Experience Tumblr Like Never Before
Back when the Fire Nation was still run by the fire sages it was actually fairly common for the members of the Royal family to be sprit gifted/blessed and the Fire Nation being well the Fire Nation, made crowns about it.
There are 3 sets of 8 crowns, each set has 8 distinct designs for each of the Original 8 Benders. The crowns were worn by the princes and princesses of the Royal family no matter how far away from the throne they were as long as they were spirit gifted/blessed, once a spirit gifted prince/princess became Fire Lord they'd add the Fire Lord's crown to the back of their top knot and keep wearing their spirit crown at the front. There's 8 versions of the Fire Lord's crown because each spirit crown is a different shade of gold so they obviously had to match the golds!
Some examples of the crowns:
The reason there's 3 sets of the crowns is that when the Fire Nation was at its peak spirituality it was so common to have spirit gifted royalty they simply ended up needing that many. I'm talking multiple generations packed full of spirit gifted/blessed people, family portraits used to be alive with so many shades of gold and red! But now, as the Fire Nation loses it's connect to the spirits less people are gifted. Crowns sit untouched in the royal vault for decades. Family portraits devolve into the same deep reds and yellow golds. It used to be a bad sign to have a whole generation be skipped by the spirits but now it happens so often that no one bats and eye at it. No one truly understands, or cares to understand, the reasoning behind why the spirits haven't touched the Royal family in 5 generations.
With the birth of Agni gifted prince Zuko and La gifted princess Azula, it seems the Royal family has finally regained the spirits good graces, but I don't think they'll like the reasoning all that much.