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human
[ATLA] Was Uncle Iroh trying to hit Aang and knock him out of the sky when Aang first escaped the Fire Navy ship at the Southern Water Tribe?

In the second episode "The Avatar Returns," Zuko yells out "Shoot them down!" and both Zuko and Iroh shoot fire that would have knocked Appa out of the sky if Aang hadn't airbended the fire away. This very likely would have severely injured or killed the Avatar but Iroh was part of the White Lotus whose mission is to help the Avatar.
gpt
Iroh was pulling his punches most of the time against aang, but it’s very likely he would’ve helped Zuko capture the avatar to regain his honor, and then figure out a way to free him afterwards. It’s a fairly logical gambit, and if aang was in a fire nation prison, that would actually make it easier for him and his white lotus buddies to rescue him, as opposed to the kid galavanting around the world. 

Now in that exact instance, It’s likely he WAS trying to shoot him down, but he probably wasn’t trying too hard. The longer the chase went on, the more time he had to change zuko. If they caught aang too soon, zuko would just go back to being the miserable person he was.