masterghandalf

Toph, the girl who regularly snuck out to get into fights, is acquainted with Shame. Pull the other one. Landlord's daughter or no - and given what it takes to consider merchants respectable the Beifongs pretty much have to be landlords, not merchants - she can't be all that concerned about her honour.

(I'm also not sure how invested Toph would be in defending her parents reputation, given why she left. You can love someone without thinking particularly well of them.)

'War is a grand thing, let's have more of it!'

And we're supposed to think the Water Tribes are kooky...

'Dragons are predators.'

So is Aang. He just happens to be the sort of predator which questions the morality of predation.

In all fairness, Roku didn't actually blow the island up, he just remodelled it. Blowing it up would have killed roughly all of them five to seven times over. Pyroclastic flows are not toys!

I'm not sure anything that adopts a small human as easily as those badgermoles did is 'just' an animal, but then Appa understands human language so what do I know.

As a large predator myself, I can safely say the primary limiting factor on territory is administrative capacity. Now, I will freely admit that the Romans were unusual, but I dare say the Fire Nation should have at least their level of administrative capacity. I am also fairly sure the Fire Nation is smaller then the Roman Empire.

(I also think Vathara is assuming that since all the petty lords are fighting each other all the time, anyone who does try for more then their 'fair share' will find their land getting snaffled from behind them. Total nonsense since delegation is a thing that happens, but I can see the premises that lead there.)

I think that if Aang fleeing Zuko's ship was such a massive breach of propriety, Zuko would have spent the entire first book complaining about it.