#i don't want discourse btw i don't engage with fandom drama usually

[my-tatteredwingsof-freedom]

God the amount of tiktok/twitter people who severely misunderstand Azula as a character is so exhausting. Did we even watch the same show?

Azula was a victim of abuse just as much as Zuko but in an entirely different way. Ozai pit Azula and Zuko against each other because he realized he could do something with Azula that he couldn't with Zuko; he could mold her into the next version of himself. Azula one hundred percent was most like Ozai even when she was young. Zuko, on the other hand, held all the traits Ozai, and the Fire Nation as a whole, believed were weak; he was compassionate and curious, he believed in being fair and just, and he never saw sense in pointless death which we saw in the flashback of how he got his scar.

Azula, however, was young and already feeling like she was being separated as "different" by their mother; Ursa was not a perfect parent by any means. And Ozai gave Azula the praise and affection that he refused to give Zuko. Ozai celebrated her while Ursa shied away from her. Can you imagine being a little kid and knowing that your own mother viewed you as an outsider, a monster?

Like, i dunno, but parents favoring one over the other and pitting them against each other in everything at such young ages definitely feels abusive to me. Mentally and emotionally. And besides, we KNOW that the Fire Nation's teachings and histories were manipulative; their own historical texts they taught in SCHOOLS were WRONG. It isn't hard to figure that Ozai's parenting, even if he valued his daughter more, would be just as twisted and wrong. What would he have done if Azula had turned on him? If she had spoken out against him or did exactly what Zuko did in the war council? Ozai wouldn't have hesitated to hurt her to prove a point. He already did it to one kid. If Azula stopped being useful to him, stopped trying to please him and be the best at everything, there would be no way Ozai would have kept treating her like she was his pride and joy.

Azula was a victim of abuse and was groomed to become Ozai's successor. The amount of pressure that puts on a kid, especially one who from a young age already felt like a monster in the eyes of a parent that was supposed to love them, is one hundred percent abusive. Azula was the perfect child and it cost her everything. No, she wasn't a perfect person nor a good one. But she was a victim to not just Ozai, but the Fire Nation's corruption as a whole. She loved her brother. That was confirmed by the creators a long time ago; Azula loved Zuko more than anything but she also loved being better than him, than everyone, because that was what gained her their father's favor. It gave her the sense of satisfaction and the security of a parents love.

To see her be reduced to nothing but an insane and heartless killer is so exhausting. What's that quote? "My father is the worst man alive and I am his favorite daughter"?.

Azula was fourteen. She wasn't a good person by far but no child is born evil. But evil is a hundred percent taught.