#(really i'm only throwing this out there to screw with the tiresome fandom narrative

[ultranos]

How would Azula be perceived by Ba Sing Se citizens after having ended Long Feng's era of terror. Besides how would be seen IRL a character such as Iroh who lay a siege for 600 days over the city and is complicit of the most opressing powers depending of his comfort.

Ooh boy, so this is...kind of complicated. Like most things, really. And that’s probably how it would be: she’d be perceived as a complicated figure.

Because on one hand, yes, she’s an agent of the imperialist power that’s been slowly devouring EK territory for the last 100 years and people remember that kind of thing. And she did basically take over the city-state and there are a lot of people in the city who have been fleeing the Fire Nation who now have nowhere else to run. I think refugees in particular would be really unhappy.

Then you have the elite, who have been benefiting from proximity to Long Feng and his policies. Azula coming in would mean their party time is over, which would also lead to them probably resenting and hating her.

But. Then you have the common people who have been living in Ba Sing Se for awhile. Who were the ones who were the victims of Long Feng’s campaign. Because for them? Azula came in and brought down the goddamn Statsi almost single-handedly. We’re all well-aware of government institutions that are perfectly legal but nowhere near good. And after bringing it down, she didn’t install one of the ruling elite in the power vacuum or one of her Fire Nation lackeys.

Azula apparently put one of the Joo Dees in charge. Which while it can be funny, also sends the message to the commoners: the old order has been overthrown and upturned. The ones who were slaves to the system now hold the power, and the ones who understand the city best are the caretakers. Because the Dai Li and the Joo Dees? They come from the common people.

(That’s the weird thing about the state of Ba Sing Se. In modern day Western parlance, we are kind of primed to think of it as very much an occupation, like how Berlin was post-WWII or Nanjing or Manchuria. But with how Azula left it, that’s not the right model. It’s closer to the tributary state model of Imperial China, where China very much preferred to leave conquered territory up to local control and hold it mostly in-name-and-tribute-only. It’s also the same model I tend to use to make the EK as a whole make any sense, as it seems to be multiple semi-autonomous city-states under a central king.)

Overall, I think the majority opinion of Azula probably comes down to how conditions in the city improve after the takeover. If she does the logical thing and has food and medical supplies come in (because making people’s lives measurably better is the quickest way to keep them from getting rebellious, and as soon as they’re conquered, they’re now FN citizens), I’d actually expect it to be the weird situation where the citizens might like her in specific but hate the Fire Nation in general.