#and Zuko doing everything in his power to get himself killed

[ghostwritergirl]

Let’s talk about Danny’s trauma over Dan and why it’s ignored in Dan redemption stories

I love a good redemption for a villain/asshole character (Zuko, Hunter, Steve) and I’m impartial to Dan being redeemed… but let’s sit for a moment and talk about how Dan being redeemed completely ignores and invalidates Danny’s trauma.

For starters, let’s get one thing clear: Dan was Danny’s worst enemy aside from Pariah Dark. I’m not counting Undergrowth, Nocturne or Vortex because at that point Danny could go toe-to-toe with them power-wise (and s3 writing quality, but that’s not the point) He was everything Danny feared of becoming, the monster he was always afraid he could become and that his parents were right all along about ghosts, that he was like Vlad. He tried to kill Danny’s family, Sam, Tucker and Lancer to ensure Danny would become him, and it’s implied he would have left him floating around in the future Ghost Zone for who knows how long and still tied up and possibly even get killed again by the ghosts who want revenge (don’t tell me that if he hadn’t gotten his Wail, Danny would have died) Danny probably had nightmares for MONTHS and could barely look at his reflection after everything with Dan, that he’s terrified of cheating or screwing up in case that’s the catalyst for him becoming Dan or something much worse, that it would even impact on how he sees himself as an adult (which I talked all about in another post)

Safe to say, out of everything Danny’s faced, Dan is Danny’s worst fear, the one that left him the most trauma and mental scars outside of Pariah and the accident.

And you know what Dan redemptions do pretty consistently?

They ignore Danny’s trauma.

ALL the focus is on Dan and his trauma and him learning to be a better person and making up for what he did, which is fair considering it’s Dan being redeemed. But there is little to NOTHING on how Dan being in Danny’s timeline affects HIM, that his ultimate enemy and greatest fear is literally constantly around, that him being around triggers all of Danny’s traumas. Danny’s trauma and fears are completely invalidated or hardly acknowledged when it comes to Dan’s redemption and that he must deal with Dan being there instead of rightfully being upset and triggered literally every time he and Dan are in the same freaking room! And hardly none of the characters think it’s a problem when Team Phantom, while not knowing all the details, know just how much Dan messed Danny up! They just push it aside in favour of focusing on Dan!

Dan has trauma and issues, he was a kid who lost everything and Vlad’s ghost half and a lot of things played a role in him becoming evil, that the Danny we know could have gone down the same path quite easily… but can we please acknowledge that and Danny’s trauma over Dan at once without ignoring Danny’s trauma in the process?

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TED talk, just wanted to vent that all out.

[prying-pandora666]

“Zuko Never Wanted To Kill Anyone”

Zuko tried to kill Suki. He fired a shot that would’ve fried her to a crisp when she was down on the ground. The only reason she lived was because Sokka deflected it.

Zuko drove his ship into the ice in the SWT, nearly running over several children. One child almost fell between the cracked ice and had to be rescued. That would’ve been a death sentence. Zuko didn’t care.

Zuko repeatedly burns down or causes serious damage to villages with people living inside them. Including children.

He tells his own crew members that their lives done matter, only his goals, and forces them to steer into a dangerous storm that could’ve gotten them all killed.

He violently robs civilians when he is on the streets. And not only out of desperation, but also for luxury items he feels entitled to.

Even as a small child, he laughed at his uncle’s joke about burning the largest civilian city in the world to the ground. While he’s actively seizing it and no one can get out.

Zuko betrays his own uncle to his nation, knowing he has been branded a traitor and may well be executed if not imprisoned for life in horrible conditions that will surely lead to premature death. In one of the comics Zuko is told that Iroh may not even survive the trip home. He still goes through with it.

He hired an assassin, behind everyone’s backs so it wasn’t even being done in service as a soldier for his nation, to murder Aang just to protect his own social status and his father’s approval.

He goaded Aang on to kill his father and mocked Aang for wanting a non-homicidal solution.

He crashed his sister’s coronation—not aware that she has banished everyone, mind you, so he could be walking into a highly protected fortress and potentially have to kill his way through soldiers and servants—and challenges his sister to an honor duel. He does this precisely because he recognizes she is mentally unwell and that he can exploit this.

He goaded his sister into shooting lightning at him. Lightning which is lethal. While she’s comet boosted. Just so he can risk his life because a small mistake could fry his heart. So he can redirect it… nowhere? Potentially multiple times as she can possibly chain lightning while comet boosted. Why? What possible reason could he have to put himself in such a dangerous and fruitless scenario?

He was trying to kill her. Zuko has never been against killing.

He just changed sides.

And before you say “but he redeemed! He changed!” Yes.

I do know he changed. It’s what makes his arc so powerful. The fact that he was so willing to kill and invested in the war.

But he is still learning and he clearly didn’t realize that trying to kill his sister was wrong until she was chained up and sobbing. Only then did he finally see through Ozai’s manipulation pitting them against each other. She was never a monster. She wasn’t just the embodiment of everything he had failed to do, not just a living obstacle to overcome. She was also dad’s victim.

And in doing so, Zuko finally breaks the cycle of “brother killing brother” in their family that Iroh warned about.

It’s an incredible redemption story.

It only works if we admit Zuko was once a villain who did bad things and had selfish and sometimes cruel intent.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

After taking some time to consider the insane reactions some Zutara fans have been having about the Roku book, I've changed my mind. It's not just that zutarians like Zuko (or at least the idea of him) and treat Katara as the exotic trophy-wife he deserves for redeeming himself - they're Fire Nation dickriders that want to use the ship to go "See? The Fire Nation was right all along!"

That's why they act like Aang, the scared 12-year-old, is to blame for the war, instead of Sozin, the guy that chose to start that shit.

That's why they're obsessed with acting like Katara's tribe is as sexist as the North, then pretend the Fire Nation is a feminist utopia. Why they act like it being the more industrialized nation means it isn't "stuck in the past" like her tribe and thus Katara would admire it, meanwhile that insdustrilization is literally being used to kill the whole world, AND even harming the Fire Nation itselt - something Katara felt so strongly about, she went full eco-terrorism mode.

That's why they want to crucify Aang for completely misreading the moment on Ember Island and kissing Katara, but say nothing about Iroh very deliberately taking advantage of the fact that June was paralyzed to cuddle up with her because he KNEW he'd get slapped otherwise. Why they call Katara "a broodmare for airbenders" for having three children with Aang, yet are constantly writing about her being Zuko's Fire Lady (often in AUs in which she starts off as his actual slave), having his children, and potentially obsessing over the quality of Zuko's genes and how their interracial marriage will potentially fix any "bad genes that skipped his generation".

That's why they're "mad" that the new Roku book "romanticizes the air-nomads too much" and "doesn't call them out on their intolerance" (because saying people shouldn't murder each other is the same a genocide somehow) yet treat Legacy of the Fire Nation as a great book even though it made Katara say Iroh, the guy that was helping Zuko torment her and her friends for months and that was a war general helping his father commit GENOCIDE, "was always doing the right thing, no matter which side he was on."

Hell, a ton of them believe that "Good Grandpa Azulon" bullshit. They think the guy that ordered Zuko's death, by the hands of his own father no less, was a loving grandpa that adored his grandson - after all, he favored Iroh over Ozai! Clearly that's a wise, kind man! Please ignore the fact that most of the attrocities of the war, including the raid that killed Kya, happened while he was in power.

They really are just so fucking desperate to go "The villains were secretly right! The Fire Nation IS superior, there were just some bad apples that needed to be dealt with! That's why Katara would fall for Zuko once she stopped seeing them as this 'elusive' threat that is totally not super real and specific!" that at any second now they're probably gonna complain about all the "everything changed with the Fire Nation attacked" memes or start making theories that the air-nomads totally DID have an army, Aang just thinks they were innocent pacifists that were randomly ambushed because HE was fed propaganda.

[theofficialpresidentofmars]

not super thought out but atla au where Lu Ten survives, and Zuko is the royal child to die and haunt the narrative.

Not entirely thought out in terms of how it happens, because I still want it to be the result of Azulon’s order to Ozai carried out, rather than his mother saving him from it. Unfortunately because that order is a direct result of Lu Ten’s death, I’m still working out the details, but the gist is that Iroh gives up on Ba Sing Se for some reason or other, Ozai tries to pinch the throne again, and for whatever reason, Azulon decides that it’s still a fitting punishment for Ozai to kill Zuko. But this time, Ursa doesn’t overhear Azula, she doesn’t get there in time, and Zuko is slain by his father in the dead of night.

(Azula tried to warn him. It was his own fault that he didn’t believe her.)

Perhaps Ursa retaliates, killing Azulon and attempting to do the same to Ozai before her banishment, perhaps Ozai twists the story but banishes her anyway, perhaps she simply lives with unbearable grief in the palace and shuts off from the outside world.

Iroh doesn’t go on his massive spiritual journey, but the corruption within the palace walls does inspire him to reconsider many things he considered to be truth. He starts off down a similar path, albeit slower. Lu Ten is a few steps ahead of him, but he’d always sort of been anyway.

Lu Ten is probably hit the second hardest, behind Ursa, at his little cousin’s death. It was unfair and injust, and unfortunately, not above what he’s come to expect of his own nation. Something needs to change, and he’s starting to think that maybe long term diplomatic solutions with the other nations as the war proceeds isn’t quick enough or good enough at all.

Azula has to deal with this funny thing called grief, which manifests unexpectedly and in odd ways. She didn’t expect to grieve for her brother, and constant suppression makes it more unpredictable than most. She’s not radicalised by it, but she starts to become disillusioned with her father and palace life as a whole. She’s still open to murder for power, but something about killing a child in the dead of night without even an Agni Kai to sanction the violence seems… unrefined. Barbaric, even. Beneath her, in any sense. She’ll have to do better when she sits on the throne.

When the Avatar cracks out of the iceberg, Lu Ten is the first to take his side. Not quite so dramatically as his little cousin would have had the flair for, but secretive work from within the castle walls. Calls for meetings on grounds of diplomacy. Lightened military in areas the child might traverse through. Perhaps even a captive exchange with a certain stronghold where the cage meant for the Avatar was not quite up to standard, just weak enough for the bars to break deep enough into the forest for a quick escape to be made… his methods raise eyebrows for sure, but Lu Ten knows that sooner or later he’ll have to make a bigger move.

Iroh sits on the fence, and is often the one to raise an eyebrow, but does nothing to reprimand or encourage his son’s increasingly borderline treasonous acts. He has not made up his own mind yet on how he himself shall proceed- the game has begun, but his tile is still behind others, waiting to see how the board will look before it makes its first move.

Azula enjoys the company of her cousin more than she would like to admit- he’s teaching her everything he knows about how to become a good Firelord, and he’s a much better teacher than the ones her father picks. Of course, the way he values her emotions and wellbeing is a glaring weakness, but it’s one that she’s willing to let slide. Lu Ten isn’t a very good liar either, and she loves to know more than people think she does, so she’s also willing to not say anything about the fact that he’s very clearly hiding something. She likes the feeling of control that poking at this mystery gives her, when he has no idea she’s doing it.

Lu Ten is wondering how easy it would be to bring his little cousin over onto the right side of history. He knows he’s not being subtle, she has the glint in her eyes that she gets when she’s learning more than he means to let slide, but what she doesn’t know is that that’s his plan: it’s the best way to keep her interested, and she’ll be more open to any idea she comes to her own conclusions about.

Eventually, hijinks ensue, the two get kicked out of the castle to go participate in the actual war, and meet the actual Avatar, to which more hijinks ensue when Team Avatar starts receiving incredibly mixed messages from the Fire Nation’s special forces: there’s the friendly one, who they’ve met, who seems to possibly be actually working in their best interests, and then there’s the smaller one who might want to murder them, and they’re… on the same side? They just can’t seem to figure out, and it seems the two of them have no clue either, which side that is.

The time away from home also ends up opening old wounds, and both of them get to finally process some of the repressed grief that didn’t get to see the light in the suffocating environment of the Fire Nation palace.

———

Lu Ten learns something he didn’t know about the night Zuko died.

———

She knew.

She knew, and she didn’t tell anyone, didn’t try to help him, didn’t try to protect him.

She knew, and she made fun of him, wound him up, left him on his own.

He’d spent years wishing he’d been home, instead of somewhere in the outskirts of the Earth Nation, so he could have maybe done something, anything about it, but he’d always known that there was nothing he could have done, because he hadn’t known and wouldn’t have in time.

But she had known. And she had laughed, and left him to die.

[mydogatemymotivation]

Kylo Ren's redemption didn't work! Didn't work, didn't make sense. And Star Wars can do redemption arcs, too, so idk why this one didn't work (I know why). It's because it didn't make any sense for his character. I've said more than once that you could watch Rise of Skywalker on its own, without having seen the first two, and not be lost. The destruction of the characters, as they were established, was insane. Especially Poe, but there are think pieces about him already. The reason Ren's arc didn't work is because it flies in the face of literally everything that was established about him in the first two movies.

Love was never a motivating factor for his character.

He killed his dad in the first movie. No amount of lingering love for him would've saved Han Solo. He hated his uncle. His mother was nearly killed at the beginning of TLJ and he didn't save her. He hesitated - slightly - but didn't go back for her, didn't give the order to stop firing. When he and Rey were talking during TLJ, I don't think he had affection for her. He was trying to turn her to the dark side by weaponizing her kind nature, weaponizing her empathy for 'a kid who had no one' (he had plenty) because she had no one and didn't want someone else to be left out in the cold. At the end of TLJ if, IF, BIG IF,  he had affection for her, it died the second she didn't do what he wanted. The one thing he ever wanted was power. He wanted to be the supreme leader. He wanted to lead the first order, that's why he and Hux butted heads.

Anakin's redemption worked because his motivation was love. Everything he did was out of love, at the root of it all. He loved Padme and wanted to protect her. Palpatine did to him, what Ren was trying to do to Rey. Weaponize the idea of not being left behind, not leaving anyone behind. So when Luke appeals to his father at the end of RotJ, it makes sense that Anakin would do anything to protect his family.

Kallus' redemption worked because it was about protecting the galaxy, which is all he wanted to do. He figured it out for himself. Yes, he was inspired by Zeb, but he changed his mind on his own, he reached out to the rebellion on his own. His redemption wasn't about Zeb, it was about doing what he thought would best protect the galaxy. Which was his character's motivation. And he has nothing if not dogged determination, so it checks out for his character that he would make the decisions that he did.

Ren was about power. How did his redemption get him more power? It didn't. How did his character arc show that he no longer was motivated by power? It didn't. There's no narrative support for his redemption. Him sensing when Leia died and changing his mind at that moment made no sense because he never cared about Leia before. He didn't care when he thought she died at the beginning of TLJ. Or even if there was a chance to save her in that instance, he didn't take it. He can't be redeemed by love, when love isn't important to his character in the first place. And I still think he was manipulating Rey in TLJ, not ~fAllInG iN lOve~ or whatever. He didn't gain power, which is what he wanted. And if you say 'well, he didn't want power anymore' I'm gonna need you to back that up. I was fully prepared for him to be the big bad in the last movie. Even Zuko, the pinnacle of redemption arcs, had to show the change in his character over time for the audience to believe he would actually change sides. I could've bought a redemption arc, because the point of redemption is that it's never too late to do the right thing, if it made sense. But the way he did it doesn't make sense with his own character.

Rey deserved so much better.

Anyway. I'm done ranting about the sequels just had to get it over with. I don't like this character, I don't like that he doesn't make sense. Like what you like idgaf

Also hux's thing was fucking dumb too. Didn't make any sense but at the very least him hating ren was more consistent than ren's dumbass 'redemption'.

K now im done talking about the sequels. Just had to get it out of my system.

[balanceoflightanddark]

Can I ask why you think the way Azula treated Zuko was not abusive?

To understand why Azula was not abusive to Zuko, we need to understand what IS abusive. I'm not exactly an expert in the field of abuse as there are many kinds of abuse. However, I do feel that the National Domestic Violence Hotline on their website www.thehotline.org does give us at least a basis to start off with in terms of this kind of abuse that Azula is accused of.

Essentially, if Azula were trying to exert any form of power or control over Zuko, we could consider that to be abusive. She would come from a position of power and use that to browbeat Zuko into submission. Whereas the latter wouldn't be able to do anything about it due to that power dynamic I mentioned. Either that or Zuko wouldn't know it was abuse since it was so engrained in their dynamic.

Thing is...Zuko never shows signs of being abused by Azula.

Whenever Azula mocks him or taunts him, he fires back. He's not afraid to speak his mind. We saw that all the time in "Zuko Alone". Indeed, he doesn't show any signs of being afraid of her or any sign of her exerting any sort of power over him. The closest we came to that was during the bedroom scene where she dangles the possibility of the Avatar over his head, but even that's debatable since he was the crown prince AND barged in with a bad mood already.

So clearly, Zuko didn't feel threatened by Azula at all. And if their dynamic had him fire back at her just as much as she did towards him, how can that be considered abuse?

But what I think is most telling is that we do have an example of abuse in the cartoon. And it does involve Zuko and everything that I just mentioned.

It's just, it wasn't Azula.

It was Ozai.

Putting aside the scar on his face, Zuko's relationship with Ozai DOES reek of abuse. I made a whole post about it, but the point is, Zuko never feels comfortable about speaking out against Ozai or fighting against him. The only time he does is when he has a bit of an advantage, but that was only to escape and not kill.

Zuko will speak out against Azula. But Ozai? No way. He'll take Ozai's comments, and internalize them to make himself feel weak as he does throughout the series. Hell, his rivalry with Azula is Ozai setting them against each other just like any abusive parent would do.

In short, Zuko's dynamic with Azula is the complete opposite of Ozai. And since we know that Ozai is an abusive father, I cannot for the life of me see Azula being at the same level. At worst, she was a symptom of the problem. Not the problem itself. And if you want to address the topic of abuse, you need to get at the source.

[erisenyo]

Jumping off this post from @narrativelysignificantturtleduck cause this got long and I wasn't sure if you wanted this in your reblogs...

In the interest of weird water tribe family dynamics, evil!Water Tribe AUs, and how you could get the 'marginalized underdog protagonist' dynamic with the good!Fire Sibs without the 'what if actually the marginalized people were the evil oppressors' Vibe.

I landed on adjusting the Fire Nation royal family dynamics directly, without altering the larger position of the Fire Nation aggressors and colonizers. So the broader history of imperialism and genocide remains and needs to be addressed, with everything basically going exactly the same up until Lu Ten dying and Iroh disappearing and Ozai trying to make his play for the throne. But...

In response to Azulon's threat, Ursa decides to kill both Ozai AND Azulon

Iroh doesn't come home like she expects (he can be that 'haunts the narrative' missing parental figure, maybe? Perhaps he just White Lotus' off?)

Zuko and Azula are the last remaining direct descendants of Sozin's line, too young to take power themselves but a clear threat to be eliminated/opportunity for anyone who would want to take the throne or set themself up as regent

So Ursa goes on the run BUT she takes Zuko and Azula with her

Zuko and Azula live the next years being actively hunted by claimants to throne who either want to kill them or use them as puppets to consolidate their power (+ by EK and WT military who still see capturing/killing them as a way to end the war?)

They need to conceal their identities, so you can layer in the 'keep your bending secret' storyline for both Zuko and Azula, but particularly Azula who is secretly trying to self-teach

Zuko won't ever be a nonbender, but him being worse/less interested than Azula (perhaps embracing swords?) could still carry the dynamic of feeling inadequate relative to his sister

The three of them could travel within the Fire Nation (and maybe outside of it as well?), needing to live cut off from resources, hunted, exposed to the consequences of the imperial military machine

Ursa could leave them behind somewhere where she thinks they will be safe (perhaps trying to to draw attention to herself to divert a threat, or to avoid being so recognizable as a unit of three?) and tell them to look out for each other

So now when they find Aang, Zuko our emotionally driven idealist seizes on the opportunity to right the wrongs he's seen. (And Zuko is so all-in on duty and responsibility, the idea of running away from the role of Avatar and rejecting those duties would not compute. Or alternately, he's projecting a lot onto Aang because he feels he's run away from his own duties)

And Azula takes Ursa's parting words very seriously, and is also tempted by the potential to get training again. She obviously she can't let idealistic dumb-dumb Zuzu wander off and get himself killed, or blow their cover at the first opportunity, so she joins them (obviously *not* to avoid being left behind. She wouldn't care about that. Definitely not.)

And so you get Zuko, Azula, and Aang as the Gaang, working to end the war and stop the Fire Nation so that everyone can live safe from Fire Nation aggression. And you retain:

The Fire Nation as a looming, active threat from all sides

The effects of imperialism on the world and people outside the Fire Nation

That sense of underdog marginalization, with Azula and Zuko as threats to the imperialist system and therefore objects of its violence (and also as targets to be captured by the Water Tribe even before Aang joins them)

The dynamic of a single parent trying to do whatever they can to protect their children, and protecting them by leaving them behind

And you can tee up an interesting exploration of individual actors vs institutional structures by having good!Fire sibs and evil!Hakoda/water sibs, while maintaining the broader Fire Nation imperial machine and Water Tribe position as target of its aggression.

...the outstanding question in an evil!Water Tribe AU, though: Who is the Gaang working to stop?

Hakoda individually? (I don't think that works) The Fire Nation? (Then why make Hakoda evil if we aren't stopping him) Probably some combination of the Fire Nation + Hakoda as someone whose actions are obstructing the larger peace, because he's functionally recreating the same systems with himself at the head.

I think it would be important though for it to be more of an 'Aang/the Gaang recognize the path Hakoda is on' type of setup rather than Hakoda actually like...invading and killing all the Kyoshi Islanders or something. Or more economic power/threat toward the NWT or surrounding regions? Basically keeping it in the realm of 'a colonized entity absorbing and re-enacting colonial and imperialist ideals unless they actively work to reject them' and not 'look who the *real* colonizers are.'

[loreandletters]

WarTrophy!Sokka Snippet 2

introducing: a vague attempt at politics by my child self ya'll. polished it up, but I couldn't save it from the on-the-nose palace intrigue. D:

this is a flash back, and from what I can grasp, Sokka's POV from when he was 'bought.' Also, Sokka also doesn't realize who he's with.

fic | snippet 1

-

“So this is the kid, huh?” When the man looked at him, Sokka felt his resolve wilt and he began to tremble. Desperate to stop it, he hugged his knees tighter, hoping it hid his pathetic shaking.

“News travels fast.” The lady (the man had called her Ursa, right?) sounded stern again, that softness gone as quick as snow on hot coals.

“It does when you decide to buy a savage in the middle of a Victor party,” the man snorted, crossing his arms. He sat comfortably, his powerful frame taking up what felt like half the carriage. He could beat Sokka dead if he wanted. Sokka hadn’t ever seen someone die before he left home, but that had changed, and he knew now what it looked like if someone was hit too much.

He didn’t want to end up like that.

“Is that why you're here?” Ursa’s tone dropped to a hiss, “this can wait.” 

“It can’t actually,” the man, Lu Ten, shook his head and turned to her. “And if you're worried about eavesdroppers, don't be. The driver is one of mine. You can be free with your words.”

Her eyes darted to Sokka, and Lu Ten snorted again, dismissive of him as all Fire Nation Soldier were. Sokka held back a sneer, and decided right then to hate him the most. (No surprise there, he hated everyone in the Fire Nation). 

“It deserves to hear this.”

“He’s just a child.” 

“It’s a savage child,” the man corrected, leveraging a hard look on Sokka. His golden eyes seemed to glow in the lamplight and Sokka gulped thickly. “A freshly beaten one at that. And is, if you've forgotten, your newest scandal.”

“Stop it.” Ursa snapped. “Why are you here? If it’s just to tell me what I already know, then get out.”

“I should,” Lu Ten said, his voice harsh, and Sokka, if possible, compressed himself tighter. Maybe if he stayed quiet enough, they would forget he was here. Lu Ten continued, saying, “fortunately for it, I just can’t stand back and watch you get it killed.”

Sokka took in a deep breath, lip wobbling. He buried his head into his arms, giving up on trying to look at this man and his new owner. He was too scared, too weak. His body ached, his head spun - this was too much. Sokka wanted his mom to come and save him. If she was here, she’d wave her hand and wash all them away. Then they could go home, and everything would be alright.

“Don’t call him that, Lu Ten,” her voice trembled, but not in fear like he was used too. It shook with suppressed anger - coiled tightly, a fish-snake ready to strike. “He’s a person, not a thing.”

“Is he?” Lu Ten’s head cocked to the side, a flat expression on his face. “Because that’s not what you just showed. You don’t buy people, Ursa, it’s against the law. You still did it though, which means this kid over here just went from being a prisoner to being a pet.”

Ursa remained silent, the air in the small carriage thick tension. Pet. Pet. Sokka buried his face deeper, comforted by the cage of his arms. He already knew this, but hearing it said out loud felt worse then being beat. He was the son of a chief. Shame swelled up under his ribs, displacing the anger and Sokka bit into his arm, trying to stifle his urge to scream. Was he going to have to sleep in a cage? Forced to eat food on the floor? Wear a collar?

“I didn’t…that’s not what I intended.” She eventually said, now quiet and soft again

The soldier sighed. “I know, Ursa. That much was obvious.” He went quiet for a moment.“What exactly were you thinking of accomplishing?”

“Zuko has been having trouble making friends, and Azula might benefit from having another boy around. Someone else to focus on other than her brother. What good is my status if I can’t even do this?” Sokka hated the hesitation in her voice. What did this mean for him? He didn’t understand. There was a rustle of clothing and he felt more tears leak out. Who was Zuko? Another water tribe boy, captured in an earlier raid? Sokka didn’t know anyone else in their tribe with that name. 

“Ursa….you couldn’t possibly have thought Oazi was just going to let a savage run amok around his children, did you?” Lu Ten’s voice had softened, in a way that sounded chastising and suddenly he understood. She had bought him without permission - this wasn't just a meeting, it was a dressing down.

[princess-of-the-corner]

Wait a second what are we doing with Lu Ten in Miraculous Gaang?

Is he alive? I know he got like really sick at one point, but are we letting him live? If so, how old is he and what is his relationship to the Gaang? Because I imagine him being quite a bit older and seeing the Gaang as his much younger siblings that he has to mentor. He's probably away at university during most of the events of this, but Zuko and Azula call him in to save their hides for some of their civilian problems. Assuming he's alive

And how did he get sick? Did he like use the peacock or did he just get really ill and it woke Iroh up to the fact that he was being kind of a neglectful parent?

Also, other named kids you can use for miraculous if you want:

Song, the chick that saved Iroh from poisoning, tried to bond with Zuko over being hurt by the fire nation, and then he stole her ostrich horse

June, but she's probably a bit older than the rest of the crowd, maybe even Lu Ten's age.

On Ji, the girl that Aang talks to when he goes to Fire Nation school and consequently gets into a fight with her boyfriend Hide.

Shoji, another kid from the fire nation school, very nervous type.

Chan, the guy that Azula tries to flirt with in The Beach, and then they burn his house down.

Meng, Aunt Wu's assistant who keeps trying to flirt with Aang in The Fortuneteller, and who gets utterly blown off, only to eventually tell Aang at the end of the episode that Katara is really pretty and they deserve each other, and also gives them the cloud-reading book for their plot (because she's been stalking Aang, and HEY that's on brand for ML).

Of this selection, the only ones I have any particular attachments to are Meng and Song. I think I'd give Meng the goat if we keep your usual Dreamwalking powers, due to her fortune teller associations. Song could honestly have any of them, but I'm leaning Dog. But yeah, it's interesting that most of the Gaang's allies seem to be adults. Between the white lotus, various world leaders, and assorted other Randos, the significant adults in this show probably outnumber the significant children.

Yes! So!

We decided that since this is taking place in a Miraculous-esque Universe, a chunk of people get to live. Like, there's no war fucking up the world and we're axing the Bending (like if they had Bending on top of the Miraculous then OOF.) and also this is a modern world with better healthcare capabilities.

So yeah some people live. Lu Ten was never on the frontlines of a war. Kya never had to protect Katara from raiders looking for a Waterbender. Yue won't have to sacrifice herself to save the Moon Spirit, etc.

Not to say everything's perfect because there's going to be injuries and close calls and some of these fuckers can get killed off.

So since I can change things and let characters live, I am!

Anyway. Lu Ten!

So we're going with some kind of car accident type deal for him. He was in a coma for a few months. (During this we had the drama of Iroh falling apart with worry, Azulon 'dying', Ozai taking over the family company, and Ursa disappearing).

He's alive but has some medical problems. Mostly mobility issues. Usually in a wheelchair, though he can use a cane for short distances if needed. His hands are bad too, but he can still get stuff done.

He's a good decade older than the Gaang. Like in his mid-to-late 20s.

Between the age and mobility thing he's probably not getting a Miraculous himself (I mean the mobility isn't stopping Teo but he's the 'I'm gonna use the Miraculous Transformation to give my wheelchair jet rockets and fly' type of guy).

He's very much the older brother figure! Especially once Zuko gets kicked out.

As for the other character suggestions!

June is too old for the group, as much as I love her. Ji, Shoji and Chan never vibed with me. Song vibed with me more but we're also getting to the 'wow huh there's not a lot of kid characters that consistently appear huh?'.

Meng is actually a great idea and I love the Dreamwalker thing I'm keeping that.

[poolpvrty]

wait a min… is zutara a regulily variant

this ask is sososo old pls forgive me :')

okay so right off the bat: yes they (imo) very much are. here's why:

katara is a bender, unlike her brother. lily is a witch, unlike her sister. katara is continually underestimated in her waterbending because she's a girl. lily is heavily discriminated against as a witch due to her identity as a muggleborn, and also she was a teenager in the 70s. misogyny ran rampant virtually everywhere (it still does but that's not the point)

katara is considered one of the strongest waterbenders in her era, becoming a master in an honestly short amount of time. not to mention, she picked up bloodbending very quickly too, even breaking out of hama's hold because of the strength of her bending abilities. lily was described as being one of the smartest students slughorn ever taught; not to mention she was capable of performing a very ancient type of blood magic that even riddle didn't think of. we know that she had more control over her magic at a young age than many other kids seen in the series, and she was a potions prodigy in school, being hand selected for the slug club.

katara is also a very kind character. she's gentle with those she loves & cares for, she's generous and friendly with strangers, she's all around a good person/simaritan, and she genuinely enjoys helping people/sticking up for others. she dedicates her time to helping aang become a master waterbender & when she's taken by azula and subsequently trapped with zuko, she chooses to help him after he tells her about his realization regarding destiny and how he can choose what kind of life he wants to lead, despite all the hurt he's caused her personally. lily has these qualities aswell; she volunteers to fight in a war despite being very, very young. she's described as an impossibly kind person, "very brave, very funny", always seeing the best in everyone no matter what they've done (see: her entire friendship with snape). when petunia calls her a "freak" she immediately calls her out, saying that that's not a nice thing to call someone—plus, when james & sirius harrass snape at the tree, she comes to his defense and seeks justice for her friend (before the whole mudblood thing..... 😬)

i also fully believe that, like katara, lily was fully willing to kill for the people she loved—especially harry. like she'd take you out without a second thought. similar to katara, she was fierce and clearly protective, aswell as very powerful & capable of great, potentially harmful, feats.

soo overall.... yeah, i'd say katara and lily are variants for sure

as for zuko and regulus, this gets a bit trickier. unlike lily, we don't know nearly as much about regulus in canon. but we can infer and make educated guesses regarding his character! which i will do now.

firstly, zuko comes from a pampered, privileged environment. regulus does too. they're both the children of unkind individuals with very harmful mindsets (not including zuko's mother), and this helped shape their view of the world/how they function in relationships. zuko has this need to prove himself not only because he misses a time where his family was happy and together, but also because azula goads him into it. she encourages his bad or violent behaviors and she makes everyone else out to be untrustworthy. namely aang/team avatar. sound familiar? with sirius being such a loud and opinionated presence in the house of black, i imagine walburga & orion really tried to hammer into regulus' brain that everything his brother stands for is wrong. they, as his parents, are right and everyone else is simply misguided. sirius is "othered" and regulus begins to really view him as the enemy. he's untrustworthy, he's mentally ill, he's a danger to their way of life, etc. etc. it's manipulation with a capital "M" and if you fail to meet proper pureblood standards, then you're literally burnt off of the family tree, violently erased from their history. AKA: you're banished from the only home you've ever known. kinda sounds like zuko, right?

another similarity: zuko was blatantly favored by his mom (a fact that only caused more strife between azula and him). regulus certainly became the favorite after a certain point, i don't think anyone can deny that lol. aswell, they both have an uncle that was "othered" and treated as a traitor to the family/nation. iroh and alphard (though it's worth mentioning we know pretty much nothing about alphard).

zuko loses his honor and it feels as though his world is falling apart, because it pretty much is. he goes on this big long endeavor to earn it back, because he feels like he has to. like it's his duty to—but ultimately he fails because he defects from his sister. he goes through this rough process, slowly learning that azula does not dictate his life, nobody does. his destiny is his own, he is the owner of his choices and he can do whatever he wants. regulus does this in his own way too. sirius is disowned and he (imo) feels as though he needs to make up for his brothers mistakes. their family name was (probably) dragged through the mud due to the scandal surrounding sirius; regulus is the heir now and he feels like he needs to rectify the whole situation by leaning as far into the bigotry and pureblood propoganda as possible.

↑ even though i heavily believe he was more of a casual believer in the whole "muggleborns suck" ideology..... he definitely held that way of thinking close to his chest, but i don't think he was like bellatrix and practically creamed his pants for riddle/the idea of genocide. i don't think he wanted muggleborns in his school or his work, but i also don't think he wanted them killed. more like..... they should be legally kept as far away from him & other purebloods as possible. still not great :/

okay back to the point lol. so getting the dark mark is regulus' own version of zuko's avatar hunt. they both want their honor back, they both feel obligated to do this really emotionally taxing thing, and in the end, they both steer off course & take hold over their own fates. regulus ultimately does what he can to try and end the war & riddles reign of terror; zuko also participates in the end of his war. they both make numerous mistakes in their personal emotional journeys ← although, again, with regulus much of his life is made up of headcanons/guesses based on info provided in the text, not straight up facts, but still.

all of this considered, i do think zutara is a regulily variant 100%!! regulus & zuko are just more circumstantially similar/very alike in their choices rather than their personality traits like lily & katara. although i do think they have similar personalities too

[brionysea]

what zuko did at 13 was so dangerous as to result in a prince (royalty) (untouchable to everyone except his own family) being challenged to a fire duel because he sounded like a leader. and a better one than his father. an heir who's willing to fight generals for the safety of his people during a war will grow into a ruler who realises that the key to his people's safety is to stop the war, and he already had the constitution and the political standing to speak out about it where even people like iroh refused to when he was still a child

zuko's lack of regard for political decorum probably helped. there's no "that's just the way it is" with him, if a system sucks he will do everything in his power to fix it. rules are made up and he was set to inherit the power to change them and make them more just from the day he was born. the gaang's discussions of the war got so intense after zuko joined because he knew exactly what they were up against and wasn't about to let them forget it

give it a few years and if ozai didn't challenge zuko, zuko would have ended up overthrowing ozai. god help him if zuko managed to get azula on his side. refusing to fight at the first agni kai probably saved his life, since even the fire lord couldn't justify killing a child (his child, the firstborn heir to the throne, which has insane optics when you really think about it) who wasn't engaging in combat during an agni kai. it all comes down to zuko's loyalty - to his people and his father and his nation - but one of these is not like the other and doesn't deserve it. if he realised that too soon it would have killed him

zuko would have been such a problem if he was allowed to stay at home. travelling the world and seeing the perspectives of the other nations with his uncle gave him a more balanced viewpoint of the war, as well as the means to defend himself from things like his father and sister shooting lightning at him because he stood up to them about being abusive war criminals, but he was always headed there in the end

[thegaybluejay]

Okay hi I’m back with another ramble-y ATLA character analysis since this is low key my brand on here lmao-

Today I want to talk about Zuko from the lens of someone who also had to deconstruct. This will be long, but please bear with me!

I was raised in a very white conservative evangelical Christian bubble where literally EVERYONE I knew for the majority of my childhood and teenage years thought mostly the same way. There was a lot of othering and shaming of anyone who thought too differently. Even if it was sometimes said more passively than cruelly, there was always that underlying tone. “The others/the people outside of our group/the worldly ones are lost and need our help because we’re better than them!”

While I strived to not be cruel, my beliefs were still harmful. I lost a few friends when I got to my mid-late teenage years because I didn’t yet know how to challenge what I’d been taught.

I see so much of myself in Zuko.

Zuko was surrounded by propaganda his entire life. He was steeped in it - steeped in the blood of those that the system he supported/represented had hurt and killed.

Anger is a huge part of all of this. While my anger was never quite as outward as Zuko’s (I hid it fairly well and was always known as the “pretty good kid”), I can still so heavily relate to his anger. His anger at always falling just short of being good enough or perfect enough. His later anger at himself for not understanding how fucked up the system was sooner. His anger at the people that failed and hurt him. His anger at realizing how he failed and hurt other people. All of it.

I also understand his backslides in Book 2 and early Book 3. When you begin tackling the first layers of harmful shit you’ve been taught, it can quickly become so tempting to just call it quits and go back. You almost start to romanticize the simplicity of life before you began this journey. The rules and goals were so straightforward back then, and deconstructing is messy as hell. Even if you were deeply hurting in your old life, at least you weren’t so damn confused. You used to know your next steps, but now everything is in disarray and you don’t have a direction to rebuild in yet. Going back almost feels like it would be a survival tactic, a way to have a sense of control again. Zuko definitely 100% needed to atone for what he did in Ba Sing Se because it hurt others, and while I’d like to think I would’ve made a different choice in his shoes, I also get it on some level. The confusion stage sucks, and it’s not always linear either.

But then.

One day, something just clicks. You eventually deconstruct enough that you truly come to full terms with how fucked up it all is. And you realize that you don’t belong there anymore, and the version of you that DID belong was just a facade. The blinders fully come off, they’re never going back on, and a spark lights in you that prompts you to make a big change. The deeper you go, the more urgent this deconstruction becomes in your mind because holy fuck I have to do something about this. I want this shit out of my brain for good and I want to help make things better. I want to learn who I am and finally live that out.

THAT is one of the most pivotal points in the journey, and I loved seeing it within Zuko’s arc when he comes to this realization after the war meeting in Book 3 and leaves to join the Gaang. I also loved that they didn’t trust him the first time he came to them - both he as an individual and the system that he had once supported/represented had hurt these people, and it took some real apologies and some time to build up trust. It also wasn’t done with half assed centrism either - it was “I acknowledge that this system is completely broken and wrong and I will do everything in my power to help gut it from the top-down and restore it with love”.

This leads to another pivotal point in the journey - instead of being motivated by fear like you were when you were deep in the indoctrination or by the raw anger you first felt as you initially left, you start to be motivated by love. And it’s the most freeing thing.

It was so cool to see Zuko learn that, while his anger was a helpful tool (ie: the confrontation with his father and his overall anger at the corruption he saw in his nation), he couldn’t be fueled by it any longer. He had to find another motivation to keep going, and he was then taught by the Sun Warriors and the dragons how to be motivated by light and life and love and also how to use those alongside an anger that was finally righteous.

And with this, he was ready to fight. To fight for a cause he knew to be good. To fight arm in arm with his newly acquired family. To fight to fix what his nation had done to the world and to itself. To fight for love and peace instead of division and hate and destruction.

And wow is it a beautiful journey.

TL;DR - Zuko’s story is so powerful to those who are deconstructing and I love him so much! I also just enjoy doing character analysis hehe.

(I really love talking about ATLA, so if y’all want me to analyze other characters or even plotlines through a specific lens, feel free to submit an Ask and I will happily do so!!!)

(Also, quick ending note - this is just my personal experience with deconstruction! Other people’s retelling of their own deconstructions may be different from mine, and that’s totally okay!!)

[rotationalsymmetry]

Gonna write a bit of ATLA meta about Uncle Iroh.

Since I saw a post that rubbed me the wrong way, but in the opposite of the way posts about Iroh usually rub me the wrong way, so I'll need a bit of a lead up to explain why both approaches are wrong. Spoilers ahead.

When people look back on a story, they tend to compress it in their minds, as though everything happened all at once. People have a static image of Camelot that includes both Merlin and Lancelot, even though they were never both at Camelot at the same time.

And I think when people look back at Avatar: The Last Airbender, they look at it knowing that Zuko joins the Gaang in the end, and knowing that, they forget how Zuko looks and what Zuko does at the start of the story. Because Zuko is a pretty unambiguous classic cartoon villain at the start of the story.

He's substantially more powerful than the protagonists (look at how easily he bats Sokka out of the way.) His goals are in direct opposition to the protagonists' goals, and if he is successful it will be disastrous to both them and the world. And like most cartoon villains, he's personally a dick: he's constantly angry/impatient, he lashes out, his introduction isn't quite like Azula's where she tells the ship's captain that she expects him to be more afraid of her than the tides, but he does treat the lives of his crew as disposable in an early episode, when there's a storm. (He gets better at the end of the episode, call that foreshadowing.) He's even got a scar on his face, in the long tradition of physically disfigured villains.

And once you've watched the whole show once, sure, it's hard to see him that way. And you can point to some signs that he was going to come around -- he didn't kill anyone (that we know of), when Aang let himself be captured in exchange for Zuko leaving the village alone, he did leave it alone, rather than backing out on his promise once he could. But so what? Plenty of unrepentant villains have a sense of honor and will keep their word, makes for interesting stories.

The point I'm trying to make is: there is only so much one show can do, only so much story they can get in to one story. And in that finite amount of story, they spent a TON of time showing the audience that no matter how much of a villain someone looks to be at first, that villain is still a person.

And they also spend a lot of time showing other people are people. Random Earth Kingdom civilians like Haru. Random Earth Kingdom guerilla fighters like Jet. When we get to the Northern Water Tribe, we find a bunch of people who are just people: old men who are set in their misogynistic ways but maybe can be coaxed into changing, young men who are kind of jerks (but who still don't deserve to die at the hands of an invasive force), young women torn between their own desires and their sense of duty, people people people. And when we get flashbacks to the Air Nomads, they're people: some more serious, some more fun and flighty, just people. And when we get to the Fire Nation, they're just people.

So let's look at the rest of the Fire Nation royal family. Azula's a sympathetic villain: she's scary, she's dangerous, she does appalling things, we see her suffering and the show gives us enough information about her and her family's dynamics, the way their father played them off against each other, to see why she did what she did. Azula ends the story in a situation similar to the one where Zuko is at the start: Zuko starts having lost everything and nearly everyone who ever mattered to him; Azula ends having lost everything and everyone. And we don't see that with Ozai, all we get of a potentially softer side of Ozai is a picture of him as a small child, but it's a short story and there's only so much time and it's not really about Ozai, and surely we can infer that there is something like Azula's story in his, something going on where to him his actions made sense.

Something going on where if you had Ozai's life, his background, his circumstances, his worldview, maybe you would act the same.

What I mean is, Zuko did not become a person because he stopped being a villain. His personhood was there when he was a villain, and was still there when he joined the heroes. And Azula's personhood and her villainhood can coexist. And Ozai's villainhood and personhood, with a little extrapolation, can coexist.

And Iroh. The Dragon of the West, the general of the great siege of Ba Sing Se. He's one person. He doesn't need to be split, either you ignore the harm he did or you decide that the harm he did means he must suffer for it, must be punished for it. He can be a person, and a person who did harm, and a person who did harm for reasons that made sense to him at the time, this is all one thing, it is all there in the story, not all of it is there for Iroh because it is not Iroh's story, but if you look at Zuko's story and Azula's and Chit Sang (guy at the boiling rock they tried to escape with) and Jet and Jeong Jeong and Hama and Yon Rha and Hei Bai, and how things went down with Aang in the Avatar Day episode (ie the town that wanted to punish him for a very old murder that the Avatar did, and they were in the wrong for that even though the Avatar did kill the person they said the Avatar killed) and what happened in The Great Divide (ie that ultimately it didn't matter who was at fault) it's all there in other parts of the story, you can extrapolate.

Iroh doesn't need to be punished, not by anyone else and not by himself in the form of feeling agonized over the harm he caused (much as I love angst in fiction.) Nobody needs to be punished; suffering is bad, causing more suffering does not make other people's suffering less. And he doesn't need to be innocent and pure to not deserve punishment. He's not innocent. He did a lot of harm. We can infer that he caused that harm for reasons that made sense to him at the time, whether they make sense to him in retrospect or not and whether he actually did have better options under the circumstances, which he may well not have. We're all people. We're all people. We're all people.

Like it or not, agree with it or not, ATLA is about forgiveness, about not seeking revenge, about not increasing the amount of suffering in the world by taking an eye for an eye. The story did not punish Zuko for having started on the wrong side, even though he started out as a stereotypical cartoon villain and he would have caused unspeakable devastation to the world if he'd succeeded at his initial goal. And it would not punish Iroh for what he did. And anyone looking for either a way to completely exonerate Iroh -- pretend he has never done anything harmful in his life -- or to criticize the show for not having him punished for his wrongdoing, has completely missed the central theme of the show.

Which is not separate from any imperialism/colonialism is bad messaging you want to draw from it. The show is not claiming colonialism is bad because it sides specifically with the Water Tribe or with everyone-but-the-Fire-Nation. It's against colonialism because...colonialism is bad...for people. Who have inherent value, whose lives have inherent value, whose lives do not stop having inherent value when they harm other people. It's one message.

[piratefishmama]

Everything wrong with the liveaction Avatar and WHY.

in my own personal opinion that nobody need agree with me on.

Zuko fought back in the Agni Kai against his father.

Okay so, so far, there's been a lot of people trying to explain why this was wrong with the very limited space on twitter, i'm going to do it here, on tumblr, where i have unlimited space, whee. In the original show, Zuko, with pure terror in his heart, got down on his knees, begged, and pleaded for forgiveness that his father would not give, before being burned and banished for his weakness and disrespect. This gave the audience the impression that Ozai was fucking terrifying. His power was beyond comprehension, and he was so scary that his own son, his own progeny, would still be TOO AFRAID of him, to even dare cross him. Even at the cost of his honour. Ozai wouldn't even grant mercy to his own terrified son, scarring his face, a part of Zuko that he could never hide, so everyone would forever see the proof of Zuko's dishonour and shame. Ozai was awful. In every single way, but he was also terrifying. The Live Action version had Zuko fighting back. Not only did it have him fighting back, it also had him obtain an actual chance to win that fight. Now, an Agni Kai, is a fight between firebenders where the first person to be burned, loses. Undoubtedly, Ozai had many oppportunities to burn his son from the get go, but for a brief moment, Zuko has the upper hand, right here

It's right here, that Zuko could have won an Agni Kai against his father, the firelord, and big bad of the entire series, right out of the gate, before he'd even hit adulthood. Pathetic. Dont get me wrong, it's a cool scene, but it greatly diminishes how scary Ozai is supposed to be. Zuko has the strength to fight back, he's scared, but he's not paralyzed with fear, he's able to fight back, and damn near almost WIN. Shit's pathetic. Ozai almost got his shit rocked by a teenager. Who isnt even the avatar. Cartoon Ozai was a terrifying monster who had the actual avatar so scared he was having recurring nightmares about rocking up to the big fight without pants, this dude's just a terrible father with superpowers.

The Face Stealer Koh

In the original cartoon, Koh was introduced as a spirit old enough to know who and what the real world forms of the ocean and moon spirit were. A creepy stealer of faces who hunted by causing reactions in people. Stealing their faces wouldnt kill them, they just. Wouldnt have a face. In the live action, he appears in the 'Hei Bai' episode and hunts in the fog of lost souls, y'know, the place in Korra where lost souls get stuck in their worst memories? Then he cocoons them, and eats their faces. Like, full on eats them. And for some reason he was the one who grabbed the lost villagers in the Hei Bai episode, not Hei Bai. It's weird. Pretty sure one of them maybe got eaten, idk. Unclear. Gross and unclear.

Hei Bai plothole

Not so much a plothole as just... something missing. Hei Bai is seen in his 'distressed spirit' form, he's seen, his pain and distress is acknowledged multiple times, and the reason why he's distressed is seen, but he's never shown to be soothed. Aang buries an acorn in the ground near his damaged statue, but it never shows Hei Bai being soothed. In the cartoon he had to be handed the acorn to see it, to understand the implication and be calmed, if just burying an acorn in the ground would have worked, he'd have never been upset, because he'd have been able to see it himself in the ruins of the forest with there being acorns all over the place.

Wan Shi Tong cameo in Hei bai's foggy spirit forest

Dude why tf are you out of your library? Your foxes venture out into the world to find you things, get back to your library, what the hell r u doin out there?

WE DIDNT NEED TO SEE THE AIR NOMAD GENOCIDE

WE DIDN'T NEED TO SEE THE AIR NOMAD GENOCIDE

Gyatso's underwhelming skeletal remains.

In the cartoon they found him surrounded by dead firebender soldiers, having solo'd a ton of them by himself, an old man, a monk, all on his own. Giving the impression that either he fought them off until he fell, or he removed out the air in the room suffocating them all and himself. Both entirely badass ways to go. In the live action the firelord walks through his frankly impressive wall of airbending in a cool 'oo i'm on fire' trick, and burns him alive in front of a bunch of air nation children. The fucking dishonour on your whole goddamn family whoever decided upon that scene, jesus christ.

Azula wasn't scary

She was just... meh.

The Only Good Thing About the Avatar Live Action series.

Big spirit fish go brr.

[avatar-legends-confessionblog]

I would like to posit the idea the very canonical idea that Azula was not abused in the same ways and to the same degree as Zuko by Ozai. And that is literally a fact a fact that feels like sometimes we can talk about without cries of misogyny or being accused of trauma comparisons by Azula stans

But I don’t think it’s fair to argue that Azula and Zuko were living under the same conditions zuko just didn’t handle them well. No Zuko was being specifically targeted.

Don’t get me wrong Azula was not born cruel and was very much a victim of Ozai’s abuse and narcissism and this is import at and shouldn’t be but I would argue that it was more the effects of seeing Ozai’s abuse and borderline hatred of Zuko that shaped her more than any direct abuse to herself.

Let me explain. We know that canonically Ozai was emotionally, verbally and physically abusive of Zuko. Maybe he wasn’t beating him up everyday but he burnt half his face after Zuko’s surrender that’s a physically abusive man. He told zuko his sister was born lucky and he was lucky to be born. He was very much ready to kill him on the orders of his father (and seemed to care so little that it was Ursa that had to suggest killing Azulon instead) we can infer that he constantly compared Zuko’s achievements openly to Azula’s and used that to put him down. I would argue that it was very obvious that he wanted any reason to have Zuko gone and he jumped on the first one he saw to banish him to a wild goose chase so he could make Azul crown princess without a political incident. The general he sends, Zhao, almost kills Zuko numerous times with little fear of repercussion (hell he has his ship blown up with a flimsy cover of pirates) and it’s pretty implied he has orders to do with Zuko “what he must”.

Zuko was Ozai’s favorite scapegoat his warning to all others look what I’m willing to do to my own sim my own heir don’t step out of line.

With Azula you can argue that she was neglected just as much as Zuko was because I don’t see him spending much time with either child and she strengthened her fire bending for a chance to spend more time with him. It is no argument that Ozai loved himself and his power more than he ever loved either child and that is especially obvious at the end where he essentially leaves Azula behind with a hollow title. And ofcourse Azula has to contend with a things/attitudes Zuko didn’t just by virtue of growing up a royal girl.

But I would argue that it was witnessing Ozai’s abuse of Zuko and hearing the reason of his “weakness” given that most shaped her which in a way is it’s own kind of abuse and leads to its own kind of trauma. And don’t get me wrong he definetly emotionally manipulated her maybe we never see it on screen but he definitely made it obvious that he thought it was okay to treat Zuko that way because she’s better than him, she’s strong and a winner and aslong as she remains those things she’ll never be like Zuko. Everything she does she does to be antithetical to Zuko to never give their father a reason to be treated like that. She learns cruelty both as a survival skill and as a way to be closer or Ozai because it’s a language he’s fluent in. It’s something that they can share. This “bond” of being the more deserving child but having to play second fiddle to the heir just because they were born second. Hell it’s why in that scene when Ozai is reading to her her work gs and failures and telling her she doesn’t deserve what he deserves she says “you can’t treat me like this, you can’t treat me like Zuko” Zuko is literally the lowest thing she could imagine. Being treated like her father’s scapegoat is everything that she has spent her life avoiding.

It reminds me of a quote from Sex Education from the ex principal about his brother and father. “you learnt to bully me so that our father wouldn’t bully you and that is such a great shame but I am too old for that to be my problem anymore” I feel like encapsulates their canon relationship so wonderfully.

So like I think to argue that Azula and Zuko were abused in equal parts or in the same way and zuko just “overcame” it while Azula didn’t or Azula was just tougher where Zuko wasn’t. Is unfair and does a disservice to both of them. Sometimes kids in the same house don’t experience the same things from their parents ask any sibling. Some are more aware of it than others. And just because a parent abuses 1 child doesn’t necessarily mean they directly abuse all their kids, it’s just one of the many ways abuse can be complicated and make it hard to spot the pattern.

Same as I think erasing the very real harm Azula caused to Zuko (she bullied him as a child I don’t think she ever physically hurt him but she went out of her way to cause psychological torment to him, e.g rejoicing to his face that Ozai was planning on killing him, and that’s not okay and goes far beyond normal sibling rivalry/banter) takes away from what could be her Arc/redemption as well.

X

[highfantasy-soul]

NATLA Episode 8 - Legends (3/4)

[Masterlist of my NATLA thoughts]

Of course, full spoilers ahead.

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Aang hearing all the past Avatar's advice to him before he makes his decision makes him merging with the ocean spirit make more sense and temporarily closes his character arc. Here's where I think people are riding on nostalgia and not seeing what this decision means to the live-action Aang. In the animated series, his decision to merge with the ocean spirit comes out of nowhere, he just somehow knows that he can merge and it'll unleash a 'super crazy powerful spirit attack' on the Fire Nation. There's not much more thought in it other than 'all hope is lost, we need a deus ex machina' and I just so happen to be able to do that. In the live action, Aang is following the advice of the past Avatars: Kuruk's indication that the elemental spirit's powers are greater than the Avatars, he's putting the needs of the world above his own, he's willing to give up his own future to secure one for everyone else, he's trying to do it alone (with the ocean spirit, but still), BUT he's still 'running away' - he's STILL having a power greater than himself do the heavy lifting.

Like we learn in the Guru episode in season 2, in order to take the Avatar state, you have to surrender everything, all your attachments, and become a conduit for pure energy - we see Aang do this as he takes a deep breath and his tattoos glow and his eyes light up, the echoing voices of all the past Avatars in his voice. He's surrendering, but as we'll (no doubt) see in future seasons, it wasn't a 'balanced' surrender. It was a surrender of despair and resignation of his fate. Through the next two seasons, I'm sure we'll see Aang working on how to take that state in a healthier manner.

I love Aang's speech here - about how he should have been lost 100 years ago, this isn't his time or his world - again calling back to how he couldn't save the air nomads, but he CAN save the people now, and he's willing to give up himself to do it. Because the power of the elemental spirits is far greater than even the power of the Avatar. So he gives himself to the ocean spirit to become wrath itself and save the world. I like that Aang's struggles revealed in The Storm episode of the animated series lingered until this episode - Aang struggling with not 'belonging' in this time is a huge aspect of who he is and I like that the live-action gave it room to breathe.

Iroh's relief at seeing Zuko alive is beautiful, meanwhile Zuko is staring slack-jawed at the giant fish screaming at the sky. It's pitch perfect that Zuko is ready to fight Koi-zilla for the Avatar - he's really that crazy and desperate to capture Aang! I think it was a great choice to merge parts of the first Agni Kai with Zhao in the animated series to this point in the live-action. Zhao and Zuko do face off during the siege, but Zhao in the live-action was always more of a cerebral antagonist to Zuko - they focused on that aspect of him rather than the physically imposing antagonist he was in the animated series.

This is Zuko taking out all his frustrations about his life out on a singular target - he's just 'lost' the Avatar for good, Zhao destroyed what little hope there was to reconnect with his father (as it looks like Zhao told Ozai Zuko is a traitor), and he tried to kill Zuko. Zuko thinks if he can just beat Zhao in a fight, maybe he'll get some manner of relief. Unfortunately, Zhao being the cerebral antagonist he is, physical defeat doesn't win the day - Zhao still beats Zuko by throwing the truth of his family dynamic in his face.

They moved the monologue Zuko gives to Aang about his relationship with Azula (while Aang is unconscious) to the fight with Zuko and Zhao. While I like both, I think having that convo as the 'send off' to Zuko in season 1 was a good choice. It makes Azula's presence felt in the narrative the entire time (because she was behind Zhao's successes) instead of her just being a random after thought that doesn't affect the story until season 2. Giving Zhao the speech to Zuko that destroys Zuko mentally was a great choice. Zuko has been running from the truth of his family for so long and Zhao knows it'll destabilize him. He lays it all out in the open - how Ozai wanted to get rid of Zuko and would never take him back, how he was just motivation for Azula, and how the favorite child had already been chosen: and it wasn't him. Everything Zuko had been working toward this season, burned to ash, revealed that it was never going to happen, all that hard work had been worthless.

In the animated series, Zuko just ends the season having lost the Avatar once again. In the live-action, he's destroyed not due to the Avatar, but because of his own family and their games. He's mentally broken far more than he was in the animated series and I think that will put him in a much more interesting position at the start of season 2. When he says 'I'm tired' at the end of the episode, it's not because it was just one more bid to capture the Avatar that failed, it's because his entire world has been shaken.

The Ocean spirit confronting the Fire Nation ships was haunting. No music, just the sound of panicked shouting, the low moaning of the spirit, and the horns of the ships. It's such an eerie scene and even though they're the enemies, you feel the terror now taking the Fire Nation as they face down the wrath of an elemental spirit. Yue explaining how the ocean spirit will wander the world forever looking for its partner but never find it gives me chills every time. It's such a tragic concept and the way they juxtapose that with Katara calling out for Aang, being there to pull him back, is really beautiful.

I love that they give Yue the agency in her choice to give her life back to the moon spirit. In the animated show, Iroh notices her eyes and suggests she can do something, in the live-action, Sokka is looking for ideas and she realizes it herself and chooses to give up her life for the spirit. It's such a great touch that she can still waterbend - because she has the moon in her. Her speech about how it's worth it to live, even for a night, is something that belies all the advice of the past Avatars - they argue to hold yourself apart, to sacrifice any wants of your own for the sake of the world. But Yue argues that it's worth the risk of losing things you love - getting the chance to feel that love is worth the pain of losing it.

Katara talking Aang down out of the Avatar state and control of the ocean spirit was so well placed here. Like I've said before, I think having Gyatzo's memory calm Aang in the first episode rather than Katara like happens in the animated series and moving Katara's speech to the end of the season was a fantastic choice. It bookends the lesson of the season for Aang - letting go of the past so he can start moving on into the future. Katara's pleas that 'we're a family now' to Aang in episode 3 of the animated series feels hollow - we accepted that line because it's a kid's show and they wanted to hammer home to us that these three kids are going to be your protagonists going forward and they'll be a family. But until that point, they'd known each other for a few days - they weren't ACTUALLY a family. Here, at the end of the season, that claim of family has been earned. They've built the foundation of a real connection that's been battle tested and tried many times. It's TRUE that they're a family now, that this IS his world and he's more than 'just the Avatar'.

The ocean spirit turning to look at the restored moon is such a beautiful shot - honestly this whole thing is shot just so beautifully.

"The world needs you. I need you." That statement is soo true and I love how it was shown through the season before being told to us.

Aang is exactly the person the world needs now - someone who knows the suffering and loss of this world, but also knew a better one where people were kind and helpful and there was no strict divide between the nations. His childlike belief in the goodness of humanity is what's needed in an Avatar for this time, not a hardened person who's never seen diplomacy work. If fate was at play when Aang got frozen in that ice, then it knew what it was doing: Aang is the only Avatar soul that would be able to save the world now.