#fandom yapping

The most salient example of this is probably when she tries to recruit Ty Lee to her mission. After Ty Lee refuses her initial (and very casual, I might add) request, Azula immediately pivots to the tools of fear and coercion, entirely bypassing something that probably would have been much more effective—actual honesty and vulnerability.

Had Azula just leveled with Ty Lee—told her that her father tasked her with something important and it hadn't been going well so far, and that Ty Lee was one of very few people she trusted to help her get it done (maybe even that she was a little scared of what might happen if she didn't succeed)—I don't think there's a version of events where she still says no.

Instead, Azula begins with an appeal to Ty Lee's self interest (ie. Aren't you tired of this?/Don't you want to get out of here?) and when that doesn't work, she goes straight to intimidation because she doesn't trust that her friend loves her enough to willingly make a sacrifice for her sake when that is literally what friends do!

Like I acknowledge the depth of Gale’s very polarizing character, but it’s a surprise to see how many jump to defend him with that exact argument about Prim, which is something I began to have a problem with. Beginning with the fact besides being the MC’s sister, globally, Prim was just another young child (a medic) and the bombs were constructed in such a way to damage twice: one time for the targets, second for the medics.

Point blank, it doesn’t matter that the bombs didn’t mean to kill Prim specifically – she isn’t more important than the other innocent medics which those bombs were targeting, so idk the Prim thing seems to be a very weak defense for me to acknowledge Gale’s innocence in this whole situation.

But, to actually defend Gale (when he is already a groomed child soldier and shouldn’t be placed in the guilty party either way) what SHOULD be used as a justification instead is:

1. He made those bombs with Beetee, with the latter contributing way more than Gale. Beetee is a grown ass adult who already lost a son and he wanted to take more of innocent lives (bc bombing medics, hospitals and stopping attempts to help the injured is considered to be a dirty thing to do).

2. Gale grew up in a poorer part of the poorest District, being a CHILD when becoming an orphan and having to provide help for his whole horde of siblings and an overworked mother who already carried too much. Obviously he was 17 in the first book and 18-19in the rest, but that only means he lived in misery long enough as a kid, shaping his radical worldview.

His surroundings were violent and he was overly punished for a smallest thing, so OF COURSE it made him resentful to the regime, the sky is blue lol.