Azula and the Issue of Diagnosis- an Essay Which No One Asked For
With the avatar fandom resurgence, I want to talk more in depth about something that I’m noticing an increase of with the increased interest in the show- and that is the occasionally troubling, sometimes deeply ableist, issue of diagnosing of Azula.
What I tend to see most frequently is the use of words like “psychopath” and “sociopath,” often followed by “psychotic” or “narcissist.” Occasionally I’ll see someone refer to her as “schizophrenic,” and perhaps most troubling of all are the people using ableist slurs against her like “psycho” or “lunatic.” Even words like “crazy” in this context are a bit bothersome- it’s not a word I’m going to advocate banning from the English language, but directing it towards a character who’s visibly mentally ill has an unfortunate side effect of continuing to perpetuate stigma against mental illness.
It’s not cute.
So we’re going to talk about this today. Let’s talk about Azula, diagnosis, and mental illness.
My background
Before we deep dive, however, I want to state this plainly. I have a master’s degree in clinical psychology, and I am currently a second-year doctoral student in a clinical psychology PhD program. I’ve been in school a total of five years post-bachelor’s degree specializing in this field. I work in my school’s training clinic and have active therapy cases with a wide variety of diagnoses. I have patients who were easy to diagnose and patients where it took several months to decide what the most accurate label was. Like many mental health professionals, I have also had my own struggles with my mental health which I am not going to disclose today. But I have been in out of my own therapy since I was a teenager. In short, while I am still a trainee and still operate under the license of a supervising clinician, I know what I’m talking about.
Okay, let’s begin. The rest is under the cut:
Keep reading
Thank you for this. This was very informative, and yes, I, too, am very disappointed with how they’ve handled Azula’s character in the comics.
I’ve always thought that Azula’s breakdown would not be something that she would let define her (unlike the comics). Azula had a lot of stressors in book 3 and was overwhelmed. The lack of food, sleep, healthy coping mechanisms, mental and emotional support led to her breakdown, but she was also a child who was smart and tenacious and relatively open-minded. Let her sleep it off for two weeks, have someone teach her, let her gain more life experience. She would bounce back.
Really loved this statement from the essay:
These kids need help, not shame, and Azula, were she a real person, would be no different. It’s also worth considering that Azula is a woman of color, and we need to consider her culture and background- is she really so mentally ill when she was raised in a culture that reinforced her aggression and fostered low empathy in all of its soldiers?
