Avatar:Yama
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"After Yama died, everything changed. I can't channel the peace and calm I need to focus my energy like I could before."
Yama was the older sister of Monk Gyatso. She died as a teenager when a sinkhole swallowed an entire village she was visiting on a relief mission.[2]
History
Yama was two years older than Gyatso. In 67 BG, she went on a relief mission to a village in the southwestern Earth Kingdom. The Western Kingdom Trading Company had been mining outside the village for years, which ruined the soil, poisoned the water, and broke the land. The miners kept working even though they were sick, which in turn made them even sicker. The Air Nomads' relief mission Yama was on had essentially gone to care for the miners before they died. The company did not care that they were dying, as the materials being mined were soon to run out.
While Yama was on the mission, a sinkhole opened up from the mining project. It swallowed up a large part of the mountainside, including the village that Yama and the other Air Nomads had been helping in. There were no survivors.[2]
Legacy
After Yama's death, Gyatso started having problems with his airbending.[3] He felt he was unable to channel his inner peace of calm, feeling as if his spirit was uncentered, broken, or angry. He disliked the monks' guidance that he would need to focus on detachment to reconnect with his airbending, as he did not want to stop loving Yama.[1]
Yama's death led Sister Disha to encourage Avatar Roku to spend more time with Gyatso, since they had the loss of a sibling in common. Gyatso opened up about his loss on Lambak Island, leading Roku to share his own experience losing Yasu.[3] Roku suggested that Gyatso might have to simply find a different way to love Yama now that she was no longer with him.[1] Gyatso also started to talk about Yama to Malaya during his time with her on the island.[4] He eventually shared the full story about her death to Roku and Malaya when they met up in the forest.[2] After this, Gyatso had no more trouble with his airbending.[5][6]
Yama's story also inspired Roku to convince Sozin to allow the airbenders to open up a temple of their own in the Fire Nation, where they could teach others their philosophy. He had heard from Gyatso that Yama had always wanted to do this herself.[7] This was later opened as the Fire & Air Center of Learning.[8]
Relatives
- Gyatso (brother)