I read your answer about Yue and Katara and now I want to ask about Mai and Ty Lee. While Katara never grew up where she was told she doesn't matter and she's only useful in her service to her society (I love you pointing out how Katara loving the world comes from her love for herself) I think Mai and Ty Lee grew up similar to Yue where they're told their individuality doesn't matter and they should be of use to their fascist country. But unlike Yue they neither of them have internalized it. Mai doesn't listen to her parents telling her what she /should/ be like and doesn't seem to like them or her brother much and Ty Lee literally runs away when she has the chance. The only reason they follow along is because of actual threat to their personal safety. As opposed to them, Azula seems to be someone who /has/ internalized what her duty and place is and doesn't value herself, much like Yue.
yes, these are good points. if I had infinite time and energy, I could map the ways in which every atla character reflects every other character, how they parallel and differ from one another and why, what that signifies thematically, etc etc. but I’ll try to be brief, at least for now.
azula is very much like yue, in the sense that yue is very much like sokka, and sokka and azula are mirrors. the yue/azula parallelism feels especially potent because they are both princesses, and so they are parallel along intersecting lines of social status and gender. we don’t know much about arnook’s relationship to his daughter, although we can certainly infer a lot. and it’s evident that ozai abuses azula, and uses her fear of him to inspire undying loyalty. yue, azula, and sokka each do feel sincerely obligated to their fathers and their people (inextricably linked, almost metonymically, in each of their minds) and feel a deep sense of guilt and shame when their natural, human desires conflict with what they believe their fundamental purpose is. they are not people, they are mere vessels! how can a weapon, a shield, a doll, a humble servant want things?? azula is a child who wants love, companionship, comfort, reassurance, kindness. azula is a beautiful weapon who serves at the right hand of firelord ozai. his will is her will. long may he reign.
it is interesting though, that mai and ty lee are only externally loyal to azula, but inwardly prioritize their own survival above all else. it’s not even that they hate the fire nation and disagree with its conquest (if they do, we get no indication of it whatsoever), but that they value their freedom anyway. azula, who has been ruled by fear her whole life, couldn’t understand why mai and ty lee would betray her when she is so successfully fearsome. love cannot be stronger than fear, or else everything she has ever known in her entire life has been a sickening lie, so their fear-meters must simply be broken. she doesn’t like looking in the mirror.
so why do mai and ty lee not internalize their patriarchal upbringings that dictate that their only use is to their nation? mai’s parents clearly think that unless she can marry a high-ranking noble (aka the crown prince) she ought to sit in the corner silently for the rest of her life. ty lee’s parents don’t even seem to be able to distinguish her as an individual at all. both are told: be the playmate of the princess, serve your nation. both do as they are told, while secretly rolling their eyes. the part of me that ships them more than anything thinks that it must’ve helped them a lot to have had each other. unlike with azula, they are of equal rank (at least in terms of how they treat each other), which means that they can be honest with each other. ty lee can tell mai that her makeup looks like shit. mai can tell ty lee she’s not going into that yucky wall sludge juice no matter how much lightning azula shoots at her. that kind of friendship in an otherwise oppressive environment where true feelings are violently discouraged is invaluable. yue never had a friend who valued her before she met sokka, and she does begin to question everything she thought she knew about her duty in the limited span she spends with him.
it also helps that mai and ty lee do not have overbearing fathers. mai’s father never even speaks to her, only her mother does, and ty lee’s father can’t tell his own daughters apart, apparently. conversely, ozai has consumed azula’s entire world; he dictates the borders of her universe. yue, too, is sheltered by her father, and his limited vision of what her world ought to look like. sokka’s father tells him that there is nothing more important than protecting his sister, and since his mother just died doing that very thing, he takes that to heart. even if hakoda and arnook (and even ozai, to a degree) truly do want what’s best for their children, the circumstances in which they were raised have conditioned them into total obedience at the expense of their personhood. mai and ty lee, being (relatively) ordinary teenagers in (relatively) ordinary circumstances, with parents who want to inspire the appropriate level of nationalism in their daughters, but take a more hands-off approach to parenting, would produce children who know to do as they’re told, but mostly to keep up appearances. they are obedient because they have more reasons to be than not to be, but once they are presented with the opportunity to disobey, they do not hesitate.
ultimately, it’s not just about being told what to believe, but how that dogma is communicated.
to azula (and zuko) it was communicated very effectively through unrepentant violence. to sokka, it was communicated through the establishment of traumatizing stakes. to yue, it was communicated as a given, an axiom that could not be denied. to mai and ty lee, it was communicated by annoying parents, their bossy friend from school whose only true superiority lies in her rank, and a country that boasts itself as the greatest in the world with little evidence. of course, they may as well do as they’re told. their parents have power over them, as does their bossy friend, and it’s not like they have an alternative. but then an alternative presents itself, a circumstance wherein the things they actually value are threatened, and they have to choose between comfortable complaisance and freedom at the cost of death. it’s surprising, to be sure, but it’s also inevitable. after all, they were never mere vessels; they have always valued their freedom.
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