The Avatar and the Fire Lord

Writer: Elizabeth Welch Ehasz

Director: Ethan Spaulding

Guest Stars: James Garrett (Avatar Roku), Ron Perlman (Fire Lord Sozin), Lex Lang (Young Sozin), Andrew Caldwell (Young Roku), Grey Delisle (Ta Min)

Overview
''Aang and Zuko learn about Avatar Roku and Fire Lord Sozin's shared past which resulted in the War. Their childhood friendship, their falling out, and Sozin's betrayal of Roku to his death. Zuko discovers that Roku is his maternal great-grandfather, giving him significant insight into his internal struggle.''

Synopsis
Aang is visited in a dream by Roku, who tells Aang it's time he learned about his past life's history with Fire Lord Sozin. Roku tells Aang to travel to his old home, a deserted volcanic island during the summer solstice. Upon arriving, Toph senses there is an entire village buried beneath the volcanic ash of the island's shore. As the solstice begins, Aang meditates and meets Roku in the Spirit World.

At the Fire Nation palace, Prince Zuko is awoken by the noise of someone outside his room door. He rushes out to see who it was and finds a note sitting on the floor, telling him he must find out about his great-grandfather's death in order to understand his own destiny.

Zuko visits a portrait gallery of the past Fire Lords the next day, and is greeted by his sister Azula. He asks her if she knows how their great-grandfather Fire Lord Sozin died, and she tells him he died peacefully in his sleep. Zuko mows over the mysterious message to himself, unsure of what it means. In frustration he throws the parchment over a lamp and discovers a hidden message in the note, telling him to go to the Dragon Bone Catacombs to find the secret history. After eluding Fire Sages, Zuko infiltrates the catacombs and finds "The Last Will and Testament of Fire Lord Sozin", an autobiographical record of his life.



As Zuko reads the record, Roku shows Aang a flashback of his youth. Roku and then-Prince Sozin were best friends. They even shared the same birthday, which they celebrated together. On their sixteenth birthday, Roku's identity as the Avatar was revealed by the Fire Sages. The two friends were forced to separate as Roku had to leave the Fire Nation to master the other three elements. Before leaving, Sozin gave Roku a gift: the hair ornament customarily worn by the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation. Roku wore it ever since.

Roku began his journey at the Southern Air Temple, training to master Airbending. There he became friends with young Gyatso, surprising and delighting Aang. Roku tells Aang that some friendships are so strong they can transcend lifetimes.



After several years mastering Airbending, Roku traveled to the Northern Water Tribe where he learned Waterbending. Though it was challenging to learn his natural opposite, after several years Roku mastered it as well. Roku journeyed to the Earth Kingdom, where he mastered the last remaining element before becoming a fully realized Avatar. After the twelve years of training, Roku had returned to the Fire Nation. His old friend Sozin had become the Fire Lord, and greeted him warmly. Roku married his childhood sweetheart, Ta Min, with Sozin as his best man. During the wedding, Sozin took Roku aside and remarked that the Fire Nation was going through a period of great prosperity. With him as the Fire Lord and Roku as the Avatar, he believed the two of them could spread the Fire Nation's influence and create an empire. Roku was greatly disturbed by this, telling Sozin that the Four Nations are meant to be kept separate and to abandon such thoughts.



Many years later, Roku discovered that Sozin had ignored his request and invaded the Earth Kingdom. Roku confronted Sozin and demanded he cease the expansion. Enraged, Sozin attacked Roku with a powerful display of Firebending. Roku quickly disabled him and used the Avatar State to destroy the palace. He starkly warns Sozin he is sparing his life in recognition of their past friendship, but warns if he oversteps his boundaries again Roku will not hesitate to eliminate him.

Twenty-five years later, Roku's Island was consumed in a volcanic eruption. Roku helped his island's villagers escape safely and tried to contain the eruption, but without success. So massive was the eruption that Sozin could see and feel it from a hundred miles away. Sozin flew to the island on his blue dragon to assist his old friend, and the two worked together to try and quell the volcano.



Their effort appeared successful, yet the poisonous gas from the volcano overwhelmed Roku and caused him to collapse to the ground. He called to Sozin for help, but Sozin realized the elimination of the Avatar would make all his future plans for the Fire Nation suddenly possible. He flew away on his dragon, leaving Roku to die from the torrent of volcanic ash. Shortly afterwards, Avatar Aang was born to the Air Nomads.

Zuko finishes reading Sozin's testament, which explains Sozin attacked the Air Nomads to eliminate the next Avatar, but the Avatar managed to escape somehow. Sozin spent the rest of his life searching fruitlessly to find the Fire Nation's greatest threat: "The Last Airbender". Zuko is disappointed by the ending, still not understanding how it concerns him.

Zuko goes to the Fire Nation jail tower and bursts angrily into Iroh's cell. He accuses Iroh of having sent him the message and demands the point, as the testament did not even reveal anything significant about Sozin's death. Iroh explains that the message did not refer to his father's grandfather, Sozin, but to his mother's grandfather, revealed to be Avatar Roku. Zuko is alarmed by this, and Iroh further explains that their combined heritage is the reason Zuko is still conflicted over his destiny; whether he should destroy or assist the Avatar. Iroh gives Zuko the lost Crown Prince's ornamental hairpiece, telling Zuko he alone has the power to redeem their family and the sins of Fire Nation by restoring balance in the world.

Awakening from his vision with Roku, Aang tells his friends the story. He believes Roku was trying to tell him that any person is capable of great good or great evil, and that every person should be treated as though they are worth giving a chance for redemption. Toph wonders if friendships can really transcend lifetimes, Aang and Katara hold her hand to assure her. Yet Sokka is skeptical, saying there's no real scientific proof. Annoyed, Katara demands he just hold hands with the rest of them, which he quickly does.

Series Continuity

 * When Katara asks if the Spirit World has bathrooms, Sokka says it doesn't. This is refering to when Sokka was kidnapped in Winter Solstice Part 1: The Spirit World and sent to the Spirit World.
 * In "The Awakening" Avatar Roku appears before Aang and tells him that Aang had inherited his mistakes. Here we finally learn what were the mistakes Roku had made.
 * In this episode, Roku refers to his training in the other elements as "bitter work." In the episode "Bitter Work," Aang struggles to master his opposing element, though the phrase is never actually mentioned out loud.
 * In this episode it is revealed Roku died attempting to save his home village from a volcanic eruption despite being a fully realised Avatar. His successor, Aang, succeeded in accomplishing a similar feat in "The Fortuneteller" solely with Airbending and without entering the Avatar State. However it should be noted that Roku was on the actual volcano attempting to halt the eruption, which seemed larger then the one Aang had to deal with, and thus had to breathe the suffocating volcanic gases being released at the time, while Aang was much further away and merely blocked a huge lava flow.
 * The revelation of Zuko's lineage explains the meaning of his dream in "The Earth King", in which he finds he has taken the appearance of an Airbender, without a scar but with a bald head and arrow tattoos. As Aang is a reincarnation of Roku, Zuko is technically Aang's spiritual great-grandson.
 * The Royal Palace, in particular the throne room, looked different in Sozin's time, it was rebuilt after Roku destroyed it.

Trivia

 * When Roku and his wife are fleeing the eruption, the ash and magma appear to have already destroyed their village, so it is unclear why Roku stayed since everyone was already off the island. Although as Roku tried to stop the volcano's eruption, it is possible that he intended to dig the village out of the ash once he had stopped the eruption.
 * When Sozin mentions burning the Air Temples, three are shown. However, all three are the Southern Air Temple.
 * If the visions of Roku's training in this episode are an example of usual Avatar training customs, it seems that while training in each of the other elements, Avatars will wear the standard clothing of that nation but return to their own when they have mastered all the elements.
 * When Aang is shown from a non-Spiritual World perspective after crossing over, his tattoos aren't glowing, which differs from previous occasions when his tattoos remained glowing.