walrusofdoom:

So one of the things ive never seen discussed about ATLA is this moment in the first season

Aang while searching through the air temple looking for his the other air benders stumbles about the skeleton of his former teacher, this is the moment that Aang finally has the feel the weight of the fact that he is infact the last air bender, that his friends, everyone he ever knew, especially the teacher who taught him all that he knew, the teacher he respected and loved are dead, because of this intense rush of emotions he goes into the avatar state, and you all know what happens next.
The part i wanted to touch on that i think isnt really discussed is the fact that the skeleton of Monk Gyatso is surrounded by the corpes and armour of 

Fire bender troops, these were men powered up my sozins commit, and now they lay here dead and rotting, and the person who killed them is Gyatso, this single pacifist monk was able to talk one an entire troop of soldiers and was able to take down a considerable amount which just shows how powerful and terrifying an airbender could be if they used their powers truly offensively. It would have been interesting if the show went into more depth about how aang felt about the realization that his teacher, the man who had thought him to not choose the side of violent, to be a staunch pacifist, in his final moments fought and took down tens of soldiers with him, that he killed

(even if it was in self defense), going against everything Aang had grown to believe about his master, this would have also been an interesting thing to call back in the last season of Atla when Aang is decided on how to deal with Ozai, is killing here justified? Even his master killed when he thought it necessary, is killing Ozai necessary? While we would all completely agree that yeah, Ozai had to die, Aang didnt want to kill, this would have held a lot more weight when Aang chose to find another solution, that he chose to do what was necessary but not going far enough to throw away everything he had been taught, what he had been taught was all he had left of the air kingdom he once called home, in this one moment, stopping but still letting the greatest force of war live was his way of staying true to his master and to himself.