#Fire nation

[samleewins]

Kyoshi's fiery girlfriend, Rangi.

[ill-kidnap-all-the-stars]

Zuko

[ image description: a digital drawing of Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender drawing in my style. He is a light-skinned man standing in ¾ view and looking at a fire in his hand. His right eye is gold, but his left is heavily scarred and closed. His black hair is held up in a top knot with the flame-shaped Fire Lord Crown. He is wearing a gold-trimmed red inner robe, with a brown outer robe. It has gold embroidery of Chinese dragons on the shoulders, and a peacock feather motif on the hem of the robes. He is standing in front of a brown Fire Nation symbol ]

prints ✨ commissions

📣 If your Zuko isn't half blind, I don't want him 📣

I feel like some Fire Nation outfits are bright and red, but Zuko's are always in some way darker. Let's not unpick the symbolism there :/ as always, influences and inspiration under the cut, with the reminder that these originally came from Instagram slides I made, so they're missing a lot of extra context and nuance - also that I don't speak a lick of Chinese (any flavour of it) but I tried my best with the characters:

A Bit of Background:

The Fire Nation is visually and geographically inspired by volcanic islands such as Iceland, Hawaii and Polynesian islands, while the culture of the Fire Nation is primarily inspired by East, South and Southeast Asia, as well as sun-worshipping cultures (such as the Ancient Egyptians and Mesoamericans). For example:

the Confucian concept of ‘filial piety’ (孝顺 or ‘xiao shun’) is central to the Fire Nation too;

the agni kai is a form of honour duel commonly seen in warrior societies of South Asia, and literally translates as ‘Duel of Fire’ or ‘Fire Quarrel’;

the Fire Nation propaganda justifying the war is reminiscent of the Japanese Empire during the Second World War;

the architecture draws on that of Ancient Egypt, different Chinese dynasties, and historic Southeast Asian kingdoms;

the food typically resembles the Sichuan food, particularly in the spiciness and quantities of meat.

Fire Nation Clothing:

The clothing of the Fire Nation draws from many East and Southeast Asian clothing. For example, the armour the military wears has influences from traditional Thai armour, the shoulder pieces the Royal Family wears come from Burmese court wear, the school uniforms are inspired by traditional Thai clothing, and the Royal Family's top knot appear to come from Qin Dynasty China.

The Royal Court are often seen wearing changshan, a traditional clothing of the Han Chinese, although that is not the only influence. For example, Azula's skirt comes from the wraparound trousers worn in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand, while Ty Lee and Toph's jewellery comes from the Thai mongkut.

My Design:

Zuko's wardrobe is one of (if not) the most varied, diverse and expensive of any character is the show. For example, his Ember Island clothing is very Thai-inspired, his Blue Spirit mask is based of a Chinese Nuo mask, his armour and hair in season one come from Thailand, and his dual swords come from Chinese niuweidao swords (牛尾刀). And that's not even mentioning the can of worms that is season two. But, since I'm drawing outfits for a ball in Republic City, I decided to draw inspiration from his looks in season three of ATLA and ATLOK.

I decided to go for the traditional daopao (道袍) robe, which usually had white or plain facings, but I decided to make them gold because Fire Nation. I put peacock feathers on Zuko's clothing because they symbolise the sun and virtue in Chinese clothing. I also decided to draw dragons on his outer robe. The dragons in ATLA are a combination of Western and Chinese dragons. Visually, they are very inspired by Chinese dragons, although they have four toes, which is more common with Korean and Vietnamese dragons, and they retain a connection to the Emperor. However, the presence of wings and their association with fire comes from Western dragons.

[phoenix-king-ozai]

My favorite father & daughter duo!

"Don't flatter yourself, you were never even a player."

[firelordrozula]

Here’s the theory, Ursa and Ozai are both narcissists who played favorites with the child that best suited their egos.

Ursa wasn’t a perfect mother, and she was also in an abusive marriage — both truths can coexist.

[unknownuser20-04]

fire nation Katara !!!!! 🔥🌊

[mayskalih]

fire siblings but make them travel together

[zuko-always-lies]

Weird Question

[theoneandonlylobster]

I always kinda headcanoned that Jeong Jeong deserted because he was tasked with teaching Azula for a bit and she was a huge pain and the ass and had they ever met in the show it would have been on sight for either of them, they absolutely loathe each other.

I can certainly imagine that being stuck with Sifu "Firebending is such a burden! A BURDEN!" Jeong Jeong would have pissed Azula off right from the get-go, considering she seems to regard it as the greatest possible gift one can receive. And, like, say this is around Zuko's banishment (either before or possibly just after, up to a year after), she's gonna be pretty damn feisty and know how good she is by then, her fire might already even be blue.

As a former gifted kid who was good at pretty much anything I ever did (still am, but the constant mental breakdowns have definitely slowed me a bunch) and was also called "prodigy" by the adults around me, at that age in particular I was damn near insufferable. Even though my mother had recently died and the cracks were already starting.

So yeah, Azula was likely to be as well. Of course, the only clue we get to her nature during this age is a possibly unreliable flashback of Iroh's.

But the Azula we know and the Jeong Jeong we know would be worse than oil and water. It's more like sodium and water.

So yeah.

I can see her being what caused him to desert the military just to get away from stupid orders that have him training the Firelord's insufferable, awful brat children.

Its always interesting what you discover when rewatching atla, here we have Azula and Jeong Jeong doing the same Fire Bending move in Book 1 and Book 2.

Here is Jeong Jeong during Book 1 Episode 16:

Here is Azula during Book 2 Episode 8:

It's also interesting to note that Azula's shield also has an explosive effect to it.

[demaparbat-hp]

Arsonist's Lullaby

[stormbornnn]

[late-draft]

This is continuation of this thread with great ideas that inspired the art: Post

Zuko hasn't (yet??) blocked Azula, not even temporarily

Iroh's photo is blurry because OF COURSE

Zhao keeps editing his stuff

I debated placing "Ozai: Seen" but it turns out he probably wouldn't even be looking at this social media

Please help me name this lame Fire Nation social media for boomers

Zuko's "On a quest" status is pure copium

Next part

[lord-save-me]

I personally believe plant/wood bending

Here's an interesting question to any Avatar fans who follow my blog or just see this post: If there was fifth Elemental society in the world of Avatar, what do you think their element would be, what might their bending style be (the type of fighting style their bending would be based on i mean) and would you see their society being like?

[ill-kidnap-all-the-stars]

Azula

[ image description: a digital drawing of Azula from Avatar: the Last Airbender in my style. She is a light-skinned woman with gold eyes and black hair, the top part tied in a top knot. She is wearing a red cheongsam dress with a wide skirt, a dark red/brown sash and a matching shawl around her arms. Her upper cheongsam has gold hibiscus embroidery, while her sash has gold phoenix embroidery. Whisps of blue fire are coming from her fingers. She is standing in front of a brown Fire Nation sign ]

prints ✨ commissions

I honestly feel like this Azula might be close to my magnum opus 🔥 influences and inspiration under the cut, but the usual warning that it's nigh impossible to condense thousands of years and miles worth of culture into one post so there is 100% nuance and detail missing. Also, I tried my best with the Chinese, but I honestly don't speak a lick of it so I put my faith in strangers on the internet :/ anyway, enjoy:

A Bit of Background:

The Fire Nation is visually and geographically inspired by volcanic islands such as Iceland, Hawaii and Polynesian islands, while the culture of the Fire Nation is primarily inspired by East, South and Southeast Asia, as well as sun-worshipping cultures (such as the Ancient Egyptians and Mesoamericans). For example:

the Confucian concept of ‘filial piety’ (孝顺 or ‘xiao shun’) is central to the Fire Nation too;

the agni kai is a form of honour duel commonly seen in warrior societies of South Asia, and literally translates as ‘Duel of Fire’ or ‘Fire Quarrel’;

the Fire Nation propaganda justifying the war is reminiscent of the Japanese Empire during the Second World War;

the architecture draws on that of Ancient Egypt, different Chinese dynasties, and historic Southeast Asian kingdoms;

the food typically resembles the Sichuan food, particularly in the spiciness and quantities of meat.

Fire Nation Clothing:

The clothing of the Fire Nation draws from many East and Southeast Asian clothing. For example, the armour the military wears has influences from traditional Thai armour, the shoulder pieces the Royal Family wears come from Burmese court wear, the school uniforms are inspired by traditional Thai clothing, and the Royal Family's top knot appear to come from Qin Dynasty China.

The Royal Court are often seen wearing changshan, a traditional clothing of the Han Chinese, although that is not the only influence. For example, Azula's skirt comes from the wraparound trousers worn in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand, while Ty Lee and Toph's jewellery comes from the Thai mongkut.

My Design:

While Azula (and, in fact, many other Fire Nation characters) originally had a distinctly Japanese-influenced design, I decided to roll with the overarching Chinese aesthetic that she and the Royal Court ended up with. I think it's well-established that Azula's obsession with perfection extends to her appearance, not just her bending, so I decided to draw her as the perfect Fire Nation princess.

My starting point was the Chinese phoenix (鳳凰 or ‘fenghuang’), which symbolises, among other things, feminine beauty and good fortune, and is traditionally associated with the Empress in Imperial China. In addition, the phoenix and the dragon are often seen as representative of the yin and yang, the two complimentary and opposing forces in Chinese philosophy, and I think the two nicely symbolise Azula and Zuko's contentious relationship. I also embellished her dress with hibiscus flowers, as they symbolise glory, grandeur and fame, which I believe Azula desires greatly.

[official-sokka]

Don’t forget we invade the Fire Nation today

[queen-morgana91]

Avatar the Last Airbender beautifully told the story of how imperialists lie and have to be called on it and yet somehow certain people missed that message and turned into fire nation apologists

[maniacrow]

Zukka once again, this time with a time lapse as well.

Guys give me two minutes to figure out Tumblr and I'll be flying