Atla Discourse - Tumblr Posts

If I may I would like to offer my own take on the subject. And I pinky promise to do so in a respectful way because being rude is rude. I would disagree that none of the characters are mature enough for romantic relationships. Tho imo the bigger thing to me is that they're ready to be in romantic relationships and I will explain what I mean by that. Zuko, Katara, Sokka, and Suki are by the end of the show in a place where they could have healthy romantic relationships that are balanced and equal. Whether that's with anyone I just named (except Sokka/Katara we're not Targaryens here) or with anyone else, I think healthy relationships can be had there. I think they are ready to be in a relationship. Because I personally think that to be in a romantic relationship you do need to be ready for one. You need to be able to put your partner's needs before your own. You need to be able to see them and accept them for who they are rather than who you want them to be. You need to be able to communicate and open up to them. You need to be able to lean on them and be someone they can lean on. Friendships can work without all these factors. The friend you can goof off with and get into hijinks isn't always the one you can bear your heart to. But romantic relationships absolutely need these things to be able to function properly

I'll use Zuko and Sokka as examples since we see them in stages where they aren't really ready for a relationship. In the first half of season three we see Zuko as a pissed off miserable prick who's pretty rude to Mai while they're dating. He is not someone who is ready to be in a relationship because he has too many of his own issues to deal with. He's inattentive, can't communicate, and he can't put his own problems aside for the sake of his relationship. As for Sokka, during the Serpent's Pass episode he is controlling and constantly putting his feelings ahead of Suki's and her needs. This is because of his grief from losing Yue. But by the end of the episode through his conversations with the other characters including Suki, he becomes someone who is ready to be in a romantic relationship with Suki. They kinda speedrun this bit of character growth for him but TV show so it's fine.

Now I want to stress something important here: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH NOT BEING READY FOR A RELATIONSHIP. We all go through things that make it so we can't be the best romantic partner possible for the other person. In the case of Sokka and Zuko this is grief and personal trauma respectively. And we do not start out with the emotional maturity to be the best romantic partner possible. We learn. We grow. We (hopefully) become better people over time. And in the process we can become someone who is able to partake in one of if not the highest level of human intimacy.

With all that said I will now address Aang. I don't believe he is ready to be in a relationship because while he definitely lacks some emotional maturity, the bigger issues are in my opinion that Aang is unable to put Katara's feelings ahead of his own (EIP kissing Katara after she gave voice to her uncertain feelings about a possible relationship with him) and the fact that he views Katara as the person he wants her to be rather than the person she is. Aang sees Katara as an almost angelic figure. Holding her on a pedestal, a new love to replace the love he lost and he outright refuses to see any evidence to the contrary. This is not conducive to a healthy relationship and even if Aang was 25, if this was his mindset I'd still say he's not ready to be in a romantic relationship. Let me restate: THIS IS NOT A BAD THING. Aang is twelve. Most twelve year olds aren't ready for romantic relationships. I have no doubt that with time and the chance to learn and grow, Aang would become a very loving and attentive boyfriend/husband to whomever he chose to spend his life with whenever it's with Katara or anyone else

Anyway these are just my thoughts. I think it can be an interesting conversation when people aren't being dicks about it (looking at everyone not just the people you yes you reading this long ass post don't like)

"Aang is not mature enough for romantic relationships..."

Nobody of the Gaang and adjacent characters of AtLA are mature enough for romantic relationships. There are days I am not sure Uncle Iroh is mature enough for a romantic relationship.

That doesn’t mean nobody should engage in any kind of romantic relationships without passing a maturity test first. Or even reaching a set age. In the morning of the eighteenth birthday humans don’t get all the adult knowledge downloaded in their brains.

Relationships – romantic, familial, friendly and everything in between are a part of the human experience. They happen not because we are mature enough, but because we are human. We just deal with them differently and often better when we mature enough.

And yes, I remember that they are fictional characters, and nothing “just happens” to them. But they are not in a morality play that’s supposed to give viewers pre-chewed, easily digestible answers to all the problems in a sweet wholesome wrapper.

Inside their world they are alive, and that’s why we love them so much. Writers throw problems and feelings, and people, and accidents at them and we watch how they deal with them, mature or not.

They are not mature enough to fight in a war, let alone be responsible for stopping it, yet they do, and we cheer them up and feel heartbroken for them. They are not mature enough to have romantic relationships, yet they fall in love and try to figure out their way about it.

some of your goofy asses for the past 20 years

Azula Respected Mai The Most

I just saw another Reddit comment saying Azula wasn’t friends with Mai and mostly only cared about Ty Lee. And I just gotta say…

I respectfully disagree.

The Boiling Rock proves Mai meant a lot to Azula.

First, Mai publicly commits treason and betrays the Fire Nation and Azula.

What does Azula do? Order the guards away and gives Mai a chance to explain herself. She even says “I never expected this from you” and “you of all people know the consequences”. Put a pin in that for a moment.

Giving a traitor who just publicly and flagrantly betrayed you and your nation to help an even worse traitor to your nation (Zuko, who on a personal level hurt both Mai and Azula by doing so) a chance to explain themselves is already significant. But even moreso is the fact that Azula doesn’t make a single move to harm Mai until Mai purposely and effectively hits Azula’s trauma weak point like the master marksman she is.

When Mai says “I guess you don’t know people as well as you think you do” this is already an insult. She’s putting down Azula’s intelligence and manipulation skills, things Azula clearly takes pride in. And yet despite how insulting that is, Azula still waits for Mai to explain herself. Even as Mai throws that barb at her, Azula wants to hear her out. Until Mai throws the even worse insult right at Azula’s weak point.

“I love Zuko more than I fear you” isn’t a statement of Mai being afraid really. It’s Mai throwing a powerful dig at Azula’s biggest fear and trauma, the one Azula tried to dismiss during The Beach with a joke to avoid showing her own vulnerability: Azula fears that Ursa hated and feared her but loved Zuko. It’s why during the mirror scene, a grief stricken and emotionally volatile Azula bitterly says to the hallucination of Ursa “even you fear me”.

Only then does Azula get triggered enough to lash out in return. Mai was only capable of hurting her so much precisely because Azula loves and trusts Mai so much, and precisely because Mai knew what to say to hurt her.

Even so, Azula does the forms for fire, not lightning. And after she is chi-blocked, Azula orders both Ty Lee and Mai jailed, not executed or banished despite having every right to do so since they just publicly committed treason against the Fire Nation.

See the quick strike? It’s more like when she attacks Iroh in The Chase with blue fire:

Lightning, by comparison, always has a wind up for her. Even when comet-boosted or otherwise.

Remember Azula’s line we put a pin in? Let’s go back to it now. Why does Azula say “I never expected this from you” and “you of all people”. What is the significance here?

We know Azula is a perfectionist. She can’t stand a single hair out of place. This informs her frustration with Zuko and Ty Lee, both whom she adores, but whom are constantly failing to stay in their place and play their role. Zuko messes up, gets himself banished. Ty Lee runs away and joins the circus. What does Azula do? Endeavor to use any means necessary to bring them back into the fold. It sounds crazy, but from her perspective, she’s helping them shape up.

But Mai? She’s different. Mai knows her place. She knows what’s expected of her. She says herself that she learned to be quiet and still so as not to risk her dad’s political career. She hates it and searches for any excuse to leave her stifling expectations at home, but she only does this in an acceptable way: when ordered by the princess to join her on a mission for the Fire Nation.

This is why Azula is especially shocked. Because of all people, Azula thought Mai was the only one of her friends who understood their duty to the nation and wasn’t a colossal fuck up.

Azula may be more affectionate with Ty Lee, but she definitely respected Mai more.

And I think the fandom doesn’t give their fascinating relationship or how it breaks down enough credit.

Are we, as a fandom, ready to admit that Mai’s entire backstory, personality, coping mechanisms, character traits, strengths, weaknesses, self image, belief system, and arc, are literally almost exactly the same as Toph but like, slightly to the left

Something that made the finale better: Mai with Team Avatar.

What Mai is doing here is more than just accompanying Zuko, we all know she could have simply said No. But now, her ego does not control what she feels for Zuko because she knows that it’s worth it.

 Mai is not sulking around, denying anyone. She is next to Katara, calmly playing with Suki.  And it feels nice, and it gives it a nice warm touch, to see that it is never a bad time to start over because once you deeply fall in love with someone, you do extraordinary things.

it is so wild to me when people act like the fire nation isn't sexist because azula's girl squad is badass when azula mai and ty lee are all such perfect representations of women living under sexism. azula is the only woman in ozai's war room, and she is a smarter strategist and a more powerful firebender than the high-ranking men we see (e.g. zhao). the implication is that she has to be the absolute best to get a seat at that table. mai is treated as a prop for her father's political ambition, raised to stay quiet and out of trouble in a way that reeks of women being expected to be compliant in service of men. she's bored and checked out and has trouble expressing her feelings because she's so used to not being allowed to express anything. ty lee grows up lost in the shuffle, desperate for attention, desperate to please and contort herself into a shape that people find appealing, and that manifests as making herself into a stereotypical girly-girl, making herself seem inoffensive and non-threatening by playing on sexist stereotypes.

azula's perfectionism, mai's detachment, and ty lee's girly persona are all ways in which women react to and adapt to living in a sexist society. they overachieve to try to break the barriers, they check out emotionally, they learn to play the role people expect. azula and her girl squad are powerful women certainly but they are absolutely women living under sexism

Canonical evidence of Mai and Zuko’s unrelenting love for each other

I’ve seen many claim that in Zuko’s flashbacks we see Mai have a crush on Zuko, but that feeling wasn’t shown to be reciprocated, thereby emphasizing that their relationship came out of nowhere and was a late stage addition by the creators. But there are several details that hint otherwise, the most prominent one being that Mai was mentioned in Zuko’s flashbacks, was associated with happy memories with his mother, and was important enough to him to be an integral aspect of his childhood. And also, Zuko blushing back when talking about knocking an apple off of a head, while practicing his knife skills in front of Azula.

And of course when Azula mentions how Zuko and Mai have had childhood crushes on each other in the Going Home Again comic:

Speaking about the Going Home Again comic, Zuko explicitly mentions that “he missed seeing this side of Mai” - in reference to her carefree, outgoing emotions. Zuko’s banishment, Mai’s isolation from those her own age, and her repressive household have caused her to become a shell of what she once was. But she will always fondly remember the times she used to throw mud in Zuko’s face.

Now let’s talk about the Legacy of the Fire Nation book, which is surprisingly cited as “anti-Maiko” “pro Zutara” material as some users on the app. (As a separate aside, Iroh absolutely understands the powerful friendship between Zuko and Katara, and the other Gaang inserts can be interpreted as equally romantic (Was that all you were, or were you something more - something Iroh said about Sokka and Zuko)).

Also keep in mind the author Joshua Prett stated that he wasn’t allowed to introduce any new plot resolutions, which is why Izumi and Mai are mostly omitted save for this one golden piece of information.

I’ve seen many try and use this excerpt as hard evidence that Iroh absolutely detested the idea of mai and zuko. But the thing is, Iroh is explicitly referencing his and Zuko’s journey involving Ba Sing Se and the search for the Avatar, which is why he mentions the desert, Zuko having trouble sleeping, and finally, his relationship with Mai.

Although it’s a small mention, it’s an important one. It shows that throughout his exile, Zuko was thinking about Mai. So much so that he confided in Iroh about it.

Ive seen some try and make the argument that “living through something” means an explicit negative connotation. But let’s objectively analyze this. When Zuko feels something, he feels it deeply. So much so that the people around him are also enveloped in those feelings, like we saw in The Beach. Zuko missing and agonizing over Mai, even when she’s not there, and so much so that Iroh lives through his feelings, shows that she’s always been on his mind. Living through something means vicariously experiencing the other persons thoughts and emotions.

My personal, not so head canon: When Iroh suggests Zuko go on a date with Jin to experience being a normal teenager and shake him from his pessimism, it’s quite in line with canon to interpret this as him wanting to stop pining over Mai. Of course, that doesn’t work mainly because of Zuko’s guilt and hesitation (he will never be a normal teenager, so why the pretense) but also because Zuko isn’t over Mai. I mean we saw how he acted when Mai broke up with him and dated Kei Lo :)

Couple this with the fact that in the uncut script of the Avatar the Last Airbender cartoon, Mai gave Zuko a heart shaped rock for him to hold onto during his banishment. (Cr. Minireklamo)

But perhaps the most amazing part is when Mai is shown to be enjoying tea and pai sho with the rest of the Gaang members. The Gaang is an undeniable, essential part of Zuko’s life. He chose to share that part with the love of his life. And mai, despite being reserved and reluctant to enjoy things most times, is an active participant in this intimate part of Zuko’s life. She’s engaging with his friends. She doesn’t scoff or turn away. Zuko’s friends become her friends. She is so important to Zuko that he chooses to share this happy, comfortable moment with her. They might be from different backgrounds, opposite sides of the war, but they all love Zuko. Also Mai and Aang are besties by the way, and Aang (Zuko’s best friend and most important ally, and the most important part of his redemption and reckoning) canonically describes Mai as Zuko’s soulmate.

“I’m happiest of all for Zuko. He is the new firelord. And it seems he found a real soulmate in Mai. She’s so much prettier now that she smiles.”

Being a fan of Mai and Maiko means you are at a distinct disadvantage - Mai is not one of the main members of the Gaang and therefore has 1/8th of the screen time of everyone else. She’s not subject to the same emotional, groundbreaking journeys that the rest of the Gaang embark on with Zuko. Very little is shown of her childhood and upbringing, so the audience is left to reconcile with what we are given in canon. While the show is limited, the Avatar universe expands a great deal on the budding relationship between two childhood best friends, lovers, and soulmates. It is up to the reader individually to determine how much they want to recognize in their interpretations - but it does not change that in the canonical universe of Avatar the Last Airbender, Mai and Zuko were destined to be together and forever. PS: Seeing as fans of other ships pick up what they want to from these in universe materials as insurmountable evidence for their ship, I want to see more Maiko fans appreciate the nuggets of information we have from them.

The point is, Mai and Zuko were never written by the creators to be a random ship that suddenly popped up in Zuko’s life. We see explicit evidence of their reciprocated crushes in the show itself. We see that Mai was such an integral aspect of Zuko’s happy childhood that she’s mentioned in his fondest and deepest memories. She was introduced to the show outside of her relationship with Azula , in contrast to Ty Lee, who we see only when she joins Azula’s team. Her character was given arguably one of the coldest, rawest lines in the whole show. In universe canonical materials suggest that Mai never stops loving Zuko, Zuko never stops loving Mai, and their breakup was only temporary, given how Bryke themselves said “I wish we could turn the comics into an in between show. We were going to show a mini clip of old Zuko and Mai.”

decolonization in the atla comics

right well i know nobody cares but i think i figured out why i dislike the avatar comics so much. like i already thought that they justified colonialism a hell of a lot (in direct contrast to the themes of atla itself which makes me CRAZY grrrr) but i was finally able to pin down why, exactly, i think that. in this i’m gonna be focusing specifically on the promise and north and south because i hate both of those with a passion!

i think that the way both north and south and the promise handle the process of decolonization and reckoning with a colonial legacy is inherently flawed. in the promise, zuko withdraws his support of the harmony restoration movement because of the new earth/fire national culture that has been created in yu dao. he thinks it would be wrong to take these people away from livelihoods that they’ve created. he also says that economically, they are better off now than they were 100 years ago. 

so like, that’s already yikes. economic justifications of colonialism are the worst ones. always. also, it doesn’t help that as zuko says that, there’s a panel showing a fire nation man getting his shoes shined by an earth national as katara says “it doesn’t look like that wealth was shared equally” or something of that sentiment.

and i know zuko says one of his other reasons for withdrawing from the harmony restoration movement is because the people don’t want to be given back to earth kingdom rule…but uh…which people, exactly, don’t want to be given back to the earth kingdom? who benefited the most from colonial rule in the colonies themselves? (i’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t the earth nationals.)

so although yu dao is now an incredibly wealthy and prosperous place as a direct result of its colonization, the wealth is not spread equally. also, economic prosperity doesn’t mean that yu dao should remain a colony? nor does it mean that the fire nation government should continue to meddle in its affairs by instituting a coalition government and then creating the united republic of nations? they should’ve just given them complete self autonomy and called it a day! but whatever.

in the promise, the process of decolonization (ie giving earth kingdom land back to the earth kingdom itself and repatriating the fire nation citizens) is kind of equated to a direct impediment of Progress™, particularly economic and social Progress™. this is seen again in north and south, when the northern water tribe tries to establish the oil refinery on southern water tribe land. in north and south, many southern water tribe members (and katara herself) take issue with this northern interference, citing that they are just turning the south into a cheap copy of the north in the name of…you guessed it…Progress™. katara and other members of the southern tribe are seen as extremists for wanting to preserve their heritage after one hundred years of war. the oil refinery and other northern interferences are portrayed as a solely good thing, even though they come at the expense of other important traditions. 

and so therein lies my biggest problem with these two atla comics: they assume that decolonization = anti progress, when it very much does not. this is something that’s seen in the real world, time and time again. like, i’m from hawai’i (not native hawaiian tho, which is an important distinction to make!) and the whole struggle to halt the construction of the thirty meter telescope on mauna kea is a good real life example. mauna kea is sacred land to native hawaiians, and construction of the telescope would completely desecrate the land, both culturally and environmentally. yet for some reason, native hawaiians are portrayed as “backwards” and “anti-science” for not wanting the TMT to be built, which isn’t true at all! but they shouldn’t have to sacrifice what they believe in the name of progress defined by someone else’s metric. 

in the atla comics (and legend of korra), Modern Westernization™ is the default. returning yu dao’s land to the earth kingdom and removing fire nation involvement is seen as anti-progress. refusing to build an oil refinery and trying to preserve important cultural practices and traditions is seen as anti-progress. anything that doesn’t lead to…cómo se dice…complete industrialization and what is essentially capitalism is seen as anti-progress. and this is such a western mindset that it hurts, because that’s not what decolonization is. decolonization is supposed to revive, humanize, and modernize important indigenous and traditional aspects of cultures. decolonization, unlike how it’s portrayed in the promise and in north and south, does not mean that we go backwards. instead, we actively reconstruct our perspectives and stop measuring previously aforementioned Progress™ by a western capitalist mindset! that’s why it’s important, and that’s why these comics fall short, because they had an opportunity to build a world that wasn’t modeled after the patterns of the west…and they just didn’t.

You can ship whoever you want to ship but deliberately ignoring that the Fire Nation DID oppress the SWT just to push your own agenda (and all in the name of some Wattpad-esque palace fantasy romance drama of your ship) is so tone deaf.

Did we not watch the same show?? Did the FN not wipe out almost all of the SWT benders?? Did Katara NOT see a Fire Nation soldier burst into their home and kill take her mother??

Anyway. GET 'EM, f1reladymai!!

I think it needs to be reiterated: The Water Tribes weren’t colonized. Katara does not have “colonial trauma”, as one post suggests. The Water Tribes were never claimed by anyone else and were left completely alone besides The Fire Nation enacting genocide. If we are going to discuss “zutara colonization discourse”, then please do it right. Especially if y’all are gonna write long essays about it, given that all that time writing would end being partially for nothing since the thing you’re focusing on isn’t relevant to what anyone is saying.

These posts are so painful

-Fire ladies are irrelevant asf. They are not leading anything

-Katara could never be the fire lady cuz she loves her CULTURE/IDENTITY

-The fire nation killed her mother, and yes, that's important. She's not gonna live in Sozin's room

-KATARA JUST DOESN'T WANT TO BE FIRE LADY

leave this girl alone if you don't understand her arc/character

Reblog if you also think Toph shouldn’t have been a cop.

I want to see how “unpopular” this opinion really is outside cop-worshipping Reddit.

thinking about their push and pull...the yin and yang. zuko is battling his internal self and for most of the series, he has lost his way, yet he ended up there by doing a selfless act.

thinking about how Aang chooses to stop his journey and help those in need where he can, until tragedy stuck. he had begun to stray down the same path, but had Katara to pull him back in.

throughout the series, there is always a part of Zuko that we would assign to Aang, and there is always a part of Aang that is so close to pushing everyone out and recklessly trying to forge his own path like Zuko did.

I was expecting to enjoy She-Ra and the Princesses of Power , but I did not expect it to further my love for my favorite character from another beloved series: Mai from Avatar: the Last Airbender. This particular aspect of her character and story were always fairly obvious, but I never saw the full scope of it until after I saw the differences between Adora and Catra’s responses to the Horde’s evils.

To put it simply: Mai never sees the Fire Nation as an evil force because she is never exposed to its atrocities. We can assume that her first journey beyond the borders of the Fire Nation was her trip to Omashu–a city that was conquered without bloodshed or ruin. There was no debris to clean up, no funerals for the dead, no wailing widows or starving orphans…especially none that would cross her sight. She was the daughter of Omashu’s new governor; she would never have to walk through alleyways containing refugees or find herself in the middle of an opposition rally (in fact, her only exposure was a failed assassination attempt!).

Likewise, when she reached Ba Sing Se, she and her companions were brought straight to the royal hall of the Earth King. There, she was able to witness the splendor of the King’s court and listen in on the gossip of the palace–people excitedly talking about how a war with the Fire Nation had been kept secret, nobles questioning if this was just a new trick, guards worrying about whether or not they were prepared for an attack. Everything she heard would only confirm suspicions and propaganda: the Earth Kingdom didn’t care about its soldiers in the field, and it deserved to fall. Any of its subjects she might have seen suffering on the way in or in her subsequent date with Zuko in the market square (still in the middle-to-upper ring!) could simply be categorized under a column reading “Oppressed because their leaders don’t care”.

So she returned home with Zuko believing that they had successfully overthrown a regime that didn’t care about its subjects–she had seen not one, but two cities that were taken simply through subterfuge and intimidation, rather than by long, drawn-out war. The Fire Nation’s propaganda machine was clearly correct: the Earth Kingdom was vile, corrupt, and weak. 

Then one day Zuko just ran away and said “I’m going to join the Avatar, don’t come with me, I’m a rebel now.” Her mind must have snapped. Zuko always worried about whether or not he belonged in the Fire Nation because of his abusive father and the nation’s apathy toward his departure–I’m sure Mister “I’ll Leave a Note So She Doesn’t Worry” never spoke to Mai about the suffering he had witnessed firsthand…suffering so extreme that even rescuing a village from thugs and robbers had earned him nothing but hatred and scorn. Zuko understood how evil the Fire Nation was, but Mai had no comparison.

And yet, when he told her that he saw it differently, and that he believed the Fire Nation was truly the nation in the wrong, she trusted him. She pulled out her weapons against her own nation and threw herself headlong into danger, death, and prison simply because she believed Zuko when he said “We’re actually the bad guys.” She didn’t ask for proof, he didn’t have to take her to a decimated village, and she didn’t befriend anyone from the other side through some harrowing adventure. She simply listened and decided “Well, I love this guy, and I trust him.” 

That’s powerful.

So, I don't want to antagonize the person whose post made me think about this, but Azula redemption arc discourse popped up on my feed again recently, and while I had some thoughts on the matter, they clearly were not expressed well, given how they and a number of other people reacted to what I had to say.

Setting aside Ozai, we have three other members of his family portrayed in ATLA: Iroh, Zuko, and Azula, and all three of them are guilty of war crimes. Iroh already regrets his actions at the start of the series, but we are still asked to view him sympathetically and forgive him, because hey, he lost his son and he's totally sorry. Zuko commits war crimes right in front of us, we get to see him all but destroy an entire village, reducing homes to ash and cinders, but we're asked to view him sympathetically and forgive him too, because another war criminal (Iroh) nudges him away from further escalations and he gives up on being a 'villain'.

Azula is the youngest of the three and her crimes are certainly no greater than theirs, but she remains cast in the role of 'villain' until the very end, so she is viewed without any sympathy at all. Indeed, I saw multiple times people bring up that she encouraged her father to commit genocide - an action he planned to take anyway, that she had no power to command him to perform, and which she herself never took part in. Definitely worse than burning a village to the ground, right?

But here's the problem: whether intended or not, this sets up a message that children are already going to be getting from most other media. When men or boys commit heinous crimes but apologize, we must forgive them and even allow them to take on positions of great responsibility and power. (Zuko's war crimes don't disqualify him from becoming Firelord, because we certainly can't suggest that maybe hereditary monarchies are a bad idea!) Meanwhile, those same actions from a woman or girl just mean that she's 'crazy', she's dangerous, she needs to be put in a straitjacket and secluded away from society, not treated with the love and compassion she's lacked for much of her life with even her mother writing her off while Zuko displayed similar proclivities towards cruelty.

My previous post pointed out that in terms of narrative, there is no room to redeem Azula, and that ATLA would realistically need a full 5 seasons to even attempt including that story, which ideally would have been an added arc about decolonization and repairing the wounds of generational conflicts. That didn't happen, so sure, there's an argument there, but that's separate from the question of whether Azula deserves redemption, and the answer must always be that no child is beyond saving. I don't want to give up on adults either, but to give up on a child and say 'this one is too far gone' would be to abandon my humanity, and I cannot do that. And girls deserve to know that they can get redemption arcs too, that it's not just for boys, that they're not just stepping stones for some man to achieve undeserved power.

All that said, while I believe that Azula deserves a chance at redemption, she doesn't exist in a vacuum. Hama is the victim of colonial violence, abducted from her home and tortured for decades before managing to escape. I'm not going to argue the morality of her one-woman campaign against the Fire Nation, but like Azula, she's given no chance for redemption, and even worse, is handed back to the very people who kidnapped and tortured her. It's the same message as with Azula, except here there's at least enough grey in the morality to argue justification. But no, women who do war crimes are crazy and have to be locked up. Indeed, the comics even show that Hama is the *only* prisoner that the Fire Nation (initially) refuses to release, framing her crimes as somehow 'worse' than those committed by the Fire Nation itself.

Azula needed a better ending to her story, even if only in the comics or some other media, because otherwise Avatar tells a story in which Sokka learning to not be a misogynist still exists within an extremely patriarchal lens where men will be forgiven for crimes that 'crazy' women will be locked up forever for.

Azula Respected Mai The Most

I just saw another Reddit comment saying Azula wasn’t friends with Mai and mostly only cared about Ty Lee. And I just gotta say…

I respectfully disagree.

The Boiling Rock proves Mai meant a lot to Azula.

First, Mai publicly commits treason and betrays the Fire Nation and Azula.

What does Azula do? Order the guards away and gives Mai a chance to explain herself. She even says “I never expected this from you” and “you of all people know the consequences”. Put a pin in that for a moment.

Giving a traitor who just publicly and flagrantly betrayed you and your nation to help an even worse traitor to your nation (Zuko, who on a personal level hurt both Mai and Azula by doing so) a chance to explain themselves is already significant. But even moreso is the fact that Azula doesn’t make a single move to harm Mai until Mai purposely and effectively hits Azula’s trauma weak point like the master marksman she is.

When Mai says “I guess you don’t know people as well as you think you do” this is already an insult. She’s putting down Azula’s intelligence and manipulation skills, things Azula clearly takes pride in. And yet despite how insulting that is, Azula still waits for Mai to explain herself. Even as Mai throws that barb at her, Azula wants to hear her out. Until Mai throws the even worse insult right at Azula’s weak point.

“I love Zuko more than I fear you” isn’t a statement of Mai being afraid really. It’s Mai throwing a powerful dig at Azula’s biggest fear and trauma, the one Azula tried to dismiss during The Beach with a joke to avoid showing her own vulnerability: Azula fears that Ursa hated and feared her but loved Zuko. It’s why during the mirror scene, a grief stricken and emotionally volatile Azula bitterly says to the hallucination of Ursa “even you fear me”.

Only then does Azula get triggered enough to lash out in return. Mai was only capable of hurting her so much precisely because Azula loves and trusts Mai so much, and precisely because Mai knew what to say to hurt her.

Even so, Azula does the forms for fire, not lightning. And after she is chi-blocked, Azula orders both Ty Lee and Mai jailed, not executed or banished despite having every right to do so since they just publicly committed treason against the Fire Nation.

See the quick strike? It’s more like when she attacks Iroh in The Chase with blue fire:

Lightning, by comparison, always has a wind up for her. Even when comet-boosted or otherwise.

Remember Azula’s line we put a pin in? Let’s go back to it now. Why does Azula say “I never expected this from you” and “you of all people”. What is the significance here?

We know Azula is a perfectionist. She can’t stand a single hair out of place. This informs her frustration with Zuko and Ty Lee, both whom she adores, but whom are constantly failing to stay in their place and play their role. Zuko messes up, gets himself banished. Ty Lee runs away and joins the circus. What does Azula do? Endeavor to use any means necessary to bring them back into the fold. It sounds crazy, but from her perspective, she’s helping them shape up.

But Mai? She’s different. Mai knows her place. She knows what’s expected of her. She says herself that she learned to be quiet and still so as not to risk her dad’s political career. She hates it and searches for any excuse to leave her stifling expectations at home, but she only does this in an acceptable way: when ordered by the princess to join her on a mission for the Fire Nation.

This is why Azula is especially shocked. Because of all people, Azula thought Mai was the only one of her friends who understood their duty to the nation and wasn’t a colossal fuck up.

Azula may be more affectionate with Ty Lee, but she definitely respected Mai more.

And I think the fandom doesn’t give their fascinating relationship or how it breaks down enough credit.

Are we, as a fandom, ready to admit that Mai’s entire backstory, personality, coping mechanisms, character traits, strengths, weaknesses, self image, belief system, and arc, are literally almost exactly the same as Toph but like, slightly to the left

Hello, whats your opinion on this as a mai fan

I think this person is either misremembering the show or deliberately mischaracterizing what Mai, because what they're claiming she revealed on The Beach is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of what she actually said.

She doesn't say "My parents used me as a pawn in their game to get close to royals" or "My parents never wanted me to learn anything about combat." She tells us that her parents will let her do whatever she likes - as long as she BEHAVES. As long as she's invisible. Out of sight, out of mind. They don't care what she does, as long as it doesn't affect them, as long as she's quiet. And that's what she says in an attempt to DOWNPLAY how bad her relationship with them actually is and how it affected her emotionally.

When Mai is complaining that she doesn't like Omashu because there's nothing for her to do, her mom doesn't try to talk to her about activities that could keep her busy/entertained, or show any concern about how she's adapting to moving to a whole new country, to a city where she doesn't know anyone. Instead, she ignores her daughter's attempts to talk about her feelings by reminding her that this is important for her father. There's no attempt to make this situation benefitial for her as well, it's all about how she needs to be grateful that someone else is happy about it.

Yes, when Tom-Tom is "kidnaped", they won't stop panicking, and are overjoyed when he's brought back safely. But there's not a word on them being concerned over Mai's well-being when she's leaving in a potentially dangerous mission. They don't show up to congratulate her at any point after she helps the Fire Nation conquer Ba Sing Se, even though that is a legendary feat. Favoritism much?

In book 3, literally the only adults we see in her home are servants, and considering one needs an airship to go to the island where the boiling rock is, it's pretty safe to say her uncle can't be dropping by too often. They let their 15-year-old daughter live in a different country, without any adult acting as her guardian - that's how much they don't care about her.

And speaking of her uncle, yes, he is doing a good job of being an attentive family member (is aware of her situation with Zuko, immediately lets her out of prison the second he knows he can get away with it) - but using that to claim "Thefore her family life is fine" is absurd because, again, that's her UNCLE, not her parents. By that logic, Zuko shouldn't be complaining about his family either, after all he has Iroh and somehow that is supposed to cancel out being raised by freaking Ozai, riiiiiiight?

And speaking of Zuko, there's a reason why, in a finale where everyone is being reunited with their family and friends, even when the travel time doesn't make any goddamn sense, Mai's happy ending involves a heartwarming reuining with him, and he's delighted to see her - but there's still nothing about her parents. Their daughter was sent to prison for life, then her boyfriend became Fire Lord giving them THE perfect chance to come rescue her, and they STILL are nowhere to be found.

For fuck's sake, AZULA showed more love for Mai than her parents did. Girl was clearly happy to see her again, and even gave her a "hug" that wasn't that touchy because Mai doesn't like it. In "The Lost Adventures" we find out that she was also the one who pushed for her and Zuko to get together (though that also ties into her knowing that was the only way to make Zuko come home despite his guilt over what he did to Iroh). Even on The Beach, she's the one who first connects the dots and realizes that Mai is always so aloof because she's used to being told to shut up when she says something inconvenient.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying her parents had no political ambitions (the Yang comics leaning into that was one of the few good things about his writting). Obviously they were happy that their daughter was best friends with the princess and dating the heir to the throne, and I'm sure Mai didn't appreciate being treated more as asset than as a daughter.

But her complaint was not about that. It was about how her parents are simply not part of her life at all. She's an outsider looking in. She can stand next to them and do as she's told, or she can leave. What she can't do is actually engage with them, mean anything to them, expect anything from them, rely on them at all.

Mai's parents are neglectful to a degree that, in the real world, could potentially have them lose custody of her because she consistently has to turn to literally anyone else instead of them whenever she needs anything.

Is it really any wonder she had a soft-spot for Zuko, aka the boy that is always disregarded by his father, to the point of literally being kicked out of his home, and is actually openly pissed off about it and will let everyone know it?

Can someone please explain to me why so many people in this fandom seem to take Mai’s joke to Zuko in the finale so seriously? I promise you it wasn't a serious death threat. Also, about her poking him being "terrible" because she could have hurt him even more than he already was....

She literally pokes his shoulder. The wound was on his chest or right below it, I can't really remember. Either way, she poked him nowhere near his injury. Also, Zuko himself very clearly didn't take her "threat" seriously at all, considering the fact that they both kiss immediately after she says this to him.

Had he actually felt threatened, he wouldn't have kissed her. But since ya'll are in the habit of taking a joke to the extremes, should we take Zuko's joke during the Southern Raiders episode about chasing the gaang around again to make it feel like "old times", seriously? Interesting to think about.

people who claim that Katara ending up with Zuko rather than Aang would have made her character more “feminist” completely disregard her race and ethnicity. it shows a lack of understanding when it comes to intersectional feminism because Katara and Aang ending up together is revolutionary. these are two people who understand each other in a way no one else could. both victims of the same regime in the exact same way. both genocide survivors. both the last of their kind (Katara being the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe and Aang, of course, being the last airbender). both genocides committed to kill the avatar and erase hope from the world. both come from a collectivist culture. they are both leaders of a resistance group, two people who fight for a better world and in the process find love during war time, in the face of an imperialist nation that was set on wiping them out but they prevailed. not only did the end the war together, but they are tangible proof that love and hope and peace is possible and it’s never too late for things to turn around, even if you are the last of your kind.

Aang, Katara and their relationship is embodiment of that hope and of the revolution.

Bruh, they better get into Azula and Mai’s relationship because if they don’t…

Don’t tell me y’all don’t see this

So we’re just gonna act like we don’t see that? You’re telling me that Mai would give her knife to anybody? You’re telling me that Azula would just pick up valuable things from her allies and hide them in her pockets???

The eclipse happened. And Azula chose her friend’s weapon to protect herself. And she knew how to wield it. How to slide it out of her sleeves just like Mai. There are so many possibilities that this just opened oh my gosh.