One of the staple "tropes" of the fandom is exporing what would happen if Azula was exiled instead of Zuko. Most of the time, its a simple role reversal where Azula is not the prodigy, sometimes going so far as placing her in the elder role.
In which case, I feel like the author hasn't written Azula, they've just written another Zuko.
My idea is that Ozai is aware that he has basically won the war by the time of the Agni Kai. Zuko is a failure, but has a passionate, bleeding heart and is easily manipulated. Azula is a weapon he could wield against his enemies...except he doesn't have any enemies for which to wield her. Ba Sing Se cannot stand forever, the Northern Water Tribe stubbornly refuses to act, the Avatar is gone.
When the praise for Azula starts being about her merits (blue flame, fastest master of firebending) Ozai becomes jealous. He realizes that he has effectively raised his own replacement and soon, she will be in her prime while he begins to descend into old age. The Fire Nation does not respect loyalty without fear as its core and soon, Azula will fear no one.
Zuko speaks out at the war council. Zuko refuses to fight his father in the Agni Kai. Ozai demands Azula take his place.
Only Azula would never refuse an order. She fights. Ozai feels the danger, even at 11, that Azula represents. He closes the gap between them.
Instead of laying a burning hand, he has to settle for taking her eye with one finger. Azula, in the last moment before he robs her of one eye, strikes back with her first bolt of lightning, scarring Ozai's chest.
She is banished. Iroh makes the choice to go with her, hoping that Zuko's heart will make him immune to the poison of the court.
Ozai needs a new weapon, all he has is Zuko. He lavishes praise on the boy, guides him to a secret monastery in the mountains.
Three years later, Zuko emerges with the tattoo of the third eye on his forehead, his emotions killed, replaced in order to maximize chi flow.
This sounds like such a cool concept! I love any banished!Zulas that aren't just her and zuko swapped 1 for 1, like you mentioned often happens! This is super interesting!
azula works herself to the bone in order to achieve perfection; she trains relentlessly, internalises the slightest criticism, practices deliberate caution, exercises strategic ambition (the infamous triple-pronged strike of zuko home, avatar dead, ba sing se conquered), toes the line between the two, learns her nation’s history, memorises battle tactics, is an impeccable orator, but is a ‘mary sue’.
zuko poorly handles his crew, fumbles in ozai’s court (see: war meeting), is consistently awful at firebending — but his being handed a sudden and totally-not-narratively-convenient firebending boost over the course of one day’s… work, if you can even call it that; a prowess that matches and arguably overpowers azula’s (her mind, of course, must immediately deteriorate as well if zuko is to be granted his victory), and subsequently being rewarded for it with the throne… does not make him a male mary sue? a gary stu, if you will? how doth that work.
As I have discussed elsewhere, Azula's expressed feelings going into the final Agni Kai were something like "it's kind of fucked up I have to fight my brother to the death and I regret having to do so, but I don't see an alternative" while Zuko's expressed feelings were "I can't wait to kick my sister's ass and put her in her place, especially now that she's been weakened by her mental breakdown. No regrets, baby!"
But what about after the Agni Kai? What about after Azula was slipping tears and fire all over the place as she plunged into the abyss? What then? A lot of people claim that Zuko felt sadness or empathy or pity or unhappiness or dissatisfaction then? What did he actually feel?
Well, essentially all the series tell us is this:
Katara is clearly saddened by watching Azula breakdown. Katara feels empathy for Azula. Katara feels like Zuko must be saddened by watching his sister go through something like this and thus must need emotional support.
What about Zuko? There's a very strong visual contrast between the sorrow and empathy on Katara's face and the lack of those emotions on Zuko's face. Zuko's expression is difficult to read and quite ambiguous, but if I had to describe it I would say "satisfied," "content," "contemptuous." If there is any pity there, it is "contemptuous pity" Zuko went into the fight having no regrets about fighting his sister and now that she's been utterly destroyed, it looks like he still has no regrets about what happened.
Again, this is a hard to interpret scene, and multiple interpretations are possible. Yet it is hard for me to see anything in it which supports the notion that Zuko feels empathy for Azula here. And one reason the scene is hard to interpret is because we get no follow up. We get Zuko visiting an imprisoned Ozai, but not Zuko visiting Azula. Perhaps that's because Zuko wouldn't visit Azula, now that he's destroyed her.
Anita Sarkeesian, feminist who interpreted media under a feminist lens. She did a series about video games and she was the subject of targeted harassment. That was the start of gamergate
Minor correction, the start of gamergate was based around a different reporter, Zoe Quinn, but they were both absolutely violently threatened over their involvement in video game criticism and development. A hate campaign was started by Quinn's ex-boyfriend when he wrote a post falsely accusing them of dating video game journalists in order to receive positive reviews on their own game, Depression Quest, which led other bad actors to accuse all women in the industry (Zoe identified as female at the time) of perceived sexual immorality. Anita Sarkeesian's brilliant Youtube series Tropes vs Women in Video Games (which everyone should watch, right now) sparked a particular nerve for criticizing popular games of killing and/or victimizing any important female character (there is a CHILLING bit that borders on ludicrous where she describes the plots of a seemingly endless parades of games as "In [title], [male player character's] wife dies, and you then have to rescue [his] daughter."). That series did actually make a huge change in the industry, especially when touted by progressive legacy developers like Tim Schafer (Monkey Island, Psychonauts), who went on to expand hiring in his company to front women and minority voices, but the shift didn't really show for a long time and echoes of the sexism that plagues the industry at its core are still rampant.
In all seriousness, if you live in the US and you aren't familiar with the misogynistic harassment these people in the game industry faced during Gamergate, you need to watch this series right now.
This was the beggining of the current form of the US fascist movement and it underpins the entire thing about it to this day. If you live in the US and Gamergate isn't familiar to you, you're missing critical history to understanding US fascism. I'm not joking even a little bit here, you will understand modern United States fascism so much better if you are familiar with Gamergate.
Not an exaggeration. Gamergate led directly to the redpill/incel movement, which white supremacists exploited and colonized. Not to say that most of the white men in those movements weren't already racist to some extent, but that wasn't an active part of their politics until white supremacist recruiters came along and convinced them that the women ruining their videogames were part of the conspiracy to destroy the white race.
That's a very brief summary but you can go back step by step over the past decade and see how they did it.
Now I owe my mom and brother money on top of the bills I'm behind on. If anyone can donate to help me get back on my feet, please do!
My paypal email is [email protected]
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The kingly pig looks taken aback by this statement. "You claim to be 'baiting' our kind?.. A master of it, no less - after all the trust we hsve placed in you?"
- Your relationship with the Hog Society 🐖 is now Unfavourable.
oh my god i'm so tired psychotic does not mean violent it does not mean angry or erratic. it refers to a person suffering from psychosis, a loss of touch with reality that includes hallucinations and/or delusions. psychotic people are not inherently violent and y'all need to understand how much stigma you create when you again and again incorrectly use the word psychotic without even thinking about it
Why did Mai, a rebellious noble girl who loathes the politics of noble life, just sit back and allow the asylum that Azula was sent to, which is known for taking in rebellious noble girls who's family's don't want to deal with them to abuse them 24/7, exist? Even if she didn't know about it before the Search, Azula's been out, she's got to know about it.
Like I get that Mai isn't gonna be some rehabilitationist given how much she loves her uncle who runs the fucking torture prison but you'd think 'asylum that abuses noble women that don't conform to societal expectations' would be a little personal for her
The fact that she was in Zuko's personal body guard and never raised this concern means she was either apathetic to, or at worst directly in support of the institutional violence against women who didn't fit into proper society
I don't think either one is a moral crusader or even someone who at all thinks about changing the world for the better or the overall plight of women but the Fire Nation asylum system is a direct personal threat to both of them, as they both exactly fit the profiles of the girls who would end up there. We don't know what they knew when they were younger but they very well might have grown up knowing that this implicit threat was always hanging over their heads.
Ozai is willing to treat Azula as a "substitute son" and heir, encourage her pursuit of "masculine" activities like war, give her royal authority and command, and so on. He still treats her terribly, but perhaps not that different than he would treat a second-born son. And there are hints that within broader Fire Nation society women are slowly moving into increasingly non-traditional roles, for instance Boiling Rock has the "progressive policy" of hiring both male and female guards.
Again, I don't want to defend Ozai, but I doubt any other member of the royal family would let a girl or a woman, however capable, serve in the capacities Azula serves. From Mai's life, we know exactly how Iroh or Ursa would expect Azula to behave if they were heading the royal family.
The idea of Zuko's Fire Nation being more traditionalist, more sexist, less gender equalitarian, and less meritocratic than Ozai's Fire Nation makes perfect sense.
OK, I'm going to eventually (probably today) write about the scene from the movie which inspired this take, but here is the non-spoilers version of why I think this makes sense:
A) Inasmuch as Zuko has an obvious political program, it would be "taking the Fire Nation back to how it was before it was corrupted by Sozin." And, inasmuch as he has an obvious group of people to recruit officials and supporters from, it would be weirdo traditionalists who romanticize the "old Fire Nation" and want to "return." People who have done well in the current Fire Nation or who are OK with current culture and society have little reason to support a platform of radical change. Scholars and officials romanticizing ancient, supposedly ideal forms of culture and social organization is also something that shows up in Chinese history. Needless to say, it turns out that generally it's actually impossible to reimpose old traditions and when you try what you get instead is a distorted mirror.
I don't think Zuko is like necessarily heart set on "trying rebuild the old, true Fire Nation culture" but it's a very easy path for him to be pushed down, since his own ideological preferences amoun t to "I don't like current Fire Nation culture much," Aang's nostalgic for the old Fire Nation, he's recruiting heavily from the aforementioned traditionalist weirdos, Iroh is probably kind of a traditionalist weirdo himself etc. Ultimately, "traditional" Fire Nation culture offers a convenient set of symbols, rituals, and traditions for Zuko to use to try to legitimize himself.
B) The pressure of the 100 Years War almost certainly made the Fire Nation more meritocratic in practice than it was before the war. When you're suffering the stress of decades of warfare, having people in important positions who can actually do their jobs become paramount. In particular, warfare and military service has, across many different societies, has been traditionally a way to advance in status and a road into the social elite. Success in battle is a way for officers to gain in status, but it's also a way for even very low-ranking soldiers to potentially improve their lot. Also, other policies that were introduced from Sozin's time onward to help centralized power (like universal education perhaps?) are likely to ultimately have had net meritocratic effects.
C) Building off of B), the traditionalist officials that Zuko is recruiting are likely to be characterized by heavy resentment about how increased meritocracy is threating their positions.
D) The reality is that Zuko himself is likely to be inclined strongly away from meritocracy. He shows no inclination in that direction in the show, thinks of himself as special due to his birth, and strongly believes in destiny. Moreover, if the Fire Nation was actually run on a meritocratic basis, he wouldn't be within 1000 miles of any sort of leadership position, and he knows it. His entire argument for being Firelord, other than "I'm a puppet imposed by the Avatar," is "I'm a first born son with the right blood, so I deserve to rule." I think all of this together would make Zuko inclined away from meritocracy.
E) One of the effects of the strains of the 100 Years War is that women were, due to the needs of manpower, increasingly let into less traditional roles. Of course, all the traditionalists are probably outraged as hell about this.
F) Ozai is a horrible person, but the interesting thing about his character is that he actually seems to far less sexist than normal for the Fire Nation elite. The fact that he was willing to treat his daughter mostly like a son and give her the duties of a Crown Prince is actually pretty revolutionary. Azula was probably the single most talented person in the entire Fire Nation, but almost certainly, had any other member of her family been in charge, her talents would have gone to waste. Adding to that, it seems likely that one of his biggest domestic initiatives was to open up more positions and opportunities to women. Of course, the traditionalists hate this and Zuko himself is dedicated to repudiating Ozai's reign.
G) Zuko himself is very sexist, he never examines those attitudes in the series, and one of his core resentments is that he was outdone and outshined by his sister. Moreover, his entire legitimacy as Firelord basically rests on him having a penis while his much more talented and better liked sister doesn't.
So yes, I think it makes sense perfect sense that Zuko's reign would be more traditionalist, less meritocratic, and more sexist than Ozai's reign was.
I am so utterly fascinated by “Saki”, the 18-year-running mahjong manga in which you, the reader, become gradually, frog-boilingly aware (over the course of nearly two decades’ worth of mahjong tournaments) that none of these girls are wearing underwear and most of their boobs are slowly expanding.
I need you to understand that I have, like, an anthropological level fascination with this comic. From the perspective of someone who is also a comic artist and writer, two things delight me about it:
the fact that I understand completely how an artist gets from “the fans can have a little hint of skirted asscheek” to “the pussy is completely out on center page” over the course of 18 years; and
the way in which the pussy being out is treated by the characters and diegesis as being utterly unremarkable.
Okay. Point 1. The frog-boiling.
Let me put this in perspective for you. There was already a meme about how the characters in “Saki” don’t wear underwear when I was in middle school. I am thirty now. Okay? And it’s still going.
In the time since, this has stopped being a joke. It is now indisputable canon. This is not because anyone outright says it at any point. It’s because the underwear ran out of places to hide. I’m obsessed with this thought: somewhere in the over 20 volumes of “Saki”, there is a panel in which underwear was objectively deconfirmed. And it would be so hard to figure out where that panel actually is. Maybe the artist didn’t even realize it when she drew it! The frog? Boiling!!
And of course there is also the breast expansion. I don’t know how to put a spin on this. They are just expanding. Like, this happens a lot with artists: you define a character as being, in your mind, “the one with the big boobs”, and over the years you emphasize that trait further and further so that the signal doesn’t get lost in the noise. It’s just that normally—in like a wildly popular manga series about mahjong published by literally Square Enix, for example—normally there would be a point at which the boobs stopped getting bigger. Like, an editor would step in or something. Or you would get to the point where you cannot draw the character in the same panel as her mahjong tiles without her breasts spilling over the tiles, and you’d go, “Well, this is now untenable.”
That did not happen. There is no ceiling. The frog is soup.
Point 2. The complete and utter mundanity of all of this.
It’s like this, okay: there’s no shortage of trashy ecchi manga out there. There’s a million other comics doing wildly bawdier things with wildly more improbable bishoujos.
The vibe with “Saki” is different.
It’s hard to explain this, but it feels like the world of the comic is fundamentally uninterested in the fanservice happening on the page. I cannot describe it as “leering”, because I cannot conceive of a person in the story from whose point of view one would leer. I think the artist is probably into it—I can’t imagine anyone is making her do this—but “Saki” the comic has no opinion on the matter.
There are essentially no male characters in “Saki”. Like, there was one guy? Kind of? At the very beginning? But he is gone now. They put him back in the toybox. He does not exist. It appears to be some level of canonical that in the world of “Saki”, almost all humans are women. Those women are sometimes romantically into each other. According to comments the artist has made on Twitter (which I cannot source), they have lesbian baby technology, so it’s no problem. It’s so much not a problem that the story is about mahjong, instead of any of that.
So, like, the fiction here appears to be this: this is the, like, meta-narrative of the fanservice of “Saki”, right: it’s just normal that they don’t wear underwear and their boobs are arbitrarily big. It’s been normal. It was normal before the story of the manga began. It’s just how things are. Nobody bats an eye about it, and if they do, it’s in sort of a lesbian kind of way so like what’s the problem, we love lesbians here. This is literally normal for girls.
The fanservice simply diffuses into this all-encompassing aura of disembodied, ambient sluttiness. The framing of the panels demands you acknowledge it, and the story demands you already be over it, because it’s mahjong time now, and we’re playing mahjong.
Do you get??? why I’m so fascinated??? Are you not a little enraptured???
Anyway, I have no idea how to end this weird post. I guess the conclusion is that women stay winning????
I have so many questions... How does one SUSPECT a manga character isn't wearing underwear? Like, sure, boobs are front and center amd you can see them get bigger panel by panel but how does this work for panties? Are there just that many upskirt shots?
Also how do you keep a manga about Mahjong going for 18 years, what??
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