If I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt; they might have found out about the cave in and reasoned that an earth bender had to have been involved with clearing it. With the old man being the only one they knew to have been at the scene; he’d be the obvious suspect. They probably accused him and threatened to send him to the prison if he couldn’t point them towards the one who freed him.
Given his working in a mine despite his apparent age and physical frailty; it seems pretty likely that he, like many others in the village, is probably struggling to get by and/or support his family and loved ones between the Fire Nation’s extortion and incarceration of what would’ve probably been the bulk of the town’s work force. This would mean he was essentially ratting out Haru not just to save himself from a sentence he probably wouldn’t have been able to survive, but also to save his family from losing a necessary source of income.
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u/Illustrious-Turn-575 Mar 30 '25
If I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt; they might have found out about the cave in and reasoned that an earth bender had to have been involved with clearing it. With the old man being the only one they knew to have been at the scene; he’d be the obvious suspect. They probably accused him and threatened to send him to the prison if he couldn’t point them towards the one who freed him. Given his working in a mine despite his apparent age and physical frailty; it seems pretty likely that he, like many others in the village, is probably struggling to get by and/or support his family and loved ones between the Fire Nation’s extortion and incarceration of what would’ve probably been the bulk of the town’s work force. This would mean he was essentially ratting out Haru not just to save himself from a sentence he probably wouldn’t have been able to survive, but also to save his family from losing a necessary source of income.