Embers

By Vathara

Alternate Title: The Legend of Zuko or In Place of an Avatar You Shall Have a Fire Prince, And All Shall Love Him And Despair
SPORKER: MasterGhandalf

SUMMARY

While on the run in the Earth Kingdom, Zuko and Iroh rediscover a long-lost firebending technique – fire healing. Thus Zuko will find himself set on a journey that will challenge his perceptions of who he is and what fire as an element is capable of in ways that will put him on a very different path compared to that of his canonical self. At the same time, it will turn out that almost everything everyone thought they knew about the Fire Nation, the true history of the Avatarverse, and what’s actually at stake in the Hundred-Year War is at best woefully incomplete and often completely wrong, as the author does not hesitate to share her opinions about the plot, characters and setting of the original show at very great length, while adding lots and lots of new characters and worldbuilding of her own. The result is either, depending on who you ask, a brilliant piece of literature that shines a completely new light on the original show while deepening the setting and characters and raising legitimately compelling ideas and moral issues… or a bloated mess that wears its biases on its sleeves, flaunts research that mostly just serves to prop up the things that the author wanted to talk about already, and ends up being more of an insult than a tribute to the original show and its characters and contains some disturbingly pro-imperialist views. Which take is more accurate? Let’s take a journey together and find out!

( ”Introduction” )

( Table of Contents )