Well, this is info from a lot of people on Tumblr. There was a class lecture that Aaon Ehasz did at UCB, here is the link to prove it is real.
http://www.decal.org/courses/1905
And here are the links to what was apparently said at the class.
http://terminaschosenone.tumblr.com/post/140476340821/kataraandzuko-zuzusexytiems-kataraandzuko
Exerpts:
“
If we had another season then there would be more stuff about Iroh’s past” - Ehasz wanted to write a two-part flashback episode about Iroh’s transformation into the person he is today. It would feature the siege of Ba Sing Se, Lu Ten’s death, and his travels around both the mortal and spirit world.
“Toph fixing her own issues” - Toph learns to heal from the emotional abuse she endured from her parents and repairs their relationship. She needed some character development when it came to mellowing out her harsh personality. Katara’s motherly influence helped her but Toph needed to deal with the direct cause. Ehasz loves Toph (he basically created her) and was upset that she remained so static throughout the series.
“I wanted to develop this subtle romance between two of the main characters but I don’t think Mike and Bryan would have been too happy about that.” - It’s pretty obvious what couple he is talking about with this line. Ehasz always wanted to make Zuko/Katara canon or at least develop it much more than what was shown in the actual series, but Bryke would fight with him about it. This was why the chance of Katara ending up with either Zuko or Aang was 50-50 even mid-way through the third season. Yes, this means the “Zuko was originally going to be the love interest for Katara” and “The writers and creators toyed with the idea of Zuko and Katara falling in love” Avatar Extras are completely true. The cancellation of the fourth season and Shyamalan’s complaints about how indecisive Bryke were about who Katara was going to end up with led the Nick execs to step in and push for Katara/Aang because that was what they concluded as being most suitable for young children. The resulting draft for the finale ended up with Katara/Aang and lot of people in the writing room were surprised since they believed Zuko/Katara was the better choice. Bryke wanted Katara and Aang to passionately kiss to symbolize a marriage and make them look “definite”. This is in contrast with Ehasz who just wanted a sweet scene near the end where Zuko and Katara talked about how much the world had changed to foreshadow a future between them.
Another link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160204232755/http://zephyrita.tumblr.com/tagged/avatar-info
Exerpts:
Aaron Ehasz has said some stuff about it:
“Fire cannot exist without air.” There would have -ideally, according to Aaron- been more emphasis on the interplay of fire and air as elements.
Likewise, Aaron believes that in terms of bending/elements/nations, it is possible for a random different element bender to pop up. (A waterbender in a family of firebenders, for example) but it would be LIKE, SO VERY RARE. And it would have been taken in a darker, more genocidal angle, so it wasn’t touched on or even canon-a-fied.
On that note though, Aaron believes a good springboard for finding more Airbenders was the fire nation, repeating that “Fire cannot exist without air.”
There were a bunch of things cut or never made it in. The Avatar staff never said Aang would meet the surviving airbenders, but there were groups of airbenders who managed to flee the genocide and hide up in the mountains (so not all of them died in the initial attack). They may have largely died out or intermarried with local populations before Aang’s release from the iceberg as the Fire Nation put large bounties on the heads of refugee airbenders. We could have seen them if Book 4 was made because Aang was constantly searching for them but now we’ll never know and Legend of Korra has gone with an ass pull about airbenders returning because of Harmonic Convergence lol.
As for the two episodes I mentioned:
- An episode dedicated to Iroh in the Siege of Ba Sing Se. His transformation from a ruthless heir apparent prince to a broken general who stepped down from the line of succession after his son’s death and the realisation that he was a horrible person.
- An episode about Aang’s parents, with his mother being pregnant, and later giving birth. Avatar Roku dies approx. a week before Aang’s birth so the Air Nomads are looking for the next Avatar and they identity Aang as it. He spends a very short time with his parents before he is taken away to be raised in the Southern Air Temple and is too young to remember anything about them.
Aang’s parents were actually something they planned to reveal within the series ever since Book 1 but they were cut out due to time constraints. You only get to see a shadowy figure of Aang’s mother in Book 3. They would have fit very well within the possible Book 4 where Aang became “dark” and traveled back to the Air Temples for solace (where he examines himself, and finds a bunch of flying bison + winged lemur), but we all know that never came to be. Iroh and Lu Ten’s backstories were also going to be explored, and that would have fit great in Book 3, but I guess they exchanged all of that for filler episodes and poor pacing.
Another link
http://araeph.tumblr.com/post/139818544775/conversation-i-had-with-aaron-ehasz-in
Exerpts:
Me: What was working on Avatar like?
Ehasz: I loved working on Avatar. It was a great learning experience and it had an incredibly passionate team behind it. I can't believe it's been over ten years since it premiered.
Me: Was there anything you weren't too happy about the series, or anything you wanted to change?
Ehasz: Overall I was very happy with Avatar but yes, there are a lot of things I would change...I didn't always agree with Mike and Bryan. It's their work and I can respect that, but there was so much left to explore.
Me: What did you want to explore?
Ehasz: Powerful and specialised airbending techniques. I thought it was unfair that all the bending arts except air got this cool sub-skill. I wanted Aang to defeat Ozai and go through some emotional turmoil after taking the Fire Lord's bending...but I couldn't...since as we all know, that was the last episode of the show. If we had another season then there would be more stuff about Iroh's past, Toph fixing her own issues...and I wanted to develop this subtle romance between two of the main characters but I don't think Mike and Bryan would have been too happy about that. *laughs* I saw Legend of Korra and some of the comics and the vision that they [Mike and Bryan] present is totally different from my own. I would have had these stories play out very differently.
Me: I'm sad we never got more than three seasons
Ehasz: Me too. We could have done more a long time ago. It's pretty much impossible now with the ownership change and laws in place. I hope somebody buys it from Viacom and hires me again. *laughs*
One more link about Ehasz thpughts on Korra:
http://supremequeenofthenerds.tumbl...ron-ehasz-had-some-really-interesting-ideas-i
One more link about Ehasz' ideas for a Zuko/Katara relationship:
http://accioelements.tumblr.com/post/141009753502/zephyrita-deathatintervals-zephyrita/embed