The hit TV series Avatar and the Airbending Fellowship of Vampire Slayers revolves around a Five-Man Band of teenagers who are constantly fighting the forces of darkness that seek to conquer the multiverse. With over 3 seasons (over 43 episodes), a dozen books, and many comics and other media, the series has involved a considerable cast of characters.
Changes in series cast description This was the description through the end of Season 2:
Hero | Avatar McPotter | Leader, painfully earnest young man with an amazing ability to construct useful tools out of nothing but bottle caps and baling wire | |
Lancer | Solo McPotter | Avatar's older brother, the one with the rap-sheet and the alcohol issues. | |
Big Guy | Sue | Female body-builder whose primary weapon is a 45-pound dumbbell used to whack things. Has a "thing" for Nerdly. | |
Smart Guy | Nerdly | Always has the correct solution for the situation, can never sell it to Avatar or Solo. Terrified of Sue. Has a "thing" for Cleo. | |
Heart | Cleo | Has a "thing" for Solo, when he is sober, which isn't often. Life has been a long series of one wardrobe failure after another for Cleo. | |
Pet | Fluffykins | Sue's pet kitten. Briefly joined the Dark Council while she was Not Herself, though she eventually got better. Can turn into a giant snake, but this never helps. |
And here is the current version, edited in view of what was and wasn't covered early in the series:
Hero | Avatar McPotter | Leader, clever young man with an amazing ability to construct almost anything out of basic equipment. | |
Lancer | Solo McPotter | Avatar's older brother, working to defeat an old drug habit. | |
Big Guy | Sue | Super-strong body-builder able to break through walls and tell the others to just get on with it. | |
Smart Guy | Nerdly | An increasingly plot-savvy individual with huge stores of important knowledge. | |
Heart | Krystal | A tail-less, genetically-modified "catgirl" who recently joined the team after Cleo developed psychic powers and joined the Dark Council | |
Pet | Fluffykins | Sue's pet kitten. Can transform into various reptilian forms (which have advanced from snake to small dragon), talks, and has psychic abilities most fans would kill for. |
The Cast
- Mr. Edwin Rupert Udite: The Benders' mentor, a retired English scientist with a long white beard who mysteriously disappeared, wheelchair and all, several years ago. Every week he sends them self-destructing cryptic messages which inevitably lead to the gang getting tangled up in the Dark Council's latest plot.
- Avatar
- Solo
Over time, Sue's bodybuilding has paid off in Super-Strength, evidenced as early as the Season 2 pilot London Falling. This skill has since proven especially helpful in close combat in episodes such as Through A Glass Nerdly, Friday Lite Brites, and The Homeland.
Still, do not confuse her with the Silent Partner, since she makes her point of view known every-so-often, if for purely practical reasons. While it has been hinted that Sue has a secret crush for her fellow Bender Nerdly, this has almost never been substantiated with the exception of the Season 2 episode Through A Glass Nerdly and the Season 3 episode Revelations.
Overall, Sue has appeared in every episode involving the Benders as a team. While generally unused in Fanservice, she enjoys a significant level of visibility and maintains minor popularity.
Sadly, Nerdly's utility is diminished by the fact that he is only smart, not actually a Gadgeteer Genius. That's Avatar's job. As a result, there is a degree of role overlap between the two. Nerdly received a degree of character development in the Season 2 episodes A Nerd In The Band and Through A Glass Nerdly. We met his potential future self in The Future Is Now.
Beginning with the comic arc Omen from the Future, viewers were introduced to the Nucleus persona, a virus which corrupted Nerdly several times through a complicated sequence of time travel, nanotechnology, and organ transplants. See Back in Black and the three-part-sequence beginning with Seduction.
Still, Nerdly is the veteran of several fights, including The Homeland and Blows That Hurt Most.
Unfortunately, Cleo received very little character development. In the end, her prime contribution to the group was the fact that nearly every episode involved some form of Fanservice on her part. These included frequent Clothing Damage and ...er... various accidents. It is actually easier to list episodes that did not in some way make use of Cleo's role as Ms. Fanservice:
- Bad Day At Rambo Rock
- Avatar Gets Sued By George Lucas
- A Magmanic Confrontation
- A Pirates Life For Me
- The Future Is Now (assuming getting AIDS does not qualify as fanservice)
- Can of Doomy Doomness
- Schooled
- Down The Series Of Tubes
- Idol Hands
- Omen From The Future possibly; details about this episode are largely unknown
- The Days Of Knight
And to be clear, this was over the course of some 30 episodes. A number of the above have very brief descriptions, indicating that at least two could contain Cleo fanservice we are not aware of.
Unfortunately, Cleo was aware of her frequent wardrobe malfunctions, and hated her role with a passion. This was revealed in the episode Battles Of The Mind. In the following episode, Blows That Hurt Most, she mercilessly killed the Big Bad (this was the conclusion of the the three-part Season 3 premiere). She promptly gained psychic powers and left, quickly joining the Dark Council.
As a result, Cleo was replaced by Krystal. She is expected to appear in numerous future episodes.
- In the episode Forty Towels, Fluffy swallowed a crystal fragment of unknown origin and gained the ability to turn into a giant snake.
- Avatar Gets Sued By George Lucas, "Fluffykins manages to use the Force."
- A Pirates Life For Me through the Season 1 finale, Citadel Of Evil, Fluffy was the pet of pirate Admiral Black. This was explained in the ensuing Christmas Special.
- In the mid-Season 2 episode A Nerd In The Band, Fluffy speaks, if only to take part in a No One Could Survive That!.
- Friday Lite Brites, she demonstrates her athletic ability in more than one Moment of Awesome.
- Mojave Blues, the snake-form now has wings. No one noticed.
- In the first three (pilot three-part) episodes of Season 3, Fluffy gains a near-ridiculous amount of importance.
- By the end of Far From The Nest, she begins talking and someone notices.
- Blows That Hurt Most, viewers learn that she has extensive psychic powers. This is Handwaved by discussing the effects of Story Gate radiation.
And by that point, she can transform into a small dragon. There is assumed to be some reason that she is not frequently a part of combat, but no one has figured it out yet.
- Writer: A tail? You people wanted a tail!?! You sick, sick people! Go get help! Who knows what warped, male fantasies you had involving a tail. You think just because the show is made by a bunch of guys, it would have girls with tails? Wasn't the Spy Catsuit enough for you? Be satisfied, or else we'll kill off all the characters just to put an end to this #&^@ ... The remainder of the quote is composed of several lines of cursing on the part of the writer, and has been censored by concerned individuals.
Act normally or you will have your eyes removed.
Hints of a possible romantic relationship between Avatar and Krystal were dropped in the Season 3 episode Noisy Valley. Some also believe that a hint was dropped in Revelations, but when confronted with the three conflicting viewpoints about the supposed evidence, the writers simply offered a fourth option. For the most part, though, she keeps her cool around him fairly well, except when Persona is around.
- Evil Dramatis Personae
- Miss X: An anonymous figure who made her (the writers confirmed she was female) first appearance by message. From what little we know of Broken Time, rather than the usual cryptic message from Udite, Miss X sends the Benders her own cryptic message that's so confusing, not even Nerdly can decipher it. Her true identity remains unknown, though fan theories abound (especially ever since the reveal of her sihouette).