Little meow meow

The fandom: Ugh! Why won't Katara shut the fuck up about her mama? Doesn't she know others have been through worse? Katara is such a bitch for what she said to Sokka!

Zuko: Was burned alive by his father and had his honor dangled in front of his face since the age of thirteen. He holds onto his honor so hard that it leads him to act in ways that could possibly kill him.

The fandom: Haha! Zuko's honor! So funny.

Jet: Mentally unstable from the ethnic cleansing of his village that made him the pseudo father of his team. He tried to do better but was brainwashed and killed mercilessly.

The show and fandom: Haha! Jet's dead. Fuck him tho.

Korra: Was groomed by her uncle and isolated from her support system. Her spirit was ripped from her body and was spiritually tortured.

The fandom: Why did that dumbass trust her uncle?

Aang: Aang is an adult man who dragged his politically important friends on a wild goose chase. He drove them into a storm while on a boat and nearly killed them at sea. When his wife/gf tried to get him to turn the ship around, Aang refused to address any of her points and instead used his trauma as a get out of jail card. Aang's trust in a stranger ended up killing them all but his gf/wife revived everyone. They all forgive Aang and go on a journey at the end of the movie to go collect artifacts from Aang's culture. He even gets a group of Air acolytes who dedicate their lives to Aang's culture and its survival.

1. i love him but—

2. zuko is aang’s number one glazer

3. *abuse joke*

4. *victim blaming*

5. poor helpless azula—

6. *throw him under the bus for old chinstrap*

7. for the “doomed siblings””poor azula deserved—“ variety of fake zuko fan: *kiyi hate for no reason other than the fact that she feels like the child character is stealing a role from azula that azula herself never wanted or the fact that kiyi character isn’t fully centered around propping up azula like they think every character should*

8. no you guys just don’t get it, zuko was a fascist and therefore needs to be “humbled” by this other fascist who did fuck all the entire show to make up for it and had to be made into a completely different person in the comics to fix it

There is so much wrong here for multiple reasons, but especially the paper thin veneer of pretending to care about the harm that imperialism does.

Also no one ever helped her doesn't she deserve a chance to get help but also isn't Zuko a piece of shit for having her institutionalized but like doesn't she deserve help she's mentally ill but how dare she be institutionalized like if only someone helped her but wasn't it harmful for Zuko to take her out of the institution when she wasn't ready but also wasn't that institution abusive but if only Azula were given a chance to get real mental help but not like professional help she's much better just wandering around in the wilderness looking for more vulnerable women to exploit but couldn't she be redeemed if someone helped her but not like when her mom tried to teach her right from wrong that was neglect I mean no one ever told Azula that violence was wrong if only someone would...

Also Iroh clearly sees her as just a little girl because he's a misogynist but also he sees her as hardened and evil when he should have helped her, I mean, she's just a little girl...

There are some replies to it pointing out that in general Zuko tends to not be manipulative (or lie) even when it would serve him, and explanations offered for this ranging from the Watsonian (largely “he’s autistic” and variants thereupon) to the Doylist (“he’s being narratively contrasted with very manipulative Azula”). Some other comments about him not wanting to share private trauma with people he doesn’t know well.

But in this particular case I don’t actually think it’s any of that, really, from Zuko’s point of view, because the most fundamental thing of it is that he’s an abused kid.

People don’t tend to appreciate how much growing up surrounded by the language of abuse, and/or in a culture of abuse (as Zuko was - dozens of people saw Ozai burn him, and none objected), affects you. It’s not just about the trauma directly. It’s about being forcibly taught that this is normal and deserved to the degree that you genuinely don’t realize most of the world doesn’t.

It’s about casually mentioning things about your childhood and everyone responding with shock and horror, and you being confused, because you had no idea that was yet another thing about your life that wasn’t normal. It’s about how you eventually realize you just can’t talk about the first couple decades of your life at all without being accused of trauma-dumping and guilt-tripping and manipulation, being punished again for failing to protect others from the discomfort of hearing second-hand about something you had to live through with a child’s body.

And the thing is? Zuko isn’t at that last sentence’s point yet, when we see him with the Gaang. He’s before that, at the “does not yet realize this isn’t normal” point. We know this, because of how he responds to Iroh at the end: kneeling in front of him waiting for punishment. He doesn’t think abuse is abnormal; he thinks it’s a natural and deserved response to his poor behavior, so thoroughly that he believes even Iroh would do it. All the way to the end of the show! (After he’s had any opportunity to say anything to the Gaang!)

Whether he would choose to explain his scar to the Gaang if he knew it would make them like/forgive him is a moot point. He had no idea that it would. With his frame of reference, he assumed their reactions would be somewhere in the range of “yeah, why are you whining about something that normal and mundane, I don’t bore you with stories of how Gyatso used airbending to punish me” to “dang, how badly did you fuck up to deserve that? you must be even worse a person than we realized” to “he went easy on you and should’ve done worse”.

a thought hit me a few weeks ago about Azula's friendship with Ty Lee and Mai.

Azula obviously respects nonbenders, she valued and admired Ty Lee and Mai's abilities. thats why she went to them for help in Book 2. but it is interesting to me how two nonbenders are her best friends, but no fellow firebenders. made me speculate she probably didnt want a firebender as a friend because she'd see them as inherent competition, or somehow a bigger threat to her. like she couldnt control them as easily.

again this is speculation, and I know Azula fans wont like it. im not even saying its very accurate, with Zuko (hes a firebender, but she doesnt feel threatened by him, mainly because Ozai openly talks down on him), and when she clearly sees herself and is told by Ozai and everyone shes one of the best firebenders of her generation. but i dont think its TOO out there with what we've seen of her.

Hi, and thanks!

No, I think you are absolutely right. I've seen Azula glazers say that her relationship with Mai and Ty Lee is proof she respects nonbenders, but that implies that she respects Mai and Ty Lee. She respects them as fighters, sure, but she also considers them beneath her and treats them awfully. And I do agree that she chose them in part because they are nonbenders. I think there are also psychological reasons why she was drawn to both Mai and Ty Lee, as each are emotionally isolated and vulnerable in their own way. But yeah, she would absolutely feel threatened by another firebender.

I've said before (and gotten attacked by Azula stans for saying) that Azula is too afraid of not being the best to actually challenge herself, and that's why she's not as good as she thinks she is. I agree that she does not feel threatened by Zuko because she was raised to see him as beneath her, but that starts to change once Zuko stops buying into Ozai's rhetoric. Her line to Ozai, "you can't treat me like Zuko" shows how threatened she is by the idea of being "like Zuko," and when she challenges him to an agni kai in the finale, she calls it "the showdown that was always meant to be."

You're right that it's funny that people do this, considering that a lot of zutara shippers ship zutara because they don't like Aang as a love interest for Katara.

There are a couple reasons these accusations exist, though. On one level, it's sour grapes. Zuko is an incredibly popular character and Aang stans want what he had. Zuko is also an incredibly well-written character which means that his characteristics come across more believably than Aang. Zuko definitely didn't start out as charming and charismatic, but he went through a redemption arc that helped him to grow and learn how to have relationships with others. And although I tend to see even redeemed Zuko as more introverted, I don't think it's out of character to headcanon him post series as someone who can be charming and charismatic, since he learned from Iroh, a guy who makes friends wherever he goes. And while we were watching Zuko grow, we were presented Aang as a character who was extroverted and who made friends easily, but then the show didn't make him work for those relationships and kept him stagnant as a character. The show kinda attempts to do some interesting things there. In particular I am thinking of us being shown in certain scenes how Aang's bending prowess alienates him from others. He does not understand why the other airbenders don't want to play with him and he doesn't understand why Katara gets mad at him for picking up waterbending so easily. These SHOULD be significant social obstacles, but the narrative instead treats it as if they were wrong to resent Aang's skills. Because he's just so perfect, or something. The narrative wants so badly for Aang to be the best that it can't treat his flaws as actual flaws.

Add to that that the narrative also makes attempts to parallel Aang with Zuko that they don't go through with because, as I said above, they are afraid of really challenging Aang as a character, and it highlights even more how Zuko's narrative shines in comparison. So Zuko comes across as much more likeable because the narrative has to show us why we should like him, instead of telling us and just assuming we will like him because he's the hero.

What I want to talk about today, though, is how I see some fans complaining about the indignity of where Azula ends up, as if it's not fair or she "deserves better," and as always it's just such a shame that so much discourse around Azula largely misses the point.

The last agni kai is supposed to emphasize the tragedy of Azula as a character, but it's also supposed to be grotesque. The catharsis of that moment is that Azula had opportunities to back down, but she didn't. She goes into the fight with her brother saying that it's "the showdown that was always meant to be" and that she's "sorry it has to end this way," confident that she will win against a brother she's been taught to view as lesser than her. The fact that she ends up crying huge, wet tears and spitting fire while chained to a grate is an example of what happens to people who seek to make others small to make themselves seem big.

A context I don't see talked about often is that we're told that an agni kai, under Sozin's regime, is supposed to end in the loser being burned. Something that Zuko consistently refuses to do to his opponents, and this is what gets him burned and banished, causing his most important character wound, the inciting incident of his arc. The fact that he doesn't wound Azula is a victory for him, even though she does burn him through cheating and trying to aim at Katara. Azula ending up unburned and confined is another insult to her, another nail in the coffin of her destructive worldview being proven wrong. The scene of her uselessly still trying to fight even after it's clear she's lost is sad, but it's also meant to emphasize her reluctance to let go of that destructive worldview that caused her downfall. It's supposed to be grotesque, it's supposed to be humiliating, it's supposed to invoke the cathartic end of characters who are brought low by their own hubris.

*goes to their blog*

*they're an Azula stan*

*nothing they say actually matters*

What I said was actually "that's how fascists perpetuate lies to justify their violence." I didn't say Azula was a fascist, but if it quacks like a duck...

Anyway, in what fucking universe does a fourteen year old shoot fireballs at people, is a martial arts master, leads armies and stages a coup?

There's actually no age limit on fascism, it's a political ideology. And while most fourteen year olds just ascribe to whatever political ideology their parents believe, or the opposite if they hate their parents, if you believe in fascist ideology, you are indeed a fascist. If you ACT on fascist ideology, and have the power and agency to enact real harm on people because of it, you don't get a free pass because of age.

Nope, I'm not using it to describe "anything I don't like," I mean it in the very specific definition of the word.

Dictatorial power?

Forcible suppression of opposition?

Strong regimentation of society?

Extreme nationalism?

Militarism?

Belief that the nation or race is supreme over the individual?

Azula believes - and acts on - all of these things. She is a fascist.

The funny thing is that this whole thing started because some dumbshit (let's be real, it's probably the same person) wanted to cry to me about how Azula "cares about the Fire Nation." Azula cares about the Fire Nation in the sense that fascists "care" about their nations, and this kind of rhetoric is literally a fascist dogwhistle, as I said above. Azula cares about military force and power and proving that she's superior. She cares about the Fire Nation as an abstract entity that reflects on her own might and control, as someone existing in the top 1% of that nation, and everything in her world needs to serve that end.

The things she believes and does are textbook fascist and that's why the creators use visual references to Nazi Germany, for example, to show us this.

And I'm not talking in general. I'm talking about /that/ specific cult on Tumblr, the ones who demonize him worse than Ozai, write fics about him SA-ing her or being ultra possessive of her in a romantic way. Like they loathe whatever fucked up version of Zuko they have in their head. But why do so many of them ship Zucest?

Because they want Azula to be the ultimate victim and Zuko's canon narrative challenges that. At the same time, they also hugely resent that Zuko got out and is no longer dependent on her or Ozai. They need Zuko to be the bad guy but they also need him to worship Azula and for her to be the center of his world.

It's not just about making Zuko a worse person to make Azula look better, it's not just about making a victim of abuse seem like the "real" abuser, although that's certainly part of it. But deeper than that, is a desire for Zuko to go down with Azula, because Zuko's redemption challenges the idea that Azula was just unfairly doomed by outside forces.

It's the same reason that Azula needed to convince Zuko to join her in the Crossroads of Destiny, the same reason she lies to Ozai about him killing Aang so that she can have something to hold over his head, while telling him she's doing it for his benefit. Because before that, Zuko was happy in a life that was completely separate from her, her father, and all the things that she was convinced made her superior.

Zuko HAS to be just as doomed as Azula in order to validate Azula's worldview. This is why I sideye (and often block on sight) when people refer to them as "doomed siblings" or "tragic siblings," in a way that implies that they are equal in this regard. Don't get me wrong, it is tragic that Zuko had to defeat his sister, but it's tragic for him because she hurt him. Azula's narrative is a tragedy because she's the cause of her own downfall. It's tragic that Zuko had to fight her in order to be free of that dynamic, but it's still a triumph that he is free. He is not "doomed" because he became a better person and his sister did not. He is not "doomed" for getting out. He is not obligated to go down with her. It's not wrong that Zuko is able to make a life for himself outside of his abusive family when Azula isn't.

This is also why I don't really believe all the Azula redemption stuff. Most of it isn't really about wanting to see her redeemed. These people are addicted to their manufactured outrage and anger and sense of victimhood. If Azula actually were redeemed, they would absolutely not know what to do.

It's why they hate Ursa and Iroh and Mai and Kiyi for the crime of loving Zuko, why they hate Zuko's redemption and they hate zutara. Zuko can't have a good life when Azula doesn't, especially one that doesn't revolve around his sister.

No, actually what you mean is this:

Me: I think people who commit genocide should get punched in the throat

You, harassing me in my inbox: HOW DARE YOU!!!!

Also why are you making this about zutara shippers when your response about "propagandized teenage girls" makes it clear that this is about me calling out Azula apologism? Is it because the venn diagram of people who pretend to be progressive about hating zutara and people who are more than willing to excuse Azula for genocidal violence is a circle?

“Colonizer” is not an ontological category. It’s a role within a specific geopolitical power dynamic, and therefore it can change — or even cease to exist — when these geopolitical power dynamics change (like when, idk, a Gaang of teenagers overthrow a genocidal imperialist colonial regime to install a new monarch who vows to stop the genocide and imperialism and colonization and bring about an era of love and peace)