Product Description
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The kids return to the Fire Nation and prepare for their final
confrontation with Firelord Ozai, but they discover that the
Firelord has plans of his own: he has ordained himself Phoenix
Lord and appointed Princess Azula as the next Firelord. In the
spectacular 4-part finale of Avatar Book 3: Fire, Aang fulfills
his destiny as Avatar and confronts the Firelord in the greatest
battle of the series.
.com
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Book 3: Fire, Vol. 1 Avatar the Last Airbender: Book 3, Volume 1
is a slightly unusual suite of episodes in the Avatar canon, as
the majority of programs are even more comical than usual. Not
that the five shows included on this disc lack seriousness: the
long-running series now finds young Aang (the once and future
avatar destined to reunite the worlds four estranged nations)
and his traveling companions behind enemy lines in the Fire
Nation, disguised as colonists. In "Awakening," Aang arises--with
a surprising headful of dark hair--from several weeks of
unconsciousness (due to the injuries he sustained during a battle
for Ba Sing Se) aboard a captured Fire Nation warship. Though he
finds old friends Sokka, Toph, and Katara nearby, all urging him
not to take matters in his own hands, Aang ultimately feels
compelled to go head-to-head with the Fire Lord before he is
ready. The result forces Aang and the others to remain incognito,
setting up subsequent episodes in which the heroes are forced to
lay low and find something else to do with their time besides
fight adversaries. In "The Headband," Aang enrolls in a Fire
Nation school, where his eyes are opened to such ordinary
experiences as dealing with a campus bully and getting a hard
time from strict teachers. In "The Painted Lady," Aang, Sokka,
Katara, and Toph visit an impoverished fishing village and have
to repress their typical instinct to help lest they be recognized
as outsiders. (An alternative is found.) "Sokkas Master," in
some ways the most enjoyable episode here, finds Sokka feeling
useless because he doesnt possess powers similar to his mates.
His solution: talk a master sman into taking him on as an
apprentice. Finally, the most unexpected story in this collection
is "The Beach," in which Prince Zuko, Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee--all
of whom are back in the Fire Nation, too--take an awkward holiday
but end up learning a lot about one another.
Meanwhile, Zuko--following his extended banishment from the Fire
Nation--discovers that his her welcoming again, but only
because his manipulative sister, Princess Azula, has falsely told
everyone that Zuko killed Aang. Fearing that his her will
disown him again, Zuko chooses not to tell the truth and works on
having Aang quietly assassinated. Where Zuko had been more of a
complete human being during his exile, hes back to being a
monster again, going so far as to keep his dutiful uncle, Iroh,
in a dark, dank prison. --Tom Keogh
Book 3: Fire, Vol. 2 Avatar the Last Airbender: Book 3--Fire,
Volume 2 finds the series closing in on a long-awaited day of
reckoning with the fire nation. The five episodes on this disc
continue those chapters on Volume 1 in which Aang--the young
avatar--and his companions Katara, Toph, and Sokka live
undercover in the fire nation, awaiting the moment when an
alliance of warriors from the air, water, and earth nations
converge to overtake the conquering firebenders once and for all.
On Volume 2, the path to the day of battle, in typical Avatar
fashion, is full of misadventures and intrigue, but also sundry
revelations that make the pending series climax that much more
interesting. "The Avatar and the Firelord" is the backstory of
how the fire nation leader came to be a brutal tyrant in the
world. Turns out he was the best friend of none other than the
previous avatar; the souring of their relationship led to the
troubles young Aang is trying to resolve. (While Aang is finding
all this out, the fire nations Prince Zuko discovers his
ancestry is more complicated than hed imagined, and that he has
more of a role to play in ending the war waged by his people.)
"The Runaway" is a comedy about mischievous Toph getting into
trouble for using her earthbending powers to win bets and make a
lot of money. "The Puppetmaster" is a y story featuring a
waterbending old woman who initially enchants Katara, but then
later is revealed to be a vengeful monster with terrifying
abilities to control peoples bodies. "Nightmares and Daydreams"
concerns an anxious Aang unable to and stop hallucinating
prior to the coming battle, while part one of "The Day of Black
Sun" sees the beginning of the allies invasion of the fire
nation. Lots of surprises in this last episode, with a
cliffhanger ending that makes the next volume of Avatar most
desirable. --Tom Keogh
Book 3: Fire, Vol. 3 At the beginning of Avatar the Last
Airbender: Book 3 Fire, Vol. 3, things don't go quite the way one
would have hoped at the end of Vol. 2. Aang--the young
avatar--and his companions Katara, Toph, and Sokka were part of a
major assault on the tyrannical fire nation, and hopes of victory
were high. In "The Day of Black Sun, Part 2: The Eclipse,"
however, circumstances reverse the heroes' fortunes, forcing
Aang, his friends and the very youngest warriors to flee the
battle. As they regroup at the Western Air Temple, mourning the
expected imprisonment of the adults left behind, Aang comes face
to face with an unexpected, would-be ally: Zuko, prince of the
fire nation. Sokka and Katara refuse to accept Zuko's guarantee
that he is truly on their side (they've been through this
before), but Toph and Aang are a little more receptive to the
idea. Good thing. In "The Firebending Masters," Aang accepts that
Zuko could be the firebending mentor he needs to show him how to
conquer the most elusive of the four elements. But it isn't easy:
Zuko loses his power and must retreat to a fire nation temple,
where he can learn the origins of his native gift. The set of
five stories on this disc concludes with the two-part "The
Boiling Rock," in which Sokka and Zuko infiltrate a fire nation
maximum security prison in hopes of freeing Sokka's her.
Trying hard to stay clandestine, Zuko's identity is revealed
anyway, jeopardizing not only the mission but Zuko and Sokka's
very freedom. The excitement is endless in the long-running
Avatar series, and developments (especially Zuko's acceptance by
Aang and the others) are as heartening as they are surprising.
--Tom Keogh
Book 3: Fire, Vol. 4 The long-running series Avatar the Last
Airbender comes to a dazzling conclusion in Book 3 Fire, Volume
4. Poised for quite a number of episodes (seen in previous
volumes) to go to war against the tyrannical Fire Nation, Aang
the young Avatar and his cohorts must now bring down the Fire
Lord and his army, or watch them ramp up their destructive powers
during an imminent solar eclipse. But there's a lingering
question only Aang can answer: can the Avatar, who has never
killed anyone, bring himself to take the Fire Lord's life? That
is what he must do, according to Zuko, the Fire Prince who has
thrown in his lot with Aang and the latter's friends.
While Aang is sorting that out--receiving various wisdoms from
past Avatars and advice from a giant turtle-lion creature--Zuko
and Katara take another leg of the battle by confronting Zuko's
crazed sister. Meanwhile, Sokka re-asserts his latent talent for
commanding dangerous missions as he and earth-bender Toph attempt
to sabotage Fire Nation airships. The final episodes on this disc
are thrilling, in no small part because they have been so long in
arriving. Before those, however, there are a couple of
interesting chapters to get through, including "The Southern
Raiders," in which Katara attempts to exact revenge for the
disappearance of her mother. As always, there's some comic
, in this case "The Ember Island Players," in which our
heroes experience the ignominy of watching some of their previous
adventures become a ridiculous, staged play. --Tom Keogh