Doomthread is much much better with more than two people, because there are more surprises and much more to bounce off of! I have been so happy about all this, I can't even express it. WELCOME TO DOOMTHREADING! YOU FIT IN WELL!
I do love the theory that it's not so much Iroh that Ozai is competing with, as it's Lu Ten, who isn't a firebender. God. I wonder what all Ozai was up to, while Iroh and Lu Ten were on the field? I can only imagine that his bid for bumping Iroh from the Crown Prince spot was the last part of a long, long campaign of whispers and winks, trying to undermine Iroh with Azulon, and Azulon put up with it because they're brothers, it's normal for brothers to bicker and not get along, even if he would have preferred that they did get along because there's only two of them, this is normal, too! Right?
I am going to have to write myself an Azulon story at some point, I think. The loss of his family was so huge, and impacted him so strongly-- impacted the country, too, I would imagine.
the little flicks of fire and air, here in Ba Sing Se
I SHOULD MENTION HOW MUCH I LOVE YOUR IDEA OF THIS SPRAWLING ROYAL FAMILY BEING WHITTLED DOWN TO A TINY BITTER KNOT OF INFIGHTING AND INCEST BY THE WAY.
I am convinced that Azulon wanted a huge family to make up for the loss of his own, and that the problem with not getting to marry Ilah first off-- and then having problems with his politically-selected brides (from the same family!) and fertility-- made it so that he ended up with just the two. Although I keep wondering, since my brain is still all Tudor on this, how many miscarriages happened-- OH, WAIT. If maybe the politically-selected brides' family was too close, genetically speaking, to Azulon, and a regressive gene kept popping up? I know this makes it way too easy to go AHA, AND THUS THE TENDENCY TOWARD INSANITY IN OZAI AND AZULA, but I don't think it's that (although man, it couldn't have helped), it's something that made pregnancies unstable. Ozai was something of a miracle. A sucky miracle, but there you go. And someone might have tried to explain what happened to Azulon, but he had it in his head that obviously he wasn't meant to have much family, and that's when he went back to the original Plan A and brought up Ilah and Iroh, because if this is all the family he gets then by god it's all going to be legitimate. And of course Ilah was too old to have any more kids at that point. God, it's all so awful. (AND WE MADE IT ALL UP. Which I love.)
And there is eleven year old Iroh, kneeling and trying to hold back tears and properly welcome him as a subject to the Fire Lord and --
Seriously, Rhod, you have got to freaking write this. Er. When you have time. Because that image punches me in the heart every time you mention it. Oh, Iroh.
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Date: 2010-09-22 05:29 pm (UTC)I do love the theory that it's not so much Iroh that Ozai is competing with, as it's Lu Ten, who isn't a firebender. God. I wonder what all Ozai was up to, while Iroh and Lu Ten were on the field? I can only imagine that his bid for bumping Iroh from the Crown Prince spot was the last part of a long, long campaign of whispers and winks, trying to undermine Iroh with Azulon, and Azulon put up with it because they're brothers, it's normal for brothers to bicker and not get along, even if he would have preferred that they did get along because there's only two of them, this is normal, too! Right?
I am going to have to write myself an Azulon story at some point, I think. The loss of his family was so huge, and impacted him so strongly-- impacted the country, too, I would imagine.
the little flicks of fire and air, here in Ba Sing Se
JFC,
I SHOULD MENTION HOW MUCH I LOVE YOUR IDEA OF THIS SPRAWLING ROYAL FAMILY BEING WHITTLED DOWN TO A TINY BITTER KNOT OF INFIGHTING
AND INCESTBY THE WAY.I am convinced that Azulon wanted a huge family to make up for the loss of his own, and that the problem with not getting to marry Ilah first off-- and then having problems with his politically-selected brides (from the same family!) and fertility-- made it so that he ended up with just the two. Although I keep wondering, since my brain is still all Tudor on this, how many miscarriages happened-- OH, WAIT. If maybe the politically-selected brides' family was too close, genetically speaking, to Azulon, and a regressive gene kept popping up? I know this makes it way too easy to go AHA, AND THUS THE TENDENCY TOWARD INSANITY IN OZAI AND AZULA, but I don't think it's that (although man, it couldn't have helped), it's something that made pregnancies unstable. Ozai was something of a miracle. A sucky miracle, but there you go. And someone might have tried to explain what happened to Azulon, but he had it in his head that obviously he wasn't meant to have much family, and that's when he went back to the original Plan A and brought up Ilah and Iroh, because if this is all the family he gets then by god it's all going to be legitimate. And of course Ilah was too old to have any more kids at that point. God, it's all so awful. (AND WE MADE IT ALL UP. Which I love.)
And there is eleven year old Iroh, kneeling and trying to hold back tears and properly welcome him as a subject to the Fire Lord and --
Seriously, Rhod, you have got to freaking write this. Er. When you have time. Because that image punches me in the heart every time you mention it. Oh, Iroh.