I was so starved for Lao/SEA representation (WE STILL DONT HAVE IT, OR AT LEAST NOT VERY GOOD ONES) back in the day that when I started watching ATLA and saw Zuko and Iroh (and the rest of the fire Nation characters) my brain just kind of just immediately assumed that they were Thai or Lao regardless of if their names didn't show that they were these ethnicities because I just immediately assumed these guys were South East Asian since red + gold is very common in these cultures. Like Azula and Zuko are Thai, Ty Lee is Lao, Mai is like Vietnamese, Zhao is like Thai/Khmer and it just never occurred to me that??? They're not???

















