Avatar S1E12: "The Storm"

Aang and Zuko’s pasts shape their present | Grade: A+

Happy New Year, and thanks for tuning in to my twelfth of 61 daily reviews of Avatar: The Last Airbender! Yesterday, we watched S1E11: The Great Divide. To warn you, this review is on the longer side. But it will be worth it to do this great episode justice.

In The Storm, Aang and Zuko are haunted by their prior choices. Important events take place in the present in this chapter, and we’ll get to them, but the critical minutes are a series of flashbacks that draw a parallel between Aang and Zuko and shed light on the events that led them both to where they are today.

This episode’s unique structure is divided into three acts, which are each split into two parallel narratives. The first act, which takes place in the present, highlights the internal and external strife that Aang and Zuko suffer as a result of their past actions. Aang literally has nightmares about his life before The Boy in the Iceberg, and he’s deeply shaken by a local fisherman’s accusation.

The Avatar disappeared for a hundred years! You turned your back on the world!

Meanwhile, Zuko's bullheaded adherence to his quest triggers a clash with his crewmate, the prickly Lieutenant Jee. After Zuko declines to steer around a storm in order to gain ground on the Avatar, the lieutenant criticizes him defiantly.

What do you know about respect? … You don't care about anyone but yourself! Then again, what should I expect from a spoiled prince?

Now, we enter the second act, which consists of side-by-side flashbacks. Aang recalls the day the monks told him he was the Avatar, and he morosely recounts how his happy childhood began to slip away afterwards. War is dawning, and the Avatar’s duty to restore peace weighs heavily upon him. His new identity ostracizes him from his friends. And worst of all, he overhears the High Monk’s decision to send him away from his father figure Gyatso for more rigorous training. 

The anger is still raw for Aang, who gets a chance to express his feelings in a clearer voice than we’ve ever heard him. “How could they do that to me? They wanted to take away everything I knew and everyone I loved!” And so, he explains, he ran away, a choice that tortures him to this day. Maybe if he hadn’t, he could have stopped the destruction of his people and his home.

At the same time, we at last learn the story behind Zuko’s scar. This tale is narrated by Iroh to some of the crew — Zuko’s shame and rage cuts even deeper than Aang’s, and he’s in no place to tell it himself. Finally allowed to sit in on one of his father’s war chamber meetings, Zuko protests out of turn against a general’s plan to sacrifice a division of their own troops. His father, Fire Lord Ozai, is furious at the disrespect for his court, and to resolve it Zuko is forced to duel his own father. He refuses, and as punishment for his weakness he is branded and banished.

We see Zuko dwelling on a childhood memory, and a brilliant transition illustrates clearly the depths of his fall. It’s written all over his face — the scars of his burden are more severe than the one from his burn. We don’t get to hear Zuko’s perspective directly, but we know he is tortured by his fate. All his actions throughout the season have been driven by his exile and his desperate need to restore his honor. Does he regret speaking out on that tragic day?

We can’t know how Zuko feels, but Avatar thinks he made the right choice. If it wasn’t clear enough that Zuko’s objection was both morally and tactically correct, Iroh affirms it (and he’s usually the most reliable mouthpiece for the writers). The Storm represents a major turning point for the audience’s relationship with Zuko. It’s not the first time the show has humanized Zuko (e.g., highlighting his honor in the Agni Kai with Zhao in The Southern Air Temple), but after learning about his tragic backstory, we perceive him as sympathetic and possibly even an antihero. We’ve already spent time with Zuko separately from Team Avatar, but it’s usually still in the context of his quest to capture Aang. This time, by focusing purely on Zuko’s own history and motivations, the show asserts that he is a leading character in his own right.

Returning to Aang’s story, the young Avatar agonizes over the similar question of whether he was right to run away. However, unlike Zuko’s outburst, there’s not really a moral argument to be made for Aang’s actions (although we can certainly sympathize with him). And the consequences affected not just Aang, but his entire race and the world. So how can we understand his choice?

I recently saw the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man, a film whose protagonist is constantly trying to understand why things turn out the way they do. That movie masterfully argues that the answer is fundamentally unknowable, and it emphasizes the absurdity and futility of trying. Watching it, I felt a connection to The Storm, where Aang and Zuko grapple with the events that led them to their present circumstances. There’s an important exchange between Katara and Aang:

Katara: I think it was meant to be. If you had stayed, you would have been killed along with all the other airbenders.

Aang: You don’t know that.

Katara: I know it was meant to be this way. The world needs you now. You give people hope.

Could it have been fate that Aang was frozen in that iceberg? Certainly Avatar believes in destiny, and there’s a strong argument to be made for Katara’s interpretation. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. When Aang says “you don’t know that,” he’s not just being self-critical. He’s right — she can’t know. But who cares if Aang’s disappearance was meant to be? “I’m here now,” he finally concludes, “and I’m going to make the most of it.”

These profoundly meaningful themes, masterfully woven together, are already enough to make this the best episode of Avatar yet. But we must still return to the present for the third act. Sokka and the fisherman are trapped at sea in a dangerous typhoon. But when Aang, Katara, and Appa come to their rescue, a skyscraper-sized wave rises up from behind and smashes them all beneath the foam. 

Aang’s eyes glow, and a blue orb forms around the group. The animation and composition ingeniously references Aang’s flashback, when he sunk beneath the waves one hundred years before. But just as it dawns on us that Aang is going to freeze them all for another century, we realize that something’s different. Instead, he creates a massive sphere of air to tunnel them out from beneath the sea to safety. He’s not running away this time, and it redeems him in the eyes of the fisherman and the audience. 

Zuko gets his own moment of redemption, too, when he decides to prioritize the safety of his crew. He puts himself at risk to save his helmsman from falling from the ship’s tower, regaining Lieutenant Jee’s respect. Then, the twin threads of the episode briefly intersect when Zuko spots the Avatar. But for the second time (after The Spirit World), he prioritizes his companions over his quest, and steers them out of danger instead.

It’s no accident that this episode is set in a massive typhoon, an image that Avatar turns to repeatedly. The deluge is a symbol that harkens back to the Biblical Flood, a purifying event that represents rebirth, redemption, and the cleansing of sin. These beloved characters arrive weighed down by history that clings to them. But at the end of The Storm, the dark clouds make way for a beautiful ray of sunshine over the calm water. It feels like a clean slate for our characters to chart their own destiny.

Spare observations

• “Also, Momo could talk. You said some very unkind things.”

• There’s a minor feminist commentary on the fisherman dismissing his wife, who is actually right.

• When Katara finds Aang in the cave, he says “I’m sorry for running away.” The apology has a double meaning — he’s sorry for running away from the fisherman, and also for running away from home one hundred years ago.

• The scene where Gyatso finds Aang’s letter could not have actually been witnessed by the young airbender. Film theorists would say this flashback is non-diagetic, i.e., it takes place outside of Aang’s own thoughts.

• “I’m too young to die!” “I’m not, but I still don’t wanna!”

• Aang’s escape from the sea is one of the best arguments in favor of his disappearance being destined. Couldn’t he have done the same thing one hundred years ago?

Friends of the White Lotus [SPOILERS]

• We get an early glimpse of Azula in this episode, watching Zuko’s punishment next to Zhao. The two of them are grinning, while a tearful Iroh averts his eyes. 

• This episode introduces Iroh’s special lightning redirection technique, which will take on an important role in later seasons.

• This is the most control we’ve ever seen Aang have over the Avatar State. It’s not clear that he consciously acted to save them all from drowning, but by the time Appa flies out from under the sea, Aang’s tattoos are no longer glowing.

• The parallel between Aang and Zuko that this episode introduces will be resolved much later, in The Avatar and The Firelord.