Oh. This is another Avatar The Last Airbender fan fiction topic. Okay. I read the topic title and had no idea what it was about from the title name.
...Maybe it was the bit with Aang condemning himself for being scatterbrained, but didn't Embers Chapter 85 feel like Episode 12 of Book 3 of the show, only with Zuko and Aang reversed I.E. Aang sulking and berating himself while everyone else starts to get their ducks in a row, with Zuko being all wise and calm? All I can get is that when Vathara watched Avatar, she wished that Zuko was the hero and Aang the determined butt monkey who repeatedly humiliated himself chasing after everyone else.
...I wonder if she's going to let Aang survive the fic.
Embers, for all its positive qualities, has two main problems from which the various lesser flaws originate.
1) Inconsistent AU:
Vathara started off with a Want-of-a-Nail divergence and then went into rewriting the history and nature of the world, based on the real-world cultures the ones in the cartoon are based on and real-world history of wars and mythology of spirits. Vathara has admitted that the story is much more AU than she originally intended.
This has produced some impresive world-building, but also means all the characters aren't the characters in the show but are instead based on detailed psycological profiles Vathara put together. These profiles are based on the cultures she has drawn on and described and what Vathara beleived would be "realistic" for someone from the given social position in that culture with the various canon events in their background.
The problem with this is that the events of first season and most of the events in the second (at least the ones not directly involving Zuko) are considered canon for this story. Therefore, all the bits of character development from that period are also canon and therefore the members of Team Avatar should be pretty close to the canon characters when they show up in Ba Sing Se. But they aren't. And to many readers, in-story events (even if they are just implied to have happend off screen) trump the detailed author notes following each chapter.
Also the story has gone on so long that Vathara occasionally forgets things she established a few dozen chapters back, then has to come up with some sort of Author's Saving Throw when readers point out that she has contraticted herself.
Another issue arrising from this is that characters (usually on Team Avatar) living in this different world are still doing the things that worked in canon, but are now made to look like naieve or short-sighted idiots because it doesn't work in this world.
2) Zuko Love:
Vathara is just a bit too much in love with Zuko as a character. He's not exactly a Sue because she also likes making his life difficult, but whenever there is an argument about ethics, morals, cross-cultural understanding, the behavior and psycology of spirits, or the state of the world, Zuko is right and the people arguing against him are close-minded.
Also Vathara is so determined to make Zuko special that she has made him a fire-healing, dragon-blooded, moon-touched waterbender with memories of a past life. Any one of these could be the basis for an interesting story, but all together they are competeing with each other and with the plot for time and attention. As it is, the fire-healing has become a fairly minor plot point and the past life is almost entirely irrelevant.
In conclusion on this subject, Vathara is facinated by Zuko and has admitted that she can't wrap her head around Aang's pacifist worldview. Hence Zuko is now the semi-tragic hero and chosen one while Aang can't get a clue without imediately turning around and doing something foolish for over 80 chapters.
Since it's been pointed out that the discussion page for Embers isn't really the place to have a general discussion I've made a thread here.
Cetraskies Pakku is a master true, but I recall Amaya mentioned people who are tide-touched. Which means they have an instinctive grasp of much of the basics, so it is entirely possible that Pakku just didn't realize. Much like they talk about Aang would have trouble teaching the basics of airbending.
I also always assumed that Pakku usually didn't deal with completely new benders. Since Pakku is stated to be their best I assumed he only trained those sufficiently advanced.