Avatar: Seven Havens gets cosmic in its ninth episode, and may have just confirmed a big fan theory in the process.
In the episode, titled "The Envoys: Part Two," Avatar Pavi (voiced by Saheli Khan) once again makes contact with the menacing, diamond-shaped anomaly that's been threatening Ellora. This time, instead of showing her a flashback of Avatar Korra's memories like it did in episode 6, the anomaly transports Pavi to a place that's familiar to any Avatar fan: outer space.
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What does Pavi see after touching the anomaly?
Okay, Pavi isn't physically in space, but her spirit winds up floating in a cosmic void. It's the same void Avatars Aang and Korra found themselves in before entering the Avatar State. In their series, they followed a glowing path to a massive cosmic projection of themselves holding a ball of white energy. Once they stepped into the ball, they'd be in the Avatar State. The entire cosmic set-up is a neat visual representation of the spiritual and mental components of being the Avatar. However, it's not what we see in Seven Havens.
Like Aang and Korra, Pavi follows a path through space in Seven Havens. But instead of finding a vision of herself, she sees a massive circular gate. Like the anomaly, it glows black and red. Unlike the anomaly's fragmented, angular geometry, this gate bears a beautiful, flowery design.
From there, Seven Havens reveals that beyond this circle lie six others, each ringed in their own glowing colors, although none bear a design yet.
The progression of these colors is a visual Avatar fans are familiar with, going all the way back to Avatar: The Last Airbender Season 2, episode 19, "The Guru." In that episode, Aang visits guru Pathik to learn how to enter and control the Avatar State. Pathik teaches him about unblocking his chakras, which are points of concentrated energy throughout the body, with real-world roots in Buddhist and Hindu practices.
The scenes in which Aang unblocks his chakras are each tinged with a specific color tied to each chakra, starting with red and moving up to orange, yellow, and so on. It's the exact same color progression as the gates Pavi encounters, highly implying that she is looking at a series of chakras. But they aren't hers. Instead, each of the seven chakras is almost certainly tied to one of the seven Havens.
Avatar: Seven Havens' chakra theory, explained.
Throughout Seven Havens' run, series fans have theorized that each Haven represents one of the seven chakras. After all, the show's opening credits show the Havens as glowing points of color on a map, each corresponding to one of the chakra colors. The same color scheme carries over to the costumes of the Havens in the play about the Cataclysm in the very first episode.
All of this is compelling evidence for the theory, but Pavi's vision in "The Envoys: Part Two" is the strongest confirmation of the theory so far. Let's start with the red gate in front of Pavi. It is the same color as the first chakra guru Pathik teaches Aang about: the Earth chakra, known in real-world practices as the root chakra. It sits at the base of the spine. According to Pathik, it deals with survival, but it's blocked by fear.
All these concepts of survival, fear, and the root chakra figure into Seven Havens in some way. Book 1 is titled "Survival," while the season finale is titled "The Root Chakra." As for fear, the city of Ellora is overrun with it. Whenever someone comes into contact with the anomaly, they become afflicted by fear.
With that in mind, it seems like the anomaly isn't truly some kind of spirit demon. Rather, it's a physical manifestation of the blocked energies of Ellora, which explains its appearance as a warped version of the design on the gate. In order to keep the world in balance, Pavi and her twin sister Nisha (voiced by Aishu Devan) will surely have to find a way to unblock Ellora — the root chakra — and likely the other havens as well.
Each of the seven Havens representing a chakra raises a massive question, though. What are they chakras of? They seem to be chakras of the entire world, but does that mean that the Earth in the Avatar universe is actually its own living being? Was the Cataclysm caused in part by blockage of these energy points?
All will surely become clear as Seven Havens continues to open its mystery box. For now, though, Pavi's vision is the clearest answer viewers have gotten to the many questions the show has raised about the world post-Cataclysm.
Avatar: Seven Havens is now streaming on Paramount+, with new episodes every Friday.