I was expecting to enjoy She-Ra and the Princesses of Power , but I did not expect it to further my love for my favorite character from another beloved series: Mai from Avatar: the Last Airbender. This particular aspect of her character and story were always fairly obvious, but I never saw the full scope of it until after I saw the differences between Adora and Catra’s responses to the Horde’s evils.
To put it simply: Mai never sees the Fire Nation as an evil force because she is never exposed to its atrocities. We can assume that her first journey beyond the borders of the Fire Nation was her trip to Omashu–a city that was conquered without bloodshed or ruin. There was no debris to clean up, no funerals for the dead, no wailing widows or starving orphans…especially none that would cross her sight. She was the daughter of Omashu’s new governor; she would never have to walk through alleyways containing refugees or find herself in the middle of an opposition rally (in fact, her only exposure was a failed assassination attempt!).
Likewise, when she reached Ba Sing Se, she and her companions were brought straight to the royal hall of the Earth King. There, she was able to witness the splendor of the King’s court and listen in on the gossip of the palace–people excitedly talking about how a war with the Fire Nation had been kept secret, nobles questioning if this was just a new trick, guards worrying about whether or not they were prepared for an attack. Everything she heard would only confirm suspicions and propaganda: the Earth Kingdom didn’t care about its soldiers in the field, and it deserved to fall. Any of its subjects she might have seen suffering on the way in or in her subsequent date with Zuko in the market square (still in the middle-to-upper ring!) could simply be categorized under a column reading “Oppressed because their leaders don’t care”.
So she returned home with Zuko believing that they had successfully overthrown a regime that didn’t care about its subjects–she had seen not one, but two cities that were taken simply through subterfuge and intimidation, rather than by long, drawn-out war. The Fire Nation’s propaganda machine was clearly correct: the Earth Kingdom was vile, corrupt, and weak.
Then one day Zuko just ran away and said “I’m going to join the Avatar, don’t come with me, I’m a rebel now.” Her mind must have snapped. Zuko always worried about whether or not he belonged in the Fire Nation because of his abusive father and the nation’s apathy toward his departure–I’m sure Mister “I’ll Leave a Note So She Doesn’t Worry” never spoke to Mai about the suffering he had witnessed firsthand…suffering so extreme that even rescuing a village from thugs and robbers had earned him nothing but hatred and scorn. Zuko understood how evil the Fire Nation was, but Mai had no comparison.
And yet, when he told her that he saw it differently, and that he believed the Fire Nation was truly the nation in the wrong, she trusted him. She pulled out her weapons against her own nation and threw herself headlong into danger, death, and prison simply because she believed Zuko when he said “We’re actually the bad guys.” She didn’t ask for proof, he didn’t have to take her to a decimated village, and she didn’t befriend anyone from the other side through some harrowing adventure. She simply listened and decided “Well, I love this guy, and I trust him.”
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