i stand corrected - people do in fact want to hear me back on my bullshit. so: azula is the second most pacifistic character in atla (after the titular aang) and hereās why.
@jaredstroutā very helpfully pointed out that azula has a kill count of zero, but thereās more to it than that. azulaās lack of murder is a very conscious choice that she makes, frequently.
letās start with ba sing se. now, azulaās tactic to stage a coup and take over is not entirely original (at least not in our world), but a bloodless coup is something that i donāt believe has ever happened across the entirety of world history. put simply: itās incredibly risky. infiltrating a city with a small, elite team of stealthy warriors, quietly assassinating the leaders and replacing them with puppet rulers? itās a recipe for success. but jailing the former leaders? risking their escape, which would almost inevitably lead to them retaking the city.
making the choice not to kill the leaders, making the choice not to kill long feng, is risky. it goes against what we would assume of azula, being such a pragmatist. thatās how we can tell that it is such a big one. and no, they wouldnāt have been killed onscreen, but atla far from shies away from off-screen death. but the dai li explicitly state that the general isĀ āunder house arrestā
another key moment that shows azulaās aversion towards violence is the betrayal at boiling rock. iāve talked a lot about this scene and its many, many layers, but right now we need to focus on the social expectation part. mai ranks lower than princess azula, who is her friend, but also her commanding officer and her princess. when she betrays azula, mai is sentencing herself to execution. she has committed high treason and knows that she will pay the price. and sheās about to, when azula prepares to strike her down with lightning:
then ty lee intervenes, and azula says toĀ āput [mai and ty lee] somewhere iāll never have to see them again and let them rot!āĀ
but. the expectation for azula, betrayed princess and commanding officer, in that situation, was to kill the subordinate officer (mai). azula is higher ranking. azula has that kind of authority. mai has just committed treason - a capital crime. when ty lee intervenes, she is saving mai from certain death, but she is also saving azula from having to do something she doesnāt want to do. is she angry? yes, of course, thatās why she locked them both up in boiling rock. to an outsider, that would look like a temporary solution until she regained the use of her bending and was able to execute them as expected of her, but she doesnāt. because azula loves her friends, and also because azula doesnāt like violence.
there are other examples i could list, but much more interesting to get into is why, exactly, azula is so eager to avoid bloodshed. like aang, her tendency against violence stems from a deeper conflict-avoidant nature. this presents differently in the two characters; aang is eternally agreeable and does his best to diffuse any arguments while azula asserts herself as an unquestionable authority and threatens those below her. the other thing thatās different between the two is where this conflict avoidance developed from.
aang is conflict avoidant and diplomatic because of his understandably childish understanding of pacifism itself. he believes that conflict itself is also bad, especially because it makes him uncomfortable.Ā in aangās mind, conflict can sometimes lead to violence, and usually leads to discomfort.
azula is conflict avoidant as a trauma response. because, really, what has her experience of conflict been before season two?
at eight or nine, her father argues with her grandfather. her brother is sentenced to death and her mother and grandfather both die.
at eleven, her brother argues with their father and is banished, with half his face burned off.
so when zuko challenges her to an agni kai in ba sing se?
she only agrees to any actual conflict in the middle of a full scale nervous breakdown, after hallucinating her dead mother, who tells her that violence is not the answer but, no longer holding power over azula, can be easily disobeyed.
to azula, conflict and violence are inextricably linked. conflict only ever occurs between two unequal parties, and the higher ranking orĀ ābetterā party inflicts horrible violence on the other, weaker party. so she avoids conflict, both because she doesnāt want to get hurt, and because she doesnāt want to hurt others, least of all her friends and family.
tl;dr:Ā azula is pacifistic and anti-violence, almost as much as aang is, but rather than it being a core belief, she is deeply conflict avoidant as a trauma response.
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