Pretty much the ONE TIME in the whole series where Mai doesn’t have some sort of response (well, there’s that other time, but we’ll get there). It’s that part where Zuko says that he sees it not as a betrayal of his country, but as the salvation, and Mai just can’t answer because she KNOWS he’s right, because as much as she’s professed her loyalty to her country and tried to pretend that she doesn’t really care, the fact is that apathy has been her primary defense mechanism because this country just keeps piling crap and other crap and more crap on her: her best friends are a princess who rules her by terror and bullies her all the time and the other best friend who is in the same boat and may or may not be in lesbians with the princess. The guy she loved had his face burned off and was banished for three years on an impossible quest. She can’t speak out or do what she wants because family and political careers. She’s probably been able to see through some of the political machine just because she’s the kind of girl who would sit there rolling her eyes while everyone else is singing the Fire Nation National Anthem. But because she’s Miss Apathy, she wouldn’t DO anything with the skepticism and stuff because she knows better.
Also, and here’s a theory of mine: at this point, New Ozai got taken over by Bumi. So not only did her boyfriend dump her on the day of the eclipse, her family was completely disgraced…IF they made it out of the city, and personally, I don’t think that eleven minutes of eclipse time was enough for them to escape; my headcanon has them still being trapped in the city when Bumi left…and, because of the failure and Mai’s potential involvement with Zuko’s betrayal, Ozai was unwilling to send any rescue or evacuation missions.
Meaning that they’re still trapped in an Earth Kingdom city…when Ozai is planning to burn the entire Earth Kingdom to the ground, Omashu/New Ozai included.
And Mai would probably KNOW about this plan because Zuko was at the meeting…
Meaning that her entire family was essentially sentenced to death.
Thus, I see her sacrifice at the end of the episode as not merely being a sacrifice done out of love for Zuko, but also out of faith in Zuko—faith that he, for once, might actually know what he’s doing. and that there might actually be a shot at change for the Fire Nation. And remember, Mai’s the girl who took the accusation “you don’t believe in anything” earlier in the series.
