Application
[PLAYER INFO]
NAME: Stacey
AGE: 24
JOURNAL: thepenguinred
IM: thepenguinred
E-MAIL: littlegeekpenguin at gmail dot com
RETURNING: May Parker, Slevin Kelevra
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Azula
FANDOM: Avatar the Last Air Bender (TV series)
CHRONOLOGY: At the end of episode 311: The Day Of the Black Sun
CLASS: Villain. Keep the dog tags.
SUPERHERO NAME: Fire Lord
ALTER EGO: Azula, teenager.
BACKGROUND:
Azula is the crowned princess of the Fire Kingdom, two years younger than her older brother Zuko and the only daughter of Fire Lord Ozai and his wife, Ursa. All during their youth, her father would comment that Azula was ‘born lucky’ while Zuko was simply ‘lucky to be born,’ and Azula both took this sentiment to heart and strove to live up to it. As a fire bending prodigy and naturally clever, ambitious child, she was the favorite of both her father, then a prince, and her grandfather, the soon-to-be-deceased Fire Lord Azulon (whom she was named for). Her mother Ursa, on the other hand, deeply favored the softer Zuko, and Azula grew up with the belief that her mother thought her to be a monster because of this.
Azula enjoyed a life of riches and fame with access to the very best tutors and trainers the Fire Kingdom had to offer. At some point before turning nine she began attending the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, a training academy for noble born fire benders, where she met and became (what she considered) friends with Ty Lee and Mai, who would often spend time with Azula at the palace to keep the princess company during her youth. Mai developed a crush on her brother Zuko, which Azula was quick to both notice and tease the two about mercilessly, at times going so far as to put Mai in danger in front of Zuko simply to laugh at their reactions when he moved to help her.
She was born 100 years into a war the Fire Nation had launched against the other elemental kingdoms (Earth, Air, and Water), and desired nothing more than to see her kingdom achieve her ancestors dreams and achieve total global domination. While her father ignored Zuko, he groomed Azula as a successor, often having her demonstrate her newly acquired skills before the Fire Lord, her grandfather. At one point in their youth, Zuko attempted to show-up Azula after she had impressed their grandfather, then failed in his attempts. At the same time, Ozai requested that he, rather than his older and heirless (his son having died in the war) brother, be made the crowned prince and heir to the Fire Lord throne. Azulon responded harshly to this, demanding that Ozai sacrifice Zuko in penance to this demand to show Ozai what it was to lose a son. Azula, having hidden in the throne room and overheard this, demonstrated her innate sadistic streak and gleefully reported his impending demise to Zuko, who refused to believe her. Days later, however, their mother Ursa vanished with no explanation, never to be seen or heard from again. It is implied that she made a deal to trade herself for Zuko, though the exact nature of her punishment is never reveled. Shortly after this, Fire Lord Azulon ‘passed in his sleep’ (though it is implied by Azula Ozai may have sped up the inheritance processes) and Ozai is crowned the new Fire Lord.
Over the next several years, Azula remained the favored child while Zuko fell more and more out of favor and no apparent sibling love ever developed between the pair, though Zuko remained the crowned prince and heir apparent during this time. When Zuko dared to question his father and his generals during a war meeting, Azula watched on with glee as her father severely beat, scarred, and banished Zuko during the resulting Agni Kai, or traditional duel between fire benders to settle a dispute/disrespect. With Zuko gone, Azula became the official heir to the throne, though the threat lingered that Zuko may succeed in his impossible task of apprehending the Avatar (the one bender in the world capable of bending all four elements, and the only one thought to be able to defeat the Fire Nation) and therefore restore both his honor and his place as heir.
When Azula was 14 years old, in the face of the Avatar’s reappearance and apparent dedication to defeating the Fire Nation, Ozai determined that Zuko had failed long enough in his task and labeled both him and Iroh, Azula’s uncle and Ozai’s brother who had accompanied Zuko, traitors to the Fire Nation. Azula was sent to find the traitors and bring them, dead or alive, back to the Fire Kingdom. Azula nearly succeeded immediately in capturing her brother and uncle, convincing Zuko that their father had had a change of heart, that there were talks of a coup in the kingdom and that Ozai wished to have his family, the only ones he could trust, near him in these dark times. This plan was foiled by the captain of their ship having a slip of the tongue, and Zuko and Iroh escaped.
From then on, Azula abandoned her royal procession and instead recruited the help of her two childhood friends, Mai and Ty Lee, to assist her in personally hunting down Zuko and, later, the Avatar as well. They chased the two separate groups across the face of the Earth, coming close on several occasions but always having the two escape at the last moment. That was until Azula and group captured a group of elite Earth Kingdom warriors known as the Kyoshi Warriors, who wear an elaborate system of make-up and armor. Azula and her group then disguised themselves as these warriors and infiltrated the Earth Kingdom, pretending to have been sent to protect the Earth King from the impending Fire Nation invasion. Through an elaborate plan of turning the incompetent Earth King’s own secret service against him, Azula took over the city of Ba Sing Se, the capital of the Earth Kingdom, without ever raising a hand.
At the same time, both the Avatar and Zuko were in the city of Ba Sing Se. As the Avatar attempted to help save the Earth Kingdom, Azula convinced Zuko to team back up with her to defeat the Avatar, proclaiming they can only do it together, and this action would restore his honor. Zuko gave in to his sister and together they, apparently, killed the Avatar, but are unable to retrieve his body as Iroh stepped in and bought the Avatar’s friends enough time to whisk him away and out of the city. Azula captured her uncle and the lot of them returns to the Fire Nation to tell Ozai that Ba Sing Se has fallen and the Avatar was dead. Not entirely sure that the Avatar had in fact perished in the fight, Azula changed the story so that instead of her having delivered the ‘killing blow,’ as actually occurred, it was Zuko that killed the boy. This was a duel maneuver, as she could use it to convince Zuko that she wanted him back in the family, as Ozai accepted this action as Zuko restoring his honor and welcomed him back as the heir apparent, and protected her from her father’s wrath if the Avatar were in fact not dead and later resurfaced.
The royal group enjoyed a brief stay in the Fire Kingdom as Ozai prepared for a great final invasion of the other kingdoms during the presence of Sozin's Comet, a comet which passed by the Earth only once every one hundred years and provided fire benders with incredibly increased strength while present. Azula toyed with setting Mai and Zuko up together, both for her entertainment and the leverage it would give her over both members of the pair, and the four of them enjoyed a brief vacation at the family beach house where childhood issues were brought to light and Azula failed miserably at attempting to flirt.
Things started to get interesting again when it was revealed that the Avatar’s allies intend in invade the Fire Nation in an attempt to assassinate the Fire Lord on the day of the solar eclipse, where there would be a brief window when all fire bending stopped working (as they draw their power from the sun). While Ozai remained in his throne room and has a confrontation with Zuko when the eclipse occurred, Azula had the job of keeping the friends of the Avatar occupied until the fire bending returned and her father was no longer vulnerable. Azula achieved this goal with with flying colors, using the fate of one of the captured Kyoshi Warriors, who was romantically linked to one of the Avatar’s friends, as fuel to keep them chasing after her rather than looking for her father. While they eventually pinned her, Azula managed to hold her own for most of the fight despite facing multiple opponents with no bending, then easily escaped the group when the fire bending ‘came back on,’ having succeeded in the mission of forcing them to squander their window of opportunity. The episode closed with Azula watching the Avatar and his friends escape from the city on an airship and choosing not to pursue, knowing that they would come back of their own accord one day. I will be taking Azula from the end of this episode.
PERSONALITY:
Azula is the ultimate perfectionist. She demands that everything she does that she considers a worthy pursuit, from fire-bending to taking over a kingdom, is done perfectly and that she is the very best that she can possibly be at that given activity. This doesn’t apply to little things like ‘love’ and ‘tea-making,’ but for activities she deems as worth her time she will claim that ‘almost’ perfect isn’t good enough and push herself until she has achieved her desired level of perfection. Even when a task is generally beneath her, however, Azula generally doesn’t like people being better at her than it if she actually attempts it. Even as a child she displayed this trait, pushing Ty Lee to the ground and calling their game ‘stupid’ when Ty Lee could do a perfect cartwheel and Azula could not.
Along with this perfectionism, Azula’s conniving and, at times, purely sadistic cruelty were also present at a very young age, to the point that her own mother was concerned about the nature of her child and, to Azula’s view, feared her. Azula seemed to thrive on watching her father dislike Zuko almost as much as, if not equally as much, as she basked in his praise of her. She would also delight in putting her friends in danger, such as lighting an apple on top of Mai’s head on fire, just to laugh at the predictable response Zuko would have in saving her. This enjoyment of others suffering remained as she grew older, but Azula learned to temper it somewhat with further reaching, long-term goals. The pain of others was worth so much more when it also furthered her own ambitions, and so she tends to develop more elaborate, long-term plans that always advance her as well as have a high chance of bringing someone else pain and suffering as a result, such as when she ‘generously’ gives Zuko the credit for the Avatar’s death. Azula can pretend at being sympathetic when she needs to to further her own goals, having long ago developed the acting skills from dealing with her soft-hearted mother to get what she wants. Even while acting this way, however, Azula enjoys throwing in ironic statements that the victim, when they look back on them in hindsight, will realize were terrible rather than kind considering what her long-term plan had been.
Though she doesn’t realize it, Azula relies a great deal on her station and title to make life outside of her plotting work smoothly. When she is around those who don’t realize who she is, it does nothing to really take away from her arrogance or overall confidence, but she can stumble a bit and be rather terribly socially awkward. Her hyper-competitive nature, while still frightening, can at times seem more like the deranged rantings of a mad woman than the inspiring promises of a future ruler of an empire when they are apparently being made by some random woman named Azula rather than the heir of the Fire Nation. She is also simply terrible with boys. She sees life as a competition to be won, and therefore views prospective mates on how useful they would be to her cause and how ‘strong’ a couple they would be when it came to taking over the world. This, understandably, is usually frightening to said prospective mates, and Azula simply never has had to learn the skills to cover for her hyper-aggressive nature, leading to her coming off as awkward when she attempts to speak casually to such people.
All of this, the perfectionism, cruelty, and calculating nature, revolve around the fact that Azula is obsessed with being in control. She firmly believes that she is master not only of her own destiny, but of anyone else’s destiny that it so pleases her to influence. She evaluates everyone on their degree of usefulness to her, and believes that she can control anyone she chooses. She doesn’t allow emotion to get in the way of this, even mocking her own grandfather (behind his back) for not being the once powerful Fire Lord he had been. When it is proven to Azula that she is not in control, her entire world, her entire psyche, starts to unravel. Though it happens later in canon than the point I’m taking her from, it offers a good deal of insight into Azula’s psyche so I’ll cover it here. When Mai and Ty Lee betray her and help Zuko escape her clutches, Azula begins to lose it. These were her two closest ‘friends,’ people she had known since childhood and was utterly convinced she knew inside and out and, therefore, had complete control over as she knew exactly what strings to pull to make them dance anyway she chose. When this was proven wrong, when it was shown that she had severely miscalculated something she considered to be such a given, she began to question everything. Everyone, that only days before she had seen as useful tools to be controlled and used, was now a potential threat as she could no longer be sure of herself and her control over them. She even began questioning such basic assumptions as whether her mother had truly feared her or if her father really valued her, at one point screaming at him that he ‘couldn’t treat her like she was Zuko.’ By the end of the series, when Zuko and ‘some peasant’ are able to defeat her in battle, Azula completely snaps, having a full on emotional and mental breakdown as everything she took as givens about the world are proven wrong and there’s nothing she can do about it.
POWER:
Fire-Bending
Azula is one of the most skilled fire benders shown in the Avatar world, with only her father and uncle shown as being undeniably more talented. She is certainly the youngest fire bending master shown, if not the youngest alive, and uses a characteristic blue-flame for most of her attacks. Through a pattern of motions, she can summon flames and shape them/throw them at other people. She can summon flames at both her hands and feet, as well as breathe fire. They can be fire balls, huge pillars of flame, whirling disks of flame, flame knives or a variety of other shapes/strengths totally depending on what she chooses. The fire can be concentrated into tight coils to cut through objects, including stone walls and metal chains, or curl around her as a shield, and Azula can fire sustained pillars from her hands and feet to more or less use as rocket boots to fly for short distances. Azula can also create lightening (apparently a talent of all master fire benders. Don’t ask me what that has to do with fire) and fight with this in the same way as fire. She can defend against attacks from fire and other kinds of elements through the use of the same techniques. A prodigy at the art, Azula can create more fire/lightening than most fire benders and maintain sustained attacks for longer periods of time than most as well.
Azula’s ability to fire bend is wrapped up in keeping rigid control of herself and her actions. This is shown as as she lost her sanity towards the end of the series, her bending became more erratic and less powerful.
Enhanced Dexterity, Speed, and Stamina
Azula displays levels of parkour and flexibility that, while fitting fine in an animated world, just couldn’t happen in reality. She is able to push off a wall with her foot and leap at least ten feet in the air, flip off rooftops and land fine on her feet on the ground below, and just generally bend in ways while doing martial arts that the human body is not meant to bend. Her enhanced levels put her out of the range of a peak-of-condition normal human, but less than people such as Spider-Man, who is famed for his proportionate speed, strength, and dexterity.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[Video]
[Oh, look, it’s Azula, looking all together far too pleased with herself for some reason as she loungers in her chair.]
Greetings, City. As is as apparent as it was inevitable, I have mastered your ‘mass communication device,’ a blow from which it’s creator will no doubt be long in recovery. Look on in shame, porter-creature, as your superior overcomes your petty challenges and rises ever closer to your ultimate defeat and humiliation. It is only a matter of time before you shall be cast down amongst the filth and ashes with which you belong! It shall be a glorious victory for the Fire Nation from which you shall never rise!
[Her eyes have gone a little wide with this rant and she’s leaned progressively closer to the camera, but she catches herself before the full on cackle of laughter can escape. If being around NoHoPE has taught her anything, it’s that the maniacal laughter usually only weakens ones argument. She leans back into her chair with a small, contemplative hum and a smile.]
But that’s simply my event for the day. Tell me, citizens, what manner of accomplishments have you managed of late?
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
It certainly wasn’t the Royal Fire Bending Academy for Girls, that was certain. School of Thunder indeed. She was sorely tempted to give them a demonstration on the true powers of lightening, simply to give them an actual basis of comparison for what real power was. Too bad the masters had proven to have potential for use so far. A little casual destruction would have done wonders for her tense shoulders.
Azula stood in the center of the dojo mat, feet braced shoulder width apart, knees bent and spine straight so she formed a perfect inverted ‘T’ at her hips, and held. Her arms remained frozen the traditional Tigerbear opening stance, the index and middle finger of each pressed together and raised from the clenched fist that the rest of her fingers formed. Like with fueling fire itself, one of the most important aspect of firebending was in the air. The princess’s eyes remained shut, the world half ignored as she focused on her own breathing to center the force within her. In. Out. In.
On the next exhale she spun forward, flipping over in the air to deliver a vicious kick to an imagined enemy- Zuko- then pivoting on her toes the instant one foot made contact with the ground to thrust her arms forward ninety degrees away from where her foot had ‘struck,’ sending a cascade of imaged blue flames at his ally- the Avatar- and back-flipped away before the invisible flames would have had a chance to clear, landing firmly in the nearly impenetrable defensive stance of the Crouching Platypusturtle to defend against the replying blow of her third foe- uncle.
And uncle landed the strike. Azula paused to glare down at her left foot, her toes positioned three degrees more inward than the stance called for, negating it entierly. Disgraceful. An error Zuzu would have made without ever even noticing it had occurred. An arch of actual fire flared from the tip of her toes as she gave a sound blow to the nearest support beam, the flames dissipating into nothing but residual heat before they did more than darken the varnish of the wooden pillar.
This City tried her patience.
NAME: Stacey
AGE: 24
JOURNAL: thepenguinred
IM: thepenguinred
E-MAIL: littlegeekpenguin at gmail dot com
RETURNING: May Parker, Slevin Kelevra
[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: Azula
FANDOM: Avatar the Last Air Bender (TV series)
CHRONOLOGY: At the end of episode 311: The Day Of the Black Sun
CLASS: Villain. Keep the dog tags.
SUPERHERO NAME: Fire Lord
ALTER EGO: Azula, teenager.
BACKGROUND:
Azula is the crowned princess of the Fire Kingdom, two years younger than her older brother Zuko and the only daughter of Fire Lord Ozai and his wife, Ursa. All during their youth, her father would comment that Azula was ‘born lucky’ while Zuko was simply ‘lucky to be born,’ and Azula both took this sentiment to heart and strove to live up to it. As a fire bending prodigy and naturally clever, ambitious child, she was the favorite of both her father, then a prince, and her grandfather, the soon-to-be-deceased Fire Lord Azulon (whom she was named for). Her mother Ursa, on the other hand, deeply favored the softer Zuko, and Azula grew up with the belief that her mother thought her to be a monster because of this.
Azula enjoyed a life of riches and fame with access to the very best tutors and trainers the Fire Kingdom had to offer. At some point before turning nine she began attending the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, a training academy for noble born fire benders, where she met and became (what she considered) friends with Ty Lee and Mai, who would often spend time with Azula at the palace to keep the princess company during her youth. Mai developed a crush on her brother Zuko, which Azula was quick to both notice and tease the two about mercilessly, at times going so far as to put Mai in danger in front of Zuko simply to laugh at their reactions when he moved to help her.
She was born 100 years into a war the Fire Nation had launched against the other elemental kingdoms (Earth, Air, and Water), and desired nothing more than to see her kingdom achieve her ancestors dreams and achieve total global domination. While her father ignored Zuko, he groomed Azula as a successor, often having her demonstrate her newly acquired skills before the Fire Lord, her grandfather. At one point in their youth, Zuko attempted to show-up Azula after she had impressed their grandfather, then failed in his attempts. At the same time, Ozai requested that he, rather than his older and heirless (his son having died in the war) brother, be made the crowned prince and heir to the Fire Lord throne. Azulon responded harshly to this, demanding that Ozai sacrifice Zuko in penance to this demand to show Ozai what it was to lose a son. Azula, having hidden in the throne room and overheard this, demonstrated her innate sadistic streak and gleefully reported his impending demise to Zuko, who refused to believe her. Days later, however, their mother Ursa vanished with no explanation, never to be seen or heard from again. It is implied that she made a deal to trade herself for Zuko, though the exact nature of her punishment is never reveled. Shortly after this, Fire Lord Azulon ‘passed in his sleep’ (though it is implied by Azula Ozai may have sped up the inheritance processes) and Ozai is crowned the new Fire Lord.
Over the next several years, Azula remained the favored child while Zuko fell more and more out of favor and no apparent sibling love ever developed between the pair, though Zuko remained the crowned prince and heir apparent during this time. When Zuko dared to question his father and his generals during a war meeting, Azula watched on with glee as her father severely beat, scarred, and banished Zuko during the resulting Agni Kai, or traditional duel between fire benders to settle a dispute/disrespect. With Zuko gone, Azula became the official heir to the throne, though the threat lingered that Zuko may succeed in his impossible task of apprehending the Avatar (the one bender in the world capable of bending all four elements, and the only one thought to be able to defeat the Fire Nation) and therefore restore both his honor and his place as heir.
When Azula was 14 years old, in the face of the Avatar’s reappearance and apparent dedication to defeating the Fire Nation, Ozai determined that Zuko had failed long enough in his task and labeled both him and Iroh, Azula’s uncle and Ozai’s brother who had accompanied Zuko, traitors to the Fire Nation. Azula was sent to find the traitors and bring them, dead or alive, back to the Fire Kingdom. Azula nearly succeeded immediately in capturing her brother and uncle, convincing Zuko that their father had had a change of heart, that there were talks of a coup in the kingdom and that Ozai wished to have his family, the only ones he could trust, near him in these dark times. This plan was foiled by the captain of their ship having a slip of the tongue, and Zuko and Iroh escaped.
From then on, Azula abandoned her royal procession and instead recruited the help of her two childhood friends, Mai and Ty Lee, to assist her in personally hunting down Zuko and, later, the Avatar as well. They chased the two separate groups across the face of the Earth, coming close on several occasions but always having the two escape at the last moment. That was until Azula and group captured a group of elite Earth Kingdom warriors known as the Kyoshi Warriors, who wear an elaborate system of make-up and armor. Azula and her group then disguised themselves as these warriors and infiltrated the Earth Kingdom, pretending to have been sent to protect the Earth King from the impending Fire Nation invasion. Through an elaborate plan of turning the incompetent Earth King’s own secret service against him, Azula took over the city of Ba Sing Se, the capital of the Earth Kingdom, without ever raising a hand.
At the same time, both the Avatar and Zuko were in the city of Ba Sing Se. As the Avatar attempted to help save the Earth Kingdom, Azula convinced Zuko to team back up with her to defeat the Avatar, proclaiming they can only do it together, and this action would restore his honor. Zuko gave in to his sister and together they, apparently, killed the Avatar, but are unable to retrieve his body as Iroh stepped in and bought the Avatar’s friends enough time to whisk him away and out of the city. Azula captured her uncle and the lot of them returns to the Fire Nation to tell Ozai that Ba Sing Se has fallen and the Avatar was dead. Not entirely sure that the Avatar had in fact perished in the fight, Azula changed the story so that instead of her having delivered the ‘killing blow,’ as actually occurred, it was Zuko that killed the boy. This was a duel maneuver, as she could use it to convince Zuko that she wanted him back in the family, as Ozai accepted this action as Zuko restoring his honor and welcomed him back as the heir apparent, and protected her from her father’s wrath if the Avatar were in fact not dead and later resurfaced.
The royal group enjoyed a brief stay in the Fire Kingdom as Ozai prepared for a great final invasion of the other kingdoms during the presence of Sozin's Comet, a comet which passed by the Earth only once every one hundred years and provided fire benders with incredibly increased strength while present. Azula toyed with setting Mai and Zuko up together, both for her entertainment and the leverage it would give her over both members of the pair, and the four of them enjoyed a brief vacation at the family beach house where childhood issues were brought to light and Azula failed miserably at attempting to flirt.
Things started to get interesting again when it was revealed that the Avatar’s allies intend in invade the Fire Nation in an attempt to assassinate the Fire Lord on the day of the solar eclipse, where there would be a brief window when all fire bending stopped working (as they draw their power from the sun). While Ozai remained in his throne room and has a confrontation with Zuko when the eclipse occurred, Azula had the job of keeping the friends of the Avatar occupied until the fire bending returned and her father was no longer vulnerable. Azula achieved this goal with with flying colors, using the fate of one of the captured Kyoshi Warriors, who was romantically linked to one of the Avatar’s friends, as fuel to keep them chasing after her rather than looking for her father. While they eventually pinned her, Azula managed to hold her own for most of the fight despite facing multiple opponents with no bending, then easily escaped the group when the fire bending ‘came back on,’ having succeeded in the mission of forcing them to squander their window of opportunity. The episode closed with Azula watching the Avatar and his friends escape from the city on an airship and choosing not to pursue, knowing that they would come back of their own accord one day. I will be taking Azula from the end of this episode.
PERSONALITY:
Azula is the ultimate perfectionist. She demands that everything she does that she considers a worthy pursuit, from fire-bending to taking over a kingdom, is done perfectly and that she is the very best that she can possibly be at that given activity. This doesn’t apply to little things like ‘love’ and ‘tea-making,’ but for activities she deems as worth her time she will claim that ‘almost’ perfect isn’t good enough and push herself until she has achieved her desired level of perfection. Even when a task is generally beneath her, however, Azula generally doesn’t like people being better at her than it if she actually attempts it. Even as a child she displayed this trait, pushing Ty Lee to the ground and calling their game ‘stupid’ when Ty Lee could do a perfect cartwheel and Azula could not.
Along with this perfectionism, Azula’s conniving and, at times, purely sadistic cruelty were also present at a very young age, to the point that her own mother was concerned about the nature of her child and, to Azula’s view, feared her. Azula seemed to thrive on watching her father dislike Zuko almost as much as, if not equally as much, as she basked in his praise of her. She would also delight in putting her friends in danger, such as lighting an apple on top of Mai’s head on fire, just to laugh at the predictable response Zuko would have in saving her. This enjoyment of others suffering remained as she grew older, but Azula learned to temper it somewhat with further reaching, long-term goals. The pain of others was worth so much more when it also furthered her own ambitions, and so she tends to develop more elaborate, long-term plans that always advance her as well as have a high chance of bringing someone else pain and suffering as a result, such as when she ‘generously’ gives Zuko the credit for the Avatar’s death. Azula can pretend at being sympathetic when she needs to to further her own goals, having long ago developed the acting skills from dealing with her soft-hearted mother to get what she wants. Even while acting this way, however, Azula enjoys throwing in ironic statements that the victim, when they look back on them in hindsight, will realize were terrible rather than kind considering what her long-term plan had been.
Though she doesn’t realize it, Azula relies a great deal on her station and title to make life outside of her plotting work smoothly. When she is around those who don’t realize who she is, it does nothing to really take away from her arrogance or overall confidence, but she can stumble a bit and be rather terribly socially awkward. Her hyper-competitive nature, while still frightening, can at times seem more like the deranged rantings of a mad woman than the inspiring promises of a future ruler of an empire when they are apparently being made by some random woman named Azula rather than the heir of the Fire Nation. She is also simply terrible with boys. She sees life as a competition to be won, and therefore views prospective mates on how useful they would be to her cause and how ‘strong’ a couple they would be when it came to taking over the world. This, understandably, is usually frightening to said prospective mates, and Azula simply never has had to learn the skills to cover for her hyper-aggressive nature, leading to her coming off as awkward when she attempts to speak casually to such people.
All of this, the perfectionism, cruelty, and calculating nature, revolve around the fact that Azula is obsessed with being in control. She firmly believes that she is master not only of her own destiny, but of anyone else’s destiny that it so pleases her to influence. She evaluates everyone on their degree of usefulness to her, and believes that she can control anyone she chooses. She doesn’t allow emotion to get in the way of this, even mocking her own grandfather (behind his back) for not being the once powerful Fire Lord he had been. When it is proven to Azula that she is not in control, her entire world, her entire psyche, starts to unravel. Though it happens later in canon than the point I’m taking her from, it offers a good deal of insight into Azula’s psyche so I’ll cover it here. When Mai and Ty Lee betray her and help Zuko escape her clutches, Azula begins to lose it. These were her two closest ‘friends,’ people she had known since childhood and was utterly convinced she knew inside and out and, therefore, had complete control over as she knew exactly what strings to pull to make them dance anyway she chose. When this was proven wrong, when it was shown that she had severely miscalculated something she considered to be such a given, she began to question everything. Everyone, that only days before she had seen as useful tools to be controlled and used, was now a potential threat as she could no longer be sure of herself and her control over them. She even began questioning such basic assumptions as whether her mother had truly feared her or if her father really valued her, at one point screaming at him that he ‘couldn’t treat her like she was Zuko.’ By the end of the series, when Zuko and ‘some peasant’ are able to defeat her in battle, Azula completely snaps, having a full on emotional and mental breakdown as everything she took as givens about the world are proven wrong and there’s nothing she can do about it.
POWER:
Fire-Bending
Azula is one of the most skilled fire benders shown in the Avatar world, with only her father and uncle shown as being undeniably more talented. She is certainly the youngest fire bending master shown, if not the youngest alive, and uses a characteristic blue-flame for most of her attacks. Through a pattern of motions, she can summon flames and shape them/throw them at other people. She can summon flames at both her hands and feet, as well as breathe fire. They can be fire balls, huge pillars of flame, whirling disks of flame, flame knives or a variety of other shapes/strengths totally depending on what she chooses. The fire can be concentrated into tight coils to cut through objects, including stone walls and metal chains, or curl around her as a shield, and Azula can fire sustained pillars from her hands and feet to more or less use as rocket boots to fly for short distances. Azula can also create lightening (apparently a talent of all master fire benders. Don’t ask me what that has to do with fire) and fight with this in the same way as fire. She can defend against attacks from fire and other kinds of elements through the use of the same techniques. A prodigy at the art, Azula can create more fire/lightening than most fire benders and maintain sustained attacks for longer periods of time than most as well.
Azula’s ability to fire bend is wrapped up in keeping rigid control of herself and her actions. This is shown as as she lost her sanity towards the end of the series, her bending became more erratic and less powerful.
Enhanced Dexterity, Speed, and Stamina
Azula displays levels of parkour and flexibility that, while fitting fine in an animated world, just couldn’t happen in reality. She is able to push off a wall with her foot and leap at least ten feet in the air, flip off rooftops and land fine on her feet on the ground below, and just generally bend in ways while doing martial arts that the human body is not meant to bend. Her enhanced levels put her out of the range of a peak-of-condition normal human, but less than people such as Spider-Man, who is famed for his proportionate speed, strength, and dexterity.
[CHARACTER SAMPLES]
COMMUNITY POST (FIRST PERSON) SAMPLE:
[Video]
[Oh, look, it’s Azula, looking all together far too pleased with herself for some reason as she loungers in her chair.]
Greetings, City. As is as apparent as it was inevitable, I have mastered your ‘mass communication device,’ a blow from which it’s creator will no doubt be long in recovery. Look on in shame, porter-creature, as your superior overcomes your petty challenges and rises ever closer to your ultimate defeat and humiliation. It is only a matter of time before you shall be cast down amongst the filth and ashes with which you belong! It shall be a glorious victory for the Fire Nation from which you shall never rise!
[Her eyes have gone a little wide with this rant and she’s leaned progressively closer to the camera, but she catches herself before the full on cackle of laughter can escape. If being around NoHoPE has taught her anything, it’s that the maniacal laughter usually only weakens ones argument. She leans back into her chair with a small, contemplative hum and a smile.]
But that’s simply my event for the day. Tell me, citizens, what manner of accomplishments have you managed of late?
LOGS POST (THIRD PERSON) SAMPLE:
It certainly wasn’t the Royal Fire Bending Academy for Girls, that was certain. School of Thunder indeed. She was sorely tempted to give them a demonstration on the true powers of lightening, simply to give them an actual basis of comparison for what real power was. Too bad the masters had proven to have potential for use so far. A little casual destruction would have done wonders for her tense shoulders.
Azula stood in the center of the dojo mat, feet braced shoulder width apart, knees bent and spine straight so she formed a perfect inverted ‘T’ at her hips, and held. Her arms remained frozen the traditional Tigerbear opening stance, the index and middle finger of each pressed together and raised from the clenched fist that the rest of her fingers formed. Like with fueling fire itself, one of the most important aspect of firebending was in the air. The princess’s eyes remained shut, the world half ignored as she focused on her own breathing to center the force within her. In. Out. In.
On the next exhale she spun forward, flipping over in the air to deliver a vicious kick to an imagined enemy- Zuko- then pivoting on her toes the instant one foot made contact with the ground to thrust her arms forward ninety degrees away from where her foot had ‘struck,’ sending a cascade of imaged blue flames at his ally- the Avatar- and back-flipped away before the invisible flames would have had a chance to clear, landing firmly in the nearly impenetrable defensive stance of the Crouching Platypusturtle to defend against the replying blow of her third foe- uncle.
And uncle landed the strike. Azula paused to glare down at her left foot, her toes positioned three degrees more inward than the stance called for, negating it entierly. Disgraceful. An error Zuzu would have made without ever even noticing it had occurred. An arch of actual fire flared from the tip of her toes as she gave a sound blow to the nearest support beam, the flames dissipating into nothing but residual heat before they did more than darken the varnish of the wooden pillar.
This City tried her patience.