#she does go to temples eventually. but with a healthier mindset and reasoning

[tragedykery]

babe wake up new oc lore just dropped (aka long ramble about hira under the cut)

the thing about hira is. she grew up in an orphanage in the western earth kingdom. she was left there as a baby with nothing but her name. she doesn’t know who her parents were, where she’s from, and when her efforts to figure this out prove fruitless, it hurts. she longs for family, for knowledge and identity and culture, only spurred on by the feeling of alienation from (and perhaps jealousy towards) her peers.

(and maybe she conflates those different types of longing, maybe she thinks if she discovers what nation her parents were from she’ll find a new family there.)

so when she finds out she can airbend, she’s overjoyed. she throws herself into learning everything she can about the bending and the culture. she makes plans to go to the temples when she gets off the ship. when she gets there, she’ll finally have a family. she’ll finally be at home.

and that is one of the reasons she struggles so much when she realises she actually likes it on the ship. she likes being with these people, these pirates who have actually begun to feel like some sort family to her. the ship feels like home. and that’s why, eventually, she stays.

(and also, she’s scared. she’s scared they won’t accept her at the temples, that she isn’t air nomad enough. that she doesn’t know enough. she’ll go, just later. not yet.)

she stays, and keeps learning. she learns to meditate, to write air nomad script and speak air nomad languages, to cook air nomad recipes, all under the tutelage of sita (though for the last one, chusak helps too). she’s almost a bending prodigy.

and then she discovers she’s the avatar. and she refuses to believe it.

because being the avatar would mean being not really an air nomad. it would mean a duty to the world, and with that, an inability to fully comply with air nomad philosophy. the avatar can’t stay detached from worldly matters or choose not to harm.

so she denies it.

eventually, with the help of her friends (her family) she learns to separate the concepts of family and culture and identity and bending. she learns her worth doesn’t depend on those things, that she can be multiple things at once, that she doesn’t have to choose. she can do her duty as the avatar and still be an air nomad.

can bend any of the elements and speak both the languages of the eastern air temple and a small village in the west of the earth kingdom and prefer her tea the way it’s served in tea houses decked out in green but prefer her bread the way it’s eaten by nuns and have it be okay. she doesn’t have to choose or change or be perfect to be loved. her family is a motley pirate crew made up of people who find their origins in all four corners of the globe, and they celebrate all their wonderful differences.

so indeed, I think more than anything, wind in the sails is a story about identity & culture & personal growth.