#nalta

I know Kyoshi was stern with Aang in the original series, offering wisdom as she saw it without remorse or apology, but Netflix Kyoshi was cruel.

Worse, the OG Kyoshi had more reason to be angry and cruel, OG Aang actually did run from his duties as the Avatar. Despite this, she was calm and collected with him.

Where she seemed more promising in Episode 3 with her cool dispatching of rebels and plotting with Zhao, I honestly didn't really enjoy her scenes after. Also, I know this is a tall order, but I found Azula's martial arts not as strong as Zuko's actor, which is jarring for her plotline. I found her lightning reveal a little lacklustre. She's just like, wham, lightning.

Azula's Conflict

Part of Azula's original characterisation in the cartoon was she was able to keep her feelings close to her chest like a cold flame, it was smarter that way. The entire point of her characterisation is she appears the perfect royal vessel blessed with all the gifts, but she actually was hurt and mentality unstable and masking this trauma. Yet, in the live-action Azula ragefully beats and loses control in a training session fight against a servant to the point Ty Lee and Mai, her friends/underlings of a lower social station, dare to protest and physically pull her off in full view of everyone. Meanwhile, Ozai reads her like an open book for most of the season. She feels like more of an underdog, like a vicious little poodle monkey kicked every time Ozai praises Zuko, and being so obvious with her feelings in front of Mai and Ty Lee, and an entire courtyard of subjects and everyone. Apparently, Royal Family members are so much so obvious, a lowly person like Zhao thousands of miles away somehow even knows Ozai is testing her. What did she put in those silly letters? It feels like Live-Action!Azula is cottoning on a little too late on how to really play the game for someone so smart, and that would just be unacceptable in such a traditional, Imperial Confuscianist-like environment.

What Azula deals with in Season 1 of the Avatar: Live Action is a conflict Azula would have more likely had at age 10, realising a textbook answer isn't enough. By having her have this at 14, it does make her feel more slow and less of a prodigy with a strategic mind. The writers decided to do the Season 1 timeline and have something for Azula to do at the same time, but the conflict they chose for her does change her characterisation in ways so far I'm not fond of or at least confident is for the better.

Aluza, A Meaner Zuko

My problem with Azula isn't that she's "sympathetic", more she just doesn't feel like herself. She had a different way of dealing with things in the original show; she'd learned from a young age to be more generally closed off and in an imperial, authoritarian environment. In this environment, where composure is everything and every movement needs to affirm the Mandate of Heaven that is your existence and your divine right, Azula learned to restrain her self-expression where in contrast Zuko had difficulty and was punished for it. As someone who knows people in real life who are very difficult to read. Live-Action!Azula was far too obvious and readable for the characters around her at this stage, especially given the upbringing she would have had. In most of the cartoon, she does have a tighter hold on her feelings and that is more realistic due to the position she has in the culture she was born into. Although we see sparks of insecurity in the cartoon, which hint towards the original Azula's inner issues and trauma, generally she is very composed and tactical.

Trauma can often manifest in unique ways depending on the individual. People with trauma can actually be very hard to read. Similar to how an injured cat will instinctively give no sign of pain to not show a predator any sign of weakness. Zuko lashed out with his trauma, but Azula reacted in a different way in the cartoon. That was part of her characterisation. And, I'm not talking about how Azula is becoming worse and Zuko better, I'm talking about how they react to Ozai and things not going their way. In the live-action, now both just lash out, complain, get angry and have to have someone intercede. Azula is more vicious, but the reactions are more similar now than they were, and I personally feel it takes away from what were key differences between how the characters would react to problems growing up. She was a different person. Now I don't think the cartoon got it all right, I think they were clumsy with Azula's character arc at points in Book 3 especially in my opinion, but she just had more of a presence and there was a certain nuance and dynamic to her troubled and calculating personality that I feel is lacking in the live-action.

Live-Action!Azula also didn't feel very "Royal" to me in the live-action, feeling less like a girl who believes in her divine right to rule and more just a mean girl in high school. There's something often intrinsically cold and distant about people in Royal Families, their environment, the "Never Got Enough Hugs" syndrome and its mentality, even for the ones that act out. The type of people that make children march miles behind their mother's coffin in full view of thousands of faces for saving face, tradition, and duty. I'm not sure they nailed it. This Live-Action!Azula lacks a certain spark so far, and what I know of Royal Families, from the UK and Japan to the former Royal Families of China and Korea, I'm not convinced of her characterisation here as a character with a background as a princess.

Villain Crafting

sokka and katara are legacies of neptune, born and raised in new rome

katara inherited water-bending powers and sokka is a master swordsman and can talk to horses and fish cause why tf not

katara was offered a spot in the first cohort bc of her waterbending, but turned it down to be in the fifth cohort with sokka, who was always severely underestimated by the romans

zuko is a son of hephaestus with fire-bending powers

zuko fought on kronos' side during the titan war and saw luke as a big brother figure

zuko defected from the titan army and returned to camp half-blood after learning about his brother, charlie beckendorf's, death

zuko feels a lot of guilt surrounding beckendorf's death and believes that he is the one to blame, he runs away from CHB and eventually finds his way to Camp Jupiter

aang is a son of jupiter born before the "no kids" pact

jupiter decided to take a page out of hades' book and aang, similar to the di angelo's, was held frozen in time at the lotus hotel

jupiter sucks and totally forgot about aang so aang was trapped in the hotel waaay longer than the di angelo's

right after jason goes missing, katara has a dream about a son of jupiter trapped inside a building with a white lotus on the door

reyna, sokka, and katara go on a rescue mission to get jason, but instead find aang and bring him back to camp (yay!)

toph is a legacy of pluto and comes from a very rich and powerful family in new rome

toph wasn't required to do "military service" at camp jupiter because of her blindness

toph keeps her earth-bending abilities a secret to that she's not forced to serve in the roman army

appa and momo are pegasi (and yes, that means sokka can talk to them. they talk mad shit when he's on stable-cleaning duty)

suki is a hunter of artemis, sorry sokka :(

yue is a daughter of apollo, and also a hunter of artemis (sokka literally cannot win, sorry dude)