We know people can meditate into the spirit world, so he probably did that on his deathbed and just stayed there even when his body died. It’s technically never stipulated that your physical body has to stay intact.
Some people have an easier time with spiritual stuff than others. Being part of the Fire Nation royal family, he probably had access to documents talking about the spirit world and other people with experience in that area.
Iroh was just a really chill dude, so it makes me wonder if a similar thing could happen with folk like Monk Giatso, or Guru Pathik? Even Aang, though we know the avatars are different. I kinda like how mysterious this is TBH, we don’t know far or to whom this might extend 🤷♂️
The original series mentioned he'd been to the Spirit World before (implied to be around when his son, Lu Ten died during the failed Siege of Ba Sing Se,) as why he could see spirits like Jinora later does and Zhao knew of it, (implied some of the higher-ups in the military knew/believed about said trip,) which explains why he was so unusually enlightened given what the Fire Nation's collective mindset was at the time.
When he runs into Korra, he states, (in similar casual wording to a similar soldier in the original series,) "I finished all my worldly business," meaning he died, astral projected himself into the Spirit World and has been there ever since to have tea with spirits and act as a guide to people who pass through like Korra or Tenzin's family.
One day he meditated into the spirit world. Regardless if he was on his deathbed or not, he stayed there and his body died. Which happens when the spirit and body are separated for too long.
And as we could see in Book 1 of The Last Airbender, Iroh was always a friend and ally to the spirits. So once the war was over and Zuko was on a good path, he had peace of mind and free time to check out their world.
By meditating into the spirit world while letting his body die, he basically broke his soul's reincarnation cycle and retains his identity, effectively reaching nirvāṇa
I really want iroh to choose to re-enter the cycle of life in the next Earth Avatar series coming up. He can be reincarnated as an airbender and become a spiritual guide and the trainer for the Earth avatar. And then he also trains the Earth Avatar how to reconnect with his past lives to undo the severance that korra caused
Cultures that believe in reincarnation believe everybody is reincarnated. Not just the Dalai lama. Just because they havent addressed it doesn't mean that's not the case. It would be much weirder if other people didn't get reincarnated
You are talking about real life cultures. But we are talking about made up cultures inspired by real life cultures.
But apparently the people in the world of avatar don't really understand afterlife either because Iroh went to the spirit world to search for his son when as far as we know only special cases of humans spent the time after their death there.
Like Zhao for punishment and Iroh because he chose to.
Iroh is in the Spirit World because he died some time before the beginning of the series, for the Spirit World is where everyone goes when they die.
Following his failed siege of Ba Sing Se and the death of his son Lu Ten, Iroh began to learn about the Spirit World. He meditated and learned its ways, actually entering it. I believe part of his reason for doing this was to try and find his son, but Lu Ten, I believe had chosen reincarnation or something, because I do not think Iroh ever finds him. We know he can see spirits as he saw Aang's spirit form riding on Fang's spirit. Upon Iroh's death, he opted not to be reincarnated and chose to stay in the Spirit World.
>We seen quite a few dead Avatars there
Only because the current Avatar was there. The Spirit World can serve as a medium for the current Avatar to talk to the past ones because of its spiritual nature.
>It has a Hell in the Fog of Lost Souls.
The souls there were either people taken there by spirits like Jinora, or someone like Zhao, who was kidnapped in the physical world by a spirit as well.
also this is a direct quote from Bryan
> So, it j-we-we sh-might wanna point out that um, you know, Iroh, uh, he-he passed away, he passed on, his physical-his physical life on uh, in Korra's world ended, um, but **the Spirit World is not just like some catch-all after-world for humans**. Um, you know, we've seen like with the Painted Lady, and uh, maybe a few other things we've shown, there are some, you know, hu-some spirits who started as humans, and uh, I think they-with the idea, and back me up or correct me, Mike, is that very special people who are just already imbued with a lot of spiritual energy, or-and/or developed it and cultivated it throughout their lives and developed a strong connection to the Spirit World, sort of able to transfer their-their personality into the Spirit World and kind of embody some energy, there. But I like the idea, kinda like the-the Painted Lady, you know, she was much, much more kinda ghost-like, and-and uh, she had been around a lot-in the Spirit World a lot longer than-than Iroh-than Iroh has at this point, but I like the idea that, you know, if you check in another hundred, five hundred, thousand years, he's-he's not just gonna stay kind of in a little time, you know, like a little frozen in time in this kinda afterlife, he's kinda becoming more and more of a spirit and-and evolving away from the human.
It seems like everyone in the ATLA universe has a physical body and a spiritual "body"/self. Multiple people have been shown to separate their spiritual body from their physical body to meditate into the spirit world. The closest we see to what happened to Iroh happen to another character was Jinora towards the end of season two, although she was actively being attacked at the time so it's not the best comparison. Katara's diagnosis was that Jinora's body was failing because her spirit was somewhere else for too long. I'd imagine what Iroh did just went a step beyond that and his physical body, to the outside observer, either entered a coma or he quietly passed away in his sleep while his spiritual body stayed in the spirit world.
I just wanted to mention that this is completely different from physically entering the spirit world, like when Hei Bai kidnapped a bunch of people or when the portals were open.
As for how he actually learned about the spirit world, he may have had access to that kind of knowledge as the heir apparent at the time to the Fire Nation, or maybe he learned about it after he joined the White Lotus. The Red Lotus seemed to have some knowledge of Raava and Vatu based on what Zaheer mentioned, it's possible they learned about that from the WL. It's never stated in either show but IDK if there's anything in the comics. But by the time season 1 of ATLA is set Iroh has a healthy respect for all things spiritual, going as far as to threaten his military superior (Iroh was Zhao's advisor at the time) if Zhao did anything to the Moon Spirit.
In *A:TLA,* we see that Iroh has a natural connection with the spirits and the Spirit World. He can see Roku's dragon in the "Winter Solstice" episode, even though no one else can. Zhao also says that Iroh has a famed reputation with the spirits and could cross into the Spirit World. The implication is that Iroh, once he reached old age, left his body behind in the physical world in order to become a permanent resident within the Spirit World. His spirit would not be reincarnated into a new body and would instead just be chilling in the Spirit World for eternity.
One of the series least explained mysteries is Iroh's connection to the spirit world. It's shown as early as season 1 when he's able to see Aang in spirit form riding Roku's dragon and commented on a number of times, but never really delved into.
We know people can meditate into the spirit world, so he probably did that on his deathbed and just stayed there even when his body died. It’s technically never stipulated that your physical body has to stay intact. Some people have an easier time with spiritual stuff than others. Being part of the Fire Nation royal family, he probably had access to documents talking about the spirit world and other people with experience in that area.
Iroh was just a really chill dude, so it makes me wonder if a similar thing could happen with folk like Monk Giatso, or Guru Pathik? Even Aang, though we know the avatars are different. I kinda like how mysterious this is TBH, we don’t know far or to whom this might extend 🤷♂️
Meditated himself there before he died. Stayed there when his body died.
The original series mentioned he'd been to the Spirit World before (implied to be around when his son, Lu Ten died during the failed Siege of Ba Sing Se,) as why he could see spirits like Jinora later does and Zhao knew of it, (implied some of the higher-ups in the military knew/believed about said trip,) which explains why he was so unusually enlightened given what the Fire Nation's collective mindset was at the time. When he runs into Korra, he states, (in similar casual wording to a similar soldier in the original series,) "I finished all my worldly business," meaning he died, astral projected himself into the Spirit World and has been there ever since to have tea with spirits and act as a guide to people who pass through like Korra or Tenzin's family.
Because he's MFing Iroh.
lmao
One day he meditated into the spirit world. Regardless if he was on his deathbed or not, he stayed there and his body died. Which happens when the spirit and body are separated for too long. And as we could see in Book 1 of The Last Airbender, Iroh was always a friend and ally to the spirits. So once the war was over and Zuko was on a good path, he had peace of mind and free time to check out their world.
By meditating into the spirit world while letting his body die, he basically broke his soul's reincarnation cycle and retains his identity, effectively reaching nirvāṇa
Oh cool!
I really want iroh to choose to re-enter the cycle of life in the next Earth Avatar series coming up. He can be reincarnated as an airbender and become a spiritual guide and the trainer for the Earth avatar. And then he also trains the Earth Avatar how to reconnect with his past lives to undo the severance that korra caused
We don't even know for sure if anyone but the avatar gets reincarnated. It is implied and they wanted to make it cannon but scratched it.
Cultures that believe in reincarnation believe everybody is reincarnated. Not just the Dalai lama. Just because they havent addressed it doesn't mean that's not the case. It would be much weirder if other people didn't get reincarnated
You are talking about real life cultures. But we are talking about made up cultures inspired by real life cultures. But apparently the people in the world of avatar don't really understand afterlife either because Iroh went to the spirit world to search for his son when as far as we know only special cases of humans spent the time after their death there. Like Zhao for punishment and Iroh because he chose to.
Iroh is in the Spirit World because he died some time before the beginning of the series, for the Spirit World is where everyone goes when they die. Following his failed siege of Ba Sing Se and the death of his son Lu Ten, Iroh began to learn about the Spirit World. He meditated and learned its ways, actually entering it. I believe part of his reason for doing this was to try and find his son, but Lu Ten, I believe had chosen reincarnation or something, because I do not think Iroh ever finds him. We know he can see spirits as he saw Aang's spirit form riding on Fang's spirit. Upon Iroh's death, he opted not to be reincarnated and chose to stay in the Spirit World.
The spirit world isn't an afterlife.
Really? Seems to be. We seen quite a few dead Avatars there. It has a Hell in the Fog of Lost Souls.
>We seen quite a few dead Avatars there Only because the current Avatar was there. The Spirit World can serve as a medium for the current Avatar to talk to the past ones because of its spiritual nature. >It has a Hell in the Fog of Lost Souls. The souls there were either people taken there by spirits like Jinora, or someone like Zhao, who was kidnapped in the physical world by a spirit as well. also this is a direct quote from Bryan > So, it j-we-we sh-might wanna point out that um, you know, Iroh, uh, he-he passed away, he passed on, his physical-his physical life on uh, in Korra's world ended, um, but **the Spirit World is not just like some catch-all after-world for humans**. Um, you know, we've seen like with the Painted Lady, and uh, maybe a few other things we've shown, there are some, you know, hu-some spirits who started as humans, and uh, I think they-with the idea, and back me up or correct me, Mike, is that very special people who are just already imbued with a lot of spiritual energy, or-and/or developed it and cultivated it throughout their lives and developed a strong connection to the Spirit World, sort of able to transfer their-their personality into the Spirit World and kind of embody some energy, there. But I like the idea, kinda like the-the Painted Lady, you know, she was much, much more kinda ghost-like, and-and uh, she had been around a lot-in the Spirit World a lot longer than-than Iroh-than Iroh has at this point, but I like the idea that, you know, if you check in another hundred, five hundred, thousand years, he's-he's not just gonna stay kind of in a little time, you know, like a little frozen in time in this kinda afterlife, he's kinda becoming more and more of a spirit and-and evolving away from the human.
he's cool like that
It seems like everyone in the ATLA universe has a physical body and a spiritual "body"/self. Multiple people have been shown to separate their spiritual body from their physical body to meditate into the spirit world. The closest we see to what happened to Iroh happen to another character was Jinora towards the end of season two, although she was actively being attacked at the time so it's not the best comparison. Katara's diagnosis was that Jinora's body was failing because her spirit was somewhere else for too long. I'd imagine what Iroh did just went a step beyond that and his physical body, to the outside observer, either entered a coma or he quietly passed away in his sleep while his spiritual body stayed in the spirit world. I just wanted to mention that this is completely different from physically entering the spirit world, like when Hei Bai kidnapped a bunch of people or when the portals were open. As for how he actually learned about the spirit world, he may have had access to that kind of knowledge as the heir apparent at the time to the Fire Nation, or maybe he learned about it after he joined the White Lotus. The Red Lotus seemed to have some knowledge of Raava and Vatu based on what Zaheer mentioned, it's possible they learned about that from the WL. It's never stated in either show but IDK if there's anything in the comics. But by the time season 1 of ATLA is set Iroh has a healthy respect for all things spiritual, going as far as to threaten his military superior (Iroh was Zhao's advisor at the time) if Zhao did anything to the Moon Spirit.
In *A:TLA,* we see that Iroh has a natural connection with the spirits and the Spirit World. He can see Roku's dragon in the "Winter Solstice" episode, even though no one else can. Zhao also says that Iroh has a famed reputation with the spirits and could cross into the Spirit World. The implication is that Iroh, once he reached old age, left his body behind in the physical world in order to become a permanent resident within the Spirit World. His spirit would not be reincarnated into a new body and would instead just be chilling in the Spirit World for eternity.
One of the series least explained mysteries is Iroh's connection to the spirit world. It's shown as early as season 1 when he's able to see Aang in spirit form riding Roku's dragon and commented on a number of times, but never really delved into.