Going to be traveling and bored meme

[attackfish]

This looks like I can answer with my cell phone keyboard!  (On a side note, please forgive my more numerous than usual spelling mistakes in this.  I don't have spellcheck on my phone, and my spelling is lamentable at the best of times.)

Ganked fromsholio

Give me a character and I'll tell you a piece of my personal headcanon. Any fandom is welcome here, provided that I am reasonably familiar with it.

Comments

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I have so much more headcanon for Iroh the elder (I have spent far too much time figuring out the ins and outs of the Fire Nation Royal family from Sozin to Zuko) but I have fair amounts for Iroh the younger as well.

It used to be my headcanon before Bryke confirmed that he's Zuko's grandson, that he was the youngest of a huge family that bemused Mai and Zuko more than anything, and when Mai got pregnant with him at like, sixty, she stared up at the sky for a long long time wondering why menopause wasn't coming (please please please let it come). I still like to think Zuko and Mai had a lot of kids, and that Iroh is not the son of their oldest, the Firelord, because if he's that high up in the succession, he would be at home, preparing to become Firelord himself someday.

[wolfs-lament.livejournal.com]

I kinda liked that the creators just gave us little hints about Iroh the elder's past, so we could fill in the gaps ourselves. I'd definitely be interested to know about your headcanon for him.

I figured General Iroh had to be a grandson because of how young he looked, but I love your initial headcanon! I can imagine either they stuck with one (which I imagine the Fire Nation people would have protested about in case they had another Lu Ten) or went with more than two. Zuko would be way too paranoid that two kids would somehow turn into his relationship with Azula. I agree about Iroh though. I don't think anyone would approve the Crown Prince taking over the equivalent of the UN military.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Does it count if I entertained myself with thoughts of little Iroh having nieces and nephews older than he was?

Oh this. It is an international relations nightmare in so many ways. Here's hoping the writers never try to make him heir to the throne.

ZUKO: *wakes up in the middle of the night with Mai seven months along* Oh Spirits, no! Our children will be siblings, there will be royal siblings again!
MAI: *whacks him on the head* there have been plenty of happy sets of royal Fire Nation siblings throughout history. Your family was warped. My family was warped. We will not be warped, and if any of our children try to kill each other, they will answer to me, understand?
ZUKO: *nods very quickly while backing away and making soothing gestures*

[wolfs-lament.livejournal.com]

I'm warming up to your idea more and more.

I'd like to give Bryke the benefit of the doubt and assume they've thought through this. I've doubted them before and it's turned out alright, but I guess now that they've got a whole other season to stretch something like this out. Besides, I have a feeling he's not going to turn into much more than a once-off character (I hope I'm proven wrong, but in the end I'd prefer more time spent on the main cast).

I sometimes feel sorry for Mai. She has to knock him back down every time he gets like this (which I can imagine is often).

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

It's adorable, isn't it?

It's not that I doubt them, it's that I constantly think of every way a story could go wrong, and then worry, because I always worry, whether I trust the writers or not. (I would like to see a little more of him too, mostly because I want to meet his aunt/mother, and at least know what her name is.

*snerk* She knew what she was getting into.

[wolfs-lament.livejournal.com]

Admittedly it's me trying to reassure myself as well. I think when you get such a great show you do worry that it won't live up to your expectations. I holding out hope that they'll go on a holiday to the Fire Nation for season 2 so we find out those kind of things.

That's the only reason I don't feel sorry for her.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

This. Plus A:tLA is so brilliant that they have me terrified that I'm seeing what isn't there or something.

Part of my headcanon for her is that most of the time, she enjoys smacking him in the back of the head for being Zuko.

[luunyscarlet.livejournal.com]

And this is with the SECOND child. When Mai was pregnant with their first child, he was probably freaking out over the fear that he might be like Ozai.
Mai: Zuko, calm down. You are NOT going to turn out like Ozai.
Zuko: But Mai, what if I DO?
Mai: Fine, I'll castrate you if you even THINK about setting our kid's face on fire. Does that make you feel better?
Zuko:...No, not really.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

*cackles* Though I'm sure when his children hit their teenage years, he begins to see the appeal of exile...

Yes, that's exactly how it would go. Mai finds it annoying that the fact that he adores the ground his children walk on doesn't reassure him.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

As for Iroh the elder, after he was born, Ilah and Azulon tried for a long, long time to have another child to shore up the succession, but after a string of miscarriages, and difficulty even conceiving, they ha given up trying. It was only after they had thought Ilah was too old to have children that she conceived accidentally, and Ozai was born. At first, Azulon was delighted with his son, but really, he was expecting to be having grand children by now, not another son, and Ilah died from complications from the birth, and so Iroh ended up being the one who acted as a parent to Ozai. Because of this, Iroh always feels he failed Ozai, who after all, he raised while his nationalistic sentiments were at their peak, and that he also failed Lu Ten, letting him die in an unjust war. He is terrified that he will fail Zuko, his third chance, and he isn't sure what would be worse, seeing him turn out like Ozai, or seeing him die like Lu Ten. (After much consideration, he feels dying would be worse, because Zuko could always reform himself if he turned evil).

I also think when he was younger, he was heavily influenced by Sozin's writings and believed in the nobility of the Fire Nation's conquest for similar reasons, and though as he grew older he had doubts, Lu Ten's death gave him the impetus to say "No, I have been wrong, deeply deeply wrong for years" and become the Iroh we love. Giving Sozin's writings to Zuko was hard for him, because part of him was afraid that Zuko would see in them what he had seen as a young man, instead of what he saw as a wise old man. (Of course, Zuko had been hearing propaganda of Sozin's ideology since he was little, and since his sojourn in the Earth Kingdom, he was already having doubts, so Iroh had nothing to be worried about).

[luunyscarlet.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with you about Ilah having a string of miscarriages after Iroh was born and that she died due to birth complications. And that Iroh believes that he failed Ozai. Though my headcanon holds that he and Ozai were never very close as he was off to war during most of Ozai's childhood and that when he was back in the Fire Nation, his duties as Crown Prince and to his own family were more of a priority so he never spent much time with Ozai.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think there was distance there, and that Iroh was gone all the time, I just think that Iroh was the closest it came to a parental figure to poor unfavorite Ozai (like Zuko, but with more inborn sociopathy and a less dedicated Iroh) I also wonder how close in age Ozai and Lu Ten were...

[luunyscarlet.livejournal.com]

True, true. That picture we see of Lu Ten in "Tales of Ba Sing Se" looks like he's in his twenties. So at the least...10 years difference?

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Probably. In one of my fics, Ozai's forty, and Lu Ten's twenty-six in the canon time frame, which means there's the same gap between the as between me and my brother.