Sense, Nonsense, and Not-Sense

Essay writing is an art, and sometimes you want to pull a little bit of a "and here's how some part of the trick works." Either to get people to think about how you're doing it, or to misdirect them so you can pull something else.

Yep. Lu Ten dying was a moment of insight for Iroh. (A terrible one, to be clear, but enlightening all the same.) Iroh then conveniently gets himself away from the seat of power so that nobody can try to tempt him or to put him up as a figurehead, whether he wants it or not, and in getting himself away and getting the care of his nephew, Iroh achieves his goals. (He does a fair amount of that misdirection at Zuko specifically to try and prolong his quest, once it stops being an impossible task.) That nobody notices what his goals are is part of how he achieves them.