>>8937088
From the perspective of Aang's character it makes absolutely no sense.
But it would be an interesting bit of world-building.
Aang starts travelling the world on his own and every year or two, mysteriously discovering air-bender kids from non-bender families. They are all extremely powerful, as if their parents had been once-in-a-lifetime benders, rather than poor and unassuming farmers and merchants.
He treats them as his own. He brings them to the air temple in republic city, and sends them back to their "families" for breaks, and to spread air nomad culture.
Decades later, the air nomads have been re-established, the air temples re-populated. None of them know that this gentle, peace-loving people came back from the brink thanks to the atrocities of the avatar, and the suffering of one single, but powerful fire bender who never left that dark cell and never saw any of her 36 children past a year of age
