The Avavatar Crew Is a Lousy Five-Man Band

A lot of those who offer writing advice like to use Avatar: The Last Airbender crew as an example of the Five-Man Band. The Five-Man Band is the center of most teams, with its leader, the lance (the rebellious hothead with issues), the girl (who is usually the source of conflict but is the heart of the group), the brain (the guy with all of the technical knowledge), and the tank (the combat specialist with the biggest weapon). However, it's entirely possible that they have picked the wrong group, figuring that its iconic status and five leads should be the best example of a standard team set-up.

Boy, were they off just a bit.

The Worst Leader

Aang is a horrible leader. While he does provide the general direction of the team's activities and is a more-than-capable fighter, he generally sucks at determining the specifics of accomplishing the goal. While his innate power enables him to accomplish the mission, he usually needs to act under the supervision of someone else to actually get into a position where he can be effective. In a lot of ways, he performs better as the tank, wading into a situation and eliminating the competition. While he does some victories based on his intuition, he's rarely wins on his own sense of strategy.

The Girl is Not Necessarily The Heart

Generally, the girl is seen as the heart of the group, smoothing over conflicts and providing a possible romantic triangle between the leader and lance, while the brain and tank have a crush of sorts on her. This is NOT Kitara's role. Not only does she seem to be at the center of most the team's conflicts, she also tends to initiate her fair share of conflicts with other characters. She is also never really romantically entangled with any character besides Aang (one of the other males is her brother and Zuko has his own romantic interest (May)). In essence, the only qualifier she has to be the girl is her sex.

She's actually the technical brains of the group. She's always looking for ways to improve her and Aang's bending, tracking down scrolls and exploring her own bending. She's usually the one who finds the important detail needed to solve a number of crises, and is the one most likely to hit the books. She's truly in her element (pun intended) when she's dealing with the theoretical aspects of bending, and is the one most likely to explore avenues based solely on curiosity. All of this makes her the brain of the group, even as she eschews the normal roles given to the girl.

The Brain Can Be The Heart

Sokka is weird. He's definitely the tactical genius of the group, as his tactics usually carry the day. However, that may be selling him short, as an argument can be made that he's the actual leader of the group, taking Aang's direction as to where they need to go and what they need to do, but enabling the group to get in and do what needs to be done. He also has some impressive diplomatic victories, such as when he trains with the Kyoshi warriors. He also acts as the heart of the group, noticing and dealing with any conflicts, while also supporting and even nurturing the others; he's the first to offer hugs in some situations.

All of this makes him, not Kitara, the emotional center of the group, putting him in the weird situation of giving him the role traditionally held by the girl of the group. He's also arguably the leader, effectively leading the rest of the group. Sokka really deserves more respect than he's given, especially considering his lack of bending ability.

At Least the Lance and Tank Do Their Job

Toph and Zuko are late-comers to the group, but they take to their roles like ducks to water. Toph has no problem being the tank, going through enemy troops like a knife and even taking on the tougher opponents with ease. Zuko easily goes from the main antagonist to team ally, even taking on the lance role, sort of: He tends to argue with Aang rather than Sokka, who is the real leader. Nonetheless, those disagreements make for some great drama.

In short, while the Avatar gang has the elements of the Five-Man Band, it's not one of the best examples as there is a lot of nuances to the situation. It's still a great cartoon and easily worthy of viewing, but the team has a lot of weirdness to it.