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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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!!)

[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.

[sokkastyles]

I'm really interested in knowing your opinion on the power dynamics between Azula and Zuko. Azula's abuse of Zuko seems far more subtle and insidious as compared to Ozai's overt abuse, so I'm really curious as to how exactly she abused him. I really appreciate that you have a nuanced grasp on the topic and I'd love to know your thoughts!

Hello!

I see that you already found this post where I talk a bit about power dynamics. In that post I address some common misconceptions, specifically about the idea that Azula can't abuse Zuko because he is older and a boy, but that's one of the things that actually marks the dynamic as abusive, because Zuko would normally have power over Azula given those things, but he doesn't. You would think he would think of himself as more powerful than Azula, but because of the way Ozai favored Azula and treated Zuko as a scapegoat, Zuko sees his younger sister as much more powerful and capable than himself. And because he's been conditioned to think this way about his sister, he's easily taken advantage of by her.

And yes, it is a lot more subtle than Ozai's abuse of Zuko, not just because it's not typically what we think of as abuse because of Azula's age and gender, but also because it's different than Ozai's overt violence towards his son. Although Azula and Zuko do fight, it's not Azula fighting Zuko or trying to capture him that makes her abusive. Not even when she announces her intention to kill him. That kind of stuff is typical for the genre, so it's not abuse.

Abuse is about power dynamics, and like I said, Azula takes advantage of the power she has over Zuko. The word "gaslighting" is thrown around a lot on this website, but that's what it is when Azula, for example, comes to Zuko deliberately lying to him about her intention to take him back home and that Ozai wants him back, mocks him for being skeptical and mistrustful at first (which he should be), until he finally agrees to trust her, then pulls the rug out from under him and mocks him for believing her. Not only is she playing on what she knows Zuko's deepest desires and insecurities are, she's deliberately playing on his doubt to make him question what's really going on, because it's easier for her to be in control if Zuko can't trust his own perception of what's going on.

Although Azula's abuse of Zuko is more subtle than Ozai burning his son's face, you can be sure that Azula learned how to pull her personal type of psychological manipulation from Ozai, too, because it's exactly what Ozai does to Zuko psychologically right before burning him, by forcing him into an agni kai that he can't possibly win, punishing him for simultaneously being "disrespectful" and for not fighting back. No wonder Zuko has a problem processing what his father did to him. Ozai deliberately messes with Zuko's perception of events to keep him under his control.

Ozai does this to Azula, too. Take, for example, when he makes her stay behind in the finale, letting her be crowned fire lord but in a way that feels like a punishment. She's his golden child, and thus better than everyone around her, but if she can't live up to that exacting standard, she has nothing to fall back on. She doesn't know why she feels empty after getting everything she seemingly wanted. She blames her mother for her unhappiness because it can't be that her father did this to her. That's what Ozai wants her to think, anyway.

We see Azula repeat these same patterns with Zuko. And although Zuko does not believe that Azula is good and justify her treatment of him the way he and Azula both do with Ozai, he does accept it because he's been conditioned to by Ozai. He occasionally tries to fight back, to argue with her, but he never wins those arguments, partly because he's been psychologically conditioned to believe he's inherently inferior to her, and partly because Azula having Ozai's favor gives her power over him. Azula knows she can say or do whatever she wants to Zuko and get away with it. In the flashbacks we see that even their mother's influence is not enough to stop her, and Azula knows that, too. We see Azula treat Zuko cruelly and then outright lie to Ursa about it on multiple occasions, we see her taunt him in front of both their parents because she knows she can get away with it, and when Ursa finally is no longer able to reach her children, Azula very explicitly taunts Zuko with the fact that Ursa is no longer there to protect him and stop her from doing whatever she wants to him. We see Zuko try to defend himself from Azula by telling himself she is lying, that she's just trying to scare him, etc., but when she asks him "who's going to stop me? Mom?" we see his face fall because he knows that he has no protection at all.

I see a lot of people dismiss this as normal sibling behavior, but you have to look at the context in which it takes place. Azula doesn't just say mean things to her brother, she says things that she knows Zuko can't counter against because she has Ozai's blessing - and in fact, his encouragement - to treat him cruelly, and Zuko was raised in an environment where he was told he deserved this treatment. And again, she repeatedly utilizes this power dynamic to make Zuko doubt his perceptions. Which is why I push so hard back against the idea that she was just trying to "protect" him in book three when she holds her lie to Ozai about him killing the Avatar over him and tells him he should be grateful about it, or that she's just trying to protect him by warning him to stay away from Iroh (who actually IS trying to protect him), or that the scene where she belittles him for daring to question the FN propaganda which they were taught growing up is a "nice sibling bonding moment." None of these are nice moments. They are moments of abuse and Azula is complicit in keeping Zuko in a situation that is abusive and keeps telling him he should be grateful to her for it, while constantly belittling him at the same time, which reinforces the idea that he should be grateful because he doesn't deserve or know better. But he does, and he's right. He's right to question the things she says. He's right not to trust her, and he's right to fight back, when he starts to gain the confidence and perspective as the series goes on to be able to do so, and he doesn't owe her for "defending" him to Ozai when she brought him to Ozai in the first place, knowing what their father did to him before. It's not help if you're the reason the situation exists in the first place, but that is a manipulation tactic utilized by abusers, and Azula learned very well from her father.

[highfantasy-soul]

NATLA Episode 8 - Legends (3/4)

[Masterlist of my NATLA thoughts]

Of course, full spoilers ahead.

<previous/next>

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.

[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.

[hello-nichya-here]

I really want Mai to have more depth than "I only changed because of my bf" but we don't see her ever go through the realization that imperialism is bad and what the FN are doing is wrong, so why did she change if it wasn't for Zuko? It definitely wasn't a political/moral decision and I don't think it was because of hatred towards Azula, because we don't really see her mistreat Mai when she fails missions or disobeys orders or being disrespectful. If anything, we still see them vent to each other and playing wing(wo)man for each other, so they seem to be close friends.

So of it wasn't about being against imperialism/racism, and it wasn't about hating Azula and it wasn't about Zuko with, what was it about?

1 - Mai's decision to change sides not being about "I realized imperialism is bad" doesn't mean it was all about Zuko. She clearly didn't like being told what to do, it is not that hard to assume she'd one day realize she was ALWAYS gonna end up being bossed around, by her parents, by Azula, by anyone with more power, in a system like the one she lived under.

2 - Mai doesn't hate Azula. That doesn't mean there was nothing wrong with how their dynamic worked. When refusing to follow Azula's orders in "The Drill", Mai says "She can shoot all the lightning she wants at me." It doesn't matter that, either out of a rare moment of mercy or just because she was too focused on other things, Azula didn't do anything about it - knowing that there's always a very real possibility your friend will hurt or KILL YOU if you don't do what they want you to is more than enough reason to decide "I really shouldn't be friends with this person."

3 - Mai loved Zuko and she wanted to make sure he would survive. Where's the sin in that? Zuko and Iroh saved each other a billion times, including after fights (see Iroh helping in "The Chase"). Same for the Gaang. Why is "I don't really agree with you, but I care about you so I won't let anyone hurt you" only a bad thing when Mai does it?

Why is Mai, who had an entire season of characterization in which Zuko is only mention twice and VERY briefly, reduced to "lives solely for her boyfriend" when she saves him, but he doesn't get the same treatment when he says "I left my girlfriend behind even though I really didn't want to, because leaving Ozai put a target on my back and I couldn't drag her into this mess"?

Sounds like yet another case of this fandom being VERY sexist. Male character does a nice thing for his love interest? That's just seen as one side of character. Female does the exact same thing? She's "defined/held back by romance and has nothing going on outside of it" - again, even though we spent an entire season watching Mai doing her thing, with Zuko rarely coming up.

Hell, even if Mai HAD been defined by her relationship with a guy, that wouldn't automatically mean she was a bad character. Azula's every action revolves around what would or would not please her father, to the point of destroying her friendships with Ty Lee and Mai, with ocasional moments of her trying to salvage her sibling bond with Zuko, and she immediately gets absolutely jealous and resentful towards Ty Lee because she's the one getting all the attention from random boys Azula doesn't care about, yet she still wants their praise more than she wants the praise of her female friend.

We saw where that need to be "perfect", the absolute best at everything, and please a man that did not hesitate to ditch her on what was supposed to be THEIR glory day and even gave her the title she always wanted - only now it was completely hollow, since he greated a higher ranking position for himself anyway - led her, and it was not pretty.

"Character needs to reconsider their priorities" does not always translate to "This character was poorly written." And like I already said, "boyfriend obsessed" doesn't even apply to Mai in the first place.

She ditched her parents and ran around traveling with Azula because it would offer her more freedom than she had in Omashu. But she was not Azula's equal, so when she had to choose between her and Zuko, the flawed but loving boyfriend that never tried to abuse his status as a prince to control her and was trying to get his shit together, it really is no wonder Mai chose the obviously better alternative.

If anyone want to see me rant about how this fandom should PUT SOME RESPECT ON MAI'S NAME ALREADY, here's the thing:

[skinnyscottishbloke]

i haven’t seen anybody talk about this but aziraphale’s decision and the end of s02 in general in terms of series arc and character development make a lot more sense if you think about avatar the last airbender and what zuko went through.

zuko’s arc is all about struggling to escape his upbringing, about de-programming himself from the idea that what the fire nation is doing is good and right. (sound familiar?) he goes through several crisis’ of faith, and with the help of his uncle, by the middle of book 2 it seems like he’s making good progress; we see him living in ba sing se, helping run the tea shop, going on dates, being a standard boy. (again, sound familiar?) but then azula (cough cough the metatron) comes. and all those things he thought he’d pushed down/dealt with come screaming back to the surface and he ends up siding with her to conquer the city, betraying his uncle and the gaang in the process. in fact, it looks like azula has killed the avatar and all hope is lost. kind of shocking ending right? what a cliffhanger! so devastating!

in book 3 zuko returns to the fire nation, a conquering hero. HE (azula says) has killed the avatar! he has restored his honor! his father welcomes him with open arms. the entire country celebrates the return of their prince. everything he has been working for since ep 1 is happening. so he should be happy right?? WRONG. he absolutely hates it. he’s angry, he’s bitter, he doesn’t know why but he knows something is off. he gets invited to a war council meeting, sits at his father’s right hand….and realizes being the perfect prince isn’t HIM. Living up to the expectation of who his father wants him to be instead of who he actually is is not his destiny. So he leaves the fire nation (again), this time of his own free will, and goes to help the Avatar. And it’s HIS CHOICE. He was offered everything he thought he ever wanted and has been trained to long for and CHOSE to leave it. which is so much more powerful than doing something because you’ve been forced into it with no other options.

and THIS is what Aziraphale has to do. he’s zuko at the end of book 2. he thought he’d come to terms with being an outcast from heaven (not Fallen like crowley but still in heaven’s bad books thanks to s01), but he hasn’t, not really. there’s still a part of him that believes that all the bad things heaven has done happened because he didn’t have the power to do it the right way. he doesn’t know what crowley knows. so he goes back. and it’s a huge betrayal. but the thing is, he NEEDS to live through getting everything he ever thought he wanted to realize that it’s not actually what he wanted at all. he needs to be able to finally escape heaven and if he doesn’t go back the what ifs will always be hanging over his head. he needs to be the one to tell heaven to fuck off and finally chose crowley in no uncertain terms. without crowley there. without crowley rescuing him. HE needs to do it.

and frankly that’s why I’m EXCITED for s03. because zuko is one of my all time favorite characters and atla is one of my all time favorite shows and if we can get that level of emotion and development from our two ineffable idiots??!!! OMG it’s going to be AMAZING!! bring on bamf! aziraphale. bring on the angst. bring on the big actually romantic kiss and gesture (that kiss we got was incredible and game-changing but so so desperate; we deserve a soft passionate one please and thank). bring on the second coming. neil always said s02 was the lead up to the good omens sequel aka s03. and what a brilliant and devastating lead up it’s been. but it will allll be worth it when our boys are reunited, when az comes to crowley and fully apologizes (we need many many dances), when he finally catches up to where crowley has been in terms of their relationship, when they are truly on equal footing at last. i am so excited to see david and michael play that out with their brilliant brilliant faces. we’re gonna be crying again, but in a good way, I FEEL it. LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOO!!!

[seyaryminamoto]

Sheesh! Azulon is such a spoiled brat, huh? 🤣

... Yes. He is.

Ngl, I rewatched LOTR's trilogy over the past three days and I was surprised by something in it that I immediately connected to Azulon. I've never seen anyone else draw this parallel with LOTR, instead I only ever see people in the fandom constantly comparing Azulon, intentionally or not, with Tywin Lannister.

... as far as I'm concerned, Azulon is Denethor. Full stop.

Even if you want to think the guy loved his firstborn? He was a twisted, pissy asshole who wanted to cling to power at all costs, that above all else, and his "beloved" son was his best means to achieve that. Hell, I'd argue Azulon wouldn't even be likely to have the "last minute awakening" that Denethor did regarding Faramir... but Denethor's behavior over Boromir is 100% the same as Azulon's over Iroh. "Oh, my perfect, glorious, wonderful son who can get everything right, and whose useless brother can't ever measure up to! I'm going to idealize you and give you all the privileges and glorious missions and pretend you could've achieved anything, while he was worth less than the dirt under your feet!"

So, yes, the way I write Azulon is so much closer to Denethor, specifically in terms of how he treats his family, than to Tywin Lannister and all the fandom's attempts to rationalize and justify his treatment of Ozai, all be it because "baby killed my wife". Worth noting? There's no solid evidence of that: Ilah is as good as a non-character, nobody knows what kind of relationship he had with her, Azulon very well could have used her as a brooding mare and nothing more, for all we know... but along with this? A bastard of Azulon's caliber, who helmed the Fire Nation's war for THE LONGEST PERIOD out of all three canon Fire Lords, does not need any greater excuses to treat his second-born like trash, much like Denethor didn't. :')

Of course, I take Azulon a bit further than most people by depicting his insecurities over his newborn granddaughter... I think there's no logical explanation for him to overlook Azula and be as unaffected by her as he's shown to be in Zuko Alone's flashback. She's a prodigy, she should be a useful weapon for him, at the very least...! And he's completely unconcerned with her. He actually shows more reaction to Zuko than he does to Azula. Hmm. Makes ya wonder, huh? :')

So yeah, I think there are many layers to how twisted Azulon is. Dude really took things to a whole other level of BS and kept doing it until the very end. Fandom can call me crazy as much as it cares to, but I don't think any grandfather who demands for the death of his grandson as a punishment for his second son's impertinence should EVER be given the "benefit of the doubt", or granted any excuses for this behavior just because Ozai was a shitty human being. Ozai sure was one: and he learned exactly how to be that way from daddy dearest himself :')

[balanceoflightanddark]

One of the great misconceptions about Azula is the notion is that she's self-serving. That everything she does is to further her own gains, and she'll backstab everyone else in the process whether it be family or friends. Something that's supported by Bryan himself in the Season 2 commentary:

“Yeah, unfortunately in real history, there are people like Azula, who are just so charismatic, but sort of soulless that they’re… You know, but they’re able to climb to positions of influence. Same with, uh, people like Long Feng, unfortunately throughout history. People who are willing to sell out their own–own countrymen, just for their own, uh, security, you know, their own job security.”

And in many ways, that's how it's framed. Azula bringing her brother back to the country is always framed by everyone as using him as leverage in case the Avatar was somehow alive. We see her brutal recruiting of Ty Lee. We don't see a whole lot that suggests that Azula is doing this for anything other than personal gain. After all it's a trait that's pretty endemic to the Fire Nation, especially with her fellow main antagonists Ozai and Zhao.

The thing is though...Azula's problem wasn't that she was selfish.

Her problem was that she was selfless.

Let's wheel around to when she brought Zuko back home. Mainly, there was no way in hell she could have known about the spirit water. She only learned of the possibility when Zuko indirectly brought it up, and that's when she starts to think up of the leverage angle. Plus, it's been said a thousand times before that Azula didn't necessarily need Zuko to secure Ba Sing Se. And even if she did, she could've easily backstabbed and captured him with the Dai Li if she wanted to secure her path to the throne while also taking the glory of slaying the Avatar.

She didn't. Instead, she allowed Zuko to take the glory and return home in honor with no strings attached. Even when her initial orders were to capture Zuko to begin with. And in doing so, damaged her own claim to the throne since the "rightful" heir returned with a tad bit more glory than her.

And we all know how that eventually ended.

This wasn't exclusive to Zuko. Arguably her biggest Achilles' heel was her unwavering devotion to Ozai, something that she was carefully groomed to do once Zuko proved to be an embarrassment to her father's name. Almost everything she did was to get in his good graces and his acceptance. And she didn't except any reward for it either outside of approval. She was initially stunned when Ozai wanted her to be the Fire Lord, clearly not expecting him to bestow such honor upon her.

Course that was spoiled a bit when Ozai proceeded to throw her to the side. All that work, all that devotion, years of trying to be the perfect servant...wasted.

Mind you, Zuko and Ozai are probably the only two family members in the series to have shown her something regarding affection. Her relationship with Iroh was strained and more formal than anything, while Ursa made her feel like a monster. Even her friendship with Ty Lee and Mai was poisoned because her belief that she was a weapon and thus expendable warped her genuine affection into something more akin to a military unit. Again, all to prove she was as ruthless and heartless as her father.

Azula's problem wasn't that she was power hungry, cause she never expected to get power. Her problem was that everything she did, she did for somebody else. Think about it. She wanted Zuko home so she sacrificed her path to the throne. She wanted Ozai's approval so she became something she hated. Azula was desperate for some kind of acceptance, otherwise her mother's rejection wouldn't have shaken her so bad.

It's not like we have don't examples of selfish and egocentric behavior from the series. Zhao was willing to put the entire world at risk by killing the moon just to stroke his own ego. Ozai was willing to burn down the Earth Kingdom (killing who knows how many innocent lives) and proclaim himself as Phoenix King just because he could. Even Zuko was willing to put the safety of the world and backstab his own allies just for a chance to return home and claim his birthright.

Azula...doesn't come even close to those levels of narcissism and self-interest. Cause she based herself around pleasing others and wouldn't stand up for herself when she was crossed, both from personal experience and a low sense of self-worth. In many ways she was like Zuko in trying to please her father.

It's just unlike him, she wasn't presented with a way out.

[ara-line]

So. The ending of Avatar

When I first watched Avatar in 2020, I always found how Aang defeats Ozai really contrived. He doesn't get to decide whether or not he kills Ozai, or even if he has to give Katara up to achieve the Avatar State. Nope. He gets handed an easy out. The show beats us over the head with the parallels between Zuko and Aang. Unlike Aang, however, Zuko doesn't get handed an easy out from having to make the hard decision of leaving the Fire Nation to join Team Avatar, giving up everything he's known to do the right thing. (That's the closest parallel I can think of, so bear with me).

So why does Aang?

Side note: I wonder if it would have been better for Aang to have wondered if he had it in him to give up his crush on Katara rather than wondering if he should kill Ozai. Aang never had any moral dilemma over whether he had to kill Ozai or not before the invasion. Why did that happen after, though?

At the time, I felt like my intelligence was being insulted. Avatar, up to that point, had consistently shown a lack of fear from touching upon hard subjects like abuse, for example. The show trusted its child audience enough to know that they were capable of understanding tough subjects with nuance. So why chicken out here?

My opinion only solidified after I rewatched the show with my sister and got a look at the OG scripts.

Let's start with The Guru.

Basically, Aang has to make the hard choice of letting his crush on Katara go so he can achieve the Avatar State. Aang makes the choice not to do it. After Aang gets shot down by Azula, he can't achieve the Avatar State. Ok. So far so good.

The way this episode frames this, it's hard not to get the impression that they were going to come back to this plot thread. Especially with the lingering shot of Guru Pathik's sad face as Aang leaves him.

So you would think that in the lead up to Sozin's Comet, Aang would be grappling hard with himself on how else he could achieve the Avatar State. He's not willing to let Katara go. There must be another way. She surely will agree to be with him, even after the non-consensual kiss in The Ember Island Players, right? Right?

But eventually, Aang has to come to that realization that he can't expect Katara to return his romantic feelings just because he wants her to. And this would be during the battle with Ozai when he's in that rock.

Or do the creators have something else in mind? Something that surely wouldn't insult their audience's intelligence and let them have their cake and eat it too? I wonder what that solution could be?

So that's the alternative? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

Side note: I have been waiting for an excuse to use that gif for a very long time. If there was ever an appropriate occasion.....

And then Katara and Aang get together.

Again,

Given how little build up there was to the lion turtle and the fact that the whole give up Katara to get to the Avatar State even existed, I have to wonder if the creators decided they wanted to have their cake and eat it. If Kataang not being endgame was never considered, why even have the Guru Pathik plot thread to begin with?

But Araline, you say, the point is that Aang decides love is more important than power! As my sister put it, Aang is a simp for Katara and we're supposed to believe that's a good thing.

But I ask you: How does that contribute to the larger narrative? What exactly is the point of Aang doing so? Because I can name a point to Aang giving up Katara for the Avatar State: That he has to make a hard choice to do the right thing, like Zuko, his biggest narrative parallel, did. Zuko had to give up the luxurious lifestyle being a royal offered and the ability to pretend he had a loving relationship with his father in order to help Team Avatar defeat the Fire Nation. He had to make hard choices. Aang did not.

The only reason I can think of for Aang to have gotten this easy way out was for the creators to have their cake and eat it too. Aang gets to have Katara and he defeats Ozai. Great. No chance of Kataang not being canon. In doing so, they ended up insulting their audience's intelligence. Like I said before, Avatar was excellent in approaching tough subject matter in a nuanced way appropriate for their child audience. It was easy for them to approach Katara rejecting Aang in an appropriate way as well.

So that's my two cents here.