Title: The Old Lie
Fandom: Avatar: the Last Airbender
Rating: PG
Length: 319 words
Content Notes: Set during the last part of Season 1. No real spoilers, unless you count Iroh's backstory and allusions to Zuko's backstory and Season 1 behavior.
Author Notes: I suspect the title is a cliche -- it's from a poem, "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen written during World War I.
Summary: There were many ways to be a bad tactician, Iroh thought.

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
-- Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen

He'd lost the taste for war, Iroh reflected from his bunk on Zhao's ship. He had ever since Lu Ten's death. It made him a lousy tactician for anything involving human lives.

There were many ways to be a bad tactician. His brother's inner circle were full of them: men who had forgotten what it was to lead men, and placed armies like one placed Pai Sho tiles. They got the job done, but with a ham-handed brutality that meant many families would be getting letters and medals instead of their loved ones. Too much blood shed for a couple of li that would be lost in the next Earth Kingdom offensive.

A good tactician strove to make each broken tank or spent mount, each death matter. There was a practical side to it: it took resources to build tanks, to train men, to bring supplies to the front. But it was also a matter of pride, to say 'this is what your loved one gave his life for'. Nothing as ephemeral as a mark on the sand table, but the ever-lasting glory of the Fire Nation.

But after Lu Ten, glory was small coin to a grieving father. It wasn't that the recruits weren't as eager to die for honor and glory; the school reforms filled them with pride for the country of their ancestors. He'd seen it on his nephew's face, on every young recruit's in Zhao's navy. Had seen it on Lu Ten's portrait that was displayed at his funeral.

Iroh had become sick of losing their children to the old lie, which made him the second sort of bad tactician, the one who could destroy an army to save one boy. He preferred Pai Sho these days, where the gambits and calculated losses remained matters of intellect and not the heart.