If ATLA wasn't restrained by its age rating, do you think that the writers would have allowed Aang to kill Ozai?

I hope not. Aang defeating Ozai without abandoning the morals of the Air Nomads was a pretty important point in the story. Ozai insisted that the Air Nomads were "too weak to survive in [his] new world", and that Aang was weak for holding onto their beliefs, if Aang needs to break their beliefs to defeat Ozai he proves that Ozai was right, that the Air Nomad culture is too weak to survive in its current form.

>it's okay to kill a bunch of nameless goons who were likely following orders and don't have protection from disobeying orders for morality reasons
>can't kill the guy responsible for it all because you'd be just like him!

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But Ozai was right, he wiped them the fuck out and Aang had to have a random turtle god teach him a secret never before mentioned technique so he could win without compromising his morals.

Plus didn't Aang's mentor kill a fuckton of fire nation soldiers in a flashback? There are dead fire nation guys all over the southern temple

The point of the finale was that Aang broke the cycle of violence and death by sparing Ozai's life. If Aang killed him he would have been a martyr, but by taking his bending powers and keeping him alive Aang humiliated him. In a way he's less a threat alive than if Aang killed him and turned him into a symbol.

No, they could have easily given Ozai a Disney villain death but they chose to make the whole "killing is bad" part Aang's character arc for the finale

cite a single time in the show that Aang, when in full control of his own actions, chooses to kill fire nation soldiers

Plus an Ocean Spirit pissed off that his waifu was dead.

Do you think a drunk driver is also not responsible for the death he caused?

This could have easily been solved by establishing it as an issue earlier in the season and Aang coming to the realization that he can take bending but at great risk for someone so young and inexperienced or something along those lines. Not force it all at the end.

It's not like season 3 didn't have a number of weak episodes. Removing one of the "Zuko has to be paired with someone" episodes and Suki as a tag along altogether

do Monks actually believe in the ''never kill no matter what'' thing?

Not the same thing, a drunk driver does choose to operate their vehicle while drunk while Aang gets his entire consciousness suppressed and replaced.

I thought that the past Avatars' reasoning was very sound; I specially liked that female airbender's point of how as an Avatar Aang can never hope to achieve the same spiritual freedom as the rest of the air nomads because he MUST have worldly attachments.

He wasn't right; they were wiped out because the firebenders were powered by by a comet; if they were so weak, why wait for a 100 year even that grants you unbelievable strenght before attacking? Just go for them next Tuesday if they're so weak; regular firebending should work.

If they had established it sooner it might have worked better.

Usually the villains defeats themselves. So Aang spares Ozai, turns his back, Ozai attacks Aang and either Aang knocks him away to a vague death or he does something like trip and causes his own death. Another possibility is Aang instinctively covers Ozai's hands and feet in rock as he's trying to bend out of all them, possibly flying around Iron Man style and double firebending from his hands. The result would be him ruining his hands and feet and being unable to firebend.

I never expected Aang to kill Ozai but I didn't like the deus ex machina either. And no, a mention of the lion turtle in one episode doesn't make sudden spiritbending powers to remove bending acceptable.

Going by how Gyatso went down, my guess is that killing in self defense is okay with them.

What you proposed is pretty damn cliched and tired; I honestly prefer the ending in which Aang spares him than Ozai getting himself killed like an idiot. I want Aang to compromise; he either lets go of his morals and kill Ozai, or he sticks to them and doesn't. I am happy with how the ending went, I just wish there had been more foreshadowing for the spirit bending. But any outcome that tries to please everyone like the one you shared is unsatisfying for everybody.

>taking advantage of a natural phenomenon to BTFO your enemies
Fact is, air nomads got fucking genocided while Fire Nation chads ruled the planet for a hundred years.

I'll take cliche over deus ex machina any day. It was obvious that Bryke and the other writers didn't know how this fight was going to end because they pulled a solution out of nowhere.

But he did face his problem. It was solved by being a great avatar.

No he didn't, it was solved for him by a literal deus ex machina just giving him the perfect power to resolve the situation

Monks are devout about a religion, and Asian ones usually don't have a "It's okay to knowingly sin as long as you're sorry, our deity is about forgiveness" loophole.

I wonder how many of the bible-thumping rednecks in the Army are genuinely repentant about shooting enemy combatants though...

Yeah, he did. One airbender, outnumbered and surrounded, slaughtered dozens of suped-up firebendering soldiers. The Fire Nation was a cancerous mistake, they never should have fucked with the natural order.

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The thing is this. When it comes to close quarters, air nomads were op as fuck. They moved so fast they could dodge all sort of fire projectiles, they hit hard enough to bend metal by sheer force, they could cut you from a very long distance.

Air Nomads were op. The only way to beat them all was with comet buffs and hope their limited number are too far up their asses with dogma to do anything outside the box.

No, it's more thematically and narratively satisfying to have Ozai live. Ratings had little matter in this, plenty of characters died both off and on screen, just not in a gory manner.
I imagine that even if Avatar was TV MA, things like Iroh's love of tea will remain.
There are also multiple instances of alcohol written in Chinese being seen in the background in the show.

It was solved by a convenient chyropractor rock