Avatar: The Last Airbender (season 3)

With guidance from Avatar Roku and Fire Lord Sozin's final testaments, Aang and Zuko respectively both learn about Roku and Sozin's childhood friendship. Sozin suggested to Roku that the Fire Nation should conquer the world to ensure universal prosperity. As the Avatar, Roku knew the importance of balance between all peoples and vehemently disagreed. Twenty-five years later, Roku's volcanic island home erupted, prompting Sozin to travel 100 miles to help his old friend. At the last moment, with Roku suffocating from volcanic gases, Sozin realized that he could set his plans in motion if he let Roku die and abandoned him. Roku perished and was reincarnated as Aang. Sozin knew that the next Avatar would be an Air Nomad, leading to the destruction of the Air Temples, but understood that Aang had eluded him. Confronting Iroh in his prison cell, Zuko learns that Avatar Roku was his mother's grandfather. Iroh states that this symbolizes the battle within Zuko himself to restore balance to the world. Aang meanwhile discusses with his friends that Roku and Sozin's story shows that everyone is capable of both good and evil, and that Ozai and the Fire Nation must be treated humanely.

• The episode first premiered on 24 October 2007 in the United Kingdom

Katara expresses her disapproval when Toph and the boys begin scamming Fire Nation street gamblers for quick cash. Toph thinks Katara is acting too motherly, and a rift forms within the group when Sokka finds a wanted poster of Toph. After overhearing Sokka and Toph discuss Katara's motherly instincts after the death of their own mother, Katara decides to pull a scam with Toph to patch things up. Katara plans to turn Toph in and collect the reward money, with Toph metalbending her way out of jail. The plan fails when Toph is placed in a wooden cell, soon followed by Katara at the hands of Zuko's assassin. He uses them as bait in an attempt to kill Aang, but Katara brilliantly uses her own sweat to waterbend herself and Toph out of the cell. The group subdue the assassin long enough to escape the town, with Sokka nicknaming their pursuer "Combustion Man".

• The episode first premiered on 25 October 2007 in the United Kingdom

The gang discovers that there have been strange disappearances in a nearby Fire Nation town during the full moon. They befriend an elderly innkeeper named Hama, who reveals that she is a waterbender from the Southern Water Tribe who had been taken away sixty years ago alongside her fellow waterbenders. She becomes Katara's mentor and shares with her the tragic story of her life as a longtime prisoner of the Fire Nation, as well as new waterbending techniques, such as pulling water out of thin air or plants. Katara later discovers that Hama is enacting her revenge by kidnapping Fire Nation civilians with bloodbending, a sinister waterbending technique which manipulates the water in a person's body to cause them great pain and take over their actions. Katara battles Hama while the rest of the group find several villagers locked in a cave. Aang and Sokka go back to stop Hama while Toph frees the villagers. Katara is eventually forced to use bloodbending on Hama to save Aang and Sokka. Toph arrives with the villagers, who arrest Hama. As she is led away, Hama gleefully congratulates Katara on learning bloodbending. Katara weeps while Aang and Sokka comfort her.

• The episode first premiered on 25 October 2007 in the United Kingdom

The group arrives at the rendezvous point for the invasion, with four days to spare. This realization causes Aang to feel increasingly nervous about confronting the Fire Lord. After having a nightmare about a failed invasion, Aang comes to believe he is not fully prepared and sacrifices his sleep and sanity in order to train. After three days of no sleep and continuing nightmares and hallucinations, it takes the collaboration of Sokka, Toph and Katara to convince Aang to trust his preparation. Meanwhile, Zuko enjoys time spent with Mai and a pampered lifestyle in the palace, but becomes anxious upon learning that Azula has been invited to an upcoming war meeting while he has not. Not wanting to show up uninvited, Zuko decides not to go, but is ultimately requested to attend with a seat at his father's right hand. After the meeting ends, Zuko leaves visibly shocked, and confides with Mai that it was what he always wanted, but he did not feel like himself.

• The episode first premiered on 26 October 2007 in the United Kingdom

On the day of the solar eclipse, many allies featured in previous episodes, such as Haru and his father, the swampbenders, Pipsqueak and The Duke, and The Mechanist and his son Teo, reunite with Team Avatar to launch the invasion of the Fire Nation. Aang kisses Katara as a sign of his strong feelings for her, worried that he may not return. Meanwhile, Zuko leaves a letter to Mai on her bed, and tells a portrait of his mother that he is finally going to set things right. He grabs his broad swords and a bag and heads out the door. The invasion force successfully circumvent several layers of Fire Nation defenses and reach the capital shores, where they begin a grueling assault towards the palace under constant onslaught from Fire Nation forces. Sokka and Katara's father Hakoda is injured in battle, forcing Sokka to assume command of their forces. Aang reaches the Fire Lord's palace, only to find both it and the entire capital city abandoned.

• The episode first premiered on 23 November 2007 in the Netherlands and Belgium

Aang, Sokka and Toph search for the Fire Lord inside a secret bunker, but find only Azula, who simply flees, trying to stall them until the eclipse concludes. Elsewhere, Zuko confronts his father, revealing his plan to join the Avatar and help him defeat Ozai. As Zuko tries to leave, Ozai reveals what happened to Zuko's mother Ursa to keep him in place: she learned that Zuko's grandfather, Fire Lord Azulon, had commanded Ozai to kill Zuko as punishment for Ozai trying to circumvent Iroh's birthright to the throne. Ursa proposed to remove Azulon so that Zuko would be spared and Ozai would inherit the throne, which Ozai accepted on the condition that she be banished for treason. As Ozai finishes the tale, the eclipse ends and he attacks Zuko with lightning; Zuko redirects it back at him and flees, intent on freeing his uncle. However, Iroh has already escaped prison by the time he arrives. The Fire Nation counterattacks with an advanced fleet of airships and war balloons. The exhausted invasion force has no choice but to surrender. Aang flees with his friends, alongside several of the youngest members of the invasion force, to the Western Air Temple, with Zuko following in a stolen balloon.

• The episode first premiered on 26 November 2007 in the Netherlands and Belgium

Zuko meets Aang and his friends at the Western Air Temple, with the intention to join their group and teach Aang firebending. He desperately tries to prove to them that he has changed for the better; however, they furiously reject Zuko due to his past actions. After he leaves, Toph challenges the others for dismissing him so quickly when Aang is in desperate need of a Firebending teacher. Toph eventually decides to speak to Zuko herself, but she accidentally startles him in his sleep, causing Zuko to reflexively firebend at her and burn her feet. Toph crawls back to the temple for help, where Sokka decides they must go after Zuko in retaliation. Team Avatar is nearly killed upon the sudden arrival of Combustion Man, but Zuko intervenes and affects his aim just enough to save them. Sokka defeats Combustion Man by hitting him in the third eye with his boomerang, causing the assassin to blow himself apart. While the group does allow Zuko to join them, they are still reluctant and skeptical. An embittered Katara warns Zuko that she will kill him if he betrays them or hurts Aang again.

• The episode first premiered on 14 December 2007 in Canada
• In the United States the episode was first released on 6 May 2008 Book 3: Fire Volume 3 DVD

Zuko tries to teach Aang how to firebend, but he has lost his own ability to bend as he is no longer reliant on rage, the previous source of his firebending. Toph suggests they learn from the original source of firebending, revealed to be the dragons, who first imparted their knowledge to a now-extinct civilization called the Sun Warriors. Zuko tells Aang that Iroh claimed to have killed the last dragon, so Aang and Zuko travel to Sun Warriors' ruins and discover the tribe still exists. The tribe chief agrees to teach them the ways of the Sun, having the pair each carry a sacred flame up the mountain to meet the masters Ran and Shaw, a pair of surviving dragons. The dragons deem them worthy and engulf them in a column of rainbow fire; Aang and Zuko realize that fire can bring energy and life, not just destruction. The tribe tells the duo that Iroh was also deemed worthy by the dragons, and claimed to have killed the last one to protect Ram and Shaw. Both Aang and Zuko begin to firebend again, stronger than ever before.

• The episode first premiered on 4 January 2008 in Canada
• In the United States the episode was first released on 6 May 2008 Book 3: Fire Volume 3 DVD

To find Sokka's father Hakoda, Sokka and Zuko infiltrate the Fire Nation's top prison, the Boiling Rock, located on an island surrounded by a boiling lake. Unfortunately, they crash their balloon on arrival and cannot easily leave. They disguise themselves as guards and begin asking around about Water Tribe prisoners; while there are none, the pair discovers Suki is in the prison. Zuko's cover is blown while Sokka and Suki reunite, and the warden, who turns out to be Mai's uncle, recognizes him. He informs Zuko that in due time he will be handed back over to Ozai. A fellow prisoner, Chit Sang, overhears Sokka, Suki and Zuko discussing their escape plan, and forces his way in. Sokka plans to use one of the insulated coolers, used to punish prisoners who firebend, as a boat to cross the lake. As they prepare to leave, Sokka and Zuko overhear that a new batch of prisoners will arrive at dawn, potentially including Hakoda. Sokka, Suki and Zuko decide to stay behind and wait, while Chit Sang sets sail in the cooler but is soon caught. Hakoda is revealed to be among the new prisoners.

• The episode was first released on 6 May 2008 Book 3: Fire Volume 3 DVD

Sokka reunites with his father and begins brainstorming a new escape plan: They decide to take the warden hostage during a prison riot and escape on the gondola to the other side of the lake. Chit Sang is interrogated and reveales that a disguised guard helped his attempted escape, but claims it is a guard who had previously placed him in the cooler to save Sokka, and rejoins the group after starting the riot. Mai arrives and confronts Zuko about breaking up with her through a letter, calling him a traitor to the Fire Nation. When the commotion of the riot breaks out, Zuko traps Mai in a cell and leaves to help his friends. Suki kidnaps and ties up the warden, and the group successfully board the gondola, but are pursued by Azula and Ty Lee. The warden breaks free and orders his guards to cut the gondola's cable line. Azula and Ty Lee escape to watch the group's demise, but Mai intervenes at the last second to subdue the guards and allow their escape. Mai calmly tells Azula that she loves Zuko more than she fears her. Enraged, Azula moves to strike Mai, but is chi-blocked by Ty Lee. Azula furiously orders both of them to be thrown in prison. Sokka and Zuko return to the Western Air Temple with Hakoda, Suki, and Chit Sang by stealing Azula's airship, reuniting Katara and Hakoda once again.

• The episode was first released on 6 May 2008 Book 3: Fire Volume 3 DVD

The Order of the White Lotus liberates Ba Sing Se, while Sokka, Suki and Toph disable the Fire Nation attack armada. Katara takes over fighting Azula, eventually immobilizing her in ice to chain her to a grate in the ground, then rushes to heal Zuko. Zuko and Katara watch with pity as Azula suffers a full mental breakdown. Ozai accidentally causes Aang to enter the Avatar State by knocking him into a rock that pierces his lightning wound, unlocking his chakras. Aang easily overwhelms Ozai, yet still refuses to kill him, instead harnessing "energybending", learned from the lion-turtle, to permanently strip Ozai of his firebending abilities and render him powerless. In an epilogue sequence set some days later, newly-appointed Fire Lord Zuko declares the war over. He and Mai reconcile, and he confronts his father in prison, angrily asking where his mother is. Ty Lee is shown to have joined the Kyoshi Warriors while teaching them chi-blocking from prison. Some time later, "Team Avatar" celebrate together at Iroh's tea shop in Ba Sing Se. Slipping out to share a quiet moment together, Aang and Katara embrace and kiss under the sunset.