Does Azula work better as a sympathetic villain with a tragic past who can be redeemed or as a pure evil monster?
Does Azula work better as a sympathetic villain with a tragic past who can be redeemed or as a pure evil monster?
Does Azula work better as a sympathetic villain with a tragic past who can be redeemed or as a pure evil monster?
Azula being an unredeemable monster is important to ATLA thematically, as it ties into Aang's struggle to resolve conflicts peacefully and allows Zuko's redemption to be more important.
In a way, she resembles the Fire Nation's most violent nature and how that needs to be destroyed, not reasoned with.
Azusa is a sociopath with psychopathic tendencies exacerbated by mainly her father Ozai.
The idea that a villain cannot be both sympathized with while also being irredeemable is a failure on the observer's part, frankly.
Azula worked so well BECAUSE you could see all the points she could have "turned around" and not become what she did, but the reality is that it never happened, and by the point of her final dual, it was largely too late (at least within the framing of the show).
Like said, it serves the purpose of being the unsolvable problem because the root of the issue has already grown too deep. Not everyone can be saved/reasoned with, and that is inherent to the main struggles of the characters involved.
Don't think they ever did a good job showing points where she could turn it around or you could sympathize with her until the latter, final episodes, and by then it felt really tacked on and unconvincing.
>The idea that a villain cannot be both sympathized with while also being irredeemable is a failure on the observer's part, frankly.
>The issue is that these people cant comprehend that a character can be BOTH sympathetic and irredeemable.
These anons get it. Why doesn't anyone in the industry understand this anymore? It's all so fricking tiresome. Just give me developed antagonists who have good reasons to act the way they do without forcing every one of them to be rehabilitated to the good guys' side.
As they said, she must be monster, who cannot be saved, even if he must be saved from himself. Classic tragedy, the limited capabilities of the heroes and the need to sacrifice some for the sake of others, even if it is their own sister.
The only thing better than this is when monster is defeated not by others, but by nature and himself.
>Azula being an unredeemable monster is important to ATLA thematically
Which is why the main writer of the show wanted to do a redemption for her.
Irredeemable Azula has always been a meme.
>Which is why the main writer of the show wanted to do a redemption for her.
I'd put money on this being the result of him reading social media. Almost every writer does this. Bored fans that love to bully people online complain about a character being too flawed and how the evil character is actually a stand in for the author's own perversions and real life misdeeds. And the writers become afraid, and in actuality, need to redeem themselves, and save their own reputation, through retroactively trying to repair the damage a character has done in the story and explain their actions with an attempt to humanize them by making up some trauma or victim story.
Unfortunately it's become clear at this point that the original writers of ATLA are hacks.
There's lots of flaws in ATLA that they have managed to reintroduce into their new shows, whilst all the really good stuff seems to have been a complete fluke.
Like they just bashed a bunch of classic tropes together, created a really solid story, then didn't really know how or why it worked. When you see their "own" stuff, where they subvert all the classic storytelling techniques you see in good adventure shows, it's terrible.
Not a fluke. All these revivals, sequels, or otherwise longrunning shows have caused people to wisen up to how the writers room is just as if not more important than the creators. They keep replacing hardened navy veterans with landlubbers and it shows
You're are both right in the sense, but i maintain that byrke needed aaron more than aaron needed byrke. say what you will about dragon prince, but the lows of that still eclipse korra and the atla comics.
Dragon Prince is just a bunch of missed opportunities and dropped balls. Fundamentally it's fairly wholesome and well done.
>Which is why the main writer of the show wanted to do a redemption for her.
Firstly, I think that's bullshit considering they've had plenty of time to redeem her in the comics they write if that's what they actually wanted.
Secondly, even if that were true, some brave editor must have stepped in and correctly told them it was a bad idea. Even if you like the idea, the show needed Azula as a foil to Zuko, and more pragmatically because without her the finale is just Aang vs Ozai while basically every other named character beats up faceless fire nation mooks.
>Firstly, I think that's bullshit considering they've had plenty of time to redeem her in the comics they write if that's what they actually wanted.
After finding out what happened to Ursa, Azula is the only real thing keeping people interested in the comics since her ending is very unclear. If they definitely redeemed or condemned her, people wouldn't have any reason to read them.
>After finding out what happened to Ursa, Azula is the only real thing keeping people interested in the comics since her ending is very unclear. If they definitely redeemed or condemned her, people wouldn't have any reason to read them.
it always ends up this way with american stuff, doesn't it? Everything eventually becomes a product to come out monthly, which rots the story telling away.
Lol, imagine if great classics were like that. A Christmas carol originally came out in installments in a magazine. Can you imagine if he hadn't ended the fricking thing and just dragged it out to keep making money off of it?
>Lol, imagine if great classics were like that.
A lot of classic literature were originally published in newspapers or magazines. Even more recently it’s not unheard of someone publishing chapters of a novel in a magazine as a preview.
>A lot of classic literature were originally published in newspapers or magazines. Even more recently it’s not unheard of someone publishing chapters of a novel in a magazine as a preview.
yes...I know...I said that very thing in the post you quoted.
Now...imagine if they didn't end their stories and tried to get them printed in those newspapers and magazines indefinitely. Imagine a version of a christmas carol where Scrooge had to keep being visited by ghosts or it was dubious if Scrooge became a better person or they kept teasing you on if Tiny Tim would live.
Aaron has had nothing to do with ATLA past the show. He wanted to redeem Azula, because no shit. If a 14 year old raised in a fricked up, abusive family can't be redeemed then no one can, which flies in the face of the show's themes. Iroh objectively did far worse and he managed to be redeemed. Bryke are hacks.
>He wanted to redeem Azula
He wanted to "redeem her" to keep the appearance that he was the greatest writer on the show and wished to pretend to do what the fans wants.
He was the head writer, and it makes perfect sense that Azula would be redeemed. Keep coping.
No, it doesn't. (You) stop coping azulagay
I won't go around in cirlces with (You), but just ask yourself how it makes sense for Iroh to be redeemed and not Azula.
Iroh was not a psychopath since childhood.
The redemption narrative is only the writers response in retrospective when asked by Azula fans.
>could I be wrong? No, the people who worked on the show are just lying! *puts on tinfoil hat*
For what it's worth, the writer from ATLA who wanted to do the Azula redemption arc wasn't involved in Korra. .
Azula had a shocking amount of glee for Zuko’s suffering and death from when she was a small child, even though she also cares about him. She’s fundamentally broken. At best she could have learned to not be cruel intellectually.
Azula is a boring one-dimensional villain whose only memorable trait is being hot. I'm glad Netflix writers are improving her but of course fanboys will cry about muh sauce material. I hope they also give more than 2 seconds of character development to Ozai.
Villains with no qualities are boring.
Bait. The cartoon gives her plenty of depth. Her relationship with her parents, her relationship with Zuko, her skill. It all builds a picture. The love action show makes her bland and boring. She's upset in Zuko's shadow.
>Villains with no qualities are boring.
Villains can have more qualities besides always needing to be sympathetic.
with no qualities are boring.
Maybe you just lack media literacy?
Antagonists don't exist to be characters, they exist to support the story and its themes overall. Sometimes that means they get complex characterisation, sometimes it doesn't, it depends on what the story needs.
Azula needs to be relatively simple horrible person. Some people in this world are just born awful, there's no fixing them, that's the kind of person she is.
>they exist to support the story and its themes overall
People seem to think nowadays that if a character isn't multi dimensional then it's somehow offensive or an -ism when you simply can't have a show that develops everyone to the nth degree because it's physically impossible. And the irony is that the reason why people obsess so much over characters is actually due to the opposite, that a character is partly developed and then people fill in the blanks. At first filling in the blanks is fun speculation but eventually the autists take over. See: Azula fans.
>At first filling in the blanks is fun speculation but eventually the autists take over. See: Azula fans.
So it is basically the same problem that Marvel and DC have were the kids who grew up reading them eventually get into positions of power and make their headcanons and desires into canon, regardless if it is good or not, like with Geoff Johns reviving the Hal Jordan GL or the Barry Allen Flash, or Joe Quesdea pushes for One More Day and retconing the MJ-Peter marriage?
We were warned
Other threads have gone into this more.
>Nepotism, cronyism etc.
>Too many "college educated" people.
>Listening to online fans.
>Avoiding tropes or cliches so much they fall into other ones.
>Hate basic stuff and look down on basic storytelling as being below them.
>Look down on popular culture as a whole.
>Influence of Youtuber critic culture on people
>Perpetually online syndrome infecting their writing.
>Inability to communicate what they actually mean, aka write.
And many more. So yeah, similar to comics.
>Avoiding tropes or cliches so much they fall into other ones.
Or worse, end up writing things that are unique but nonsensical and unappealing. I'm so tired of writers who don't understand that archetypes and cliches become widespread and enduring for good reasons, and that sometimes the reason is because a cliche is inherently more satisfying than its alternative. It's not that you can't do something different, but you need to have a good reason to deviate from a successful formula or you're just choosing to be worse for the sake of setting your work apart.
>nonsensical
It is sorta like this jenga tower. You take one small thing out sometimes and ruin everything. It is like what is the difference between popular culture vs a niche story. A popular story is universal, good and evil, good characters. A hero with a thousand faces. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. They think they are differentiating stuff and making it deep but guess what? Deeper "high art" looks down on the pop culture shit these people make. They don't make it deep, they just sand down the edges they think are rough and sanitise it. Sometimes the mess is what made it good. People with "high art" sensibilities ruin pop culture and can never create "high art" either.
never thought it that way, good one fp
>Azula being an unredeemable monster is important to ATLA thematically, as it ties into Aang's struggle to resolve conflicts peacefully
But he never fought her.
Did you watch the fricking show?
Aang didn't need to defeat Azula directly for what anon said to be true. Members of team Aang fought her and had to handle it without adopting the tactics and attitude of their enemy.
?t=40
Absolutely not, you do that you just turn her into another Zuko. Her role is done perfectly, especially contrasting with her brother’s. Zuko is the redeemable bad guy with a tragic past that wants to do good and can be redeemed. Azula is the opposite side of the coin being the monster from the start that revels in evil and absolutely can not be redeemed. The whole dynamic can collapse changing her like that.
Also fpbp
>In a way, she resembles the Fire Nation's most violent nature and how that needs to be destroyed, not reasoned with.
Way to miss the ENTIRE point of ATLA's setting. The Fire Nation's violent competitive nature is something for THEM to deal with, their cultural fault, not "something to be destroyed". That's like saying "because the Northern Water Tribe is sexist, they must be destroyed" or "because Ba Sing Se is an Orwellian state in ignorant stasis, it must be destroyed". That is the exact mindset of the fricking Fire Nation itself, the idea that if a culture is wrong or you are better than it is, then it doesn't deserve to exist.
What the live action adaptation has done right is Ozai and Azula are humanized not just as villains but as fully fleshed out characters with beliefs beyond "I gotta conquer this world". Ozai believes he is right, has reasons for believing so, and none of them are irrational. Just cruel and maybe counterproductive. And as for Azula, she is absolutely the product of her upbringing - as while she shows signs of mental illness as a child, her behavior was encouraged by her father rather than properly dealt with. Saying she has to be irredeemable is like saying "the abused and mentally ill are better off shot". The comics end up fleshing out Azula and her overall arc, while the series itself leaves her as what is basically a villain-of-the-season for 2 and by Season 3 she's a fricking mess barely able to hold in her own shit.
In either case, that's not "irredeemable", that's "please seek a therapist."
Except this was done in the original show better. Azula's mental illness doesn't need to be softened. She doesn't need to be shown to sad, kind hearted or regretful. Ozai doesn't need to be softened. The transition from the Fire Nation man's burden logic to Ozai's total world conflagration is not a stretch at all. Ozai is cruel, he is the perfect heir to the Fire Nation as it stood at that point in time. Azula was raised by him and is the perfect daughter. It's fricked up, but the product of this scenario is a genuine psycho evil b***h. There's no reason to make 3 Zukos out of this. It's not deeper writing to do that, it's actually shallower and shows a lack of trust in the viewer's ability to understand anything. Take a look at the way the remake just exposits character traits. The change to Ozai and Azula's character is a reflection of that. And lastly, I do think Azula can be helped, but again, you don't need to turn her into Zuko to do that.
>softened
You're mistaking "round characters" for "soft characters". The reality was Season 2 Azula was flat, and Ozai was flat throughout.
You should read some interviews about Hitler (conducted by Peter Jennings of all fricking people) about the interactions he had with the children of some middle range state officials. He was very genial and playful with them, getting down on their level and doing stupid fatherly shit. Does this "soften" Hitler? Make him a "better person", or does it "redeem the irredeemable"? No, turns out Hitler was a human being, capable of being charismatic and likable with other people. Wow. What a fricking concept. (And if you want a source for it, it's Egon Hanfstaengl, found on page 169 of Peter Jenning's Book, the Century; a really good book).
Ozai is one of the few people you can legitimately compare to Hitler and get away with it, so if you want to actually have Ozai as a fleshed out character you need to see his own personal story - of how he sold his relationship with his wife and with his children away for power and world conquest. He had moments of indecision, moments where he could have chosen a different path, and he rejected that offer of an alternative. THAT'S what makes him a villain. Not innate evil-ness, but a refusal to be a better person; all because he believed his own feelings of affection towards his wife, brother, and children were weakness.
I think fricking Hitler is a great example. He thought he was in the right, had sadness in his life, and had humanity because he was human. People still think of him as one of the most evil people in history because he was.
>I think fricking Hitler is a great example. He thought he was in the right, had sadness in his life, and had humanity because he was human. People still think of him as one of the most evil people in history because he was.
oh, Hitler was very human. He was pretty much a John Wayne Republican. In many ways, he was a simple guy. His favorite books were pulpy cheap westerns. he bought into men should be macho, and charge in and whip ass and get the girl. And he bought into the same dumb kind of conspiracy theories about "other" people over there ruining everything. And how things would be better if they just went back to the old ways.
People have had a lot of trouble reconciling how his ideas on taking France and the bitz and all his blunders with Russia. The truth is, it was all cowboy pulp shit. The blitz is just a bunch of cowboys in pantzers hitting something faster than it can react and the men in the tanks having the sense to use their radios. But that cowboy shit didn't work in Russia for very long. For ones, there are no cowboy books on fighting in the russian winter.
Like, for real real, google it. Hitler loved shitty cowboy books. They found shelves of the shit by the beds of his different homes and apartments across germany.
(as an aside, we shipped a lot of them back to the US and they eventually got absorbs into our library system. So if you ever find a 1920s or 30s western in german in a library, it might have been Hitlers.)
Your understanding of history is unfathomably low
>The reality was Season 2 Azula was flat
No she wasn't. Her characterisation was not flat, it is what interested people into her. She was a crazy prodigy. She was Zuko's sister. None of this was flat! Also her backstory came later with the flashback episode.
The mistake I find here is that people nowadays with these adaptations feel the need to front load a character with backstory as if that will get people interested in the character. The creators of ATLA live action show have compared it to GoT. Well GoT made this mistake as seasons went on. When it showed Dorne it tried to shoe horn stuff in and front load stuff to try and get audiences engaged rather than build and develop. And in turn it ruined that stuff and that became the main start of the show declined.
Real creators know what makes a character interesting and build from it. Bad creators front load a character with baggage rather than letting it naturally flow. And guess which succeed and which fail.
Season 3 Azula was round, Season 2 Azula was flat. "Psycho prodigy who always has a plan" is not a deep character. This is a mistake many writers make, in fact, and it results in many OC Donut Steals.
She was still interesting. And development over time is better than frontloading characters.
I disagree in this case. Dealing with Azula's backstory and motivations at the same time as Zuko realizing his father is a shit is efficient.
>efficient
Storytelling isn't about efficiency. That is for the number crunchers. It is about what feels right and is interesting.
Overexplaining characters has ruined a bunch of Cinemaphile related fiction. Sometimes the gaps we fill in with our own head are more interesting than being told what the character had for breakfast that morning.
>Overexplaining characters has ruined a bunch of Cinemaphile related fiction. Sometimes the gaps we fill in with our own head are more interesting than being told what the character had for breakfast that morning.
im fine with getting tons of details niy ultimately you need to have some mystery and suspense. Then when you make the move to make things clear, have some other plot thread loaded in the chamber and a good way to make the "big event" part of the story going forward.
So like if you've been building up a romance, make it a little mysterious. And when you confirm it, do something with it. Don't make one member of the romance take a back seat.
There is a scene in Star Trek: Into Darkness where a character says "I am Khan". Now the characters in the scene have no idea who Khan is but the movie expects us to know it is the villain Khan from the older movies. That plot beat is essentially for audience members in-the-know and not satisfying to the current plot.
Introducing Azula early on and explaining her motives takes away from her later appearances, who is she? Well we already know. What is her relationship with the characters? Well we already know. You've effectively neutered her influence in the plot. For what? A few introductory scenes?
I feel like creators want to try and artificially build bonds with the characters to the audience and have clean screenplays rather than making it interesting.
tbqh S2 Azula had way more resources than anyone else to catch the Avatar, still failed and got lucky with a few things during her siege
I'm not calling Azula a mary sue, I'm saying "Psycho prodigy who always has a plan" isn't deep but people mistake it for so because it holds the promise of depth and competence in an easy 'don't think about it too much' package.
Like the Joker, for example, can be well written when he is mysterious or downright pathetic when he's forced to spew "We live in a Society" type dialogue. Because "Psycho prodigy who always has a plan" is a flat character, and giving the Joker some sort of cause ruins that. But Azula canonically goes batshit in Season 3 and is on a redemption arcs in the comics, so you need to deal with that.
>Storytelling isn't about efficiency.
t. has never written anything
I have, it absolutely is about fricking efficiency. You only have so much time.
>t. has never written anything
Anon don't throw out insults. I have written stuff in a professional capacity. We are talking about two different things here.
>I have, it absolutely is about fricking efficiency. You only have so much time.
Every writer has shorthand and shortcuts. But what I am describing here is a misunderstanding of live action where they frontload stuff, overexplain stuff or do things in a different order more so because they worry about audiences understanding rather than producing something interesting. There is a difference.
>You only have so much time.
You're the one arguing for adding unnecessary information for Azula and Ozai.
>unnecessary information
>about the series' main antagonists
top kek, if anyone needs focus it is them.
>You only have so much time.
This:
Ironically the cartoon was more efficient.
Nah even season2zula has the dynamic of her reaching out and trying to bring her brother back into the fold. Then of course season 3 has the beach and her downfall, and plotting against Zuko while at the same time trying to keep him out of trouble and whatnot. I'm sorry to say, but you got filtered by the kids show. It was too subtle for you.
Azula does NOT need to cry while seeing Zuko get burned. That shit SUCKS and that is not my psycho b***h.
Everything you said about Azula is something the cartoon did. The live action show didn't improve on it, it just missed the point and made it bland.
No it isn't you absolute moron, holy shit what a dumb take. All of the ppl agreeing too jfc. Did you dumb motherfrickers learn nothing from the show.
Great argument! you really showed them!
I'm not gonna argue with people who misunderstand a kid's show this badly.
The fricking comic spells it out for you about how she could've turned differently and could maybe be saved.
Psude alert
Basically this. There wasn't room in the plot for Azula to get rehabilitated or redeemed, and doing so would have destroyed her importance to the plot.
As I recall, they started doing something with her post-war in the spin-off comics, but I stopped reading before anything actually happened because they got too terrible. But that was the place for Azula's redemption arc, not when they had a ticking clock to avert world domination. Azula's honestly just lucky she didn't get fricking greased by Katara because I'm sure she would have happily done it.
>But muh childhood drama, being abused and muh father issues reeeeeeee chuds reeeeeeeeeeeee
I'm not even a fricking chud but the other b***h unironically believe this.
Either can work, but based on the original cartoon, Azula just being a born sociopath makes more sense.
Anyone who desperately wants an Azula redemption either wishes they could frick her or they have their own childhood trauma that they project on her and want to frick her.
>tfw I’m the latter
>tfw also major issues with my mother
Granted I’m not some prodigous sociopath vying for political power just a paranoid and neurotic frickwit
>that said I personally like her more as an inherent monster, maybe she’ll simmer down overtime when she realizes her father only ever liked her as another pawn, but in the end she’ll always be the machiavellian hellspawn we’ve come to know
>based on the original cartoon, Azula just being a born sociopath makes more sense.
The beach episode, her response to being betrayed by Mai and Ty Lee (and the unraveling that follows) and her interaction with the mom-hallucination all suggest otherwise. She learned at an extremely early age, from her father, that fear was a tool that could be used to control and any sort of weakness is abhorrent. Her identity was established as a prodigy in childhood and perfection became pathological.
I wouldn't really go as far as some do in calling her abused or traumatized, but she's a product of her upbringing. It's clear in the flashbacks that she was a little shit as a kid, but any more than plenty of kids are, she was raised into being a power-hungry sociopath who views even her close friends as something to be scared into following her. If Iroh had paid her attention and tempered her raw strength with more wisdom and humility, or if Ursa hadn't been so focused on Zuko and had coddled her more, she probably would have ended up a much more reasonable person.
I think if you're actually paying attention to who she is, she's a fairly tragic character. That is why her undoing is internal and about what she's failed to understand, rather than about her just being overpowered and beaten, the way Ozai was.
Plenty of people grow up in horrible circumstances and come out good people at the end, because their innate nature is good. That often means the same principle of "making your own luck", which is not pushing away or ignoring the good things in your life like others do. Zuko's willingness to keep Iroh in his life is what saved him.
Plenty of people grow up in loving, stables homes without being spolit but no amount of nurturing stops them becoming horrible unlikeable people.
The idea that everybody is some victim is a midwit take that ruins stories and societies. Society inevitable has to kick somebody to the curb for the sake of maintaining peace and order, and it may as well be the shitty people that get the boot. Sometimes if you want to save some children from being mauled you have to exterminate some beloved family Pitbulls, it's not hard to understand.
Home isn't the only place you're socialized anon. There's no innate goodness or evil in you.
>There's no innate goodness or evil in you.
evil is real, anon. Its just rare.
In childhood we believe that 50% of the world is good and 50% is evil. Or at least 25% is evil. Our bedtime stories tell us this.
We become a teen and we realize that life is not so simple. That most people think they are the hero of their own story and bad guys are just people who conflict with them. We stop believing in evil.
Then we get a job with real people in the real world. Eventually we run into someone that is evil. Maybe we spot them instantly. Maybe they sneak up and bite us like a spider, ruining some major life project, ripping us off for money, hurting us or our family. Whatever it is they do, there is something different about them. Something that gives a feeling of unease. Something unnatural in how they speak, or move or the way their face expressions emotions. For small moments you get this feeling like they are a monster wearing a human skin.
Then you realize evil is real. Its not half the planet, but it is out there. Everytime you leave your house, if you walk around a few 1000 people, a handful of them are genially evil and only want to hurt others and they were probably born that way.
>The beach episode. Her response to being betrayed by Mai and Ty Lee (and the unraveling that follows) and her interaction with the mom-hallucination all suggest otherwise.
NTA, and not invested in Azula being 100% irredeemable. However, I want to point out, that none of these are examples of Azula feeling bad for the sake of another person, or anything else that would hard counter the armchair diagnosis of sociopathy/psychopathy (specifically antisocial behaviour/inability to empathize). In every instance, Azula is hurt because she is rejected by others. It's pain felt on her own behalf. In the beach episode in particular, it reads like narcissistic injury, which isn't mutually exclusive. A psychopath is still capable of coveting social bonds for status, usefulness, self-flattery, and such even though they don't appreciate them in the normal way.
I don't care either way, but in a vacuum I'm sick of adding le trauma to every fricking villain
People in the 21st century are obsessed with complicating things. Azula's character is impactful precisely because she's precise, sophisticated, and simple. Everything doesn't have to be a psychological, moral, or philosophical battle. Things, and in this instance, characters, are allowed to just simply be entertaining, and terrifying. Those qualities have immense value to a story all on their own.
Exactly. She stands out because how competent she is, and for how dedicated she is to achieving her goals. Making her a sympathetic victim ruins her unique character. Azula being an irredeemable pscho evil girl boss makes her unique. We will never see a character like her in western Cinemaphile material ever again
Why does every modern show/movie feel the need to give the villian a sympathetic backstory? Why can’t people just be fricking evil anymore?
Because villains that are just evil cuz no reason aren't very interesting (but not necessarily bad. just they have less potential). Though I don't think every villain needs a tragic backstory.
This stopped being true since over a decade ago. Now being irredeemable and evil is unique and rare especially for a minority female character.
Now white people are still allowed to be depicted as cartoonishly evil now according to Hollywood
Cause the people in charge are pure evil anc want to make people forget pure evil exists.
Or niave people are writinb these coping that pure evil doesn't exist.
a woman character can't possibly be inherently evil because that's sexist or something, it always has to be a man's fault
How'd you get out of your basement, pal?
is this way, try not to get lost again, okay?
Coping already, xitterina?
This and if she's hot men will simp for her and be mad if she doesn't get redeemed.
Damn, crazy that she WAS hot and still didn't get redeemed then. Wild how they explicitly did not follow this logic at all.
Azula was already sympathetic, you can't tell me her final scene of the original where she broke down wasn't meant to invoke a sense of pity for her. The issue is that these people cant comorehend that a character can be BOTH sympathetic and irredeemable.
Any scene with Ursa came from Azula's POV, who was already convinced Ursa thought of her as a monster because she didn't encourage her behavior.
Because morons automatically think it is good.
Because it’s a very shallow play on morality and life’s story. Even in the Christian Bible, stereotyped as hippie love forgive everyone all the time, it clearly states there are a lot of people, even with tragic backstories, that just love to be evil.
Azula was never “just fricking evil,” though. She never said:
“Now I will become Fire Lord in order to do Evil TM because it’s Evil TM!!! Bwahahaha!!!”
Azula and even Ozai always had that Divine Right of Kings bullshit where they think they’re entitled because they’re born to rule. This isn’t Rainbow Brite, they’re don’t do things just to “be evil.” They get something out of it and don’t give a damn about who they hurt, it’s not “for the sake of” being bad with no gain. That’s the difference between a show for two year olds and everything else.
>“Now I will become Fire Lord in order to do Evil TM because it’s Evil TM!!! Bwahahaha!!!”
no one does. Not even sociopaths. Everyone always think they are in the right.
Right, and I think that’s what this discourse often forget with its “many people are evil just to be evil and that’s it” discourse. Very few people are evil in order to serve the “cause” and ideology of “evil” or some shit, that’s usually limited to cartoons for really little kids who sell toys or bad Silver Age comics. Even sadism isn’t about commitment to a “cause of evil,” it’s just doing something because it feels good. Self-interest isn’t doings things “to be evil,” either.
Hitler thought that what he was doing made sense and wrote a whole book about it, that doesn’t make him any less evil.
It’s so bizarre to act like as soon as you can explain a character’s motives, you are “excusing” them. No you’re fricking not.
People grew up writing fanfiction about their favorite hot villains being nice and now they write for shows.
All of the responses to this post are moronic and wrong by the way. The real answer is that fans and the writers (often one and the same now) like the character but the character is a villain. They can't just like a villain because villains are bad people and they're not bad people, they're good people, so the villain is just made more and more sympathetic until essentially they're not even a villain at all. A lot of it comes from wanting to frick the character thus guy writers will redeem female characters and vice versa with female writers and male writers. Then there's a bit of self-insertion going on too but that's mainly female writers/female characters because guys are far more likely to go "wow, this guy is cool and I want to be cool too." With guys it mostly just means the bad guy wins or is smarter and cooler than everyone (see Doomwank) though occasionally you get the "they're a villain... but noble" thing too.
Some times that kind of stuff works (good guy Sandman or Zemo's evolution throughout Thunderbolts) but it's since become trite and is often poorly done.
That's not true in this case though, Azula was always shown to have some humanizing elements and qualities.
What you guys want is just Frieza from Dragon Ball. He's fine, but he is from a Kids' Punching Show. A:tLA does have some punchin' for kids, but since it's a little more nuanced than that, even Ozai isn't quite that silly. People find Azula more interesting than Ozai because she has a little more humanity than that. That doesn't somehow make her "less evil."
Of Joker in TDK, he's like a representation of nihilist philosophy and not an actual person. A lot of "just evil" villains are just symbols representing some concept. Azula kind of represents some concepts, but she is also "character" who has a personality and emotions. That's it.
Again, Ozai fits what you guys want. He's just "Imperialism" or a symbol of abusive parents for Zuko without much going on. He's not interesting on his own. Azula has emotionally fraught scenes of sadness in the original, too. It has nothing to do with "how evil" she is, just her having some internal character work going on instead of nothing. You're just complaining about a character having any layers.
Layers don't excuse anything about a character or their fans. What a weird idea. I don't look at Stalin and go "oh wait you had a bad childhood so it's okay you murdered millions of people" or "Stalin says he has these reasons to do stuff and because he says or even thinks that he must be right."
If you can only identify evil when someone calls themselves evil and is one-dimensionally evil for the sake of evil I don't know what to fricking tell you? Even serial killers come up with sob stories and excuses for their shit.
That point has been mentioned about 4-5 times in this thread already
>The real answer is that fans and the writers (often one and the same now) like the character but the character is a villain.
I like Azula as a villian and don't mind her remaining one. But you can't tell me that Azula's role in the narrative as a credible villain has not run its course. TLOK and Aang's intended audience make it impossible for to remain a credible threat. And clearly, even if it would be better, Bryke is incapable of writing her out of the story, whether it be killing her or having her frick off. So, instead of having her be a scooby-doo villian, they should take her character in a different direction, even if it means redeems her.
>Why can’t people just be fricking evil anymore?
Because "evil" to these people means being transphobic, misogynistic, or racist. And those sins are considered so evil that even portraying them in fiction is borderline sacrilege.
>Because "evil" to these people means being transphobic, misogynistic, or racist. And those sins are considered so evil that even portraying them in fiction is borderline sacrilege.
its a little more nuanced than that.
The people who screech the loudest about this stuff tend to be deeply autistic or have some similar nurodivergence AND are also stupid. So they think the act of showing something in a tv show, even by the bad guy, means the show is endorsing said behavior. They do not understand the basic idea of a creator having separate beliefs from the characters in the media they create. Even when its obvious because it is the beliefs of the bad team.
Which makes you wonder. Because these people also tend to like badguys in shows growing up. So did they like, watch something like Kim Possible and think the bad guys were in the right? Did they watch the original Avatar and think the fire nation was doing the right thing?
>Does Azula work better as a sympathetic villain with a tragic past who can be redeemed or as a pure evil monster?
Ozai is the pure evil monster that is more like a force of nature than a man
Azula on the other hand personifies her nation, brainwashed into self destructive hatred of the whole world
she sympathetic in a sense that we see where she is coming from, while condemning her actions
it is obvious that the ultimate point of her character is to be tamed and fixed by Zuko, showcasing his changes to the whole FN society
do some people watch atla and just skip all the scenes with Ozai in them or something?
or do you really need Ozai to hold a plaque saying
>I am literally satan
to get that he is supposed to be evil
based
the arc we need AND deserve
It's easier to frick up a pure evil villain than it is a sympathetic villain. A sympathetic villain can be completely mid and still garner an approval from the audience, a purely evil villain is either executed perfectly or not at all.
The simple fact of the matter is that today's writers aren't skilled enough to make a good purely evil villain who is evil for the sake of being evil and revels in being an butthole.
They don't want children to be ready for the truth that some people are just soulless monsters with no emotions
I don't get it ether because I feel like it's hard to make your way through modern education without running into at least one genuinely sinister fricker.
She was never irredeemable, it's just nobody ever bothered to try redeeming her. Her bad behavior was cultivated and encouraged by Ozai and nobody really gave a shit. That being said, she doesn't need a redemption arc because she's supposed to be a tragic character, basically what Zuko could have ended up as if he didn't have people supporting him to be good.
If you were to do a redemption arc for her, you'd pretty much need to ignore all of the continuation conics.
I'd ignore the comics regardless because they're awful.
> it's just nobody ever bothered to try redeeming her
oh frick off with this headcanon bullshit, both Iroh and the mom tried to get through to her. What was her response to Iroh giving her a doll as a present? Destroy it because she wanted a knife to cut up people with instead
Some people are indeed born evil, the only thing one can do in that scenario is to not give that person any power and authority so they can't do any harm.
>What was her response to Iroh giving her a doll as a present? Destroy it because she wanted a knife
Iroh's present was condescending and showed he had no real awareness for who Azula is as a person. He treated her as some little girl or idle princess and not a member of the Fire Nation royal family eager to prove herself worthy of her position. Meanwhile he gave Zuko a knife and Zuko was jazzed up about it. That's not a sign Zuko is a budding serial killer.
But she was a little girl. Everything else is fluff. He tried to approach her as her uncle and she refused it.
That's what he did with Zuko by the way. He got to him treating him like a person and not like the Fire Nation Prince.
>>That's what he did with Zuko by the way. He got to him treating him like a person and not like the Fire Nation Prince.
Except the letters that went with both gifts went essentially like this:
'Here nephew, have this knife I was awarded by the defending Earth Kingdom general. There is a life lesson in this for you, if you are but wise enough to understand it!'
'Azula, here's a doll I found. You like dolls, right?'
here's the actual dialogue, with Ursa reading the letter. Iroh's lack of interest in Azula as a person is pretty clear, and imo perfectly fine as it gives Iroh a blind spot and flaw. He's not all knowing and all wise at all times, and is obviously more invested in his nephew who he expects to follow the family tradition of joining the army over a niece he thinks will be like the other women in the royal family, mostly soft spoken and offscreen. she's not first in his mind and that's okay.
trying to pretend he had some understanding or sympathy for her is frankly not proven out in the text. he had little interest in her except in a token way since she was small.
This 100%. Iroh is great but he didn't give a shit about Azula because he saw her as a girl and liked Zuko because he reminded him of his son. As Azula got older her saw her and Zuko parallel himself and his brother. As much as we understand Iroh as the peace and love guy he was set to be the firelord and committed plenty of wrong himself before he changed his ways. [Spoiler] prequel when? [/spoiler] I think it's also funny we never hear anything about his wife
>I think it's also funny we never hear anything about his wife
It's crazy how Iroh canonically makes a portrait of his family but doesn't include his wife or a drawing of his mother.
>>zuko got his face burned off, but he never tried to sacrifice his men for his own gain, even after getting his face melted
see azula risking her mens lives day 1
Azula knows that showing compassion for others will result in her getting a matching scar with her brother.
>There's no innate goodness or evil in you.
Some people are born with maligant ASPD tho.
>It's crazy how Iroh canonically makes a portrait of his family but doesn't include his wife or a drawing of his mother.
They are women.
>prequel when?
We'll never get a prequel since the moment we see Iroh kill people on screen, persecute gay people, or being involved in any fashion with the Southern Waterbender Genocide, is the moment Iroh stans will freak. It is the same reason why the Zuko and Ursa flashbacks in The Search don't include in him, even when it would make sense like with Ozai and Ursa's wedding.
> Iroh is great but he didn't give a shit
See now you're unfairly shitting on Iroh. The truth is even IRL a lot of people don't know loads about their own family or anything else. He didn't fully know Azula but then he spent most of his life as heir apparent, travelling and in war. So I don't think he was actively not giving a shit. I think he just made an assumption about what a little girl would want. He liked Zuko because Zuko took after his mother and had some introspection and sensitivity.
I feel like some of these takes are bizarre.
>both Iroh and the mom tried to get through to her.
Ozai would never let either of them "poison" his precious prodigy. The only way either of them could have gotten through to her was by removing Ozai from the household, but in Iroh's case, by the time that happened she fell to madness, and in Ursa's case, she still hasn't had a conversation with Azula post-face restoration.
Not watching Netflix version but she works as a "Positive" Victim of her father and the Fire Nation. The point is that even when "doing everything right" the Fire Nation still doesn't fulfill its people.
For me personally what i always found interesting with the idea of "redeeming" azula is how even the series clearly shows she to far gone for it to even work. Shes an extremely evil yet broken person due to her upbringing and is at the point now where she cant even be saved since she wont accept it.
Even this is over complicating it. I wouldn't even say she's evil because of her upbringing (she had a good and relatively normal childhood as far as royalty goes), you're doing the same thing the Netflix writers want to do. She is simply mentally ill and psychotic. No need to make up a back story about Ozai abusing her or whatever people want to use to justify why someone would enjoy evil actions. I know plenty of real life people who are just buttholes and nothing bad happened to them to make them act out in that way, they are just shitty defective humans.
I just read about Japan's Ward 731 and holy shit
ok, this has nothing to do with the topic of the thread.
>I wouldn't even say she's evil because of her upbringing (she had a good and relatively normal childhood as far as royalty goes)
So close to getting it, yet still missing the swing...
You're swinging too far in the other direction. Are some people simply more prone to mental illness? Yes. Does that mean she never had a chance? No, because the show makes it clear the only person who gave her any positive attention was her father who is essentially Hitler.
I may be wrong, but I vaguely remember a scene where her mother remarks on her behavior, which indicates it's something inherent to her. Don't know if any of you have ever had to deal with psycho children but no amount of nurturing can fix them.
That comes much later. She was already killing animals and starting small fires before Zuko got banished.
The point of the scene you're remembering was mostly to reinforce the point of the bad rhetoric having already taken root by the time her mom FINALLY tried to say something about it. She took too long and, even then, didn't appropriately address the real problems Azula had. It was a failing on two fronts.
I found a collection of all the scenes. I think they just reinforce what I've been saying about Azula just being mentally ill and not necessarily being a victim of having a warmongering father. Her mother did corrected her and attempted to intervene. Azula would have been the same even if there was no war.
>She took too long and, even then, didn't appropriately address the real problems Azula had.
Ursa was always aware of the real problems, it is just that she could do nothing about them: Ozai, Azulon, Lu Ten, and (pre-redemption) Iroh.
>think they just reinforce what I've been saying about Azula just being mentally ill and not necessarily being a victim of having a warmongering father.
Even Bryke during S3 thought she was a product of nuture, not nature. Also, Azula was 9 in those flashbacks. Ozai got his claws in her at a much younger age than what was seen in the Zuko Alone flashbacks.
fans think the show is saying, "Azula was born evil!"
I have no problem liking born evil characters like Dio. I find them entertaining. But why did the OG show give her the mirror scene, have the Final Agni Kai music be somber instead of energenic like Aang v. Ozai, or why is Azula's defeat not treated the same as Ozai's defeat? Or why does she take actions inconsistent with a truly evil character? She is probably too far gone to be redeemed, and she'll probably have to be put down like a dog. But I don't understand why people think she is pure evil instead of a tragic villian?
Never said she wasn't aware, just that she didn't do anything until it was already beyond her.
>just that she didn't do anything until it was already beyond her.
What could Ursa have done to counteract Ozai's influence other than killing all the other Royal Family members except for Zuko? Honestly, it is a mircale that she managed to get through to Zuko
Namely, and most simply, she could have spent more time with her in small, non-confrontational ways.
It's really not as difficult as you seem to think. Half of Azula's own stated issue with her mother is that she wasn't really present for her unless it was for a scolding. As other anons have pointed out, Azula got her positive reinforcement from Ozai's praises. Her mom only ever seeming to get mad at her pushed her further towards her father's world view.
Now, it also makes sense why; not everyone handles stress well, least of all when it comes from within the home as it did for Ursa, and that resulted in her pushing a lot of that burden towards Azula. But that was the main barrier between them.
>Namely, and most simply, she could have spent more time with her in small, non-confrontational ways.
But how could she do that if Ozai has servants watching her every move? You really think if Ursa tries to correcting Azula's behavior and ideology that causes friction between that Ozai wouldn't intervene and put an end to that real quick?
>I'm not really buying this. As someone who grew up with a crazy sister. This is the politically correct answer because they are Nickelodeon writers. It's always someone else's fault, children aren't monsters. They can't outright say Azula is a serial killer, deal with it.
If they intended Azula to be a pyschopathic serial killer, I wish they showed, or at least implied, her killing and torturing people. They should have done stuff like having her kill Mai and Ty Lee, or directly torture Suki.
>But they were on Nick
The show had a genocide and a main character get burned by his dad. If they could get around network sensors to talk about such heavy topics, they should have been able to depict Azula as a pyschopathic serial killer if that was what they intended her to be.
I shouldn't have used the words serial killer, I was trying to make a point with hyperbole, but she is 100% psychotic and it's not due to neglect. There are multiple scenes and flash backs through he show where it shows that Azula abuses Mai and Tai lee.
Am I the only one who's been creeped out by how popular the Tyzula ship is? Ty Lee is afraid of Azula, in the comics she admits she's still terrified of her after she was locked away, she only joined her because Azula more or less threatened to kill her if she didn't. Are Yuri shippers that delusional?
>Am I the only one who's been creeped out by how popular the Tyzula ship is?
No, you are not the only one. I am fine with Tyzula in AU, canon divergence, or after Azula has gone on the mother of all redemption arcs. Yet the majority of Tyzula fics don't fit into those categories, even when trying to be canon complaint.
>Are Yuri shippers that delusional?
Yes, see the existence of Catdora. But to be fair, you could say that about a lot of shippers (Dracomire, Zutura, etc.)
>But how could she do that if Ozai has servants watching her every move?
Ozai wasn't actively stopping Ursa from spending time with her children, and Ursa wouldn't have needed to go full drill sergeant mode on Azula to get through to her. The two of them simply spending time together in a relaxed environment would have been more than enough to soothe Azula's fears that Ursa didn't love her, and from there Ursa would have been able to influence her in more subtle ways.
Azula would have fricked it up by trying to appeal to her the way she would appeal to Ozai or by demonstrating how war-ready she was since that's all her country was about. Ursa would have to overcome her gut reaction and still try to appeal to her. Azula would just be so frustrated her mom didn't like whatever she did she'd take off.
NTA but I feel like your arguments here are a bit thin?
>If they intended Azula to be a pyschopathic serial killer, I wish they showed, or at least implied
I feel like they showed her as crazy enough to imply it though.
>The show had a genocide and a main character get burned by his dad
Yes and those were both to do with the main characters whose main character arcs are lynchpins of the show. I feel like this is more a question of "you can't focus screentime developing everyone" which also goes into the whole topic of the thread. Not every villain needs to be redeemable because you can't show the story of every villain. The show did tackle some heavy stuff despite being on Nick but it also weighed up those things by having levity. I really think they showed Azula to be a psychopath in as much as they could. I just think you're asking for too much.
>Not every villain needs to be redeemable because you can't show the story of every villain.
I don't need Azula to be redeemable. In fact, I think she'll die a young death as either a tragic anti-hero or as a tragic monster. I just want villians to act in accordance with what the creators have in mind for them.
>I just think you're asking for too much.
Nah. We could have had dialogue with Azula's ship crew talking about how Azula cruely punished him (i.e. murder him). We could have had Mai and/or Ty Lee allude to Azula abusing them, had Mai and/or Ty Lee have faint burn marks, or have them talk about how Azula brutally killed EK soliders in combat and how it spooked them (though in terms vague enough to get around censors). We could had Zuko tell stories to the Gaang about him getting abused Azula, thinking it is normal, only for Katara and Sokka to tell him no. I am not asking for full on episodes, but snippets of dialogue and mabye a scene or to make it clear that Azula is truly a monster, and would have been one, with or without Ozai's influence.
>I just want villians to act in accordance with what the creators have in mind for them.
She did for the most part.
>I am not asking for full on episodes, but snippets of dialogue
Indeed and they could have done more. But what they did have did imply that she was psychopathic in many ways. I think they did enough with what they had to work with and I think you're only asking for a little bit more tbh.
>She did for the most part.
Then why are Mai and Ty Lee still alive. Or why are the Kyoshi Warriors still alive, with only Suki getting tortured, and even then, that is due to a comic written well over a decade after the show ended?
>I think they did enough with what they had to work with and I think you're only asking for a little bit more tbh.
I know I am being greedy and demanding. But if they were more forceful in either direction on the whole nurture vs nature and how much of a monster Azula is, we wouldn't be having all these debates 15 years after the show ended. Like, real talk, the conclusion of Azula's arc at this point is the only real remaining plot thread in Aang's era, and the longer they keep delaying it, the more and more fandom is going to fracture.
>They want her to be forgiven.
I do want her to get forgiven. To be Mai and Ty Lee's actual friends. To have the brother-sister relationship with Zuko I think both of them always wanted. To be Kiyi's loving older sister. To have the mother-daughter relationship with Ursa both of them always wanted. To be able to use her talents to help make the world a better place. But at the same time, it would be so hollow if she didn't acknowledge the pain she caused and work to try to make as many amends as possible with no reward in sight before getting everything she truly wanted in life. I don't know what it is with people nowadays, it seems like people want their favored characters to skip the characters arcs and development and get the happy ending right away, no strings attached or work required.
>Then why are Mai and Ty Lee still alive. Or why are the Kyoshi Warriors still alive
I feel like this conversation is going in circles because the answer to that is again, Nickelodeon. The only death they really had prominently in the show was Jet and they even made a joke about if it was a death in Ember Island Players.
>how much of a monster Azula is
Azula literally said in an episode:
>I don't have sob stories like all of you. I could sit here and complain that our mom liked Zuko more than me, but I don't really care. My own mother thought I was a monster. She was right of course but it still hurt.
She outright said it. I think they did as much as they could to show she was a monster. And what you want goes beyond Nickelodeon censorship and takes up too much screentime. (And I know you've argued about Nickelodeon because of Airbender genocide etc but like I said previously those were connected to the main characters and non-negotiable.)
>remaining plot thread in Aang's era
It isn't. The show ended, Ozai was defeated. I don't need or want to read a bunch of comics after it. I think this is the problem, that people want every tied up into bows.
>If this is the case, would the Azula discourse be what it is today?
Because fans are mental; as evident by the discourse.
>Again, I don't want to have full episodes dedicated to her, but just enough dialogue
There was enough. She is in Zuko's backstory episode and we see plenty about her personality and who she is.
No offense anon, but this conversation is rather grating. It feels like it is going in circles. It feels like you want her to have some redemption arc as if it will fix fandoms (it won't). And this is part of the overall problem with culture. We got three good series of a cartoon. We got mediocre comics. We got a divisive Korra series. We got a shit movie. We got a new live action show that is being shit on. Mining the same ground over and over again leads to this, doesn't it.
>It feels like you want her to have some redemption arc as if it will fix fandoms (it won't).
>Mining the same ground over and over again leads to this, doesn't it.
Your right. The current Azula discourse is a result of Bryke not really having a story to tell after the original story ended, but still wanting to make money. I wish they had left the franchise alone. But since they aren't, nor are they willing to not keeping including Azula in stories, I wish they finally tell her final fate, even if it is her dying a young, brutal death as an irredeemable monster.
>You're everything wrong with fans because you think every arc ends in people being forgiven.
Again, Azula had a well-executed negative character arc and was a good foil to Zuko and Katara in the OG show. Her actions in the comics are consistent with that negative character arc, even if not well-written. What I am saying is that her role in the narrative as a villain has run its course, especially due to TLOK making it impossible for the Gaang to really lose. I wish they would stop messing around and have her frick off, die in a final fight, or get redeemed. Anything other than her being a scooby-doo villain who can never succeed.
So I consider this to be mostly a "fan" problem in general and nothing to do with the character. Yeah the creators are mining the same ground but the problem is some fans will keep consuming even when it's shit. The narrative has run it's course. People who feel the need to consume everything no matter quality deserve to wallow in shit. All these debates over this character in the thread don't matter. Character debates can be fun sometimes when you're not talking with autists or obsessives. But ultimately this is just a meta debate with how fandoms are fricking moronic people. The reason we keep getting more and more shit adaptions is because of them too. Canon and continuity don't matter that much, only good stories. And at this point the original Avatar feels like a flash in the pan not to be replicated. It is all so tiresome because creators or fans don't even know or understand what made it successful at this point.
>But ultimately this is just a meta debate with how fandoms are fricking moronic people. The reason we keep getting more and more shit adaptions is because of them too.
So what do you propose to fix fandoms, and by proxy, avoid shitty adaptions? Not engage with them at all?
>And at this point the original Avatar feels like a flash in the pan not to be replicated.
I hope to god that Avatar Studios will recapture the magic of the OG show, especially since they have it as good as any creator will ever have it in today's climate. But I not going to get my hopes too high.
>It is all so tiresome because creators or fans don't even know or understand what made it successful at this point.
What do you think made the OG show so successful? It executing well-worn character arcs and tropes to near perfection while having a unique (for its time) Asian influence in its world building?
>So what do you propose to fix fandoms, and by proxy, avoid shitty adaptions? Not engage with them at all?
Online fandoms inevitably end up like that and I think fixing them is well above any of our pay grades. The reason they get so bad is because of how internet communication changes psychology and leads to the internet rules (e.g. Cunningham's Law, easiest way to get the right answer is to give the wrong one).
Adaptations by their very nature are cash grabs. People seem to think something is only real when it's been adapted and ignore the strengths of a medium like cartoons, comics or books. It takes good creatives to actually overcome this initial problem.
>But I not going to get my hopes too high.
Yeah, I wouldn't.
>What do you think made the OG show so successful?
Same reason Star Wars OT is. Strong basic character works and arcs. Heroes are heroes, villains are villains, but there is twists and enough interesting hooks. And a world and concepts people find interesting and want to spend time in.
But much like Star Wars the moment you go beyond things, expand it too much, the moment you frick things up. Boba Fett looks cool and has some mystery. Now he's a a clone and Mandalorians are a race and a creed. Simple with good characters and world building. That's it.
>ignore the strengths of a medium like cartoons, comics or books.
Cartoons are the superior medium to live action. You can do stuff in animation that is impossible or would be super difficult to do. Not to mention, you can get around the issues involving child actors.
>Heroes are heroes, villains are villains, but there is twists and enough interesting hooks
But when when do twists stop being twists and starting becoming "subverting expectations"? Also, considering both OT Star Wars and OG Avatar have redeemed characters, what is the limit to characters being able to undergo heel-face turns? Or is the only limit the ability of the writers to make the turn believable and earned in the audience's eyes?
>But much like Star Wars the moment you go beyond things, expand it too much, the moment you frick things up.
>Simple with good characters and world building. That's it.
So basically you are saying is that creators should have a clear story they want to tell, or at least a rough outline that can be refined as you bounce ideas off other creators, execute it, and then leave it be?
>superior medium
I don't think so. I just think that each medium has strengths and weaknesses. And transferring between mediums all the time is silly. Some people think live action = mature. It's silly.
>But when when do twists stop being twists and starting becoming "subverting expectations"?
You're writing a detective story, you have clues, some lead to red herrings and some lead to the actual killer. Someone online guesses who the killer is. In response you change the killer to some random person at the end. It isn't narratively satisfying. It is random for the sake of it. Sure, there are some good stories like this. But on the whole a normal story with such a twist isn't satisfying. Amon in Korra was unsatisfying, for example.
>redeemed
Limit is one tbh. Zuko and Vader. Redeeming more is too much. Notice how much extended media ends up reusing that? Even that Battlefront 2 game with Iden Versio had her become a Rebel after no time. When stuff constantly cannibalises itself it shows you that, SW and Avatar are, in some ways, shallow. Good world building has just enough good stuff to activate your imagination. Bad world building explains everything. The problem with fans is they constantly clamour for their answers to be explained and eventually the mystery is gone. Case in point: look at Wolverine. His best origin story is Weapon X. How he became a weapon. BWS art is great. Wolverine Origins is shit, we didn't need to know what Wolverine was like as a kid.
>rough outline
Very little media is fully planned out and even that has to have safety nets. Babylon V was a massively planned out show but even that had to have plans around actors leaving etc.
Rough outlines but good character work, stories and world building. Not to sound shallow but it's also about aesthetics. Aang looks interesting. Oppa looks interesting. Bending is cool like the force or lightsabers. You need communicable ideas that are still interesting.
>I don't think so. I just think that each medium has strengths and weaknesses.
I can see that for animation, books, video games, and comics, among other mediums. But I don't see what you can do in live action that you can't do in animation, let alone the logistical and practical issues you run into with live action. Like would you say the Spidey vs. Green Goblin fights in Spider-Man 2001 are as good in terms of action as the Spidey vs. Green Goblin fights in the Spectacular Spider-Man?
>Limit is one tbh. Zuko and Vader. Redeeming more is too much.
You are talking about characters whose redemption is a main focus of the story, right? Because Iroh, Piandao, Jeong Jeong, Mai, and Ty Lee all have redemptions in ATLA.
>Not to sound shallow but it's also about aesthetics. Aang looks interesting. Oppa looks interesting. Bending is cool like the force or lightsabers. You need communicable ideas that are still interesting.
I know Bryke get shat on a lot, but they are so good when it comes to aesthetics.
>She ended up...quasi redeemed in the comics.
She is a domestic terrorist who is messing with spirits and is trying to take the throne again and restart the War. Is is arguably worse than she was in the show since she is no longer under Ozai's thumb.
>She showed some sociopathic tendencies which were no doubt modelled to her by many adults beyond Ozai
The lame thing about Avatar Studios taking the stance that Fire Nation are mostly good people led by terrible people is that it ignores that a lot of people outside of the Royal Family had to buy in completely into Sozin's worldview for the Fire Nation to wage such a long and costly war. And it makes Zuko's task of deprograming his people so much easier than it would be in reality, and way more boring as well.
Mai and Ty Lee count, the others I'd count less since they were ultimately already good guys who happened to be Fire Nation. But I don't think there's a limit, it's just a matter of if the redemption feels earned or makes sense. Anon's question ultimately just comes down to context and nuance, a story can do anything if it takes the effort to have these events make sense. The "subverted expectations" shit sits wrong with most people because it's not earned, it's just different for the the sake of getting a rise out of audiences but most people can see how shallow it is.
>Born evil
It's less born evil and more "meets expectations" Azula works best as a representation of how the Fire Nation fails its people because it's shown that she has no role outside of war. She doesn't know how to live, and once she outlives her usefulness she's discarded in albeit in the "kindest" way but she's still well aware she's been discarded.
>But I don't think there's a limit, it's just a matter of if the redemption feels earned or makes sense. Anon's question ultimately just comes down to context and nuance, a story can do anything if it takes the effort to have these events make sense.
So, going back to Avatar, is it even possible to make a hypothetical Azula redemption earned or make sense? And if it is, what would it look like in your opinion?
>Azula works best as a representation of how the Fire Nation fails its people because it's shown that she has no role outside of war. She doesn't know how to live, and once she outlives her usefulness she's discarded in albeit in the "kindest" way but she's still well aware she's been discarded.
Her and Lu Ten serve to show how the Fire Nation's war has robbed its children of their lives, or if they live, their humanity, ironically turning them into the type of society whose civilization should be emulated, let alone forcably spread.
>But I don't see what you can do in live action that you can't do in animation, let alone the logistical and practical issues you run into with live action.
Real life human acting brings different dimensions to things. Again, I don't see anything as superior, I can enjoy both.
>You are talking about characters whose redemption is a main focus of the story, right?
Yes.
>Because Iroh, Piandao, Jeong Jeong, Mai, and Ty Lee all have redemptions in ATLA.
I don't consider most of those as "redemptions". Several of those are White Lotus members whose motives were hidden. Mai and Ty Lee isn't what I would define as a major redemption. Redemption shit is becoming a meme.
>I know Bryke get shat on a lot, but they are so good when it comes to aesthetics.
There is nothing wrong thinking shit looks or is cool. Aesthetics are a huge part of it all.
>But when when do twists stop being twists and starting becoming "subverting expectations"? Also, considering both OT Star Wars and OG Avatar have redeemed characters, what is the limit to characters being able to undergo heel-face turns? Or is the only limit the ability of the writers to make the turn believable and earned in the audience's eyes?
really depends on how bad they are and when they turn.
It was right for Darth to make his turn the way he did. He had murdered a LOT of people for the empire. He died saving his son. His goodness was left to the viewer. And he still died for his mistakes. He didn't live and have a happy life with his grandkids after killing 1000s and being complicit in the death of billions.
Now? Someone that killed tons of people will get a redemption and just be your best besty ever.
>really depends on how bad they are and when they turn.
>Now? Someone that killed tons of people will get a redemption and just be your best besty ever.
So, going back to Avatar, is it even possible to make a hypothetical Azula redemption earned or make sense? And if it is, what would it look like in your opinion?
>Ursa would have to overcome her gut reaction and still try to appeal to her. Azula would just be so frustrated her mom didn't like whatever she did she'd take off.
Azula, when noticing Zuko and Ursa waling together, tries to get Ursa's attention by burning flowers, only for Zuko to snitch and Ursa to repremaid her. After explaining that she burned the flower because it wasn't perfect like the others, she burns Zuko in the butt, causing Ursa to ground her. Whereas when Zuko threw bread at the turtleducks like Azula before him, Ursa explains to him what he is doing is wrong and why. Or in other words, I think Ursa is either unaware of why Azula behaving the way she is, or she is, but can't correct it since Ozai would intervene and make life hell for everyone. Not because she has a bad gut reaction to Azula acting like a post-Sozin royal is supposed to.
>>Now? Someone that killed tons of people will get a redemption and just be your best besty ever.
>So, going back to Avatar, is it even possible to make a hypothetical Azula redemption earned or make sense? And if it is, what would it look like in your opinion?
Azula would probably have to be stripped of all her political power with no chance of inheriting the throne even if the rest of her family died. And no chance of her children inheriting it within her life time.
And she would probably need to be assigned to reconstruction efforts in the areas damaged and oppressed by the fire nation.
And she would probably need rotating handlers to watch her and report to the Zuko and the avatar.
And even then there would need to be a good reason to just not keep her under house arrest. Something like she is training fire benders for industry like boiling water for power plants or creating ceramics or glass or steel goods with furnaces.
For good reading, you'd probably need a human and/or drama element with fixing her relationship with her friends, making new friends, and maybe a love interest and having her own kids.
And it would need to be a slow process.
I don't think anyone that owns and works with avatar will bother with that. She's not the main character. And Avatar is aimed at teens and kids. Ultimately it is not a show about a young adult repairing her mental health and repaying her debt to society.
Something for kids? They'd probably just keep her under house arrest until there is an event that only she can fix and she will rise to the occasion and then suddenly years of being complicit in destruction and death will be forgiven.
>Something like she is training fire benders for industry like boiling water for power plants or creating ceramics or glass or steel goods with furnaces.
It's just a cookbook, but the canon cookbook that place around 15 years after Sozin's Comet implies that Azula reconciled with her friends and family, is on speaking terms with the Gaang, is reknown for her lightning, and is know as both hot and cold by her people. Considering TLOK said Zuko spread the Royal Family's techniques, including lightning redirection, I think part of Azula's atonement arc would be her spreading the Royal Family's techniques.
>Something like she is training fire benders for industry like boiling water for power plants or creating ceramics or glass or steel goods with furnaces.
For an ideal post series redemption route, Ozai should have died and Azula should have been the one whose bending was taken away. Azula's entire identity and self-worth is rooted in being the princess and becoming the strongest firebender. She loses her right to succession with Ozai's defeat. Have Aang take away her other crutch and give her a chance to develop in a new direction. She was too dangerous to keep in prison forever anyway.
>Ozai should have died and Azula should have been the one whose bending was taken away. Azula's entire identity and self-worth is rooted in being the princess and becoming the strongest firebender. She loses her right to succession with Ozai's defeat. Have Aang take away her other crutch and give her a chance to develop in a new direction.
If Azula lost her bending, especially after her breakdown, she would permanetly lose her mind and kill herself within a week max. But still, it should have been done for the sake of securing Zuko's rule and making sure she doesn't become a threat again.
>She was too dangerous to keep in prison forever anyway.
Even the original nick website said she was shipped to a remote asylum were she was watched 24/7. And the comics imply that if Zuko wasn't a selfish dumbass, she would have never escaped. She could have remained locked up for the rest of her life.
I think Ursa spent plenty of time with Azula. If she had any official duties at or away from court that would keep her away, we don't hear about them. I think the impression the show is supposed to be giving is that the memories she laments and hallucinations we see through her eyes are calling back to those very times. It's my interpretation Azula confuses Ursa's corrective criticism with abhorrent rejection, even when she's imagining her mother saying she loves her: Azula can't come to grips with whatever else she did say and decided Ursa was lying about loving her. I doubt seriously she ever referred to her as a monster.
>Now? Someone that killed tons of people will get a redemption and just be your best besty ever.
Not now but many decades ago. I think the big Cinemaphile redeemed character is Magneto. His first appearance was trying to fire missiles. But his redemption was done over a bunch of issues in Claremont's run. And people still dislike that. (Personally I like how it was done even if it is messy, good stories matter more than conforming to things forever.) People have been copying this since forever because it became popular.
The problem is so many other Cinemaphile redemptions are just "this character got so popular". Venom, Harley Quinn, all these people were villains for such a tiny slither of time before becoming anti heroes because they were popular. It really is fans and popularity driving it.
I'd argue that Magneto is a comic redemption done right.
On the other hand lot of the villains who the comic writers try to 'redeem' don't actually deserve it and the ones who actually deserve a shot at redemption never get it.
>Magneto is a comic redemption done right.
Yes I'd argue the same but the problem is that it does in some ways gloss over the awful shit he did because comic continuity is impossible to fully align. They even have that trial mini series with the Avengers and the X-Men are a bit douchey. For me it was done right because those stories that came out from it were good. When they went back to Magneto is the villain in the 90s because of Jim Lee and the cartoon it was like resetting X-Men back a decade. I do think though that Magneto is the ultimate sympathetic/redeemeable villain and through no fault of Claremont that became a basis for so many other villains to have the same thing. Even now people say Magneto is great because of that backstory.
>been that way from the start.
Sure, I mean I was implying that a bit with Venom. Venom was only really a bad guy for a small window of Spider-Man appearances before boom, he was Lethal Protector and all that. The only reason people think of him more as a villain is the '90s cartoon and PS1 video game. He has been an anti hero for like 95% of his existence. I think a lot of characters are like that.
>Harley is yeah, its lazy
Recently in comics there has been two series, yes two, where Harley wants to go straight and Poison Ivy doesn't and they have relationship problems then an evil clone plant Poison Ivy fricks with things. This plot like, to reiterate, has happened TWICE in recent years. Harley was a mook, a henchman. But she had a great style and voice. Her arc in the animated series is a complete arc. Every writer just does the same thing with her. It isn't fertile ground. She's an anti hero with a sorta heart of gold or occasionally edgy. I don't necessarily blame female fans specifically, but it is just the problem where you have a character with a good aesthetic whose complete arc has already happened and every single series after that is the same thing. Deadpool went through something similar.
>Recently in comics there has been two series, yes two, where Harley wants to go straight and Poison Ivy doesn't and they have relationship problems then an evil clone plant Poison Ivy fricks with things. This plot like, to reiterate, has happened TWICE in recent years. Harley was a mook, a henchman. But she had a great style and voice. Her arc in the animated series is a complete arc. Every writer just does the same thing with her. It isn't fertile ground. She's an anti hero with a sorta heart of gold or occasionally edgy. I don't necessarily blame female fans specifically, but it is just the problem where you have a character with a good aesthetic whose complete arc has already happened and every single series after that is the same thing. Deadpool went through something similar.
ugh the harley quinn show. The characterization and overall world building so lazy and all over the place. Even main characters like Clayface aren't the same people from one season to the next.
And I hate it because that is one of my favorite takes on Ivy and one of my least liked Harley's.
>ugh the harley quinn show.
Never watched it. Only seen clips. Kind of feel like I get what it is going for from that.
One thing you find is that so many comic characters have a thin slither of good content. Being a fan of a character is a chump game. Follow creative teams, never characters.
If azula was rule63'd. Would people still give as much of a damn about a potential redemption? People are cool with Ozai/Sozin/Azulon being firelord Hitlers but Azula who was Ozai Jr. Isnt? Azula was a sociopath all along, even if she had her own uncle Iroh, she wouldnt have changed
>People are cool with Ozai/Sozin/Azulon being firelord Hitlers but Azula who was Ozai Jr. Isnt?
nope
Look, it all goes back to the beach episode. A LOT of anons fell in love with autistic Azula. The one that laughs at shit inappropriately and doesn't understand social interaction.
When Ozai gets an episode where he is a cute austic girl at a beach party, then we'll talk
>The problem is so many other Cinemaphile redemptions are just "this character got so popular". Venom, Harley Quinn, all these people were villains for such a tiny slither of time before becoming anti heroes because they were popular. It really is fans and popularity driving it.
Its probably been that way from the start. I can't think of instances where it happened in print or theater, but I know it has happened to pretty much every Disney cartoon if it last long enough.
Mickey was a little shit, planking people, got popular so they cleaned him up and brought out Donald.
Donald would jack people up and almost kill goofy, got popular, so they calmed him down and made his temper a product of bad things happening to him.
Then they introduced Chip and Dale, both of which just aggravated the shit out of Donald and almost killed him several times. Same with the nephews.
By the late 80s they had cleaned up both Chip and Dale and the nephews and made them heroes of their own cartoons.
Even in something like Aladdin, they cleaned up Iago and made him a hero because little kids liked him.
Most edgy cartoon characters for kids get their edges sanded off if they get a fandom.
The thing with Harley is yeah, its lazy and stupid. They could have redeemed her before the launch of New Adventures. They even hinted at it. They could even have her go back to being Harleen. But supposedly her female fans like that she is a crazy b***h so she becomes this weird mix of edgless and crazy. What a mess. And I'm surprised her female fans like it. AND they usually redeem her after its very clear she has helped murder lots of people. They never start a book with her and go back in time to a point around Harley's Holiday when she tried to get clean and hadn't killed 100s of people. They always do it way down the road.
I don't really have an opinion on Venom. I have looked at his wiki off and on and some of the current stuff looks bonkers nuts and weird.
>Like, real talk, the conclusion of Azula's arc at this point is the only real remaining plot thread in Aang's era, and the longer they keep delaying it, the more and more fandom is going to fracture.
Azula's arc was that ultimately her pursuit of power and ruling turns to nothing because she can only rule through fear and is ultimately left alone ending with a breakdown. The truth is you don't want an arc, you want one conclusion where she is redeemed. A character arc doesn't mean it ends how you want it. A character arc means, where the characters actions lead them to, aka consequences. The consequences of Azula destroying her relationships, ruling through fear and not understanding love or friendship lead her to a breakdown. You're everything wrong with fans because you think every arc ends in people being forgiven.
>Nah. We could have had dialogue with Azula's ship crew talking about how Azula cruely punished him (i.e. murder him). We could have had Mai and/or Ty Lee allude to Azula abusing them, had Mai and/or Ty Lee have faint burn marks, or have them talk about how Azula brutally killed EK soliders in combat and how it spooked them (though in terms vague enough to get around censors). We could had Zuko tell stories to the Gaang about him getting abused Azula, thinking it is normal, only for Katara and Sokka to tell him no. I am not asking for full on episodes, but snippets of dialogue and mabye a scene or to make it clear that Azula is truly a monster, and would have been one, with or without Ozai's influence.
This just feels like multiple nitpicks? Azula is shown to be villanous enough and pretty much none of the other side characters have this many moments. I think the answer is more: screentime, than anything else.
>Azula is shown to be villanous enough
If this is the case, would the Azula discourse be what it is today?
>pretty much none of the other side characters have this many moments.
Azula is the main secondary villain, considering Ozai's lack of screen presence, she is by far the most visible and prominent main villain. She is the Vader to Ozai's Palpetine. Again, I don't want to have full episodes dedicated to her, but just enough dialogue and scenes to make her the monster that people claim Bryke thinks she is.
>If this is the case, would the Azula discourse be what it is today?
Because:
>Prying Pandora has done incaluable damage to ATLA fandom.
People like that.
>I am sorry for ranting, but I dislike how she aggressively goes to every single thread and tries bulling people into accepting her (sanitized) conception of Azula. As if her working on an dub ad decades ago gives her a position of authority in the fandom. Unless you are a writer or artists who worked on the franchise, you are just a fan whose takes are just that, takes, like the rest us.
>But I don't understand why people think she is pure evil instead of a tragic villian?
Azula fans *think* other people think she is born evil and make all kinds of weird thoughts and emotions over it. Because these people are emotional wrecks who aren't defending a fictional character but feel like they are defending a real life person. Read my post again.
>They like a character.
>Character does bad things.
>They overcompensate their thoughts about the character because they feel personally attacked by people disliking the villain, as a lot of people do, because they are a villain.
Or to summarise, fans of Azula go through levels of cope. Really they should just like the character, which is fine. But instead they have to go online everyday and constantly fight over the same character again and again. (If you go on Reddit there is one autist who will hound you for insulting Azula.) I am more referring to "fandom" (I hate that word) and how these personalities react, more so than I am about Azula.
>Azula fans *think* other people think she is born evil and make all kinds of weird thoughts and emotions over it.
People in OP's twitter thread are saying that tho. And in other places like reddit and this very board, they are saying the same things.
>(If you go on Reddit there is one autist who will hound you for insulting Azula.)
Prying Pandora has done incaluable damage to ATLA fandom.
>Really they should just like the character, which is fine.
During the show, her character is fine. She is Zuko and Katara's foils and has a mostly well-executed negative character arc in which she represents what Zuko could have become if had everything he wanted at the start of the show and what Katara could have become if she let her mommy issues turn her into a monster. But I don't like her character in the comics since her remaining villain requires everyone around her to act OC and her to get stupid powerboosts. I get that her actions in the comics are a continuation of her negative character arc, but I wish, if they aren't willing to write her out of the story, that they take her character in a different direction.
>People in OP's twitter thread are saying that tho. And in other places like reddit and this very board, they are saying the same things.
And that is a debate and debates about characters and disagreements are fine. I could see both sets of arguments tbh and I don't think the show is conclusive because it wasn't focused on her.
>Prying Pandora has done incaluable damage to ATLA fandom.
Indeed.
>But I don't like her character in the comics
Those comics looked shit and I didn't touch them for that reason.
To continue the discussion and my point, I think part of the rub of the issue is, that fans of the character of Azula essentially want to justify her actions. Now just because a character might be tragic doesn't mean that her actions are justifiable. And like I said, this is more about *fan's own insecurities* than it is about the character. Like you said, Katara didn't let her issues turn her wrong. The problem with Azula fans is they want to justify her actions. Nature vs nurture or both doesn't matter to the debate. Really it is because "stan" culture means people defend the characters they like to the death even if they are genocidal.
Now if you defend the actions of the charcater over a fricking DECADE then you poison all fan discourse. And then when writers are writing a new show they interact with that millstone of shit that has been stewing for years and decide "Oh we should make the character like this..."
I know you've spent much of the thread talking about Azula in the show but really the topic and OP is not really about anything concret. It is about how online fan bases are full of fricked up people and become circlejerks which in turn create online bubbles that writers and creatives interact with when creating pop culture products.
Pandora has done incaluable damage to ATLA fandom.
>Indeed.
I am sorry for ranting, but I dislike how she aggressively goes to every single thread and tries bulling people into accepting her (sanitized) conception of Azula. As if her working on an dub ad decades ago gives her a position of authority in the fandom. Unless you are a writer or artists who worked on the franchise, you are just a fan whose takes are just that, takes, like the rest us.
>I think part of the rub of the issue is, that fans of the character of Azula essentially want to justify her actions.
The frustrating part about Azula fans trying to justify her actions is that I do think she is capcable of doing better and having a healing and atonement arc that is not only distinct from Iroh or Zuko's, but also fix the issues with their's, mainly, actively unlearning harmful ideologies and facing real accountablity. But it is like they think Azula is incapcable of any moral or character growth. Like, when you point out that Azula abused Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee, and that she would not only need to make amends to them, but also live with the fact that they may never want to do anything with her again, they go ballstic and call out for treating a 14 year old abuse victim so harshly. And they act the same whenever you point out that if the Gaang or the world at large would ever accept her, she would have make amends for essentially being the second in command of a genocidal empire.
>I am sorry for ranting
Nah you're cool. Honestly all it takes is a couple of autists to ruin a place. And this is why it is often pointless to talk about shit online.
>I do think she is capcable of doing better
I agree and that is why some part of her is actively choosing her path. The problem is people want to deny she has any choice. For most of these people they want to say past trauma = infinite justification for awful things. (I could go on about trauma and how it has seeped into popular culture but this is entirely a different topic of conversation beyond this discussion, suffice to say trauma has become a meme.) But also they want her to have a redemption arc too? It almost feels contradictory. They want her to be forgiven. It is very much they want her to eat her cake and have it too. They want her to have some happily ever ending arc.
I think it is like how real life bullies often justify the horrible things they do because their victims deserve it so they don't even see it as horrible. Fandom people are often cry bullies, they attack others but when they get attacked they cry foul. Because they then feel like the victim. And their characters also feel like perpetual victims. All this stuff is connected. Azula is a victim and is justified and misunderstood. They are victims and justified and misunderstood.
Fandoms in general are fricking wretched places.
>Even Bryke during S3 thought she was a product of nuture, not nature.
I'm not really buying this. As someone who grew up with a crazy sister. This is the politically correct answer because they are Nickelodeon writers. It's always someone else's fault, children aren't monsters. They can't outright say Azula is a serial killer, deal with it. They did too good of a good job of showing how violent and atypical people act as children and young adults. Someone even posted the Quote from Iroh calling her crazy and she needs to be taken down, which I think is the true answer. All the things in the show point toward it and one interview doesn't.
Also my sister is a goddamned prison guard. Let that sink in. A job Azula would 100% do and has done in the show. Again they're too accurate to real life for it to be a "mom didn't love her" issue rather than a she's genuinely insane issue.
>She was already killing animals and starting small fires before Zuko got banished.
>much later
Azula's favor was pretty apparent even when they were very young hence why she was the child Ozai would exhibit for Azulon.
She's absolutely evil because her upbringing, the whole point is she's raised with the belief that love is conditional with her brother as an example of everything she could suffer if she fell out of favor.
She absolutely is evil in large part because of her upbringing. Ozai is a monstrous parent who deliberately encourages Azula to be as cruel and mean as possible, to believe in might makes right mentality, by rewarding such behaviour. His treatment of Zuko and deriding him for being weak is another aspect of it. Azula has spent her entire life idolising her father and wanting to please him, which means doing things the way he wants, and it is further hammered into her how being like Zuko is wrong and will lead to being punished.
Abusive and domineering parents tend to grow kids who are conditioned to seek approval from their parents by blindly following orders and trying to be just like them in life. Because that is the only way their parents ever show any type of approval and “love” towards them. In Azula’s case it goes to an extreme because of how what type of person Ozai is and because she knows what the alternative is if she fails to please him. Her smugness and arrogance comes from her largely succeeding to do what Ozai wants of her, which boosts her confidence and encourages her to double down on it as she’s seeking to be the heir to the throne over Zuko.
This take is stupid. Azula did have an abusive upbringing that fricked both her and her brother up and heavily pushed them to be violent tyrants in the original series. Would Azula be mentally ill anyway no matter what because she was born with Anti Social Personality disorder or something? Maybe, but in the original series itself, we have no way of knowing what would happen.
Anyway, some people are going to feel bad for someone born with a mental illness or being abused as a child. Maybe you don’t. Katara and Zuko do when they see Azula break down crying at the end of the original series. They don’t “excuse” or “justify” what she does, WTF. A lot of people still felt bad for her then.
“Azula was a child abuse victim” isn’t new.
>"I know what you're going to say. 'She's my sister and I should be trying to get along with her.'"
>"No, she's crazy and she needs to go down."
When even Iroh says there's no hope there's really no hope.
I've always wondered if that was because she was so far gone nothing would work period, or if it was due to the timetable they had to work in.
/thread. like at that point i knew she couldn/t be save when the literal moral compass of the show says frick that
>i knew she couldn/t be save when the literal moral compass of the show says frick that
In The Search, he convinces Aang to let Azula go on the search for Ursa because it might bring her peace.
Redemption arcs fail when you have sympathy from the very beginning
Compare Jaime Lannister book and show
In the book, there's no good side to Jaime at all until we get his POV, and even then it's slow to begin with
In the show however, they start giving him sympathetic scenes from the first season, which diminishes the redemption story
They have to hate you first
Agreed, which is exactly what the show did, which is why it worked.
>Noooo actually you see she was abused off screen , and she's just as tortured as zuko
Either show it in the story or it didn't happen , she's been nothing but a golden child, and still acted like a spoiled brat when her father calmly told her to stay and watch the palace during the balloon flame thrower genocide. She's clearly not afraid to raise her tone and argue with him like an ordinary father) daughter
Obsessive tumblr fans ruin shit.
>People "stan" and obsess over character.
>Act like character is real.
>Their character can do no wrong.
>They write fanfic and project loads of depth onto their character,.
>Demand the character conforms to what they want.
>Villains almost always need to be redeemable or sympathetic to have "depth".
>These people are increasingly getting jobs in the industry.
>In attempting at add "depth" they almost always muddy the stories or characters or actively ruin them.
>Thedepth involves sanding down what they think are rough edges but are actually the character.
Actual creatives know:
>Shows do not have enough screentime to fricking develop every single character to the level these people want.
>Sometimes a villain just needs to be a villain.
>Sometimes a plot device is just a plot device.
>Sometimes you need to walk before you run, simple plot arcs and characters that are communicable to the audiences.
>Azula had plenty of depth done in a simple way, she was insecure, unstable, a prodigy but also she was cunning and pretty cruel.
Everything you actually liked about a character gets stripped away because these people can't write, in a basic sense.
It is 1000% this:
>Azula fans think the show is saying, "Azula was born evil!"
>(I personally don't think she was born evil, I am simply explaining what they think.)
>Because they like her they think the show is telling them they are bad people for liking an evil character.
>So they come up with thousands of excuses for everything she has done as if they are personally being attacked.
>Because if someone can truly be born evil then are they also fundementally flawed as people?
>It is some weird misplaced guilt/insecurity/projection.
Yeah, very much this. This happens a LOT (and sometimes deservedly).
anon, no character can be truly evil anymore. every piece of shit has to have some sort of minority-related trauma past. they want you to feel bad for the bad guys so when your police shoots or arrest some piece of shit criminal, you agree with the media that says he is "unfortunate" and not a, well, piece of shit criminal
Whether or not she had a "bad" upbringing or not means frick all when her actions are still maniacal and downright despicable. Unlike Zuko, who had the ability to at least start listening to Iroh, Azula shows no capacity for inward thinking.
Then what is with those people then calling out people they directly disagree with as ontologically evil?
that's another discussion. that's the minority of peolpe who scream in social media that everyone they don't like or don't agree are hitlers
>Then what is with those people then calling out people they directly disagree with as ontologically evil?
Because people on social media are never ideologically consistent and are all hypocrites.
I thought we were talking about fictional characters not a stealth /misc/ tier reply
I feel like this shit didn't help (pic related). People seem to think that only one type of villain is good.
As Megamind once said, it's all about presentation. Villains that are just downright evil can be more entertaining than "deep" villains if the story facilitates that. It's also because I genuinely believe people have forgotten how to write evil. Like Wish for example, Disney was hyping that up as a return to evil evil but the antagonist has this backstory that made people actually question the protagonist, and not in a good way.
>As Megamind once said, it's all about presentation.
People got into Boba Fett because he looked cool. The problem is that afterwards all this stuff slowly accumulates. Extended universe stuff appears and adds more and more until a "cool set of armor" becomes a whole race of warriors. And fans want more and more and see more and more of it.
>Villains that are just downright evil can be more entertaining than "deep" villains if the story facilitates that.
Pretty much.
>I genuinely believe people have forgotten how to write evil
See I don't think they have forgotten, I think they purposefully don't know what to do. A whole generation of people has been brought up on critic nitpicking Youtubers dissecting pop culture. I think people find it very hard to understand how to write because they think it is cliche or a trope even though their attempt at depth often means they literally fail at basic character arcs. It is like they remove too many Jenga pieces and the tower falls and they don't understand why because they thought that is what people wanted. ATLA is, at its core, really rather basic, much like Star Wars. But all these characters still have a good level of backstory and depth with simple stuff: e.g. Aang runs away and has some guilt from that. I really feel like these writers need to go back to basics.
>I'd put money on this being the result of him reading social media.
So much of what happened with The Legend of Korra was from them interacting with fans on tumblr. The romance subplots and other stuff was a direct result of this.
>A whole generation of people has been brought up on critic nitpicking Youtubers dissecting pop culture. I think people find it very hard to understand how to write because they think it is cliche or a trope even though their attempt at depth often means they literally fail at basic character arcs.
I've been recognizing this more and more lately. Cinemasins and its consequences have been fricking devastating to media.
Not just cinemasins, name any Youtuber. When is the last time you saw someone plant their flag in the ground and really say what they enjoyed about something? (Obviously not counting paid shills or the plebs who enjoy everything.) All these Youtubers criticising all these movies. I know people who are outright anxious watching a movie because they actively have to watch their favourite Youtuber tell them what they thought before they can form an opinion. Media literacy is so bad now because people will dissect a character trait as being basic or cliche when that character trait is a structural part of the character that builds to other things that aren't basic.
>When is the last time you saw someone plant their flag in the ground and really say what they enjoyed about something?
Unironically YMS. Most of his content is crapping on things but I feel he makes an effort to point out things that stand out as a positive even when he's handing out 2/10s.
I always liked James Rolfe's movie reviews because he's always pretty laid back and can find something to like about a movie
Evil for the sake of it isn't bad or good, it's just like IRL.
And? What does that have to do with what I said?
That pic is exactly why but Cinemaphile will pretend it isn't true and that we didn't go through a decade online where people were busting a nut up and down the internet over "complex" and "sympathetic" villains. There are people here who thought fricking Belos from The Owl House needed a redemption and sympathetic backstory.
Except that Belos IS Elder God Tier according to that list, at least in the sense of “thinks he’s right.” He’s a Puritan that wants to kill fricking demons. From his POV and upbringing, that makes sense to him.
He’s still evil. He just thinks that he is doing the right thing. So did Hitler. Does that make Hitler a wussy sympathetic villain? Does that make Belos a wussy villain?
You fricks who say “most evil people do evil things just for the sake of evil” who the frick are you even talking about? Even sadists do what they do because “it’s fun” not “whelp I must get to my job of doing evil things just because it’s the evil thing to do it today.” Meanwhile criminals want fricking money, “be evil” isn’t the motive for stealing.
He was literally doing it for glory and power. Did you miss the whole thing where he told Luz he wanted to be seen as a "witch hunter general"??
Lots of people who do "good things" also want kudos and status for those things and lots of people who do bad things justify it with righteousness, he's still telling himself that he's the hero. The last episode talked about that. The point of "shit tier" is that they don't have that realistic context of people justifying themselves of explaining why they're like that, they are evil for absolutely no reason and call themselves "evil" and think "imma do evil." People in this thread are getting confused by stories not just having Dr. Evil who is evil because he's evil and a character whose behavior has some depth to it, but it's hardly an excuse.
Even if Belos didn't expect to get rewarded for his whole "genocide" thing with accolades, if he was doing it "just" to be a hero, would that make the whole genocide thing okay?
I think people are really missing is that those Tier Lists were in response to Saturday Morning Cartoons about Baron Evil who does evil things because he's evil for no other reason then to be able to say "I am evil" and calls himself evil (which is fine for kids' shows). It's not in response to Belos where they bother to provide him with rationale for his actions and state that he wants to think of himself as the big hero, which is more realistic. He's still an evil selfish piece of shit.
>He’s still evil. He just thinks that he is doing the right thing. So did Hitler. Does that make Hitler a wussy sympathetic villain? Does that make Belos a wussy villain?
the funny thing is that you can almost make Hitler a sympathetic villain. Almost.
He was a human. His step dad was a dick. He dreamed of being an artist but failed. He got wounded in WW1. He came back and thought his country betrayed him. He fell in with a bad crowd somewhere in his teens or after WW1 and bought into conspiracy theories born from tsar loyalist coming out of Russia as Russia fell into communism.
He loved Disney movies. He loved westerns. He loved the Germany of his childhood. He loved dogs and animals. He hated smoking. He hated what banking, industry and fiance did to Germany. He treated black people, arabs and asians better than your average white american.
And after all that, somehow his brain thought it was a good idea to exterminate israelites, gypsies, gays, and any christian that wouldnt participate in the war.
The english speaking world isn't ready for a story about uncle adolf and the bro SS. Better to think they are evil devils than to look humanity in the face and see that it can produce monsters. That humans can pet and cuddle a dog and then exterminate 100s of 1000s.
all they had to do was let him into art school
>all they had to do was let him into art school
maybe. Some sources also say it started by a cute israeli girl rejecting his affections.
To think, there might be some alternate universe where Hitler skipped going out with the boys to drink and instead focused on his art more, got into art school, dated a hot israeli girl with big gazongas and ended up making art, or graphic design, or german comics or even german cartoons. Maybe he even made his own little German cowboy comic.
Could you imagine? Going to an alternate universe and instead of being a monster, there is a german theme park for a cartoon wolf cowboy? The blitz is the name of the first cartoon and not a military tactic?
Though there is an argument that WW2 would have still happened. If Hitler hadn't been the guy, anther person in that clique or one of the brown coats would have done it. Remember, Hitler was the 555 nazi member. There were 554 other people when he joined that could have fricked the world up just like him.
You lost me at
>hot israeli girl
People only pretend Belos was justified and had a point because they have issue with the creator's politics. Dude was evil and beyond redemption.
Wouldn't the Old Gods be more of a reluctant villain because they are unable to resist the corruption that forces them to spread the Blight?
I don't know if that was ever touched on in the EU for Dragon Age. Also sauce for Elder God tier
>Also sauce for Elder God tier
You mean Ozymandias? From Watchmen? Come on anon, seriously.
Thanks anon. What can I say, The movie and it killed my interest in the comic.
This midwit bait has done such damage you cannot even comprehend
It's not midwit, it's a genius bait.
The morons didn't realize that the joke is that the elder gods are the low tier.
So... does this mean that Ozai can be redeemed as well? I mean, he and Iroh were drinking the Fire Nation coolaid and Iroh only strayed away once he lost his own son and saw the horrors the war was causing.
>So... does this mean that Ozai can be redeemed as well?
Therotically, yes. Aang implied it the end of The Avatar and the Firelord and Zuko told Ozai in his cell that maybe his time in prison may put him on the right path. In reality, whether due to failing completely into the cycle of abuse (what was implied in the OG) or being born a pyschopath (what the extended lore implies), he is incapable being more than a monster.
On pure hypothetical, yes - but it would likely have required changes to other people to occur, I think. Azulon changing his mind, Roku living, etc. - that sort of thing.
Hell, just having better role-models in his life in general that could spark the thought of "what if all this is wrong" can do it, but having that or not is the hard part.
We have barely seen what Ozai is up to in prison
In theory, yes. But it would require Ozai to actually have a change of character and admit his entire mindset and worldview was flawed and him to show regret and want to change. Ozai has done plenty of horrible things and atrocities and it would take a very long journey to find redemption. But it is possible. The question is would he ever accept he was wrong and be able to start the process to change.
Not enough Ozai coomers to make that happen I’m afraid
Just so everyone knows, that guy in OP is mexican in real life. He wants everyone to think he's white.
Mkay, what that got to do with the topic at hand though?
Do you trust him?
Does my trusting an unrelated poster on another site matter to the discussion happening here?
The answer is no, so why are you asking? Go to reddit for that.
But do you trust him?
>or as a pure evil monster?
She was never pure evil, you slack jaw mouth breather.
She was quite literally 100% evil
That is your shallow ill informed opinion.
If you truly believe ANY one person can be 100 ٪ evil, you are far from critical thinking and empathy.
No no, it's entirely possible - unlikely, but assuredly possible.
It isn't that way in this case, though, that much is true.
Even the writers said Azula is 100% evil at this point
she could've been good if she was raised differently but she became 100% evil instead, she has no signs of humanity
>Even the writers said Azula is 100% evil
>show no examples
I always believe anonymous with no sources from the internet. Why would anyone lie or be misinformed?
>Even the writers said Azula is 100% evil at this point
Why lie?
Pic related is the main writer.
Big incest vibes from the bit on the left
>the Canadian version of Azula
Hard fricking pass. I would have wanted an act 4 recovery for her (she had nowhere to go but up after the eclipse), but that's just obnoxious. Thanks for the reminder that even though Ehasz was probably the best writer on staff, he also needed tardwrangling to some degree.
>hough Ehasz was probably the best writer on staff, he also needed tardwrangling to some degree.
I haven't really followed the fandom just watched the series when I was a youngster but why do people treat him as the reason for ATLA's success more than the creators? Korra sucked, I get it. Maybe he fixed the structure of ATLA, or something but seeing him say
>Azula and Zukos relationship was not always well understood, even by the team internally.
Guess whose job it is to make it understood to those writers?
Just from credits on imdb alone it's really unclear who's responsible for the series success and if he can really take credit for the outline.
>but why do people treat him as the reason for ATLA's success more than the creators?
Because whenever Bryke don't have someone to tell them "no, that's a dumb idea" they go full George Lucas, and since Aaron was the person doing that before they parted ways people just assumed that he was the reason TLA was so good.
...but then Aaron got his own show in The Dragon Prince, had nobody telling him "no, that's a dumb idea" and everyone realized that the actuality was TLA was successful because it had Bryke and Aaron both telling each other that their dumb ideas were dumb and a rare form of harmonious balance emerged.
Then I think this is a classic example of when people should observe 'The Death of the Author'.
Means nothing especially when he says 'I always intended' when he wasn't top banana in his writing room and got shut down on making a S4.
Yeah, look, Aaron may be a tard with bad ideas but he has more authority than you EVER will so you're just going to have to suck that dick, bro.
NTA, but he has a point. Authors change their minds and make up bullshit claims about their past intentions all the time. (Looking at you, Rowling). I'm less interested in what a writer claims after being hotboxed in a xitter echo chamber for years than in what actually ended up in canon.
In Ehasz' case I believe he's telling the truth, but his perspective is just one in three (four if his wife counts separately) and he's not the sole cook who made the delicious Azula broth we all enjoyed.
The Azula change is one thing, I am just more confused why they are focusing more on Kyoshi and kinda skipping Roku? Well ok, I know a reason and that's Kyoshi is more of the fan favourite avatar but Roku's role in the story is pretty damn important considering his relationship to Sozin and how his trust in his friend ultimately led to the rise of the Fire Nation we know in the series when he could've stopped it there and then.
Also Kyoshi has always been a b***h, Roku was that wise mentor character that Aang needed.
Because using Kiyoashi when they’re on her island makes more sense and they can focus more on Roku later when they expand the backstory in the second season. They already hinted at that with Roku’s appearance later in the season when Aang goes to his temple.
all women are evil monsters
she's hotter if she's evil
What 0 wiener does to a girl pining for daddy's affection.
im really tired of people constantly saying shit like this
She can be redeemed but not while the war is still going. It would take years of deprograming as Asuka actively enjoys harming people while Zuko never enjoyed it and only did it out of what he thought was necessity
Can we talk about the literal npc in the back rows?
Anyway, to answer your question OP. I like Azula better as a pure evil monster, going too hard on the "Can be redeemed" but then not doing that is weird.
Side note, the man they have playing Ozai is the most handsome motherfricker I've ever seen.
Daniel Dae Kim is the only Korean man in modern history who is genuinely handsome and not a product of aggressive plastic surgery.
for some reason far away this looks like a really grotesque basedjack edit with the mouth opening real wide
>can't unsee it
frick you
Shouldn't expect any less from the actual Johnny Gat.
He's Johnny Gat. Of course he's hot.
>Does Azula work better as a sympathetic villain with a tragic past who can be redeemed or as a pure evil monster?
In the original cartoon she was both.
In the live action show she is just bland and whiney.
>Does Azula work better as a sympathetic villain with a tragic past who can be redeemed or as a pure evil monster?
Azula works when introduce her later on rather than having her and Ozai onscreen so early taking away their mystique. But I don't expect these creators to understand that because they are too worried about confusing audiences or something. This is why this is happening, spoonfeeding audiences by front loading the characters motivations rather than allowing it to develop over time.
DO YA GET IT AUDIENCE.
I think Azula didn't have to be evil. I think she was always mentally unwell and couldn't understand other people well. And that lack of understanding was filled in by her father, who taught her that might and fear controls people. Which gives her extreme confidence and desire to get stronger, becoming the Azula we know.
This worldview she was taught is then completely shattered when her friends, who fear her, betray her and she goes crazy because of it. There is a slight sympathy in that if she was taught differently about the world, she probably would've been better. But the Azula present in the series is irredeemable at the points we see her in the show. In a hypothetical Book 4, maybe Zuko and Iroh could help her now that her worldview is broken.
>LE STRONG GIRL BOSS GETTING IT DONE CANNOT BE BAD BECAUSE SHE WAS ABUSED OR NEGLECTED!!
feminist
not even once
Both you can be abused and manipulated while still being an irredeemable psycho. A tragic backstory should be used to EXPLAIN a character’s actions not absolve them
>Abloobloo the villain has a reason for their villainous behaviour
Every pregnant drinker and indian scammer went through something in their childhood and/or environment to make them the people that they are. It's no excuse.
Azula being sympathetic dilutes Zuko
>we should give every villain a le sad backstory so we can called deep for “fixing” them
>WTF why are there no good female villains
Gods I hate modern writers
There are no good female villains because women are inherently unthreatening.
Azula was always a shitty character impossible to take seriously.
>can't take a psycho who'd electrocute you without a second thought seriously because woman
Maybe in the real world you'd have a point but bending ability doesn't really know gender so that's just a you thing.
Powers are nothing but a window dressing. That's what people consistently fail to understand.
If a villain is a joke, no amount of "scary" powers will save them. And female villains are a joke bu default.
>make a show
>people latch on to a character
>people get fanatical
>wtf am I know meant to make a show about ever character?
>next show I make is 235 episodes long and every person is developed from birth to death
I recently read that there are talks to create a Beatles cinematic universe with a movie about each other 4 members of the Beatles. Rather than one Beatles movie we will get multiple ones. This is what that shit leads to.
Azula's a psychopath who was also abused. She has a tragic past, but she's absolutely a monster and she was born that way.
azula is a c**t and i'm tired of prostitutes with bipolar disorder self-inserting into her and using her to justify their own unhinged behavior.
I don’t understand why characters can’t just be evil. Every bad character nowadays needs to “redeemable” or have shitty childhood or something. its stupid. A character should just be allowed to be evil.
I used to want her to be pure evil monster but after rewatching The Beach episode recently and her most recent comic I want to her be “redeemed”. The problem of course is that there’s nothing to redeem because she’s done nothing wrong. Her mental strife is driven by the fact that everyone sees her as a monster in particular her mother. I’m pretty sure Zuko and Ursa acknowledge this in The Search and try to fix it but to no avail. The hard truth is at the end of the day there’s a fundamental natural part of Azula that’s sadistic and power hungry. And that’s why “redeeming” her appears so impossible. But if there is a way, through a miracle of incredible writing, I’d like to see it.
what if they're figments of Azula's imagination? a cope for having to live with your gaslighting daddy.
imagine being mad that Azula is given a reason for being insane.
would've been an interesting idea if we haven't seen Mai alone with Zuko and with her family in her debut episode
Azula LITERALLY did nothing wrong before going paranoid schizo. I don't know why people act like it's wrong to be a competent soldier who isn't a traitor
The latter because the former niche is already occupied by Zuko in the story, and his characterization is contingent on hers. If you want "redeemed" Azula, you need a post-canon story that's somehow still consistent with her being a hideous (yet understandably flawed) b***h as in the show, or you need to flip their roles altogether.
Evil monster obviously. It's the entire appeal. All attempts to make her tragic and troubled have failed and only make her lamer.
I just figured it out holy frick. Unironically the only way to “redeem” Azula is through incest. Unironically that satisfies her psychopathic lust for power and Zuko, by becoming queen of the fire nation. I’m not even shitposting I’m being dead serious.
I think Azula is a villain who did not have a tragic past. Her lowest point in life is presumably the end of the show where she's a sobbing mess. I'd like to think it only goes up from there, if Zuko is interested in making ammends, which I'm sure he is.
Amends for what? He didn't do anything to her besides survive.
>Amends for what? He didn't do anything to her besides survive.
He got in her way./s
Just finished my rewatch of the original series and it made me gain clarity over this conversation:
Yes, the show actually does show that her personality is a byproduct of her upbringing and wanting to please Ozai, which is why she was so hurt at first when she learned she was going on the Earth Kingdom Purge.
But also, it showed that is so batshit insane and so broken that she doesn't think about it anymore. Trauma will always be trauma, but if a person cannot have enough introspection to recognize that trauma and work on it, can they ever be redeemed?
Let’s be honest she was totally redeemable until Mai and Ty Lee betrayed her at the rock. She got betrayed by her only friend, for reasons that aren’t her fault nor she can comprehend, and that’s gonna sting eternally. Those 2 need to find Azula and talk things out with her before she can even deal with the Zuko/Ursa baggage.
It's so weird they can't accept some kids are just born wrong, we have a bunch of genetic disorders that frick up people's bodies from birth, but a kid being born lacking empathy is somehow too wild.
>but a kid being born lacking empathy is somehow too wild.
people either have trouble grasping the idea that other people have different shit in their head than them, or they like the idea that people think like them, they just choose different things, giving them a free pass to judge them for their choices.
Conservatives think is ok to judge people for how they are born. Liberals only want to judge people for their choices. If they can convince themselves that someone chose evil, and was not just born evil. they can absolve themselves of guilt for hating them.
>It's so weird they can't accept some kids are just born wrong, we have a bunch of genetic disorders that frick up people's bodies from birth, but a kid being born lacking empathy is somehow too wild.
Because the show and the franchise as a whole takes the nurture side of the nature vs. nurture argument.
Azula was groomed (not sexually you idiots) by her bloodthirsty egomaniac of a father from when she was an infant; she was already well into "this kid needs therapy" territory by the time her mother left. She's not irredeemable but she's so far gone that talk no jutsu isn't going to cut it and (barring some kind of asspull) that places her rehabilitation beyond the scope of the show but not beyond the realm of possibility. I think they were right to do it. She was an excellent villain precisely because she was such a vicious b***h but she was never dehumanized.
And as an aside: considering that Ursa's choice was between abandoning her children or letting one of them get ritually murdered it's hard to fault her decision.
>Does Azula work better as a sympathetic villain with a tragic past who can be redeemed or as a pure evil monster?
For the story in the original, she works best as an evil sociopath. That is required for the show's final. She's one. Her dad is one. And his father was probably one too. It creates contrast with her brother and her uncle would could change.
However. most of her fans fell in love with her on the beach episode when she was presented more as just autistic. A lot of people can't move on from the beach episode and accept that her lack of social awareness and empathy was something closer to sociopathy or narcissism, than autism.
Sometimes you don't want to humanize a villain if it serves the story better that way.
Pic unrelated?
Yes. Maybe I was too subtle.
Did anybody know or theorize who she was before it was revealed she was Zuko's sister?
I honestly thought one of the important parts in atla was that Ozai's fire nation allowed a sociopath like Azula to pretty much kill anyone she desired without consequences, I remember people were all over Ozai not being the strongest fire warrior, which is true, but he was also the leader who drove his nation into a killing spree that apparently nazi'd the israelites off their world.
The reason why the fire lord was feared was that, to the public, he didn't hesitate to order his armies to kill every air bender just to "kill the avatar"
Azula should be redeemed by my wiener, and of she refuses she should be put down like the animal she is.
Simple as.
She works better as an evil monster that can be redeemed
Azula being unredeemable IS the tragedy. She's like a rabid animal you wanna save save but you know that it's to late for that. All you can do for her is tard wrangle her to make sure she doesn't hurt others.
Cartoon Azula is a 100% one-dimensional villain
>OMG BEST VILLAIN EVER
Show Azula is a complex villain with both qualities and flaws
>NOOOOOO NETFLIX RUINED HER
Your FACE is one dimensional, b***h.
Its okay to have a character that is just an evil villain.
If you want to make a different character, then make your own original IP and make whatever character you want.
Except that Azula was never a 100% evil villain. Like her whole “goes mad” arc wouldn’t even have happened if she had been. Even her very early “Azula is a perfectionist” thing with the hair is a dimension beyond “is evil.” Where the frick is this revisionism coming from?
Ozai is a prett one-dimensional villain, and honestly, that’s why he’s not a very well-regarded villain compared to Azula.
WTF is it with this revisionism.
Actually, I should probably clarify that morally Azula might be 100% evil sure, I meant she was never 100% one dimensional. A character can be pure evil but have a personality and reasons for what they do and be sympathetic. Azula always was.
This is just complaining because she has a personality instead of just
“Mwhaha fools I am invincible (gets defeated) nooooo this cannot be I am invincible!! (dies)”
Half the time when people like characters like that it’s because the character is intended as a joke and it is funny (Jack Horner) or the story just needed a stand in symbol for “Evil” (Voldemort or Palpatine). But I this series has Ozai for that already. And honestly he’s pretty boring.
I dont care to read your entire post, but the little I skimmed over, she is 100% evil, yes. She never does good. She just has a slight sob story of her parents were mean to her, which is literally everyone's sob story. Most other "villains" had moments of doing good, she never had one. Shes 100% an evil b***h.
Your skimming it meant you missed the point of what I said. Evil doesn’t have to mean “one-dimensional” even if it is pure evil or that Azula even thinks of herself as evil, those qualities are all rewarded by her father and society in general, that’s why it’s no surprise she is the way she is. That’s not an excuse.
Even if she was born a sociopath, most sociopaths actually follow the law and try to go along with what’s expected of them. Saying a character’s background impacts them, they have a motivation, isn’t an excuse and doesn’t justify anything. It just makes them not a 100% one dimensional prop.
>Evil doesn’t have to mean “one-dimensional” even if it is pure evil
It doesnt not have to either. Like I said originally. You want something specific with a character, dont adapt something, make your own IP.
>Even if she was born a sociopath, most sociopaths actually follow the law and try to go along with what’s expected of them.
But Azula was following the law and trying to go along with what's expected of them. It is just Fire Nation law and culture had become completely rotten by the time she was born.
>If the original writers didn't mean for her to be read as sadistic by nature, all it would have required is one flashback scene where Azula is shown struggling to be cruel as others expected of her.
I think has a natural cruel streak and is a sadist at that point in the show. But the reason why they didn't show even one flashback scene where Azula is struggling to be a sadist is the same reason we didn't get more scenes showing Azula being an active pyscho: she is not a main character and Nick censors.
>This makes her smirk without even the slightest flinch or expression of distaste. This is not normal no matter how wronged she feels.
It is normal when you consider she had been raised to believe that friend or foe alike deserve to be cruel punished for disobidence.
>But Zuko
Ozai hated him precisely because of his unwillingness to get with the program and his higher than normal sense of empathy (the thing that makes Zuko truly special imo).
>Did you dumb motherfrickers learn nothing from the show.
ATLA's main character is a martial pacifist who preaches forgiveness, second chances, and believes in nurture, not nature, but ATLA has such a bloodthirsty fanbase who actively reject such ideas.
>People grew up writing fanfiction about their favorite hot villains being nice and now they write for shows.
Inmates running the asylum.
>which flies in the face of the show's themes
No really believes in ATLA's themes tho.
>the reason why they didn't show even one flashback scene where Azula is struggling to be a sadist is the same reason we didn't get more scenes showing Azula being an active pyscho: she is not a main character and Nick censors.
Eh, I don't buy that at all. If POV was a concern, it could have been part of Zuko's flashbacks. Something like a quick scene of her play-fighting nicely only for her father to pass by and frown, at which point she goes overboard on her opponent. I don't see why Nick censorship would matter either since most of Azula's sadism is expressed through social cruelty anyway. Even a scene where she starts to react negatively to one of Zuko's punishments before correcting herself could work.
>It is normal when you consider she had been raised to believe that friend or foe alike deserve to be cruel punished for disobidence.
The problem is that a child her age would normally be shocked and discomfited by that level of violence/gore happening right in front of her even if intellectually she understood it was just. Instead, she has the same reaction as a battle-hardened veteran whom we know was also rather cruel.
You could of course make the argument that Ozai might've messily executed/tortured people all the time and she was desensitized. But IMO that excuse only goes so far, especially when the victim was her immediate family.
>Ozai hated him precisely because of his unwillingness to get with the program
Agreed. But he also appreciated Azula because it was so effortless for her to get with it. None of this is to say that she couldn't be helped under the right circumstances, but it's clear to me that she was meant to be naturally low empathy/cruel from a very young age.
>Eh, I don't buy that at all.
Fair enough.
>But IMO that excuse only goes so far, especially when the victim was her immediate family.
She knows Ursa poisoned Azulon and heard Azulon order Ozai to murder his remaining grandson just to punish him. Violence against family members has been long normalized for Azula well before Zuko's burning.
>None of this is to say that she couldn't be helped under the right circumstances, but it's clear to me that she was meant to be naturally low empathy/cruel from a very young age.
Yeah, but there is a difference between naturally low empathy/cruel and being a maligant pyschopath. The former could have been fixed with proper parenting and help, the latter is beyond help. Also, not taking to you, why do people downplay Zuko's empathy in favor of highlighting Azula's low/lacking empathy? I think one of the more endearing parts of Zuko's character is relatively high-levels of empathy, even when compared to other redeemed Fire Nation characters like Iroh, Mai, and Ty Lee, and even when he has been repeatedly punished for it and throughly indoctrinated to ignore it, especially towards other nations. Why is it Azula is low/lacking empathy, and not Zuko being a high empathy invividual?
>which would be cool if the comics didn't suck ass
Imagine having the open-sandbox that was post-war ATLA, and the only thing you had to do was make sure it complied with Korra, you came up with the comics? SHM.
I want to say having to comply with massive character assasination exhibit that is korra was atleast part of the problem, but a lot of it is just straight up bad on it's own. i've seen ao3 slop handle the same premises better
>why do people downplay Zuko's empathy in favor of highlighting Azula's low/lacking empathy?
>Why is it Azula is low/lacking empathy, and not Zuko being a high empathy invividual?
A couple of reasons. First, most discussions comparing the two focus on Azula's side because the degree to which she could be rehabilitated is an open-ended question and still interesting. Zuko completed his arc, so her character flaws are now more relevant than his virtues. Second, because audiences of shows made in the 21st century are absolutely buried in MCs (including males) who are unusually empathetic. It's getting harder to find cartoons and anime where the protagonist isn't a bleeding heart trying to talk no jutsu every other antagonist. Some viewers probably miss the point and consider Zuko average. Azula, on the other hand, is of an increasingly rare type so her traits are memorable (and perhaps magnified in the memory of fans) in contrast.
When was the last time an Og Avatar fan watched the original? How could one say Azula is one dimensional? Ffs I'm not even an Azula simp
It's literally a major plot point that she has a mental break over her mommy abandonment issues.
A 100% evil one-dimensional mentally stable Azula would have bodied Zuko and Katara.
>A 100% evil one-dimensional mentally stable Azula would have bodied Zuko and Katara.
Maybe. She jobbed against Katara before. Of course the comet wasn't present then.
>chud Twitter account absolutely mogging a stan account
So shitlibs lost their stronghold?
I can't stand those guys, they can't even see how the air nomads genocide is a direct reference to the tibet genocide made by china
>take a villian character
>obviously evil, amoral, and power hungry
>fans love her
>they love her so much in fact they start holding her to good guy standards
>insist she changes to fit their personal comforts
>creators cave, she changes
>now no longer the evil villain nor the character people fell in love with
???
No
Azula doesn’t work.
>Netflix Azula is a victim of abuse
Haven't seen Netflix's version yet, but is that why Azula is fat? To cope with her abuse?
>Anime girl profile
>Aryan in @
You know this is some poor fricker in South America or Mexico.
And?
She wasn't even a pure evil monster in Atla. She showed some sociopathic tendencies which were no doubt modelled to her by many adults beyond Ozai; generals talking about tactics and triumphs etc., which disturbed Iroh and her mother so never she had relationships with them. Iroh also definitely favoured Zuko once he lost his son and later saw Azula the way he saw Ozai. Think about them beingg kids though and the gifts Iroh got them: Getting a doll while Zuko got a knife must have been fairly insulting. She ended up...quasi redeemed in the comics. She and Zuko are just two paths in response to Ozai's parenting.
>remembers the "but I do love you" hallucination causing her to break down
Azula wanted love but had been raised to prioritize fear and power. Just calling her a sociopath ignores how much more complex she is
>She and Zuko are just two paths in response to Ozai's parenting.
Yeah, this is part of the reason why I don't like the whole ASPD! Azula headcanon. How are Zuko and Azula supposed to be foils to each other and represent how being abused in different ways can lead to different outcomes if one of them is essentially born evil?
Azula is hard to write because she is equal parts the abuser and the abused.
Azula is an abused child and anyone who doesn't recognize that is a sociopath.
>shes bad because she was abused
>zuko got his face burned off, but he never tried to sacrifice his men for his own gain, even after getting his face melted
>literally see azula risking her mens lives day 1
>literally see azula risking her mens lives day 1
This is what happened.
Azula could never have a redemption arc because she’s so desperate for power she would just manipulate them or someone else instead.
Within the three seasons of the original show it would be ridiculous to try and redeem Azula. She simply takes after he father too much for it to ever reasonably work. And frankly, it's better that way. It's true that in some instances people are in fact crazy and need to go down. The contrast between her nature and Zuko's makes the story far more interesting than if you where just to portray them as pretty much the same character.
Now, on the other hand, can she be redeemed in Zucest fanfiction that takes place over a large span of time after the finale, in which she grows kinder over time due to her brother's unconditional love? Absolutely. This is the measured, true, and undeniable take.
>Now, on the other hand, can she be redeemed in Zucest fanfiction that takes place over a large span of time after the finale, in which she grows kinder over time due to her brother's unconditional love? Absolutely. This is the measured, true, and undeniable take.
its so weird you guys have picked zuko as your self insert and want the two of them to frick. Why not just make up a new character to self insert as?
I do NOT self insert as Zuko, I don't even like incest in general. This is just the most obvious ship of all time, sorry. I didn't invent the rules of eroticism here, it's not my fault it's hot. If I would self insert it would be for a woman I'd actually want to have something to do with. Azula is way to crazy for me, I can't fix that shit. I like nice girls, ok?
See
. If she doesn’t die a villain the only way to satisfy her is through incest. An unfortunately large red pill.
Because she is canonically fricking insane. So unless you just forget her characterization the only way she is going to get dragged through a redemption arc is with the assistance of a character with a preexisting """positive""" relationship with her, which leaves us only with Mai, Ty Lee and Zuko. Now, all of these characters have pretty big reasons why they wouldn't want to have nothing to do with any of that shit, but it just so happens that Zuko is the only one portrayed as being stupid enough to have the most chances of actually trying.
The incest part is just smut, however.
Anon pls. Dont make my dick this hard with those pictures.
Save for maybe Sozin whom just becomes evil from one day to the other, we dont really have much background nor information about them although I guess Azulon does show compassion for his favorite son despite failing to siege Ba Sing Se.
Which speaking about Iroh I guess that answers your question, in fact I always assumed the guy 'hated' his niece so much because it was a reflection of what he was/used to be, daddy's favorite girl with a reputation of being a fearless general both strategic and combat wise.
hot
I think Vegeta is proof that a “redeemed” Azula can exist and function in society. I see what Aaron meant by her bottoming out in season 4. Like Vegeta she needs to get buck broken out of her psychotic dreams and ultimately find a new purpose in life, and find love.
Ideally Zuko but this isn’t GoT so whatever OC Bryke comes up with. And no she’s canonically not a lesbian.
She works better as someone in-shape and not fat.
Everything on the Internet is a race to feel superior. Trolling, shitposts, arguments, debates, w/e. Everyone wants to feel a temporary sense of having one over someone. People then project this onto everything else. People think pop culture and cartoons are below them and they can elevate it but then change shit and frick it up. People want to feel clever. The process goes:
>People care what society thinks and cartoons are for kids.
>But I like this cartoon.
>But what if we make a live adaptation and "elevate" it.
>So we need to change these characters for their screen appearances to "elevate" it.
>Oops we broke it.
Crazy to think that Ursa was so detested with Ozai she had completely forsaken showing Azula any affection
She was both
Azula doesn't need to be redeemed but the story works better if Zuko ( and I would argue the audience) doesn't think she is pure evil incarnate. otherwise there's no inner conflict about betraying the Fire Nation and joining the Gaang. What's he betraying? His Evil Dad that melted half his face off or a girl he's been dating for like a month. Azula and Zuko having some moments of bonding over share childhood trauma like the beach episode really help make Zuko question if he's doing the right thing and if a relationship with his sister is salvageable.
>Azula doesn't need to be redeemed but the story works better if Zuko doesn't think she is pure evil incarnate. otherwise there's no inner conflict about betraying the Fire Nation and joining the Gaang. What's he betraying? His Evil Dad that melted half his face off or a girl he's been dating for like a month.
Modern atomized individual moment. Zuko is invested deeply in the Fire Nation and his duty as its prince for cultural reasons. Not just because he has a girlfriend there, but because he was brought up in an honour-based society that demanded filial piety and dedication to the Fire Nation's advancement. It's not normal for a character in this kind of period setting to only care about his immediate family and friends the way Westerners do today. Betraying the Fire Nation and losing his honour is like betraying himself and everything his ancestors worked to achieve.
I'm not saying the honour stuff isn't there. it's been there since the beginning. I'm saying it add more if he feels a personal connection to the betrayal and Azula does have multiple scenes where she at least fakes concern for Zuko. Also like what was the point of having Katara and Soka relationship be a foil for Zuko and Azula relationship? Dad is the leader of their people, Mother "died" when they were kids, older brother less talented over shadow by his more powerful little sister. Zuko even says he wishes he and Azula relationship was more like Soka and Katara. The story works better if Zuko doesn't think she is irredeemable.
>The story works better if Zuko doesn't think she is irredeemable.
To clarify, I'm sure that is Zuko's stance in canon. Or at least, he wants that to be true even if it would never work out in reality. I just wanted to point out that he had strong reasons to stay loyal even if his family were 100% buttholes.
>NOOOOOOOOOOO YOU CAN'T JUST HAVE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS BE REMORSELESS PSYCHOPATHS THOSE DON'T EXIST IN REAL LIFE
>”I think you should take their precious hope and the rest of their land and burn it all the to ground”
>NO NO NO AZULA IS LE VICTIM
she's trying to win a war
I gotta say I disagree with you remake defenders a lot but I'm really enjoying the fact that I get to talk about the show a lot again.
Fire Lo's revenge
Well?
I don't care what people on Twitter think.
Azulon probably wasn't great, but he was no where near as dickish as Ozai
>Azulon started warring the water tribes, but stopped when they weren't a threat to him.
>Ozai wants to genocide the Earth kingdom.
>Azulon ordered the death of Zuko
>but it was only because Ozai was trying to make a power play because Iroh lost his son
>she was being brainwashed
is an explanation for why she does cruel things, but not for her taking pleasure in cruelty inflicted by others. She isn't putting on a front for Ozai or anyone else in this scene any more than Zhao is. Her smile is spontaneous. She enjoys Zuko's suffering and humiliation.
>but that's only because she's been taught to hate weakness
If that were all there was to it, her reaction should be something that looks like someone watching a distasteful but necessary act, like the background characters surrounding them who likely share that philosophical perspective.
It's sadism and the live action is very obviously retconning that trait.
>She enjoys Zuko's suffering and humiliation.
Why wouldn't she? In her eyes, Zuko is the root of a lot of her own suffering. Despite being a weak little b***h, he effortlessly gets Mother's love and Uncle's respect. But Azula? Azula has to constantly bust her ass to get one tiny scrap of affection from Father. Zuko and Mother go watch turtleducks and eat dango and have a jolly good time while Azula gets drilled through Firebending forms until the skin on her hands is black and bleeding and Father scowls at her. Zuko gets to attend war meetings. Azula gets to tape her broken fingers up and have another go at the practice dummy.
Children are vindictive, particularly against those they feel they're in direct competition with or those who have hurt or slighted them, and at this point in her life she's endured years of grooming at Ozai's hands. Psychologically, it's a pretty expected response from her.
People should be far, far more concerned about Xhao smiling, to be honest.
>Zuko and Mother go watch turtleducks and eat dango and have a jolly good time while Azula gets drilled through Firebending forms until the skin on her hands is black and bleeding and Father scowls at her. Zuko gets to attend war meetings. Azula gets to tape her broken fingers up and have another go at the practice dummy.
Is any of this canon, or are you just writing fanfiction? From what I remember, Zuko trained hard too, Azula was just better than him.
>People should be far, far more concerned about Xhao smiling, to be honest.
No, because he's a stand-in for the rank and file of the Fire Nation military. Him smiling is meant to show how the entire government/military structure of the Fire Nation is so fricked that watching their monarch cruelly mutilate a child who is legally their future leader is something that inspires amusement in their leadership. Imagine if Nicholas II beat the shit out of Alexei in the middle of St. Petersburg and his generals laughed. That's where the Fire Nation is, morally.
>Is any of this canon
I was using hyperbole to get my point across, honey.
>the entire government/military structure
LITERALLY every other man in that picture is frowning. All of them. Every one.
>I was using hyperbole to get my point across, honey.
Oh, sweetie, you shouldn't just make shit up to try to make a point, it makes it hard for the rest of us to follow.
>LITERALLY every other man in that picture is frowning. All of them. Every one
They all have neutral expressions, what you'd expect from military men just observing something. Zhao and Azula are happy. Iroh looks sad. The rest of them don't care.
>it makes it hard for the rest of us to follow.
not really, you are just being dishonest.
The guy you're trying to say is "neutral" very clearly has a disapproving expression and the two men you cropped out were straight up scowling. Even the low-detail background faces are visibly displeased. If you can't make and argument without being disingenuous, don't make an argument at all. You'll make yourself look far less of an ass if you just back out gracefully.
>In her eyes, Zuko is the root of a lot of her own suffering.
Setting aside the more headcanonish extrapolations in your post, so what if that is true? Why doesn't Zuko smirk and gloat at her when she's suffering the same way? It's because Azula is fundamentally different. Disregarding her relationship with Zuko specifically, we literally never see Azula express pity or revulsion for acts of violence or cruelty when it comes to other victims. If the original writers didn't mean for her to be read as sadistic by nature, all it would have required is one flashback scene where Azula is shown struggling to be cruel as others expected of her.
>Children are vindictive, particularly against those they feel they're in direct competition with or those who have hurt or slighted them, and at this point in her life she's endured years of grooming at Ozai's hands.
What did she "endure"? Ozai in canon never treated her harshly because she was his golden child prodigy. You seem to be confusing fanon or the LA version with the cartoon.
>Psychologically, it's a pretty expected response from her.
She isn't little kid having a giggle at Zuko getting grounded. She's a twelve year old (the same age as Aang, by the way) watching another human being's face get cooked extra crispy by her own father. This makes her smirk without even the slightest flinch or expression of distaste. This is not normal no matter how wronged she feels.
>What did she "endure"?
Let me check my post... yeah, says "years of grooming." So... she endured years of grooming. Do you understand what the word means? You understand that being treated "harshly" isn't the only form of abuse, yes? You understand that specifically raising someone to be an emotionally stunted perfectionist so you can use them as a child soldier is a form of abuse, yes?
>You understand that being treated "harshly" isn't the only form of abuse, yes?
Yes. In fact, lately I've had to make that exact argument on this very board against a number of moronic pro-live action posts As outside observers, the audience can easily see that while Zuko is abused through Ozai withholding affection because of his weakness, Azula is abused through him failing to curb and even encouraging harmful and ultimately self-destructive behaviours. He's a failure as a parent to both children for different reasons. I'm glad you at least can admit that Ozai did her harm without demeaning or physically punishing her. However, Azula is not an outside observer, and from her perspective she's the clear winner between them when it comes to both personal achievements and earning her father's esteem.
Now explain to me how that state of affairs jibes with your imagined scenarios in
>Azula has to constantly bust her ass to get one tiny scrap of affection from Father. Zuko and Mother go watch turtleducks and eat dango and have a jolly good time while Azula gets drilled through Firebending forms until the skin on her hands is black and bleeding and Father scowls at her. Zuko gets to attend war meetings. Azula gets to tape her broken fingers up and have another go at the practice dummy.
which imply Zuko's training was less severe than Azula's or that Ozai held Azula to a standard she couldn't meet. If you admit she wasn't treated "harshly" in this way after all and was in fact the victim of her father's favouritism, we can move on to the next part.
Tell me how Azula, in her limited perspective within the narrative, would understand that she has been abused by her father in the first place, let alone come to blame Zuko for it.
>and this is Iroh's pov lol
I've seen this theme play out on tumblr before and I don't like it, the idea that Iroh is somehow a bad person because he doesn't forgive Azula. Even though Iroh was in many ways an Ozai-tier psycho in his military days, and only got snapped out of it by the death of his son.
Iroh knows what a horrible person is, because he's been one, and that's why he knows Zuko can be redeemed and Azula can't be.
I dont think neither iroh nor anyone else knew about Azula's expression
that said he has a WAY higher kill count than azula and got reedemed, I think the reason he didnt try to reach for her niece as well is because the conditions werent there, not that he ever tried knowing her at all anyway
Also, what a shit thread, arent you guys capable of something better?
>not that he ever tried knowing her at all anyway
That girl was always a massive psycho c**t who laughed at the death of her cousin and how her uncle abandoned the siege after his death.
>who laughed at the death of her cousin and how her uncle abandoned the siege after his death.
So did he about burning peasants on Ba Sing Se.
I am not trying to claim that Azula was some type of good person but she was definitely nurtured to act that way and it's implied that deep down she hates how she is.
>and it's implied that deep down she hates how she is
It's not azulagay
The beach episode and her mental breakdown imply so.
If I am not mistaken Mako did say he felt conflicted about that line and again, you're talking about the guy who tried making tea out of a poisoned flower, said Zuko's other great grandparents didnt matter and didnt take the throne due to be seen as a 'selfless move' but tells his nephew to go fight for it against his sister.
Iroh has flaws like any other character in the series and practically becomes Zukos character device with Mako's death.
being a tea autist makes you immoral? It's sad you had make up/misrepresent the other points about iroh when you could have just pointed to him being an infamous butcher of a general.
which would be cool if the comics didn't suck ass
>being a tea autist makes you immoral?
I've never said nor do I think Iroh's inmoral, the judgement of the dragons > any other autist in here
I just dont think that the man isn't the be-all end-all of wisdom that anon perphaps thought he is.
Fair enough. honestly the only character i think fits that bill is roku and even then he had some clear frick ups of his own
It's what I think, you've got to keep in mind that Iroh never really got to know Azula well after all like one of the anons said earlier on this thread.
I think none of the characters fill that role and to be honest it's for the best IMO what's the point of having a character with no flaws?
>>and it's implied that deep down she hates how she is
>It's not azulagay
She states outloud that because Ursa left after posioning Azulon, Ozai turned her into his dead firebending weapon since Ursa wasn't there to protect her, resulting in her current lot in life. Was pathetic and disgusting, especially since she wished Ursa let Zuko die, but it is canon.
>Why would Azula get abused? She was her father's favourite? Has that person never heard of parental favouritism?
She, Zuko, and Ozai have a golden-scapegoat-narc parent dynamic. Also, being raised to be a genocidal warlord and tryant with no social skills or capcity for healthy relationships is abusive.
>But Ozai
Ozai, Lu Ten, Iroh, and Azulon are all abuse victims. But it doesn't excuse them being monsters like it doesn't for Azula, nor does it change the fact that only one of them ever redeemed themselves.
>Then I think this is a classic example of when people should observe 'The Death of the Author'.
This is already the stance of a good chunk of ATLA fans, and it will probably become the default stance after Avatar Studios likely bombs.
Isn't Azula in her twenties in the comics now?
Azula was 14 in the show, the comics take place about a year after the end of the show. She'd be 15, possibly 16.
>the comics take place about a year after the end of the show.
The comics take place over the course of multiple years, the promise is about a year after the show, by the time of the later comics it's been like 5-6 years, several entire cities were built in the time between the first comics and the later ones.
PTSD became a more understood condition over the 20th century. Trauma became more talked about. Eventually trauma morphed into the modern form. One book on PTSD became a best seller during the Pandemic. People use trauma to essentially justify their poor actions. Actual trauma is really awful events that mentally and physically damage someone. Today's trauma can be anything. This generation of trauma addicts will essentially say that trauma justifies whatever shitty thing you do. Trauma is constantly applied to fictional characters. "Well Azula has trauma so she can do whatever she wants and she shouldn't face consequences." All of this is because people want to justify their shitty actions. People are shit. People nowadays will watch a true crime show and thirst over a cold blooded murderer if they are attractive. Morality is screwed.
>Today's trauma can be anything. This generation of trauma addicts will essentially say that trauma justifies whatever shitty thing you do. Trauma is constantly applied to fictional characters. "Well Azula has trauma so she can do whatever she wants and she shouldn't face consequences." All of this is because people want to justify their shitty actions. People are shit. People nowadays will watch a true crime show and thirst over a cold blooded murderer if they are attractive. Morality is screwed.
This kind of points out the flaw in Dumb Dumb liberal morality (not to be confused with liberal morality from actually intelligent liberals. Yes, there are plenty. They just dont yell on twitter).
Conservatives are more likely to see people as innately good or innately evil. And once they have determined which you are, they will back calculate future behavior. So if they consider you good today, and 5 years down the line you start training dogs to fight competitively, they will dream up some excuse on why that is still good and ok.
Liberals on the other hand think that a person's goodness or evil is determined by their actions.
When you add in trauma, a dumb dumb will let someone doing evil things off the hook. Because they think that the individual's evil actions are really just an extension a previous person's actions, so the fault is on the person before. (Though, ultimately that makes all people blameless, because trauma probably goes all the way back to whatever chemical reaction created life in the ocean or that snake talking eve into eating an apple or similar).
Your real galaxy brain liberals and conservatives realize that the truth is somewhere between the two mindsets. That people have a certain amount of good and evil baked into them AND their personality is also shaped by their lives AND even if people have trauma they are responsible for their actions.
I love these kinds of threads.
It makes me realize that, if you framed a narrative in a personally emotional way, mongoloids would genuinely come in defense of even Hitler.
"Hitler thought that he was justified and his actions and success had a historical context that helps to explain why he did shit and succeeded" = / = "wow it was okay for Hitler to murder millions of people."
Do you think that evil people in real life and their actions are literally okay if they have justifications for themselves and excuses and have a bad childhood? I mean if someone has a motive for murder, even if it's a stupid one, or got bullied at school, do you think we should not arrest them because "oh well you're not just pure evil for the sake of evil, and those are the only people who are bad"?
This shit like mental illness or trauma might help to EXPLAIN why things happen and help people understand how to stop them they never EXCUSE anything.
>This shit like mental illness or trauma might help to EXPLAIN why things happen and help people understand how to stop them they never EXCUSE anything.
Azula fans excuse her crimes, that's the problem
That's fair but that's not the fault of the show for showing her having an abusive childhood and/or mental illness, that's the fans being simps who want to frick her. And I think the Netflix show sucks ass so I'm not watching it, but that shit was in the original cartoon.
No shit, half this thread has been saying that. The issue is the fans. And shit fan opinion creates shit new adaptations to placate them.
what crimes? Being a good soldier? Being mean? Fighting enemies? Azula barely did anything at all which is what makes all of this so hilarious
>Being a good soldier?
She is pretty frivalous with the lives of her soldiers.
>Being mean?
Conquering and sieging cities.
>Azula barely did anything at all
Your autism is showing.
so her crime was trying to win war while having the most bloodless coup in history and being a hardass commander
She was an agent of a genocidal regime. And you're either baiting or a moron.
so let's just hang the whole fire nation army and be done with all of this shit
Now the bait is just even more obvious.
>Do you think
I think there is a chunk of the population moronic enough to come in defense of the most heinous c**ts and excuse their actions not because of logic, principle, or moral reasons. But because they're emotionally invested on the one that is clearly in the wrong.
>Call yourself a "fan" of something and you're on shaking ground.
>Actively engage in a "fandom" and you're an irredeemable homosexual.
You can't shoot the shit and engage with any of this stuff in a good faith discussion without autists derailing it. Coomer waifuist, insecure mental apologist, shut-in obsessives. You could have a good discussion on what was in the show, what the writers said about her at the time and then retroactively, what you actively think works or doesn't work. But we all know that is impossible. The problem is these autistic freaks annoy everyone out of the discussion until they are the last man standing and then Netflix decides to listen to them when it comes time to make a new show because they are the loudest voice.
Why would Azula get abused? She was her father's favourite? Has that person never heard of parental favouritism?
Lord Shen.
She works best as an irredeemable monster only because it's so rare. Now the trope is so common when you see an evil female character, it's automatically expected they will be sympathetic and have a redemption. Also the toxic male patriarchy is the cause of her evil. This is especially true for Netflix and Disney media.
Azula isn't pure evil but she is irredeemable because the first step to being redeemed would require her to recognize her faults and she is both unwilling to do so, delusional enough to believe the faults exist in the first place while also being physically powerful enough that nobody could conceivably force her to see them or listen.
This was the point of her one shot comic, even when a spirit trapped her in an illusion and tried to force her to face her issues she just doubled down and violently reacted until the spirit gave up.
Azula has some pretty big abandonment issues that start with Ursa, worsen with Ty Lee and Mai, and cause her to go complete schizo when Ozai leaves her. That’s when Azula starts seeing Ursa in the mirror. She said it herself in the beach episode, her mother saw her as a monster. However Azula seemingly knows deep down subconsciously that Ursa still loved her despite that. And so Azula is at odds with her own self image. How can she introspect her own faults if she can’t get past everyone seeing her as a villain. Any redemption that can happen has to start from Ursa, Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee giving her lots of love.
Unfortunately the comics dragged this stuff out too long and had season 4 happened I think whatever conglomeration of The Promise, The Search, and Azula’s redemption that would have happened would be incredibly different and better than what the comics did.
end thread
>Any redemption that can happen has to start from Ursa, Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee giving her lots of love.
You one of those people who think Azula did nothing wrong and only needs to be forgiven. Azula was a toxic/abusive sibling and friend to Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee. Any redemption has to include her apologizing to them, making amends to them, and accepting that they may never want anything to her with her again, not matter what she does. Though I agree that any Azula redemption has to start with Ursa giving her lots of love.
You seem to have forgotten
>How can she introspect her own faults if she can’t get past everyone seeing her as a villain
>You seem to have forgotten
>>How can she introspect her own faults if she can’t get past everyone seeing her as a villain
Can't you read?
>Though I agree that any Azula redemption has to start with Ursa giving her lots of love.
>Azula has some pretty big abandonment issues that start with Ursa, worsen with Ty Lee and Mai, and cause her to go complete schizo when Ozai leaves her.
Don't forget Zuko leaving as well. It is telling that she doesn't engage in any banter with him during their Boiling Rock fight.
>he comics take place over the course of multiple years
I think the comics take place within 2-4 years after Sozin's Comet. The TTRPG, which takes place after Azula's solo comic, but not that far, is IIRC 4 years after Sozin's Comet.
Live action worth watching? I just got a wfh job and i effectively don't do shit 90% of the day so i got time to kill with tv.
Nope
I think it's worth watching.
I think for the most part the cast is pretty accurate... besides Azula and team. They decided to make them fat, chubby faces.
Maybe if the actress wasnt some fat ugly chick i would give 2 shits about her.
I want to hug Azula, stroke her hair, and tell her that she's beautiful and brilliant and deserves the world.
I want to work day and night to make her happy by providing her with everything she wants and needs, no matter how trivial or overwhelming it is.
Is there a fanfic of this.
Why is it that if a show has a redemptation arc for one villain, suddenly people want more of the villains to be redeemed? Just
Let's have an Ozai redemption, Hell Zuko even mentions the possibility of prison changing him in the show.
>Why is it that if a show has a redemptation arc for one villain, suddenly people want more of the villains to be redeemed?
Avatar Iroh, Piandao, Jeong Jeong, Mai, Ty Lee, and Zuko all be redeemed. And Avatar as a franchise has a buttload of people get redeemed, even if they are just as bad if not worse than Azula (ex. Unalaq's kids, Kuvira, Varrick).
>Let's have an Ozai redemption, Hell Zuko even mentions the possibility of prison changing him in the show.
Why can't he have an Endeavor-style redemption?
>Why can't he have an Endeavor-style redemption?
Are you implying Ozai might have another son older than Zuko who “died”? This is getting interesting
Yeah frick Azula’s redemption. Give us Ozai’s redemption.
>Yeah frick Azula’s redemption. Give us Ozai’s redemption.
>>Why can't he have an Endeavor-style redemption?
>Are you implying Ozai might have another son older than Zuko who “died”? This is getting interesting
Imagine Ozai redeeming himself and then working with Zuko to try and take down Azula?
>Redeemed Ozai insists the only way to tame... no, redeem Azula is for the two of them to spitroast her
>Has an aneurysm when Zuko thinks he means skewering Azula on an actual spit
>Yeah frick Azula
Say no more, anon.
Don't stick your dick in crazy.
But she's hot crazy.
havent watched it yet, what did it do wrong?
It didn’t do anything yet, and that’s the problem
You can’t make this shit up
I don't understand, what is the problem?
Zuko is the sympathetic redeemed villain of the show
Azula is the tragic doomed villain of the show who can’t escape their fate because they can’t recognize it
Zuko suffers and learns that the majority of his suffering is self inflicted and learns to free himself
Azula suffers but does not learn, tightening the noose around her neck until it chokes her. This is the lesson a fricking children show can teach but a live action show can’t
>This is the lesson a fricking children show can teach
This is a lesson children can understand but adults will argue over for 413 posts
>Azula suffers but does not learn
She does learn, that's literally the crux of her mental breakdown: Azula knows that something is fricked up inside and her subconscious mind wants desperately to fix it, but she absolutely lacks the tools to do so and can't reconcile the reality of what she's been taught with what she knows deep down should be.
Azula knows the noose is there but she's trying to saw through the rope with a butter knife.
>Azul-ACK
>Does Azula work better as a sympathetic villain with a tragic past who can be redeemed or as a pure evil monster?
as Zuzu's sister-wife
>wahhhh Azula was abused.
Katara and Sokka's mother died. Their father left. Their community was a shambles of what it was without any men or benders. They couldn't even properly defend themselves. They were barely existing.
Azula was favoured by her father, dismissed by her mother. Grew up in a palace as part of one of the biggest nations. She was a prodigy and had all her whims catered to.
People who justify Azula's actions and whine about her abuse are pathetic. She was privileged. Most of these "fans" are liberal/lefty and in any other situation hate privileged people. Yet here they defend privilege to death.
Zuko/Azula as brother and sister partly parallel Sokka/Katara. It's also about choice. Sokka/Katara decided to help the Avatar. Zuko eventually did too. Azula chose to be a c**t and push everyone away.
Nah it isn't bait lad. Sokka and Katara had a worse situation and didn't turn out bad. People who use Azula's shit to justify her actions are c**ts.
Sokka and Katara weren't raised by a sociopath.
There whole society was damaged. Bender genocide and men had left. They loved with practically nothing.
*Lived with
...and because they had good parents that instilled good values within them, Sokka and Katara were able to persevere through those tough times and became decent people.
Your position is flawed, bro.
Not really because you never read my argument to begin with. I'm saying that using someone's backstory to justify their actions is shitty. Saying Azula had bad parenting so that justifies her shit is stupid. I fully understand and know the explanations of the characters. When I talked about Sokka and Katara it is to say, when you list out someone's backstory in such a way you can make any kind of argument.
The problem as per usual is you didn't read my original argument and just assumed I'm making a different argument. It is tiring.
I do read your arguments. They just don't contain anything of value.
You don't read my arguments because you haven't engaged with one of them at all. Every single one of your posts has been an "actually" completely missing the actual point. And now you realise you got it wrong so you resort to that. This is your brain on Azula. Pathetic.
Half of your posts don't have a point, so how could I miss them? How am I supposed to respond to your autistic nonsense? You say me not engaging the way you want is tiring, but do you have any idea how tiring it is to try and sort through the horseshit you spout?
So you engaged with them with wrong takes, I clarified, and now instead of furthering the discussion you ape out? Anon, you're the autistic homosexual here. We could have just had a normal conversation but you decided to ape out. You took one thing (me saying it is tiring) the wrong way and flip out? I wasn't insulting you, simply saying that it is sometimes tiring. Seriously anon, with all due respect, calm down a bit. This is all a bit silly.
So suffering a genocide and destruction of your way of life = fine as long as you have good parents? But have bad parents and a privileged upbringing and that's bad and your actions are always justified?
Azula barely suffered compared to any of the other characters and her her defenders act like she suffered the most. You're as bad as those fricks on twitter.
>Azula barely suffered compared to any of the other characters
This is the thing these threads ignore. Aang's people were genocided. Southern Water tribe's benders were genocided. Earth Kingdom was invaded and colonised. And yet the Azulagays empathy only extends to "family problems".
Katara and Sokka grew up in a pro-social community that valued family and frienship. Hakoda and Kya raised their children in accordance with their community's good values and Kanna reinforced when they were gone. Azula and Zuko grew up as members of a tryantical royal family waging a global war of conquest. Moreover, they were explicitly created to help ensure Azulon's line's continued rule for centuries due to being prodigy benders. Ozai, a vile power hungry POS even by his nation's corroded standards, focused on Azula in a way that he didn't with Zuko because Zuko was "weak". Yet, it took Zuko three years away from Ozai, experiencing first-hand the suffering his nation was bringing upon others, and having the unconditional love of arguably the GOAT father figure in Western Animated history to break free. And even then, he almost fell into the cycle of abuse and hurt a lot of people along the way. Not everyone can be saved, and Azula needs to be locked up to protect people from her. But I'll morally condemn her like I do with Ozai once she has had a real shot at getting help and rejects it.
>But Sprit Temple
Her accepting the sprit's terms would not have been redemption. It would have been giving into a fake reality. And besides, it doesn't even address the core reason why she does evil: her belief system and indoctrination. Like, has anyone tried to de-Sozinize her?
I'm specifically mentioning that people use her upbringing to JUSTIFY her actions. That's the problem with Azula fans. Plenty of people had harsh lives but their actions aren't all justified by fans.
>I'm specifically mentioning that people use her upbringing to JUSTIFY her actions. That's the problem with Azula fans. Plenty of people had harsh lives but their actions aren't all justified by fans.
Azula stans justify her actions with her upbringing, but Azula fans don't. I mean, you see people in the very thread saying that her past does not absolve her actions, only explain them.
The context of what we are talking about is very clear. People who feel the need to keep explaining it, like your did, are missing the point. This whole debate started because the live action show is going a different direction and people are using that to justify their decades long seethe. It is a fan meta issue. It's just hypocritical that the same explanation doesn't matter when it comes to anyone else.
To be fair, if she wasn't raised to be a murderous fascist she'd probably be a normal girl.
That has nothing to do with what I said tbh anon.
>It is a fan meta issue.
True.
>It's just hypocritical that the same explanation doesn't matter when it comes to anyone else.
But it does tho. Ozai is literally a Zuko who didn't have the positive influence of a (good-natured) mother and whose Iroh was General-Crown Prince Iroh, therefore fell into the cycle of abuse. It explains why he is the way he is, but it doesn't absolve him.
>To be fair, if she wasn't raised to be a murderous fascist she'd probably be a normal girl.
Someone earlier in this thread posted a scan of Bryke saying back in 2008.
>But it does tho
What I was saying is that fans don't apply the same level of justification to the other characters. No where near on the same level. And I'm right about that.
>What I was saying is that fans don't apply the same level of justification to the other characters. No where near on the same level. And I'm right about that.
Yeah, you are right.
I made the mistake of looking at that guys profile
what a loser lol
Why, what has he said?
What hasn't he said? It's like the most stereotypical /misc/caricature of all time
She can’t be redeemed because she doesn’t want to be redeemed. Zuko throughout the show regularly questioned if what he was doing was right and never seemed fully devoted to the fire nation’s ideals. In order for azula to be redeemed she would need to deconstruct everything she believes which she has no reason to want to.
This is the biggest part of this.
Zuko doubts while Azula rages. Azula is not questioning her actions ever, she's frustrated that the world isn't bending to her will and is losing it specifically because she won't entertain the idea she could be wrong
>Notices Bumi can still bend
>Immediately stops chasing him and gives up
What a weak little b***h
Bumi is the strongest character in the series, I don't know why he doesn't do anything to win the war.
only in the final does he do something.
>"She can be redeemed!"
She likes being a cruel butthole, she doesn't want to change or attone for shit, the only reason she ever showed regret was becouse she felt isolated and unloved not becouse she felt guilty about what she did
>"But she was raised that way!"
Then i guess personal responsibility doesn't exists and its just a long generational chain of "It wasn't my fault!" arguments
We should also be talking about how the live action and the new direction they are taking her. Having her outright envious of zukos freedom sets up the eventually confrontation between the two. Azula will explain her animosity to zuko and he will see she just needs a second chance.
DSL
Azula’s writing has always been torn between Ehaosz who wanted to redeem her and Bryke who only saw her as a villain. That’s what led to her schizophrenic comics and why zoomer fans are obsessed with the idea of a redeemed Azula. It’s honestly tragic and ironic in a meta way, that Azula’s identity is so split between irreconcilable archetypes that she herself can never escape her own inner turmoil. She’s always destined to forever not be redeemed but not be a full villain either
You can be a "full villain" and still have a redemption
Are you deliberately misinterpreting what I said? I’m saying that Bryke didnt intent for Azula to be redeemed (only retroactively changing their minds) which is why she’s so weird in the comics. Ehaosz was the one who wanted to give her redemption which is incompatible with Azula being a villain
No, I understood what you meant.
I just don't agree when you said that a character is a "full villain" only if it is impossible to have a redemption.
>redemption which is incompatible with Azula being a villain
are you moronic?
It isn't schizo. Collaborative writing on projects has existed since forever. The show did a pretty decent and unified character who had issues and broke down in the end. That's a complete arc. This isn't driven by what some writers may have wanted. (I think it is VERY telling that the writers who spoke about an Azula redemption have only done so after the fact in the climate and context of extreme fans.) Fans have driven this, fans who decided after, based on their own biases, that she "deserved" a specific ending. You can pluck Azula out of that vacuum and context. The part I agree with is that the comics are schizophrenic but that's because they are of awful quality and not worth reading. And fans bring that on themselves by consuming bad products rather than just enjoying one thing.
>You can pluck Azula out of that vacuum and context
*can't
The latter, a lot of women out the unironically enjoy watching others suffer, even their own flesh and blood.
Azula is yandere coomer bait, is a no character and deserves nothing
Azula is based because she's a genius strategist and the best firebender in the world after her father while still in her youth. That's all that matters. Her deadbeat mother's love and her turncoat uncle's guiding support are unnecessary.
search your feelings, you know this to be true
why does it change to 'son' on the uncolored version?
one is Azula as Izumi's mom
other is AU where Zuzu and Azula have a son
No
fukcin hell xD
that's the WRONG GUY xDDD
Is that Zuko without scarring? If so then that's a really nice character detail
>Azulas greatest wish is the admiration of all
>And she secretly wishes her brother hadn't been fricked up by their father
What I find curious is that it is not a version of current Zuko with his face intact, but 13 year old Zuko. Literally her last memory of how he looked before he got his face burned off.
Now make them all start clapping and saying, "Congratulations!"
>AZULa
>has blue fire
Bravo, Bryke!
>>has blue fire
what?
This thread made me realize how pathetic azulagays are.
Indeed.
true azula fans don't want her to be redeemed.
wrong
No, I like the character as she is in the original series.
>true azula fans don't want her to be redeemed.
The problem is that most of the self proclaimed Azula fans online who speak the loudest want her to be redeemed. And this has gone on for far too long.
It wasn't long, these are the zoomers saying this.
It was long and it isn't zoomers. Look at homosexuals like Prying Pandora on Reddit. It only takes a few autists to destroy the discourse.
>Prying Pandora on Reddit.
super wrong. They are not "fans"
People who call themselves "Azula fans" don't think she did anything wrong in the first place so their opinions don't really matter.
before going crazy what exactly did she do wrong except be a loyal soldier for the wrong side? Would it be ok if she did all the same stuff but with a hearty old man chuckle?
Are you pretending you don't recognize sadistic behavior when you see it, or what? Also a hearty LOL at trying to equivocate the remorseful, compassionate Iroh with Azula. When did Iroh ever relish in the suffering of his own family the way Azula did upon seeing her brother permanently maimed? Never. When Iroh ever sadistically manipulate his friends to get them to do what he wants? Never. When did Azula ever express an ounce of the regret that Iroh did for actions carried out as a soldier? Never.
>the remorseful, compassionate Iroh
You mean the sadistic murderous general who led the first imperialistic campaign of death and destruction against the Earth Kingdom and was about to take Ba Sing Se before he ran away crying like a b***h because his murderous soldier son ate shit? The Dragon of the West? That Iroh?
> sadistic murderous general
> his murderous soldier son
No, you see, they are actually good since they were born good. If you do not understand this, the show for kids is too hard for you.
At this point what do you want, Azulagay? If you think Iroh is irredeemably evil then Azula is even worse than that. Or are you just baiting and trolling.
nta but Iroh having a redemption without admitting that he was a villain or punishment is stupid.
He literally helps free the city he once tried to conquer. I think he knew he was once a villain. Would you rather he said a long speech about it?
Ask the parents of soldiers he killed is he a good guy or not for protecting them?
That has nothing to do with what I said or what I was answering.
Iroh didn't have a "redemption" at all, strictly speaking. He was presented as fundamentally good from the outset of the story. His misdeeds as the Dragon of the West are backstory, and his work in the present as a member of the White Lotus is his ongoing atonement.
Dude, are you autistic, did the tea talk confused you?
If Azula is bad Iroh is worse, not the other way around. Whatever she did as a general he did for longer and as a fricking adult. At that point individual shit like smiling when your brother is punished is a moot.
I get that Azula is your waifu but Iroh or others being bad doesn't magically justify Azula's actions. No matter how hard you try and swing it.
I do not care about justifying her actions, I don't care if she is redeemable, all I care is for people to not be hypocrites. That is one of the worst offense.
Using hypocrisy yourself to attack hypocrisy is hypocritical.
How is treating, two people who have done the same, in a same way is hypocrisy?
How is treating a kid and an adult the same way is not a hypocrisy?
>Azula's an evil irredeemable psycho!
>OMG slay, Tea Uncle! You're so wise and good!
Iroh regretted his actions because he got his son killed. That's it. He was 100% on-board with the war and enjoyed what he did until it cost him personally.
Azula is a child Iroh with nothing to lose.
>He was 100% on-board with the war and enjoyed what he did until it cost him personally.
So now you move the goal posts even more? He used the death of his son to reassess his whole position, sure. In fiction people often need such events to drive the story. People irl don't often see issues until it effects them personally. That is how it goes.
>you move the goal posts even more?
What are you talking about, you literal moron?
Iroh was a bad person. That's the entire point of the post. Iroh was a monster who only gave a shit because his son was a frickup who died.
Because that changes nothing and your argument is muddled. Sometimes people need a catalyst to make the change happen. And that helped him on the journey to being a different person. But he also made choices along that journey. It doesn't absolve him of his crimes. Of course, no one is saying it does. You seem to be implying that he only changed because of his son and nothing else. But that isn't true either.
At this point your arguments are scattered all over the place and I have no idea what you want? You're talking to multiple people and just getting mad about Iroh in an Azula thread. The topic of Azula was more about the live action show changing things. I don't see what you want anyone to say about Iroh now. Apart from you wanting to defend Azula using whataboutism.
You have to be trolling.
I am not. It just feels like this Iroh side argument is just to defend Azula. Tell me where I am wrong?
>Iroh lost his b***hass son
>Azula lost nothing
Think, you fricking moron, and maybe you'll get the point.
Iroh was a different person who went through a change. Azula still lost people like her mother's disappearance. Nothing to do with what I said.
>Iroh was a bad person.
As a young man Iroh refused to kill the last dragons. Iroh as a young man wasn't like how Azula is. Sure he had a military career and did bad things but personality wise he still believed in things and had certain values.
Your comparison is faulty. If Iroh was as evil as say, Azula, then even as a young man he would have killed those dragons and taken the glory.
I would also add that, if Iroh was as bad as Azula then there would never have been a moment for him to have his moment of realization and call to redemption. He would not have been capable of the empathy necessary for that introspection.
>he still believed in things and had certain values
>Fire Nation fricking rules! Kill those Earth homosexuals, Lu Ten! Let's burn it all down!
>If Iroh was as evil as say, Azula, then even as a young man he would have killed those dragons
>and taken the glory.
First of all, didn't he said he killed them? Second, if they are truly the last dragons it is smart an cunning to keep them alive and be the only person aware of it.
He TOLD people he killed them to keep them safe, because people were hunting them for glory. They accepted him and the saw him worthy so the Sun Warriors taught him fire bending techniques.
You're factually incorrect. Seriously just go and read the wiki:
>https://avatar.fandom.com/wiki/Iroh#Early_life_and_career
>go and read the wiki
> He enjoyed serving as a military commander and fully embraced his role as heir to the Fire Lord, later musing that his blood "boiled with desire" for power at the time.
>He
>Enjoyed
>Serving
>As
>A
>Military
>Commander
>he distanced himself from Ozai, believing that the latter's aggressive temperament and ambition hinted at a deeper evil. Nevertheless, there was a period in their lives when Iroh admired his younger brother's ruthlessness, namely when they were in school and Ozai proved very successful. As he grew older, however, Iroh realized that "we would all get burned" due to his brother's ambition and lack of empathy.
He realised his brothers issues and distance himself.
>At some point, Iroh left his birthplace, seeking insight from other benders as he yearned for enlightenment. While traveling the world, the firebender studied how waterbenders deal with the flow of energy, which led to the creation of the lightning redirection technique.[13] During his journeys as a young man, Iroh also visited the Sun Warriors, where he stood before the original firebenders: a pair of dragons, Ran and Shaw.[23] He managed to prove himself worthy, and they revealed to him the true secrets of firebending, without recourse to hatred and aggression.[12] They taught him the importance of balance in all things,[24] influencing his later decision to move away from his father's aggressive and imperialist mindset.[24][25]
He learnt about other benders and wanted to move away from his father's way.
>Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, Iroh was essentially "forced" by public expectations to join the military.[26]
>His views at the time partially stemmed from a desire to honor his father Azulon and grandfather Sozin, both of which had fully committed themselves to the war.[28]
"Forced." He was pressured to by family.
>Fire Lord Azulon, died under mysterious circumstances. Although Iroh was the Crown Prince, his younger brother Ozai was named Fire Lord, apparently at the dying request of Azulon himself.[10] Having lost his desire for power after the death of Lu Ten, Iroh did not fight for his right to the throne, and Ozai took power without incident.[31]
He lost his father and son.
>literally ignoring the quote about how he liked what he did
>literally ignoring him having a laugh about it all in the show
He was a gung ho "frick 'em all to death" piece of shit
Once again
>He
>Enjoyed
>Serving
>As
>A
>Military
>Commander
Holy frick anon, you pick one quote and ignore all the other paragraphs. Don't be a cherry picking homosexual. Look at the quote in CONTEXT. You don't think men in times of war, these few, these band of brothers, can gain a kind of camaraderie? But that changed with the war. You're implying he was what? A genocidal maniac? He took on the mantle of commander in part to please his family. But he clearly wanted to change how things were done. Read the WHOLE thing next time.
>HE
>ENJOYED
>SERVING
Now you're just trolling.
>If the city is as magnificent as its wall, Ba Sing Se must be something to behold. I hope you all may see it someday, if we don't burn it to the ground first! [Laughs.]
You're right, anon
This quote shows just how much he really hated burning people alive with his son
>go read the wiki
>he enjoyed serving
>nooooooooooooooooooo you are doing it wrong!!!
so sadists aren't allowed to exist? Iroh didn't feel shit until his son died and he was an old man. Dude joked about burning down the most populous place in the world. It's kind of crazy to judge a teenager to a guy who lived a full life and was doing the worse shit than she was for most of it
>LOL at trying to equivocate the remorseful, compassionate Iroh with Azula.
One is the old fart, the other is the kid. Accent on old.
>relish in the suffering of his own family the way Azula did upon seeing her brother permanently maimed?
She is 9. The concept of permanent damage and extreme pain might not be present yet.
>When Iroh ever sadistically manipulate his friends to get them to do what he wants?
How about being part of secret organization and 3 years worth of minor grooming?
>When did Azula ever express an ounce of the regret that Iroh did for actions carried out as a soldier?
There is no moment where it would be logical for her to act that way at all. Iroh changed after his son's death. For us to compare them we need an equal incident in her life, there is none.
I don't care about your points, but that image is pure sex.
>For us to compare them we need an equal incident in her life, there is none.
Brutally maim Zuzu before her eyes while she can do nothing but watch.
The damndest thing is that Iroh would wholeheartedly own up to and agree with his criticisms and the insults given to him on this as an old man.
But Azula even from a young age would have maimed, killed, or had you killed for daring to say anything negative about her psycho little ass.
Would he do that before his son died? And you are missing the point.
>But Azula even from a young age would have maimed, killed, or had you killed for daring to say anything negative about her psycho little ass.
Yes probably. For you to be certain though there needs to be an example, there is none. There is no scenes that suggest that Azula is irredeemable, because she doesn't get a chance.
No, that's why I said 'as an old man'. My point is that Azula as an even younger girl would have been capable of the callousness a grown and seasoned war veteran was in his prime. And she would be a child with that same capability, without any of whatever shaped Iroh to be who he was as a young man.
As well, the onus of proof would be on you to prove that she isn't. We use her actions and personality that we see to infer who she was. If she was capable of gleefully watching her brother suffer, how would she react to a stranger, and someone beneath her, no less.
> gleefully watching her brother suffer,
she is 9
And seeing her brother suffer while smiling like its a cartoon. When my brother told me he was going to try and float off the second story balcony I went crying to my mother. I was no older than four.
>When my brother told me he was going to try and float off the second story balcony I went crying to my mother.
And when I broke my arm in a playful fight with my sister, she laughed her ass off (she did eventual got scared and called help, but only after I would not stop screaming.) We were 11. Is she a monster?
Did Azula ever show any care or remorse for Zuko in that event at all?
How would I know, Iroh conveniently abrupt the story. Considering all shit Azula did for Zuko I would not be surprised.
And that's where this discussion goes from the tangible and inferrable to the questionable and hypothetical, anon. The thread is almost over, but I enjoyed it
Hope you and your sister are doing good
>And that's where this discussion goes from the tangible and inferrable to the questionable and hypothetical, anon.
You were the first to ask stupid question.
>Did Azula ever show any care or remorse for Zuko in that event at all?
We only see the event for few seconds and her reaction is not the point of the story.
what teenager has any kind of clarity or self-reflection especially when they have been enabled their whole life? People seem to use Azula's disposition as a reason for her being worse despite having a far lessor list of crimes than the conquering general. You put Azula in a different environment and she becomes a hardass teacher or something which is the point. Azula, Iroh, etc. were largely a product of their environments and did what was expected of them, usually very well. Azula would never be the sagey uncle but that doesn't mean she couldn't find relative normality or cross the very low bar of not being a monster
>what teenager has any kind of clarity or self-reflection especially when they have been enabled their whole life?
People who argue with that are probably teens themselves, poor things think this is the last step in their development.
This would be nature vs nurture, but genuinely bad people usually show their cards as children, anon... They can be nurtured out of it, but no one knows if it's a 50/50 deal.
>what exactly did she do wrong except be a loyal soldier for the wrong side
I WAS JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS BRO literally doesn't count in any human rights court.
it was until WW2. I wonder what changed
>In 1474, in the trial of Peter von Hagenbach by an ad hoc tribunal of the Holy Roman Empire, the first known "international" recognition of commanders' obligations to act lawfully occurred.[6][7] Hagenbach offered the defense that he was just following orders, but this defense was rejected and he was convicted of war crimes and beheaded.[8]
>"when he was convicted for rapes committed by his troops."
NTA but that article kinda sucks, and if you read the whole thing and the links from it, it contradicts you.
No
There are plenty of Azulagays who appreciate her but don't twist themselves into pretzels trying to make her a dindu with no autonomy. I get the impression that the crazier ones have lost touch with the character's personality and circumstances in the show. Azula's just a blank canvas for them to project their own baggage (real or imagined) and/or their ideas about how abuse victims should be handled. Even the waifugays who want her to be an autistic brocon aren't as deluded.
I think we need more villains with sympatehtic backstories that are still evil and irredeemable.
dio brando is that
How do you redeem Azula in a world that definitely doesn't have the therapy and medication she needs?
BBC (Big Brother's wiener)
Zuko's tiny dicklet couldn't even satisfy Mai
Falso
You can't "cure" sociopathy. It's not a disease, it's a deeply ingrained disorder that is fundamental to a person's perception of the world. Azula is furthermore a highly intelligent sociopath who has proved, in canon, that she can fool lie detectors. So there's virtually no way you could ever distinguish between her being genuinely remorseful and pretending to be so in order to be released.
>So there's virtually no way you could ever distinguish between her being genuinely remorseful and pretending to be so in order to be released.
That's okay as long as you don't expect her to become a genuinely moral person. There's a lot of personality disorders that work the same way. When it comes to rehabilitation, the best you can do is put them in the right setting and convince them that it's in their best interest to fake normalcy indefinitely, because the alternative is much more uncomfortable. This requires a level of intelligence a lot of criminal sociopaths lack, but Azula is bright enough.
So in that sense, she could be helped to live a decent life, especially if she were cut off from any hope of regaining her rank. And if she didn't interact one on one with anyone weak enough for her to dominate.
Turn her into a termite queen. Never let her talk to the children or even come into contact other than breastfeeding.
Azula's "tragic" childhood isn't all that tragic, really. Yeah her dad was a psycho, but so what? Zuko was in the same boat, actually probably had even more expectations put on him than Azula, until he proved himself too inept and softhearted for Ozai's liking and he transferred all his expectations on to Azula. And Azula actually thrived as his favored child. So she didn't have a close relationship with her mother due to her psychopathic father's influence, boohoo. Zuko lived in terror of his father and sister and was eventually permanently disfigured by his dad then cast out of his home in disgrace. Compared to that Azula lived a life of privilege.
But let's say you buy into her crocodile tears about "Mommy didn't love me abloobloobloo", does that excuse anything she's done? Not even a little.
I have never seen so much autism before.
Is it your first day using Cinemaphile?
Normal Cinemaphile levels is 200% Autism. This thread is off the charts.
Perfect.
there's no way you people are actually arguing that Azula did worse stuff than Iroh
Are the comics noncanon or do we just treat it that way because they're as bad as Korra. Also do you guys feel Korra should be noncanon?
p.s. I vote against the redemptioning.
>itt people so dumb they can't understand a kids cartoon
There's literally a quote above from the show's creators saying that it was her family's grooming that turned her into what she was and that she can be redeemed
kek you don't even know what side of the argument I am on and decided to respond, muthafrickers itt are sensitive as frick
>mfw arguing with other people who love the stuff i love
frick ya'll homies, I'm enjoying myself
Azulagays are the worst.