zuko-always-lies

[zuko-always-lies]

i don't give a flying fuck about kiyi, sorry. maybe she's cute and everything but i'm just not interested in reading about her at all. i would rather prefer to read about tom-tom and his bond with mai, or even better his bond with zuko.

i need older tom-tom content

[zuko-always-lies]

It’s weird that we keep trying to armchair diagnose asshole behaviour with mental health labels and in doing so throw people with mental health conditions under the asshole bus when we could just call a guy an asshole and leave it at that

It just seems far more straightforward, you know

[zuko-always-lies]

Ashes of the Academy quick reaction

Ursa blames everyone but herself for Azula's problems raising her. Azula was in a war? What war? She's just pure evil!

The world around us doesn't matter! Brainwashing is the absolute remedy - yeah.

There is no difference between stopping the war and losing the war, losing everything that was won during a hundred years of war.

The aristocracy has power and influence but does nothing with it because… Because between the scene where Azula is in chains and the scene where Zuko is standing on the balcony there is a script black hole!

Zuko is both powerful and powerless. The plot black hole obliterates any sense of who is responsible for what in the post-war Fire Nation and how society functions in general.

Mai's claim sounds really absurd. Mai is your boyfriend and you actively tried to make the Fire Nation lose the war, remember?

Yes, precisely because Azula burns everything for no reason, it is she who, even during her breakdown, did not throw fire at her servants. On the other hand, we have Zuko, who was constantly throwing fire at innocent people. Starting with his subordinates on the ship and ending with Aang. Simply put, the comic screws Zuko's characteristics to Azula.

So Mai didn't want to hang out with Azula. Okay. So Mai is just a hypocrite. Great character development.

So Azula lives to multiply suffering and destruction. Okay. Then again a banal question. Why the hell did the entire cast of the show survive Azula's captivity alive and well? And in Hokoda's case, even recovered? Why did Katara spill water under Ba Sing Se and not blood? Pathetic.

The writers themselves don't know why this whole idiotic circus with Kemurikage was needed. Perfect.

The Fire Nation is waging a war to acquire colonies. That is, it is implementing a full-fledged program of development of new lands. So how do the inhabitants of the colonies end up in someone's minds as sympathizers of the Earth Kingdom? What kind of nonsense is this? These are literally the same people of the same nation. Why, in The Promise, they showed us that the inhabitants of the colonies themselves consider themselves to be part of the Fire Nation. And this is logical. So how on earth did they turn into traitors during the war? Where did this nonsense come from?

Azula didn't trust her friends. Okay. Then why the hell she didn't burn them in the original show and went to get new ones? If they were just tools to her, she'd just get new ones and that's it. In the last Hicks comic, Azula almost did the dance with Ty Lee just to avoid turning the girl into a roast, so what the hell? This is literally a pluralism of opinions in one head and we are not talking about Azula's head.

So why did Azula lose her temper like that if she didn't trust her friends from the start and didn't even consider them friends. Again?

What the hell is a children's academy? Am I the only one who remembers about the war? Okay, writers, I get it, the war had no effect on anything. It's all the fault of a bad school and a bad Ozai. One question, on who is this intended for?

Oh yeah, let's boil it down to evil for the sake of evil. Literally!

Writer! You yourself mentioned a crowd of traditionalist aristocrats at the beginning of the comic, and now it all comes down to an old granny with a Sith Lord complex. Is it so hard to just watch your own writing?

What kind of people will Zuko be trusted with? Where did these people come from? Who let this people into positions of power? How did all this even happen again? The plot black hole keeps coming back to haunt us.

This granny was really going to kill the teacher with a Dai Li agent? An agent who would just attack in broad daylight? Why would he? Why would she? Okay… Let's say it's designed for children under one year old.

But now there's a bunch of Dai Li sitting in the Fire Nation and waiting for Azula. What? What kind of nonsense is this? How many years have passed since the show ended? Are these agents infinite? And they work for themselves! What nonsense this all is...

I apologize for the confusion and emotionality. But it's just…..bad.

[zuko-always-lies]

Summarizing the result of exam scene.

The fact that the parents actually divided their children was perfectly highlighted by the exam scene. Azula completed both the theoretical and practical parts of the exam perfectly. And she even allowed herself to release a little fire in Azulon's direction, as if challenging and saying that even though she was the youngest child and a girl, she could reach the top. And Ozai bragged her, although his praise was very restrained and this was the greatest support she could receive. But Ursa and Azulon himself did not notice the girl's efforts at all. Here it is worth noting the difference in how Azulon looked at Azula.

and how he looked at Zuko

Ursa absolutely did not care about Azula's efforts, about her achievements, because against the background of Azula, Zuko began to look like a loser and this hurt the loving mother. Loving exactly one of her children. And what is characteristic is that not only Ursa but also Iroh saw Azula as a hindrance for Zuko. As a result, the young princess received the most eloquent confirmation that in her family there is exactly one person who cares about her efforts, who will appreciate her achievements, who is able to support her. And this person is her father, Ozai. And with Zuko, the situation turned out to be a mirror image. He failed both the theoretical and practical parts of the exam and, as a result, did not receive support from his father. But in fact, that's all. Apparently, at some point, Ozai simply gave up on Zuko and decided to focus entirely on raising Azula. Zuko's mother fully supported him and he remembered it. It does not matter whether he succeeded or failed, support was provided in any case. As well as from Iroh. That is, Zuko already had both a maternal and paternal figure in his life and their unconditional love and support. Accordingly, he did not need to strive for the ideal like Azula in order to earn Ozai's approval. Ozai's approval remained for him just a point on a list until the moment of banishment. He could afford to be lazy. Because not knowing important parts of his country's and his family's history at the same time, especially before the exam, could not be explained otherwise than by laziness in reading the books.

[zuko-always-lies]

What did Zuko think was going on at Azula's Coronation Ceremony?

Cut to the plaza, the location of the Fire Lord's coronation, where only Azula and the Fire Sages are present. The scene cuts to the front of Azula, who is kneeling down on the plaza steps. She is seen wearing Fire Lord robes with her armor underneath. Standing behind her are Fire Sages, one begins to hold the headpiece over her head. Fire Sage: By decree of Phoenix King Ozai, I now crown you Fire Lord ...The sage suddenly pauses and looks ahead. Azula turns her head to face him. Azula: [Somewhat annoyed.] What are you waiting for? Do it! Appa is heard in the distance off-camera, and Azula turns back around to see Appa landing in the plaza courtyard. The scene cuts to a frontal shot of Appa; Katara is seated on Appa's saddle, and Zuko is standing on his back. [this is where my pictures are from, about] Zuko: Sorry, but you're not gonna become Fire Lord today. [Jumps off Appa.] I am. Azula: [Laughs.] You're hilarious. Katara: [Jumps off of Appa to stand beside Zuko.] And you're going down. The Fire Sage is just about to crown Azula the new Fire Lord, regardless of what Katara and Zuko have just said, until Azula signals with her hand for him to stop. Azula: Wait. You want to be Fire Lord? Fine. Let's settle this. Just you and me, brother. The showdown that was always meant to be. Agni Kai! Zuko: [Seriously.] You're on

It seems like Zuko couldn't physically hear the whole "By decree of Phoenix King Ozai, I now crown you Fire Lord" part. He was too far away. And he doesn't know that Ozai has declared himself "Phoenix King," either. Not even Azula knew that until Ozai went and did it, and there's no way for the Gaang to find out. They never mention it at all. So Azula being coronated as Firelord but it not representing her ascending to being supreme leader of the Fire Nation wouldn't even enter Zuko's head.

So Zuko shows up, and he sees a Firelord coronation ceremony being conducted without the usual audience in apparent haste, and being conducted even though the current Firelord (Ozai) is still alive and well, at least as far as he knows. It must look to him like Azula is trying to take advantage of Ozai's absence to usurp the throne for herself. Katara is probably not sufficiently familiar with the Fire Nation royal family and its traditions to catch onto the nuances of the situation, but "Ozai appointed Azula Firelord" is not something that would make sense to Zuko. He probably only found out the truth after the Agni Kai.

All of this potentially puts Zuko's actions before and during the Agni Kai in a very interesting light.

[zuko-always-lies]

What did Zuko think was going on at Azula's Coronation Ceremony?

Cut to the plaza, the location of the Fire Lord's coronation, where only Azula and the Fire Sages are present. The scene cuts to the front of Azula, who is kneeling down on the plaza steps. She is seen wearing Fire Lord robes with her armor underneath. Standing behind her are Fire Sages, one begins to hold the headpiece over her head. Fire Sage: By decree of Phoenix King Ozai, I now crown you Fire Lord ...The sage suddenly pauses and looks ahead. Azula turns her head to face him. Azula: [Somewhat annoyed.] What are you waiting for? Do it! Appa is heard in the distance off-camera, and Azula turns back around to see Appa landing in the plaza courtyard. The scene cuts to a frontal shot of Appa; Katara is seated on Appa's saddle, and Zuko is standing on his back. [this is where my pictures are from, about] Zuko: Sorry, but you're not gonna become Fire Lord today. [Jumps off Appa.] I am. Azula: [Laughs.] You're hilarious. Katara: [Jumps off of Appa to stand beside Zuko.] And you're going down. The Fire Sage is just about to crown Azula the new Fire Lord, regardless of what Katara and Zuko have just said, until Azula signals with her hand for him to stop. Azula: Wait. You want to be Fire Lord? Fine. Let's settle this. Just you and me, brother. The showdown that was always meant to be. Agni Kai! Zuko: [Seriously.] You're on

It seems like Zuko couldn't physically hear the whole "By decree of Phoenix King Ozai, I now crown you Fire Lord" part. He was too far away. And he doesn't know that Ozai has declared himself "Phoenix King," either. Not even Azula knew that until Ozai went and did it, and there's no way for the Gaang to find out. They never mention it at all. So Azula being coronated as Firelord but it not representing her ascending to being supreme leader of the Fire Nation wouldn't even enter Zuko's head.

So Zuko shows up, and he sees a Firelord coronation ceremony being conducted without the usual audience in apparent haste, and being conducted even though the current Firelord (Ozai) is still alive and well, at least as far as he knows. It must look to him like Azula is trying to take advantage of Ozai's absence to usurp the throne for herself. Katara is probably not sufficiently familiar with the Fire Nation royal family and its traditions to catch onto the nuances of the situation, but "Ozai appointed Azula Firelord" is not something that would make sense to Zuko. He probably only found out the truth after the Agni Kai.

All of this potentially puts Zuko's actions before and during the Agni Kai in a very interesting light.

[zuko-always-lies]

Spoilers for Ashes of the Academy

The theme of Ashes of the Academy is supposed to be that Academy the Academy and its cruel practices corrupts the Fire Nation youth and turns them into mean, cruel, awful people.

Yet of the three characters we're supposed to care about who go to the academy in the comic, none of them are corrupted at all by it. Mai and Kiyi are apparently completely unaffected, while Azula was apparently always a mean, cruel, awful person, even before she attended the Academy.

I don't think that's good writing.

[zuko-always-lies]

Exactly. "Mai and Ty Lee want Azula to get better because she's suffering and in pain and they care about her"--makes perfect sense. "Mai and Ty Lee want Azula to be 'good' because they're 'good' now and want her to be 'good' too"--makes no sense and is just not how humans think.

Mai and Ty Lee are essentially sadists in the original cartoon, looking for socially accepted excuses to hurt people. I know that official canon will never acknowledge that, because complexity is annoying and they need to be uwe little birthday girls who would never hurt anyone, were always good, and always hated Azula, but that's how the cartoon depicted them, since the cartoon needed them to serve as villains and antagonists.

[zuko-always-lies]

HC: One day several years after the war Zuko randomly asks Azula how she's able to tell Ty Lee apart from her sisters (because he's never been able to - if she switches up her hair/clothes it's all over) to which Azula replies, "Duh, she's the most beautiful, smartest, most perfect of all of them, dum-dum," and walks off, rolling her eyes at him. He's obviously confused, so he tries Mai, who has also never had a problem. "That's easy, Zuko, she's the most attractive."

The girls meet up later to compare notes and get a good laugh out of it. (The fun part is Azula and Mai were telling the truth.)

LOL

[zuko-always-lies]

So I had Mom watch "Zuko Alone" with me and asked her for a parent's perspective on Azula

A few interesting things she said:

What Azula does to Zuko is nothing compared to what she and her siblings got up to. The teasing, pranking, and fighting were normal for her growing up (in the 50s and 60s).

She called Azula "strong" and said she's "too smart for her own good." There's a saying in our family: "She done been here before." Azula needs someone to keep a close eye on her. (On that note, Mom said she'd train Azula in secret.)

Mom only saw Azula for 30 seconds and knew a doll was an inappropriate gift for her.

Regarding some of the more alarming things Azula says, Mom told me that kids her age aren't good at tact. But she did say that the nature of her comments would make her wonder if "there's a devil in there somewhere"/"a fly in the buttermilk." Mom made it very clear that one of her suspicions would be that Azula was being influenced by someone else.

She interprets, "What is wrong with that child?" as Ursa noticing that something has changed about Azula's behavior, though she hasn't put her finger on it yet.

She empathized with Ursa from the angle of women not having as much agency "back then." Ursa knows something is going on with Azula but is powerless to do much about it.

She'd give Ozai a black pill.

EDIT: Mom specifically said that Azula's not a bad child.

Mom doesn't know much about ATLA. She's only watched "Zuko Alone" with me, and as a mother, these things were very clear to her without me having to explain it.

Tagging @salixj because she's also a mom.

[zuko-always-lies]

Do you have any idea why ATLA's narrative has declined so much since the original series ended? Or why ATLA fans seem so undemanding when it comes to content, considering the saga is over 20 years old?

There are a lot of factors. For one, it's not clear if comics were a good medium at all to continue. Judging from the reactions to Kyoshi series, perhaps they should have focused on novels instead. For another, 95% of the writers who worked on the series left and did other things, while the writers they were replaced with (particularly Gene Yang) were vastly inferior. Then there's the fact that Bryke still appear imagine their core fans as being seven years old, instead of being in their 20s. It's hard to understand their decision to create a sequel staring a seven year old in any other terms.

Beyond that all, I think the core issue is nuance. What made and makes ATLA so fantastic is how nuanced the writing is. Almost all characters have complex layers to them, and the plot is largely nuanced too. Just look at the character entries in the lore archive. Even very minor characters had a lot of thought put into them.

After the series, Bryke seem to have forgotten about that. Almost every postcanon work tries very hard to avoid being nuanced or complex, perhaps because "seven year olds can't handle it." Ashes of the Academy is just the latest example of it.

[zuko-always-lies]

Given how people are responding, I'll stop worrying about giving spoilers from now on. Honestly there isn't much to spoil, anyways. The plot is pretty boring.

[zuko-always-lies]

did it seem odd to you that Mai of all people was completely comfortable with touching insects?

Good question. I guess she is the Dangerous Lady with the most developed "disgust" instincts. Screwing around with a bug might be more of a Ty Lee thing, too. Of course, the comics have the really weird thing with Mai working at a flower shop, so maybe she's used to it now?

[zuko-always-lies]

Beyond all the stuff involving Azula and Mai, it's just a boring story. Who is going to be entertained by this? Like Azula in the Spirit Temple actually had some interesting elements, but this is just boring.

Ashes of the Academy First Impressions Review

Non-Spoiler version: I didn't like it, and if you're looking for good Azula content or good young! Dangerous Ladies content, you should look elsewhere. And if you are looking for Maiko content, that's pretty limited at best.

However, if you are looking for more fiction that sabotages its own themes by demonizing little! Azula, you are in luck!

Spoilers under the cut:

As always, ATLA media is so dedicated to demonizing Azula that it undermines it's own themes. The supposed theme of the comic is that the Fire Nation Royal Academy for Girls corrupts the youth and teaches them to be violent, cruel, and mean. Supposedly Ursa believes that the Royal Academy might have been the point where Azula "started to go wrong."

Yet the actual comic has several flashbacks to young Azula, and she's depicted as having been mean and cruel and entirely awful from the start of her attendance there. Hicks could have depicted a progression, where Azula becomes progressively worse as a person the more time she spends in the academy, but she choose not to. Moreover, some of the casual cruelty Azula does feels more Zuko-like than anything else. It's not impossible to imagine Azula doing everything she does, but some of it feels more like stuff Zuko would do.

As always, every demonized depiction of little Azula adds to the "Azula problem," where she's somehow a much better person at 14 than she was at 8, despite only having entirely negative influences over the past six years. Given Azula was apparently already totally awful from the moment she stepped into the Academy, maybe Ursa was the real bad influence on Azula!

Moving beyond that, another way Hicks undermines the themes of the comic is through the depiction of little Mai. Hicks could have depicted little Mai as someone who became a worse person under the influence of the academy and did things that grown up! Mai now regrets, but she didn't. Apparently Mai is entirely immune to all the corruption the Academy imposes and is, of course, "inherently good."

Mai of course is entirely good, entirely anti-imperialist, and entirely against the bad practices of the academy from the start. Better writing might have Mai start out fairly indifferent about it all but gradually turn against the Academy as she sees it's practices from a different viewpoint and realizes that what it put her and her friends through was cruel and wrong, but this is the Avatar comics. Mai can't have learning experiences where she learns to be a better person, since Mai was always a good person the whole time.

A few months ago, I posted that any depiction of Azula and Mai at the Academy needs to explain why they became friends. The good news is that Ashes of the Academy offers an explanation. The bad news is that it sucks:

Mai's father pushed Mai to become friends with Azula for their family's political advantage, but Mai didn't want to since Azula was so, so, so very mean, but Mai's father was persistent, so Mai eventually gave in and agreed to it. And Mai got Azula to like her by showing off her knifethrowing skills (OK, that actually sounds like something which could have happened).

Mai thus was an entirely false friend to Azula from the start, only pretending to like her for her father's political ambitions. Why Azula never noticed this, despite going to an Academy which encouraged people to be paranoid about their best friends, is a too sophisticated question for this comic. And of course "spending a decade pretending to be friends with someone I hate so my dad can get more power" is not something that canon Mai, who transparently couldn't give a rats ass about his ambitions, would do.

Of course, this does raise the question if Zuko and Ty Lee should be on the lookout for Mai being a false friend to them. After all, I'm sure Ukano pushed to Mai to seduce Zuko...And if Mai is willing to put up with two of her biggest relationships in her life being entirely fake, who's to say she wasn't only pretending to be Ty Lee's friend out of convenience? After all, we know she disliked Ty Lee girliness, but maybe Mai was willing to put up with it in exchange for having a chi-blocker on her side if she needed it.

Now, moving beyond Mai and Azula, the other aspects of the comic are just pretty uninteresting. I know a lot people were baited into buying it for the Maiko, but there's barely any Maiko in it, and their relationship struggles are definitely not resolved at all. The weirdest thing is Zuko telling the Headmistress that Mai will be a teacher at the Academy before he's bothered asking Mai. That's kind of an asshole move, to be honest.

I don't remember how Smoke and Shadow depicted Michi, and I'm not going to bother looking it up, but she's oddly warm toward Mai here, both in the flashbacks and in the present. It really seems like Hicks missed the point of what the cartoon said about her.

Kiyi and her friend have a pretty boring role which doesn't really drive the plot of the comic at all, and they don't get to do anything interesting. Better writing would have Kiyi begin to be corrupted by the continued awful practices of the academy, but this is the Avatar comics.

The headmistresses conversion to good felt distinctly unearned and unrealistic, but I suppose she's not Azula, so she was always inherently good.

I wasn't expecting any of the political stuff to be good, and it wasn't. All the Fire Nation elite families apparently hate everything Zuko is doing, which is fair and unrealistic. Why they haven't just slit his throat in his sleep is unexplained.

The evil old headmistress felt like an entirely unnecessary plot element, added only so the comic could get a fight scene. The Dai Li who for some reason work for her also felt very unnecessary. If they want Azula to become Firelord, shouldn't they have been putting their effort into assassinating Zuko?

These Dai Li were depicted as still being completely loyal to Azula, despite not having seen her for many years. A better written and more interesting work of fiction might raise the question of what Azula's ability to create durable, lasting loyalty in people she barely touched says about her as a person, but this is the Avatar comics.

About the only thing I liked is Ty Lee. She had a brief appearance at the end of the comic, solely in the present, and she actually felt like she was mostly in character, including through violating Mai's personal space against her wishes. A much, much better writer might have had Mai remember how Azula was careful not to do that, but this is the Avatar comics, and we got to keep our expectations low.

[zuko-always-lies]

Interesting idea. I think if Zuko exiles Azula, it has to backfire on him in some way, just like Ozai exiling Zuko backfired on him, since it represents Zuko copying his father's cruelty. I think your idea kind of fulfills that?

Obviously the actions of other characters could influence this a lot, but just vote based on what the most likely scenario in your head is.

And if you vote, please reblog!