Loopy, I’ve got a big Mai Psychology question to throw at you. I’m pretty stumped myself, frankly, and even after pondering it for a while can’t come up with much. So, here it goes:
What’re the core elements of Mai’s identity / sense of self?
To use our favorite boomerang-slinger as an easier example, Sokka cares about Katara’s (and his other friends’) safety, making his dad proud, holding his own in a fight, contributing to the group, making romantic gestures to the girl he likes, and winning the war. From those motivations, we can infer that he has a strong understanding of himself as a son, brother, and friend, a warrior, a protector (of his sister, friends, and village), a leader (eventually), a good boyfriend, and a member of the Water Tribe—among other things, I’m sure. It’s relatively easy to piece together Sokka’s sense of identity because although he doesn’t exactly monologue about his feelings much, his actions speak plenty loudly. (It’s not as if he—or anyone—has to be consciously aware of who they see themselves as anyway.)
Mai, on the other hand, is a tough nut to crack. She has a family, of course, but does she have a strong sense of herself as a daughter or sister? While she isn’t totally indifferent to her parents and brother, it’s hard to make the case that filial piety or sibling fraternity are motivating parts of her sense of self. Similarly, she freely fights the enemies of the Fire Nation and doesn’t express any open skepticism about the imperialist project, but she’s not exactly a jingoistic nationalist either—can’t really put ‘patriotic Fire Nation citizen’ high on the list. Her friendship with Azula and Ty Lee seems stronger, and her relationship with Zuko even more so, but while those probably are enduring parts of her identity, she isn’t fully reliant on them. After all, she only reunites with those three after a long period apart. Another possibility is simply ‘highborn Fire Nation noblewoman’—there are some things that she sees as beneath her (jumping into the drill slurry), and she gives some indicators (elaborate hairstyle, fruit tart with petals, asking Zuko to get her food at Chan’s party) that she has certain expectations for her quality of life. (For a while I’ve wondered if Mai is functionally an Epicurean hedonist, primarily interested in contentment, comfort, and the company of the few people she likes, which goes along with that general idea.)
Anyway, I’ll spare you any more speculative rambling—feel free to dispute anything I’ve suggested here, because I really was just spitballing. Thanks!
If the question doesn't seem to have an answer, then perhaps the question is the answer.
To elaborate, I think you're on the right track as far as what Mai values and doesn't value, but what makes the conclusions so hard to pin down is that Mai exists in survival mode for much of her life and as such considers everything else to be superfluous and fodder for sacrifice if holding onto it would be too dangerous. That includes her family, her nation, her friends, and (I suspect, although this isn't in evidence in the cartoon) her luxury. It isn't until the Boiling Rock where she decides to reverse course and value something more than her survival.
However, it's important not to overstate this need for survival, because Mai is also a bit of an adrenaline-junkie and enjoys life-threatening combat. I like to think this urge lessens after the cartoon's finale, as she no longer needs those kinds of thrills in order to feel alive. So let's say that while she values survival, she doesn't value safety. I'd say this comes from a craving for engagement; hedonism is fun for her, but she needs something to add color and uniqueness. She doesn't have to chase thrills, though, as I think a good book or an interesting bug is enough for her.
Arguably, Mai doesn't really start to form a real sense of self/identity until 'Ashes of the Academy,' when she gets passionate about protecting and guiding the next generation without it being a means to any other end. One could cast this as a desire for self-healing, that she's protecting the next generation because it feels like giving her younger self the protect she wanted. However, I've headcanon'd (even before that comic) that Mai finds real fulfillment in teaching and mentoring as part of her service to a better world, so I'm inclined to make her role as a teacher a calling that she loves in and of itself.
So part of the core of Mai's character(for much of the time that fuels our fanfic is that she's seeking a sense of who she really is- and maybe has even mostly given up until Zuko enters her life again. Something I like to do in fanfics set before the Boiling Rock is have Mai convinced that she doesn't think she values her relationship with Zuko (or love in general) more than anything else in her life, that she is ready and capable of cutting it all loose the second it becomes a liability.
So if I had to name elements that are key to Mai overall, I'd say she wants to love and be loved, she wants to be constant learning, and later she wants to leave the world better than she found it.
I'm not sure if that really answers your question in the detail you're looking for. But something else I can suggest as a fun exercise is to see how much you can take away from the character while still keeping the character feeling like themselves. For example, in one Azula fic I wrote, I took away her power, her appearance, her lightning, her minions, and her advantage in intelligence over her opponents, then had her try to build herself up again. (I will admit I have mixed feelings on how well this worked. People liked it, but I'm not sure I got the exact kind of reactions I was looking for (aside from one).)
In my Traitor's Face fic, I did something similar with Mai, and the core I built on was her loyalty to an idealistic cause: again, that 'making the world better' thing. She has to uncover this part of herself, but it eventually guides her through losing her nation, her red clothing, her luxuries, her family, and her Ty Lee.
So I hope that gives you enough to go off of. It's a fun exercise, especially since I tend to be more intuitive with my sense of the characters and only put this stuff into words when asked about it.
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