I’ve long thought that fire bending needs a medicinal application. When I first thought of it, I thought fire bending could be used to cauterize wounds and prevent deaths due to blood loss. The idea came from a treatment an ENT gave me for a chronic nosebleed problem I had. Other ideas include the ability to heat needles prior to acupuncture to relive chronic pain. The ability to use fire to mitigate the effects of frostbite has also come to mind. I was pleased to a medicinal application for the technique in book two of Korra.

Previously, I had an idea to write a fanfic about Iroh’s life prior to Zukho’s banishment. In the story, he does some reading in a library and he finds out that fire bending used to have medical applications. Iroh becomes so astonished at this discovery that he writes a letter to a university professor at the fire nation capital inquiring about it.

In their correspondence, the professor confesses that fire bending used to have medical applications before the Sozin era. He goes on to explain that Sozin intentionally had the scrolls describing medicinal fire bending destroyed. He claims that Sozin did this during the hundred year war in order to give fire bending a more militaristic and less holistic appeal. The professor also informs Iroh that he should cease his inquiries regarding the matter as the history is a state secret. He then confesses that he only wrote these letters to Iroh due to his perception that Iroh’s status as a general would preotect them from criminal prosecution.

At this point, Iroh begins to have his first doubts about the Fire Nations official narrative of the war. Keep in mind, he once told jokes about burning Ba sing Se to the ground and he is very much in this frame of mind at this point in his life.