I donât personally have a super-strong investment in Azula as a character, but seeing people say sheâs an irredeemable monster and a psycho made me sympathize with her. I think people only claim sheâs irredeemable because she was âmean,â especially to Zuko, which I personally couldnât give a shit about. Furthermore, it seems a lot of people who argue Azula could never be redeemed like to claim or imply that she was born evil or naturally evil. No, she wasnât shaped by abuse from Ozai! No, she wasnât shaped by harsh indoctrination from an imperialist society! No, she wasnât neglected by Ursa or Iroh! Sheâs just BAD, BAD, BAD.
Azula fans often try to counter these claims by proving the authorâs intentions werenât for Azula to be âborn evilâ or finding canon evidence she was abused or traumatized by her upbringing. Honestly, though, I personally wonât bother. Why? Because the people who argue that Azula was âborn evilâ are essentially saying that the moral of ATLA, a story about imperialism and genocide, is, âThe only real villains are the ones who were born evil and have no redeeming qualities at all whatsoever!!!1â which is just. . .laughably bad in and of itself.
I can only speak for myself as a huge fan of Azula, though I do know a lot of other people's perspectives on the matter. When you boil it down, I think the root of the issue is that I'm really passionate about Azula as a character. Which I don't think is a bad thing. We all need something to be passionate about, and there's nothing inherently wrong with being deeply invested in a character. Cause sometimes that character can teach you things, you know? Azula's story taught me a lot about how people view mental illnesses (like mine) or how indoctrination, propaganda, or whatever can screw somebody up. Or how you don't necessarily need a scar on your face to have some kind of childhood abuse. Or how you need to take your personal demons seriously lest they eat you alive. When people ignore all that in favor of she was "born evil", then it feels like I'm not being taken seriously or I'm being judged for what I like.
And a lot of people who are critical of Azula DO judge us. We get called right-wing extremists or abuse apologists or whatever. Which isn't true at all since a lot of us can recognize where Azula went wrong. It's just that we spend so much time trying to defend her and making it clear that she's not the devil, that I don't blame people for thinking we ARE trying to paint her as some kind of helpless woob woob (she'd probably vomit if she read that). Since people look at us and judge us for our interest in her, we react defensively.
Especially since a lot of the time they mischaracterize Azula, it's to defend either the bad writing that came after canon (which genuinely IS ableist and sexist), or to justify whatever toxic and often extremely insensitive takes they have. Some people seriously suggest that Katara "purge" Zuko of his bad blood because of Azula so that his heirs don't end up like her. Which is practically eugenics, a topic I am heavily sensitive to. And then there are takes that say that the abusive asylum isn't that bad or she needs to be starved, half-frozen, or basically tortured to keep her contained. Again, I grew up in fear of being put in an asylum, so talk like that is incredibly nightmarish. It's not so much a bad take as they get under my skin and go for low blows which pisses me off.
And to some degree, I get it. I know that only responding to them is only going to get more discourse in the fandom and whatnot. This is something I need to work on my end as well, and I can acknowledge that. It's just there's a lot of bad actors that have a tendency to make the fandom a more toxic place than it needs to be, and I think we need to manage it a bit to some degree. Maybe not get into flamewars or anything, but at least check bad behavior. I dunno. I can't give all the answers. But that's just how I see things from my perspective.
I really appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective and experiences, especially about something so deeply personal. And Iâm sorry youâve had to deal with so much pain and fear of being demonized and mistreated because you have mental health issues. I havenât read the ATLA comics, but from what Iâve heard of them, itâs best I donât. As a black woman, itâs certainly. . .something to hear people say that if youâre an Azula fan, youâre a right-winger or an abuse apologist. The former is especially interesting considering some of the most interesting and thoughtful critique of the way ATLA handles the topics of imperialism and genocide that Iâve seen come from the Azula fandom (appreciate you guys for that, BTW).
