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[integer115]

I often come across the idea that Azula should somehow serve Zuko in the future. All these ideas have two obvious problems:

First. Let's imagine that after the Agni Kai, Ozai didn't simply send Zuko on a long journey with a ship, a crew, money, and the Dragon of the West. Instead, he locked him in a cage on a remote island and kept him there for over a year, and then came and demanded his complete obedience and transformation into his lapdog. Should Zuko obey Ozai? Will it be good for Zuko? How will this affect his character? If you have the answers to these questions, then replace Ozai with Zuko and Zuko with Azula.

Second. One of the key problems with Azula's character in the original show is her lack of agency. She's Ozai's lapdog, a hero of the Fire Nation, and perhaps the protagonists' key obstacle. It's what she was born with, it's what her parents chose for her. Both parents—Ursa's role was no less than Ozai's. Ursa simply played her role in her own way. But her opportunities for self-discovery, and even banal self-reflection are meager. She only gets time for this in one episode, and her problems are so complex that a single campfire session simply can't address them. And when it's suggested that instead of developing, Azula must choose to literally freeze these imposed qualities, essentially continuing to live on a chain, it's just ugly and very lazy... This, of course, doesn't mean Azula should hate the Fire Nation or even her role in it. She should nothing, that's the point. What's important to Azula herself? What makes her happy? What light guides her through life? How does she see the world and herself in it? That's what matters to her character. And only she can answer these questions.

[integer115]

hello, have you watched the new Avatar movie yet? link: vkvideo. ru / video-229696756_456252291 What is your opinion about the future of the Avatar franchise?

Thank you, I watched it.

The animation is really good. Although the confrontation often boils down to an exchange of elemental attacks. The plot brought to mind the Star Wars Jedi Academy game, some things are too similar. The villain is as flat as a stick. There's a formal motivation, but there's no sense in his actions or goals—only absurd abstractions. The plot does have an idea, albeit one that repeats one of the original show's ideas. The references aren't many, but they are significant—they replicate the plot twists of the original show. What I really didn't like was the attitude towards bending as a comics superpower rather than as a philosophy and art. There are some jokes… I guess some people will enjoy them… Overall, it feels like another comic book. Korra's existence destroys the possibility of the narrative's substance. If you watch it without any context, it's a 7/10.

Next, as I understand it, we'll have to wait for a movie focused on Zuko. And I don't expect anything good from it. Perhaps my expectations will be disappointed, but for now, the general line is toward a pervasive simplification of the narrative, and even this film and the upcoming game confirm this. And simplification is the death for Azula's character.

As for the upcoming Avatar series, it offers some hope. I hope that the post-apocalyptic setting was deliberately chosen to transition from Korra's superhero routine to Aang's grand, classic journey. Because depicting such a journey in the modern world is a truly difficult task.

[integer115]

Before anything, I want to do my best to indicate I'm not here to harass you, I'm asking genuinely because I want to engage in good-faith takes to expand my horizons, and I want to do it as respectfully as I know how.

"The idea of ​​an adult Azula embracing anti-monarchist ideas has a strong foundation. Of all her family, Azula is the only one to display signs of patriotism and nationalism. These are fundamentally leftist ideas." 1. Just so I'm not misunderstanding you, are you saying that patriotism and nationalism specifically are fundamentally leftist ideas? 2. If that's the case, I'd like to hear more about that, if you're willing. I'm confident you know that some of the furthest right-leaning people of any creed are all but always the most patriotic and nationalistic. Obviously correlation doesn't inherently equal causation, but I find that hard to ignore. Does that indicate that these right-wingers I'm referring to represent perverted iterations of those 2 concepts? Hope this finds you well, peace and blessings

At its core, it's still a product of society's development toward enlightenment and collectivism. A focus on more people in power and greater rights and freedoms for all. Beginning before the French Revolution with the ideas of Voltaire and Rousseau, these ideals manifested themselves in various forms. They gave rise to the revolution itself and its leaders, then evolved into utopianism, later syndicalism, then began to branch out and flowed into, among other things, Marxism and, in part, Futurism. Thus, the part that actively mixed with Futurism, influenced by Mussolini's own shift in views, became fascism. In Germany, the dominant influence was völkisch ideas, which were generally anti-modern and largely a result of the late birth of the German nation. Then came other anti-modernists like Evola, bringing their visions of esotericism, casteism, and other third ways and conservative revolutions. So, all of these are late mutations.

For greater clarity, let's look at Sun Yat-sen. This man was neither left nor right in the modern sense of the term, as China had recently encountered Western political philosophy and, in fact, was at the same level in the early 20th century as Europe was at the beginning of the 19th century in terms of political ideologies. Today, Sun Yat-sen is equally popular among both the right-wing Kuomintang in Taiwan and the CCP in China. The same can be said about the figures of the French Revolution in the context of their ideology. A more typical example is the Russian Bolsheviks, who, while communists, were highly patriotic and nationalistic when it came to the development and promotion of Russian culture. The same can be said of the DPRK. Thus, the modern division between right and left is a very subtle chain of mutations of original humanist ideas who spoke out against traditional monarchical elite institutions or at least demanded their reform for the benefit of the majority of the people. And these ideas were born together with political nations as part of their essence.

[integer115]

The idea of ​​an adult Azula embracing anti-monarchist ideas has a strong foundation. Of all her family, Azula is the only one to display signs of patriotism and nationalism. These are fundamentally leftist ideas. These are the ideas that we are all equal because we belong to one nation. So the image of Azula changing her last name to something ideological, getting a tattoo that reads "death to tyrants and kings," leading the people to storm the Fire Lord's palace and congratulating the people on being no longer subjects of Fire Lord Zuko but citizens of the Fire Republic is entirely plausible.

As for Zuko, things are bleak for him. Even if you ignore her actions in the comics. Louis XVI was executed for attempting to align himself with hostile foreign powers. Zuko literally defected to the enemy, passed on valuable information that led to the deaths of multiple Fire Nation soldiers, personally invaded the Fire Nation capital alongside an enemy bender, and finally took the throne with literally enemy soldiers, all the while flushing away all the Fire Nation's achievements in the Hundred Years' War. Simply put, if they just cut off his head as an enemy of the people, he'd be lucky.

[integer115]

Azula and the villain's deserved redemption.

All this talk of Azula's deserved redemption misses the point: there is no such thing as deserved or undeserved redemption. There is a character who, by a sane author, is described as a living individual who grows and develops, changes under the influence of the world, and changes the world around her. The question of who deserves it is simply meaningless, because the very life of this individual follows certain paths, shapes certain events. Writing a character with the premise of some undeserved redemption is simply to destroy that character's life, to reduce them to a mechanism that has neither personality nor consciousness, and is nothing more than an object, a simple function in the plot for other characters who retain personalities and, as a result, subjectivity within the narrative—that is, life. With Azula, the original show already showed us a person capable of learning very quickly, radically changing tactics, questioning her place in the world, willingly giving up her status and its privileges (at least as part of a personal exploration during downtime) to establish new connections with people, and reflecting on her past and the people who influenced her. All of this already exists, and precisely because it already exists, any sane writer doesn't need to invent anything from scratch; all the plot hooks are already in place and only need to use them wisely. For example, we've already been shown that Azula can explore her own identity even without some mentor figure urging her on for three years straight. We've already been shown that the notorious throne of Fire Lord doesn't make Azula happy in and of itself. Azula's title as Fire Lord is a reason to think more about her duty and the work that lies ahead. We've been shown repeatedly that Azula is a genuinely intelligent person who, even in the state of a breakdown, can still think and find creative solutions to problems. This is already present in her life, and therefore, it all requires further development.

Things are even worse with the idea of ​​a villain who should remain a villain. A villain is a comic book golem obligated to attempt to rob the same bank every first week of the month, be caught by the same hero, go to jail, escape from prison in the third week of the same month, wash it off, repeat, every month, every year. This isn't life, this isn't a path, this is hell. All this talk about a villain who should remain a villain is a direct denial of the character's life and the life of the world around them. A damned matrix, over and over again, playing out the same circus performance instead of a coherent narrative. Personality (even a fictitious one) determines many things, but a literal comic book label is not, and should not be, one of these things. Reducing a character to their primary, natural plot functions is character assassination, it is turning a person into a mechanism. This is clearly evident in the Avatar comics, where Azula's character was reduced to a primitive mechanism used for other, similarly cardboard-like characters. And what's more, this truncation, this simplification of the character, also coarsens and simplifies the world around them.

A whole year passed between these two shots. Moreover, Azula spent that year not in cryostasis but in a hospital-prison. And yet, her entire appearance is deliberately devoid of any influence from the world/events/time. Painted lips, long, flowing hair, dark circles under her eyes. The artist fulfilled the writer's request. And the writer wanted to reduce Azula to a function in the plot. To the function of some evil/insane burden that poor Zuko must bear like a cross. But it wasn't just Azula's character that was destroyed. The world around her was destroyed, too. It's trivial that all events, even in a fictional world, take place in space and time. And the destruction of space and time destroys the events in the world themselves. And this is especially evident here. What happened to Azula this year? Absolutely nothing. The author simply took Azula's character from the third book and dragged her into his comic, unchanged, and then completely stripped away all her personality traits except for literally one singular, prominent (and essentially situational) trait. And in order to destroy this specific character, the author also destroyed time, space, and events in the world—essentially, he destroyed the world itself. Destruction for the sake of destruction—that's what the deliberate simplification of characters in a work leads to.

[zuko-always-lies]

A Full Analysis of Zuko's Treatment of Azula in The Promise and The Search

I've never written a comprehensive analysis of this before. I always knew his treatment of her was completely terrible, but doing research for this post made me realize that there was aspects of the terribleness I never considered before. I am not going to discuss The Search's ableism here, nor how incredibly idiotic it makes Zuko and the Gaang look. There are ample other places you can read about those.

For the purpose of this piece, I'm going to assume you know what the extremely dumb plots of The Promise and The Search are. You can easily look them up if you don't.

I am also not going to try to get into how Azula behaves in The Search. I am not arguing that The Search depicts her as a good sister, a good daughter, a good family member, a good person, etc. Most of my analysis focuses on The Promise Part 3 and The Search Part 1, where Azula is almost entirely disempowered and forced to endure Zuko's treatment of her.

I also personally don't consider the comics part of canon, but there is plenty of interesting stuff to analyze in them.

Let us start off with some background information. Here is what Gene Yang said about the asylum Zuko dumped Azula into:

ASN: Many of us have heard that we will finally see Azula in Part 3. She was a complicated character before her defeat and breakdown. What is it like to write for her now that she has been “recovering” in an asylum? Gene: Azula is a complicated character, especially after spending time in the asylum. We had many conversations both over the phone and in e-mail before I started scripting her.

And more:

CBR: Speaking of Zuko's family, what's Azula been up to? Her stay in the Fire Nation mental institution has got to be incredibly interesting. Yang: In "The Search," we'll see what a prolonged stay in a Fire Nation mental institution does to a person.

Although this came much later, we get more information about the asylum from Azula in the Spirit Temple:

There is another extremely important factor to take into account here, which is Zuko does not seem to understand that Azula is mentally ill in The Search, despite her showing consistent extremely obvious signs of it.

If Zuko doesn't believe that Azula is mentally ill, he can't have sent her to the asylum to treat her mental illness. Either he dumped her there as a convenient way to get rid of her, or he sent her there in hope that the institution would break her and teach her "humility" and "respect."

Moving on, we need to talk about how Zuko treats Ozai in The Promise.

Zuko visits Ozai at least four times, and possibly significantly more than that, including once soon after Ozai's imprisonment. He calls Ozai "my father" and addresses him as "Father."

It's clear that Zuko start regards Ozai as family.

I'm bringing this up, because Zuko's actions regarding Azula make it clear Zuko does not, in fact, see Azula as part of his family and regards her as an object and tool to be used to his purposes.

Now get to honestly one of the most bizarre parts of The Promise and The Search. Zuko apparently sees (in The Promise) "finding Ursa as a means to reconnect with his heritage (and become a better rule?)" and (in The Search) "reconciling with his family as a means to make himself a better ruler." It's important to understand that, under this framework, Zuko's actions toward his family members are driven by ulterior motives. Any "kindness" he shows them, any attempt at "reconciliation," he makes toward them, is not driven by compassion, empathy, care, duty or love toward them, but instead by the belief that "reconciliation" will make him a better, more successful ruler. Even his attempt to find Ursa is primarily driven by this ulterior motive. Zuko's family is nothing but tools to him.

Now we finally get to Azula. Several things are notable here:

Zuko only goes to the asylum and visits Azula because he needs her help to find Ursa. It seems to be the first visit since he imprisoned her.

" I feel disconnected from the good in my own family ... and in my own nation. For a whole host of reasons, I believe finding my mother would help me reconnect." Reconciliation with Azula (not that Zuko seems interested in that) would not help Zuko reconnect with his family, only finding Ursa will.

Zuko talks about Ursa as "my mother" to Azula's face, while Azula uses "our mother." Zuko does not view Azula as part of his family.

Zuko had a goddamn throne dragged to the asylum to empathize his power and authority over the (straightjacked) Azula. He could not bother to talk to her as an equal. He needed to flex on her.

Even though "The Promise" had a long plot about Zuko realizing that talking to Ozai was a bad idea for him, he wants Azula to talk to Ozai.

Any "kindness" Zuko shows them, any attempt at "reconciliation," he makes toward them, is not driven by compassion, empathy, care, duty or love toward them, but instead by the belief that "reconciliation" will make him a better, more successful ruler. If Zuko actually cared about Azula, he would have thought about how she could drink the tea. And honestly tea was likely supposed to help move the Azula-Ozai talks along, more than anything.

Suki refers to Azula as a "prisoner," reaffirming how Zuko and co. see her.

Ultimately what's going on in this scene can not be untangled from the power dynamics and the immense power Zuko wields over Azula and Ozai.

Like I said, the primary point of the tea was to try to get Azula and Ozai to talk about Ursa. The reason that Zuko is having Ozai and Azula meet is not out of any kindness toward them, but solely to use Azula as a tool to extract information about Ursa from Ozai.

Once again, Zuko refers to Ursa as "my mother," not "our mother." Azula is just a tool to find Ursa.

"I've asked the palace staff to prepare your old room. I'd like you to stay there instead of the institution. You'll be guarded every minute of every day, of course, but it'll be more comfortable for you."

This one of the very examples of Zuko apparently being "kind" to Azula, and it's one of the things that people will cite as evidence for him being a "good brother." However, there are some qualifications we should make:

"Any "kindness" Zuko shows them, any attempt at "reconciliation," he makes toward them, is not driven by compassion, empathy, care, duty or love toward them, but instead by the belief that "reconciliation" will make him a better, more successful ruler."

Moving beyond that, I think we should realize that Zuko must have been planning to dump Azula in front of Ozai over and over again, to try to get the information about Ursa. There's no way Zuko would give up after only one attempt. Keeping Azula in the palace instead of the asylum is much more convenient for those purposes, and Zuko is incentivized to "reward" her for cooperating.

Zuko doesn't seem to be thinking about Azula's treatment at all. If she was being treated for mental illness in the asylum, he would naturally have to find a way to continue this in her new abode. It's more evidence that Zuko does not believe Azula is mentally ill.

Yet another piece of "evidence" people use to claim that Zuko was trying to be a good brother. Notably, it's not from any of Zuko's actions, but from Iroh, who idealizes Zuko and also who can't be bothered to spend five minutes talking to Azula himself.

Here is something I want to briefly discuss, before we move on. Essentially The Search has this thing going where the Gaang and Zuko are as violent and aggressive toward Azula as she is toward them, even though Azula is extremely delusional and not in control of her actions on her part, while on their part they're being extremely aggressive, hostile, and violent towards someone who is obviously mentally ill. I just want to note it. It is not really that interesting.

"Any "kindness" Zuko shows them, any attempt at "reconciliation," he makes toward them, is not driven by compassion, empathy, care, duty or love toward them, but instead by the belief that "reconciliation" will make him a better, more successful ruler."

In fact, Zuko seems incredibly confused by the idea of even showing the most minimal kindness toward Azula, suggesting that perhaps he has never done so in the past.

And of course he finds the letter...Zuko's kindness was just a plot device to move things along.

One thing that The Search doesn't care about, because Gene Yang hates Azula, is that the letter is the only way Azula has of removing Zuko from the throne, and removing him from there is the only way she can guarantee he doesn't have the power to keep abusing her. Of course she freaks out when he steals it.

And, additionally, even though Zuko is on his back and helpless, the moment she gets the letter back, she stops attacking him.

Of course, here is the rest of the "cliff scene."

Notably, Zuko dangles Azula over a cliff while telling her she ruined his life by being born.

He keeps her dangling for quite a while, even as she tells him she's afraid he's going to drop her over the edge.

Notably, Azula finds Zuko not murdering her a shocking display of "kindness" on his part. His behavior has set her standards that low. You do have to wonder if comics! Zuko has ever been kind to her, once in her life.

Once again, Azula finds Zuko not murdering her a shocking display of "kindness" on his part. His behavior has set her standards that low. You do have to wonder if comics! Zuko has ever been kind to her, once in her life.

Zuko claims that "the throne is his destiny," even though at this point he thinks he's a bastard with no legal right to it.

Zuko claims that he sees Azula as his sister and that he only "wants to help her," which Azula apparently finds touching, probably because that is the nicest he's ever been to her.

However, we can look back and see how Zuko has consistently used Azula as a tool and treated her as an object, not a family member, this entire comic. Zuko is full of shit.

"Any "kindness" Zuko shows them, any attempt at "reconciliation," he makes toward them, is not driven by compassion, empathy, care, duty or love toward them, but instead by the belief that "reconciliation" will make him a better, more successful ruler."

[zuko-always-lies]

@solarisquid

So, to be clear, the Gene Yang comics depict Firelord Zuko as a tyrant who is awful at being Firelord, treats his friends like garbage, and is abusive toward his sister. I actually think it's a reasonable, if very depressing, depiction of where he could go postwar. However, the issue is Gene Yang is a huge Zuko fan who depicted Zuko's terrible behavior positively, not as awful regression on Zuko's part.

[integer115]

It's worth noting that Hicks's comics only add a darker tone to Zuko's character. We learn that the Fire Nation operates a system whereby parents can send their daughters to mental hospital and lock them up on a remote island under heavy guard to break their will and force them to completely change their behavior to suit their parents' wishes. Here we can recall, for example, the Volterra clinic and how they treated, for example, lesbians or "hysterical women" or simply children with behavioral disorders or depression in general.. God knows these are very bad associations....

And then Zuko learns about this system. And what does he do? He decides to use it to his advantage! Even if we accept the idea of ​​Azula's haters that anything can be done to her because she is evil spawn, we'll still be left with plenty of other girls—victims of this system! This is simply insanity! So all these girls should continue to suffer just because Zuko needs to get rid of his sister. This isn't even "no one else's suffering matters compared to Zuko's." It's literally "other people's suffering is completely acceptable if it aligns with Zuko's wishes."

[loopy777]

When Katara was in danger, Zuko didn’t hesitate even if saving her could’ve cost him his life. But with Mai, he’ll try to save her *only if* it doesn’t get him killed. For someone known for being wildly emotional, he suddenly becomes very logical and risk-calculating when it comes to Mai specifically. Mai is never beating the irrelevant allegations 😂😂😂

And it seems AtLA fans are never beating the "don't understand what they actually watched" allegations. ;)

Zuko didn't attempt to sacrifice himself for Katara. He attempted to intercept and redirect the lightning being aimed at her. He just did it badly because Azula out-maneuvered him.

[zuko-always-lies]

People get two things wrong about this scene:

Zuko wasn't trying to sacrifice himself, he was trying to redirect the lightning.

Azula probably did not expect Zuko to jump in front of the lightning.

[integer115]

And characteristically, Zuko dominated the fight overall. He could have won simply by continuing to press his fire. But he was so determined to hurt Azula, to humiliate her, that he began provoking her to use lightning, he want redirect it back at Azula and thus asserting his superiority. In other words, this petty, unworthy revenge was even more important to him than winning the duel.

Azula, for her part, clearly demonstrated that she remained smarter than Zuko even in her worst state, and she responded to Zuko's provocation with one of her own. This forced Zuko to attempt the lightning redirection not from a standing position but from a jump, and predictably failed.

[integer115]

On the mosaic nature of Avatar's current canon.

In general, after getting acquainted with TTRPG, one can state the complete mosaic nature of the current Avatar canon. I have already noted that the ending of the original show forms a plot black hole. And objectively, there is no way to close this hole so that the narrative does not slide into outright absurdity. Accordingly, everyone simply ignores this hole and works in fact with two pieces of narrative that exist independently of each other. TTRPG only consolidates this result by dividing the narrative into the The Hundred Year War Era and the Aang Era. But the fragmentation does not stop there. For example, Iroh and Lu Ten from TTRPG could almost not end up in their places from the original show, so this again creates another independent piece of narrative. And what is even funnier is that the narrative does not become clearer after the end of the original show. For example, we have the Northern Water Tribe, which in the show itself was a stronghold of conservatism, in Korra it remained the same stronghold of conservatism right up until the declaration of war on its more progressive relatives, but in the comics that take place between these two layers of history, the Northern Water Tribe suddenly turns out to be a stronghold of progress, wanting to "civilize the barbarians from the Southern Water Tribe". That is, even more or less modern lore disintegrates into separate fragments that contradict each other. In fact, it can be admitted that the narrative has finally turned into a mess of separate fragments, which it is better not to even try to connect somehow.

In this light, we can also think about the upcoming films. I wouldn't be surprised if even the upcoming sequel to the story of the grown-up Gaang will generate another separate piece of narrative. Because the story squeezed between the original show and Korra will in any case be too poor in serious events. Without this, everything will either slide into a slice of life without any progress for the narrative, or into a bizarre absurdity in the style of "we defeated another threat to the entire world, let's not remember it anymore because the entire fight against it still had no consequences and did not affect anything." And that means the Korra canon will have to be shaken. And since the original show has been retconned for a long time, it will get it in full. As a result, any attempts to discuss the canon now simply lose their meaning. There are only torn pieces from which it is impossible to assemble a complete picture without getting a meaningless surreal abstraction.

[ly0nstea]

If azula ever got redemption she is the one that needs to be proactive with everyone 💀

Are so vitriolic and unforgiving that you can't fathom the idea of forgiving someone without them coming and pleading forgiveness? A major point of several episodes of Avatar is that the only way to let go and move forward from major grief is to offer forgiveness and peace unconditionally and then if the person wishes to justify that, they can. No one complained when Aang offered Zuko forgiveness and worked with him, everyone basically demanded Katara forgive Zuko before he did a single thing to merit it. Its more than reasonable to expect Zuko and Azula's relationship being mended because Zuko sought her out and said he was sorry for the way things turned out.

Also, Azula can't be proactive, lmao, she is literally tied to a wheelchair she completely lacks all agency, the only way her and Zuko coild heal is if Zuko seeks her out.

[zuko-always-lies]

Why would Azula desire forgiveness from Aang, Katara, Suki, Sokka, or Toph? The extent of her relationship is that they were on opposite sides during a war. Outside of what was necessary for that, Azula did nothing specific to hurt them. It's not like she rammed her ship into their village and started terrorizing their families and friends. There's no indication Azula has any sort of special hatred of them for being her wartime enemies. If they're unable move past hatred for her (such that exists) for fighting on a opposite side of war, that's on them, not her. If she wants to be their friend, obviously that's another story, but there's no reason she'd want that?

Expecting Azula to unilaterally apologize to Zuko is also foolish. She already basically did that, it ended very poorly for her.

[integer115]

Azula can apologize to her friends. But there is a catch here too. Azula in any case had to be either loyal to her duty and her lord or a good friend. It was impossible to combine the two because her friends were completely apolitical and, as a result, inclined to act based on personal motives. Which would ultimately lead to the event on the Boiling Rock.

As for the rest. It just doesn't make sense. They were enemies in the war and Azula didn't start that war. Hell, she was born a little less than a century after the war began. And Gaang used lethal techniques against Azula quite often. For example, Suki tried to stab Azula with her sword, Katara tried to cut her into pieces with her water blades, and so on. And Azula was able to shoot Aang when he was in the state of a reusable atomic bomb. What is there to apologize for? For the effectiveness?

As for Zuko, there is nothing to talk about at all. Judging by his look at Azula falling in the Boiling Rock. Considering the fact that Azula practically falling apart during the comet's visit caused only one thought in him - this is a great opportunity to crush her. Considering his look at Azula already writhing in chains… He just doesn't care. She's just an obstacle to him. He doesn't need an apology from the wall he successfully broke through.

[zuko-always-lies]

Friendly reminder that, back while the show was airing, there was literally an official book published which literally said "Zuko tracked and tried to kill Azula because he saw her as an obstacle between him and what he wanted."

[integer115]

And what's characteristic is that both Iroh and Ursa only supported this line. Seriously, the more I think about what place Azula occupied in this family, the more I see her and not Zuko as the ugly duckling. Damn Zuko had both a mother figure - Ursa and a father figure - Iroh in his life. And what did Azula have? "Sir, yes, sir" Ozai?

[zuko-always-lies]

The real problem with seeing Ozai's Sozin Comet's plans as a mass genocide the way people like to

Is that it means Zuko heard about the supposed "kill 90% of the world's population" plan, and decided "I should avoid telling my new friends the Gaang about this until the literal last minute."

And that it means that Iroh head about the "kill 90% of the world's population," had a chance to try to stop it, and instead went "not my problem, I just really feel the need to conquer Ba Sing Se today." Iroh tells Zuko and Katara to seize the throne, but he doesn't even tell Sokka, Suki, and Toph to try to stop the airship plan, they decide to stop it on their own.

Practically, the entire thing makes no sense whatsoever (they can't possibly burn it all down in a day and what about the Fire Nation colonies and troops in the Earth Kingdom?), but writing wise that's far from the only issue with it.

[integer115]

Also: These airships are terribly slow. Zuko was able to catch up with Aang in his pathetic air balloon. While Azula didn't even try to catch up with the Avatar in these airships because they were so slow. All the airships didn't even try to disperse but flew strictly in one line, which significantly reduced the area they generated by fire. Considering that the comet was in the sky for only one day. They simply wouldn't have had time to clear even a small part of the continent. And they wouldn't have had time to fly to the Northern Water Tribe either. Ba Sing Se and New Ozai (former Omashu) are not worth mentioning. They are already part of the Fire Nation with a garrison and administration. As a result, all this turns into complete absurdity. There are simply no targets on the world map that Ozai would want to burn, not to mention the very opportunity. And the targets he would really like to burn are simply too far away.

And even if Ozai had a doomsday button, why would he press it? For a hundred years, the Fire Nation had been conquering the continent and eventually conquered it entirely. And once they had achieved that, they simply decided to completely annihilate the continent and remain trapped on their islands again?!

And the cherry on top. Zuko's speech itself, in which he praised the strong and rebelliousness spirit of the people of the Earth Kingdom, also makes no sense. What people was Zuko talking about? The inhabitants of Ba Sing Se who are suppressed, robbed and literally zombified by their own authorities? About Jet and his gang who simply surrendered to the mercy of fate after the failure with Katara and the Avatar? About the inhabitants of the villages of the Earth Kingdom who are robbed by the soldiers of the Earth Kingdom? Hell, everything we were shown about the Earth Kingdom indicated that it is a zombie state existing solely due to the inertia of the former, long-lost wealth. The only one who fits the description is Haru, but even he had to be brought in by Katara and Zuko has not met him. So where did Zuko get ideas that are so divergent from the reality shown in the show itself? The people of the Earth Kingdom were shown as downtrodden, despondent, weak and spineless. With rampant poverty, extreme corruption and an army that had degenerated into ordinary bandits. And a system consisting of chaos, corruption and desolation. What should the Fire Nation be afraid of here?

Fire Nation is clearly winning the war and is close to total victory anyway, and such a brutal measure simply makes no sense. No, seriously, Omashu and Ba Sing Se have fallen, the main forces of the Earth Kingdom army have been defeated, their top five generals have been neutralized, the Dai Li have defected to the Fire Nation, their king Kuei has simply withdrawn and gone on the run, the entire system of government has been destroyed. So who could possibly be putting up such significant resistance that Oza decides to burn the entire country to the ground? A country that, given the absorption of Ba Sing Se and Omashu by Fire Nation, no longer legally exists?

The notorious rebels didn't show themselves anywhere at all. In general, all the achievements in the fight against the Fire Nation were made by either the Gaang or the White Lotus. So who was this Operation Phoenix aimed at? Against Haru's village?

[zuko-always-lies]

Broke: some member of the Gaang has to help Azula despite disliking and distrusting her because she unintentionally and unexpectedly shows up on their doorstep half-dead

Woke: Azula has to help some member of the Gaang despite disliking and distrusting them because they unexpectedly and unintentionally show up on her doorstep half-dead.

[zuko-always-lies]

A Comprehensive List of People/things Zuko Betrayed

The Fire Nation (trying to hide the fact that its number 1 enemy had returned).

His crew (putting them in danger for his own selfish reasons).

The Fire Nation (committing high treason)

Song (stealing from her after she helped him)

Iroh (whole Crossroads of Destiny thing)

Katara (same)

Azula (lying to her about the spirit water)

The Fire Nation(hiding the fact he thinks the Avatar, it's number 1 enemy, is still alive)

Chan (burning down his beach house after Chan invited him, and that's after wrecking Chan's grandmother's vase)

Azula (throwing her under the Ozai bus)

Mai (don't think I need to explain this one)

Ozai(he totally deserved it though)

Ty Lee?(you could argue that betraying both of her best friends involved betraying her)

People he let down but didn't betray, per say

Aang(trying to burn his face off after Aang saved his life)

Lee

Jet

Toph (whole burning her feet thing)

What people don't quite get is that Zuko is a weathervane and fundamentally a very unreliable character. You could do interesting stuff with this trait, but it's generally missing from fanfiction, despite the fact that one of the official comic book trilogies ("The Promise") likewise depicted Zuko as extremely unreliable.

[zuko-always-lies]

What was Azula's actual truth/lie ratio with Zuko?

Of the meaningful things she said to him, how many were lies?:

The Avatar State:

Tells Zuko that Ozai has forgiven him and wants him home-lie

Tells Zuko that Ozai thinks he's worthless-truth but Zuko refuses to believe it.

Crossroads of Destiny:

Tells Zuko that she thinks he can redeem himself and earn back his honor and Ozai's love-truth

Tells Zuko that he's redeemed himself in her eyes-truth

The Awakening:

Tells Zuko that he has nothing to worry about if the Avatar is actually dead like he claims-truth

The bedroom scene is interesting and open to interpretation, but it's difficult to classify anything she says there as a lie-truth

The Headband:

Tells Zuko it would be dangerous if he gets caught visiting Iroh-Truth

The Beach:

As far as I can tell, just about everything she says to Zuko in this episode is entirely truthful.

"The Avatar and the Firelord":

Tells Zuko the truth about Sozin and his life, so far as she knows.

"Nightmeres and Daydreams":

Tells Zuko the truth, that he'll be welcome at the big warmeeting.

Overall, we're at nine truthful statements and one lie. Azula seems to generally tell Zuko the truth.

[integer115]

In essence, the phrase "Azula always lies" is just a projection of Zuko's desire for the information that is unpleasant for him to be a lie. And since it is Azula who shares this information with him, he begins to project his dissatisfaction with the events that are negative for him onto Azula herself. Although she is just a messenger.

[integer115]

I do respect Ehasz for his work. But his idea that Zuko could play the same role in Azula's life that Iroh played in his is like the Titanic hitting an iceberg on an obvious problem. The problem is that Zuko, by the end of the show's third season, had already played a role in Azula's life like Ozai's role in Zuko's life. Yes, Ozai had disfigured Zuko's face and banished him from the Fire Nation with a nearly impossible mission, but with his uncle and his crew and ship. And what did Zuko do for Azula? He betrayed her, he shamed her in front of their father (read: the only family member who gave her any positive reinforcement), he went over to her enemies and helped them destroy her country and mutilate her father on spiritual level of existence. Finally, with the help of Katara, he stripped her of her title, stripped her of her will, disgraced her in front of the entire country, beat her up by taking advantage of her weakness - mental breakdown, and finally locked her up in a madhouse on a distant island under heavy guard like a The Count of Monte Cristo. So how can Zuko play any positive role in her life after that? Hell, Ozai didn't treat Zuko as cruelly as Zuko treated Azula. Ozai at least kept Zuko free. The most that can be thought of here is that Azula will give up on revenge on Zuko after Zuko has already suffered at least some punishment.

[integer115]

Humanism gave Azula nothing but suffering.

Interesting point. Although throughout almost the entire series Azula literally tries not to kill or at least maim her enemies. She gets absolutely nothing for this humanism except problems.

Azula did not intentionally kill Iroh, but only wounded him in the shoulder with fire.

Azula had excellent aim since childhood, so she wanted Iroh to get away with just a wound. Although she could have shot him in the head.

And this only allowed Zuko to master lightning redirection.

She spares the Kyoshi warriors and Appa. Although Aang's animal is a unique vehicle, the destruction of which would clearly deprive the Avatar of his exceptional mobility. And the Kyoshi warriors are ballast that must somehow be transferred to the Fire Nation guards, while still fearing that they might try to escape while they are being escorted to Fire Nation territory.

She spared Katara, which would later greatly ruin her life.

Aang was only able to survive because Azula spared Katara.

So that later he will be able to gut her father's soul.

She spared all these people. Which also gave her nothing but problems. Because as expected, they simply ran away.

She tried to redeem Zuko and even dragged him to the capital in a blaze of glory. And no. The whole scapegoat theory is crap because:

The Avatar is not Azula's mission at all, she doesn't need to report on his condition at all. The Avatar is Zuko's mission and he must answer for it. Accordingly, Azula has no reason to look for a scapegoat at all.

Zuko knew about the spiritual water, not Azula. Azula didn't know at all that people could be resurrected. And she couldn't have known. That's why she acted as a person who is confident that the main threat to her and her country has been eliminated.

Azula is obliged to lie to Ozai that Zuko killed the Avatar precisely because she promised Zuko that she would return their father's respect to him. The reports that Zuko only had a good fight with a water peasant are absolutely not enough for this.

In fact, Azula became Zuko's scapegoat because any appearance of a living Avatar in any case turns her into a liar who announced that the living Avatar is dead. She is the only witness to this death and she lied to Ozai.

The problem isn't even that with Katara, Mai and Ty Lee or a crowd of Dai Li could have helped her. The problem is that after the battle of Ba Sing Se, absolutely nothing stopped Azula from getting rid of both Zuko and Iroh. And that would have really solved her future problems. Not to mention the hundreds of Fire Nation soldiers who died because of it.

By the way, in this same episode Azula spares Iroh for the SECOND TIME. And who would have thought that nothing good would come out of it for her again.

Against this background, the fact that she spared her friends already seems insignificant. Because this Chekhov's gun simply did not have time to fire.

This is really very symbolic. Azula lost precisely because she was not a monster. If she were exactly as her haters portray her, she would have won!

And this raises the key question: what if, for her own good, Azula had to become a monster?

[integer115]

The question that remaining unanswered

What happened between the first and last frame?

Seriously, what? When I think about this, I have several ideas as the events of the first frame could develop and this does not lead to the third frame. Suppose Zuko and Katara remained to stand. What next? And then the whole army in the capital is running to find out what is happening at all? Why do fiery explosions rise over the palace during the coronation of the heiress of the throne? Where did all the people leave the palace? Is the heiress of Phoenix King safe? And all! Zuko and Katara is the two against the whole army. They either go to prison, or die or run away with the help of Appa. They can even try to take Azula as a hostage with them on Appa. But this is very unlikely for them. And no of these options leaves space for the ending from the third frame. What else? Will they pose in the palace with Azula hostage and wait for the palace to storm? Aang will learn teleport and save the situation? But even this option does not lead to the third frame! So what happened at all? Neither in comics, nor in novels, there are no answers anywhere.

Just a plot black hole.

And yes, the warriors of Fire Nation standing in some rows with the warriors of the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes after a couple of weeks (months?) after the centenary war, this is too lazy …