u/Denllie

This post contains content not supported on old Reddit. Click here to view the full post

He was a kid who’d been dealt one of the worst hands in life and had to face it on his own. He wasn’t like Sokka and Katara, who still had each other, their grandmother, and a community they could rely on for support. Nor did he have someone like Aang, who could give him hope for a better future and help him channel his hatred toward the Fire Nation into something more meaningful and productive.

After the death of his parents and the destruction of his home, he was just a traumatized kid without guidance, constantly surrounded by the very people who had destroyed his life and forced to keep witnessing the atrocities they committed against the others. He was surrounded by other children who shared the same fate, feeding one another’s anger, grief, and desperation. To them, it felt like the world was unfair, where the Fire Nation always won, never facing consequences, and it seemed like they never would. Living like this, with constant pressure and no real control over anything, made them believe that any action against the Fire Nation was justified. It gave them a sense of power over their oppressors. Even if their actions were not justified, I think it was totally understandable.

Even though he was trying to leave his past behind and start a new life in Ba Sing Se, his trauma was not something that could heal in just a couple of months. Seeing Iroh and Zuko -two firebenders who, in his mind, represented everything that had destroyed his life - in the very haven he was trying to escape to, brought all of his trauma and anger back to the surface. To him, they were not just ordinary refugees trying to survive, but reminders of the pain and loss he had carried for years.

In the end he has been brainwashed and murdered by his own nation, unceremoniously so, being mentioned only once for the rest of the show just as a cautionary tale about the mistakes he has done when he was a desperate child of war. I’ve always wanted him to be able to see the end of the war, have a chance to actually heal and use his second chance to live a better life, like everyone whose childhood was stolen by the war.