#I think the overall magnitude of the threat in being willing to hold children responsible on an adult stage still stands

[erisenyo]

Do share your very strong feelings about Ozai eroding the traditional divisions between adult and child.

@eshusplayground ask and ye shall receive in spades haha, I've been thinking about this a lot recently as I think through what adulthood vs childhood in general means across the nations.

TLDR - Zuko and Azula are treated as adults by Ozai and everyone around them, which strips them of the traditional protections of childhood. It's a transgressive act that entrenches Ozai's perceived absolute authority and establishes his ability to essentially punish now for what someone *might* do later.

I get the strong sense that Zuko and Azula both think of themselves as adults, and a big contributing factor to that (outside of the very real life experiences they’ve had) is the way everyone else treats them that way.

And this, in my opinion, is a dynamic primarily set by Ozai.

If we look at the other Fire Nation kids we see, kids roughly Aang’s age (so like 12/13) are shown going to school as their primarily ‘responsibility.’ On Ember Island people in Zuko and Azula’s peer group (so 14-18ish?) are seen relaxing with friends and partying (including Chan, the child of an admiral), even with the country itself ramping up for the Day of the Black Sun and then Sozin’s Comet. Even Mai is shown living at home and under her family unit's authority before Azula comes to get her. (Ty Lee can maybe be read as having a job? Though I get distinct ‘ran away from home vibes,.')

This suggests the Fire Nation very much has a sense of childhood as a time of learning (which includes the safety to make mistakes), of spending time with your peers, of lessened responsibilities and obligations, and that there would likely be a transitional period into adulthood that probably coincides with your late teens/early 20s.

Contrast Zuko and Azula.

We see Zuko at 13 wanting to join the war meeting to prepare to rule the nation, which could suggest he’s already feeling pressure to ‘grow up’ as Crown Prince. And unless we think the Fire Nation allows children to fight to the death, the right to issue an Agni Kai and have it accepted is a privilege of legal adulthood. That Zuko is able to do this (vs having it treated as a childish tantrum), and that Ozai goes on to publicly and permanently maim him (vs allowing Zuko to learn from his mistake), suggests that Ozai is now treating Zuko as an adult and expects Zuko to assume adult responsibility for his adult actions. There is no transitional period. Zuko-the-child transgressed into the adult realm by speaking where children are supposed to be silent, and it is taken as an act that permanently ends Zuko’s right to a childhood.

And afterward, Zuko becomes incredibly isolated from his peer group (a hallmark of Fire Nation childhood from what we have seen). Zuko, as far as we know, hasn't interacted in a real way with another teen between his banishment and basically meeting Jet. And Azula seems to be having a similar parallel experience. She seems to have been separated from Mai and Ty Lee for some time prior to Season 2. This means they're primarily interacting with adults, and in both cases we see them expecting themselves to have authority over those adults, or at least to be taken as peers.

That Azula is experiencing this at the same time as Zuko suggests that the erosion between childhood and adulthood is now accelerating. What Zuko encountered at 13 she is encountering (potentially) at 11. And the way Zuko at 13 was expected to observe policy conversations, but Azula at 14 is expected to actively contribute, suggests that there has been further erosion in the intervening three years of the boundary between childhood and adulthood.

Azula is comfortable in this setting. She’s *already* become an adult in the room, and already assumed adult responsibilities like leading adults into battle, putting her life at risk for the country, accomplishing strategically vital national security missions with little support, and eventually ruling an entire country. She’s also now responsible as an adult for the outcomes of these responsibilities, too--childhood is where you are safe to make mistakes, and Azula is no longer allowed one of those.

And as the line between childhood and adulthood blurs, the protections that come with childhood also disappear—safety to learn and not have all the answers, safety to make mistakes, not needing to be fully responsible for things beyond your emotional and mental maturity, space to learn about the consequences and outcomes of your actions on an appropriate scale to your age.

(Consider also that Azula has seen the dangers of being a child (e.g., someone who makes mistakes) when someone is determined to treat you like an adult. She saw what happened to Zuko, after all. Might as well seize the privileges of adulthood if you are going to face the consequences of it regardless, and so she gets sucked into participating in her own adultification and spreading it to others (Mai, Ty Lee) as a way of seeking short-term safety.)

And if the children of the Fire Lord don’t get the protections of adulthood, do anyone’s kids? If the Fire Lord can transgress against the cultural standards around childhood, how much more broadly can he exercise his power? Is his behavior setting standards that others feel obligated to follow lest it be taken as criticism of the Fire Lord?

I also imagine that as someone who killed his own father and stole the throne from his brother, Ozai's aware of the limits of familial loyalty. I can see him viewing Zuko and Azula as potential threats first, as tools second, and as children somewhere at the bottom of the list. Was Zuko, as a loud, opinionated Crown Prince with a strong sense of right and wrong and a poor sense of reading a room, a potential rallying point as he approached adulthood for opposition to Ozai’s reign? Was Azula, as a stunningly powerful prodigy, a risk in a might-makes-right environment that’s already established that 13-year-olds are adult enough to issue Agni Kai?

Ozai came to power through a highly transgressive act. It's likely in his favor to continue to erode societal standards so that his own behavior seems less transgressive, and so his ability to flout boundaries is further entrenched. And being able and willing to hold a child responsible as an adult for the things that *might* happen when they grow up is a chilling threat—it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, it matters what Ozai thinks you could potentially do. So don’t put yourself in a position to be accused of anything, don’t miss an opportunity to show your vocal and effusive support, don’t dare to even think the wrong things. Because it might be your children facing the consequences.

It’s very emblematic of Ozai’s general scorched earth approach to things, in my opinion. He doesn’t really care about the future of the Fire Nation, he cares about himself, and he’s fully willing to sacrifice children (his own and others) in pursuit of personal power and glory, and to take drastic action in the short-term regardless of its consequences down the line.