Avatar: The Last Airbender/Other Characters/WMG

Guru Patik is an energy bender/spirit bender
In the episode Appa's Lost Days Guru Patik makes his first appearance. According to Avatar Extras the Guru is not a bender. However, the Guru touches Appa's head and senses where Aang is. This method is reminiscent of Spirit Bending where by touching a person's head you can read one's spirit. The Guru is also able to tell through this that Appa has been through a lot. This technique seems very similar to what would later be shown to be energy bending.

Pathik was secretly an Air Nomad.
He's certainly old enough, and he mentioned being a close friend of Gyatso. He also wears the robes of an Air Nomad (the orange thing). HE didn't tell Aang because he didn't want him to get attached, etc, instead focusing on unlocking the Avatar State.
 * You mean there's a reason to assume he wasn's an air nomad? It seemed so obvious at first.
 * Guru Pathik describes himself as a spiritual brother of the Air Nomads, and was friends with Gyaatso, but he's not actually a bender. Instead, Pathik has yoga and an understanding of chi that allowed him to live so long.

Koh is behind everything.
We already know he can steal faces, and a non-canon short hints that he can shapeshift as well. Koh, being a fairly evil spirit, has been stealing the faces of every head of the Fire Nation once they ascend to the throne for nearly 100 years.
 * I never remember seeing him in the shorts
 * EXACTLY. (Seriously, though, this editor hasn't seen the shorts.)

Katara/Sokka's dad Hakoda is Fire Lord Ozai's long lost twin brother
Other than a slight difference in hair and skin tone, and Hakoda being slightly weather-beaten from living outdoors while Ozai's been living in a palace, the two of them look almost identical. Hell, Hakoda looks much more like Ozai than Ozai's actual brother Iroh!
 * That would mean Hakoda is fire nation. So Katara and Sokka are Zuko's cousins and granchildren of Azulon. You'd think Sokka would be a firebender with that heritage but it's very interesting.
 * Except that bending ability is based on not just genetics but environment and mindset (Word of God, I think?). Sokka grew up around the opposing element, and consistently has little interest in the 'magic' of bending of any form.

Pakku is in charge of the recruitment for the Order of the White Lotus
This is why there is no cool old ladies among them. (Though Pakku being in charge would explain why Kanna isn't a member...)
 * Well, frankly, there's only one powerful old lady bender that we've seen. Do you really want Hama in the OWL?
 * Not to mention that having Hama in the OWL wouldn't work. From her one appearance in The Puppetmaster, it seems like she considers all Fire Nation citizens responsible for her suffering. She's probably freak around Iroh, Jeong Jeong, and Piandao.
 * On the other hand, Piandao isn't a bender, and Aunt Wu and Gran-Gran are certainly awesome enough to qualify.

Bosco is connected with the spirit world.
I'm surprised no one's suggested this before, as it's stated that the only place to find non-Mix-and-Match Critters is in the spirit world. So where does Bosco come in? He must be some sort of guide for the Earth King.
 * Wel, if you accept a hypothesis that the Earth Kingdom is based off of ancient China, it was thought that the emporer's could control the spirits, and protected their people from spiritual attacks. Taking this into account, it's possible that that is (or was) the Earth King's job, and Bosco was sent to try and help him learn what to do. However, with the Avatar gone, the whole world is out of balance, not just the "real world", and so there aren't that many spiritual attacks, and the Earth King doesn't learn.

Longshot is telepathic.
He's the Silent Bob, who everyone seems to understand even though he doesn't say anything. They act as if he's made very deep arguments, such as when Smellerbee says "You're right. As long as I'm confident in who I am, it doesn't matter what other people think. Thanks, Longshot," all based on a STERN LOOK. Obviously, Longshot must have some sort of psychic power. It's limited telepathy, though, so he has to actually speak when talking to the group at the end of "Lake Laogai."
 * Very possible actually. His telepathy is probably a minor form of Spiritbending.
 * He could also be descended from dragons, since they seem mostly telepathic. This could even be expanded to him having some Fire Nation heritage and distantly related to the Yu Yen archers.

Toph's parents are crime bosses.
Hence why Toph's father hired the same guy who had just kidnapped Toph. He's used to hiring cut-throats and manipulating them with his wealth. It would also explain Toph's loose sense of morals: they've passed their values on to her, which was really the only thing they gave her.
 * That would also explain why they're so overprotective. If they're crime lords, they must have a lot of enemies who wouldn't hesitate to use Toph against them. Hiding her existence from the world and trying to lock her down 24/7 after witnessing her abilities really doesn't seem half as much of an issue if that's the case...
 * And why she seemed so comfortable with scams when they were short of money.

Princess Yue sent the meteorite.
In "Sokka's Master," Sokka was depressed at first, but after training with Piandao and making the Space Sword, he became more confident. Probably Princess Yue, who had promised Sokka "I'll always be with you," knew about Sokka's depression and arranged for a meteor shower, with a meteorite to land near the Gaang while they were near Piandao. Then Sokka would learn swordsmanship from Piandao, forge the Space Sword, and become a more proficient, confident warrior.

Long Feng has, ahem, lady troubles.
Isn't he based off of the real-life Imprerial Eunuchs? And this doesn't nessacarily mean Long Feng is lacking equipment, he could easily just have supernaturally bad luck with romance. Even with Mind Control.

The cabbage Merchant is secretly a master cabbagebender.
Think about it. We constantly see his cart and cabbages—seemingly his entire livelihood—destroyed—and yet, later, he pops back up again with a full cart of cabbages, plying his wares as if nothing had happened. In "The King of Omashu", after having his cart dumped over a cliff by gate guards, he has another cart full of cabbages out on the street for sale in only the time it takes for Aang, Sokka, and Katara to go from the top of the city to the bottom!

There's only one possibility: the Cabbage Merchant is secretly a master cabbagebender, with the ability to summon carts full of cabbages from out of nowhere.
 * I smell spin-off!
 * The Cabbage Merchant is an ancestor of Tohru Adachi!
 * He is also a spy. Come on! He IS following Aang wherever he goes!!
 * Looks like the movie confirmed it.

The Melon Lord is an actual person.
And he will be the main villain if the show ever continues. Also, he is not Toph. Toph is just his Dragon.
 * He is practically treated this way already on the Avatar Wiki. However, it also notes that after his head was cut off and sliced in half, Momo essentially ate his brains. Team Avatar may have defused an even greater threat to their world without realizing it.
 * I thought that just made him Nick's answer to TDI's Mr. Coconut?

Koh and Wan Shi Tong are different faces of the same spirit.
Both know a great deal about a great many things, and give away much less than they know. Their voices are very similar. Both take faces, though in different fashion and for different reasons. Neither have any real care for anything like traditional morality. And when Wan Shi Tong got angry and chased the Gaang out, his form changes so that his neck extends to dimensions longer than his own body--described as "wyvern-like" or "serpentine" on the Avatar Wiki, but also centipede-like...

Sozin's Comet is an evil spirit.
Considering the prevalence of spirits in the Avatar universe, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine Sozin's Comet to be some sort of malevolent entity linked to Firebending. This entity may have done something that caused the other spirits had to seal it away and launch it into space to ensure the world's survival. However, this entity still has some influence in the universe, so it locked itself in a 100-year orbit around the planet and leaks out its energy as it passes by, allowing Firebenders to tap into its power and dramatically boost their abilities. Conversely, Sozin's Comet could be some sort of extremely high-level Firebending technique that has yet to be utilzied, something on par with Meteor from Final Fantasy VII.

Pakku is Sokka's and Katara's grandfather.
No, Kanna didn't love him, but hey, they were teenagers, they were engaged, she kept the engagement necklace for some reason, Katara had to inherit her Waterbending and stubbornness from someone...
 * Come to think of it, that would explain the suddenness of his decision to teach Katara waterbending after all just upon seeing one little necklace. He realizes she's his granddaughter.
 * Only problem: if true, it would mean that Hakoda is 60+ years old, and he's clearly not.
 * Kya is Kanna's daughter. Hakoda is descended from the Southern Water Tribe.
 * [citation needed]
 * On this page?
 * It makes even less sense for Kya to be in here mid to late 40's when giving birth to Sokka and Katara. Hell it's dangerous in the real world for women of that age to have kids and they don't usually have more than one before menopause kicks in.
 * According to the Avatar Wiki, Kanna is the paternal grandmother. However, if we assume that Kanna is actually their great grandmother, which would still fit with calling her "Gran Gran", then this theory could work.

Cabbage Man goes on to invent sauerkraut.
After picking up the smashed-up cabbages, so they don't go bad. All previous pickled cabbages were pickled whole, and as a result looked like the cabbage from Yoake Mae Yori Ruriiro na. Alternately, and this is more likely, the gaang sees an out-of-control vinegar truck about to go over a cliff near a vegetable market...

Hakoda and Bato are a couple, and have been since shortly after Kya's death.
This isn't so much a WMG as it is the only possible conclusion that can be drawn from the show.
 * Oh lord, Katara's Calling the Old Man Out is going to be hysterical. "Oh, first you abandon us, now you abandon Mom?! What, a vagina just wasn't good enough for you anymore?!" "Not that there's anything wrong with that..." "Shut up, Sokka!"
 * This Troper kind of figures that some of Katara's angst in the first episode of Book Three stemmed from her realization that Hakoda and Bato were sharing a cabin since they took over the Fire Nation ship.

The Melon Lord was an evil spirit entity.
Its focus was the melon-headed body in a traditional spellcasting pose that was built for Aang's training. It influenced Sokka to set up the dummy in such a way that it could be used as a focus, from which it could control Toph while she was caught up in the heat of battle. Toph becoming calmed and not staying crazy allowed her to break its influence, but had Momo not eaten half of the melon, a grain of its spirit would have remained in Toph's mind until it could again completely take over her, with promises of incredible spiritual power before it rejoined the twenty-nine other produce demons... Okay, I swear that was sort of serious before I got caught up in the Dresden Files reference. Alternately...

Toph was completely overwhelmed by the evil spirit that was the Melon Lord.
Aang loses "Toph", and thus sees her in the swamp. From the point the Melon Lord took over her body, they were no longer traveling with the late Toph Beifong, but rather the Melon Lord, an imitator the ilk of Koh the Face-Stealer.
 * Alternatively, the Melon Lord is Koh. It wouldn't be the first time a spirit had multiple names.

There is an evil watermelon-helmet you can wear that turns you into Melon Lord. Kind of like an evil, melon version of Doctor Fate's helmet or the Venom Symbiote.
Toph was only NEAR the melon, so it could only talk through her. If she put it on her head, she'd turn into a spirit monster.

The Joo-Dees are based on Jane Does.
I'm not sure if this was intentional, but there are many similarities between the two.
 * We're not sure what their real names are.
 * No one knows where they come from.
 * They have no free will nor any control of themselves or thier situations; the Jane Does becuase they're dead/incapasitated, the Joo-Dees becuase they're Brainwashed
 * They have the same initials.

Cabbage Man is cursed.
He was an evil man earlier in life, or in an earlier life and someone cursed him to suffer constant loss and frustration for an unknown amount of time. His cabbage cart is destroyed every day no matter whether the Gaang are around or not, and the next morning he finds himself magically transported somewhere else with no idea of where he is or how he got there. The only thing he knows for certain is that his cabbage cart will be destroyed and that he's not yet free of his punishment.
 * He was a cabbage-headed demon with a body of sticks defeated by Avatar Kyoshi during her training. After she sliced its head in half with her fans (being much more combat-oriented than Aang), her friend the burrowing newt finished him off, and his spirit was purified in the afterlife until it could be sent back to incarnate as a human. He became a cabbage salesman because he still innately feels that cabbages are the way to power, and the gaang keep being led by fate to destroy his cabbage carts to keep him from risking reopening his mind to the power of cabbage. If he'd just open up a nice ramen business, fate would stop picking on him (miso soup, of course, would be too dangerous. Miso soup leads to cabbage. Cabbage leads to uncontrolled power. Uncontrolled power leads to the dark side, and the dark side leads right back to getting his head cut in half by an Avatar).
 * See Insane Troll Logic for more of your kind.

There's something weird about that Ju-di.
She's kind of forgetful, for one thing. I'm not good with faces, but I think she might be changing her makeup or something every time she gets stressed. But seriously, Uncanny Valley, More Teeth Than The Osmond Family, y/n?

Singing Hippie's in Cave of Two Lovers are really descendants of runaway airbenders.
They're nomads, and have developed sound bending for their music in a way so that the ideas and art of airbending will be kept alive without being conspicouis to the Fire Nation. Possible Ofuscating Stupidity.
 * Or they are high.
 * Or both.

The Duke has a crush on Toph
It's his helmet that she throws up in (and he doesn't complain, IIRC), and he gives her a hug at the end that surprises her. She might even have a tiny crush on him, given that she doesn't stop the hug, or do anything to get out of it.
 * I am now a The Toph shipper!

Foaming Mouth Guy is a Suki/Aang shipper.
The lead guard from his town with the Avatar? He's got as much reason as Lord Beifong has for supporting TophAang, if you equate village safety (from the point of view of a patriotic villager) with fame (from the point of view of a social-ladder climber).
 * Suki/Aang. Now thats a crack ship we all like.
 * Did they ever even say hi to each other?
 * What's your point?
 * Anyone/thing can and will be shipped with any other person/animal/object/abstract concept.

Frothy Mouth Guy is a waterbender who just loses all control around the avatar and winds up bending his saliva.
And he learned how to salivabend from the Unagi.

Monk Gyatso was reincarnated as Momo.
One of the themes of this series is that true friendship can transcend lifetimes. Even though he was a wild animal, Momo instantly bonded with Aang and started following him around. This also explains why he and Appa get along so well.
 * It was originally going to happen, but they didn't use it after all.

Piandao & The Boulder are related
I can't believe no one else noticed how physically similar these two are. They both have the exact same hair style, they both have similar facial features (Piandao is obviously older than TB, so it wouldn't be obvious), similar skin (Piandao's is a little darker, because he's full-blooded fire nation & the boulder could only be half fire nation at most if this WMG was true), & their voices are almost identical (they don't even have the same VA).

In the sequel, the Cabbagebender vendor will fight the Melon Lord.
And it will be Awesome.

Cabbage Merchant is the spirit of the Earth.
God is everywhere. Cabbage Merchant is everywhere in the Earth Kingdom. Cabbages are a symbol of earth. Quod ergot dementatus.

Cabbage Merchant is Combustion Man.
Seems to follow the Avatar, same initials and naming convention, would have good reason to follow and destroy the Avatar even when being paid not to kill him... They are a spirit of destruction. One side is a target for destruction ("My cabbages!"), one side creates destruction. Cabbage Merchant simply hides his eye under his cap when he's not in Super Mode, the way Aang hid his arrow.

General Fong from the episode "The Avatar State" is somehow related to the Beifongs.
The Beifongs are Earth Kingdom aristocracy, and so is General Fong. It is not far-fetched to assume that they're somehow related.

The cabbage merchant is Zuko's true father.
Avatar does a lot of mature things for a children's show but it will not allow it to be obvious for a main character to be a bastard.The cabbage merchant sometimes crosses paths with Aang because he is trying to keep an eye on his son. This also explains why Ozai seems to have a certain distaste for Zuko since he isn't really his son. This is why at the end, it wasn't shown because the Cabbage Merchant would be there. The cabbage merchant never tries to meet his son because of his son's obsession with honor and thus would have another bit of ANGST since his true dad isn't royalty.

Teo is an Air Bender.
Teo is extremely skilled with his glider, matching Aang with relative ease; Aang even comments that he has the 'spirit of an Air Bender'. One could argue that this was cultivated in compensation for his disability - but being largely immobile like that would inhibit his gliding, not allow for improvements. Teo also has the large, round eyes associated with Aang (and thus Air Nomads) despite being old enough for his lines to narrow out some, though he has a more 'Earth Kingdom' line to his jaw. The reason? Teo is a half- or quarter-Nomad, born from someone who slipped through the net, and a latent Air Bender who unconsciously uses his skill for the hobby he loves (also fitting for a playful Air Bender).
 * Teo's wheelchair/glider is made primarily of solid wood; the wheels must weigh a hundred pounds each. There's no way it would be practical for either of its' intended functions without some kind of Applied Phlebotinum.

Guru Pathik is an Air Nomad, but not an air bender
He is old enough, and there is no evidence he can bend.
 * By Word of God, all Air Nomads were airbenders. So either he's not either, or he's both. My money's on both, considering Aang says at one point that you can only get to the temples by air, and he doesn't seem the type to swipe a Fire Nation warballoon.
 * But war-balloons are a new invention, Zuko and Iroh made it there, as did the Mechanist and his people as did the extorting fire nation solder.
 * Also he said he knew Monk Gyatso.
 * I always thought he was, like, the one Air Nomad who for whatever cosmic luck reason wasn't an airbender, so he lived a solitary life seeking answers to his questions like "is there something wrong with me?" and "why am I different?" It maybe started out as mere angsting, but then he came to terms with it and became all awesome and wise and enlightened and stuff. Fanfic fuel, anyone?

Guru Pathik is stuck
It's been said that only air benders can get to Air temples, Pathik said he was older then Aang and knew airbenders, maybe he somehow wound up stuck. He stayed while Aappa went to get aang but Aang ran off leaving his stuck once again.
 * He could have just climbed up there. That's how the Mechanist and his people were able to reach the Northern Air Temple.

Monk Gyatso was reincarnated as Sokka.
One of the themes of this series is that true friendship can transcend lifetimes. They where both fun loving guys who you wouldnt think it to look at them but where badass.

Long Feng is acually a good guy, just confused about what to do.
Think about it: Long Feng wants to keep the war a secret, so he must have a good reason for doing so. Maybe his parents died in the war when he was young and had no one to teach him the difference between 'good' and 'bad'. But if he keeps the war a secret no child will have to go through what he went through.
 * Isn't it sort of canon that Long Feng developed over time from Well-Intentioned Extremist to Knights Templar to accumulating power for it's own sake? Also, Long Feng's reason for keeping the war a secret is the classical conservative motivation: to protect Ba Sing Se's culture.

Hama is Kya's mother.
Katara is unaware of this, as the tribe might've kept her ancestry a secret to keep word from getting back to the Fire Nation that the Last Waterbender left behind descendants.
 * Kya is too young for this to work. Hama knew Kanna in the Southern Tribe, who arrived there sixty years ago when she escape her arranged marriage. Both are shown as young women when Hama is taken, and any child she had beforehand would be much older than Kya appears in The Souther Raiders. That said, the number of waterbenders who were around even 60 years ago doesn't rule out Katara having waterbenders on either her mother or her father's side. It's just not her parents or one known grandparent, Gran-Gran (maternal or paternal?).

Kyoshi's animal guide...
...The Unagi. Because she's that awesome.
 * Except that both the other guides shown are related to their Avatar's native element - dragon for Fire Nation, Air Bison for Air Nomads - and the Unagi, while awesome, is definitely not Earth-related. While the penninsula that became her island was/is kind of close to Water Tribe territory, Kiyoshi was Earth Kingdom.

The Earth King only rules, or otherwise thinks he rules, a specific country within The Earth Kingdom
Think about it. Long Feng never said there is no war period, just not in Ba Sing Se. The Earth Kingdom seems to be more of a loose confederacy than a unified nation, so perhaps the Earth King knew that there was a war outside of the city, he just didn't know he was involved, and that the Fire Nation had been trying to attack. He might have even thought they were allies with the Fire Nation. It might also explain why he doesn't have estates outside of Ba Sing Se, unless....

The Earth King was told the rest of the nation was in conflict
I mean, remember when Long Feng mentioned anarchists? Maybe The Earth King was told of a growing anarchist or possibly communist following, and he figures he has to stay in the city in case some fringe group launches an assassination attempt.

Dock was also the mayor
In the river village in "The Painted Lady," everyone stands by and listens when Dock speaks, and he seems to be leading the crowd towards the end. He definitely appears to be their leader, so he probably has a fourth personality--maybe even his original personality--as the local magistrate. The townspeople still respect him & listen to him, but they know he's partly nuts and so they put their faith in the spirits to compensate for the fact that they appointed a crazy guy as their leader.

Foamy Mouth Guy does cactus juice.
Side effects of cactus juice overuse = inability to control ones saliva.

The Earth King had a crush on one of Azula’s false ‘Kyoshi Warriors’
King Kuei revealed the Day of Black Sun invasion plan because he thought the warrior woman would be impressed by his decisiveness. Who Kuei was crushing on is the real question.
 * ‘Kyoshi Warrior’ Azula
 * ‘Kyoshi Warrior’ Mai
 * ‘Kyoshi Warrior’ Ty Lee
 * All of the above?

The Guru and the Lion Turtle are the same person.
It's a spirit or something.

Lao wasn't born a Beifong, he married into it via Poppy and became the manager of the family's estate.
Toph's blindness and lack of siblings presents certain problems. The Beifongs are repeatedly described as being fabulously wealthy and important, yet their only heir is a blind girl they believe to be fragile and helpless? From a practical standpoint, you just don't manage inheritable wealth like that. While it's certainly plausible that Lao loved his wife and refused to divorce her for producing (what they would believe to be) a crippled heir, Poppy being the one through which the Beifong bloodline runs through solves a lot of problems. Lao can't divorce Poppy and still maintain a hand in the Beifong estate. If Poppy had fertility problems, or a difficult birth with Toph, it would also explain why they couldn't secretly bring in a substitute to... um... produce another child with either partner; it wouldn't be a Beifong. So they not only keep Toph because they love her, but also because she's their only option for continuing the Beifong family line.