Su !! Hi !!!
I would like to ask a bunch of questions, and these are I have to say:
What do you interpret Azulon's childhood like? Especially with a mostly busy father who's old enough to literally be his great grandfather (who is not even his father), and a mother (who is also not his mother) have may or may not have personal problems with him? Does he have any at least friends or handpicked any friends of nobility for him just like Sozin did? How did Ilah and Azulon took care of Iroh underneath their hands? And lastly, but not the least, did Ilah knew she was gonna die or didn't noticed she was slowly dying till it's visibly clear?
You can answer some of them, and ignore the others dw !! Just very curious.......... methinks............ 💞
HI ZENO HIIII srry it took me so long to answer this 💔💔
i personally interpret Azulon’s childhood to be very very isolated and he also went through unhealthy mental development, (like seeing things he shouldn’t have seen at that young of an age ) but he was also put upon a very high pedestal as Sozin’s only son and heir. i actually do headcanon that Azulon had sisters, although very much older, who he surpassed in the line of succession due to his gender (and some other reasons that I talked abt in my fic)
i do think Azulon had friends, but his social circle was handpicked by wealth and political relevance. most of them were also really just training dummies to build his people skills (aka lying and manipulation), which was encouraged by his mother. as a teenager, he was very emotionally calculated and would use others to benefit himself, sort of like Azula I guess, but worse in the way a lot more people got hurt. he had very few willing friends in adulthood because no one trusted him 😭
the way he and Ilah raised Iroh was sort of….complicated? i guess? Azulon and Ilah had two very different ways of raising children due to cultural differences. (Ilah being from the outer islands and Azulon being from the mainland caldera) He wanted to raise Iroh like he was raised and Ilah was like “why do you want to put our son through a torture ritual . hello.” because obviously her husband is not the greatest example of the benefits of Fire Nation royal child-raising traditions. SO they compromised !! (yay!)
Ilah was the one to handle Iroh’s education up until he was old enough to attend the royal academy, his discipline, and just general like. things a parent should do for their young child. while Azulon was the one to instruct Iroh in politics and necessary “stuff you should know as the crown prince”, and he also hand-picked his firebending teachers. Iroh lived a very much better childhood than that of azulon’s basically
now onto. the last question 🥀 oh Ilah I miss you dearly. I don’t think she knew she was going to die in her pregnancy with ozai, not until the actual birth. in fact, Azulon was more worried about it than she was at first. Before they had Ozai, i do hc that she struggled with childbirth and pregnancy, (which is a headcanon i stole from a lovely mutual) so she was rlly rlly hopeful whenever she got pregnant again
