#did this become partial Iroh slander?

[pastabrand]

Sometimes I lay awake at night thinking about how fragmented Zuko and Azula are because of their family. With all the constant abuse for literally all their lives, I’m not surprised they turned to unhealthy coping mechanisms (Zuko with anger to hide any perceptions of ‘weakness’ and Azula perfectionism to an extreme degree). They were raised to believe that love was conditional, something to be earned through a rigid set of rules and expectations rather than something they should always have no matter what. How often did Zuko work himself past exhaustion to achieve even a scrap of Ozai’s affection? How much did Azula unintentionally harm herself to stay in his good graces? This can extend to people like Mai/Ty Lee and Iroh. Did Azula ever obsess over her actions to ensure Mai and Ty Lee would still like her before adapting to fear tactics instead? Did Zuko ever hide in the ship to prevent Iroh from seeing him do something that Ozai would’ve punished him for? And most importantly, do they ever learn to overcome this? I know the show has Zuko on the path to recovery, but does he ever actually recover? Does he ever understand, in its entirety, that he has Iroh’s unconditional love? Or, an even better question, does Iroh actually give Zuko unconditional love? Who’s to say that Iroh wouldn’t try to move to someone like Azula should he see that Zuko is inadequate to rule the Fire Nation. Iroh was raised in the same family and same standards after all. There’s nothing to indicate that he’s any different since Zuko’s never had competition for Iroh’s favor.