We all know Sozin’s plan and “the avatar is the Fire Nation’s greatest threat” blah blah blah but listen. Twelve years after Roku died, Sozin attack the Air Nomads. He thought he killed the Avatar. Then where did he send troops? The Southern Water Tribe. The avatar was to be born of water next. They didn’t bother with the Northern Water Tribe until 100 years later when Zhao went ape shit, I think that they stopped because they knew Aang was hiding somewhere. Where was their third target? The Earth Kingdom, more specifically, Ba Sing Se, the heart of the Earth Kingdom. My friend asked me when we were watching AtLA “they know that if they kill Aang that the avatar will just be reborn, right?” So then I thought of the Red Lotus from Korra, their plan was to kill her in the Avatar State to end the cycle. Sozin wasn’t stupid, and Sozin’s best friend was the Avatar. He would have known that the Avatar would just be reborn. So why didn’t he try to end the cycle like Zaheer? I’m like 100% certain that Fire Lord Sozin’s ORIGINAL plan was to go through the other three nations, the order of the cycle, killing any benders that could be the avatar. He was trying to cheat his way through the cycle to get another Fire Nation Avatar. He even made a point to Roku that the Avatar and the Fire Lord could, in fact, take over the world. He needed a new Avatar to mold to help him take over the world.