can we just talk about how smart zuko is?
like because he wasn’t as powerful a bender, he trained with weapons, which he then incorporated into his bending?? that’s cool as fuck! and it’s pretty much the only time we see a fire bender do this (aside from iroh’s fire whips)
also, as far as i know, him and iroh are the only benders that can breathe fire (or i guess the only ones who thought of it?)
and! zuko doesn’t just rely on his bending, he’s a great swordsman and hand-to-hand combat fighter!
not to mention, he’s an excellent tracker and is adept at stealth, and has a ton of random (but useful) knowledge
he inflitrafed TWO highly guarded military prisons, and freed people both times!
basically i think his fire daggers & fire breathing are cool as fuck
920 notes
·
View notes
"One thing you will unfortunately have to combat," Iroh says, slowly walking a meandering path around a pond, Aang walking beside him, the both of them moving at a similar steady pace. "Is that far too many people of the age believe that the will to harm, and ruthlessness as a whole, is a sign of maturity."
Aang sighs, tilting his head up towards the stars. His expression is solemn, his face young, and his eyes unbelievably old. There is wisdom there; wisdom from a century ago, and echoes of wisdom even older than that, going all the way back to the foundation of the world.
The wisdom of the Avatar is something built from pain. The pain of past lives, the pain of countless generations that will not learn or are made to forget, the pain that comes from a thousand sources. The world is locked into an endless cycle, he thinks, and that cycle turns on pain.
"I think too many of the world's problems today," Aang says, in the soft and steady tones of one who is stating a fact that he ill likes, but does not ignore. "Is that people keep saying things like 'harmony and spirituality don't matter, all that matters is that we do whatever it takes to get what we want'."
"Indeed." Iroh stops, turning and looking at the water. His eyes seem younger than the Avatar's. For a moment, they almost glow with dragon-flame, or a mirror to the sun. It's a different sort of fire than that burning in most of his countrymen these days.
"I'd guess Sozin thought something like that, back before I went into the ice," Aang says.
The grandson of Sozin nods somberly. "It's one of the great illusions we see in these days," Iroh suggests. Something in tone implies that he may be thinking out loud; wondering, pondering, guessing at things that he cannot definitely say for sure. Pain, and uncertainty; that is the hallmark of the world today. "Thinking that because you are a different one from your enemy, that doing the same things as them doesn't carry a risk of repeating the harm they bring, because its you doing it, not them."
Aang nods. He is silent, for a time, and then he speaks. His words bear the weight of a great distance, and Iroh knows that he has made some kind of a connection, or an old fear. "Do you know the death toll of the Fire Nation navy at the battle of the Nothern Water Tribe?"
"Yes." Iroh gives Aang a concerned side glance. "Do you?"
Aang breathes in deeply. He looks down, calmly, at his hands, and his expression is tired, and looks older than he should.
It was not his will that happened there. He was the channel, that was all. Through him, the Ocean Spirit did as it willed, as was its right.
Nonetheless, it was his hands that had carried the deed. It was hard, to remember it, to accept it.
"Yes," the Avatar says simply.
Iroh is silent, and waits for the Avatar to speak.
When he does, he gives a heavy sigh. Aang continues, "I know that in the future, people are probably going to write about the... the Ocean Spirit being wrong. That it was vicious, or cruel, or that it might have attacked the Water Tribe too if things had been just a little different. Judging the Ocean by human attitudes, by the way humans have to be."
"And what do you think?" Iroh asks.
"That the Ocean Spirit isn't human," Aang says. "That the spiritual rightness of humans doesn't apply to the Ocean. Something like... our ways are not their ways. And in any event, things like how abstaining from the slaying of another liberates people from the ties of the world, or the flow of pain in the world... I don't think that CAN apply to spirits, at least not the world-defining ones like the Ocean. They are what they are. Their natures are tied TO how they are a part of the world. It's not really about making a moral decision for the Ocean Spirit. It's simply doing what it does."
"And as humans, it is our duty to seek harmony with the spirits, and the nations of humanity," Iroh says, stroking his beard; he strikes the image of an old master, and together with Aang he looks the part of a master and pupil. And yet, it is the reverse; there is so much he does not know, and that Aang does. He is the student, and the young man the teacher. "If the Fire Navy had not attacked with intent of conquest, they would have lived, and the Ocean Spirit would have no need to take retribution."
There was a certain way to things; if one wronged a spirit, it had to take retribution. It was like a pendulum; if you pulled it far enough back and let go, it would have to swing the other way just as far. It was simply the shape of the world. It was human error to attribute human morality to gravity moving the way it did. And it was greater human error to expect the most ancient and mighty spirits to abide by flawed human belief that the nations were fundamentally separate.
Aang's expression was solemn. For a moment, a thousand lifetimes of understanding shone forth, and beyond that there was an intelligence far older than that; the world itself in human form, regarding itself.
It was a look of sorrow. Sometimes that was the only response to human foolishness.
37 notes
·
View notes