#azula thoughts

[the-badger-mole]

The Long Way Back

No one owes Azula anything.

Go with me here. I don't hate Azula. I think she's a wonderfully complicated and genuinely frightening villain. But I do still think she's a villain.

Azula did a lot of harm, and while the fact that she was very probably abused is an explanation for why she is the way she is, it's not an excuse, and it doesn't mean she doesn't enjoy it. She very nearly succeeded in killing Iroh, and Aang only survived because of Katara's intervention (I won't go into my belief that she's killed before that...but yeah, she absolutely has). Azula's on-screen kill count only remains at 0 because of plot convenience (and the fact that it's a kids' show). That's not even getting into all the ways she was terrible to Zuko and added psychological abuse to what he was already getting from Ozai. She's never remorseful about any of it.

That lack of remorse is what confuses me most about apologists who think that Azula deserves not only to be forgiven but to be reconciled with her family and friends (and the friends of her family). Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that Zuko and even Iroh would forgive Azula, it wouldn't necessarily mean that either of them would want to reconcile with her. Forgiveness and reconciliation aren't the same thing. Forgiveness can be part of one's personal journey of healing, but it doesn't mean that one will seek reconciliation with the person who wronged them. For the sake of their own mental health and well-being, a person may choose to forgive abusive family members, but still ultimately be no contact with them. That's not contradictory. Sometimes letting go of the past means leaving people there.

On the other side of that, it's completely understandable that after being pushed and harmed and tortured, someone may decide not to forgive the person who caused the harm. This idea that any of the Gaang, but specifically Katara should have to forgive Azula is frankly ridiculous. Yes, Katara forgave Zuko, but don't forget, Zuko had to work for that forgiveness. He wanted that forgiveness. The context of Katara and Zuko's reconciliation is very specific to them. It does not mean that Katara is going to extend the same forgiveness and reconciliation to everyone. Katara is forgiving, yes, but only to a point. She has her limits. I have yet to see anyone present a compelling reason for Katara to not only forgive Azula, but to want to have any sort of relationship with her. I have yet to see any compelling reason that Azula would care to have Katara's forgiveness. Katara's relationship with Zuko isn't enough on its own. I could see somewhere down the line them being cordial to each other for Zuko's sake (assuming Azula isn't exiled forever because of what she did), but that's it.

If Zuko forgave Azula and reconciled with her, he wouldn't force Katara to do the same. He would be very understanding of Katara keeping her distance from Azula, even keeping her children away, because, at the end of the day, Azula isn't owed a relationship with anyone. She isn't owed reconciliation with anyone. Further, she hasn't earned reconciliation or a relationship with anyone. You can absolutely headcanon that she has. You can headcanon that Aang got past her killing him, or that Sokka and Suki got past her (implied) torture of Suki. That's totally fine. But personally, I prefer not to, and I think Azula is more interesting for it.

[muddied-waters]

me, reading through fandom metas: I totally agree that Azula is a deeply complicated, nuanced and interesting character. She too is a victim of trauma and abuse who grew up under strong influence of Ozai what made her turn out the way she is. While she is objectively a horrible person, she is just a teenager who was socially conditioned by her abusive father to adopt these toxic behaviours and had no positive role models that were there for her like Zuko had Iroh.

me when rewatching ATLA : she's crazy and she needs to go down

[the-badger-mole]

Idk if you're on Twitter but what do you think of all this Azula justification? Like, did ppl forget Azula was killing turtleducks just because she was jealous? Did they forget where she, as a child was using her "friends" as target practice? That she delighted in telling Zuko he was gonna die? Ozai was abusive as fuck to Zuko but by all counts, Azula was a prodigy from birth and thus, all she got was whatever positive attention Ozai had left in him. Unless I completely missed it,, his abuse of her probably started after Ba Sing Se, when it turned out the Avatar was alive and after Zuko ditched them.

She was told she was the absolute best from the getgo and was praised by everyone...except her mother and Iroh who favored Zuko to offset Ozai's abuse. And she hated that.

Not saying Azula isn't damaged/hurt but like damn. Every time, all I can think is this episode of Deadly Women where this killer, when she was a young child was so jealous of the attention her father gave to her younger brother that she would hurt either the brother or herself and throw tantrums

And tbh, Azula's fall from grace to me, i.e., her mental breakdown, seemed more like what Zuko went through but way more painful because even in the midst of it, she still felt like she was superior and still didn't question Ozai and his teachings, whereas Zuko on some level did

I am on Twitter, but I really only engage in fandom here and on discord. Twitter is where I go for snarky observations and people's IRL messy dramas.

Azula is an interesting character for me. I like her. I see her as a villain, but a sympathetic one. The show gives me very good reason to think that had ATLA not been a children's show on Nickelodeon, she would have a fairly high body count. Azula is waaaay too comfortable shooting lightning at people for the show's run to have been the first time she's killed (or attempted to kill) people. On the other hand, she grew up with Ozai for a father, and although it doesn't seem like he abused her in the same way he abused Zuko, it's still clear that she was trying to live up to some impossible standard.

Still, that wasn't enough to make her an empathetic person, and that's what makes me lean into Azula as a villain. Do I believe she could be redeemed? Sure, it's possible. I don't believe anyone is ever truly past redeeming. But they have to want it and be willing to work for it. I don't think Azula would want to work for it, and I have seen maybe one or two fics where her redemption makes sense. But by and large, few writers seem to want to make her work for her redemption. Usually, her redemption happens behind the scenes and by the time we get to see her in a story, everyone's forgiven her already. Why? How? 🤷🏾‍♀️ The details are very seldomly addressed, but usually it's Zuko's (or sometimes even Katara's????) responsibility to get her there. I think Azula deserves a better story. Not necessarily a redemption arc, but definitely a more interesting end.

[fatlouie315]

It frustrates me when Azula discourse is either like

A) “she’s only like that because she was abused, she was robbed of redemption”

or

B) “she’s an evil monster who should burn in hell”

She was indoctrinated by her father and Fire Nation culture to value power and hate above anything else. As a 14 year old, she obviously deserves to unlearn that ideology and heal from that abuse. But the fact that she wasn’t able to escape that life (a consequence of both her own destructive, violent choices which can’t be excused by abuse and how no one tried to reach out to help her) is what makes her story a great tragedy.

She’s supposed to contrast Zuko’s arc of discovering the evil of the Fire Nation and how it’s damaged his identity. Her identity was far too centered around fear and power to make the same realizations he did. Yes, it’s sad and heartbreaking, and you’re supposed to feel sympathetic towards her, but her story is better with a tragic ending. I like to think Azula heals someday in the future, but remaining a villian within the show’s enclosed narrative makes her so much more compelling.

[fatlouie315]

Some more thoughts on Azula regarding my post about how her story being a tragic one isn’t necessarily a sexist or poor writing choice: I’m not claiming that Azula’s writing is 100% perfect or that the show is never sexist. I agree with the common observation that her character design that makes her look much older than fourteen weakens the audience’s sympathy for her, and although the comics aren’t part of the actual text of the show, it’s still worth mentioning that the way they make her mental illness into a "scary," villain aesthetic is obviously harmful. I still disagree that it was sexist to give her an unhappy ending.

Some of the discussions linked in the replies claim that Azula was punished for being a girl who desires power or agency. This is not true. Throughout the show, we see the other female leads, Toph and Katara, grow in their power both by improving their bending abilities and becoming more confident in their identities. This power allows them to become healthier versions of themselves and create better relationships with other people. It’s not a quiet, traditionally feminine power either. They’re allowed to unleash their strength in awesome moments of rage that the show portrays positively. This is not the power that Azula seeks. Her quest to control and oppress others is a need ingrained in her by the ideologies of the Fire Nation. It’s the same hate-fueled power sought by the nation’s other antagonists, Zhao and Ozai. They also eventually suffer due to the consequences of their actions. Azula is not the only one to be hurt by following this ideology. She isn’t singled out because she is female. (And I’m sorry, but suggesting that Azula’s actions throughout the show are a demonstration of girl power is a hilarious example of girlboss feminism. Female fascists are still bad btw).

The second thing brought to my attention by these discussions is that some people genuinely don’t think that Azula’s story was a cautionary one or that she was ever written in a sympathetic light. I had thoughts on one conversation in particular. It first dismisses her moment of humanity at the beach as a fluke, a one-time thing that only accidently garnered audience sympathy. Later, someone concludes this:

The lesson that following destructive ideologies leads to self-destruction and unhappiness is a theme demonstrated throughout the entire show, specifically within Azula’s arc. We see in “Zuko Alone” how throughout her childhood she was manipulated to take her positive attributes like athletic talent, ambition, and intelligence and turn them into tools of aggression to assert her superiority. By the time she’s barely a teen she has fully internalized these messages in the ways that she talks and acts, to the point where she parrots a ridiculous speech about divine right with full confidence that what she’s saying is true.

Her whole identity is tied up in the ideologies of the Fire Nation. Her monologue during the campfire at the beach (“My own mother thought I was a monster. She was right, of course”), if you take a closer look past its unfortunate meme status, shows that she recognizes how consumed she is by this identity but neither wishes to or has the ability to change. Azula’s confidence in this identity only cracks after the fight at the Boiling Rock when she loses trust in Mai and Ty Lee, the only people she believed cared for her. Not only is she now alone, but her life-long dependence on ideologies of fear and power, the things she has based her entire perception of herself, has revealed itself to be unreliable. The vision of her mother in the finale’s mirror scene tells her that she thinks Azula is not a monster, but rather a confused child. “All your life you’ve used fear to control people,” Ursa tells her. This scene explicitly demonstrates the very theme that the excerpt above claims is missing from the story.

These moments throughout the show aren’t accidental or devoid of meaning, and although members of the Avatar team have said and wrote some stupid, demeaning shit about Azula over the years in interviews, comics, and such, the actual narrative constructed in ATLA constantly mourns for Azula and the life she lost because of the abuse inflicted upon her. Azula’s unhappy ending isn’t a punishment, but a way for the narrative to demonstrate how the ideology of hate she was taught is destructive and harmful to all who follow it.

[exploretheeccentricities]

Azula is the ultimate tragic character because she is punished for trying to survive. She figured out the game and tried to win it, saving her from the pain Zuko was inflicted, but because she figured out the game she could no longer be the helpless hurt lamb who needed to be saved from it the way Zuko was. Her strength is her fall, her rise is her downfall. Her father is the only one she respects and can depend on, and he's the only one who can truly hurt her. She is his golden child but Ursa's and Iron's scapegoat. She learned how to mask pain and play it safe, but she was merged with her father's image and cause for it.

She refused to fall into a subservient role next to her brother and tried to take what she truly wanted, what she earned, only to be kicked down for it in the end.

She yearned the love and support her mother gave Zuko but always reminded her mother of the man who hurt them.

She hurt people, because she was hurt herself. She isolated and lashed out at others because that was how she was taught and that was all she saw. It was kill or be killed, and Azula wasn't one to go down easily.