I hate a lot of the generalized opinions people have about Zuko and Azula and Mai especially because most normal people will never comprehend just how much abuse and indoctrination fucks up your brain and perception of the world and they shouldn't bcs I'd never wish that on anyone. People dismiss almost all other characters traumas too bcs they don't understand what it's like to experience these things (and I don't wish that on anyone) but I'll be talking about what I know from experience rn so I'm not covering everyone.
Seriously, there was hardly any other way for those kids to turn out with what they lived in. Living under abuse can make you live in survival mode for years and years with no real way to get out of it because you don't know a life beyond it. If you do what is expected, you'll be safe and usually there's nothing you can see beyond that promise of safety. It's also difficult when your abusive parents provide you 'love' however toxic it is because when you don't really get that from another source, that's all you can hope for and you'd do anything for it, even if it destroys you. It's difficult to understand the desperation of it all if you've never experienced it.
Similarly for Katara, I genuinely hate how people chastise her for bringing up her mother. Can you freaking imagine the woman who raised you and took care of you dying just like that? Not only is the depth of loss an incredibly difficult process because trust me, you don't process the loss at once. Personally, it keeps coming to you again and again. It doesn't register at once that they're gone and you'll never see them again. Katara didn't just lose her mother that day, she lost her entire livelihood as she knew it. She lost her innocence and her childhood in more ways than one. She didn't just lose the physical embodiment of Kya but she lost her mother's cooking, her mother's stories, her mother's specific way of affection, her mother's protection (random examples bcs we don't know much abt Kya). Nothing will ever bring that back. Nothing could ever recreate that.
A lot of people who say these things do not know how severely traumatizing these experiences like abuse, death, losing your culture, not having agency in your own life and many more actually feels and they shouldn't know bcs its not something I'd ever wish on people. The you before and the you after experiences like that can practically be two seperate people. You will never be the same again. Especially when you experience it super young. It fucks up your brain so severely.
Point is, they're very ignorant takes usually and it pmo all the time.