Another Avatar essay: Azula, Zuko and the possibility she's not a sociopath.
“I’m only telling you for your own good.”
-Child!Azula to Child!Zuko, “Zuko Alone”
“Believe it or not, I’m looking out for you. Just be careful, dum-dum.”
-Azula to Zuko, “The Headband”
“Azula always lies... Azula always lies...”
-Zuko echoes his younger self, “Zuko Alone”
“What About Me And My Brother?” An examination of Azula’s feelings towards Zuko.
Before the timeline of Book Two, Azula has exactly three appearances, two of which are non-speaking. For most of spring and summer, her actions revolve around Zuko. These can be divided into four phases:
1)Book Two: Acting on orders from her father, Azula hunts down Zuko with the aim of imprisonment. In “The Drill” she takes command of the frontal assault on Ba Sing Se and appears to have given up her pursuit, at least for the moment.
2)Book Two finale and the time before Book Three: Azula offers Zuko joint glory for the Ba Sing Se coup, and keeps her promise on their triumphant return home.
3)Before the invasion: A wary truce has been established. She offers advice, reassures him that their father wants him at the war council, and is downright sisterly in “The Beach”.
4)After Zuko switches sides: Azula chases him down with the declared intention of killing him, a desire that doesn’t waver until her final defeat at his and Katara’s hands.
We can discover two broad categories here:
a) 1&4: Zuko as Target.
b) 2&3: Zuko as Ally.
“There is no more Omashu. I'm renaming it in honour of my father. The city of New Ozai.”
-Azula, “Return to Omashu”
Azula’s favourite epithet is ‘traitor’. And well it might be: from the child she was, right to the end, she is shown time and time again to be fanatically loyal to her father. Her callous behaviour as a child shocks her mother and little Zuko, but it’s not aimless; all her happy speculation about death and disaster is framed by her ambition for her father to become Firelord. During the invasion on the Day of Black Sun, she willingly takes her father’s place as the Avatar’s target. She’s a 14-year-old girl stripped of her firebending powers, but she’s happy to face them all so that her father can hide in a distant room. The only time she ever protests against him in the show, it is to plead, “I should be at your side!” If Azula is capable of love, which I doubt, she expends it all on her father.
During the Zuko-as-Target phases, she is acting on orders from Ozai. During the Zuko-as-Ally times, she is acting independently.
Granted, we never see a ‘Kill your brother’ order the way we see a ‘Capture your brother’ order. But let’s keep in mind that Zuko declared his intent to destroy the Firelord right to his face. Let’s not forget that Ozai directed a killing blow - or what would have been a killing blow, had Zuko not learned the rare technique of redirecting lightning - in retaliation. When Azula shows up in “The Southern Raiders” announcing that she’s there to celebrate becoming an only child, we can assume that she’s not killing the Firelord’s firstborn as an independent operator.
“I need you, Zuko. I’ve plotted every move of this day. This glorious day in Fire Nation history. And the only way we win is together.”
- Azula, “The Crossroads of Destiny”
I don’t know about you, but if I hadn’t been a hotel room when I watched that, I would have been screaming at the top of my voice, ‘No, Zuko! She doesn’t need you to help her! She needs you to not fight you! She’s already taken the city but she knows if you joined forces with the Avatar right now you’d defeat her! Realise that you’re a threat to her!’
Later I was surprised to realise that her speech must have been more complicated than the simple manipulation I thought it was. Why? Because she kept faith with him.
“Now, the heroes have returned home!” cry Li and Lo to the exultant crowd as Azula and Zuko’s ship comes in. It would have been very easy for Azula to make sure that Zuko didn’t return home at all, much less as a hero. She wouldn’t even have needed Dai Li support. She could have stabbed him in the back once the city was secure, make it look like a war death that would never have been questioned. Or she could have carried out her initial assignment. When she caught up with Zuko at the beginning of Book Two, she tricked him onto her ship by telling him his father was ready to welcome him. Why not, with Dai Li support this time and Zuko without his uncle, surprise and bind him on their ship and present him to her father along with the fall of the Earth Kingdom?
Only one reason that I can see: she genuinely has a wisp of positive feeling towards her brother. It’s true that she tells her father Zuko killed the Avatar rather than her because she suspects that Aang is alive after all and wants Zuko to take the fall if he is, but on any cost-benefit analysis, it’s far better for her to come home saying, “I alone took the city of Ba Sing Se. I captured the traitors you sent me after. I defeated the Avatar and his forces in battle, although I cannot be sure he is dead.”
The leadership of the Fire Nation is a primogeniture system. Azula, Crown Princess of the Fire Nation, restored Zuko’s place above her in the order of succession when she restored him in their father’s good graces.
“Those summers we spent here seem so long ago. So much has changed.”
-Zuko, sadly, to Azula, “The Beach”
“I told you, my father hasn’t come here since our family was actually happy. And that was a long time ago.”
-Zuko, “The Ember Island Players”
“The Beach” is an episode that yields a lot on rewatch. It’s an unusual concept - teen villains go to the beach! - with an unexpected piece of humour - when Azula actually tried to flirt, it doesn’t work! - and a final subversion: when the sad teens get reflective, they identify their core issues and then learn nothing whatsoever from it.
This rather unhinged Firecest essay* identifies a lot of important Zuko and Azula moments in the episode.
Notice the framing here: Zuko is facing us, but Azula and only Azula is very clearly in the background. This was deliberate. When Mai and Ty Lee vented, it was just them. But Zuko and Azula’s issues are tied to each other. Inextricably.
...
“Why?” Azula asks slowly [after Zuko has admitted he’s angry at himself]. I don’t think we’ve ever heard her so confused and so desperate to know before. She really wants to understand Zuko. You can hear it all in that one little word.
On the island that helps people understand themselves and each other, Azula’s guard is completely down around Zuko. She’s distant with Mai, her normal supercilious (albeit smilier) self with Ty Lee, and hilariously bizarre with strangers, but when she speaks to Zuko it’s with the same wistfulness he has for the past when their family was happy. And when they speak, the director’s choices make it seem that there’s nobody present but the two of them.
I also think it’s interesting that in an episode where Azula realises she’s incapable of normal romantic interaction, she sees Zuko and Mai be a cranky couple who fight and then reunite, stronger and more honest, after the air is cleared. I wonder if there’s a certain longing to share in that quasi-normality. Of course, she still doesn’t realise how a connection like that can be stronger than she is...
“You miscalculated. I love Zuko more than I fear you.”
-Mai, “The Boiling Rock, Part 2”
Zuko wins.
He doesn’t win on determination and hate - she glitters here as she says “Goodbye, Zuko” and fights to kill again in the next episode when he can only say a small, shocked “She’s... not going to make it” when it looks like she’ll fall to her death. No, whatever feeling Azula had towards her brother has been snuffed out by her devotion to the father he’s sworn to help kill. He’s weak on hate; she’s strong.
He wins here, long before their Agni Kai, because she only has her determination and her prowess, whereas he has the love of others on his side.
Azula is calm and collected as she faces down her brother in “The Boiling Rock”, and starts to become unhinged only after her friends desert her. That’s not in question; she’s declared him traitor before and it’s not going to shake her sense of self that he joined the Avatar. But I think part of what made her unhinged was the knowledge that he had won, and how he had won. Before, she made him his ally by promising family love. When they shared a palace together as the heroes of Ba Sing Se, she showed a certain fondness for him. A certain camaraderie of a shared twisted upbringing. She liked having him - her brother - on her side. Now there are loyalties in play that she can’t control, deals of love she can no longer make because others offer them for free. If her family had been different, she and Zuko could have been a team. Her fervent zealotry towards her father could have been subsumed into a more normal dedication towards her immediate family. As it is, that possibility has gone forever.
*OK, you got me - I like Zuko/Mai. Actually, there should be an Avatar tribute band called Maiko and the Maikouts. So I got riled by the constant snippy Mai-hate. But I also have a serious brother/sister incest kink, so it took the author calling a sweet girl who asked Zuko out and gave him a teeny little kiss ‘Jin the Slut’ to make me dismiss her.
-Child!Azula to Child!Zuko, “Zuko Alone”
“Believe it or not, I’m looking out for you. Just be careful, dum-dum.”
-Azula to Zuko, “The Headband”
“Azula always lies... Azula always lies...”
-Zuko echoes his younger self, “Zuko Alone”
“What About Me And My Brother?” An examination of Azula’s feelings towards Zuko.
Before the timeline of Book Two, Azula has exactly three appearances, two of which are non-speaking. For most of spring and summer, her actions revolve around Zuko. These can be divided into four phases:
1)Book Two: Acting on orders from her father, Azula hunts down Zuko with the aim of imprisonment. In “The Drill” she takes command of the frontal assault on Ba Sing Se and appears to have given up her pursuit, at least for the moment.
2)Book Two finale and the time before Book Three: Azula offers Zuko joint glory for the Ba Sing Se coup, and keeps her promise on their triumphant return home.
3)Before the invasion: A wary truce has been established. She offers advice, reassures him that their father wants him at the war council, and is downright sisterly in “The Beach”.
4)After Zuko switches sides: Azula chases him down with the declared intention of killing him, a desire that doesn’t waver until her final defeat at his and Katara’s hands.
We can discover two broad categories here:
a) 1&4: Zuko as Target.
b) 2&3: Zuko as Ally.
“There is no more Omashu. I'm renaming it in honour of my father. The city of New Ozai.”
-Azula, “Return to Omashu”
Azula’s favourite epithet is ‘traitor’. And well it might be: from the child she was, right to the end, she is shown time and time again to be fanatically loyal to her father. Her callous behaviour as a child shocks her mother and little Zuko, but it’s not aimless; all her happy speculation about death and disaster is framed by her ambition for her father to become Firelord. During the invasion on the Day of Black Sun, she willingly takes her father’s place as the Avatar’s target. She’s a 14-year-old girl stripped of her firebending powers, but she’s happy to face them all so that her father can hide in a distant room. The only time she ever protests against him in the show, it is to plead, “I should be at your side!” If Azula is capable of love, which I doubt, she expends it all on her father.
During the Zuko-as-Target phases, she is acting on orders from Ozai. During the Zuko-as-Ally times, she is acting independently.
Granted, we never see a ‘Kill your brother’ order the way we see a ‘Capture your brother’ order. But let’s keep in mind that Zuko declared his intent to destroy the Firelord right to his face. Let’s not forget that Ozai directed a killing blow - or what would have been a killing blow, had Zuko not learned the rare technique of redirecting lightning - in retaliation. When Azula shows up in “The Southern Raiders” announcing that she’s there to celebrate becoming an only child, we can assume that she’s not killing the Firelord’s firstborn as an independent operator.
“I need you, Zuko. I’ve plotted every move of this day. This glorious day in Fire Nation history. And the only way we win is together.”
- Azula, “The Crossroads of Destiny”
I don’t know about you, but if I hadn’t been a hotel room when I watched that, I would have been screaming at the top of my voice, ‘No, Zuko! She doesn’t need you to help her! She needs you to not fight you! She’s already taken the city but she knows if you joined forces with the Avatar right now you’d defeat her! Realise that you’re a threat to her!’
Later I was surprised to realise that her speech must have been more complicated than the simple manipulation I thought it was. Why? Because she kept faith with him.
“Now, the heroes have returned home!” cry Li and Lo to the exultant crowd as Azula and Zuko’s ship comes in. It would have been very easy for Azula to make sure that Zuko didn’t return home at all, much less as a hero. She wouldn’t even have needed Dai Li support. She could have stabbed him in the back once the city was secure, make it look like a war death that would never have been questioned. Or she could have carried out her initial assignment. When she caught up with Zuko at the beginning of Book Two, she tricked him onto her ship by telling him his father was ready to welcome him. Why not, with Dai Li support this time and Zuko without his uncle, surprise and bind him on their ship and present him to her father along with the fall of the Earth Kingdom?
Only one reason that I can see: she genuinely has a wisp of positive feeling towards her brother. It’s true that she tells her father Zuko killed the Avatar rather than her because she suspects that Aang is alive after all and wants Zuko to take the fall if he is, but on any cost-benefit analysis, it’s far better for her to come home saying, “I alone took the city of Ba Sing Se. I captured the traitors you sent me after. I defeated the Avatar and his forces in battle, although I cannot be sure he is dead.”
The leadership of the Fire Nation is a primogeniture system. Azula, Crown Princess of the Fire Nation, restored Zuko’s place above her in the order of succession when she restored him in their father’s good graces.
“Those summers we spent here seem so long ago. So much has changed.”
-Zuko, sadly, to Azula, “The Beach”
“I told you, my father hasn’t come here since our family was actually happy. And that was a long time ago.”
-Zuko, “The Ember Island Players”
“The Beach” is an episode that yields a lot on rewatch. It’s an unusual concept - teen villains go to the beach! - with an unexpected piece of humour - when Azula actually tried to flirt, it doesn’t work! - and a final subversion: when the sad teens get reflective, they identify their core issues and then learn nothing whatsoever from it.
This rather unhinged Firecest essay* identifies a lot of important Zuko and Azula moments in the episode.
Notice the framing here: Zuko is facing us, but Azula and only Azula is very clearly in the background. This was deliberate. When Mai and Ty Lee vented, it was just them. But Zuko and Azula’s issues are tied to each other. Inextricably.
...
“Why?” Azula asks slowly [after Zuko has admitted he’s angry at himself]. I don’t think we’ve ever heard her so confused and so desperate to know before. She really wants to understand Zuko. You can hear it all in that one little word.
On the island that helps people understand themselves and each other, Azula’s guard is completely down around Zuko. She’s distant with Mai, her normal supercilious (albeit smilier) self with Ty Lee, and hilariously bizarre with strangers, but when she speaks to Zuko it’s with the same wistfulness he has for the past when their family was happy. And when they speak, the director’s choices make it seem that there’s nobody present but the two of them.
I also think it’s interesting that in an episode where Azula realises she’s incapable of normal romantic interaction, she sees Zuko and Mai be a cranky couple who fight and then reunite, stronger and more honest, after the air is cleared. I wonder if there’s a certain longing to share in that quasi-normality. Of course, she still doesn’t realise how a connection like that can be stronger than she is...
“You miscalculated. I love Zuko more than I fear you.”
-Mai, “The Boiling Rock, Part 2”
Zuko wins.
He doesn’t win on determination and hate - she glitters here as she says “Goodbye, Zuko” and fights to kill again in the next episode when he can only say a small, shocked “She’s... not going to make it” when it looks like she’ll fall to her death. No, whatever feeling Azula had towards her brother has been snuffed out by her devotion to the father he’s sworn to help kill. He’s weak on hate; she’s strong.
He wins here, long before their Agni Kai, because she only has her determination and her prowess, whereas he has the love of others on his side.
Azula is calm and collected as she faces down her brother in “The Boiling Rock”, and starts to become unhinged only after her friends desert her. That’s not in question; she’s declared him traitor before and it’s not going to shake her sense of self that he joined the Avatar. But I think part of what made her unhinged was the knowledge that he had won, and how he had won. Before, she made him his ally by promising family love. When they shared a palace together as the heroes of Ba Sing Se, she showed a certain fondness for him. A certain camaraderie of a shared twisted upbringing. She liked having him - her brother - on her side. Now there are loyalties in play that she can’t control, deals of love she can no longer make because others offer them for free. If her family had been different, she and Zuko could have been a team. Her fervent zealotry towards her father could have been subsumed into a more normal dedication towards her immediate family. As it is, that possibility has gone forever.
*OK, you got me - I like Zuko/Mai. Actually, there should be an Avatar tribute band called Maiko and the Maikouts. So I got riled by the constant snippy Mai-hate. But I also have a serious brother/sister incest kink, so it took the author calling a sweet girl who asked Zuko out and gave him a teeny little kiss ‘Jin the Slut’ to make me dismiss her.