#Iroh

[anakinskywalkerisfave]

#it was an honor to read this beautifully cutting response #this is why i can't take zutara antis seriously #i still haven't seen a single fucking argument against zk that makes sense #it's all just based on wilful misinterpretation or ignorance of show canon

(tags via burst-of-iridescent)

ZUTARA + PARALLELS:

They circle each other in an eternal dance; they balance each other. Push and pull. Life and death. Good and evil. Yin and yang…

[maishairbuns]

ATLA Textposts

[zuko-always-lies]

Azula is the family member Zuko cares the least about, by far [and no, it's not because she's mean to him and no, this is not a post about Zuko's morality or anything like that]

So the entire premise of Zuko's arc is he spends years and years trying to regain his father's love and appreciation, that he spent three years trying to capture the Avatar so that his father would like him again. We even see in a flashback that exiled Zuko misses his father badly.

And when Zuko decides to completely break off his relationship with his father, he decides that this merits a dramatic confrontation, since his relationship with Ozai is so important to him. Even after that, the second to last scene of the series is Zuko visiting Ozai.

Zuko often takes Iroh and his support for granted, but even in Books 1 and 2 there are plenty of moments which act to reaffirm how much Zuko values and appreciates his uncle. He goes out of his way to protect his uncle on a couple occasions. And in Book 3, after Zuko has screwed up his relationship with Iroh, one of Zuko's core motivations becomes fixing his relationship with his uncle and regaining Iroh's love, trust, and appreciation.

Ursa is someone who Zuko talks about far less, yet the series makes it very clear how much Zuko misses her, with "Zuko Alone" and "The Earth King" and "The Day of Black Sun: The Eclipse." And the second to last scene in the series is Zuko trying to find her.

That leaves Azula. Zuko never seems to miss Azula the least, even though he hasn't seen her for years when the series begins. In fact, when she unexpectedly shows up and greets him, instead of being happy to see her, he's angry and suspicious (to be fair to Zuko, she did turn out to have ulterior motives due to Ozai's orders, but if he really deeply missed her, he'd probably be at least a little happy to see her regardless. Mai and Ty Lee reacted with joy the first time they saw Azula again). And in Books 2 and 3, there is essentially nothing to suggest that Zuko misses the better relationship he had with Azula when they were younger.

For instance, in "The Beach," Zuko angsts over an old photograph of his family.

His eyes focus on Ozai

and he remembers a happy memory associated with Ozai:

and then Zuko's eyes focus on Ursa

and he remembers a happy memory associated with her

Yet Zuko never looks at younger Azula in that picture, nor does he think of her at all. The "Happy Family" that Zuko misses includes Ozai, Ursa, and even Iroh and Lu Ten (shown in a separate memory sequence at little earlier), but not little Azula.

Ultimately, what we see in the first half of Book 3 is that Zuko is willing to take advantage of Azula's kindness, when she shows it to him, but he never acknowledges it, thanks her for it, or reciprocates in the slightest.

In the end, in the DoBS Zuko leaves Azula behind without a regret or even a thought. Ozai gets a big confrontation; Azula gets nothing. And after that, we see that Zuko misses Mai, and still feels complex feelings for Ozai ("Fatherlord," anyone?), but there's nothing to suggest he misses Azula at all or feels a deep attachment to her. The penultimate scene of the show even features Zuko visiting Ozai, not Azula.

Some people might point out that Azula is a bad sister to Zuko. That's definitely true. She says and does plenty of awful things to him over the series.

Yet that doesn't explain things. Ozai is far, far worse to Zuko than Azula ever is, yet Zuko cares deeply about Ozai to the degree that Zuko's entire arc is about it. Merely talking about "look how mean Azula is" explains almost nothing. Is possible to explain why

This does bring me to my main point. The ATLA fandom tends to believe that Zuko cares about Azula a lot and that he places a lot of value in having a good relationship with her, tends to believe that Zuko is obsessed with Azula.

However, the reality is that Zuko by far cares about Azula the least of any member of his family and that he places almost no value on having a good relationship with her. She is never a priority for him and is at most only an obstacle. All of Zuko's other family members loam far higher in Zuko's priorities and headspace than Azula. And if he is obsessed with her, it's not in a loving way. Maybe "Azula the enemy" and "Azula my advisor and emotional caretaker" are significant to him, but "Azula my sister" never seems to be.

Again, this isn't a moral judgement, merely a fact.

[demaparbat-hp]

The Gaang (plus Uncle Iroh)

[chiptrillino-art]

Just boys things! its a continuation of this illustration!

[mini-minish]

boy prince has to learn to do the dishes

[late-draft]

This is continuation of this thread with great ideas that inspired the art: Post

Zuko hasn't (yet??) blocked Azula, not even temporarily

Iroh's photo is blurry because OF COURSE

Zhao keeps editing his stuff

I debated placing "Ozai: Seen" but it turns out he probably wouldn't even be looking at this social media

Please help me name this lame Fire Nation social media for boomers

Zuko's "On a quest" status is pure copium

Next part

[goldenvulpine]

I want to clear up a mistake people make with Azula and Ursa.

Ursa didn’t play favorites.

Ursa didn’t think Azula was a monster.

Ursa simply, unequivocally, just didn’t enable Azula’s worst traits like Ozai did.

Ozai’s favorite child was Azula, but Ursa still loved her more.

Because enabling isn’t love.

What did Ozai’s enabling do? It made Azula into the type of person to never have any loyal friends. It made the type of person that Mai and Tai Lee would betray at the risk of their own lives.

Ursa pushed Azula to be with her friends. To be with Zuko. Ozai pushed Ursa away, and both kids suffered for it. Azula became a sadist, enjoying seeing her brother get burned—while Zuko was pushed away because he cared for his people.

Azula thought her mom hated her because her mom was the only one who cared enough to tell her no.

[avatarobi]

Holy shit Uncle Iroh takes no prisoners when it comes to being an ally

[mugentakeda]

in my opinion the best "zuko joins the gaang early" fics are the ones that take place in book 1. the comedic potential is unparalleled

[erindrawsstuff]

i've been rewatching og avatar and I just really love these guys :,>

[botanicaxu]

Here’s my piece for Fire Nation @recovery-zine! It's been held back for quite a while and I'm excited to finally reveal it ❤️

The inspiration comes from the Lantern Festival in China's Anhui Province and the performance with those fish lanterns at night is really fantastic!

[trixeclipse]

Zuko art dump 🔥

[knightofthenewrepublic]

It doesn’t really make sense to say with any certainty that the flashbacks in this episode are Iroh’s biased version. People will point out he couldn't actually see her expression from his position, and speculate if he's just assuming it; but it is just as likely we the audience are seeing more than he did. Because while flashbacks in Avatar are always accompanied by some characters' narration, they are NOT shown to be confined to that character's viewpoint, or dependent on it.

In this same episode, we see Aang’s story about running away include a little scene where Monk Gyatso visits Aang’s room at night, to reassure him that he won’t let him be sent away; only to find that he’s already flown off. Obviously, Aang wasn’t there to see this happen, and can’t know that it did; but no one in the fandom ever questions the fact that it happened. We all accept that the flashback is showing us more than the actual teller of the story knows.

As another example; in The Avatar and the Firelord, we get a flashback from two points of view, Roku and Sozin, but we only see ONE version of events. We do not see the messy breakup confrontation in the throne room in one way, making Roku look good, and then another slightly different way, making Sozin look good. The One version of the scene we see is presented as objectively true. 

Off the top of my head, I can only think of one time the show presents a scene in the past as an unreliable narration; and that's in the Great Divide, with the Jin Wei/Wei Jin controversy. And that's not even a flashback, because none of the tellers were there.

Whatever you want to make of Azula’s expression here, it’s not the way Iroh wants to present it, but the way the creators are deliberately choosing to present it. Are they choosing to present Iroh as biased? To demonstrate he is unreliable here, they would have to follow it up with some concrete evidence, which they never do.

(Also, if what we see is limited to what Iroh is describing, then why is Ozai’s face shrouded. Did Iroh forget what his own brother looks like?)

The First and Second Time We See Azula

Actually both come within the same Book 1 Episode, The Storm, moments after each other:

This is the famous instance, where Iroh presents Azula and her reaction to the Agni Kai quite negatively.

Yet less than a minute later we get a memory from Zuko's perspective.

Zuko, Azula, and Ozai happily playing in a field. Quite incongruous with Iroh's presentation of Azula, wouldn't you say?

Zuko's other reminiscences quickly suggest that what is he mostly misses his father and his father's appreciation and respect for him, not Azula.

Still, the matter remains that the writers were complicating the story about Azula from the very, very beginning.

[nelicadraws]

Credits to @yazzdonut for the base material!

[rain-falling]

Zuko was wrong, actually. (I think.maybe.) Because juice, like, comes from the moisture in thing thing and then you remove the non-liquid bits, whereas in (most?) tea, you infuse the leaves with water instead of relying on the inherent water. True hot leaf juice would be if you extracted liquid from a couple leaves and heated it up, which would be expensive and probably bitter but a fun way to do it