etsy listing

this scene from the boiling rock episode

Apparently this is the second time suki meets zuko. And the scene looks awkward and fandom reacts like 'omg zuzu is such an awkward turtleduck' in reality suki should be shocked that sokka her boyfriend is with him and not trust Zuko. Not to mention she was last seen fighting against azula zuko's sister who placed her here.

The way suki and Zuko react to her village being burnt is not what I was expecting. Suki girl that was your home. And he almost attacked her . Kyoshi island was forced into the war because of zuko. The way he apologized like it was dismissive is strange .

At least after escaping Zuko can give a full fledged and proper apology for burning her home .

They could have had her executed or killed her on the spot. The princess had shown her great mercy by allowing her to live, and she should be thankful for it. The guards made sure to remind Suki of these facts, even after the bruises from their fight stopped throbbing, even as her burns slowly morphed into scars rather than open wounds. Her eyes focused on the floorboards below, only inches from her face. Her wrists were bound with metal cuffs, a heavy boot anchoring the connecting chain to the ground. Suki held her breath, held her gaze, held her body completely still. The ordeal would be over faster if she just stayed quiet.

The first guard pulled back his boot, forcing her up and back to stand. As she stumbled to her feet, he shoved her, letting her crash into another one of the guards. The man laughed, grabbing her arm and pushing her to the side, where a third guard was waiting. He took her arms, pulling her close enough that Suki could smell the sweat and soot from his uniform.

“Don’t worry, boys. She’s learning how to bite that pretty little tongue of hers, isn’t that right, sweetheart?” He jostled her forward in front of the others. Suki clenched her jaw tightly. It would be over faster if she just stayed quiet. One of the men moved to touch her cheek. Just stay quiet. She felt the hand slide down her cheek and around her neck. She took one last deep breath. She reared her head back, jerking away from the man. He reached out to grab her. She lunged forward, biting the first flesh her teeth could find. She would not stay quiet.

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“Will those men really come for me tonight?” Suki was sitting before a familiar guard, one of the few she could pick out of a group. She guessed the woman had some background in medical training, as she seemed to be the crew’s solution for any of the injured prisoners. The woman was a few years Suki’s elder, but young enough that she seemed uncalloused by her work. She was wiping blood from Suki’s nose, currently, even as she sighed after hearing the question.

“Yes. They will,” The woman continued her work, wringing out the rag she was holding over a basin of water. After a bought of silence came another sigh. “I’m not going to tell you what to do. But I will tell you that any injuries to a guard that get reported, they want every detail. Who was involved, what exactly happened… why the guard was interacting with a prisoner without an order. The warden doesn’t take kindly to his guards getting too friendly with the prisoners; there’s a reason nobody escapes here.”

Suki took a moment to consider before nodding slowly. Most of the men here likely had wives and children at home. “An infraction big enough for the warden to notice may be big enough news to travel home,” A soft “hmph” from the woman confirmed Suki’s thoughts. The men couldn’t report her for misbehaving without risking the reason for their visit becoming public. Kyoshi give me strength, she prayed.

“I signed up to handle criminals, captives from the war, the Fire Nation’s worst. Not babysit children,” as an afterthought, she added “Let alone grown men.” Suki had known if she ever left the island, she would be underestimated. Seen as a child, as a non-threat. But the woman had always shown her kindness, which was hard to come by in a place like this. She could return the favor, at the very least.

“Your family must be very proud of you.” There was the slightest touch of sarcasm behind the compliment, but the woman didn’t react. The guards of the Boiling Rock were a respected force in the Fire Nation, almost as respected as the military or noblemen.

“I don’t have a family,” the woman said matter-of-factly, finishing her work on Suki’s face, rinsing the rag for a final time. “My parents died many years ago. My husband was taken in the war.” Shit. Suki didn’t have much time to dwell on her mistake before the woman piped back up, saving them both the awkward silence.

“And your family must be quite powerful, for a girl to be locked all the way out here. I’m sure they’re looking for you.” The woman rolled up her sleeves and began to clean the wound on the girl’s arm. A burn, left there by the Princess herself. She pushed down the memory of the brutal battle.

“No. I don’t have a family either,” she saw the woman’s eyebrow raise and decided to clarify. Though she seemed to be in the woman’s good graces, Suki got the distinct impression the woman could find out anything, if she wanted to. “I was brought here because I’m the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors. They are my family. My sisters and I were captured by your Princess. We were helping the Avatar and his companions.”

“You mean to tell me that you-” she motioned at Suki up and down in disbelief. “battled the Princess? And survived” The woman seemed offended at the idea.

“I would have won- I was winning. If it hadn’t been for her friends, I could have beat her.” She snapped, indignant. She realized the woman, or any of the guards for that matter, would never stand to hear such things about anyone in the royal family. Her pride didn’t mind the fact, pressing on. “She did something to me, I couldn’t move, that’s the only reason-”

“I didn’t take you for a liar, girl.” The woman’s voice became icy. Suki didn’t think she was in her good graces anymore.

“I’m not a liar,” Still, she would defend herself, and her girls, no matter what authority was listening.

“As if any Earth bender could defeat a fire bending prodigy on their own.” Suki didn’t bother pointing out that she was a non-bender, or that her girl’s only weapons against any of the elements were their metal war fans. The woman could learn that in her own time. “Get up, now. Your time is up.”

So the thing to understand that in (well-told) narrative, everything happens for a reason. Everything serves a very deliberate narrative purpose. But perhaps we should take a moment to reflect on the differences between Book 2 and Book 3 characterizations before we go back to the Boiling Rock:

Book 2 Azula has some distinctive edges to her which shows the original ideas the writers had. She was consistently depicted as quite hostile to Zuko (this wasn't changed until the writing of the last episode of the series, when the writers realized that they needed Zuko to go home). She was depicted as using fear to control soldiers in a military context, including Ty Lee, but never as using fear to force or substitute for personal relationships. Azula was depicted as mean and cruel(and I believe she was originally supposed to be crueler and more merciless than she ended up being, but it ended up being scrapped as too dark). However, she was also, aside from maybe one scene, was depicted as stable and mentally put together well. Finally, Azula was never depicted as sympathetic in Book 2, and we can't be certain of what the original intentions in this respect were.

Book 2 Mai also has a couple interesting characteristics. First, she was consistently written as not being afraid of Azula. Second, the seed that she had a crush on Zuko was clearly planted. However, since Zuko was never supposed to "go home" in the original outline, it's not clear how this might have flowered, and it's possible the writers didn't know either.

Now let's move on to Book 3. We should note that Book 3 came out in two parts, but I'm not quite sure how much that reflects what the production looked like. It might be that everything was mostly decided before they started writing, but based on the shift between the first and second halves of Book 3, there might have actually that they mostly wrote Book 3.0 before they figured out what they were doing for Book 3.5

Anyways, Book 3.0 (and really we can kind of include the Crossroads of Destiny here) had two shifts in the depiction of Azula's character. First, she was now consistently depicted as caring a lot about Zuko. The first episode of Book 3.0 was kind of ambiguous here in a way that suggests the writers were tentative about this, but every following episode clearly showed Azula being kind to Zuko in one way or another. Second, The Beach introduced the idea of Azula as sympathetic character, including her trouble with her mother. Note that there are two ideas that Book 3.0 does not introduce or use: the idea of Azula being mentally ill/crazy (at her worst, Book 3.0 Azula is only a bit over the top), and the idea of Azula controlling her friends through fear. In fact, The Beach "normalizes" Azula's relationships with her friends a lot.

Meanwhile, Book 3.0's depiction of Mai centers around the seed about her relationship with Zuko flowering. 3.0 always continues the trend of depicting her as unafraid of Azula and generally not giving a shit what Azula thinks.

Book 3.5 is where the final shift in the depiction of Azula occurs. There are two new ideas introduced here. First, there's the idea of Azula using fear and terror to force people to have relationships with her due to Azula's own fear of loneliness. Let me point out that this idea conflicts strongly with her past depictions, where Azula only used fear as part of her methodology of ruling. Mai being "afraid" of Azula is also suggested, for the first time at this point, despite all previous depictions of Mai emphasizing that Mai was not afraid of Azula (while Ty Lee was). Second, the idea of Azula being mentally ill and "crazy" is introduced late. Previous depictions of her showed her being mean and cruel, but not her being "crazy."

Now, at long last, we can return to your question. Again, we must remember that everything which happens in a story happens for a reason. The Boiling Rock episodes served one primary purpose: depicting Zuko and Sokka bonding and getting to know each other. This is why these episodes were written. Hypothetically, reintroducing Hakoda and Suki could be another purpose for them, but Hakoda was instantly written out again and the writers made it clear that they had zero real ideas for Suki in subsequent episodes and essentially just had her character hang around in the background 95% of the time.

However, if the purpose is to show Zuko and Sokka bonding, why do Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee appear? Why does Azula show up and fight Zuko, and why does Mai save Zuko? None of this was necessary for the Zuko and Sokka bonding experience. I suppose having Azula and Zuko fight furthers their rivalry, but literally in the very first scene of the next episode (The Southern Raiders) there is a fight scene between them which serves to further this purpose far more effectively. The writers also could have written Mai's sacrifice as having a big effect on Zuko, but we all know they avoided that too.