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.

An issue that keeps coming up is how the Air Nomads are going to repopulate. It seems that their only chance is for Aang and Katara to get busy

This is actually not as impossible as it sounds. There are even real examples of it. The entire population of Israel claims to be descended from Abraham and his wife. Genghis Khan had so many kids that 0.5% of the world's population (an astonishing 30 million people) are descended from him. Both of these examples happened over just a few hundred years (a couple of thousand in the case of the former).

So the Air Nomads do have a chance of reappearing. But as has been said, Aang and Katara are going to have to get busy

"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."

Unfortunately, I did not get to view the entire showing. I did, however, catch this particular part, and I immediately thought of Azula when I heard it. This is a good show from what I have seen of it. If anyone who did not see it is interested in watching it, here is a quick review/summary from the LA Times; hopefully, this will pique your interest even more.

This thread seems to once again be in danger of slipping into obscurity.

We've found historically comparable figures to Iroh and Azula, I guess Aang's next on the list. Personally, I think that Julius Caesar is actually very similar to Aang. Here's why:

- Unlike most famous people, Julius Caesar did not specialize in any particular skill, but rather was a master of all the different elements of Roman leadership: he was a brilliant general, a master politician, a renowned orator, a prolific writer, an original architect and engineer, a passionate astronomer, and even found time to become a priest of the Roman religion.

- He was bald.

- His symbol was an arrow.

- He was famous for the mercy he showed towards his enemies. No matter how great an enemy he was facing, and no matter how dangerous they might be to him, he would always strive to capture his opponents rather than kill them, and afterwards would grant them complete clemency, often accepting them into his own army as trusted lieutenants. His enemies mocked him for being a coward who disiked executing people, while his allies praised him for his mercy and generosity. The enemies who he captured were not at all grateful, seeing Caesar's clemency as a humiliating alternative to an honorable death in battle.

- Unlike most Romans, Caesar was very reserved with his food; he avoided alcohol and meaty dishes, instead preffering simple vegetarian meals (AKA the Caesar salad).

It's not as similar as Azula/Shi Huang Di, but still, it's something.

- Just to add another Avatar reference, Caesar was in fact declared a god when a great comet passed over Rome, being taken as a sign from the gods of their approval of Caesar. The comet, incidently, is suspected of being the same one that passed over China during the reign of Shi Huang Di, returning to earth every several hundred years.