#also imma be real: 'the killing 100 soldiers' thing reads to me like the kind of rumor you'd start if you wanted people to leave you alone

[narrativelysignificantturtleduck]

my general take on the "deserted the military" part of the piandao backstory is that i prefer a slight tweak where it's more of a "he didn't re-enlist when most people would" kind of thing, a "served his time and got out" sort of situation. a little odd, but technically above board. it fits better with him training zuko - i can't see allowing a traitor to train the prince, even if he's the unfavorite child - and doesn't conflict with jeong jeong and chey being the first deserters.

that said, i think people forget/don't know that after he left the military he "traveled the world for many years, studying under a variety of benders, warriors, and artisans." even if he did straight-up desert, that means the fire nation could've been searching the earth kingdom for years and only realized he was back in the fire nation when he started rising to prominence with his teaching business. i still prefer my tweak, bc it would make it easier for him to travel and study if he wasn't living on the run, but i think it's worth noting that piandao wasn't just able to stay in the fire nation as a traitor. jeong jeong wasn't stupid for fleeing into the woods. piandao had to flee the country too.

honestly in general i think people fixate too much on this part of piandao's backstory. imo the most interesting parts are the aforementioned traveling-the-world phase and that he was abandoned by his parents at an orphanage for being a nonbender. what does killing 100 soldiers actually mean for him as a character? we already know he's a badass, we saw him fight comet-powered firebenders and win. his parents abandoning him adds an extra depth to his relationship with sokka, because it reads as him trying to be the supportive parental figure that he didn't have at that age. that he's traveled the world explains his membership in the white lotus & his belief that the arts don't belong to one nation, plus it provides some fertile story ground. where did he go? what kind of people did he meet? how did his perspective on the war evolve?

like idk, the whole backstory is there on the wiki for everyone to read and i feel like the prominent part of it being that he killed a bunch of people speaks to an obsession with ruthless violence as cool that just fucking annoys me tbh