>>76933429"Listen to me, Aang. There are options in fighting, called jing. It's a choice of how you direct your energy ..."
"I know! There's positive jing when you're attacking, and negative jing when you're retreating!"
"... and neutral jing when you do nothing!"
Turns out, they planned this for a while.
The only reason lion turtles showed up was because they didn't know precisely how was going to end the war and not kill the firelord, but they knew it had to happen.
There are tons of ways to end the war, but none of them would solve the problems in the fire nation. After all there are more than just those 3 jing. Killing the Firelord wouldn't abate the anger of the fire nation (especially because they power their bending with anger), they would definitely not care that the avatar (keeper of balance) decided it and probably try revolting again.
The writers probably saw it like this.
The firelord is the ultimate firebender, right? But what if he wasn't a firebender at all, how could the people believe in the firelord if he wasn't the greatest and strongest firebender?
Taking away his bending would probably be the only solution.
