Topic for discussion: Aang's alternate history. A simple route to take is simply pushing all the events of his age 12 back to 16 and everything goes smoothly. However, it's possible we could make it more interesting. Apygoos was interested in him learning some waterbending. Here's what I propose for that to be the case.<br/><br/>Aang doesn't run away when they tell him he'll be sent to the Eastern Air Temple. He sucks it up and goes; this allows him to learn more advanced airbending, and also hardens him emotionally. The Eastern temple was known to be much more strict than Gyatso's soft hand, which leads to Aang being a more pragmatic and objectivist individual, like past Avatars. He's still Aang; he doesn't let them completely crush his spirit, but he's more able to take the long view. (This obviously works in favor of Azula convincing him of her legitimacy.) He completes his training there as far as he can, since he outpaces them quickly. I'd say he at minimum can make himself fly without the staff or the Avatar state. They send him to the Southern Water Tribe, and not the Northern, because they want to keep Aang low profile. The Southern is more trustworthy, and with the coming war, they don't want Aang to be found out just yet. Here, he finds a pleasant people who are more than willing to take him in as a guest. He doesn't train with the Tribe, though, and they don't in fact know who he really is; only the resident bending master does. They train in secret. During his stay he falls in love with a local girl. They're out for a romantic boat ride one day, and that fated storm hits, just four years later; but she's not a bender, and his waterbending isn't enough. He awakens his Avatar state, but too late... Appa pulls him from the water before he drowns, and the Avatar state locks them down in ice to keep them alive.<br/><br/>Fast forward a hundred years. The storms have continued, unabatingly, for a century; an unwitting reaction from the Avatar, protecting himself. The Southern tribe was forced to relocate farther north and Katara never even had a chance to find him. The storms have been slowly increasing in intensity, culminating in one so fierce it cracks the shell of his prison. Fate strikes again - he is needed, but he doesn't know it yet. The Southern Tribe was never destroyed, but is smaller, and after Ozai's war they were merged with the Northern tribe as a sort of "lower class."<br/><br/>This removes Asami from the equation, since the original plotline that she was part of isn't here. It keeps Aang from getting mad about the Southern tribe because it was never destroyed. It makes Aang more powerful to keep him in line with a four-years-later Azula and Zuko. It gives him the frame of mind to restore his people at all costs because without them, the balance could be ruined<em>permanently.</em>What do you think? Alterations, different approaches?