Lil' Stinker

Even ignoring the comics, imagine you are married to abuser man (who even outside of the comics you can infer abused Ursa to because like, it’s Ozai, Thats what he does to everyone around him, that’s what she teaches Azula to do to everyone around her)

You have one child who is being black sheeped.

You have another child who is the golden child and is actively emulating her father (your abuser) and celebrating the prospect of her uncles death at the ripe old age of 9.

THEN you over hear said child MOCKING her brother being slated to be killed. So you pull her aside and she reveals that your first son is gonna be killed.

Which BTW: I have heard some Azula fans frame Ursa as being like, physically abusive here and like, sorry but Ursa pulling Azula aside here strictly is a very resonable reaction to hearing you second child openly talk about your first child being slated to be murdered, like whattt. “Azula as afraid” Azula was afraid because she was caught by her parent (who she knows doesn’t appreciate her more aggressive tendencies) mocking her brothers upcoming death Azula was afraid because her brother was about to be killed, Azula wasnt afraid because big bad Ursa pulled her arm be so fr.

So now you have to create a Posion and kill the fire lord and be banished forever.

Like, ok. She probably could have been less harsh to Azula. Probably could have made her feel loved more. Ultimately Azula didn’t feel like she was loved by her mother, and Thats a failure on Ursas part.

But ALSO she has to balance doing that, beings caring mom to Azula. with balancing actually trying to discourage Azulas negative behavior (which she does display!) while her dad actively sabotages her (Ozai actively encourages cruelty in Azula and Azula emulates the cruelty of her father). And do all that while also trying to help her scape goat child.

And you gotta do all of this while dodging abuse from Ozai yourself.

Did she fail Azula? Yeah. But mannn. I would not of done better in her circumstances. Be glad it was Ursa and not me raising those kids, I would of retreated into my room of no return and read books/watched plays for the rest of my life while trying to avoid this entire situation. Would have created new types of neglect. Would have left those kids to the maids FR.

It is bare minimum parenting, that Ursa does with Zuko, but absolves Azula from.

(Also because Zuko alone is mostly about, Zuko, so it doesn’t really focus on Azula and Ursa’s relationship all that much lol)

Obviously that is NOT how you deal with a situation like this, and obviously clear to the viewer that it’s not. Being the golden child is not actually a great position to be in, and by focusing so hard on trying to encourage and care for Zuko due to his more obvious, overt abuse, she ends up overlooking the more covert abuse Azula is going through and throwing her to the wolves. Again, I do agree that Ursa failed Azula.

Buttt, hindsight is 20/20. It’s not like Ursa has parenting novels on how to raise children or a modern therapist in the palace. To your point about Ursa not explaining to Azula why what she was doing was bad, I counter with, “I sometimes punish my children without explaining why, because Im so caught up in wanting to discourage the bad behavior that I forget to interrogate the root cause” is a common issue for modern parents in like normal, non crazy evil houses to have, in 2025. Let alone in a house hold hundreds of years removed from our modern context, that is also headed by abuser man. Let alone when the child your punishing without explaining why is being actively favored and ENCOURAGED to be cruel by abuser man and you have to try and navigate that in your parenting.

I always find it funny when people are so 100% confident that they would have done better in Ursa’s postion, from their phone screens in 2025. Honey if you were in Ursa’s postion you wouldn’t even know what a “golden child” like, was. You would have probably been raised in some family in the fire nation that thought imperialism was super cool, that had extreme expectations of you to be perfect and feminine and never act out in a manor that disgraces the family(if you were a noble) or be a dirt poor girl thrown into a world of political intrigue and psychological violence (If you were a peasant girl). That had to deal with Ozais abuse of you, your child, and Azula while probably not even fully understanding how the dynamics of abuse like, work, only that what Ozai was doing was wrong on some level.

And even under all of that, and the threat of your scapegoat child being murdered, Ursa still manages to

1. Keep her Scapegoat child alive and give him affection (a miracle as far as im concerned)

2. Leave Azula DEEP DOWN knowing that you did in fact love her (that is how I interpret Azula’s hallucination in her breakdown episode, that to despite all the grievances and GENUINE, LEGITIMATE failures of Ursa as a mom, deep down at her worst Azula knew that Ursa loved her and didn’t actually see her as a monster)

Was that enough? No. But frankly I don’t think Ursa being the most perfect, flawless parent in the world would have been enough to save Azula. Because ultimately no matter how good Ursa was or was not to Azula beforehand, her impact is doomed to be cut short, she was always going to have to leave Azula behind. Behind with Ozai, who would probably exploit the genuine failures of Ursa’s parenting towards Azula to poison the well against her and make her seem even worse in Azula’s eyes.

“Obviously this is not how you deal with a situation like this, and obviously clear to the viewer it’s not. Being a golden child is not a great postion to be in, and by trying so hard to encourage and care for Zuko due to his more obvious, overt abuse, Ursa ends up overlooking the more covert abuse Azula is experiencing and throwing her to the wolves”- I literally agree with you?

Now, Ozai is so obviously evil that many of these stans don't even bother denigrating him outside of stating the obvious. After all, the show gave them closure on that front. But Ursa is a dangling thread that was never fully addressed in the show and still remains unresolved in the comics. Thus, no closure.

Since they can never forgive their own parents and Ozai has been dealt with, all their lingering feelings about their own feelings get projected solely onto Ursa. No action can be interpreted generously or even neutrally. Everything bad in their, I mean Azula's, life is their parent's, I mean Ursa', fault. Azula was a victim! Ursa was equally as abusive. She had to be. Because if she wasn't, they start questioning their own behavior.