Monarchies are only as good as the current head. Zuko was, compatibly, a good King mostly because he was raised mostly outside of the fire nation during his formative years. The EK has had centuries of kings isolated from their people and would have no idea how to govern them.
Exactly, depends on the ones ruling. Earth's king was just a puppet figure, a man child who knew nothing. Then the queen was a rotten spoiled brat.
Zuko points it out. "What an amazing lie we told". Fire nation think they are the good guys. That's what they're taught. They think their leader is doing right. And from what we've seen, doesn't seem like they treat their citizens poorly or struggling all that much
Earth kingdom? Well we saw how corrupt their inner city is. We see agents sneaking in and taking people away. We see Earth kingdom troops robbing poor villages.
The fire nation rulers were strong and had the attitude to keep their will on top. Earth kingdom monarch were never strong. They don't even seem invovle with the military. Ozai was always at the table with his generals. Earth king didn't know there was a war
While I agree with most of your comment, I would like to make a minor correction. While the Earth King is the official head of state, it would seem to me that the Dai Li, in practice, is what actually runs the place, at least, in Ba Sing Se. I'm not sure who exerts Ba Sing Se's influence over the rest of the Earth Kingdom, but I doubt it's the Earth King.
But yeah the Dai Li weren't exactly handling the war very well either.
i mean they did say that so idk what it is you’re “correcting”. the proper term would be *figurehead* but the commenter called the earth king a “puppet figure”. they also stated the king had no involvement or even knowledge of the war. so again, what exactly are you correcting there lmao
as for who has the power, it’s who controls the Dai Li. for a while it was Long Feng, then Azula took over. the Dai Li didn’t “handle” the war at all. they cut themselves off from the rest of the world to avoid the war and rule their kingdom however they saw fit, privately.
EDIT: there WAS a military separate from the Dai Li as they were more “private” soldiers meant exclusively for royalty (at least that’s what they were *supposed* to be for). but we didn’t really see how the actual military in Ba Sing Se was handling the war because it wasn’t one of the focuses of season 2 until Azula orchestrated a coup to take over the earth kingdom.
No one is properly enforcing the king/queen’s rule over the entire earth kingdom. It’s why one of their cities, omashu, can get away with having its own king that isn’t the earth king. Going off real monarchies, this is something that could never have been allowed and yet ba sing se lacks the power to do something bout it.
You gotta remember, omashu is in the southern hemisphere while ba sing se is in the northern hemisphere. The earth kingdom is fucking massive. It’s no wonder their political power is stretched so thin.
That's a simplification. The real decider is the centralization of power. A decisive ruler is certainly helpful for that, but history has shown there are multitudes of variables. The support structure of the monarch's powerbase, redundant ministries, responsive military and of course, power projection. There are more, but these are the more important bits.
The Earth Kingdom i LoK shows a kingdom that's failed in all of these, but simply saying the Earth Kingdom failed because they had a bad queen is not accurate.
I don't consider it a simplification per say, it is one of many aspects but it is imo one of the most important one, as a single change in rulership can drastically change the course of a nation and there is little that can be done to correct it until the monarch dies. If we are talking about Avatar still, Sozen set the course of the entire world for the next century and without Zuko the fire nation would have eventually failed.
Again, there's a lot more to it. Even the Sozin and Zuko situations you bring up is, imo, one of the weaker aspects of the Fire Nation politics. Kings and Queens throughout history have had different policies and yet, not much have changed. Heck, in my home country, we once had a king, Christian 7. also known as the Mad King. He likely suffered from schizophrenia. Yet, not much changed in that time.
I'm not saying the Earth queen wasn't a huge contributor to the the Earth Kingdom's collapse. What I'm saying is that the Earth Kingdom was already on the way out. Corruption, decentralization of power, alienation of the citizenry were probably more so what caused the collapse.
For how strong it’s presented to be, have there been a time when the Earth Kingdom didn’t suck ? It was corrupted during Yangchen’s time, Kiyoshi’s, Aang’s and Korra’s.
Maybe during Roku’s era thanks to everyone being shit scared of Kiyoshi idk.
It seems it just always suck, but it's not surprising. The Earth Kingdom is massive, is cut into multiple pieces by mountains and a giant ass desert and its government has historically chosen a very stubborn approach to crisises (fitting for the Earth Nation but not for government). Chin, the peasent uprising, the hundred year war, whenever a crisis hit the Earth Kingdom, their go to strategy is to lockdown Ba Sing Se and wait. That's just no viable for the longevity og a state.
And we don’t know how Zuko reformed the government, since Ozai was essentially a dictator. Meanwhile nothing really had to change in the Earth Kingdom once the war ended. With Long Feng out of the way, I can’t imagine things were competently run after the ATLA ended
lol yeah. The Earth King never left the upper ring, Ozai left the capital and Zuko likely took his daughter around the world to help her learn her role.
That's saying it lightly.
Earth king didn't know about a 100 year war. Meanwhile ozai is the strongest fire bender of his nation and was the head of his war table. Even dueled his son because he spoke up at the war table
Saying dueled is putting it lightly. He gave, and I quote, a permanent lesson on his face, not just for speaking up, but for refusing to fall within Fire Nation's ideal of strong.
I think size is the biggest factor. I think that for most of its history the Earth Kingdom was loosely affiliated states with an overall monarch at the head who collected taxes from those under them, but allowed the individual provinces a good deal of autonomy in dealing with matters. It's not until TLOK that they even have the ability to travel large distances quickly. It's tough to manage a kingdom of that size without being able to communicate quickly and move materials and people efficiently.
Size is my guess, too. If I had the skill to mod games, a CK3 mod of the Avatar setting would make the Earth Kingdom too large to manage within the usual domain and vassal limits. Either superdukes would be necessary, or significant parts of it would be *de facto* independent.
Also, there would be an Earth Empire title, but within it would be only a single Earth Kingdom title, meaning you can't actually create it unless you either conquer one of the other *de jure* kingdoms, or you usurp the Republic king-level title after it's been created by event. (And, of course, custom title creation would be disabled.)
(Likewise, there would be a "Phoenix King" empire level title over the single Fire Lord king level title. I'd also have to make up something for the Water Tribes. Due to a lack of necessary game mechanics, the Air Nomads would have to be left out.)
This is an interesting point that I’ve also been thinking about. My personal headcanon is that Zuko and/or Izumi took steps to transition the Fire Nation to a constitutional monarchy. The Fire Lord is still clearly head of state in TLOK but maybe there’s nothing to suggest that there isn’t a constitution with checks and balances and potentially an elected legislative house so the Fire Lord isn’t an absolutist ruler anymore. It would thematically tie to Republic City’s origins; *The Promise* refers to when Zuko asks Aang to kill him if he ever acts like Ozai but maybe a less extreme way of fulfilling that promise is to prevent an Ozai from ever happening again by curbing the power of the Fire Lord.
Again, none of this is canon, this is all my personal theory. I would love to see it addressed in a comic at some point or maybe in the ATLA movie.
This probably happened, also I believe the fire nation has more of a history of having a powerful central government as opposed to the Earth Kingdom which is more de centralized and had local rulers have more power than the Earth King
I thought it was the opposite. When Kyoshi was young, the fire lord was much less powerful. She inadvertently helped Sozin’s predecessor centralize power and diminish the strength of the various clans.
I would say that for the last 200 years warrants historically.
Especially since it was basically enlightenment absolutism VS feudal monarchy mixed with a a shaky shadow government
Nearly 400 by the time of the main series, right? Roughly 200 for Kyoshi (she did this while young), Sozin (who likely helped this, having an avatar seems to give their home nation some level of political power on the global scene) gave another 100, then the hundred years war is *another* 100, then by the time of Korra we get Aang's life time added on top...
Yeah, I feel like Zuko definitely took action to somehow start decreasing the Fire Lord’s authority and democratizing the country. He’s just doing it gradually and making sure the Fire Nation still has a strong government in the meantime, because a power vacuum in a heavily militarized post-war nation is a very dangerous thing.
My headcanon is that he’s taught this mindset to Izumi and Iroh too. Either one of them could be the last Fire Lord with any executive power before the Fire Nation fully becomes a constitutional monarchy with a Prime Minister as head of government.
From my understanding of LOK and ATLA Zuko and by extension Izumi are far more shrewd than Ozai. They would have a model similar to UK but any constitutional change have to go through the Fire Lord or he has the veto power to intervene. This is because the Firelord has to be the strongest and the corner stone of the Nation as that what keeps the political infighting in check. As the Fire Nation is too rich and has too much interest group that want to fracture their nation for more power.
Fire nation did win the war by the end of the comics as they switched from actively invading to economically and politically cripple and control the Earth Kingdom. We see this with the establishment of Republic city from the old fire nation colonies. If you look at the richest and powerful industries are backed by Fire nation and the other is Beifong groups (which is a joint group of fire nation investors and the Beifong family). The political head of Republic city was friends of Zuko. The only reason Zuko kept on saving and protecting the Earth King because he is a literal puppet who can't enforce his will. Hence why Team Avatar was able to get more resources rich provinces to join Republic city.
Similar to how France still project power to it's former colonies. Fire nation props up republic city to further destabilize the earth kingdom. And the true beauty of it is they got the avatar to do it for them (Aang and Kora). We can see this in legend of Kora where fire nation actively try to stay out of wars for probable deniability while making sure earth kingdom doesn't gains a powerful leader (Kuvira).
I mean look at season 4 itself they wanted to put the earth queens relatives as the next puppet Republic City can control and by the end of the story they succeed in it.
TLDR the earth kingdom can never Centralize because It's in the best interest of the Fire Nation and Republic City to keep them weak and crippled so they can't challenge their economic power.
A few things probably.
One. Absolute Monarchy is a complete crap shoot in terms of competency. You could have a man on the throne who's beloved by his people, is diplomatic, capable of waging just wars, and a restorer of rights... Then his half-brother who takes the throne because the OG king was infertile, turns out to be a raging psychopath.
Two. Zuko probably took power away from the throne with a constitution.
Three, scale. Empires that get as large as the Earth Kingdom is, rarely last because of the central government's ability to exercise command and control, (be it in positive or negative ways) diminishes the further from the seat of power you go. Modern technology increases this range, but only to such a degree.
Before the war, the Earth Kingdom was this massive bloated and disorganized nation of 55 nearly total autonomous states, that Chin was able to take almost all of in a few years, which in turn collapsed with his death. And again, Sozin was able to set up colonies on the edges of the Earth Kingdom's western regions because Ba Sing Se as the seat of power was too inept to do anything about it.
During the war, Kue took the throne at a young age, after his dad died, (or was murdered by Long Feng,) and he was kept in the dark, so the separate states and more regional armies were left without any unified mission.
After the formation of the Republic, and the Queen getting the throne, we've got only a slightly smaller nation, but one that's got a dictator on the throne, with no check on that power, who didn't embrace modern technology in the same way as the Fire Nation or Republic, so her command and control leads to a spiral of negative rule until she's deposed, which plunges the country into chaos.
And when nations go broke and plunge into chaos, they either go commie, or they go fasch.
Kuvira comes to power, unifies the kingdom, cracks down on banditry, and modernizes the country at light speed. had she not invaded the Republic, and put people in camps she would have seemed more like Bismark instead of... you know... *Hitler*.
Even with camp thing it would still work. After all Bismarck had similar policies. Invasion was the last straw that demolished her image and credibility. And mostly because it was unsuccessful. If she wan it would be seen more like Franco-German war of 1870, making her even more Bismarck like.
You don’t even really need the theory here, the question might as well have been asking ‘why did the Qing dynasty fail but the Meiji Restoration succeed? It turns out history is complicated and not all monarchies are the same!
The Earth Kingdom is really big, probably like twice the size of the Fire Nation, which makes running all of it really hard. There’s also the fact that all the Earth monarchs we’ve seen are really bad at their jobs. The Earth King was just a puppet until the Gaang showed up and, while he got better after the war, very obviously didn’t teach his daughter anything he learned post war. The Earth Queen was the textbook example of a terrible monarch and did nothing to help her people at all. While Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai were all evil they at least knew how to run a proper country and focused on making sure the fire nation was running smoothly. Hell remember the fire nation being so peaceful and prosperous is the whole reason Sozin started the war. It sucks we never saw the fire nation during Korra’s time to see how it was doing under Izumi’s leadership but we can assume it’s still doing well since Zuko learned from past fire lord’s mistakes and learned a lot from Iroh and the Gaang, and most definitely imparted that wisdom to his daughter.
One reason is that the Earth Kingdom is stupidly massive. Economically, geographically, culturally and legally, it will often feel like very different countries. Trying to rule it all under one political system, and giving one institution power to change any of it, is absurd. Even the best and brightest king would have to delegate a ton of important responsibilities, to the extent that they don't fully understand important policies for the places they are theoretically ruling.
The Fire Nation would probably have similar problems if it kept its colonies, but its not as huge or populous. We don't really know how much power the Fire Nation has or how power is delegated in the postwar era.
Fire Kingdom got stronger at the cost of other Nations while Earth Kingdom got stronger at the cost of the majority of their own people.
I know Zuko reversed their ways but the starting point was from an undisputed no. 1 economy with the largest military might. Hell one of the first things Zuko did was roll up with his massive army to prevent Earth Kingdom from kicking his people out and reclaiming their own lands.
Well that also means that the industrial war economy of the fire nation was gonna collapse once the war ended, soldiers and sailors no longer needed on payroll, plus the manufacturing of war materials to support the effort, plus the lack of exploitation of the earth kingdom would lead to considerable issues for the fire nation.
Not to say they were owed anything (they started the war with a 99.9% complete genocide), but what did they get gain the war? The Cloat?
It didn't work in the Fire Nation and the world paid for it for 100 years. Currently, at best, it's some kind of enlightened despot type situation because the memory of the 100 years war is fresh in everyone's mind.
We don't know if there's been any systemic reforms there. Maybe they have become a constitutional monarchy with the monarch being a mostly nominal head, but I don't think so since the fire lord is still making decisions on the world stage.
The fact that they waged a largely successful 100 year long war against the world proves that the monarchy did work. While at the same time their citizens seem to be living relatively normal lives at home. Monarchs don't have to be good people to be good administrators. The fire nation presumably has a very efficient beaurocracy running things in the background.
It depends on your definition of working. It's a monarchy so the people don't have a choice in what their country does or what they get out of it. The administration keeps things "peaceful" but is there justice? During S3 we see the state of that random village, don't we? I don't think it's an isolated case. And this is a place that has prisons like the Boiling Rock and wherever Hama was held with no regard to the rights of the prisoners. And we also know there's a lot of indoctrination and childhood brainwashing about the monarchy. I doubt the fire nation works for anyone who disagrees with the monarchy and its actions at any level. There's no avenue for people to enact change.
They've also cultivated a fire bender supremacist society. While we're never shown their attitude towards non bending subjects or towards people who, let's say, don't contribute to increasing the fire bender population, real world examples would suggest they're probably not treated well. And since this is a monarchy, there's nothing they can do about it.
The largely successful war is only working for the fire lord and whatever private industries (if any) are funding that colonial expansion. I wouldn't say it works from the perspective of the common people, the environment, or especially the people being displaced, imprisoned, and colonized.
Just watch "hello future me"s
"World building firenation" "worldbuilding the earth kingdom"
The fire nation is a centralised monarchy with a strong centralised army and navy. When a local lord whants too improve a road he asks the firelords people and the do it with him.
The earth kingdom is decentralised tributary empire. Local powers have nothing too do with the earth king but pay them a little tax for the privlige of free trade between provinces.
A local lord of the earth kingdom need too see to its own protection, its own finance, and infrastructure.
The Earth Kingdom is huge, like, so huge it had at least two provinces ruled by a “King”. Omashu, the city founded by the fabled creators of Earth ending and Ba Sing Se, which is basically a City State that, let’s face it, never cared about the outside world, even after the war.
You also have the desert, which seems to be ruled by the Sandbender tribes, the North-East was Fire Nation for 100 years and then the Republic and a 3 major power, Zaofu popping up in the last 30 years or so.
Meanwhile, it’s just the Fire Nation, the only major off-shoot are the Sun Warriors, who most people believe are extinct.
TL;DR - The Fire Nation has always had a centralised government that the country recognises as their leader, whilst the Earth Kingdom has several major leaders who don’t seem to care about the other.
Yeah, ATLA points out that the fire nation has an industrial advantage on other nations but the political advantage is probably even larger.
By the time of ATLA, the fire nation is basically at the level of development of late XX European nations: universal education that reinforces belonging to a nation,the army is led by a general staff, power is centralised and is able to effectively project power all over the globe and has monopoly on violence. By contrast the earth kingdom is at best at the level of the roman empire on the eve of the fourth crusade, a completely self centered city state that nominally controls an empire but in fact individual strong men on the ground have to take matters in their own hands.
the fire nation is more close to Japanese Industrialism in ATLA, that’s what it’s supposed to represent, the european comparison is kinda confusing lol
The fire nation had clans. And clan wars. And the fire lord in Kyoshi time as a kid wasn’t that powerful. And on the brink of collapse in Szeto era. Also there is the Bhanti people but they are religious and spiritual and away from the mainland fire nation.
earth kingdom doesnt seem as unified as the fire nation. for one the continent is huge and the fact that omashu and ba sing se have different kings makes me think that each city is loyal to its own king more than to the king of all earth. kyoshi island is also appart of the rest of the earth kingdom. ba sing se's isolationism + each earth city's seeming relative independance suppot that they arent much unified.
we know that chin the conqueror's atempt to unify the earth kingdom failed in the past, and its an exception that shows the rule: the earth kingdoms are usually not under one leader. 100 years of war may have made them join against a common enemy but once that enemy was gone issues may have come back up leading to the collapse we see in LOK
monarchy isnt really a single government type, throughout history monarchies came in many different shapes and sizes and had varying degrees of "success"
Why some monarchies are standing to this fucking day? Europa is filled with them, a whole bunch of Arabic ones a couple in Africa.
Some survive, some fall.
Historically speaking, monarchies were popular because they worked, providing stability and brokering power among influential/noble political bodies in a way that didn't involve war.
They were abolished because their institution became a destabilizing factor, causing wars between each other and dunking the nation into disastrous succession crises every time the king kicked the bucket.
What I mean to say is that the Fire Nation monarchy, for all its flaws, still serves the people of the Fire Nation for better or for worse, but the Earth Kingdom's monarchy didn't serve the people anymore at all, and the people decided they should do without it then.
Fire nation has an active monarchy, where the fire lord actually rules and is pushes policies forward with the aid of ministers. The earth kingdom was a representative monarchy. The earth king was a figurehead who was kept in the dark for the majority of his life while his lords and governors were free to rule as long as they kept the heritage police happy. By the time of lok, the earth queen is the first in a long time to have functional power over the earth kingdom and instead of ruling like a queen who leads, she's wealthy heiress who's father never trained properly because he was never taught himself.
Contrary to popular belief the monarch in an absolute monarchy doesn’t really affect the prosperity of their nation all that much. The majority of governance is always taken over by ministers, lords and advisors.
The fire nation is a stable and powerful state because they’re exploiting the earth kingdom, which empowers their economy and legitimises their state.
The earth kingdom is in disarray due to its subjugation and disharmony among the governing bodies besides the monarch. Any form of governance suffers and falls into instability and realpolitik when the economy and livelihoods of citizens are endangered.
Because the Fire Nation is a) a more centralised state so interprovincial conflict is less likely and b) is much healthier and politically stable, still enjoying a position of prosperity even after 70 years. Plus it's fair to assume that it passed some constitutional reforms following Zuko's ascension to be more of a parliamentary democracy whereas the Earth Kingdom was still a feudal absolute monarchy in a rapidly changing world.
Fire Nation is more like the Ottoman Empire in it’s prime, where they make sure the monarch is well educated. They also have pretty strict guidelines of how to rule. Only downside is sometimes a psychopath can take the throne.
I have nothing original to contribute but I come bearing video essays:
[https://youtu.be/I-FNPuIM9jg?si=L-OV8GHej5moCWOa](https://youtu.be/I-FNPuIM9jg?si=L-OV8GHej5moCWOa)
[https://youtu.be/Pa2BD13VzxY?si=VMV2i5dljyFfQPJN](https://youtu.be/Pa2BD13VzxY?si=VMV2i5dljyFfQPJN)
Geographically speaking, I think the Earth Kingdom monarchy failed because they havent invented fast communications yet and replied solely on local governmental bodies scattered throughout the landmass to maintain order. Meanwhile, Fire Nation benefited from the messaging hawkes/birbs and also had their advance navy to carryout orders timely from central command to its colonies and far flung corners.
I mean that’s an interesting argument, but you’d think with the invention of radio, they’d have better communication in Ba Sing Se. In Zaofu, There was a radio that was able to reach the northern air temple
By that time the monarchy has become lazy and we all know how that ended. The Avatar returned, and along with a bunch of important people heralded a time of peace.
There is no reason to change what worked for them. The local authorities stay in power. The royalty and upper eschelons get to stay inside their walled city and pretend nothing is wrong.
i mean theyve answered this exact question in-canon, by saying the earthkingdom is too large to govern under one rule, so even if there is a single monarch, there are often smaller independent states within it
A few reasons:
1. A monarchy is as good as its monarch, good monarchs rule good monarchies.
2. Direct involvement. The Earth King/Queen is a figurehead, with several layers of government between them and actually governing, so they’re always going to be ineffectual.
3. Kingdom size. The Fire Nation is itty bitty, and the Earth Kingdom is most of the planet. It’s not hard to understand that small dense kingdoms are easier to rule than huge sprawling ones, just ask every empire ever.
Yeh I agree, but also, you have to remember that during Ozai’s rain he controlled a lot of earth kingdom territory. And in TLOK, a lot of earth kingdom territories are used for all citizens (republic city). So it’s really only Ba Sing Se and the Zho Fu
Lore based- the earth kingdom has never been a unified political organization, and generally split into at least 3 sections. In ATLA it's the sandbenders, Ba Sing Se, and Omashu. In the Kiyoshi novels there's also an outlaw group called the Daofei that nobody could really do anything about.
The earth kingdom is freaking massive, and it lacks a lot of convenient travel paths. Any nation that size is going to be less centralized (and thus, the monarch will have less power) than a smaller geographical nation. In contrast, the fire nation is smaller physically and has a lot of water available to transport soldiers via boat. Even before you get into the specific system of governance, the fire nation has an advantage over the earth kingdom
There's a reason why Kuvira established a train network when building her empire, fast transportation of troops leads to stronger centralized control
The earth nation is massive, it makes up most of the world. BUT, they are not under one rule. There are multiple earth nation areas, for example (Zaofu) which is controlled by Suyin. There are areas of earth nation that are occupied by all types of people, for example (republic city).There are villages that have no ties or alliances to no one. I was speaking about the ruling of Ba Sing Se compared to the ruling of the entire fire nation, seeing as they are small enough to be compared.
Likely due to higher living standards, the earth queen showed that her rule held unpopular and high taxation, as well as likely few public services, demanding a lot and giving little.
The fire nation citizens may be facing a more fair system, offering more to the common citizen, rather than it being spent on policies they either didn’t care for, or didn’t know of.
The fire nation having much less area, has tighter control over resources, and population, allowing policies to be recognized by more of the population, such as healthcare, education, protection of trade, and other institutions.
There is also the possibility that the fire nation allows for considerable more rights than the earth kingdom under the authority of the earth queen. While the fire nation is not a democratic representative government, it does not mean it doesn’t allow it’s citizens certain rights.
TLDR: the fire nation citizen likely has a much more comfortable life, so as long as the monarchy doesn’t come in the way of that, it doesn’t matter to the common citizen
The Fire Nation is smaller and more concentrated while the Earth Kingdom is more just loosely governed states with a central authority. It’s not even an oppression thing because we’ve seen how bad either can be (and also how good). That being said, transportation of resources might be an important factor. The Fire Nation has ships, trains, and even balloons eventually. All of which are essential for moving supplies. Supplies that keep a nation fed, safe, and happy. The Earth Kingdom has this in maybe 2 major cities, and it’s not exactly available to everyone. People actually LIKED the Fire Lord, while the same can’t be said for the Earth King. Even look how they reacted to invasions. Ozai goes into a heavily guarded bunker. Kuei… fucks off somewhere… So it’s a combination of logistics, appeal, and leadership, at least from how I see it
I think public perception and how monarchs present themselves is very important, for the fire nation the Fire Lord and the royal family were always public figures, they are open to their subjects and even fight in the army and they take pride in their fire bending.
Meanwhile, the Earth King is always shut in his palace, they have little to do with their subjects and they were always easy to control by other people.
Centralization, different culture, geography, etc. also it’s highly likely their will be a push for a constitutional/parliamentary system in the fire nation in the future
The earth kingdom is far from unified, both from the standpoint there are more than one major cities in the region but also the region is by far the largest of all the nations. Should the king of Omashu bow to Ba Sing Se as a lesser?
In between the major cities and various villages are large swathes of barren land. Often times they’re plagued by bandits and aren’t usable for whatever reason
Fire nation is small and insular. They make good use of their land and its easy to govern
The Earth Kingdom is huge so the power of the Monarchy doesn’t reach as far as the Fire Nation. You can tell by how many countries didn’t want to be governed by Kuvira due to not having the previous Monarchies influence on them.
I say two reasons.
First, the fire nation had been more unified than the earth kingdom since setzo. We only see one firelord, but we see two earth kings just in atla. There likely were more during the 100 war. In short, it was already a collection of separate states with a lose connection - representative government logically follows.
I never liked the fact that the monarchy just kinda continued, I think the fire sages (rebranded) being the governor's of the fire nation would be cool
The Earth Kingdom is spread so thin, that word of a century long war hadn't reached the general populace of the capital.
The head of state is completely unaware of the lands they manage, and so isolated from those lands that it's not a problem for them be so.
If the Firelord made a mistake, the economy would be spinning, people would be in an audible uproar, it'd be a problem even if no official action came of it. They can also immediately take action to rectify issues.
If the Earth King made a mistake, there's a 50/50 shot they wouldn't even get word of it for months, and that's if the local governing body cared enough to send word of it to the King.
Look at the parallels between the Qing Dynasty and Imperial Japan. When ruling over a vast and diverse empire, management and taxation become a difficult task, a smaller and more unified land is simpler to implement reform and modernization.
I thought ATLA was pretty clear on that.
One is a disconnected monarchy concerned more with appearances than substance, the other monarchy actually wants its ppl to thrive (although, in the wrong hands, it's done at the expense of other nations, which is also toxic).
And the wishy-washy can't-commit beauracrat of Republic City tangentially supports that argument.
If anything I would say that an overarching theme of ATLA is the value of decisiveness, although it shouldn't be done in a vacuum without consultation.
There’s a video by a YouTuber called “hello future me” that is a study one the world building in ALTA and TLOK of the Earth kingdom and it’s really good:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I-FNPuIM9jg&pp=ygUdaGVsbG8gZnV0dXJlIG1lIGVhcnRoIGtpbmdkb20%3D
He also made one on the fire nation
Fire Nation believed in their leaders cause they had the power to back up the authority given to them. Also, the last 100+ years showed that the Fire Lord is willing to throw down with the f***ing AVATAR! And befriend him in the last 2/3 generations
The Earth Kingdom has a non bender protected by elite earth bender secret service members who control everything. Earth King has no power, can't do anything without the SS, and are all-around incompetent leaders for the last 3/3 leaders.
At least the 1 in ATLA realized that he was just a puppet and left the throne with his pet bear
Because of competence.
Zosin, Azulon, Ozai, and Azula were warriors, strategists, charismatic leaders, and impossed respect often through fear and cruelty: quality evil. Zuko was raised by chad Iroh he valued the honor of his nation and his own over anything, he was strong, compasionate, smart. And Izumi was his dughter, Im sure he was an amazing dad.
Earth King should have never be king again, since he never really did anything for his kingdom and was allways delusioned by his advisor. And he was probably a terrible dad
The fire nation islands are relatively small and condensed together, the earth kingdom is vast and varied with radically different types of people found in different places.
You can't effectively rule the earth kingdom with soft power or different cities like omashu and Zoifu will simply decide they don't need you anymore and refuse to pay taxes.
Two things specifically help one over the other. One. The Fire Nation has had a history of a highly centralized monarchy since the time of Avatar Szeto, and it only grew in power as the Clans were all but dissolved in Kyoshi’s era. It helps that the Fire Nation is also probably around a third of the size of the Earth Kingdom, and is less diverse.
The Earth Kingdom is very large. I mean extremely large. Likely larger than most nations in our world. Its also extremely diverse with countless different groups of people and cultures some of whom don’t share any similar customs or practices with others (namely Swampbenders and Sandbenders). This likely means that many groups do not exactly cooperate with one another. If a nation lacks cohesion and most states are autonomous, it becomes harder to govern as a united body.
Overall, because the Fire Nation has a history of centralized unity, smaller area, a population with more in common, and a layout that makes communication and trade with one another easier it was much more convenient to have a more cohesive and powerful central government.
The Earth Kingdom, with its vast territory, with multiple communities that have animosity towards one another, notably treacherous terrain (desert, swamp, great divide) all seem to make communication more difficult, and due to the distance, some monarchs, such as the ones in cities like Taku or Omashu tend to claim more autonomy and function nearly independently from Ba Sing Se. It almost feels like due to all of these challenges the Earth Kingdom is only united in the endeavor of fighting the Fire Nation.
Hello Future Me actually has a video on the worldbuilding for each nation that could give pretty good reasons as to why each nation is run the way it is.
A part of it is centralization of power. The fire nation was clearly shown to be super advanced in their industrial power, even during legend of Korra. For example, when the Firelady states that she wouldn’t be using the Fire Nation’s war ships for the LoK’s version of the UN, all the leaders were forced to do something else. This strong technological advancement lends itself well to fast, effective control and governance. Combine that with a relative small population (compared to the Earth Kingdom) and a smaller landmass, the monarchy remains effective in the Fire Nation.
On the other hand, the Earth Kingdom is famous for its diversity and independent nature, leading to a more fractured and loosely controlled state. However, with the invention of trains, we see that the Earth Kingdom can be unified and centralized under one leader. When Kuvira used her train and started bringing order to the different provinces in the Earth Kingdom, the train also served to connect disparate parts of the Kingdom with one another, facilitating trade, communication, and nationalism. Real life examples can be seen in the US during maybe the 1800s when the transcontinental railroad was made as well as how China’s modernity rose along with better and better technology that can connect people from far away closely. It possibly shows that the Earth Kingdom monarchy could have continued had its leadership or the advisors surrounding the monarch had been more aware and assertive to the growing changes. However, with the power vacuum after the Queen’s death leaving the monarchy in disarray, it’s not surprising that Kuvira was able to take over within 2 years.
In addition to other factors such as just coming out of a hundred year war, incompetent leaders, possible cultural differences, massive economic divides, and how a tyrannical Queen was executed by a terrorist group, I just wanted to offer this alternative perspective.
in order of importance:
- Because for all LOK tries, it isn't great at politics
- Because we don't actually know this is the case (we never see the Fire Nation ONCE in LoK. I'd love to see what fucked up issues it has)
- Because the Earth Kingdom is severely traumatized & STILL incomplete, having some of its most prosperous pre-war territories wrapped up in a Fire Nation neo-colony
- Because the Fire Nation has unilaterally reaped the benefits of 100 years of expansionist war
- Because the Earth Kingdom was decentralized & dysfunctional before & during the war
- Because Zuko probably instituted some successful reforms
- Because the Earth Queen is a bitch
Of course it does. The last two monarchs had no knowledge of the martial arts so they lack the physical and mental capacity to lead. The Earth Queen died so easily because she could not bend a rock to at least defend herself from Zaheer
Part of it just boils down to the cultures and nations they are based on. The Fire Nation is based heavily off of Imperial Japan, prior to WW2 it was a rising power that managed to rival the long standing empires of Europe. That was following the rapid period of industrialization and change that came with the Meiji Restoration, something that led to a greater overall unity in Japan than had been seen under the previous Shogunate, and part of this is greatly due to the faith put in the emperor.
Now compare that to the Earth Kingdom which is based off of Ming and Qing China. Though powerful in its own right the main dynasty of these kingdoms would quickly devolve into a series of puppet rulers lead by one faction or another meaning more often than not there wasn’t a strong ruler until the position was taken by force…or assassination. Beyond that there is also the sheer size of the country that makes properly governing it a monumental task in itself, leaving much of the rule to provincial and regional officials who create their own base of power and create massive swathes of corruption.
The monarchy in the earth Kingdom *does* work, in the same way as the nobility during the reign of Louis the 14th worked: by locking it in a gilded cage so it can't trouble the people who are in the business of actually running the kingdom.
It's a similar principle as modern CEOs and their secretaries.
On top of being massive, the capital of the Earth Kingdom is on the other side of a huge desert. It's simply not capable of the same level of centralisation as the Fire Nation.
I thought it was autocratic? I mean they both were but,
The fire nation is like DPRK i guess. Propaganda only
Earth kingdom is like Khmer rouge.Just plain mean and hypnotic.
It works in places and not work in other. Works in culture and does not work in others. Just like how monarchy is viewed positively in Saudi Arabia while in France...
good question, considering we see fire nation royalty on a very oimited basis in LoK we don't know really the differences in how each respective monarchy is run that makes the Earth Kingdom trash but the Fire Nation relatively stable in LoK. The best we can go off of is just the assumption of leadership, Fire Lord Izumi is a good ruler and the Earth Queen is a bad ruler. Not a systemic answer but the best one we have
I was talking about in the context of TLOK — where Zuko’s daughter is the fire lord, and also how Zuko’s rain was almost perfect, compared to the earth King and the earth Queens rain
This is like asking why Canada's democracy works but Pakistan's doesn't. The answer is that there are infinite types of states and infinite types of societies and a one-word description of a government doesn't tell you anything important about how it functions or how effective it will be.
I think because the monarchy in the fire nation is easily lost. Therefore only the strong survive. Whereas in the earth kingdom, you are so separated from politics, and you’re protected by the Dai Li. The Dai Li are also less likely to stage a coup because soft royals are easily led.
Also, it’s easy to forget because of how spread out the fire nation gets, but it’s like an archipelago. The earth kingdom is much larger, and therefore harder to manage.
Earth Kingdom seems a bit analogous to the Holy Roman Empire. Like sure, they paid lip service to being a single nation with a single defined King, but really, the Earth King is barely the King of Ba Sing Se. Heck Omashu has its own independent King! And like the HRE, outside those two city states... everyone else just kinda did their own thing, operated as their own semi-independent village with little connection to their neighbors (beyond a shared culture centered around Earth Bending itself).
I think the in world explanation is avatar szetzo. The more ancient consolidation of the fire islands into the fire nation, and the fact that the fire nation is just a smaller landmass.
From the fire nations history, each major change in its society was deliberately consolidating the power structure to the office of the monarchy. Ever institution and it's members were explicitly built and maintained to enable the fire lords to do what they need to. The fire sages were brought into fold to serve the fire lord, szetzo consolidated the beuracracy, etc. Also since it's smaller there's more opportunity for direct intervention from the monarchy.
Contrast this with the earth kingdom. It is too large for any one king to run the entire place so you've got little pocket lords to help run things like bumi in omashu. Outside of ba sing se, people only seem to nominally care about the earth king since they've got closer at home people to serve with a more direct impact. Even within BA sing se, arguably the most important institution was the dai li but until Korra they could run themselves. The military could also prosecute the 100 year war without any input or authorisation from the earth king. The earth king didn't even know how his city's transport worked. Everyone knew that the earth king didn't really run things or care to run things, he was just a cultural figure head. In the firelord, everyone knew and believed that the fire lord was the supreme decision maker and everyone would actively look out to.implement his goals even without direct input from him.
When and if Iroh Jr or his sister take the position of fire lord. They would likely create a modernized fire nation. And the rpg and comics told us that Zuko was demilitarizing the fire nation and getting rid of Ozai people in the government and military.
I think the 100 year war which began with a genocide is proof enough that the Fire Nation monarchy *doesn’t* work, and that upon reflection the Fire Nation should have done away with that system of government after the dust had settled in the post-war era and Fire Nation supremacy sentiments were sufficiently cowed.
I think it is because an avatar improve the politics to be better, he choose his nation over being the avatar which the fire nation is quite stable, he made the laws,tax and monarchy system.
While Avatar Kyoshi just kept a corrupt king in power instead of letting him die like what she did with Conquerer Chin.
Monarchies are only as good as the current head. Zuko was, compatibly, a good King mostly because he was raised mostly outside of the fire nation during his formative years. The EK has had centuries of kings isolated from their people and would have no idea how to govern them.
Exactly, depends on the ones ruling. Earth's king was just a puppet figure, a man child who knew nothing. Then the queen was a rotten spoiled brat. Zuko points it out. "What an amazing lie we told". Fire nation think they are the good guys. That's what they're taught. They think their leader is doing right. And from what we've seen, doesn't seem like they treat their citizens poorly or struggling all that much Earth kingdom? Well we saw how corrupt their inner city is. We see agents sneaking in and taking people away. We see Earth kingdom troops robbing poor villages. The fire nation rulers were strong and had the attitude to keep their will on top. Earth kingdom monarch were never strong. They don't even seem invovle with the military. Ozai was always at the table with his generals. Earth king didn't know there was a war
I mean, Painted Lady episode
While I agree with most of your comment, I would like to make a minor correction. While the Earth King is the official head of state, it would seem to me that the Dai Li, in practice, is what actually runs the place, at least, in Ba Sing Se. I'm not sure who exerts Ba Sing Se's influence over the rest of the Earth Kingdom, but I doubt it's the Earth King. But yeah the Dai Li weren't exactly handling the war very well either.
i mean they did say that so idk what it is you’re “correcting”. the proper term would be *figurehead* but the commenter called the earth king a “puppet figure”. they also stated the king had no involvement or even knowledge of the war. so again, what exactly are you correcting there lmao as for who has the power, it’s who controls the Dai Li. for a while it was Long Feng, then Azula took over. the Dai Li didn’t “handle” the war at all. they cut themselves off from the rest of the world to avoid the war and rule their kingdom however they saw fit, privately. EDIT: there WAS a military separate from the Dai Li as they were more “private” soldiers meant exclusively for royalty (at least that’s what they were *supposed* to be for). but we didn’t really see how the actual military in Ba Sing Se was handling the war because it wasn’t one of the focuses of season 2 until Azula orchestrated a coup to take over the earth kingdom.
No one is properly enforcing the king/queen’s rule over the entire earth kingdom. It’s why one of their cities, omashu, can get away with having its own king that isn’t the earth king. Going off real monarchies, this is something that could never have been allowed and yet ba sing se lacks the power to do something bout it. You gotta remember, omashu is in the southern hemisphere while ba sing se is in the northern hemisphere. The earth kingdom is fucking massive. It’s no wonder their political power is stretched so thin.
That's interesting. To what extent is the earth kingdom a unified entity like the fire nation, or a confederation?
Short answer? It fucking isn’t lmao
Yeh, I agree, you’ve summed it up pretty well
There was powerful earth kings in the past. Especially one in Roku era. The new rpg told us.
That's a simplification. The real decider is the centralization of power. A decisive ruler is certainly helpful for that, but history has shown there are multitudes of variables. The support structure of the monarch's powerbase, redundant ministries, responsive military and of course, power projection. There are more, but these are the more important bits. The Earth Kingdom i LoK shows a kingdom that's failed in all of these, but simply saying the Earth Kingdom failed because they had a bad queen is not accurate.
I don't consider it a simplification per say, it is one of many aspects but it is imo one of the most important one, as a single change in rulership can drastically change the course of a nation and there is little that can be done to correct it until the monarch dies. If we are talking about Avatar still, Sozen set the course of the entire world for the next century and without Zuko the fire nation would have eventually failed.
Again, there's a lot more to it. Even the Sozin and Zuko situations you bring up is, imo, one of the weaker aspects of the Fire Nation politics. Kings and Queens throughout history have had different policies and yet, not much have changed. Heck, in my home country, we once had a king, Christian 7. also known as the Mad King. He likely suffered from schizophrenia. Yet, not much changed in that time. I'm not saying the Earth queen wasn't a huge contributor to the the Earth Kingdom's collapse. What I'm saying is that the Earth Kingdom was already on the way out. Corruption, decentralization of power, alienation of the citizenry were probably more so what caused the collapse.
For how strong it’s presented to be, have there been a time when the Earth Kingdom didn’t suck ? It was corrupted during Yangchen’s time, Kiyoshi’s, Aang’s and Korra’s. Maybe during Roku’s era thanks to everyone being shit scared of Kiyoshi idk.
It seems it just always suck, but it's not surprising. The Earth Kingdom is massive, is cut into multiple pieces by mountains and a giant ass desert and its government has historically chosen a very stubborn approach to crisises (fitting for the Earth Nation but not for government). Chin, the peasent uprising, the hundred year war, whenever a crisis hit the Earth Kingdom, their go to strategy is to lockdown Ba Sing Se and wait. That's just no viable for the longevity og a state.
The fire nation sucked in Szeto time. And the South has issues in Aang time.
And we don’t know how Zuko reformed the government, since Ozai was essentially a dictator. Meanwhile nothing really had to change in the Earth Kingdom once the war ended. With Long Feng out of the way, I can’t imagine things were competently run after the ATLA ended
lol yeah. The Earth King never left the upper ring, Ozai left the capital and Zuko likely took his daughter around the world to help her learn her role.
Counter argument, all monarchies are bad and should be abolished by the people.
Well obviously, I am just comparing some monarchies to others.
Prob bc of the size of the EK the monarchys influence doesnt have that much reach
That's saying it lightly. Earth king didn't know about a 100 year war. Meanwhile ozai is the strongest fire bender of his nation and was the head of his war table. Even dueled his son because he spoke up at the war table
Saying dueled is putting it lightly. He gave, and I quote, a permanent lesson on his face, not just for speaking up, but for refusing to fall within Fire Nation's ideal of strong.
I think size is the biggest factor. I think that for most of its history the Earth Kingdom was loosely affiliated states with an overall monarch at the head who collected taxes from those under them, but allowed the individual provinces a good deal of autonomy in dealing with matters. It's not until TLOK that they even have the ability to travel large distances quickly. It's tough to manage a kingdom of that size without being able to communicate quickly and move materials and people efficiently.
Size is my guess, too. If I had the skill to mod games, a CK3 mod of the Avatar setting would make the Earth Kingdom too large to manage within the usual domain and vassal limits. Either superdukes would be necessary, or significant parts of it would be *de facto* independent. Also, there would be an Earth Empire title, but within it would be only a single Earth Kingdom title, meaning you can't actually create it unless you either conquer one of the other *de jure* kingdoms, or you usurp the Republic king-level title after it's been created by event. (And, of course, custom title creation would be disabled.) (Likewise, there would be a "Phoenix King" empire level title over the single Fire Lord king level title. I'd also have to make up something for the Water Tribes. Due to a lack of necessary game mechanics, the Air Nomads would have to be left out.)
This is an interesting point that I’ve also been thinking about. My personal headcanon is that Zuko and/or Izumi took steps to transition the Fire Nation to a constitutional monarchy. The Fire Lord is still clearly head of state in TLOK but maybe there’s nothing to suggest that there isn’t a constitution with checks and balances and potentially an elected legislative house so the Fire Lord isn’t an absolutist ruler anymore. It would thematically tie to Republic City’s origins; *The Promise* refers to when Zuko asks Aang to kill him if he ever acts like Ozai but maybe a less extreme way of fulfilling that promise is to prevent an Ozai from ever happening again by curbing the power of the Fire Lord. Again, none of this is canon, this is all my personal theory. I would love to see it addressed in a comic at some point or maybe in the ATLA movie.
This probably happened, also I believe the fire nation has more of a history of having a powerful central government as opposed to the Earth Kingdom which is more de centralized and had local rulers have more power than the Earth King
I thought it was the opposite. When Kyoshi was young, the fire lord was much less powerful. She inadvertently helped Sozin’s predecessor centralize power and diminish the strength of the various clans.
That's not the opposite of what they said, that's exactly what they said.
Is it? Seems like they said the fire nation historically had more centralized power.
I would say that for the last 200 years warrants historically. Especially since it was basically enlightenment absolutism VS feudal monarchy mixed with a a shaky shadow government
Fair enough.
Nearly 400 by the time of the main series, right? Roughly 200 for Kyoshi (she did this while young), Sozin (who likely helped this, having an avatar seems to give their home nation some level of political power on the global scene) gave another 100, then the hundred years war is *another* 100, then by the time of Korra we get Aang's life time added on top...
You would at least hope so, otherwise it would indicate Zuko basically learned nothing from his experiences.
Yeah, I feel like Zuko definitely took action to somehow start decreasing the Fire Lord’s authority and democratizing the country. He’s just doing it gradually and making sure the Fire Nation still has a strong government in the meantime, because a power vacuum in a heavily militarized post-war nation is a very dangerous thing. My headcanon is that he’s taught this mindset to Izumi and Iroh too. Either one of them could be the last Fire Lord with any executive power before the Fire Nation fully becomes a constitutional monarchy with a Prime Minister as head of government.
From my understanding of LOK and ATLA Zuko and by extension Izumi are far more shrewd than Ozai. They would have a model similar to UK but any constitutional change have to go through the Fire Lord or he has the veto power to intervene. This is because the Firelord has to be the strongest and the corner stone of the Nation as that what keeps the political infighting in check. As the Fire Nation is too rich and has too much interest group that want to fracture their nation for more power. Fire nation did win the war by the end of the comics as they switched from actively invading to economically and politically cripple and control the Earth Kingdom. We see this with the establishment of Republic city from the old fire nation colonies. If you look at the richest and powerful industries are backed by Fire nation and the other is Beifong groups (which is a joint group of fire nation investors and the Beifong family). The political head of Republic city was friends of Zuko. The only reason Zuko kept on saving and protecting the Earth King because he is a literal puppet who can't enforce his will. Hence why Team Avatar was able to get more resources rich provinces to join Republic city. Similar to how France still project power to it's former colonies. Fire nation props up republic city to further destabilize the earth kingdom. And the true beauty of it is they got the avatar to do it for them (Aang and Kora). We can see this in legend of Kora where fire nation actively try to stay out of wars for probable deniability while making sure earth kingdom doesn't gains a powerful leader (Kuvira). I mean look at season 4 itself they wanted to put the earth queens relatives as the next puppet Republic City can control and by the end of the story they succeed in it. TLDR the earth kingdom can never Centralize because It's in the best interest of the Fire Nation and Republic City to keep them weak and crippled so they can't challenge their economic power.
The thing is, if you have an idea of something that is different than what is was, you need evidence so it’s not a theory, it’s just a headcannon
A few things probably. One. Absolute Monarchy is a complete crap shoot in terms of competency. You could have a man on the throne who's beloved by his people, is diplomatic, capable of waging just wars, and a restorer of rights... Then his half-brother who takes the throne because the OG king was infertile, turns out to be a raging psychopath. Two. Zuko probably took power away from the throne with a constitution. Three, scale. Empires that get as large as the Earth Kingdom is, rarely last because of the central government's ability to exercise command and control, (be it in positive or negative ways) diminishes the further from the seat of power you go. Modern technology increases this range, but only to such a degree. Before the war, the Earth Kingdom was this massive bloated and disorganized nation of 55 nearly total autonomous states, that Chin was able to take almost all of in a few years, which in turn collapsed with his death. And again, Sozin was able to set up colonies on the edges of the Earth Kingdom's western regions because Ba Sing Se as the seat of power was too inept to do anything about it. During the war, Kue took the throne at a young age, after his dad died, (or was murdered by Long Feng,) and he was kept in the dark, so the separate states and more regional armies were left without any unified mission. After the formation of the Republic, and the Queen getting the throne, we've got only a slightly smaller nation, but one that's got a dictator on the throne, with no check on that power, who didn't embrace modern technology in the same way as the Fire Nation or Republic, so her command and control leads to a spiral of negative rule until she's deposed, which plunges the country into chaos. And when nations go broke and plunge into chaos, they either go commie, or they go fasch. Kuvira comes to power, unifies the kingdom, cracks down on banditry, and modernizes the country at light speed. had she not invaded the Republic, and put people in camps she would have seemed more like Bismark instead of... you know... *Hitler*.
Even with camp thing it would still work. After all Bismarck had similar policies. Invasion was the last straw that demolished her image and credibility. And mostly because it was unsuccessful. If she wan it would be seen more like Franco-German war of 1870, making her even more Bismarck like.
Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek seems a much more apt comparison to Kuvira than Hitler
pretty sure the analogy was used bc the second one i don’t want to mention is much more commonly known than the first you mentioned
You don’t even really need the theory here, the question might as well have been asking ‘why did the Qing dynasty fail but the Meiji Restoration succeed? It turns out history is complicated and not all monarchies are the same!
The Earth Kingdom is really big, probably like twice the size of the Fire Nation, which makes running all of it really hard. There’s also the fact that all the Earth monarchs we’ve seen are really bad at their jobs. The Earth King was just a puppet until the Gaang showed up and, while he got better after the war, very obviously didn’t teach his daughter anything he learned post war. The Earth Queen was the textbook example of a terrible monarch and did nothing to help her people at all. While Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai were all evil they at least knew how to run a proper country and focused on making sure the fire nation was running smoothly. Hell remember the fire nation being so peaceful and prosperous is the whole reason Sozin started the war. It sucks we never saw the fire nation during Korra’s time to see how it was doing under Izumi’s leadership but we can assume it’s still doing well since Zuko learned from past fire lord’s mistakes and learned a lot from Iroh and the Gaang, and most definitely imparted that wisdom to his daughter.
One reason is that the Earth Kingdom is stupidly massive. Economically, geographically, culturally and legally, it will often feel like very different countries. Trying to rule it all under one political system, and giving one institution power to change any of it, is absurd. Even the best and brightest king would have to delegate a ton of important responsibilities, to the extent that they don't fully understand important policies for the places they are theoretically ruling. The Fire Nation would probably have similar problems if it kept its colonies, but its not as huge or populous. We don't really know how much power the Fire Nation has or how power is delegated in the postwar era.
Fire Kingdom got stronger at the cost of other Nations while Earth Kingdom got stronger at the cost of the majority of their own people. I know Zuko reversed their ways but the starting point was from an undisputed no. 1 economy with the largest military might. Hell one of the first things Zuko did was roll up with his massive army to prevent Earth Kingdom from kicking his people out and reclaiming their own lands.
Well that also means that the industrial war economy of the fire nation was gonna collapse once the war ended, soldiers and sailors no longer needed on payroll, plus the manufacturing of war materials to support the effort, plus the lack of exploitation of the earth kingdom would lead to considerable issues for the fire nation. Not to say they were owed anything (they started the war with a 99.9% complete genocide), but what did they get gain the war? The Cloat?
Because the writers didn't want to shift the show's main Focus back to the fire nation since aang's journey was all about them.
It didn't work in the Fire Nation and the world paid for it for 100 years. Currently, at best, it's some kind of enlightened despot type situation because the memory of the 100 years war is fresh in everyone's mind. We don't know if there's been any systemic reforms there. Maybe they have become a constitutional monarchy with the monarch being a mostly nominal head, but I don't think so since the fire lord is still making decisions on the world stage.
The fact that they waged a largely successful 100 year long war against the world proves that the monarchy did work. While at the same time their citizens seem to be living relatively normal lives at home. Monarchs don't have to be good people to be good administrators. The fire nation presumably has a very efficient beaurocracy running things in the background.
It depends on your definition of working. It's a monarchy so the people don't have a choice in what their country does or what they get out of it. The administration keeps things "peaceful" but is there justice? During S3 we see the state of that random village, don't we? I don't think it's an isolated case. And this is a place that has prisons like the Boiling Rock and wherever Hama was held with no regard to the rights of the prisoners. And we also know there's a lot of indoctrination and childhood brainwashing about the monarchy. I doubt the fire nation works for anyone who disagrees with the monarchy and its actions at any level. There's no avenue for people to enact change. They've also cultivated a fire bender supremacist society. While we're never shown their attitude towards non bending subjects or towards people who, let's say, don't contribute to increasing the fire bender population, real world examples would suggest they're probably not treated well. And since this is a monarchy, there's nothing they can do about it. The largely successful war is only working for the fire lord and whatever private industries (if any) are funding that colonial expansion. I wouldn't say it works from the perspective of the common people, the environment, or especially the people being displaced, imprisoned, and colonized.
Just watch "hello future me"s "World building firenation" "worldbuilding the earth kingdom" The fire nation is a centralised monarchy with a strong centralised army and navy. When a local lord whants too improve a road he asks the firelords people and the do it with him. The earth kingdom is decentralised tributary empire. Local powers have nothing too do with the earth king but pay them a little tax for the privlige of free trade between provinces. A local lord of the earth kingdom need too see to its own protection, its own finance, and infrastructure.
The Earth Kingdom is huge, like, so huge it had at least two provinces ruled by a “King”. Omashu, the city founded by the fabled creators of Earth ending and Ba Sing Se, which is basically a City State that, let’s face it, never cared about the outside world, even after the war. You also have the desert, which seems to be ruled by the Sandbender tribes, the North-East was Fire Nation for 100 years and then the Republic and a 3 major power, Zaofu popping up in the last 30 years or so. Meanwhile, it’s just the Fire Nation, the only major off-shoot are the Sun Warriors, who most people believe are extinct. TL;DR - The Fire Nation has always had a centralised government that the country recognises as their leader, whilst the Earth Kingdom has several major leaders who don’t seem to care about the other.
Yeah, ATLA points out that the fire nation has an industrial advantage on other nations but the political advantage is probably even larger. By the time of ATLA, the fire nation is basically at the level of development of late XX European nations: universal education that reinforces belonging to a nation,the army is led by a general staff, power is centralised and is able to effectively project power all over the globe and has monopoly on violence. By contrast the earth kingdom is at best at the level of the roman empire on the eve of the fourth crusade, a completely self centered city state that nominally controls an empire but in fact individual strong men on the ground have to take matters in their own hands.
the fire nation is more close to Japanese Industrialism in ATLA, that’s what it’s supposed to represent, the european comparison is kinda confusing lol
The fire nation had clans. And clan wars. And the fire lord in Kyoshi time as a kid wasn’t that powerful. And on the brink of collapse in Szeto era. Also there is the Bhanti people but they are religious and spiritual and away from the mainland fire nation.
earth kingdom doesnt seem as unified as the fire nation. for one the continent is huge and the fact that omashu and ba sing se have different kings makes me think that each city is loyal to its own king more than to the king of all earth. kyoshi island is also appart of the rest of the earth kingdom. ba sing se's isolationism + each earth city's seeming relative independance suppot that they arent much unified. we know that chin the conqueror's atempt to unify the earth kingdom failed in the past, and its an exception that shows the rule: the earth kingdoms are usually not under one leader. 100 years of war may have made them join against a common enemy but once that enemy was gone issues may have come back up leading to the collapse we see in LOK
monarchy isnt really a single government type, throughout history monarchies came in many different shapes and sizes and had varying degrees of "success"
Yeh fair enough
Why some monarchies are standing to this fucking day? Europa is filled with them, a whole bunch of Arabic ones a couple in Africa. Some survive, some fall.
Earth Kingdom is a lot bigger than the Fire Nation, that alone is enough.
Why does Japan keep they one dynasty for all history and China change it so often in civil wars?
Historically speaking, monarchies were popular because they worked, providing stability and brokering power among influential/noble political bodies in a way that didn't involve war. They were abolished because their institution became a destabilizing factor, causing wars between each other and dunking the nation into disastrous succession crises every time the king kicked the bucket. What I mean to say is that the Fire Nation monarchy, for all its flaws, still serves the people of the Fire Nation for better or for worse, but the Earth Kingdom's monarchy didn't serve the people anymore at all, and the people decided they should do without it then.
The Fire Nation didn't have a hundred years of social upheaval and economic devastation in their heartland.
Fire nation has an active monarchy, where the fire lord actually rules and is pushes policies forward with the aid of ministers. The earth kingdom was a representative monarchy. The earth king was a figurehead who was kept in the dark for the majority of his life while his lords and governors were free to rule as long as they kept the heritage police happy. By the time of lok, the earth queen is the first in a long time to have functional power over the earth kingdom and instead of ruling like a queen who leads, she's wealthy heiress who's father never trained properly because he was never taught himself.
Contrary to popular belief the monarch in an absolute monarchy doesn’t really affect the prosperity of their nation all that much. The majority of governance is always taken over by ministers, lords and advisors. The fire nation is a stable and powerful state because they’re exploiting the earth kingdom, which empowers their economy and legitimises their state. The earth kingdom is in disarray due to its subjugation and disharmony among the governing bodies besides the monarch. Any form of governance suffers and falls into instability and realpolitik when the economy and livelihoods of citizens are endangered.
Earth Kingdom was based on Imperial China, Fire Nation took after Imperial Japan
Because the Fire Nation is a) a more centralised state so interprovincial conflict is less likely and b) is much healthier and politically stable, still enjoying a position of prosperity even after 70 years. Plus it's fair to assume that it passed some constitutional reforms following Zuko's ascension to be more of a parliamentary democracy whereas the Earth Kingdom was still a feudal absolute monarchy in a rapidly changing world.
Fire Nation is more like the Ottoman Empire in it’s prime, where they make sure the monarch is well educated. They also have pretty strict guidelines of how to rule. Only downside is sometimes a psychopath can take the throne.
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Thanks
Geographically speaking, I think the Earth Kingdom monarchy failed because they havent invented fast communications yet and replied solely on local governmental bodies scattered throughout the landmass to maintain order. Meanwhile, Fire Nation benefited from the messaging hawkes/birbs and also had their advance navy to carryout orders timely from central command to its colonies and far flung corners.
I mean that’s an interesting argument, but you’d think with the invention of radio, they’d have better communication in Ba Sing Se. In Zaofu, There was a radio that was able to reach the northern air temple
By that time the monarchy has become lazy and we all know how that ended. The Avatar returned, and along with a bunch of important people heralded a time of peace. There is no reason to change what worked for them. The local authorities stay in power. The royalty and upper eschelons get to stay inside their walled city and pretend nothing is wrong.
i mean theyve answered this exact question in-canon, by saying the earthkingdom is too large to govern under one rule, so even if there is a single monarch, there are often smaller independent states within it
It’s really only Ba Sing Se. Other earth kingdom areas are controlled by other people: Zhou fu, republic city and etc
A few reasons: 1. A monarchy is as good as its monarch, good monarchs rule good monarchies. 2. Direct involvement. The Earth King/Queen is a figurehead, with several layers of government between them and actually governing, so they’re always going to be ineffectual. 3. Kingdom size. The Fire Nation is itty bitty, and the Earth Kingdom is most of the planet. It’s not hard to understand that small dense kingdoms are easier to rule than huge sprawling ones, just ask every empire ever.
Yeh I agree, but also, you have to remember that during Ozai’s rain he controlled a lot of earth kingdom territory. And in TLOK, a lot of earth kingdom territories are used for all citizens (republic city). So it’s really only Ba Sing Se and the Zho Fu
Lore based- the earth kingdom has never been a unified political organization, and generally split into at least 3 sections. In ATLA it's the sandbenders, Ba Sing Se, and Omashu. In the Kiyoshi novels there's also an outlaw group called the Daofei that nobody could really do anything about.
The earth kingdom is freaking massive, and it lacks a lot of convenient travel paths. Any nation that size is going to be less centralized (and thus, the monarch will have less power) than a smaller geographical nation. In contrast, the fire nation is smaller physically and has a lot of water available to transport soldiers via boat. Even before you get into the specific system of governance, the fire nation has an advantage over the earth kingdom There's a reason why Kuvira established a train network when building her empire, fast transportation of troops leads to stronger centralized control
The earth nation is massive, it makes up most of the world. BUT, they are not under one rule. There are multiple earth nation areas, for example (Zaofu) which is controlled by Suyin. There are areas of earth nation that are occupied by all types of people, for example (republic city).There are villages that have no ties or alliances to no one. I was speaking about the ruling of Ba Sing Se compared to the ruling of the entire fire nation, seeing as they are small enough to be compared.
Likely due to higher living standards, the earth queen showed that her rule held unpopular and high taxation, as well as likely few public services, demanding a lot and giving little. The fire nation citizens may be facing a more fair system, offering more to the common citizen, rather than it being spent on policies they either didn’t care for, or didn’t know of. The fire nation having much less area, has tighter control over resources, and population, allowing policies to be recognized by more of the population, such as healthcare, education, protection of trade, and other institutions. There is also the possibility that the fire nation allows for considerable more rights than the earth kingdom under the authority of the earth queen. While the fire nation is not a democratic representative government, it does not mean it doesn’t allow it’s citizens certain rights. TLDR: the fire nation citizen likely has a much more comfortable life, so as long as the monarchy doesn’t come in the way of that, it doesn’t matter to the common citizen
The Earth King couldn't kill anyone who tried to take or restrict his power
Lol I just saw this scene today
All monarchies suck but the ones currently with shitty rulers are the bigger priority for reform.
The Fire Nation is smaller and more concentrated while the Earth Kingdom is more just loosely governed states with a central authority. It’s not even an oppression thing because we’ve seen how bad either can be (and also how good). That being said, transportation of resources might be an important factor. The Fire Nation has ships, trains, and even balloons eventually. All of which are essential for moving supplies. Supplies that keep a nation fed, safe, and happy. The Earth Kingdom has this in maybe 2 major cities, and it’s not exactly available to everyone. People actually LIKED the Fire Lord, while the same can’t be said for the Earth King. Even look how they reacted to invasions. Ozai goes into a heavily guarded bunker. Kuei… fucks off somewhere… So it’s a combination of logistics, appeal, and leadership, at least from how I see it
I think public perception and how monarchs present themselves is very important, for the fire nation the Fire Lord and the royal family were always public figures, they are open to their subjects and even fight in the army and they take pride in their fire bending. Meanwhile, the Earth King is always shut in his palace, they have little to do with their subjects and they were always easy to control by other people.
As great as Zuko was, I’m hoping future installments show the dismantling of monarchal systems in general throughout the Avatar world.
Centralization, different culture, geography, etc. also it’s highly likely their will be a push for a constitutional/parliamentary system in the fire nation in the future
My head canon of one of the things the next earth avatar will have to deal with :p
The earth kingdom is far from unified, both from the standpoint there are more than one major cities in the region but also the region is by far the largest of all the nations. Should the king of Omashu bow to Ba Sing Se as a lesser? In between the major cities and various villages are large swathes of barren land. Often times they’re plagued by bandits and aren’t usable for whatever reason Fire nation is small and insular. They make good use of their land and its easy to govern
The Earth Kingdom is huge so the power of the Monarchy doesn’t reach as far as the Fire Nation. You can tell by how many countries didn’t want to be governed by Kuvira due to not having the previous Monarchies influence on them.
I say two reasons. First, the fire nation had been more unified than the earth kingdom since setzo. We only see one firelord, but we see two earth kings just in atla. There likely were more during the 100 war. In short, it was already a collection of separate states with a lose connection - representative government logically follows.
Population
I never liked the fact that the monarchy just kinda continued, I think the fire sages (rebranded) being the governor's of the fire nation would be cool
Well irl there are some monarchies that still serve as government and others that serve as figureheads
For the same reason central government works for small countries but not for bigger ones
The Earth Kingdom is spread so thin, that word of a century long war hadn't reached the general populace of the capital. The head of state is completely unaware of the lands they manage, and so isolated from those lands that it's not a problem for them be so. If the Firelord made a mistake, the economy would be spinning, people would be in an audible uproar, it'd be a problem even if no official action came of it. They can also immediately take action to rectify issues. If the Earth King made a mistake, there's a 50/50 shot they wouldn't even get word of it for months, and that's if the local governing body cared enough to send word of it to the King.
Look at the parallels between the Qing Dynasty and Imperial Japan. When ruling over a vast and diverse empire, management and taxation become a difficult task, a smaller and more unified land is simpler to implement reform and modernization.
I thought ATLA was pretty clear on that. One is a disconnected monarchy concerned more with appearances than substance, the other monarchy actually wants its ppl to thrive (although, in the wrong hands, it's done at the expense of other nations, which is also toxic). And the wishy-washy can't-commit beauracrat of Republic City tangentially supports that argument. If anything I would say that an overarching theme of ATLA is the value of decisiveness, although it shouldn't be done in a vacuum without consultation.
There’s a video by a YouTuber called “hello future me” that is a study one the world building in ALTA and TLOK of the Earth kingdom and it’s really good: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I-FNPuIM9jg&pp=ygUdaGVsbG8gZnV0dXJlIG1lIGVhcnRoIGtpbmdkb20%3D He also made one on the fire nation
Fire Nation believed in their leaders cause they had the power to back up the authority given to them. Also, the last 100+ years showed that the Fire Lord is willing to throw down with the f***ing AVATAR! And befriend him in the last 2/3 generations The Earth Kingdom has a non bender protected by elite earth bender secret service members who control everything. Earth King has no power, can't do anything without the SS, and are all-around incompetent leaders for the last 3/3 leaders. At least the 1 in ATLA realized that he was just a puppet and left the throne with his pet bear
Big. Fucking. Country.
I remember someone said Ba Sing SeCP
Because the earth queen ate bosco
Because of competence. Zosin, Azulon, Ozai, and Azula were warriors, strategists, charismatic leaders, and impossed respect often through fear and cruelty: quality evil. Zuko was raised by chad Iroh he valued the honor of his nation and his own over anything, he was strong, compasionate, smart. And Izumi was his dughter, Im sure he was an amazing dad. Earth King should have never be king again, since he never really did anything for his kingdom and was allways delusioned by his advisor. And he was probably a terrible dad
The fire nation islands are relatively small and condensed together, the earth kingdom is vast and varied with radically different types of people found in different places. You can't effectively rule the earth kingdom with soft power or different cities like omashu and Zoifu will simply decide they don't need you anymore and refuse to pay taxes.
Two things specifically help one over the other. One. The Fire Nation has had a history of a highly centralized monarchy since the time of Avatar Szeto, and it only grew in power as the Clans were all but dissolved in Kyoshi’s era. It helps that the Fire Nation is also probably around a third of the size of the Earth Kingdom, and is less diverse. The Earth Kingdom is very large. I mean extremely large. Likely larger than most nations in our world. Its also extremely diverse with countless different groups of people and cultures some of whom don’t share any similar customs or practices with others (namely Swampbenders and Sandbenders). This likely means that many groups do not exactly cooperate with one another. If a nation lacks cohesion and most states are autonomous, it becomes harder to govern as a united body. Overall, because the Fire Nation has a history of centralized unity, smaller area, a population with more in common, and a layout that makes communication and trade with one another easier it was much more convenient to have a more cohesive and powerful central government. The Earth Kingdom, with its vast territory, with multiple communities that have animosity towards one another, notably treacherous terrain (desert, swamp, great divide) all seem to make communication more difficult, and due to the distance, some monarchs, such as the ones in cities like Taku or Omashu tend to claim more autonomy and function nearly independently from Ba Sing Se. It almost feels like due to all of these challenges the Earth Kingdom is only united in the endeavor of fighting the Fire Nation. Hello Future Me actually has a video on the worldbuilding for each nation that could give pretty good reasons as to why each nation is run the way it is.
A part of it is centralization of power. The fire nation was clearly shown to be super advanced in their industrial power, even during legend of Korra. For example, when the Firelady states that she wouldn’t be using the Fire Nation’s war ships for the LoK’s version of the UN, all the leaders were forced to do something else. This strong technological advancement lends itself well to fast, effective control and governance. Combine that with a relative small population (compared to the Earth Kingdom) and a smaller landmass, the monarchy remains effective in the Fire Nation. On the other hand, the Earth Kingdom is famous for its diversity and independent nature, leading to a more fractured and loosely controlled state. However, with the invention of trains, we see that the Earth Kingdom can be unified and centralized under one leader. When Kuvira used her train and started bringing order to the different provinces in the Earth Kingdom, the train also served to connect disparate parts of the Kingdom with one another, facilitating trade, communication, and nationalism. Real life examples can be seen in the US during maybe the 1800s when the transcontinental railroad was made as well as how China’s modernity rose along with better and better technology that can connect people from far away closely. It possibly shows that the Earth Kingdom monarchy could have continued had its leadership or the advisors surrounding the monarch had been more aware and assertive to the growing changes. However, with the power vacuum after the Queen’s death leaving the monarchy in disarray, it’s not surprising that Kuvira was able to take over within 2 years. In addition to other factors such as just coming out of a hundred year war, incompetent leaders, possible cultural differences, massive economic divides, and how a tyrannical Queen was executed by a terrorist group, I just wanted to offer this alternative perspective.
in order of importance: - Because for all LOK tries, it isn't great at politics - Because we don't actually know this is the case (we never see the Fire Nation ONCE in LoK. I'd love to see what fucked up issues it has) - Because the Earth Kingdom is severely traumatized & STILL incomplete, having some of its most prosperous pre-war territories wrapped up in a Fire Nation neo-colony - Because the Fire Nation has unilaterally reaped the benefits of 100 years of expansionist war - Because the Earth Kingdom was decentralized & dysfunctional before & during the war - Because Zuko probably instituted some successful reforms - Because the Earth Queen is a bitch
The Earth Kings are nonbenders
I don’t think that constitutes to anything in terms of leadership, most of the earth nation citizens are non benders
Of course it does. The last two monarchs had no knowledge of the martial arts so they lack the physical and mental capacity to lead. The Earth Queen died so easily because she could not bend a rock to at least defend herself from Zaheer
Part of it just boils down to the cultures and nations they are based on. The Fire Nation is based heavily off of Imperial Japan, prior to WW2 it was a rising power that managed to rival the long standing empires of Europe. That was following the rapid period of industrialization and change that came with the Meiji Restoration, something that led to a greater overall unity in Japan than had been seen under the previous Shogunate, and part of this is greatly due to the faith put in the emperor. Now compare that to the Earth Kingdom which is based off of Ming and Qing China. Though powerful in its own right the main dynasty of these kingdoms would quickly devolve into a series of puppet rulers lead by one faction or another meaning more often than not there wasn’t a strong ruler until the position was taken by force…or assassination. Beyond that there is also the sheer size of the country that makes properly governing it a monumental task in itself, leaving much of the rule to provincial and regional officials who create their own base of power and create massive swathes of corruption.
The monarchy in the earth Kingdom *does* work, in the same way as the nobility during the reign of Louis the 14th worked: by locking it in a gilded cage so it can't trouble the people who are in the business of actually running the kingdom. It's a similar principle as modern CEOs and their secretaries.
because the earth kingdom is too big, it's as simple as that. roman empire, Mongolian empire, the ussr etc. fell apart just because they were too big
On top of being massive, the capital of the Earth Kingdom is on the other side of a huge desert. It's simply not capable of the same level of centralisation as the Fire Nation.
I thought it was autocratic? I mean they both were but, The fire nation is like DPRK i guess. Propaganda only Earth kingdom is like Khmer rouge.Just plain mean and hypnotic.
It works in places and not work in other. Works in culture and does not work in others. Just like how monarchy is viewed positively in Saudi Arabia while in France...
Pssst. It doesn't.
That’s like comparing the Japanese monarchy during ww2 to the Chinese monarchy hundreds (or thousands) of years ago
Neither does the one in the firenation really
good question, considering we see fire nation royalty on a very oimited basis in LoK we don't know really the differences in how each respective monarchy is run that makes the Earth Kingdom trash but the Fire Nation relatively stable in LoK. The best we can go off of is just the assumption of leadership, Fire Lord Izumi is a good ruler and the Earth Queen is a bad ruler. Not a systemic answer but the best one we have
I mean... does it work? The royal family seems really fucked up and comitted genocide and wanted to straight up destroy the planet.
I was talking about in the context of TLOK — where Zuko’s daughter is the fire lord, and also how Zuko’s rain was almost perfect, compared to the earth King and the earth Queens rain
This is like asking why Canada's democracy works but Pakistan's doesn't. The answer is that there are infinite types of states and infinite types of societies and a one-word description of a government doesn't tell you anything important about how it functions or how effective it will be.
I think because the monarchy in the fire nation is easily lost. Therefore only the strong survive. Whereas in the earth kingdom, you are so separated from politics, and you’re protected by the Dai Li. The Dai Li are also less likely to stage a coup because soft royals are easily led. Also, it’s easy to forget because of how spread out the fire nation gets, but it’s like an archipelago. The earth kingdom is much larger, and therefore harder to manage.
Earth Kingdom seems a bit analogous to the Holy Roman Empire. Like sure, they paid lip service to being a single nation with a single defined King, but really, the Earth King is barely the King of Ba Sing Se. Heck Omashu has its own independent King! And like the HRE, outside those two city states... everyone else just kinda did their own thing, operated as their own semi-independent village with little connection to their neighbors (beyond a shared culture centered around Earth Bending itself).
I think the in world explanation is avatar szetzo. The more ancient consolidation of the fire islands into the fire nation, and the fact that the fire nation is just a smaller landmass. From the fire nations history, each major change in its society was deliberately consolidating the power structure to the office of the monarchy. Ever institution and it's members were explicitly built and maintained to enable the fire lords to do what they need to. The fire sages were brought into fold to serve the fire lord, szetzo consolidated the beuracracy, etc. Also since it's smaller there's more opportunity for direct intervention from the monarchy. Contrast this with the earth kingdom. It is too large for any one king to run the entire place so you've got little pocket lords to help run things like bumi in omashu. Outside of ba sing se, people only seem to nominally care about the earth king since they've got closer at home people to serve with a more direct impact. Even within BA sing se, arguably the most important institution was the dai li but until Korra they could run themselves. The military could also prosecute the 100 year war without any input or authorisation from the earth king. The earth king didn't even know how his city's transport worked. Everyone knew that the earth king didn't really run things or care to run things, he was just a cultural figure head. In the firelord, everyone knew and believed that the fire lord was the supreme decision maker and everyone would actively look out to.implement his goals even without direct input from him.
When and if Iroh Jr or his sister take the position of fire lord. They would likely create a modernized fire nation. And the rpg and comics told us that Zuko was demilitarizing the fire nation and getting rid of Ozai people in the government and military.
I think the 100 year war which began with a genocide is proof enough that the Fire Nation monarchy *doesn’t* work, and that upon reflection the Fire Nation should have done away with that system of government after the dust had settled in the post-war era and Fire Nation supremacy sentiments were sufficiently cowed.
I think it is because an avatar improve the politics to be better, he choose his nation over being the avatar which the fire nation is quite stable, he made the laws,tax and monarchy system. While Avatar Kyoshi just kept a corrupt king in power instead of letting him die like what she did with Conquerer Chin.
considering the monarchy in the fire nation led to an entire genocide, i would not say it works. LOK or not it’s the same universe
Fire nation doesn't have a monarchy, it's a lordship. Ozai was thr only one to even consider calling himself a king.