Mental (In-) Stability: Princess Azula
Lately I’ve noticed a huge dicussion going on among the fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender about whether Princess Azula, who is one of the show’s most complex antagonists, is a psychopath (in a psychiatric senese) or not.
As someone who happens to know quite bit about psychology and mental illness, I can say, that, although Azula,especially as a child and teenager, showed a few signs of early psychopathy, those signs are not sufficient for a psychiatrist to diagnose her with psychopathy - or, as it is now called, antisocial personality disorder.
Firstly, she is very young and her behaviour, although alarming, could be based on the very militaristic and success-demanding surrounding she grows up in. Especially her father, a cold and cruel man, expects a lot from his child prodigy, since he basically chose to ignore his first-born son, Prince Zuko. Because Zuko seeks the love and protection of Ursa, Azula orients herself more and more towards her father, who is incapable of truly loving neither his wife nor his children nor anyone else. It’s Ozai’s severe lack of conscience, his cold-heartedness and his hard, unforgiving demeanor, that rub off on Azula and eventually shape her personality from a very early age. She herself turns into a very hard, unforgiving and success-driven woman (“almost isn’t good enough”), whose aggressions not only turn towards others but also against herself and who has completely abandoned her capability for empathy. If anything it’s Ozai who suffers from a severe form of psychopathy and his mental condition causes a lot a pain and chaos among the people he lives with. Mental illness can be a real home-wrecker, because often people, for example friends and relatives, don’t know how to deal with loved ones who show such an extreme behaviour. This is true for people dealing with someone who is suffering from an affective disorder (such as depression or bipolar disorder) as well as for people who might be related to someone suffering from a personality disorder (such as borderline personality disorder). But in my experience, psychopathy tends to cause the greatest damage among family and friends. Children who grow up with one parent or even both parents suffering from any personality disorder, but especially antisocial personality disorder, have a very high propability to turn out psychologically damaged themselves.
In Avatar: The last Airbender this happens to both Azula, who completey identifies with her father and even adopts his behaviour, and her brother, Zuko, whose (forlorn) aim it is to gain his fathers love by catching the last Avatar. Both of them are desperate to earn their father’s love. Both of them try in vain.
Secondly, if you take a closer look, Azula’s aggressions mainly stem from two sources: Firstly, she wants to capture/kill the Avatar in order to gain praise from her father. Her aggressions towards Aang (and his friends) are largely impersonal. The second source is her own brother, Zuko, whom she wants to outweigh and whom she considers as her fiercest rival. From the moment she was born, Azula was her fathers’s favourite, but what she really wanted was the acknowledgement of her mother, Ursa, who claimed to love both of her children equally, but appeared to prefer Zuko. Her mother’s rejection left a deep scar in Azula, who in turn reacted jealous and spiteful towards her brother and, in secret, also against her mother. For example she, consciously or unconsciously, does things to provoke Ursa: throwing rocks at harmless turtle-ducks, destroying her puppets, tormenting her brother and burning flowers that grow in her mother’s garden (“it wasn’t as pretty as the others”). It’s her way of rebelling against Ursa and everything she stands for (femininity, passivity and peacefulness, which Azula equals with weakness). Sadly, it is also the only way she can think of in order to gain her mother’s attention.
During the whole series Azula shows said behavioural pattern. It’s her jealousy that prevents her from evolving psychologically. A huge part of her still remains that unbelievibly talented, yet emotionally neglected child, who seeks love and approval. Azulas inability to overcome her childhood trauma prevents her from truly growing up. While Zuko manages to finally break away from his father’s toxic influence und thus grows into a strong, confident and mature person, Azula never does.
As the show progresses, Azula grows to resent her mother, who, in the end, chose to leave her family, which Azula never forgave her. She has also abandoned her traditional role as a young woman/princess by wearing military clothes and displaying a warrior-like behaviour. Her relationship with her brother is extremly damaged.
But still there is ambiguity. Azula takes great pride in her considerable beauty (which she presumably inherited from her mother), she even wears red lipstik and likes her long, flowing hair (which could also be a reference to Ursa). At a party she admits to her friend Ty Lee that she whishes to have greater success with men. Although she initially sets out to capture/kill Zuko, she, in the midst of all her maniplulating schemes, occasioally shows some kind of affection for him, most notably on Ember Island, when Zuko leaves the group to visit their family’s old holiday residence and Azula is the only one who knows where to find him. It’s their shared childhood traumas that bind these two together, albeit all that happend between them. It gives them a very clear sense of each others feelings and motives and sometimes even creates a spark of empathy for one another.
Azulas mental breakdown towards the end of the show is clearly based on these feelings and events. Psychologically speaking her symptoms resemble those of a severe psychosis. Please keep in mind that a psychotic episode is not the same as being schizophrenic. Although there might be some similarities, there are a lot of differences as well. Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness that is typically accompanied by several symptoms other than hallucinations - none of which Azula displays during the course of the show. She probalbly isn’t a Psychopath either. Her paranoia is the result of her being an emotionally regressive child, neglected and psychologically damaged. The kind of “insanity” she displays, her impulsive and irrational behaviour, her emotional and/or mental instability and her hallucinations, all connect with her past. It is no coincidence that during her lowest point she stares into the mirror only to see the sad face of her mother staring back at her. The mirror is one of the oldest symbols in cinematography. It traditionally stands for realization but sometimes it also stands for self-denial. It’s a powerful gesture when Azula eventually smashes the mirror. Her sense of self, her whole identity, everything she thought she was, bursts into countless pieces. The truth is, Azulas personal identity never truly developped. She was always defined by the demons from her past, always depending on the approval of her father or the alleged rejection from her mother. After her father eventually turns his back on her and a grief-stricken Ursa appears in the mirror to declare her eternal love (“I have always loved you”), Azula’s sense of self is literally shattered.
After that scene, grief and anger take over, old childhood feelings of jealousy, abandonment and insufficiency, that Azula never dealt with or made peace with, boil up inside of her and she completly loses grip of herself.
The themes of her paranoia are also telling: She is afraid of being assasinated (“cherry stone”), she fears for friends to betray her (Mai and Ty Lee), she loses herself in delusions of grandeur and megalomania, she fears that her father might lose his interest in her (“You can’t treat me like Zuko!”), she is convinced that everyone fears her, even her mother, and that they should do so because, according to Azula, ”fear is the only way.” The final battle shows that all of her aggressions, her hatred and despair aim towards the only person, whom she thinks responsible and whom she still envies, now more than ever: her brother, Zuko, who was once inferior to her but in the end towers over her. She has lost this battle, lost everything, and by still standing tall, her brother, her rival since childhood, has - unbelievable but true - surpassed her, Princess Azula, the best firebender of her generation. This realization causes her to lose her mind. Defeat was never an option. Now it has become her reality.
So this is my psychological evaluation of Princess Azula. In my opinion she is neither a psychopath nor suffering from schizophrenia. A true psychopath has no capacity for compassion, his ability to feel anything (happiness, sadness, remorse etc) is severly reduced and there is an apparent lack of self-reflection. Azula suffers more from a pervasive development disorder (in a psychological sense) which prevents her to mature and causes her psychotic break-down.
Princess Azula remains one of the most fascinating villains I ever came across watching cartoons or anime. She’s my unchallenged favourite.
PS: This is a re-post. I posted the same text a few months ago (but with a different Image).
prguitarman
2087
discoholicmusic
origamiaround
tangentwithtanner
gummygunk
