Listening to Anti Hero by Taylor Swift while viewing it through the lense of Azula hurts!
I like to imagine this it’s at some point during her recovery where she’s somewhat integrated back into the family but the fear of abandonment still persists.
Hear me out:
“It’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me.
At tea time everybody agrees.”
I just picture her sitting there with her family knowing full well how much she hurt them while also knowing she’ll never truly be the type of good person Zuko is.
“I should not be left to my own devices
They come with prices and vices
I end up in crises
Tale as old as time
I wake up screaming from dreaming
One day I'll watch as you're leaving
'Cause you got tired of my scheming
For the last time”
This entire verse absolutely kills me. It’s pretty self explanatory if you’ve watched the show.
I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror
This! This! This! Azula never looks in mirrors in the show or at her own reflection until her mental break down. Then in the comics she always sees her mom. I like to think that even when she’s “better” she maintains the principle of never looking at her reflection. Also because I think at a certain point she stops seeing her mom in her reflection and instead sees her dad.
Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby
And I'm a monster on the hill
Too big to hang out
Slowly lurching toward your favorite city
Pierced through the heart but never killed
Just imaging her standing there watching everyone having fun and coexisting while feeling like an outsider in her own family.
Did you hear my covert narcissism
I might disguise as altruism
Like some kind of congressman
Tale as old as time
This section just makes so much sense to me. I don’t even know how to explain it.
I have this dream my daughter-in-law kills me for the money
She thinks I left them in the will
The family gathers 'round and reads it
And then someone screams out
"She's laughing up at us from hell!"
This part feels like the personification of Azula’s paranoia and mental illness (there’s debate whether it’s schizophrenia or a schizo affective disorder amongst other things).
