#azula derserved better

[madame-helen]

Is this another post trying to victimize Azula? She is regarded as one of the best actual villaines in fiction!

Azula from the beginning took sadistic pleasure in hurting or manipulating (including her "friends") innocent people or her own family members.

Remember when she smiled at Zuko's burning, joked about Azulon ordering his death, and just laughed off their cousin's death? Repeatealy tried to kill Zuko, tortured animals as a child...But she is "sympatehtic" somehow?

Or when she admitted she is a monster but that isn't a bad thing and burned a nation?

Just because she was abused too (but also spoiled and better treated than Zuko), don't justify her actions or make her derserving of "redemption".

(The comis don't count, they were shit).

[hello-nichya-here]

"Psychopath" Azula

"Azula is a psychopath." Everyone in the Avatar fandom has seen many people claim that - especially Azula fans, and it's often in an unnecessarily aggressive way and comes right the fuck out of nowhere. To say that it is a popular, but controversial headcanon, is an understatement. But does it actually make any sense? And if it doesn't, then why do people insist that it is canon? (Warning: this analysis is incredibly long and does not consider the comics because they should never, ever, ever be taken into consideration due to shitty writing)

The Fandom Problem

I've said it many times, and I'll keep on saying it: Many fans (and by this point even Bryke) view Azula exclusively through "crazy monster lens." To them, Azula is not a character with a personality, flaws, qualities, fears, goals, feelings - she's insane. And evil. That's it. That is her "motivation" for everything she does.

The possibility of her having ASPD (or any personality disorder and/or mental illness) is not meant to make us think "What does this mean for her character in the context of the story? How can it affect her arc? How does that recontextualize some of her actions and WHICH of her actions does that diagnosis recontextualize?" People don't slap the label "psychopath" on Azula to start a conversation - they do it to end it, especially if subject was the mere possibility of her being redeemable. At "best" that's a way of labeling her as a broken child that can never be saved and that was always doomed and that no adult could have ever helped (especially not her mother or uncle). At worse, it's seen as the equivalent of finding her finger-prints on murder weapons - which murders? ALL OF THEM! Don't you know Azula is responsible for everything bad that ever happened in the story? Including the beginning of the war itself (never mind that it started nearly a century before she was born).

You can rarely find any non-biased discussion on whether Azula has ASPD, because, since many fans want her to be a "psychopath" so they'll have an "unbeatable argument" to say she could never be redeemed, they'll just insist that this label fits her without offering any real evidence. It's not even "Guilty until proven innocent" it's "Guilty because I said so."

But does she have ASPD? Well, before we can even begin to discuss traits of the disorder, we need to put some very important things into context.

Azula's Personality And Background

Cold, Precise, Deadly - Azula can be difficult to understand at first, especially if you try to look at her through “Good or Evil” lenses. At first, she might look like a typical bad guy - she’s on the wrong side of war, is absolutely ruthless, likes to taunt her rivals/enemies, and has no problem with manipulation, kidnaping, invasions, coups, or murder. She can even be a threat to the people she cares about if they’re in her way or are refusing to help her.

However, people often forget her main traits: Pragmatism and perfectionism.

Azula goes to great lengths to have control of everything, including herself and own emotions. When she’s on a mission, her focus is solely on being successful - it doesn’t matter if said mission includes threatening one her best friends, capturing her brother and uncle, invading a city (or staging a coup), lying, double-crossing, taking prisoners/hostages, or even killing someone (again, including family). 

It’s not personal, it’s about finding the most effective way to achieve her goals, and avoiding being punished by a guy that she knows has no problem with being extremely cruel to his own family. It’s also a matter of survival - this is a war after all, and hesitating can mean not just failure, but also the death of your allies and your own. Zuko had problem fighting her to assure his own survival/success, Sokka of all people has a higher body count than she does, and even the past Avatars looked Aang straight in the face and said “Murder ain’t that bad, kid.” Azula IS scary and even deadly, but the she only ever attacks “fair” targets - people who are in her way somehow. 

Azula follows the rules. The problem is she follows the Fire Nation/Ozai rules.

1 - Never, ever, ever, ever, ever go against the Fire Lord.

2 - Do anything to assure the Fire Nation wins the war

3 - Don’t ever allow traitors to get on the way, even if said traitors are your family.

4 - Be a proper lady/princess (that includes her polite bichyness, devotion to Ozai - her father who is not a traitor AND is the Fire Lord - and, of course, getting rid of traitors)

She did horrible things. She’s also a literal child-soldier. This can NEVER be over-looked. 

Mixed Messages - I often see many people claim that Ozai was trying to turn Zuko and Azula into imperialists, while Ursa was trying to save them from that. I really wanna know what version of the show these people watched, because it simply cannot be the same as the one I saw.

Azula was taught by both of her parents that what their nation was doing to the rest of the world was 100% acceptable, and Iroh agreed with it too for most of his life. The difference is that Ozai said that, as royalty, aka superior people, they were allowed to look down on everyone, including people of the Fire Nation - regular people, rich people, soldiers, commanders, admirals, generals, nobility, and yes, even their friends and family.

Ursa and Iroh meanwhile, went for the “It’s only acceptable to be an asshole to the people who are not one of us” approach. It looks morally superior to Ozai’s approach at first, but it’s actually more of the same, with nothing but favoritism and hypocrisy added in. But it is different enough for them to be upset at Azula, which naturally confuses and irritates her because, from her point of view, Ozai’s approach makes more sense (likely because she was a child, and it was easier for her to understand something that was consistent instead of a rule that had exceptions). The fact that he was the parent giving her positive attention certainly didn’t hurt Ozai’s chances of having Azula side with him.

Ozai eventually becomes Fire Lord, while Ursa is banished, Iroh ends up in prison, and Zuko manages to become crowned prince again after Ozai taught him a harsh lesson about respect and knowing his place. Since she’s pragmatic, that confirms to her that her father was right, but then when the finale happens and she’s losing everything she’s starts questioning that mentality...

...Except she was already questioning it before the finale.

Almost Isn’t Good Enough - Azula’s humanity and vulnerability shines through for the first on The Beach - very fitting since the episode is set in Ember Island, which both a place where Azula and Zuko used to go to “back when their family was actually happy” and a supposedly magical place that reveals your true self.

Following that logic, Azula’s true self is conflicted 14-year-old that is obviously unhappy and unsure of herself, but suppresses those feelings as much as possible.

She was supposed to be having a great time since everything is going right for her nation, but quite clearly feels empty, and during that famous scene of her saying “My own mother thought I was a monster. She was right of course, but it still hurt” we find out something very telling that completely changes the way we look at her character (or at least it should): She doesn’t think she’s unhappy because her methods (Ozai’s methods) are wrong, but because she herself is problem that needs to be fixed - and nothing seems to do the trick. Azula is a perfectionist who believes herself to be fundamentally broken; damaged beyond repair. It’s pretty hard to think of a worse combo for someone’s mental health.

Trust Is For Fools - I feel these words are the perfect way to describe the tragedy of Azula’s character. No matter how many doubts she has, how much she’s suffering, how unfullfiled she feels, how bad things get, how scared she is, how lonely she is, and even how desperate for help she is, she will never ask for said help. Because she taught her whole life by the one person she still has left that needing anything from anyone makes her weak, worthless and a failure. Her downfall is so shocking and sad because it’s a character who always tried to convince everyone, including herself, that she didn’t need any kind of support falling apart, breaking down, and finally, literally, crying out for help.

The Fire Nation/Firebending Problem - This one is so important to understand her character that it's own post, but the basics are “Being a half-human, half-flame thrower your whole life is likely to fuck you up, especially if you grew up in a place that constantly told you to just wreck shit when things don’t go your way”

https://hello-nichya-here.tumblr.com/post/673864636667510784/understanding-azula

How Therapy Actually Works

One thing that people often screw up when trying to see if Azula fits the criteria for literally any mental illness/personality disorder is that they work backwards from that conclusion and try to prove it right, ignoring any evidence to the contrary and basically making up things to support it. Confirmation bias is a very real thing, and doctors are very careful to avoid it while diagnosing a patient.

As for the treatment for ASPD if Azula did have it, it would NOT require a complete personality change, but constant therapy, policing herself (which she already does), support from friends and family, and some medication. But most of all, it would require her to be removed from the deeply toxic and unhealthy home-life she had.

Okay, enough context - does she have ASPD or not?

Actual Traits Of ASPD

Disregard For Social Rules And Behavior Standards - Azula doesn't have this trait. At all. The main problem with her character is that she holds onto the values, rules, laws and standards of her society when she shouldn't.

Difficulty To Maintain Relationships, But Not To Start Them - This is a hard one because while Azula's relationships all fell apart, we can't forget that indoctrination, war, and a dysfunctional, neglectful, abusive family played a really significant part in it. And when it comes to easily stablishing relationships, that is also not so clear-cut, since she succeeds in militaristic settings (she won the Dai Li with just her intimidating, yet inspiring personality) but she doesn't really know how to act "normal" (which could be a sign of a disorder like autism, or just a consequence of trauma and indoctrination). I'll say this one is inconclusive.

Lack Of Empathy - Before I even go into this one, let me make one thing clear here: EMPATHY IS NOT THE SAME AS COMPASSION! Empathy is merely the understanding of what someone else is feeling. Low empathy doesn't mean someone is cruel, and high empathy doesn't mean someone is nice.

Does Azula have empathy? Sometimes, and the level gets higher or lower depending on the situation/who she's dealing with. She can tell when a prisoner is lying or telling the truth just by looking at them, and she often knows what people want to hear, but other times she seems oblivious to other people's feelings (this also ties into her throwing bread at the turtleducks - animal cruelty by itself isn't a trait, and this behavior is pretty low on the cruelty scale, but it could possibly show a lack of understanding of why it is wrong to harm living creatures, even if just a little). We can't say if this a result of nature, nurture, or both, but we can at least say that, while her empathy is not that high (sometimes) it also isn't all that low.

Lack Of Remorse/Guilt - Nope. The Finale makes it pretty clear that is being consumed by regret and it causes her breakdown. Considering her perfectionism, she'd probably struggle with self-loathing and guilt a lot after the day of the comet.

Violent Tendencies - As I've said on The Fire Nation/Firebending Problem, there is nothing in the show that indicates she's more violent than any other firebender (including Aang and other Avatars), and she actually shows incredible restraint. Hell, her ability to combine firebending's impressive, destructive power with a more cold and calculating approach is what makes her so scary and it even leads to her being compared to lightning itself. She's so completely in control that even when she's out of her mind she can still generate lightning despite it requiring peace of mind.

Blaming Others For Their Own Mistakes - Once again, no. She tries it in the finale by labeling Mai and Ty Lee as traitors, and "Ursa" (aka her own mind) won't let her do it. Considering how she says she is a monster when she was merely a misguided child who was failed by every adult in her life, and how she's terrified of disappointing her father and feels bad for not being what he wanted even though he shouldn't be demanding so much of her, Azula seems to have a pattern of holding herself accountable for things that were in no way her fault.

Being At Least 18 Years Old - I call this one "The requirement for an ASPD diagnosis that Azula haters refuse to acknowledge exists." People can't be diagnosed with any personality disorder until they're at least 18 because the human brain takes a long time to be properly developed and one's brain is their personality.

Irrelevant "Traits"

One frequent mistake people make when discussing if Azula has ASPD, is to list "traits" that are NOT traits of ASPD, or of literally any disorder (and again, some that she does not even have anyway), and since we've already talked about actual ASPD traits, lets take a look at what the arm-chair psychiatrists are making up inside their own little heads.

"Unchildlike" Behavior - Throughout the show, Azula does a bunch of disturbing things that indicate she’s is trying to imitate her father, suffering from trauma, and possibly has some kind of disorder. That is not what I’m talking about now. 

I’m talking about the people who claim that Azula doing things like calling her brother by embarrassing childhood nickname, lying to him because he’s guillible, being annoyed that he got a cool gift he actually liked while she didn’t, destroying a doll, and pushing her friend because she was jealous said friend was better than her at something are signs of a disorder or EVIL. They’re not. If these things were proof of sociopathy, we’d have label 90% of all children as sociopaths.

Azula mocking Zuko’s scar was her crossing a line. Azula being a petty, bratty kid was something completely ordinary could have been easily corrected just by properly explaining to her why what she did was wrong, and not letting her have dessert after dinner if she did it again. 

Azula "Always" Lies - Azula is really good at manipulating people, and she does it a lot, that is undeniable. However, we only ever see her doing that when it's either a matter of survival or to deal with someone that is in the way of her goal/mission. We get a slight a hint that maybe she used to lie to Zuko a lot as a child to trick him into embarrassing situations... but that's something many children do to their friends and especially their siblings. It's also very funny that people use Zuko's line of "Azula always lies" to say she's basically a pathological liar, when the first time and only time we hear that is when Zuko is refusing to believe an uncomfortable truth.

Insanity - Insanity is not a medical term, it's a legal term. Labeling someone as "insane" means they cannot be held accountable for their actions due to not being able to understand the gravity of what they did or not even being aware that they did anything. In the finale, Azula's mental (and emotional) stability has deteriorated considerably, she's seeing things that are not real, and she's far more reckless and paranoid, but we don't know how long this condition will last, if it will get better, if it will get worse, etc. What we do know is that insanity has nothing to do with being a "psychopath", and people only think it does because "the mentally ill are dangerous."

Being Mean/Difficult - In the wise words of some random tumblr user whose blog's name I can't remember now: not every unpleasant experience is trauma, and not every asshole you meet is an abuser.

Also, being mean, being a bad person, and having ASPD are completely separate things.

Having "Evil" Blue Fire - No, this is not a joke. Someone really said that Azula fire is blue because she's evil and cruel. Apparently the fact that blue fire is hotter and "cleaner" than red fire and that Azula, aka a PRODIGY, is the only human who has it isn't self-explanatory for these people. And apparently Aang and Zuko got firebending lessons from the Avatar equivalent of Satan since the dragons had rainbow fire. Can we PLEASE not label anything that makes someone different as evidence of evil or illness? Can we leave that bullshit behind?

Conclusion

Azula might, maybe, perhaps have ASPD, but most of the evidence points to her behavior being just a result of trauma and indoctrination. But, even if Azula has any disorder, her character should not be reduced to it, and using any diagnosis to label her as "irredeemable" or "born evil" is disgustingly ableist and this fandom should do better.

[sokkascroptop]

I got the character everyone thinks derserves better.....- 💜anon

ooh! another well loved, fan favorite!!! the castiel, the quentin coldwater, the (dare i say it) Azula. you DO deserve better in life! you deserve your story fully fleshed out with everything you need because you often so mistreated and forgotten by the writers🥺

[akiizayoi4869]

Why couldn't we have gotten this in the comics instead of the bullshit that we got?

Zuko: “Uncle, I managed to track down Azula with Aang’s help and she once came into the palace once. I showed her the truth, about going into the catacombs, her reading Sozin’s life story and me telling her she and I are descended from Avatar Roku.”

Iroh: “Impressive Zuko, but where is she now? Did you manage to capture her?”

Zuko: “No. I let her go.”

Iroh: “What?!”

Zuko: “I decided to give her time to think of her heritage and to try and get along with her.”

Iroh: “Do you know what she’s done? How unhinged she is?”

Zuko: “Everything’s that happened to her during the war was because of my father but everything after is now because of me. This type of cycle ends here.”

Iroh: “She once abducted children nephew, how do you know she won’t do something else just as treacherous or worse?”

Zuko: “Azula’s a lot of things but she’d never intentionally betray her own nation.”

Iroh: “Your father would, and did, if it means obtaining more power.”

Zuko: “Azula’s not so similar to my father as we once thought. She’s the one who helped my mother save me from grandfather’s order to have me killed, even when I never believed it. I owe her my life. Need I remind you that you were once a dictating conquer yourself along with my cousin?”

Iroh: “That was entirely different-”

Zuko: “No, it wasn’t. Why didn’t you just tell me that you didn’t want to fight my father simply because you couldn’t win against him and corrected me from assuming you could? Instead you drone on about two royal siblings pinned against each other over power not being the solution! Which was exactly what happened between me and Azula and you thought everyone would be ok with me, a traitor, taking the throne for myself by force!”

Iroh: “They shoulda been ok with it! Only you were worthy enough to be fire lord and only you can redeem the fire nation!”

Zuko: “I can hardly stroll down the city without being accused of treachery and/or cowardice, I had to hire Kysoshi warriors to be my bodyguards in case of any assassination attempts by my own citizens, I attacked my friends and I can’t seem to keep my whole family together! I was in over my head and you weren’t even there! Instead I ended up taking advice from my father! Again! Doing so, usurpingly ruined my relationship with Mai, possibly for good, and I almost restarted the war! Your as bad as my father!”

Iroh: “ENOUGH!”

Zuko instinctively went to self defense stance but went at ease when Iroh was immediately expressing regret for raising his voice.

Iroh: “Zuko. You no I didn’t mean to…”

Zuko: “I might have gone out of line a little bit too. I know you’re intentions are pure. I know you want to absolve and save the fire nation, with Aang’s help. But the way you’re having me do it is not the right way. I once trusted you to be in charge when I was away to find my mother. I’m sure I can do it again because I don’t belong on the throne. I quit.

Zuko removes his crown headpiece, throws it to the ground and walks off. Iroh was shocked but is understanding.

[akiizayoi4869]

I see the antis are back at it again with the bs🙄

The creators Bryke always intended Azula to be a flat evil villain. There is no need to desperately justify and defend her . Why can't you accept that Azula always will be a villain and evil??

Why are you so threatened by a random person you never even met not agreeing with your thoughts on a freaking cartoon that you felt the need to bother me?

And how come you're so insecure you have to hide behind anonimity to actually speak your mind? If you're so confident your opinions is the correct one, why are you too much of a coward to stand by it with your account attached to it?

Also, what did you think was gonna happen? That I would be mind blown at being told the creators don't care about the character they repeatedly screwed over? That an anon whinning about how I love an "evil" character would make me suddenly stop liking Azula?

Bryke almost definitively wanted Azula to be pure evil. They fucked up and made her sympathetic instead, and some people, like me, say that the actual writting is more important than the author's intentions. Deal with it.

[prodogg]

Excellent post and I hope more ignorant people of the fandom will read this.

“Psychopath” Azula

“Azula is a psychopath.” Everyone in the Avatar fandom has seen many people claim that - especially Azula fans, and it’s often in an unnecessarily aggressive way and comes right the fuck out of nowhere. To say that it is a popular, but controversial headcanon, is an understatement. But does it actually make any sense? And if it doesn’t, then why do people insist that it is canon? (Warning: this analysis is incredibly long and does not consider the comics because they should never, ever, ever be taken into consideration due to shitty writing)

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