Azula & Unpopular Fandom Opinions

[redbrunja]

Okay, so I'm doing avatar_contest because I want to get back into the habit of writing for Avatar and honestly, I'm sorry I broke up with that show the way I did.

The last couple of prompts have both reminded me of Azula and you know, the more time goes by the more I realize I am really, really disappointed in how her arc turned out. Even thought I know that she was going crazy because of Mai and Ty Lee betraying her, it still read a lot like another women losing her sanity when when she got power.

I think that Zuko leaving Mai (what was presumably) a really thoughtful letter is a good way to break up with someone in general. Additionally, I think telling her face to face would have been dumb and given Azula a chance to stop him.

It is okay that Ozai was really a faceless villain. That was his role and we didn't need to know/care about his motivations the way we did Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee.

Also, you know Zuko's scar? That is not a symbol of Zuko and Katara's love and when Zuko looks at it he's not going to think about saving Katara; he's going to think about how two of the four members of his family have tried to kill him.

Comments

[rabidline.livejournal.com]

Just read your entry, btw and I loved it.

I read Azula's downfall as family issues. The catalyst might be Mai and Ty Lee betraying her, but the root is Ozai and Ursa (faceless as they may be)- you can see her reaction when her dad basically dismissed her in the finale.

The popular opinion is there because it gives more reason for Dangerous Ladies femmeslash (mostly for Azula/Ty Lee, if I'm not mistaken).


Also, you know Zuko's scar? That is not a symbol of Zuko and Katara's love and when Zuko looks at it he's not going to think about saving Katara; he's going to think about how two of the four members of his family have tried to kill him.
Ah, yes. Agreed.


Ozai as the faceless villain is one reason I don't find his last stand against Aang as epic as I find Zuko's and Azula's.

[iapetusneume.livejournal.com]

I can see where you're coming from with this. When I saw the end, I read Azula losing her sanity as sort of a snowball effect. The danger was always there for it to happen, Mai and Ty Lee betraying her really got the ball rolling, and it quickly picked up speed. I think she would have been fine with power (as was shown when she took over Ba Sing Se), had she not been unhinged.

But still, I read it as the betrayal unhinged her so badly, and she had absolutely no time to recover from it.

On a side note, I think I fell in love with Azula as a character in "The Beach," when for a brief moment you see her facade fall when she says her mother thought she was a monster. It was in that moment that really added a lot of depth to Azula, I think.

It's interesting to think about!

Lastly, I'm very glad that Zuko's scar wasn't healed, and yeah, it would be a terrible reminder about how incredibly messed up his family is.

[ryanitenebrae.livejournal.com]

My matching opinions:

1. Honestly, I see Azula's breakdown as the logical end of her character arc, and her paranoia as a result of it, not a cause. It was pretty clearly going on since "Boiling Rock," and she's never been particularly stable. Also, a lot of it had to do with love. She felt as if everyone close to her was abandoning her, which triggered her breakdown, which triggered the hallucinations of the first person who abandoned her: Ursa.

2. Agreed. It was the only thing he could do. Mai's loyalties were never really particularly clear up until "Boiling Rock," and he needed to risk nothing. She needed to have no idea where he was, and she needed to not know he was gone until he was far away.

3. Yeah, but once we saw Ozai's face and he became more of a character, we needed more. If they had just kept him this faceless figurehead villain, that'd have worked wonderfully.

4. Yes.

[mzminola.livejournal.com]

Zuko didn't do so hot when he was in a powerful position either, doing stupid things to gain/protect it (turning against Uncle, hiring Sparky Sparky Boom Man) turning into a blah prince- and he eventually rejected the position of power.
Of course, he didn't care about the power, he cared about being accepted and loved by his family. Like Azula cared about pleasing her parents.

a good way to break up with someone in general. In his situation, it was the safest. In general it's callous and cowardly. A letter can be a good way to clearly get things stated clearly, but if you can't even read it aloud to them, the least you can do is hand it over in person and wait there or nearby while they read it.
It was right for the situation, but in general? Bollocks.

This (http://phuzzypanda.deviantart.com/art/Avatar-Final-Thoughts-1-92264562) comic pretty much sums up my most common through about the scar.

Long comment, sorry.

[strange_quark]

-Hm, I don't see Azula's arc that way. She's never been stable. I think she's always been intensely, obsessively, preoccupied with power, and the way it eventually destroys her seems the inevitable conclusion. How old is Azula when she hopes Iroh won't come home from the war? She's not healthy. Ruined by her father's scheming, maybe, combined with her mother's seeming preference for her older brother. (Who, by the way, stands between her and power. When her father takes Zuko back, he becomes the next in line to become Fire Lord. It's no wonder she's obsessed with destroying him.)

So for me, gender has nothing to do with it. It's about a 14-year-old who always yearned for the love of a parent, who was raised to value power over all other things and whose violent tendencies were encouraged by the one parent who paid special attention to her.

(Now I want to do a massive meta on the Avatar girls).

-I think it's honestly kind that Zuko left any kind of note at all. Alerting anyone with a loyalty to his sister of his intent to leave before he actually, you know, left, speaks to his basic decency.

In fact, even though I'm not a fan of the pairing in any way, I think it does show that he cares enough to not just disappear on her.

-I've had trouble in the past placing my finger on my issue with Ozai as the Big Bad during the finale, and I realized that it was this: his big terrible plan? Was really fucking stupid.

What is the point of acquiring territory if you're just going to destroy it all? Is there nothing to be gained from the Earth Kingdom? Land isn't the issue, it's what you get from it that makes conquering it worthwhile (After all, if the Europeans weren't always taking land for its resources they were competing with each other, but the point is that the Fire Nation doesn't want to compete).

And of course, if you don't know how to get what you want from the land, how stupid is it to bump off everyone who does know? Kill the people of the land and you essentially kill its resources.

Agh, it's just dumb. So yeah, it's fine that he's just evil, but his big old master plan took away from his evil edge with the stupid, so his fight with Aang fell flat for me.

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

How the hell is Zuko's scar supposed to be a symbol of Zuko and Katara's love?

That's as bad as the one I heard about how it means it's TRUE LUV that Katara could heal him with normal water when it took Spirit Oasis water to heal Aang. To me, all that meant was that Zuko's wounds were non-fatal and Katara's technique has improved with practice.

Agreed on all points. I figure if Azula had to snap (and with a lack of stabilizing friends, I can accept it), it should have been a more . . . coherent madness. Not the hair-cutting crazylady but more of perhaps a Howard Hughes, carefully screening everyone who gets within 100 feet of her to ensure they're not secretly an assassin or something, or sending out random fire blasts to keep servants on their toes.