#and with zuko he has also been dehumanized by the fire nation but like. it’s not the same of course

[comradekatara]

sokka hates the fire nation but nonetheless subscribes to their logic through internalizing his own dehumanization, albeit in the name of sacrificing what is necessary to resist imperialism. on the other hand, aang refuses to sacrifice his humanity, which is intrinsically tied to the culture that was deemed deserving of extermination, and by recognizing the fullness of his personhood and his intrinsic right to exist, he defeats the tenets of imperialism on an ideological battleground. that is why it is so crucial that aang’s influence over sokka, as an air nomad, and as someone who did not grow up under the looming shadow of colonialism and genocide, is what helps him regain the childhood he had forsworn in the name of war—his laughter, his joy, and his humanity.

[sokkastyles]

Hi, I really like your blog and your metas; they're so well-worded. One of my favorite ones is this one, talking about Zuko and his privileges vs how he's victimized by the Fire Nation. I have one question, though. Do you think that Mai, also, in the Boiling Rock Prison arc, treated Zuko as a race traitor? Her reunion with Zuko and some things that she said rubbed me the wrong way. And if you could, would you mind expanding a little bit on how Zuko is treated as a race traitor by Fire Nation characters?

Zuko is actually treated as a potential race traitor from the beginning of the series, even when he's loyal to the Fire Nation and desperate to restore his honor according to their values. We see this as early as episode three in book one. And I believe that in the meta you mention, I also spoke about how that's tied in with his abuse, both on a political and personal level.

Because the thing about fascism (and yeah, we could argue whether the Fire Nation is truly a fascist nation because the writers used a conglomeration of tropes and real world influences for their fantasy world, but they definitely draw on fascist imagery heavily for their Fire Nation influences, so it still is present in the narrative) is that it's dehumanizing, and everyone is a potential traitor to the regime. It's where the idea of "thought crime" comes from.

We see this as early as the third episode of the series, when Zuko encounters Zhao, who treats him like a potential enemy even before learning that Zuko has been keeping the Avatar's discovery from him. Some of this is Zuko's backstory. Zhao looks down on Zuko because he knows the story of his disgrace and banishment, and this is used both to downgrade Zuko and to keep him loyal to the regime. It's similar to how Ozai treated him, both giving him a sense of what he is "owed," the greatness he can hope to achieve by remaining loyal, while also feeding the idea that he has to constantly make up for his own shortcomings. It's an entirely manipulative social order, like a cult but on a wider scale.

Under that system, questioning the regime gets you labeled as a potential traitor. Even though Zuko was acting in advance of the regime by keeping the secret of the Avatar's return so that he can capture Aang himself, he acted as an individual, and that's dangerous to the group think.

As for Mai, we see her act similarly towards Zuko from the moment they are together in book three. Her reaction to hearing him voice his concerns about going back home is to sarcastically tell him that he should not be worrying. On some level, I think Mai's emotionally closed-off personality is part of the reason she can't handle Zuko's uncomfortable emotional reaction. But she's also a product of the same regime, where questioning things is frowned upon.

Think of the way Zhao and Azula react to Zuko. Both mention his banishment, Zhao to emphasize his dishonor, and Azula to imply that he's become "uncivilized" due to living in exile for three years. Mai expresses similar prejudices towards people living outside the Fire Nation in her comments on the people of Omashu and the comic that takes place before the beginning of book three where she criticizes the food in Ba Sing Se, in front of Zuko who has actually been living there while in exile. So I think Mai is, on one level, very uninterested in any aspect of Zuko's life outside of the Fire Nation, and may subconsciously look down on Zuko because of it, the way she looks down on the people of the earth kingdom that Zuko has lived among, the way she looks down on servants (which Zuko is shown to be uncomfortable with).

Another part goes back to what I said about not questioning the regime. Zuko expressing doubts about going home challenges the very idea of Fire Nation superiority. Mai can't understand why Zuko wouldn't want to go home or why he would have doubts.

On another level, though, expressing doubt is literally dangerous, and Mai knows what happened to Zuko the first time he openly questioned the regime. On some level, she might associate Zuko worrying with him not being safe. The reality is that he is not safe either way, which is exactly why he should be worrying.

So Mai probably had those thoughts about Zuko even before he outright became a traitor. This is actually one of the ways fascism encourages people to turn against each other. If nobody is an individual, then individuals cannot be trusted.

All this is backdrop to Mai outright telling Zuko that he's betraying his country in "The Boiling Rock." And in between Zuko leaving and their reunion, there was also a propaganda play publicized that portrayed Zuko as not only a political traitor, but his romantic interest in Katara in the play is used to make him look like a joke, using racist tropes like the pale skinned man being "dominated" by a seductive, aggressive dark-skinned woman, and deferring to a man (Aang) who is considered to be from a "lesser" race. The gay jokes about Aang and Zuko are also typical of that sort of attempt to paint someone considered a race traitor as sexually deviant.

(You know what would be interesting to think about? If Mai saw that play. Did it fuel her feelings that Zuko had betrayed her, personally?)

What I think is actually pretty surprising is Zuko's ability to distinguish that no, I'm not betraying my country, I'm saving it, which is what he tells Mai. That idea doesn't seem to have originated anywhere else. Zuko could have just washed his hands of the Fire Nation altogether and embraced an identity as an expat, but he doesn't. Because he's always been someone who cared about his country.

[gaywithflowers]

I'm making a new post for this because I'm too anxious to add onto someone else's post, especially if I'm disagreeing with them-

(Also I'm mostly writing this because I wanted to make sense of my own thoughts, I'm not really in the mood to argue.)

But I saw someone say Zuko's ending as Fire Lord was confusing because he got what he wanted from the beginning, as in, he always wanted to become Fire Lord and then that is exactly what he became.

Sorry for stepping in like this, but-

Zuko didn't get what he wanted from the beginning.

At the start, "wanting his throne" was just a part of what he truly really wanted: the approval of Ozai, his love, to carry on the legacy of Ozai and Azulon and Sozin, to become better than Azula, to do and be what he was expected to.

He doesn't get any of that, at all.

He becomes Fire Lord but before that he has to let go of his desperate desire "to be great" (in the Fire Nation standard) and become a complete, irredeemable, utter failure in the eyes of the people he wanted to impress: he lets go of Ozai's approval, he understands Ozai will never love him, he renounces the legacy of the war, and he solidifies his position as Azula's inferior (in the eyes of the fire nation ideals ofc). He also upturns his old concept of what he was expected to be: an obedient prince following the status quo, carrying on the will of his rulers and ancestors VS a prince who loves his nation so much he decides to formally betray it.

He is shaken, at the end, when he is told by Iroh he will get the throne because it doesn't fit with his worldview anymore, and because he is ashamed. He becomes the Fire Lord but there is a complete resignification of what that entails and why that is important. Right now being the Fire Lord is not the natural progression of being Ozai's son, now he is signing up to shoulder the responsibility of changing the world.

His journey also shows us that he was right: the correct thing to do is speak out against injustice and cruelty. He was punished for it, they tried to suppress his drive to do better by his people, and he has to go a long way until he can shake off the severe attempt to make him shut up and conform. In his journey he also learns he can't do right by his people while still allowing them to oppress others, that he can't dehumanize anyone not just his fellow people.

...so yeah. I really don't think he got what he wanted in the end. If he had, he would have been shrouded in the glory of destroying the fire nation's enemies, he would have been a worthy son of his forefathers' cruelty-...and he did get that for a while, didn't he? And didn't he get the whole "be careful what you wish for" experience? If his arc had ended there and he hadn't gone away to train Aang, then we could say he was handed exactly what he always wanted to have and that there was no change.

But no. His father hates him. He let go of a 100 year old legacy. He disrupted the "glorious" expansion of a "glorious" nation. To many, he is a disappointment and embarrassment because he did the unthinkable: he retreated, he sent the armies home.

He surrendered against all Fire Nation beliefs of honor because he finally understood he can't gain honor by hurting others.

He let go of the definition of honor that was corrupting him.

That is change.

There is nothing wrong, anyway, in a character getting exactly what they wanted if along the way the motivations and significance of the goal change.

(Being truly honorable can be super humiliating tbh

He let go of his cultural view of status and that h u r t s

I'm Latin American born and raised, I have experience with this one- and it still has me on a chokehold. He is a fictional character and yet I look at him and I'm like wow that thing right there? Takes balls. I still can't let go of the expectations that are suffocating me even though I know they hurt me more than help me.)

[number1villainstan]

AtLA Analysis: S1E3: The Southern Air Temple

Been a while since the last one. I don’t really have an excuse here other than procrastination. But anyways, let’s get into it! (...as soon as this song finishes.)

During the Previously section, it highlights both that Aang is the Avatar and that Aang has been in the iceberg for 100 years (and that there have been no known sightings of airbenders for 100 years among the SWT). Now, the total decimation of especially a nomadic people in one fell swoop is impossible, which is why many fanfics describe airbenders going into hiding or assimilating into other cultures to escape the later ‘clean-up.’ I remember learning about the Rwandan genocide in school, and there were several steps to lead up to genocide (and what comes after), including alienation and dehumanization. The last step, I remember, was denial that the genocide ever happened. And yet, despite what we see of the propaganda in S3, we don’t see denial. Fudging the details, yes, but not denial.

Aang mentions a ‘prickle-snake’ while waking Sokka up. Another animal to add to the roster. It doesn’t seem like strictly a hybrid. What does this one look like, I wonder?

During the conversation with Katara, Aang seems almost in denial about the things he’s heard--that no one has seen an airbender in 100 years, and the Fire Navy ship. Perhaps I as a rewatcher am overestimating the knowledge a new blind watcher would have and Aang does have at this point. After all, this is the episode where the whole of that tragedy is revealed, as well as more of Aang’s backstory. Katara’s careful warnings, vaguely worded, don’t get through to him though, which makes it possible that he’s just denying the implications of what he’s heard. After all, in his mind, he saw the other airbenders just a few days ago. Maybe even just yesterday.

We also see the first bit of the context of Zuko’s situation. He indirectly orders (!) his uncle to get the repairs done as soon as possible, because he can’t risk losing his trail, and says that once word gets out he’ll have a lot of competition, something he can’t risk. Despite his earlier allusions to high, even royal, status (I believe he has been called Prince before), he clearly doesn’t have a lot of resources in his hunt. It makes me wonder what his budget is, and where he gets what money/resources he does have.

COMMANDER ZHAO! The slimy corporate ladder climber himself! Despite Zuko’s setup as the main antagonist during the first two episodes, Zhao is the main antagonist of S1. In fact, while Zuko is an antagonist for a while (S1, and some of S2) he’s only a main antagonist for those first two episodes, and then he’s set up as both an antagonist to the Gaang and a rival to the main antagonists of the seasons. This double-sided tension works very, very well for his character arc, methinks.

Zuko greets Zhao as ‘Captain,’ and is then corrected to ‘Commander.’ In a later episode he’s promoted to ‘Admiral.’ We have three offices in the FN Navy and their order, though said order may be different from real life navies. (Also, what does a captain vs a commander vs an admiral have power over? I would guess that Captain is one ship and we see that Admiral is a fleet, so what’s in between?) Zhao also bows to Iroh, but not to Zuko--a reflection of his dishonored state? Iroh doesn’t bow to Zhao, which seems to indicate that ‘General’ (even retired General) is a greater office than Commander. Not a great surprise. Zhao refers to Iroh as ‘General Iroh’ rather than ‘Prince Iroh.’ Given the immediate clarification that Iroh is Fire Lord Ozai’s brother (rather than Zuko’s uncle on his non-royal side), does that imply that military titles are more important than noble titles within the Fire Nation? It would make sense, given how highly militarized it is. Or perhaps military titles are simply more important to Zhao himself, which would be an interesting point of character (perhaps he values earned merit over birth or socioeconomic status?).

Zhao says it’s his harbor Zuko has docked at, which further hints at the disparity in resources between the two. So a Commander has command (lol) over a whole harbor? Also, this confirms that, despite what many people have said, Zuko was allowed into FN harbors while disgraced. I’m going to need to clarify if he was banished the whole time or merely chasing his honor.

Neither Zuko nor Iroh can lie to save their lives. Definite drawbacks for two royals.

Zhao invites the two, and Zuko attempts to dip out. However, when Iroh agrees for the both of them, he isn’t fearful, he’s irritated or frustrated. Which means that he thinks of Zhao in social situations as an annoyance, but not a threat, in contrast to those who think of Zhao as a creep or a pedo. (To be fair, he does have that slimy, untrustworthy quality to him, even if he seems more of a suck-up or a sycophant than a creep.)

SWT food just dropped: blubber(ed?) seal jerky. Apparently it looks like a fire-starting material to Aang.

The Southern Air Temple is located in or near the Patola (? pah-toll-ah) mountain range.

Katara, again, tries to gently warn Aang about the genocide. It doesn’t really work. This is also the first mention that Katara and Sokka’s mother is dead by the hands of the FN, and further cements the feeling in the early story of the Fire Nation as this constant, oppressive force. He accepts that the Fire Nation would kill the Air Nomads, but not that they did. He says that the only way to get to an Air Temple is on a flying bison, which raises the question of how did the Fire Nation get to the temples for that first wave?

Also, what is holding Appa’s saddle in place? It’s drawn as just there on his lower back.

Nomadic peoples irl, by definition, move around a lot, often following food or water sources. So Aang’s declaration of “We’re home,” while cementing the Temples as gathering places for the Air Nomads, seems to directly contradict the idea that, ykno, they’re nomads.

Zhao says that BSS will fall to the FN ‘by year’s end,’ and that then the Fire Lord will ‘finally claim victory.’ We don’t hear of any other strongholds against the Fire Nation, but we come in at the tail end of whatever that speech was, so it’s likely others were mentioned off screen (such as Omashu). Again, this reinforces the idea that the Fire Nation already has control over much of the world of AtLA.

Zuko actively speaks against his father here, interestingly enough: “If my father thinks the rest of the world will follow him willingly, then he is a fool.” We know that Zuko is loyal to the FN (at this point), so this can only mean that Zuko has seen a lot of the world and paid enough attention to know how the common EK people feel about the FN (not good). The indirect insult is also something of a surprise, if you’re familiar with (reliant on) fanon Zuko.

Also, the difference between how Zuko and Zhao address the same person (’my father’ vs ‘the Fire Lord’). As yet, he remains unnamed and mysterious. Zhao also acts as if he’s not close with the man. My Zhaozai shipper side wants to deny that so bad. Perhaps, if you’re really attached to the ‘Zhao slept his way to the top’ headcanon, you could say he’s just acting that way to hide the fact.

“Two years at sea have done little to temper your tongue.” That implies familiarity between Zuko and Zhao, and also contradicts the usual ‘three years of banishment/dishonor’ that the fandom usually goes off of. Early show weirdness?

Iroh playing with Zhao’s weapons and knocking them over, clearly by accident. Another incident of him being used as the ‘funny man’ during the early show.

During the conversation, Zhao says “[the Avatar] died a hundred years ago, along with the rest of the airbenders.” No mention is made of the reincarnation cycle, which is supposed to be common knowledge. Of course, Zhao also clearly knows about the reincarnation cycle, as shown in later episodes, but it’s odd phrasing.

Zhao invokes loyalty to try and get Zuko to give up the information. Later in S1, when we see the Agni Kai, Zuko shouts “I am your loyal son!” Honor is never explicitly defined during the series, and the implicit definition changes over Zuko’s arc, but loyalty (or the appearance thereof) seems to play a big role in the Zuko’s definition of honor during S1.

Katara implies that she and Sokka are the first outsiders to ever visit an Air Temple. Perhaps she isn’t counting the Fire Nation soldiers, or doesn’t realize that they were there?

Even when faced with an empty Air Temple, Aang doesn’t seem to realize the atrocity that happened. He’s sad, but not angry. Not yet. Surprisingly, it’s Sokka that tries to cheer him up, by asking him about airball, even though he was complaining earlier about hunger.

Katara tries to protect Aang throughout the episode. Sokka warns her when they stumble across the FN helmet that she can’t do it forever. Katara being caring, Sokka being practical.

Aang describes Gyatso as the greatest airbender in the world. Possibly true, possibly just Aang’s childlike admiration of him.

In this first flashback, we see the first confirmation that Aang is too young--he was supposed to be told he was the Avatar when he was sixteen, not twelve. What’s significant about sixteen here? Is it the age of adulthood in universe?

Can we say that Gyatso was a father figure to Aang here? Their interactions seem to point that direction.

As a side note, the animation in these early seasons seems off, sometimes. It’ll get better as it goes along, naturally, but still.

God I want to know how the airbending lock works.

So, I’m still unclear. Did Ozai tell Zuko that he could only return with the Avatar? Or did Zuko come up with that on his own? Because it looks like Zuko came up with that on his own.

Why are the Avatar statues in the Air Sanctuary? What happens if they run out of room? Also, I only spotted one statue (Kyoshi, I think) that was clearly a woman, and the early show at least seems to use ‘he’ as the default pronoun, despite the fact that we know Yangchen and Kyoshi were women.

What is it with past lives? Roku and Yangchen and Kuruk and Kyoshi and Aang are all distinct characters with distinct personalities. Perhaps the only thing in common that they have is that they can all bend all four elements with practice. They’re also treated like separate characters for most of the narrative. What does ‘past life’ even mean here? What is passed on between these people?

I find it hilarious how everybody thought Momo was a firebender at first. Also, Sokka lunging at Momo, a live animal, with the intent to make him into food shows that Sokka knows how to hunt, skin, and then cook an animal, presumably.

Zhao calls Zuko a ‘banished prince,’ so why is he in a Fire Nation harbor? Zhao also says he has ‘hundreds’ of ships under his command as a Commander, as well as a harbor. So what more does he have as Admiral?

Like the animation, the dialogue doesn’t feel totally natural yet. There’s some exposition there that doesn’t feel like what someone would normally say in that situation.

More hints at Zuko’s backstory, with vague references to exactly what happened with the scar. Clearly meant to tease a blind watcher. To a rewatcher, it says outright that Ozai is a master, so everybody who says that he isn’t/shouldn’t be that powerful of a bender can shut up and go think about what they’ve done in the corner.

The room with Gyatso’s corpse has a whole bunch of what look like bodies in armor, and only Gyatso for the airbenders. How many people did that man kill in his final stand? Also, what are they doing to their clothes? The fabric is in fantastic shape after 100 years.

What is it about this specific calling on the Avatar state that makes it so that each temple/holy place picks it up? He was in the Avatar state for 100 years in that iceberg, so why wasn’t that picked up? In fact, why wasn’t it picked up by anyone but Zuko when he came out of the iceberg?

Zhao clearly thinks himself superior to Zuko in firebending. However, given that Zuko won, he’s clearly not, so Zhao isn’t as familiar with Zuko’s firebending prowess as he thinks.

The Agni Kai starts with Zuko attacking and tiring himself out with several attacks, marking him as impulsive and angry, while Zhao keeps calm and blocks all his strikes. It’s only after Zuko turns the tables with a non-bending move, literally sweeping one of his feet out from under him, and defeats him by keeping him off balance that he throws himself into a reckless attack. Zhao is capable of keeping a cool head if he thinks he can defeat someone easily. Firebending is about control and power, showcased well by the fight.

Iroh saving Zuko from Zhao’s dishonorable attack is the first time we see him not as a comic relief but as a mentor or protector. It’s more in line with what we see of him later.

Sokka and Katara call Aang their family. Is this metaphorical, or is it literal? Has Aang been adopted into the SWT or is this just the found family trope?

Sokka talks about being hungry, and finally gets food from Momo, but have the others eaten? Surely Katara and Aang are hungry as well.

Aang says that he, Appa, and Momo are all that’s left of the Southern Air Temple. Are there not any other lemurs around? What is Momo doing alone? Are flying lemurs a solitary species? A pack species? What?

And that’s all for now! A summary of Zhao: smug, arrogant, overconfident, but with an easily wounded pride. Also, we can infer that he has skill in combat, given his position, and (maybe) discount that he slept his way to the top given that he speaks of the Fire Lord in such a formal and distant manner. Also, this took way too long, because I started last night and kept getting distracted while I was doing it today.

[anarchistfemmoire]

Anyone else feel a bit iffy about how bending vs non-bending discourse is handled in the series? Like nonbenders have to work twice as hard to be seen as "useful" to their respective groups—Sokka is a genius and a good fighter, Suki is basically a one woman army, Asami has a plethora of cool inventions, is a mechanical genius and is a super skilled fighter. It's not as bad in the first series because bending vs non-bending isn't really discussed all that much, but it gets sort of weird later.

Like, no one else thinks it's upsetting that Kya and Tenzin feel so comfortable mocking Bumi for being a nonbender, when he's clearly insecure about it and is also the only nonbender to ever have been born to an Air Nomad before, and that his feelings of inadequacy of it aren't resolved by him learning that his father loved him just the way he is and that he's worthy of love and respect as is, but through some asspull event that gives him airbending?

Or the fact that non-bending activism in Korra is seen as inherently terroristic and wrong, and that it's morally unokay for non-benders to even discuss not being entirely equally to benders, because they shouldn't question the status quo at all?

Or in the comics, when there's the bending supremacy movement going on in Cranefish Town, the Gaang seems fine with making allowances for benders over non-benders, because if non-benders were getting revolutionary, they'd immediately be seen as a horrible threat to society that must be punished severely?

Or that the non-bending Earth Kingdom royals are seen as pitiable, naive, and weak, whereas the Fire Nation royals are seen as super cool and basically one man armies in and of themselves? I understand cultural differences are at okay with this one, but it's still strange. There's never a weak Fire Nation royal (& if u bring up Zuko I will scream), and Prince Wu's helpfulness in the end is mostly played for comedy.

Like, it's just weird, how poorly non-benders are consistently treated within the show, and it literally never seems to mean anything. No one really takes a stand over it, and if they do, they're basically dehumanized for it. The only way they can ask for better treatment is if that will continue to maintain the status quo.

And I think it makes sense from a world building perspective, bit it's weird that Bryke never uses that to make an actually interesting plot. I would be fine with all of this (except for Bumi—that shit was so awful), if it was addressed within the narrative, but it never really is. Their society is literally built around bending, so it makes sense nonbenders would have some grievances, but anytime they come up, it's played as a joke, them being whiny, or even being downright malicious.

[sokkagatekeeper]

apologies if this has been asked before but maybe a look into why the characters you mentioned are homophobic (not saying i don't agree w u i just like metas lol)

well, first of all, here's an example of a few lines in which characters make fun of each other for their gender non-conformity:

from “the blind bandit”:

Toph: What are you doing here, Twinkle Toes?!

Aang: How did you know it was me?

Sokka: Don't answer to Twinkle Toes, it's not manly!

Katara: You're the one whose bag matches his belt.

i think that this is a very interesting interaction because while toph's, sokka's, and katara's lines are all homophobic, there's more to them than just that.... they hate women/gay people and want to go out of their way to be cruel. toph is upset at aang for beating her in earth rumble vi, so she takes it out on him by projecting her own internalized misogyny onto him thru insulting his femininity. sokka is dealing with his own issues regarding masculinity, and projects them onto aang; he'd be insulted by being called twinkletoes, so he is annoyed at aang for not being insulted. and katara is fundamentally a little sister, and therefore she relishes in any opportunity to make fun of her siblings, which means that she occasionally uncritically makes fun of the low-hanging fruit (lmao) that is their gender nonconformity (siblings also including toph and zuko btw. she never makes fun of aang for his gender nonconformity because they do not have a sibling-like relationship). i've heard the claim that, in this scene, katara was actually calling sokka out on his misogyny. and well. not only is that ridiculous (believe it or not, “well, you don't have a leg to stand on; you're just as fruity” is actually not a super #woke response to someone being homophobic) but it reeks of this frankly dehumanizing idealization of katara that exists in... certain fandom circles.

as for the rest of the characters, i can't think of any specific homophobic comments they made (besides maybe when azula said “oh zuko, don't be so dramatic.” in response to zuko being understandably insecure about the fact that he wasn't invited to the war meeting in “nightmares and daydreams”), but like. zuko and azula clearly hate themselves for being gay (though zuko largely moves past this by the end of the series and azula, tragically, doesn't).

thru a more general lens, another reason (and the one i, nour, tend to lean on the most) most atla characters are possibly most definitely at some point some degree of homophobic is that all three nations of fire water and earth, each in their own degree and specific ways with specific gendered expectations, live in a patriarchal society. and there cannot be misogyny without homophobia (without transphobia without racism) in any society, even if these issues often function differently in different societies. #intersectionality. as previously discussed on this blog it is honestly impressive how two white cishet men managed to (accidentally??) write almost all of the characters each with such complex and profound relationships with gender and all that it implies. it's fascinating. where was i. whatever. homophobia is a thing in atla bc atla’s feminist themes are excellently written. it’s only natural.

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

So, this may sound weird, since I don't ship ZK, but I think the reason some dislike EIP is because they realize it was the first part of a busted enemies-to-lovers arc. EIP was part one, where Zuko and Katara see how others see them, and it weirds them out. Yet, Zuko insisted on sitting next to Katara and Katara pushes Aang away, suggesting there might be something there that they don't want to acknowledge. (1/3)

The first part of the finale was Part 2, where June reiterates the "Hey you're with your gf again!" Zuko and Katara deny it, but there likely should have been an undercurrent of 'Why do people think we're together? Do we act like it? Should we be? S/he is kind of cute.' During this time, Zuko defers to Katara and despite Toph likely being more helpful, asks Katara to be the one to take down Azula with him. (2/3)

Last part of the finale should have been the money shot, Zuko taking lightning for Katara, and in a parallel to CoD, Katara healing him. Dante Basco is right in that there probably should have been a kiss at that moment and the end scene of the gang at the Jasmine Dragon with Zuko and Katara shyly proclaiming their interest in each other. (3/4, sorry I have one more)

Again, ZK is not my ship, but EIP seemed to set up a ZK endgame that jumped the tracks at the end. By all the "rules" of a good narrative, Zuko and Katara should have ended up together, otherwise EIP should never have been countenanced or storyboarded. Full disclosure that I'm not a huge Kataang fan either, but Kataang was done a disservice by having EIP exist. It either should not have ever gotten written, or the ZK enemies-to-lovers arc should have been concluded. (end)

Disclaimer: I don’t care if someone ships Zvtara. Never have, never will. If the takeaway you (the general you, not anon specifically lol) get from this post is that Zvtara is “bad,” then I’m going to assume you didn’t actually read anything I wrote, because that is the farthest thing from my point here. Also, this post is strictly my personal response to these asks. I don’t expect everyone to read this and be like “YEAH” lmao. I am sure some people have different opinions, and that is a-okay!

In short, I think we will have to agree to disagree, anon.

Do some people consider EIP the beginning of a busted enemies-to-lovers arc? Of course they do, they’re “rabid zkers” who wear Zvtara shipping goggles 24/7 lmao. EIP couldn’t have been the beginning of an E-L arc because such an arc was never in the cards for them in the first place! Katara forgave Zuko in the previous episode. Trying to cram a romantic relationship into five episodes after months of hatred between Zuko and Katara would have been awful writing (and thus probably would have been a decision mercilessly criticized until the end of time, lmao). So it’s honestly better that Zvtara gets to spread its wings in fanon instead (much less pressure)! Also, realistically speaking, Katara and Zuko probably still had so many issues to work through in their friendship. Like yes, she forgave him and recognized he was trying to do better, but that doesn’t erase what Zuko has done to her and her friends. There is still plenty of forward progress they need to make before romance can even be considered between them. If that makes sense?

Also, let’s be real: EIP and bit with June afterwards were 100% ship bait. Just an attempt to add to the “drama” of who Katara would end up. A technique only effective while it was airing, for the record, because if you watch the show straight through, it becomes glaringly obvious that Zuko and Katara’s relationship - while gorgeous - was always meant to stay strictly platonic within the canon timeline.

Anyways. I’ll try to break down your ask one piece at a time!

“Zuko and Katara see how others see them, and it weirds them out”

Yes, they are definitely weirded out! The transcript says, “Zuko and Katara inch away from each other, slightly uncomfortable.” Which is just a longer way of describing that they were weirded out by the depiction of their relationship in EIP, lol. However, the play is not how others see them. The play is the Fire Nation’s imperialist propaganda, meant to demean the entire Gaang. I talk about in specifics how the entire Gaang is belittled here, but this is the key stuff I noted about Zuko and Katara:

it’s important to situate that and more importantly situate eip zuko and katara’s relationship within the context of the show. the fire nation is an imperialist country. the southern water tribe has suffered heavily beneath them. we know from “the headband” that fire nation individuals are fed pro-imperialistic propaganda from birth; that combined with zuko and azula’s degrading comment of “peasant” towards katara demonstrate very clearly how the fire nation views every other nation - put simply, they are superior and everyone else is inferior. that attitude is therefore reflected in the eip play:

- katara, an indigenous woman, is highly sexualized and portrayed as overly dramatic and tearful, because the fire nation objectifies women not of their own people and views them as less intelligent and less emotionally stable

- she is thus paired as having a “romance” with zuko in eip because naturally, via fire nation logic, zuko would be able to “score” an “easy” woman of one of the water tribes

- furthermore, the eip “romance” between zuko and katara emphasizes zuko’s position as a traitor to the fire nation; the implication is that as a traitor, he’d only be able to achieve a relationship with a “lesser” woman, e.g. a woman not of the fire nation

That is not how other people truly view Zuko and Katara’s relationship. That is how the Fire Nation depicts their relationship in order to degrade and dehumanize Zuko and Katara. To misinterpret that as “evidence” that Zuko and Katara should have been together romantically is… disturbing, in my opinion. (I really try to stay far away from zkers who use EIP as “proof” of supposed Zvtara interest in each other like honey that is imperialist propaganda please don’t 😭).

If you want to talk about how other people actually view Zuko and Katara’s relationship, look at the Gaang, who were around them most of all! They never tease the possibility of romance between their friends. Why? Because within canon, there wasn’t one. Simple!

“Zuko insisted on sitting next to Katara”

Nope! This is all the transcript says: “Zuko [Removing his hood.] Just sit next to me. What’s the big deal?” He doesn’t even mention Katara! Zuko is literally just like I’m already sitting. Why do I need to move? lmfao. It’s no thoughts head empty for our favorite firebender 😂

“Katara pushes Aang away”

I’m assuming this about the kiss, which I’m going to make a post about in the future because I am TIRED of the tomfoolery. Anyways, I’ll keep this brief - yes, she does push him away. She does not deny that she likes him. For Katara, the issue is the timing: “This isn’t the right time.” Both Katara and Aang know they like each other, plain and simple (which is why Aang doesn’t ask if he returns her feelings - he asks if they’d be together, because he knows their feelings are mutual). Katara pushes Aang away because, as she says, they’re in the middle of a war. She’s already seen Aang die once. He might die again. She doesn’t want that, of course, but it’s a reality Katara is forced to consider.

Anyways, her decision has nothing to do with Zuko. Lol.

“June reiterates the ‘Hey you’re with your gf again!’ Zuko and Katara deny it, but there likely should have been an undercurrent of ‘Why do people think we're together? Do we act like it? Should we be? S/he is kind of cute.’”

June’s assumption - especially because it is a repeat of a gag from earlier in the series, when it is incredibly concerning to assume a Fire Nation citizen would be with someone of the Water Tribes because of the war and its consequences - is comic relief. Not even good comic relief, lmao, because of the horrific implications I just mentioned that come with it, but it’s supposed to be comedy. There was no need of any “Zvtara” undercurrents there because a) Katara and Zuko had never expressed romantic interest in each other in the past, b) it wouldn’t track with the show’s narrative of Katara as Zuko’s surrogate sibling because of her position as Azula’s primary foil, and c) it just doesn’t make sense in general. Katara likes Aang. Zuko likes Mai. There was never a love triangle there, plain and simple. Fandom invented it.

And again, if you want to talk about how people actually see Zuko and Katara, don’t look at June, who has never had a proper conversation with either of them. As I said, the Gaang is a much better example, since they’re with the two 24/7. If they never tease Zuko and Katara about romance, why should we trust this random lady who doesn’t even know them?

“During this time, Zuko defers to Katara and despite Toph likely being more helpful, asks Katara to be the one to take down Azula with him.”

As I mentioned, Katara is Azula’s primary foil, so from a literary perspective she absolutely needed to be the one to take her down. Zuko needed to face Azula, but taking her down - again, from a literary pov - was always meant to be the end of Katara’s journey (she was the only person besides Aang who was ever a match for Azula, after all, as we see in CoD). Also, how would Toph be more helpful?? Not saying you’re wrong, btw, I just don’t understand what you mean. If I was Zuko, I also would have brought the waterbender that I’d already witnessed almost take down my sister already 😂. But even if Toph would have been more helpful, sometimes practicality must be sacrificed for a fulfilling narrative arc, lol!

“Last part of the finale should have been the money shot, Zuko taking lightning for Katara, and in a parallel to CoD, Katara healing him.”

Honestly, anon, this part of your ask baffles me 😂 I totally understand why rabid zkers might make this argument, but taking into account the rest of the show… It just doesn’t make sense? It’s been talked about a hundred times, but Zuko taking lightning out of romantic interest would ruin his redemption arc, regardless of if it was Katara or Aang or Sokka or anyone in the Gaang that he was taking it for, so that should be the end of discussion, full stop. I’ve talked about this issue here and here before, and someone else does a great job breaking it down in this post, too. But seriously. Zuko having romantic interest for anyone in the Gaang would ruin!! His!! Entire!! Arc!! I hate when people don’t understand that 😭 Zuko had to learn selflessness, to learn how to put others before himself, and to unlearn the imperialist rhetoric he’d been indoctrinated with from birth. Romantic interest during canon for Katara, Sokka, Aang, whomever, I don’t care, completely disregards all of his growth of breaking away from the Fire Nation. Plain and simple.

“Dante Basco is right in that there probably should have been a kiss at that moment and the end scene of the gang at the Jasmine Dragon with Zuko and Katara shyly proclaiming their interest in each other.”

I learned in a discord I’m in that Dante Basco apparently hadn’t seen the whole show until this year lmao. He didn’t know what energybending was nor did he know A:TLA ended with a Kataang kiss. Take that with a grain of salt, of course (you can watch the livestream this is revealed in here, and it was also mentioned in the recent StageIt A:TLA reunion), but I think it’s safe to conclude Dante Basco can be treated like any other Zvtara shipper. He likes the ship, which is totally cool, but he is not one of the writers, so his opinion meant naught in constructing the canon narrative.

ANYWAYS. My point is why would Zuko and Katara proclaim interest in each other if such interest would have to be crammed into five measly episodes?? Especially when four of those episodes were the finale?? That is awful writing, of course the A:TLA writers wouldn’t do that, lmao! They’d built up Kataang and Maiko already. Why scrap it and needlessly rush a romance from an excellent - and, important to note, a newly established - platonic bond? Nah.

“EIP seemed to set up a ZK endgame that jumped the tracks at the end. By all the ‘rules’ of a good narrative, Zuko and Katara should have ended up together”

Nope. Idk what rules people have been teaching you, anon, but they were lying!! You deserve better than people who would lie to you like that 😤. But yeah, narratively speaking, Katara and Zuko getting together would have made no sense. It would have undermined Zuko’s and Katara’s arcs, it would have completely disregarded Katara’s established feelings for Aang and Zuko’s for Mai, and again, it would have been totally rushed. Who wants that?? Normal people don’t, lmao. This might be hard to believe considering I occasionally rag about BNF zkers, but I actually have several friends who are Zvtara shippers! They agree that canon Zvtara would have made no sense, and that it’s better to play out a potential Zvtara dynamic in post-A:TLA fanon. I swear, it is only the rabid shippers who think Zvtara should have been canon, and trust me when I say no one should want to associate with them, lmao.

(And again, as I touched upon earlier, Zuko and Katara’s canon narrative relationship was surrogate siblings because of Katara’s position as Azula’s primary foil. The show wrapped their arc up perfectly! With a lovely bow and all. So no complaints from me!)

“otherwise EIP should never have been countenanced or storyboarded. Full disclosure that I’m not a huge Kataang fan either, but Kataang was done a disservice by having EIP exist”

What EIP did right:

- accurate (and horrifying) depiction of pro-imperialist propaganda

- recap of previous seasons

- a lesson on consent (Aang kisses Katara, it is depicted as wrong, and Aang reacts appropriately by admonishing himself and by giving Katara space afterwards. like, people call Aang an incel/entitled/whatever, BUT HE HAD THE PERFECT REACTION?? he literally backed off and never pressured her again. i would have killed for the guy who kept getting in my personal space during my junior year to have backed off when i told him to. spoiler alert: he didn’t)

- hit some good humor beats

What EIP did poorly:

- honestly it’s not very interesting just based on watching it (deconstructing it as propaganda gives it better depth), but that’s to be expected from filler

- stupid shipping drama

- not having an additional conversation/explicit apology between Aang and Katara

HOWEVER. This final point is actually very subjective. For one, A:TLA has a clear trend of not showing apologies on screen. Ex.: Katara doesn’t apologize to Sokka for what she said about their mother, Zuko doesn’t apologize for anything he did to the Gaang, Song, or really anyone (closest we get is “Hello, Zuko here” lmao), Ty Lee and Mai don’t apologize for putting the Kyoshi warriors in jail, etc. etc. So while an explicit apology would have been great, the lack of one admittedly tracks with the show’s pre-established standards. And two, while I of course would love a conversation between Aang and Katara (that’s literally MORE KATAANG. why would I refuse 😂), it isn’t… necessary, to be frank. Aang’s mistake is treated as such - kissing Katara was wrong and he should never have done that. Like I said, Aang acknowledges this error and gives Katara space afterwards. Thus, it is Katara who chooses to be with him when the war is over. She respects the time he gave her to come to a conclusion, and the choice she makes is that she loves him despite his poorly-timed kiss (I mean, she forgave Zuko for being complicit in Aang’s death. Katara is clearly a very forgiving person!). So like,, it gets to a point where if someone doesn’t recognize that, they’re probably the kind of weirdo who labels anything they don’t understand in a story as a plothole, lmao.

All of this is to say that EIP wasn’t a disservice to Kataang. It certainly could have been better, of course, and the kiss was obviously only put in to hype up drama (“will they, won’t they” blah blah blah), but overall it handled consent well for a kid’s show.

“It either should not have ever gotten written, or the ZK enemies-to-lovers arc should have been concluded.”

On the whole, EIP is absolutely an unnecessary episode, yeah. It was just a recap before the finale. The only important thing is its accurate depiction of pro-imperialist propaganda, but most people’s minds don’t immediately go to that, I’ll admit lmao 😂. And as I’ve already said, there was no Zvtara E-L arc - fandom completely made that up. Which is totally fine! That’s the point of transformative works. But they are still fanon. Plain and simple.

TL;DR - Zvtara was never in the cards for A:TLA. I wish rabid zkers would stop pretending it was and have fun in the sandbox like the rest of us 😭

And for the record, anon, you absolutely, 100% do not have to be convinced by any of this! It’s just my own, personal thoughts on the whole dealio. No worries either way!! 💛

[my-bated-breath]

Revenge for a Memory

An essay on Katara’s relationship with grief, resentment, and closure

_____

“So… the torturer of one’s imagination, the monstrous figure against whom one had struggled for so many years, dwindled to this pitiful wretch, whose obvious need was not for punishment, but for some kind of psychological treatment.”

- George Orwell, “Revenge is Sour”

_____

Her element answers her call - a hundred icicles hang suspended in the air, dagger-sharp and aimed to draw blood. On the other end, the man brings up his arms in a movement that’s quick yet still too slow, crossed over his head as if to protect himself. He trembles. He shakes.

His death would be so effortless. She could maneuver around his pathetic defense in half a second; she could kill him swiftly and painlessly if only she wishes it to be so. Looking upon his small and curled form, she knows he would offer little resistance. He is powerless.

Katara hesitates, something slipping inside of her, through her stance, through her fingers. Rain pours on. Ice becomes water. Yon Rha is spared.

_____

When considering Avatar: The Last Airbender in its entirety, “The Southern Raiders” stands out as one of the most mature and morally ambiguous episodes, one delving deep into Katara’s relationship with love and loss, present and past, and justice and revenge. Within it, the story does not outline any right or wrong path for Katara to choose. Rather, the most she can hope for is to choose the path of least regrets.

By the end of the episode, Katara has found closure. She returns from her confrontation with Yon Rha having let go of her resentment towards Zuko, who once represented everything she hated about the Fire Nation, and forgives him. The reason why she forgives him is clear - he has earned it by providing her with the means to find her mother’s killer. But the reason why she has found closure is less so.

_____

“This is a journey you need to take. You need to face this man. But when you do, please don't choose revenge. Let your anger out, and then let it go. Forgive him.”

_____

“But I didn't forgive him. I'll never forgive him.”

_____

To forgive is to let go of resentment. And for Katara - for someone who was eight-years-old when she last saw her mother, for someone whose entire childhood was ripped away in the same second her mother’s life was ripped away from her body, for someone who was forced to mature far too quickly to fill in that hollow space left behind by a ghost - that is too much to ask for. Although violence may not have been the answer, a lack of violence does not mean a lack of anger on Katara’s part. Her trauma has wounded her too much to prevent her grief from spilling into anger, and Katara can let neither her grief nor rage go.

No, forgiveness is not the reason why Katara found closure.

That grief and that rage, however, no longer overwhelm her in the way they used to. Something gives way during that confrontation with Yon Rha, but what is it? What is the realization that frees her from her hurt, that paves the foundation for her healing?

_____

“I always wondered what kind of person could do such a thing, but now that I see you, I think I understand. There's just nothing inside you, nothing at all. You're pathetic and sad and empty.”

_____

After she spares Yon Rha, Katara tells him that he’s “nothing.” For the individual who clings onto the nebulous concepts of “meaning” and “purpose” for their entire lifespan, to be “nothing” is to be faced with eternal damnation. Someone who is “pathetic and sad and empty” is someone who lives but is not alive, running through the motions of each day mechanically and without feeling.

Perhaps the reason why Katara finds closure without forgiveness or revenge is that she chooses the ground in-between. She has found justice without needing to serve it because life, in its cruel and karmic ways, had already reduced Yon Rha to a shell of the man he once was. Had Katara been any more merciless towards Yon Rha, it would still have been merciful compared to how he suffers in his present life. Ending Yon Rha would be a waste of Katara’s efforts.

So Katara says, “I think I understand.”

And so we, the audience, think we understand too. Only then we remember what Katara had said before: 

“I always wondered what kind of person could do such a thing, but now that I see you…”

Katara is fourteen when she says “now that I see you.”

She was eight when she first saw Yon Rha.

In Katara’s flashback, the “kind of person [who] could do such a thing” is someone ominous, terrifying, and inhuman, a portrayal exemplified by the low-angle in which Yon Rha is framed in contrast to the high-angle looking down on Katara. In this shot, Yon Rha towers over Katara both in height and in authority. Thus, she has always imagined her mother’s killer to be the same way he has appeared to her when she was a helpless, vulnerable child - he appears as a militaristic man, an arrogant man, a powerful man.

The man Katara finds behind the door in the Fire Nation telecommunications tower is just that. As the captain of an elite Fire Nation scouting group, he embodies everything Katara would expect from the monster of her childhood, someone with a capacity for immense ruin and cruelty. So, lost in a memory where she is completely powerless, Katara’s grief and anger compel her to cling onto every iota of power she had gained through the years. Pushing her skills to the limits and past the limits, she inadvertently pushes herself to use the power she swore she’d never use - bloodbending.

“It's not him. He's not the man.”

Stricken, Katara walks away. Whether she is silent because of disappointment or shock is left up to interpretation, but no interpretation can deny the poisonous effects Katara’s hatred had on her. It consumed her body and mind, driving her to reach into someone’s veins and into their blood, tempting her beyond the one line she promised she’d never crossed. Stemming from hurt, grief, and rage, her loathing is intoxicating in the same way her memories of her mother’s death is so haunting. Because there was no humanity in the way Kya was killed, and so Katara dehumanizes her mother’s murderer in the same manner.

Maybe monsters deserve to die. Maybe monsters deserve to be bloodbended.

But monsters can only exist in memory.

_____

“Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.”

- George Orwell, “Revenge is Sour”

____

Before, when Katara and Zuko fly on Appa with Whaletail Island in their sights, Zuko awakes to the sight of Katara looking forward to the horizon, back straight and eyes hardened with determination. In response to his request for her to rest, she tells Zuko, “oh, don't you worry about my strength. I have plenty.”

Later, in her encounter with the captain of the Southern Raiders, her strength is affirmed by her ability to bloodbend-

-yet this is the experience that plants that first seed of doubt into her mind.

These doubts are in full bloom by the time Katara and Zuko reach the small Fire Nation village that Yon Rha, now a humble farmer, calls home. They hide in the shadows, trailing behind him as he walks back home, and then, they wait.

And then, they strike.

_____

“That was him. That was the monster.”

- Katara

_____

Katara says that Yon Rha is the monster, but their roles are now reversed - Katara is the aggressor and Yon Rha is the victim; Katara looms over Yon Rha at a low-angle while Yon Rha is looked down upon from a high-angle. Ultimately, a monster is more than their cruelty and vileness; a monster has power; a monster has control over a nightmare.

Only now it is not Yon Rha in control, but Katara.

_____

“I'm not the helpless little girl I was when they came.”

- Katara

_____

In the end, the issue had never been about Katara’s strength - instead, it was about her weakness. As a child, she was vulnerable while Yon Rha was infallible, and so the image of Yon Rha looming over her is the one that persisted for years, plaguing her even as she grew up and grew stronger. Hence, the Yon Rha Katara saw as an eight-year-old is the Yon Rha she would have no qualms about killing. 

But that Yon Rha belongs to another time. He belongs to a time in which Katara was weak and Yon Rha was strong, and that time is the past and the past is unbreachable. Thus, revenge can only exist in the ghost of a memory; revenge can only exist in fantasies.

Perhaps the childish fantasy aspect of revenge is why the platitudes “revenge is empty” and “revenge is meaningless” are thrown around so carelessly today, so much so that they no longer hold any weight. Of course, these statements are true in many ways, but they also oversimplify complex emotional responses to trauma. For Katara, revenge is empty because it is not what she needs.

Consciously or subconsciously, Katara recognizes her needs the moment when they’re met - with her suspending shards of ice in the air, all pointed towards Yon Rha. Then, fantasies and illusions shatter, falling away like ice turning back to water and splashing on the ground, unused. Katara now has power, not only through waterbending and bloodbending, but through the present over the past. Stripped of all his height and authority, the monster that was the Yon Rha of six years ago had already been killed. Now all that is left is her, standing over the humble-villager Yon Rha, over her fear and grief and rage, over the past that once haunted her. Over her memories.

_____

“I wanted to do it. I wanted to take out all my anger at him, but I couldn't. I don't know if it's because I'm too weak to do it or because I'm strong enough not to.”

- Katara

_____

By the end of her journey, the ideologies at conflict during the beginning of the episode are still at war within Katara. Katara holds power over her memories, but she is not at peace with them. Katara is able to forgive some, but she is not able to forgive all. The loss of her mother still hurts, but the loss of Katara’s innocence is replaced by the affirmation of her maturity. She has not let go of her rage, but she is no longer blinded by it.

Still, no matter how bittersweet the ending to this story is, it is also full of hope and new beginnings: The hold old memories had over Katara is broken. Six years’ worth of hurt and damage, though it cannot be smoothed over the course of a few days, can finally begin to heal. The wounds have been cleansed; the ghosts have been chased away. Now, Katara is strong where she was once weak. Now, Katara has found closure.

Now, Katara is free.

_____

Works Cited

Revenge is Sour by George Orwell

As seen by how much I quote George Orwell throughout this meta, my philosophy on the meaning of revenge draws a lot of inspiration from this essay, a piece on how a shift in dynamics in the post-World War II world can lead to the oppressed becoming the oppressors.

The Cycle of War by HelloFutureMe

My analysis on low-angle vs high-angle shots and the role-reversal of victim and aggressor comes from this video essay, a piece on how the cycle of persecution and victimization perpetuates war.

Companion Pieces (metas) by yours truly

Rage, Compassion, and the Bridge in Between

An essay on Katara’s emotions and the reciprocatory relationship between her kindness and anger

Ideals and Idealization

My interpretation of Aang and Katara’s relationship in The Southern Raiders and an extensive study on how Aang idealizes Katara

selfish

A fanfiction that takes my analysis on Katara’s grief + the concept of revenge and explores it in story form (OR: a post-TSR conversation written from Zuko’s POV; implied Zutara)

Summary: Revenge is a fantasy.

[babie-azula]

kya lives??

ok this was totally random but, what if Kya was alive still? The events of the raid on the Southern Water Tribe still occur but Kya isn’t killed, she’s captured. 

Azulon starts raiding the STW because he believes the avatar died during the Air Nation Genocide and reincarnated as a waterbender. Therefore, it is in his best interest to find the avatar and capture them. If he kills them then he’ll have to search the earth kingdom and they are still slowly gaining territory. It’s not feasible to begin capturing earthbenders and not have the resources to contain them away from coal and earth. Do they have the wood for that? 

So when the Southern Raiders attack the STW when Hakoda is chief, they capture Kya as the last waterbender. They would keep her alive but barely in a private prison made specifically for her. Hama was most likely in her early 20s when she was captured and she seems to be in her late 70s when we see her in season 3. She was the only survivor from the larger camps. I think they would add her cell near the capital prison that help Iroh but close to underground tunnels that are apart of the palace so Azulon is able to extract information and potentially use her power for himself (if he believes she is the avatar). 

Hakoda is dead set on revenge but Bato has to hold him back. Hakoda’s grief I think would be the same as before but he hates himself for letting Kya suffer. He should have been able to protect her. 

Sokka and Katara don’t know for sure if their mother is alive, but from Kanna’s stories of Hama they assume she had died. It’s worse when they grow up and hear the horror stories of what happens to water benders when they are captured by pirates or the Fire Nation. The siblings assume their mother suffered through dehumanizing torture and died in a cell without her family and no hope of going home. It would increase their rage against the fire nation  and the ability to bring up their mother is worse. Her name is associated to what could happen to Katara when she find out she is a waterbender. This would hinder her ability to train because she knows her mother had to suffer because of her. 

I think her fight with Master Pakku would be very different because she will yell at him that her mother suffered in the Fire Nation prisons because her daughter was a waterbender and he doesn’t care enough to help defend the female students. I would assume the NWT will also hear the same horror stories because of trade networks. At least from Kyoshi Island and other island villages that need resources. 

Now for Kya’s escape. This happens during the Day of Black Sun after Zuko stands up to his father, He would have a plan with his war balloon when he wrote his letter to Mai suggesting this was planned ahead. I’ve always headcannoned that Zuko brought with him a big bag of gold incase he needed to bribe or buy anything of importance. While he ran from the treasury, to break his uncle out, he is cornered by guard and has to change direction. This leads him to Kya’s hidden cell. He doesn’t know who she is but recognizes that she is Water Tribe. He decides to free her, because she reminds him of his mother. Kya doesn’t know who he is, but he’s busting her out (blue spirit style ;D ) so she trusts him enough to get her out. Once they reach the war balloon, cue the awkward conversation. 

Kya ask’s him who he is, and Zuko tells her he used to be the crown prince and he wants to help the avatar defeat his father. Kya tells him that she was captured from the SWT as the last waterbender and then Zuko realizes that this is Katara and Sokka’s mom (holy shit right). Then things get even more awkward when Zuko tells her that he knows her kids, and might have accidentally been chasing her kids for the last few months. This will not settle well with Kya but I think sharing war stories with one other during their flight will warm Kya up to Zuko. She recognizes the fact that he his an abuse victim (it’s clear from the way he handles himself and the multiple scars/ bruises he has). I sense bonding while and at one point his scar will definitely be brought up. It’s a lot easier for Zuko to open up because Kya is very similar to Ursa, she is nurturing, kind, and sacrificed herself for her children. She feels safe to him. 

Once they reach the Western Air Temple, Zuko will set up camp and find the TOAD. Yes, the toad is still here and he practices what he’s going to say to said toad. When Kya finds him after cleaning up, she decides to give him some pointers on how to introduce himself. She tells him, why not explain why you were chasing them in the first place, but Zuko will not agree because he doesn’t want to give excuses for his actions. This will make Kya tear up, she is very proud of her adopted child. So they both wait for the Gaang, Kya hiding while Zuko introduces himself until Toph notices that there is another heartbeat. Zuko assumes the group think’s that he was going to try and capture them again and freaks out, Kya recognizes this and goes to help him. This blows her cover and she sees her kids for the first time in 5-6 years. Very tearful reunion, both Siblings don’t know how to feel about this. Zuko who chased them around the world and helped kill Aang, but who also saved Aang once and brought back their Mother. This would help Zuko intergrate more and avoid burning Toph’s feet. But, the siblings spend a lot of time with their mother so Zuko bonds with Toph and Aang instead. This would help establish their relationship for The Firebending Masters and expand upon Zuko and Aang’s friendship. 

The Boiling Rock would be the same episode except once they come back we have SWT family reunion. This would be very hard for both Toph, Aang, Zuko, and all the other people in the Temple. Everyone is happy that Kya and Hakoda are here and they’re a family again but it hurts so much. Toph wishes her parents cared about her, Aang misses Gyatso and the Air Nomads, Zuko wishes he had loving parents (Ursa is dead in this au), The Duke misses the freedom fighters, Teo and Haru both miss their dads. It’s a very bittersweet moment and Zuko has to leave early because he has a lot of unpleasant memories that are brought up. Toph goes to comfort him because she can relate to parents that don’t believe in her. 

Zuko is terrified of Hakoda. Toph, Kya, and Hakoda notice and know exactly why. It’s hard to bring up without causing him to spiral so Hakoda decided to talk to him alone during dinner to reassure him that he will not hurt him or his own children. It’s your standard Zuko and Hakoda bonding. This will end up with the SWT parents pseudo adopting the rest of the Gaang. 

Suki and Kya bonding over their dudes. They would also share their experiences in prison, helping each other cope with the trauma they’ve been through. Suki and Hakoda have a lot of things in common and hit it off really well. 

They will get separated once Azula finds them but instead of finding who killed them Katara and Zuko find the people responsible for taking her mother away. Then we have Katara and Zuko bonding (no shipping this is pure gen. besides Sukka). We stan a healthy ride or die friendship. 

This was kind random but I thought it would be an interesting idea. I only thought of this for the Kya and Zuko bonding. I swear to god, Kya and Hakoda would totally adopt the feral firebending child. 

[wiseabsol]

WA Reviews “Dominion” by Aurelia le, Chapter 9: Her Own Blood

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6383825/9/Dominion

Summary: For the Fire Nation royal siblings, love has always warred with hate. But neither the outward accomplishment of peace nor Azula’s defeat have brought the respite Zuko expected. Will his sister’s plans answer this, or only destroy them both?

Content Warnings: This story contains discussions and depictions of child abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and incest. This story also explores the idea that Zuko’s redemption arc (and his unlearning of abuse) is not as complete as the show suggested, and that Azula is not a sociopath (with the story having a lot of sympathy for her). If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, I would strongly recommend steering clear of this story and my reviews of it.  

Note: Because these were originally posted as chapter reviews/commentaries, I will often be talking to the author in them (though sometimes I will also snarkily address the characters). While I’ve also tried not to spoil later events in the story in these reviews, I would strongly recommend reading through chapter 27 before reading these, just to be safe.

Now on to chapter 9!

CHAPTER 9: HER OWN BLOOD

Alright, I am tentatively going to try to resume my reviews for Dominion—once a week can’t be too hard, right? Diving right in, the author’s note that start this chapter mentions that “The Legend of Korra” debuted on the same day that this chapter was uploaded, which is a blast from the past.

 In any case, Zuko is sitting on the Burning Throne at the start of the chapter. In a parallel to Azula’s breakdown in the show, now he is the one being haunted by his memories and audible hallucinations. Zuko apparently told Mai all of the gory details of the sexual encounter that occurred between him and Azula, though not the “why” of it—which might have helped her understand it a little better, though I think Zuko’s “why” would be unsatisfactory at this point, since even he doesn’t fully understand what contributed to it, either on his or Azula’s side. As it is, Zuko’s feeling a lot of guilt here, which is better than him blaming it all on Azula, but by focusing so much on his own pain, I don’t think he’s really thinking about her.

 At this point, Zuko hasn’t told the public that Azula has escaped, though if memory serves correctly, there’s a mole who reveals that to the Earth Kingdom. There is mention here of some of Mai’s machinations at court, but which I mean putting some of Zuko’s detractors on his council to look as though he’s taking them seriously, but really getting them away from their supporters and to someplace where they can be watched. Honestly, this shows why Zuko isn’t the best Fire Lord—generally speaking, he has a good heart, but a good heart needs to be backed up by a cunning mind to not get stomped on in a poisonous court. Azula, in a lot of ways, was the more equipped heir, politically speaking, though her paranoia and inability to compromise would have made it difficult for her to maintain her rule for a lengthy period of time. Together, they could probably get farther, though that’s not likely to happen in Dominion itself. Who knows what will happen in the sequels?

 Ah, see, Zuko considers running a nation to be a tedious business. I’m pretty sure Azula would snap at him for being ungrateful of the privilege. This also makes me think that in an alternate universe, he would have had a better time being the “face” of the Fire Nation’s reparation efforts. Beyond providing the appearance of humility on behalf of the Fire Nation—with the only son of the royal family getting personally involved in the rebuilding—that would have allowed him to keep traveling with the Gaang, which would have been better for his mental health. Of course, such an AU would require someone to be ruling the Fire Nation in his stead, possibly Iroh or Azula, provided they hadn’t stacked up too many war crimes to be viable rulers in the eyes of the other nations. But that’s just me spit-balling ideas.

 Anyway, General How arrives, and I’m pretty sure he’s going to be a pain in our butts for the remainder of this story, and sexist to boot. He’s heard that Azula escaped, but more importantly, he comes to tell Zuko that Azula was tried WITHOUT REPRESENTATION and sentenced to death by the Earth Kingdom. Zuko rightly calls the general out on this bullshit, while I’m like, “This was a no-win situation from the start. While Azula was insane, she wouldn’t have understood, let alone remembered, the terms of this agreement. If she was sane, the Earth Kingdom military would have ordered for her to stand trial, and would have found some way to rig it so she would lose, or would kill her on the way to court.”

 While the Earth Kingdom military wants her dead, though, I doubt the Earth King himself is invested in the matter, given how disconnected he was from the war in general, and given that the coup was bloodless.

 Moving on, How asks, “Where were you on the night of her escape? Did you help her?” and of course Zuko can’t answer that question. Then How’s group points out that Zuko could file an appeal, which is more bullshit, because by the time it would go through, Azula would probably be dead. Isn’t the court system fun, Zuzu? I kind of want Zuko to go directly to the Earth King and be like, “Hey, your military broke the agreement that you made that my sister would get life in prison, can you do something about them?” Because really, what even is the point of having a king if the king can’t smack down the corruption in his court with an order or two?

 There is more back and forth about this, where it becomes clear that the Earth King military is mostly pissed that a fourteen-year-old girl pawned them, and will use any justification they can, no matter how flimsy, to execute her. It’s pointed out that Azula stopped acting in an official diplomatic capacity when she went undercover at Ba Sing Se, to which Zuko thinks, “To see Azula’s manipulations turned against her was his dearest desire once. But there had never been so much at stake.” They then list off a bunch of charges against Azula, most of which Zuko also committed during the show.

 We also get the reveal that Azula never tortured anyone, which is refreshing after some of the fics I’ve read that assumes that is the case. The psychological torture argument from How is pretty rich, though, given the brainwashing that the Dai Li did to Earth Kingdom citizens. Anyway, Zuko figures out who the mole was—he was a lot worse than Azula, surprise surprise—and calls How out on it. How then loses his composure and declares that the Northern Water Tribe has agreed to extradite Azula if she’s found there—I personally doubt the Southern Water Tribe would do the same, given Katara and Sokka’s pull there—and yeah, that tracks. The Northern Tribe would be dicks about this, given that it’s a chance for them to get back at the Fire Nation for the loss of their own princess. How then says, “You have to hand Azula over to us too if you find her” and I’m like, “Yeah, keep dreaming, General.”

 Zuko threatens to go to war if they kill Azula, which seems justified in this case. The Earth Kingdom military decided to ignore previous treaty agreements, overseen by the Avatar and the rulers of the three nations, to pursue a vendetta against someone who was, at the time of the war, a minor. This is something you would go to war over. Though first, I’d see if Kuei could address the issue, since he could presumably strip power and lands from General How and his allies, given how they are threatening the peace.

 Zuko goes back to his rooms with Mai and has a nightmare, which is mixing in some memories of Ursa’s departure. It’s revealed in this that Ozai once broke Azula’s wrist while training her—she must have been extremely young at that point, given that she’s maybe eight or nine in this dream/memory—and Azula starts repeating “Never tell,” which Zuko assumes means about where Ursa went. I suspect the mantra more has to do with something he overheard from her on the night of their fight, and backtracking from that, from Ozai’s sexual abuse of Azula. These parallels are reflected in Zuko burning her arm and Azula “bleeding from a hundred wounds he couldn’t see,” which is an apt description of the effects of abuse.

 “Stop it!” is what Zuko says in response to Azula, by the way, as if she can control the bleeding, rather than something more like, “I’ll get help.”

 Ooof, then Ursa appears, and it’s her shadow that symbolically bruising Azula. She echoes the sentiment that something is wrong with Azula and slowly starts to look like Azula’s adult self, repeating the idea that Azula can’t be helped. “No matter how she may seem to change, never forget what she is,” she says, in a haunting twist on Ursa’s words of encouragement to Zuko before she left. Again, we see Azula being dehumanized by her loved ones.  

 The dream shifts over to an Agni Kai, mixing in Zuko’s memories of the ones he faced against Ozai and Azula. It also incorporates Zuko’s current anxieties about his friends not being there to help him—that he’s alone against the world now, rather like Azula is. The dream Azula insists that his friends will hate him for what he did to her, and I suspect it is going to cause some serious damage once it gets out. Zuko tries to deflect that blame for what happened onto Azula—that it was her fault that he got so angry and lost control, which is a classic abuser’s excuse. Dream Iroh calls him out on that—that Azula was mentally unstable and thus didn’t have as much control and agency in the situation as Zuko did.

 “Was what he did so awful that even Iroh couldn’t love him anymore?” Probably? Iroh is a sexist and mishandles his interactions with Azula as a result, BUT there’s no suggestion that he ever sexually assaulted anyone. That’s a line he hasn’t crossed that Zuko now has.

 “Why couldn’t he have [a normal sibling relationship] with Azula?” I don’t know, Zuko. Maybe because your parents pitted you against each other from an early age and you blamed Azula for the painful experiences in your childhood, because that was easier than blaming your parents?

 “Why couldn’t she just be normal?” See above, Zuko. Also you slept with your sister. You have given up any connection between yourself and the word normal.

 Zuko idealizes Aang a little in this, saying that if he can’t forgive Zuko, no one could. It’s definitely not Aang’s forgiveness that Zuko should be striving for, though.

 “What did she have to cry about? She hadn’t just been rejected by everyone she knew and loved—” I’m glad that Zuko cuts himself off there and realizes he’s being a pill, or I would have wanted to smack him. There’s also this repetition of the idea that suffering will be his teacher, which—ugh. Ugh to dream Azula immolating herself, too. It’s symbolic that Zuko’s attempts to reach out and hold her are what “destroys” her, though again, I doubt that these two will be able to walk away from each other forever, even though that would be healthier for them.

 Soooo Zuko, shaken by the nightmare, decides to go talk to Daddy Dearest. Mai watches him go, which I never noticed before.

 “Now all Zuko had to do was convince Ozai it was in his best interest to help capture his favorite child.” I think you mean tool, Zuko. Ozai’s favorite tool.

 Ozai greets Zuko as “Traitor” upon his arrival, which is funny in a dark way. Ozai has guessed that Azula has escaped from the increased guard around his cell, too, saying, “The Avatar took my bending, not my wits.” I feel like this man sank a lot of his character creation points into charisma, rather than empathy.

 “The Earth Kingdom have been our enemies for a hundred years. Because you give them everything they ask, does that make them your friends? Have you learned nothing from your failure with me?” This is a fair point and more self-aware than I want to give Ozai credit for, but it’s not like he has much to do other than reflect on the past, these days. Ozai also seems to have pneumonia or some other potentially fatal lung disease. Tuberculosis would serve him right.

 Then Ozai points out that Azula is a bit like a cat—she has to come to Zuko, rather than Zuko chasing her down. Ozai suggests offering himself as bait to lure Azula out, since obviously she would want to free him—which she does, albeit I have some serious doubts that that will ever happen. I suspect that Ozai is going to die before Dominion ends and there can be a father-daughter reunion.

 “You come here asking for advice, when what you really want is a quick fix.”—Pretty much.

 “I may have been close to Azula, but we are not one mind—” You were too close by far, Ozai. Please drown to death in your own blood and phlegm.

 Zuko reveals that Azula wants to go find Ursa, which shocks Ozai, who starts “staring at his son in something approaching alarm.” Possibly because Ursa could start undoing some of the lies that Ozai shaped Azula with? Maybe. Ursa does have some serious issues with her daughter, so he half-lied at most. Anyway, Ozai goes on to question when this discussion happened, since Zuko doesn’t visit Azula. His tone seems to suggest that he doesn’t want Zuko to see Azula, which is curious, but not unfounded, given what Zuko ends up revealing here. Once Ozai corners Zuko about lying to him, Zuko admits what happened during the fight, including the sexual encounter.

 “Zuko watched him uneasily, his own heartbeat thudding in his ears. He didn’t have to tell him anything, but—but didn’t Uncle always say the burden of a secret grew less when you shared it? But to share this with him, it hadn’t even helped with Mai. It just made things worse. But he knew Azula better than anyone, he was the only one who knew how to help her before. Maybe—maybe he could tell Zuko why she did this? And besides, who would believe Ozai, who would ever believe him if he tried to tell—”

 Zuko, some secrets blow up if shared, hence why you have an intelligence division in your court. I doubt that Iroh meant something like this. Also, giving this information to Ozai is still dangerous, because there are people in the Fire Nation that are loyal to him, and Ozai has the spite to use this against you. Also, there is a tiny reflection of Ozai in Zuko here—because Ozai must have thought the same about Azula. Who would ever believe her about what he did to her?

 “An odd stillness crept over Ozai’s face, but he said nothing.” Because he’s probably remembering how some of his interactions with Azula went and can probably tell where this is going.

 “‘You raped her,’ Ozai corrected flatly.” Yes, and Ozai would know, given that he is a sexual predator and is implied to have been one since his adolescence.

 Then we get that nasty admission from Ozai: “You think I trained her to bed so she could whore herself to you?!” Which confirms Ozai’s sexual abuse of Azula, which he justified by claiming that it would make her a more effective female ruler, with her using her sexuality as a weapon. Given that Azula was fourteen at the time, this explains her seductress characterization. This was present because that’s a common way to write a female villain, but, in universe, is incongruous with her age.

 “And Zuko remembered daggers of flame in her hands, when he overpowered her. She meant to do—she was trying to kill him.” I’m not sure that is true, given Azula’s own perspective on what happened, but I can see why Zuko would come to that conclusion.

 “He sounded proud—proud—of what he did.” I think some of the blame here definitely should go to the twin courtesans, given how their own abuse of Ozai, as hinted at in “The Road,” must have affected him. At best, he realizes that other people would consider what he did to Azula wrong, but considered it necessary to make her stronger. This has a dark echo in many adult fantasy narratives, where rape is often used to break and build up female characters.

 Ozai confirms that he trained Azula by committing sexual acts with her, which horrifies Zuko. During the resulting screaming match, though, Ozai makes a fair point: “And what was she to you? A prize to prove your worth? Spoils of war? When did you ever one look at her as your sister?” The answer to this is when she was a toddler and Zuko was five, before the adults in their lives poisoned their relationship. But this does underscore that Azula and Zuko’s relationship has been warped for a long time, and that this breakdown of their sibling bond is a massive contributing factor to the incest.

 Zuko also shows an ugly side of himself here: “I’ve done more for her than she ever deserved!” Which frankly isn’t true and is the kind of talk that contributes to Azula’s dehumanization.

 Ozai calls him out, saying that Zuko only helped Azula to make himself feel like the better person. While I think that is true, he then adds, “There is no such thing as true selflessness in this world,” which definitely isn’t. However, that does show us one of the cornerstones of Ozai’s worldview: that everyone is selfish and no one will do anything for you just to help you, so why not be selfish and take as much for yourself as you can? That, no doubt, is based deeply in the neglect he went through as a child. If I ever write the Aunt Tam AU, I wonder if that will remain true, given the friendship she and Ozai had when they were young? I suspect it will, since Tam would still go to war when Ozai is relatively young, but perhaps that is an argument they can have someday.  

 Anyway, Ozai wants to know how Zuko managed to “best” Azula, whether it was because she was drugged or had another mental breakdown, but Zuko is still shook from Ozai’s confession. He asks Ozai how he could do it and Ozai is super gross with his response: “Well, who else was going to teach her? Her mother?” This makes me want to reach into the cell and shake Ozai, because that isn’t how ANY of this is supposed to work. Azula should have fooled around with Chan and other interested adolescent suitors like a normal teenager, rather than getting any…practical experience…from an adult, period. That it was a parent who abused her makes it even worse, psychologically-speaking.

Zuko burns the hell out of Ozai in response, which is understandable under the circumstances, and will probably kill Ozai down the road, since his health is already fragile. As the guards drag Zuko away, Zuko realizes: “This look he’d caught on her face during [sex]—The distance in her eyes. Like she wasn’t even there. Like it wasn’t even him that she was seeing. Oh Agni. When she changed, those things she said to him… The things their father—said to her—”

 Yep. She wasn’t seeing you at the time, Zuko. She was reliving one of her encounters with Ozai, thanks to you triggering her by burning her and grabbing the back of her neck.

 Zuko says that he wants to return to the palace, and oddly, there is a palanquin waiting for him—no doubt sent by Mai, who guessed where he was going and knew he might need help getting back home. Again, I never caught this detail before, but it shows how much Mai knows him and how calculating she is as well, to the point of being able to predict this outcome. It’s no wonder that Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee went as far as they did together. Between the three of them, they had a ton of brains and social acumen to help them overcome any obstacles in their way. I don’t know if Ozai’s Angels will ever get back together, but this makes me wish they could someday.

 In any case, that finishes chapter nine! I hope to work on ten soon. Thank you as always for the read, Aurelia.

 Sincerely,

WiseAbsol

[anonforlackofabettername]

Sleepover ask: Re the Dragon Prince. I've seen lots of people who seem to think that Claudia is going to be the Azula of the series - others think she'll be the Zuko. What are your thoughts? Related, do you agree with the large part of the fandom which thinks that dark magic is evil/corrupting, or the smaller part that thinks it's not that black and white?

My only fandom interaction is memes and fanart so I'm pretty removed from any theories that are floating around. I have no clue what the fandom is saying and if what I'm saying matches up with something that's already been said. That goes for both parts of your ask, though I’ll get to the dark magic stuff later. Part of me isn't even sure what you mean by the Azula of the series or the Zuko since I’m missing that meta. The way I'm choosing to interpret it, is that by Azula you mean a character who is frighteningly competent, a direct antagonist to the main heroes, and is the lesser shadow of the main antagonist that nevertheless hangs over the main heroes more often and arguably does more damage. I'm choosing to interpret it that by Zuko you mean a character who is slightly incompetent, spends the majority of the early parts of the story as a direct antagonist and the shadow hanging over the heads of the main heroes, but by the end of the story undergoes a redemption arc and joins the main heroes, eventually turning on the main antagonist and without whom the main heroes would not be able to win in the end. 

(This is fucking long so I’m adding a read more)

That being said, I don't think Claudia fits either of these. Neither does Soren. I think they maybe might fit Zuko's role, but that's a bit of a stretch. And I'm gonna say why. Claudia despite being a lovable goof in personality is frighteningly competent when it comes to magic. However magic in this universe comes with a lot of complications and components. Thus we don't get to see her expertise as often as we saw it with Zuko and Azula's firebending. Also a thing to keep in mind is that Claudia and Soren are friends with Ezran and Callum. Soren has been told to kill the princes, true, same with Claudia being told to bring back the egg, but they both care for the boys in a way that Zuko and Azula couldn't because to them the avatar was a nameless figure. These people grew up together. They share relationships. Callum even has a crush on Claudia. Its not like the foe yay sexual tension of Katara/Zuko. These people up to the start of the series lived with each other and saw each other every day. Soren was training Callum and was captain of Harrow's guard. There is a familiarity that you can't ignore and which I think will be a major conflict for Soren specifically, when we finally get to that confrontation and he has to either kill them or let them go. Right now they are supposed to be on a mission to bring the princes home which is the exact opposite of both Zuko and Azula's missions to kill Aang. However, that being said, they are on a mission to kill Reyna. Soren and Claudia showing up is a threat because they are a) trying to stop the princes from returning the egg, and b) they're likely to try and kill Reyna in the process.

However, the main heroes don't even know that Soren and Claudia are trying to find them. Aside from running from their Aunt and the run in with Crow, they don't know who is following them and what will happen if they get found. So its not like in Avatar where every couple of episodes they had to bolt out of wherever the adventure of the week was because Zuko showed up and was hunting them. They're mostly trying to get the egg, now a baby dragon, back to the border and his mother as soon as possible.

And again you have to take the world itself into account. Within the world, elves are the bad guys to humans. They kicked humans out of Xadia. They've killed hundreds in the war. They literally assassinated Harrow, though it is unclear if Ezran and Callum have realized their dad is dead. In fact Callum was convinced that Reyna drank blood, thats how much elves are the boogeymen of the human kingdoms. Now we know that’s not true and the elves were justified for parts of it, and both sides are equally guilty.  If you want to compare the show to Avatar so much, then think of it this way. The human kingdoms are the fire nation, the elves the Earth Kingdom, and Ezran and Callum have just realized how shitty their people have been to the rest of the world. In this case, that makes Ezran and Callum Zuko in the middle of his redemption arc, when he’s working through his shit while traveling the earth kingdom to get to Ba Sing Se, and Soren and Claudia are Azula towards the end of that arc when she's like ‘help me kill the avatar and I'll make sure our dick of a dad lets you come home.’ Only in this case killing the avatar is returning the egg. Its not a great metaphor, and its been a while since I've watched avatar, but that's the feeling I get overall. Its Zuko realizing that the Fire Nation has done some fucked up shit and feeling helpless to fix it because he’s just an exiled prince.

I’ve gotten very off topic at this point. Um, I think going back to the Zuko or Azula thing, I think it depends. It depends on what happens when they finally catch up with the boys. If Claudia is Zuko, she’ll see Zym with the boys, recognize it as a sentient creature that deserves life and to be reunited with his mother and help the boys. If she’s Azula she’ll see Zym as a threat to Katolis that could one day rival Thunder and decide he needs killing. And of course there’s always other options, those are just two potential outcomes and they don’t even include Soren and what he decides to do about what his dad told him to do.

Your other question was about dark magic.  I don't know if dark magic is inherently corrupting. If it is, I think we’ll definitely see evidence within the show. In general when it comes to fiction magic is magic, no matter its source. Sometimes sources are inherently evil while others are inherently good but for the most part its meh and magic just is and how people use it makes it good or evil. However, in this case, you can't ignore where dark magic comes from. It doesn't come from negative thoughts and feelings like the dark side of the force. It doesn't come from shadows or darkness like half a dozen different magic systems.

Dark magic in TDP comes from the direct exploitation of creatures with inherent magic. To use dark magic you need a plant or creature with inherent magic that the mage then twists and exploits to do what they want. To find the Moonshadow elves Viren used a moth. For the switching spell Virin used the two-headed snake. Claudia crushed a bug to create fire at Harrow’s funeral. Nothing about dark magic is innate, nothing about it is natural, and in fact it comes from exploiting natural creatures and resources. You are using the life force of a living being and generally its dead afterwards.

This isn’t important for things like plants or bugs or whatever. Yeah Claudia killed a bug and used its life to summon fire. Whatever, who here hasn’t killed bugs before? It starts to matter however when you’ve got people like Ezran who can talk to animals and understand what they’re saying. I’m sure being a glowtoad there’s a spell that Claudia could cast using Bait. That’s not okay since Bait is a pet as well as a living creature but if it happened to another glowtoad I doubt anyone would care. But since Ezran can talk to the animals, he does care because he knows the animals are not consenting. It also starts to matter when you have magical creatures that are sapient and intelligent enough to put their foot down and say I will not let you exploit me like this.

So I don’t know if dark magic is inherently corrupting, but the idea of using creatures is an inherently dehumanizing and corrupting one. To dark mages, these animals, and even the elves and dragons and any other magical creatures that we haven’t met yet, are less than human and exploitable. To Virin and Claudia the egg wasn’t a baby, it wasn’t a person, the egg was a weapon. Because to them dragons, magical creatures, and the like are tools and weapons. This has got some serious race implications because the last time we thought of an entire class of people as tools we had slavery and it was legal.  

To use dark magic, you have to be in this mindset that people are tools to be exploited. I have no idea what dark magic using an elf’s life force or a dragon’s life force would look like. I’m sure its possible, and I’m sure I wouldn’t like the result. There is a reason the elves took one look at dark magic and said ‘not today satan’ and decided it was a severe enough crime to exile the entire human race from Xadia. They were not about to let themselves be used. There is a reason the elves are the boogeymen of Katolis and the rest of the human kingdoms and part of that is they’re the enemy and part of that is if they are monsters, if they aren’t human, then no one will care what abuses happen to them.

So no, I don’t think using dark magic is inherently corrupting. I don’t think the magic itself corrupts. However I do think that to use dark magic, one must look at the world through a corrupted lens. You must be okay with harming living creatures to accomplish what you want, and you must be okay exploiting others. Anyone who believes in the intelligence and personhood of all creatures and then uses dark magic is either ignorant or a hypocrite. When it comes to Claudia, I think she’s partially a hypocrite and partially doesn’t see how what she’s doing is harmful and wrong. She sees only the potential of dark magic, and hasn’t yet realized what she’s harming to get her way.

[themomentofdavyprentiss]

Could you please write your essay on the zutara, kataang and maiko analysis? I would like to hear what you have to say...

Yes! Okay so I recently reblogged this post about Yin and Yang and how Zutara does not represent it, but Mai/ko and Kat/aang do. As I said in my tags, as a zutara shipper I do have a lot of thoughts on the interpretations of these three ships written in this post. 

The interesting thing about this anti zutara analysis and the reason I reblogged it is that I almost completely agree with everything said about zutara.  

In the original post, OP goes on describe the two most popular ways that people associate yin and yang with zutara and refute them:

I have seen two flavors of the yin and yang argument for Zutara. The first is the somewhat grounded point that Katara is a female waterbender and represents yin, while Zuko a male firebender and represents yang. The second is the completely clueless assertion that Zuko is “dark” and therefore yin and Katara “light.” therefore yang.

I could not agree more. So many anti zutara shippers (and even a lot of casual zutara shippers) like to picture zutara as the good girl/bad boy ship and I really hate that because the ship is so much more complex than that. Katara is not a goody two shoes pure angel, and Zuko is not an evil badboy who needs Katara to redeem him. 

The first of these arguments, of female, water-associated, yin Katara and male, fire-associated, yang Zuko is true as it goes according to the traditional concepts of yin-yang, but it’s incomplete, outdated, and even dehumanizing in my opinion. It’s basically saying two people are right for each other based on what they are, characteristics that were inborn or cannot be changed, instead of who they are, their personality and individuality. Their actual personalities tell a very different story, as I will discuss below…

…Also frankly, the parts about masculine yang and feminine yin are the products of heavily sexist societies from two millennia ago. They reflect archaic gender roles where men are expected to be aggressive and assertive and women to be submissive and supportive….

…That’s why I don’t like the “female waterbender and male firebender are yin and yang = instant romance!” formulation. It’s sexist and heteronormative, and literalizes what were meant to be symbolic representations…

…If you’re actually interested in applying philosophical yin-yang to individuals and their relationships, it may help to think of yang as “drama” and yin as “chill.” Yang is starting things, getting in people’s faces, wearing your heart on your sleeve, raised voices. Yin is resolving things, calming down, contemplation, quiet conversation or just silent contentment. Everyone has some drama and some chill, but some people have more of one or the other. If one person in a relationship brings tons of drama, it strikes a good balance if the other can bring the chill. In this understanding of yin and yang, it should be clear Zuko and Katara are both drama llamas, that is yang ascendant. “But female waterben-” shush. Katara is more than her gender and element. Also the gender and element are symbolic representations of yin anyway, not the actual thing.

Based on what OP has written (I recommend reading the original post, even though the quote above is very long, I cut a lot of good stuff out for length) I completely agree that Katara and Zuko are both Yang. Up to this point in the essay, I 100% agree with everything written about Zutara. 

Here is where I start to disagree…

Zuko and Katara, then, don’t personify the yin-yang balance at all. They both have too much fire, too much drama, and that’s why their interactions can spin out of control and bring out the worst in both. Remember “The Southern Raiders?” Where Katara set out to murder a war criminal and Zuko egged her on? It was Aang’s calming words, his chill, his yin that ultimately moderated her rage and helped her remember her better self. Aang is the yin to Katara’s yang.

Countless essays and analysis’ have been written about how ‘The Southern Raiders’ does not, in fact, bring out the worst in both Zuko and Katara, and so I’m not going to directly respond to the above statement. I will respond to the statement about Aang and Katara, however. 

If you take Katara and Aang’s individual personalities, traits, and mindsets, I absolutely agree that Kat/aang could be a wonderful representation of Yin and Yang. Aang’s role as Avatar is to be a mediator and to bring peace. Keeping in mind Katara’s fiery personality and emotional drive, I think that the two could have had a really amazing balance if written well. The issue, however, is that we don’t see this at all, which can all be boiled down to the fact that Aang doesn’t understand Katara. Let’s look at the scene between Aang and Katara in ‘The Southern Raiders’:

Aang: Umm… and what exactly do you think this would accomplish? Katara: (sighs and shakes her head) I knew you wouldn’t understand. (She begins to walk away)Aang: (Cut to a close up of Katara as Aang and Sokka look on behind her) Wait, stop, I do understand. You’re feeling unbelievable pain and rage. How do you think I felt about the sandbenders when they stole Appa? How do you think I felt about the Fire Nation when I found out what happened to my people?Zuko: (off screen) She needs this, (everyone turn their eyes towards him) Aang. This is about getting closure and justice. Aang: I don’t think so. I think it’s about getting revenge. Katara: (off screen) Fine! (Cut to an angry and frustrated Katara) Maybe it is. Maybe that’s what I need. Maybe that’s what he deserves. Aang: Katara, you sound like Jet. Katara: (defensively) It’s not the same. Jet attacked the innocent. This man, he’s a monster. 

These are not calming words. Rather than see Katara’s determination and anger and calm her, Aang riles her up even more. He doesn’t try to understand where she is coming from. He just assumes that he already knows. And then he delegitimizes her need for closure. Rather than try to empathize, Aang tells her she is wrong and refuses to see where she is coming from. He even goes so far as to accuse her of being a murderer. 

The ultimate irony here, I think, is that when Appa was stolen, rather than show the sandbenders forgiveness, Aang entered the Avatar State and almost killed them. He would have, too, had Katara not been there to calm him down and be his yin.  

The way Aang tries to be there for Katara mimics how Mai tries to be there for Zuko. Let’s look at this Mai/ko conversation in ‘Nighmares and Daydreams’:

Mai: Zuko, it’s just a dumb meeting. Who cares? Zuko: I don’t. Mai: Well good. You shouldn’t. Why would you even want to go? (Cut to shot of Zuko and Mai standing in the window, the Fire Nation Palace before them. Mai puts her arm around Zuko) Just think about how things went to the last war meeting you went to. Zuko: (sighs)I know.  

Zuko has been completely distraught about not being invited to the war meeting. This is a huge deal to him, he wants to be the perfect son to Ozai, and he feels like a disappointment and an oversight. Mai can’t understand why this is a big deal to Zuko, and rather than try to understand, she invalidates it and acts like it’s the stupidest thing in the world to be upset over. On top of that, she throws in his face one of the biggest shames of his life, all for the sake of making him feel bad for caring. 

Let’s compare these two scenes to two scenes of Katara and Zuko supporting each other. First, Zuko supporting Katara in ‘The Southern Raiders’

Katara: But, we were too late. When we got there, the man was gone. (voice cracks slightly) And so was she. Zuko: (Cut to a sorrowful Zuko) Your Mother was a brave woman.Katara: (Cut to a front shot of Katara as she touches her necklace) I know.

Katara just opened up to Zuko about one of the most traumatic moments of her life: the murder of her mother. Zuko doesn’t make this about him; he doesn’t talk about the disappearance of his own motheR. He doesn’t try to defend the Fire Nation, his home or tell her not all Fire Nation people. He hears what happened to her, accepts how awful this was for her, and affirms that her mother was a wonderful woman. 

Now for Katara supporting Zuko in ‘The Old Masters’:

Katara: Are you okay? Zuko: No, (turning his head away from Katara) I’m not okay. My Uncle hates me, I know it. (Katara lowers herself to the ground) He loved me and supported me in every way he could and I still turned against him. How can I even face him? (Cut to a sideview of a regretful Zuko with Katara looking on.)Katara: Zuko, you’re sorry for what you did, right? Zuko: More sorry than I’ve been about anything in my entire life. Katara: (raises her shoulders) Then he’ll forgive you. (Zuko looks at her) He will. 

Zuko considers betraying Iroh his greatest regret. Iroh is the father figure Zuko never had growing up, and one of the most important people in his life. Right now Zuko is terrified out of his mind that the only adult figure who has ever loved him and supported him is now done with him forever. He is convinced Iroh will reject Zuko, and he doesn’t even want to face his uncle. Here enters Katara. She sees the regret and fear in Zuko. She knows there isn’t anything to worry about, that it’s ridiculous to think that Iroh wouldn’t forgive him. But Katara doesn’t say any of this. She doesn’t tell him to suck it up, or that he’s being dumb. She allows Zuko to reaffirm his sincerity and then reassures him that everything will be okay. 

In these interactions, you can see that even though Zuko and Katara’s personalities are traditionally ‘yang’, when they come together like this, they find a perfect balance. They don’t egg each other on or bring out the worst in each other, they bring out the best, most vulnerable, and their truest selves. 

This is what I love about zutara. It isn’t about ‘opposites attract’ or ‘good girl saves bad boy’. It’s about two people with very similar, but ultimately complementary, personalities coming together on equal playing grounds and supporting each other in the most positive way they can because the level of understanding between the two goes beyond words. It’s just natural for them to know exactly what the other needs. 

[anarchistfemmoire]

Propaganda in ATLA & LOK :

Can I just say I love the propaganda in ATLA and LOK? "The Boy in the Iceberg" and "The Adventures of Nuktuk, Hero of the South" are both such interesting bits of worldbuilding in the Avatar universe that I don't really think are talked about enough, at least in the lense of what they both tell us about the worlds they've been made in, the views of the people, how things are seen.

And because I'm a nerd, and also spent a lot of AP history classes analyzing propaganda, I'm going to do it again now. ALSO: CW - I'm going to mention racism in relation to the propaganda.

PART ONE: THE EMBER ISLAND PLAYERS

Okay, so what I'm going to be doing is breaking down the society and the stereotypes of the people who made the show, IE, giving an example of what Fire Nation society sees the world as in general. Now, we have been told how they view the world - and how they seem themselves as superior - but I actually think a lot of things in the play are incredibly interesting, especially because of what we already know. It's also one of the few examples of Bryke not skirting around the racialization of other peoples that are inherent aspects of imperialism and colonialism, which is great.

I'm going to break it down by character.

Aang: I like that it lets us know, right off the bat, that anti-Air Nomad stereotypes probably feminized them to an extreme. It's also funny to see that such a serious culture, that is made fun of for being so serious in the Kyoshi books, proves how serious they are, by making it clear they look down on what they consider "carefree" attitudes, mocking Aang for having one. This especially culminates in seeing how they portray the events of the Siege of the North, seeing Aang as reckless and relishing in what, to them, was probably a very dark event in their history, and something they probably hadn't recovered from by them. The Avatar is weak and careless and callous towards human life, and that's why you should cheer when he dies at the end.

Sokka: His is a little less in-depth. He's weak, stupid and starving, and his portrayed is somewhat reminiscent of a minstrel show - just to laugh at a "stupid, animalistic brown man." It's very clear, that they really look down on Water Tribe men, and that's probably because they want to show people how "dumb" they are, meanwhile, the Southern Expedition Forces have humiliated the Fire Nation multiple times.

Katara: Hers is probably the most offensive, which is most accurate to real life - WOC are always treated the worse due to the intersectionalism of racism and misogyny. Anyway, she's very hypersexualized, and her "emotions" are seen as a bad thing. She's also portrayed as very stupid, but it seems a lot more viscious then with Sokka's, which was just supposed to be 'entertaining.'

Zuko: It seems to me that they want to portray him as cowardly and incompetent, make him seem less like someone you'd genuinely want on your country's throne. He's cruel to his elders (his treatment of Iroh), he disregards his home's traditions (growing out his hair when that shaved look is meant to be a punishment), and he's incredibly weak (he never wins fights). They also seem to want to imply he's a race traitor by having him show romantic interest for Katara, which is another interesting thing about hers; they're mocking him, by dehumanizing her.

Toph: They portray her as a man because, unlike Air Nomads, Earth Kingdom people are hyper-masculinized. Even a little girl is the same threat as a full grown man to them. I also do think the theory that no one wanted to admit that they had their ass handed to them by a little girl might be partially responsible.

It's just a really interesting (and disturbing) look into how the Fire Nation sees other races.

PART TWO: NUKTUK

I think the first thing I love about Nuktuk is the way it shows us that, the same way Nazi imagery has affected western cinematography, Fire Nation imagery has affected their world's.

That deadass looks like Ozai, and they're using it as a way to immediately inspire fear and incite hatred. Perfect. Invoking a still relatively recent event to stir people up is exactly what a propaganda film would do. His scene where he crowns himself and declares his intentions to rule the whole world, was also clearly meant to evoke Ozai.

Also reminiscent of real-world propaganda films is the interspacing of real combat footage with a fake compelling narrative, as a microcosm of all the horror that is happening, making the audience sympathetic, while keeping them engaged.

Another thing very reminiscent of our world, is having Nuktuk beat the shit out of the villains, sort of like Captain America during WWII. Seeing as Nuktuk was made by a SWT man (we'll get to that), I imagine he put that in as a way to make the audience feel better about what was happening. They couldn't go punch Unalaaq in the face themselves, so Nuktuk will.

Nuktuk of the North is clearly modelled after Nanook of the North, but I think that's in title only, considering I doubt Varrick would spread misinformation about his own culture.

The sexualization of Nuktuk and the Water Tribe in general is interesting. I imagine it's from just how pervasive the Fire Nation's sexualization of the Water Tribe, and the world's view of them being "uncivilized" compared to themselves. I don't know if it's mean to say that Varrick has sort of forgotten his roots in his attempt to assimilate into the United Republic or if it's trying to say that he knew it would be the only way to get people to see it. (Obviously, it's just meant to be funny, but that's a whole other topic.)

Finally, the fact that Varrick used it to promote his products is a pretty good satire on capitalism finding even the most tragic events to exploit for money. As Varrick himself said, "If you can't make money during a war, then you flat-out cannot make money."

I know both of these are just meant to be funny, to break up some of the more serious stuff, and to sort of recap what's been going on, but from a Watsonian perspective (as in, in universe), I think it's a fascinating study into worldbuilding that I'm not even sure Bryke fully intended to make.

[wiseabsol]

WA Reviews “Dominion” by Aurelia le, Chapter 4: Found

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6383825/4/Dominion

Summary: For the Fire Nation royal siblings, love has always warred with hate. But neither the outward accomplishment of peace nor Azula’s defeat have brought the respite Zuko expected. Will his sister’s plans answer this, or only destroy them both?

Content Warnings: This story contains discussions and depictions of child abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and incest. This story also explores the idea that Zuko’s redemption arc (and his unlearning of abuse) is not as complete as the show suggested, and that Azula is not a sociopath (with the story having a lot of sympathy for her). If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, I would strongly recommend steering clear of this story and my reviews of it.  

Note: Because these were originally posted as chapter reviews/commentaries, I will often be talking to the author in them (though sometimes I will also snarkily address the characters). While I’ve also tried not to spoil later events in the story in these reviews, I would strongly recommend reading through chapter 28 before reading these, just to be safe.

Now on to chapter 4!

CHAPTER 4: FOUND

Hey there, Aurelia. Please excuse my delay on chapter four’s review. I spent the past week in a pit of job-related despair, but I have a bit more energy tonight, so onwards we go! So we start this chapter with a flashback to just after Zuko was burned by his father. I’d never really considered the possibility of Azula staying at Zuko’s bedside – that seemed more like something Iroh would have done – though for all I know, Iroh could have visited Zuko while he was unconscious, and is just away at the time of this meeting. I do like having Azula there, though – especially when she opens with lines like, “You know, it’s stimulating conversation like this that I think I’ll miss the most” which made me laugh. Okay, I never noticed before – for some reason I’d been assuming that Azula was sitting and reading at Zuko’s beside – but her laying in the bed beside his and reading that way is a neat mental image to me. It’s also better in terms of Azula’s characterization. “She had started wearing makeup a few months ago. It bothered him for some reason he could not pin down.” – That’s because she’s eleven, and while children might play with cosmetics, that’s usually exactly what they are doing: playing and pretending to be adults for brief periods of time. The use of makeup on a regular basis, on the other hand, is usually done to try to look more adult to other adults/to conform to society’s expectations of what a grown woman should look like. It’s possible, of course, that Azula entered puberty at eleven, but she should probably still look girlish at this point. As such, her using makeup like this isn’t justified/appropriate yet, and acts as a subtle warning sign to how Azula is being groomed. “That this was not a nightmare. This was his life now.” – Oh the feels. The horror Zuko feels here will, I think, be paralleled by Azula’s in chapter twelve. “When had she ever shown mercy before?” – Careful, Zuko, your bias is showing. “[ . . . ] to unwind it with the fine concentration that made her such a natural in their calligraphy class. Just like in everything else.” – While Azula no doubt has some innate talent, I feel like her considerable skills mostly derive from hard work. Zuko thinking of those skills as being all “natural” to her implicitly dismisses the effort she put into them, so this may be one of the ways his jealousy expresses itself. “He could think of no one more fitting to reopen a wound.” – Oh screw you, Zuko. “But his sister peeled the bandage away slowly, with a care he thought of as so unlike her that for the first time in living memory, she almost reminded him of-” – Ugh, comparing her to Ursa like this is just cruel. Then he adds, “He couldn’t think of what else he’d lost,” which makes me grumble, because Azula totally also didn’t lose her mother back then. “Well, someone’s vainer than I ever guessed” – Oh lol. The following banter between the siblings is delightful, but then we hit this line: “But the warm light shining through the painted glass softened her features, and Zuko remembered how people would sometimes say that he and his sister looked alike. He thought they wouldn’t say that, anymore” – which is very effective mood whiplash, all in all. “The only people who /ask/ for mercy, are those too weak to deserve it.” – Ozai’s life lessons are not child appropriate, or even people appropriate. Lines like this make you see how Ozai drove Azula to the point where she honestly thought that trust was for fools and that fear was the only reliable way to ensure loyalty. “You haven’t earned the /right/ to want. You haven’t earned the right to an opinion.” – Considering how Azula keeps repeating that what she wants doesn’t matter, it’s easy to imagine that Ozai said something similar to her at one point, or at least made it clear that she had to earn his favor before he’d take her words/desires into consideration. No one, especially not a child, should have to meet those kind of demands, though. The discussion about how Zuko interrupted before his father could approve or veto the general’s plan, which indicated that he didn’t trust his father to do the right thing, is something I’d never considered before. I personally don’t think Ozai would blink an eye at losing soldiers to gain a tactical advantage, but since there was no confirmation of that, Zuko seemingly slighted his father’s honor without cause. Ozai’s response to that was entirely out of proportion, but given his position, it fell into the realm of social acceptability, even if some characters expressed their doubts about that later. Here's another fun tidbit, and by fun I mean painful: “You’re lying.” - “If /you/ say so.” “Until he remembered that she hadn’t hugged him, or even consented to be hugged, since before their mother….” – Azula hasn’t been hugged for /three years/? That’s horrifying. Someone (namely Ty Lee) needs to fix that immediately. “‘You really don’t feel anything? That must be nice.’ Zuko looked up to see something like a shadow fall over her eyes.” – Um, what exactly is /that/ referring to? Training injuries? Burns? Backhands to the face? Okay, probably not that last one, but I have a theory on that later that I’ll discuss when we reach chapter seven. Zuko doesn’t even ask about what she means here, though, instead focusing on himself again. Of course he does. (Sigh.) Azula touching Zuko’s shoulder and the base of his spine unsettles me, by the way, given that touching the back of the neck often equates to a “bad touch” in this story. “He hated it when she tried to act like a normal person.” – Oh shut up, Zuko. Then Zuko learns about his exile, accuses Azula of lying about it, and we get another nice line from her: “Lies are supposed to be /plausible,/ dumdum.” It’s both amusing and true; lying all of the time wouldn’t be an effective tactic, especially in the Fire Nation’s poisonous court. “Yes, Azula! Any one of them, /anyone/ but /you!/” – I’m pretty sure Azula was hurt by that outburst, given her guarded expression and her cutting tone of voice afterwards. “You’re expecting what, /congratulations/ [for hating me]? It’s not exactly hard to do.” – Azula! That’s a terrible thing to say about yourself! We love you, Azula! We actually really do, or else we would not be reading this story, since you’re the protagonist here (I guess Zuko…sort of…counts…too. Both of them acts as protagonists and antagonists depending on the situation/who is narrating at the time). “He had never wanted to hurt her so much in his entire life. And the clear certainty that he /couldn’t/ - because she was simply better, and beloved of their father – only made him want it more.” – Good lord, this man should never have been entrusted with Azula’s well-being post-finale. Tension between siblings is inevitable, but Zuko’s thoughts here are uncomfortably violent. Him declaring Azula a monster, which only dehumanizes her further, doesn’t help. Her response to him is admittedly satisfying, but also incredibly awful at the same time. These two need so much therapy and we’re still in the prologue. Zuko nearly chucks the book she brought at her, but then realizes what it is and starts reading it instead. Azula undoubtedly ordered the servants to bring him other books on the Avatar as well, but Zuko doesn’t realize that, and so doesn’t realize that Azula was, in fact, trying to help him. Her doing so doesn’t help her at all, either. As long as Zuko remains in exile, she’ll be heir to the throne. She should be trying to hinder him, but because she cares about her brother, she does the opposite instead. Zuko, unfortunately, takes her harsh words and veneer at face value, and so doesn’t connect the dots and see that. We then move forward in time to Azula screaming, “Oh no /no/ NO! What will - /Father/ say? /What will Father say?!/” – and I cringe back at how nightmarish that is. Dear lord do I not want to think about how Ozai would react to Azula losing her bending. A large part of Azula’s value to him rests on it, thanks to firebending being a requisite to being Fire Lord, for one thing. Azula’s terror here is entirely understandable, even if no one is absorbing the implications of how scared she is right now. “He’ll /never forgive/” is one of the things she says, and what they should get from that is that Ozai mistreated Azula too, even if they don’t know how. Being scared of disappointing a parent is normal; being scared of one’s parent is not. “How it almost made him miss Azula - /almost/” – I think you’re lying to yourself, Zuko – “because at least she still treated him like himself. She’d been a pain in the ass, but she’d /been there./ She was the only one who never flinched for him, and now… He couldn’t even look at her.” – He’s such a coward, but at least he admits that to himself. I can’t believe he just walks away from her. Who /does/ that? “When he thought it was his punishment to hear her now and always, because he hadn’t heard her until it was too late….” – Uuuuggggh the pain! After this scene, we move on to a reparations conference, which Zuko is not paying much attention to, because he’s expecting to get word any day now that Azula has died. The Earth Kingdom representatives, particularly General How, are being especially prickly at this meeting. Among other reasons, they are angry because they think that Azula is faking her mental illness to avoid being tried and executed for her “war crimes.” The Earth Kingdom is the only one really upset about these crimes. Pakku, in contrast, has some amusing lines (especially coming from him) in which he points out that Azula’s crimes are no worse than what some of the now pardoned Fire Nation soldiers did during the war, and Shinu points out that the only reason the Earth Kingdom is upset is because they were bested by a girl. Their pride what the only thing damaged during the bloodless coup at Ba Sing Se, but that is enough for the Earth Kingdom to want Azula's head. Of the nations in A:TLA, the Earth Kingdom's culture is probably the most overt in its sexism (though it shows up in the other groups too), and this has led to some ugly consequences where Azula is concerned. Had Iroh conquered Ba Sing Se, I can't help but think that they wouldn't be responding quite like this – because Iroh, after all, is male, and was fighting them in an open and perhaps more "honorable" way in their eyes. Even though Iroh's siege and hypothetical conquering would have led to thousands of more people dying, it was not as "deceptive" and "underhanded" as Azula's methods, even though her methods ultimately spared thousands of lives. Ty Lee arrives, and Zuko thinks: "Because as long as she didn't say it, he could pretend Azula was still alive, and there was still a chance for her to be something more than one more life their father ruined. For them to be something more than bitter rivals and deadly enemies..." – First, ouch; second, do you really know what you want from your sister, Zuko? What would a healthy relationship between you two even look like? It's so poisoned at this point that it's hard to imagine, and that's not even counting what happens later in this story. Okay, so you randomly put in here that spidersnakes are a thing that exists in the A:TLA world, which makes me incredibly glad that I live in this world instead. What would those things even look like? (Shudders.) Anyway, it turns out that Azula realized that she needed to eat to regain the strength to bend, so she's decided to stop starving herself! Hooray! "Be sure to tell Mai the good news, she'll be so relieved!" – Yes, I'm sure /that/ will be how Mai reacts. You keep thinking the best of people, Ty Lee. The conversation between Aang and Zuko is heartwarming, though we get this exchange during it: "'I know it's hard to think clearly, when someone you love is in danger.' Zuko blinked once in surprise, and Aang added, 'I mean, she's your sister.' He looked at the Fire Lord with an intentness unusual to him. 'You /must/ love her, right?' Zuko frowned, and let his hand drop from Aang's shoulder. 'What are you getting at?'" - This effectively highlights how /off/ the relationship between Zuko and Azula is: that his desperation to save her wasn't something he recognized or possibly even considered to have love as its source. "It was a new and wonderful awareness for him, that his friends could make jokes about his sister. That they could find her funny sometimes instead of just sad…or horrifying." – I'm not sure how this makes me feel, though its somewhere between heartwarming and sad I think. "He had named his uncle Azula's legal guardian in the interim, after taking a hard, honest look at the situation that was long overdue. [ . . . ] He was too close to this to think clearly, to make the decisions that needed to be made for her care." – No kidding, Zuko. "When he thought how close he'd come to killing her…. He could not live with that on his conscience." – That faint wailing sound you hear is me screaming from across time and space. Oh /Zuko/…. "Iroh had always seen her for exactly what she was, and Zuko knew his honor was beyond question." – (Snorts.) Uh-huh, sure. "[ . . . ] his usual nightly send-off when Mai wasn't available…." – Okay, now I'm laughing. "He was the one in control here, even if that was easy to forget when it came to Azula. He was the Fire Lord. It was not for /him/ to be afraid of her, or anything she might have to say." – You keep telling yourself that, buddy. "Its panels depicted two dragons, one red and one blue, fighting viciously with teeth and claws and flames. Or maybe mating. He supposed it was hard to tell, with dragons." – OMINOUS FORESHADOWING IS OMINOUS. Zuko just unintentionally summed up his relationship with Azula in this story, even if he doesn't know it yet. "Didn't she think he would /tell her/ if he found their mother after all this time?" – No. No she does not think you would tell her, Zuko. Of course she doesn't. He then thinks that Azula is asking him about their mother to torment him, and I groan again. I'm pretty sure you're not Azula's most pressing concern/focus right now, Zuko, as much as you'd like to be. Zuko ends the chapter on that note of moping. By far my favorite parts of rereading this one were the first flashback scene, the discussion of why the Earth Kingdom is so ornery about Azula, and that OMINOUS FORESHADOWING. I'm looking forward to going over the next and last of the prologue chapters, though I'm not sure when I'll be able to do so. Things will be busy for me over the next few weeks…possibly longer because my classes are starting next month. Oh my god. That's a terrifying thought. Keep me in your prayers to Agni, Aurelia! Until next time, WiseAbsol