Selected Excerpts From The Fire Nation Royal Palace Servants' (Unofficial) Handbook
Or: Revisions To Normal Protocol After The Ascension Of Agni's Exalted Flame, The Dragon Of The Sun, et cetera, Fire Lord Zuko
1. Agni's Exalted Flame, The Dragon Of The Sun, et cetera, Fire Lord Zuko should not be referred to by his full titles and styles, no matter the context. This appears to annoy him. "Fire Lord Zuko" and "Lord Zuko" are acceptable, as well as "your majesty" and "my Lord".
1.1 "Lord Hotman", however, is unacceptable.
1.2. Even if the Avatar specifically requests you to address Fire Lord Zuko as that.
1.3. In fact, any attempts by the Avatar, the Lady Beifong, the honorable Tribesman Sokka or even Master Katara to get you to address Fire Lord Zuko by anything other than his proper title should be disregarded.
1.4. Referring to Ozai of the Fire Nation (titles rmvd, dishon.) as "The Loser Lord", however, is acceptable.
2. Fire Lord Zuko is aware of the concept of mortality, but does not seem to understand how it relates to His Majesty. Following activities should be discouraged: Free climbing, glider usage, contact with exotic animals larger than a turtleduck (or smaller, if the animal is known to be venomous), amateur theatre productions, cooking, sailing, spelunking, botany, please see full list in the Matron's office.
2.1. It should be noted that His Majesty's belief that mortality does not apply to him does not appear to be completely unfounded. After several "close calls", it has been decided that upon his demise, Fire Lord Zuko should lie in state for at least two weeks.
2.1.1. We do not want another incident.
3. The turtleducks in the Western Pond do not need to be fed by the servants any more.
3.1. However, the turtleducks should be rotated out at regular intervals in order to prevent overfeeding.
4. At any official social functions, at least three servants should be vigilant in case His Majesty tries to tell a joke.
4.1. It should be noted that there is no concern for His Majesty's jokes being offensive, crass or otherwise contrary to good taste. They are simply very bad. His Majesty always ends up embarrassed.
5. Any children left unattended in the Royal Palace for more than 15 degrees can be retrieved from the Fire Lord's office.
6. Should His Majesty go missing, the following places should be searched: roofs and any high places, cellars and secret passages, the fur of the Avatar's sky bison (which is surprisingly deep), and every place that an ordinary five-year-old would think to hide in during a game of "Hide and Explode."
6.1. All of the Imperial Firebenders as well as any soldier who wears a mask during the course of their duties should be questioned.
6.1.1. Important note: Some of the soldiers who are especially close to His Majesty can perform a passable imitation of him. Efforts should be made to prevent an uneducated soldier from, say, conducting a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture.
6.2. After the recent incident, that list is expanded to include the Kyoshi Warriors and any other groups that might wear concealing full face paint.
6.3. If all of these measures prove ineffective, a letter should be sent to The Dragon of the West, Prince Iroh, asking His Highness to return His Majesty.
6.4. If a ransom note is delivered, it should be immediately checked against the handwriting samples from the honorable Tribesman Sokka as well as Avatar Aang, before any other actions are taken.
6.4.1. Replying "Good luck, he's your problem now" to a ransom note is absolutely unacceptable.
6.4.1.1. To further drive home the point, the Royal Archives are required by law to preserve every single piece of royal correspondence. That thing will end up in a museum.
This handbook will be updated should it prove necessary.
“the parallels between Zuko and Sokka-” hey HEY. I am grabbing you. The parallels between Katara and Azula. Both the younger, gifted bender. Each one being the inverse of the other: a living, breathing what if. Katara being horrified at what her bending can do when pushed to its limits vs Azula always trying to push hers further. Katara instinctively trusting everyone so easily, even though it burns her sometimes, and Azula saying trust is for fools, fear is the only reliable way but still losing everyone she cares about in the end. Katara yelling at her dad and being hugged in return vs Azula doing everything possible to please her father still being harshly reprimanded, so you know exactly why they both turned out the way that they did. Katara’s trauma being connected to losing a mother vs Azula’s being connected to having a mother. Katara ultimately being the one to take down Azula and standing over her, staring pitifully because that’s who she could have been, in another life. is this thing on
best thing about uncle iroh is that if you pay attention he is actually just as much of an idiot as zuko but has just mastered the art of coming across as a wise old man. the even better thing is that zuko is the only one on the planet who somewhat realizes this and no one would ever believe him because he's zuko
like uncle iroh 100% does dumb shit on purpose sometimes to get people to underestimate him and keep zuko from capturing the avatar, but other times he just, and i cannot emphasize this enough, does impulsive dumb shit for no reason other than the fact that terminal stupid presumably runs in the royal family's blood
uncle: "you never think things through, prince zuko!"
also uncle:
once got captured by the earth kingdom army buck ass naked bc he really wanted to go to a hot spring in enemy territory
betrayed zhao at the Northern Water Tribe with no escape plan and then spent 3 weeks starving on a boat
immediately went to a spa resort upon publicly committing treason
ate a poisonous plant and, in the spirit of Two Fish Hook Sokka, was going to solve the problem by eating another potentially poisonous plant
decided the safest place in the world they could go was the city he once FAMOUSLY laid siege to for 600 days
instead of lying low or giving a modicum of a shit about people recognizing him, overachieved himself into becoming one of the most well-known restaurant owners in said city
in fact overachieved so hard that he got an invite to meet the earth king (whose city he, again, once FAMOUSLY LAID SIEGE TO) which he fucking? accepted????
#no wonder zuko was constantly frothing at the mouth! he's the only one who knows the truth!#god just imagine the number of times people have seen zuko yelling at iroh#and assumed zuko was just being mean#when zuko was actually yelling at his uncle for wasting all their money bartering with pirates AGAIN#everyone assumes iroh is babysitting zuko but really they're pingponging responsibility back and forth#and zuko at least has the excuse of being 16#anyway I love Uncle Hypocrite so much; funniest motherfucker on the planet (via OP)
The lesson of avatar was never “killing bad people makes you just as bad as them” it was “you cannot be letting fascists dictate what counts as a win or loss” guys like come on it’s been 20 years
Katara doesn’t forgive Yon Rha and hug him and dry him off and walk him home she leaves him scared and sniveling and crying in the mud but she leaves him alive because she realized in that moment that she was only doing this because she felt like she had to. She hates this man, therefore she should want to kill him, right? The narrative isn’t saying wow Katara killing a mass murdering fascist dickwad is just as bad as said dickwad killing an innocent wife and mother during a raid on her home, it’s saying wow isn’t it fucked up that this little girl has been forced to carry this deep seated anger in her for most of her life to the point where the only outlet she believes she has for it is killing a man in cold blood? And like… yeah! That is pretty fucked!
you know what I definitely will give ATLA credit for, in retrospect? no push for zuko to reconcile with his father. no weird, dissonant 'yeah he's an abusive fascist but He's Still Your Dad' thing going on. fuck you. he's going to jail.
he was there during siege of the North. he infiltrated the spirit oasis. he has an uncle who studies spirits and the spirit world. he watched the sky go dark then the moon suddenly reappear like everyone else in the entire world did. and most importantly he watched zhao get eaten by a giant godzilla fish spirit.
people talk a lot about how wild shit would have gotten in the fire nation if zuko had joined the gaang at the end of season 2 but i think we’re ignoring that there’s a solid chance that in “The Runaway” zuko and toph would have ended up committing actual highway robbery
katara: can you believe the rest of them? you’re the only other person responsible enough to know not to pull these ridiculous scams–
zuko: oh, sokka said i’m not allowed to
katara: what?
zuko: i suggested a thing i used to do all the time when uncle and i were on the run. i don’t know why sokka didn’t like it, it’s the simplest scam ever
katara:
katara:
katara:
katara: do i want to know
zuko: it’s the one where i point my swords at somebody and they give me all their money. worked every time.
toph, earthbending him to the top of the hill away from the rest of the group and then kicking him awake: rise and shine sokka’s asleep let’s go rob some people
zuko, pulling his dao out of his sleeping bag: sick let’s go
i LOVE this because it resolves the whole “everyone else got a fieldtrip with zuko” thing and then the Zuko Bonding Trips would just keep escalating like:
sorry but the fact they're coming out with a new book that has A) Main Character Jin, B) Ba Sing Se conspiracy hijinks and C) Jin INVOLVED in Ba Sing Se conspiracy hijinks, is gonna be all I'm thinking about the rest of my life
tbh people don't give zuko enough credit like wtf are you supposed to say when someone hits you with "my girlfriend turned into the moon" like. damn. that is in fact rough buddy
Sokka and Zuko get SO much funnier when you remember this is both of their first times talking to another teenage boy in years. Sokka had all the other boys leave the tribe when he was little and Zuko just hasn’t talked to other teenage boys. They wanna be friends but have absolutely no clue how to talk to other teenagers. I love them so much.
They have talked to a teenage boy. However, it was Jet. That was the last and first teenage boy either of them have talked to. and it did not end well.
