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edwardsissyhandsthtdanceslikeabb · 7 months ago

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if azula needs redeeming, why wasnt she?

i read this analysis of Azuko? Zukla? idk but a critique of their sibling dynamic, particularly within the context of doomed siblings, and tho i don’t agree with it, it’s a testament to its writer that there’s innate value in carving out my thoughts from their own.

so a lot of my disagreement boils down to the fact that the way the analysis construed zuko & azula, from characterizing them as doomed siblings, to the way azula’s breakdown is framed, is a problem of taste and inferences, and how these interpretive elements can be incongruent with technical aspects like intent, convention, medium, or the functional mechanics of art overall.

firstly, i think its very important to highlight that while elite art is holistic and multifaceted, it is doubly focused and premeditated, and its constituents all occupy a purpose and position within it, as they are narrative elements first and foremost. which complicates things when creation and consumption are both such human, evocative processes, but i think looking at the rudimentary layers of a story are the north stars in subjective landscapes like this. and most salient of these, is the story’s anti-colonial roots, centering indigeneity explicitly, and the cultural, spiritual and earthly relationships therein, with the main conflict being restoring the dignity and autonomy of the subjugated, alongside the internal work and opposition that are necessitated in doing so. everything stems from that, and though there is complexity and nuance therein, and the story itself is immensely liberal in execution, it is also ultimately a good vs bad narrative, which it has every right to be, bc colonialism is bad, and colonialists are bad.

therefore, atla inherently adheres to convention, and has a preestablished idealistic framework. to illustrate this, it utilizes two central characters, both encapsulations of the dualistic nature of oppressor and the oppressed, and navigated thusly as foils to one another. zuko is thereby, the deuteragonist, and the depth or lack thereof, of his environment are equally conditioned by his position, as the confines of the kid’s tv medium, serialization as well as narrative structuring itself, craft him. kill your darlings and all that lol.

however, these positionalities, while abiding convention, are not binary, and while conclusive, they are not absolutist. zuko for example, is antithetical to a Madonna, stressed by him even having a redemption to realize, and azula too is done an injustice by any reduction to a whore / imperfect victim archetype. this compartmentalization, is luckily ill-fitting in accommodating their totality, and doesn’t incorporate the fact that consequence, in avatar, is not a condemnation of personhood, but a retaliation to action, and has mangled indiscriminately, with azula’s case actually, being the reclamation of principles and in-world intentionality.

to begin with, zuko, while most recognized for his redemption, is not functionally the redemptive character™, he’s an example of the sacrifice, sincerity and labor that are inherent to anti-colonial action facilitated by an absconding oppressor, of the inborn empathy and active resistance that are needed for a system to change, and how you don’t just get there through platitudes or amicability. those thematic niceties are ofc inherent to his story bc he’s fleshed out and the things that inspired him thusly are too, but that emotional and relational floweriness is a consequence of his actions, not their driving force (being embraced by imperial idolization, by his royal family, was not fulfilling), what drove him is a fundamental and intrinsic ideological disdain for the imperialist war machine — it was ultimately, an abstraction of self – by acting in service of others, which unlike letting imperialist standards (e.g. chauvinism and parasitism and “honor”) puppeteer him as an instrument of violence, is ironically, an act of true autonomy and discernment. deriving your value from mutualism and earning one’s stature, instead of asserting yourself on others and letting corrosive and paternalistic worldviews (and by extension the selfishness & self absorption i.e “honor” innate to that) rule your destiny.

azula, however, is meant to be an inversion of that, is meant to reflect what happens when you reject morality or connection, instead letting control and superiority entrap you. she is explicitly a cautionary tale, which also comes with its own oversights and inelegant implications, but she likewise, greatly exemplifies the internal decay and loneliness inherent to alienating yourself through cruelty and stratification. and is it not possible then that a girl who has valued herself by what she can inflict on others, would then have the very sanctity of existence warped at no longer being able to dominate, no longer deemed the ideal? is infection not a thing that savages, before it spreads? in this way, azula is poignant.

as the more intimate face of imperialism, she is humanized in her parasitism, but it is not used to soften her behavior, nor is it used to hand her redemption. it is not smth that she is owed for the very coincidence of her birth or blood, its earned, and she did not earn nor want it.

so when a character that suggested the utter evisceration of marginalized groups, and thereafter tried to murder a personification of colonial survivor’s guilt and endangered practices, is consequently left to mourn her superiority, just as her father before her, its smth we sympathize with within reasonable boundaries. when her brother, who she abused, doesn’t martyr himself to azula’s interiority, instead laboring towards his own destiny and happiness, rather than the genesis of azula’s redemption, that is not inconsistency, it’s peace. its making peace despite the fact that some would rather rot in the entrails of imperialism than afford its victims value, would rather hurt others, and in turn themselves, than embrace healing and progress

— (plus inflicting his values may not in fact heal, when healing is not inherently uniform, and growing is not innately moralistic).

now, there’s a whole nurture vs nature angle to this as well and these ontological arguments are often touchy, yes zuko had ursa and iroh. yes zuko was forced to challenge his preconceptions, but zuko wasn’t diametric to these things, and the supplementations he did receive were always compensatory. zuko was deemed genetically inferior by ozai and thusly ostracized, hence ursa’s gentle partiality, zuko was then mutilated and exiled, and naturally needed supervision, which was provided by an overseer who mirrored his disgrace. if denied these safeguards zuko would’ve been denied even palliative care, whereas azula was perceived as needing none when she was revered positionally and familialy.

yes being pit against zuko was toxic and destructive but its not at all equivocal to the outright abuse zuko suffered. ofc the threat of it was implicit but those who abet or orbit abusers are not inherently under threat, and i think azula is characterized similarly. it's not fear that colors her outburst against ozai, nor coerces her silence, its entitlement and a sanctifying of hierarchies: “i deserve to be by your side.” - it’s respect that earns her silence and it’s the promise of respect that goads her acquiescence, the prospect of accumulation. this is ofc not a healthy mindset to have bc azula hinges her value on perfection, performance and status, and it's evident how the pressure of that collapsed her, but it was a pressure she had embraced before. it was her adeptness that ozai latched onto, and before the inviolability of it was challenged, azula took advantage of her nature, she weaponized it, and it was that eagerness that ozai exploited.

as viewers we process this as the objectification it is, but its reality, is a systemic natured dehumanization, ingrained in any culture that seeks to mechanize its constituents (which is all societies actually. we are all complicit). ozai thinks he is honing her as did his father and his colonialist forefathers prior, and herein is not abuse in the conventional sense, but rather a tradition of commodification that extricates skill and hegemonizes personhood, it’s an existential death necessitated by imperialism. it’s the death of agency. azula embraced this necrotic philosophy until she was confronted with the consequences of her rot, and *that’s* what she got. consequences. of which she was spared throughout.

it was never personal.

sure we get glimpses of her humanity, her vulnerability, but they’re paltry and muddied too by an undercurrent of duplicitousness. azula flaunts zuko’s impending demise, yet later, includes him in her outings. azula relishes zuko’s mutilation, but also fetches him from the beach house. she falsely welcomes zuko back, then implores he join her sincerely. and azula shares her pain from ursa yet spurns softness still, from MaiKo’s juvenile fondness to ursa’s own guiding attempts. azula is ceaselessly cruel to zuko, then spontaneously benevolent to him once he has seemingly subsumed the apparatus of colonialism. and gives him credit for killing the avatar, yet shows a sly inclination of his revival. this isn’t to insinuate that azula is ontologically evil or that she’s an unnuanced, mono-faceted individual. and she was a child. yet zuko’s youth didn’t spare him from the grotesque terrors of death and alienation, and it didn’t temper her perpetual antagonism and bloodlust, she is demonstrably self-serving, and this is evidenced throughout.

this is not to shame her in her passivity, nor an expectation that she martyr herself or even commiserate with her brother. rather, her downfall is a reaping of autonomy, made subject to the tendency of one’s active leanings. in which the choice of her sibling abuse exacerbated her societal abuse, all festering, foremost, the abuse of her own soul.

so, relatedly, is it not possible that a character of her cunning, who emotionally degraded her own sibling while gleefully championing his attempted imprisonment, before graduating to attempted murder by preparing to electrocute him while he was enfeebled on the ship, then later tried to kill aang, tried to kill katara, gloated abt intending to kill zuko at the air temple, injured iroh while making her escape from the gaang + zuko. also endangered and coerced ty lee into joining her, imprisoned mai, nearly killed zuko as he tried to save katara (which was likely her intent, or at least meant to cripple zuko’s composure — dishonoring the agni kai) — need i go on. azula’s benevolence is conditional, and consistently transactional, and so is it not possible then that she gauged zuko’s swaying allegiances against her own armaments - when faced with iroh, a waterbending master, an earthbending master with groundbreaking abilities (>_-), and the literal avatar, after observing their – plus aang’s growth, and having been cornered before, then decided rather, that having another asset, puppet, contingency plan, in her pocket wouldn’t hurt.

maybe she was being benevolent, or maybe, azula, who too sat in liberated territory and was gifted a chance for growth and morality, rejected that chance over the value therein, tenderized for extraction, parasitizing instead. maybe azula too, was acting in the imperialist tradition of exploitation. maybe she holds the capacity for compassion and care — which we have gleaned regardless — but the tangentials and hypotheticals of the world are often not what is actualized, and they are not a thing that can be affected. empathy is an active pursuit, and it is mutualistic, provisional — and so there is not a ‘who’ of azula’s redemption, but a what, the ‘what’ that is to be influenced. the personalization of one’s own form, of an internal receptiveness to commiserate with. bc as is, azula is merely a husk of colonialism, and being a husk of colonialism is meant to be sad, its deliberately tragic, unflinchingly pitiable. disorienting. life shattering. that’s what you’re meant to feel, it is not an inadvertence of zuko’s arc, and it is not a coincidence of the narrative.

she is a trajectory within herself, and her fate is a whole within itself. just as zuko labors towards rectifying his nation bc he needs to, bc there is value in dismantling colonialism, not bc the imperialists are owed it, but bc everyone else is. zuko also watches, not with apathy or boredom as his sister implodes at this, but with pity, with grief, bc azula manipulated herself a bed of corpses, and it is not him who must choose not to lie in it. when healing is intentional, is active, and zuko has chosen to heal. when azula cannot be handheld and shielded from her war crimes and systemic violence bc she wasn’t hugged enough as a child. zuko too lost a core sense of support mournfully young, and moreover at many points in his development journey, but the inclination that told him to speak up in the war room is doubly the same inclination that told him to afford jin affection, or help the earth kingdom family, and save his crew member in the storm, despite this very vulnerability catalyzing his banishment.

azula had friends and she had adoration and she had paternalistic validation, but contentment is unattainable when accumulation is your driving force. and the only thing left to cannibalize is yourself. with this, azula’s downfall was not only inevitable, it was natural, foretold even. and just as iroh doesn’t adhere to whatever deficits were sewn unwittingly into ozai, nor is it demanded — it also isn’t azula’s fallibilities that now damn her. azula isn’t the “bad sibling”, devoid of nuance, she’s the bad person™. despite it all.

katara has ptsd and toph is blind, sokka is a non-bender and zuko was deemed handicapped then maimed thereafter, instability is not azula’s punishment, its an externalization of her decay, and its meant to be unrelenting and all-encompassing, because abstraction and objectification are totalitarian afflictions. likewise, her condemnation is not a consequence of gender marginalization, tho the undertones of spoilt brat tropes and somehow unconventional, inevitably crazed women sully our palates. we taste bias even where it perishes, even as the fire nation is seemingly meritocratic, and unabashed, imperfect girls are idealized story-wide. from toph to azula herself, who may be conflated for a sanist archetype, yet challenges gender roles and infantilization in her prowess and militancy, as she’s sterile and calculating and impassive, where zuko is feeble and undermined, aimless, emotional. she is far beyond any trope, contrivance or embellishment, and doesn’t flourish or encumber zuko’s arc, as he equally isn’t made to for her’s.

azula is a force beyond zuko, until she can no longer deny him, and azula haunts zuko until she doesn’t, until her own crossroads loom, her contrived dualism of failure or victor, aggressor and victim. and she is forced then to reckon with loss. azula’s end is not a reductionism at hands other than her own, her fall is not zuko’s win, nor does the show frame it gloriously, there is no joy in her misery, no minimization of her tragedy, from the score to the tone, in her chilling, animalistic pules, azula languishes in her self-destruction, and it is one entirely independent of zuko. with this, we are shown azula’s nuance, the unthinking allyship she inspired, yet the coercion and dereliction it veiled. the camaraderie and kindness she offered, to warn zuko against visiting iroh, to credit him unduly, yet the threat it masked, to stay unadulterated, to stay unctuous. the vilification she detested, and yet the love she scorned for its fragility and irrepressibility. ursa doesn’t confirm azula’s worst fears, ironically, sadistically, any love she may have held haunts her, is nearly derisory. impossible.

and while no debate exists that ursa neglected azula, or that she failed her duty to nurture and cater her parenting to azula’s needs and interiority, the factors that complicated that, such as ozai’s own domineering hold, alienated mother and child from any means of cultivating real love, and thusly the influences azula did ingest were brutality, unchallenged in nature, entirely singular. it’s a self-flagellation, a ritualistic and sustained self alienation, amputating any vulnerability, all perceived pluralities.

so azula, despite not consistently having her perspective expressed, still encompasses the products of colonial rearing, and its destructiveness isn’t meant to be contested, sugarcoated, not with others and not with the self. fascism has denied us azula the person, and that may be a consequence of format, but it isn’t a consequence of the narrative. nor realism. we are meant to acknowledge azula’s complexities in the intentionality of their artful crafting, while not undermining that architects of oppression still bleed. one can see themselves in azula’s struggles, in the humanity of her endeavors, while not decontextualizing the tenets of her positionality, while not undermining that every character that claimed their redemption, did so by choosing another, by loving.

and azula’s journey to love, to embracing her own humanity, is a journey solely her own. this isn’t to say that she doesn’t deserve support or guidance or love or care, but that’s not the point. that wasn’t the intent of her character, and that wasn’t the thematic priority of the show. it's an extrapolation. bc some ppl suck and that’s ok. and there are ppl you cannot help and that is ok. and sometimes the ppl you love will suffer, and that has to be ok. bc sometimes you choose yourself, sometimes you choose what you can, and that is ok. it is okay to grow, and it is ok to move on. that’s the point. it is ok to spit out the poison. forgive any tactlessness therein, but it’s a tough pill, and its meant to have an aftertaste.

however, it's not cynicism that one is meant to internalize, and it's not intended to inspire fatalism either, although the symbology of azula’s toxicity is excised, the human struggles she encapsulated remain, the intimacy of our empathy persists, and it will color the fire nation’s vices and pitfalls. bc when one can’t just will away indoctrination, as we saw with both azula and zuko, and even still with paku or toph’s parents, as hierarchies are intersectional and multifaceted, and in the trials of decolonization there will thusly be azulas’, but there will also be zukos’, and pakus’, and sokkas’. all with their very intimate, equally human complexes to confront, unravel and rectify. just as there sit your perspectives, as there too exist my own influences.

and while zuko may merely be a beneficiary of the prevailing zeitgeist (tho imperialism explicitly requires non-consent lol), where azula once functioned, and he may be no more ontologically owed redemption than azula, or deserving love over her, when in the forever-war of subjugation, it isn’t abt ontology or criteria, nor logicisms or hypotheticals, its abt action. so zuko tries. and that resistance, that anti-colonial praxis, is a good start, it’s the most meaningful start. zuko isn’t king, or redeemed, bc he’s genetically “good”, its bc he tries. that’s the point. not how efficient he is or how proficiently he embodies apparatus.

reparation. that’s. the point. the triumph of resistance juxtaposing the tragedy of complacency. bc nothing is immutable, and so nothing is too far gone.

Besides… it’s only a kid’s show heh.

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