#jinta’s take on zuko

[zukka-pegged-by-suki]

ok so guys, remember that “my father always says azula was born lucky, i was lucky to be born” line? yeah, now explain to me why tf are we even considering OZAIs words?!?! like some people use this line as an argument against azula when its literally what OZAI SAID?!?!!?!!?!

Zuko’s good and bad luck, as well as Azulas. Was either of them lucky? Let’s see.

Please read all of it before drawing assumptions.

Zuko’s luck:

- has mums care and affection

- has irohs care and affection

- can get away with being a softie as a child, because he may get disregarded and called weak but lets be honest, azula wouldnt have been able to get away with his behavior because she didn’t have firstborn privilege (which is a thing while azulon lived) or mummy’s protection like he did.

before anyone comes at me i’ll expand a bit on the firstborn privilege. as first born he was instantly considered more important by the masses since birth, that might’ve changed later but before neither could bend that much was still a fact. which means azula wouldn’t really have any recognition for anything unless she surpassed him in every way, which is what became her goal especially when ozai became the one who spent more time with her rather than ursa, anyways lets continue.

- constantly receiving second chances; iroh, the gaang minus katara, katara, azula (even if not from the “good” side), ozai (no matter the intentions, this much is true), iroh again, mai, the entire fckng world.

- he had a guide and help throughout his long healing and learning process.

Zuko’s bad luck:

- Unloving father

- Mummy disappears

- Doesn’t train that hard and surprise surprise, is worse than azula. Because if he had really trained hard, he would’ve at least known the formations wether he was able to firebend with them or not, but he was just clearly trying to copycat azula while tripping over because he didn’t have that much experience doing it. This is something no one can change my mind about. How tf did he expect to excel if he didn’t train enough. This wasnt about luck but hard work which he didn’t put in, too busy playing with mum and the little turtleducks. And I do not hate Zuko, I really love him but this is just a fact and he’s too fixed on blaming everyone else for his own mistakes and problems (esp Azula). Like, im sorry to break it out to you honey, but Ozai hates you because he’s an asshole, and that’s his own fault, not Azula’s.

- Scar and exile time, we all know this.

- Ugly haircut because of dishonor

- Finally achieving his goal of regaining his “honor” but realizing it wasn’t what he wanted only when he was already at the Fire Nation palace having all the glory from Aang’s presumed death.

- Katara’s distrust after his betrayal (bc who would’ve expected that to happen /s)

- Getting zapped in an attempt to save Katara.

I mean except for the things related to Ozai, most of this was all consequences from his own actions.

And I’m sorry but I don’t understand the fixation he has with having Ozai’s love. Unlike Azula, he has had his mother’s love and his uncle’s love. He knows what real love looks like and he has never really seen anything that could imply Ozai likes him, while he has Iroh treating him like he’s his actual father.

I’m not invalidating his traumas in any way and terrible things did happen to him, but why is he so obsessed with Ozai and why would he choose him over Iroh, he’s 16 and has been with Iroh since age 13, he was also with Ursa for the majority of his childhood, make it make sense.

Azula’s luck:

- Uh she was born rlly smart i guess

- She had some natural talent and knew to train hard to shape it to perfection, as well as studying a lot about war tactics and shit ig

- Ty Lee and Mai loved her and she loved them back

I mean as far as luck goes, that’s it. Everything else was achieved on her own merit and even if she had no scar, her traumas are just as valid as Zuko’s, neither is worse or better, we do not compare traumas in this house and they were both terrible.

Azula’s bad luck:

- Bad mother (i’ll make a post on why Ursa sucks)

- No second chances

- Mum never said goodbye just like she never said “i love you” lol, except in that one hallucination

- Never has had any real help to heal (i’ll make a post on why the asylum was a trash idea that would’ve never worked)

- Can’t fully trust anyone, not even herself, or will be punished for it

- The only people who loved her, Mai and Ty Lee, “betraying” her (check out my post on that, its under #jinta’s commentary)

- Ozai psychologically abusing her all her life

- Some characters may have been lonely, but she was genuinely absolutely alone. And she knew it.

- Hurt and self-hatred channeled through anger like Zuko did sometimes when he had that shame shave ponytail, but with her, its all the time.

- Even his abuser abandons her

- Everyone hates her but forgives Zuko, Mai and Ty Lee. And it’s so annoying because all Mailee did that Azula didn’t was swap sides almost at the end, if the excuse is that they were being manipulated well Ozai was manipulating Azula so what’s the excuse.

- Is always believed to be lying but usually isn’t (check out my azula always lies post)

- Has a mental breakdown and nobody gives a shit?! Like the first think Zuko thought of was “ooh she’s slipping lemme take advantage of that”

- Has nothing and no one, yay

- Gets thrown into a stupid asylum but not rlly because there are no comics in ba sing se

While Zuko had Ursa and Iroh to protect him and stuff, she was victim of Ozai’s manipulation and psychological abuse all her life.

So when we know Ozai said she was lucky, why tf is anyone taking his word for it??!

Plus when Zuko was born they didn’t know how he would be and Azula didn’t exist so there was no way he could’ve been lucky to be born.

Zuko was very unlucky, but he was also lucky.

Azula was just unlucky.

edit: as bellatrixobsessed1 said, azula had the illusion of luck.

[zukka-pegged-by-suki]

my acc’s tags:

[zukka-pegged-by-suki]

guys i just realized something, there is no proof that azula was actually enjoying zuko’s agni kai against their father.

iroh was the one storytelling, and we saw his own flashback, he had his eyes closed so all we’re seeing is what he assumed their reactions were. we all know iroh doesn’t think many good things about azula (if u wanna speak about the lu ten thing, look for the post where i talk about all that under the “jinta’s take on azula” tag).

obviously azula wouldn’t show horror at the scene, she’s nothing if not extremely intelligent, and by showing any form of displeasure at her father actions she would’ve risked her own safety too. but i really doubt she was doing that evil smirk we saw, even less at age 11.

i’m aware that she wasn’t the kindest sister, but even if she tried to hide it with taunting because of that need to never show “weakness”, if she didn’t care about zuko’s safety she wouldn’t have told him about her father’s and grandfather’s plans to kill him.

she may have disguised it as mocking and taunting (which was a really smart thing to do because if ozai had found out, she could have covered it up as her being mean, which is the only thing everyone ever chooses to see from her anyways), but she was warning him.

she knows she’s considered a monster by everyone, some of them (ozai) like that about her and some of them hate it (everyone else), but even when it hurts her, she knows how to take advantage of it.

we don’t give this girl enough credit for her intelligence and assume everything is as shallow as it initially looks, but i’m done with it.

[zukka-pegged-by-suki]

ok so people like to downplay mai’s character a lot and im done w it, especially ignoring the fact that she clearly has some issues going on, many symptoms of depression too, and claim it’s all just a way to make her seem edgy or smth?

no.

watching atla, i related so much to mai. that absence of interest or excitement for absolutely everything except when huge things happen, like in her case it was her family getting attacked and having to chase the attackers down, butt even then, the “fun” was shortlived and she went back to being “bored”. those feelings of disinterest for everything, and i guess downright nothingness, are things i’ve been dealing with for years and it doesn’t really get better at all without psychological treatments and medication.

people act as if when she talks about stuff like hating everybody, she’s trying to be “quirky” or “edgy” or “cool”, but you guys forget that the atla world isn’t our world, in which depression has been extremely romanticized, downplayed and overused as a term for feelings of sadness when it’s way more complex than that. there is no reason why mai would be saying that stuff in the atla world unless she really feels that way.

given all i’ve seen of mai, i’m 100% sure she is clinically depressed and i say that as someone with diagnosed depression. for some people it manifests in different ways but for me it was always just like mai.

she isn’t constantly sad and weepy as it’s sometimes portrayed in tv. as far as i’ve seen, she does care deeply about some people and yet she’s done with all of them at the same time, her love language is much more through actions rather than through words, gifts or physical affection displays, sometimes the actions are huge like at boiling rock, and sometimes they’re smaller, but are often overlooked because of her collected, calm and aloof sort of behavior. and there’s also that constant boredom that only fades a bit sometimes but doesn’t leave for enough amount of time for it to really matter.

i’m just done with people admiring zuko’s complexity while overlooking every other character and acting as if they’re one dimensional. because of course zuko was complex but so was everybody else!!!

[zukka-pegged-by-suki]

why does azula have blue fire? well, unlike what some people seem to believe, it is not something that just magically happened, no.

it is because she’s just that smart.

while everyone else goes punching around like animals, she focuses her power on two fingers, therefore her shots are more precise and the fire hotter which in return makes it blue! simple. this is something that she most likely adapted from lightningbending techniques onto her firebending. and let’s remember that she literally was the only one to do so!!!

[zukka-pegged-by-suki]

ughazula on ig and i’s convo abt azula, facts:

the post: “be honest, do you really think she got what she wanted,” referring to the “i got everything i wanted” audio by billie eilish that they used for an azula edit.

me: she didn’t even want anything that big or greedy, all she wanted was for the people she loves to love her back, to be actually cared about and trusted. to be the source of someone’s pride and happiness.

ughazula: NO LITERALLY, her trauma’s more emotional than physical so obviously people would bring up her (inexcusable) actions to ignore it... like bestie, zuko and azula were equally abused, only in different ways, WAKE UPP 🔥🔥

me: yeah and if we’re gonna hold her accountable for all she’s done then let’s hold everyone else accountable too!! zuko has raided entire villages just to capture a 12 year old for reasons that benefited him and only him. the gaang have literally killed people before and it doesn’t matter if their intentions were noble because all azula did was for her father and nation too, switching perspectives and all she did was good intentioned too.

me: iroh legit held ba sing se under siege for 600 days where many people died and the gaang (esp toph) as well as zuko went around scamming and stealing from people. meanwhile azula captured ba sing se without hurting ANYBODY, she threatened people a lot sure, but did she ever really kill people? and im sure if she had wanted to kill iroh when she zapped him, he would’ve died, but she didn’t aim for the kill and instead just K.Oed him

ughazula: ure so right, perspective is extremely important when it comes to these things. azula had no external influence apart from ozai so she believed that what she was doing was right and was for her nation, and I’m more than sure it was too much to take in that after everything she’s done it wasn’t enough. and yes she isn’t the only character who’s done bad things, iroh even laughed about burning an entire city!! it pisses me off the the fandom demonizes azula the most when she’s literally the youngest from the fire nation and never got a chance to be out of ozai’s influence, they want her to die already even if iroh redeemed himself around his 40-50s and they praise him because most his screen time was already post redemption, when he was helping zuko

me: YES EXACTLY ITS SO DAMN FRUSTRATING LIKE HOW DO PEOPLE SLEEP OKAY AFTER PRAISING 60 YR OLD IROH AND DEMONIZING 14 YEAR OLD AZULA

ughazula: EXACTLY I CANT WRAP MY HEAD AROUND IT 😭😭😭

bonus:.

me: why does everyone hate azula?!?! why are we not bashing ozai?!?! and if azula can’t be pardoned then why can mai, ty lee, zuko and iroh?! it just doesn’t make sense

user: omg fucking god yes the last part!! you can’t pick and choose who you want redeemed 🙄

[zukka-pegged-by-suki]

funny how almost everytime zuko claimed azula was lying, she was actually telling the truth 🤔