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masterghandalf) wrote2024-01-03 04:36 pm
masterghandalf) wrote2024-01-03 04:36 pm
MG Reads Embers: Chapter Twenty-Seven
Warning: This chapter contains discussion of genocide.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
We open with a brief author note. A/N: Okay, writer slip-up; I never meant to imply that Kuzon's wife was a dragon. I ran across "Ran" as a Japanese name that implied tumult, upheaval, and rebellion, and thought that'd be perfect for the background of Byakko. "Ran and Shao" slipped my mind completely. To be perfectly clear, Lady Ran was not a dragon, but a human firebender. Thanks to all the reviewers who pointed that out! The chapter proper opens with Aang in a daze; he hears someone calling to him, but it’s less speech and more a feeling, like Fang or Shidan used. He’s only vaguely aware of what’s going on around him but feels someone or something coming for him; finally, he hears Roku’s voice saying he’ll handle this. We cut to Yangchen in the Spirit World, watching the real world as Roku appears where Aang was; most of the kids bolt, but Zuko stands his ground. He rants at Roku, telling him to go away so he can heal Aang. Yangchen is amused, and someone else comes up to her and comments he was worried that Zuko wouldn’t make it, but that he’ll make a good yaoren. Yangchen tells the person that he was, too, calling him “Kaze” though the narrative identifies him as Lu Ten; apparently Lu Ten was Kaze, companion of Yangchen, in a previous life. They agree they should feel sorry for Roku, who had no yaoren to help him and even with Fang as a companion never really knew dragons. Meanwhile, Zuko is yelling at Roku that he’s not Sozin; Roku says that he’s the heir to Sozin’s legacy – it was Sozin who brought so much death and misery to the world, and his followers had the ability to refuse him. Zuko retorts they’d have died if they did that and decides Roku’s not really a firebender if he thinks that way. Apparently, Avatars aren’t bound by loyalty, and some people did refuse Sozin’s orders… but they all died, except for a few who Kuzon saved. It was Avatar Kyoshi who forced the great names to swear to the Fire Lord, which means that for anyone in the Fire Nation, to disobey the Fire Lord is a death sentence.
Lu Ten realizes that Zuko is Kuzon reborn and accuses Yangchen of cheating; she admits she may have. Aang may die, but Zuko is a survivor – and though his elements are fire and water, he also knows a lot about air. Meanwhile, Roku thinks Zuko is talking about the fear of execution, but Zuko says that’s not it at all – fire is loyalty, and breaking that loyalty nearly killed him. Zuko admits that what the Fire Nation has done is horrible, but he thinks Roku would believe someone like Jinhai has to die to keep the nations separate. Zuko insists he’s going to fix things; when Roku asks how, Zuko makes an obscene gesture at him that leaves Yangchen and Lu Ten stunned. Yangchen stops Roku from attacking Zuko; Roku doesn’t think they need an arrogant descendant of Sozin’s; Yangchen reminds him Zuko’s his descendant too, that Roku also bears responsibility for the war, and says maybe someone else should handle this. She takes Roku’s place, telling Zuko he reminds her of Kaze and that she has much to tell him and little time. Zuko thinks she should tell someone Aang trusts, but Yangchen knows what he is. Kaze was yaoren and her closest friend – she thinks that if Kuruk and Kyoshi had yaoren to advise them and bridge the gap between elements, the world would have been a different place. Zuko apologizes; Yangchen says that the guilt is Sozin and Roku’s, not his, but he still has a responsibility to fix things as a prince of the Fire Nation. Zuko says he can’t bring back the Air Nomads, but he knows there are scrolls they left, and people with an affinity for air, so he can try to do something. And he can build a place people can be free. Yangchen is bemused, but Zuko says the only airbender left is one incredibly gifted kid – how can Aang teach anyone the basics, or handle anyone who isn’t a prodigy, or find potential airbenders? Zuko doesn’t even know what spirit the Air Nomads follow. Yangchen says they’re the children of the mountains and the sky, and they’ll give Zuko the names when the time is right. Kyoshi apparently almost found the answer he’s looking for but didn’t apply it to herself. Yangchen tells Zuko to use his fire to draw out poisoned chi, begs him to forgive her, and vanishes.
We cut to Toph demanding Sokka let her back into the tent; she says she’d sense if it was dangerous, but Sokka isn’t so sure, with spirits involved. Toph doesn’t want to let Roku hurt Zuko when he’s just trying to help, when the tent suddenly explodes into a fireball, leaving Zuko among the wreckage. He starts ranting about how he was ordered to go up against Aang, not Roku, and how much he hated being lectured by a ghost about things he never did. Then Yangchen showed up, and he couldn’t decently ask her to disrobe when she was using Aang’s body so he could get a look at Aang’s injuries. Everyone else looks concerned, but Sokka thinks an angry Zuko is probably safer than a controlled, focused Zuko. Zuko keeps going about how he doesn’t want to deal with Kyoshi next, and Sokka notices how every firebender in earshot twitches at that. Zuko keeps ranting about how weird his life has gotten since he started chasing Aang. Sokka honestly feels the same way, which weirds him out even more. He then notices that Zuko mentioned seeing Yue and demands to know if she’s okay; Zuko’s not sure how to answer that but, well, she’s still the moon at least. Meanwhile, Katara calls that Aang woke up; he’s passed out again, but she thinks he’ll be okay. Zuko grouses about wanting to dump Katara in basic training, which amuses both him and Teruko. Sokka, meanwhile, wants Zuko to tell him what’s going on with Aang. He explains how lightning’s different from normal trauma and Azula was aiming to kill. The brain has tiny lightning bolts in it, but Azula’s attack overcharged Aang beyond what his body could handle, doing a lot of damage. His mind and body could be permanently affected, and Zuko has no way of knowing how much right now. At that moment, Teruko notes Zuko’s hand, where his nails had been torn to the quick; she grabs his hand and starts filing his nails with a shard of obsidian. Sokka wants to know why they can’t just use scissors; Teruko thinks it would be improper to use steel on the prince, and though any stone will do, obsidian is preferred. Sokka thinks the Fire Nation is weird.
Iroh explains that he and Zuko had known Azula was after them for a while, and that she could use lightning; they had a reason to be aware of what it can do. Toph chimes in that it’s smart to keep learning; Sokka grouses at her for sneaking up on people and Teruko is pleased at least one Earth Kingdom girl has good habits. She adopts a sing-song tone to mock a stereotypical Earth Kingdom noble maiden and calls it pathetic. Zuko corrects her they’re not all like that, even if they’re not trained like Fire Nation girls are. Sokka can’t believe Mai and Ty Lee are normal – Iroh admits that they’re unusually skilled, but all Fire Nation women train for combat. Zuko says that it’s not Sokka’s fault he’s never been in a library, when he’s from a place like the South Pole; this leads Toph to share the story of Wan Shi Tong’s library. The Fire Nation soldiers don’t seem to know whether to be stunned or impressed. Zuko notes that right now Aang is probably scaring most dangerous spirits away from them, which Sokka hadn’t realized. They admit it’s common knowledge Iroh fears the spirits, which makes Iroh remember Zhao saying something similar to him, and Zuko to hope that Zhao’s dead. Sokka thinks the implication is that, compared to whatever the Ocean Spirit might be doing to him, Zhao’s better off dead. Iroh clarifies he doesn’t fear the spirits, but he does respect them – with the Avatar’s absence, some spirits become inherently dangerous, but Iroh does not believe Aang is an enemy of the Fire Nation, whatever Ozai says. Meanwhile, Toph wants to know why Fire Nation girls learn to fight, when her dad never wanted her to – Iroh explains that in the Fire Nation, they fear assassins from an early age, and you have to be able to defend yourself. Sokka wonders who’d send assassins after a prince, aside from Zhao – Zuko clarifies that sometimes people think the royal family tree doesn’t need more branches. Teruko adds that Zuko’s mother was well known as a swordswoman but was a firebender first and foremost. Sokka thinks that if his own mom had known how to fight, she might not have died. Zuko is surprised that Teruko knew his mother, but she corrects him she didn’t, she just knew of her. She does know some of Zuko’s other relatives, though, especially Shidan, who makes every potential recruit fight him before they enlist. Apparently Zuko also has some aunts, though none of them has kidnapped a husband yet – Iroh is amused, since this is apparently a very archaic custom. Teruko starts sizing Zuko himself up and both she and Iroh rib him over it; Sokka starts babbling about Suki and excuses himself.
Sokka runs into Hakoda and starts rambling about how crazy people in the Fire Nation are. Hakoda assures him all women are crazy, and also that the Fire Nation ship is putting someone ashore. Meanwhile, Sokka should keep his distance from Zuko. He’s a fugitive and a traitor, but the ship’s crew are protecting him. Sokka thinks the whole situation is crazy; he considers getting Toph away from Zuko too, but thinks they seem to be getting along fine. Besides, he’s got no doubt Toph could take Zuko. We cut to Zuko, demonstrating a firebending technique on the beach. At last, he manages to pull streamers of hot sand into the air, though it loses heat quickly. Teruko is stunned, but Toph decides to play tug-of-war with Zuko’s ball of sand. They struggle for a bit, fire against earth – Zuko thinks about how sand is different from water, and how Toph isn’t like any other earthbender. It leaves Zuko hoping Shirong’s alive and has kept away from Azula. We cut to Shirong as he leads Tingzhe into Quan’s chambers in the palace. He finds Mai, Min and Quan looking haggard – Quan starts babbling about Azula killing Long Feng. Mai comments that Ozai always did like Azula best while Tingzhe embraces his son and tells him to stay alive. Quan had to convince Azula he was worth keeping alive; Shirong warns him he has to stay alive, for the city’s sake; Ba Sing Se needs the Dai Li. Tingzhe also thinks it would be bad for everyone if Quan tried to kill Azula, whether he succeeded or failed. And Sozin’s Comet is returning… Quan insists that Azula has to die for killing Long Feng; Tingzhe thinks Long Feng’s death wounded Quan’s spirit, but Ba Sing Se, and the Earth King, does need him alive. Shirong says he’s studied the Fire Nation – once they take territory, they consider it theirs. Ba Sing Se surrendered, so it won’t be destroyed. The spirits might be angry – but there’s still Zuko’s plan to consider. Shirong says Zuko’s a great name, and he made a promise – he will be back. His phrasing grabs Quan’s attention, and Tingzhe just says mixed heritages can crop up unexpectedly. He warns Shirong against telling Quan the whole truth, when he’ll be so close to Azula. Tingzhe then reminds Quan that the Avatar might still be alive – there might still be hope. Mai, meanwhile, won’t help them kill Azula… but if they just want to hurt and frustrate her, she’s up for that. Where Ty Lee’s loyalties lie… she’s not so sure. Shirong hands Quan a list of all the things he wants, including a cache of texts – Quan is surprised but impressed. Shortly afterwards, Shirong and Tingzhe slip back out. The palace is riddled with secret passages – Shirong knows how to get past any watchers the Dai Li have set, and he thinks Azula won’t kill Long Feng’s second in command so soon after Long Feng himself, and risk losing the Dai Li’s loyalty outright. If he’s a traitor, she’ll wait for him to show it first. Hopefully they can buy enough time for him to allay her suspicions. Meanwhile, they want to find a way to get in contact with Zuko, maybe get him to come back. The Earth King has never met a royal of equal rank before, so that will be interesting. Shirong tries to convince himself Zuko will be fine, but he’s not sure of it…
We cut to Sadao and Bato, wondering what Zuko and Toph are doing. Bato thinks Zuko is tormenting a helpless blind girl, but Sadao knows Toph is a master earthbender. He doesn’t want to pick a fight with Bato, and he’s terrified of being near Aang, so he’s just trying to keep his head down. Suddenly, he hears someone complaining about a “bitch hen” and Zuko turns away from his game to see an ostrich-horse coming towards him – it’s Asahi! He runs over to embrace her, stopping her from attacking some Water Tribe warriors as he does. The last time Zuko saw her, she’d been leaving with an Earth Kingdom caravan. Apparently that same caravan dropped off supplies for the Water Tribes. The rest of the caravan are brought in, and Sadao appreciatively notices a tall, pretty girl with them, but is dismayed to notice she seems to have a boyfriend. We cut to Xiu, the girl Zuko met at the end of the first arc, who walks around the camp in surprise at what’s going on, until she spots “Lee” and, to her surprise, recognizes him. She slips away from her companion, Huizhong, and asks Iroh if this is what it looks like – it depends on what she thinks it does look like. Toph comes over and introduces herself, and Xiu recognizes her family name. They explain to Xiu how Ba Sing Se has fallen and beg her not to tell the army they’re here. Iroh explains that Azula used Low War – subterfuge – to take the city, and clearly word hasn’t spread yet. Xiu thinks “Lee” just doesn’t do normal, and toph agrees while grabbing his arm. Bato thinks it’s not appropriate, and she snape at him for calling her a little girl. Meanwhile, Iroh says they only loaned Asahi when they went to Ba Sing Se and wants to talk terms for getting her back.
As Xiu and Huizhong walk away, Huzhong wants to get a message out, and Bato tells him to talk to Hakoda. They talk a bit about “Lee,” and Xiu is stunned to learn he’s a firebender. Bato leads them to Hakoda; Huizong tells him they have to get a message to the army, but Hakoda doesn’t want the Earth Kingdom involved, and besides, for the moment he needs Zuko’s help. They try and talk Huizhong out of anything drastic, while Xiu wants to know if it’s true Ba Sing Se has fallen. Hakoda’s surprised they told her, and Xiu thinks to herself that Zuko’s a decent person. She thinks that’s rare in a firebender… but maybe if Hakoda would be willing to turn him in after he healed a friend, the Water Tribe warriors aren’t as noble as she’d thought either. Hakoda introduces them to Sokka, and Xiu starts telling him about how she met Zuko and how he doesn’t deserve to be hurt any more. She makes a fist, noting how Water Tribe men don’t expect a woman to fight, and says she knows what Zuko’s scar means and that he must be an exile. He’s a refugee, and when he was a kid, somebody clearly burned his face. He still wants to help people, though – how dare Sokka hate him? Sokka thinks that with Xiu’s passionate defense of how important being a healer is, they could have used her at the North Pole, and tells her about how Katara only wanted to fight and forced Pakku to teach her and didn’t have any healing lessons after that. Xiu ends up snickering at the story – she thinks Katara reminds her of Zuko, though Sokka insists they’re nothing alike. Xiu thinks if that’s true, it’s Katara’s loss, since Zuko’s a decent person under all the anger. Hakoda promises to assign some of his warriors to watch her, since he knows what Fire Nation soldiers can do to vulnerable women – however, Xiu ends up noticing Teruko and that she is a woman. Meanwhile, Toph has managed to haggle with the caravan master to get him to give Asahi back. She didn’t cheat him, but the Beifongs bargain hard. The warriors fall to talking about Asahi and how aggressive she is; Sadao thinks she’s part skirmisher and wonders where Zuko found her. He says it’s a long story but gives the short version. Sokka calls Zuko a thief, but Iroh brings up how Sokka and his friends got involved in Jet’s plot to flood a village. It nearly cost thousands of lives and the damage will take years to undo. Zuko’s crime is miniscule in comparison, especially since he stopped a plague spirit in the process.
Iroh explains how they didn’t have an earth shaman to cleanse the ground – there are only a few of those left, mostly advising Bumi in Omashu – but they were skilled enough to defeat the spirit. Sokka doesn’t’ believe it, but Zuko says people would have died if they hadn’t helped. Sokka tells them what Jeong Jeong said about fire being only death and destruction; this angers the firebenders, and Iroh says that Jeong Jeong suffered greatly in the war. Maybe Zuko could teach him healing after the war is done and change his mind. Xiu thinks surely a master like Jeong Jeong would know all about firebending, and Zuko explains how healing has been lost for a long time. It was just a legend, like the Avatar. Iroh asks if Sokka wants to know the Fire Nation’s legend of the Avatar – which explains how fire healing was lost, and why the Fire Nation views the Avatar not as a savior, but a destroyer. Sadao doesn’t want him to, and Iroh admits the Fire Nation doesn’t share this story with outsiders – they don’t like admitting weakness. Iroh, though, thinks that understanding each other’s perspectives might help end the war. Toph pipes up that she wants to know whether Sokka wants to hear or not; Teruko wants to know if they can keep her, which makes Zuko say that the marines think Toph is cute. Sokka doesn’t know what to make of that. Sokka recognizes Zuko’s laughter – he realizes he was the one laughing when they stole the pirates’ ship. Hakoda is insulted at the implication Katara stole from the pirates, and Sokka has to admit it’s true. Toph says she heard the whole story from Zuko but wants to know if they’re going to be hearing anything else. Sokka wants to know the truth but asks Sadao to tell it – he’s Fire Nation, he’ll know, and he doesn’t have an ulterior motive. Sadao isn’t sure – the story involves Kyoshi, and also makes him think of things he saw at the Siege of the North. Iroh tells the Water Tribes that the Fire Nation knows the sea too – they live on islands, and some clans even live their whole lives on ships. And, like the Water Tribes, some of those clans used to be pirates. Sokka’s insulted at the idea the Water Tribes are pirates, but apparently Chin the Conqueror rose to power defending the coasts from raiders… raiders not from the west. Even Toph knows this history, from old poetry. Anyway, there used to be lots of water-based clans, and some of them were really bad. They raided the Earth Kingdom for decades, and at the time there was no one to stop them – the Fire Lord was just the senior Fire Sage then, not an absolute ruler. The Fire Nation was a collection of warlords then; the Earth King begged them to stop the pirates, but the pirates didn’t follow any great name, so no one could. Until Kyoshi came. She tore through the Fire Nation, slaughtering all of the pirates, and then she blasted the coast with waves, wiping out entire clans. Maybe she didn’t know how many people her actions would kill… but they did. There were hundreds of thousands of deaths, maybe more. With the destruction of the water clans, much knowledge of firebending was lost. Then Kyoshi forced all the great names to swear loyalty to the Fire Lord, so one person would be responsible for the whole nation, except for exiles – and then she left.
For the rest of Kyoshi’s life, people begged her to take it back, but she never did. And after she died, Roku thought the whole world was just fine as it was and never changed anything. Meanwhile, the whole Fire Nation was going insane from being all bound to one lord and being unable to fight each other. Kyoshi destroyed their whole civilization without even meaning to. Who’s to say Aang won’t do the same? And that’s why the Fire Nation hates the Avatar. Iroh adds that for the rest of her life, Kyoshi insisted her only victims had been criminals who deserved it. But the Fire Nation never forgave and never forgot. Yes, what the Fire Nation has done since is evil – but the root of that evil is pain, and the knowledge that they are helpless before the Avatar. Hakoda thinks this is a warning, not a threat, and Iroh says that’s how he meant it. Zuko says that Aang is twelve, with no idea of the damage he could do. He knows Hakoda and Sokka are honorable opponents, and that Hakoda is one of the few leaders who hasn’t tried to use Aang for his own ends – he hopes Aang and Katara will listen to him. Both Hakoda and Zuko have lost people to the war, and they both know it – Zuko just wants Hakoda to teach Aang to think about consequences. Xiu releases that Zuko talks like a noble, and wants to know who he really is; he says she doesn’t. As they walk away, Toph confirms that none of the Fire Nationals were lying. If Toph goes to the Fire Nation, she can look at the rocks and see if the waves really happened. And she remembers her mom joking about Fire Nation ambassadors – too bad the sea didn’t get the rest of them. Huizhong, meanwhile, is about to leave to pass on a message from Hakoda to the army. Xiu asks him where she could find books about Kyoshi, and he tells her Ba Sing Se University. She promises the Fire Nation didn’t hurt her… they just broke her heart.
We end with an author note. A/N: In regard to "divine right" in the Fire Nation and Avatar Kyoshi's actions in regard to the Fire Lord... in this AU, divine right adheres to all the great names (daimyo).
Zuko's listing of Aang's injuries - check out "keraunomedicine" in Wikipedia. Lightning is nasty.
And Iroh and Jee's bit to Teruko last chapter? Trust me, that wasn't singing praises. That was a warning. From what I've read, there is nothing harder to keep alive under fire than a smart young officer. The slower ones, you can maneuver out of the worst danger. Smart ones think up plans nobody would consider, and then jump into executing them without double-checking whether a more experienced person would actually do what they're about to pull off.
Munkh Khukh Tengri - Eternal Blue Sky. The Mongol religion of Tengriism is still practiced along with Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia and a few other areas, and seems a reasonably good fit with people who have sky bison (the religion itself has the "wind horse" as an image of the soul, among other aspects).
Some example of the devastation of floods and tidal waves: 1642 in China, 300,000 deaths. 1887, Huang He River China, 900,000 deaths. 1931, Huang He River China, 3.7 million deaths. As for hurricanes and cyclones, on November 13, 1970, Bangladesh had 300,000 deaths; several other events there have killed people in the ten thousand to two hundred thousand range. Given the Fire Nation is all islands... oh, yeah.
A past reviewer brought up that, being an island nation, the Fire Nation really ought to be balanced between fire and water, not just fire. Yes. Exactly. Asia is full of "aquatic civilizations"; people who live in, manage, and harvest wetlands. We see one river community in "The Painted Lady", but it's obviously in bad shape. There should be more. A lot more. There should be people of the marshes, the swamps, the rivers; there should be people living on boats. They're not there.
There has to be a reason for that.
Also, given the Fire Nation is the dragons' homeland, and I imagine hatchlings spit sparks, it's most likely a fire ecology. Which also fits with wetlands. Most wetlands burn. On a regular, natural basis. And there are plenty of "subtropical forest" type of environments that do the same; check out the longleaf pine ecosystem of the American Southeast. Never mind the volcanoes; the whole Fire Nation probably goes up in flames on a timescale ranging from once a decade to once a year.
Fire ecologies are dynamic equilibriums. They have lots of disturbances; hurricanes, lightning, and fire being some of the most common. But over the long term and large scale, they are stable. Somewhere is burning; somewhere has just burned; somewhere will burn, soon.
If the people reflect the land, and their element... there is no way the Fire Nation would be an absolute monarchy. What they should be is a swarm of competing clans, going to war with each other on a regular basis. Aggression turned inward, not out.
And yes, in situations like that, you get pirates. Lots of them. Historically, the wako (waegu) of Japan raided all up and down the coast of China for well over a century under just those circumstances. The Emperor was not happy.
Canonically, Avatars are prone to overkill. And Kyoshi in specific seems to have had a short fuse. "How dare you defy your Avatar", indeed. And splitting off a whole island? What are the odds Chin was the only person killed, when Avatar-powered earthbending cut through miles of forest and farmland?
So. My take, in this AU, of the "darkest day in Fire Nation history". The hurricane came and went over a lot longer, but in those eight minutes, when Agni could not help... Kyoshi created the rule of the Fire Lord.
One of the scariest phrases, ever? It seemed like a good idea at the time.
There's one other thing about fire ecologies. Sooner or later, they will burn. And the longer fire is excluded, the worse the destruction.
MG’s Thoughts
Ugh, this is the big one. A lot of it is mostly stuff that would be decent enough if it wasn’t saturated with undertones of how much more awesome Zuko is than everyone else (we also get to the point here where we start seeing the idea that the yaoren are absolutely necessary for the Avatar to understand all four nations, and how the Avatar not having yaoren for the last several cycles caused all sorts of problems, which can’t help but feel like Vathara promoting her own creation at the expense of canon). And, while I’m pretty sure Roku would agree that he wasn’t a very good Avatar – he certainly seems to have blamed himself for letting the war get started, at least – we’re still stuck on the idea of him being obsessed with keeping the four nations completely separate just because. And also, that he wasn’t really Fire Nation because the Avatar never experiences loyalty. For one, this directly contradicts the moral of “The Avatar and the Fire Lord,” which explicitly makes the point that Roku was just as much Fire Nation as Sozin; for another, we’ll eventually learn that Roku never even knew loyalty was a thing (it’s already implied here) which considering loyalty isn’t just a cultural value but has direct physical and mental effects on people seems to… strain credulity at the least.
And then, we get to the big reveal – it’s all Kyoshi’s fault. Kyoshi committed genocide on half the Fire Nation to get at the pirates, Kyoshi was the one who wiped out so much firebending knowledge, Kyoshi was the one who created the Fire Lord and by preventing the Fire Nation from fighting each other, eventually forced them to turn their aggression outwards instead. Yeah. When I talk about the fic presenting the Fire Nation as the real victims – this is a big part of what I mean. And apparently the Fire Nation just has an inherent existential dread of the Avatar because of this (instead of, you know, opposing the Avatar as a direct threat to their plans). Though I will say, in light of what the Kyoshi novels will eventually establish about both Kyoshi herself and the state of the Frie Nation in her time, a lot of this becomes weirdly hilarious in hindsight (though even just from the show, I wouldn’t have said Kyoshi had a short fuse – she always came off more as “grimly determined,” really). I also have a very hard time swallowing the idea that the only way a country ruled by countless competing warlords could be unified would be by an outside aggressor forcibly imposing it on them – just looking at Vathara’s inspiration for her Fire Nation, Japan, does she really think China or someone came in and, like, forced Tokugawa Ieyasu to become shogun, rather than ambitious daimyo having fought to unify the country under their own rule entirely of their own free will? Or the countless other examples of this sort of thing happening elsewhere in the world? Does she really think “Apocalypse Kyoshi” makes more sense? I just… don’t get the idea here, save to make the Fire Nation the victims (along with making sure we remember the Water Tribes were pirates too, even though it’s completely irrelevant to the story).
Also, I know Zuko’s reunion with Asahi is supposed to be a big moment, but, like… I don’t think she’s been mentioned at all since the start of the Ba Sing Se arc. If Zuko’s been torn up about missing her… I don’t think that was communicated well, at all. Also, with the introduction of Tengri, this is where Vathara starts giving all the four nations, except the Water Tribes, real world gods to worship. There’s some slight justification for Agni, from Agni Kai, but only slightly (Agni is the Vedic fire god… but also just the Sanskrit word for “fire”). Adding the others… I’ll admit, it reminds me of one otherwise-solid fantasy series I’ve read, that just… directly ports medieval Christianity into what’s clearly a fictional world, without even bothering to change the names. I found it incredibly distracting there, and I find Vathara’s use of deities incredibly distracting here for the same reasons. Then again, this is my area in real life, so maybe I’m more sensitive to it than most people.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
We open with a brief author note. A/N: Okay, writer slip-up; I never meant to imply that Kuzon's wife was a dragon. I ran across "Ran" as a Japanese name that implied tumult, upheaval, and rebellion, and thought that'd be perfect for the background of Byakko. "Ran and Shao" slipped my mind completely. To be perfectly clear, Lady Ran was not a dragon, but a human firebender. Thanks to all the reviewers who pointed that out! The chapter proper opens with Aang in a daze; he hears someone calling to him, but it’s less speech and more a feeling, like Fang or Shidan used. He’s only vaguely aware of what’s going on around him but feels someone or something coming for him; finally, he hears Roku’s voice saying he’ll handle this. We cut to Yangchen in the Spirit World, watching the real world as Roku appears where Aang was; most of the kids bolt, but Zuko stands his ground. He rants at Roku, telling him to go away so he can heal Aang. Yangchen is amused, and someone else comes up to her and comments he was worried that Zuko wouldn’t make it, but that he’ll make a good yaoren. Yangchen tells the person that he was, too, calling him “Kaze” though the narrative identifies him as Lu Ten; apparently Lu Ten was Kaze, companion of Yangchen, in a previous life. They agree they should feel sorry for Roku, who had no yaoren to help him and even with Fang as a companion never really knew dragons. Meanwhile, Zuko is yelling at Roku that he’s not Sozin; Roku says that he’s the heir to Sozin’s legacy – it was Sozin who brought so much death and misery to the world, and his followers had the ability to refuse him. Zuko retorts they’d have died if they did that and decides Roku’s not really a firebender if he thinks that way. Apparently, Avatars aren’t bound by loyalty, and some people did refuse Sozin’s orders… but they all died, except for a few who Kuzon saved. It was Avatar Kyoshi who forced the great names to swear to the Fire Lord, which means that for anyone in the Fire Nation, to disobey the Fire Lord is a death sentence.
Lu Ten realizes that Zuko is Kuzon reborn and accuses Yangchen of cheating; she admits she may have. Aang may die, but Zuko is a survivor – and though his elements are fire and water, he also knows a lot about air. Meanwhile, Roku thinks Zuko is talking about the fear of execution, but Zuko says that’s not it at all – fire is loyalty, and breaking that loyalty nearly killed him. Zuko admits that what the Fire Nation has done is horrible, but he thinks Roku would believe someone like Jinhai has to die to keep the nations separate. Zuko insists he’s going to fix things; when Roku asks how, Zuko makes an obscene gesture at him that leaves Yangchen and Lu Ten stunned. Yangchen stops Roku from attacking Zuko; Roku doesn’t think they need an arrogant descendant of Sozin’s; Yangchen reminds him Zuko’s his descendant too, that Roku also bears responsibility for the war, and says maybe someone else should handle this. She takes Roku’s place, telling Zuko he reminds her of Kaze and that she has much to tell him and little time. Zuko thinks she should tell someone Aang trusts, but Yangchen knows what he is. Kaze was yaoren and her closest friend – she thinks that if Kuruk and Kyoshi had yaoren to advise them and bridge the gap between elements, the world would have been a different place. Zuko apologizes; Yangchen says that the guilt is Sozin and Roku’s, not his, but he still has a responsibility to fix things as a prince of the Fire Nation. Zuko says he can’t bring back the Air Nomads, but he knows there are scrolls they left, and people with an affinity for air, so he can try to do something. And he can build a place people can be free. Yangchen is bemused, but Zuko says the only airbender left is one incredibly gifted kid – how can Aang teach anyone the basics, or handle anyone who isn’t a prodigy, or find potential airbenders? Zuko doesn’t even know what spirit the Air Nomads follow. Yangchen says they’re the children of the mountains and the sky, and they’ll give Zuko the names when the time is right. Kyoshi apparently almost found the answer he’s looking for but didn’t apply it to herself. Yangchen tells Zuko to use his fire to draw out poisoned chi, begs him to forgive her, and vanishes.
We cut to Toph demanding Sokka let her back into the tent; she says she’d sense if it was dangerous, but Sokka isn’t so sure, with spirits involved. Toph doesn’t want to let Roku hurt Zuko when he’s just trying to help, when the tent suddenly explodes into a fireball, leaving Zuko among the wreckage. He starts ranting about how he was ordered to go up against Aang, not Roku, and how much he hated being lectured by a ghost about things he never did. Then Yangchen showed up, and he couldn’t decently ask her to disrobe when she was using Aang’s body so he could get a look at Aang’s injuries. Everyone else looks concerned, but Sokka thinks an angry Zuko is probably safer than a controlled, focused Zuko. Zuko keeps going about how he doesn’t want to deal with Kyoshi next, and Sokka notices how every firebender in earshot twitches at that. Zuko keeps ranting about how weird his life has gotten since he started chasing Aang. Sokka honestly feels the same way, which weirds him out even more. He then notices that Zuko mentioned seeing Yue and demands to know if she’s okay; Zuko’s not sure how to answer that but, well, she’s still the moon at least. Meanwhile, Katara calls that Aang woke up; he’s passed out again, but she thinks he’ll be okay. Zuko grouses about wanting to dump Katara in basic training, which amuses both him and Teruko. Sokka, meanwhile, wants Zuko to tell him what’s going on with Aang. He explains how lightning’s different from normal trauma and Azula was aiming to kill. The brain has tiny lightning bolts in it, but Azula’s attack overcharged Aang beyond what his body could handle, doing a lot of damage. His mind and body could be permanently affected, and Zuko has no way of knowing how much right now. At that moment, Teruko notes Zuko’s hand, where his nails had been torn to the quick; she grabs his hand and starts filing his nails with a shard of obsidian. Sokka wants to know why they can’t just use scissors; Teruko thinks it would be improper to use steel on the prince, and though any stone will do, obsidian is preferred. Sokka thinks the Fire Nation is weird.
Iroh explains that he and Zuko had known Azula was after them for a while, and that she could use lightning; they had a reason to be aware of what it can do. Toph chimes in that it’s smart to keep learning; Sokka grouses at her for sneaking up on people and Teruko is pleased at least one Earth Kingdom girl has good habits. She adopts a sing-song tone to mock a stereotypical Earth Kingdom noble maiden and calls it pathetic. Zuko corrects her they’re not all like that, even if they’re not trained like Fire Nation girls are. Sokka can’t believe Mai and Ty Lee are normal – Iroh admits that they’re unusually skilled, but all Fire Nation women train for combat. Zuko says that it’s not Sokka’s fault he’s never been in a library, when he’s from a place like the South Pole; this leads Toph to share the story of Wan Shi Tong’s library. The Fire Nation soldiers don’t seem to know whether to be stunned or impressed. Zuko notes that right now Aang is probably scaring most dangerous spirits away from them, which Sokka hadn’t realized. They admit it’s common knowledge Iroh fears the spirits, which makes Iroh remember Zhao saying something similar to him, and Zuko to hope that Zhao’s dead. Sokka thinks the implication is that, compared to whatever the Ocean Spirit might be doing to him, Zhao’s better off dead. Iroh clarifies he doesn’t fear the spirits, but he does respect them – with the Avatar’s absence, some spirits become inherently dangerous, but Iroh does not believe Aang is an enemy of the Fire Nation, whatever Ozai says. Meanwhile, Toph wants to know why Fire Nation girls learn to fight, when her dad never wanted her to – Iroh explains that in the Fire Nation, they fear assassins from an early age, and you have to be able to defend yourself. Sokka wonders who’d send assassins after a prince, aside from Zhao – Zuko clarifies that sometimes people think the royal family tree doesn’t need more branches. Teruko adds that Zuko’s mother was well known as a swordswoman but was a firebender first and foremost. Sokka thinks that if his own mom had known how to fight, she might not have died. Zuko is surprised that Teruko knew his mother, but she corrects him she didn’t, she just knew of her. She does know some of Zuko’s other relatives, though, especially Shidan, who makes every potential recruit fight him before they enlist. Apparently Zuko also has some aunts, though none of them has kidnapped a husband yet – Iroh is amused, since this is apparently a very archaic custom. Teruko starts sizing Zuko himself up and both she and Iroh rib him over it; Sokka starts babbling about Suki and excuses himself.
Sokka runs into Hakoda and starts rambling about how crazy people in the Fire Nation are. Hakoda assures him all women are crazy, and also that the Fire Nation ship is putting someone ashore. Meanwhile, Sokka should keep his distance from Zuko. He’s a fugitive and a traitor, but the ship’s crew are protecting him. Sokka thinks the whole situation is crazy; he considers getting Toph away from Zuko too, but thinks they seem to be getting along fine. Besides, he’s got no doubt Toph could take Zuko. We cut to Zuko, demonstrating a firebending technique on the beach. At last, he manages to pull streamers of hot sand into the air, though it loses heat quickly. Teruko is stunned, but Toph decides to play tug-of-war with Zuko’s ball of sand. They struggle for a bit, fire against earth – Zuko thinks about how sand is different from water, and how Toph isn’t like any other earthbender. It leaves Zuko hoping Shirong’s alive and has kept away from Azula. We cut to Shirong as he leads Tingzhe into Quan’s chambers in the palace. He finds Mai, Min and Quan looking haggard – Quan starts babbling about Azula killing Long Feng. Mai comments that Ozai always did like Azula best while Tingzhe embraces his son and tells him to stay alive. Quan had to convince Azula he was worth keeping alive; Shirong warns him he has to stay alive, for the city’s sake; Ba Sing Se needs the Dai Li. Tingzhe also thinks it would be bad for everyone if Quan tried to kill Azula, whether he succeeded or failed. And Sozin’s Comet is returning… Quan insists that Azula has to die for killing Long Feng; Tingzhe thinks Long Feng’s death wounded Quan’s spirit, but Ba Sing Se, and the Earth King, does need him alive. Shirong says he’s studied the Fire Nation – once they take territory, they consider it theirs. Ba Sing Se surrendered, so it won’t be destroyed. The spirits might be angry – but there’s still Zuko’s plan to consider. Shirong says Zuko’s a great name, and he made a promise – he will be back. His phrasing grabs Quan’s attention, and Tingzhe just says mixed heritages can crop up unexpectedly. He warns Shirong against telling Quan the whole truth, when he’ll be so close to Azula. Tingzhe then reminds Quan that the Avatar might still be alive – there might still be hope. Mai, meanwhile, won’t help them kill Azula… but if they just want to hurt and frustrate her, she’s up for that. Where Ty Lee’s loyalties lie… she’s not so sure. Shirong hands Quan a list of all the things he wants, including a cache of texts – Quan is surprised but impressed. Shortly afterwards, Shirong and Tingzhe slip back out. The palace is riddled with secret passages – Shirong knows how to get past any watchers the Dai Li have set, and he thinks Azula won’t kill Long Feng’s second in command so soon after Long Feng himself, and risk losing the Dai Li’s loyalty outright. If he’s a traitor, she’ll wait for him to show it first. Hopefully they can buy enough time for him to allay her suspicions. Meanwhile, they want to find a way to get in contact with Zuko, maybe get him to come back. The Earth King has never met a royal of equal rank before, so that will be interesting. Shirong tries to convince himself Zuko will be fine, but he’s not sure of it…
We cut to Sadao and Bato, wondering what Zuko and Toph are doing. Bato thinks Zuko is tormenting a helpless blind girl, but Sadao knows Toph is a master earthbender. He doesn’t want to pick a fight with Bato, and he’s terrified of being near Aang, so he’s just trying to keep his head down. Suddenly, he hears someone complaining about a “bitch hen” and Zuko turns away from his game to see an ostrich-horse coming towards him – it’s Asahi! He runs over to embrace her, stopping her from attacking some Water Tribe warriors as he does. The last time Zuko saw her, she’d been leaving with an Earth Kingdom caravan. Apparently that same caravan dropped off supplies for the Water Tribes. The rest of the caravan are brought in, and Sadao appreciatively notices a tall, pretty girl with them, but is dismayed to notice she seems to have a boyfriend. We cut to Xiu, the girl Zuko met at the end of the first arc, who walks around the camp in surprise at what’s going on, until she spots “Lee” and, to her surprise, recognizes him. She slips away from her companion, Huizhong, and asks Iroh if this is what it looks like – it depends on what she thinks it does look like. Toph comes over and introduces herself, and Xiu recognizes her family name. They explain to Xiu how Ba Sing Se has fallen and beg her not to tell the army they’re here. Iroh explains that Azula used Low War – subterfuge – to take the city, and clearly word hasn’t spread yet. Xiu thinks “Lee” just doesn’t do normal, and toph agrees while grabbing his arm. Bato thinks it’s not appropriate, and she snape at him for calling her a little girl. Meanwhile, Iroh says they only loaned Asahi when they went to Ba Sing Se and wants to talk terms for getting her back.
As Xiu and Huizhong walk away, Huzhong wants to get a message out, and Bato tells him to talk to Hakoda. They talk a bit about “Lee,” and Xiu is stunned to learn he’s a firebender. Bato leads them to Hakoda; Huizong tells him they have to get a message to the army, but Hakoda doesn’t want the Earth Kingdom involved, and besides, for the moment he needs Zuko’s help. They try and talk Huizhong out of anything drastic, while Xiu wants to know if it’s true Ba Sing Se has fallen. Hakoda’s surprised they told her, and Xiu thinks to herself that Zuko’s a decent person. She thinks that’s rare in a firebender… but maybe if Hakoda would be willing to turn him in after he healed a friend, the Water Tribe warriors aren’t as noble as she’d thought either. Hakoda introduces them to Sokka, and Xiu starts telling him about how she met Zuko and how he doesn’t deserve to be hurt any more. She makes a fist, noting how Water Tribe men don’t expect a woman to fight, and says she knows what Zuko’s scar means and that he must be an exile. He’s a refugee, and when he was a kid, somebody clearly burned his face. He still wants to help people, though – how dare Sokka hate him? Sokka thinks that with Xiu’s passionate defense of how important being a healer is, they could have used her at the North Pole, and tells her about how Katara only wanted to fight and forced Pakku to teach her and didn’t have any healing lessons after that. Xiu ends up snickering at the story – she thinks Katara reminds her of Zuko, though Sokka insists they’re nothing alike. Xiu thinks if that’s true, it’s Katara’s loss, since Zuko’s a decent person under all the anger. Hakoda promises to assign some of his warriors to watch her, since he knows what Fire Nation soldiers can do to vulnerable women – however, Xiu ends up noticing Teruko and that she is a woman. Meanwhile, Toph has managed to haggle with the caravan master to get him to give Asahi back. She didn’t cheat him, but the Beifongs bargain hard. The warriors fall to talking about Asahi and how aggressive she is; Sadao thinks she’s part skirmisher and wonders where Zuko found her. He says it’s a long story but gives the short version. Sokka calls Zuko a thief, but Iroh brings up how Sokka and his friends got involved in Jet’s plot to flood a village. It nearly cost thousands of lives and the damage will take years to undo. Zuko’s crime is miniscule in comparison, especially since he stopped a plague spirit in the process.
Iroh explains how they didn’t have an earth shaman to cleanse the ground – there are only a few of those left, mostly advising Bumi in Omashu – but they were skilled enough to defeat the spirit. Sokka doesn’t’ believe it, but Zuko says people would have died if they hadn’t helped. Sokka tells them what Jeong Jeong said about fire being only death and destruction; this angers the firebenders, and Iroh says that Jeong Jeong suffered greatly in the war. Maybe Zuko could teach him healing after the war is done and change his mind. Xiu thinks surely a master like Jeong Jeong would know all about firebending, and Zuko explains how healing has been lost for a long time. It was just a legend, like the Avatar. Iroh asks if Sokka wants to know the Fire Nation’s legend of the Avatar – which explains how fire healing was lost, and why the Fire Nation views the Avatar not as a savior, but a destroyer. Sadao doesn’t want him to, and Iroh admits the Fire Nation doesn’t share this story with outsiders – they don’t like admitting weakness. Iroh, though, thinks that understanding each other’s perspectives might help end the war. Toph pipes up that she wants to know whether Sokka wants to hear or not; Teruko wants to know if they can keep her, which makes Zuko say that the marines think Toph is cute. Sokka doesn’t know what to make of that. Sokka recognizes Zuko’s laughter – he realizes he was the one laughing when they stole the pirates’ ship. Hakoda is insulted at the implication Katara stole from the pirates, and Sokka has to admit it’s true. Toph says she heard the whole story from Zuko but wants to know if they’re going to be hearing anything else. Sokka wants to know the truth but asks Sadao to tell it – he’s Fire Nation, he’ll know, and he doesn’t have an ulterior motive. Sadao isn’t sure – the story involves Kyoshi, and also makes him think of things he saw at the Siege of the North. Iroh tells the Water Tribes that the Fire Nation knows the sea too – they live on islands, and some clans even live their whole lives on ships. And, like the Water Tribes, some of those clans used to be pirates. Sokka’s insulted at the idea the Water Tribes are pirates, but apparently Chin the Conqueror rose to power defending the coasts from raiders… raiders not from the west. Even Toph knows this history, from old poetry. Anyway, there used to be lots of water-based clans, and some of them were really bad. They raided the Earth Kingdom for decades, and at the time there was no one to stop them – the Fire Lord was just the senior Fire Sage then, not an absolute ruler. The Fire Nation was a collection of warlords then; the Earth King begged them to stop the pirates, but the pirates didn’t follow any great name, so no one could. Until Kyoshi came. She tore through the Fire Nation, slaughtering all of the pirates, and then she blasted the coast with waves, wiping out entire clans. Maybe she didn’t know how many people her actions would kill… but they did. There were hundreds of thousands of deaths, maybe more. With the destruction of the water clans, much knowledge of firebending was lost. Then Kyoshi forced all the great names to swear loyalty to the Fire Lord, so one person would be responsible for the whole nation, except for exiles – and then she left.
For the rest of Kyoshi’s life, people begged her to take it back, but she never did. And after she died, Roku thought the whole world was just fine as it was and never changed anything. Meanwhile, the whole Fire Nation was going insane from being all bound to one lord and being unable to fight each other. Kyoshi destroyed their whole civilization without even meaning to. Who’s to say Aang won’t do the same? And that’s why the Fire Nation hates the Avatar. Iroh adds that for the rest of her life, Kyoshi insisted her only victims had been criminals who deserved it. But the Fire Nation never forgave and never forgot. Yes, what the Fire Nation has done since is evil – but the root of that evil is pain, and the knowledge that they are helpless before the Avatar. Hakoda thinks this is a warning, not a threat, and Iroh says that’s how he meant it. Zuko says that Aang is twelve, with no idea of the damage he could do. He knows Hakoda and Sokka are honorable opponents, and that Hakoda is one of the few leaders who hasn’t tried to use Aang for his own ends – he hopes Aang and Katara will listen to him. Both Hakoda and Zuko have lost people to the war, and they both know it – Zuko just wants Hakoda to teach Aang to think about consequences. Xiu releases that Zuko talks like a noble, and wants to know who he really is; he says she doesn’t. As they walk away, Toph confirms that none of the Fire Nationals were lying. If Toph goes to the Fire Nation, she can look at the rocks and see if the waves really happened. And she remembers her mom joking about Fire Nation ambassadors – too bad the sea didn’t get the rest of them. Huizhong, meanwhile, is about to leave to pass on a message from Hakoda to the army. Xiu asks him where she could find books about Kyoshi, and he tells her Ba Sing Se University. She promises the Fire Nation didn’t hurt her… they just broke her heart.
We end with an author note. A/N: In regard to "divine right" in the Fire Nation and Avatar Kyoshi's actions in regard to the Fire Lord... in this AU, divine right adheres to all the great names (daimyo).
Zuko's listing of Aang's injuries - check out "keraunomedicine" in Wikipedia. Lightning is nasty.
And Iroh and Jee's bit to Teruko last chapter? Trust me, that wasn't singing praises. That was a warning. From what I've read, there is nothing harder to keep alive under fire than a smart young officer. The slower ones, you can maneuver out of the worst danger. Smart ones think up plans nobody would consider, and then jump into executing them without double-checking whether a more experienced person would actually do what they're about to pull off.
Munkh Khukh Tengri - Eternal Blue Sky. The Mongol religion of Tengriism is still practiced along with Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia and a few other areas, and seems a reasonably good fit with people who have sky bison (the religion itself has the "wind horse" as an image of the soul, among other aspects).
Some example of the devastation of floods and tidal waves: 1642 in China, 300,000 deaths. 1887, Huang He River China, 900,000 deaths. 1931, Huang He River China, 3.7 million deaths. As for hurricanes and cyclones, on November 13, 1970, Bangladesh had 300,000 deaths; several other events there have killed people in the ten thousand to two hundred thousand range. Given the Fire Nation is all islands... oh, yeah.
A past reviewer brought up that, being an island nation, the Fire Nation really ought to be balanced between fire and water, not just fire. Yes. Exactly. Asia is full of "aquatic civilizations"; people who live in, manage, and harvest wetlands. We see one river community in "The Painted Lady", but it's obviously in bad shape. There should be more. A lot more. There should be people of the marshes, the swamps, the rivers; there should be people living on boats. They're not there.
There has to be a reason for that.
Also, given the Fire Nation is the dragons' homeland, and I imagine hatchlings spit sparks, it's most likely a fire ecology. Which also fits with wetlands. Most wetlands burn. On a regular, natural basis. And there are plenty of "subtropical forest" type of environments that do the same; check out the longleaf pine ecosystem of the American Southeast. Never mind the volcanoes; the whole Fire Nation probably goes up in flames on a timescale ranging from once a decade to once a year.
Fire ecologies are dynamic equilibriums. They have lots of disturbances; hurricanes, lightning, and fire being some of the most common. But over the long term and large scale, they are stable. Somewhere is burning; somewhere has just burned; somewhere will burn, soon.
If the people reflect the land, and their element... there is no way the Fire Nation would be an absolute monarchy. What they should be is a swarm of competing clans, going to war with each other on a regular basis. Aggression turned inward, not out.
And yes, in situations like that, you get pirates. Lots of them. Historically, the wako (waegu) of Japan raided all up and down the coast of China for well over a century under just those circumstances. The Emperor was not happy.
Canonically, Avatars are prone to overkill. And Kyoshi in specific seems to have had a short fuse. "How dare you defy your Avatar", indeed. And splitting off a whole island? What are the odds Chin was the only person killed, when Avatar-powered earthbending cut through miles of forest and farmland?
So. My take, in this AU, of the "darkest day in Fire Nation history". The hurricane came and went over a lot longer, but in those eight minutes, when Agni could not help... Kyoshi created the rule of the Fire Lord.
One of the scariest phrases, ever? It seemed like a good idea at the time.
There's one other thing about fire ecologies. Sooner or later, they will burn. And the longer fire is excluded, the worse the destruction.
MG’s Thoughts
Ugh, this is the big one. A lot of it is mostly stuff that would be decent enough if it wasn’t saturated with undertones of how much more awesome Zuko is than everyone else (we also get to the point here where we start seeing the idea that the yaoren are absolutely necessary for the Avatar to understand all four nations, and how the Avatar not having yaoren for the last several cycles caused all sorts of problems, which can’t help but feel like Vathara promoting her own creation at the expense of canon). And, while I’m pretty sure Roku would agree that he wasn’t a very good Avatar – he certainly seems to have blamed himself for letting the war get started, at least – we’re still stuck on the idea of him being obsessed with keeping the four nations completely separate just because. And also, that he wasn’t really Fire Nation because the Avatar never experiences loyalty. For one, this directly contradicts the moral of “The Avatar and the Fire Lord,” which explicitly makes the point that Roku was just as much Fire Nation as Sozin; for another, we’ll eventually learn that Roku never even knew loyalty was a thing (it’s already implied here) which considering loyalty isn’t just a cultural value but has direct physical and mental effects on people seems to… strain credulity at the least.
And then, we get to the big reveal – it’s all Kyoshi’s fault. Kyoshi committed genocide on half the Fire Nation to get at the pirates, Kyoshi was the one who wiped out so much firebending knowledge, Kyoshi was the one who created the Fire Lord and by preventing the Fire Nation from fighting each other, eventually forced them to turn their aggression outwards instead. Yeah. When I talk about the fic presenting the Fire Nation as the real victims – this is a big part of what I mean. And apparently the Fire Nation just has an inherent existential dread of the Avatar because of this (instead of, you know, opposing the Avatar as a direct threat to their plans). Though I will say, in light of what the Kyoshi novels will eventually establish about both Kyoshi herself and the state of the Frie Nation in her time, a lot of this becomes weirdly hilarious in hindsight (though even just from the show, I wouldn’t have said Kyoshi had a short fuse – she always came off more as “grimly determined,” really). I also have a very hard time swallowing the idea that the only way a country ruled by countless competing warlords could be unified would be by an outside aggressor forcibly imposing it on them – just looking at Vathara’s inspiration for her Fire Nation, Japan, does she really think China or someone came in and, like, forced Tokugawa Ieyasu to become shogun, rather than ambitious daimyo having fought to unify the country under their own rule entirely of their own free will? Or the countless other examples of this sort of thing happening elsewhere in the world? Does she really think “Apocalypse Kyoshi” makes more sense? I just… don’t get the idea here, save to make the Fire Nation the victims (along with making sure we remember the Water Tribes were pirates too, even though it’s completely irrelevant to the story).
Also, I know Zuko’s reunion with Asahi is supposed to be a big moment, but, like… I don’t think she’s been mentioned at all since the start of the Ba Sing Se arc. If Zuko’s been torn up about missing her… I don’t think that was communicated well, at all. Also, with the introduction of Tengri, this is where Vathara starts giving all the four nations, except the Water Tribes, real world gods to worship. There’s some slight justification for Agni, from Agni Kai, but only slightly (Agni is the Vedic fire god… but also just the Sanskrit word for “fire”). Adding the others… I’ll admit, it reminds me of one otherwise-solid fantasy series I’ve read, that just… directly ports medieval Christianity into what’s clearly a fictional world, without even bothering to change the names. I found it incredibly distracting there, and I find Vathara’s use of deities incredibly distracting here for the same reasons. Then again, this is my area in real life, so maybe I’m more sensitive to it than most people.
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Heh, in The Rise of Kyoshi, Kyoshi's first fight (before she even knows she's the Avatar) is against pirates, though that's not what most of the book is about!
And we only see the places the Gaang travel through. We only see one swamp (and it's nominally Earth Kingdom), we don't see any deltas, and we only see the Fire Nation river town that's downstream from industrial runoff, which is not a representative sample. For all we know, there's a whole slew of thriving aquatic communities elsewhere in the Fire Nation.
And I'll note that while Vathara acknowledges the village from "The Painted Lady" is in bad shape... the reason it's in bad shape is because their river is being fouled by the Fire Army factory next door. Not because of anything Kyoshi did hundreds of years ago.
I'll buy Water Tribe pirates, seeing as even the greatly diminished Southern Water Tribe can field a respectable navy, but first let's acknowledge that Earth Kingdom pirates are proven to exist and that pirates, like all such groups, raid weak areas and trade in strong ones. Chin may have defended his patch of land from them, but I'd bet my good shoes he also did business with them.
Yeah, the only reason the mention of Water Tribe pirates bugs me in this context is the way they seem to be brought up solely so we can understand the Water Tribe doesn't have the moral high ground here.