cranky girlfriend

Hey first off, thank you for the ask! I feel like I'm screaming into the void half the time and Twitter is unusable anymore so all of my insane thoughts stay inside my head except for the ones that break containment. So I appreciate the opportunity.

Could I see the Live Action doing this? Yes. They seem to like to make everything connected to elicit some kind of emotional reaction (I also didn't care for the change that the 51st division were Zuko's crew tbh - not everything needs to have a deep personal connection!)

Would I like that change? Personally, no. Aang deciding not to kill Ozai because of his beliefs is much more impactful IMO. He's the last remaining person that can keep his culture alive, and if he kills Ozai, then that piece of his people dies with it. I think it's why he battled with the decision even after Yangchen told him it may be necessary - because even if she killed (I have not read the Yangchen novels yet, even though I desperately need to), there were other airbenders to honor that legacy of non-violence. Aang choosing to spare Ozai allowed him to hold on to that piece of his people, which is really important for his character IMO.

What I WOULD have loved to see would be more parallels between Roku/Sozin and Aang/Zuko. I thought we would be getting more of that when they showed Sozin in the first season, but...so far it doesn't seem like they're going in that direction. Granted, I'm only 2 episodes into the second season so tbd I guess.

I feel like the cartoon opened up the door for that to be explored, but never fully leaned into it. Sozin and Roku starting out as best friends and losing each other to distance/greed and Aang and Zuko starting out as enemies because of their predecessors falling out, but coming together to repair the damage out of self-sacrifice/love is an amazing full circle moment and it's a shame we didn't get more of that!