Avatar: The Last Airbender's New Changes Complicate Season 3's Redemption Arcs

Published Jul 2, 2026, 8:00 PM EDT

Specific changes in Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender make some redemption arcs in season 3 more difficult. For the most part, Netflix's changes to Avatar: The Last Airbender are fairly solid. Some of them are made due to the nature of adaptation, such as the timeline being either condensed or altered, while others are made to deepen the main characters. However, by the time of Avatar: The Last Airbender season 2's ending, some of the changes have proven to make a few character arcs more difficult.

For instance, Aang's hesitation to use the Avatar State to kill when fighting Azula and choosing to spare her life in the final episode will make the exact same situation with Ozai in the finale less impactful. Beyond Aang, though, two Netflix Avatar: The Last Airbender characters whose arcs, specifically their redemption, seem more difficult thanks to changes in the live-action are Mai and Ty Lee. In season 3 of the original Avatar: The Last Airbender, Mai and Ty Lee are redeemed and turn against Azula.

That said, this comes after a decent amount of foreshadowing. In Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender, some of this foreshadowing has been left absent. Instead, Mai and Ty Lee were shown to be excessively loyal to Azula, even to the point where they tried to kill one another just because she ordered it. This removes some of the nuance from their characters that was part of the original animated show and, thus, their redemptions in season 3 will have less setup.

Mai & Ty Lee Deserve Better In Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender

Sadly, Mai and Ty Lee deserve better stories than the one Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender is giving them. In the original show, the two had some backstory provided when they joined Azula's team; Mai joined as her family was the rulers of Omashu, and she grew bored of living the "noble" lifestyle. Moreover, her parents were fairly oppressive, given the high status of the family. Finally, Mai also had a crush on Zuko, which, while teased in Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender, was more established in the original show.

Ty Lee's reason for joining Azula made her even more sympathetic: fear. Azula found Ty Lee working at a circus and made her life miserable by making her performances significantly more difficult. Despite Ty Lee being really happy at the circus, she was forced to join Azula out of fear, with Azula all but promising to continue messing with her shows until she agreed to join. All of this made Mai and Ty Lee more well-rounded characters than they are in Netflix's adaptation, which simply tells us they are loyal to Azula, rather than showing us why.

How Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender Can Still Pull Off Mai & Ty Lee's Redemptions In Season 3

All that being said, there is still a way for Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender to redeem Mai and Ty Lee well. Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender season 3 will likely skip several episodes, just as season 2 did, to tell the most consequential parts of the original story. Episodes like "The Headband." "The Painted Lady," "The Runaway," and "Nightmares and Daydreams" will likely be the ones skipped from the first half of the original season 3, meaning Netflix's show can include more of the others in the time it has.

One of these episodes could be "The Beach," in which Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee receive a lot more development than in usual episodes. This could easily be implemented into the premiere of Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender season 3 and expanded upon, revealing more about Mai and Ty Lee's backstory and setting up their eventual turn against Azula. If so, this, combined with more development of Mai's relationship with Zuko, could still make her and Ty Lee's redemptions in Avatar: The Last Airbender season 3 land well, in spite of season 2's changes to their character.