Previously on Avatar… IGN revisited one of the great animated series of all time, Avatar: The Last Airbender! Since we’re missing some reviews in our backlog — in this case, episode 209 through 311 (22 episodes total) — we thought it’d be fun to fill that gap, while also looking back at what made the show so great. (Two turtle ducks with one stone!) We’ll be reviewing episodes Tuesdays and Fridays, so feel free to follow along by watching the episodes with us via DVD, iTunes or Amazon Prime!
For more on IGN TV’s summer flashback reviews, click here.
Warning: Full spoilers from the episode follow.
“The Avatar and the Fire Lord” was a defining episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender in that it explained the origins of the 100 Year War and the geopolitical landscape of the Four Nations. At the same time, it told a character-driven story about two lifelong friends, Avatar Roku and Fire Lord Sozin, becoming sworn enemies. The results, in this case, paid off, and gave us one of the series’ very best episodes.
Part of what made “The Avatar and the Fire Lord” so great was that it told the story from two different perspectives, relayed to both Aang and Zuko. Here, we got a great sense of Roku and Sozin’s friendship and the numerous factors that played into their eventual falling-out. More impressive, though, was how it was all conveyed in just 22 minutes.
A lifetime ago…
This episode also showed us how the Avatar was typically trained, traveling from one nation to the next and donning the corresponding garb. (It’s easy to forget that Aang’s training was unorthodox by comparison. So was Korra’s to an extent.) It was also cool to find out that Roku was once friends with Monk Gyatso, noting how friendships can last more than one lifetime. In retrospect, this was clearly alluding to Aang and Zuko’s relationship, which was revealed later in the episode. It’s also worth noting, I think, how Roku struggled to learn waterbending, which was his elemental opposite. (Aang’s of course was earth, and Korra’s air.)
Top 10 Avatar: The Last Airbender Episodes
Another thing I found interesting about this episode was the fact that Roku and Sozin both had flawed perceptions of the world — at least in this episode. Sozin’s idea of sharing the Fire Nation’s prosperity was a noble thought, but he never stopped to think what the other three nations could offer. (Conversely, Iroh voiced this exact idea in “Bitter Work.”) Meanwhile, Roku saw value in all four nations, but his notion of keeping them separate was also narrow-minded. As we later saw in The Legend of Korra, the solution was to create a United Republic, which Zuko and Aang cofounded together. Looking back, it’s kind of amazing the planning that went into those ideas, really starting with this episode.
I would be remiss not to mention the climax of “The Avatar and the Fire Lord,” which showed Sozin’s final betrayal and Roku’s demise. The volcano sequence here was nothing short of mythic and perfectly bookended Roku’s story, leading into the birth of Aang and Sozin’s futile hunt for the next Avatar — or the “Last Airbender,” as Sozin called him. This was again compounded by Zuko learning the truth about his ancestry and why his internal struggle had affected him so profoundly.
