while âzuko sent to find one single person who hasnt existed in 100 years and then he actually doesâ can be very funny in concept, can we just talk about how fucking heartbreaking it must be for iroh?Â
like. he knows this is an impossible task. and it does happenâyes! in the first episode, so maybe we donât even think about it that much! but when ozai tells zuko to go find the avatar, itâs an impossible task. and iroh knows this. and zuko might have everything riding on this, and heâs a kid and hasnât learned whatâs impossible yet, and so heâs plugging his ears and saying âi can do it! i can do it and then dad will love me again!â, but iroh knows the only reason this specific task was assigned is because ozai doesnât want him. he doesnât want him back. ozai didnât want him to betray them so he gave him a little hope, a little âof course i could still love you, you can come back, thatâs a possibility, just donât disappoint meâ because, you know, heâs an abusive dick. but iroh knows his brother, and he knowsÂ
i think as a kid, while i loved loved iroh, it was a little hard to reconcile his silly moments with his wise moments. itâs not anymoreÂ
iâm just thinking of the pai sho tile, and how silly it seemed at the time that it was just in his sleeve. silly old man! so forgetfulÂ
no. no, that wasnât it at allÂ
because every moment he stalled, every moment he mucked up the plan, every moment he just generally wasnât helpful, that was another moment where he could still have a chance. where he might get through to zuko. where he could delay what was suddenly now a very real possibility:Â
that ozai sent zuko away, but zuko would actually come back, expecting to be loved. and thatâs what iroh didnât want to happen. winning ozaiâs love was more unrealistic than finding someone whoâd been dead for 100 years, in the endÂ
