TrueMetis wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2019 6:02 pm
This actual brings up something interesting, what evidence do we actually have that any sort of balance was upset because of the Air Nomad genocide? Like literally what would be different if the air nomads where alive? Nothing, except maybe the Fire Nation would have used the comet on the Earth Kingdom for their first strike instead. From a practical perspective nothing would change, the FN would go on it's merry conquering way, except the Air Nomads would be sitting their all pacifistic, above worldly concerns and just watching it instead.
Spiritually, we're given not a signal sign that there's anything wrong. We see one pissed off and smashy spirit in Hei Bei, who was pissed off and smashy because his forest burned down, and would have been pissed off and smashy no matter the reason it was burned down. Indeed we're only ever told it was the FN, we see no proof. It could have been natural, it could have been one of the villagers by accident, which would explain why he was smashing up their village. Though given the location of the village and shrine it wouldn't matter since it was probably their responsibility to care for both the Shrine and the forest. The other we see was La, but he only acted because his wife was directly killed, couldn't give two shits when the NWT was attacked, and needed the avatar's help to do anything anyway.
Umm I think it is pretty clearly established that the characters, show runners etc. are taking balance to include the balance (harmony) between people, the nations etc. Evidence of that would be the opening narration of every episode, Aang being lectured by his last lives about the need to take out Ozai, that the first avatar dies in a war with a sense of failure (as if war = imbalance somehow) and so on. So your starting by saying lets just ignore all that imbalance?
Next I think you've missed important characterization of the Air Nomads. Aang was friends with Fire Nation people and with Earth Kingdom people. The implication to me was the Air Nomads temples may have been remote but the Air Nomads as the name implied wandered the world and so interacted with the other nations. The Air Nomads may have been the least insular of the nations and so it seems reasonable to speculate that had they existed they would have continued to build bridges between cultures which would have worked against war and towards peace. Also they were the most spiritual so they probably would have helped people commune with the spirits etc.
It is perhaps a little heavy handed to be just told that the Fire Nation burned down the forest rather than showing it, but that does not negate it as evidence that the Fire Nation was being unbalanced. If you want to just ignore that fine, but that is different from it not being evidence.
Other imbalances Zhao killing the Moon, I think you think that is just Zhao, but to me it is pretty clearly supposed to be emblematic of the attitude that Sozin and the war etc. imbue in the elite of the fire nation. An unbalanced attitude that leads to unbalanced acts and an unbalanced world and there is plenty more.
Likewise burning all the books in the library about the Fire Nation was unbalancing to that owl spirit (which might have lead him to side with Unulaq for example) and again I take it as emblematic of the Fire Nation (even if in theory it might have just been Zhao again).
In the Painted Lady there was the lake that was a polluted mess thanks to the Fire Nation (harassing a spirit), again I took it that it was emblematic of the Fire Nations imbalance, I assume that was typical of the lengths to which the war efforts had pushed the Fire Nation to destroy the environment in the name of keeping up the war machine etc.
Your ignoring that Sozin kicked off killing dragons that lead to the near extinction of dragons. Sounds pretty unbalancing to me and again emblematic of how reckless and unbalancing the Fire Nation became during the 100 years war. Also since you want to talk Air Nomads seems like they might have set up a refuge for the dragons if they had been around which would have been balancing.
Also, its unclear in the show, but it seems like maybe the Fire Nation might have hunted the Sky Bison to the brink of extinction also, so copy paste what I just said about dragons (Appa was the only one around after Aang woke up, people found it unusual as if they had never seen one, I think the website for Korra said luckily they found some more which led to those seen in Korra).
So while they did not spend 61 episodes exhaustively cataloging how the Fire Nation disrupted the balance between the nations, between people and nature, between people and spirits and so on. I think they gave us some characterization of an attitude and backed it up with some depictions of that attitude and behaviour resulting from it in order to allow us to conclude that yes the 100 years war disrupted a lot of things and was perhaps not completely untypical of the succession of the world for 10 000 since the spirit portals were closed, judging by how the first Avatar ended up dying. Again if you don't like those parts of the show feel free to ignore them, but that is different from them not giving us evidence...