The Avatar and the Fire Lord

Season 3 has had its fair share of "filler" episodes thus far, but this is one of the best and most important of these episodes so far. We learn the backstory behind Roku and Shozen, effectively framing the reason why the Fire Nation started the war. Not only are the revelations by Aang big takeaways for him, but Zoku learns something that rocks his world.

This episode has always been one of my favorite flashback episodes due to its incredible writting and storytelling with some of the most memorable and significant moments of the show!

This episode descides to tell the story of Roku and Sozin, who were once best friends, but eventually driven apart when their ideals clashed!

This was a journey of good and evil and what It meant to be avatar, as you are forced to put yourself above your own personal feelings, and do what is best for the world!

The relationship between Roku and Sozin was tragic, and the outcome was dark and emotional!

I was in tears or on edge! How it all ties back to Zuko however.. brilliant!

The writing, the dialogue. Everything here is top notch. And they got Ron Perlman to voice Sozin. Such a welcome surprise.

I consider the Season One episode The Storm to be the best episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender. This episode seems to be Season Three's answer to it and it actually does a great job replicating what made The Storm great.

It's not obviously clear what Roku's point was in showing Aang this story but it becomes apparent after watching the later episodes. On the other hand, Iroh's motivations for telling Zuko the same story are abundantly clear.

I like how Zuko and Aang's parallel reactions to the same story evoke their own parallel backstories from The Storm. I also think Fire Lord Sozin (as portrayed in this episode) is the most well-written villain the show has ever given us and I like the backstory of Sozin and Roku.

All in all, it's a great episode of a great show.