Momo
From Avatar Wiki, the Avatar: The Last Airbender database
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Momo |
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| Biographical information | |
| Nationality | |
| Physical description | |
| Gender |
Male |
| Hair color |
White and Brown |
| Eye color |
Green |
| Personal Information | |
| Allies | |
| Enemies | |
| Chronological and political information | |
| Position |
Aang's Pet Lemur |
| Affiliation | |
| First Appearance | |
| Voiced By | |
Momo is a Winged-Lemur and a loyal companion of Aang and his team. He is the only winged-lemur known to have survived the Air Nomad genocide, where he appertained to the Southern Air Temple after. However, the fact that his species is recognized by various characters throughout the series gives an indication that Momo may still have living brethren around the world.
Momo is an intelligent creature, but is either incapable or selective of understanding human speech. He is also a glutton for any available fruit. Momo's behavior is more cat-like than that of real life lemurs. His wings appear to retract within the fur of his arms and he appears to have four fingers and two additional ones within the wing membrane that can be seen when he has his wings extended. His fur is mostly white with some select black stripes and a black face, which has two proportionately large green eyes.
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[edit] History
[edit] Discovery
In late 99 ASC, Momo is thought to have began living in the ruins of the Southern Air Temple, either alone or with a family of lemurs. When Team Avatar visited the temple that year, Avatar Aang took interest in him and wanted to take him as his new pet. When Aang, Katara, and Sokka were in the sanctuary of the temple, they heard a noise from the door indicating that someone had entered to the room.
Team Avatar, thinking that it was a Firebender, hid behind an Avatar statue until they saw that the intruder was only a lemur. As Aang approached the lemur, it fled only to be caught by him after following it, to Aang's disbelief and shock, into a room laden with the corpses of Fire Nation soldiers surrounding the skeleton of Monk Gyatso. Aang's horror and grief quickly becomes rage causing him to enter the Avatar State, calming down only after Katara consoles him. Desperately hungry, Sokka wanted to eat their newly discovered companion for dinner but, Aang decided to keep the lemur as a pet, naming him "Momo" after seeing him eat a moon peach. From this moment on, Momo remained a constant addition to their family, accompanying the team on their journeys throughout the series. [1]
[edit] Journey to the North
Momo and Team Avatar next went to Omashu where they were "captured" by King Bumi. Aang decided to have Momo slip though an air vent to reach Appa for help. Unfortunately, Momo had eaten a large amount of fruit and was too big to fit. One day, Team Avatar developed a plan with the objective of Fire Nation guards arrest Katara, so she could meet with Haru. Then, made believe to the guards that she was an Earthbender, they told Aang he had to raise a rock with Airbending through ventilation pipes. Being Momo below the raised rock, at first the guards thought that the Earthbender was the lemur, but Sokka corrected them saying that he bender was Katara. [2] After, Momo had a brief altercation with the Pirate Captain's reptile bird for a waterbending scroll, but tied it to a post using a flag. Before the fight with the bird, Momo had saved Katara by cutting the ropes that had her tied up. [3]
Later, when Katara and Sokka were sick, Aang went to search for a medicine that could cure them of their illness. Momo stayed, accompanying them. When they were very sick, Katara requested that Momo find some water, but he did not understand her words. So, the lemur took all sorts of objects, without ever getting to what Katara wanted. Throughout the rest of the group's journey with the team, he accompanied them on their adventures without contributing with major or significant participation.
[edit] Siege of the North
During the Siege of the North, Momo stayed out of the fight, though he accompanied Katara and Yue, the tribal princess. When Zuko captured Aang's body after he went to the Spirit World for help, Momo stayed at the Spirit Oasis while the rest of the team went to search the polar ice cap surrounding the city. After Aang was rescued, Momo attacked Admiral Zhao in the midst of a speech, though this did not stop Zhao from killing Tui. After Tui was killed, Aang went into the Avatar State and merged with an enraged La to repel the attacking Fire Nation fleet as Momo watched in awe with the others. Once the siege ended, Momo and the rest of Team Avatar shared a group hug at the Chief Temple.
[edit] Traveling through the Earth Kingdom
When the Team ventured to the Earth Kingdom city of Omashu, Momo split from the group in search of food, because Team Avatar was too busy causing a pentapox outbreak. He, then, got in a scuffle with the New Ozai Governor's son, Tom Tom, who was intrigued by Momo's tail and followed him out out the city. When flying over a swamp, Momo and Appa became separated from the rest of the team. While wondering though the swamp, they where attacked by a Foggy Swamp Tribe hunting party. Momo was captured in the chase by Tho, but later released when Huu and Team Avatar intervened.
During the Appa's disappearance in Si Wong Desert, Momo was captured by a buzzard wasp, but he was rescued quickly by Aang, who disposed of the creature with a air whip.
[edit] In Ba Sing Se
After crossing the Serpent's Pass with Suki, Aang and Momo flew towards the walls of the Earth Kingdom capital, Ba Sing Se. Aang reached the wall and ascended to the top only to be shocked to see a huge mechanical drill with the Fire Nation emblem upon it. During the battle on the drill, when Aang fell to one side of the drill and Azula fell to the other flank, Momo grabs and saves him, while Azula could not stop his fall.
One night, he continued looking for Appa, and in the process was attacked by a pack of three Pygmy Pumas. He and the pygmy pumas were captured and taken to a local slaughterhouse. Luckily, Momo was able to remove the pin of his cage and the pygmy pumas' cage as well. After the escape the pygmy pumas took him to Appa's footprint. When Aang when to see Guru Pathik, Momo stayed behind in Ba Sing Se with Katara and later joined Sokka and Toph when they tried to convince the Earth King. Here he was captured by the Dai Li and Azula's team. He later left the city with the rest of the team, the Earth King, and Bosco the Bear after a harsh loss against Azula.
[edit] Roaming the Fire Nation
When Aang joined to a Fire Nation School, Momo accompanied him hiding under his uniform. During many adventures of Team Avatar, Momo doesn't participate until Sokka buys a messenger hawk, Hawky. At first, he continually got into fights with the hawk, but then, Appa calmed them down. [4] Aang was very nervous because the invasion was in only four more days, and he was unsure about to confront Ozai. So, he began to hallucinate and he imagined things. One of his visions was a duel against Appa and Momo; Aang saw Momo talking to him, and after with a kimono, preparing to fight Appa. He started seeing them in a samurai-style duel, as Koala Sheeps cheer them on. [5]
[edit] Final Battles
Before the arrival of Sozin's Comet, Momo followed Aang while he sleep walked to the giant Lion Turtle. Meanwhile when the rest of Team Avatar met with the masters of the Order of the White Lotus, Bumi stated that an important member is missing, then asked where Momo was. When Aang awoke, he was confused about his residence and began to talk to Momo, who only answered by his characteric growls.
Right before the start of the final battle in Wulong Forest, Aang said to Momo that he had to fly to somewhere safe. Momo returned once Ozai was defeated by the Avatar. After the final battles, Team Avatar with Iroh and Mai reunited in the Jasmine Dragon, Momo and Aang are seen playing together with a piece of rock. [6]
[edit] Personality
Momo is typical of his species; curious, intelligent with a touch of mischievousness. Momo is an asset to the team for his friendly and playful ways which helps to feed Sokka's humor as the straight man, this brings much needed levity to the group from time to time. Appa and Momo appear to have a special bond, which may be due to linguistic understanding, or they have developed one of those 'special bonds' which is rare between different animal species. Momo is also adept in many situations, such as with the pygmy pumas that were chasing him for food only to find themselves on the menu. Momo provided their escape and at the same time made new friends. These traits all go along to making Momo cute and adorable by the team, as well as others that he meets throughout his travels.
[edit] Abilities
Momo uses his wings for gliding and flying. He can also swim short distances underwater whilst holding his breath. [7] He hasn't proved any fighting skill, due his size and capabilities as an animal, but he has helped Team Avatar numerous times on various occasions. Momo has also shown some type of intelligence, as he helped Katara when she was strapped, and helped Sokka with fighting Fire Nation soldiers. [8] Momo has shown on various occasions that he understands human language, but he doesn't understand Katara when she tells him he has to get water. [9] Momo also has a lot of strength, as he can sustain a person in the air who's approximately Aang's weight or possibly more.
[edit] Notes
- The gang found Momo in the abandoned Southern Air Temple. Since he was not preserved along with Aang, he has to have a family somewhere in the temple or winged-lemurs have extremely long life-spans.
- In "The Swamp", Tho commented he had seen a lemur before in a traveling circus before, so Momo might not be the only winged-lemur left. Also the Pirate Captain in "The Waterbending Scroll".
[edit] Trivia
- Aang named Momo for the Japanese word for "peach," the fruit which Momo seized from Sokka shortly before being named. The creators later revealed that they had actually named him that way because it apparently just seemed to fit, as he was originally supposed to be a robot called "Momo 3". He had even already been drawn eating a peach only for them to later find out that 'momo' was 'peach' in Japanese. The name Momo is also a common name for pets and such in Japan, much like "Fido" or "Lucky" are in America. Momo is also short for the Japanese dwarf flying squirrel, Momonga (モモンガ). A character from the anime Samurai Champloo has one named thus. In "The Tales of Ba Sing Se," Momo was written as 摸 摸 (Mō Mó) which means "touch imitate" in Chinese. It also can be seen as the phase in Chinese in which when a word is repeated twice it become a cute reference. So Mo meaning fur is repeated.
- Though Momo and Appa are good friends, though they are known to fight over food. Momo did have a dream of them sharing food so they seem to have overcome that problem.
- Avatar co-creator Bryan Konietzko has admitted that Momo is his favorite character to draw, and that a lot of his poses, mannerisms, and overall body language stem from the memories of his childhood cat, Buddy. This explains why Momo is so reminiscent of a typical housecat.[10]
- Momo resembles a mix between the Townsend's Big-eared Bat and a Ring-tailed Lemur.
- In the commentary for "The Western Air Temple", one of the ideas Mike and Bryan had was for the group to find a whole group of flying lemurs.
[edit] Relationships
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ The Southern Air Temple, Book 1: Water
- ↑ Imprisoned, Book 1: Water
- ↑ The Waterbending Scroll, Book 1: Water
- ↑ The Runaway, Book 3: Fire
- ↑ Nightmares and Daydreams, Book 3: Fire
- ↑ Sozin's Comet, Part 4: Avatar Aang , Book 3: Fire
- ↑ The Serpent's Pass, Book 2: Earth
- ↑ Imprisoned, Book 1: Water
- ↑ The Blue Spirit, Book 1: Water
- ↑ "In Their Elements." (September 2006) Nick Mag Presents, p. 38
