 When I think about the moments that elevate Avatar, the storm always comes up first. After that the introduction of Azula, then Toph, and the rest is history. The storm presents Zuko with much needed humanization, builds up on the world of Avatar, shows Aang's past, and plants seeds that don't blossom until the second or third season. When I remember watching Avatar for the first time, I wasn't fully invested until the storm. But they answer the questions of Aang's origins in Zuko's scar, and they really made me care about these two by the end of the episode. So much happens in 22 minutes. I've gained a real appreciation for Zuko in these first 12 episodes in retrospect. For his drive, his attitude, his anger, not so much as ponytail, but the Prince of the Fire Nation has always been a step behind Azula, that much we know. Whether it was his firebending, his knowledge, his battle tactics, though it was his younger sister, Zuko always had something to prove. She was the prodigy, and he wasn't. She had Ozai's love and admiration, and he didn't. We know that the Fire Lord is deified to a certain degree. We know the propaganda of the Fire Nation, the greatest nation in the world. So when Zuko is so eager to join the War Chamber, he needs to prove to his father, the strongest man in the world, that he is at least willing and eager to learn to be a fitting heir to the throne. It goes back to Zuko's biggest desire, his father's approval. But when he spoke out against the Fire Lord, it gave Ozai a reason to finally punish his child. The heir to his throne was, in his eyes, a weakling, he's soft, and him begging for mercy was an even greater sign of that weakness. I keep on thinking about Zuko crying out in pain, and how just his voice was able to relay how horrific that event really was. Being blasted by the strongest firebender in the world at point blank range. The degree to which that burn scarred so much of his face. His eye taking the brunt of it and it reaching his ears even. To say that it was simply horrifying and traumatic just isn't enough. Zuko's eyes streaming with tears as he looks up at his father, that entire moment is just so heartbreaking. And it hurts even more when I realize that this is just a 13 year old. Iroh was helpless, Azula watched with joy, and his mother was gone. And to top it all off, he gets banished along with a scar as a parting gift. Zuko's face in this scene in particular says more than I could ever. This is the face of a now 16 year old. He spent his last three years chasing a ghost, he's tired, confused, and angry. He's confused as to who he should be angry at. And Zuko has to adjust to this new life, physically and emotionally. Physically he might have trouble seeing or hearing, the way the burn damaged his eye and his ear. He used to have a head full of hair, and not only his ponytail's left. Zuko has physically lost his honor, and he needs to earn it back. Physically he's so desperate for a chance at normalcy again. It explains his temper, his attitude. Zuko is royalty. This is the son of the Fire Lord, out at sea, where he has to cross paths with the peasants of the other nations that his nation seeks to destroy. It's humiliating. Ozai stripped his son of everything, and his face says it all. Zuko has aged so much after three years. He's not a kid anymore, now he's forced to become a man. These early episodes are Zuko's anger, but they are also his facade. With his mother gone, and him chasing after his father's approval, Zuko sees the type of person his father is, and the type of person Azula is. In order to regain his honor to be the heir to the throne, he needs to be like them. He needs to be ruthless, cold. He needs the attitude that no one person matters more than his mission. Nothing matters more than victory. Zuko needs to become them if he ever wants to go home. But the problem is that Zuko has never been that person. When he takes Zhao down in their Agni Kai and is given the opportunity to deliver the final blow, he doesn't. When the Fire Nation generals want to send soldiers to their death, it's Zuko who interjects. In this episode, given the chance to go after Aang, he instead chooses to save his crew. This is who Zuko is at his core. He is cut from the cloth that is Airo, Ursa, Roku. It's also interesting, knowing that while these are Fire Nation soldiers, and the fact that the Agni Kai had quite an audience, they didn't know what happened. It also makes a lot of sense though. The Fire Nation prince lost his honor, crying, weeping, and begging at his father's feet for forgiveness, during an Agni Kai. The one thing the Fire Nation is known if not for their power, it's for their pride. We know that propaganda spreads wild in that kingdom, and the fact that they heard it was a trading accident seems like the power of the Fire Lord at work here. How embarrassed he is over the fact that his son begged and cried for forgiveness instead of fighting back. Moving on to Aang. This episode finally answers what led him to the iceberg. It was Aang running away from his responsibility. This episode characterizes Aang quite well. The airbender's spirit is so free that being tied down by responsibility and by duty are so debilitating to him. The very first words Aang spoke when he woke up out of an iceberg was to ask a random girl to go penguinsletting with him. Fun, adventure, being a kid, this is what drives Aang, and with that being stripped away only to be replaced by this worldly responsibility, you begin to understand why Aang ran away. Air after all is the element of freedom and this burden wasn't freedom. The way Aang so rarely fights offensively, how his primary goal in combat is to avoid and evade to run away, Aang is in air nomad through and through, and he's just a kid. The storm also dives deeper into the relationship between Aang and Gyatso. I've always seen Gyatso as an older version of Aang, playful and fun, but mature. Gyatso let Aang be a child around him. In fact he made sure that Aang could be when they were together. The one thing Aang desperately wanted, Gyatso always knew how to provide that for him. Gyatso carried Aang's burden with him. He knew that when Aang was announced as Avatar, it was up to him to continue to see Aang as Aang and not just the Avatar. Gyatso was someone who understood his own responsibility and Aang's and was willing to do anything for those that he loved. When it came down to fighting the Fire Nation, he laid his life on the line. When it came to Aang, Monk Gyatso's last words were that he wasn't going to let them take Aang away from him. He was willing to face any punishment, any consequence if it meant saving Aang. And the fact that Gyatso didn't even get to plead his case to the young airbender or even say goodbye to Aang, it hurts. How long Gyatso waited for the Avatar's return, but he never did. I read a quote from the Shadow of Kyoshi book and it said that the Avatar did not have the luxury of being a child, and it's something that seems to burden all of the avatars. Such responsibility, such weight, to be thrust on a mere child and to strip that child of any choice in the matter is one of the hardest parts of being the Avatar. And Aang felt that more than the others. He didn't get to turn 16 and take a journey around the world with no real threats until he became a master. No. Aang needed to be the Avatar right now. Aang spends a lot of this season and the series running away from his guilt. It's quite in line with who he is, but it also illustrates how painful the whole matter is. And because of who he is, his journey can often look a little different. Because Aang masks it with a fun and joyful spirit that is naturally him, it's easy to forget about what he's lost. I think he also does that because he has to. Because he now has a world to save. He now has people he has to give hope to. Aang never truly does have time to grieve. We don't know exactly what Aang could have done, but from the reality we saw, Aang learned the other three elements to a serviceable degree in under a year's time and was probably close to mastering waterbending. He clearly believes that there is a great possibility that if he stayed, he alongside Gyatso, the Avatar State, and the other Air Nomad Masters would have been able to ward off the Fire Nation. But he ran. The course of the world changed because of his decision, his one decision, his mistake. And he has to face those ramifications every day for the rest of his life. Those golden hues of Aang's memory, every person, every game, every lesson, every cultural remnant of the Air Nomads is now on Aang's shoulders. Aang has to do right by his people and do right by the world. The weight on his shoulders is gargantuan. And this episode sets the groundwork for Aang's redemption, a redemption that he has to fulfill on a worldly stage. He has to restore the Avatar's honor. Aang flying off into the eye of the storm, facing his fear of storms where the last one caused him to let the world down is a big moment for him. It demonstrates that Aang wants to embrace his duty. He realizes that he needs to, to protect the people he loves. While redemption and honor are typically associated with Zuko, this episode links the two of them through this idea. It also links them through their common enemy, Fire Lord Ozai. Moreover this episode shows us that Aang isn't the perfect kid we knew up to this point, and Zuko's temper comes from a logical place. Aang and Zuko have a lot in common, and the storm, just like their alternating backstories in this episode, intertwines their destinies. Katara says that Aang brings hope to the world, and Iroh says that Aang brings Zuko hope as well. The Avatar doesn't get the luxury of being a child and neither did the Prince of the Fire Nation. These are two kids who have been born into their destinies, Avatar and Fire Lord, but whose paths have been altered because of a mistake and are now linked. Two kids who now have to play the cards that destiny, that life, has dealt them. The Fire Nation forced these two kids to grow quickly. Lost forced them to. Aang lost his people, Zuko lost his mother and his honor, but here the storm places them on equal footing. When the lightning strikes in the middle of both Zuko and Aang's time of reflection, it's like a call to action. The storm forced them to sit with their problems, guilt, bubbling rage, regret, when lightning strikes, it's time for them to leave the past behind and to move forward. It's time for them to enter the eye of the storm and take their first steps towards redemption. This episode is riddled with parallels of the two. It shows us that at their core, these are two good kids. As Aang enters the storm head on to save Saka and the fisherman, Zuko saves his shipmate instead of going after the Avatar. As they cross paths at the end of this episode, they both redeem themselves in the eyes of the fisherman and the crew. They both redeem themselves in the eye of the storm. When they lock eyes and converge, the storm binds their destiny. They themselves become inseparable. The storm lays out two of Avatar's biggest themes and characters together. Destiny and redemption are synonymous with Aang and Zuko, the Avatar and the Fire Lord. But there's one final reason why I think the storm is Avatar's most important episode. From art of the Avatar series, the creators wrote that Nickelodeon had only ordered 13 episodes of Avatar. While coming off the Great Divide, an episode that many believe to be the worst of the series, it seems like with these final two episodes, they really decided to turn up the heat. While the Southern Air Temple presented us with the first idea of the darker themes and ideas of the story and this world, the storm explored it, resulting in one of the series's most poignant and emotional episodes and they followed it up with the Blue Spirit, an action-packed episode and another standout that builds off the relationship of Aang and Zuko. It feels like Avatar finally found its footing and never looked back. It's for these reasons why, when I think about the most important episodes of Avatar, I'll always think about the storm first. This video has kindly been sponsored by Raycon. 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