A: Avatar

No, I don't mean the blue people.

Or the amazingly cheesy anime series involving Ang, the last airbender.

I don't mean your RPG characters or the icon on your yahoo page either.

I mean the root for these uses of the word; a hindu gods' phyisical form on earth.

Most often the term refers to manifestations of Vishnu, the supreme God, coming to restore the earth to it's natural order. With that in mind you can see how the blue people movie got its title. A story about restoring the earth to ballence. Characters manifest themselves in a new form in order to inhabit the planet.

The Last Airbender probably follows the root the closest. Ang is the Avator of his world, incarnated in the form of a boy to restore ballance to the world.

Even RPG characters have some remnant of the root left. When the god Ganesha manifests on earth he is said to destroy demons.

As for yahoo . . . well it's representing you in the world of the internet where you, like the hindu gods, can't exist in your current form, but I don't know if forwarding those cat pictures to everyong you know really counts as restoring ballence to the universe.



p.s. It is not April Fools. Do not be warned of the coming mayem the day will bring.