meaning Azulon would have had to have been Fire Lord for (a bare minimum) of 75 years which seems unlikely.
1 Lion Turtle Giving Aang Energy-Bending
A giant taking Lion-Turtle gave the Avatar energy-bending seems like a very convenient turn of events. The largest critique of the entire series is that Aang was spontaneously given the power to take away other people's bending. While the ability itself is not the biggest critique (it really does make sense)... it was the means by which he obtained the power.
Aang decided he couldn't kill the Fire Lord, so in his darkest hour, he was approached by an island-sized Lion-Turtle who gave him the ability to energy-bend so that he wouldn't have to take a life. Again, it was a great ending, it just really wasn't explained very well and fans just decided to accept it.
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