I want to slap Zuko in the face in a loving manner

Suki: a plot device which exists to complicate Sokka's understanding of gender.

Katara: I don't know if or how much the character thought about this herself, and honestly she lacks an arc post Book 1 anyways, but Katara is very much meant as an expression of an ideal vision of femininity from the early 2000s. And her actual character arc, such that it is, cumulates with her challenging Pakku.

Yue: everything about the character is about social norms for upper class NWT women and how she relates to them.

Toph: the entire point of the character is that she's everything a 12 year old elite girl is not supposed to be (particularly a blind one), and that she performs rebellion by transgressing on gender norms and acting like a "tomboy."

Zuko: he failed to perform masculinity correctly (particularly by refusing to fight the Agni Kai), and fundamentally he's trying regain his manhood in the eyes of Ozai (and later Iroh). Honor and especially honor duels are something fundamentally tied up with manhood, and it's not coincidence that one of the first things he does in the series is fighting another Agni Kai.

Azula: Not only is Azula trying to both perform femininity and masculinity at the same time because she must all at once be a son, a daughter, a sister, and a brother, and not only is her behavior deeply influenced by what she understands her duties as a daughter/sister to be, but also the way other characters and the audience react to her is fundamentally gendered.

Ty Lee: she doesn't have an arc, but as a character she is extremely gendered in the eyes of an audience, and her relationships with Azula and Mai are dependent on her gender. Moreover, her experience as an upper class Fire Nation girl is extremely gender dependent, and she appears to deliberately embrace low class, "slutty" femininity as much as possible.

Mai: her entire relationship with her family and Azula is based around her hating performing the gender expectations for elite Fire Nation girls.

Smellerbee: need I say more? Although she is kind of irrelevant.

Suki: What gender complication does she add to Sokka's understanding of gender in the Boiling Rock episode and every other episode afterward? None? Okay. Her serving a point in ONE episode does not make it her whole arc, let alone fundamentally.

Katara: Her being meant as an ideal girl does not make her arc fundamentally about gender, it just mean that's the type of character she is. Having your arc FUNDAMENTALLY about gender does not mean 'You're a certain type of woman', that's a character archetype, not an arc. And no, Katara didn't suddenly become a blank slate after fighting Pakku, she has an arc about each of her missing parents all the way to book 3 FFS.

Yue: We're just gonna ignore she's also a literal resurected chosen one of the moon spirit and her relationship with Sokka is based on finding him funny to be around? Okay.

Toph: It's so her entire point she was planned to be a boy for most of pre-production. Her 'rebellion' wasn't against gender norms, her rebellion was against her parents' obsession with her safety and inability to trust her due to being blind and thus 'helpless'. Toph as a tiny 12 year old boy would have been treated the same and was literally PLANNED that way to begin with. Again, not only not 'fundamental' but entirely irrelevant.

Zuko: No, this headcanon needs to die, Ozai wasn't gonna go 'Well done, son' if Zuko tried to fight him at the Agni Kai, he'd have gotten mad, beat the shit out of him, burned him and banished him. That's why it's abuse, there was no winning the moment Ozai decided Zuko fucked up and needed to be taught a lesson. And no, honor isn't manhood nor are honor duels, you mention Zuko's first Agni Kai while ignoring his last AGAINST A WOMAN, which NOBODY BATS AN EYE about and the lore tell us the Girl's Academy has Agni Kais all the time.

Azula: No, she's not, she's playing the role of the perfect princess and that's it. And no, nobody particularly react to Azula as a girl. And none of that make her arc fundamentally about gender.

Ty Lee: So by your own admission her arc isn't about gender at all, everything else you said is irrelevant and doesn't make her arc fundamentally about gender. Also she does have an arc, it just mostly get resolved offscreen cause she's a tertiary character, her getting over her 'matched set' worries and joining the Kyoshi Warriors is her arc's conclusion.

Mai: Except it's not? At all? For a single second? There's no line saying that in the entire franchise. Her arc is about being mad she can get whatever she wants and DO whatever she wants as long as she stays out of the way. It's about neglect and can (and does) happen the exact same to a boy, not about 'muh gender roles'.

Smellerbee: Yes, you do have to make an argument for your point. A character being mistaken for a boy as a running gag doesn't make it their arc, it make it their running gag. Smellerbee's (very minor) arc is about being a follower of Jet, going from an unthinking yes-woman to someone genuinely supporting Jet in the aftermath of their mistake to someone who now need to make their own way cause their leader died trying to make things right.

And yet everyone you named didn't have their arc fundamentally about gender at all and you could say the exact same stuff you said about the other characters about Aang and Jet (Aang wouldn't even have been raised by Gyatso nor lived in that part of the world if he was a girl and Jet is literally a classic manly man suave Robin Hood leader type, which wouldn't work if he was a woman).

'canonically' Proof? No? Cause there's none? Cool.

'I put her objective through a gender lense, ergo it's about gender because you use the term princess instead of 'royal heir' but it's so weak even I have to drop the 'her arc is fundamentally about gender' to the much lower and more vague 'a big part of her CHARACTER (not even arc) is centered around gender' That's some insane mental gymnastics and wordplay only to still land on me being right and the claim that her arc is inherently about gender being goofy. You really need to take off the glasses and just rewatch the show on its on.

Notice how you couldn't address the fact she's being the perfect princess in opposition to being a peasant instead of in opposition to any male role?

That's, however, not the main point of this conversation.

Atla has displayed numerous instances canonical instances of women and men being perceived and treated in different ways. Since you asked oh-so-unkindly for the proof, one example is the air temples being traditionally segregated by gender. That doesn't necessarily indicate there was inequality between genders per se, but it does prove the atla verse, including air benders, isn't gender-blind.

Other than that, we have:

1) The northern water tribe only allowing men to be warriors and women to be healers

2) Yue having an arranged marriage to a man who'd be chief rather than her being allowed to be chieftess, indicating that the NWT doesn't allow female leaders, and if there's a female heir, she must marry a man who will govern instead of her

3) The upper classes of the Earth Kingdom adhering to a few traditionally patriarchal standards, such as expecting women to perform femininity. Toph is a prime example of that, since she's expected by her family to adhere to their standard of what a rich, young woman should be like, despite her not wanting to play along. We never see anything equivalent to that with a male noble EK character in neither the show nor the comment, so it's fair to assume only women are subjected to these standards

4) The first novel of the Avatar Legends series, City of Echoes, states that noble ladies in Va Sing Se were usual forbidden from leaving their homes unaccompanied, something that isn't mirrored by their male counterparts (Chapter 13)

5) Same book states that while women were allowed to own proper, men could seize and use the property of their mothers, wives and daughters as they pleased (Chapter 5)

6) While the Fire Nation is arguably the most progressive gender-wise, the fifth novel of Chronicles of the Avatar, The Reckoning of Roku states that women were at a disadvantage during succession disputes

7) Azula went the Fire Nation Royal Academy for Girls, which means that, just like with the air temples, education for royal men and women was segregated by gender. Although that doesn't necessarily indicate there was any inequality between the subject or the quality of the education they received, it does mean that despite being progressive gender-wise, the Fire Nation wasn't gender-blind either

8) At no point during the comics does any of the elder members of the Fire Nation royal family address Ozai's mistreatment of his wife, which could indicate that in noble setting, it's normalized for men to mistreat their wives, rather than it being something forbidden or looked down on. This may or may not translate to royal women having less power in court than royal men. Either that, or consorts having less power than members born into the family.

All in all, just like I said, there's canonical proof that the experiences between female royals/nobility and male royals/nobility are different from each other.

While you were busy being passive aggressive towards be for literally no reason, you seem to have neglected to think that perhaps the reason why I didn't use the phrase "her arch is fundamentally about gender" is because I don't agree with it. I can have a similar opinion with somebody else without that meaning I 100% agree with them. I don't think Azula's arc is fundamentally about gender. I do, however, think that gender is a big part of her character, because it seems to bleed through how both the writers and the fandom treats her.

'Some evidence' AKA common sense and literally of biology. If sociologists really can't see it, it's not wonder they're considered a pseudo science.

'People acknowledged that sexes exist' isn't the same as 'The CHARACTERS' arcs are all fundamentally about them having a dick or not'. I have no idea why you're trying to move the goalpost to the broadest possible interpretation of 'sex is acknowledged' to the defend the very specific and wrong claim of 'Their arcs are FUNDAMENTALLY' about sex.

1: Cool, that's a worldbuilding thing, not anybody's arcs. It's an 'obstacle of the week' for Katara and that's it.

2: This is more about the responsibility Yue feel as royalty to sacrifice herself for her people, which culminate in her sacrifice to bring back the moon and again, the northern watertribe being sexist is a worldbuilding element and a temporary obstacle, not anybody's arc.

3: There's no such proof and Toph very much enjoy getting pampered at the spa and Toph doesn't perform anything, she's just acting crass and gross as a rebellion after being treated like a fragile doll her whole life, you interpreting that as masculinity is your problem, let alone a performance, that's who she IS, she isn't performing anything.

4: I don't care about non-canon nonsense released forever after the show and again, not anybody's arc. Doubly irrelevant because there's 0 noble earthkingdom ladies in the shows that actually have arcs.

5: Still don't care, still irrelevant, still nobody's arc.

6: So not in the actual show? Cool. Or involving any actual character with an arc from it? Doubly cool.

7: No, it means there was at least ONE girl school in the entire fire nation, nothing else. Everything else you said there is unsupported headcanon.

8: The comics are shit and nobody ever address ANYTHING a firelord does because THEY'RE FIRELORD, they do what they want and you shut your damn mouth regardless of who or what you are. Same reason Zuko could end a 100 year war they had won.

And yet you couldn't present any such proof, not even one.

I'm not passive aggressive, my aggressiveness toward a bad argument and nonsensical take is very active. I've never held back from calling dumb stuff dumb and it's not gonna change.

So YOU jumped into a discussion about a specific topic, suddenly making argument for a different topic entirely with no introduction or transition to said new topic and it's my fault for replying to those arguments under the logical conclusion they were in relation to the actual topic of the discussion? Are you serious?

So you think something not because of the show but because of what you imagine writers you don't know at all think and because of fandom nonsense? Wow, who would have thought (Me. I thought that and said several times this is just pure internet brainrot discourse instead of actually from the show).

I agree with some of the statements made in the post. I disagree with some of the statements made in the post. Which is why I didn't quote the post on the statement of gender being "fundamental part of every character's arc" and instead used my own words to express how *I* feel about how gender impacts Azula's character. Because this is the internet. I saw a post made from a mutual of mine about how gender impacts the characters, I saw it sparked conversation, I added my own two cents about how I think gender affects Azula's character specifically, and made the conscious choice to use different wording that represents my opinion on the topic, that was different from the other opinions stated. Your inability to understand that isn't my fault.

Suki: a plot device which exists to complicate Sokka's understanding of gender.

Katara: I don't know if or how much the character thought about this herself, and honestly she lacks an arc post Book 1 anyways, but Katara is very much meant as an expression of an ideal vision of femininity from the early 2000s. And her actual character arc, such that it is, cumulates with her challenging Pakku.

Yue: everything about the character is about social norms for upper class NWT women and how she relates to them.

Toph: the entire point of the character is that she's everything a 12 year old elite girl is not supposed to be (particularly a blind one), and that she performs rebellion by transgressing on gender norms and acting like a "tomboy."

Zuko: he failed to perform masculinity correctly (particularly by refusing to fight the Agni Kai), and fundamentally he's trying regain his manhood in the eyes of Ozai (and later Iroh). Honor and especially honor duels are something fundamentally tied up with manhood, and it's not coincidence that one of the first things he does in the series is fighting another Agni Kai.

Azula: Not only is Azula trying to both perform femininity and masculinity at the same time because she must all at once be a son, a daughter, a sister, and a brother, and not only is her behavior deeply influenced by what she understands her duties as a daughter/sister to be, but also the way other characters and the audience react to her is fundamentally gendered.

Ty Lee: she doesn't have an arc, but as a character she is extremely gendered in the eyes of an audience, and her relationships with Azula and Mai are dependent on her gender. Moreover, her experience as an upper class Fire Nation girl is extremely gender dependent, and she appears to deliberately embrace low class, "slutty" femininity as much as possible.

Mai: her entire relationship with her family and Azula is based around her hating performing the gender expectations for elite Fire Nation girls.

Smellerbee: need I say more? Although she is kind of irrelevant.

Suki: What gender complication does she add to Sokka's understanding of gender in the Boiling Rock episode and every other episode afterward? None? Okay. Her serving a point in ONE episode does not make it her whole arc, let alone fundamentally.

Katara: Her being meant as an ideal girl does not make her arc fundamentally about gender, it just mean that's the type of character she is. Having your arc FUNDAMENTALLY about gender does not mean 'You're a certain type of woman', that's a character archetype, not an arc. And no, Katara didn't suddenly become a blank slate after fighting Pakku, she has an arc about each of her missing parents all the way to book 3 FFS.

Yue: We're just gonna ignore she's also a literal resurected chosen one of the moon spirit and her relationship with Sokka is based on finding him funny to be around? Okay.

Toph: It's so her entire point she was planned to be a boy for most of pre-production. Her 'rebellion' wasn't against gender norms, her rebellion was against her parents' obsession with her safety and inability to trust her due to being blind and thus 'helpless'. Toph as a tiny 12 year old boy would have been treated the same and was literally PLANNED that way to begin with. Again, not only not 'fundamental' but entirely irrelevant.

Zuko: No, this headcanon needs to die, Ozai wasn't gonna go 'Well done, son' if Zuko tried to fight him at the Agni Kai, he'd have gotten mad, beat the shit out of him, burned him and banished him. That's why it's abuse, there was no winning the moment Ozai decided Zuko fucked up and needed to be taught a lesson. And no, honor isn't manhood nor are honor duels, you mention Zuko's first Agni Kai while ignoring his last AGAINST A WOMAN, which NOBODY BATS AN EYE about and the lore tell us the Girl's Academy has Agni Kais all the time.

Azula: No, she's not, she's playing the role of the perfect princess and that's it. And no, nobody particularly react to Azula as a girl. And none of that make her arc fundamentally about gender.

Ty Lee: So by your own admission her arc isn't about gender at all, everything else you said is irrelevant and doesn't make her arc fundamentally about gender. Also she does have an arc, it just mostly get resolved offscreen cause she's a tertiary character, her getting over her 'matched set' worries and joining the Kyoshi Warriors is her arc's conclusion.

Mai: Except it's not? At all? For a single second? There's no line saying that in the entire franchise. Her arc is about being mad she can get whatever she wants and DO whatever she wants as long as she stays out of the way. It's about neglect and can (and does) happen the exact same to a boy, not about 'muh gender roles'.

Smellerbee: Yes, you do have to make an argument for your point. A character being mistaken for a boy as a running gag doesn't make it their arc, it make it their running gag. Smellerbee's (very minor) arc is about being a follower of Jet, going from an unthinking yes-woman to someone genuinely supporting Jet in the aftermath of their mistake to someone who now need to make their own way cause their leader died trying to make things right.

And yet everyone you named didn't have their arc fundamentally about gender at all and you could say the exact same stuff you said about the other characters about Aang and Jet (Aang wouldn't even have been raised by Gyatso nor lived in that part of the world if he was a girl and Jet is literally a classic manly man suave Robin Hood leader type, which wouldn't work if he was a woman).

'canonically' Proof? No? Cause there's none? Cool.

'I put her objective through a gender lense, ergo it's about gender because you use the term princess instead of 'royal heir' but it's so weak even I have to drop the 'her arc is fundamentally about gender' to the much lower and more vague 'a big part of her CHARACTER (not even arc) is centered around gender' That's some insane mental gymnastics and wordplay only to still land on me being right and the claim that her arc is inherently about gender being goofy. You really need to take off the glasses and just rewatch the show on its on.

Notice how you couldn't address the fact she's being the perfect princess in opposition to being a peasant instead of in opposition to any male role?

That's, however, not the main point of this conversation.

Atla has displayed numerous instances canonical instances of women and men being perceived and treated in different ways. Since you asked oh-so-unkindly for the proof, one example is the air temples being traditionally segregated by gender. That doesn't necessarily indicate there was inequality between genders per se, but it does prove the atla verse, including air benders, isn't gender-blind.

Other than that, we have:

1) The northern water tribe only allowing men to be warriors and women to be healers

2) Yue having an arranged marriage to a man who'd be chief rather than her being allowed to be chieftess, indicating that the NWT doesn't allow female leaders, and if there's a female heir, she must marry a man who will govern instead of her

3) The upper classes of the Earth Kingdom adhering to a few traditionally patriarchal standards, such as expecting women to perform femininity. Toph is a prime example of that, since she's expected by her family to adhere to their standard of what a rich, young woman should be like, despite her not wanting to play along. We never see anything equivalent to that with a male noble EK character in neither the show nor the comment, so it's fair to assume only women are subjected to these standards

4) The first novel of the Avatar Legends series, City of Echoes, states that noble ladies in Va Sing Se were usual forbidden from leaving their homes unaccompanied, something that isn't mirrored by their male counterparts (Chapter 13)

5) Same book states that while women were allowed to own proper, men could seize and use the property of their mothers, wives and daughters as they pleased (Chapter 5)

6) While the Fire Nation is arguably the most progressive gender-wise, the fifth novel of Chronicles of the Avatar, The Reckoning of Roku states that women were at a disadvantage during succession disputes

7) Azula went the Fire Nation Royal Academy for Girls, which means that, just like with the air temples, education for royal men and women was segregated by gender. Although that doesn't necessarily indicate there was any inequality between the subject or the quality of the education they received, it does mean that despite being progressive gender-wise, the Fire Nation wasn't gender-blind either

8) At no point during the comics does any of the elder members of the Fire Nation royal family address Ozai's mistreatment of his wife, which could indicate that in noble setting, it's normalized for men to mistreat their wives, rather than it being something forbidden or looked down on. This may or may not translate to royal women having less power in court than royal men. Either that, or consorts having less power than members born into the family.

All in all, just like I said, there's canonical proof that the experiences between female royals/nobility and male royals/nobility are different from each other.

While you were busy being passive aggressive towards be for literally no reason, you seem to have neglected to think that perhaps the reason why I didn't use the phrase "her arch is fundamentally about gender" is because I don't agree with it. I can have a similar opinion with somebody else without that meaning I 100% agree with them. I don't think Azula's arc is fundamentally about gender. I do, however, think that gender is a big part of her character, because it seems to bleed through how both the writers and the fandom treats her.

Suki: a plot device which exists to complicate Sokka's understanding of gender.

Katara: I don't know if or how much the character thought about this herself, and honestly she lacks an arc post Book 1 anyways, but Katara is very much meant as an expression of an ideal vision of femininity from the early 2000s. And her actual character arc, such that it is, cumulates with her challenging Pakku.

Yue: everything about the character is about social norms for upper class NWT women and how she relates to them.

Toph: the entire point of the character is that she's everything a 12 year old elite girl is not supposed to be (particularly a blind one), and that she performs rebellion by transgressing on gender norms and acting like a "tomboy."

Zuko: he failed to perform masculinity correctly (particularly by refusing to fight the Agni Kai), and fundamentally he's trying regain his manhood in the eyes of Ozai (and later Iroh). Honor and especially honor duels are something fundamentally tied up with manhood, and it's not coincidence that one of the first things he does in the series is fighting another Agni Kai.

Azula: Not only is Azula trying to both perform femininity and masculinity at the same time because she must all at once be a son, a daughter, a sister, and a brother, and not only is her behavior deeply influenced by what she understands her duties as a daughter/sister to be, but also the way other characters and the audience react to her is fundamentally gendered.

Ty Lee: she doesn't have an arc, but as a character she is extremely gendered in the eyes of an audience, and her relationships with Azula and Mai are dependent on her gender. Moreover, her experience as an upper class Fire Nation girl is extremely gender dependent, and she appears to deliberately embrace low class, "slutty" femininity as much as possible.

Mai: her entire relationship with her family and Azula is based around her hating performing the gender expectations for elite Fire Nation girls.

Smellerbee: need I say more? Although she is kind of irrelevant.

Suki: What gender complication does she add to Sokka's understanding of gender in the Boiling Rock episode and every other episode afterward? None? Okay. Her serving a point in ONE episode does not make it her whole arc, let alone fundamentally.

Katara: Her being meant as an ideal girl does not make her arc fundamentally about gender, it just mean that's the type of character she is. Having your arc FUNDAMENTALLY about gender does not mean 'You're a certain type of woman', that's a character archetype, not an arc. And no, Katara didn't suddenly become a blank slate after fighting Pakku, she has an arc about each of her missing parents all the way to book 3 FFS.

Yue: We're just gonna ignore she's also a literal resurected chosen one of the moon spirit and her relationship with Sokka is based on finding him funny to be around? Okay.

Toph: It's so her entire point she was planned to be a boy for most of pre-production. Her 'rebellion' wasn't against gender norms, her rebellion was against her parents' obsession with her safety and inability to trust her due to being blind and thus 'helpless'. Toph as a tiny 12 year old boy would have been treated the same and was literally PLANNED that way to begin with. Again, not only not 'fundamental' but entirely irrelevant.

Zuko: No, this headcanon needs to die, Ozai wasn't gonna go 'Well done, son' if Zuko tried to fight him at the Agni Kai, he'd have gotten mad, beat the shit out of him, burned him and banished him. That's why it's abuse, there was no winning the moment Ozai decided Zuko fucked up and needed to be taught a lesson. And no, honor isn't manhood nor are honor duels, you mention Zuko's first Agni Kai while ignoring his last AGAINST A WOMAN, which NOBODY BATS AN EYE about and the lore tell us the Girl's Academy has Agni Kais all the time.

Azula: No, she's not, she's playing the role of the perfect princess and that's it. And no, nobody particularly react to Azula as a girl. And none of that make her arc fundamentally about gender.

Ty Lee: So by your own admission her arc isn't about gender at all, everything else you said is irrelevant and doesn't make her arc fundamentally about gender. Also she does have an arc, it just mostly get resolved offscreen cause she's a tertiary character, her getting over her 'matched set' worries and joining the Kyoshi Warriors is her arc's conclusion.

Mai: Except it's not? At all? For a single second? There's no line saying that in the entire franchise. Her arc is about being mad she can get whatever she wants and DO whatever she wants as long as she stays out of the way. It's about neglect and can (and does) happen the exact same to a boy, not about 'muh gender roles'.

Smellerbee: Yes, you do have to make an argument for your point. A character being mistaken for a boy as a running gag doesn't make it their arc, it make it their running gag. Smellerbee's (very minor) arc is about being a follower of Jet, going from an unthinking yes-woman to someone genuinely supporting Jet in the aftermath of their mistake to someone who now need to make their own way cause their leader died trying to make things right.

And yet everyone you named didn't have their arc fundamentally about gender at all and you could say the exact same stuff you said about the other characters about Aang and Jet (Aang wouldn't even have been raised by Gyatso nor lived in that part of the world if he was a girl and Jet is literally a classic manly man suave Robin Hood leader type, which wouldn't work if he was a woman).

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Zucest_Week

I already bookmarked all the submissions (works & series) I could find from previous years (if you notice I missed anything, please let me know) and the collection is open, so from now on you can post any future submissions there, to make it easier to find. If you don't want to go through the hussle of posting the work on the collection, you can post it normally and I'll bookmark it to the collection (unless it's explicitly stated that you don't wish for your work to be in the collection at all).

But... isn't Azula already on top by virtue of being a fire nation princess? Who tf do these people think she slept with lmao

They unironically try to claim she fucked Ozai and/or Azulon to "earn" all that respect, praise, privilege and protection, ignoring that: 1 - She's a CHILD. A deeply awkward one that canonically doesn't know how to flirt. She's not sleeping around with ANYONE, any adults "involved" with her are not "pawns in her game", they're predators abusing her.

2 - These two men owed her protection and privilege whether they liked her or not (and Azulon clearly didn't) on the basis of "She's their child/grandchild." Her being safe, pampered and admired reflects well on them. It shows that they can afford to to give her the best teachers, best clothes, best food, etc. It's the same reason Ozai didn't get rid of Zuko until he had the perfect excuse to do so and why Azulon allowed them all to live in the palace despite clearly only "liking" Iroh (in his own fucked up way).

3 - Like you said, PRINCESS. Born at the top. Elite. She doesn't HAVE to do anything. If even Zuko could get respect every now and then on the basis of being a prince despite being a dysfigured, banished one, Azula, who was still living in absolute luxury with guards and servants waiting on her 24/7, sure wasn't struggling for it.

4 - Azula is a prodigy, the only person we see with blue fire, and clearly is good at battle strategy AND at playing the role of intimidating royal - all of which are much better at earning her respect and admiration than, you know, dishonoring herself, aka what her sleeping with anyone she wasn't married to would be seen as (doubly so as a princess)

5 - Azula very clearly took ZERO liberties with ANY Fire Lord and that does not suggest an incestuous dynamic. Hell, it doesn't even suggest a normal family dynamic. They were untouchable. Gods on Earth. The power they held over her, and everybody, was absolute. It doesn't matter if they're giving her the highest honors or nothing at all, her job is to bow before them saying "thank you for not killing me."

It's a classic case of "People just assign generic villainous traits to whatever evil character is in question, regardless of it making sense." Evil Seductress is a common role for female villains, therefore Azula MUST be one. I've said it once, I'll say it again, she could be wearing a burka 100% of the time and never have any interaction with any male character and someone, somewhere would still convince themselves she's the type of villain that gets it on with anybody.

Extra stupid when they use the bedroom scene in The Awakening as "proof" she's indeed a Femme Fatale that slept her way to the top, through her own family no less, ignoring that:

1 - Azula didn't sleep with Zuko, nor did she promise to or hint that she would. The tension is undeniable (thanks to Grey adoring the ship and getting the greenlight to voice it as she wanted), but neither Azula nor Zuko made a move because of course they didn't. It was not the writer's intention to go there, even if it was Grey's, so it is a moment of "...there's something weird going on here" that the narrative proceeds to ignore permanently because it wasn't part of the plan. Like a shared intrusive thought/mind in the gutter moment both characters refused to act on or even acknowledge.

And even ignoring production/intention, in universe, it makes sense that they didn't: Taboo, honor, rivalry, them both being awkward teenagers, Zuko's paranoia around Azula, Azula's need to be "perfect", etc.

Making Freud proud for a fleeting moment and then repressing the hell out of it to sleep at night is not the same as being a Femme Fatale.

2 - Even if we pretend they had sex or that Azula offered/implied she'd do it: Azula didn't GAIN anything out of that scene. Hell, she didn't even try.

She didn't get new information about the Avatar and how he might have survived (or Zuko's plans to deal with it), didn't find out about him visiting Iroh, didn't get any insight into his relationship with Mai or push him to make it more serious or break up with her, didn't find out about his Blue Spirit shenanigans or about his doubts and indentity crisis, didn't make him confirm her story to Ozai, NOTHING.

Hero X Villain romance/subtext does not make the villain an Evil Seductress when it's based on genuine attraction, without any machiavellian motivation.

3 - Zuko is bellow Ozai/Azulon in the Royal Family hierarchy, and depending on the day and circumstance, he's bellow Azula (not in the fun way). She was holding all the cards in that specific moment. Making a move on him would at best change nothing, and at worse would either ruin them both OR would be HER giving HIM a bit of power, as he'd know a shameful secret of hers and/or have something he knows she wants to use to his advantage, much like Azula used his need for Ozai's validation to her advantage.

Azula's behavior in that scene genuinely just cannot be seen as anything other than her toying with Zuko like she always does and things getting a bit strange because of the context - they're two teenagers that haven't lived under the same roof, let alone acted like siblings, for YEARS, and now they're suddenly all alone in her bedroom, at night, with her wearing just a robe.

They don't know where they stand with each other anymore. Their relationship is a confusing mess of contradictory feelings they can't properly identify, so pretty much everything, from "Why can't we just be a happy, normal family?" to "I wish you didn't exist and want to get rid of you", has crossed their thoughts. Some inappropriate stuff was bound to sneak in eventually.