Iroh Critical - Tumblr Posts
First try with fanart! I was trying to give a wrinkled/windswept quality to the academy uniform, but monochrome (despite the attempt at aesthetic) did not work as well as I wanted it to.
Avatar the Last Airbenders 'Final Solution'
ATLA's resolution is kinda bad, looking back on it.
A better resolution would be if Iroh fought Ozai with the blessing of Aang as a fully realized Avatar, to represent the Four Elements and overthrow the Fire Lord. The source of the world's imbalance.
This is because having a literal God interfering in human affairs is both terrifying and a role Aang should not have been forced into.
Aang's mission in the story is to bring balance back to the Four Elements. How is it balanced to have God himself fighting against the Fire Nation's representative, ruling power?
Even if Aang isn't God, he is a WMD that thinks. A WMD that thinks, stepped into Fire Nation Politics, and showed the world that he would use his power against anyone who opposes his way of thinking.
Aang does this again in the promise where he and Zuko essentially decide to deport refugees and civilians from the homes, and lives, they had formed over a Hundred Years.
That's not a really good message for substantive balance when you look deeper into the matter.
Funnily enough, Avatar Kyoshi basically was an instance where an Avatar used their powers to tyrannize a group of people in the name of bringing Peace and Balance. An act that resulted in a whole town hating the Avatar a Hundred Years on into the future. The conflict of reconciling the Avatar's potential for tyranny and an Avatar's duty to peace becomes a central conflict for Aang in the final seasons.
Of course, Aang's conclusion was to settle the matter with an elemental fistfight.
This is doubly funny when the Fire Nation has a system for deciding matters of state and honor with a duel between Firebenders which Zuko and Azula took advantage of.
The Agni Kai would address Iroh's concerns about the world's perceptions as he is not fighting Ozai for the throne, but to restore the collective honor of the Fire Nation and right the wrongs Ozai had committed under the auspices of tradition, and the Avatar's authority
From a narrative standpoint, the Agni Kai between Iroh and Ozai would lead to the climactic confrontation between two competing ideologies of total domination, and harmony with the four nations, that Ozai's, Zuko's, and Iroh's arcs had built up over the story.
Aang would still have to go through his journey across the Four Kingdoms to realize his power, and gain the wisdom and experience to know that Iroh was the best choice to face his Brother. Aang is not neglected, therefore, and would play a role that is special and befitting of his status as the Avatar, but at the same time he won't interfere with a Nation's internal politics and ensure that Aang is an impartial force over the issues of the Four Kingdoms. Aang also wouldn't have to kill anyone.
The theme of balance in ATLA is a broken Aesop when Aang acts like a thinking WMD who was ferried into the field like an atomic bomb. Wouldn't balance be better achieved by the ordinary men and women who, through their personal traumas and experiences, learned a better way to live and were given the opportunity to teach the lesson of balance to a people brainwashed to see no other way except world domination?
Especially when one could fight a flaming duel to the death in the process?
(via Gridllr)
Azula, Iroh, Zuko, Imperial Japan, Teenage Soldiers, and Coming to Terms with Failed Ideologies.
Below is the summary of the journal of a teenage Japanese Navy sailor who came home after World War II to face defeat and irresponsibility. It has obvious implications for the postwar path of Azula and other child soldiers like her, and for the Fire Nation more generally. It also has huge implications for how people might respond to Zuko and particularly Iroh’s behavior, might respond to their refusal to accept responsibility.
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