I Don't Blame Roku, I Blame the Nature of the Avatar Cycle

There's been a lot of discussion lately about what various Avatars are or aren't responsible for, so I thought I'd give my hot take on one of the biggest ones.

My take is that Roku's method of dealing with Sozin, threatening him into compliance rather than killing him outright, was actually the best choice given the circumstances and the alternatives would be worse for a few reasons.

• Because Sozin had no living heir, killing him would likely lead to a succession war. While a lesser disruption of balance than the 100 years war, this could still be seen as something an Avatar should avoid inciting if possible.
• Something like the 100 years war doesn't happen just because a monarch orders it. Sozin would have needed pretty widescale agreement among the fire nation's elite class, meaning the war probably starts anyway when Roku dies unless he wholesale slaughters all of Sozin's supporters which would basically mean a complete destruction of the fire nation government.
• Sozin did acquiesce to Roku's ultimatum, the only reason it didn't work long term was because Roku died in a completely random freak accident. Sozin didn't cause his death, he just didn't save Roku at the end. If he hadn't shown up at all, Roku still dies on that Volcano, just sooner, and then Sozin or likely whoever took his place kicks off the war.

So what do I blame for the 100 years war? The Nature of the avatar cycle itself. The fact that the Avatar Spirit incarnates into a newborn shortly after the previous Avatar's death means there's always this sort of grace period between effective Avatars where evil forces essentially have time to work freely.

Even in the case of a super prodigy like Aang who became fully realized at 12 years old, that's still at least a decade before an Avatar is ready to deal with any serious threats, possibly longer (it took longer than that just to discover Kyoshi in the first place for example, and then her actual training took years after that).

I get that Wan and Raava didn't seem to have much control over what the nature of the reincarnation would be, but it could have been so much better.

If the Avatar Spirit incarnated into an Adult, preferrably someone who was already a master bender of their native element, that alone would be a huge boon.

But really it could be even better than this. The Avatar State grants the knoweldge and skills of all past Avatars. I understand the narrative importance of an Avatar needing to become "Worthy" of that power, but really the power itself could make them worthy. If the Avatar Spirit incarnated and the new Avatar immediately had the knowledge and skills of past avatars, they'd instantly be ready to do their duties both on the physical and spiritual side.

This would pretty much involve taking someone's autonomy and overwriting their old life by overloading their mind and soul with the power of thousands of others, but it's arguable an Avatar kind of sacrifices that kind if autonomy anyway just due to how important their service to the world is.