The Fire Nation royal family
The largest branch of the family tree of Avatar the Last Airbender is the Fire Nation royal family, five generations of rulers. At the top stands Fire Lord Sozin, who started the war that runs through the whole series, and who had been a childhood friend of Avatar Roku.3 His son Azulon had two sons, Iroh the elder and Ozai the younger.3
Iroh was the heir until his only son, Lu Ten, died at the siege of Ba Sing Se five years before the series, and that death let Ozai take Iroh’s place.3 Iroh’s grief for his son is the subject of The Tale of Iroh, a short within the Book Two episode Tales of Ba Sing Se.3
Ozai married Ursa, and their children are Zuko, the elder, and Azula.5 Ursa was banished the night Azulon died, in a bargain to protect Zuko, and the series does not tell her later life.35 Zuko spends the first two books in exile with his uncle, and he comes to see Iroh as more of a father than Ozai.5 In Book Three he confronts Ozai and leaves to join Aang, and in the finale, Sozin’s Comet, Iroh refuses the throne and Zuko becomes Fire Lord.5
Book Three also joins the royal family to the Avatar. Ursa is the granddaughter of Avatar Roku, so Zuko has Sozin as his great-grandfather on his father’s side and Roku as his great-grandfather on his mother’s.35 The character list cites the episode The Avatar and the Fire Lord for this. The parent of Ursa who stands between her and Roku is never named, so the chart draws one symbol as Roku’s child.
The line runs on in The Legend of Korra. Zuko gave up the throne to his daughter Izumi, who rules as Fire Lord, and her son General Iroh carries the name of his great-great-uncle.45 Zuko himself returns in Book Three of Korra as a retired Fire Lord.2
Katara and Sokka’s family
The second branch is the family of Katara and her elder brother Sokka in the Southern Water Tribe. Katara first appears in the opening episode, The Boy in the Iceberg.6 Their father, Hakoda, is chief of the tribe. He left to fight the Fire Nation before the series begins and returns in Book Three to lead the invasion Sokka plans.3
Their mother, Kya, died in a Fire Nation raid when Katara was eight. The raider Yon Rha was looking for the last waterbender of the Southern Tribe, and Kya told him that she was the bender to protect her daughter, and he killed her.36 Her death marks both children, and the chart shows Hakoda and Kya joined by the line of a widowed couple.
Their grandmother Kanna, whom they call Gran Gran, is Hakoda’s mother, and she urges them to help Aang on his journey.3 At the North Pole in Book One the waterbending master Pakku refuses at first to teach a girl, and he gives way when he learns that Katara is the granddaughter of Kanna, the fiancée who ran away from him.3 At the climax of Book Three he reveals that he has married her.3 On the chart their couple line changes from an engagement to a marriage at that point.
Aang’s line into The Legend of Korra
Aang is the last airbender, and Avatar Roku was the past life immediately before his.3 The Legend of Korra is set about seventy years after the first series, and by then Aang has married Katara and they have had three children, Bumi, Kya and Tenzin.26 Tenzin is the youngest and the only airbender of the three.4 Katara is alive in Korra and appears in Book One.2
Tenzin and his wife Pema have four children, Jinora, Ikki, Meelo and Rohan.4 Jinora is the eldest. Her spirit is trapped in the spirit world in the Book Two episode Harmonic Convergence, and in the Book Three finale, Venom of the Red Lotus, her father gives her the tattoos and the title of an airbending master.64 Rohan appears as Katara’s new grandson in the episode Rebel Spirit.6
The hero of the second series is Korra, the Avatar after Aang, who moves to Republic City to learn airbending from Tenzin.2 She is not related to Aang by blood. The chart joins them with a teal dashed arrow for the cycle of the Avatar, the same arrow that runs from Roku to Aang, so the family tree of Avatar the Last Airbender shows both kinds of descent side by side.
One more family of Korra has its roots in the first series. Toph Beifong of the first series has two daughters in Korra, Lin and her younger half-sister Suyin.4 Toph’s family has no tie of blood or marriage to the three families here, so it is named on this page and left off the chart.
What this Avatar family tree leaves out
The chart keeps to the two animated series. The fate of Ursa after her banishment is told in the comic The Search, which gives her a second husband, Ikem, and a daughter, Kiyi, a half-sister of Zuko.5 Those people come from the comics, so the chart leaves them out and draws Ursa as the series leaves her.
The live-action series that Netflix began in February 2024 retells the first series and is outside the chart as well.1 The shows never name the mother of Izumi, the father of General Iroh, the wife of Azulon or the father of Hakoda, and the chart leaves those spaces empty instead of filling them with a guess.
The Avatar family tree book by book
Each card gives the changes to the chart in one book or pair of books. Read each card after its book, since the later cards give away the ending of both series.
Book One, Water
The iceberg and the North Pole
Spoiler note. Nothing beyond Book One.
- Katara and Sokka find Aang in the iceberg, and Kanna urges them to help him.
- Pakku teaches Katara once he learns that she is Kanna’s granddaughter.
Book Two, Earth
Ba Sing Se
Spoiler note. Nothing beyond Book Two.
- The Tale of Iroh shows his grief for his son Lu Ten.
Sources3
Book Three, Fire
Sozin’s Comet
Spoiler note. The ending of the first series is told.
- Zuko learns that Roku is his great-grandfather, confronts Ozai and joins Aang.
- Hakoda leads the invasion, and Pakku reveals that he has married Kanna.
- Zuko becomes Fire Lord in the finale.
Korra, Books One and Two
Air and Spirits
Spoiler note. Seventy years later.
- Korra learns airbending from Tenzin, the son of Aang and Katara.
- Rohan appears as Katara’s grandson, and Jinora’s spirit is trapped in the spirit world.
Korra, Books Three and Four
Change and Balance
Spoiler note. The ending of Korra is told.
- Zuko returns as a retired Fire Lord, and Izumi rules after him.
- Jinora becomes an airbending master in the Book Three finale.
How to read this Avatar family tree
A square is a man and a circle is a woman. A double line is a couple, and the line that drops from it leads to their children. A parent drawn alone, such as Sozin above Azulon or Zuko above Izumi, is one whose partner the shows never name. A cross marks a death, and the chart marks only the deaths the shows state.
Each family wears its own colour, with a letter at the corner of every member. Red is the Fire Nation royal family, blue is the Southern Water Tribe and orange is the Air Nomads of Aang and Tenzin. The orange zigzag between Zuko and Azula is their rivalry from Book Two, and the line from Iroh to Zuko marks the uncle who stayed with him in exile.
Read across the chart, the family tree of Avatar the Last Airbender meets in one marriage, that of Aang and Katara, while the line of Roku reaches the Fire Nation through Ursa. To build a family tree of another series, open this chart in the editor or start from the story charts. The symbols are set out in the genogram symbols, and three generations of another animated family are drawn on the Simpsons genogram.
Questions about the Avatar family tree
How are Zuko and Aang related
They are not related by blood. Aang is the next life of Avatar Roku, and Roku is Zuko’s great-grandfather through Ursa.35
Who is Zuko’s daughter
Fire Lord Izumi, who rules after him in Korra and is the mother of General Iroh.45
Is Pakku Katara’s grandfather
Not by blood. Pakku marries her grandmother Kanna at the end of the first series, so he becomes her step-grandfather.3
People and sources
A page of its own lists all 28 characters on the chart, each with a short note and the sources for it, and the six numbered sources this article cites. It also gives this page as a reference in the APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard styles, ready to copy.