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[irisaxkerman09]

Azula Respected Mai The Most

I just saw another Reddit comment saying Azula wasn’t friends with Mai and mostly only cared about Ty Lee. And I just gotta say…

I respectfully disagree.

The Boiling Rock proves Mai meant a lot to Azula.

First, Mai publicly commits treason and betrays the Fire Nation and Azula.

What does Azula do? Order the guards away and gives Mai a chance to explain herself. She even says “I never expected this from you” and “you of all people know the consequences”. Put a pin in that for a moment.

Giving a traitor who just publicly and flagrantly betrayed you and your nation to help an even worse traitor to your nation (Zuko, who on a personal level hurt both Mai and Azula by doing so) a chance to explain themselves is already significant. But even moreso is the fact that Azula doesn’t make a single move to harm Mai until Mai purposely and effectively hits Azula’s trauma weak point like the master marksman she is.

When Mai says “I guess you don’t know people as well as you think you do” this is already an insult. She’s putting down Azula’s intelligence and manipulation skills, things Azula clearly takes pride in. And yet despite how insulting that is, Azula still waits for Mai to explain herself. Even as Mai throws that barb at her, Azula wants to hear her out. Until Mai throws the even worse insult right at Azula’s weak point.

“I love Zuko more than I fear you” isn’t a statement of Mai being afraid really. It’s Mai throwing a powerful dig at Azula’s biggest fear and trauma, the one Azula tried to dismiss during The Beach with a joke to avoid showing her own vulnerability: Azula fears that Ursa hated and feared her but loved Zuko. It’s why during the mirror scene, a grief stricken and emotionally volatile Azula bitterly says to the hallucination of Ursa “even you fear me”.

Only then does Azula get triggered enough to lash out in return. Mai was only capable of hurting her so much precisely because Azula loves and trusts Mai so much, and precisely because Mai knew what to say to hurt her.

Even so, Azula does the forms for fire, not lightning. And after she is chi-blocked, Azula orders both Ty Lee and Mai jailed, not executed or banished despite having every right to do so since they just publicly committed treason against the Fire Nation.

See the quick strike? It’s more like when she attacks Iroh in The Chase with blue fire:

Lightning, by comparison, always has a wind up for her. Even when comet-boosted or otherwise.

Remember Azula’s line we put a pin in? Let’s go back to it now. Why does Azula say “I never expected this from you” and “you of all people”. What is the significance here?

We know Azula is a perfectionist. She can’t stand a single hair out of place. This informs her frustration with Zuko and Ty Lee, both whom she adores, but whom are constantly failing to stay in their place and play their role. Zuko messes up, gets himself banished. Ty Lee runs away and joins the circus. What does Azula do? Endeavor to use any means necessary to bring them back into the fold. It sounds crazy, but from her perspective, she’s helping them shape up.

But Mai? She’s different. Mai knows her place. She knows what’s expected of her. She says herself that she learned to be quiet and still so as not to risk her dad’s political career. She hates it and searches for any excuse to leave her stifling expectations at home, but she only does this in an acceptable way: when ordered by the princess to join her on a mission for the Fire Nation.

This is why Azula is especially shocked. Because of all people, Azula thought Mai was the only one of her friends who understood their duty to the nation and wasn’t a colossal fuck up.

Azula may be more affectionate with Ty Lee, but she definitely respected Mai more.

And I think the fandom doesn’t give their fascinating relationship or how it breaks down enough credit.

[irisaxkerman09]

*zuko burns a village*

fandom: he's just misunderstood

*azula smirks*

fandom: she was born evil

[irisaxkerman09]

If Azula was in Avatar I think she would be a firebender hot take

[irisaxkerman09]

My type of humor.

[irisaxkerman09]

🫢

[irisaxkerman09]

I had this big doubt: After Bolling Rock's betrayal, have Mai and Ty Lee shown that they are worried about Azula? Have they at least shown some affection for the same person they betrayed and who saved them from execution?, the childhood friend of Ty Lee and Mai? It's funny how Azula has shown more empathy and concern for her friends than those supposedly "redeemed" towards her.

[irisaxkerman09]

It’s interesting to note that Azula makes a very serious effort to reconcile with her brother, to show kindness to him, and to fix her broken relationship with him. It’s futile. It doesn’t work, in the end. Likely it never could have worked, with the shadow of Ozai hanging over the siblings.  She doesn’t manage to repair her relationship with her brother, and by the end of the series it’s worse than ever. Her efforts to show kindness to Zuko (see “The Beach”) never lead to Zuko attempting to show kindness to her or to him even slightly reevaluating his perception of her. In fact, her attempts at reconciliation lead to her losing everything: her friends, her father’s favor, her favored position, her freedom, even her sanity.  It’s worse than futile.

Yet her attempt says volumes about who she is as a character, about who she wants to be a person, just like Zuko’s attempt to save Zhao at the Siege of the North says volumes about who he is as a person, even though it was futile and likely impossible(odds are the spirit of the ocean could pull an awful lot stronger than a 16 year old).

Could Zuko, Ursa, and/or have “saved” Azula within the confines of the story of Avatar: The Last Airbender? Could they have caused her to take a different path, caused her to avoid her canon sad fate? Perhaps, but likely not, especially considering that Ursa and Iroh barely understood even “saving Zuko” as an objective. Does the fact that they combine for zero on screen acts of kindness toward Azula still speak volumes about their characters, about who they are as people?* Does the fact that Ursa and Iroh show no empathy toward Azula still say a lot about who they are as people? Does that fact that Iroh demonizes his abused 14 year old niece while giving his abusive, imperialist asshole of a brother a pass still speak volumes about who he is as a person? Yes.

The manner with which Azula’s “good” family members treat her is far more about them than it about her.

*Note: I mostly give Zuko a pass on this, for obvious reasons, but it still says important things about his character and his relationship with his family.

[irisaxkerman09]

Zuko's character growth came from other people learning his sad backstory and feeling bad enough to let him slide.

[irisaxkerman09]

Azula: I'm not perverted

Azula: I get good grades, I go to church, I'm a cheerleader

Azula: I'm not like all of you, Everybody reads Cosmo, Everybody looks at other girls all the time

Zuko: But you only assume that they´re thinking what you´re thinking when they look, but they're not

* Flashback of Ty lee making pirouettes, Mai playing with her knifes, Katara's training and Suki's fight *

Azula: I'm a homosexual...

Azula: I'M A HOMOSEXUAL!!!!

[irisaxkerman09]

Mirror, mirror, on the wall… why don’t I know myself at all?

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💔🔥☄️⚡️💥👑🏮🪞💇🏻‍♀️🥀🌩️⛈️😢

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[irisaxkerman09]

"Aren’t they stupid, Mai?"

In this screenshot it looks like Mai and Azula would totally gossip about the stupidity of people. Btw Azula making the extra order to bring a triple throne for herself and friends is a subtle favorite moment of mine about their friendship.

[irisaxkerman09]

I swear Zuko is the only character where people can look at a scene of him terrorizing an indigenous civilian population who his people have been decades committing a genocide against and go "look how soft and not truly bad he is" merely since he left after he got the thing his terrorization was after.

[irisaxkerman09]

I maybe the only person in the world who knows that Azula still beats Zuko in her Qi-imbalanced state and she only really lost because the story needed her to, but, for a very long time it was hard for me to pinpoint exactly which or what type of imbalance she was experiencing. It's certainly was not a complete mental imbalance like the story was trying to sell because if it was, she would've lost much faster than she did and wouldn't have exhibited signs of healthy thinking mid-battle. Her upper dantian, the pool of energy responsible for brain function wasn't the one that was having problems initially. It's clear to me now that it was her middle dantian that was experiencing severe functional problems, and these problems affected the other two dantians as expected as we see with her hallucinating and her physical health deteriorating. And it's natural to me, with her character and arc, that it's her sea of energy that's related to the heart that had problems because it wasn't her mind that was in pain, it was her heart.

I also need to add that the comet hightens the Qi of the firebender regardless of the state of the Qi. So, Azula was quite literally on fire during its arrival because her middle pool of energy, the one responsible for producing the energy to feel and be, was in an unstable state and was producing powerful qi leading to it fluctuating as it went throughout her meridians, the mediums/ vessels responsible for the transportation of internal energy between the three dantians and throughout her body.

Edited:

To make more sense!

[irisaxkerman09]

i think some people (me, I'm talking about me) forget that Azula is only 14 years old.

she's FOURTEEN and she was a master at firebending, conquered Ba Sing Se and was nearly crowned Fire Lord ?? among many other things that I can't remember off the top of my head, but she was only 14???

me, at 14? I didn't even know what a swear word was

and then after the war's over?? what happens to her idek but if it's some bs like she got thrown in jail or smth imma be pissed coz she deserves better, like yeah she did all that shit, but Ozai was literally her father and Ursa was her mother - I think that justifies all her actions ngl

she wasn't even of legal age yet, surely that means they can offer her help or smth, instead of punish her???

[irisaxkerman09]

Once again, Azula doesn't think that Zuko is weak or softhearted or too kind or any of that shit. She knows he's not as talented as she is but she doesn't think he's a weak firebender or a bad one.

All of that doesn't mean Azula has a high opinion of Zuko. She thinks he's an impulsive idiot who takes everything too seriously in a way that will get himself killed and who can't control himself and who can't control and hide his emotions. She also thinks Zuko should have should have taken his studies seriously when he was younger and at the very least learned basic facts about Fire Nation history. But none of that means she believes he's weak.

[irisaxkerman09]

someone said to me “rip azula you would have loved marlboro golds”

…

[irisaxkerman09]

Featuring Aang, Sokka, Toph(top), Azula, Ty Lee, Mai (middle), Zuko, Katara and Suki as children (bottom)