Avatars

The Avatars are an ancient group of extremely powerful magical beings who can bend the very fabric of time. Being personifications of specific things or ideas, their power is often described as the ability to manipulate time, reality, and space. Unlike witches, warlocks, demons, whitelighters, Elders, and other forms of magical beings, their power is said to be unlimited, beyond good and evil. Avatars are not categorized as good or evil; they are neutral. The desire is to shape the world to their own design making it a perfect world and will do anything in order to keep Utopia safe and without violence. Avatars exist outside of time and space.

The Avatars are depicted as a peaceful, yet powerful collective whose sole purpose is to create their version of Utopia, by putting all humans to sleep temporarily and ridding the earth of all demons/evil beings during the slumber. The Avatars promise that upon awakening, the war between good and evil will be over and the sisters can lead normal lives. However, the promise of Utopia comes with a very high price: if any person creates 'conflict', that person will be removed from existence by the Avatars, effectively creating a loss of free will.

Each of the Avatar's names are derived from the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Beta, Gamma and so on)

Current Avatars

 * Alpha
 * Gamma
 * Avatar of Force, appeared in Sam, I Am
 * Unidentified Avatar, appeared in Vaya Con Leos
 * Unnamed Avatars who appeared in Charmageddon

Former Avatars

 * Cole Turner
 * Leo Wyatt

Deceased Avatars

 * Beta

In Ancient Egypt
At one point in time, Avatars ruled over the entire world, but eventually an Egyptian mage realized something was wrong and he created a very powerful potion which was the only thing able to destroy them. Unlike most magical creatures in the Charmed universe, Avatars are magically connected to each other. If one member of the Collective dies, it affects all Avatars, making them weaker and less powerful both individually and as a group as demonstrated when the Avatar Beta was killed by Kyle Brody with a potion. At this stage, they will become vulnerable to any attacks from very powerful Upper Level Demons or even Magical beings. This had similarly been applied to the Charmed Ones and later to the Triad.

The Avatars need Cole
The Avatars made their first appearance in Season 5, when they came to Cole Turner and asked him to join their ranks. Cole at first rejected their offer. Even as strong and powerful as Cole was his energy balls had absolutely no effect on them. Cole was invincible so the Avatars could not harm or vanquish him either, but because of his powers and honest nature the Avatars wanted him to join them.



In a later episode, Cole realized the unlimited powers being an Avatar would provide him. He agreed to the opportunity and became an Avatar, and used his new power to change the past for personal gain. He altered reality in desire that Phoebe Halliwell would love him and they could be together forever. Unfortunately, he wasn't invincible in the altered world that resulted, as he was returned to his past form, that of the powerful demon known as Belthazor. The Avatars warned him, and asked him to stop. Cole ignored them, which led to his ultimate downfall.

The Gathering Storm


During Season 7, Leo Wyatt became an Avatar in desperation, wishing to use the powers to bring Piper and Phoebe back from death. Not long after, Leo began raising high faith for the Avatars before the Halliwell sisters, seeking to create a better world. The Avatars then sought out the disenchanted demonic seer Kyra, granting her a vision of their Utopia to explain to the sisters, which she would show Phoebe in return for being turned human. The powerful demon Zankou, who knew the Avatars' world would be far less than suitable for demons to thrive at all in, caught up to and killed Kyra for her betrayal in short time. This was actually the final straw for the sisters, who, having long desired a normal life, finally agreed to go along with the Avatars' plans. Utopia was then created, a new world order under the watch of the Avatars.



Afterwards, Leo checks with the sisters to see if Utopia has met its promises. However, Leo witnesses that the Avatars are maintaining Utopia in an unexpected manner. They are simply removing anyone who creates conflict from existence. Alpha, the representative of the Avatars, explained that they had modified the way people think, so as to allow people to more easily accept Utopia. Unfortunately some people were beyond hope, and their inner demons began to surface, driving them to cause conflict. This in turn drove the Avatars to deal with the resulting chaos to protect Utopia. Leo asked if they were killing people, but as they said, they simply removed them, vanquishing the one for the sake of the many. They had the obligation to maintain the world they had created, and they wouldn't let anything threaten that.

Zankou discovered a tomb detailing the Avatars' last attempt to create Utopia. He saw that in order to eliminate conflict, the Avatars not only took away free will, but the ability to feel grief, pain, or mourning. No one dies in Utopia, but merely "goes to a better place." Zankou convinced Leo to help him, and Leo agreed: he sacrificed himself to the Avatars, creating conflict by battling demons at a party held in the manor. When his sons Chris and Wyatt couldn't stop crying over the loss of their father, Phoebe, who had been skeptical at first about Leo's dying warning, used her power of premonition and remembered all the losses they'd faced. She realized that Leo was telling the truth, and Chris and Wyatt were simply too young to act the way that the adults had been programmed to act. She helps Piper remember her loss of Leo, and Paige's loss of Kyle Brody. The sisters meet Zankou and learn of the making of the potions. Zankou found an ancient Egyptian Tomb, with all the drawings showing their history with the Avatars. Anubis, the Egyptian god of rebirth, said "There is a price to pay for Utopia".

To the tone of Phoebe's argument that at least people knew what they were dying for with good and evil, the Avatars promised to rewind the world to as it was before Utopia was created, and said they would retreat until another time, where the people are ready to accept Utopia.

Last Appearance
In a season 8, an Avatar made a brief appearance when Piper called her and an Elder. She demanded an explanation as to why the Angel of Death wanted to take Leo away. The Avatar and Elder didn't have the authority to answer her question. But they give Piper the information of a higher power who looks over the Grand Design, the Angel of Destiny.

Powers and Abilities
When the Avatars were at their full strength alongside Leo they were immune to all known powers and magical influences except for an ancient potion of untold power. However, these abilities are limited by the overall strength of the collective, for example, the Avatars could not alter reality until they were at full strength, and then only with the help and added power of the Charmed Ones.



Vanquishing
Avatars can be vanquished by an ancient egyptian potion. Though none of the ingredients are known, it is a very special potion (as stated by Zankou in "Charmageddon"). The potion was created originally by Anubis at first and then by the forces of both Good and Evil (presumably by witches and demons). The Good and Evil energy created a Neutral effect which gave the potion the ability to kill Avatars. When the potion is thrown and breaks it releases a black-grey smoke, which then enters the Avatar through both the mouth and nostrils, killing them almost instantly.

Analysis
Existence of Avatars raised several discussion inside the Charmed community. Some people believe their good intentions, saying that "they have just chosen the wrong way", a few even agreeing with their willingness to trade all of free will just for the sake of peace. Still, others (many fans, most characters) view the Avatars just as a different type of evil, pointing at how they lured Leo into their fold via their talking skullheads.

None of these stances is correct: Avatars are neither good nor evil. They're completely neutral, as they had good intentions, but upon those, as we all know, hell is built. Proof of this lies in that they know for a fact that demons and evil beings cannot work into their Utopia, but each time they try to fulfill it, they find some powerful leading good being(s) who realize(s) what is wrong with their world and ensure(s) that they revert it to the way it was. Also evidence of this is their firm belief that without their Utopia, the struggle between good and evil will continue until the universe is left at absolutely nothing - thereby meaning that they are trying to save the world not from the rule of evil, but from literally imploding and ceasing to exist.

Trivia

 * The Avatars were credited as creature head demons in their first two appearances of season 7.