attackfish:

Continued from: [Link] and: [Link]

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. 

But the Avatar is about to awaken…

attackfish:

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.