History Literature / TheShadowOfKyoshi

* GreyAndGreyMorality: Chaejin is obviously power-hungry and doesn't care if some of the common people will die in order for him to gain the throne, but he does genuinely believe that the spirits are opposed to his brother's rule (which, considering the world they live in, is not an unfair assumption) and that his becoming Fire Lord will help the Fire Nation. Huazo supports Chaejin's ambitions, but clan politics meant that she was forced away from both the court and the man she loved years ago despite being very much a capable leader, and she argues that ''every'' Fire Nation noble family has dreamed of getting close to the Fire Lord's throne at some point in history. Zoryu wants to keep the peace and prevent a civil war...[[spoiler:and is willing to kill a 'false Yun' and wipe out the Saowon clan to do it, even though he ''knows'' they didn't actually collaborate with the real Yun.]]

** Rather humorously averted later on in the book when Kyoshi dives into the ocean to the wreckage of Avatar Yangchen's island in order to contact Kuruk and tells her crew of Fire National fishermen not to follow her no matter what. When they to retrieve her after she almost drowns she tells them she told them not to follow her and the captain says that the order was obviously stupid so they weren't going to follow it. Kyoshi dryly notes to herself that if more people in the Fire Nation had that level of common sense she wouldn't be in most of the situations she's stuck in for the book.

While this is currently the planned conclusion of the Kyoshi duology, the novel series, now under the banner of ''The Chronicles of the Avatar'', is set to continue, with the next novel focusing on Avatar Yangchen titled ''Literature/TheDawnOfYangchen''.

** Hei-Ran having to go to the Northern Water Tribe to heal after she was near fatally poisoned last book and still showing signs of physical weakness two years later, including in her bending, brings to mind [[Characters/TheLegendOfKorraAvatarKorra Korra's]] own struggles to get back on her feet after her mercury poisoning.

** Rangi's ''daofei'' makeup is described as being based off a river spirit worshiped near Jang Hui--in other words, the Painted Lady.

** At book's end, Kyoshi has come to the conclusion that she shouldn't get involved in political disputes any more. Judging by the events shown in "Avatar Day", where she didn't intervene during Chin the Conqueror's conquest, this is ALessonLearnedTooWell.

* ForgotAboutHisPowers: Early on in the book when Kyoshi passes by an island important to Yangchen she gets hit by a violent vision and almost drowns and, as the narration notes, it takes her an embarrassingly long time before she remembers she can just waterbend to safety. Likewise towards the end of the book, when Kyoshi decides to visit said island again, she gets off the boat and swims there the old fashioned way for a while before thinking of waterbending herself there.

* TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: Near the end of the book it's revealed that, rather than just being the carefree Avatar he was interpreted as being from the ''[[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender original show]]'' Kuruk spent most of his life [[spoiler:secretly battling and killing various Dark Spirits that were created by Yangchen's favoritism towards humans. Kuruk's actions likely saved the world from being consumed by Dark Spirits but because of his shame over murdering spirits he deliberately kept the truth hidden from even his closest friends and became a hedonist as a form of self medication. This ends up being deconstructed as this led to the world believing that Kuruk was an unfit Avatar, unintentionally causing the major problems that plague the books, and leaving Kyoshi with a lot of resentment towards her predecessor, at least before she realizes the truth about him.]]
* GreyAndGreyMorality: Chaejin is obviously power hungry and doesn't care if some of the common people will die in order for him to gain the throne, but he does genuinely believe that the spirits are opposed to his brother's rule (which, considering the world they live in, is not an unfair assumption) and that his becoming Fire Lord will help the Fire Nation. Huazo supports Chaejin's ambitions, but clan politics meant that she was forced away from both the court and the man she loved years ago despite being very much a capable leader, and she argues that ''every'' Fire Nation noble family has dreamed of getting close to the Fire Lord's throne at some point in history. Zoryu wants to keep the peace and prevent a civil war...[[spoiler:and is willing to kill a 'false Yun' and wipe out the Saowon clan to do it, even though he ''knows'' they didn't actually collaborate with the real Yun.]]

* HotterAndSexier: The first book had some more overt references to sex than the shows but this one takes it a bit further. Kuruk explicitly slept with his maid in one of the flashbacks, although nothing about the act itself is shown. Another point is while there are other half siblings in the franchise, notably Lin and Su, the implications about [[ReallyGetsAround multiple extramarital sexual partners]] are mostly glossed over. All Lin says is that she and Su have different dads and Toph says Lin's dad was a nice guy with whom things didn't work out. Here, Chaejin is explicitly called the bastard child of Fire Lord Chaeryu and his mistress Huazo. Huazo regales Kyoshi about their passionate youthful relationship. Zoryu also tells Kyoshi that he's probably got other half siblings out there that he doesn't know about.
* IdenticalStranger: After bringing out [[spoiler:a fake Yun to serve as a scapegoat who is actaully a Fire National citizen who looks near identical to the real thing except his eyes]] Zoryu points out to Kyoshi that peoples faces aren't as unique as they think they are (although he notes that there is probably no one on the planet who could masquerade as her). This truly gets brought into focus at the end of the book [[spoiler:when Kyoshi meets Avatar Yangchen who, aside from her tattoos, looks and acts similar to her mother Jesa.]]

** The Fire Nationals of Kyoshi's day are thrilled to see Brother Jinpa. The nobles are fascinated by his lifestyle and abilities, while the commoners hope he'll bless their livelihoods and believe that meeting him is incredible good luck. The Fire Nationals of the original series, on the other hand, have all been taught that the Air Nation had a standing army and were backwards enemies that needed to be destroyed.

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Kuruk, though the jerk part is pushing it. [[spoiler: Kuruk spent a good chunk of his time as Avatar hunting dark spirits that were trying to kill humans, and killing all those spirits left him with damage to his soul. His hedonistic frat boy days was basically him self-medicating because there was no other cure, believing himself a failure who murdered sacred beings, failed at his duties, and disappointed his friends, who incidentally knew nothing about the 'dark spirit hunting' due to Kuruk wanting to keep them safe, and only Nyahitha knowing the truth.]]

* MookHorrorShow: The first part of the initial non-flashback chapter is from the POV of a teenage boy serving as low level muscle for a Triad that had taken over a cramped Kowloon Walled City analog in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se. Someone is coming to root them out, there is a feared assassin on the level above, he is part of a group guarding a chokepoint, and things end up going '''poorly'''.

* NamedByTheAdaptation: Yangchen’s predecessor had never been named despite appearing twice throughout both shows. He’d been called “Avatar Jafar” due to his resemble to the villain of ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'' but this book gives him the name Szeto.

* OutOfSightOutOfMind: This is the position many of the Earth Sages take in regards to Yun. As the whole mess with Yun being a 'false Avatar' reflected badly on just about the entire Earth Kingdom, they refuse to search for him and bring the entire scandal back into the public conscious -- something only made easier with Jianzhu, the one who perpetrated the whole farce, dead. [[spoiler:Naturally, it backfires when Yun shows up and starts wreaking havoc in the Fire Nation; even killing Lu Beifong, one of these aforementioned sages who refused to search for Yun]].

* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Kyoshi [[LampshadeHanging Lampshades]] the bizarre group she ends up with nearing the end of the book: A disgraced firebending master (Hei-Ran), a healer who's fine with people dying (Atuat), a Fire Sage who became a confidence trickster (Nyahitha), an Air Nomad who's fine with Machiavellian scheming (Pangi), and an Avatar with a body count.

* {{Unperson}}: This is revealed to be the reason why Kyoshi's search for Yun has been fruitless during the TimeSkip. Having been paraded around the world as the Avatar for years, TheReveal that he actually ''wasn't'' the Avatar and that Kyoshi was became a national embarrassment for the Earth Kingdom. Those that aren't trying to deny Kyoshi's Avatarhood in hopes of taking advantage of her are doing everything that they can to forget Yun ever existed in hopes of sweeping the entire mess under the rug.

* ForWantOfANail: Kyoshi confesses to Hei-Ran that she thinks everything would have gone better if she'd simply been able to ignite the ball of tinder that Hei-Ran tried to test her with in ''Literature/TheRiseOfKyoshi''. If she'd been able to prove that she could firebend when everyone already knew she was an Earthbender, that would have conclusively proved she was the Avatar, and prevented the deaths of Kelsang and Lek, and of Yun being sacrificed to Father Glowworm.