Declare war on the entire world

>Declare war on the entire world
>Sozin's Comet happens
>Use the opportunity to kill peaceful monks living in hermitages far away from everyone else and who swear themselves against killing
Why? Why not go after the Earth Kingdom immediately since they're the largest threat, or the Water Kingdoms because it's a pain in the ass to fight up there otherwise? Why target the people who can run away really well and pose no threat?

Because Sozin knew the next Avatar would be an airbender. Duh.

Maybe because the avatar was an Air Nomad?

because the next avatar would come from the air monks.

They were trying to find the avatar, who they knew would be an airbender. And while they couldn't find him, they at least considered it a consolation victory that they at least broke the chain of benders the avatar could reincarnate into.

Which did seem like an odd way for the cycle to work. You'd think some immortal spirit could just adjust to the remaining three or whatever. Granted, this was before that Wan shit ruined everything.

What would've happend if he really killed all air nomad's
then some peace happens
and the next avatar should've been an airbender?
do the cycle skip this part? or is this the end to the avatar?

>Why target the people who can run away really well
You just answered your own question.

It'd be an interesting thing to think about

Ignoring the later reveal all that power would have to go somewhere, so I wonder if it would have split itself into three, or across a generation

A set of babies that were nowhere near as powerful as one Avatar but could control all 4 elements

>and the next avatar should've been an airbender?
Not sure what you mean by this. But the first series greatly implied that the avatar spirit MUST reincarnate in the order of "Fire - Air - Water - Earth - Fire - Etc."
Sozin killing all the other nomads meant that even if the avatar lived and died, the cycle was doomed to end once their earthbender incarnation croaked.

actually a valid tactic if you think about it.

conquer the earth kingdom. deny the avatar an earthbender teacher then use earth kingdom resources to build up your army.

it's just the air nomad extermination plan is the quickest/surest way to get rid of the avatar. so it's either play the long game or quick results.

Now I'm wondering what would happen if Sozin aimed for the waterbender people. Who knows how long the swamp tribe has been around, much less if they're well-known like the southern tribe or the northern kingdom.
A story where Aang perishes and the next avatar is reborn as a hick in the bayous.

Avatar was there. DYEWTS?
Also who says he didn't attack the mudpeople during the comet? He attacked 4 air temples simultaneously. No reason to assume he didn't send an army to attack the Earth Kingdom at the same time.

>or is this the end to the avatar?
Raavashit makes a lot of sense. So it would do whatever it wants. Or make a normie into a airbender.

The fuck is with this guy making a shit ton of Avatar threads trying to make it look shit?

Also; the show clearly said becuz da avatar was somewhere. If he killed the avatar (his birth being signified 10 years ago) that means he'd have the next decade to do as he fucking wanted before hunting down the next avatar when they start getting to age


Course this is downplayed by the fact it's been 100 years and all the Firenation has done was wipe out hippies and set up a few colonies on the shores of the fuckhueg earth kingdom's main continent.

Too bad it ruined the mystique about the avatar and turned it into kung-fu action Jesus. It was much more interesting when the working theories were the avatar being some amazingly spiritual human constantly reincarnating into new lives and keeping balance between the nations and the spirits.

Even if all the air binders died, wouldn't the avatar just make it's new form air anyway? Forcing the cycle back.

The Earth Kingdom is fucking huge and they didn't have airships back then. There's no way they'd be able to conqueror the whole thing in one night.

If they had strategically sprinkled soldiers across the important areas, they might have. A single firebender with comet power was pretty much capable of immense destruction. And as long as they nailed the major cities and smaller kingdoms, they might have been able to take it all. Granted, that would have relied greatly on Sozin having the foresight to get his forces into place before the comet flew by.

You guys realize the next avatar is born the SECOND the old one dies, right? (Or maybe 9 months later, hard to tell.)

The point is, so what if they had actually killed Aang? So what if he died with the rest of his people in the genocide? He'd just be reborn again in one of the Water Tribes. They might've bought themselves 15-20 years if they killed him, but by then the new avatar would be an adult and ready to attack.

Was their plan to kill the next 3 avatars? Waiting until it was reborn in the Fire Nation?

Well, maybe. It's hard to tell because bending abilities seem to be genetic. There will never be a water bender who was born in the Fire Nation, unless their parents were water benders who migrated.

But what happens when there's no more nation to be born into? If there are no air nomads who can give birth to new air benders, won't the avatar have nowhere to be born?

This is a decent excuse.

The smartest thing they could've done was to wipe out the Northern Water Tribe.

Their plan was probably to capture him.

I think it was explicitly mentioned even, that it was capture not kill they wanted in the first season to prevent this.

Doesn't change the fact that by eliminating the Nomads and thus Airbenders, they presumably broke the cycle. Which is one reason Korra's third season randomly making a gaggle of people getting air power feel like a bit anticlimactic. It would have been more fun if they had kept it uncertain if another avatar would be born an airbender until the time for such to exist was near.

>bought themselves 15-20 years

I'm sorry, is that not a large amount of time?

That isn't a viable conquest strategy. It'd be fine if your main goal was to plunder and pillage shit and then run off with the loot once you're done marauding, but after the comet passes the troops would be stranded behind enemy lines with no supply lines and no comet juicing them.

That's if they didn't do enough damage/killed all of their enemies. If they went with something along the same lines as the scorched earth plan Ozai does, they could have fucked up the earth kingdom and its smaller cities and crushed a great deal of the opposition.

I think you're oversimplifying the logistics. How would the army even get to all these cities in the span of a single night with no airships or mechanized vehicles?

Sneak them through disguises, obviously. It's even implied the comet's passing lasts a while, seeing as how Sozin went to the nomads to wipe them out when it previously appeared. Had Sozin had the foresight to install some soldiers here and there around the key parts of the earth kingdom, while the rest hung back to close in, they could have probably taken everything over in one go.

I'm pretty sure the people would notice a bunch of strangers coming into town. You can't move large groups of people around without someone taking notice. You're also forgetting logistics again. Where are these soldiers in disguise supposed to stay until the comet comes? Provided they could find a place to stat, how are they going to pay for their food and lodging when the two nations use different currency? What if one group is having trouble with resistance and needs assistance? How would they receive reinforcements when they're spread over such a great distance? Will all the hidden soldiers be given fake names in case they are asked since each nation has a distinct naming convention? You can't have them all named Lee. With such a large operation, the Earth Kingdom would only need to find and interrogate a single spy for the whole plan to fall apart and all your troops behind enemy lines would be rounded up and imprisoned, weakening your forces.

It would only be suspicious if the strangers came in large groups. And not like the earth kingdom was as Orwellian as it was at the time of TLA, they wouldn't bat an eye at the arrival of new people, especially if said new people didn't make their appearance a noticeable event. Going from the way things were in season 2, it even seems most earth kingdom folk couldn't tell who was who half the time, and all Zuko and Iroh did was just change clothes, doing nothing about their faces or whatever other fire nation traits they may have had.

Furthermore, who said all of the soldiers would have to stay right inside the towns and such? Some could rough it in the wilderness, while a careful few could stay in the cities. The real issue is keeping the approaching fleet from being found out until the comet is right about in place, again going back to how Sozin would have needed the foresight to know its exact arrival time so such a plan could be put in motion.

>It would only be suspicious if the strangers came in large groups.

Anyway, you would need huge amounts of fighters anyway to take and keep Ba Sing Se. They had lucky on ATLA because the secret service backstabed the EK and let the FN army invade.

>they wouldn't bat an eye at the arrival of new people

Pretty much they would, even on old times people noticed things like that.

>, especially if said new people didn't make their appearance a noticeable event. Going from the way things were in season 2, it even seems most earth kingdom folk couldn't tell who was who half the time, and all Zuko and Iroh did was just change clothes

After 100 years there were plenty of people that were mixed with Earth and Fire nation. On the comics thare are even earth benders that identify themselves with the FN.

>Anyway, you would need huge amounts of fighters anyway to take and keep Ba Sing Se.
Depends. If the few soldiers can manage to kill or capture the king and his council. If they can manage either, the result would be the kingdom's forces falling into disarray with their leader indisposed in one fashion or another.

>Pretty much they would, even on old times people noticed things like that.
Only if the new people made their appearance really obvious. Hardly anyone noticed two royals from the fire nation appearing, with only a few even having the brains to realize "these niggas aren't the same race as us".

>After 100 years there were plenty of people that were mixed with Earth and Fire nation.
By the time of TLA, sure. Who knows how much mixing was going on before the war. Either way, long as the soldiers weren't flooding all at once and didn't act out of the ordinary, they might have pulled it off.