I know quite a few people have pointed out how Ozai sees himself and Iroh in Zuko and Azula - the soft cowardly first born and the more deserving second born - but I think something that’s neat is that it seems Iroh does the exact same thing.
Iroh loves Zuko and sees him as his own son, saying that he is a troubled young man and acknowledges all the terrible things he went through. Iroh gave Zuko constant support and acted as a guiding light, a pillar to lean on. Zuko makes numerous mistakes, life ruining ones, but Iroh is always there.
Iroh did not give that same consideration to Azula, but instead said that “she’s crazy and needs to go down.”
Iroh would tell Zuko not to give in to Azula’s deceit and selfishness, and that he must fight her in an agni kai to take his rightful place. He sees in her his brother, a tyrant, a monster - not a fourteen year old girl shaped by surroundings. A fourteen year old who, to my knowledge, has caused less problems than Zuko in the general world.
Iroh remembers the mistakes of his past and sees Zuko repeat the same, and tries to help him off that path before it can go too far, that he is a Nice Young Man who is simply misguided.
He sees what Azula in the future is capable of and decides that this is what her future will be. This is all Azula will amount to. Azula will be nothing more than another cruel member of the family. Azula needs to go.
Iroh didn’t decide anything about Azula’s future. He said she needed to go down after she tried to kill him and Zuko. Repeatedly.
Iroh also didn’t support Zuko unconditionally. He dressed down Zuko plenty of times and in the end, Zuko had to come to him and apologize and show he had actually genuinely become a better person.
Azula also has not caused less problems in the world than Zuko. She conquered two cities in the name of colonialism and also aided her father in his plan to raise the Earth Kingdom to the ground, a plan that Zuko helped stop. But more importantly, she never tried to change and never had any desire to.
Ozai abused his children because of his own insecurities and judged Zuko based on his percieved weakness, and felt entitled to hurt him, and taught that entitlement to Azula. It’s offensive to say that Iroh refusing to let Azula hurt Zuko is “the exact same thing.” It’s also just obviously, demonstrably wrong.
Love how Azula stans can ignore her orchestrating a genocide. Jesus. Like she’s not only the one to suggest it, she wanted to participate. What the fuck people?
Because the people of the Earth Kingdom don’t fit the mold that mainstream audiences need to feel sympathy. Azula is a conventionally attractive female character that suffers beautifully while looking into a mirror and contemplating how she wants to be loved- therefore, it’s easy to ignore that she was the architect and would-be commander in a continent wide genocide. In contrast, the people of the Earth Kingdom are a faceless mob. The ones that we meet are either entirely ordinary (Jin, Song, Haru) or outright villainized (Jet, the Dai Li). They don’t fit into a Pinterest moodboard or a Tumblr flowery post, so they don’t deserve empathy.
This is why no Azula fan ever envisions her working to redeem herself for what she tried to do to the people of the Earth Kingdom. Who cares about reparations and decolonization when you can wax poetic about how an evil old man corrupted our beautiful innocent princess?
now come on folks where did i excuse a genocide. where did i point and go “Azula wanting to burn the entire earth kingdom is so girlboss of her”. cmon now.
Right here:
Whitewashing Azula also whitewashes her actions by proxy. I’m tired of this false equivalence where you position Zuko and Azula as moral equals, therefore Azula deserves the same redemption and forgiveness that Zuko got. Zuko committed plenty of crimes but he never, even at his worst, considered genocide.
The show presents Zuko and Azula as foils, whether you like it or not. Zuko has a soft interior whereas Azula enjoys hurting others. That’s an oversimplification, but it’s also the thesis of the Zuko Alone episode. Equating them means that you believe that Zuko burning down the houses of Kyoshi Island, a crime for which he has apologized and worked to amend, is the same as Azula intending to carry out the ethnic cleansing of millions of people and never regretting her choice.
There is a difference between explaining and excusing, and trying to create a Big Bad to exonerate Azula inadvertently conceals the impact of her crimes.
No, their actions aren't equal. Yes, they are foils. Pointing out Zuko has also done some very bad things does not make Azula an innocent flower, nor is pointing out that if given Zuko's opportunities she may have turned out different.
It's on me for not making the OG post more clear, I'll take credit for that, but the main point was about Iroh being a guiding hand during Zuko's redemption process - there during the strides and stepbacks - and then writing his 14 year old niece off because she's too much like Ozai. A projection of Iroh urging Zuko to do to Azula what Iroh wished he did to Ozai at a younger age.
To take that and try to twist it that I think Azula is super innocent actually, and that everyone else did her wrong, is hugely incorrect. I do think the same graces everyone else gives Zuko from the very start, him being raised in a culture that prioritizes conquest and violence with serious propaganda leading to his initial attitude, should be given to Azula.
