#Zuko and mother

[avatar-firelordzuko]

So much has changed, Mother. I can't wait to show you around.

❤️

[ursa-majora]

Everyone talks about how Appa is apparently obese for a sky bison and Aang is over feeding him. Undeserved in my opinion (hes just big boned obviously)

But nobody talks about how Druk (Zuko's dragon) is a complete fatass compared to other dragons.

For example: These are pics of Roku's Dragon, Fang, and Sozin's Dragon

Do you see how long and noodley they are. They're actual dragons too, not Wyverns like GoT dragons. (Note the 4 legs)

And heres Ran and Shaw:

See, still very noodley. And these are quite old, large dragons.

And this? This is Druk:

And Its not just the angle because even when he is sitting down he's fat

Obviously Druk has lived a life of luxery, he's a pampered little prince

[endless-nightshift]

Something Something Avatar The Last Airbender was fundamentally about showing the horrible long-lasting effects of both war and violence in a grand sense (the way people suffer under fire nation occupation including the air nomad genocide and the state of the southern water tribe) but also a personal sense (zukos entire arch) and the show goes to great lengths to avoid glorifying war, often specifically choosing only depict the aftermath of terrible violence while not graphically depicting the violence itself.

And I think it's a profound misunderstanding, maybe even an insult to the source text to continually depict gratuitous death and violence as a focal point of the live action.

[seheartz]

born in you, along with all this strife, is the power to restore balance to the world

[ultfreakme]

The BEST thing Live Action ATLA has done is make Zuko keep a diary. Like that is far too in-character. You know it is filled with the most angsty reflections ever, there are tear stains and burn marks on the pages, like "I am losing my sense of humanity" with glitter pen levels. He saw a turtleduck once and it was effervescent. There are flowers pressed in there, terrible awful poetry.

The most important part is he does not call it his diary, it is his super cool war journal that is NOT about feelings it is (supposedly) about the war, the Avatar and his bending progression.

[llmsos]

Mamas Boy off

[redbayly]

Zutara headcanon #35594

When he realized that Katara didn't have any sort of image of her mother (as the Water Tribe isn't really known for its paintings), Zuko hired the most talented portrait painter in the Fire Nation and then consulted with Hakoda and Gran-Gran for as many details as possible in order to commission a life-size painting of Kya to give to Katara.

The painting was so beautiful and so true to life that Katara almost thought her mother was about to step out of the canvas. It became one of her most cherished possessions.

Many decades later, after Katara passed away, the painting was considered a masterpiece and placed in the Southern Water Tribe cultural heritage center and museum. It is the most beloved work in the gallery and remains a symbol for many Water Tribe and Fire Nation people of love, courage, and kindness.

[mesapies]

I knew azula was named after azulon but I didn't realize how much she looked like him as well.

Young azulon with sozin watching him in the background from avatar the last airbender: legacy of the fire nation

[hyperfocusthusly]

Rage, I have learnt to wear.

My mother’s grief, however,

folds my spine and lives beneath my ribs.

it gets heavier and heavier

|| Line art ||

[sulkybender]

I'd love to see a fic that's structured as a behind-the-scenes documentary showing what Zhao's crew think of him.

With @chiptrillino:

INTERIEWER: So... what do you think of Zhao?

OFFICER: *buries face in hands*

MIDSHIPMAN: if I hear another fucking word about that fish—

CUT to break room with portrait of Zhao pinned to dart board.

Handheld camera zooms in shakily on the dart board.

BOILER MAN: He read me a list of names and asked me which of them sounded more more impressive. Zhao the Conqueror. Zhao the Destroyer. King Zhao.

THE BLUE SPIRIT, disguising his voice poorly: Not a fan.

LIEUTENANT: He wants to strike while the moon is full. City full of waterbenders, while the moon is full. I ask him why, and he says, “for dramatic effect.”

BOILER MAN: The Zhaore Lord. The Zhao-inator.

OFFICER: I pointed out that we're a fuckin' island nation and without the moon we'll be flooded beneath the sea, and he wrote it off as a technicality.

MIDSHIPMAN: So fuckin' done with that fish.

[fullmetalavatar]

I really like the reference to the avatar comic "the search" in the episode Masks! It's almost like netflix is setting up "something " in the future. 😏

[oceanview15]

Zuko: I’m not in love with Katara, okay.

Zuko: I just miss her when she's not around and think about her all the time.

Zuko: And I imagine us one day running towards each other in slow motion and I'm wearing a brown, suede vest.

[thena0315]

Before

After

After After

Izumi means "fountain" in Japanese

[attackfish]

So everybody here knows that I'm notorious for being a massive defender of Ursa, and that I have no patience for the "Ursa was a bad mother, she favored Zuko, and was abusive to Azula and abandoned her kids, and made Ozai abuse Zuko," narrative. That narrative is vile, victim blaming, and deeply stupid on a number of levels.

With that out of the way, I want to talk about some really really bad parenting we see Ursa do during the series. And it is to be clear really really bad.

In the Book Two episode, "Bitter Work", Zuko and Iroh have a conversation:

ZUKO: So Uncle, I've been thinking. It's only a matter of time before I run into Azula again. I'm going to need to know more advanced firebending if I want to stand a chance against her. I know what you're going to say, she's my sister and I should be trying to get along with her-

IROH: No, she's crazy, and she needs to go down.

This scene is a favorite of a certain type of Azula fan who wants to paint Iroh as a big meanie who didn't wave his magic redemption wand over Azula the way he clearly did over Zuko. See? See? He's writing her off here and calling her crazy.

This of course misses the context of that scene, which is that Zuko is taking care of a severely injured Iroh, who was injured by Azula, in what looked a heck of a lot like a murder attempt. Earlier in Book Two, in the episode, "The Avatar State", Azula unambiguously attempts to murder her brother after failing to capture him, and he is only saved by Iroh's quick reflexes.

But let's leave that argument aside for today because what interests me about this scene in the context of Ursa's parenting, is the line Zuko says right before Iroh's infamous declaration: "I know what you're going to say, she's my sister and I should be trying to get along with her."

Because in the context of Zuko and Iroh's situation, where Azula has recently attempted to kill Zuko, and just put Iroh into a coma that Zuko had to take care of him during, in which he has only just woken up from, this line from Zuko actually demonstrates some really warped thinking. It is not a healthy response to the situation at all. And his assumption is that a good caring parent figure like Iroh is going to respond to this situation by telling him that Zuko needs to get along with his sister, who is actively trying to hunt him down and capture or kill him.

So why does Zuko think that? What adult reacted that way to Azula's violence toward her brother in the past? It wasn't Ozai. Ozai is not going to use the language of getting along with one's siblings, when he is so bent on setting them against each other. So who was it?

The show answers this a few episodes before this scene, in the Book Two episode, "Zuko Alone." The answer is clear and heartbreaking: It was Ursa.

The scene in which this becomes plain, starts with Zuko and Ursa walking together. Mai spots them and smiles and blushes. Azula notices, and then turns to Ty Lee, and whispers, "Watch this!"

AZULA: Mom, can you make Zuko play with us? We need equal teams to play a game!

ZUKO: I am not cart-wheeling.

AZULA: You won't have to. Cart-wheeling's not a game, dum-dum.

ZUKO: I don't care. I don't want to play with you!

AZULA: We are brother and sister. It's important for us to spend time together. Don't you think so, Mom?

URSA: Yes, darling, I think it's a good idea to play with your sister. Go on now, just for a little while.

And then Ursa leaves Zuko alone with Azula and her friends.

There is a lot here that I want to talk about. I have in fact talked about this scene before, and what it tells us about Ursa's eagerness to reinforce Azula's seemingly kind and loving behavior: [Link], and even touched on why this is in fact an example of bad parenting from Ursa: [Link], but I think this deserves its own post, where we examine exactly what went on here, what this tells us about Ursa's parenting, and how this affected Zuko, and to a lesser extent, Azula.

In those previously linked posts, I talk about how this is clearly a pattern, that Azula has learned to predict and manipulate, and because we know it's a pattern, we know that this behavior on Ursa's part is repeated, and something her children have come to expect from her. Zuko and Azula know their mother wants her children to get along with each other, and love each other and have a good sibling relationship with each other so much that if Azula she plays into that, Ursa will force Zuko to spend time with his sister, and worse, that time will be unsupervised.

So, to be clear here, what Ursa is doing is giving Azula unsupervised access to her brother, against his will, as a reward for Azula momentarily acting nice. Or in other words, Ursa forces Zuko to spend time with his abuser against his will because she wants them to get along.

I think we can all see how that is some grade A terrible parenting.

And it does have negative effects on Azula. I think that we can see her learning how to manipulate people, learning how to lie and get what she wants from people, and that Ursa by giving her what she wants here, is showing her that this is a thing she can do to get what she wants. That is not a great lesson to teach your kid. I think it also feeds into Azula's possessiveness of her brother, and sense of entitlement towards him. She has learned that even the people who love and care about her brother, won't protect him from her. And she has learned that no matter what she does to him, he is supposed to try to get along with her.

These are some really terrible lessons, and we see some of the effects of them throughout the course of the show, so why is it that the "Ursa is a terrible mother" crowd never bring this up? I mean of course we know why, it doesn't fit their narrative. Their premise is not simply that Ursa is a bad mother, or even that her bad parenting explains Azula's behavior.

In fact frequently it isn't even about finding someone to blame for Azula's behavior, so that the responsibility isn't Azula's. (Which, to be clear is not how it would work anyway, because even if Ursa were exactly the type of horrible mother they said she was, Azula was still making the choices to do Very Bad Things, in the same way that just because Ozai is an abusive father, this doesn't mean Azula stopped being responsible for her own actions). It's more about proving that she has suffered enough that she deserves all the sympathy, and is allowed to be awful to other people, including Zuko, you know, as a treat.

The narrative that the "Ursa is a terrible mother" crowd are pushing is that Ursa didn't love her daughter, and thought she was a monster, Azula suffered so much, and it's so sad, and this is why she deserves to do very nasty things to everybody else, and no one should ever hold her accountable. Frequently there is some flavor of, "Zuko had a mother who loved him, you guys, unlike Azula, so he doesn't deserve sympathy, not like poor baby Azula!" Which is a deeply warped thought process on many many levels, but we're not going to go into that here.

The point is, that this type of bad parenting that I am pointing out here, doesn't fit this narrative, because this is not the kind of parenting mistake that a mother who doesn't love one of her children, and thinks that child is a monster, is going to make. This is the kind of mistake that a mother who loves her children very much, and wants them to have a good relationship, and doesn't recognize the threat that one of her children poses to the other, is going to make. In fact, the fact that she does it, proves that Ursa does in fact love her daughter and does not think she's a monster. So it does not fit the narrative these people are spinning, so they will never bring it up as an example of how Ursa was a bad mom.

Of course the other reason the "Ursa is a terrible mother" crowd aren't going to bring this part up is because it would mean acknowledging that Zuko deserved to be protected from Azula, and needed to be protected from Azula, when they were both children, which would go against the whole "she's a poor innocent child" thing they like to spin, and also because Azula is getting what she wants here, and Zuko is the one suffering, which is not going to get Azula any sympathy points.

And for the most part, Ursa was an excellent mother, who did the best job she could in horrible circumstances that she had very little control over, but she wasn't perfect, and she did make mistakes, which makes all of this a wonderful example of how even very good parents can make very bad choices that hurt their children and cause serious long-term damage.

I've talked some about the long term damage that Azula faces from this, learning about manipulation, and developing some really nasty entitlement issues with regards to her brother, but Zuko's long-term damage is if anything worse.

When we put this together with Zuko's line from "Bitter Work" quoted earlier, we can see that Zuko learns what Azula learns from the other angle, which is to say that he will not be protected from Azula by anyone, and not only will he not be protected, but he does not deserve to protect himself. Not only can he not defend himself, but he can't even protect himself by avoiding her. That's not allowed either. And in the face of her cruelty and violence towards him, it is still on him to make their relationship work, and to be clear, he should absolutely be making their relationship work. And the adults who love him are going to tell him this, no matter what Azula does to him.

I for one am really glad that Iroh is there to say no, that's a terrible idea, and you do not need to keep trying to get along with your sister who is trying to kill you. And it's significant that throughout Book Two, Iroh consistently protects Zuko from Azula, and teaches him what he needs to fight back.

[animebarbie89]

HE’S A PROUD DAD🐲🔥🔥🐉🐲❤️‍🔥

[tea-you-later-losers]

fire lord Zuko opening windows and doors and tearing down walls so that the palace is no longer only lit by the oppressive flames controlled by the former fire lord but by the warmth and life of the sun