deliverusfromsburb:

I know Zuko is a disgraced and banished prince, but I still think that general was imprudent to taunt him the way he did.  For one thing, the situation royal families find themselves in can change quickly, particularly in wartime. What if he regains his father’s favor? What if his other relatives died, leaving him the most likely candidate for the throne? Now you’re in a position where your new leader is the guy you talked trash to. Also, just because the fire lord himself is happy to be a dick to his son, I’m not sure that means he wants others to follow in his example. After all, if regular members of the army get the idea in their heads that they can be nasty to or even try to kill one member of the royal family, who says they’ll stop there?  Rulers have to maintain a position of feigned invulnerability. If the common people break through the layered cultural illusions and armor and see you’re just a dude sitting on a throne, they’ll have a much easier time knocking you off of it.  Allowing them to harass one of your kids damages that facade.  Plus, it’s not like you’re going to look super tough beating up on a kid.  It was just a bad idea all around.

So anyway yeah I’m going to be That Bitch again and be back on my bullshit about cartoon politics and strategy.  I assume all of you are used to this by now, although who knows, maybe there’s one ever hopeful person still sitting somewhere going ‘why can’t they just announce which cartoon characters they think are hot like the rest of us’

I want to see more of fire nation politics bc something seems funky about it. Why banish an heir but leave him alive? That’s just begging for trouble that’s why successful invaders would wipe out as much of the family as they could find. No one can launch a counterrevolution later (via deliverusfromsburb)