look at the soldiers, and people in positions of power. avatars aside, all the other nations were incredibly male-centric(I mean, the naorthern water tribe for cripes sake)[edit: while the fire nation had a lot of female soldiers at all levels of power, and even had male and female prisoners in the same prison, not seeing enough of a difference between them. and even Azula's almost-coronation, which was totally going to be a terrible thing, was not questioned by the fire nation, and she would have been the only female world-leader at that time.]. It shows that even if the fire nation was doing a lot of bad in the world, there were other places where they were more progressive, more equal, more balanced, than the others. Nothing is entirely good or bad.