He had the power of the Avatar state and he decided not to use it. He was willing to risk being annihilated by evil so that he didn't betray his principals and his people's traditions. This seems like a sacrifice to me. 

Great minds, and all…

Beautifully put. The show always dealt with spiritual and moral questions in a dignified and respectful manner without being sanctimonious or dull. It is nice to see a show thats not all about kicking the bad guy's ass because we're right and he's a monster (and not just children's shows).

He taught Katara and learned his lesson, I don't think it's any more to it than that. It's not developed but I guess we are to assume that he's different and proved it to Kanna. It's been 60 years, people change. I could have lived without the pairing up but it was just an aside and easily ignored.

That is amazing. Especially as it's such a quiet moment before the huge noisy climactic battle. What's interesting, too, is that it's not abstract to Aang, its the essence of his people, and he finds a way to reconcile the two. If it was an adult show people would probably say everything worked out too perfectly, but…

It would have worked if they'd just had him put his arm around her waist and they shared a look while watching the sunset.

LurkyMcLurkerson - That's what I said, you're meant to accept it as fact, and she was boasting.

The real deus ex machina is the Avatar state but they undercut that and raised the stakes by having Aang put himself in peril to follow his principals with spirit bending, when he could have squashed Ozai like a bug.

That really was amazing, one of my favorite moments in the show.

LoveWaffle - A leap forward in time would have been great, the show was really good at showing people aging and the passage of time. I guess they just wanted to have the last scene be a goodbye to the characters everyone got to know for 3 seasons. Everything had to be compressed.

When she first metalbends and escapes the kidnappers, she says that she's the greatest earthbender in the world (and don't you forget it) I think you're meant to accept that as a fact. The torch being passed.

They are not mutually exclusive, in fact that's the best kind of hilarious.

I guess they had to tie it up since they didn't know they were going to do Korra back then and they thought the kids might want to know.

Where to start? They just wrapped everything up perfectly, as far as I'm concerned. Yielding to prevail is a common spiritual precept. If you fight against evil on it's own terms you've lost before you begin. Fighting against what is vs. going with the flow and trusting a higher truth. All very metaphorical and…

Loved everything about the jailhouse scene. Is this your polar bear-dog? Am I the only one who found the tiny old lady with the platypus-bear hilariously random. What's their story?

Interesting, I didn't know that. Everyone did sound very young in the pilot. It sounds like they may have wanted to match the voice to the character drawing, even though they made him more sinewy and substantial as the show went on. I can see that they would want him to seem very childlike in comparison to the immense…

Great idea! Then, after the show we can go on a desert vision quest and find our soul mates. My animal guide is a prairie dog with the voice of Uncle Iroh.

I just always imagined them to be something like meat mixed with wasabi stuffed in a habanero pepper with a garnish of horseradish dipped in buffalo wing sauce to offset the heat.

Toph is small but dense and can break rocks with her head.

I actually did pity him for a moment when his mother denigrated his vegetables, he was only trying to give her what she wanted. Later it becomes clear that he's only doing his duty and waiting for the old biddy to die but this is one of many moments on the show that demonstrate even horrible people are human beings…