Fyoom!

I’m not a parent but I imagine parenthood is hard. You raise your children (hopefully/idealistically) with the intent for them to be their own person, to be a good person. You put your heart and soul into them but you do so without the intent to control them. Everyday, you learn more about your child and there may be things you like and things you don’t like.

But you love THEM as your child.

I always believed you are a parent for life — yes, you provide their basic needs automatically (food, water, shelter) because how else will they get it? That’s just human decency.

But teaching them empathy, how to sympathize with others, how to love, and what healthy love looks like in return? Apologizing when you’re wrong, letting them hold you accountable, embracing them in their mistakes, showing them what true forgiveness is, and so on — that’s the part of parenthood that never ends. Provision of material things is fine; great, even, because the world runs off material goods and you need them to survive.

But what we need most is compassion for others.

My grandpa taught me a lot about that, and to be honest, when we first started watching ATLA - I saw a lot of Iroh in him. It’s part of what made me cry when Iroh’s original voice actor died. But also made me realize how pivotal Iroh’s influence (though he is flawed and highly regarded but has issues) had on Zuko. Even though I know Iroh is a character of admittedly questionable morals in his past, and perhaps even in his present, it made me realize that’s what parents are like.

I only knew my grandpa as my grandpa. I didn’t know he served in the military, that he was drafted and torn from his life under threat of incarceration or worse. I didn’t know our country treated him with disrespect, that his life was in danger countless times and if he’d made one misstep, was in the wrong place, spoke to the wrong person - we would have never met.

I didn’t know he had ill feelings towards others; that he could be unkind, that he could express terrible things, and that he felt such remorse in his past failings that he’d admit them to me only so I could learn to be better. All I remember was the man who loved me so much that I would never have realized we weren’t related by blood until he told me himself.

So what did all of this have to do with Zutoph family?

A lot; actually.

I’m thinking about how Izumi, Lin, and Suyin view the elders in their family — not just Zuko, but Toph, Iroh, Ursa, Ikem, Kiyi, Azula, Lao, Poppy, and even Ozai. I know I focus quite a bit on Izumi at the moment but that’s partially because she is the start.

There can be so much talked about regarding the eldest daughter in different cultures. How the firstborn is the one who starts the line and all who follow are (hopefully) improved upon. In Izumi, I just see the beginning of a new cycle. I consider a lot from her perspective, how she sees her family as such but gets to know who they truly are beyond the title. How her parents remain her parents while having their individualism in tact, and how she grapples with understanding who she is.

Iroh’s question of: “Who are you? And what do you want?” still persists and honestly, Izumi could benefit from hearing it as well.

To have that guidance to grow up into the person I can’t wait to write one day once the building blocks are laid down.

But to round it out, the idea in my mind came from my grandpa revealing a little of our family history. How he left his work and stayed home for three years to raise my older brother so my grandmother wouldn’t have to. How he loved his wife and wanted to share the responsibility of raising the next generation with her, even if we weren’t his by blood.

An open secret, but unknown to the children who were the family of his heart.

So imagine with me; for three years, Toph raises Izumi in the gradually growing Republic City, away from the court eager to meld her to their wants, away from the monsters who would try to steal or murder an infant to reclaim a regime of bloodshed and destruction, away from Zuko.

But she’s not alone. The man who was like a father to her when her own was not, who told her he didn’t love her because he just met her yet she knows now he adores her, shows up and just doesn’t leave.

And eventually, a soldier boy set on a throne travels across the sea to come home.