too bleak (come on, ain't the Fire Nation all about, well... Fire? talk about brightness and stuff)
Well, it was remodeled after Roku vs Sozin happened, i need to read the wiki again since i don't remember if it was only the throne room or the whole palace.Do you have any thoughts about the old one? I won't say anything about its size since it seems really big to me and i don't understand anything about royal palaces, but the design is kind of weird.
A capital the size of old Beiijng, during Ming-Qing era would suit the Fire Nation, since it would be a huge metropolis for its time, but not a megalopolis like Ba Sing Se, which is out of everyone's league.
When you talk about the size do you consider the whole capital or just the place where the palace is(the crater)? Because if you are talking about Caldera city, only nobles are allowed there, so it wouldn't make sense for it to be so big. About the capital, i kind of agree with you, the FL just seems to hate the thought of peasants being close to him.
or doing part of the year's soil and grain rituals held by the local state's nobles (Hey come on!! I BET the Fire Nation has that kind of stuff XD)
I have no idea what that is.
Do I think they don't know how their King gets his Queen, & by extension their next head of state?
If we assume that the reason se had to cut ties with her family is their commonerism, and they don't know anything about any Fire Lord before Sozin, and we assume Sozin and Azulon's wives to be nobles, and taking into account that commoners can't live in the city(even though there is houses for the extended family of the FL, whatever it means), then i don't know why they would know about this. The rest of the FN probably didn't even know about Ursa's origins.