realized ricky is not only canonically polyam, but rep for polyam survivors who are abused for being poly, and i am having a lot of feelings about that which i plan to write up a post about but also wow in hindsight it put some shit from an abusive ex-friend into perspective.

what do you think of azula and zuko's relationship?

I think it’s one of the most complicated relationships in the entire show and also one of the biggest missed opportunities, because the writers waited until season 3 to really try and give it any depth. 

Siblings are complicated even in the healthiest of families, and the Fire Nation royals were certainly not. There’s an inherent rivalry between Zuko and Azula, and it’s a rivalry that Ozai intentionally stoked. He pits the two of them against each other, I have to assume from the time Azula showed firebending capabilities. Obviously Ozai favors his daughter and so from an incredibly early age Azula is raised to see her brother as a rival but also as an inferior. And yet, she envies his easy bond with their mother. 

Meanwhile, Zuko is intensely jealous of the fact that Azula has their father’s favor and that everything seems to come easily to her where he has to struggle. So he too views her as a rival- she’s the thing he has to be better than if he’s ever going to secure his place as his father’s heir. And of course, Azula can be quite nasty to Zuko, so he doesn’t exactly like her- and with good reason. A child isn’t going to understand that his little sister is picking on him because of their abusive father’s malicious influence. 

Of course things only deteriorate further the older they get, and by the time the show happens, Azula’s been tasked with hunting her brother down and is willing to do whatever it takes, because her father told her to. And she can’t fail her father, because she’s seen what will happen to her if she does. 

And yet. Despite all this, they care for each other. Azula had no reason to let Zuko side with her in Ba Sing Se. In fact, she was openly defying her father’s orders in doing so. She lets him come home, she vouches for him (and admittedly covers her own ass by lying about Aang’s death). She looks out for him once they’re back home, and even extends a few moments of stilted, but seemingly genuine, empathy towards him. He’s still her rival, and yet, he’s her brother.

From Zuko’s side, he still seems to resent Azula a great deal (understandably) and yet he has moments of opening up to her. He listens to her and is shown to genuinely consider her advice (up to the point of wondering what she would do when he’s trying to get the Gaang to accept him). There’s a part of him that almost seems protective of her, or at least concerned when her safety appears in danger- he may make no move to try to save her while she’s falling at the Western Air Temple, but he also doesn’t seem happy that she might die. There’s a moment of...something. Some flicker of emotion there. And likewise, he doesn’t seem happy after she is defeated at the Agni Kai. The last Agni Kai is deliberately framed as a tragedy for a reason. 

I wish the show had explored that a little more in depth. These two were siblings. They’re the only two people in the world who can truly understand each other, who can understand what it’s like to be raised by Ozai as Fire Nation royalty. The comics almost tried to give these two the depth they deserve- but they miss the mark in the end and it’s very disappointing.