#azula meta

Azula has a set of characteristics which, when combined, make her unique and special among Avatar antagonists:

She's a personal physical threat to the heroes. This isn't enough to make her special, as most Avatar antagonists are credible physical threats, and arguably it is the least important part of why she was such an effective antagonist.

The narrative never humiliated her. Even when she loses, she does so with dignity.

Azula has an intense personal connection to one of the protagonists.

Azula fights more with her mind than her body. She fights the weaknesses of her opponents, instead of their strengths. Physical violence is what happens when she fails, instead of when succeeds. She exploits and creates problems that her enemies can't simply punch or bend away.

Azula represents and is a product of an ideology, of a society, of something much bigger than herself. She represents something far greater than herself.

Azula is power made manifest, power which exists both inside her and beyond her. She has power because she is the Princess, but she also has power because she plays the role of the Princess so well. Once again, this sort of power is an asymmetrical threat to the heroes.

Azula mobilizes and leads others to help her carry out her missions, and mobilizes them well. Her personal relationships, her charisma, her leadership abilities, her ability to inspire others become tools to help her succeed.

Note that I didn't mention Azula's tragic backstory, or the writers leading the audience to feel sympathy for her. Those are standard Avatar techniques to make villains more "complex," but the reality is that the writers never showed Azula's "tragic backstory" to the audience and they only made a very limited and late, half-hearted attempt to humanize her to the audience.

i keep seeing discourse about how azula deserves a redemption arc & even leaving aside the fact that a) saying someone “deserves” a redemption defeats the purpose of what redemption is and b) there was no space in the original show for azula to redeem herself anyway, azula could not have been redeemed because part of her narrative purpose is to be a foil to zuko.

zuko and azula are each the metric against which the other’s evolution (or devolution) is measured, and it’s the striking disparity between their character arcs that makes said arcs as impactful as they are: the child who swallowed the poison vs the child who spat it out. the fire nation royal who perpetuated the cycle of violence vs the fire nation royal who broke it. the abuse victim who became an abuser vs the abuse victim who became a protector.

would zuko’s redemption have felt as satisfying and hard-won if we hadn’t seen in azula the alternate path he might have so easily gone down? would azula’s downfall have been as terrible and saddening if we hadn’t seen the possibility of a better future embodied in zuko?

thematically speaking as well, the fire nation royal family exists as a microcosm of the fire nation itself — the generational trauma and violence passed down from sozin to azulon to ozai to azula and zuko is symbolic of how the fire nation’s warmongering has turned inwards, back on itself, a self-inflicted wound that grows and festers and rots until they’ve destroyed themselves just as much as they’ve destroyed the world. but where zuko represents a way out — hope for healing, for peace, for an end to the self-destructive nature of war — azula represents the cost of that war, the damage that can never be undone, the danger of remaining mired in an ouroboros, forever the snake that bites its own tail.

a version of the show where both zuko and azula redeem themselves together would have lost the grave, sobering impact of that message: that getting out as zuko did is the exception, not the norm, because the system in which they exist is built to be a trap. and even when that system is dismantled, the destruction it’s wrought cannot be fully erased.

the point of zuko and azula’s story lies in its inherent juxtaposition: there was never going to be room for both of them to rise or even fall together, not in the world in which they were raised and the virtues it extolled. and it’s because zuko exists as who azula could have been and azula exists as who zuko might have been, that their individual arcs are so powerfully poignant, and their relationship so infinitely tragic.

From what I can see, Ozai didn't confront Azula about the whole lie at all, didn't tell Azula shit, probably thought he could get away without Azula knowing and getting in the way, while her ass still though the og plan was in motion. While Ozai did project authority once she disobeyed, he quickly sugar coated, almost like he doesn't want her to see him as scary mean authority figure, almost like he wanted her to fuck off without actually telling her to fuck off and trick her into thinking he is rewarding her and not punishing her.

It also implies this entire time he was pretending things were normal and ghosting her instead of punishing her and actually was trying to avoid as much conflict as possible.

To me, that's alot more interesting too.

Azula, due to her trauma, using fear as a method of control for Mai and Ty Lee. There is an unspoken rule of, go against Azula, face the consequences. So they make Azula take the lead, make the plans but they enjoy doing it.

Like Azula destroying that kid's sandcastle, Ty Lee is grinning while Azula does it. The only reason Ty Lee didn't do it herself is because Azula is Queen Bee. Her and Mai loooooovvvveeee destroying Chan's house. Mai is a little bit of a sadist, happy to be part of Azula's squad to escape boredom. Ty Lee also agrees with Azula that the three of them should be worshipped. Ty Lee is cackling when her and Azula prank Mai and Zuko.

Don't tell me they were just pretending, ATLA is as subtle as a llama doing the Macarena in a tutu. That's not a criticism, it's just the truth. If they were just pretending to enjoy being bullies, we would know explicitly.

Interesting point. Although throughout almost the entire series Azula literally tries not to kill or at least maim her enemies. She gets absolutely nothing for this humanism except problems.

Azula did not intentionally kill Iroh, but only wounded him in the shoulder with fire.

Azula had excellent aim since childhood, so she wanted Iroh to get away with just a wound. Although she could have shot him in the head.

And this only allowed Zuko to master lightning redirection.

She spares the Kyoshi warriors and Appa. Although Aang's animal is a unique vehicle, the destruction of which would clearly deprive the Avatar of his exceptional mobility. And the Kyoshi warriors are ballast that must somehow be transferred to the Fire Nation guards, while still fearing that they might try to escape while they are being escorted to Fire Nation territory.

She spared Katara, which would later greatly ruin her life.

Aang was only able to survive because Azula spared Katara.

So that later he will be able to gut her father's soul.

She spared all these people. Which also gave her nothing but problems. Because as expected, they simply ran away.

She tried to redeem Zuko and even dragged him to the capital in a blaze of glory. And no. The whole scapegoat theory is crap because:

The Avatar is not Azula's mission at all, she doesn't need to report on his condition at all. The Avatar is Zuko's mission and he must answer for it. Accordingly, Azula has no reason to look for a scapegoat at all.

Zuko knew about the spiritual water, not Azula. Azula didn't know at all that people could be resurrected. And she couldn't have known. That's why she acted as a person who is confident that the main threat to her and her country has been eliminated.

Azula is obliged to lie to Ozai that Zuko killed the Avatar precisely because she promised Zuko that she would return their father's respect to him. The reports that Zuko only had a good fight with a water peasant are absolutely not enough for this.

In fact, Azula became Zuko's scapegoat because any appearance of a living Avatar in any case turns her into a liar who announced that the living Avatar is dead. She is the only witness to this death and she lied to Ozai.

The problem isn't even that with Katara, Mai and Ty Lee or a crowd of Dai Li could have helped her. The problem is that after the battle of Ba Sing Se, absolutely nothing stopped Azula from getting rid of both Zuko and Iroh. And that would have really solved her future problems. Not to mention the hundreds of Fire Nation soldiers who died because of it.

By the way, in this same episode Azula spares Iroh for the SECOND TIME. And who would have thought that nothing good would come out of it for her again.

Against this background, the fact that she spared her friends already seems insignificant. Because this Chekhov's gun simply did not have time to fire.

This is really very symbolic. Azula lost precisely because she was not a monster. If she were exactly as her haters portray her, she would have won!