#and I still find it weird that sozin would put that much effort into killing the air avatar

[woodlaflababab]

I have a

kind of headcanon, hear me out.

The Fire Nation and Air Nomad cultures share a few similarities. Both are mostly island cultures, specifically mountainous ones. They share the same color scheme, with AN leaning more toward yellow and FN more toward red.

Both the Air and Earth benders say their bending originated from animals (Sky Bison, Badgermoles), meanwhile both the Water and Fire benders derive their bending from a celestial body. (Moon and Sun.)

But then they also say the dragons are a firebending specific animal, but I'd like to suggest they may actually be another thing both airbenders and firebenders share. I mean, the dragons fly, their movements are smooth and circular, like airbending. When we see the last two, we see a red one, but also a blue one, which isn't very Fire Nation of it. It's more remenescent of the sky and the blue arrows of the airbenders.

Plus I happen to be a personal fan of the headcanon that just like the fish Tui and La are the spirits of the moon and the ocean, Ran and Shaw are also spirits, but of the sun and sky.

Like, I'm just saying, it'd make sense for the dragons who live in the mountainous island regions of the fire nation to also find homes in the air nomad islands.

Also, Sozin or Azulon, don't remember rn, ordered the dragons hunted and killed. Why would they do that to their own animals? Unless they weren't fire nation animals and instead shared between them and the air nomads, whom they were also trying to wipe out.

Sozin's choice to completely demolish the airbenders only to potentially catch one (1) person, would make a lot more sense if he also had reason to want air nomads as a whole gone, and if air nomads were as intertwined with the fire nation as they seem, while they may be pacifist, they would be the greatest threat to the firelords rule via influence of fire nation citizens. Solution? Kill them all and spread propaganda that they were evil this whole time.

I mean, there's even that one thing that said Sozin's sister was super into air nomad philosophy which means it had to be pretty accessible to the people of the fire nation. She fell in love with an air nomad nun that was allowed to visit the royal family. And then took a political alliance marriage with an air nomad monk. Like, why would the fire nation feel a need for alliance with the air nomads and not like, the earth kingdom? They had to know the air nomads would never join their cause, so why do it? Unless they saw the air nomads as the true threat. Unless there was particular tension between those two cultural groups. This is especially backed up by the existance of the Guiding Wind group which, in a way too simplified summery, was a movement of airbenders sick of how involved air benders were with fire nation nobility.

So, air nomads and the fire nation share cultural similarities, as well as potentially a shared sacred animal. Air nomads were involved enough in the fire nation as to visit and marry into the royal family, and air nomads felt they had enough influence to start a movement against fire nation nobility despite not being citizens.

These two cultures were intertwined far more than any other pairing, which meant the air nomads had the best chance, despite being pacifists, of stopping the war in it's tracks. So naturally, they had to die.