Avatar: The Last Airbender/Headscratchers/The Finale


 * Along with teaching Aang how to redirect lightning, couldn't Zuko have shown Aang the motion of creating lightning? Surely The Avatar would have the raw power to separate the energies and he's certainly not in turmoil.
 * He might have been planning to before Aang disappeared.
 * And how exactly is he going to teach Aang something that he himself couldn't get the hang of? Remember what Iroh said: If you get it wrong, you're pretty much dead. Zuko teaching Aang something that dangerous when Zuko couldn't get it right would've been grossly irresponsible.
 * Only failing at redirecting lightning is deadly. Zuko tried many times to shoot lightning and failed and all that happened was a small explosion in his face.
 * Avatar Extras says that only Ozai, Iroh, and Azula could shoot lightning.
 * When you remember Zuko failing to bend lightning in season two because of internal conflict, it's surprising that Azula was still able to do it after her Breakdown.
 * Someone on the Fridge Brilliance page suggests that creating lighting requires complete focus on something and that both "nothing" (what Iroh teaches Zuko) and "rage" or "desire to kill someone" count as "something".
 * Toph never taught Aang metalbending, and ostensibly Katara never taught him to heal. Lightning may be Azula's favorite weapon, but it isn't really the most necessary talent in most peoples' repertoires.
 * Every time he tried it literally exploded in his face. He could never succeed at creating it while training with Iroh, so how's he going to teach it?
 * Yes, but it came from his internal conflict. After he learnt Firebending without rage, he should have tried it. But Aang would surely have failed, for the same reason Zuko did before.
 * Shooting lightening is a pure kill move, Aang is a vegetarian pacifist. See the problem?


 * If Azula is so psychotically intent on killing Zuko, why the hell doesn't she just finish him off after she chases Katara away into the building? He's right there like a sitting duck, and she even takes time to taunt him while Katara is taking cover, which is quite a distance away. Katara also hides for quite a while. Azula has a perfect shot, being on a roof of a building, and would have had plenty of time and reason to make sure he was dead. I understand that she's lost her mind, but I would think that if someone was manically intent on killing you, they would make sure you were dead ASAP. Unless Katara can always bring people who died (from energy attack wounds) back from the dead...???
 * Making sure Zuko was dead ASAP would be the logical, rational decision to make in Azula's position, and at that point Azula is anything but logical and rational. She's a cackling madwoman during that fight, not the careful tactician.
 * Point taken. I guess I've been watching too many movies and games where ax crazy characters, heroes and villains alike, use their insanity to make extra sure their target feels their wrath and dies...
 * In fiction it tends to be more common for a psychotic villain to toy with their victims, often to their own undoing. Also, Azula is confused, to say the least.


 * Something that has stuck to me for a while... when Zuko was injured and Katara getting chased by Azula, Azula at what one point does this exagerrated salute at Katara, what was that about? I mean, the gesture was obviously meant sarcasticcally, but what is it supposed to mean regularly? I don't recall any specific movements that are meant show allegiance or respect being demonstrated, besides bowing or kneeling, and suddenly someone is doing something that looks like a cross between the American Salute and the Nazi Hail ( What? Go watch the clip, that is totally what she does). I guess she might have just come up with it on the fly, but if she had enough presence of mind to snark and verbally taunt the two, she would have enough presence of mind to pick a gesture that would have gotten the message of "I'm using this sign of respect mockingly" across clear enough to catch.
 * I thought that was just the start of the figure for creating lightning.


 * What about . Of course,.
 * Metal doesn't just evaporate when melted. In order to even melt the metal, Azula would need a very hot fire. And then the super hot melted metal would then drip all over her hands causing intense burns. Azula could have perhaps only weakened the metal by heating them without fully melting them, but her hands probably were in too awkward a position to accurately direct her flames.
 * We're told that lightningbending requires a state of calmness/inner acceptance/Zen/whatever, hence why Zuko couldn't do it for quite a while. But The implication is that you don't need to be good or evil to bend lightning, just able to accept where you are on the spectrum.
 * That, or Azula's just that good, which could very well be the case.
 * As a variation of that, maybe Sozin's Comet allows a bit of leeway when it comes to lightning
 * My interpretation is that the part of Azula's mind that's involved in lightningbending is calm, even while the rest of her is experiencing a meltdown, due to constant practice, which fits into the just that good theory.
 * I said this above, but I mention it again: Someone on the Fridge Brilliance page suggests that creating lighting requires complete focus on something and that both "nothing" (what Iroh teaches Zuko) and "rage" or "desire to kill someone" count as "something".
 * There's also the possibility that Iroh withheld the truth about lightning just like he withheld that he knew the true way of firebending. Iroh could have taught Zuko the dancing dragon and true, "not just destruction" firebending from jump. Zuko wasn't ready for it. He had to mature. I personally think that Ozai and Azula discovered the true way to generate lightning when they were crazy or enraged. Both instances have the same thing. Both people were feeling very strong emotion but they were 100% focused on a single task (killing their target). We've already seen firebending is about drive. If lightning is a pure expression of Firebending then it is likely a pure expression of the drive to accomplish a single task. The reason Zuko couldn't do it before because he wasn't 100% focused on a task. He wanted to capture the Avatar, he wanted to beat Azula, he wanted his honor back. His mind was all over the place.
 * Like the first person said she couldn't melt the chains without seriously burning herself. When she busted out of Toph's cuffs, she built up pressure inside super quickly by heating the air inside and the cuffs blasted off. Chains aren't rigid so that wouldn't work.


 * Katara appears to act the role of a second during the last Agni Kai, so wouldn't running out on the field been a disqualification on their part? Let alone that she's a waterbender getting involved in business between two fiebenders. Stepping within range of a fight period is a pretty retarded move, Azula was still kicking, Zuko was still in control of the match, they both were still chucking enough fire to boil her in whatever water shield she threw up, why just run right up like a toddler with scissors? I guess the guy that kept complaining that just being in Azula's presence caused the Gaang to pick up the Idiot Ball was right in the end.
 * First: disqualification? What about this duel adheres to any sort of rule system? A fugitive prince appeared out of nowhere to challenge his sister for the crown in a no-holds-barred battle that at least one of them considers a fight to the death. Neither of them are going to care about what might be grounds for disqualification in a normal Agni Kai, with referees and (presumably) some method to prevent accidental death. Secondly, Katara had gone into this prepared to fight Azula, who has proven herself one of the toughest opponents the Gaang has ever faced, in partnership with Zuko. When Zuko decides to fight on his own, of course she hovers nearby. She's worried about her friend! And getting closer means she can help if she needs to.
 * Yes, disqualification. It's still an official duel, because it's presented as a challenge explicitly as Agni Kai. That means it's under whatever the Code Duello is in the Fire Nation--and there's nothing to suggest that Agni Kais normally have a method to prevent "accidental" death--it's a duel where you're hurling fireballs at each other. Death is probably an implied, and expected, possibility.
 * If there was any disqualification, it was on Azula's part when she attacked Katara in the first place.
 * Katara cannot be Zuko's second. The primary duty of a second is to assume the duel challenge themselves if the primary party is unable to compete on duel day (like, if they fell and broke their leg on the way there or something). Ergo, she can't be his second unless she's potentially eligible to call an Agni Kai challenge herself if need be -- which she isn't, because she's not a Firebender.


 * When Sokka, Toph, and Suki infiltrate one of the Fire Nation airships, Toph uses metal armor to protect herself from the firebending. Shouldn't she have been badly burned since metal is a good heat conductor?
 * I think benders can control over the temperature of the element they're bending on some level. That would also explain waterbenders' ability to switch between ice/water and Azula's ability to switch between blue/orange fire as well.
 * 1: She kicked down a door (a pretty thick one, I might add) to make that armor. 2: She was hit by one fireball that lasted a second or two. Even comet-powered, that wouldn't do much. If that doesn't satisfy you, just file it under Convection, Schmonvection and Rule of Cool.
 * You're also not taking into account that that metal was on a Fire Nation airship. If the ship is powered by firebenders, it would stand to reason that the metal, which, as mentioned above, was very thick, would be designed to absorb minimal heat.
 * In the finale, couldn't Katara just have bloodbended Azula into submission instead of running around the palace until she found a chain? Even if she has objections to bloodbending, she's been shown using it when she really has to, or is really pissed off, such as against Hama and the retired Southern Raider captain.
 * She needs a full moon in order to bloodbend.
 * This Troper unfortunately realized the answer minutes after he posted that question, but it brings up another good point. How many freakin' full moons does the planet have per month? Seems like they happen every week.
 * Somebody did a count. 26 of the 61 episodes feature a full moon.
 * Hama mentions that the cycle is monthly. Chalk it up to simple background animation instead of dealing with a full lunar cycle.
 * The creators even lampshade the frequency of the full moon in the DVD commentary.
 * The whole series takes place over the course of something like 11 months. There's a lot of subtle timeskips too that aren't explicitly acknowledged. Like "The Waterbending Master" shows the moon as a thin crescent (I can't tell if it's waxing or waning because I don't know much about the moon), and the Siege of the North, the next episode, has it full, so there's at least a couple weeks if not the better part of a month between the two episodes.
 * She really hates the fact that she can and only used one other time in the whole series. Even then it was when she


 * During the whole series finale (Sozin's Comet) Aang has second thoughts about killing Firelord Ozai. Yet he does not hesitate to hurt, maim or possibly kill the crew of Ozai's air ship when he causes it to crash into a rock formation. (Not to mention that he most likely drowns any survivors when he extinguishes the fire with a cosmic amount of waterbending)
 * Also, when he was taken over by the Ocean Spirit. While the spirit seems to have been in charge, all of that power was moving through Aaang. He allowed himself to be used as the instrument of death for the entire Fire Nation fleet. No tears appear to have been shed.
 * The very first episode of season 2 dealt with Aang having nightmares about that specific incident.
 * The archeologist/scholar he and the Gaang abandoned in the sinking library of the Knowledge Spirit.
 * To be fair, the professor simply refused to leave. This troper likes to think that after Wan Shi Tong calmed down, he recognized a true kindred spirit in the professor and decided not to kill him after all.
 * It's probably unlikely that Wan Shi Tong would have completely filled the library with sand anyway. Just submerged it to seal it off. Though he's still a spirit, he does need a physical body for at least some things, so completely burying would have been extremely impractical.
 * While he did shoot the ship down, it went down fairly slow. The deaths were likely minimal, if at all. Aang's only shown a problem with killing as a conscious decision. Shooting the ship down the way he did gave the crew a chance. Also, he only raised the ocean for a minute at most, then put it back. He specifically has nightmares about the Ocean Spirit controlling him, so it's not like he doesn't care. Finally the archaeologist wanted to stay. Not Aang's problem.
 * There's also a shot that shows the crew of one of the downed airships huddled on top of it to avoid the water.
 * But there was that one time where he, Sokka, Katara, and the Mechanist launched a full-on aerial attack on Fire Nation troops, and if this troper recalls correctly there was one part where a bunch of Mooks fell off the narrow mountain path. Also, Aang doesn't say anything when Sokka blows up the entire bottom chunk of the temple and undoubtedly killed dozens. Or even when Sokka blows up Combustion Man. But worst of all is The Day of Black Sun. Aang not only accepts but condones and participates in a sneak attack where they plow through hundreds of Fire Nation Troops when they are virtually defenseless and where, had it succeeded, he would obviously be expected to kill Ozai. And he was psyched for that.
 * Possibly because while he'd trained and been re-assured by his friends and the last-ditch invasion plan that he'd have a shot at defeating Ozai, Aang hadn't actually confronted the reality of doing so. It takes until The Southern Raiders for someone, Zuko, to give him a reality check on the subject. And only after he'd spent the whole episode claiming that violence is never the answer.
 * The aerial attack used almost entirely non-lethal armaments as I recall. Something like a few explosives and mostly joke weapons like gunk and stink bombs. Also, Sokka killing people is an example of technical pacifism. Aang has a problem with killing personally, not with others doing so (so long as they have a good reason, hence his objection to Katara's revenge against the guy who killed her mother). The people he killed at the air temple would have destroyed it, and Combustion Man blew himself up. As for Ozai on the Day of Black Sun, Aang wouldn't have needed to kill him. He'd be a pushover without firebending. Just knock him out and deal with him later.
 * During the Northern Air Temple episode Aang was fully willing to dump tons of snow on soldiers marching up the mountain, which could be reasonably expected to send them falling to their deaths. If we accept the premise that Aang finds it more acceptable for someone to kill in his place when many lives are threatened that opens up the question of why he showed such total dislike of the idea of Ozai dying and didn't want one of the others to help him. Lastly, as Bumi showed, simply knocking out and restraining Ozai would solve nothing. As long as he has the ability to firebend he can potentially break free of any restraints and start killing again. Frankly it's much easier to assume that the writers simply put in the unwillingness to kill later on.
 * This troper always took it as a matter of murder vs. self-defense. It's one thing to be forced to kill someone coming at you, and another to actively seek out an individual to murder them dead.
 * Look at Monk Gyatso, when the Gaang found him, he was surrounded by dozens of firebender skeletons. Some of the monks probably had no problem with self defense.
 * I think it could be a bit of fridge brilliance in the fact that he doesn't think he's killing them. When he talks to Avatar Kyoshi and when Chin the conqueror falls to his death he says its his own fault. Aang beliefs that he is giving them a chance even if it's certain death. Technically he's still 'pure' because he doesn't belief he did anything wrong and only hesitates when he kills people on purpose.
 * In the episode after the one where Appa was kidnapped, when the team was fighting a swarm of vulture-wasps, one of them grabs Momo. Aang, in a bad mood not only gets Momo back, but kills the bird as it was trying to escape. It was definitely on purpose, so he lied to Avatar Kyoshi when he said he never took a life.
 * Well, he never went to check, so he might not have known for sure that he'd actually killed it. Alternatively, maybe he's talking about not killing people.
 * On the topic of Chin. Kyoshi doesn't think that Chin falling to his death was Chin's own fault, she accepts responsibility for killing him, as even if she didn't technically kill him - she was the primary cause of his Disney Villain Death
 * The reason Aang doesn't fret about killing all those people is because this is a kid's show and all the Mooks have Plot Armor. No matter how many explosions or crashes or crushing slabs of stone there are, not a single Fire Nation soldier dies by his hands (except Zhao, who really, really deserved it, and that was more Koizilla using Aang as, appropriately, an avatar). Hence, there's nothing for Aang to feel bad about. The real question is how anyone could watch a show on Nickelodeon and expect the 12-year-old hero to start killing people.
 * When Katara froze herself and Azula in the ice, why didn't Azula just melt it before Katara chained her up?
 * Because she couldn't move until Katara started chaining her. Bending requires at least some movement to work.
 * Though this troper recalls one time where she encased Zuko in an igloo-sized dome of solid ice and he just exploded out (first season finale). As Iroh said, fire is a breath weapon - if you're a powerful enough firebender, all you have to be able to do is breathe.
 * Zuko could move around in that dome, which is how he got out. He was almost helpless later when she actually restrained him. Unless Azula is an owl, she's not going to be melting her cuffs off that way. Plus she was crazy.
 * Zuko wasn't inside a dome, he was frozen against the wall. His head and hands weren't covered, so he could breathe and do a little firebending. Katara completely sealed herself and Azula in a chunk of ice, then exhaled and melted some of the water in the middle so they were both surrounded by it. You're right, all Azula needed to do was breathe, but she couldn't because she would've drowned trying.
 * Actually, before Zuko got frozen against the wall, there was a point in the battle where he was completely encased in a sphere of ice by Katara, but he still managed to blast free despite having injuries from the explosion that destroyed his ship and having just swam through freezing Arctic water. He was utterly exhausted but still managed to bust free, so it stands to reason that Azula could have done the same as well. It really didn't make any sense why she didn't, especially since her firebending was enhanced by the comet, making it likely easier to break free.
 * Zuko was encased in a hollow sphere of ice. He even speaks while in it. He could both move AND breathe.
 * No breath = no fire. Note that Zuko still had enough air to speak while in that sphere, while Katara and Azula were practically in an ice cube filled with water.
 * When Zuko was breaking into the Northern Water Tribe, he swam underneath the palace and was trapped under the ice, so he didn't have any air to breathe either but still managed to superheat his hands and melt through the ice. Azula could have done the same, seeing as how Zuko did so without any breath. So why didn't she?
 * Zuko could still move, and had the benefit of a teacher who trained him in doing that sort of thing. Azula was already batshit insane and completely immobile.
 * Note that Zuko had been holding his breath for diving, and was clearly breathing out for the firebending. With Katara's surprise attack, Azula had no time to take and hold a breath if she had just breathed out, and at least until Katara pulled her down to chain her to the grate could not breathe out because she was encased in ice.


 * I simply fail to grasp why Azula went crazy at the end. In her very first appearance, she threatened to kill her ship's captain for not docking when she wanted. She had to intimidate Ty Lee into joining her group (and could easily have killed her in the process). She never displayed any affection for Mai and Ty Lee or treated them as anything but minions. She always acted just as cold blooded to them as anyone else. So what on earth made her mind snap over the breaking of a nonexistent bond? Her previous characterization indicates that she would have just calmly tortured them to death (or just executed them right away) as an example and moved on. She's cruel (Zuko and Iroh would rather face certain death than be captured by her), cold-blooded (willing to murder her own uncle and brother), and sociopathic (she even admits that she's a monster). What could possibly have made her care about them at all? Did the writers just feel she needed a weakness?
 * She didn't care about them. Azula is all about controlling every aspect of her life. She trusted that Mai and Ty Lee could be controlled, not that they were her friends. She knew that Mai didn't like her, and expected Mai to do treacherous things. Mai betrayed her for Zuko's sake, and Ty Lee proved that she'd side with Mai over Azula any day (in Azula's head, anyway). Second, she's about perfection. In her first episode, she redoes a kata that was executed purposely, because one of her hairs was out of place (See also: Katara slicing her hair in the Season 2 Finale, and then Azula butchering her own hair in Season 3 finale). She strives to be perfect, by any means necessary. That's her Fatal Flaw. After Mai and Ty Lee betrayed her, she suddenly finds Zuko able to fight her to a standstill in every encounter they had, and then defeat her in the end. Third, Even Azula Loves Her Mama. And she always thought that her mother liked Zuko more than her. And as of The Boiling Rock, She knows that Mai likes Zuko over her. That opened up the mommy wound from the Beach Episode. So she connects all of this in her mind: Zuko's the reason I lost control over Mai, as well as the reason that mommy left me. Now Zuko is better than me, where did I go wrong, now my hair's not listening to me I can't trust anyone OMGBLARG!
 * ...I still don't get it. Going by your line of reasoning, the cause of all her problems and imperfections is Zuko, so shouldn't she just want to kill him even more (thus ridding her of imperfection)? I fail to see how "Zuko is the cause of my problems" translates into "everyone is untrustworthy, randomly banish innocent people". Shouldn't it be "I will torture him to death while laughing" instead?
 * She did want to kill him even more. In The Southern Raiders, she shows up in an airship ready to celebrate becoming an only child, and announcing her intentions in the hammiest way imaginable. Bonus: her facial expressions during that fight are much more animated than her usual blank slate. She's becoming unhinged already. And the fact that she pulls her hairpin out in the end continues with the hair metaphor mentioned earlier. Besides, it's not all about Zuko. Azula's a human being (even though she thinks she's a monster) and she's striving after perfection. She fell hard, and since she never failed before, she doesn't know how to pick herself up, so she naturally blames Zuko, who was just connected enough to her many issues that they all came crashing down on her at once. Zuko was sort of a catalyst for all this, not the cause in and of itself.
 * This troper thinks that, in addition to the aforementioned Zuko issues, it may have had something to do with Ozai's becoming the Phoenix King. With him in charge of the entire world, the position of Fire Lord is now kind of defunct...a governor, if you will, at best. It's not unreasonable to assume that she had wanted to be Fire Lord her whole life, and when she finally gets it, it doesn't really "count" anymore? Seems like that would push her just a little bit closer to the edge.
 * This troper thinks that you're on the right track, but there's more to it than that. Azula is Daddy's Little Villain through and through; she's dedicated her life to pleasing her father. Her Mommy Issues were all created because she acted sociopathically amoral and without love because Ozai taught her too, and she had how he treated Zuko as a contrast. And just when she thinks she's proved herself to him once and for all, that she's done everything right, he tells her that she can't come with him to the final battle, because she has to stay at home and basically be a governor. She's sacrificed everything for this man who doesn't seem to care about her much at all.
 * She always thought of them as friends, she just couldn't concieve of a way to deal with her 'friends' that wasn't based in control, fear, and domination, because she was raised by a sociopath with a raging Nietzchean Strong Rule The Weak complex and thought that was just how the world was. Look at the beach episode - the girl has no concept of how to interact with people other than crushing them with her iron, flaming fist. Once that stopped working, she had no idea what to do.
 * For me, what made this make sense is when she's talking to "her mother" and says that fear is the only reliable way to control people. Remember what Mai said: "I love Zuko more than I fear you." Azula has built her entire life around using fear to control others. And Mai just shattered her entire world-view. Fear isn't a reliable way. Azula has no reliable ways anymore. That's why she banishes everyone; she can't trust them because she can no longer trust fear to be a reliable means of control. And that's why "her mother" saying, "I love you" is what really broke Azula. Love, again, this thing she can't comprehend. Also, it's important to remember that Azula is still a teenager.
 * A young teenager at that. Despite her voice and actions making her seem older, she's fourteen.
 * Also, I like to believe that Azula's madness started with Zuko's treachery. I like to believe that, on some level, she wanted Zuko around. She appreciates him. She even loves him, to the extent that she can express that. Yes, she set him up with that whole "the Avatar is dead" thing, but remember: that's Zuko's fault. Zuko lied to her about the Avatar being definately dead; all Azula did was make sure that if he was lying, he'd take the fall for it. Remember, Azula was worried about Zuko when he kept going to see Iroh, possibly because she could see that Iroh was getting to Zuko. So when Zuko betrays her, she takes it very personally.
 * There is no "reason" that she went crazy - she just is. Always has been. Her mother even recognized that there was something wrong with her (as revealed in "The Beach," among others). Trying to figure out what "triggered" her break is wrong, like asking why a rock falls out of the sky after you throw it up. Azula is a rare fictional representation of psychopathy - she's not a "psychopath" the way we use the term generally, but the true clinical definition. It wasn't being betrayed by Mei or Zuko or anyone else that did it. It's not inheriting a now-empty title. It's certainly not being left at home. She didn't go crazy "at the end." She'd always been that way. Azula is - truly, literally and at her core - a crazy person. She's been one since her first appearance, and in the end she couldn't mask it any longer.
 * Er, wrong per Word of God. She was not just born with issues, she did not have a clinical condition. She was a sociopath because she was raised by one, and she went crazy due to all the repressed issues it caused.
 * Azula always had sociopathic tendencies, but she wasn't always totally insane. For most of the series, she was a smart and competent villain who never did anything without a reason. Then, in the finale, she started having hallucinations and banishing people for absurdly trivial reasons. She would never have come as close as she did to winning if she'd been that irrational all along. The question remains--what made her snap?
 * I think that is the easiest of all; the character sheet refers to her mass banishments as 'Macbethian.' That is exactly who she becomes, Macbeth. She started 'seeing daggers' everywhere, her meglomania blowing it all out of proportion to the point that, what seems rational to her to protect her crumbling world, is absolutely batshit insane to us. What made her snap? The fact that she realized she had no human connection that she could trust drove her into a self destructive paranoia. Snap.
 * These are interesting points, but this troper would like to add in something. In the Beach Episode, she sat there looking vulnerable and bothered by the fact that her mother thought she was a monster. A psychopath/sociopath, as this troper understands the concept, does not care about a lot of things, including people's opinions of them. So the question this troper would like to raise is this: if Azula is truly a psychopath/sociopath, then why would she care about her mother's opinion of her (Something that evidently occurred years ago, as opposed to a few minutes or seconds ago)?
 * Because Azula has feelings. Just because she doesn't show them doesn't mean they aren't there. The fact that she went insane is even more proof she has feelings.
 * One of the traits of a psychopath is immense egotism and exaggerated sense of entitlement, which requires that not only must Azula believe that she is superior to everyone, but also believes that everyone else must also do so. Azula might not care that mere inferior beings think less of her, but her mother, who is supposed to adore her, instead criticizes who she is and favors Zuko (an obvious inferior) over her. Then later on her father essentially casts her aside, meaning that in her own mind both parents refuse to see Azula as the god-child that she knows she is. Her entire mind-set and world view simply will not abide by that.
 * Sozin's Comet lasts only a day. There was no way, NO WAY, that Ozai's little fleet of airships could have burned up the entire Earth Kingdom in that amount of time. And they started in an area of virtually empty wilderness. Environmental damage notwithstanding (which Aang later demonstrated that he could have fixed with a couple of breaths), they wouldn't have even been within miles of any population center of any kind by sunset. Aang and co. could have just waited out the day, ambushed the firebenders that night when they were tired from a day of fire-based lumberjacking (and no sun), and taken out the lot of them, with less than 1% of the Earth Nation's land area damaged and not a single human being yet harmed by the fire barrage.
 * Yeah, it's militarily sound to burn down the land that your country spent the past hundred years' worth of time, money, and troops conquering because of a few petty revolts. They weren't trying to wipe out the people of the Earth Kingdom, just to show them that the Fire Nation meant business. Also, The blimps are powered by combustion, i.e. fire, and likely firebending. They probably get a speed boost anyway.
 * Everything said and done certainly suggests that Ozai meant full well to burn the entire region to the ground. This troper attributes it to Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale.
 * This has already been covered before. Considering Sozin's Comet lending a power boost, and with strategic burn-paths, the fire would have easily continued on and overwhelmed anything in its path. Just because Sozin's Comet would only last several hours, if that, doesn't mean that Ozai and the rest of the fleet would have stopped their attack nor would it mean the fire currently burning would either stop.
 * This incident shows just how bad wildfires can get, in terms of how long they can last and how far they can spread. In a circumstance where the Fire Nation would be specifically preventing any form of firefighting or evacuation efforts, and where they would be specifically setting high powered fires across the length of the country, the damage would have been devastating. Even if it had only stopped at Wulong Forest, it was large enough to sustain itself and spread across the western Earth Kingdom. As for the point, the land would still be there, and they could settle and cultivate it with purely Fire Nation people.
 * Besides, I think it's been made pretty obvious that the world of the Avatar is at least a little smaller than ours.
 * The same issue of timing could be applied to the "Day of Black Sun". The eclipse lasts 8 minutes! No one in their right mind would plan a military invasion of somebody's CAPITAL CITY with a window of eight minutes, even if they had an army of Terminators and air support from a fleet of B2's.
 * It's specifically stated that the invasion was all about getting into the city for Aang to spend said eight minutes beating the Fire Lord's ass. I'm pretty sure Second, they weren't in their right minds. This was a ragtag group's last-ditch effort, and the only chance they'd get to have a remote chance of winning. It was an all-or-nothing kind of battle.
 * This Troper will second the "not in their right minds" idea. What exactly were they planning to do assuming Aang did somehow defeat/kill Firelord Ozai? It's not like they would have defeated the Fire Nation forces, which would still be out there. They would have just been left dealing with either Firelord Azula or Zuko, both of which would have been enemies to the best of their knowledge.
 * In the finale, how did Zuko have the slightest idea where to look for Jun to use the shirshu and track Aang? More to the point, if, at the start of the finale, Sozin's Comet was three days away, how did they have time to get to that tavern from Ember Island, then to Ba Sing Se, THEN to the base with the airship fleet?
 * They flew overhead, looking for whatever bar had tough guys crashing through windows and onto the ground?
 * Don't be silly. They had her business card but the phone number didn't answer.
 * "Offscreen Teleportation"?
 * The bar Zuko finds Jun at is the same bar where he found her the first time. If you know where someone likes to frequent, its a logical first step.
 * White lotus showed some extremely poor strategic judgment in the Grand Finale. They went to Ba Sing Se, despite completely uselessness of its liberation. If Aang succeed Zuko will simply recall Fire Nation's troops from there, if he fail - then there won't be Ba Sing Se anymore. And its not like any Gaang faction have overwhelming power against Ozai, Azula or airships.
 * You honestly think that the Fire Nation troops would just kowtow to a sudden coup like that? Because that is what this is, despite Iroh's words. Zuko and Aang are overthrowing the Fire Lord, a militant figure who has been ruling the entire Fire Nation for most of his life and turning it into a fanatical army of fervently loyal soldiers - and Ozai is just the latest of a century of successive Fire Lords who've been doing the same thing. The FN troops in Ba Sing Se are not just going to lay down their arms quietly now that the Fire Lord has been deposed by his traitorous son; they've got to be removed, especially if they're receiving orders from Ozai regarding his "burn the world" plan and may attempt to follow through with them. If the White Lotus doesn't destroy the FN troops in the city, they may well start burning it to the ground, and considering Ba Sing Se is both the largest city in the country and the current home of vast numbers of refugees from the war, if the FN troops start burning it down it will do just as - if not more - damage than Ozai's air fleet.
 * Would they submit to Fire Lord Zuko? Well, what's their alternative? They either do what Zuko says or they never go home again. However, your point about stopping them from incinerating Ba Sing Se is well taken.
 * Well you're forgetting that they may also try to counter revolt and bring Ozai and/or Azula back to power? Sure one would be depowered while the other is mad but that never stops fanatics in the real world.
 * Why would they submit to Zuko? They're a large concentration of forces that are highly loyal to Ozai who is being deposed by his traitorous son, who are in a highly defensible position that withstood a century of war. They could easily hold out there and start a counter-revolt to reinstall Ozai.
 * Reinstall the guy with no Firebending? Reinstall the girl gibbering in a padded cell? As of the end of the series there are only two people of the royal Fire Nation bloodline who are physically capable of acting as sovereign, and they're both on the Avatar's side. Their rebellion has no claimants to back.
 * Monarchs always want to have more than one child, in case something happens to their first kid. Sozin and Azulon probably had siblings, so I'm sure that Ozai has cousins, second cousins, etc. who could claim the throne.
 * One, we don't even know if they exist. Two, if they did exist then they wouldn't have a military force capable of overcoming the Team Avatar alliance. Three, even if they did their hold on their troops is still based on adherence to Fire Nation traditions... which means that their rival claimant can simply call them out to an Agni Kai for the throne, like Zuko did Azula. With the fall of Ozai and Azula the list of Fire Nation citizens who can beat Zuko in a Firebending duel is now exactly one name long -- Iroh. Who... ummmm, yeah.
 * Yeah, you know the whole "no firebending" and "in a padded cell" thing? That happens after the battle is effectively over. Iroh and the White Lotus are old and wise, but they're not clairvoyant. They'll have no way of knowing that Aang is going to strip Ozai of his firebending or that Azula will go nuts. All they know is that there's a huge number of Fire Nation troops in Ba Sing Se, and they'll cause trouble if they're not dealt with, and may attempt to reinstall either Ozai or Azula. Ozai loses his firebending and Azula goes completely nuts after the Lotus made the decision to focus on Ba Sing Se.
 * Um, the White Lotus was entirely aware that Aang was going to take on Ozai, and Zuko & Katara were going after Azula. It was all part of a coordinated attack plan. The overall scheme assumed that all three mission teams would be successful... which, yes, is somewhat minus on "plan B", but its the last hour before the apocalypse and its all down to the band of plucky heroes to save the world, that's not exactly uncommon in such situations.
 * And? They didn't know that both Ozai and Azula would be left A) alive and B) be incapacitated. And regardless of whether Ozai or Azula survived and were left in a capacity to cause trouble, there is the fact that you've still got a large number of well-armed, fanatical and loyal soldiers in a fortified position that withstood a century of assaults by the most heavily-armed force in the world. They have to be dealt with at some point.
 * Ah, I think we're talking past each other. I entirely agree with you that Ba Sing Se needs a mission team to go after it and neutralize the forces there, I'm just saying that they did so with full confidence that the other two teams would also get their end of the job done and no further action beyond Ba Sing Se would be needed.
 * And is it so certain that a powerful fanatical warlord in charge of a powerful fanatical army entrenched in the world's most defensible city might not harbor certain ambitions of his own, or entertain the possibility that Azula might recover her senses after he rescues her from imprisonment, or even relish the possibility of reinstalling a powerless Ozai or an insane Azula as Firelord wherein he gets to rule as the power behind the throne? Or that the FN forces in Ba Sing Se might not immediately believe the news about Ozai and Azula and continue fighting?
 * There's also a certain psychological impact to attacking the Fire Nation army in Ba Singh Se during the Comet. The FN army is at its single most powerful moment ever, in the most heavily-defended city in the world, and they lose to the two-dozen-strong White Lotus. Entire divisions of Fire Nation soldiers and armor in an entrenched positions are being steamrolled by these guys at the peak of their power; that is going to be a massive hammerblow to their morale and make post-war resistance that much weaker. Taking down the FN army in such circumstances would go a long way to helping to secure the peace. Iroh is just looking ahead and beyond the war.
 * Aren't the Fire Nation planning to wipe out the Earth Kingdom, which would include Ba Sing Se? The White Lotus needs to be there to prevent the massacre in that city.
 * You guys ever heard of a power flux? You take out a leader of a very powerful, otherwise unrestrained, group of people, and they start going batshit insane. The firebending force in Ba Sing Se would've been -very- large, and they could have easily killed every inhabitant of the city in hours. A group of old people walking in and kicking ass would've been a very powerful deterrent.
 * In the series finale, Aang only needs to have a rock crash into his back to start the Avatar state. HOW? It was said by the Guru in the season 2 finale that Aang had locked his chakaras. How could being jabbed unlock his love chakara? I was expecting a scene where Aang has to let go of Katara, but no, there was no reason for this retcon.
 * In the season 2 finale, Aang DOES decide to let go of his feelings for Katara, he does so and is able to enter the Avatar state. Then Azula strikes him with lightning, which pretty much kills him, as well as locking his chakra. Him hitting that rock unlocked his chakra, which was locked because of Azula hitting him with lightning.
 * That makes sense, but wouldn't it hurt him more to have it jabbed (think how Ty Lee seems to disable people) and would simply make it worse?
 * I suppose it was just a big enough shock to the system to unlock the chakra again, I mean he hits that rock pretty hard. Its not the greatest explanaton I'll grant you, but hey, they had to unlock that chakra somehow...
 * It's actually common in a lot of mystic traditions for an initiate to, at some point in their initiation into whichever mysteries, receive a sharp blow between the shoulder blades (as a surprise, out of nowhere) to 'shock' them into a different state of mind. Obviously this troper could be reading into it too much. Believe I was first made aware of this in the 'Anarchy for the Masses: the Disinformation Guide to 'the Invisibles' annotation for said graphic novel.
 * Guru Pathik claimed Aang had to let go of earthly attachments (most strongly, his love for Katara) to enter the Avatar State. Avatars Roku and Kuruk fell in love with no indication that this was taboo or had a detrimental effect on their powers. Therefore, the Avatar is obviously able to love without it affecting his powers. Conclusion? Guru Pathik was wrong.
 * Not really. I think it's more of a realization that that love for one person isn't more important than the state of the rest of the world. If you recall, the scenario that played out was Aang running off in the middle of opening his chakra to save Katara instead of waiting 45 seconds to open that chakra and mastering the avatar state for the good of the world. It sort of showed what his priorities were.
 * Also, Guru Pathik was teaching him to enter the Avatar State by choice, and stopping the opening of the chakras halfway through was meant to cut him off from the avatar state entirely.
 * The rock jabbing Aang in the back works on pretty much the same principle as acupuncture, i.e. using a sharp poke to relieve a block-up of chi. The Chakra thing is from an entirely different tradition than Chinese metaphysics, and as such, it's more likely to be a different way of looking at chi, rather than the one principle on which the world works. Also, Pathik doesn't say Aang can't love Katara, only that he can't hold onto his feelings if and when he needs to put them aside. That's the difference. Also also, Aang probably did put his love for Katara aside when she blew him off during the play.
 * Not really answering the question, but you potholed Katara as The Chick?
 * Why do the Gaang say the war is already over in the begin of the finale? Ba Sing Sei might have fallen, but they know there are still many bastions of resistance out there, such as the northern water tribe, the northern air temple or the various earth kingdom villages. Aren't they worried about all those being conquered?
 * Because the Fire Nation can take them without as much trouble. Without Ba Singh Se, there's no truly organized center for the resistance. Note what happened with the Northern Water Tribe - the Fire Nation had defeated them conventionally over the course of only two days, and they don't appear to be either able or willing to project power. They probably also suffered massive manpower shortages after the assault. Without Ba Singh Se's armies, there's no one really left who can keep the Fire Nation's armies at bay, and the Fire Nation can free up their resources to take over areas that they would otherwise have not been able to capture with their main armies fighting at Ba Singh Se. Once Ba Singh Se fell, the war effectively became a mop-up and counter-insurgency operation.
 * Note that Katara doesn't say the war is over; she says that the war "was pretty much over." Implication there is that without Ba Sing Se, the Fire Nation is essentially mopping up everyone left who hasn't buckled under. There was certainly no military force (with the exception of the White Lotus) who could stop the Fire Nation air fleet from incinerating the Earth Kingdom.
 * In the final Aang is very conflicted over the idea of killing Ozai to end the war because it goes against his Thou Shalt Not Kill code, and that's fine I don't have a problem with that. But what I don't get is why does Aang have to kill Ozai? I mean why couldn't he just beat the guy and imprison him; it's not like fire benders haven't been imprisoned in the past.
 * We were meant to think that Ozai is simply too dangerous to imprison, and admittedly he is shown to very good at fire bending. The real reason was probably that the writers wanted to add some conflict and drama to the last season.
 * Ozai is too powerful to imprison, at least not without some serious work. The best prisons currently-existing in the Fire Nation could barely slow him down if he wanted to leave. Look at what happened with Iroh when he escaped from the royal prison; it was pretty obvious that he could have escaped at nearly any time, considering he apparently firebended the bars out and proceeded to One-Man Army his way through all the guards - and Ozai is more powerful. This is without adding that there's nowhere for them to actually imprison him, considering the Fire Nation owns pretty much the entire globe except for the Northern Water Tribe (remember, Aang doesn't know about Omashu's liberation or the White Lotus' impending assault on Ba Singh Se).
 * Aang could always stick him in a block of rock so he can't move and dump him off at the North Pole, should be pretty easy for the Avatar compared to the difficulty of beating him in the first place. Aside from that Aang did have at least some reason to think that Zuko might be in control of the Fire Nation by the time the fight was over.
 * I always thought Iroh was able to escape because the guards thought he lost his mind, I mean they didn't evern restrain the guy, plus didn't Iroh escape during The Day of Black Sun and only used his brute strength? Also to add to the post above me, they could probably place Ozai in a cooler like system like in the Boiling Rock episode.
 * It must have been quite the performance, probably backed up by Iroh's general persona, for them to see Iroh as the kind of prisoner not dangerous or important enough to put in the Boiling Rock. Mind you, having him broken out at the same time as Suki and Hakoda would give Zuko's reunion a bit too early; he needed to set his other relationships straight first, then go for the major one (who wasn't trying to kill him, that is).
 * Also, IT'S OZAI. Would you want to risk him having even the TINIEST chance of getting out and wreaking havoc?
 * Zuko implies that Iroh is more powerful than Ozai.
 * It's also a question a symbol. As Iroh states, the Avatar killing the Fire Lord, then crowning Zuko as the new Fire Lord is the only way to end the war. If Zuko kept Ozai in jail, he would quickly have to handle a civil war with Ozai's supporters.
 * Okay, but the Avatar didn't kill Ozai, so wouldn't his supporters start a civil war anyway? It's possible Ozai might've made (some) of his supporters lose faith in him, but how would they know ? Did Zuko & co parade him around, saying . And even if the supporters did somehow find out about it and thought Ozai was not a fit leader anymore, couldn't they have rallied around Azula, then? She was legally made Firelord by Ozai, and Zuko clearly staged a coup against her — this should've been enough of a reason for Ozai's supporters to demand for her to be put back in power. So a civil war would have been quite probable anyway.
 * Except the Avatar is involved. Ozai's supporters, what's left of them, would have to deal with the fact that this immensely powerful being that they know kicked the living crap out of their leader when he was as strong as he could ever get, would be all up in their business if they tried to start anything--think of how powerful Ozai and the other firebenders were under the comet. The fully realized Avatar can drum up that kind of power at will. Open rebellion against the Firelord that the Avatar appointed would not last long once said Avatar found out about it.
 * Also, Zuko didn't actually stage a coup against Azula. She challenged him to a duel for the title of Firelord and forfeited the duel when she attacked Katara. Forfeiture counts as a loss, so Zuko won the duel and the right to be Firelord.
 * I always assumed that the main reason that a de-powered Ozai isn't a threat is that the Fire Nation seems to have an Asskicking Equals Authority mindset; every high-ranking officer we've seen has been a Firebender, and usually a powerful one, at that. It's entirely likely that a non-Firebender wouldn't even be considered eligible for the throne, much less have enough support to claim it.
 * Given that 'losing an Agni Kai challenge' appears to be one way by which the royal succession can be passed, and a non-Firebender would automatically lose one by default, we would seem to have canon support for the theory that the Fire Lord must be a Firebender.
 * Near the end, when all the nations are gathered to hear Zuko and Aang's speech, we see The Duke hug Toph. I could understand if he likes her or they like each other, but nothing about that was ever explained before or after! I doubt it was just a friendly hug because he was eight or so and I don't think he would be giving girl a friendly hug.
 * She puked in his helmet. At his suggestion. Bonding.
 * This answer is awesome.
 * Maybe it was just a spur of the moment thing - they knew one another from the invasion, were on the same side, and they had both survived the war; 'impulsive hug of having not died'.
 * The G rated version of "Glad to Be Alive" Sex, in other words.
 * The only female character the Duke regularly hung out with previously was Smellerbee, and so he probably forms a natural attachment to driven, rugged girls like that. Out of all his new friends, Toph's presence probably grants him the most comfort because of her tough nature being so similar to that of his freedom fighting buddies.
 * Wait, are you saying that it couldn't be friendly because he was eight and... therefore he must have been attracted to her? When did YOU start puberty?
 * I don't understand some people. I always saw it as a friendly "Yay! We did it! We're alive! We won!" and hugged her. He likely would've hugged anyone he knew out of sheer excitment, and Toph just happened to be there.
 * This is a few weeks after the war's actually over. That said, don't look for logic in shipping. There's at least a few out there that have cataloged every single time Zuko and Katara have so much been in the same geographic area and will claim it is stone cold proof that they're the real OTP.


 * What was the point of having the past Avatars tell Aang to off Ozai if the writers are going to hand Aang a solution on a silver platter anyway? Why not have them say, "Yeah, Ozai is crazy dangerous and keeping him alive is the worst possible move you can make(on account of them not knowing about energybending), but your moral well-being is more important than the safety of the world. By the way, we're sitting on a Lion Turtle, talk to him and he'll tell you how to stop Ozai without killing him."
 * Presumably, the other Avatars he spoke to simply didn't know any more than Aang did where they were or that Energy Bending even existed. From what the Lion Turtle said, it was something like Greek Fire, ancient, but nobody knows about it anymore; maybe if he'd gone further back, to one of the first Avatars, they might've been able to clue him in. As for why they did it, Rule of Drama. Aang does waver on the decision even after he's given energy bending, and comes very near to offing Ozai anyway while in the Avatar state before he gains control over it.
 * He does more than waver. Aang has taken his past lives' advice to heart, and fully intends to kill Ozai until the very last second, when he chooses not to. It's written all over his face. The spirits give Aang deliberately vague advice, which he interprets as meaning he has to kill the Fire Lord, but that's just a matter of perspective. Advice is just that: words of advice. In the end, Aang makes his own decision, not a decision someone else told him to make.
 * None of the Avatars explicitly state that Aang has to kill Ozai. Aang simply takes what they say as meaning he has to.
 * Completely Missing the Point much? Whether they told him to or not is completely immaterial.
 * Look at how this discussion started. "What was the point of having the past Avatars tell Aang to off Ozai..." So yes, whether they told him or not is material to the discussion. Furthermore, none of them said to kill Ozai. Roku says "You must be decisive." Kyoshi says "Only justice will bring peace." Kuruk says "you must actively shape your own destiny, and the destiny of the World." Yangchen says "selfless duty calls you to sacrifice your own spiritual needs and do whatever it takes to protect the World." None of them outright tells him "Screw your principles and kill the bastard."
 * "Yangchen says "'selfless duty calls you to sacrifice your own spiritual needs and do whatever it takes to protect the World.'" Isn't that just a paraphrase of "Screw your principles and kill/do whatever you need to get rid of the bastard"? Besides, the juxtapositioning of the scenes and statements for most of these makes it obvious that they're implying he should kill Ozai - Roku: "Yeah, I screwed up because I couldn't be decisive about ending Sozin, and you can't just imprison the dude, so yeah...". Kyoshi: "So I more or less killed Chin. Only justice will bring peace." Kuruk is a derp, and I don't really know what insight Aang was hoping to get from him, honestly... And Yangchen pretty much says "ends justify the means, even if you don't feel it's right." I dunno, I thought it was pretty clearly implied that they were saying "do what you need to which is probably killing" as a response to the question "How do I avoid killing Ozai?" And if they were aware of Energybending, they're jerks for not telling him, "o hei it's the solution to all your problems!" Especially because they're kinda on the Lion Turtle at the time. But then again, there's a precedent for previous Avatars to be kinda dickish about information (Roku, I'm lookin' at you...).
 * They're all giving him advice that relates not just to how they think he should deal with Ozai, but how he should act as the Avatar in general. Roku tells him "be decisive," Kyoshi tells him "bring justice," Kuruk tells him "be active and shape your destiny", and Yangchen tells him "your duties as the Avatar is more important than your spiritual well-being". While at least some of them definitely think he should kill Ozai, that's because at the time it seems like the best solution, since there's absolutely no indication they had any idea about the lion-turtle or spiritbending (remember, it predates the Avatar). As to why they have this scene, I think it's because, as a children's show, they can't actually have a 12-year old murder a man in cold blood, but they wanted to have the themes it would have represented (self-sacrifice, the greater good, etc.), so they put in that scene.
 * So according to Iroh, a brother killing a brother to take the throne would simply look like a power grab, whereas Zuko swooping in to defeat Azula at her coronation and seizing the throne will look perfectly acceptable?
 * Iroh had no way of knowing that Azula was being crowned Fire Lord. At that point, she was basically just another threat to the world that had to be taken care of.
 * Zuko wasn't really there to sweep the throne. He was there to challenge and defeat Azula, securing the Fire Nation and eliminating a potential successor, while the Avatar defeated Ozai. Without the Avatar deposing Ozai, Zuko's actions would have looked like brother vs. sister power grab, whereas with the sanction of the Avatar, it becomes far more legitimate.
 * As far as the world cared, Ozai was Fire Lord, not Azula.
 * Azula: a cold, cruel, careless Firebender girl whom Zuko grew up with. After seeing her become a psycho-killer with messed-up hair, dilated eyes, and Slasher Smile, wouldn't you think he should at least be surprised by this? When they fought again on the blimps, he didn't seem to really question her sudden change in personality-- I mean, did you see her crazed face? Anyway, before he fights her again in an Agni Kai during the Finale, he simply states "There's something off about her. I can't explain it, but she's slipping." Then, right at the end of their battle with Azula chained up, she starts throwing a tantrum meltdown. And Zuko just stares with no specific reaction. Uhh, Zuko, your younger but crueler sister has had a breakdown-- You've known her all your life! Aren't you even going to wonder what the Hell has gone with her mind?
 * Yes, he's known her all his life. That's why there's no real reaction from him. He knows Azula is insane, so her breakdown is not terribly shocking to him.
 * Agreed. Zuko didn't see her breakdown coming, but it didn't surprise him, either.
 * And the stare was a specific reaction, as it was pretty much a 1000-yard stare accomponied with him dropping his arm to the side. He's feeling pretty much ill watching this.
 * Wouldn't the fact that it was Katara rather than Zuko who defeated Azula be totally against the rules of Agni Kai? Shouldn't there be huge protests against Zuko grabbing the throne from Azula, since he never really defeated her in a legitimate way?
 * There's three witnesses to the whole thing, and one of them is frothing-at-the-mouth insane. If you want to get really technical, Azula cheated first by attacking Katara anyway.
 * An Agni Kai is a duel of honor. There's most likely a rule against aiming at innocent bystanders. In essence, Azula forfeited by doing so. Because she agreed to the duel in the first place, when she could have easily said "no" and zapped him to death where he stood.
 * Yeah, it's possible that Azula forfeited by attacking Katara, but the fact remains that Zuko did not beat Azula, which I assume would be the minimum requirement for winning the title of Firelord through an Agni Kai. The writers should have made the rules of Agni Kai clearer, because now there's no way knowing what they would say about a situation like this. Anyway, if there are no witnesses, shouldn't there be even more protests against Zuko's entitlement to the throne? Think about it: the Firelord is beaten up by her dishonoured traitor brother and his Water Tribe friend (the Water Tribe being an enemy of the Fire Nation) in shady circumstances, while their Avatar buddy beats up the Phoenix King in an equally shady fight... You'd think that in a situation like this there'd be plenty of folks in the Fire Nation army who'd remain loyal to Azula and/or Ozai, and claim Zuko has no right to become the new Firelord?
 * You know what happens when you forfeit? It counts as a loss. Azula lost the Agni Kai against Zuko, so Zuko was the winner. And there were witnesses: The Fire Sages that were going to crown her Fire Lord. Just because they weren't on-screen doesn't mean they vanished into thin air, you know.
 * I do know it, but my point was that we don't know enough about the rules of Agni Kai to say that attacking a bystander means you automatically lose. Even if it's against the rules, it could only mean you have to do a rematch, especially since Katara broke the rules too. So it would've been nice if the writers had bothered to explain the rules (by having one of the Fire Sages quote them, for example) so we would've actually known whether Zuko legitimately won the title of the Firelord, or whether it was just a coup.
 * In real life, forfeiting a duel counts as losing, so it's not unreasonable to assume that they use the same rules in the Avatar world.
 * Also, someone needs to claim the empty throne, and I doubt the Fire Sages would crown Azula, given her being literally foaming at mouth insane.
 * The other Agni Kai we saw showed it was a Man to Man (or to girl) Firebending battle. Anything beyond that is cheating, thus losing. She attacked Katara, the referee or something. That should count as cheating in any kind of honorable duel, which the Agni Kai is.
 * As pointed out above, Katara cannot be Zuko's second (she's not a Firebender, therefore she cannot Agni Kai), which leaves only 'referee' or 'audience' as her potential role. Both of those are protected persons, so attacking them would forfeit an honorable duel.
 * Anyone who's read A Song Of Fire And Ice knows "honor" is all well and good as an ideal to strive for, but it's secondary to making the practical decision and not putting an insane and vicious 14-year-old on the throne. No matter what the rules of Agni Kai are, if the people don't want a paranoid nutbag to arbitrarily banish them, they'll chuck notions of "honor" out the window and support the person who isn't rolling around on the ground and screaming like a crazy person.
 * Comets are made of ice. Why would a dirty snowball from space enhance firebending, of all things? Sozin's Asteroid would make more sense.
 * Two possible explanations: Either the fact that the dirty snowball is burning up in the atmosphere and releasing heat, or that A Spirit Did It.
 * A giant ball of ice burning up as it passes through the atmosphere releasing massive amounts of heat has a lot of symbolic value that could contribute to the spiritual power gain it gives firebenders.
 * This was discussed elsewhere: Most likely, it's not literally a comet, but an Earth-grazing fireball.
 * This troper likes that theory, but her personal theory is that the Avatarverse works differently than ours does. Maybe for them, fire can burn in space and comets are made out of actual fire.
 * What did Zuko do with Azula after Katara chained her up? Along side Aang removing Ozai's firebending this was the only surprise that was left in the story andit just didn't get resolved. The two answers I have thought that won't require another series are:
 * In a fit of uncontrolled and unrestrained rage Azula burns herself to death from the inside. Literal Nightmare Fuel?
 * Toph (or another highly skilled Earth Bender) makes her a particularly secure prison.
 * As has been said many times over: Word of God is that Azula was put in an asylum where she is very carefully watched.
 * I'm surprised that no one has said this yet, but why was everyone so worried about Sozin's comet and its effect on Firebending, and the relation of that to Aang's fight with Ozai? Did no one realize that the comet would increase Aang's firebending as well?
 * Because if Ozai is more powerful than Aang without the comet, he'll be that much more powerful with it.
 * 2x10 = 20. 100x10 = 1000. That's why.
 * In "The Old Masters," June is right. The whole "Nyla is running around in circles because Aang no longer exists" thing _is_ a real headscratcher. IIRC, explanation for Nyla's talent isn't given, so my theory for how it works is this: First, Nyla smells around to "see" if the person she's tracking has been there before, then follows the scent trail. If the person being tracked _hasn't_ been there before, she smells the other people nearby, in case they already have the scent on them. She then tracks the scent trail of the second person until she finds the trail of the first. Obviously, she doesn't have some sort of laser-tracking, instantly-detect-scents-from-miles-away super sense, or else she wouldn't need to go everywhere her trackee has been. So how does her sudden panic mean that Aang doesn't exist? This troper's theory is that June is lying.
 * Or you can assume that being on the Lion turtle simply erased his scent because of spirit mumbo-jumbo.
 * I think the Wiki states that the lion-turtle is so ancient, and has drifted around to so many places, that it's smell is so heavy, and such a mix of various smells, that it completely masks Aang's scent.
 * Why doesn't Iroh re-take the throne at the end? He's had a lot of time to change from the glory-seeking General he was in his younger days to a calm, reasonable authority figure. Wouldn't he be better to lead the Fire Nation into peace, rather than Zuko, who still solved all his problems with violence in the end?
 * You mean besides all the reasons that Iroh gives when he's asked this exact same question on screen during the Finale?
 * I thought those were just his reasons for not facing Ozai.
 * They still apply to him taking the throne: The world would have seen it as just one power-hungry brother taking power from another. That, and he's really old and tired of everything. He felt it was time for a new generation to start fresh.
 * Also, the Earth Kingdom probably would have had a problem with Iroh taking the throne - he did used to be a highly successful general for the Fire Nation. By having Zuko take the throne, Iroh ensured that future negotiations with the Earth Kingdom would go much more smoothly.
 * Am I the only one who thinks Zuko's claim that "he might need some help" fighting Azula is basically an informed inability? Before learning the secrets to fire bending he has been shown to fight on the same level as her (without the lightning bending ability). Now add the new found knowledge and the ability to redirect I don't see why Katara was needed.
 * Zuko hasn't yet the tested his new knowledge against a master firebender, so he can't know for sure it'll give him the edge. When it comes to firebending skills, Azula appears to be second to only Ozai and Iroh; for what we can tell, Zuko has never won her in a match. So it makes sense he would be wary.
 * Besides, he might have been able to fight on the same level as her, but that's certainly not a guarantee that he'll win. Remember The Chase? Where the Gaang, Zuko AND Iroh all gang up on her and she holds them off, and escapes by surprise-attacking Iroh? Azula is (or rather, was, but he has no way of knowing) too Genre Savvy to expect her to fight fair and square.
 * Why did Aang have to fight Ozai during the comet? Would defeating him (or Azula for that matter) do anything to stop the fire blimps? Quite frankly, there was no need to go up against the rulers at the time, and Aang, Katara and Zuko may have done better to stop the Fire Nation armies instead.
 * And you think Ozai was just going to stand and watch? Ozai was leading the charge to torch everything. If you don't stop him ASAP, that just gives him more time to set the Earth Kingdom on fire. Aang had to fight Ozai during the comet because that's when Aang found Ozai. If he could have found and fought him earlier (which he couldn't, being in a trance on a lionturtle), he would have.
 * Plus, even if he did have nothing to do with it, whenever there's an insane warlord, you generally want to make sure he's no longer a threat.