Ok sorry but I don’t think we talk enough about how absolutely fucking AWFUL Iroh is in NATLA.
Dude spends the entire show moping around not doing anything of note, but Zuko still tells him stuff like “your constant jokes and happiness are annoying” even though dude is a walking depression factory. We see him in the original ATLA having come to terms with his past actions and mistakes, but in NATLA he’s just now realizing how bad they were? What was he doing in the meantime? Just nothing? Why is he treated as a mentor if he hasn’t even come to terms with his own dark history? That’s what makes him so inspirational in the original show! He’s been through it and is at peace with what he did, which allows him to come to Zuko with experience and a calming nature, not one that is even more sad. And the other characters via dialogue still insist he’s the Uncle Iroh from the cartoon? Trash.
Not to mention, Aang comes to him saying something like “I’ve been mean to my friends and selfish. I should probably be a better person.” And Iroh immediately says “No, you shouldn’t change who you are.” WTF!? Why would he say that? What does Aang being mean to his friends have to do with his destiny or achieving his goals? Does Iroh have vested interest in Aang treating everyone around him like shit? What the hell is even happening?
And make sure to miss me with that “Ohhhhhh he’s so much better here because he shows so much guilt in Ba Sing Se ooohhhh”. Fuck that. The reason the scene with him mourning his son and feeling the weight of his mistakes hits so hard in the original is because it all comes to him at once and is a break from the jovial character he is consistently beforehand. It hurts to watch, and you feel the weight of his mistakes so much. Now they’ve not only shoved in the song about his son into a random scene way earlier for fan service; they made him a moping sack of depression the entire show so we don’t even really get any effect from his moping here. This coming after he literally tells the criminal to just kill him rather than helping him like he did in the original show.
The whole point of Iroh is to show that his past mistakes help him to help others. He sacrificed any luxury of the Fire Nation to help Zuko. He randomly aided other strangers and even the children actively against his nephew. His passion is owning a tea shop and serving others. Having him be some depressed war veteran who begs for death doesn’t add depth; it permanently freezes him in a state he’s already grown past in the original series. He can help others in the original because he learned that he can help himself. In NATLA, he just spouts endless basic self-help phrases that he clearly doesn’t follow and did not come to through experience. It adds nothing to the story. And being constantly told by dialogue that he is, in fact, the same character from the original show is insulting.
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