In hindsight, I'm a bit surprised that Ozai wasn't prepared for a redirection of his lightning. He had already seen Zuko do it firsthand and knew his son was training the Avatar. Seems odd for him not to come to the conclusion that his lightning wouldn't be effective in advance.
You are also right that Ozaiâs âaccomplishmentsâ were all done by his followers as he just hung out in his palace. He never even left the capital until the one day his powers were amplified.
With that in mind, heâs really just kinda there. Ozai will always be known in history as the guy who got his ass kicked by a twelve year old and his throne taken away by his teenaged son
The fact that he never once showed himself when his city was under attack says a lot about him Black Sun or no
I agree with everything up to the black sun. That is just tactical sense, like your only power is going to be taken for a 10 minute period, so just delay for that period
Well. It WAS tactical sense to lure the whole army in the Capital City just to wait until you can get them all imprisoned with flying battle ships of DEATH. No submarine, completely surrounded...there was no way out
It was not tactical to leave super elite nonbending warriors sitting around when they could have been filling the enemyâs bodies with arrows until they stopped being alive. You know, the traditional use for arrows.
While I see your point, you forgot one thing. The war is an art of deception. The whole plan was to appear very weak to draw invaders deep to the territory. Archers, or any type of too fierce resistance would slow them down, and there's a chance they could still escape, so that's a mistake from a strategic point of view. They would make battle itself much easier, but this wouldn't accomplish strategic goals.
Why was Bumi even kept alive, anyway? Let alone in Omashu itself, where he could be an icon of rebellion. Anyone who wasnât an idiot would have moved him out to a metal/wooden platform at sea posthaste, especially since they know heâs a powerful earthbender.
The Fire Nation seems weirdly reluctant to kill benders after the Air Nomads. They go to a whole lot of fuss and bother creating a special prison to hold the Southern waterbenders, and keep the earthbenders on a ship. Even during the Black Sun invasion, they accept the surrender of Hakoda and everyone else instead of killing them.
Except he let his powerless daughter fight the powerful team on her own
Ozai keeps talking about weakness and being a man, yet in that episode he very much hid behind his daughter. Maybe it makes sense tactically, but it was still cowardly and weak
He didnât let Azula do anything. The gang literally broke into a room through metal-bending (recall that nobody would have known there was a metal bender in existence because it was the first time Toph ever did it) to find Azula hanging out in that room. Zuko was also in a different room than Ozai. Clearly the intent was that if intruders found at least 1 member of the royal family, they wouldnât find all the members and kill them all in their moment of weakness.
A steel door is only as strong as the wall the frame is mounted in. A key security point many forget, which is why bank vaults are also made of steel as well as the doors. any earth bender could have gotten into the room, if taking longer and with less "elegance" of bending form than Toph did.
Yea they can get through the door, but the point wasn't to defeat them with a door, it was tk delay them, the time where they were helpless was quite short, so even if it took them 30 seconds to get through the door, it wouldn't be nothing
Rewatch the episode. They were intentionally mislead by a firebender soldier into thinking Azulaâs room was the Firelords. Given how powerful the avatar is, no way would they rely on freaking metal as a way to protect them
I thought it was very clear that them running into Azulaâs room was part of a plan
because he his. his only feats are against children. His bending is intentionally shown as being large and designed to intimidate and cause the most pain possible as opposed to say Azula whose bending is precise and honed.
Yup. I mean, even though she is fighting to delay because she can't use bending, Azula is shown to be a good fighter during the eclipse, even when not having access to her fire bending skills. Ozai beats a young boy, Zuko, then banishes him, and spends the rest of the time sitting on his laurels. Is he a good fighter? He would have to be, it's the nature of the Fire Nation, but he is definitely a classic example of overhyped and image over substance. Huge gold statues of himself, stories of how great he makes everyone say he is, and in the end, he is all mouth and no trousers. And were he fighting any other adult and fully skilled Avatar, rather than an airbender pacifist child he would have had his lungs ripped out in the first five minutes of the fight, comet or no comet. Sad really.
The thing is they arenât actually his laurels. The fire nation was built on other greater menâs accomplishments and heâs just taking in their glory like itâs his own
He didnât fight in any wars. He hasnât come up with any of the plans that aided his conquest. Heâs never actually done anything except let his minions do their thing while he just sits there.
His only real plan was in the finale which was literally just âBurn everythingâ
No one can accuse dictators of modesty or great long term thinking. It's how Mussolini, instead of handing power over to any of his seemingly natural successors, ended up making a Deal With The Devil and allying with a man he rightly called many bad things, and got dragged into Germany's war with everyone, and ended his life hanging from a garages solid canopy. Or Japan, specifically Tojo, thinking attacking the USA when it was still fighting Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France's colonial holdings and so on, was a good idea. And they all treated other people's achievements as their's, but their own failings as the fault of other people, even their whole country's. From those and other historical dictators Ozai is bang on form for egotism and short term thinking, not even just fascist ones, look at Stalin and the doctors, when he was sick and dying he locked up all the doctors who might at least ease his pain when he was in agony out of paranoia, and died in far more agony, and far more drawn out, than he had to.
How one fight can be said to be commentary on effectiveness on authoritarianism. Thatâs like saying democracy had proven to be ineffective if one leader doesnât take his son seriouslyÂ
I mean the entirety of the firenation and ozai's whole character not just one fight,
Ozai is the third generation of an absolute monarchy preforming colonialism and genocide
All his life he grew and embraced the narrative that he nation was superior to everyone,
Add on to the fact he wasnt even meant to be firelord but lucked out that his nephew died and his wife knew how to poison his father,
All this did was feed his ego and make him think he was MEANT to be put on the throne,
You end up with a meathead with total power who surrounds himself with generals who have a similar way of thinking, overwhelming force and meatgrinder tactics sacrificing young men just for a slight advantage but will make the general look good because "hey it worked!"
Look at Zhao's rapid multiple promotions because he was fucking over zuko's chance of returning home,
That's not a sign of an effective military to give someone so much power that they lead a suicide mission to the north pole that goes guess what? Goes horribly (sure no one expected koi godzilla but attacking a well fortified city that has a counter to your element of choice that gets a power boost at night and more so at the full moon is just asking for trouble)
In the defense of the Siege of the North Pole, Zhao had a pretty efficient counter plan against the water benders and I am sure he sold the shit out of that plan when he pitched the siege
The biggest flaw with his plan is that he was trying to fuck with spirits. And to call spirits âunpredictableâ would be an understatement
He was trying to implement the earthly logic of âIf I kill spirits, no more water bendersâ when spirits operate by Spiritual Logic which contains back up plans that the mortal mind would not be able to fully comprehend
But with the information that he had, it was a sound plan
If youâre trying to protect the balance, I absolutely agree
But if you donât give a shit about balance and you find out that the moon spirit has an incredibly vulnerable physical form that can be killed, I get the appeal
Ozai, quite frankly, is a moron. The dude knew that the Avatar would likely appear and he should absolutely have heard about Aangâs many accomplishments in the last six months.
Still decided to go by himself and chase after the 12 year old Demigod who soloed his fleet at the North Pole
The Avatar is a fire bender too even if heâs not as experienced. Aangâs power is also amped up
The Avatar is a firebender too. Heâs not as good, but that still evens the playing field. And remember that Ozai wouldnât know how powerful Aang is asides from all his accomplishments
He honestly thought Zuko never amounted to anything so when Zuko told him heâd train the avatar, he didnât think heâd ever be able to I think. And considering how Zukoâs bending was after he joined the Gaang Ozai wasnât wrong.
If it wasnât for Iroh saving the last of the dragons they wouldâve been out of luck.
I think a crucial piece of that is also that redirection is a water bending technique. I don't think Ozai would respect any other elements enough to even consider that. They're inferior and not worth studying by default.
Iroh was only able to master it because he'd spent time studying water benders. But there's no way most fire benders, Ozai especially, would've figured out that's what it was.
And if he did figure out that it was a water bending move, I don't think he'd want to learn, frankly. It'd be a new form, new movements, new theory, all from a culture he thinks is beneath him.
In Ozai's defence (never thought I would be saying that) I don't think he was actually expecting the Avatar to actually accept Zuko as a teacher because of the whole 'hunt them across the world' thing he was doing.
i believe before the end of the series it was believed that only the members of the royal family could lightning bend. so even though he knew Zuko (and probably Iroh) could redirect lightning his propagandized and self absorbed mind never even considered it
He probably viewed lightning bending as purely related to the most refined native firebender, and he never seemed to really perceive Aang as a true avatar anyway he probably just sees him as a weak air child with random bonus. After all heâs only 12, canonically itâs not even the age the avatar knows who he is.
I mean weâve seen characters dodge lightning before (even when they shouldnât be able to). Ang literally did it multiple times just before in the same scene.
Nobody said it was. Ozai was weaker than Aang in a normal fight, but mentally stronger in a fight to the death. Aang being a pacifist is the only reason Ozai had a chance
Ozai IS a highly skilled firebender. But... that's literally it. Narcissism gets in the way from him being good in any kind of a fight where he doesn't have overwhelming advantage because he can not perceive a world where he isn't the best. He assumed he had an overwhelming advantage even against The Avatar because of the comet... which, honestly, just leveled the playing field in terms of power, and he then proved to be less skilled than a twelve year old (albeit one who was supremely talented and experienced).
he then proved to be less skilled than a twelve year old
When did that happen? Aang's one and only chance was the lightning. Ozai had him cooked otherwise. Using the experience and power of hundreds of other avatars doesn't make Aang more skilled
Aang was playing on hard mode by not trying to kill a dude who was jumped up on Comet juice and trying to murder him. Aang was doing well in this regard. Then he stole Ozai's bending.
The only way Ozai stood a chance against Aang was because of the comet. Dude had a killer advantage against a handicapped foe and still couldn't bring it home.
I mean his only opportunity to kill him was that one time lightning redirecting, yes Aang had him there, but there was no other point this came into play, for the rest of the fight Ozai was on him like white on rice and Aang was straight-up passing out in the middle of the fight. And Aang was getting the exact same boost as Ozai, along with having an additional 3 elements.
My spicy brain for some reason read the rock and acupuncture together and thought you wrote rockupuncture which I thought was bad ass. Then my brain caught up đ¤Ł
Did you MISS the part where Aang was DELIBERATELY holding back, hoping to Talk no Jutsu this moron or hold out till the comet's effects had subsided so he could "restrain" Ozai with his avatar powers!?
Once Aang went Avatar mode by force we see HOW massive the difference between them was dude. Ozai was running like a bitch and Aang was playing with him like his food! Ozai was nobody when it came to fighting the avatar and took advantage of Aang's kind nature.
"Canonically Ozai is the strongest Firebender in ATLA and possibly ever"
Where was this explicitly stated? We saw Iroh did stuff that Ozai couldn't even imagine.
1)inventing new firebending techniques like lightning redirection.
2)Blasting the outer walls of Ba sing sei with the sheer kinetic force of his firebending alone while Ozai struggled to break open Aang's earthbending shell.
3) Defeating Azula in a single move. redirecting her lightning then throwing her off board.
4) Defeating Zhao in a single move; grabbing his feet before he could even react and then threw him down to the ground.
Each of this feat is more than sufficient evidence to show that Iroh is the superior in every aspect of firebending in terms of creativity, agility, sheer power and, strength.
I believe the most explicit place it was stated was in the Avatar Extras for the finale but I think the creators have also stated in QnAs too. Ultimately the only battle we really ever see Ozai in is his final battle vs Aang so itâs hard to really tell his strength but he was going toe to toe with an Avatar which is no easy feat, took Azula making a blindside shot to defeat Aang in season 2.
But on your second point, I feel the more relevant point of comparison would be when he was on the war blimp and shooting a giant flame to the earth below. It took him half the time to deliver a blast of fire likely at least the same strength Iroh had against the Walls of Ba Sing Se.
Tbf he was comet buffed and we canât exactly say Aang got the same buff since the man basically just learned the element a few weeks ago. Though it is still decently pretty impressive.
As for the second point this isnât really the same thing Iroh was blasting the wall of Ba sing Sei which we see is pretty damn thick Ozai was Burning nothing we canât speculate on the power of the blast since it didnât seem to be cratering the ground or anything. And the time we did see Ozai break through an earth defense it was Aangâs rock shield during the duel which I wouldnât put nearly in the same stratosphere as demolishing the wall.
I meant buff in this case as a combat advantage not in terms of bending power or prowess though I suppose I couldâve made that more clear. So in comet serves as a insane combat advantage at this point while for Aang who is not as comfortable and new to firebending is likely to stick to the very solid basics instead of trying to get fancy with it.
But on your second point, I feel the more relevant point of comparison would be when he was on the war blimp and shooting a giant flame to the earth below. It took him half the time to deliver a blast of fire likely at least the same strength Iroh had against the Walls of Ba Sing Se.
If we assume that the jet of flames created by Ozai was nearly as powerful as Iroh's fireball, we can expect some kind of a crater created as a result of some kind of explosive force. But watching Sozin's comet pt4 again, I couldn't find ANY crater at all. In the scene where aang used the avatar state to flood the area that was burnt by Ozai, we don't see any crater at all. Here's a screenshot.
Maybe he is strongest by gift only but hasn't practiced or improved at all because he was constantly staying in the royal place, unlike Iroh who was a general in the war and was taught by dragons. I think by the time of the series, Ozai isn't the strongest at all, maybe even bested by Zuko.
Iroh spent like 10 seconds to power up his attack while Ozai just kept spamming Aang with attacks. And Aang was most likely also repeatedly reinforcing his earth shield. Even then, Ozai managed to break through with one move in the end. Also letâs not forget Ozaiâs massive fire attack on the blimp that he sustained for likely several minutes without any sign of exhaustion.
Beating Azula and Zhao donât count. Both were caught off guard when they were hyper focused on someone else. In that regard, Azula beat Iroh in one hit in the chase episode with that sneak attack.
At the end of the day, Ozai tends to go for more powerful wide scale attacks while Iroh is more precise and uses only as much force as necessary.
You have to have evidence to back up your statements about Aangs shield and even if it was we have seen how thick the Wall of Ba Sing Sei is the fact that Iroh broke through the thing in a single fireball is insane infinitely more impressive than slowly breaking through Aangs makeshift shield.
Zhao was warned to not attack the moon spirit by Iroh so that L is solely on Zhao and the loss to Azula was a cheap shot which we can discount when we realize Zuko couldâve straight up killed his father on day of black sun.
But honestly taking in account that he does nothing else, being the best firebender is the least he should do to be considered a boss instead of a goon.
Iroh is definitely in the same league, but none of these are actually counterarguments
1) That's not really strength. You could theoretically come up with new techniques just by theory. I have no doubt that in another timeline Zaheer could have come up with a new airbending technique and only needed to submit it to Tenzin for testing
2) I'm sure Aang was actively bending the stone to increase its resilience. I don't mean magically in a way that would be justified. I mean like, imagine breaking a magnet, and it just sticks itself back together. Sure it's cracked now, but it's in one piece. Or how about fibre reinforced concrete that is suddenly capable of flexing visibly? The glass fibres represent chi in this case. They don't change the property of the material, they just provide a force that resists damage.
3) Redirection is a hard counter move. If you do it right, it seems to work on power far greater than your own. Zuko redirected two bolts from Ozai. Iroh's greatest feat would be redirecting lightning from the sky.
For your 1st point thats something i wish was explored more. Iroh invented lightning redirection based on watching water bending. I would have loved to see firebending techniques based on air and earth styles; or airbending techniques based on firestyle, ect... all the new bending like metal, lava, blood, ect... are cool but with the world unified and at peace i would have loved to see a crystalization of stylesand all new bending based on teachings from all 4 bending styles.
Like, what if waterbenders took inspiration from fire benders? How would that look? They can freeze water naturally, so would it just be steam bending? Superheat the water to scald and burn? Would you then manipulate it like airbenders do to create and control fog? On a grand scale with multiple benders could water benders just control the weather through heating and cooling the water in the atmosphere to create storm fronts? Its something i really hope the new series explores.
1) that's not a test of strength my dude. that's a completely different skill
2) no one...no one was Earthbending that wall into a spherical cocoon that could redistribute a shockwave effectively?? we never saw Iroh physically fucking fly or blanket an area the size of a football field in fire either.
3) & 4) are both kinda silly examples that don't matter for a variety of reasons and if you're the sort of person who really puts stock into this kinda stuff in a powerscaling discussion we should really just agree to disagree right here. you could just as easily use Azula taking him out in a single fireblast as a knock against Iroh. he has more screentime than Ozai & functions Zuko's deus ex machina a few times. that's all that proves.
i'll give you that Ozai is violently overrated - probably by design. every piece of lore about him more or less paints him as a pathetic dumbass. he doesn't have a single achievement to his name & probably spent his entire life overlooked & in Iroh's shadow. any time we see him make a decision it's either needlessly cruel & shortsighted or something someone else came up with that benefits him by sheer happenstance. he isn't very smart & being Firelord is the only other thing he has going for him...
...in addition to being a wicked & terrifying Firebender. he's like one of those incel gymbros with all the money & privilege in the world - like a Jake Paul or Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen from Dune (the book specifically). he's rich, he's evil, he's not very smart, he makes awful, cruel decisions, & he can fucking fight. nothing in the show gives us any indication to the contrary. Iroh is a fierce & incredible Firebender, but we do not see him moving like Ozai when the comet comes. if you dropped Ozai into any fight in the show Iroh is in & made the stakes the same, i think he's performing as well, if not better in some cases.
if anything: that's what makes his fate in the show so cathartic. maybe Sozin or Azulon or even an unredeemed Iroh (or a hypothetical Firelord Azula) would still be a genuine threat to the world's balance even without Firebending. But not Ozai. That's all he's got.
If there really as the most powerful fire bender ever (besides the Avatar), it would be Azula sense she is the only fire bender that we see use blue fire and Iroh coming in a close second.
Iroh goes over why he didnât do this to begin with when Zuko asked Iroh to deal with Ozai if Aang couldnât. I will say I think Ozai was a more powerful bender but Iroh was more skilled as a bender.
Being the strongest doesnt mean jack shit if you cant govern. He is supposed to be a ruler, not a soldier and throughout his reign the most significant accomplishments are all done independently of him.
Strength doesnt matter when his only on screen opponents are a 15 year old who surrendered and a 12 year old who reached enlightenment and kicked his ass
And its not just strenght dude's an idiot and complacent who let everyone else do the work for him, he couldn't even kill his own damn father
I think he was just really good in Agni Kai. Donât think he has much experience against other bender. Definitely little to no experience on battlefield.
I still think Iroh could have beaten him, but yeah, even with his limited screen time, his bending during the comet was leaps and bounds above Azula and Zuko with the comet, which implies it was also leaps and bounds above theirs without it. But jacked old man Iroh? I really think he could have edged out a victory.
When you add âlike really killed the Avatarâ it makes total sense that someone would correct it. Because he like really didnât kill the Avatar. Azula like really killed the Avatar.
That's like Kyoshi saying not saving Chin from his own ego and stupidity of just standing on the edge of a crumbling new cliff was killing him. It's technically true, but also not accurate. He did kill Roku, but hardly though an impressive duel, Hell, maybe when he went to the volcano he genuinely wanted to save Roku, and just took an opportunity at the last moment to say, "No, sod it!" and walk away, after making sure Roku knew why. He killed him, yes, if the poisons of the volcanic air hadn't already done fatal damage already, which they might, we will never know because of Sozin walking away. He killed Roku, but hardly in a fair fight, or even an unfair fight. He did it in a cowardly manner that let him sleep at night; "It was for the Greater Good", "He was probably already dead by then, leaving him there was just quicker and more honourable a death" and so on.
A funny fact of history: Most tyrants are fucking losers lol
Most Authoritarians are too weak to do anything and then tell themselves âItâs fine, I have lackeys too afraid to ever stab me in the back!â And then act surprise when their lackeys stab them in the back.
Another thing Iâve noticed is that theyâre never creative.
The KKK stole their uniform from Catholic Penitents (even tho they hate eachother)
The Nazis yoinked the Hindu/Buhdist symbol (I canât think of the name Iâm sorry)
Fuck me China just took the flag of the Soviet Union and replaced the Hammer and Sickle (the symbol of unity across the working classes) with Stars or whatfuckingever
They, KKK even wear sanbenitos, just white ones. And the names. It's like they went through a book of Catholic children's stories and found things they thought would scare 4 year old Catholic children for their ludicrous titles.
The Nazi nicked and altered slightly the Swastika.
China's one is more common and excusable, not much else about it is, as the Red Flag is the red flag of the Internationale, the universal flag of international communism. The symbols just denoting what nations and type. Hammer and Sickle for the Warsaw Pact Nations/USSR, Chinese Stars representing Beijing and smaller stars representing satellite states and occupied nations, like Taiwan, Tibet, and waiting for the day when it happened, Hong Kong. Not sure what North Korea is for, but given how it is more a weird secular theocratic monarchy that worships one family and is very badly disguised as communist it is apt that is has no resemblance to the Red Flag of International Communism, unlike Vietnam's flag. Saying that a "communist" (they deserve the quotation marks) country is unimaginative for flying a red flag is like saying pirates were unimaginative for flying the Black Flag, the universally recognised flag for No Nation, and why it is also the anarchists flag of choice as well. It is part of a very specific universal flag language and code rather than typical unimaginative behaviour from totalitarians. Plenty of other things about China meet the criteria, but the red flag is very much covered by communist history, blood soaked as it is; See, Marx, the Anarchists you ejected from the First Internationale were right; Dictatorship of the Proletariat always leads to actual dictatorship.
Ozai is in idiot, i dont care how awesome your daughter is, he let his only heir run around an active war zone where if she was a lesser woman wouldve left him with nobody run his empire
He promoted incompetent men like zhao who's brilliant plan of killing the moon wouldve fucked over the firenation too
His other generals had "efficient plans" like using young recruits as cannon fodder
He is the physically strongest firebender, i will grant him that
And this isn't "bad writing" its great showing how inefficient and incompetent authoritarianism is,
Other examples of this the earth bending prison
Not gonna stop the young girl trying to encourage the other prisoners? Nope just turn around and get defeated by old and tired earth benders
Zhao arrested all the fire sages instead of just the one traitor
Yeah that's all perfectly in line with fascists. They're really bad at their jobs. He's a competent fighter since it's literally all he's trained for all his life, but the rest is showboating and riding the waves of his predecessors.
How does âfailing to conquer Ba Sing Seâ and lying about killing the last dragon put Iroh so high on that listâŚ? Also, Zuko freeing the Avatar from a fire nation prison without using any fire bending should put him much higher.
As for what Ozai did, he practically stole the throne, under his rule, the water tribe nations were practically decimated along with the fire nation obtaining numerous technological advancements, heâs practically the most powerful fire bender of is era (not counting the avatar state as thatâs technically multiple benders), heâs manage to be well established as a character to be feared despite relatively little screen time, and at one point, he somewhat did dominate the world as he had the earth nations under his thumb, while the air and water nations were far too decimated to pose a threat to his rule. Combine that with (iirc) him practically forcing Ursa to marry him and Iâd say he fulfills his terrifying, vile, and irredeemable villain archetype perfectly.
I thought Ozai had his father threaten Ursa? As for decimating the water tribe, I know it started with Azulon, but I thought it didnât finish until Ozai? I know for a fact the southern water tribe was decimated under Ozai. They were too crippled to devote a significant force for the invasion of the fire nation, and their complete had to be prevented by the avatars Also, what you mentioned wasnât even half lol. The threatening of Ursa wasnât listed as an accomplishment, but a point to show the vile nature of Ozaiâs character or âaura farmingâ.
Azulon picked her because she was the grand-daughter of Roku and ensured she would obey. Ozai didn't pick her, he didn't have an issue with her and went along with it.
The last raid on the Southern Water Tribe was the one that killed Katara's mother, and that happens under Azulon, not Ozai.
Ozai's rule in canon would look so weird to historians. Sozin, Azulon and Zuko all reigned for decades.
In the middle of all that, an assassin usurper denied the crown prince his birthright, killed his father, scarred/banished his son, brainwashed/banished his wife, lost an entire fleet after the admiral he personally promoted killed the moon, sent his 14 year old daughter and only remaining legitimate heir on a dangerous mission that could easily get her killed, commissioned a giant expensive drill that didn't work, knowingly let an invasion force make its way onto fire nation soil for the first time in 100 years while he chillaxed in a bunker (and tried to kill his son), and planned to burn down the land he wanted to colonize while LARPing as a bird before getting deposed by a 12 year old vegetarian pacifist. All in five years.
You go from 95 years of prosperity and victory, 5 years of absolute craziness, followed by 75 years of prosperity and peace.
*Destroying the moon would have fun effects like destablising the Earth's axial tilt, resulting in the planet either freezing or burning and rendering it uninhabitable.
They didn't literally destroy the moon so it would still be there keeping the tides going, they destroyed the spirit of the moon so it couldn't power waterbending.
Right I was mistaking it going red when he pulled the fish out. Still I interpret it as just becoming a permanent new moon (I don't know how that would physically work) rather than the moon actually vanishing from the sky. The rock is still there, it just doesn't mean anything anymore.
This dumbass used his wife to poison his own father because he couldn't do it on his own! Gaslit his MUCH stronger brother using his son's death to make him step down from the throne!
Azula's talent was all her basically and Ozai never really trained her properly but took all the credit!
This guy is just the poster child of "stealing credit".
Clearly this doesnât understand how upper management works. As king Ozai claims all subjectsâ successes as his own and all their failures as theirs.
So he has all their victories combined and his own with zero failures* (if you say otherwise you will be subjected to an agni kai and banishment).
IMO one of Avatar's biggest flaws is how underdeveloped it's main villain was. He was basically "Me bad because fire! Kids bad because fire! fire fire fire!"
The earth kingdom is a complex bureaucracy with a figurehead ruler. The Fire lord is a direct centralized leader with a tradition of demonstrating superiority of mastery through martial prowess. It's shown that from a very young age both Zuko and Azula were put through extensive training to master their fighting abilities, lightning bending is an advanced technique that's somewhat central to the royal identity of being powerful benders.
Zuko, Azula, Iroh and Lu Ten all held military postings, it seems the ability to command on the field is expected of fire nation royalty, it's possible Ozai also had a command before ascending the throne. Also there's always the expectation that they would defend themselves in an Agni Kai so they need to be competent to hold onto power.
i understand that they have to be competent fighters, but you don't become the strongest bender simply by fighting in agni kais, real world war experience is very different.
if we go by that alone, ozai has never faced a water bender or an earth bender, or get ambushed, or having to fight multiple enemies at once in non favorable environment.
unlike zuko and iroh who are shown to be put in extreme situations through the series.
of course there is the possibility that he was a military commander before, but all we know is that iroh was leading the war in ba sing se and ozai was in the fire nation palace when he became the fire lord.
it's not that i don't believe he can be a strong martial artist but that's simply not enough (imo) to make me believe he's the strongest fighter.
It makes sense I suppose, Ozai himself wasnât anything special, he was just a face for the Fire Nation Imperialism started by Sozin(arguably the actual main villain of the story)
To give the man props his plan was to have like 12 airships with comet enhanced fire bender burn the earth kingdom to literal ashes. He would have gotten away with it if it werenât for team avatar.
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u/StormAlchemistTony 14d ago edited 10d ago
Wasn't Ozai winning until he performed acupuncture on Aang with a rock?
Edit: People keep pointing out that Aang was holding back against Ozai. Aang was still losing because of the handicap he gave himself.