#Still not condoning Azula's other actions though

[sarnai4]

A Comfort To Us All

Whenever you are feeling concerned or unsure if you're good in crowds, don't fret it be self-conscious. No, just remember that even Azula is extremely socially awkward. So, you're really just being like Azula and as long as you aren't taking her murderous qualities, I'd say that's pretty cool😎.

[soopersara]

what’re your thoughts on the anti-zutarian argument citing that a romantic relationship couldn’t work between them because of an inherent oppressor / colonizer and indigenous / oppressed dynamic. love zutara, but that admittedly gave me a lot to think about and i’m still unsure about how i feel :/

Hoo boy. That argument again.

Okay, first of all, nobody has to like Zutara. Enemies to lovers (or, more accurately for Zutara, enemies to friends to lovers) is a trope that doesn't appeal to everyone, and that's fine.

But that does not make it immoral to ship pairings like Zutara. There's nothing inherently wrong with enemies to lovers, and while there probably are enemies to lovers ships out there that would make me uncomfortable, that comes down to the execution more than the ship itself, and... it's still fiction. Last I checked, enjoying murder mysteries doesn't mean that you condone murder. Tastes in fiction =/= real life morality.

As far as Zutara in specific goes, the argument that it could never work "because he's her oppressor" is just... nonsense. I'm going to try to organize this based on arguments I've seen so I don't just ramble for several thousand words, so here goes:

Zuko was her colonizer: No. The Water Tribes were never colonized. The Fire Nation never established settlements in the Water Tribes' territories. They raided the Southern Tribe and captured and killed some of its members, which is obviously horrible, but the Fire Nation never had a lasting presence in any of the Water Tribes ('any' because there's technically 3 tribes and the Foggy Swamp was untouched). Words have meanings, and... that's not what colonization means. Colonization could be a stronger argument against a Zuko/Earth Kingdom character ship since colonization DID happen there, except for a l'il issue I'll get to in a minute.

Zuko participated in a genocide against her people: Okay, while genocide is a more accurate term for what happened to Katara's tribe, this argument (and the previous one too) really falls apart at the "Zuko participated" bit. The Fire Nation committed a gradual, partial genocide of the Southern Water Tribe via raids on its villages. And the last raid happened when Katara was eight years old. At that time, Zuko was ten. At the age of ten, Zuko wasn't involved in any of the Fire Nation's actions anywhere in the world. At the age of ten, Zuko was still so far out of the line of succession for the throne (behind Iroh, Lu Ten, and Ozai) that he didn't have any real prospect of ever being able to make decisions for the nation's actions. And the first time Zuko personally had any interaction with Katara's tribe? He ran his ship through a wall, knocked Sokka over, grabbed Kanna by the coat, yelled a little bit, made a few threats... and then left without doing any further damage. So not great, but also not playing into his nation's attempts at genocide. And Zuko got comeuppance for all those things from the Gaang when they were trying to get Aang out: Zuko broke the ice wall, then Aang wrecked Zuko's ship. Zuko knocked Sokka over, then Sokka returned the favor. A few times. And Zuko grabbed Kanna, then Katara froze a bunch of Zuko's crewmen solid. Despite being wildly underpowered, the Gaang gave as good as they got.

Zuko attempted to kill the Gaang: Again, just no. Seriously, in all the time he was chasing the Gaang, he never once tried to kill anyone. Not killing was his whole deal. That's how he got banished. The kid literally tried to save Zhao, the man who tried to blow Zuko up. Capturing and killing are two very different things. Hiring Sparky Sparky Boom Man is the only exception to Zuko's no-killing thing in the entire show, and that whole plot point is just bad and wildly OOC, so I'm not going to talk about that right now.

Zuko abused Katara: There's a difference between abuse and fighting as enemies on opposite sides of a war. Hurting Katara, gaining power over Katara was never Zuko's goal. He wanted to capture Aang, and he fought anyone who stood in his way. Katara's goal was to protect Aang, and she likewise fought anyone who stood in the way. And on top of that, Zuko never caused Katara any significant harm. He tied her to a tree and tried to negotiate with her. Guess what? The first time the Gaang had the opportunity, they tied Zuko up (after seriously considering leaving him for dead). He knocked Katara unconscious. Then, the very next time they faced each other, she knocked him unconscious. That's... pretty much it. Neither of them was a victim of the other, they were enemies who fought one equal terms.

And ALL of those arguments completely disregard Zuko's redemption and the subsequent friendship between him and Katara. Zuko openly rejected his father and all his nation's actions and teachings. He changed sides in the war with the intention of stopping the harm that his people were doing to the world. He taught Aang, helped rescue Hakoda and Suki from prison, saved Katara from being crushed to death, and helped her find and confront the man who killed her mother. And Katara forgave him for everything. They became friends. But Zuko didn't stop there. He fought Azula on his own to keep Katara safe, threw himself in front of lightning to save her life again, and then, at the age of sixteen, dedicated the rest of his life to dismantling and reversing all the harm his nation had done over the past hundred years.

Zuko was never an oppressor in the way antis like to claim, but even if he had been, the fact that he saw the error of his ways at the age of sixteen and then spent the rest of his life trying to fix not only his own personal wrongs, but those committed by his nation (and many of which happened before he was even born) says a lot. And acting as though his fight to change things for the better (and his close canon friendship with Katara) doesn't matter because he happened to be born to the royal family on the wrong side of the war is incredibly reductive.

Like I said before, no one is obligated to ship Zutara. No one is obligated to like Zutara. And there's nothing wrong with people being uncomfortable with the pairing for their own personal reasons. But that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the ship or those of us who enjoy it. Suggesting otherwise undermines the validity of interracial relationships in general, and I would strongly suggest blocking anyone who argues that there is something inherently wrong with shipping Zutara.

PS: I'm not indigenous, but I do know several Zutara shippers who are. There may be some indigenous people who find Zutara uncomfortable, but it's in no way a universal opinion.

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

ok i know you said that reblog didn’t just refer to Rakepick (i’m assuming that’s who you meant by “her” but correct me if not) but i don’t really see how it could refer to her character in the first place?? if you could elaborate that’d be great cos i feel like it’s flying right over my head lmao

Happy to! As I might have predicted, I did get several messages about the post I reblogged so now I’ll try to clarify my feelings on this, as I know it’s been a touchy subject in the past. (This ended up being quite long, so...) @dat-silvers-girl and @heleneplays I thought you might find this interesting.

The original post was talking about shipping and the difference between enjoying character dynamics and actually projecting onto characters to see the relationship style you would want in your own life. I feel like both of these things can happen and that’s okay, but the point was that shipping two characters doesn’t mean you condone any implications that such a relationship would have in real life. Enemies to Lovers is a great example. 

In regards to fiction, I took that mindset a step further and talked about characters in general, notably villains. The same way we shouldn’t assume that people like a certain ship because they want a relationship like that in their own life, I don’t think it says anything about a person if a villain is their favorite character. Very often, villains are the most interesting or fleshed out. They have a unique relationship with the story itself as they are often the driving force or representative of its message. You could say that Harry Potter is a story about love and family...and Voldemort exists as someone who cannot comprehend either, to demonstrate their importance. Anyway, the point is that there’s nothing wrong with liking a villainous character. 

When I was growing up, it didn’t seem like this was a contested idea. It was actually common, particularly for villains who were seen as “cool” and many of them were. You’ll find few people who don’t agree that Darth Vader or Darth Maul look cool. However, in recent years, I’ve noticed that purity culture has spread to the point where liking a villain is considered questionable. It no longer seems to be enough, necessarily, that one is merely enjoying the villain as a character. Just like the idea of shipping two characters now means one must condone that kind of relationship in real life, sometimes it seems as though liking a villain is now tantamount to condoning their actions. 

Then again, there are people who feel sympathy for villains and attempt to justify their actions. Sometimes it’s due to a personal attraction. It’s a meme that people get horny for villains, and there’s probably some overlap there with folks who lean toward the “projection” style of shipping I talked about earlier, but never mind that. Other times, this sympathy can overlap with seeing potential in the character. There is a fine line, of course, between rooting for a redemption for the villain and arguing that they did nothing wrong in the first place, but these days it seems as though rooting for a redemption for the “wrong” kind of villain is something people take as an insult. (Severus Snape comes to mind.) Alternatively, people also seem to take it as an insult if you don’t believe the “right” kind of character deserves redemption. (This happens a lot with Princess Azula.)

Now all that being said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with hating a villain and just wanting them to go to hell and die. Like, that makes perfect sense. There are villains out there that we love to hate, characters who are so despicable that most people would agree they deserve a slow and painful death. Joffrey Baratheon is a great example. (Actually, a lot of Game of Thrones characters would apply here...) If a villain inspires true loathing from you, then paradoxically that also means they’re great, because they’ve been written in such a way that you as an audience can feel the evil. But this can become complicated if they overlap such despicable villains with the ones who have potential to be more interesting. It becomes complicated because of the aforementioned binary that now seems to be prevalent. The idea that everything one likes in fiction reflects what they believe should go on in real life.

Which brings us to Rakepick. 

Wow, we finally got here. I appreciate your patience. Rakepick is that character who has overlap. Whether we like it or not, she was presented as an ally for two years of the game’s story, before her betrayal. She spent a lot of quality time with MC and the other apprentices. We got to know her. It is not at all surprising, I don’t believe, that some of us see that “potential” to be more in Patricia Rakepick. But on the other hand, she sure has gone above and beyond in the effort to be one of those villains you just hate, given what she’s done. Having been part of this discourse, I think what’s going on is that the players who still feel a connection to Rakepick feel attacked by the players who ruthlessly condemn her. The players who condemn her feel insulted by the idea that players still like her after the terrible crimes she’s committed, after what she did to Rowan. No one is wrong here. Rakepick is a fascinating character who’s done unspeakable things. We do not need to fight about her. 

Everyone has different opinions about characters for different reasons. I have villains that I simply love because I see something more in them, or because I just think they’re cool. I also have villains for whom I feel the same contempt people have for Rakepick. Villains who I cannot stand and it makes me cringe to see their actions justified or considered - Cersei Lannister comes to mind. Likewise, there are just as many heroic characters that I love and adore, and some others that I find problematic. Others still that I flat out despise because of what they’ve done, villain or no villain, like Nozomi from SMT. Albus Dumbledore is probably the character I hate the most in fiction, even though he’s one of the good guys. I’m “Anti-Dumbledore” but when it comes to Rakepick, I don’t even like to use the term “Antis” because when a character is unquestionably a villain...isn’t it the default setting to hate them and root against them? 

Here’s the main thing. They’re fictional characters, first and foremost. They aren’t real, so it’s not like they know if we’re defending or condemning them. All of us are part of fandom to enjoy their story and share our enjoyment with each other. I feel like that should come before anything else. No matter if Rakepick is one of those villains you find “cool,” no matter if you love to hate her with how evil she is, no matter if you see more to her and wish she wasn’t considered a villain...or even if, like most of the HPHM fandom, you simply can’t stand her and root for a shallow grave...all of us have these opinions because we like HPHM. That matters more than our specific opinions about characters. Even villains. Even ones who have crossed as many lines as Rakepick.

[haytsun]

"is funny those old man standing in the moral high ground saying 14yo child solider is war crime need to punish more than anyone else" A siege isn't a war crime while suggesting and helping implement a genocide is (even if unsuccessful). Though it is still likely Iroh is guilty of war crimes since he probably knew of and supported/condoned the Southern Water Tribe genocide and, if he worked with the Rough Rhinos like it is implied, condoned their burning of villages and innocent civilians.

Um…“A siege isn't a war crime” so…100years war, the siege continue in 100years until the avatar and his team save the world. Oh, wait, does hesitate date still count as siege? Like Iroh fail, and later other general continue, between this time does it still count as siege? If is than Azula wasn’t war crime like Iroh. Because before Iroh 600days BSS it would have hesitated time. If consider as how long they take down a place only count as siege...than this siege...idk

So...em...I don’t really get the Iroh is likely guilty as war crime and supported/condoned the SWT genocide? Doesn’t this just made him look even bad, he knew everything but never any action?😰

[seyaryminamoto]

Hello, another anon. I read 123 and was taken aback by the bad memories. But it surpsised me to see that Sokka still feel bad about it. It was wrong but to me Sokka never was the guy who would just sleep around just to have fun and show "manliness" with everyone. With a strenger especially. Or would he? Imean you know him better of course:). But that situation was completely different he couldn't even think straight. Poor guy still feels bad. What do you think about his act back then?

As a writer, as much backlash as that particular decision has garnered me, I stand by it to this day and I see no reason not to: Sokka, at the time, isn’t in the right state of mind, like you said, and his feelings for Azula aren’t yet at the stage where he truly loves her, not as he does after all the ordeals they face together later in the story. He does have feelings for her, is very much attracted to her, but he hardly knows her properly at the time: he thinks she’s manipulating him, playing with his feelings to her benefit, pretty much. And in a rebellious bout, like many of those we see from him through the story, Sokka decides he won’t let her walk all over him anymore.

This, of course, backfires because Azula is actually far more human, and way more attached to him, than he knew. His remorse for his mistakes is genuine, and pretty much everlasting because, in a reckless bid to protect himself from her, he ended up hurting her far more with his actions than she hurt him with that spiteful comment after their first kiss (which is what drives him to think she was just messing with his head). So yep, up until chapter 123, Sokka is still regretting what he did, even though Azula doesn’t even hold it against him anymore by then. He hates having hurt her, for he knows he misjudged her and jumped to the wrong conclusions about Azula without giving her a chance to explain herself, without offering her the benefit of the doubt if just for a moment. The more he grew to love her in later chapters, and the more he understood her as their bond deepened, the more he hated himself for having hurt her when he did. Therefore, at the point where you’re at, where it’s safe to say he knows her better than anyone, he is all the more unforgiving of himself because he genuinely loves her now, willingly, with eyes open, completely aware of who she is and what’s in her heart, and he trusts her with his life. He’s all the more protective of her now and truly hates that he hurt her so badly when he did, despite even Azula thinks he ought to be more forgiving with himself.

Now, though... one thing I do want to say, that I think some of the people who are bothered by this situation kind of have glossed over before, is that Sokka actually isn’t 100% in control of the situation in the pub. For starters, he may not be drunk to the point of incoherence but he’s not of the soundest mind either. He’s also still really angry and bitter about how things went down with Azula, and mixing that with the drunkenness couldn’t possibly yield a positive result. Furthermore, and I’d say most importantly... June wasn’t just some eyelash-batting fangirl like Hina who was starstruck by Sokka: June saw a guy who didn’t look completely repulsive, talked to him about his problems and offered a solution for him that she made the most of.

My point is... June was the instigator, not Sokka. June has agency of her own as a character, and she is responsible for what happened just as much as Sokka is. Hadn’t June showed up when she did, talked with him and suggested her twisted idea, Sokka wouldn’t have been likely to sleep with anyone at all that night. Would this have been better? Possibly. But what June did was poised with one very specific, even outright-stated-on-text purpose in mind: for Sokka to unleash his frustrations and, if it didn’t work (which, let’s not forget, it didn’t), for him to start wrapping his head around the fact that he might be in love with a woman he didn’t want to be in love with. Without June’s meddling, some of the heartache wouldn’t be quite so painful and there’s no denying that. But without it, Sokka probably would have refused to accept he had feelings for Azula, he might not have confronted her that night and even if he did, the outcome might not have been the same: there’s a chance he wouldn’t have grown to understand her any better, that he would have taken even LONGER than he did to realize Azula wasn’t just messing around with him, that she actually cared about him. And if it feels the story is already ridiculously long, just imagine how much longer it could have been if he had spent longer than two chapters refusing to understand that Azula actually wanted him the same way he wanted her :’) 

Point being, there was a storytelling purpose to this development. And it wasn’t a pretty development, why lie, but it was, I believe, a necessary one considering the circumstances of Azula and Sokka’s partnership: they did start out as enemies. They were reluctant allies working together with their own agendas later on. They probably wouldn’t even have thought of each other as friends even at their early scene together in chapter 26. There was very little trust between them -- Sokka especially distrusted Azula --, and they hadn’t learned enough about each other, they didn’t understand each other enough yet, to have a decent relationship with each other. While this was a harsh setback to their partnership, it’s ironically also a way to kickstart it: at chapter 30, after Azula breaks down in tears in his arms, Sokka FINALLY gets it: she wasn’t messing around, she genuinely was interested in him romantically. And after this, he changes. After this, he’s no longer as merciless towards Azula as he was before. He no longer judges her so harshly, and he makes efforts to understand her. Why? Because of everything I’ve said up here :D

So... “Sokka never was the guy who would just sleep around just to have fun and show "manliness" with everyone”? Why, no, I wouldn’t think he would be that kind of guy, and that’s not how the story ever portrayed him either. Some people may have that interpretation of him, but I, personally, don’t. And I’d think Gladiator should speak for itself, it’s certainly on me if it doesn’t, but to put matters into perspective, if I had been writing Sokka as the kind of guy you described up there, he wouldn’t have been so horrified in the aftermath of his encounter with June in chapter 28. I don’t know if I failed to portray it right, but all along, the idea was to show that he didn’t enjoy what happened between them at all, to the point where June was even exasperated over his apologies and remorse (I even talked about how Gladiator!Sokka hadn’t ever truly enjoyed sex until he had it with Azula on this other ask, which I answered recently). 

As for showing off what he’d done as if it were a sign of “manliness”, well, if he thought sleeping around was a badge of honor, he probably would have boasted about it at some point through the almost-100 chapters between the big debacle and the chapter you’re on right now. Heck, he probably would have flirted with every woman in sight and tried to sleep with them without a care in the world if he was the kind of guy who thinks sleeping around makes him a manlier man. Instead, he only feels guilt, remorse and shame for what he did. He takes zero pride in his actions that day and constantly talks about it as one of his biggest mistakes. Once they ran into June in the arc you’re on, he kept falling silent and deferring to Azula’s judgment in every regard except for when it came to her threats to “torture” Jeong Jeong’s goons, because he believed that if she still felt any resentment towards him over their crisis with June, it was warranted and no less than he deserved (despite, as is revealed later, Azula was blowing matters out of proportion for more complicated reasons than Sokka realized at first). Does that sound like a guy who’s proud of his actions, who thinks it reasserts his masculinity somehow to have gotten involved with someone on a very questionable whim...? I honestly hope it doesn’t.

Now, as the one-track-mind shipper I am...? You can bet I absolutely didn’t enjoy writing that scene, not in the least. Ironically, Sokka’s trick to keep going (imagining June was Azula) was also my trick to keep going: the reason that scene’s writing was ambiguous, as though he were having some sort of hate-sex session with Azula when it’s NOT her, was because it was the only way I could get through the scene at all. So, as a writer, I stand by what I wrote. As a fangirl with too many feels, I hate the scene despite understanding why it was necessary :’) I don’t think I’d ever admitted that before, but it’s the truth. Part of a writer’s job includes working with elements and situations in a story that you might not be comfortable with, that you absolutely wouldn’t condone or approve of (I mean... slavery in general?? I write about it, doesn’t mean I support it in any capacity even if I think it’s believable for Ozai’s Fire Nation to enslave people...), but that are part of the story nonetheless. 

Storytelling can be done for fluffy and happy reasons exclusively, and there’s a lot of fics that are like that, but Gladiator is a fic with a huge plot comprised by a ton of tinier plot threads, dealing with serious subjects and themes of many sorts. And if I’m going to do it justice, I can’t shy away from the darkness of my characters, the terrible mistakes they can make or the hard-earned redemption they can obtain after working their asses off to amend them. Azula’s decision to turn Sokka into a slave could be judged just as harshly as Sokka’s mistakes have been judged by many readers, and she should be condemned for it on the same capacity, if not more so: there’d be no story altogether if she hadn’t made this mistake, however. They both have wronged each other, it’s the truth, but they have done their damnedest to atone for their actions once they truly understood how wrong they were.

I don’t think highly of myself as a writer these days, haven’t in ages, but I know I’d think even less of myself if I only ever played it safe and stuck to the storytelling beats everyone demands and expects from stories. The majority of Part 2 is, in fact, a gamble I silently made with Gladiator’s readerbase to find out what would happen if I didn’t simply fall into the typical structure expected from stories like mine. What if I actually show my readers what a solid, healthy, strong relationship between Azula and Sokka works like in practice, instead of immediately resorting to tearing them apart barely a few chapters after they got together for conflict’s sake?

... Of course, that particular experiment didn’t have an unanimous result either, and just like chapter 28, I may have alienated thousands of people by making the creative decision I did for the entirety of Part 2. And yet the story, in my personal opinion, wouldn’t be half of what it is if I’d made a different choice! Sooo... *shrug* what can I tell ya, Anon. Writing is hard. Writing means making tough choices your readers won’t understand sometimes. Writing means making yourself cry happy/sad tears at 2 AM because you nearly killed half of your OTP and it’s tearing you to shreds deep inside :’D and while I categorically refuse to say I’ve made all the right choices for Gladiator, I think the story would be infinitely lesser than it is if I wasn’t willing to give my characters hardships and complications they can learn to overcome, no matter how painful they might be.

(Otherwise, heh, there would be no Part 3, soooo...)