Some sketches from a vague lok au of bnha where Izuku is a non bender equalist who takes the revolution in hand when Stain (Amon) is outed to be a fraud water/blood bender, Ochako and Inasa are air monks, Todoroki is the avatar, son of a rich fire nation nobleman and a waterbender from the northen tribe and bakugou kiri and mina are,, pro benders i guess
whatever your opinion about aang not killing ozai, I think we can all agree that ozai would have literally rather died than live the rest of his life as That Guy Who Got The Shit Kicked Outta Him By A 12-Year-Old Pacifist Monk.
me: aang is a very powerful avatar and the fact that he was able to mostly-master all the elements at such a young age means he would be a terrifying opponent!
also me: avatar roku’s spirit spends at least 30% of his time haunting ozai, slapping trash can lids together & yelling “you got beat up by caillou”
Sometimes I think about the fact that there is exactly one time that we hear someone express surprise at the fact that Aang–the Avatar– and his companions are children. And it’s in the second episode, from Zuko:
From an out-of-universe perspective, this makes sense. And it wasn’t something that surprised me when I was a ten-year-old in 2005 when A:tLA first aired. One of the tenants, I think, of adventure children’s television is that there is a degree of wish fulfillment. Children want to be taken seriously as agents, and so it makes sense from that vantage point, that everyone takes the Gaang seriously as agents except the person portrayed as an antagonist.
But, I think this also makes sense, heart-breakingly and unlike other children’s adventure television, from an in-universe perspective. This is a world ravaged by bloody, bloody war for a hundred years. A world in which child soldiers are commonplace. We see countless examples of this throughout the series:
When we meet Sokka–fifteen-years-old and in-charge of security for his village–he is training small children to be soldiers. This is played off as something of a laugh, but if Aang hadn’t returned in the second episode, I think we’re supposed to think that Sokka very much would have tried to lead these little boys into battle.
Jet and the Freedom Fighters, who practice guerrilla warfare (fairly successfully) and regularly raid Fire Nation outposts, are children. Jet, who I think we are supposed to assume is one of the eldest of the group, is sixteen when he dies (according to the Avatar wiki).
The Kyoshi Warriors are one of the elite-most fighting force in Avatar World, eventually taken seriously by the Earth Kingdom military and given military jobs. And the general of the Kyoshi Warriors, Suki, and the eldest member of the group (again according to the Avatar wiki) is fifteen. She can’t have always been the eldest member. I’m willing to bet the older women are sent off to war, and Suki becomes the eldest member and the leader by default. (Much like Sokka–probably why they connect so well).
In Zuko, Alone, the soldiers in the village threaten to send Lee off to join the army at the front, and based on the mother’s reaction, and what we see of him when he’s tied up, this doesn’t seem like an empty threat, and it’s probably not the first time this has happened to children in the Earth Kingdom in villages like these.
I could go on.
So of course, after living in a world of child soldiers like these, no one is going to bat an eyelash to learn that the Avatar–perhaps the ultimate non-Fire Nation soldier–is twelve-years old, and his companions aren’t much older. When Aang starts to bring this up himself to Yue, for instance, Yue doesn’t seem to understand. He’s the Avatar, he has to save them, she insists. Who cares if he’s a child?
But the Fire Nation Army isn’t filled with child soldiers. It doesn’t need them. Fire Nation children are in school. It is adults that make up the Fire Nation Army.
And, (with the exception of Azula and her gang), when we do see a Fire Nation child attempting to take on the role of an adult member of the military, he isn’t taken seriously. (E.g. Zuko, and the way Zhao brushes him off.)
So of course it is only Zuko, who grew up in the absolute center of the Fire Nation, and, though he is banished, hasn’t really seen much of the reality of the war until he meets Aang, that looks at the Avatar and remarks in surprise that he is a child.
(If anyone is interested, I wrote a fic that deals with a lot of these themes. It can be found here.)
Avatar live action adaptation’s costumes and set designs are gonna be stunning if the original show is any indication. I’ve compared show’s existing designs to their real-life inspirations. If they take some creative liberty, like how Game of Thrones did with its costume designs, I think it’s we’re going to get a visually stunning show, at the very least.
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1) Traditional Korean Crown & Fire Lord Headpiece / Hall of Supreme Harmony Interior & Original Fire Lord’s Throne Room
2) Inuit Clothing & Southern Watertribe Clothing / Korean Winter Headwear & Northern Water Tribe Headwear
3) Thai Clothing & Fire Nation Clothing worn by Azula & Katara
4) Qing Dynasty Soldier & Earth Kingdom Royal Guard / Qing Dynasty Official & Dai Li
5) Archetypal East Asian ‘Fairy’ & Moon Spirit Yue / Geisha & Kyoshi Warriors
6) Traditional Chinese Armor & Fire Nation Armor / Forbidden City & Ba Sing Se Palace
7) Tibetan Monks in Traditional Robes & Air Nomad Robe / Bhutanese Buddhist Temple & Air Temple
8) Manchurian Qipao & Ba Sing Se Upper Ring Clothing / Yellow Crane Tower & Fire Temple
1. I mentioned in the first installment of this AU that Zuko never went through the kind of transformation of thinking that he did in canon, and so has never been forced to acknowledge what an abusive monster his father was and how the Fire Nation’s war of conquest has hurt the world. This is a major source of conflict between Zuko and both Toph and Iroh early on. With Iroh, this is similar to canon, in that after Lu Ten’s death, Iroh took a long hard look at the ideology his son died fighting for and began to believe the conquest was wrong, while with Toph, this is somewhat more complex. Toph is from the Earth Kingdom, but Gaoling was mostly isolated from the war, and her wealthy family kept her further isolated from the effects of the conquest. That doesn’t mean that Toph didn’t hear and see some things on the way to the Fire Nation. She knows the Fire Nation tried to conquer the world. She knows her country was invaded, and she knows that the Fire Nation lost the war. The Fire Nation was in the wrong here, obviously. Meanwhile Zuko is a boy who lost his father, was forced to take the throne as a puppet, and then after he got free from that, forced to marry a thirteen year old girl. He feels like the wronged party here, thanks.
2. Their early marriage, with Zuko’s long-term affair not yet an official thing, and Toph much too young to consummate any kind of marriage, with both of them feeling like the wronged party, and with Zuko unwilling to acknowledge that the conquest was wrong (and therefore possibly going to restart it once he has some leverage) is near nonstop fighting. When Toph isn’t running away, she’s running to Iroh, something Zuko bitterly resents. Iroh is many things to Zuko, the man who tries to convince him that Ozai was not the father Zuko wants to pretend he was, the man who tries to teach Zuko that the war of conquest was wrong and tries to force Zuko to acknowledge painful truths, sure, but also another father for Zuko for the three years of his exile, and Zuko is jealous of their closeness. It’s an ugly tangle of emotions there for a while.
3. Ozai and Azula are both dead at the hands of the Earth Kingdom, which makes it much harder for Zuko to find Ursa. In a desperate bid to try to make Zuko see some sense about his father, Iroh tries to find out what he can about Ursa’s disappearance. He discovers that she is banished, and her marriage to Ozai severed, but she was never executed. He gives this information to Zuko, and Zuko takes Mai to find her. They do find her, and Ursa is able to get her memory back, and she is able to tell Zuko exactly what Ozai was willing to do to get power, and just how little he loved his son. This breaks through some of Zuko’s denial. The war is harder for Zuko to come to terms with, since it ended so badly for him personally, but slowly, ruling the Fire Nation and seeing the damage the war did just to the Fire Nation, and how the promise of helping the Earth Kingdom came to nothing, and how this was all to bring the world under the control of men like his father and grandfather, Zuko slowly comes around.
4. One of the real barriers to Zuko acknowledging the Fire Nation’s fault for the war is just how terrible his year as a puppet was. His father was killed, he was captured, he was dragged home as a prisoner, and surrounded by Dai Li and Northern Water Tribe soldiers, he was crowned and kept imprisoned in the Firelord’s rooms, hauled out and placed on display whenever something needed to be signed or any kind of official function was held. When his sister tried for the crown, he had to watch her be killed in front of him, before he had to escape his own palace to find his uncle and fight his way back in with the support of the surviving remnants of the Fire Nation army. None of this is an experience that inclines Zuko to listen to anyone.
5. The end of the war did not involve the Southern Water Tribe. Hakoda was
left out of the invasion, so the puppet government was entirely run by
the Earth Kingdom and the Northern Water Tribe. The Southern Water
Tribe has languished since in a state of isolation and poverty.
1. Toph is, much to Zuko and Mai’s utter chagrin, the Fun Parent/Step-Parent to all of their combined children, and by this I mean she is one of those irresponsible adults that all the other adults tell kids don’t count as adult, and it doesn’t matter if she gives permission. Why Toph, why do you have to be this way, Zuko and Mai (and every single servant in the palace) ask after she helps Izumi and Lin build a mud slip and slide in the hall with the Firelords’ portraits.
2. She adores her daughter and step-daughter, and when the girls are young, the feeling is mutual. But as Lin and Izumi grow up… They are very different from Toph, and both feel the pressure of their position acutely. Lin is the Firelord’s oldest legitimate child, and Izumi… Izumi is the heir presumptive, and being groomed to take the throne. Both on some level bitterly resent Toph’s refusal to act the part that the Firelady should, as both of them have been forced, along with Mai, to take on that role themselves because of it.
3. Suyin is much younger than her sisters (or step-sister in Izumi’s case, but she is supposed to be Izumi’s sister) and both too little and too much like them. She is stubborn and willful, like both her sisters and her mother, but also defiant and enjoys breaking the rules, like her mother, but not like her sisters. And then, unlike any of them, she is sneakier and charming. It drives Lin especially up a wall.
And Toph… Toph thinks it’s funny.
4. The fact that Toph isn’t very good with Lin and Izumi doesn’t change the fact that she loves them and they love her. It just makes it much much more difficult.
5. Aside from the woes of mutual parenting, Mai and Toph get along very well. They bond over their similarly awful families, and anyway they’ve known each other since Toph was thirteen. Mai is the older, cooler sister figure that Toph both loves and is jealous of.
1. The avatar did not awaken. Instead, the Earth Kingdom army and the Northern Water Tribe invaded on the Day of Black Sun and overthrew Ozai. Zuko’s ship was captured soon after, and Iroh put in prison. Zuko was put on the throne as a puppet monarch. Zuko has not had his redemption/recovery arc, so he is still a hostile snarly, anxious unhappy twerp, only now Ozai is dead, and Zuko is free to lionize him without having to face the reality of who Ozai really was. Also Iroh is in prison in the Earth Kingdom awaiting execution, and Azula is running around making everything about a hundred times more difficult.
2. Azula makes a bid for the throne, persuading a group of Dai Li and disgruntled Fire nobles to back her. At the same time, Iroh escapes and makes his way home. Somehow this ends with Zuko still on the throne, Iroh safe, and the Dai Li at least out of Zuko’s court. But the other upshot is that Zuko needs to marry an Earth Kingdom noble in order to prevent another invasion. The Bei Fongs manage to luck out as the family to garner the most backers in he Earth Kingdom, so their thirteen-year-old daughter is escorted to the Fire Nation by her mother and several regiments of the Earth Kingdom army.
3. Zuko takes one look at her and marries her just to get her away from the people who are willing to marry her off at thirteen. Consummation of this marriage is not going to happen for a looooong time. But Toph might be a frightened child, but she would never let that show. She keeps running away. Not back to her parents as might be expected, just away, to the wilds of the Fire Nation, to the inner city, anywhere she can get to. She bends the glass out of her windows, she tears up Zuko’s mother’s garden, the only person who can really get her to do anything is Iroh, and now he has two intractable, bad tempered teens to look after, and Zuko is now even less willing to listen to him now that he’s got a crown.
4. Eventually, the two of them settle into a siblingish relationship, and Toph eventually grows up to realize no body here really has a choice, so she’s going to have to just deal. She still absolutely despises everything involved with being Firelady. Also Zuko resurrected the prewar custom of official concubinage when Mai accidentally got pregnant, and Toph is careful only to take firebenders as lovers.
5. Doesn’t matter. Both her children are earthbenders, even Lin, who is actually Zuko’s. Izumi, his acknowledged bastard, has to take the throne. The mess that is the royal inheritance at this time very nearly touches off a civil war, and a couple of islands do break away and declare Lin their queen. Lin has to go down there to knock some sense into them.
1. Katara would kill Azula. Katara’s anger burns very close to the surface, and not only does she tried to kill Katara, and succeeds in killing Zuko, which itself is an emotional blow, but she has done so that brings to mind how she killed Aang. Besides this, she has just proven how dangerous she is again. I think Katara would kill her. When she freezes her, she just leaves Azula that way to suffocate.
2. I go back and forth over whether Iroh would take the throne if Zuko were unavailable. In this case, I think he would, because he would want someone he knew very well leading his home country, now that two of their royals died so close together. So he would take the throne, devastated at the lost of his second child, and of his niece.
3. Because Iroh is an old childless widower, he would have to either appoint an heir from within his family, and right now family is thin on the ground, or remarry a younger woman and try to have children with her. This leads to a search for a suitable woman. He might settle on Mai, who would be mourning Zuko as well, so at least they share that, but I think he would try to look for an older woman, by which I mean older than Mai, in her twenties or thirties , who has been known for her political opposition to Ozai.
4. Iroh ascending the throne would be diplomatically very tricky, because not only is he in mourning again, but also, he is a war criminal and a boogy man to the Earth Kingdom. Aang and the rest would have to work hard at smoothing this over and pushing the changed man view of The Dragon of the West.
5. Because Aang was able to spare Ozai and Katara killed Azula, Aang would probably feel a certain level of disapproval of Katara’s actions. Their differing morals with regards to killing would be something they would have to work through. I think they could though.
I don’t think Katara would have guts to end Azula. She most likely
would injure her to the point that she make Azula disabled, but not kill
her. If she spared man that killed her mother she would spare Azula
too, but at that point Azula most likely would have her arms and legs
broken. If she kill her she most likely would have serious emotional
trauma. It would hinder greatly her relations with Aang.
I
also don’t think Iroh would take Mai (its your fan fantasies) as her
wife after Zuko’s death. She is too young for him, also her father is
known Ozai supporter. So in fear that Ozai could return to power he
would choose something else.
Being unable to go through with a premeditated revenge murder is not the same as being unable or unwilling to kill in the heat of battle someone who has already proven to be an extreme danger, and who has just killed a friend of yours in front of you. Those are very different things that require very different mental capabilities. Actually disabling someone the way you describe takes more planning and forethought, and more calculation. If anything, Katara might find that harder in the moment. Afterwards, killing Azula may well be extremely traumatic for Katara, and would definitely stress her relationship with Aang. Dealing with that side of herself might be very difficult. That doesn’t mean I don’t think that in the moment she would do it.
Calling something my fan fantasies is insulting in the extreme, which I’m sure you know. I mentioned it as a possibility, not because either Iroh or Mai would care for the idea, but because it might be the most politically savvy option. Mai has court connections through her parents, through Azula, and through her own time spent at court as a companion of the princess. She is a noble, and she has been to prison for opposing Azula, which can be spun as protesting the conquest. Also, Iroh is old and has to face the very real possibility that he could die before a child of his is old enough to take the throne. So he has to look for a spouse who isn’t just a suitable wife, politically speaking. A much bigger consideration for Iroh is would she make a suitable regent while any child they had was under age. He would, in short, be looking for a successor much more than a wife. Mai is a possibility for this. However, as I said in my initial headcanon, I think it’s more likely he would pick someone else with similar political pluses, but whom Iroh has a better idea of their views. He may even be looking among other nobly born political prisoners for his spouse, i.e. someone in Mai’s situation who is not Mai, who is older, who he is more certain of, and who doesn’t have the connection to Zuko. Again, calling something my fan fantasies is a lovely way of denying I have thought about it any more than necessary to decide it appeals to my id, which it doesn’t, as it happens. It’s insulting and dismissive.
Cheloneuniverse 