#a:tla analysis

He is his tribes last line of defence

Two years ago, his father and the men of his tribe journeyed to the Earth Kingdom to help fight against the Fire Nation.

Leaving him alone.

Here he prepares to fight and has to use his teeth to tie his wraps because this ritual is meant to be done with your tribes men.

but there is no one left to help him

He promised his father he would protect his tribe and has dedicated himself to it.

To the extent that he can apply their traditional war paint alone without a mirror.

At times this is played for laughs. Hes off playing soilder, as katara call it, trying to train small children to be wariors

But he was not much older than they are when the fire nation attacked and took his mother away.

now he's alone, the only male of age, raised in a society that says he is the only one left who can fight to protect his tribe.

He is preparing to die.

He's seen what happens, he knows what's likely to happen.

They took all of the other benders away before he was born and now they've come for his little sister.

Sure, I’ll go into it. 

Let me start off by saying that I actually really like Iroh as a character. I think he’s great and well-written. I think the fandom tends to gloss over his flaws and label him as “perfect”, which is not true. One of his greatest failings (aside from making two teenage siblings fight each other for the throne...or really not intervening at all where Ozai is concerned) is his treatment of Azula, and him saying “No, she’s crazy and needs to go down” and essentially writing her off when, if you compare Azula’s personality with Season 1 Zuko, they’re really not all that different. Azula, people tend to forget, is a 14 year old girl who was as much a subject of abuse as her brother. Zuko and Azula were essentially pitted against one another to both gain Ozai’s affection and, more importantly, avoid punishment. The only difference is that she was rewarded and praised by Ozai for her power and cruelty, while Zuko was punished for his “shortcomings”. Zuko’s entire storyline proved how important it is to have a good, guiding parental figure in one’s life, and it’s tragic that Azula didn’t have that.

Now, let’s talk about why Azula probably hated her Uncle.

1. She thinks he’s a failure and, worse than that, weak

And I don’t mean weakness in terms of his firebending skills. Let me explain - Fire Nation citizens are ingrained with Nationalistic pride and complete loyalty to the Fire Lord from a very young age. Iroh, once upon a time, was the heir to the Fire Nation’s throne and the favored son of the notoriously cruel Azulon. He laid a 600 day siege against Ba Sing Se during which his son, Lu Ten, was killed. This tragic event caused him to withdraw his troops, despite having breached the outer wall.   

Upon his return home, his father dies under mysterious circumstances and decrees that Ozai will be the heir to the throne. Instead of contesting it, Iroh leaves the Fire Nation and ostensibly spends his time traveling the world, meeting with the Dragons, and getting in tune with the Spirit World. Doing so gives him the knowledge and wisdom to see the error of his ways, at which point he returns to the Fire Nation and serves as a General in the army. 

Let’s look at this from the perspective of Azula, or really any other citizen of the Fire Nation. Their country waged a nearly 2-year long siege against the Earth Kingdom - and right when they make progress by breaking through the first wall, the Crown Prince gives up because his son died. Countless Fire Nation lives and resources were spent on this 600 day campaign, and they end up with nothing to show for it. If you look at the philosophy of Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai, they likely would have used the death of Lu Ten to galvanize the troops and double their efforts, in an attempt to exact revenge against the Earth Kingdom for daring to spill royal blood - and so that their sacrifices thus far would not have been in vain.

And then, not only does Iroh withdraw from Ba Sing Se, he also abandons his duties and his country completely. Iroh had a reputation as a fearsome Firebender and cunning strategist - and he just leaves. So now not only is he a failure, but he’s also a deserter, one who abandons his nation while it’s reeling from a humiliating defeat and the loss of its Sovereign, Azulon (who, by the way, ruled for about 80 years).

In Azula’s eyes, all of this amounts to weakness, and as we all know from how she was raised by Ozai, weakness is unacceptable. 

2. She is parroting her father’s feelings of resentment

Given that Azula was the favored child of Ozai, it’s likely that she idolized her father and thought he was superior to her uncle, the Crown Prince (for the first few years of her life, at least, Iroh WAS the Crown Prince) and should have been the true heir to Azulon. We don’t see a whole lot of Ozai or his backstory/characterization, but it’s not unreasonable to assume that he, being many years younger than Iroh (it’s never officially stated, but Ozai is around 45 at the time of the show and Iroh appears to be in his late 60’s/early 70’s) had an inferiority complex growing up, and probably some form of sibling rivalry. After all, Iroh is already an adult by the time Ozai is born, and the Crown Prince, who has been groomed from birth to be Azulon’s heir. Ozai is an afterthought; an insurance policy, who at the very moment of Lu Ten’s birth, is outranked by an infant. 

Ozai probably resented Iroh his entire life, so it is not unlikely that Azula would probably feel the same way. 

3. He’s a traitor to the Fire Nation

Azula is a Nationalist and Ozai’s most loyal enforcer. Iroh’s a traitor, and as far as she knows, a corrupting influence to her brother, Zuko. She also probably thinks that he’s committing treason because (she doesn’t know any better) Iroh wants to be the rightful Fire Lord, and she is not going to stand for that. 

4. He reminds her of her mother

Azula is used to being the golden child - a prodigious Firebender, the favored daughter of her father, representative of everything the model Fire Nation child should be. And yet, her own mother does not appear to love her. Her Uncle has stated distaste for her. She thinks she’s doing everything right - because according to Sozin and Ozai’s philosophies and the emphasis of power and loyalty to the Fire Nation - she is; so why do two of her own family members prefer Zuko, the “screw-up” of the family - to her? 

It’s clear that Azula craves the love and adoration of others, but she doesn’t really understand it. I think as she grew older and saw more of the world and how people behaved toward her, she understood on some level that she was considered a “monster” and that people were afraid of her; but that’s how she was raised. Fear was power, and power was everything. And growing up, she was only ever positively reinforced for her ruthlessness and cunning by her father (of whom she is very much afraid, by the way...that is made perfectly clear in her attempts to bring Zuko home and also give him credit for allegedly killing the Avatar. Part of it is actually probably due to some level of affection she has for him, but part of it is definitely motivated by having someone else take the heat off of her in an abusive household) and she witnessed firsthand how perceived weakness was punished - so she did everything she could to achieve the ideal of perfection that Ozai, Azulon, and Sozin had proliferated. So she probably never really understood why her own mother and Iroh didn’t like her. And the fact that they both seemed to prefer Zuko, who she’s been taught to think she’s better than, would only further that resentment.

She thinks she can earn people’s affection by being a perfect Fire Nation soldier, because that’s what works with her father - and when it doesn’t work with Ursa or Iroh, two important adult family figures in her life - she doesn’t understand why and, even worse than that, it makes her feel inferior to Zuko. 

5. My final point is purely speculative, but...He didn’t do anything to directly stop Ozai’s rise to power

In the years after the war, after recovering from her mental break and maybe rehabilitating to become an advisor to Zuko (let’s be totally honest, a Nation whose entire economy for the past 100 years has been built on war and imperialization is not going to have an easy transition into peace, especially when they are expected to give up their colonies and play nice with an equally corrupt government that was controlled by the Secret Police force which has no qualms about brainwashing its own citizens...also the new Fire Lord is a banished Prince who is the apprentice of the Disgraced Prince and who returned to defeat the pride of the Nation, Princess Azula, Ozai’s Chosen Heir and the Conqueror of Ba Sing Se), Azula’s going to be pretty pissed that her supposedly wise and worldly uncle did not intervene in her megalomaniacal and abusive father’s rise to power. 

If my uncle, who never liked me, lost countless Fire Nation lives and resources in a battle that ended with him retreating, abandoned the Crown to go on a sightseeing tour of the world, returned and became a traitor to the nation by foiling the Admiral’s conquest of the Northern Water Tribe resulting in the loss of more Fire Nation lives, escaped from you multiple times and went on to become a tourist and small business owner in an enemy nation, turned your brother against you, did nothing to stop his own brother whom he knew was deeply abusive even after he came back after gaining all this supposed wisdom, and THEN also left you alone with your abusive father while taking your inferior brother under his wing and helping him become an extremely powerful bender who eventually defeats you with the help of a Water Tribe peasant...yeah, I’d be pretty pissed at him, too. 

To be fair, she probably never would have willingly gone with them because they were basically just sent on a wild goose chase at that point...but he never even tried to help her.

anyways this was born from me staring at some pebbles on the beach while i was taking a break from surfing

so I was thinking about the line from Li and Lo where they go "even the sharpest of rocks can be smoothed by waves" and I'm like "water is the element of change - afajwkfjw OMG WAS THE BEACH MORE OF A ZUTARA EPISODE THAN ZUMAI ON ACCIDENT LMFAOOOOO"

so i really started thinking - and yes, it is

The Beach shows exactly how dysfunctional Zuko and Mai's relationship is - it's basically a mirror for actual high school relationships that are off-and-on again. Zuko at that point in time is having a lot of emotional trouble, but is ordered around by Mai to do things for her. Furthermore, Mai does nothing to quell Zuko's growing distaste of her attracting the attention of other boys (she can talk to whoever she wants but really she could've been like "I can talk to whoever, I hate them all lol" rather than just,,,not doing anything about him getting frustrated). At the campfire scene, their morals and personalities are further exposed - Zuko is highly empathetic, while Mai is highly apathetic.

We've seen Zuko throughout the entire show - it's his show, along with Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph (with support from Suki, she deserved more eps tbh) - so we KNOW Zuko has a massive moral compass. From what we can glean from Mai, she...is the exact opposite of Zuko. No moral compass, is a follower, doesn't take initiative, and does things just for herself.

(this is only considering all characterizations in the show up to The Beach, we will not be examining the show comic or post-series comics)

The Beach shows the two at their worst, and ultimately draws us a picture of the worst possible route Zumai could take if they ever married as Fire Lord and Lady

now where's the Zutara aspect? it's coming

Now, Katara and Zuko don't interact at all in this ep, but symbolically? YES

Li and Lo talk about how the waves smooth the edges of the roughest rocks, Zuko may not be from the Earth Kingdom but he did spend plenty of time there, along with having a rather prickly personality for a good majority of the series

Katara does not handhold Zuko throughout his redemption arc, she's more like a checkpoint (bolded in case people misinterpret the previous line. Zuko comes to everything on his own conclusion, Katara is there to compare him from season to season). The Northern Water Tribe battle - a demonstration of how much Katara's power has become, while showing how drive Zuko is to capture the Avatar Crossroads of Destiny - Zuko is at a crossroads, Katara representing the choice to move forward and leap into the unknown, Azula representing the choice to go home, something he hasn't seen in three years, along with the love of his father. (also contrast between the Song and Li scar moment and the Katara and Zuko scar moment) (not particularly relevant but still worthy because this is the redemption arc we're talking about) The Last Agni Kai - Zuko rationally thinks about his options on how to fight Azula (a duel for the throne would be more viable politically, along with keeping Katara as safe as possible because there is a comet increasing every firebender's powers) and in the moment that mattered most, threw away his chance for the crown to save Katara, the girl who challenged him, who was there along his journey to push him, and he'd push back

Katara pushes Zuko, and he pushes back, challenging her bending power (B1), her views of the world (B2), and then in an arc that we'll never get, how powerful a relationship can be

Iroh: Very well, but first, I must finish my roast duck.

Iroh is no fool, he plays the role very well, but he has never been a fool.

Only a man who knows when to pick his battles and how to de-escalate.

From the very begining Iroh has been trying to guide Zuko away from the hopeless wild goose chase his father has sent him on.

Iroh: Prince Zuko, you need some sleep. Even if you're right, and the Avatar is alive, you won't find him. Your father, grandfather and great-grandfather all tried and failed.

Zuko: Because their honor didn't hinge on the Avatar's capture. Mine does. This coward's hundred years in hiding are over.

But Iroh knows that brute force isn't going to work with Zuko, hes still far to stuck on the narative of honor his father has given him. So he uses misdirection and staling tactics.

Azula

When we are first introduced to her she is every bit the perfect heir. Every inch of her image is meticulously crafted to be perfect.

But from the beginning we see her hair play a role as a visual story telling tool; showing us when that perfect masks of her’s slips a little.

Here we see her fidget with her hair as she makes an irrational threat on her ship caption’s life

And again when she preforms her “almost perfect” katas with only “one hair out of place.”

Azula’s down fall is her perfectionism. She has been raised to be perfect, anything less is unacceptable. 

Her spiral into loosing her perfect facade starts in a scene where her hair is down, being combed and put up by servants. One of whom we see her banish for a small mistake.

The next time we see her she is systematically banishing everyone in her court. Anyone who could offer her the support she needs to pull out of this spiral is being set away or leaving her. All while her hair is down. It can be assumed that she has already banished everyone else who was grooming her in the last scene.

The scene that is her undeniable breaking point starts with her failing to put her hair into a traditional top knot. In this scene we learn that with out a doubt she has become unhinged. She is now hallucinating her long lost mother immediately after haphazardly cutting her own hair. Who’s first words to Azula are about said hair.

In this scene Azula has already lost her last shreds of sanity. She is no longer a viable candidate for Fire Lord. She is not longer capable of fulfilling the role. After years of desperately up holding a meticulously crafted image of perfection she has shattered.

Just as her top knot is physically incapable of supporting the weight of the Fire Lords crown. She is mentally incapable of taking on the duty of The Fire lord, and the fire sages know it.

He could have crowned her right then, and by the laws of their land Zuko would have been too late. But instead he waits. He’s waiting for a chance for their nation to not be ruled by a girl who’s mind has shattered.

When she violates the rules of the Agni Kai and fires lightning on Katara her hair is in complete disarray. Having just fallen out of her poorly made top knot when Zuko tripped her.

If you guess rewatching A:TLA and live blogging my thoughts then you guessed right

I made this blog just about a year ago and it has taken off so much more then I ever thought it would. I’m about 130 followers away from 1000 so I figured I’d do this to celebrate/ push me over that 1000 mark. 

so be prepared for screenshots, edits, gifs, metas, and shit posts over the next couple of weeks. 

I’m gonna try to at least post one post per episode and 2 episodes per day. but I’ve got a job so well see how well that goes

I’ll be tagging this experiment as #blueladyrewatch 

So my ask box is open for atla gifs request or rants about the show, or what ever. I don’t really know how this works. Just inviting people to engage with me and make request.