Was the fire nation essentially trying to “speed run” to the fire nation avatar during the 100 year war?
Stick with me here, please. I have not heard this theory before. So my thoughts are as follows. If you look at the timeline of avatar you notice that the fire nation started its raids on the southern water tribe roughly 10-20 years after the air nomad genocide. We can use grangran and Hama as indicators for this as they were present during that time. The raids had the fire nation kidnap, not kill, only waterbenders. Then moved them into cells. Then suddenly they stopped when katara was roughly 5 or so. Now some say it’s because Hama escaped. That could be a factor but Hama escaped when she was roughly 30. Years prior to the raids end. My theory is that they were going after the next avatar in the cycle, a southern water tribe member.
After the fire nation thought they got the water avatar they would have moved to the next element in the cycle, Earth. They started rounding up earthbenders and putting them in metal prisons. Something at the time they couldn’t bend. They were, like with the waterbenders, keeping them alive. Now to me the one prison we saw looked old. So they were probably doing this roughly halfway through the war. And we can guess that the one we saw wasn’t the only prison there was.
Now onto the final bit. Once they got to the fire nation avatar, then what? Who’s going to teach them the other 3 elements? Remember how they kept all these people alive? The fire nation also had sky bison hidden away, whether that was known to the fire lord or not we don’t know… Regardless, once they got back to fire in the cycle they had an ample supply of water, earth, and airbenders.
