How the fuck did they lose? They had beat every nation into a pulp and the ones they couldn't occupy they were successfully containing them far from where the actual war was happening, you're telling me such an advanced power would just lose? Pretty unrealistic.
I know it's story structure but
Charles Ortiz
Eli Gray
>How the fuck did they lose? They had beat every nation into a pulp and the ones they couldn't occupy they were successfully containing them far from where the actual war was happening, you're telling me such an advanced power would just lose? Pretty unrealistic.
Cooper Thomas
>How the fuck did they lose? They had beat every nation into a pulp and the ones they couldn't occupy they were successfully containing them far from where the actual war was happening, you're telling me such an advanced power would just lose? Pretty unrealistic.
Brody Ward
This doesn't include the colonial empires or Americas though
Andrew Wright
>>How the fuck did they lose? They had beat every nation into a pulp and the ones they couldn't occupy they were successfully containing them far from where the actual war was happening, you're telling me such an advanced power would just lose? Pretty unrealistic.
Nathaniel Baker
Pretty much this. You can hold a territory where the natives hate you or you don't stretch your supplies thin, but not both.
Lose your head of state and the occupied areas will shrug you off like a bad dream
Wyatt Lee
They didn't lose. They won. They simply gave back the land because the new Fire Lord said so. Now, you could argue that after 100 years simply giving the land back would have caused a bunch of internal strife but that wasn't the story.
Aiden Barnes
They did not conquer the minds of the people.The Avatar defeated their imperialist Rida on his genocide all insane plan .And after that the new Fire lord gave back the line to the people instead of occupying it get the Fire Nation took .
Samuel Perez
You know what, I'm amending this.
You can't hokd territories where the natives hate you. The Fire Nation foolishly sought to subjugate the world and made other benders lesser rather than incorporating them into their society.
If you tell every water and earth bender in the world that they'll never be on your level and their only future is a slow genocide, well there you go, you've made 3/4ths of the world your enemy.
Asher Rodriguez
This one doesn't compare as they weren't an advanced power compared to their enemies
Bentley Bailey
Say. To Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany at the time.Both of them saw a Merica as to pleasure hungry and decadent in order to sustain a military economy.
Zachary Baker
Literally just because of the Avatar.
The Air Nation was exterminated, the Southern Water Tribe was a neutralized non-bending protectorate, half the Earth Kingdom was already integrated and the rest would have been neutralized during Sozin’s Comet and annexed.
The Northern Water Tribe was all that was left, and even with the type advantage they’d be ground down to nothing eventually
Colton Lewis
You seem to be forgetting they lost the biggest earth Kingdo Capital by 5 old men on the day of Sozin’s Comet that doesn't come back for another hundred years. And one of those previous we mentioned five old man single-handedly took back the second one on the day of no firebending . And the emotional implications of losing the firelord on the most powerful firebending day to the child Avatar no one's going to have the stomach for war losing so much on one day even if they think they can take out fire lord Zuko at least no normal sensible person is.
Jordan Rivera
But the genocide was their only plan for maintaining their occupation of the earth kingdom. They directly point this out in the episode before the eclipse.
If the genocide failed, the avatar or red lotus stopped the fire lord, then they were fucked. They had no alternative plans, and they were trying to occupy literally an entire continent
Elijah Baker
They didn't. Sozin had pretty much won and was using the Comet for mop up.
They didn't win the war so much as enact regime change by swapping Sozin with Zuko. (And even then they didn't give back the colonies.)
Gabriel Green
If you count kingdom, republic, empire and western empire, they lasted for almost 2000 years, and influenced the culture of a significant portion of the world, meanwhile the fire nation lasted for about 100 years, there were only four other factions in the war, one was wiped out, and another was barely doing anything, it hardly compares
Connor Ortiz
Though the actual Roman Empire might have collapsed, its legacy still lives on and its influences could still be seen in Eurasia today.
The collapse was caused by string of extreme bad luck and the fact that roman politics is a backstabbing shitshow.
Michael Baker
Things do be like that in a world where people have absurdly powerful abilities like bending, plus those five old men where extremely powerful masters in their craft.
Still doesn't make the liberation of Ba Sing Se any more pathetic on the Fire Nations end.
Cameron Martin
user, they were defeated by God.
They only lost when Aang not only mastered all the elements but unlocked unlimited use of the Avatar state.
Charles Flores
Well the best solution is to say that outside of what the TV showed off, the Fire Nation had far more problems.
Narratively the show didn't want for it's grand overarching plot and resolution to feel small. They needed the Fire Nation to fall right when it was at its most threatening for good story structure and more catharsis and whatnot.
But if we taking it more literally, could you imagine how drained and exhausted the Fire nation would have been after fighting a war for 100 years?
They have to have generations of men go off to either die or spend their whole lives overseas to subjugate the Earth Kingdom, and since they never built a collaborationist government in the Earth Kingdom, whenever they leave an area, it goes right back to being part of the Earth Kingdom.
Using Sozin's comet to destroy the hope and spirit of the Earth Kingdom was they're only way to win the war, and they were close but Sokka destroyed their whole air force dooming that plan. Then when both Ozai and Azula were taken out of the picture for all intents and purposes, the only Fire Lord Royals were pro peace, Zuko and Iroh.
And the subjects were probably sick of seeing generations of their brothers, sons, husbands, and other family members sent to die in a 100 year long war, so once Ozai was taken out the whole thing fell.
Aiden Flores
They were super advanced compared to China and much of the bare-bones European controlled East Asia, but inferior compared to the USA
Lucas Garcia
Its still insane to think how a genocide of a entire people gets basically brushed aside.when in the real world americans hear about the holocaust 9 times a day .
Caleb James
If the show was not for kids they definitely would have mentioned it more
John Davis
Clearly 100 years of trying to kick the entire planet's collective ass tired them out to the point that random misfits were actually effective against them.
Even after getting some completely sudden and unwarranted tech upgrades it barely made a change in their plans or how they operated.