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A great adventure with numerous tests occur in the episode "The King of Omashu" as Aang, Katara, and Sokka make another pit stop; this time in an Earth nation city. During such a visit, Aang reminisces about his past experiences with a wild kid that he met, remembering how they used the ‘mail’ transport slides and the cart like containers to slide at high speeds for fun.
After such a flashback, Katara and Sokka decide to try such a trick, but end up wrecking parts of the city, running into buildings and colliding into a business, not to mention damaging buildings. The authorities of the city arrest Aang and his friends for such an intrusion and are introduced to the king of Omashu. Instead of actually punishing Aang, Katara, and Sokka, they are fed a feast sized meal. As Aang, his friends, and the king sit at the dinner table, they continue on conversing with one another, and suddenly the king throws a chicken wing towards Aang and Aang begins to airbend the chicken wing in the middle of the air. The king knows now that he is the Avatar, something that Aang was trying to keep secret, and something Katara warned Aang about in order to be safe to some extent.
After such a discovery, the king decides to keep Aang, Katara, and Sokka in a room with three beds, allowing Aang and the rest to turn in for the evening. Aang wakes up after sleeping for a while, and after hearing one of the guards walk in. Aang notices that Katara and Sokka are missing, and finds out that the king will return them if he manages to successfully complete a few tasks. The king later meets up with Aang, and after he refuses to do the tasks the king has commanded him to do, the king places a crystal ring on Katara and Sokka’s finger, which slowly throughout the episode incases them in a crystal covering every few minutes.
Aang caves into the king’s deal and decides to follow through. The first task included trying to retrieve a key that was hanging by a chain in a strong waterfall current. The second task was to catch a creature the King kept as a pet inside a large pit. The final task was probably the most interesting. Aang was forced to choose one of a few men that would duel with him in a arena. Aang chose the king to fight against. The king seems to look weak, but in reality he is quite a strong old man. His earthbending skills versus Aang’s airbending skills proved to be exciting and graceful, full of different scenes consisting of slow motion moments that displayed incredible close calls. Some parts of the fight was so ridiculously clever, they were almost funny.
It seems that Aang wins, but the point was he got out alive, and the duel seemed to come out in a draw. The king asked of Aang to fulfill one last task; to figure out his name. After remembering some of the discussion during the times of being fed and during the tasks, Aang realizes that it’s his old friend from when he was around to ride the ‘mail’ transport slide.
The king, or Aang’s now much older friend, reminds Aang of how tough and serious his journey is, especially with such responsibility as the Avatar, and Sokka and Katara are released as well, without any worries of being encased in crystals.
The moments of the battle are what I will truly not forget out of this episode. Being around Satellite TV to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender gave me the privilege to see Avatar again just for the dueling scene between Aang and the king.
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