best thing about uncle iroh is that if you pay attention he is actually just as much of an idiot as zuko but has just mastered the art of coming across as a wise old man. the even better thing is that zuko is the only one on the planet who somewhat realizes this and no one would ever believe him because he's zuko
like uncle iroh 100% does dumb shit on purpose sometimes to get people to underestimate him and keep zuko from capturing the avatar, but other times he just, and i cannot emphasize this enough, does impulsive dumb shit for no reason other than the fact that terminal stupid presumably runs in the royal family's blood
uncle: "you never think things through, prince zuko!"
also uncle:
once got captured by the earth kingdom army buck ass naked bc he really wanted to go to a hot spring in enemy territory
betrayed zhao at the Northern Water Tribe with no escape plan and then spent 3 weeks starving on a boat
immediately went to a spa resort upon publicly committing treason
ate a poisonous plant and, in the spirit of Two Fish Hook Sokka, was going to solve the problem by eating another potentially poisonous plant
decided the safest place in the world they could go was the city he once FAMOUSLY laid siege to for 600 days
instead of lying low or giving a modicum of a shit about people recognizing him, overachieved himself into becoming one of the most well-known restaurant owners in said city
in fact overachieved so hard that he got an invite to meet the earth king (whose city he, again, once FAMOUSLY LAID SIEGE TO) which he fucking? accepted????
#no wonder zuko was constantly frothing at the mouth! he's the only one who knows the truth!#god just imagine the number of times people have seen zuko yelling at iroh#and assumed zuko was just being mean#when zuko was actually yelling at his uncle for wasting all their money bartering with pirates AGAIN#everyone assumes iroh is babysitting zuko but really they're pingponging responsibility back and forth#and zuko at least has the excuse of being 16#anyway I love Uncle Hypocrite so much; funniest motherfucker on the planet (via OP)
