You wouldn't like me when I'm Aangry: Avatar Thread pt XLVII
 

Now featuring 100% more horrible puns!

Yeah, bringing down the Fire Lord made a lot more sense when they had the Earth kingdom's military as backup. Now, I mean... the Fire Kingdom has spent a hundred-plus years as a highly militaristic society, they're hardly going to topple over like the Earth kingdom did.

I guess if they were in a position to install a successor who would be both 1. accepted as legitimate, and 2. willing to withdraw the Empire, and there's not a whole lot of likely candidates for that job. Even then you've got a big question of where exactly all those legions of soldiers are going to go once the army gets disbanded.

Oh, come on. Read the last paragraph again, think of all the characters, specifically the most popular one, and think.

My humble opinion is that while the attempt to defeat the Fire Lord during the eclipse will succeed, princess Azula will unleash some ungodly continent-spanning blue-firebending hyphen-written madness on Aang & the gAang during the coming of the comet.
This would give her dominion over pretty much everything.

Let's hope I'm wrong.

Well, the last major Earth Kingdom stronghold(Ba Sing Se) may be gone, but that doesn't mean that all of the Earth Kingdoms military vanished. The remnants are poking about in places across the whole Earth Kingdom, so the Fire Nation needs to sweep in and burninate them when the comet comes. Along with that there's the Northern Water Tribe that needs to get squashed, the Northern Air Temple that needs to get squashed, and the MINOR strongholds that they ignored until after Ba Sing Se's fall, such as where that one General dude was stationed in the Avatar State.

Aww man, I was going to make a new thread called "ClAang the Goong Slowly:" and some subtitle or other...guess I'll have to wait a few days to realize my most recent dream.
I think that the Avatar world has merely moved from World War mode to a more "Empire v. Rebellion" mindset. The entire world is still dead set against the Fire Nation, the comet's power could be the short lived Death Star-equivalent needed to finally eradicate the most vocal and visible rebels and throw everyone else into a state of "Oh, might as well succumb then" depression.

Personally, I want to see how the DoBS plays out, which I believe will be by episode 10, although that's a guesstimation based on the preview, but I'm even more interested in what Bumi's actions are going to be. He was obviously not worried about the Fire Nation's stay, and if Omashu shows that the Fire Nation can be bucked, that's a pretty big rallying cry.

For all the blemishes so far this season, the main theme of Book 3 has been that the Fire Nation is made up of a sizable population who aren't particularly well off/appreciative of the militaristic path the fatherland has taken. Only the royals and the military have been shown to be extremely nationalistic; taking out their Lord and adding a more benevolent substitute wouldn't be an inconceivable end to the genocide train.

my original theory was that Zuko would have some redemption thing then when the fire lord is taken out, he becomes the new fire lord and stops all this war crap. Although with his latest angst it still seems possible, I find Iroh a more likely successor.

almost scary how much that reminds me of modern day America

I'm guessing Zuko's going to flip out soon and run away. Not to change sides, more to have some time to think. I'm guessing that, before the invasion episodes, the gAang will end up being challenged to a game of pai sho and they'll just go and do something like "Oh we only have this one." and show the white lotus coin/tile/thingy, which will cause the other person to take them to some secret reunion of the white lotus society...With the invasion being a gigantic coup planned by Sokka and the white lotus society.

Of Fire Nation royalty I can think of there's

- Azula, who's even more conquest-hungerin' kill-crazy than her dad

- Iroh, who the Fire Kingdom holds to be a disgrace, a failure and a traitor

- Zuko, whose legitimacy goes to shit as soon as the Avatar turns up walking around and not dead at his hands.

In terms of a leader who the military / ruling elites won't outright revolt against, I'm not seeing a likely candidate. I mean I love Iroh and all but he's like the Ahmed Chalabi of the Fire Nation, nobody's ever going to accept him as Fire Lord.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure most of the PEOPLE would be okay with Zuko as the fire lord exactly because he DIDN'T kill the Avatar. Of course, the military would go nuts against him.

I dunno, as far as the broad populace there's the dance-party-ep strata of society who are too invested in the system to be willing to oppose it, and the lake-spirt-ep strata which are just too beaten the fuck down to be physically able to oppose it, so it's hard to see either as much of a factor. And in any case it'd be one thing if Zuko were actually some sort of credible opposition leader, but as some guy who (as far as the broader society will know) just told the public a bunch of horseshit about killing avatars to get his foot back in the palace door, even whatever anti-government people there are won't think he's worth shit.