Hey all, I'm an avid Avatar watcher and a person who loves twists in storylines. After hearing the introduction to the show so many times something didn't smell right. The writers of the show seem like good writers, but the introduction seems a little bit two straight forward.

Four nations living in harmony, one goes crazy and attacks? Hm. There has to be some trigger for why the??Fire Nation attacked.??Sozen's Comet started the war, according to records but... somehow I think the Fire Nation did not make the first strike, especially with the new "darkest day" information where firebenders lose their powers during an eclipse. Here's my basic theory:

The four nations did live relatively peacefully, but the Earth and Fire Kingdoms were the most prosperous. In fact, I believe there was some sort of power struggle between them and they were evenly matched, both politically and on a military level.??An earth kingdom ruler??traveled??to the library, where he learned of the firebenders' weakness. They struck up propoganda against the Fire Nation and recruited soldiers??from other nations to attack (probably not many??Air Benders but anyway) with the knowledge they could probably take them down in a day and seize the position as the??most powerful nation (still speaking of the Earth Nation as the aggressive one). They launched the attack on the darkest day and the fire nation suffered huge casualties. Fire Lord Sozen looked down on his defeated soldiers, the other nations that betrayed him, and his powerlessness without the sun. Crying out in rage, Sozen's comet came and granted Sozen and what was left of his army enough power to push back the advancing army and launch a war starting attack for revenge. So basically, Sozen began the war to get back at the other nations for possibly breaking a peace treaty and his successors continued his work, getting more and more corrupted over time. The Earth Kingdom and other nations involved agreed to make it seem like the Fire Nation made the first aggressive??move, thus perserving their honor in history??and leaving their descendents to unknowingly??fix the mistake they??made.

Long, but??I think it's somewhat??viable for a big twist in the storyline. Thoughts?

Hmm...I agree with most of it, something big happened on the darkest day, but that day wasn't right before the war. It seems like it happened long before the war, and molded the Fire Nation into an aggressive force. Also, the Earth Kingdom were the last to be attacked. If they were the reason for the Fire Nations fear of the darkest day, wouldn't they be the first to go?

Could it not be that the Darkest day did more then impact the Fire Nation? The Fire Nation and Water tribe would be fighting via Naval power, so it makes sense to strike them down quickly. After all the biggest threat to islands are strong Navy's. But why the air nomads? The ones who "detached themselves from worldly concerns and found peace and freedom". They should have been the Fire Nations last concern, they didn't have an army, and were against fighting.?? I think they may be the force the theory is looking for.??

The Air Nomads may once have been a true nation, have a lot of land, maybe even most of the Islands the Fire Nation is on.?? What if the Air Nomads or a group within them attacked the Fire Nation.?? We saw how fire and air reacted in the Bato fight, it was explosive and deadly to both.?? Could it be that after the fight, both groups were so damaged that they were forever changed??? FN becomes aggressive and violent towards the other nations out of fear of being attacked again, and the AN leave most of their land and retreat into the sky, adopting a pacifist lifestyle.??

Then hundreds of years later, Sozin starts his war, and eliminated the AN in revenge.??

The darkest day seems to be saying their is more to the war then we know, and there had to have been other wars before this one, wars that may have shaped the nations, and changed how they acted towards eachother.??

I don't know. An eclipse doesn't last for very long. Maybe a few minutes or so. How much damage could the other nations do in shuch a short time?

Edit: Well, the complete and TOTAL eclipse only lasts a few minutes, but overall a solar eclipse lasts a couple of hours, give or take a few minutes.