#ursa atla

[kirbsto]

It feels almost blasphemous to post a video on tumblr but whatever.

*throws ATLA Royal family angst at you like it’s gasoline and lighting a match menacingly*

[stygiovictoria]

in that hospital bed, being buried quite alive now

i'm trying to dig you out but all you want is to be buried there together

you're screaming, and cursing, and angry, and hurting me

and then smiling, and crying, apologizing

[winkidoo]

"well, what choice do i have? trust is for fools! fear is the only reliable way. even you fear me."

[bugsharxx]

"I love you, Azula.. I do..."

[allgremlinart]

whatever. collection of Ursa for whom it may concern (part 1)

[mfelewzi]

A fancomic drawed by Booter-Freak.

Do you know, the funny thing about this short story is its possibility in the past, before Di Martino invented Ikea/sorryIkem (I have to thank @phoenix-king-ozai for this joke)!

Well, what can I say? This was the day when they made Kiyi, folk! No, It isn't true, but Good God Father, Son and Holy Spirit, It could be funny! And tragic. But please, continue to think about the funny things! Ehi @stardust948 , some ideas for the future, if You're interested, cause I love many of your fictions and stories!

Ahh, sadly this canon Story is became like my beloved Jetzula: a crackship. A very interesting One, but the old lore was deleted. We can do what we want about it.

[earfgoddesss]

I'm so obsessed with the current ATLA comics artsyle. Everyone looks SO GOOD. I love how handsome and perfect Aang, esp that he's 16 in the comics. I love how cute and badass Toph is. I love the rigid shapes on Sokka that show his masculine personality, but still combined with his smug expressions. I love the texture of Katara's hair. I LOVE how BEAUTIFUL Azula, Zuko, and Ursa are and how they all kind of have the same face. I love how Azula looks in her comic so much, I can't describe why, but she just looks so good. Iroh looks the same tbh, he's just chilling. AND SUKI LOOKS SO MASC HERE!!

Artist is Peter Wartman and the Colors are done by Ryan Hill btw

[maxiemumdamage]

To me Azula is a tragic character specifically because while she was failed by everyone around her, it also would’ve been unreasonable to expect any of them to save her. Among those who wanted to help her, practically no one had the understanding or power to change her. They couldn’t get Azula to stop being cruel, in large part because they couldn’t change the circumstances that nurtured her worst traits.

Except Ozai obviously. Fuck him. He’s why Azula is like that to begin with. But the power and sway he has over her also made it borderline impossible for anyone else to make her change.

(MUCH more to say about this here:)

People tend to blame Ursa for Azula’s behavior first and foremost. And…yes, Ursa was pretty clearly closer with Zuko than Azula. But of course she was! Ursa’s son was constantly abused and degraded by his father — as per the comics, Ozai outright told Ursa he would do this for all of Zuko’s life in order to hurt his wife. Zuko needed Ursa’s support to have any sense of self-esteem and frankly, for his own safety.

Zuko needed his mother just to be safe and not be alone, while Azula needed her mother for moral education. Even if you don’t think Ursa’s priorities were the right ones…choosing her daughter over her son might not have been enough to change Azula anyway. It would’ve been devastating for Zuko without necessarily improving Azula in any meaningful way, because Ursa didn’t actually have the authority to meaningfully oppose her husband.

By the time it would’ve been evident that Azula had a super skewed moral compass as a result of being around Ozai so much…she still would’ve been like, eight years old max, for one thing. Little kids say and do a lot of fucked up shit, because they don’t understand morals or the world by and by large. For another, once it was obvious she was parroting horrible stuff from her father, Azula also would’ve had no respect for her mother. So what could Ursa do, by the time she realized she needed to do something?

We see in flashbacks that Ursa tried, even when her child didn’t respect her and she couldn’t enforce meaningful consequences for the bad behavior Ozai rewarded. Ursa scolded Azula for saying cruel things. She made Zuko spend time with his sister, rewarding Azula for any moments of kindness or cooperation (even when Azula was just faking it to get an opportunity to bully Zuko and Mai). She tried.

As for Ursa leaving…uh, if she hadn’t, Zuko would have died. He absolutely, 100% would have died if his mother hadn’t cut a deal with Ozai to put him on the throne in exchange for disappearing. She made Azulon and his ultimatum go away because that was necessary to protect Zuko.

Ursa did fail to morally guide her daughter. But to do otherwise would’ve been to neglect her son, then to sign Zuko’s death warrant. I’m not gonna pretend she didn’t choose one kid over the other — I just also think choosing to support the kid whom she knew her husband was mistreating wasn’t necessarily the wrong call.

And even if it was…choosing differently might not have done anything. Because Ursa could only offer affection, while Ozai wielded both the carrot and a stick. Azula would’ve likely still fawned to the more powerful abuser, still learned harmful behavior, and still internalized that her cruelty was not just necessary but acceptable. Rewarded, even.

There’s Iroh to mention as well. He admittedly had a lot more influence and ability to stand up to Ozai than Ursa did, but in fairness…that wasn’t his kid. He had his own son to worry about, and then he was grieving, and then…he chose Zuko too.

For the same reason as Ursa, I don’t quite blame him for it — Zuko needed help much more immediately. When Zuko was banished, Iroh did the right thing by going with. But I do think those in-between years in the palace were a time Iroh (still mourning, but still) had the chance to influence Azula a little. But…

…I’ve seen a post theorizing that Iroh dislikes his niece because she reminds him of who he used to be, and…I think that’s very likely. They’re the golden children of their fathers, the firebending prodigies, the conquerors of Ba Sing Se.

I also think it’s because he and Azula are so alike that he has no idea how to help her.

Iroh didn’t have a moral revelation about the Fire Nation’s conquest, not until it cost him his son’s life. His realization about war being wrong, subsequently becoming more worldly and gaining respect for other cultures, it happened only when the Fire Nation’s system stopped working for him personally. So he wouldn’t know how to make Azula see that system as wrong, to make her change for the better as he did. He can’t recreate his own reasons for changing.

Also, quite frankly — Iroh barely to not at all managed to turn Zuko off the Fire Nation’s propaganda. Zuko always had morals, sure, but he did not have any semblance of the idea that “war (of conquest) is wrong” or even “wow my father is abusive and terrible to me personally” after three years of travel with Iroh. Being an Earth Kingdom refugee and meeting the Gaang was when Zuko really changed. And I think Zuko (who got his face burned off at 13) would probably be a much easier egg to crack on the redemption front than Azula (for whom the cruel and abusive system has always worked, she’s fine with it as long as she’s the one on top).

I also am briefly going off topic here to say…I like the idea of Azula redemption. I agree that she is sometimes condemned too strongly, to harshly, given that she is just a teenage girl. But her youth doesn’t take away from her cruelty. She is someone who knowingly does wrong, because she sees it as a way to protect herself. A meaningful redemption arc for her has to acknowledge that, not just sweep it under the rug by claiming she always loved her victims.

Because yes, Azula’s loved ones who are of a similar age to her but have less power are in fact her victims. They love her, she loves them, but she does hurt them all the same. That also has to be acknowledged in the quest to redeem her.

Zuko and Mai and Ty Lee all flatly have no power over Azula — she has power over them, in fact, thanks to her status as Ozai’s favored child and just as a princess, respectively. Ursa and Iroh were adults who at least wouldn’t be hurt by trying to help Azula, but for her brother and friends? Changing her could be dangerous.

Zuko is nominally safer as the Crown Prince, but…he’s awful at politics and their infinitely more powerful Dad blatantly favors Azula. He can’t stand up to her. And the one time were shown that Ursa, trying to correct Azula’s cruelty, made her son play nice, feels cruel to Zuko. He gets hurt and humiliated for no reason but for his sister’s sake entertainment and (failed) moral education. It’s not his job to redeem his sister.

And then there’s Mai and Ty Lee, who may be nobles, but still can’t do anything to Princess Azula. In fact, even before Mai or Ty Lee have done anything, Azula is threatening their family and bodily safety, respectively, as a loyalty test. They cannot challenge Azula in any meaningful way without endangering their lives and safety. It’s not fair to expect them to fix her.

Who does that leave that Azula is even close to? The Gaang literally know nothing of her but “Zuko’s sister who keeps trying to kill us.” None of the Fire Nation Generals or Nobles will want her to change. Azulon rewarded her bad behavior almost as hard as Ozai. Lo and Li, maybe, but for all they’re the wise old ladies Azula takes advice from, Azula doesn’t actually interact with them very often.

Azula is a tragic character because, while she was a child who should have been redeemed and had better, it makes perfect sense she didn’t. No one could change her. No one could offer a sweeter carrot or bigger stick than Ozai. And by the time he was out of the picture, the story was over.

[slug04]

Urzai before bed

[zeno-zero]

I am, admittedly, on crack today /j

[somewhereincairparavel]

Can I just say that the atla animators were absolutely genius when it came to family resemblances?? At first, I thought Azula looked like Ursa, but then I saw pictures of her without makeup, and she's basically ozai's twin??

Overall they emphasized her sharp features so much to the point I literally only see ozai when I look at azula.

The expressions, the frown lines, the lips, the hairline?

(look at their eyebrows here, they're basically copies)

Like it's actually crazy how accurately they got the characters to look different but similar at the same time? They both have the same sharp edge to their eyes aswell

(credits of the triple collage image below)

Even with makeup, over here, they have the same frown lines on their forehead and scowl like in the exact same way?

I'm never shutting up about how well the designs look

[hypnoticsphere]

you ever think about how zuko looks so much like ozai that it probably makes azula so angry, because how could he tarnish his image and be so weak? and how azula looks so much like ursa that zuko treasures her so much and just wants her to understand him the same way ursa did

[gloomybadger4life]

Someone's gonna sing. Zuko's mom has got it going on.

@wingchunwaterbender @chaosmagetwin @krista-kritical @ziezii

[mitochondria-larson]

Headcanon that when Zuko got his scar and was sitting at the palace infirmary immediately after the agni kai, the only thing he thought of was how much he missed his mom.

[samtamdan]

Azula: *sneaking in through their window*

Ursa: *turning in their chair and flicking the light on* You want to tell me where you've been all night?

Azula: I was with Ty Lee?

Ty Lee: *turning in their chair* Wanna try again?

[allgremlinart]

Azulon examining a flower in Ursa's family greenhouse, while Ozai watches - The Search, Part One // Ursa using her mother's flowers to make the poison that Ozai will use to kill his father - The Search, Part Three