Azula: "Almost isn't good enough."
I finished watching ATLA recently, and oh my god, so many Azula feels.
I genuinely felt awful for her by the end of it all.
When we first met Azula in Book 2, I didn’t empathize with her one bit. Though I really enjoyed her character, there was literally zero sympathy from my side.
But after finishing the show…oh god, she is one helluva character, and seeing her crumble from the inside out…well, let’s just say the ache in my heart was completely unprecedented.
While her fall was the result of a gradual buildup, there were three major things that happened just before she slipped off the edge.
1. We could see her first start to break when Mai and Ty Lee abandoned her side in The Boiling Rock episodes. They were the ones she could depend on - the closest she’d ever had to friends. Unfortunately, she also depended on fear, and she used it to control them. But when that fear left them, they left her, and that’s the moment it all starts falling apart.
And that’s when she starts to realize how alone she is.
2. But at least she’s got her father, right? Wrong. The one person she thought would make all her blood, sweat, and tears be worth it was Fire Lord Ozai. He was the one person she thought trusted and respected her completely, and he ultimately showed zero interest in sticking around to watch his daughter get crowned leader of the nation ‘cause he was too busy going off to get crowned leader of the entire world.
She was supposed to be her “father’s daughter,” as Zuko was his “mother’s son.” But then again… not really. The bond Zuko had with Ursa was born out of pure, unadulterated love and emotions and empathy, while the bond Azula had with Ozai was essentially based on a thirst for power, for victory, for conquest - and they were both good at all of those.
Sadly for Azula, whether she knew it or not, she wanted more than just power. She wanted more than to be feared. She wanted to be loved.
She truly thought her father had genuine trust and love and respect for her for who she was as a person, a ruler, a daughter. But ultimately, she ended up being just another pawn in her father’s solo quest for world domination.
3. That’s why in Sozin’s Comet, when she had that vision/hallucination of her mother in the mirror telling her she loved her? It broke her, because she couldn’t believe it. She had been hurt and abandoned so many times in the past (she brought much of it upon herself, no doubt) that she just couldn’t take it anymore.
And that’s how we end up at the final agni kai. The civil war we’d all been waiting for. Brother vs. sister. Zuko vs. Azula. She’s been driven insane. The sudden downpour of realizations have done something to her head. She’s mad. Broken. Empty. Alone. Truly and completely alone, and she realizes it too.
She’s lost everything. Her mother, her father, her brother, her friends, her throne, her mind.
Everything.
(She was almost everything she’d wanted to be. But almost isn’t good enough.)
And it’s really quite sad.