hi :) u up 2 talk about Azula? i wonder what kind of help she could get. what do u think? also - names to mental stuf in a pre-dx world?
First of all, I've said before that I don't like diagnosing fictional characters with mental illnesses at the best of times. In a pre-DSM world, it's almost impossible. I've also said before that I don't consider Azula to be mentally ill, especially not in the series proper (the comics don't exist, shhh.) Unless you mean in the sense of having CPTSD due to prolonged abuse, but like, Zuko has that, too.
One main difference between Zuko and Azula is that Zuko actually recognized that he needed help. Even when he didn't know it himself. Everything he did was a cry for help, even (especially) when he was like NO I DEFINITELY DO NOT NEED TO CALM DOWN WHY WOULD YOU SUGGEST THAT I AM PERFECTLY FINE!!!!!
That's the whole thing about Zuko's speech where he talks about Azula being "born lucky" versus his "lucky to be born." I love that speech so much, as you can probably tell if you have been following my blog because I talk about it all the time. If you've been with me on my personal you probably know that speech was the moment I started to love Zuko as a character. And people who talk about Azula and Zuko's relationship talk about that line a lot, but rarely focus on what Zuko says after:
I don't need luck, though. I don't want it. I've always had to struggle and fight and that's made me strong. It's made me who I am.
This is the thing. This is what makes Zuko redeemable. The way Dante Basco delivers these lines is so good. There's a lot of false bravado, but also a lot of pain. Building an identity around having to constantly struggle caused Zuko a lot of pain but it also prevented him from falling into the mindset Azula was in, and ultimately the lessons he learned about picking himself up helped him to rebuild himself in the end and become a better person. Azula built her identity around being "born lucky" so that was always something she had to maintain, and the idea that she was superior by nature was fed by her father and her country's violent fascist ideologies. We do see that she struggles to maintain this mask of perfection even from the moment she is introduced to us, but what she doesn't ever do is admit that she struggles to maintain it.
That attitude is also seen in her speech to Long Feng about being a born leader. To her, it's a zero sum game; if she isn't born to win, then she loses.
I think help for Azula would need to involve first and foremost admitting that she needed help, and she really isn't in that place until she hits rock bottom. And she is in that place by the end of the series, but not before.
Think about all the steps Zuko had to go through to get redemption. Leaving the Fire Nation, humbling himself to the gaang, admitting that he'd lost his firebending. Can you imagine Azula doing any of those things? Zuko jokes about how Azula would just threaten them, which actually she wouldn't, she would manipulate, but anyway, the point is that she could never sincerely bring herself to that point because she has to WANT to do that, and more importantly she never learned how to. Zuko is able to humble himself enough to change partly because of being forcibly humbled throughout his life. Zuko knows what it feels like to hit rock bottom, and thus learned how to build himself up again, even if it took him a while to do it right.
Now, I'm also not saying that redemption necessitates suffering. That was also something Zuko internalized that was an obstacle for him to overcome, but it was because he learned how to grow from suffering that he was able to build himself back up. Azula has definitely suffered, but I don't think she would have considered any of the crap Ozai put her through as hurting her (even though it did) because she also believed the lie about her own superiority. That's why she built a fake wall around herself and who she was. Zuko talks about who he is; Azula says that she's a monster. Azula has no real idea who she is. That's what she needs to find out in order to get help, and she has to want it.
If it weren't for Aang and co., though, Azula would have still considered herself lucky. That's another difference between her and Zuko. Zuko would have denied that he was hurting like he did in the beginning of the series, but he would still know that he was. I don't think Azula even knows that she was hurt. At the end of the series, to her, the source of her suffering is something she blames on everyone else except 1) Ozai, and 2) her own toxic worldview. Remember when Zuko also had to admit that he was angry at himself? Azula would need to do something similar. Not to sound trite, but the first step to getting help is admitting that you have a problem, and as hard as that was for Zuko, it would be even harder for Azula because she was fed her whole life on a steady diet of her own superiority.
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