Bad English Shipper

instead it is always "ZUKO is a NICER GUY than ENTITLED AANG, KATARA SHOULD HAVE BEEN WITH HIM INSTEAD." because we can't assume katara as a woman makes an independent choice for a guy she wants, and is capable of navigating the full experience that comes with sharing your life with another person.

Kuvira: What do you mean?

like no ones saying Azula is the most moral character in the show but she’s definitely not the least

Prefacing this by saying that I'm multitasking right now & talking to someone else while typing this so it might be a bit messy and disorganized but I wanted to get my thoughts out before I forget them.

I've been seeing a lot of "not every villain needs to be redeemed/let villains be villains" being stated a lot on reddit lately. Especially in regards to Azula. "You say that you like villains but you don't want Azula to be evil." Is another sentiment that I see often.

In response to that I would like to point out that your (general) "this villain needs to stay a villain" might be someone else's only villain that they want redeemed. For me Azula is that villain in a sea of my favorite characters that I want redeemed. I think that Icy from Winx and Nerissa from W.i.t.c.h. would be worse off if they got redemption. Kuvira is a character I could see staying a villain and I wouldn't have minded if she did. Azula is the villain who I think doesn't need to stay evil. I think that her story could work well either way so long as the writing is done right. The problem is that (imo) the way that they are writing her lack of redemption is being completely fumbled. Obviously I'd prefer she did get a redemption but if written well I wouldn't hate it as much if they didn't redeem her. But I genuinely think that her story would be better and more profound and more satisfying if she was redeemed. I love villains but I also love anti-heros and watching my favorite villains struggle and claw their way to a redemption like Regina.

But I digress. The point is; The one villain you think shouldn't have a redemption is someone else's one villain who should. The reverse is true too--the one villain you think should have a redemption might be someone else's one villain who shouldn't.

So yeah, I want Azula to have, not necessarily a redemption arc, but any arc where she becomes a better person, because that's actually the only way I can imagine her story continuing in a way that's worthwhile and interesting to be told. It would be really hard to keep selling her as a villain, as you can see in the clear way the comics failed. So if not for a redemption arc, I think it would've been better for them to have straight up stopped focusing on her character after the show ended.

@evilkitten3

She was the daughter of refugees, born and raised within Ba Sing Se. It could have been really interesting to see her reconcile her perception of the Fire Nation from the stories told in quiet by her parents, the hand wavy claims of the city, and her personal experience with Zuko with each other!

But no. Her parents were presumably murdered by the Fire Nation but because two guys specifically didn't kill her that means that they're not all bad :)

Could be interesting fanfic material, because it is easy to write with cartoon in the mind with all of that "Azula always lies", "Put her in her place", "Girls are crazy", "She's crazy and needs to be put down" etc.

I don’t think it's any use arguing whether Azula should be/deserves to be redeemed anymore. That's always just going to be up to who is writing her, whether it's Yang deciding she doesn't or Hicks leaving it ambiguous. Plenty of fans and fanfiction authors have done that for themselves.

Maybe we should ask ourselves what we would do if we were in the Avatar world, not what Zuko or Aang would do, what each of us as an individual would do to deal with Azula, how we would react, knowing all we know about her.

Azula is not a likeable person, and her cruel streak personally disgusts me. That said, I can't in good conscience condemn a teenager to a life of imprisonment, torture, or just death. Get her a lot of therapy, get her a lot of support, and keep a very close eye on her though.

There are people both real and fictional, some in Atla and Tlok, that have done worse for longer. There are villains worse than Azula still given a chance to change by the heroes and forgiven by the fans.