Iroh's "I looked away"
“The Storm” [s01e12] provided us a great insight into Zuko’s character, one that undoubtedly helps to understand his motives and anger but also how Ozai’s physical and psychological abuse influenced the banished prince. There are plenty of things to talk about, many little details that build layers of a complicated relationship between Zuko and his father, uncle, or even his crew and how perception of Zuko changes once we learn the truth behind the scar. But the episode also shows us a great deal of insight into Iroh’s character and though I do love how “The Storm” challenged our perception of those characters, rewatching ALTA makes Iroh’s “I looked away” much more devastating to me.
Because it is not just about his guilt over abuse Zuko was forced to endure. A guilt that won’t disappear no matter if he could or couldn’t do anything to prevent it, but… Iroh truly looked away from Fire Nation as a whole, didn’t he? Understandably, he was grief-struck after Lu Ten’s death and he did not fight back Ozai for the throne, as I suspect he either did not care anymore for it or did not want a civil war to destroy Fire Nation from inside. But he still was The Dragon of West, a very respected general and powerful political figure that others weren’t willing to openly challenge, including Ozai himself.
And no, I’m not wondering why Iroh did not interference with Agni Kai before Zuko’s face was burned to “teach him respect” but about the fact that he did not say anything at all against using the division of new recruits as a bait - and from the episode alone, we know he agreed with Zuko on that matter. It wasn't the right strategy - even if it has merit from a military standpoint, it definitely wasn’t moral or good for Fire Nation’s wellbeing. Beside Zuko, who openly challenged the strategy and called it betrayal, the only person that questioned it at all was an old unnamed general (“But the 41st is entirely new recruits. How do you expect them to defeat a powerful Earth Kingdom battalion?) while Iroh simply kept quiet and this detail makes me think the “I looked away” is as much about Iroh looking away from Ozai’s cruel abuse toward Zuko as about Iroh’s passivity during the war meeting, and in greater scheme, Fire Nation’s politics. I doubt Iroh could change Ozai’s mind and sure, I do not have an idea how the relationship between Fire Lord and ex-Crown Prince looked like, but the point is, Iroh did not even try to question the strategy and choose to sit quietly and dunno, it makes me wonder, did Iroh give up at this point of his life? Was he so afraid of the consequences for speaking his mind that he allowed Ozai and Fire Lord’s court to subdue him so much? Because if he did, his words to Zuko “[...] But you must promise not to speak. Those old folks are a bit sensitive, you know?” is as much warning to Zuko as to himself.
Iroh said to the crew that Zuko was right but it wasn’t his place to criticize the strategy, but who else was supposed to speak against this plan, if Iroh himself chose to stay quiet on the matter? If all generals - then and three years later - didn’t have any respect for life, whatever for their own subjects or civilians of other nations? And I think this is what truly kills me about this situation, that 13 years old boy had courage to speak against this dehumanization of Fire Nation’s citizens when Iroh, our good uncle Iroh, kept quiet and looked away again and again from what was happening until he couldn’t do that anymore because too great damage was already done.
(And isn’t it ironic that Iroh gave little Zuko a knife with the description never give up without a fight - words Zuko adapted as his life motto - but Iroh himself gave up? First at Ba Sing Sai, after Lu Ten’s death, now here during a war meeting and maybe, just maybe it is Zuko that unexpectedly pushed him back on the right track to actually do something, to make a choice and fight for what he believed was right instead of passively watching all the abuse done to an innocent child and young soldiers serving loyalty to their country. Was Iroh already a White Lotus then or did the travel with Zuko give him an opportunity to join it because he couldn’t anymore look away from how messed up Fire Nation became?)
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June prompts #8 please and thank you
Last one - let's do it! 8 is "discovering common interests" and this is merely shameless self-indulgence in one of my own pet interests.
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“I don’t mind hangin’ out,” Jane says hoarsely. She stands where she stood when she first opened her arms for Maura, just after Maura had opened the front door, letting Jane in as she cried. “You know I’ll hang out with you forever. But is this… did he do it in here?”
Maura dabs her eyes with a new tissue, pulling her light sweater closer to her body just to replace the feeling of Jane on her. “Do what…?” asks Maura even though she’s hesitant to answer. Jane couldn’t possibly mean…
“The leavin’,” clarifies Jane. She leans one hand on the granite of Maura’s kitchen island and puts the other thumb under her belt, right next to the buckle. She looks around, and zeroes in on another one of Angela’s pathologically labeled cabinets. She pushes away and walks toward the wine fridge. She lets the bottle ping on the counter, and props open the door that says stemware. She pulls out two glasses.
Maura sniffles, small and with a latent hiccup, but she goes to the drawer with the corkscrews and pulls out the one she’d normally use for this full-bodied red. “Yes, to answer your question,” she says. She wonders if Jane knows she’s picked an Italian wine to counter Ian’s quite pedestrian, working-class Californian from yesterday. “He stopped here to say goodbye before his flight.”
Jane knows nothing about wine, but every right decision Jane makes is instinctual. Just like the decision to tug on her tight purple tee. She adjusts it until it spreads just right against her abdomen, long and toned and now visible in outline. “Thought so,” she tells Maura. She pours the wine once Maura opens it, and carries both glasses to the front hallway.
Maura smiles, tired, confused, but happy to simply have Jane around. “He often doesn’t say goodbye at all. Which is why I… why I think I’ll never see him again.” And just like that, the tears return, unshed, but welling.
Jane nods. She provides Maura with some silence - cry if you need to, I’m not here to make you forget. Maura doesn’t crumble, even if she falters a little bit, and Jane nods in the direction of the staircase. “Change of scenery? It’s probably for the best,” she says.
Maura’s eyebrow curls up. “The bedroom?” she asks, intrigued.
Jane blushes. “I’m not that kinda girl, Doctor Isles,” she replies. “At least, not while someone’s just had their heart stomped on. I was thinkin’ the library. There’s a sofa in there.”
Now it is Maura’s turn to blush. “Of course. That actually sounds wonderful,” she says.
Jane waits, as Jane always does, for Maura to walk ahead, so that Jane can watch her back, even in Maura’s own home. Maura looks so diminutive when she shuffles on her bare feet back to the stairs; Jane wants to use her entire body to swallow Maura up again. She settles for pressing her front against Maura’s back when Maura pauses at the first step. It’s dark, but a dim light bleeds down from the second floor at the end of the hall. “What’s up?” Jane breathes, rather than asks, right into the crown of Maura’s hair.
“My… I need to know that you really don’t want to go to the bedroom. Because it isn’t… well. The bed isn’t made,” Maura whispers.
“Climb the stairs, Maura. The books are waiting,” snarks Jane. She hears what Maura isn’t saying, and though it irks her, the implication, she holds one of the glasses of wine by the rim, fingers spread against the lip of it, and puts it in front of Maura’s chest. A gesture of goodwill. Of love.
Maura takes the alcohol and obeys, coordinated enough to sip and climb at the same time. She takes the first left, and finds the light switch from memory. “Do you want a blanket?” she asks Jane.
“Let me handle it,” Jane says. She pulls the biggest blanket from the basket at the end of the sofa, smaller than the one in Maura’s living room, but a fluffier, cozier. She kicks off her boots, sits down, drapes the blanket over her knees, and then holds it open, eyeing Maura over.
Maura sighs. The emotion ripples over her face again, and she begins to cry when she finally collapses against Jane, has Jane wrap an arm around her while she curls close. Only minutes since their last embrace and she is starved for it. She sobs softly, almost silently, when Jane settles into the cushions and lets Maura snake arms around Jane’s torso. “I’m sorry,” Maura hiccups when she can.
“For what? Doesn’t seem like you were the one who did anything wrong,” Jane asserts. She looks ahead, and not at Maura, just to give her a little dignity. Maura thrives on dignity. “Who leaves you?”
“Not you,” Maura says quietly, tucked like a child into Jane’s side. The fit is heavy. It feels good.
Jane is quiet for five long minutes. She sips slowly, occasionally, and eventually, Maura sits back up and joins her, pulling her glass from the small coffee table. They are still snuggled close, but now both upright and drinking. Jane studies the titles across from her along the wall-to-wall bookshelves until she gasps. “No way,” she exclaims softly.
Maura perks up. “What?” she presses.
“Snow - my favorite is the Franklin,” Jane points. She doesn’t get up, because neither of them seem to want that.
“Storms and Shipwrecks of New England?” Maura asks. Her hand goes to the skin of Jane’s chest and she presses as she pulls back to stare with incredulity. “Really?”
“Don’t act so shocked,” Jane grumbles.
“It’s just… you hate going out on boats,” Maura tries to save herself, but her chuckle betrays her. “Edward Rowe Snow - really?”
“When I was a kid, I read that book cover to cover at least ten times,” Jane explains.
Maura’s jaw drops. “Me too,” she confesses. “Of course you would like the story about cannibalism. The saddest was ‘The Wreck of the General Arnold.’”
“Yeah, not great,” Jane says. She pauses, thinking. Then she taps Maura's shoulder. “Let’s go to the Cape this summer.”
“You hate the Cape,” Maura responds. “You hate how crowded it gets.”
“But…. they have that pirate museum for the Whydah in Yarmouth,” Jane says. “I think we’d have fun. And we’ll beat the crowds if we go in the middle of June.”
Maura considers, and then she snuggles back into her previous position. “It would be fun,” she concurs. “Jane?”
“And yeah there was cannibalism, but the moral of the story is never give up - because those two sailors braved the rough seas and even though they perished, the stranded men got saved because of them,” Jane continues on her previous train of thought, voice soft and deep like how it gets just before she sleeps.
“Jane,” Maura tries again, more firmly this time.
“Huh? Yeah,” Jane hears her, takes another sip of wine.
“You won’t leave me, right? You’re here to stay?” Maura asks.
Jane shakes her head. “You remember when we took out Marino-”
“When you took out Marino.”
“When we took out Marino, and I was layin’ there, guts, uh, guts spillin’ out?”
“God,” Maura starts to cry again, “how could I forget? Why would you bring that up?”
“Because you put ‘em back in. You didn’t leave. You braved rough seas, had me all over your hands. And that had to be some of the scariest shit you’d ever seen,” Jane says. She takes confidence in this truth. For all the genocide and war Maura has seen, the malaria and the trauma, holding Jane’s insides to keep them from coming outside? Maura hasn’t ever been the same. Not worse, not smaller, but changed. “But you stayed. So you can trust that I’m gonna stay, too. To the bitter end. But not just then, you know? During all the good parts, too. Like the Whydah museum parts. And like the ‘when I eventually say yeah let’s go to the bedroom’ parts.”
“Do you… do you think you’ll say that?” Maura blinks, forces Jane to look at her.
Jane furrows her brow, purses her lips. But then she says, “I think it’s gonna need a deep clean first.”
Maura knows this means more than the words Jane has used, that the sentiment runs deeper, but she can’t help it. “I’ll get Anita here on Monday,” she promises with a deadpan.
Jane cracks a smirk. “Might need CSRU instead,” she jokes. “Take it easy tonight, though, yeah? Nice and slow. Why don’t I grab ol’ Snow off the shelf and read us a few chapters? We can do some of my favorites and some of yours.”
“That… sounds wonderful,” Maura breathes for the second time tonight.
“You got it,” says Jane, getting up and crossing over to the array of titles across from them. They’re definitely reading about the Franklin first.
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