Full spoilers follow for Avatar: Seven Havens Season 1!
The first Book of Avatar: Seven Havens is, er, in the books with this week’s finale, “The Root Chakra.” And while the final four episodes answered a number of big questions, they raised a ton more — not just about what to expect in Season 2 of the Paramount+ animated series, but Seasons 3, 4, and perhaps beyond. It’s a good thing, then, that we have show co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino and showrunners Sehaj Sethi and Ethan Spaulding on hand to answer all your burning questions.
…Or at least, answer what they can. While we got to see Pavi (Saheli Khan) step up as the Avatar in the finale, unlock her Root Chakra, and head off on a classic Avatar journey to the Floating Isles next season, Nisha (Aishu Devan) — surprisingly — was not part of that unlocking and is staying (for now) in the Haven of Ellora. Not only that, but we also saw Nisha was at least in part the cause of the Fear Anomaly that’s been attacking Ellora all season long, activated when her parents abandoned her; as a side effect, she accidentally killed her parents in a rock slide.
But there are still the questions of why and how Avatar Korra caused a Cataclysm 225 years earlier, how there are twin Avatars now, and many more mysteries and surprises to explore. So let’s get into it and see what DiMartino, Sethi, and Spaulding can answer about the future of the Avatar franchise.
Remembering Eric Bauza
Before we get to that, though, earlier this week the world of animation suffered a shocking loss with the passing of actor Eric Bauza at age 46. Bauza voiced multiple characters in this season of Seven Havens, and given the pace of animation, we’ll likely hear his voice for several seasons to come. But his passing does leave a huge gap in the world of Avatar.
“Eric meant a lot, obviously, to the show,” Spaulding said. “He’s all over Seven Havens, and his contribution to animation in general is so prevalent. He’s going to leave a big hole.” Sethi continued, “He worked on this show, but we all have history with him beyond this show. He’s worked on so many things. I joked all the time that Bauza was twenty percent of the population of Seven Havens. We used him because he was so brilliant. He could act against himself. He could do young, old, any voice you could think of… Every single time he was in that booth, he was an absolute delight… He was just the kindest person… It’s just the biggest loss.”
But Bauza’s contributions stretch beyond Seven Havens.
“He was actually in Avatar: The Last Airbender,” DiMartino recalled. “That was when he was just getting started in his voice-acting career. I think he’s like a guard or two in the Boiling Rock. So the fact that he’s been part of this universe for so long… I knew he was a big deal, [but] hearing all the stories from people over the past week, just learning more about him and the impact he’s had on the community and everyone he’s worked with is, it’s just very sad. And [we] wish his family the best.”
Pavi And Nisha… Separated?
To get into the show itself, it’s a surprise that Pavi heads off on the classic Avatar journey at the end of the season alongside airbender Jae (Major Curda) while Nisha stays behind in Ellora. That, of course, was always part of the plan.
“From the very beginning, we all wanted this to be a really organic story about two sisters,” Sethi said. “Yes, there’s a lot of world-building. There’s so much that’s going on. But at the end of the day, they are two young girls who fight and have differing opinions. Now that we’ve spent a whole Book, a whole season, seeing them grow together… What is it going to be like now when they’re apart? How are they going to grow apart from one another into their respective roles? That was really interesting to me.”
Added Spaulding, “Also, getting the characters out into the world so the audience can see… other locations, it’s a cool thing to have the characters split up at some point in the storyline for the world-building.”
Welcome to the Floating Isles
Part of that world-building is the next Haven Pavi is headed towards: The Floating Isles. We’re told she senses trouble there, and it seems likely that’s the location of the next Chakra she needs to unlock. So what can they tell us about the place?
Not much. “That’s Haven Number Two, and Pavi will be visiting there,” DiMartino confirmed. Calling it a “more chill place compared to Ellora,” which was greeted by knowing laughter from Spauling and Sethi, DiMartino continued, “It’s definitely a different vibe culturally. We try to make every Haven they’re going to visit its own mini-culture [with] different customs and everything. So it’ll be fun to start seeing more of the world as we get out there.”
There Will Be More Than One Haven Per Season
Given Book 1 was entirely in Ellora, one might venture that Book 2 will be entirely in the Floating Isles. This would mean that either the show is going seven seasons or we’re going to go a little faster than we did in Season 1; turns out, it’s the latter.
“No, not exactly,” DiMartino said when asked about the ‘one Haven per season’ idea. “We had to split it up a little differently, but we’ll get through all the Seven Havens by the end of this series for sure.”
Beyond that, they confirmed that the four seasons of the show is the entire series. “That’s the full story,” DiMartino said. Added Sethi, “When Mike, Bryan [Konietzko], and I started working on it, we always had an end goal in mind — a lighthouse for us to work the story towards — and that’s always been the case throughout the series.”
Is Pavi the “Real” Avatar?
Apologies in advance, because the answer to this one won’t be satisfying, but we did ask about the revelation that Pavi’s chakras are messed up and she is able to unlock the Root Chakra alone but not with Nisha. So is repairing the Cataclysm solely up to Pavi? Is she the “real” Avatar, and is Nisha a side effect or something else?
“We’ll see,” Sethi said enigmatically. “You gotta keep watching, man. I promise all of those questions are answered.”
Hey, we tried!
Going Dark
One of the darkest moments in Avatar history is when it’s revealed that not only did Nisha’s parents abandon her, but in the process of summoning the Fear Anomaly, she accidentally killed them in a rock slide. While Sethi confirmed that there’s more to this story to come, it’s still a horrifying duo of revelations that skew way darker than fans were likely expecting.
“I don’t want to speak for Mike or Ethan, but when we started the series, I always had a feeling this is going to be darker,” Sethi said. ”We were really tackling some difficult and complex situations. The amount of power these girls wield… I always was interested in the idea of putting very young characters in very mature positions. I thought there was something really interesting there, especially from a storytelling point of view. We’re really forcing the girls to grow up in a lot of ways, and so for me that was just an interesting place to go as a storyteller. For the show and for where we are taking the story, it made sense to start dividing the girls on not just a philosophical level but an emotional level, and this is the biggest emotional divide you can give two characters. So to me, I really wanted to explore that in the upcoming season.”
Added DiMartino, “In the early development that Bryan and I did, we had [the] idea of this tragic backstory that happened with Nisha, the family, and Pavi. That’s how she lost her leg. So the core of that ended up being what’s in the show. We always knew that was going to be a big part of the mystery of Book One and a big reveal, and like you said, it’s a dark moment. But it’s totally necessary for their characters and the story, and so it all ties together. And yeah, there’s more that we will dig into around that story in upcoming seasons.”
Korra Constellations
During a climactic moment in the finale when Pavi unlocks the Root Chakra, she also sees a vision of four past Avatars: Kyoshi, Aang, Roku, and finally, Korra. While Spaulding explained this is a nod to the constellation versions of the Avatars seen previously in both The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra, there seems to be a little more to it. And no, it’s not Pavi reconnecting with the Avatar Cycle after Korra broke the connection towards the end of Legend of Korra.
“It’s something else,” said DiMartino. “She has not reconnected. It can’t happen that easily. So she does have a connection with Korra, but the other stuff’s more of a vision.”
Added Sethi, “That’s something we really had to work [on showing] visually that the connection is not complete. It was not just, oh, let’s show Korra for a second or something. It was like, hey, she’s sort of faded, right? She’s not completely there. We wanted it to not just be so easy as, yup, now Korra can talk to you. That’s something that still needs to progress in the series.”
Fans did notice in earlier episodes that both Korra and Asami are wearing betrothal necklaces in a “mover,” while in a vision of Korra where she’s tearing down Republic City, she is not. So how worried do we need to be about Asami?
“Asami is definitely dead by our show, which I think is a fair thing to say.” Sethi said. “The main thing to know from that is that there is most likely a time jump. But as to their relationship, you do learn more about that in Season 2.”
More LGBTQ+ Relationships in Seven Havens
One huge leap forward for the franchise is the amount of LGBTQ+ representation on screen. The final episode of Legend of Korra pretty famously had some issues in showing Korra and Asami getting together back in 2014. In 2026? Not only are the duo clearly together (and maybe betrothed), but we’ve also followed a canonically gay couple in Jae and Datu (Topher Ngu), and at least one other female-female pairing has shown up on screen.
“I definitely think that TV [and] even the kids’ animation landscape has definitely changed,” DiMartino reflected. “Whereas on Korra, we ran into some… pushback about what we could and couldn’t show, this time around everyone was super supportive and it’s more about the storytelling. What is the best way to show these relationships? It’s nice to see, and we will see more of what Korra and Asami’s relationship was like in the past.”
Return of the Afflicted
Despite Pavi unlocking the Root Chakra, things aren’t quite settled in Ellora, particularly since Chancellor Kayoko (Jennifer Sun Bell) is still clearly possessed by the Fear Anomaly as the season ends. So what’s going on here? Is the Root Chakra still blocked?
“The afflicted stay afflicted until a certain point,” Spaulding explained. “So there’s still something that the Avatar has to do.”
Added Sethi, “Yeah, their journey is not finished with just releasing that energy. There’s more that they’ll need to do.”
We’re Not Getting a Huge Time Jump (Probably [Yet])
Fans at New York Comic Con noticed some designs of Pavi and Nisha that seemed to depict their characters aged up significantly, but as Sethi clarified, “that was concept art. So whether there’s a time jump, who’s to say, but that was not a time jump piece of art. That was just concept art.”
Other than that, though, time will be progressing forward as it tends to do. “Within the span of a series, there’s time in between episodes,” Spaulding explained. “It’s not very big, but you could say they’re traveling for weeks or months. It’s similar to Last Airbender.”
“Yeah, now that they’re on the road, [you] gotta account for the travel time in certain ways,” DiMartino added. “Time passes, but it’s not like we’re jumping forward years or anything.”
Instead, they’re letting the growing maturity of the characters come from subtle animation changes, like a loosening of Pavi’s hair in the finale and the vocal performances of the actresses.
“I give so much credit to Saheli, who plays Pavi, and Aishu, who plays Nisha,” Sethi said. “I give those amazing young ladies so much credit that they really learned how to grow their performance as the characters got more complex. They did a great job, and shout out to our amazing voice director Kristi Reed, who helped them with that.”
Seven Havens: Fury Road
One of the fun parts of Seven Havens has been picking out post-apocalypse tropes hidden between the Avatar easter eggs. From a Mad Max-style introduction to two other Havens, to a zombie movie-esque Afflicted infestation, the series has embraced the setting in a big way. And while Sethi conceded they don’t have a list of tropes (or movies) they’re trying to hit, it is very much baked into the premise.
“The thing that I always found interesting when Mike and Bryan brought me this idea was that it’s almost like post-post-apocalypse,” Sethi said. “They’ve created a new city, right? They’ve essentially already done the work of rebuilding, and now it’s almost like, oh, is there another impending apocalypse coming? So that was the interesting thing of [doing] some post-apocalypse stuff, but it can’t feel like Scavengers Reign because they’ve rebuilt. There are new places. We tried to weave it in where it really made logical sense with where the story was going and where the world was.”
Added DiMartino, “When you get into Book Two, though, and now that they’re traveling, you’re going to see more of the Harshlands and stuff. So that gives you more of the post-apocalyptic vibe, and why people aren’t living out in these areas.”
Seven Havens Gets Political (or Not)
Despite the multi-year schedule of creating animation, Seven Havens has felt laudably and eerily relevant to our world today. Turns of phrase in the finale like “We can’t just hide from the scary bubble” and “freedom of choice is all I’ve ever wanted” work on multiple levels. So how does a staff aiming for a hopefully timeless children’s animated series also reflect what we’re feeling right now in 2026?
“In a lot of ways, we were trying to really uphold an ethos that a lot of the Avatar world has always upheld,” Sethi explained. “I don’t know if it’s us getting political or everything that is relevant about humanity just being political at this point. To be truly honest, these were things that we always wanted to talk about, and we always felt they were timeless. We just happen to be in a time where they are incredibly relevant now.”
Added DiMartino, “All the Avatar stuff we’ve done has some political bent to it, but we’re trying to address themes that are pervasive throughout history, not just talking about the current political climate. These are things that societies and people have struggled with throughout civilization’s history.”
“For me, especially, the idea of fear of the other, freedom of choice,” Sethi continued. “These are things that absolutely matter and will always matter. Like Mike was saying, the fact that they matter right now… Honestly, it’s kind of cool that people can watch our show and feel a relevance now. But even 20 years from now, I think they’ll still feel that relevance.”
The Hardest Part of Writing Seven Havens
Now that the secret of the show is out — that each of the Seven Havens does indeed align with one of the Seven Chakras — it gives the story a very clear, mission-based structure. But what it also does is somewhat dictate where Pavi and Nisha need to go emotionally over the course of the four seasons. So how do the writers balance honoring the emotional truth of those character’s journeys versus “well, we’ve gotta hit this chakra next.”
“Dude,” Sethi said, groaning. “That was the hardest part of the show. Truly, it was a massive undertaking. We did everything we could to make sure that their journeys would align with the world but would also align with them personally as organic characters. This is the hardest show I’ve ever worked on, and in the room, that was something that we went over and over. We probably tried like 17 different storylines because we wanted to make sure that the one we hit matched the characters as well as this overarching concept. So yeah, the best thing I can say is: It was really hard.”
Added DiMartino, “It’s nice to have a structure [for] what we’re going to be dealing with thematically. But then you have to honor that and also the characters we have. The thing I was excited about doing, now that we can talk about all the chakras stuff, is that the Guru was one of the people’s favorite episodes from Avatar: The Last Airbender. But we had to cruise through the chakras real fast, so when we were revisiting that idea and the series, it was like, oh, this would be cool that we could structure the entire series and really explore these themes and make it not so easy to to unlock all of them. [We made] that the main journey of what Pavi has to go on.”
The Future of the Avatar Franchise From Seven Havens to Wave of Chaos and Beyond
There’s a lot coming in the future of Avatar, including three more seasons of Seven Havens, a new series titled Avatar Kuruk: Wave Of Chaos, and potentially more TBA. So let’s check in on what’s even further down the road than Season 2.
On Where They Are in Seven Havens: “We’ve been working on this stuff for several years now, so we are deep into Books Three and Four,” DiMartino said. “And yeah, it’ll be a little bit before they come out, but rest assured, it’s all being worked on.”
Will Seven Havens and Wave of Chaos Overlap on the Release Schedule? “That is beyond my scope of control,” DiMartino said, laughing. “So it’ll depend on what Paramount Plus wants to do, I guess, or whatever the streaming app happens to be at that time. That’s just getting started. It might be a bit before we have episodes ready for that.”
Will There Be Further Avatar Shows? How About Movies? “Potentially,” DiMartino said. “I mean, we’ve got ideas for other Avatar things. We can come up with ideas all day, but we need the higher-ups to greenlight stuff.”
You hear that, Paramount? Start clicking that green light button, because we need more Avatar in our lives!