Avatar: The Last Airbender (TV Series) The Western Air Temple (2007) User Reviews

A well-made balance of character interactions

[sevskirita · 9/10 · 6 September 2021]

This episode shines very well in stepping back from most of the action and handling different character motivations and stories. Throughout this episode we see Aang coping with his failure by avoidance and denying Zuko, Katara rightfully completely suspicious of Zuko, Toph cutting through the bs, Sokka struggling with the weirdness of compromising with an enemy, and parallels in the form of flashbacks to when Zuko first started hunting Aang. The episode even gives a compelling reason why Aang would connect with Zuko, and has a wonderfully fantastical setting.

The only drawbacks I see is that I don't think they went as deep as they could've. I'd rate this a high 9/10, but not quite perfect.

Finally!!

[atharvature · 9/10 · 29 July 2021]

I have waited for this day for so long, Zuko will finally find true friends.

"Why am I so bad at being good"

[matitya-33937 · 9/10 · 18 February 2024]

I know there are some people who respond to Zuko saying that he's quite "bad at being good" by saying that he was also "bad at being bad" but that assessment is simply incorrect. Within the first season Zuko captured Aang twice (once at the South Pole and once at the North Pole) though Aang was rescued both times. The only other character to come even close to that was Commander Zhao (yes, I still call him Commander Zhao despite his undeserved promotion to an Admiralty) who captured Aang a grand total of once (in The Blue Spirit) only for Aang to be rescued. And given Zhao had encountered Sokka and Katara in Avatar Roku and interrogated Zuko's crew in The Southern Air Temple, he should have known that his statement that "no one is coming to rescue you" wasn't true. (Sokka and Katara were too sick to help at the time but Zhao had no way of knowing that.) Since then, the only person to come close was Azula, when she killed Aang in Season Two but he came back to life thus negating her one victory against him. So by the standards of the Fire Nation, Zuko is actually the most competent (at least at Avatar hunting.)

With that out of the way, this episode's humour is funny, Zuko has a great redemptive arc, I like how all of his previous appearances and attacks were explicitly mentioned (and how even though he berates himself for not saying that Azula sent Combustion Man, Toph's ability to detect lies means they wouldn't have believed that) as well as how receptive Toph is to Zuko's redemption (especially considering General Iroh told Toph she reminded him of Zuko).

I like how Aang's trauma from accidentally burning Katara parallels Zuko's for accidentally burning Toph. I like how Katara still threatens Zuko to keep him in check after he joins. I also like how Sokka kills Combustion Man because it means that this show acknowledges that it's sometimes necessary for the good guys to kill their antagonists. This is a great episode.

(My only nitpick is that it's not well explained why Zuko calling Combustion Man off doesn't work.)