@Elric:
regarding the discussion about what was going on at the end of "crossroads".
supposedly it was stated somewhere on nick.com that aang was still trying to open the last chakra as he was interrupted by azula, so he still didn't let go of katara and maybe he's not necessarily always vulnerable like that when he enters the avatar state.
I'm not very fond of that notion to be honest. One of the reasons that I was so impressed with the Book 2 finale was the notion that Aang did something completely against his nature because it was completely necessary and it still wasn't good enough.
Besides the way he came busting out of there really doesn't make that much sense to me if he wasn't actually ready to come out yet.
As far as the animated shorts go, I haven't had a chance to watch the last two yet, but I liked both the Roku and Kyoshi clips. Roku was interesting as it showed a completely different person from the Avatar that we're used to seeing while Kyoshi's clip shows just how badly an Avatar can botch up a situation despite their good intentions.
I'm guessing that her conversation with the 46th Earth King is probably one that many sovereigns have had with many Avatars. As a side note, that would make the current Earth King 53rd in the line.