mostly-mundane-atla:

What if Zuko called Sokka and Katara peasants at some point in Book One and instead of ignoring it or taking it as an insult, Sokka, who’s been raised in this culture his whole life and is starting to get sick of people assuming it follows their cultures’ rules, just decides “Okay, you know what? No.” And somehow incapacitates Zuko, not to kill him, but to say “Alright, Mr. Follows-Us-Everywhere-to-Kidnap-Aang, we’re gonna have a little Water Tribe Studies lesson. Aang, you’ll be an important world leader if we win this war, so you should take notes too. First of all, your concept of social class means nothing to us! We distribute our resources to best accommodate even the most vulnerable of the group to increase our collective chance of survival. We do not pay tribute to our leaders the way the actual peasants of your backwards, land-grabbing homeland do! On that note, land ownership? Also means nothing to us.”

And he just goes on like this and Iroh is just stroking his beard and nodding contemplatively saying “Now this kind of firsthand experience is something you can’t find in even the rarest books from the outside perspective.”

And Zuko, unable to move or fight and maybe even hanging upside down is freaking out like “YOU WERE THERE THE WHOLE TIME?!?!”

And Iroh just says “Hush, Prince Zuko, he’s not finished.”