1. Aang killing Ozai would just make him a martyr for his ideals and his supporters would use that as fuel to continue his legacy.
2. Aang killing Ozai is the true death of his culture’s ideals. The Air Nomads did not kill anyone, and if they did, they were basically exiled from the temples. That’s why Yancheng told him his role as Avatar trumps his ideals.
3. The universal symbol of harmony and balance to all of the nations taking away Ozai’s bending completely sends a much stronger message than killing him.
Aang killing Ozai would just make him a martyr for his ideals and his supporters would use that as fuel to continue his legacy.
This article is about the secret society of Ozai supporters. For the city once called New Ozai, see Omashu. The New Ozai Society was a react
As a general rule of thumb if you're going to say "We can't do X or Y will happen" it would help if Y didn't happen anyway.
Aang killing Ozai is the true death of his culture’s ideals. The Air Nomads did not kill anyone, and if they did, they were basically exiled from the temples. That’s why Yancheng told him his role as Avatar trumps his ideals.
The problem isn't that Aang is a pacifist. The problem is that Aang's pacifism and nervousness about killing someone only showed up now and only at the final hurdle. Aang held no qualms whatsoever about absolutely brutally beating the stuffing out of everyone up to that point.
It's that age-old lazy writing trope of "Spare the villain to show how nice you are, casually ignore all the mooks you blasted into oblivion up to that point."
I'm sorry that Doylist critique makes your brain break, but don't take it out on me.
The universal symbol of harmony and balance to all of the nations taking away Ozai’s bending completely sends a much stronger message than killing him.
It sends the exact same message: Don't fuck with the Avatar.
Here's the main issue: Aang's pacifism and dislike of fighting and violence would work narratively if he wasn't in such a viciously violent series.
Avatar as a series has often bent over backwards specifically to include a fight scene where it doesn't belong. Characters like Vaatu, Zaheer and Kuvira exist exclusively to fit bending fights into problems that otherwise can't be solved by them.
Avatar will break itself in half to include violence, even to the point of retconning in a violent, imperialist Air Empire 1,000 years in the past, but still wants to go "uwu viowence bad, we should stop fighting."
You want to have fight scenes because you think they're cool, but then you also want to have a pacifist message because that's the default "good guy" position, and you don't know how to square those two.
Pick one: Constant, giant, spirit laser anime fights, or pacifism.
