The Fire Nation Royal Family is the ruling family of the Fire Nation. Although it has dominated the country for centuries, the family has known great strife during its history, and was marked by brutal feuds and the struggle for absolute power.[1] As a result of marriages and affairs, the Fire Nation Royal Family is related to several other Fire Nation noble families such as the Saowon and Keohso clans.[2][3]
History[]
After its unification, the Fire Nation was originally ruled by the Fire Sages, with the Fire Lord at their head. However, the Fire Lord eventually gained more power and split off from the Fire Sages, becoming its own position. From that moment on, the Fire Lord and their family ruled the nation.[4][nb 1]
The family has been in power for many centuries, though its various branches formed many dynasties, including the Pho Zel Dynasty.[6] The royal family was historically marked by numerous disputes and power struggles,[1] and its control over the Fire Nation was often undermined by the country's powerful noble clans.[7] After ascending the throne, it was not unusual for earlier Fire Lords to violently eliminate their siblings due to them being potential rivals.[2]
In the early life of Avatar Szeto, Fire Lord Yosor ruled the country. Although the nation was consumed by plague, natural disasters, and wars between the clans, Szeto managed to bring peace to the Fire Nation. By working as a minister in the Fire Nation's government, all of the Avatar's accomplishments reflected well on the Fire Lord.[8]
Fire Lord Gonryu reigned during the early era of Yangchen. After the international blunder known as the Platinum Affair, the Fire Nation became an isolationist country, with the exception of the shang city of Jonduri. Gonryu had his agents spy on Chaisee, the ambitious zongdu of Jonduri.[9]
Fire Lord Chaeryu ruled the country during the life of Avatar Kuruk. He was forced to acknowledge his illegitimate son, Chaejin, as his mother was the noble Lady Huazo of the Saowon clan. However, Chaejin was later excluded from the royal family and sent to the Fire Sages.[2] Chaeryu married Lady Sulan of the Keohso clan and had a son with her, Zoryu. After Chaeryu's death, Zoryu acceded to the throne. Although Chaeryu was considered an unintelligent boor, he was well-remembered for the bountiful harvests and prosperous fisheries during his reign.[2][3]
The Fire Nation's good fortunes came to an end in the first years of Zoryu's rule, which were marked by poor harvests. Chaejin came back to court as a High Temple liaison, but built his own power base as a potential candidate for the throne, while Lady Huazo built up the wealth and power of the Saowon clan.[2]
Although the supposed Avatar Yun helped stabilize the tensions in the royal family, they came to a head in 295 BG after Zoryu invited Kyoshi to the Fire Nation for the Festival of Szeto.[10] Kyoshi mistook Chaejin for the Fire Lord at a garden party, and the palace was attacked by a vengeful Yun, who killed Lu Beifong and Chancellor Dairin. The nobility was outraged, and the attack made the Fire Lord seem weak. In order to save Zoryu's honor, Kyoshi attempted to bring Yun to justice.[11][12][13]
Kyoshi and Hei-Ran assumed that the Saowon and Yun were working together, and the Avatar kidnapped Huazo and Chaejin to have them confessed. Although she learned that the Saowon were innocent, Zoryu produced a false Yun, who confessed to conspiring with the Saowon. A purge of the clan began in the capital, although Kyoshi demanded clemency in the case that she dealt with the real Yun.[14]
After the end of the Camellia-Peony War, Zoryu considered executing the Saowon instead of integrating them into a more centralized Fire Nation, holding Chaejin and his mother hostage in the meantime, although Lao Ge intimidated him into keeping his promise with Kyoshi. Acknowledging the powerbase of the noble clans, Zoryu planned to implement a number of policies that aimed at rendering the clans irrelevant.[7] This project succeeded over the course of the next three centuries as the Fire Lord would come to rule as an autocrat and wield total power in the Fire Nation. The last real conflict between the throne and the clans occurred around soon after 58 BG, and afterward, the nation was considered to finally be truly united under the throne.[15]
Sozin ascended to the throne in 58 BG at the age of twenty-four. During his youth, his family had pitted him and his nonbender sister Zeisan against each other, and they had fought for as long as they could remember. Zeisan saw the corruption that was growing in the royal family, and sought to dismantle it. She proposed a political marriage to Khandro, the master of a renegade Air Nomad order known as the Guiding Wind, who were opposed to the growing relationship between the Air Nomads and the wealthy elite of the other nations, and prepared to renounce her wealth and titles. Sozin almost could not control his rage when Zeisan proposed to Khandro, and saw the Guiding Wind as a threat which he was willing to eliminate by any means necessary. He refused to back down from fighting Zeisan now that he was the Fire Lord.[16][17][15]
Fire Lord Sozin instigated the Hundred Year War and began a tradition of favoritism which plagued the royal family for generations.
Later in his life, Sozin took advantage of the Great Comet's power and led his nation in the Genocide of the Air Nomads, thereby instigating the Hundred Year War.[18] He also favored his firstborn son, Azulon, over another family member, which would result in a long-lasting trend within the royal family as parents picked favorites and siblings fought each other over power.[19] Soon after Sozin's passing, Azulon was crowned Fire Lord and continued his efforts in the war and global domination.[20]
Azulon and his wife Ilah had two sons, Iroh and Ozai. He raised his children in a similar way to Sozin, strongly favoring Iroh, who was to be the designated Crown Prince. As a result, the two brothers quickly drifted apart.[19] Regardless, the family enjoyed the newfound power of the Fire Nation greatly, and the war began to sway in their favor. Iroh became a great general to honor his father, and would go on to win several victories against the Earth Kingdom.[21] Iroh eventually had a son, Lu Ten, and Ozai married a woman named Ursa, with whom he had two children: a son named Zuko and a daughter named Azula.
However, Ozai grew jealous of his brother's position as heir apparent and plotted to usurp Iroh's birthright. Seeing an opening in Iroh's failure to conquer Ba Sing Se after his son was killed in battle, Ozai requested that his father revoke Iroh's birthright and instead name Ozai heir, citing that Iroh's bloodline had ended with Lu Ten's death while his was strong and powerful.[22]
After ordering the death of Zuko, Azulon was murdered by his own son Ozai, exemplifying the often brutal nature of the royal family.
Enraged by Ozai's request, Azulon ordered Ozai to kill his son Zuko. However, Azula eavesdropped on the conversation and later taunted her brother on his fate. Ursa overheard her and told her to tell her everything she knew, thus learning of her husband's intentions to kill Zuko. Intent on saving her son's life, she offered Ozai a deal: she would concoct an untraceable poison for him to use as he pleased, if he would reconsider going after Zuko. The prince accepted the deal, albeit on the extra condition that Ursa left the palace. Ursa agreed, prepared the poison, which Ozai used to kill his father, and made her way into the night, leaving the palace.[23] Ozai later told Zuko that Ursa did "treasonous things" that night,[24] and the next day she was banished while Azulon was dead and Ozai was crowned Fire Lord.[22] Ursa, meanwhile, returned to her home town, Hira'a, where the Mother of Faces granted her a new face and identity to start a new life. Subsequently, she married her former boyfriend Ikem and had a child with him, Kiyi. It was not until six years later that Zuko and Azula discovered this small offshoot of the royal family.[25]
Fire Lord Ozai burned Prince Zuko and permanently divided the royal family.
Ozai's reign as Fire Lord was successful but cruel, and the Fire Nation saw many victories and the Hundred Year War was going smoothly. However, in one war meeting, the young Prince Zuko spoke out against a general's plan and by doing so in the Fire Lord's War Room, he had disrespected the Fire Lord himself. This resulted in his father challenging him to an Agni Kai where Zuko begged for forgiveness and refused to fight, only for Ozai to burn his face, scarring him for life. Following this, Zuko was banished, only to return if he had found the Avatar, who had gone missing for a hundred years.[26] Zuko was accompanied by Iroh on his defining quest.[27]
Nearly two-and-a-half years into his banishment, Zuko succeeded in finding the Avatar, a twelve-year-old boy by the name of Aang.[28] Though he succeeded in finding him, Zuko did not capture him and was eventually marked a fugitive to the nation, his father to send his daughter Azula to capture Zuko and his uncle.[29] Along with school friends Mai and Ty Lee, Azula managed to track down Zuko[30] as well as the Avatar,[31] beating her brother many times, but never capturing the Avatar nor Zuko.
Over the course of this time period, Azula eventually ran into a group known as the Kyoshi Warriors.[32] After defeating them, Azula and her team donned their outfits and infiltrated Ba Sing Se.[33] In Ba Sing Se, Azula formed an alliance with the Dai Li and Long Feng.[34] She put her plan into action and started the Coup of Ba Sing Se, during which she successfully lured her brother into joining her and betraying their uncle. She effectively conquered the Earth Kingdom in the name of the Fire Lord when she killed Avatar Aang.[35]
The royal family was temporarily reunited in 100 AG.
Upon his return to his homeland, Ozai praised Zuko for the Avatar's death; Azula had lied to Ozai because she suspected there was a possibility that Aang was still alive.[36] However, Zuko felt inner turmoil because he betrayed his uncle. The Fire Nation Royal Family waited for the invasion that Azula had heard about which would take place on the Day of Black Sun so that they could thwart it and easily take over the world once Sozin's Comet returned.[34] Once the actual invasion arrived,[37] they did stop the attackers, but Zuko defected from the Fire Nation in order to teach the Avatar, who was revealed to have survived Azula's assault as she had thought, firebending. Zuko had decided that the Fire Nation's waging of the Hundred Year War was not what the world needed, breaking from the royal family's opinion that had been held for the last century. On this day, Iroh escaped from his prison, using the eclipse to overpower the guards who were unable to firebend.[24]
Ozai and Azula were infuriated and wanted to take revenge. Azula nearly managed this when she met her brother again at the Boiling Rock and fought him. After a relatively even battle on the gondola, Azula and Ty Lee noticed that the gondola was about to be cut down by prison guards and escaped. However, before the gondola with Zuko and other prison-break participants was cut from the wire, Mai intervened and saved them. This led to Azula's attempt to kill Mai. Ty Lee managed to stop Azula in time with her chi-blocking, but she and Mai were captured by the guards and imprisoned.[38] This betrayal caused Azula to slip into insanity,[39] but this would not become evident until the arrival of Sozin's Comet.
Several weeks prior to the arrival of Sozin's Comet, the Fire Lord had a war meeting and pondered how the Earth Kingdom rebellions could be stopped. Azula spoke up and told him he should burn the entire continent to the ground, to which he agreed, saying a new world would rise from the ashes.[40] The Fire Lord attempted to go through with this plan after crowning himself Phoenix King, but interference from Team Avatar and the Order of the White Lotus thwarted his plans. At Azula's coronation, she had finally slipped into insanity and was taken down by Zuko and Katara.[39]
Fire Lord Zuko ended the Hundred Year War.
Meanwhile, Aang defeated Ozai by stripping him of his firebending through the use of energybending. Finally, the Order of the White Lotus led by Iroh managed to liberate Ba Sing Se, thus ending the war.[41]
Ozai was imprisoned following his defeat[41] and Azula was put into a mental health facility where she was monitored.[42] Zuko was subsequently crowned Fire Lord and officially ended the war. In the conflict's aftermath, he managed to find his mother,[25] allowing her, Ikem (now known as Noren), and Kiyi to come to the Fire Nation Royal Capital. Amid these events, Azula escaped and overcame her insanity at least partially, vowing to become the eventual power behind the throne.[43][44] In addition, Kiyi became recognized as a member of the royal family.[44][45]
Zuko later continued the royal bloodline through at least one child, a daughter named Izumi.[46] Zuko stopped the favoritism that had plagued his family since Sozin's time,[19] allowing the royal family to become a healthier environment. He passed the throne to Izumi in 167 AG following his retirement.[46][47] Zuko's grandson, Iroh, is a general of the United Forces and the commander of its First Division. He was also crucially involved in the battle for Republic City, helping to liberate Republic City from the Equalists,[48] as well as fighting against the Dark Avatar during Harmonic Convergence,[49] and against Kuvira's forces in the invasion of the United Republic of Nations.[50]
Duties[]
The Fire Nation Royal Family is a very powerful family, whose main duty is to rule the Fire Nation. Although not clearly stated, the Fire Nation Royal Family may require members to do some military work, with the Fire Lord having command over the armed forces. The royal family played an important role in the Hundred Year War: Fire Lord Sozin instigated the conflict[18] and Azulon, Iroh, and Lu Ten[22] were all known to be militarily involved. Members of the royal family also represent their country in diplomatic affairs.[51]
Family tree[]
- See also: Saowon clan and Keohso clan
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| Yosor | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Gonryu | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Huazo |
| Chaeryu |
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| Chaejin |
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| Taiso |
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| Sozin |
| Zeisan |
| Yasu |
| Roku |
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| Azulon |
| Ilah |
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| Rina |
| Jinzuk |
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| Iroh |
| Ozai |
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| Ursa |
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| Lu Ten |
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| Zuko |
| Azula |
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| Izumi | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Iroh |
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Notes[]
- ↑ Though this has not been fully confirmed, Mai's statements in Smoke and Shadow Part Two suggest that all Fire Lords since the Fire Nation's unification have belonged to the same family.[5]