Avatar The Last Airbender - Book 3: Fire

After the fall of the mightiest free city Ba-Sing-Se, capital of the earth kingdom and the near death of some characters it couldn't have ended worser for our group of little heroes. The World is now completely dominated by the furious and ill minded fire nation. The entire third season focus on their culture, living and the element of Fire. It is also the last element for Aang to master and the conclusion of this cult series. All of the characters get their fated conclusion, in bad and good terms for some of them.

Zuko, the burned prince was instable all the time. Standing between his desire to get acknowledged by his father and his good natured character, which begins to let him hate his own nation. It's not surprising that he tries to change himself to redeem all of his past mistakes, which isn't a easy task to solve, but it leads to many great moments. It isn't less easier for the others as well. Aang is in conflicted with his role as survivor of a whole planet and can't take this heavy burden anymore. Sokka feels less important as a Non-Bender like the fifth wheel of a car. Katara and Toph also have their own problems and mostly against each others. Even the cold hearted Azula is at the end of her mind and acts more reckless and manic, losing more of her "friends".

With everything at stake the outcome is more tremendous and powerful. The tension is as high as it could be, because nothing is easy resolvable anymore as it was before. The was hope the whole time, but now the people understand, that they don't have a chance anymore. The friendship begins to break apart to make space for a greater bond. The more they are dragged apart the more they understand that they need each other. The authors implement even in this dramatic events a lot of comedic moments, which act like a breather ones in a while. The middle part is stretched out with a search for Appa and conflicts created for the sake of stretching out the story. This part isn't as exciting as the rest and sometimes bothersome, but adds a lot to the deep of the characters, even annoying layer no one hoped to see. The story focus besides a small part in the middle entirely on the introduced people and their fight against the fire nation. It also showed  that not everyone in the fire nation is a bad guy, kinda like Germany during the second World War. No more world building, no more new characters. Only conclusions are left, which sometimes are heart warming, sometimes tear wrecking and sometimes just epic.

The end solve mostly all questions flawless and give them the happiest end they could ever get with all the struggles they endured. It was a emotional roller coaster Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko created and one of the best animated televisions i ever watched. I'm grateful for them creating it and can recommend it to everyone who likes animated series and Asian culture. If you don't like childish stories, which this one isn't completely but sometimes, then wait for my next post about it's successor called The Legend of Korra, which is more mature orientated.

Now is the right time to ask, which moment was the one you liked the best in the original series?

*Spoiler!!!* For me it was the betrayal of Zuko in the cave of Ba-Sing-Se and the impact it had on the relationship with his uncle Iroh. it was really tear wrecking to see him betray the only person that deeply cared for him the whole time.