#but because the show is running on misogynistic stereotypes about nagging women it's played as a joke

[sokkastyles]

Mai: The truth is, I guess I don’t know you. All I get is a letter? You could have at least looked me in the eye when you ripped out my heart.

I’ve seen some people say that Zuko was in the wrong here because what he does by breaking up with Mai via letter is the equivalent of breaking up via text message. The show tells us that Zuko broke up with her via letter because he didn’t want to get her involved for her own safety. However, there's another layer to it.

This is the equivalent of breaking up with your girlfriend via text message if you and your girlfriend were part of a violent terrorist organization and your entire relationship was founded on being part of that organization, and your girlfriend was best friends with your sister who is second in command of that organization. Oh, and the reason you broke up was because you realized that you did not believe in the ideals of the organization anymore, and literally had to defend yourself from being killed in order to leave. Zuko's not just protecting Mai here, but himself. His whole relationship to her is part of a life where he was abused and leaving the relationship is something he needs to do to realize his own agency. That's not Mai's fault, but it is what it is.

Not only is talking to Mai about this putting her in danger, but Zuko has every reason to believe, given all of his previous interactions with her, that she would not have responded well if he had had a conversation with her about it, that she would see his defection as traitorous and that his life might be in danger, considering how she reacts in this scene and won’t listen when Zuko tries to explain his motives. Zuko has changed his views of the fire nation, but Mai hasn’t, and their conflicting values are shown throughout the time they spend together. And Mai might be getting fed up with Azula and definitely a victim of that relationship, but as of “Nightmares and Daydreams,” which was the last time Mai and Zuko spoke, Mai was still a close confidant of Azula, as evidenced by her casually mentioning a war meeting that Azula brought up that Zuko did not even know about. Zuko has every reason to believe that when push came to shove, Mai would choose Azula, her childhood friend, over a boyfriend whose ideals she does not share, nor does she understand. Which might not have been true, but Zuko spent most of the relationship with her unsure of what she wanted from him and whether she actually cared about him, and given his history of abuse, and hers, I can definitely see why he would think that.

To be fair, I think part of the reason that Mai is so blindsided by it is because Zuko doesn’t try to talk to her about it, because as I said before, Zuko throughout his relationship with Mai was trying to be what he thought he should be. It’s hard to blame him for that, though, considering that Zuko’s whole fire nation identity is tied to being conditioned by abuse to believe that who he really was wasn’t good enough. Because of this, he tends to not handle personal confrontations very well and has a fear of rejection. It took incredible bravery to stand up to his father, but in some ways I think it was easier because he was no longer looking for affirmation from his father. A confrontation with Mai would have been harder in this respect because he still cares about her. When she reads his words from the letter aloud to him, he’s literally hiding his face from her and curling in on himself. I understand why Mai wishes that her boyfriend had “looked her in the eye” when he broke up with her but I also understand why he couldn’t, and forcing the confrontation in this way is not going to help the situation.

He’s also sitting in an interrogation chair for added symbolism.

Which brings me to the fact that when this confrontation happens, Zuko has been arrested and imprisoned by Mai’s uncle, who expressed to Zuko his desire to punish him for breaking up with his niece. Then Zuko is dragged into an interrogation room while screaming “I didn’t do anything!” with no idea why he’s being brought there (other than the warden threatening him for breaking up with his niece.)

Mai says she knew that Zuko was there because her uncle is the warden, and given that in “The Boiling Rock, Part 1″ the warden recognized and spoke to Zuko personally after he was caught, we can infer that Mai’s uncle took the information of Zuko’s whereabouts either straight to his niece, and then Mai told Azula, or he told Ozai/Azula and Mai agreed to go along for the ride to pay a visit to her ex boyfriend. So that she could save him from imprisonment, torture, and/or death? No, so that she could yell at him. Which actually confirms that Zuko was right not to tell her when he was going to leave the fire nation.

I said before that I do not mind at all that Mai was sent to track down Zuko before book three. Childhood friends/crushes/acquaintances to enemies to lovers makes for some very interesting story conflict. (And we were robbed of getting to see Mai and Zuko actually fight each other somewhere during book two, which would have been a cool fight, as well as possibly fleshing out their relationship by including some dialogue about how these two characters feel about seeing each other again for the first time after three years.) But what matters is how people treat each other within the bounds of a relationship, so Mai going along with Azula to capture her ex who will either be a) dragged back, and this time with no chance of going back as an ally but as a prisoner, or b) killed, because she’s pissed at him for breaking up with her is not very compelling if the writers want us to believe in this relationship. It's hard to blame her for her and Zuko's bad relationship because Zuko entered into the relationship based on the lies he was telling himself about who he should be, but that also doesn't mean that the relationship should continue or that it would make sense that it would. And even in this scene the show is using her in the ways they use Azula and Ozai, as someone Zuko has to leave behind in order to become the person he is supposed to become.

He has to physically lock her in the cell to get away from her. Which as I also said before, is one of the few times he is active about the relationship. And when he does, he looks her in the eye.

...And walks away.

It’s not necessarily that I think Mai is a bad person, it’s that even in this episode, which is supposedly her redemption, she’s presented as an obstacle to Zuko’s growth as a character, which does a disservice to her character as well especially when we are supposed to believe they should end up together. The show never really seems sure about what they want her to be.

She also seems to think that she gets to define the terms of the relationship, but that he doesn’t have any say at all. Remember that in “The Beach,” she broke up with him. He was being a jerk but he also told her that he felt she didn’t care about anything (which really meant that he felt she didn’t care about him), and that wasn’t addressed at all. She decides by the end of the same episode that they’re dating again without either of them resolving their issues with each other.

When Mai betrays Azula to save Zuko, I initially thought that the reason she did it was because she realized that she loved him and was willing to save his life even if it meant sacrificing her relationship with him. That caring about him didn’t necessarily mean she was entitled to a relationship with him. “I’m saving the jerk who dumped me.” This fits nicely with the themes of the fire nation plotline, Zuko realizing his own agency to become a better version of himself (instead of becoming a worse version of himself to please his father or a pretty girl), and the theme that you can’t control other people, that love is better than selfishness, that permeates Azula’s story and also extends to Mai and Zuko, who both try to control each other at various points.

Then she came back in the finale and announced to him that they were back in a relationship and he was not allowed to break up with her ever again, so there goes that, I guess!