Seven Havens’ Bosses on Season 1 Finale and Season 2 Plans (Exclusive)

After bringing twin Avatars Pavi (Saheli Khan) and Nisha (Aishu Devan) back together, Avatar: Seven Havens Book 1 pulls them apart again in the finale episode, setting the stage for a very different Book 2, which has already been greenlit at Paramount+, along with Books 3 and 4.

At the end of Book 1, Pavi is able to defeat the energy Anomaly and save Ellora by overcoming her fear of being the Avatar, something Nisha hasn’t struggled with before. Pavi unblocks her Root Chakra to do so, setting her on a path to unblock the six remaining ones. To do so, she must travel to a new Haven. Pavi leaves Nisha behind, unable to forgive her for accidentally destroying their family years earlier.

Avatar co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino and Seven Havens executive producers Sehaj Sethi and Ethan Spaulding sat down with TV Insider to break down all the biggest developments in the Book 1 and tease what’s to come as the sisters embark on “different journeys.”

Could you tell me about deciding to dive into this chakra concept and framework for the show? We’ve seen the chakra concept brought up a little bit before in past Avatar projects, but not quite as in depth as this.  

Michael Dante DiMartino: That’s what was exciting to me and Bryan [Konietzko] and hopefully you guys, when we pitched this idea of like… The “Guru” episode, I know it’s some people’s favorite, and people have really responded that learning about the chakras and what they represent, and how it’s a path to self-understanding and growth and all this stuff. And so when we were talking about this show, to take that idea and do more of a deep dive on it felt right. But you know, it did present some challenges, because on the one hand, we have a structure and sort of a pathway of how the story would progress, but then we have the actual story we’re trying to tell and trying to marry those two was definitely challenging.

Ethan Spaulding: Yeah, I remember the first I heard of the story, when they were they were pitching it, I saw what you guys were working on, and I was like, ‘That seems really hard to do.’ I was like, ‘How are we going to do this concept?’ And so I’m I’m happy the way it turned out. I think it came out good. But at the beginning, it was daunting for me to just thinking of the visuals, how we’re gonna execute this.

Sehaj Sethi: My biggest thing was I just wanted it to be organic. I wanted the character arcs to really still feel like they were coming from the choices of the characters, not this predetermined feeling of like what they needed to do for this journey with the chakras. And I think we got there. It took some finagling, but at the end of the day, it was a nice framework for us to build this, in many ways, more cosmic story.

A central part of the Season 1 finale is Pavi unblocking her Root Chakra and overcoming the anomaly because of it. Why was she able to get there and Nisha couldn’t?

Sethi: Pavi was the one who was embracing letting go of fear, and this was really about the fear chakra. We had tried for the whole first season to show how Pavi relates to fear, and specifically, how she relates to fear in taking on that moniker of the Avatar. So by the end, kind of like Mike was saying, this wasn’t just a journey about ‘Oh, and he opened her chakra.’ It’s about ‘Oh no, we started her in a place where she was so scared of this, and by the end she’s embraced that title.’

And now, going into Season 2, it’s about what is she going to do with that title? What is she going to do with that responsibility now? Nisha’s relationship to that, that’s something that’ll get revealed in Season 2. But this really was, for us, a particularly emotional stepping stone that Pavi had to go through. This was a big part of her inner journey.

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I remember Agam sensed that Nisha had a bunch of energy within her, but when she was reading Pavi, she specifically said that she had blocked chakras. Does Nisha need to go on this journey alongside Pavi with the chakras?

Sethi: They are going to be going on different journeys is probably the best way I can put that. So Pavi is a little more focused on chakras. Nisha is focused on a few other things. A big part of her journey, when we end Book 1, is what does she do now that that relationship that she so cared about with her sister has been severed, and also now that she is considered a hero by her people? It’s almost a little monkey’s paw. Like, you get what you want, but this is in no way the atmosphere and the circumstances you wanted to get it in.

In the finale, Pavi also dissipated or redirected the energy that Nisha had created. What’s the difference in their Avatar abilities by the end of Book 1? Do you consider it a yin and yang situation, like creation versus destruction?

Sethi: Currently, I think it’s more about them being Avatars in different ways. That’s what I would say. They are handling the situation coming from different points of view.

Another key part of the finale is Pavi reaching something that sort of resembles the Avatar State when she’s defeating the Anomaly. What can you tell me about this new ability?

Spaulding: Yeah, I think that’s the Chakra State.

DiMartino: Yeah, it’s not the Avatar State. Yeah, that’s what you guys called it, right?

Spaulding: Yeah, Chakra State. Yeah.

Sethi: We’re revealing a new sort of state of being that the Avatar can enter, and it is specifically linked to opening your chakra, so that is what Pavi channels when she is interacting and manipulating the energy, and it does give her a little power up for a short time. A brief, brief time.

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Can Nisha potentially get there as well?

Sethi: You have to watch and see… We didn’t necessarily want to tell the exact same story for both girls.

With the finale, we also saw an emotional change in Pavi. In Book 2, can we expect a tonal shift in her or a change in her personality?

DiMartino: We’re not going to turn Pavi into a super dark, brooding character. She’s still goofy and lovable and quirky and all that stuff. But yeah, now that she has accepted her role as the Avatar and has unblocked her chakra and is no longer afraid… She still got some fears, but she’s overcome that first stepping stone to embracing this role. She’s gonna still be stepping into that role and figuring out how to do it, what it means to her, and all that stuff going forward.

Pavi and Nisha also end Book 1 in different places in the literal sense. Going forward, are you focusing on both their stories, even when they’re apart?

Sethi: Yeah. A big part of one of the reasons why we wanted them to separate is that we wanted to see them grow apart from each other because they were such constant influences on each other through Season 1. We thought, ‘OK, let’s see what happens when Pavi is just an Avatar on her own. What is Nisha like as an Avatar on her own?’

It kind of surprised me that Pavi couldn’t forgive Nisha for the role she played in their past, even though it was all by accident. What does Pavi need to go through to reach that point of forgiveness?

DiMartino: Some other chakra stuff.

Sethi: I think something that I hope people keep in mind as they watch this is we did want to really lean into that these characters aren’t perfect. They’re flawed. Maybe Pavi is wrong to be to be so harsh on Nisha, maybe Nisha was wrong to hide that from her sister. Those are things we delve into as we get into Season 2.

With the stories diverging and Pavi going to another Haven, are there still issues to tackle in Ellora, since Nisha stayed there?

DiMartino: The storms are still a threat. There’s a little more to do in Ellora. There’s stuff to do, but yeah, like we said, with Nisha, some stuff will happen that will force her to take some new actions. I’ll just say that.

There are seven Havens and seven chakras. Do you see yourselves spending a season per Haven and per chakra going forward? 

DiMartino: Book 1 was focused on just one, but we’re gonna mix it up a little more as we go forward. So I won’t tell you exactly how, but it won’t be seven books long. I’ll just say that.

Sethi: You heard it here first. As we were making the series, we spent a lot of time building Ellora production-wise. And I think that’s where the girls are from. That is where Jae’s from. That is their home. It made sense to spend all that time there. I think going into the following books, we were like, ‘Let’s give this a little more of that travel show feel that you get with Last Airbender.’ So you’re going to get that a little more following through from here.

We know it’s the sacral chakra next based on the visuals. Can you say more about that?

Spaulding: It deals with pleasure, and it’s blocked by guilt.

What does that entail?

DiMartino: The culture embraces a more fun and laid-back style.

Spaulding: Yeah, the Floating Isles is a fun place.

Sethi: Yeah, it’s a chill place. Very different from Ellora in many ways in that regard.

Are they as scared of the Avatar as Ellora was? We saw that fear bit when the other Havens came to Ellora. But we didn’t see anyone from the Floating Aisles, did we?

DiMartino: No, you haven’t met anyone.

Sethi: You have not met anyone from there yet. You will have to wait and see.

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Has Book 2 been recorded yet?

DiMartino: We’ve been recording consistently since we started, so the past few years. So yeah, all of Book 2 has been recorded, produced. Everything is pretty much done on that one, and we’re working on the other ones [Book 3 and 4] to finish them up. But yeah, I mean there’s still post-production ADR stuff to do, but all the main recording has been complete.

I’ve seen people theorizing that there would be a time jump, but I imagine that wouldn’t work with the way we leave things.

DiMartino: It’s a few weeks maybe, but yeah, nothing crazy.

Sethi: Timeline, we’re more kind of sticking to what sort of Avatar: The Last Airbender did, time-wise.

Is there an aspect of Book 1 that you were most proud of watching the whole finished product back?

Spaulding: I think the finale episodes. I think seeing those come together was really impressive, and just the scope of what Pavi does at the end, and the animation and the effects. I think that was, for me, that was a great moment to see that stuff come to fruition.

DiMartino: I would agree with that. Yeah, because we obviously have a lot of the traditional Avatar martial arts bending, fights, and all that stuff, but we have all this cosmic plane, trippy stuff and energy. There’s a lot of energy going on, so there’s a ton of new kinds of effects and stuff. William [Niu], the production designer, and art director and the team did an awesome job visualizing these kind of esoteric ideas. Because it’s one thing to talk about the chakras, but you have to actually show what that looks like on screen, which is not an easy task.

Sethi: I also really loved a lot of what the board artist did with [Episode] 106, just like the physicality of the girls in that episode. They’re so petty at times, which I adore, and they’re also so just childish, but in a way that’s just fun to watch. I felt like their arc there was really relatable in many ways, but also I just feel like the director and the board artist just did such a good job bringing what we had put in the script to life.

Avatar: Seven Havens, Season 1, Streaming Now, Paramount+

Avatar: Seven Havens, Season 2, TBA, Paramount+