"The fuck? How is this relevant? Cornplating ahh" SHE'S ELEVEN. Mind you the Agni Kai wasn't some sort of special event like a coronation or a wedding that you doll yourself up for, this was her everyday look.

Didn't wanna include this side tangent in the original post because it would be all over the place, but what if instead of thinking of Azula as a failure for the stunt that she pulled, Ozai considered her an outright traitor?

Lying to the Firelord about such crucial information is treachery within itself, but the specific words Zuko used could be easily interpreted as her letting Aang live on purpose, instead of just not finishing the job.

What if he thought she was outright working with the avatar and that's why he didn't want her on the airships? He told her at the last possible moment so they wouldn't have time to find a workaround. What if he made her firelord for the specific purpose of distracting her during Sozin's comet and intended to dispose of her afterward? Perhaps even outright kill her.

Or if you wanna get into a more hypothetical territory, what if, instead of keeping her around, Ozai exiles or arrests her, essentially kickstarting her own Zuko-esque arc. How would she cope with the fact that she has indisputably lost her fathers affection? Who would she hate more at the moment her father for abandoning her or her brother who ratted her out? Would her arc mirror Zukos to a tee with her wanting to capture the avatar in order to win her father's approval back, or would she want to help the avatar out? But unlike Zuko who has actually grown and unlearned Fire Nations way of thinking and genuinely wants to bring an era of peace and kindness to the world, Azula just wants her father to croak.

What if she makes contact with the Gaang when Zuko is already a part of the team? What if she's with him before that? What if the next time these two meet is on the Boiling Rock with her as a prisoner?

We know he doesn't tolerate failure, he's been cruel to Zuko his whole life because he viewed him as too weak, banished him for speaking slightly out of turn and is most certainly the source of Azulas unwavering perfectionism, like I don't think he would let this shit slide.

And it's not only that Azula didn't do it, it's that she lied to him whitch brings up two new issues:

1) This puts their whole plan in jeopardy. Had Azula told him that Aang might be alive, they could've spent the previous weeks trying to capture him. Or even better, they could've been prepared for his arrival on the day of the Black Sun and ended him right then and there, since they already knew an ambush was gonna happen. Can't stretch enough how tremendous of a loss Azulas desperate sense of self-preservation and inability to trust people caused them. Could've deadass won this war if they placed a giant glue trap in the palace for Aang to step in smh.

2) But more importantly, who the fuck is she to lie to him?

No seriously, Ozai has spent years trying to mold her into a weapon of war and for years she's been executing that role flawlessly. She's manipulative and proactive, but essentially an extension of Ozais will. This was most likely the first time she tried to deceive him and, by extension, do something that benefits her and her alone. And this terrifies Ozai because it forces him to see Azula as a person. A weapon doesn't have needs and wants, it can not serve someone else while gripped tightly in your hand. If Azula doesn't want to be just a cog in the machine, she's automatically a threat. On surface level, it's about power structures and disrespect, but in reality it goes so much deeper than that.

Okay, this man burned Zuko's face for speaking slightly out of turn, so why doesn't Azula get the same treatment? I won't even entertain the idea of him having some innate care for her when he tells Ursa he's going to kill BOTH of her children completely unprompted. Miss me with that "the comics ain't canon" shit.

It could be that he's afraid of her. I personally deluded myself into thinking that she could beat his ass 101 but even if not, she could still choke him in his sleep. Azula's very crafty, outright abandoning her would surely come to bite him in the ass. Also, he already has a child whom he deserted in order to teach him a lesson and look how that panned out.

"Okay but why not just outright kill her?" Ozai taunts Ursa with the idea of killing her children and forcing her to abandon them instead of outright killing her. Crazy idea, but I think this guy might be a sadist who gets a kick out of tormenting people.

So, instead, he starts putting her down in subtle ways. He supposedly wants her to be the next Firelord because it's a very important task, yet he couldn't be bothered to tell her till the last possible moment. Someone had to look out for the homeland in their original plan. What happened to them? If it was Zuko, why hasn't Azula already taken his place. And why was her coronation held on the day of Sozins commet? Ya'll didn't burn the world to the ground yet slow down a little. Wouldn't it make more sence to hold her ceremony after the conquest or, if you need her to have that tittle when Ozai comes back, before they leave in the first place. Idk man sounds to me like pointless bussywork that he assigned her in order to get her out of his sight. The public embarassment on the docks is just a cherry on top.

Azula isn't stupid, obviously she's gonna pick up on the fact that somethings up. And she does, she openly states that her father thinks that is too big of a task for her. Ozai keeps sending her mixed signals- on one hand he made her the Firelord, but on the other he couldn't be bothered to show up to her own corronation. She wasn't privy to the last confrontation with Zuko, so she has no idea what is causing her father to treat her this way. Sure, there are other events that led to her breakdown, but what Mai, Ty Lee and Zuko did was all small potatoes in comparison. You could call it the straw that broke the camels back, but it'd be more appropriate to call it a boulder.

Banishing Zuko was the best thing he could do for him, and for Azula he couldn't even do that.

The reason we see this so often is because people want to express that the character in question has a lot of room to grow and discover who they are, right? I get that but that's just straight up not how cutie marks work.

Sure, they can signify someones grand discovery that forever transforms them and becomes an intrisic part of who they are (like Pinkie Pie), but it can also just signify a skill (like Starlight Glimmer) or just like a trait that they have (like Quiblepants).

Nowdays I see people making cutie-mark-less designs when in universe that's like crazily uncomnon. Zephyr Breeze- a pony whose main character trait is that he doesn't do anything 'cause he's afraid of failiure and therefire doesn't have a good grasp on who he is- has a cutie mark.

I think somewhere along the line, people took this fun visual thing that is mostly a metaphor for growing up and strated interpreting it as pictogram that encompases your enture being when it in like 99% of the time only encompases a tiny fragmenr of who you are, not your entire existence.

Twilight herself has a cutie mark that represent a talent in magic when she's the princess of friendship. Her cutie mark has nothing to do with the thing she is the princess and she displayed no interest in it till adulthood. Realy goes to show that cutie marks aren't the end all be all.

Edit: I get the whole "oh the lack of cutiemark is used to signify that a character hasn't reached their potential" but it'd deadass less effective. It's used to imply lack od identity but it also showcases room for growth.

Like, if the series was set in the early days of Equestria and the pegasi, unicorns and earth ponies were just learning how to live together and get along, it'd be easier to believe that "Oh things just went to shit once Twilight took over and these communities that have lived together in complete harmony for at least thousand of years are sudenly violently racist towards eachother"

Yeah you can't exactly reference the mane 6 in a story set a milenia before they were born, but you can still have alot of fun with the concept. Celestia and Luna could still be referenced or heck even prominent if not main characters (a series about Luna and Celestia before they became aliconrns would fuck so hard).