Adorkable: Kuei, he's Bookworm tendencies and a lifetime shut up in the palace tends to do that to a guy; it's made quite clear after he meets the female Touzaikaze/desert witches in Chapter 45. But hey, at least he's trying. Sort of.
(Bon, thinking) Come on, pick up, I know you have no experience at all, but – oh, who am I kidding? You're clueless– "Does that sword still mean you're a healer?" Kuei blurted out. "Some of the scrolls I have – here, let me show you..." (Bon) ... Back to the books.
Bon might be dismissive but Kuei's sharing of the scroll with Eshe was the start of her beginning to trust and like him.
Alternative Character Interpretation: A lot of the controversy revolves around a reinterpretation of Katara and of the contrast between her Sugar Queen persona and the dark side she sometimes shows in canon. Some readers think it’s brilliant. Some see it as character bashing as well as a case of Ron the Death Eater. Some think they see where the author was trying go with this, but also think it was taken too far or otherwise poorly executed.
Broken Base: As noted in the summary. Most of this comes down to disagreements over Alternate Character Interpretation. Arguments over the history and backstory of the Fire Nation and Vathara's world in general can also be volatile and comes down to four points of contention:
When it comes to the causes of the war, some people see "but"s that make excuses for the Fire Nation and its people and others see "why"s that don't.
With loyalty, some see it as a gun to the head forcing the Fire Nation to do things they don't want to, making them victims and ultimately innocent while others see it as, at worst, a gun to the head of a gangster; sure, the gang will kill him if he tries to leave or go straight, but he joined up willingly and likes hurting people, so it's a non-issue.
Vathara's culture for the Air Nomads: did she make them evil baby stealers who deserved to die just because this is a Hate Fic, or is it a valid interpretation of what's presented in canon?
The Gambit Pileup; some see it as part of a complex web of reasons, others see it as an excuse for the Fire Nation to go to war with the Air Nomads.
Creator's Pet: Dragons. Far from the intelligent but mostly feral original firebinders from canon, dragons in Embers are basically everything Vathara thinks is awesome condensed into one package. It says a lot that the more Vathara wants you to like a firebender in this story, the more directly related they are to a dragon (did we forget to mention dragons in this story can shapeshift into humans and a good portion of the Fire Nation is descended from them? Because that's a thing. And no, there's nothing remotely like this for any of the other cultures).
Ghost Shipping: Ping and Lu Ten seem to be on rather good terms, although it doesn't seem to be anything more than flirting.
Misaimed Fandom: Can occur when the audience misses the intended subtext, or if the storyteller failed to make their point in a convincing manner. Devoted fans of the story tend to see critics as the first case, failing to understand the motivations Vathara has created for various characters, despite the extensive author notes provided. Critics see this as the second case, claiming that the story and notes fail to reconcile the characters’ behavior with character development seen in dozens of canon episodes that are unchanged in this alternative timeline.
Moral Event Horizon: General Fong goes flying over it in Chapter 70 when he forces civilians to walk straight into Dragon's Wings' trapline after Zuko's forces/traps kill most of his scouts.
Narm: How the fight with Hama ends in this version - Shidan suddenly stabs her in the back, yelling the name of his sword like this is a shonen anime and Calling Your Attacks is required, then makes a supposedly badass one-liner as she dies. Setting aside that he's just hijacked one of Katara's important moments, the entire thing feels like Vathara desperately wants the reader to think Shidan is cool.
Ron the Death Eater: Katara's season three rage over Zuko getting Aang mostly-killed after she'd started to trust him is transposed into a season one homicidal fury that Zuko is of the Fire Nation and has the nerve to be a better healer than she is. Since then, Katara has been publicly humiliated by Zuko in three or four different ways and has been reclaimed as an acceptable being, but is being used as a prop in the new goal of showing that Aang is a horrible, selfish boy who is deeply intolerant of everything that doesn't fit into his childhood culture (which, by the way, is secretly evil). Even sky bison are painted as living ecological disasters (not unlike the Death Gore from Toriko).
For a number of readers who don't buy into the alternative character interpretation, Katara becomes this at some point in the chapters before or after the end of the Ba Sing Se arc.
Shidan is often derided for being a cliche shonen hero dropped into a series where he doesn't fit, getting large amounts of Character Shilling, marking the point where dragons and everything related to them become a malignant Plot Tumor, and kill-stealing Hama and thereby stealing one of Katara's most impressive feats in canon.
The Woobie: As of Chapter 31, Katara. Her tribe hates her and her own father threatens to kill her for something she wasn't aware she was doing. On top of that, Aang says she's a horrible person and reveals that there's no way they can ever be together unless Katara's willing to abandon her children the Airbender way; the way she lost her parents by her mother's death and her father's abandonment of the family... Toph is outright horrified by how Katara's treated, and Zuko feels as though doing this might have been horrible enough to mean he shouldn't be allowed to rule anyone, and feels compelled to write an apology even though he's from a culture based on cultures where apologies are considered worse than useless, what matters is actually taking action. Which he does, by sending her a way to both avenge her mother and get away from the people who have shown her they don't love her.
