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== A-C ==
* [[Abduction Is Love]] - In the historical form of bride capture. Played straight by the Water Tribes according to Sokka, and by the Earth Kingdom according to the Dai Li (when it comes to spiritually strong 'desert witches' for the Earth King's bloodline), but inverted in the Fire Nation, where it's a woman that ambushes the man with 'three cups of wine and a [[Red String of Fate|red cord]].' In both cases, it's implied to ideally be ceremonial, basically part of the marriage process or a proposal (Iroh's wife proposed in this fashion), but Teruko [[Black Comedy Rape|jokes]] about doing it to [[Double Standard Rape (Female On Male)|Sokka]], since he's prime stock, and given the Northern Water Tribe's feuding traditions and all three groups' cultures, it's probably been nonconsensual often enough.
* [[Achievements in Ignorance]] - Invoked. Toph states that some of her best stuff is because no one told her she couldn't do it.
* [[Adorkable]]: Zuko, oh so very much.
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* [[Distressed Damsel]] - {{spoiler|Amaya,}} leading to a CMOA for Iroh.
* [[Disproportionate Retribution]] - Chin Village doesn't just go after Aang on Avatar Day. Kyoshi Island folks are advised that if it's a choice between Chin Village and racist, potentially war criminal Fire Nation troops, head for the troops.
* [[Don't You Dare Pity Me!]] - The Fire Nation: Iroh specifically says this is one of the reasons they don't talk about {{spoiler|Kyoshi or loyalty sickness.}} Zuko also says that Katara would try to rip his heart out if he ever dared pity her, and [[In Love With Your Carnage|it kind of sounds like a compliment.]]
* [[Doom Magnet]] - {{spoiler|Due to wounds sustained in the defense of Ba Sing Se from a horde of spirits, Shirong is cursed: unlike other Dai Li, he works alone because terrible things happen to his partners. One of the reasons he lets himself get attached to Lee may be the relief he feels when he realizes hanging around him couldn't possibly make Lee's luck any worse.}}
** According to [[Vathara]], any member of Sozin's line is also considered this to some extent.
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* [[Enemy Civil War]] - {{spoiler|What Zuko believes will happen when Ozai dies, especially if Azula takes the throne.}} He is knowingly {{spoiler|making this more likely by creating another Domain outside of the Fire Lord's control}}.
* [[Even Evil Has Standards]] - {{spoiler|Azula. errifyingly evil enough that Vathara posts a warning every time she makes an appearance. Still horrified by [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|what the Air Monks]] [[Brainwashed|and onmitsu do]] [[Getting Smilies Painted On Your Soul|to people they get their hands on]].}}
* [[Everyone Is Related]]: The Fire Nation are always concerned about the family trees of each budding couple and avoiding inbreeding. Usually it's to prevent awkward individuals like Zuko or dangerous people like Azula. And since benders can sense their element in ''nationalities'', they can easily tell if a foreigner has some of their own nation's blood in them, and that often clues them into who may be a distant cousin of who. Sometimes, these are even [[Wham! Line]] worthy.
* [[Everything's Better With Princesses]] - All the members of Aang's nakama are nobility, and Kuei attributes part of his success to this.
* [[Evil Plan]]- It's too early to say for sure, but given the fic's track record for foreshadowing, the current state of the cycle, Aang's ignorance, {{spoiler|the blunders of the recent Avatars, the extinction of the yaoren and the swift deaths of any new ones, what Yangchen did to turn the Air Nomads into the 'Air Monks',}} and almost the current state of the world may be consequences of {{spoiler|Koh the Face Stealer's vendetta against the Avatar, especially since characters have often wondered about what it would take to get vengeance on or get rid of the Avatar. To kill the Avatar would require ending the cycle of rebirth, for one thing, and having humanity, or as much as possible of it, be actively seeking to destroy the Avatar too could only be a good thing.}}
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* [[Honor Before Reason]] - Or rather, honor for very good reasons. Is it death before dishonor if {{spoiler|a firebender betraying their lord caused their inner fire to go out, killing them?}} Of course, {{spoiler|it's not 100% fatal.}} The same thing applies to Earthbenders who break contracts, Waterbenders who abandon the tribe, and likely Airbenders who abandon their teachings.
* [[Hot for Teacher]] - In Chapter 33, Toph briefly considers Aang/Katara as an example of this trope. {{spoiler|Then in Chapter 37, she breaks Sokka's brain by mentioning it.}}
* [[Hot Skitty
* [[How Do I Shot Web?]] - {{spoiler|Zuko with Waterbending, Shirong and Jinhai with Firebending, and}} Especially Aang with shamanism :
** Aang's inability to sense or discern the intention of dangerous spirit activity and ingorance of each nations' supernatural bonds has gotten him flack from all sides( thanks to freezing himself before Gyatso could fill him in on the powers & expectations of the Bridge Between Worlds).
** And then he has to deal with the totally ''inhuman''. Some of which make Hei Bai's ''angry'' form look like the peaceful panda.
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{{quote| Sokka: I believe in the kid who was smart enough to trick Katara into penguin-sledding. Who was crazy enough to ride the Unagi. Who had the guts to save Zuko - man, I can't believe you saved Zuko! - instead of letting Zhao grab him. That's what's really going to save the world. Sure, we need plans and weapons and benders strong enough to stop the Fire Lord. We need to fight. And it's not going to be pretty. But after that? We need ''you''.}}
** As of chapter 46-47, {{spoiler|it's pretty much proven that Koh has become so frustrated with humans avoiding, averting, or defeating his attempts to destroy them all that he's decided to use a historically unstoppable super-volcano to do the job this time.}}
* [[I Thought Everyone Could Do That!]] - Zuko's assumption when he hears that the water tribes {{spoiler|trim their nails}} without [[Absurdly Sharp Blade|obsidian knives]] is that either they have some metalworking trick the Fire Nation doesn't or bone knives might be better than he thought. He doesn't realize that there's anything special about {{spoiler|having fingernails steel can't cut, or any of his other signs of draconic ancestry.}} It's pointed out in the Author's Notes that people tend to judge normal by themselves and what they can do. Sokka's accuracy with Boomerang is another example: {{spoiler|he's been using his chi to fight all along without noticing it}} even though he thought only benders could use chi. Aang also had no idea that other people had problems with temperatures below freezing, since Aang's perfectly capable of sleeping on snow without ill effects.
* [[It Runs in The Family]] - Most members of Fire Nation royal and Byakko family are highly paranoid and agressive. They are also prone to sociopathy. {{spoiler|Dragon blood tends to do this to people.}} It's hitned that it may be a case with many other Fire Nation clans.
* [[Idiot Ball]] - Detractors accuse [[Vathara]] of handing this to the Gaang.
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* [[Remembered I Could Fly]] - {{spoiler|Ty Lee is a non-contrived example. The prospective consequences of Zuko's survival drive her into such desperation that she [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|remembers how to Airbend]]. First order of business? Gale-blast everything in Zuko's direction.}}
* [[Rescue Romance]] - Played with for {{spoiler|Iroh and Amaya.}}
* [[Ret
{{quote| "when I started writing this story, I didn't intend it to be nearly as AU as it turned out. But then I got into researching exactly what sparks off genocides in RL, and what usually has to happen first. And then wondered about why water was the only healing element, and how that might be balanced if all the elements are supposed to be necessary to the world's balance. And then the bunnies tied together Koh, and Wan Shi Tong, and a few other things..." - Vathara AN Chapter 37}}
* [[Retired Badass]] - Iroh, {{spoiler|who comes out of retirement, and announces it by [[Shock and Awe|smiting an Earth Kingdom general.]]}}
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* {{spoiler|[[Shoot the Medic First]]}} - {{spoiler|According to Yue, there are spirits who think that humanity should be wiped out. They're doing it by taking out (by proxy) the healing benders first, since they're a vital component of humanity's ability to defend itself.}} This is probably why everyone except {{spoiler|The Northern Water Tribe}} has lost their {{spoiler|healers}}.
* [[Shoot the Dog]] - Part of a growing schism between Hakoda and several Kyoshi Islanders; Hakoda is horrified that Langxue, a waterbending child, was tossed into the ocean when his flash-back to his family's death threatened to destroy the boat he was on. Understandable in that his tribe is more likely to hunt than fish, plus the obvious lack of benders, and it is less likely that a similar situation would have come up in living memory, so his love of his daughter and quasi-religious respect for water benders make talk about them being a threat from failing to control themselves less than effective. The deaths caused by the island's neutrality do not help his sympathies.
* [[Shout
{{quote| [[Star Wars]] "Only Imperial Firebenders are that precise."<br />
[[Dragonheart]] "Though the tales say that when it comes to humans, they prefer to only chew in self-defense."<br />
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** {{spoiler|This seems to be a trait common to dragons. They played target for Avatar Kesuk's rage and Shidan plans to do this if a spirit is involved in one of his people's disappearance in Hama's village. Technically he'll be doing it twice as if any supposed spirit is strong enough to to defeat him then it is a threat to the entire Fire Nation.}}
* [[The Determinator]]: Zuko and {{spoiler|his previous incarnation, Kuzon, who didn't let even death stop him from trying to find and help his friend.}} Chapter 32(?) has both Sokka and Toph agreeing {{spoiler|Aang needs to learn how to do this.}}
** The Yaoren {{spoiler|are chosen and [[Near
** Embers also implies another reason for Zuko's determinator status: {{spoiler|his [[Half-Human Hybrid|prey drive]]}} which (luckily for Aang) seems to stop after the {{spoiler|Search, Eye-stalk, and the Chase aspects, whereas Azula prefers the Kill Bite.}} Aang might also have intuited that Sokka's description of Zuko's behavior {{spoiler|"He was hunting us."}} in Chapter 34, seems a little... off. (But not inaccurate.) {{spoiler|Aang's different preconceptions about what hunting means might be helping him out in this case.}}
* [[The Four Gods]] - Given that the blue dragon is her symbol in the original series, Azula, the female version of Azulon, likely does mean Azure Dragon: the Azure Dragon is associated with the East, which would explain the opposition to the Dragon of the West, Iroh. To that Embers adds Byakko, the White Tiger of the West as Kuzon's {{spoiler|and Ursa's}} clan name and domain. It is unknown if Suzaku or Genbu (the lion-turtle of the north?) will feature in the fic. Byakko is associated with the season of autumn and the element of metal: in Avatar {{spoiler|autumn is associated with the element of air, and it's been conformed that Byakko's been sheltering airbenders since before Kyoshi.}}
** Confirmed in Chapter 46. {{spoiler|Meixiang reveals the names of death: Kurokame (lit. "Black Turtle" being Genbu), Akitori ("Red Bird" being Suzaku), Shirotora (we all know what it means), and finally, Asagitatsu (has to be Seiryuu).}}
* [[The Gods Must Be Lazy]] - At this point, subverted. {{spoiler|The 'good' spirits are basically all in on the action (with the exception of Tui, who is actually spreading the result of the Avatar's actions at the north pole), and it's been shown that rather than the spirits sitting back and letting the Fire Nation get this far, they're actually been involved in this from the beginning... although mainly the ones on the other side.}}
* [[The Good,
* [[Useful Notes/The Laws and Customs of War|The Laws and Customs of War]] - Codified by the Fire Nation: the Earth Kingdom obeys theirs (neither the Earth Generals nor Ozai have problems with going after civilians, even though that's a violation, among the many canon Fire Nation violations), the Water Tribes have their own, and the Air Nomads don't have any since they're pacifists (and there are hints they were Combat Pragmatists when they weren't.) Notable examples:
** Among the Water Tribes, women and children don't fight and are therefore exempt from combat. Among the other countries, there is the more general category of civilian (especially since all [[Mama Bear|Fire Nation women are combat-trained]]), which can include men. Attacking while disguised as a non-combatant is a war crime because it forces soldiers to treat the real innocents as potential threats and can get them killed. {{spoiler|Zuko's ship, which was not part of the war, was attacked by some Southern Tribesmen and was forced to defend itself, in some cases lethally.}} So, the Water Tribes view the Fire Nation going after women as a violation (like Zuko thought Kanna was a valid threat in his introductory episode), and the Fire Nation have the same opinion of the Water Tribes going after civilian men.
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* [[The War On Terror]] - One of the many things the fic gives social commentary on. {{spoiler|Sozin made the populace think that they had suffered an unprovoked attack by the Air Nomads, a common staple of 9/11 conspiracy theories. They then started a war that made everyone hate them.}}
** [[Word of God|Jossed]], complete with another bibliography.
* [[Wham! Episode]]- Chapter 45. {{spoiler|Not only are the Touzaikaze revealed, but one of them is an ''air-healer''. What's more, they offer themselves as potential candidates for brides to the Earth King. Looks like there will be some shipping in the Emberverse after all...}}
** Chapter 57. {{spoiler|Koh is the Avatar Spirit's first child.}}
* [[White Mage]] - In the original series Katara very pointedly chose offensive waterbending over healing, which is then ignored for the rest of the series. In Embers this is even more significant, since {{spoiler|throughout her childhood she was given the impression she was supposed to be the healer, and a failure because she wasn't, so she's not just defying the Northern Water Tribe's sexism when she makes the choice to fight but also her own feelings of insecurity and failure.}} Instead of becoming the healer despite almost no training in the show, her talents and interest lie in the other direction and will likely remain insistant on being the [[Black Mage]]. Her alternative candidate for healer training is {{spoiler|Haru, since Toph is also [[Cute Bruiser|violence-focused]], not to mention more interested on what she can do with seawater.}}
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