#like what do you MEAN aang is single-minded in his quest and has no problems accepting responsibility

[eerna]

begging the Netflix ATLA crew to stop giving interviews, every day there is a new article inflaming the Internet and you can literally see the Sims relationship decline animation happening in real time

[raewritez]

all that mattered

based on this request: Hello! I love your writing! Can i request a zuko x firebender reader where the reader was a close friend of zuko’s and went with him when he had to go hunt the avatar and she goes w the gaang in the catacombs and is hurt by zuko’s decision but they reconcile slowly @ the western air temple? Thanks!!

word count: 2.8k

You were happy, a cautious glint of hope pulling at your heartstrings as you smiled at Zuko from across the teashop. After all you had been through together; from playing pirates with the young boy who wore his heart on his sleeve to sneaking onto the navy ship to follow your best friend on his seemingly unachievable quest for the Avatar, you had finally grasped the scraps of unabashed content in the upper ring of Ba Sing Se. 

You were so proud of Zuko. He had come so far from the erratic, rage-filled boy you had stuck with the past three years, now growing into the person you always knew he was. The glimmers of your youth seemed so far now, yet closer than they had been in years. The Zuko you knew then; the soft, earnest child who loved his friend unashamedly in the merriments of your pretendings was slowly peeking out of the harsh exterior he had built up in his desolation. 

He found himself aching, yearning for your presence and the unwavering comfort you had always provided him. He could barely remember a world without you, without the familiarity of your laughter and the warmth of your caring touches. He knew he loved you, he supposed he always had. He knew it in the way his heart would speed up at the sight of your grin, how a lovely blush would make its way to his face at the soothing lilt of your voice. He knew he loved you, the same way he had when his hands were small and his face unscarred, when the only problems were the insufficient days that weren’t long enough to hold all your adventures. 

Now, you were smiling at him from across the room of Iroh’s tea shop. Like always, he felt his face heat up and the corners of his lips threatening to lift at the mere sight of your joyful expression. He smiled back, forgetting for a moment the weight upon his shoulders. Again, the Avatar had been preoccupying his mind, the temptation and longing to be back home and to feel the affection of his father overpowering his logic. But now, with his amber eyes locked with yours and his uncle’s jolly laughter ringing over the dulled chatter of the customers, he thought maybe a life like this wouldn’t be too bad.

///

“Zuko!” you cried, launching yourself into his arms.

Iroh trailed behind you, the Avatar in tow. The catacombs shone with an emerald glow, a slight chill in the humid air. You turned your head to see Aang hugging Katara, while you step aside to allow Iroh to embrace his nephew.

“Uncle, Y/n, I don't understand,” Zuko speaks, his brows furrowed. “What are you doing with the Avatar?”

“Saving you, that's what,” Aang replies. Zuko growls and steps forward confrontationally, your arms reaching out to restrain him.

“Zuko, it's time we talked,” Iroh says calmly. 

He tells Aang and Katara to leave, Zuko’s eyes trailing after them. 

“Why, Uncle?” Zuko questions in a hurt tone.

Iroh simply smiles. “You're not the man you used to be, Zuko. You are stronger and wiser and freer than you have ever been. And now you have come to the crossroads of your destiny. It's time for you to choose. It's time for you to choose good.”

You yelp as you feel your body being encased in a prison of crystal alongside Iroh, your eyes snapping up to meet Azula’s golden ones with a glare that could send a man ten feet under. Zuko frantically reaches out to you, only to be halted by Azula’s drawling voice.

“I expected this kind of treachery from Uncle. But Zuko, Prince Zuko, you're a lot of things, but you're not a traitor, are you?” “Release them immediately,” Zuko growls.

“It's not too late for you, Zuko. You can still redeem yourself.” “Zuko, no!” You shout, desperation in your eyes. “You can’t listen to her! She’s lying, like she always does!” Azula chuckles sinisterly. “Am I, Y/n? Or are you just trying to hold him back? He knows his destiny, it seems to me like you’re only preventing him from achieving it.”

“Zuko, that’s not true!” you call out to him, your voice cracking. “I know you, I know that what you want isn’t-”

“Why don't you let him decide, Y/n?” her voice cuts through like a knife. “Zuko, I need you. At the end of this day, you will have your honor back. You will have father’s love. You’ll have everything you’ve ever wanted.” Iroh’s pleads are drowned out by the noise inside your head, the panic setting in and clouding your senses. Please, Zuko. Don’t do this.

Tears roll down your cheeks as Zuko turns his back, following his sister out of the cavern. A choked cry leaves your mouth, desperation for the lost feeling of happiness leaving you feeling empty. 

Iroh tenderly calls out your name, the deep sadness in his expression interrupted only by a glint of determination.

/// You gaze up in horror as the figure of the Avatar falls to the ground, Azula’s outstretched fingers crackling with electricity.

Katara rushes forward, her water crashing over the Dai Li agents and Firenation siblings and pulling them under the waves. She embraces Aang in her arms, a look of hopelessness and despair shining in her tear-filled eyes.

You stare in disbelief at the face of the prince, your heart splintering. Iroh suddenly jumps in front of your frame defensively, his voice booming in the hollowness of the catacomb. 

“You've got to get out of here! I'll hold them off as long as I can!” Fire thrusts forth from his fists, momentarily halting the soldiers. Katara makes her way over to you, her hand outstretched. You look at her with confusion, having been prepared to suffer your fate at the hands of your nation.

“Come on!” She exclaims, grasping your hand and lifting the three of you out of the wretched caves. The last thing you see are his eyes, piercing your soul with the bitterness of betrayal and abandonment. 

///

“Hello, Zuko here.”

You can only stare, shocked into a state of paralyzation by the utter surprise of seeing his figure on the mountainside. He looks different, his hair is longer and his face bears a hesitant smile. 

As the shock fades, it is replaced with a burning anger, the one that has been brewing and festering in the depths of your soul ever since he walked out of that cave with his sister. Your eyes narrow into slits, a hardened glare contorting your features. His eyes flicker to yours as your friends unload their bearings onto him, only to shrink away at the fire in your expression. 

He longs to rush forward, to fall at your feet and beg for forgiveness. The guilt that has been plaguing his mind for weeks bubbling to the surface; the sight of you almost bringing him to the ground. He yearns to be in your arms again, to bask in your wondrous existence and fearless love.

But he knows he doesn’t deserve it. He had hurt you, abandoned you. You, who had stood steadfast beside him through all his troubles and misfortunes, you, who had shown such faith in him that he began to wonder how he deserved it. And for what? For honor? For the approval of his father? He didn’t know, but he knew that walking away from you and his uncle in those catacombs was the single biggest regret of his life. 

He’s sent away, and you don’t argue. Not that he would expect you to. That night, as he curls in on himself by the blaze of the campfire, silent tears stream down his face as he aches for you, as he loves you from afar in the high hours of the night. He at least finds comfort in the fact that you sleep under the same sky.

///

a week later...

It was almost unbearable, having him so near. You saw him everyday as he trained with Aang and conversed with the rest, his gaze always finding yours the second you walked into his vicinity. You kept your distance, the wound of his desertion still raw and painful, building new walls around your heart which had always remained unsheltered. Your body betrayed your logic, your fingers itching to run through his hair, your breath escaping your lungs whenever you heard the rasp of his voice.

You knew he had changed, really changed this time, that much was obvious. The way he and Aang talked like old friends, how he was slowly worming his way into the group’s good graces and affections.

He hadn’t pushed you, hadn’t demanded you speak to him or expressed anger at your coldness. Instead, he waited, reluctantly settling for small acts of atonement and care. He would always ensure you received the first bowl of rice at dinnertime, secretly complete your chores for you. He treated you like an idol, an alter, his actions small compensation for all his wrongdoings and mistakes.

That didn’t mean it was easy for him, though. Zuko starved for your closeness, the feeling of having you so close yet so far eating away at his heart. He feared that he would never again experience the love you so unsparingly served to him, never again bathe in the solace of your friendship.

He found you sitting beneath the moon, Yue’s light cascading through your hair and illuminating your features with an ethereal glow. His breath was ripped away at your unapologetic beauty, a familiar longing consuming his senses.

“Y/n,” he whispered. 

You whipped around, your eyes locking with his. Under his intense stare you were paralyzed, unable to run away like you wanted.

You sighed. “What do you want, Zuko?”

There was a bitterness to your words, but all Zuko could focus on was the way his name sounded from your lips. He hadn’t heard the sound in so long, the melody squeezing his heart with adoration. He knew it was undeserved, though.

When he didn’t respond you scoffed and rolled your eyes, standing up to walk back to the temple only to be gently yanked back by a hold on your wrist.

“No, wait, I...” his eyes were wide, a distressed look upon his face. He glanced down at your interlocked hands, reluctantly letting go so as not to overstep. “I...”

You stared at him, brows furrowed. What? What could you possibly have to say to me?

“I...I’m sorry.”

He sighed, brushing his hair out of his face. “I know that doesn’t mean anything, and it doesn’t make anything better, but....I just need you to know how sorry I am.”

When you didn’t interrupt, he pressed on.

“Not a single day went by where I didn’t think of you. When I was in the Fire Nation, I had everything I’d ever wanted. I thought everything would fall into place...but it didn’t. Every night when I went to sleep I would see your face, how  you looked at me back in Ba Sing Se. Like I was a monster.”

Your features softened at that, that part inside you that you had locked away yearning to reach out to him, to comfort him like you always had. 

“What I did was so wrong,” he continued. “And I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for it. But I can’t live with knowing that you hate me, that we can never be friends again because I was so stupid. And, I mean, you’re not just my friend, you’re way more than that! We’ve been through everything together, and back in Ba Sing Se everything was perfect and I ruined it, and now you hate me and now I probably can’t ever-”

He was rambling now, his eyes ablaze with the struggle to salvage the scraps of your relationship. You couldn’t stand watching him in such distress, all of the emotions you had built a wall around slowly cracking through.

“I don’t hate you, Zuko.”

The words were out before you could stop them.

His rant ceased abruptly, his eyes latching onto yours, a question lingering behind his golden irises.

“I never really hated you,” you spoke, shuffling uncomfortably in your place. “I just...”

His wild eyes calmed, replaced with an imploring gaze, urging you to continue. 

“I thought I did. Every time I thought of you I felt so angry, and I thought I hated you but I don’t. I never could.” His lips parted, staring at you with such wonderment you were reminded of the way people beheld paintings. Or how Iroh looked at tea.

“Why?” he questioned. “Why can’t you?”

“I don’t know.” 

You knew.

///

Days passed, and the crumbs of your bond with Zuko were slowly falling back into place. You still bore a scar from the memories, but seeing him acting as the person you had always wanted him to be filled your heart with more pride than you’d like to admit. 

He moved around freely, interacting with the misfits that had become your family and smiled carelessly in the gleams of his content. Seeing the way his eyes lit up, the way his lips tugged up at the corners made your heartbeat irregular. His hair wasn’t bad either, and his insistence to remain shirtless while training Aang certainly wasn’t helping your attempts to remain impassive.

You found him sitting at the edge of the cliff, his legs dangling over the vast expanse of sky. His ebony locks danced around his face, a pensive expression resting on his brows.

He snapped around at the sound of your footsteps, an unguarded grin making its way to his face upon seeing you.

“Hi,” you greeted, your feet carrying you to sit beside him.

“Hey,” he breathed, eyeing your profile as your arm brushed against his, the sensation sending shivers up his spine.

You tilted your head towards the stars, the coolness of the night caressing your cheeks. You remained silent for a few minutes before speaking.

“I missed you, you know.”

Zuko turned to you, finding your eyes closed against the navy curtain of the sky.

“Even when I was mad. I guess spending ten years of your life with someone makes you a little attached, huh?”

His eyes traced your profile, dipping down the curve of your nose and lips and rising back to the delicateness of your eyelashes. Attached, he chuckled. He was long past attached.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Your head swirled to face him, your eyes reflecting the adoration and love they always had, the same look Zuko had passed to you so often in the shadows of your obliviousness. Your fingers rose to tenderly trace the outline of his scar, your familiar touch elicting all of the emotions Zuko had been deprived of in your time apart.

He nuzzled further into your embrace, feeling much like the boy he had been all those years ago. Just you and him, when nothing else mattered. When he was a child, and you were a child, and he loved his friend in the pureness of childhood.

And he loved you now.

Deciding he couldn’t wait any longer, after years of longing built up on a lifetime of friendship, he pushed himself forward until his lips met yours.

Your breath escaped you in a gasp, your palm finding its way to its proper place against his cheek. Your lips pressed against his with fervor, all of the emotions that you had ever felt for this boy disclosed in the desperation in which your hands grasped his shirt in a hopeless attempt to bring yourself even closer.

His arms wound around your waist, his thumbs stroking your sides as he kissed you with all the love and affection he possessed. His raven hair tickled your face as your lips locked over and over again, until the only thing you two were more desperate for than each other was air. 

You breathed heavily, slowly regaining your senses. Your eyes met his with the same hesitant look that was held in his. For a moment you simply stared at each other, gazing, before grins broke out across both your faces. 

Your laugh cut through the night, his own chuckles escaping him. He gazed at you fondly, leaning in to capture your mouth in a short and sweet kiss. You smiled unabashedly, pressing your forehead against his. This was long overdue. You basked in each other’s presence, soft caresses and brief pecks shared under the light of the moon. As you loved one another beneath the stars the world faded away and nothing else mattered.

It was just you and him.

[bestworstcase]

my most controversial tangled opinion is that the sundrop/moonstone lore isn’t confusing, it’s just a soft magical system in a story that wanted a harder one.

what i mean by this is: there are zero theoretical limits on the powers of the sundrop and moonstone, but their actual established powers are nebulous and controlled by vague concepts (“faith” and “feelings”) without any hard explanation. this works as long as the magic is a mysterious quest object and its actual use is largely incidental, but once cass takes the moonstone, the magic becomes a central component of the plot and the system fails.

for those unfamiliar with the soft/hard magical system distinction, in the most general terms, a hard magical system is explained—it has defined rules and limitations so the audience can understand How It Works—while a soft magical system isn’t. neither is better than the other per se, but which type works best for a given story depends a lot on how the magic is used in the plot.

to give an example, bending in avatar: the last airbender falls into the “hard” category. bending is a martial art with a strong spiritual component; there are four types of bending, each tied to one of the four nations; with one exception, benders can only bend a single element, and the exception is explained and given his own set of rules, like the requirement that he must learn the four types of bending in a particular order. even the last-minute introduction of a fifth type bending is logical within the context of the universe: humans learned the other four types of bending from powerful magical creatures, so the lion-turtle’s ability to gift energy bending to aang follows the established rule for how humans acquired bending abilities in the first place; and aang himself has long been established as valuing and prioritizing the spiritual aspect of being the avatar, so it makes sense that when he entreats the spirits for a way to defeat ozai without killing him, the spirits basically go “sure, here.” 

and of course, we the audience need to understand these rules, because bending is integral to the plot and to the way characters solve problems. if the characters in atla were constantly pulling new powers out of their butts to deal with the problem of the week, would that be as satisfying a story? characters do discover new powers (katara’s healing, toph’s metalbending, iroh’s lightning redirection, hama’s bloodbending), but when that happens the series is quick to establish how those powers fit within the framework of what we already know. we see this happen in fanworks too, because the audience understands the underlying mechanics and we can extrapolate new powers that fit within the defined rules, eg: could a sufficiently skilled and motivated firebender manipulate the electrical signals of the brain? taking control of a pre-existing electrical discharge and manipulating elements inside the human body are both possible, so i don’t see why not.

now back to rta.

the magical system in the series is very soft. for the purpose of this discussion, we’re going to focus on the sundrop, moonstone, and zhan tiri, because those are the core pillars of the magical system—the assortment of enchanted artifacts that pop up are sort of tangential and irrelevant here. 

let’s start with what we know. 

the sundrop and moonstone are two halves of an ancient cosmic power (hereafter ACP). the ACP was destroyed by an unknown calamity, the two drops fell to the earth, and they have been longing to reunite ever since. 

whether this “longing” implies a degree of sapience or if it’s simply an attractive force like a pair of magnets is never specified, but based on the way the two forces behave i think the magnets explanation makes more sense.

the sundrop and moonstone are said to be inverses of each other. the sundrop heals, the moonstone harms. simple enough. 

...but the moonstone also has a secondary protective ability, which it gifts to rapunzel in the form of her unbreakable hair. and the moonstone has the black rocks, which seem to exhibit both the destructive and protective/invulnerable facets of the moonstone’s power. 

and the the sundrop also has a secondary destructive ability in that it. explodes.

so...

sundrop heals ↔ moonstone harms sundrop destroys ↔ moonstone protects

now this internally contradictory set of powers for the drops does make sense when you remember that they were originally just one thing. the ACP was theorized to have basically unlimited powers of destruction and creation, so it makes sense for its two halves to exhibit that duality within themselves as well.

if we consider the wording of the four incantations (and the events of BVA), we can kind of get a sense of what else the drops might be able to do: 

i think there’s a strong argument to be made for understanding the healing/decaying capabilities of the drops as temporal manipulation. the sundrop doesn’t “heal” so much as it reverses time so it’s like the damage never happened (“make the clock reverse!”)—which incidentally would explain how gothel stayed fertile for two thousand years a lot better than “healing”—and the moonstone’s decay does the same but in reverse, so fast forwarding rather than rewinding.

they both alter/manipulate fate (“change the fates’ design”/“end this destiny”). this may be a metaphorical reference to the temporal manipulation thing, or it could be that the tangled universe truly is deterministic and the drops powerful enough to literally change fate.

a case can be made for a third dichotomy of sundrop faith ↔ moonstone will. by which i mean that the sundrop runs on belief/faith while the moonstone runs on feelings/willpower. the sun incantation focuses on hope (“and let our hope ignite”) and eugene having faith in rapunzel in LAF is what allows her to activate the sundrop nuke even without the incantation. meanwhile, the moon incantation focuses on willpower (“bend it to my will”) and in BVA, the moonstone is shown to react intensely to cassandra’s feelings and is also able to manipulate the feelings of other people (meaning that, presumably, the sundrop could also inspire faith). 

...but notice, here, how much of this is postulation. very little of this is explicit textual information; instead, i’m drawing connections between the lore given in LAF and the things that we see the sundrop/moonstone do on screen in an attempt to line up what we see with the loose, vague framework of “two halves of a broken whole that are opposites/complements of each other.” 

and i really think this is what people mean when they say the sundrop/moonstone lore is “confusing.” unlike in a hard magical system like atla, the series dedicates no time to explaining how it all works. it’s just There, and while we can make some extrapolations based on what we see, it’s not really a system that is meant to hang together in a coherent, rules-based way. and—unpopular opinion—that is FINE. hard systems are not innately better than soft systems. 

do i personally have a preference for hard systems? yes. are hard systems in vogue in modern fantasy? also yes. does that make soft systems inferior to hard systems? no. can i suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy a fantasy story with a soft system? absolutely, yes, though no force on earth can stop me from picking over it with a fine-toothed comb to develop a personal theory on how it all works, or from breaking it down into its component parts and then building a hard system from scratch for my own fanworks like i did with bitter snow. 

but—the key thing is—it’s not confusing if you go into it with the understanding that the magical system is soft. the nebulous vague what you see is what you get thing is a feature, not a bug. 

the same goes for zhan tiri. i’ve already expounded at great length about her canon lore and i’m not going to get into it again, but suffice it to say: she’s some sort of powerful ancient shapeshifting demon with nature-based magic, a side helping of dream/mind-based magic, and a penchant for deceit and manipulation. and again, the underlying mechanics of any of this are not explored, because rta has a soft magical system.

but farran, you said rta needed a harder system, so why are you now saying that soft magical systems aren’t bad? 

i did say that, yes, but it’s not because soft systems are bad. it’s because soft and hard systems are different tools used to accomplish different things, and rta as a series tells a story that, ultimately, would have been better served by a hard system rather than a soft one.

let’s start with cassandra’s control over the moonstone. in RR, she uses its powers instinctively and effortlessly. then, she loses that ability, and zhan tiri tells her that it’s because she needs to focus on her rage because that’s what the moonstone responds to (this is an obvious lie ziti uses to get cass to wallow in her anger, but the basic principle that the moonstone responds to emotion appears to be sound). and then, in BVA, cassandra’s fear about attacking rapunzel causes her to spontaneously manifest a completely new ability that sends magical fear-empathy rocks all the way to corona where they start giving people nightmare visions and petrifying them. 

that’s huge! we had no idea the moonstone could do something like that. but then they go away and cass never uses them again. why? who knows!

next, zhan tiri (off screen -_-) evidently tells cass that it’s not actually a matter of trying harder to master the moonstone’s power, she needs to use the moon incantation to unlock it. this is inconsistent with what we’ve seen before (RR and BVA proved that she could access the full range of the moonstone’s power, she just doesn’t know how), and could be explained by zhan tiri lying again... except that when cass recites the incantation it works as-advertised. 

and “mastering the moonstone’s power” turns out to be... black rocks and lightning, but bigger and more elaborate. that’s it. there’s no expansion on the withering incantation, or the empathy-rocks or petrification abilities introduced in BVA, it’s just black rocks and a light show. and black rocks shaped like dogs that one time in plus est. 

the same thing happens with the sundrop. it glows and it blows things up and it heals things and that is all it does. it just does it... bigger, and flashier, after rapunzel recites the sun incantation. 

and when zhan tiri acquires both of the drops, something that we are told grants her the (undefined) “ultimate power,” she... uses them to make rocks, but they’re golden now. what do the golden rocks do? who knows! and she uses the decay incantation, which works exactly as it did when rapunzel used it except faster and bigger and not uncontrolled. 

and then she’s beaten by whacking her over the head with a frying pan and tricking her into clapping her hands together, which blows her up. and then rapunzel takes the unified drop and revives cass everyone before letting it fly off into space. yay!

but... do you see the problem here? why so many people felt so dissatisfied with the lore surrounding the drops and zhan tiri in season three? people say it’s “confusing,” but i think that describes a symptom, not the root of the problem. a good, well-utilized soft magical system doesn’t cause confusion; it blends into the story and doesn’t call attention to itself. it’s like... lighting. it’s just there and it just works and it enriches the story but we don’t question it. 

whereas a hard magical system is an actual component of the narrative, almost like a character in its own right in the sense that we understand what makes it tick. there are rules, and we understand the rules, and because we understand the rules we can make predictions about what influence or role the magic will have in the plot. to use atla as a very simple example again: when iroh teaches zuko how to redirect lightning, we can predict that this ability will become a vital form of defense against azula and ozai. atla sets up lightning bending, then sets up a defense against lightning bending, and we don’t need to wait around for it to happen to understand that this is going to become Very Important later.

now compare this to rta season three. a whole episode is dedicated to establishing that the moonstone is connected to cassandra’s emotions in a pretty significant way. after bva, there was a lot of speculation about how this fact would play out in the events to come; speculation about other types/colors of rocks and what effects they might have; speculation about how this would tie into cassandra’s emotional arc; speculation about how zhan tiri’s manipulation might interact with the moonstone’s emotion-based magic. and... absolutely none of that happened, because that was rules-based speculation built on the assumption that rta’s magical system had definitive rules. and that was an assumption made because, in s3, rta’s soft magical system started to behave as if it were a hard one. ie, it jumped into center stage and went “look at me! i’m important.” 

except it was still a soft magical system with no definitive rules, so any rules-based speculation was impossible and pointless. it is like trying to build a house out of beams of light. you can make a house shape, but if it rains you are still going to get wet. 

and i made this mistake, too! i also made the assumption, after BVA, that answers were coming and we could expect the magic to continue to develop into, if not a hard system, at least a hybrid one, and a lot of my speculation after that point came from a place of expecting answers (and trying to unravel the answers on my own before the series showed them to us). 

but rta’s magical system just was not built that way. it wasn’t set up to play this central role in the plot, it didn’t have definitive rules, it didn’t have a preexisting framework that could be used to expand and elaborate on characters’ abilities in a naturalistic, predictable way, so... as is often the case with mis-used soft systems, the magic just got vaguely Bigger whenever the narrative called for escalation, and the “ultimate power” ended up being completely underwhelming because it was just More Of The Same, But Make It Yellow. 

as... a point of comparison here, because i’m struggling to articulate what i’m driving at, let’s consider my take on the sundrop/moonstone lore—the hard magical system i created for bitter snow. 

1) magic is drawn from a powerful magical entities (deities, demons, spirits).

2) magical abilities are based on the abilities of the patron.

3) the sundrop and moonstone are artifacts belonging to/created by a solar deity (huma) and lunar deity (turul). they are basically teeny tiny shards of those deities that fell to earth when it was still a molten lump of raw material and then molded it into a world capable of supporting life. the drops themselves can serve as direct conduits to huma/turul, and both have extensive root systems; the sundrop’s roots support the outer crust of the earth, while the moonstone’s roots (the black rocks) form the inner core. 

4) the magic of the sundrop is restorative, and it also “casts” a shadow in the form of destructive magic. the restorative/destructive magics are always equal (hence the “shadow” metaphor). the restorative magic heals, creates and nourishes life, offers strength. the destructive magic is the opposite: it destroys, it kills, it weakens. 

5) the magic of the moonstone is transformative. it takes the sundrop’s “shadows” and refashions them into the black rocks. it adapts, it moves, it alters things. it is neutral, centered, and stable in comparison to the sundrop’s intense extremes. 

6) both huma and turul (and by extension the drops) are also connected to zhan tiri, as all three formed very early in the beginning of the cosmos. like huma and turul, zhan tiri’s magic is centered around change; hers is corruptive. zhan tiri’s magic manipulates strengths into weakness, and weakness into strength. it gives by taking away. it feeds.

7) to put these three types of magic into more concrete terms: let’s say alice, bob, and carol all break their arms. alice calls on the power of the sundrop to heal herself, and her arm is instantly and perfectly repaired, but some destructive, uncontrolled magic is unleashed into the world to balance the scales. bob, meanwhile, calls on the power of the moonstone, and it transforms the broken arm into solid stone; the pain is gone and the arm is no longer broken, but it is also no longer, strictly speaking, a human arm. and finally, carol entreats zhan tiri for healing, and zhan tiri sets the bone but also infuses it with her own magic, so it festers/grows into a well of power for carol.

now, if we apply these rules to a plus est en vous type of situation where zhan tiri claims both of the drops for herself, what does that look like? it’s the power to instantly unmake and re-make the entire cosmos. it’s the power to transform the entire world and everything on it into stone or ice. it’s the power to cure every disease and heal every injury suffered by every living thing on the planet instantaneously, and to inflict those same sufferings on everyone and everything with a snap of your fingers. it’s, literally, limitless. (it also fuses zhan tiri, huma, and turul into a single entity called jinarche but that is a little beside the point for the purpose of this discussion.)

and... how do you beat a creature like that? well. you sort of can’t, on paper, but in practice the overwhelming shock of the fusion of that much power into a single being would cause a few minutes of intense disorientation and that creates a window of opportunity to break the fused power apart again... but this isn’t a “win” scenario either, really, because when you do that it is going to cause an explosion of power violent enough to shred the entire cosmos so it is basically hitting the reboot button on the whole universe.

so, operating within the bitter snow magical system, the key to defeating a zhan tiri who wanted to acquire the sundrop and moonstone (and fuse with huma and turul in the process) would be to stop her before she gets her hands on both drops. because of the framework created by this hard system, the plot of this alternate plus est en vous is all about preventing zhan tiri from acquiring the drops, because the second both of them are in her possession it’s game over even if you manage to kill her. you either get an unkillable, omnipotent god or you get the entire universe self-destructing. the stakes are that high.

*deep breath*

with this in mind, let’s wrap this back around to canon. when zhan tiri takes both the sundrop and moonstone, what... are the stakes?

in TOTS, when zhan tiri revealed her plan to take both drops for herself, did the stakes feel high? we are told at several points that the drops have the potential to destroy the world, but does the stinger at the beginning of TOTS feel like an “oh, shit, the literal planet is at stake here” moment? 

does zhan tiri in plus est feel like a super-powered demon who has just acquired the ultimate power of creation and destruction? no! the golden rocks and turbo-charged decay incantation don’t even feel like an escalation over the cassandra vs rapunzel battles in CR and earlier in plus est—in fact, frankly, they feel like a downgrade by virtue of being less flashy!

the series has given us no frame of reference for what the ultimate power looks like while simultaneously providing no internal scaffolding on which to build that kind of escalation. this is the biggest downside of a soft magical system—it’s really damn hard to keep raising the stakes if you don’t have the basic framework of “here’s what the rules are, here’s the limitations.”

back to bitter snow: neither zhan tiri, turul/the moonstone, nor huma/the sundrop on their own are powerful enough to rip the whole universe apart. zhan tiri is the most individually powerful of the three, and while she could probably destroy the planet if she really put her mind to it, that would take centuries to come to fruition. it would be a matter of planting the right seeds, worming her magic into the right cracks, growing and feeding and hollowing it out from within, and then hitting the pressure points at just the right time. it is only in combination that these three become strong enough to just unmake the whole cosmos in the blink of an eye. this kind of escalation is possible because i know what the limits are. 

in a soft magical system version of bitter snow, it’d be more like “well zhan tiri is really powerful, the sundrop and moonstone are pretty powerful too, if you put them all together they’d all be... like, Really Really Really powerful.” because the whole point of a soft magical system is that it’s vague. it’s not supposed to have this level of clarity and precision in how it works. this doesn’t make escalation impossible, just super difficult, because it’s so easy for escalation or new powers to come across as plot contrivances (BVA) or deus ex machina or purely aesthetic in nature like the gorgeous and dramatic fight in CR or the golden rocks zhan tiri uses. and from an audience perspective, there is literally no way to guess what might happen next because there are No Rules. you can predict character beats and plot developments, of course, but you can’t make accurate assessments about the magic.

and when you’re using a soft magical system in this way, where escalating stakes based on magic use are integral to the plot, you are basically inviting your audience to go “hey, wait a minute, how does this work...?” for the same reason audiences try to analyze and understand why characters are acting the way they do. 

and that’s why rta’s magical system ultimately failed. not because it’s confusing, but because it was too soft for what the story wanted to do with it. 

[itsclydebitches]

(1/2) Something CRWBY (and many writers) seems to struggle with is the difference between a hero and a victim. Victims LOSE things, and that’s why many great heroes start as victims (Spider-Man, Iron Man, etc). But heroes will SACRIFICE something that they want for the betterment of those around them. Team RWBY most definitely check out as victims, but what have they sacrificed to make them heroes? Ironwood sacrificed just about everything he could to make a bad situation work,

That’s a really good distinction to keep in mind. Using that Spider-Man example, losing Uncle Ben doesn’t make Peter into a superhero. Neither does going through the confusion/pain of getting the spider bite. Those, as you say, make him a victim in a hard world while simultaneously providing him with the tools to potentially become a hero - the tragic backstory. But the tragic backstory belongs to villains too. It’s what you do with those circumstances that makes a difference. 

(We can drag the Batman films to the end of time but this scene will always rock). 

It’s through the act of deciding to become Spider-Man that Peter makes his sacrifices: a normal childhood, his safety, the ability to be entirely honest with friends and family, etc. The recent Spider-Man films demonstrate this beautifully by having Peter continually torn between his duties as a hero and his desires as a teenager. Do I go after that baddie or try to have one normal field trip? What makes him a hero is that he continually chooses the former, putting others before himself. 

The RWBY group... doesn’t really do this. We can absolutely argue that they’ve sacrificed certain things like their safety, but the way they went about it is with an overconfident, entitled air. Especially in Volume 5. What we see is not a group sacrificing what’s left of their childhood to join a life-long war, but a group who thinks they’re going to pop over to Remnant’s dark zone, kill Salem, and be hailed as - you know - heroes. Easy peasy. When they realize that they do need to sacrifice big things like time to a drawn-out war, or effort in regards to coming up with a plan, they balk. They turn on Ozpin and shy from that responsibility, furious that the adults haven’t given them an easy out. Which would have been a fantastic setup for their growth, especially since the story introduced this problem early on. Meaning, most of the group never wanted to be heroes. Only Ruby. Weiss wanted an out from her family, Blake wanted a very specific kind of improvement, and Yang just wanted adventure (who knows what JNR wants...) They were primed to grapple with whether they would become the heroes that Remnant needs - whether they’d make those sacrifices - but so far we haven’t seen the group step up to the plate at all. No one tried to make peace with Ozpin, acknowledging what he’s sacrificed and trying to drum up the courage to do the same. No one tries to come up with a plan of their own. The plot hasn’t even given us personal sacrifices like, “In order to defeat Salem you must work outside the normal laws of Remnant. You cannot be huntresses. In order to be a hero, you must put aside that lifelong dream.” Instead the licenses are handed to them like everything else lately: acceptance into Ozpin’s inner circle despite lacking training/vetting, crossing a closed border despite the law/their attack, getting to keep the relic despite the stupidity of that choice, etc. They’ve absolutely been victims, but that’s not the same thing as being heroes. Especially lately. The RNJR group set out on a revenge mission. 99% of the group only decided to help because they didn’t want to be separated from Ruby. They continue on to Atlas because where else are they going to go? And then they’re happy to indefinitely do huntsmen work there and pretend the Salem situation doesn’t exist. Since Volume 3 we’ve seen them doing good things because it’s convenient, not because they have any sort of drive to make a difference. The one person who does - Ruby - is now being written as overconfident to the point where she makes the least heroic decisions possible, yet the story isn’t interested in acknowledging that. 

The group needs to sacrifice something. Which circles right back around to my Volume 6 complaints: they needed to talk about the quest. Every single character needed to figure out/establish why they were there, what they wanted, and what they were willing to give up in order to dive into this mission for the long haul. No one did that. They’ve just been bouncing from one place to the next because, as said, where else are they going to go? What else will they do? It’s all a matter of convenience. A hero like Spider-Man decides to be a hero, with all the sacrifices that comes with. Forever. (Or at least until they can’t fight anymore.) Team RWBY hasn’t decided to be the heroes against Salem’s villain yet. They’re still just kids who are very pleased to get housing/food/work from the powerful general... but fighting the war he’s in is damn complicated, so let’s just ignore that until external forces make us think about it. Then we’re given Ruby confidently saying that she’ll defeat Salem and it’s like... how? Why? You weren’t interested in defeating her when Ozpin was on his knees begging for help, or Ironwood was coming up with a plan you knew was doomed, but now a whole kingdom (and the audience) should put their trust in you since Salem is conveniently at the door and you’ve helped knock out four of the others who might act as heroes instead? It’s the same issue as in Volume 6: The show emphasizes hero!Ruby who defeats the Leviathan while completely ignoring that she’s the one who brought it to Argus in the first place. The show either needs to a) have her sacrifice things to be a hero (I’ll give up my easy-going lifestyle to ask about my silver eyes and try to prepare for this responsibility I’ve accepted) or b) acknowledge that she’s currently a scared kid who doesn’t want to be a hero. Otherwise I can’t take her seriously. 

(As an aside though, not sure I agree about Aang and Zuko. Zuko was originally forced out of his position and then, yes, decides to sacrifice the potential to return. Aang has responsibility already attached to him by being the Avatar, but he still decides to be an active participant in that responsibility - seeking out masters to train with - rather than, say, running from it. He’s the opposite of our current Ruby, moving towards that goal, doing what he can to prepare for it, and helping others along the way. Then, by the end of the series he’s faced with a personal sacrifice: Am I willing to go against the Air Nomad’s beliefs and kill Ozai to restore balance? He ultimately finds a way around that, but for a long time that’s what he’s building towards - sacrificing the last tie to his people in the name of saving the world.) 

[seyaryminamoto]

Hello and first of all thank you for your great fanfiction work, I really enjoy reading what you write. Now there is a question, that bugs me for a while now. Would you say Sozin just got up one morning and decided to conquer the world, or has there actually been a reason for this? I imagine that the decentralized Earth Kingdom may have caused some trouble to the Fire Nation in the past or the islands simply had trouble to grow enough food for a growing population. What are your thoughts on it?

Yeah, your last idea is part of my interpretation. I think I had Gladiator’s Azula explaining her take on it once, back in the very beginnings of the story. Sozin, in my opinion, had two motivations: the first was the need for more territory. The way he talks to Roku about the prosperity of the Fire Nation in “The Avatar and the Fire Lord” implies things are thriving in the Fire Nation. The problem with such prosperity is that sustaining it can lead to different kinds of problems: a happier nation, with better survival rates and proper living conditions, will eventually translate into a growing population. If the population grows faster than the economy that sustains it, the prosperity will decrease: new problems arise, and there won’t be easy solutions for them.

I think Sozin’s Fire Nation was already on the verge of new problems arising. He didn’t reveal it, didn’t admit it, but that he acted on his plans regardless of Roku’s disapproval meant that, at first, he wasn’t scared enough of the Avatar’s threats. He considered Roku’s negative wasn’t a true deterrent for his ambitious plans. But when Roku tears his palace halfway to the ground and Sozin sees his friend’s threat is SERIOUS, he actually heeds it. I think it’s implied he doesn’t act on his conquest urges until Roku is dead. He makes the decision to let him die in the volcano for his own personal gain, and to see his dreams of extending the Fire Nation across the whole world coming true.

The direct attack on the Air Temples came from Sozin’s second motivation, directly related to Roku’s rejection of his plan: Sozin knows the Avatar will get in his way. Destroying the culture that the next Avatar will be born to would mean the Avatar would die before mastering all elements, and even if the Avatar is reborn to a Water Tribe later, a new Avatar would only be able to master three elements if the airbenders are all dead. This decreases the threat an Avatar can pose to his plan. Obviously, Aang escapes and he’s already an airbending master, so Sozin’s plan ends up backfiring despite it seemed so iron-clad.

None of this analysis is meant to take away the horror of Sozin’s actions, no military strategy could ever validate something as gruesome as the genocide of an entire nation, but I do believe there are possible interpretations that can point us towards why Sozin chose to wipe out Air Nomads instead of choosing the Water Tribes or the Earth Kingdom. Technically, as far as our idea of “overpopulation = need more territory and resources” goes, the Air Nomads are by far the least convenient option to destroy. There’s no Fire Nation colony in any Air Temple, for obvious reasons: they’re in remote locations that surely have very little to offer, as far as resources are concerned. The only new settlement there is in an Air Temple is that of the Mechanist and his people, who are Earth Kingdom refugees from the last years of the war, not descendants of early Fire Nation settlers who might take advantage of those temples. Therefore, Sozin’s attempt to exterminate the Air Nomads definitely obeys his fear of Roku’s power and the knowledge that a fully-developed Avatar could easily end his quest for expansion.

Now, looking at the actions of Azulon and Ozai, I think both of Sozin’s motivations carry on to his progeny. Azulon certainly wages war on the Earth Kingdom... but he takes all Southern Water Tribe waterbenders as captives, torturing them in the worst possible conditions he can conjure. Why the south, and not the north? Partly, the north is shown as a stronger, unified nation, which means it should be protected better. But as far as the cycle of the Avatars is concerned, it stands to reason that the Water Tribe Avatar alternates between North and South per cycle: the last Water Tribe Avatar was Kuruk, a northerner. The next Water Tribe Avatar should be a southerner... and as far as canon is concerned, Korra birth in the Southern Water Tribe proves that’s the case. Ergo, Azulon follows his father’s footsteps by trying to kill a potential, waterbending Avatar before they can learn new bending arts. With a war split in two fronts, Azulon has to take charge of battling in the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribe without any Sozin’s Comet bonus to aid him. He can’t afford massacring the Southern Water Tribe completely without sacrificing other aspects of the war, but he can afford doing away with all the waterbenders to further hinder the Avatar’s potential growth: if the airbending Avatar did die during Sozin’s wipe-out of the Air Temples or some time afterwards, then the next one would be born in the south. Take all waterbenders captive and if one of them was supposed to be the Avatar, they’ll be annulled and restrained: one less threat to worry about.

As for Ozai, I suspect half of what’s going on during his tenure got started during Azulon’s (he’s depicted in his portrait as the Fire Lord of the technological advancements, seen by the many factories depicted around him, but the factory in Jang Hui actually has been in place since Azulon’s time, if I recall correctly...). But even then, the Fire Lord’s rule we see most clearly in the show is obviously Ozai’s. One village we see Ozai’s army has taken over is Haru’s: the soldiers tax the villagers, and as it’s a mining village (even if the mines are abandoned), it stands to reason that the village was singled out because of its potential usefulness for mining. There are several other villages in the Earth Kingdom that haven’t been touched by the Fire Nation (at least not yet), so why Haru’s and not the Fortuneteller’s or Kyoshi Island? Why would Gaipan village (the one in Jet) be taken too? Well, Gaipan is close to a big forest, and the wikia describes it as a “quiet town of woodsmen and loggers”. Again, resources! As for Senlin Village, from “Winter Solstice Part 1″? Again, as written in the wikia: “Due to a lack of strategical advantage, the Fire Nation did not occupy this former Earth Kingdom village during the Hundred Year War.” There was no plausible logging advantage here after they literally burned down the whole forest, so...

Now then, why do we mostly see Fire Nation soldiers instead of actual, full-blown occupation in every village? Because, irony of ironies, war is a pretty effective means for population control. Send out an army to conquer and unless you’re some sort of miracle strategist or you have a weapon of wonders, you will sustain losses. As large as the Fire Nation army had to be to achieve all it did, they absolutely didn’t have the manpower to occupy the entire world all along, and all the other nations certainly fought back, meaning that the huge army didn’t wipe out everything with no opposition. While the comics establish that there have been colonies around for ages, for longer than Aang has been alive, even (which, um, undermines the whole matter of “Sozin stayed put for as long as Roku was alive because he was afraid of repercussions” thing established in the show, but that’s none of my business...), the show offers us a different, perhaps more realistic take on the subject: there are Earth Kingdom towns untouched by the war, there are some merely occupied by soldiers, and there are others that are fully conquered colonies.

I believe most of what Ozai and Azulon could afford to send into the Earth Kingdom were soldiers who occupied towns and forced the native population to work for them, to pay taxes and whatnot, until the Fire Nation population had been restored to its previous, excessive numbers. By then, they’d have enough towns and cities in the Earth Kingdom under their control, and it would be possible to send groups of people to live and take advantage of those occupied lands.

In the end, ideology is of course an important element in Sozin’s decision to conquer the world, for there’s no doubt in my mind he was a Fire Nation supremacist and thought himself better than everyone else. But I believe the ideology angle was emphasized and overblown just to masquerade some far more mundane motivations, which included his deep fear of the Avatar and the repercussions he’d face if a fully-fledged, four-element bending Avatar like Roku ever rose again to put a stop to his project of Fire Nation world-wide expansion.

[delicatefury]

Grey Dawn Breaking day 3: You do realize this is basically me outlining the plot, right?

It’s not even subtle. As such, things written here may or may not be entirely accurate to the final product.

Anyway... on to the show!

****Spoilers ahead because I don’t know how to read-more on mobile****

I know you’re all anxious to see the Zuko+Iroh talk go down, but I’d just like to take a moment to catch up with the rest of the Gaang and how they’re handling all of this. I just want to make it clear though, that I love every single member of the Gaang. Like if I wasn’t so invested in GDB, I’d probably write at least a one shot of all this happening to Aang instead and him just being like “In this timeline, Avatar’s chase you!” Before kidnapping Zuko onto a life-changing field trip, because it has to work in reverse, right?

That’s not this story, though, and GDB is eating me up inside and I need that attention for the bar exam. So without further ado...

—————

So, right off the bat, Aang’s been given even more responsibility from the get-go. Not only does he have to master all four elements by the end of summer, defeat the firelord, and save the world, he also has to find Avatar Roku’s great (great) grandson so they can help him find a person who made a deal with a dark spirit to do who knows what and that problem might actually take priority!

In usual Aang fashion, he manages to both kinda ignore it, but also worry about it all the time. Which is avoidance and an issue he struggles with and that as never fully resolved (because while I love the Zuko-episodes, the fact that they’re the last ones before the finale means that some really important pre-finale growth for Aang kinda got shuffled to the side. Just a smidge). What this means story-wise is that Aang is internally anxious but keeps his cheerful facade up complete with side-trips and nonesense.

Which also means that he’s fully on board for searching for “curios” on suspicious ships.

Meanwhile, Sokka and Katara are the only witnesses to Avatar Roku singleing Zuko out during their great escape. When they tell Aang about what they saw (but didn’t hear) they joke that maybe Roku was trying to scare the prince away. After all, Zuko looked pretty shaken after Roku smiled at him. What could that be if not a threat?

(That’s a boy with severe self-esteem issues getting approval from someone he never expected to get it from, comics-be-damned.)

Water Bending Scroll happens similar but differently. Katara’s captured a little later, but not by much, but what’s weird is that when Zuko shows up, he’s creeping in the shadows, not being all stomping and yelling like she’s used to. He, well, asks to save her from the pirates. Actually the exchange is more “will you stop wriggling and let me cut you free?!”(whisper-yelled) “What the - Zuko?!” (Very loud shout). Zuko’s forced to recover, offers the bounty for Katara (she hears that he’s willing to buy her. He will later be upset that that’s how she interprets his actions, yet she gives no thought to what pirates would do), accidentally lets slip that there’s a bounty on her companions too, and well, the rest goes as described in last post.

Between this and Crescent Island and Aang’s secondary quest, the Gaang gets a lot to talk about in their bits in between Zuko’s woes. A lot of it focusing on Zuko’s slightly, but not actually, out of character actions. And one accurate but dismissed joke from Sokka that “Hey, maybe Zuko’s Roku’s grandkid!”.

Actually, there’s a lot to going on with Sokka, Katara, and Aang while Zuko’s stressing out on the Wani, and while Zuko’s our traveler, Avatar (and by extension GDB) is sort of an ensemble story with each character getting a pretty well developed arc/personality and I intend to do the same here.

But back to Zuko, because he’s still the main driving force of this plot.

____________

In all honesty, I’ve blocked this scene out on multiple drives to and from work (I haven’t moved yet, so I still get 20+ minutes each way), and I have made myself cry. But The Padawan Discussion from TDPL did too, and people seemed to love that.

But... you won’t be getting the full cry version. This is just the outline. But it’s a very detailed outline.

I’ve gone over this scene a lot.

_______________

Zuko cleans himself up after his training and goes to join his uncle for tea. It takes a while to psych himself up. He’s fully aware that he’s pretty poorly equipped to handle this... everything... on his own. He needs guidance. He needs help. He needs Uncle. But the guilt is eating him up alive and this is probably the most terrifying thing he’s ever done, and that includes facing Ozai in the Agni Kai arena and in the underground throne room.

He remembers Sokka telling him that Uncle would be proud of him. He knows Katara would say that his sincerity would speak for itself. Toph would tell him to toughen up and just go in, while Suki would remind him to stop thinking only about worst-case scenarios.

And Aang would tell him that sometimes, you just need to take a leap of faith.

With that thought, he goes in.

Uncle is waiting with tea in the pot. Zuko carefully keeps the table between them, instead of sitting off to the side. He sees the hurt in Uncle Iroh’s eyes, but he needs the barrier. He feels like he’s taking advantage of his Uncle if he accepts the comfort.

Uncle Iroh does what he’s best at and approaches his problem from an angle. He compliments Zuko’s bending, and the seeming progress. Makes idle chitchat while he pours the tea and waits for Zuko’s first sip. And sighs in relief when it’s spat back out. Zuko’s incensed. Why the hell is his tea so salty?!

And Iroh explains what Zuko has missed. The men have been gossiping that a Spirit has taken Zuko’s place or put a spell on him or possessed him. Since Zuko’s reaction to the salt was entirely human (and not, you know, dropping an illusion, or fleeing to the spirit world, etc.) Iroh can now let the men know that their prince is not possessed by any spirits. But Zuko asks about spirit deals. He’s not stupid, and he has probably researched every possible lead on the Avatar. He thinks he has an idea of what happened.

And Uncle Iroh automatically assumes it was Zuko who made the deal. In denying it, and explaining that he’s pretty sure Azula’s done something like that, details of what happened start to come out. Even the fact that Zuko’s 8 months displaced. And Iroh takes it all in stride. Until he asks Zuko if it has anything to do with why he’s avoiding him. If he had done something to anger his nephew.

Zuko, haltingly, forces himself to explain that it’s all his own fault. That he screwed up and ruined everything and how the guilt ate him up every time he looked at his uncle. And when he takes a breath after going on about how much Iroh will be disappointed in him when he knows just how bad he screwed up, Iroh pulls him into a hug, tea and table be damned. He’s an old man and he knows himself better than anyone, even Zuko, and there’s nothing in the world Zuko could do that would ever make Iroh hate him. And that Zuko’s so remorseful and so obviously pained, how could he do anything but forgive him?

So Zuko tells him a very abridged version of the most eventful 8 months of his life. Chasing the Avatar to the poles, their lives as fugitives in the Earth Kingdom and refugees in Ba Sing Se, the tea shops, and Zuko’s first encounter with a spirit fever. With context, Zuko’s betrayal is both more painful and more understandable and Iroh hugs him again before the apologies can start. Then the return to the Fire Nation, the Day of the Black Sun, and Iroh’s happiest surprise of the day, his nephew joining the Avatar as his teacher.

Then they finally get to what started the whole line of questioning: Zuko’s use of the dancing dragon form.

And when the story’s finished, Iroh asks Zuko to show him the full form. His nephew shouldn’t worry about what the crew may think, he’s already coming up with a half-true cover story.

______

This... this ended up being a lot more detailed than I intended. I’m sure you all don’t mind, but still.

Anyway... I stayed up too late. But once I got started writing this out, I needed to keep going. Here’s hoping I don’t regret it in the morning.

[seyaryminamoto]

I don't know if someone has asked you this but, what do you think was Ozai and Azulon's Relationship like?

I think it’s been asked before? Or maybe not literally? Well, either way… I think it was basically the same as Ozai’s and Zuko’s.

I believe Azulon was an asshole of gigantic proportions. No conscience whatsoever, I think both him and Sozin were the absolute worst of the Royal Family. Some people think otherwise, Ozai is surely just as bad! Well, Azulon is single-handedly, canonically, responsible for around 80-ish years of the 100 Year War. Azulon caused the raids to the South Pole, led most the war against the Earth Kingdom and furthered Sozin’s initial conquest. Azulon was BAD.

Outside of the battlefield, Azulon demanded, after his oledst grandson died and his oldest son was MIA, that one of his two remaining grandchildren be killed, JUST TO PUNISH HIS SON FOR BEING IMPERTINENT.

Let’s just let that sink in, shall we? Ozai’s BS was apparently so awful that, uh, he deserved to lose a son for it, somehow. As if Zuko’s life was utterly, absolutely insignificant for Azulon. Likewise, while Ozai is boasting about Azula’s awesomeness, Azulon shows ZERO response, and why? Because he doesn’t give a shit. He doesn’t give ANY shits about Ozai’s family, not in the least. And while I doubt Ozai would have ever been a saint, chances are he might not have been quite as awful to his own children if his father had been a little less of an asshole towards his branch of the family.

If Azulon cared about someone (and that’s a HUGE if), it was Iroh. It’s the same situation as with Ozai: if Ozai cared about someone, it was Azula. Azulon played favorites just as much as his son did later, and he did it for a longer period of time too: both Ozai and Iroh are fully-grown men and Azulon still displays vastly different treatment for them in a single Throne Room scene. Amongst the touches of brilliance in ATLA, you find gems like these: we only see Azulon ONCE, and that’s enough to understand all these things about him.

Ozai never led any military campaigns, that’s canon. If people want to believe otherwise, that’s on them, but canon-wise? He never did. Iroh, meanwhile, was the Dragon of the West, championing the Siege of Ba Sing Se like a boss because that was the kind of opportunity he was given as Azulon’s Crown Prince. Sounds an awful lot like Zuko being cast off with an impossible mission while Azula is only deployed with a much more plausible mission in mind, and with ALL the resources she may ask for (she gets top-notch firebenders, she gets the train-tank, she gets THE ROYAL BARGE!, she gets to be part of the Drill’s operation too, you name it). Favoritism 101, learned from daddy dearest. 

Soooo… with all this in mind, let’s go into headcanon territory now.

I think Ozai tried to take advantage of being the stay-at-home son, of being the one who probably sat through many important council meetings and such, because Iroh was out in military campaigns and someone had to fill that void. Problem is, he wasn’t nearly as smart or useful as Iroh, so Azulon already didn’t care for him (he had one perfect son as it was, Iroh, and Ozai just wasn’t on that same level), and he cared even less after Ozai didn’t prove to be a valuable asset. And seeing as Ozai likely failed to impress Azulon with insightful ideas on how to conquer the Water Tribes or Earth Kingdom, Azulon simply didn’t think there’d be any worth in sending him out to military campaigns of his own.

It’s canon, by Zuko’s words, that Azulon and Ozai both looked for the Avatar: my guess is Azulon set out on it in a quest for glory, self-imposed, thinking he’d be the greatest of all heroes if he succeeded. And then he failed. And he never got over it.

Fast forward a few years: now his second son is begging for a chance to prove himself, waiting for the opportunity to be useful, and being a general pain in the ass for his horrible father :’D How to get rid of Ozai for a couple of years, how to deflate his eagerness to prove himself? Oh, by giving him an impossible mission! That’s right, just go out there and find the Avatar, Ozai! And the innocent boy, determined to get his father to love him just as he loved Iroh, decided he’d do it. And he failed too.

This, in turn, is why Ozai sends Zuko on the same impossible mission. “You’ll get your honor back when you find the Avatar”, in Ozai’s mind, translated into “You’ll never find the Avatar so this is the perfect way to get rid of you”. It’s kind of the equivalent of “when cows fly” for the Royal Family by now. Zuko just, welp, didn’t get the memo and got lucky that Aang was broken out of the iceberg when he was xD

In any case, back to Azulon and Ozai: after coming home and being utterly defeated by his impossible mission, Azulon can use this failure to validate why he can’t trust Ozai, why Ozai is worthless, you name it. Ozai’s bitterness and hatred for his father increases little by little after this turn of events, and it all builds up into him wanting to get rid of Azulon by the time he proves he won’t EVER allow Ozai to take the throne.

Basically, you’ve never eaten a chocolate bar as bitter as Ozai, and he doesn’t care to measure his actions or do things half-assedly, which is kind of a typical trait of a royal. His resentment towards Azulon increases all the way until he stops at nothing to get rid of him. And Azulon spent all his life looking down on Ozai, underestimating him, expecting him to amount to nothing… so I guess by the time he was dying by his son’s hand (or daughter-in-law’s hand, I mean, really…), he must have really regretted not giving Ozai a more permanent solution instead of just sending him off to find the Avatar.

So yep, I think Azulon and Ozai absolutely abhorred each other, even if Ozai started off by wanting nothing but to please his father. But in due time, things escalated into the worst possible conclusion for the relationship between a father and a son.

The way I see them, their relationship was basically a mirror of Ozai and Zuko’s own. A pretty awful mirror, too. If Zuko failed to find the Avatar, I can’t say anything would have kept Zuko from becoming exactly as bitter as Ozai was: considering the way Zuko behaves when we first meet him (he’s still entitled, arrogant, harsh, cruel, violent, etc.), it’s clear Iroh’s influence and guidance into a nicer path hadn’t been working so far. So unless Iroh just started trying to steer Zuko into a nicer direction as soon as he found the Avatar, it means Zuko wasn’t responding to any of his good influences because he was as obsessed with gaining Ozai’s favor as Ozai was about gaining Azulon’s.

And that’s the horrible sequence of parallels witnessed in three generations of Fire Lords who treated their children like shit and faced the worst possible retribution for it :’D at least, as far as I’m concerned, this is how it went xD