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No. 110349
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>>110343
I've always liked to fanwank that Iroh "retiring" to his tea shop in BSS was a polite way of telling a still-fragile Zuko that he was giving himself up as a hostage to the Earth Kingdom as collateral for a peace treaty between it and the FN. Although "The Promise" torpedoed that idea, given Kuei or Zuko should have brought it up as an issue if war loomed.
But I think Iroh's actions throughout AtLA's "present day" make a lot more sense if you view him as having given up on any sort of proactive life. Iroh in Episode 1, before Aang defrosts, is dedicated to drinking tea and dying of old age on Zuko's boat.
After Aang defrosts, nothing really changes. Iroh repeatedly puts in a kind word for Zuko, and stands up against the EK soldiers that arrest him, but he's still a very passive figure in the show. He lets Zuko go off on what's basically a suicide mission at the North Pole, knowing full well (as he later admits under Lake Laogai) that Zuko had no plan and no place to take Aang even *if* he captured him. He's content to slip into BSS as a refugee and disappear into a humble peasant's life. Even when he finally confronts Zuko under Lake Laogai, the confrontation only comes after 3.5 years of putting up with Zuko's shit on a daily basis.
It's only once Iroh has lost *everything* left to him in his retirement, from Zuko on down to his creature comforts, that he gets back into fighting shape and becomes proactive. Even then, as you point out, Iroh gives all that up again soon afterward; he rejects power and returns to his tea shop. For all his past glory, the death of Lu Ten seems to have drained Iroh of any great ambition.
But the downsides to being so passive gets, well, a pass from the majority of the fandom. Being a cool badass allows one to get away with lots of bad behavior.
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