Dreams of Imperial Glory (Avatar: TLA Quest)

Leingod said:

Where are you getting that it's that bad? The show only ever made a big deal out of the Northern Water Tribe acting like that, not the Earth Kingdom. No one ever seems to disrespect or give the Kyoshi Warriors a hard time, even though they're an order of warrior women, after all, which you would expect to happen if the Earth Kingdom was super sexist. If you're taking this from Toph's parents, keep in mind that Toph is a.) blind, and b.) 12 years old. Her parents being extremely protective and keeping her under lock and key has relatively little to do with her gender.

Also, "black hole of conservative views and stubborn reluctance?" Not really getting that from the Earth Kingdom as a whole. Like, maybe to some degree, but the comics make quite clear that the moment they aren't constantly trying to fend off the Fire Nation they start making big strides in industry and the like, with the Earth-Fire Refinery and such. It becomes something similar to end-of-Qing China under Hou-Ting's rule, but that has more to do with her being a controlling bitch who thinks that modernizing her kingdom evenly would weaken her authority. Other leading Earth Kingdom figures never seem bent on forcing back progress or anything. In general the Earth Kingdom's problems stem from its unwieldy, patchwork nature that neither Kuei nor Hou-Ting ever seemed able or willing to fix.



Why would he do that? Long Feng doesn't want or need to be on the throne, he wants a puppet king that he can prop up on the throne while he makes all the real decisions.

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Missed all those females in positions of power, or all those combat trained female earth benders.

The list of the later starts and ends with Tohp and the list of the former has no examples. All the noble daughters of Ba Sing Se are learning how to dress up, calligraphy and and to look beautiful. The Kyoshi warriors are the huge glaring exemption to the rule and the Avatar turned their peninsula into an island and dragged it away from the main land to achieve it. Also I am pretty sure the comics highlight that the EK discriminates heavily against women, and aren't that far from the NWT, so I don't know about what you are talking about.

Now I am not saying its going to be impossible, but that this should be an uphill battle, the EK aren't the FN nor the air nomads, the sexes aren't even close to being equal and that means this should be hard mode, because even in option one the "crown" princess stops being ours as soon as a brother enters the equation.

Now if canon its going to be changed that is fine too, if I think the changes are too much for my SoD I will just move along and do something else with my time.

Chaoswind said:

Missed all those females in positions of power

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And? Name one of those in the Fire Nation who isn't royalty (you know, that thing we are), and I'm willing to bet the only reason they have female soldiers (but, as far as we can see, not a single officer or government official or anything) is sheer necessity due to having a much smaller size and population than the place they're conquering.

The Earth Kingdom probably isn't the best place in the entire world to be born a woman, but nothing seems to imply that it's substantially worse than most of the alternatives.

All the noble daughters of Ba Sing Se are learning how to dress up, calligraphy and and to look beautiful.

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Yeah, and? That's what noble daughters everywhere learn to do. Ozai's Angels are about as good a representation of Fire Nation noble girls as Toph is for the Earth Kingdom.

Also I am pretty sure the comics highlight that the EK discriminates heavily against women, and aren't that far from the NWT, so I don't know about what you are talking about.

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I'm pretty sure I never noticed any of that in the comics, and so I don't see what you're talking about. Mind giving some actual examples?

Now I am not saying its going to be impossible, but that this should be an uphill battle, the EK aren't the FN nor the air nomads, the sexes aren't even close to being equal and that means this should be hard mode, because even in option one the "crown" princess stops being ours as soon as a brother enters the equation.

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If that's your logic, then any starting location would be "Hard Mode," because there are no known large, powerful polities in the Avatar world where the laws of succession favor women and where we've seen substantial numbers of women in positions of power.

[X] Crown Princess of the Earth Kingdom (Born 65 AG)
[X] Earthbending
[X] Leadership

The Fire Nation is only socially progressive by necessity, because the only female soldiers we see are unarmored guards stationed back in their home islands instead of any of the real dedicated troops. It speaks more to their state of mobilization and militarization, because all the high-ranking officials and officers are really old men. The Northern Water Tribe separates their benders by gender and relegate the women to healers, while the Southern Water Tribe is much more egalitarian, but still notably unequal because all their warriors are men and even a kid like Sokka is supposedly more suited to defend their village than an older woman. I suspect that if the South Water Tribe was not as limited in manpower and resources, that they would be just as misogynistic as the North.

The Avatar-universe during the Hundred Years War as a whole is relatively misogynistic compared to modern society and this extends to the Earth Kingdom. The Crown Princess option would be passed over for the throne if Kuei is born and canon proceeds as planned. The Earth Kingdom also does not have female soldiers and earthbending is seen as 'un-womanly ', so most female earthbenders are only given basic training as more of a hobby and only in isolated frontier settlements are they expected to use their bending for practical benefits. It is not a coincidence that the only time you are likely to see a female earthbender fight is when she's part of a bandit gang raiding your settlement or caravan, which just reinforces gender roles.

The only exceptions are the Kyoshi Warriors and, ironically, the Dai Li, but they stopped recruiting women shortly after Kyoshi died. The Kyoshi Warriors are seen mostly as a ceremonial quasi-religious order of priestess who just happened to be taught how to fight and are not really expected to go into actual battle.

[X] Younger Sister of the 52nd Earth King Kuei (Born 79 AG)
[X] Earthbending
[X] Leadership

[X] Crown Princess of the Earth Kingdom (Born 65 AG)
[X] Earthbending
[X] Warfare

Because the thought of facing Azulon or Iroh (before his son's death) while terrifying, is all kinds of unbelievably awesome. Warfare, because I have no delusions how dangerous that would be, and because I feel like the legitimacy provided by Earthbending to some extent ameliorates the lack of leadership.

The idea is that by doubling down on successful campaigns and popular legitimacy because we're a highly visible royal earthbender we can do an end run around against the aristocratic elite strangling our kingdom. There's a reason why successful generals had so much success launching coups historically, and in this case while we'd be fighting against gender discrimination we'd have far more legitimacy than otherwise.

Sometimes, outwarlording the competition is a perfectly valid path to consolidating control over a nation- and I'd love to explore that here.

rdc30 said:

You are Zhang-Li, daughter of the 51st Earth King Tian and:

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We're a girl, directly related to royalty, great in at least one field, and ...

@rdc30 how old is Iroh's son in your head canon? Or more specifically, what year is he born?


While I believe I am probably far too late to get a turnaround, is working with the Fire Nation possible? If Iroh's son is of the age I hope he is we might be able to get an arranged marriage there, and work with the Fire Nation. We provide at the least some very useful legitimacy to their rule, they provide some very useful power (and it removes our greatest enemy from the field)

Even if a bunch of the Earth Kingdom rebels, that's fine, there's plenty of land in it. If future generations want to rule it all they can deal with it.


Edit: Forgot to vote

[X] Younger Sister of the 52nd Earth King Kuei (Born 79 AG)

I don't think Iroh would send his son to the front lines before he was thoroughly ready and his portrait makes him seem like a young man instead of a teenager. For the purpose of this quest, I'll say he was born in 70 AG.

rdc30 said:

I don't think Iroh would send his son to the front lines before he was thoroughly ready and his portrait makes him seem like a young man instead of a teenager. For the purpose of this quest, I'll say he was born in 70 AG.

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Huh, older than I would have thought.

*checks wiki*

Although now that I look again it honestly makes him seem younger than I'd expect since Iroh was born around 40 AG (he's 60 in the series). Iroh having his first kid at 30 seems rather late in my opinion, although there could be plenty of reasons for that being the case.

Blonddude42 said:

Huh, older than I would have thought.

*checks wiki*

Although now that I look again it honestly makes him seem younger than I'd expect since Iroh was born around 40 AG (he's 60 in the series). Iroh having his first kid at 30 seems rather late in my opinion, although there could be plenty of reasons for that being the case.

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They all seem to marry or have a child late, because Sozin had Azulon at 80 and if Iroh is 60, then Azulon had him at almost 40.

rdc30 said:

They all seem to marry or have a child late, because Sozin had Azulon at 80 and if Iroh is 60, then Azulon had him at almost 40.

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Azulon was Sozin's son? I thought there was another generation of separation (Azulon being his grandson)

*checks wiki*

Huh, he was. It is technically possible Sozin had a kid at 80, although he would have needed a much younger wife. Probably would not have been his first wife, since it'd be extremely odd to not have married until that late. Very odd that Sozin reigned for so long without an heir too, but it might be explained by him choosing Sozin as heir rather than that being Sozin's as firstborn. Or Sozin was firstborn son and there were sisters passed over for him.

Or the Avatar timeline has serious issues when you look that far back. Creators often make mistakes like that.

[X] Crown Princess of the Earth Kingdom (Born 65 AG)
[X] Earthbending
[X] Warfare

Tally

[X] Crown Princess of the Earth Kingdom (Born 65 AG)
[X] Earthbending
[X] Leadership

Alright, I'm heading off to bed for the night. Earthbending is pretty decisively in the lead, but the start time is still relatively close. I'll check back in the morning before I decide when to lock it. In the mean time, here's a brief lore dump on the composition of the imperial court.

Court of the Earth King

• Office of the Chancellor: The most powerful position in the Earth Kingdom, second only to the Earth King himself, the Chancellor is the head of the vast bureaucracy governing very aspect of the Earth Kingdom.
  • Ministry of Justice: Tasked with operating law enforcement and courts.
  • Ministry of Finance: Tasked with collecting taxes and overseeing revenue.
  • Ministry of War: Tasked with supervising the military and appointing officers.
  • Ministry of Rites: Tasked with preserving the spiritual and cultural heritage of the kingdom.
  • Ministry of Personnel: Tasked with the recruitment and appointment of officials.
  • Ministry of Works: Tasked with overseeing national construction and resource extraction.
• Office of the Secretariat: An office tasked with screen all communiques to the Earth King, the Secretariats determine what truly deserves the Earth King's attention and provide summaries as well as guidance if needed.
• Office of the Censorate: A controversial office created by Avatar Kyoshi to act as the eyes and ears of the Earth King, the High Censor and his agents are tasked with rooting out corruption and sedition in the government.

The Censorate is the Dai Li, but they also include more mundane things like investigators and auditors. The three high offices are supposed to act as a form of checks and balances. The Chancellor is the most powerful, because he is basically empowered to do pretty much anything, but the Secretariat keeps the Earth King updated on all the important stuff and the Censor makes sure the chancellor's not happening a coup. The military is controlled by the bureaucracy as well, because they handle all the funding, recruitment and appointments, so while the military, in theory, could operate as needed, anyone that gets a little too ambitious is going to find himself demoted at best.

All of this is only on paper, of course.

[X] Crown Princess of the Earth Kingdom (Born 65 AG)