Actually, this thread has already come to the conclusion that the Avatar character Qin Shi Huang Di paralles best is Azula. Seriously, a lot of the events in their lives, not to mention their characterisitcs, are a perfect match.

EDIT:

Here's my original post from page four:

Shi Huang Di: the the greatest and maddest emperor of China:

Emperor Shi Huang Di is beyond a shadow of doubt one of the most controversial figures of Chinese history.

At the time of his birth the country of China was divided into number of different nations, all of which were under attack by Qin, the most powerful of all the countries, and Shi Huang Di's birthplace. The war between Qin and the other nations had at this point been raging for centuries. For years, the Kings of Qin had been trying to make use of their superior numbers and war technology to conquer the other nations, but for years those other nations had held out through sheer will, and had managed to remain independent. It would be Shi Huang Di who put an end to that Independence.

When he was born though, he did not seem likely to ever be of any importance. His father was a prince, but being one of the younger sons had small chance of taking the throne. Against the odds, he did become King eventually, after numerous schemes and a lot of luck had eliminated his older brothers and his father had died under mysterious circumstances. The new King had several sons, but he favored Shi Huang Di because he was the smartest, and more importantly, the most ruthless. Over the next few years, the other sons would be variously banished or killed, leaving Shi Huang Di as the crown prince.

Once he had become King himself, Shi soon set about conquering the nations that for years had resisted his ancestors. Showing no regard at all for the traditional rules of warfare, he had soon defeated his opponents through a combination of trickery and military might. Incredibly charismatic, he possesed the ability to talk some of his fiercest foes onto his side. In addition to being a brilliant general and tactician, he was no stranger to personal combat, and was known to kill heavily armed opponents with his bare hands.

Having conquered the other nations, he declared himself to be the Emperor of China (developed from the name "Qin"). A brilliant but astonishingly cruel ruler, he transformed what had previously been a collection of squabbling provinces into a centralized empire, rounding off his achievements by building the Great Wall of China. Anyone who opposed him was ruthlessly executed, no matter their former standing. A Legalist philosopher, he was a firm opponent of Confucianism, and all other such philosophies.

Everything seemed to be going perfectly for him, until he was betrayed by a man who had once been a very close friend of his. Worse, the man had tried to assasinate him. Shi Huang Di was shattered by this betrayal, and soon after began to descend into maddness. Overcome by paranoia that everyone was capable of betraying him, he banished all of his servants and close friends, allowing no one to approach him. When it was absolutley necessary that he talk to someone, the only way that he could feel safe was by lighting a large fire in front of his throne, so that anyone trying to kill him would have to come through the flames.

His enemies hoped that he might be vulnerable in his maddness, but were soon proved wrong. Shi came out of his maddness long enough to take command of his armies again and crush the invasion, but as soon as he had done so slipped back into insanity and died shortly afterwards, unable to live with the pressure of the life he had created for himself.

One other thing about Shi Huang Di was unusual; all of his ancestors had maintained a tradition of having the symbolic colour of the element fire as the royal color. Shi Huang Di, on the other hand, preferred the symbolic color of water as his royal color, for reasons unknown.

It really shouldn't be hard to figue out which Avatar charcater I think corresponds to Shi Huang Di.

EDIT: And here's what I wrote after watching the documentary:

Time to do that commentary I said I'd do on the Shi Huang Di documentary.

After watching this, I am now convinced that I was wrong about Avatar being based on the 100 Years war. Instead, I am convinced that the war in Avatar was actually based on the Warring States Period of China.

I also learned a lot about Shi Huang Di himself that still manages to correspond to Azula. For example:

-He had a terrible relationship with his mother. Shi Huang Di loved his mother dearly, and wanted the same from her. Unfortunately, his mother thought that her son was a monster for having laid waste to China, and publicly defied him, culminating in assisting an outright rebellion against him. Shi was furious, but could not bring himself to kill his mother, and instead had her banished. After being betrayed by his mother, Shi swore that he would never trust or love anyone ever again; from that point on ruthless manipulation and domination, and fear would be his choices as tools for making sure people remained loyal to him.

-After he was betrayed by a close friend and his sanity began to slip, his personal appearance began to slip too. Banishing servants left right and center, Shi was reduced to stalking the halls of his palace, hair dishevelled, tormented by hallucinations of people he had once known and imagined threats of assassination.

There were a number of familiar names in the Warring States period war; the most striking being the state of Zhao, whose aggressive leadership exhibited many of the traits of the ambitious admiral that we all knew and loved.

The state of Qin was so much like the Fire Nation that it wasn't funny; right down to almost everyone wearing red and black. The capital city wasn't located in a Volcano, but it was in a mountainous area, and was fairly small, consisting of the palaces where the Emperor and his nobles lived, along with their servants and an army of elite red armoured soldiers. Incidently, according to the documenatry, the soldiers of Qin went through training even more intense, and were even more effective in combat than the warriors of Sparta (blasphemy, maddness!).

And just to make it absolutley perfect, in the year that Shi Hunag Di died and his reign finally came to an end, a great comet was seen in the skys, taken to be an omen from the heavens.

Seriously, this was worth watching.

Thanks, I may actually watch it again.