Post Like These Are What Engaging With The Fandom Is All About. A New Vision That Makes You Think And

Post like these are what engaging with the fandom is all about. A new vision that makes you think and makes a rewatch all the more wonderful.

Thinking about how Aang is punished for choosing power over love and his own happiness, punished for sacrificing another part of himself for the world… shot in the back and straight through his heart, his Air chakra, by lightning. His Air chakra, which deals with love and is blocked by his grief. His grief over losing his entire nation, his culture, everyone he has ever known and loved. And how the battle he fights with Katara here, they are surrounded by green crystals, the color of the Air chakra.

Aang makes the wrong choice, he too comes to a crossroads in his destiny just like Zuko—they both choose wrong. He goes against Aunt Wu’s advice, that he should follow his heart and shape his own destiny. He blocks off his own heart because he thinks it’s the only way he can save the world, to literally tear himself apart. And how his entire character arc is about him trying to mend his grief, to allow himself to still feel love, even in the wake of such devastation. And how it is Katara who saves him, because she loves him, because love never leaves, it’s simply reborn.

Many thoughts head full.

I blame Mattel.

Zuko would make a terrible puppet Firelord

I have seen the idea thrown around that Azula must have intended to use Zuko as her puppet Firelord and that must be the only reason that she brought him home. On the other hand, we have people talking about Zuko potentially being a White Lotus puppet. Yet it’s pretty clear that Zuko would not be a great choice as a puppet Firelord.

Zuko is impulsive, stubborn, opinionated, and arrogant. Once he settles on a course of action, he will let nothing discourage him from it, whether it be the weight of circumstances or the advice of others wiser than him.  He often  disregards the opinions of even those he acknowledges to have great wisdom.  Throughout the series Iroh struggles, with little success, to make Zuko listen to him, and at least once Azula shows great frustration about how impossible it can be to make Zuko listen to reason. He’s no King Kuei, and a “puppet-manipulator” would struggle both getting Zuko to follow their “guidance” in the first place and in preventing him from spontanously flying off the handle and impulsively changing policy. And of course, Zuko is not the sort of person to accept playing second-fiddle when he’s the official Firelord.

Meanwhile, for Azula in specific, trying to use Zuko as a puppet would have obvious drawbacks. First, he strongly dislikes her, and legally and symbolically empowering people who strongly dislike you is generally not considered to be a good move when you are trying to perputuate your own power. Second, figureheads and pupper rulers are normally used because they have some form of legitimacy that the “real” ruler lacks and cannot easily acquire. Yet Azula has an extremely strong claim to the throne in her own right, and, due to her embodiement of many Fire Nation values, she’s also more popular with the court and the public than Zuko is. Zuko literally complains about how “ everyone adores her,” after all. Azula has little to gain from trying to use Zuko as a puppet.

With all of that said, I think it’s possible to imagine a circumstance where Zuko finds ruling to be tedious and boring, and thus leaves most of the work and responsibility of ruling to others. However, that’s very different from situations where where people imagine someone trying to intentionally use Zuko as a figurehead.

Sorry I wasn’t trying to deflect from the real issue or anything , I just didn’t know if that point was factual or addressed in the Roku book.

That's the thing though: it doesn't have to be adressed, because what we already know about the Fire Nation just from watching the show - hell, just from watching the introduction of every episode - already makes it quite clear which nation, and which leader(s), is the obvious bad guy that is disturbingly comfortable using violence towards vulnerable people to get what it wants.

Even if the Fire Nation was this "utopia" zutarians pretend it was, where everyone who was born there gets a great life and women are totally treated as equals to men - that doesn't erase the fact that they commited genocide against the air-nomads, that they've been conquering places all over the Earth Kingdom and killing millions of innocents, or that they commited genocide against Katara's tribe.

The Fire Nation wants well over half the world dead for the simple "crime" of not being the same race as them, and Sozin was the one to make it that way - yet Zutarians are acting like because that fucking book acknowledged "Oh yeah, and the Fire Nation also sucks if you were NOT a foreigner because it was a deeply unfair society from day one" they're being retconned to be the evil, violent and intolerant.

Every time these people throw a fit over how "the Fire Nation doesn't get enough recognition for being fair to women" (because it WASN'T), they casually ignore the fact that they commited genocide - and act like all the women and little girls that were killed somehow don't "count" as victims of the Fire Nation because they were of a different race.

As if it makes a difference to these women if they're being abused, imprisoned and killed for their race instead of their gender. As if a queer woman who saw the love of her life be killed by the Fire Nation would give a fuck that at least her lover wasn't killed for having the "wrong" sexuality, just for being born in the "wrong" nation.

As if it made a difference to Kya that a man invaded her home with the intention of kidnaping/killing her daughter because she was a waterbender but not because she was girl.

As if it would make any difference to Katara if the man that killed her mother would never think to hit or so much as raise his voice to his own mother or wife or daughter.

As if, in the middle of becoming a child soldier because she has no choice but to fight for her life, she'd think the Fire Nation is so "egalitarian" because Azula gets the "privilege" of being a child soldier too.

As if she'll think oh so highly of Zuko for hiting her so hard she lost consciousness, and he then kidnapped her best friend to either be killed or kept barely alive in a cell for decades - after all, at least he didn't refuse to fight her like Pakku did! How considerate of him!

As if all the airbender girls that were burned alive gave a fuck if the soldiers that were murdering them were all men, all women, or if it was a 50/50 split.

As if droping a nuke on a bunch of civilians is only a human rights violation if some insane ruler does it to his own country instead of someone else's.

These people are literally saying that systematic violence towards women somehow only "counts" if the woman is of the "right" race - and that's a DEEPLY racist belief that they just spew out casually and we HAVE to focus on that, not because "Hahaha, more things to mock zutarians for" but because that is a very dangerous belief to have.

this is so devastating. laois should have just shot him with a gun

the tears man. They fall for all that were lost.

how is tdp justifying ethnic cleansing?

The show tries to present itself as "both sides in the wrong" conflict, completely ignoring that the situation presented does not call for it. (One group kicks an entire race out of their home and forces them to relocate. Hmm. If only there was a historical event that mirrored that.. OH WAIT)

The show has a huge bias against the humans and refuses to acknowledged how WRONG the Elves are. All while painting the elves as misunderstood victims, and humans as encroaching colonizers (oh the irony).

The show tries to sweep away the Elves' actions by going "But dark magic is evil 👹 and lazy 😞 and if the humans didn't use it, they wouldn't have been kicked out".

The way the show frames Dark Magic is even creepier. It condemns it while also ignoring how it came to be. Its treatment gives me huge "Other Religion BAD, Christianity GOOD".

"There is only way to use magic and that's define by the people in power"

-The Elves and the Dragons define the morality of magic in the show, despite having a history of attempting to genocide another race for practicing it in a different manner and when that fails, ethnically cleansing them.

Yet the show never makes any of the characters have to reflect on this. ACTUALLY. Rayla ends up agreeing with a racist, genocidal maniac and the show never punishes her for this. Her dismissive view of humans is never challenged. Because the show doesn't disagree with her.

There's other users who have delved deeper into this issues, far better than I could. They are under the tag Tdp critical.