Avatar S3E6: "The Avatar and the Firelord"

Aang and Zuko learn about their ancestors | Grade: A

Thanks for tuning in to my fourty-sixth of 61 daily reviews of Avatar: The Last Airbender! Yesterday, we watched S3E5: The Beach.

While we may have come to expect exposition whenever Avatar Roku comes around, and we certainly get it here, this episode succeeds far more than his previous appearances because it tells a compelling story instead of just explaining plot devices. We’re taken into a dual flashback, as Zuko reads Firelord Sozin’s memoir and Roku narrates to Aang in the Spirit World, that explains the circumstances around Roku’s death and the beginning of the Hundred Year War.

As it turns out, Roku and Sozin were childhood best friends, and we follow their journey to becoming bitter enemies. Their friendship, which is revealed immediately instead of suspended for melodrama, feels truly believable thanks to the chemistry between their teen characters and the playful, tender moments they share. The episode also humanizes the enigmatic character of Roku, who up to this point we’ve only known as almost a deity, rather than a person with a love interest, insecurities, and flaws.

When the Fire Sages inform Roku publicly that he’s the Avatar, in the middle of the pair’s joint birthday celebration, the change in their friendship is subtly depicted. As the sages, and then all the party guests bow worshipfully before the stunned Avatar, only the equally-shocked Prince Sozin hesitates before finally kneeling into a half-bow. It’s a reversal of status for their relationship, a gnawing insecurity that will plague the prince, who’s used to gracefully besting his friend in their duels.

Roku leaves home to master the four elements, and when he returns years later, Prince Sozin has become Firelord Sozin. Their reunion is initially tense, but the two hug, and soon Sozin is the best man at Roku’s wedding as the Avatar marries his longtime crush, Ta Min. But Sozin requests a private chat with Roku, and explains that he’s been thinking:

Our nation is enjoying an unprecedented time of peace and wealth.… we should share this prosperity with the rest of the world. In our hands is the most successful empire in history. It's time we expanded it.

Roku is astonished by Sozin’s speech and angrily shuts it down. “The four nations are meant to be just that: four.” But unbeknownst to him, the Firelord would continue ahead with his plot, occupying Earth Kingdom territory to establish several colonies. You’d think it would take less than a few years for someone to tell Roku, but no. I guess news didn’t travel very fast in those days.

So Roku travels to the Fire Nation palace to see his old friend, demanding he stop his occupation. This time, there is no warmth left between the two men. But the Firelord attacks him, futility, and Roku blows up a section of the palace and leaves Sozin hanging high in the air by his robes. But he spares Sozin, in honor of their past friendship.

In The Awakening, Roku told Aang, “I should have seen this war coming and prevented it. You inherited my problems and my mistakes.” Sparing Sozin is the dire mistake that Roku was referring to. Perhaps if he had killed the Fire Lord right then and there, the War would never have happened. But it’s no small thing to kill the ruler of one of the four nations — who knows how that might have turned out? What’s done is done.

In the dramatic final act of Roku and Sozin’s story, the Avatar is awoken on his home island by the roaring of its once-dormant volcano. As he stumbles outside with his wife, but turns back towards the volcano in a brave but quixotic attempt to halt its destruction. Compared to Aang’s own volcanic battle in The Fortuneteller, Roku’s fight lasts longer, the stakes feel higher, the bending is more powerful, and the drama is amped all the way. The haunting score heralds a sense of doom that’s only strengthened by our understanding that Roku won’t make it out of this alive.

You can see the defeat wash over Roku when the second volcano erupts. But there’s a glimmer of hope when an unlikely hero arrives on his dragon: Firelord Sozin. The two erstwhile friends, now old men, make a powerful team as they siphon the heat off the surface of the second crater. Roku even saves Sozin as a ledge gives way beneath him. But as they flee the pyroclastic flow, Roku is blasted squarely in the face with toxic gas from a volcanic vent.

Roku becomes dizzy, collapsing to his knees, and he reaches out to Sozin for help. But the Firelord’s heart is hardened to his old companion, and he cruelly withholds his hand.

Without you, all my plans are suddenly possible. I have a vision for the future, Roku.

He flies away on his dragon, and we’re left watching helplessly as Roku’s dragon Fang curls around him as the turbulent black cloud of ash buries them both. The flashback cuts to Aang’s birth as the Avatar cycle continues. 

The entire volcano sequence is an immense payoff for this episode, made only more impressive by its ability to make us feel so powerfully for two characters we’ve barely known until now. The shots with the fleeing villagers on the boats, Roku’s wife among them, add poignancy to Roku’s fate. The lava-filled setting lends itself to many striking frames depicting some of the most powerful bending we’ll ever see.

In the final minutes of the episode, there’s still one more great revelation left, delivered by Iroh, who speaks to Zuko at last. 

You have more than one great-grandfather, Prince Zuko. Sozin was your father's grandfather. Your mother's grandfather was Avatar Roku.

Zuke, I am your (great-grand)father! Though the family tree switchup is a familiar trope, it’s clearly been planned since the beginning and totally works for Avatar and for Zuko’s character. Zuko’s very nature is defined by his duality, and his heritage explains that nature. While Avatar is certainly not a show that shies away from the messiness of life, it’s also a very poetic show — it loves to fit things together perfectly. This is one of those moments. Iroh elucidates:

Because understanding the struggle between your two great-grandfathers can help you better understand the battle within yourself. Evil and good are always at war inside you, Zuko. It is your nature, your legacy. But, there is a bright side. What happened generations ago can be resolved now, by you. Because of your legacy, you alone can cleanse the sins of our family and the Fire Nation. Born in you, along with all the strife, is the power to restore balance to the world.

See you tomorrow for Episode 7: The Runaway! Share your own thoughts on this episode in the comments.

Spare observations

• It’s the summer solstice now. That means it’s been (only) six months since Winter Solstice, Part 2: Avatar Roku took place, assuming the calendar works the same in Avatar. That also means there’s less than three months until Sozin’s Comet returns.

• “Some friendships are so strong, they can even transcend lifetimes.”

• Roku uses his airbending to cool the lava into rock, just like Aang did in The Fortuneteller.

• Though Azula says Sozin died “peacefully, in his sleep,” the Firelord spent the rest of his life tormented by his failure to capture Aang. I can imagine that in Aang, he saw his old friend Roku, ready to punish him for his betrayal.

• It’s the first time Greg Baldwin is credited as Uncle Iroh’s voice actor, after Mako Iwamatsu died before the release of Season 2. These may not be his first lines, though, as he’s rumored to have contributed a couple lines towards the end of Season 2 when Mako was unable. I think Greg did a good job mimicking his predecessor, though if you listen carefully you can notice the difference.

• Greg Baldwin refused to ever sing “Leaves from the Vine” despite fan requests, in honor of Mako.

• “If anything, their story proves anyone's capable of great good and great evil.” It’s arguable how much the story proves this, because ultimately the Avatar is still good and the Firelord is still evil, but seeing their friendship makes the story feel less simple than “Sozin was always evil.”

Friends of the White Lotus [SPOILERS]

• This is the last Spirit World episode!

• Iroh must still have some friends, if he was able to deliver the letter to Zuko. Perhaps it was the friendly guard who shows him kindness in The Day of Black Sun.

• In Korra, several of Aang’s own friendships transcend his lifetime.

• What does Avatar think Roku should have done? It’s not so easy to tell. Roku certainly thinks he should have killed Sozin when he had the chance, but Aang’s dilemma over killing Ozai towards the end of the season contradicts that. Perhaps there’s no prescription here, and that killing the Firelord would be acceptable for Roku in a way that it isn’t for Aang due to their different backgrounds and morals.

• How did Iroh get Roku’s headpiece? Even ignoring that Iroh is in prison, we saw Roku leave it behind while rushing to escape his home from the volcano. At some point, though, in The Search comics it’s revealed that his daughter Rina somehow possessed it. And then Zuko, ingrate that he is, never even wears it!