#i mean. she's a villain and atla is children's media. no way she would ever escape her 'punishment' after what she did

[harrowscore]

finished atla and thoroughly enjoyed it... but what i'm going to do without my girl azula now?? her ending was so sad (and yet exactly what i expected)

[atlafan]

Jordannnnn this is the same anon from a few days ago who’s rewatching atla and good god I LOVE THE BEACH. It’s insane to me that throughout book 2 these characters are genuinely so evil (Azula taking down grown men left and right like it’s NOTHING) and then here’s this episode that makes you love them all so much and understand the pain that each of them is dealing with. To see her act so awkward and confused about how to be a normal teenager just makes you realize that since she was born she’s essentially just been an extension of Ozai and was robbed of her childhood, rejected by her mother…like of course it doesn’t justify any of what she’s doing, but it does explain it. I think this episode is a great example of why this show is often thought of as more than just “kids media”—the fact that they could have easily made Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee just evil villains but they CHOSE to humanize them. In a lot of ways, it even goes to show the true evils of war and imperialism—the adults in power will stop at nothing to get what they want, even if that means turning your daughter into a puppet who is completely dependent on you to understand who she is. Nothing is out of the question, not even traumatizing or killing your own children. Like there’s no way Ozai even gaf about her after the events of the series, when they’re both imprisoned. Can you imagine how heartbreaking that must’ve been for Azula? You sacrifice your childhood, your entire LIFE, for your father’s mission and when you’re both imprisoned for life he won’t even be there for you as a shoulder to cry on. Without this episode, Azula’s breakdown in the finale is just an evil girl going crazy. With The Beach, it’s a child who has never known love finally imploding on herself.

wayyyyy back in 2016 when I was in college, I took an analyzing television course, and I actually wrote about The Beach. It’s obviously an old piece of my writing, but I think it still holds up

that episode was so pivotal to the series. For the first time ever, we saw our “antagonists” thrust into a situation that was so uncomfortable for them. Being “normal” teenagers was never an option for them. Zuko even explained it while he was screaming at Ty Lee. They don’t have the luxury of their biggest problems being bad skin. The other teenagers on that beach didn’t even know who Zuko and Azula were. You’d think that such a proud nation would know exactly their royals were. It made it even more clear how secluded the fire nation capital was from the rest of the nation. Ozai clearly wanted to be the center of attention. Everyone knew his face, but not his own children’s. The man was a sociopath.

Even when the gaang was put into situations where they had to act like normal kids, you could tell they felt out of place. It reminds me a lot of the hunger games

[saby-chan]

Fire Lord Ozai: A blood thirsty monster or the less fortunate “Zuko” of his generation?

Hello again and thank you as always for clicking and allotting some of your time to read my humble post! Since I’ve happened to notice quite an increase in posts lately regarding the controversial character and nature of the former Fire Lord, the now imprisoned fallen prince Ozai, and I’ve personally promised in my previous post that I will share my own analysis on him if people asked me to do so (which actually happened), I am here to deliver my own take on this very intriguing man’s character, while also building a potential past for him based on stuff gathered from the show’s cannon.

I would like to start this essay with what I find to be my favorite quote ever: ”Monster’s aren’t born, they are created.” ~ Naruto Uzumaki (Naruto) What I like about this quote soo much and find very inspirational is the truth it holds within its short, yet powerful message. We are often fast to judge a “book by the cover”, to reduce others to what we assume of them by their appearance or latest actions that we’ve seen them do, but never actually take a moment and wonder where they come from, if this person we soo harshly look down upon really has been this way since their very beginning?

I’ve come across many comments on social media related to ATLA, especially on YouTube videos on which people would throw with harsh comments such as “Aang being a coward for choosing to spare the villain just because they saw a dumb baby pic of them” or “Ozai is the essence of evil and even as a baby he’d been a monster”. I can’t help but wonder who hurt these people to make them be so cruel? Like, how messed up must you actually be to say that a baby, a friggin baby, is the embodiment of all evils? Or that a child was a coward for choosing to see his opponent’s last bits of humanity and opted to spare them?

Aang was soo morally conflicted about the idea of killing Ozai not only because it contradicted the morals of his people, but because he himself understood that this man hadn’t always been the cruel beast he came to met in their first and final showdown. It’s important to note here the fact that upon finding that picture, Aang was actually convinced it had to be Zuko as a baby since it looked so innocent and cute and was actually surprised to learn it was Zuko’s father. And that’s the thing, Ozai was born like us all as an innocent and sweet baby. Babies aren’t in any way evil or twisted, they don’t even have the notion of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ defined in their small, still developing minds. In fact, the very choice of the creators to add this picture in the show is meant to tell us this very thing: this man wasn’t always like this. But if he wasn’t always like this, then what happened to make him become this way?

Well, in order to find out the reason, we must go back in time to the very beginning: Ozai’s childhood and upbringing. For this next part I am going to solely focus on the show cannon, as the comics aren’t the products of BryKe and have a lot of inconsistencies to the source’s cannon (you can go and read my other post on why they fail when it comes to Zuko’s character and his family).

 From what we know and can easily deduce by ourselves just from their appearances, Ozai and his brother Iroh have a huge age gap between them (somewhere between 10 and 15 years). This has to be our first red flag: isn’t it soo odd that this family opted to have their children at such a long distance between pregnancies? It almost feels as if Ozai hadn’t actually been part of his father’s actual family planning... In other words, he was a ‘mistake’ child (I actually hate having to use this terminology, but it will become relevant to when we expand on Azulon’s relationship with his sons). Sure, some may argue that Azulon actually decided to have two sons in case something were to happen to his first born, but wouldn’t it have been more logical to have his second born at 2-3 years max distance from his first? Why choose to have your second child when you are much older and thus risk having a baby with issues, if your sole purpose of this child is to serve as an insurance that you don’t ‘run out’ of heirs? It just doesn’t make much sense, so let’s go for the moment with the possibility that Ozai was an unplanned pregnancy.

This perspective actually gives way to another very interesting aspect: remember the infamous “Born lucky...Lucky to be born” quote? What if I tell you that there is a possibility that this quote wasn’t Ozai’s personal wicked invention, but actually something he himself heard from his very own father? It had been puzzling me for a long time why he choose to say “You were lucky to be born” to Zuko, which implies that Zuko wasn’t supposed to exist. I mean, it’s soo odd that Ozai went with something implying that Zuko was an unplanned pregnancy, since Zuko was the first born. So my theory is that maybe Ozai wanted to convey a different message to Zuko when he said that quote, but due to his anger he ended up replicating the same line he received from Azulon at some point in his childhood. We never got the exact flashback when the line was delivered from Ozai to Zuko, so we don’t have the exact context that lead to it (remember, we are excluding Yang’s take on the matter from the comics).

I mean, this feels like something that wicked old Azulon would have said to his least favorite child. Okay, so let’s go with the scenario that Ozai was an unwanted child, to which we could also add the possibility that Ilah’s health deteriorated after the first birth, which makes plausible the family’s initial decision of stopping at 1 kid.

Moving on, we know from the old ATLA character wiki’s that Ozai’s character design was made with Zuko in mind, being meant to be a grown up version of Zuzu, without the scar. An interesting choice indeed and even Iroh’s letter to Zuko on Ozai from one of the ATLA books describes Ozzy in a similar way to teenage Zuko in book 1: stubborn, feisty, determined and with a volcanic personality (easy to anger and competitive), so it means that these were intentional choices to imply that Zuko and his father are more similar than we were led to believe at first glance. Maybe Ozai was the “Zuko” of his generation. Also, in one of the interviews on the royal family, BryKe stated that Ozai worked very hard to get where he is in book 3, referring to his firebending specifically (we all know how Ozzy got the throne, so clearly, he didn’t “work hard” for that), so maybe he wasn’t always the strongest man alive, with the most exceptional firebending skills out there, like Azula who showed ease in her learning, but rather someone closer to Zuko’s weaker performance as a child, building his way to success through endless hard work until he became the prodigy we know today.

Continuing with our theoretical scenario, after his birth, the second child show’s lesser skills compared to his brother Iroh (by that I don’t mean that he wasn’t gifted at all, but that maybe Ozai wasn’t as fast and great of a learner like his big bro), so Azulon opts to just ignore him and continue focusing solely on his golden child. In my headcannon I actually think that Ilah survived the birth and so she was left in charge of the younger child’s education and upbringing. At this point Iroh is already 10 or older, so he is forced to focus on his development, which prevents him from spending time with his lil brother, but just for the sake of being positive, let’s assume that Ozai still had both his mother and his big brother to keep him sheltered from Azulon’s darkness for a small portion of his childhood.

I choose to believe that Ozai had his mother’s love for a small bit of his childhood due to his willingness in the show to allow Ursa (who mind you, as the granddaughter of Roku was considered a treacherous individual) to spend a ton of time with both Zuko and Azula and share her philosophy with the children, as seeing his wife playing with their children probably reminded him of his own bitter-sweet memories he had with Ilah. They also probably spent a lot of their time near the turtle-duck pond since that pond’s existence prolly dates long before Ozai and Ursa married and had their own children.

Unfortunately, Ilah dies and little Ozai remains all alone, to be influenced negatively by his father (and even by his grandpa Sozin, we don’t really know for certain when the old man died, so he prolly was there for a short time when Ozzy was still a child). Azulon most likely blames Ozai for his wife’s death as the second birth might’ve really had a huge toll on Ilah’s already fragile body, bringing her closer to death, so he still neglects and ignores the child, if not straight out bullies and abuses him for not being on par with Iroh. This prolly leads to Ozai becoming jealous of his brother since Iroh has their father’s love, pushing them further apart. I headcannon that this jealousy between the siblings led to Ozai complaining to his dad when he finally had too much of their father’s discrimination (at a similar age to when Zuko prolly did and got the infamous line, if not younger) only to get the “Iroh was born lucky, you were lucky to be born!” line with the sole purpose of hurting him since now the child knows that he was never wanted.

When Azulon scolds very furiously adult Ozai in Zuko’s memories for daring to ask to be named crown prince, he literally says something like “What, you dare ask me to betray MY own son?!” (this is like red flag number two), line that pretty much testifies how Azulon chose to pretty much treat Ozai as if he wasn’t his son too, showcasing how much he despised his second born and favored the first child over him. Since we are on the topic of their last conversation, the punishment Azulon gave to his son alone proves this man’s level of sadism, which leads me to be believe that Ozai’s childhood was full of this type of punishments for bad behaviors that could be easily corrected trough a long serious lecture or a lesser punishment focused more on teaching him an actual lesson. 

The old wikis also mention on the page about the hall with portraits of the previous Fire Lords that it was the place where Ozai chose to spend most of his time in his youth, seeking advice from his ancestors. I mean, seriously now, if he had a good and supportive father and a present brother in his life, would Ozai had chosen to seek guidance from the dead instead of his living family? That piece of information that was easily overlooked by many proves how lonely this man was in his youth.

So for the most part of his life, Ozai grew up under the toxic influence and abuse of his tyrant father who refused to acknowledge him. Yet he managed to grow up still full of determination to one day prove his worth to Azulon and gain his acceptance (just like we saw with Zuko in book 1, who was desperate to regain his honor and be accepted by his father). But unfortunately, no matter how strong he became or how good of a firebender he was, Azulon was unmoved and unphased by his second son’s performance.

From what we could gather from the little info we received in the show, it seems that Ozai was never sent to the battle field to aid his older brother, being kept as a stay home prince, with the only occasion he actually left home being to search for the Avatar (I don’t think Iroh was sent to do his part on searching the Avatar since he strongly believed that there wasn’t going to ever be one, so it’s safe to assume Azulon assigned Ozai with this mission just to get rid of him for a few years) and the only purpose he ever served to his father was to become part of the old man’s genetics experiment in order to create strong unparalleled firebending offspring (which I am pretty sure were meant to be ‘biological war machines’ used by Azulon in the war, as he didn’t really seem to give a shit about Ozai’s children compared to Lu Ten). So just imagine the level of disappointment and dishonor Ozai must’ve felt as a man and young aspiring soldier to find out that he was going to be used like a ‘non-bending daughter’ in a strategical marriage and never get to serve his country in what he’d been taught was the greatest and most important war for their Nation.

All in all, this marriage didn’t really end up that badly because it seems he and Ursa were actually very compatible. The old wiki for Ursa states that she was a noble woman and the perfect match for Ozai, which leads me to believe that show Ursa was intended to be a very strong willed and determined woman who earned his respect. The show never stated that Ozai never wanted his first born or that he was disappointed with Zuko from birth like the comics say, so it’s safe to assume that Ursa and Ozai actually ended up falling in love at some point since they had not one, but two kids with relatively a short time in between pregnancies. 

There are actually many signs in the show that actually prove that these two loved each other and Ozai didn’t abuse his wife: from the fact that they went every year to see Ursa’s favorite play despite Ozai hating the poor performance of the Ember Island Players (I mean, what man would do such a sacrifice as to endure the same torture every single year just to make his wife happy if he never loved her?), Ursa’s undeniable and sincere love for their children (in the show it was never stated that Ursa saw Zuko and Azula as someone else’s children, so if she were indeed an abused woman who was forced to have these children, she wouldn’t have ever loved them to such an extent, especially Zuko who resembled his father the most physically), the fact that Ursa had equal rights in their marriage and raising of their children (her even scolding and grounding Ozai’s favorite child without hesitation), to the most significant scene to the Urzai ship in Zuko’s flashbacks: Ozai sitting troubled all alone in Ursa’s favorite spot by the pond, in a sad and brooding atmosphere, after he lost her, instead of celebrating what had to be the happiest day of his life since he was finally crowned Fire Lord (it’s clear who had more importance in his heart: Ursa meant more to him than the throne, so losing her outshined his achievement). In fact, Ursa must’ve been the only thing that still kept him outside of the darkness that threatened to swallow his heart and once he lost her, Ozai had nothing else to keep him on the right path.

And even as a father, it seems that Ozai wasn’t always cold and distant to his children, as his true self depicted in Zuko’s memories on Ember Island shows him caring for both of his children, even holding Zuko close to him with a protective arm on the boy’s shoulder. Except the Agni Kai, there don’t seem to be any instances in which he was physically violent towards his son before the banishment (Iroh literally let Zuko in to join that faithful war meeting willingly. Would’ve he done that if he knew his brother to be very violent towards his children in case they disobeyed? If yes, then it would make Iroh actually very questionable on a moral standpoint) and even on an emotional level, I don’t really think that he was actually abusive to him (at least while Ursa was there) because from Zuko’s conversation with Zhao, he’s adamant that his father will take him back and even states "You don't know how my father feels about me. You don't know anything!", meaning that the father he used to know showed him a level of respect and genuine affection (if Ozai were to bully Zuko since the boy’s very early childhood, do you think this kid would grow up to be so sure that his father wants him around and would he defend this bully when someone badmouths them in front of him?).

Even with Azula, despite people demonizing her from early childhood and saying that she was manipulated since birth by Ozai to become a war machine, I do believe that she shows genuine love and affection towards her father. I do choose to believe that back in the good times when the family was happy, Ozai spent quality time with his daughter, filling in the gap left by Ursa’s neglect. I theorize that the reason why kid Azula badmouthed her grandpa and uncle was because she was being very protective of her father: since she used to like spying and eavesdropping, it’s safe to assume that she prolly witnessed many instances in which the old man bullied or insulted Ozai, favoring Iroh over him. It’s a bit harder to see it that way since her snarky comments involve dark topics, but since they live in a society governed by power and war, I see them as something similar to if Azula would’ve said “Uncle sucks and he will surely be fired from his job!” or “Grandpa is old and weak, he should leave the family business to dad!”. Even the fact that the only thing capable of shattering her to pieces was her father leaving her proves how much she cared for him. Ty Lee and Mai’s betrayal was a big blow on Azula’s control and sanity, but she didn’t breakdown until Ozai discarded her after his coronation as Phoenix King. There’s nothing more painful in this world than to be left behind by the person you loved the most and was there by your side your whole life, whom you wanted to follow to world’s end and back. That was the moment Azula finally realized that the father she used to know and love was actually gone and had been in fact, long gone for years at this point.

But if Ozai cared for his family what made him change? Easy, it all comes back to the fact that his father never acknowledged him. The throne doesn’t seem to be his ultimate goal in life since Ozai discarded of the Fire Lord title very easily, tossing it to Azula without any remorse or hesitation. It was more about the meaning behind getting the crown: replacing Iroh in the line of succession was the ultimate proof of his father’s acceptance, that he wasn’t only a “mistake” and “failure” in his father’s eyes, but since Azulon ended up saying and doing what he did, backfired Ozai and made him understand that no matter how hard he tried, the old man will never see him for what he is. So yeah, for a proud man like Ozai this was a hard defeat to swallow, which in turn sparked his strong desire of winning the war and becoming the king of the world: if Azulon wouldn’t accept him even in death, then Ozai will prove to the whole world that he was above his father and his “perfect” brother by accomplishing what they never could and even better and no one was going to stop him, not even his own family.

This is what differentiates Ozai from Zuko: while both had similar upbringings, Ozai never broke away from his obsession of gaining his father’s admiration, allowing himself to fall prey to the darkness left by Azulon in his heart and abandon his true self, only to become the copy of his abuser, while Zuko stood up to his dad and chose his own destiny. If Aang were to come back around 20 or 30 years earlier, then he might’ve actually been able to save Ozai just like he saved Zuko, but unfortunately it wasn’t this way.

Do I think that Ozai could still be saved and redeemed even after the events of book 3? Definitely! Since he’s actually a broken man and still has a tiny bit of humanity left within, I think he still has a chance to change his heart. The only thing is that it’d be a long lasting process: first off he needs to spend a long time in solitude and reflect on his life’s choices and his past, understand where he went wrong and that what happened to him in his childhood is called abuse, which he ended up replicating on his own children. After he understands his wrongdoings and becomes willing to rediscover his true self, he needs to understand the truth about the war, that everything he’d known was fake propaganda and that there was nothing glorious in what he, his father and Sozin did under the excuse of “sharing their Nation’s greatness with the rest of the world!”. But most importantly of all, the only remedy that could possibly save him is love. It sound cliche, but by responding to hatred with more hate like Zuko did in the comics would never change the world “for the better” or bring it “to reality”. The only way to save both Azula and Ozai would be trough showing them the power of love, hope and empathy, how they don’t have to struggle alone and push everyone away. And especially by redeeming Azula, she would be a very important piece in Ozai’s redemption: since he had a closer parent-child relationship with Azula and cared for her the most when he did care, realizing how much he made her suffer through his actions, that would probably break Ozai enough to make him admit that he was wrong all along.

So yeah, this is my analysis on Ozai’s character using the cannon information from the show and old wikis and why I think he is just the product of a very bad environment and an abusive parent who never showed him love (if there’s a reason for why Ozai might be uncapable of showing a healthy parental love to his children is because you can’t show what you’ve never learnt yourself), being the Zuko of his generation who never got to experience the positive influence of an “Uncle Iroh” to guide him on the right path. 

You can agree with me or not on this one, but this is what I choose to believe. Maybe I am way too good by choosing to see any potential good in anyone, but I feel it’s a better way than to counter hate with more hate like Yang did in his monstrous portrayal of Ozai in The Search.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments and if you agree with anything I’ve said, feel free to leave a like and to reblog this post.

See you next time and stay safe! Bye-Bye!

Saby out.

[therealjanejackson]

Heres a bunch more thoughts. Some of them are in line with my previous thoughts, many of them are contrary. Warning for being really quite long. More under cut.

I am warming up slightly more to the idea that Belos is just a one note villain, honestly it was my original interpretation of the character before we ever heard from Philip anyway, I just saw Philip, went “that’s definitely Belos”, and Philip seemed like a good boy and I thought that was an interesting angle. Not to mention, I mean, not to make a mountain out of a molehill but just how ridiculously queer they both seem, I really kinda thought they would subvert the queer coded villain thing and make it about generational trauma and repression and internalised whateverphobia and hfff. Anyway. Homing in on the old interpretation of Belos that existed before Philip. It’s honestly moreso the way Philip could turn out that annoys me. Like I said, I have a strong distaste for stories where “shadowed” younger siblings are depicted as selfish villains for not being okay with being forgotten in favour of their siblings, and surprise surprise, my older sister hates it too! I liked in guardians of the galaxy when Gamora hugged nebula and apologized. But besides that point, I’ve been thinking about it, and I guess the bottom line is I will be okay with any story line they push for Belos so long as they say something about abuse that atla didn’t.

Weirdly specific take, I know. But genuinely, for years, for as long as I can remember, atla and Zukos storyline has been the be all end all of child abuse in animated television, right? In kids media? It’s one of the key reasons everyone immediately jumped to compare Hunter to Zuko. What other animated show aimed at kids can you even think of that covers this topic. I personally can’t. And atla is great but… the abuse story isn’t even really all that complex. I’m not saying it’s bad but you know, ozai is an out and out dick who is completely humourless, never shows his kids affection, hurts them and humiliates them, makes them perform tasks for adults and is never, at any point, shown to have a personal relationship with them. Zukos primary hurdle to get over is the idea that he can somehow win his fathers love and respect by being perfect, and accepting the fact that it’s never gonna happen. Zuko doesn’t lose anything from this revelation: he never had a relationship with his father to begin with. I think it’s great that they had Zuko shoot lightning at his dad and throw him in jail at a time when most television pushed an idea that children should forgive their abusive parents on good faith alone and not only discussed the idea that just because someone is your parent doesn’t mean they love or want what’s best for you, but also showed that just because Azula was favoured doesn’t mean she was valued or loved or had it easy…. But it’s been fourteen years, and I think it’s genuinely sad that no one has had anything new to say about abusive families in that time save for encanto which came out literally a couple months ago.

If I’m honest, the new thing about abuse that I thought/wanted owl house to say, back when I just saw Belos as a horrible manipulative old man who might take advantage of Hunter in any conceivable way, was that the pressure to get out of his situation… shouldn’t all be on Hunter. Back then I was terrified of Belos, and I remember sending one of my friends who didn’t even watch the show yet a lengthy write up about how I was hoping Luz and Amity and Eda would open their eyes and see that the boy needs help, and that I was a little sick of stories where the abuse victim is expected to find the strength inside themselves to cry out for help, and god forbid someone on the outside ever put pieces together and reach out to Hunter first. I still maintain that: I kind of think more of the adults who Hunter encounters should be held accountable for complicity in his abuse, or at least face some sort of remorse for their lack of attention to what could easily be sniffed out as a huge fucking problem. I mean come on, we know from hunting palismen hunter doesn’t walk around the palace with his mask on twenty four seven, you expect me to accept that no one who lives/works there has ever wondered if that scar on his face was really from a mission, or if it was from his brusque, critical and petrification-happy uncle? I digress, I would be just as happy to see Hunter discuss his situation with Luz and/or Amity, and then see Luz struggle with figuring out what the best thing to do to help Hunter is.

Then, of course, we got more appearances from Belos and Philip (not to mention the statue of the man who is presumably Hunters father), and I started to think, “oh, he’s just a repressed queer person, they’re gonna give him a sad religious trauma backstory that he’s projecting onto Hunter, it’s gonna be about generational trauma, he probably won’t get redeemed but he’s not like this for funsies.” Furthermore, Zuko may not have a relationship with his abusive parental figure, but Hunter surely does. Honestly, we see pretty fucking frequently Hunter loves the shit out of Belos. I know we haven’t seen a ton of their interactions but I still kind of feel like Hunter must have some pleasant memories of his uncle to feel that strong a connection to him, and I know Belos is being a manipulative piece of shit at the beginning of eclipse lake but there’s something about the casual teasing and touching in that scene that kind of makes me feel like when Belos is at his best they might have a… playful sort of relationship. Don’t worry, it’s not lost on me that those things come from Belos and are under his control, it’s just a note. What I mean to say is, unlike Zuko, Hunter has something to lose, and that’s someone in his life that he loves very, very much. Through Hunters eyes, I started to see Belos less as a monster and more as a man, one who might have his own trauma and pain, and thinking back to my own childhood friends who experienced abuse, and what their primary struggles were, I had this thought on a different new thing owl house could say about abuse that would make me very, very happy indeed: that just because your abusive parent is struggling, just because your abusive parent is in pain, just because you have happy times with them, just because your abusive parent is traumatised, ill, addicted, trying their best, wants you or needs you or even loves you, that STILL doesn’t mean you owe them anything, that still doesn’t make them the best person to raise you, that still doesn’t make you safe with them because they mean well deep down or whatever.

But it might mean you can see them again someday. If you want to.

This is getting away from me. I’m supposed to be homing in on the old interpretation of Belos, not waxing poetic about the sympathetic one, but this is an interpretation that I have to admit I got ridiculously attached to, ridiculously quickly. Not that Belos would be redeemed- redemption implies forgiveness, and his actions can never be forgiven- or that he somehow avoid facing harsh consequences for his actions. I wanted him to have consequences, I wanted him to face every harsh reality of his actions with all the resignation and hopelessness you’d expect from a 400 year old, I wanted the people of the boiling isles to tear him to shreds, I wanted him to be expelled from the island, I wanted Eda to get custody of Hunter, I wanted him to have to kick his palismen juice habit all on his own, hell I wanted the ghost of his stupid brother to pop up and go “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.” I wanted him to somehow find a rockier bottom then being dethroned and exiled and I wanted him to hit it more than once.

But that all this would happen with the understanding that maybe, in his own way, he could move on from all this too, as the boiling isles will surely move on, as Hunter will move on, and that if the two of them happened to cross paths again someday… who knows. Might give some kids hope that coming forward about their situation doesn’t mean they’ll lose someone they love permanently.

Fat. Bloody. Chance. An inkling of hope for this clown, clearly, was too much to ask for. I genuinely thought yknow, theyre not gonna kill the guy because that’d be pretty shitty what with his relationship with palismen that I love to bring up oh so much but seriously it’s a huge thing for me and I’m honestly surprised the fandom doesn’t give it all that much attention, and they’re not gonna throw him in the conformatorium, funny as it would be, because there’s no way the place isn’t gonna be abolished when he’s not in power anymore. Besides, I kind of have a feeling discovering other Titan islands is gonna play into the plot at some point, him being exiled was the natural choice to me. Sure, strip him of his magic aids or whatever, but without his precious Day Of Unity and his Grimwalker there’s really no reason to believe he’d just get started up again somewhere else, you’ve gotta let him move on. Now though??? I really don’t know what they’re gonna do with him. I feel like even if they introduce more complexity into his character I feel like “Philip used to regularly trick innocent witches to their death, sometimes as literal sacrifices, and showed no remorse or anxiety about it literally at all” is not a, I don’t think there’s any coming back from that.

I guess I’ll be okay with it if the only new thing owl House says about abuse is that sometimes, people can seem like they care, a lot like they care, even if they don’t… I don’t know though, is that super new? Feel like I’ve heard that one before.

But even if I swallow all that and, as I originally planned with this post, home back in on that cruel, manipulative, heartless abuser I once believed Belos to be and get used to the fact that I was right the first time and there are no pleasant surprises of moral complexity here…. I still don’t want him to die. Sorry. I can’t do it. And it’s not because I think he deserves to live and suffer, that death would be too gentle a fate, or that I’m scared they’ll do the “sacrifices themselves at the last minute and gets redeemed without consequences” trope. It’s because I…. Well, I don’t think that’s what kids watching who relate to Hunter are gonna want to see. That’s all I’ll say.

This…. Ended up being a different post then I thought it would be. Maybe I’ll make a part two where I ACTUALLY home in on the darker version of Belos. But this post is already hugely long so yeah, I think I gotta just post it.

[alewyren]

I dislike redemption arc culture.

I hate seeing arguments over which characters are “irredeemable,” and this notion that every villain story has to be a morally didactic narrative in which the bad guy gets punished, the end.

I’m almost tempted to say we were all spoiled by having Zuko as a formative experience, because he’s really just the picture perfect redemption arc. He started out as a legit villain, but he never did anything too atrocious, had a tragic backstory that explained why he was like that, and went through three whole seasons of gradual character development. Like, Zuko was an amazing character. That’s the problem, though; he set our expectations too high for what “the perfect redemption arc” should be. Everyone expects their “reformed villain” characters to follow those same beats, but not every story is that cut and dry. There are lines between redemption and reformation, reformation and rehabilitation, rehabilitation and just... continuing to exist but no longer hurting anyone, and there’s a lot of nuance lost when people try to cram all that into the box of “redemption arc.”

Gonna be bringing a lot of different examples to the table here, but let’s start with Azula for ease of transition. She went through the same abuse that Zuko did, but she never got a redemption arc in ATLA proper. Some people say this isn’t fair. I disagree. This is not to say I don’t think she should be afforded the opportunity for post-canon character growth, because I absolutely do. I fully think she is capable of Getting Better, and spinoff media has consistently portrayed her as a sympathetic character. But like... she’s done some shit. She was a straight up war criminal, and emotionally abusive towards basically everyone in her social circle. I understand why. She was a 14 year old raised in an environment that rewarded that behavior, and never given a healthy outlet for her aggression.

The difference, in my opinion, is this: Zuko was fundamentally a good person from the start. Far from perfect, but he has a strong sense of values even as a child. Azula is not. Redemption for someone like Azula would look much different than it did for Zuko. Besides, in ATLA proper she was already filling an important villain role. She’d need her own show. (Which would be awesome, actually.)

But I think that’s where you have to ask the question: what even is a redemption arc? Is it any story where a villain stops being a villain? Is there a scale for like, “must do X amount of good deeds equal to Y bad deeds to qualify for redemption”? Must they be sufficiently punished for their bad deeds? What if reformation is possible without punishment--is punishment for its own sake truly justice? The focus people have on penance and atonement feels very baked in Christian moral philosophy. People don’t work like that. There’s not a cosmic scale of right and wrong, or a cosmic sin counter, there’s just... actions and their immediate impact. Bad people being let off the hook too easily can leave a bad taste in your mouth, and there are of course things with unfortunate real world implications which can’t be divorced from real-world context which are... irresponsible to allow in the hands of Certain Groups, but I hate this notion of “villains must be punished appropriately for their crimes, always, even if they have extenuating circumstances, even if they have demonstrated the capacity for personal growth, because that personal growth will never negate their misdeeds.”

In real life, it’s different. In real life, you can never be sure what’s going on in another person’s head. But the prison system of justice is fundamentally broken. People are rarely fundamentally evil, but there are some people who are too twisted and dangerous to society to be allowed to live without, at the very least, constant supervision. True evil is banal, rooted in social systems, not individual “bad people.” People have individual will, but ultimately they’re just the products of the environment and systems that fostered them. Setting aside the questions of whether people can be born evil or at what age you become personally responsible for your actions, you will get bad apples in any sufficiently large group of people. If someone has to be punished and removed from society, that’s not a success of justice. The fact that they reached that point in the first place is a failure of society in and of itself.

In fiction, technically everyone is redeemable. You can get into the heads of the bad guys and do basically whatever you want with them. Fiction should be responsible when dealing with real-world issues that affect real people, but it does not have to be morally didactic. Sometimes there just... isn’t an easy, morally didactic answer for dealing with morally complicated characters or situations. And more importantly, sometimes the morally didactic answer isn’t the narratively interesting answer. 9 out of 10 times, what’s more interesting to read about? A horrible villain being put to death, or a horrible villain being forced to live and grow?

Some hypothetical examples to ponder, purely in the context of fiction.

Horrible war criminal villain with a body count in the millions has all memories of their crimes wiped, or is forcibly brainwashed into being a better person. Setting aside the ethics of brainwashing: are they still required to “repent”? Would a victim still be justified in seeking penance from this guilt-free shell? Would this change at all depending on who was responsible for the mind-wipe?

More realistic: horrible war criminal villain with a body count in the millions straight up retires. Gets older. Bloodlust, national zeal, whatever once motivated them to do such evil loses its edge. They fall in love. Start a family. As they grow as a person, learn the value of life, the weight of their crimes starts to sink in. They atone in little ways, through little random acts of kindness and helping the people around them, but for one reason or another (not wanting to risk harm to their family, knowing they’ll be tortured for information? you decide) don’t turn themselves into the proper justice system and are never punished. Should they be punished, or allowed to continue existing? Would this change at all depending on the surrounding political circumstances, i.e.: whether their public execution would hold any symbolic value, whether affected groups are calling for their death? Does it matter at all in deciding justice whether this hypothetical villain feels personal guilt or regret over their war crimes? Why or why not?

Child villains. IRL there are documented cases of violent crime in children as young as grade school age, not all of whom had violent backgrounds. Should they be held to the same standards as adult villains, even if the scale of their crimes are the same? What’s the cutoff age? Are all villains under 18 capable of rehabilitation, no matter how horrible their crimes? How about 16? 14? 12? What about villains whose ages aren’t really clear, ie Cell from DBZ being like, six?

How much does backstory matter? Should it matter if there’s a good reason someone is Like That, or should their actions be judged as-is? It doesn’t matter to the victims whether or not the villain had a bad childhood, right? Moreover, does it matter at all whether someone is “fundamentally a good person,” at least insofar as genuinely caring about the people around them and caring about a moral code? People do evil things for reasons other than “being evil people.”

Morally bankrupt person who regularly fantasizes violent harm on the people around them, wholly selfish with no love for any other human being, fundamentally incapable of meaningful self-reflection or growth. Just a complete piece of shit all around. But they never have, and never will, commit any crimes, either due to some divine ordinance or just plain self-preservation/fear of getting caught. They might, at worst, just be a toxic asshole, but not one who holds any power over others. Should they be punished solely for their moral character, rather than actions?

There aren’t always easy answers. It’s okay to acknowledge that, and it’s okay to tackle hard moral questions like this in fiction. And I hate seeing this boiled down to “stop trying to redeem villains who are Actually Horrible People” or whatever. Especially in kids’ media which takes an optimistic stance on people being capable of change in the first place. Y’all gotta stop holding it to the same level of moral realism as gritty stuff for adults.

On the whole, I think we should do away with the term “redemption” in the context of morality entirely. Like redemption arc, redemption equals death, what does that mean? It implies one has sufficiently made up for their past deeds, that that’s the gold standard, but is that really ever possible? Like I said, there’s not a cosmic good deeds | bad deeds counter for every person, or at least not one that living people have any way of knowing about. And that’s a flawed way of thinking to begin with. Those bad deeds can never be erased, ever. There plenty of examples of villains who commit crimes they can never realistically atone for. Regardless of whether they want to atone in the first place, it’s like I said: in fiction, it’s often just... more fun to force them to live and deal with the consequences. But on the flipside, there are so, so many people who see themselves as “good” and use that to justify their own bad deeds. Which ties back into what I said about the whole discourse reeking of Christian moral philosophy, because lmfao @ corruption in the catholic church.

The point is. There are shades of grey. Not everything has to be a full-blown bad guy to good guy redemption arc. You don’t need to “properly atone for your sins” to be worthy of life or love.

Here are some better questions to ask than “is this character redeemable”:

Is it believable, from what we know of this villain as a character, that they are capable of becoming a good, law-abiding citizen?

How about capable of love?

Guilt?

Are they capable of any personal growth whatsoever?

Are they capable of being a positive impact on the lives of the people around them?

Is it actively harmful to leave them alive, even with clipped wings?

Is it interesting to leave them alive?

How morally didactic is the narrative as a whole?

How much forgiveness are they offered, versus how much could they possibly ever deserve?

How abstracted is this character from reality, ie: are there any real world parallels that make it uncomfortable to frame this character in a sympathetic light? (be careful not to fall into a black and white abuser/victim dichotomy)

Would further punishment or suffering be productive? (Productive, not justified, that’s a key distinction--punishment for its own sake is just pointless cruelty.)

Even the most vile, irredeemable bastards can still be dragged like... an inch. And that’s still a fun and valuable story in and of itself, even if it’s nothing remotely approaching a redemption arc and they’d very much still deserve to rot in Hell by the end of it. I don’t believe Hell is real, as much as I personally wish it were sometimes, but like. If it were, or in fictional universes where it is.

But also, there really are some characters and botched “redemption arcs” that just come off insanely uncomfortable. And there is a subjective aspect to that as well, but more than once I’ve seen people say “X villain did not deserve redemption/forgiveness” and 9 times out of 10 I’m like “that’s... really not what they got, though?”

It’s complicated.

[thethiefandtheairbender]

Honestly I never really got into she ra as much as I got into atla so I never really thought of it much ans just binged it reblogged a few things and was kinda done with it. At the time catradora ending seemed so amazing, it was certainly a breakthrough in children's media but their relationship has not been healthy at all and the last season was definitely rushed, I wish catra had found redemption seprate from adora and then maybe they could have reconcilled, not necesseraly end up together 1/2

But at least work through their differences. I mean I still enjoy seeing the beautiful fanart and I certainly can't tell people what to ship nor would I want to cus I also shipped them but I did wonder for three seasons how they were ever gonna turn their relationship around after three seasons of them just hurting each other, and it was more of catra hurting adora. I love adora and her story. Idk where this is going really so feel free to ignore this. Love your blog and all your metas!!! 2/2

around s3 and s4 i started to find shera a bit of a slog to get through, but i really enjoyed the majority of s5. and i was similarly celebrant when CA became canon. i even cried a little, not only because like, new landmark for queer rep, but also because that was a relationship i had been invested in throughout the series.

two weeks after shera ended, though, i started to think about how healthy CA is as well as the issues i had with it previously - even just when i thought they were nitpicks, like being displeased that catra tried to abandon adora without saying goodbye two episodes before they were kissing each other. at the time i thought it just wasn’t my personal ship dynamic preferences. 

and it’s not like a ship has to be 100% healthy for me to ship it - i have a couple of exceptions where the dysfunctional state of the relationship is the point and what’s enjoyable. the main one is hans/elsa from frozen because they have a weirdly fascinating foil relationship in the first film. the difference, though, is that i would never want them to be canon, ever, i do not want or think hans should have any sort of redemption arc if he ever shows up in canon, and it’s something i want to ship entirely in fanon. 

which is the exact opposite of a canon endgame ship literally saving the world through their “grand epic love for each other.” the main thing CA needed, imo, was time to show that catra’s turn around wasn’t just the “good part” in a textbook emotionally abusive cycle... especially when catra had been clearly emotionally abusive towards scorpia and the narrative had 100% framed leaving as the right thing for scorpia to do.

but CA isn’t given time. there is no epilogue (and adora’s future wish fulfilment doesn’t count). and the fact that catra acts, once adora leaves, the way a lot of abusers do? manic, obsessed, intent on punishing their former victim as much as possible? that adora is rewarded for never giving up on someone who routinely treated her terribly for four seasons? someone who actively kidnapped her friends and had them tortured, actively tried to kill adora multiple times and tried to destroy the entire world so adora couldn’t “win”? 

catra’s redemption arc should’ve started, independently of adora, at the beginning of s4. it should’ve taken longer for them to reconcile. not everyone - particularly scorpia (who was strangely, conveniently absent in s5 as a protagonist who could interact with catra) - should have forgiven her. scorpia never even gets a full apology.

and i’ve never been someone who likes villains all that much, or is willing to them much (if any) slack. if you’re angry and mean 90% of the time? if it takes seasons for you to start acting like a decent person, regardless of whatever sort of backstory you’ve had? yeah, happy for you, character, but it doesn’t impress me much. did i always have sympathy for catra? yeah, a ton. does that mean i think she should be friends or lovers with all the people she actively hurt in the past? no. unless the story had been changed in s4, just going off the first four seasons i would’ve preferred a very intense redemption where catra does everything on her own - or at least with other people, not adora, and definitely not dependent on adora believing in her - and then they meet up like, seven episodes in and start putting in a fuck ton of work and that’s the focus. or them deciding to come back to each other, if, they’re better for each other someday. 

the route s5 took never surprised me at all, down to a kiss to confirm them, but that doesn’t mean any of it was extraordinarily well written. a lot of people in my life have been in multiple emotionally abusive relationships. CA, even in s5, just hits way too close to home for me to enjoy it / be comfortable with it anymore, per their own words, too, and that’s my personal stance. doesn’t have to be anyone else’s, although again, i wish the crew had like, thought through the implications and remedied them way better (or at all).

which really just boils down to, upon further reflection, CA’s messed up abusive past is too much for me to well, look past for them to share the rest of their lives together. i wish they had been better written because i do think premise wise there is a way to make it work. but i think shera combining an exploration of abuse + all abusers getting redeemed in some way + everyone forgiving them + love can save broken people is a tricky, if not easily dangerous, narrative that has to be handled very sensitively... and shera just didn’t. 

the most frustrating thing about it all, honestly, is that this isn’t even my biggest complaint with shera (that would be a lack of cohesive worldbuilding and consistent tone) but that... if you take CA out of the equation - which i know may be a big ask for some people, bc they love it and it’s a canon queer ship and an admittedly big part of the series throughout, or whatever - shera has... no good rep, really. or at least no rep that hasn’t been done in any shows.

and i don’t actually think representation is the most important thing. i want a good, solid story once and for all - which is why i love trollhunters, even if it is incredibly white and straight; even if its whiteness and straightness are flaws, tbh - but representation is shera’s main selling point and... it falls pretty flat when held up under brighter lights of examination.

in ten years i don’t think CA is going to be looked on favourably at all.