Questionable Questing

So secession is solved. Now why does everyone go along with the Fire Lord? Well I'm guessing there's always been a bit of a power struggle between the authority of the Firelord and the privileges of the Nobles, with it fluctuating between the two based on how powerful and intelligent the Firelord ruling is at the time. But overtime they did transition from local feudal armies to one central army,

Neat. How are you characterizing Ursa's political accum and fire nation culture effecting her personality? What dark edges are you giving her and her role in the harem's plots?

Which would give them a huge advantage in the war. With a hereditary elite of commanders leading the army as a bribe to the Nobles. But the big thing I think that finally broke the back of the Nobles is actually not just Sozin being stupidly powerful, but industrialization. Suddenly thanks to advancing technologies, the Firelord had the ability in logistic's and population to field a huge army.

And since a good chunk of these new army units where from the cities where they had no loyalty to the smaller nobles and clans which owned the rural heartlands, Sozin suddenly had any army that was only loyal to him, the personal power to handle anyone who opposed him, and the growing needs of an industrial power to justify his expansion and thus the war started.

I like you thinking of smaller houses and clans and how the advancing of ages has actually made the monarchy even more powerful here.

And the point of this whole tangent and to tie it back towards your questions, is that with this new army they needed a new identity to make sure it stayed loyal to Sozin, so he created this whole propaganda/school system and a secret police watching over to control the population. A secret police Ursa would have intimate experience with as along with killing Azulon she also helped subvert them.

She what. Explain. Expand. This is good shit for her character.

Taking advantage of Azulon's increasing paranoia as he aged and became increasingly frail, and the secession was turning into a crisis as Ozai refused to back down and Iroh lost his drive after his son died. Which taking advantage of that paranoia causing him to purge the secret police, thus making them turn to her and Ozai for protection.

So she was a secret police commander who brainwashed people and killed others?

Now this secret police is a lot less active than the one in Ba Sing Se, not only because the Firelord is a lot more powerful an institution than the Earth king, but also thanks to how centralized everything is competition is a lot more fierce, but they still do assassinations and intrigue.

But really my idea with Ursa is that see's the grand daughter of Avatar Roku in canon and was the reason Ozai married her since it was prophesied Roku's blood mixed with the Firelords would be very powerful. But rather than being a nobody from a small village like in canon,

Her parents were former members of that secret police and was why they were spared, along with their lack of bending abilities, when it came time to purge. And while I won't say they were secretly rebels or that they hated the Fire Kingdom, they did have some regrets and they knew their daughter would have to face the Firelord soon so they gave her as much training as they could to help her survive.

And now Ursa will use that training for her son and husband and to ensure the glory and length of his reign. And to do things he doesn't want to do and help him grasp the bloody threads of power

All Hiding underneath a shy smile and a new mother and grandmother who just wants her silly family to get along. A monster hiding underneath silk dresses and home made cookies.

So she is the one aware of the ancient bimbo harem rituals and is embracing it to use it to turn Katara into a useful enslaved ally of Zuko and control her daughter Azula.

I would say she's sort of aware of it. My idea was that an ancient Firelord had some tragic backstory involving his daughter wanted to become his wife and used the ritual to make it happen, and the Firelord was so disgusted by what happened he had it locked away. With only recently Zuko finding it. Since if Ozai had it he would've conquered the world with a harem of daughter slaves.

Zuko eventually found it, since he's been doing a deep dive into the ancient artifices of the Firelord looking for anything of Roku's he could give to Aang, hoping to give him a little closure with everything that's happened. And stumbled onto the artifact and thought it was a pretty enough piece of Jewelry to give his wives, not knowing of its history.

Ah. And add to this the ancient firelord tradition of taking captured princesses as harem slaves. Which Ursa is manipulating Katara into doing. And Toph goes with Aang.
Who else do we have in Zuko's Harem?

With Ursa again having heard about it, with in the beginning kind of laughing at the idea of a magic collar that made them into slaves. But as time goes by she's one of the first to figure out the effects its having on her and the rest of her wives, Ursa surprisingly being the one with the least issues with her self image as she has long accepted she's a monster, and like you said embracing it.

The harem so far is Ursa, Azula, Mai, Jin, and Katara. Enough woman to feel excessive and emphasize Zuko's control with a nice spread of different backgrounds and personalities but not to much character bloat.