Talk:Iroh/@comment-3278061-20110928165231/@comment-1025281-20111106090118

At the end of the day, your comments about the relative strengths, the relative agility and the relative sheer prowess of other Firebenders against Iroh rely on the limited perspective of a television series. With only sixty-one episodes, there was only so much time in the original stories for the creators to tell a compelling story, a story whose main character obviously wasn't wise old Uncle. In some cases, like that of the Liberation of Ba Sing Se, the creators needed to showcase each master, rather than leaving out a few to showcase Iroh more. Thus, in order to complement the basic storyline with a rich universe, the creators did what all skilled fantasy writers do – rely on other characters or embedded plot mechanisms to give passing and implied references. The Harry Potter series has a fairly clear-cut example – do we ever see Dumbledore utilise his claimed "full powers"? Certainly not – the extent of his powers are implied from stories Harry hears from other characters. We see one short duel with the main villain Voldemort, but his greatest feats of magic are only implied. That does not make them any less "real".

Similarly, though Iroh demonstrates the single most powerful feat of Firebending in the series, most of his actual fighting and duelling ability is largely implied by how other characters treat him and how other characters speak of him. Some of these examples are obvious, and they've been pointed out to you more than once without rational acknowledgement. Others rely on some ability to think about the canon we've been presented, which you seem to be very willing to ignore, such as the example of Azulon. Well – this old guy's opinion certainly should be respected. You seem to forget that the state of the world by the time Aang re-emerges is largely his responsibility. During his long rule, he presided over the near-destruction of the Southern Water Tribe, and the continuing annihilation of the Earth Kingdom, so much so that when Ozai took over the only remaining civilian strongholds left to his enemies were Omashu and Ba Sing Se. The latter had even been briefly humiliated. Azulon was also a child prodigy Firebender, and his granddaughter was named after him for this. So when Azulon displays a clear preference for his older son, and demonstrates an unswerving will to protect his rights, he should not be ignored. Moreover, your claim that Azulon prefers Iroh only for his status as the elder child is ridiculous. Had Iroh been downright incompetent, it's inconceivable that a human interested in self-preservation like Azulon would not try to promote his younger son more often. As it stands, Ozai had no significant military accomplishments to his name when he seized the throne. Clearly, his father had simply judged him as incapable of achievement on the level of Iroh.

But there are more examples. If Jeong Jeong was more powerful than Iroh, as you seem to want to believe, why is it Iroh who leads the Order to Ba Sing Se, and why is it Iroh who breaks open the Inner Wall? If Jeong Jeong was indeed the superior of the two Order members, Iroh should be following him, not the other way around! Also, for what reason do Fire Nation soldiers respect him almost without exception, then? Soldiers have a remarkable reputation for being very critical of any incompetence. Yet they seem more than content to give heed to their wise leader, whose only military failure befell him in the shadow of Ba Sing Se's walls. Even his enemies refuse to criticise his Firebending powers. Azula has a disdain of his royal tea-loving kookiness, sure, but it's shown to be more to do with his personality and his unwillingness to go along with a "stop-at-nothing" approach of ruthlessness. It's a sign when an incredibly self-confident Firebending prodigy doesn't claim outright to be better at one of the qualities she is most proud of.

Having addressed in detail Iroh's canon reputation, there are also two more examples for which you did not find my refutations satisfactory, and for your sake I will explain them again. The first was your insistence that the Imperial Firebenders were somehow different against Sokka, Toph and Suki than against Iroh and Zuko. From a canon point of view, this makes no sense at all. How is it possible for the most elite institution of the most powerful military in the world somehow have incompetent benders over here, but immensely powerful ones over there? Logic dictates that the quality of the Imperial Firebenders in Azula's detail and the quality of Imperial Firebenders in Ozai's (larger) armada should be exactly the same. Granted, the latter had the advantage of the comet, but this was more than negated by the constricted nature of the fighting environment and Toph's ability to bend metal. And allow me to remind you that your dismissal of Zuko sounds lame when you consider that he becomes Fire Lords. We all know what kind of Firebenders the royal family are and why the rightful Fire Lord is usually the most powerful Firebender in the world other than the Avatar.

The other example to address is your inane insistence on Iroh being weak for not intervening in the Agni Kai between Ozai and Zuko. As I clearly stated, Iroh would have been foolish to intervene. At this point, Iroh was still a general on the Fire Lord's council and presumably lived a pretty comfortable existence. Why throw that away over something that you won't be able to stop anyway? Zuko would still get his mark, and Iroh would be tossed out. And that means no ship, no troops and no roast duck for Uncle's belly. You certainly observed that Iroh and Zuko did not enjoy their time as fugitives early in Book 2. Well, it would've happened to them a whole lot sooner had Iroh been hot-headed enough to step in. As it happened, Iroh pursued the wiser course and was able to provide Zuko with the means to search for the Avatar – and find him they did.

I have to apologise for writing a full-length essay over this, but I'm not willing to allow a wholesale trashing of one of the series' most popular characters. Iroh's reputation as a source of wisdom and humour is firmly backed up by his demonstrated and implied raw power. If my protracted explanations do not convince you of this, I don't know what will.