I might talk about it myself at some point, but I feel like if Suyin was a man, she'd be heralded as one of the best characters in the series.
Yeah I can see that, or she'd at least be treated more kindly. Though I think I could say that about a lot of female characters, like Korra.
As for Suyin being a beloved character if she were a male character, well, Iroh from atla is well regarded as a great character, an amazing father figure and a wholesome mentor figure. And I love Iroh, but we forget that he is an established war criminal who killed tons of Ba Sing Se citizens. And remember, it was when Zuko was 11. Zuko is 16 years old in atla. Iroh was a fullblown violent colonizer like 5 years before the show started and we talk about how wonderful it is that he became redeemed by *checks notes* enabling his misguided nephew and doing the bare minimum to stop a fourth genocide his country has committed.
Suyin acted out as a 16 year old and spent almost the next 30 years bettering herself yet we still act like she's the devil for wanting a relationship with her sister.
Iroh encouraged Zuko to 'take down' his 14 year old niece who is being used as by the adult fascists around her, without ever trying to reason with her.
Meanwhile Suyin's grown ass adopted daughter decided to become a fascist with seemingly no pressure from the outside, attempted to dissuade Kuvira several times, and only resorted to 'taking Kuvira down' when Kuvira actively threatened Suyin's home, family and people.
Suyin definetly has traits that align with many respected and beloved male characters. Father characters who struggle to do the right thing and don't always know how to care for the kid in their care are often beloved. Brothers who have difficult relations with their siblings are recognised as complex, even if they have moments of assholery. Men who do the wrong thing for the right reason (in Suyin and Boromir's cases it was desperation to protect their home from an invasion good for them.) are sympathised with and often treared as tragic.
Suyin carries similarities to beloved characters in the Avatar franchise, like the aforementioned Iroh, but she seldom gets the accolades they do. Part of me theorises that this boils down to the inherent femininity of Suyin's character.
Suyin is, arguably, the first character in the franchise whose role as a mother is central to her character who is directly active in the story. While Ursa, Kya the og, Naoki and Yasuko are casually hanging out in the fridge, and Poppy, Pema and Senna are on the sidelines, Suyin is a proud tiger mom who is often right alongside the main cast.
Suyin's role as a mother is important, not just to her, as it is one of the 'titles' she gives herself, but also to all the storylines surrounding her. The main reason the Krew stayed in Zaofu in the first place is because Suyin was a protective mom who was nervous about letting her daughter leave home to join a different culture. Her relationship to Kuvira and Baatar Jr is a centerpiece in their storylines.
Now, this may be a shocker to the genral public, but mothers are, like all humans, complex. But I find that often, mothers in media are either placed upon a pedestal, or made out to be complete villains (this is also probably why Ursa is such a contentious character btw).
We often see mother figures either being presented as these saint-like beings of pure devotion and unconditional love, or as manipulative, abusive and downright monstrous (a lot of horror movies use motherhood and mothers for a reason)
And when it comes to these archetypes, Suyin is... neither. She is a mother who cares for her children, but has her flaws in how she raises them. She seems overly protective, and wants to keep her family close, she wasn't equipped to deal with caring for a child like Kuvira. But she was caring, she was loving, she was supportive of her children (and other kids in general), she opened her home to a child in need. I think we often act like a mother is meant to instinctively know how to parent perfectly, but that is just not the case. Mothers, especially mothers like Suyin, who have their own boatload of trauma will make mistakes.
But, since Suyin obviously isn't a perfect mother/mother figure, she is immediately moved to the other side of the spectrum and presented as a bad mother, particularly to Kuvira. Which feels objectively false. Suyin wasn't a perfect mother figure to Kuvira, I'll give you that much, but it is shown to us in flashbacks that Suyin was doing her best to reach Kuvira in a gentle way thay doesn't violate her boundaries. And these are Kuvira's flashbacks, so there's little possibility for there to be bias from Su in there.
And I genuinely feel like if Suyin were a male character, we would feel like she'd done enough. But because we have such high expectations of mothers, we berate Suyin and brand her an evil, sometimes even abusive mother to Kuvira.
And this is all before Suyin actually tried anything against Kuvira, which she only did after asking Kuvira multiple times to stand down and being threatened with an imminent attack.
This dichotomy isn't a new thing and it also strikes Suyin in her youth too. Teenage boys who act out or 'rebel' in media are often coddled and carefully guided back onto the beaten path. But teen girls are rarely afforded the same luxury.
I strongly remember the indiscriminate hatered towards Chloe Price from Life is Strange for the grave crime of being an emotional teenage girl dealing with a bunch of shit. But we can even look at Avatar's very own Katara and Korra and how fandom treated them. Bryan Konietzko said it best:
"I was surprised at anything, it may have been that it seemed like people were less willing to let Korra make mistakes than they were with Aang"
[I notice that this phenomenon seems to be especially prevolent with characters who are on the darker side than the others, but Mai and Azula also get similar hate in similar quantities so you really can't get away from it.]
Society hates teen girls with a passion. And sixteen year old Suyin acting out is an excellent excuse to pile hate on her. Despite the fact that 'had trouble with the law' is an extremely normal backstory for a male character. I strongly remember getting a bitchy ask in which the anon called Su a 'pick-me' and 'spoilt and entitled', and a 'teenager who deserved to be reprimanded'. Instead of, you know, a kid who wanted friends because her mom wasn't around and her sister was mean to her. God forbid girls do anything š
This takes me back to the idea that the reason Suyin is so disliked is because she embodies two tropes that often draw unreasonable amounts of ire- the imperfect mother and the rebellious teen girl. Furthermore, Suyin's role as a matriarch of a clan, someone who travelled, and a more 'spiritual' person, may make those who bought into the whole Jordan Peterson raised "chaotic feminine" bullshit feel uneasy.
She also subverts our expectations of the character archetypes we expect her to embody. She is a mother of 5 + 1 Kuvira, yet she is not domestic, and seems to be more in charge in the relationship, not being the 'tradiotional' mother or wife, yet defining herself with these labels anyway. On the flipside, she is a political leader, but she heavily values family and home over personal ambition.
Suyin embodies a lot of what we've been taught to find 'bad' - annoying, disingenuous, or downright malicious. But in male characters these traits could very well be celebrated. But Suyin is a character who is very intriguing and compelling as she is and it is a shame that it feels like so much hate comes from people not being familiar/comfortable with characters like her.
