Avatar: The Last Airbender (TV Series) The Guru (2006) User Reviews

Has all the story beats of The Empire Strikes Back but executed so well

[mjplysaght · 10/10 · 2 February 2017]

So, yeah, let's address the elephant in the room. The parallels to The Empire Strikes Back. While the rest of the team are in the Earth Kingdom (Cloud City), Aang travels to one of the air temples to meet Guru Pathik (Yoda), who teaches him how to harness his chakras (the Force) only for the training to be interrupted when Aang has premonitions of his friends being captured. (Darth Vader capturing Han and Leia).

Putting all that aside, this episode is just bursting with intrigue and philosophy. It is truly fascinating learning about chakras and the analogies and metaphors they use to describe this real-life philosophy.

Builds up perfectly to the following episode.

"Avatar State. Everything's better in the Avatar State. Come on, have a Chakra"

[matitya-33937 · 9/10 · 16 February 2024]

(In case you're wondering the title of my review is quoting from the Season Three episode Nightmares and Daydreams.)

The Good 1) Zuko being happy and contented serving tea and living a normal life even if it doesn't last 2) "NO! I'm tired of running" 3) Iroh's success as a tea shop owner 4) Sokka finally being respected as a warrior 5) Even though it the Earth King's order was a trap, Katara and Momo going to Iroh's tea shop indicates that it really is that well-regarded 6) The foreshadowing that Aang will still struggle with Firebending thanks to the events of the deserter.

7) Aang rushing to Katara's aid at the expense of the Avatar State 8) The Azula/Long Feng Team-up 9) Finally getting pay off on the Xin-Fu and Master Yu subplot 10) The invention of Metalbending

The Bad 1) We already had an episode about Aang trying to summon and control The Avatar State and trying to do that again honestly seems redundant 2) If Aang's the Last Airbender then having him swear off love damns his people to extinction and reduces the nations from four to three which isn't really the point 3) After Azula captures Katara while Katara had a scroll for the plans for the invasion, Katara should be able to figure out that Azula would prepare for the Day of Black Sun (and the same goes for the Earth King.) That makes me question what the writers were planning.

It's a pretty good episode.