Expendable
This guy right here is responsible for one of the pivotal plot points in ATLA. Zuko protests his plan to pointlessly sacrifice a regiment of new guys to get the enemy in a better position which earns him an Agni Kai with his father. His first red flag about how brutal the Fire Nation is in their pursuit of victory.
Thing is...Bujing here is NOT an isolated incident.
Sad fact is that the Fire Nation is full of generals and leaders who are willing to throw their own people under the bus just for a chance at personal glory. Bujing here is one of the most notable examples since he's tied in with Zuko's arc. But he's not the only one.
Admiral Zhao is another example of this. He practically had the Siege of the North won and closed up a front for the Fire Nation as a whole. Chances are he would've been heralded as a hero by everyone.
But that wasn't enough. He decided to kill the Moon Spirit, and directly threaten every man under his command for even more glory. Even if Aang didn't fuse with the Ocean Spirit to wipe out the fleet, everyone in the Fire Nation would've been screwed. All because Zhao wanted even more glory.
And then we get to Iroh...
Yes, even Iroh is guilty of this. He was in charge of the 600 Day Siege of Ba Sing Se, an apt name for a veritable meat grinder that caused numerous casualties on both sides of the battle. Mind you his main driving force was that he saw a vision of him conquering Ba Sing Se, and believed it was his destiny. AKA, a word often used by the Fire Nation to justify their goals of conquest.
He only relented because his son died. Not because of the nightmarish losses. But because of a personal loss. Regardless of how Iroh felt about it afterwards (and whether or not he actually made up for it), he was still indicative of that thinking. That the lower ranking soldiers were expendable in the pursuit of glory.
And that also extends to his dear old brother.
Ozai. Putting his treatment of Azula aside (trust me, we'll get to that in a minute), his ultimate goal was to literally burn down the entire Earth Kingdom to ashes. You know. That huge chunk of land the Fire Nation just spent a literal century trying to conquer? And that also has stationed Fire Nation troops and civilians on the ground that would also get caught up in the inferno?
All just to stroke his own ego and declare himself the Phoenix King. Not Fire Lord. The Phoenix King. A title he made up to basically outshine everyone else around him.
When you get right down to it, the Fire Nation is full of these guys. Ruthless warlords willing to throw their subordinates' lives into the meat grinder just for a chance at glory. It practically goes hand in hand with their obsession with personal honor (or at least their version of honor at the time of the war). Sure, they talk about honor and destiny and whatnot, but they're willing to sacrifice lives just to prop themselves up.
So if the populace of the Fire Nation are expendable in the eyes of their leaders...how does it look from the other way around?
Azula gives us a bit of a clue.
I often argue that Azula is at her most..."heroic" (from the Fire Nation's point of view) during the Day of the Black Sun. Mainly, she's putting herself in a vulnerable position to act as bait and to hold off the Gaang long enough for the eclipse to finish and for firebending to be restored. AKA: safeguarding her nation from an enemy invasion.
But let's think about that for a minute. As stated before, I do believe Azula has a sort of black-and-white outlook on the world. That the enemy would not pull any punches and are almost always out for blood. She has no reason to believe that the Gaang wouldn't kill her on the spot.
And she's doing this also to safeguard her father, the Fire Lord. The same person who effectively conditioned her to be a living weapon and obey only him saw fit to use her as a decoy and a sacrifice to save his own skin.
Azula? ...she had no problem with it. No questioning of how effed up that was, nor did she expect any gratitude for her efforts. On the contrary, she got left behind in a worthless position while Ozai hogged all the glory for burning down the Earth Kingdom. And when she tried to call him out on it...
Yes, it's from the novel. But it's a pretty good indicator of what was going through Azula's mind when Ozai snapped at her. And I could imagine the same couuld be said for most of the Fire Nation since loyalty to the Fire Lord was paramount above all others.
So if the Fire Lord tells you to jump off the bridge for his own glory, you better well damn do so.
It's practically within their own propaganda. In the play by the Ember Island Players, Actress!Azula gets consumed by flame while Actor!Ozai poses in victory. No acknowledgment of her contributions. Everyone just cheers on Ozai, Azula apparently having been forgotten.
To me at least, this is evidence of the Fire Nation populace being indoctrinated to the point that the main belief, that the highest aspiration is to die on the field of battle in service to the Fire Lord. Something that is a natural extension when you have a warlike culture. In essence, being expendable might be a common core belief in the Fire Nation during the war.
And considering the consequences of disobeying an authority figure and refusing to fight or throw away your life...
You all saw what happened to Zuko when he didn't fight Ozai.
