Ontology Design
To effectively represent the data we gathered about such a rich and complex universe, where interconnections are multiple (if not possibly infinite), we needed to achieve a structure capable of being flexibile without losing an essential and compact nature, to not exceed in complexity.
This final ontology is our proposal to reach the objective of most representiveness and interconnections represented: its structure has been created with the aid of Protégé, while its individuals have been implemented thanks to Visual Studio Code by using Python language.
Additionally, we provide at the end of the page the Notion document dedicated to our gathered data.
Designing the ontology
Our ontology is the ultimate result of a process in 4 steps:
Research
The first step focused on the gathering and the selection of adequate data, the foundtion of our analysis.
The fields we chose to explore at the end were: Characters, Lore (as in fictional culture, history, myths and creatures) and Real Life references.
The complete ATLA
The third step was mostly the reunification between our OWL classes and properties with the individuals developed on Python.
We achieved a coherent and complete ontology after having merged the newly OWL-converted individuals with the already existing structure, by using the Merge option on Protégé.
Protégé and Python
The second step was, overall, the most practical and time consuming. We started by working on Protégè to define the classes and the properties of our ontologies, and then we moved to Python, to start finalizing our individuals.
As namespaces and Linked Open Data libraries, we used Wikidata, DBpedia, Geonames, VIAF, OWL and RDF.
Visualization
The last step focused on the visualization of the ontology itself: to achieve this, we uploaded the complete OWL document on the online platform WebVOWL, specialized in the generation of graphs starting from ontologies.
We considered, at a certain point, to also implement a RDF Graph (by using our ontology in a Turtle Format), but the results didn't satisfy us completely.
Our ontology
This image was created
with the Protégé plug-in
Onto-Graph.
Every image related to our
ontology is a product of this feature.
Location was created to refer to all kinds of places, both fictional and non-fictional.
Ability refers to all the powers, talents and capacities that an individual can use in the Avatar universe.
Element contains the foundation of the Avatar universe: the four elements.
Event works in the same exact way of Location, but obviously refers to moments in times and both fictional and non-fictional historical events.
Group was used to indicate any organization or social circle counting more than one individual in it.
Living_Being, similarly, addresses all the existing individuals, creatures and supernatural entities living in the Avatar universe.
Concept, similarly to Legend, addresses all political views, traditions, myths and cultural feats coming both from our world and from Avatar's universe.
Transport referes to any kind of transportation, being it a mount or a ship.
Object contains all references to armament (weapons, armors, artillery) and to knowledge-based objects (such as books, scrolls, inscriptions).
This image contains the subclasses of every superclass and also highlights some of the implemented properties
It's possible to download a DOT file containing the entire ontology (without counting its individuals) by clicking on this link.
Location splits into Avatar_World and Real_World: Avatar_World divides itself once more into Material_World (subclass referring to all the human world places appearing in the universe, such as Earth_Kingdom) and into Spirit_World (referring to the supernatural and spiritual places of Avatar)
Ability contains the subclasses Bending and Non-Bending: the first one was created to address all the bending techniques of the Avatar world (such as Fire_Bending, Earth_Bending, Air_Bending, Water_Bending and all their advancements, also contained as subclasses in the ontology) while the second one refers to different combat styles, going from hand-combat, too melee-combat to ranged-combat.
All bending styles are also portrayed as individuals in the ontology.
Element contains the foundation of the Avatar universe: the four elements, specifically Water, Fire, Earth and Air. These subclasses appear also as individuals, since they've been culturally connected to specific data.
They're also strictly related to the subclass Bending.
Event divides into Real_World_Timeline, a subclass containing historical events of our world as individuals, Aangs_Timeline (containing an individual with the same name, enriched in annotations of singular events that, at the end, sum up this specific era) and Korras_Timeline (organized like its sibling).
Group has the subclasses Avatar_Circle (referring to all the closest individual to Aang and Korra), Political_Group (for all political parties, institutions) and Military_Forces (all armed groups belonging to a certain organization).
Living_Being contains the subclass Person, used to address all human beings, Creature, for animals, and Spirit, for all the supernatural entities.
Concept furtherly divides into Belief (a subclass for any political, religious or philosophical orientation), Culture_and_Tradition (used to address all references and instances of real-life culture, like "Geisha") and Legend, which then splits into Real_World_Legend (real life instances of mythological stories or chatacters) and Avatar_ Legend (folklore elements of the Avatar world); all the individuals referring to entire mythologies or single myths are at least under one of this subclasses.
Transport contains Inanimate_Tranport (for any not-living way of transport) and Animate_Transport (for any living mount).
Object divides into Armament (containing ulterior subclasses such as Weapon, Armor, Artillery) and to Knowledge-based_Object.
Properties and Individuals can be easily highlighted if we take into consideration the superclass Living_Being, that,
as we estabilished, contains three subclasses referring to all the humans, the animals , the supernatural figures of the Avatar world.
The purple linked nodes are individuals (annotated with every property developed), while arc types are coloured according to this schema:
