Blaming Ursa for Azula's downfall just misses so much of what is going on in the narrative, and another aspect of that is related to how the story comes to a climax in the final agni kai and what I have been referring to as the Zuko - Azula - Katara narrative triangle. Another reason why Katara defeating Azula to save Zuko is so meaningful is because of how Katara and Zuko bonded over the loss of their mothers. Azula, by contrast, says she doesn't care about her mother and calls Zuko pathetic for caring. Zuko and Katara saving each other from Azula is a reaffirmation that their mothers' sacrifice for them is important, and that they are not wrong for caring. Azula represents not only the destructive force of the Fire Nation but also the ways that force is cannibalistic, and Azula hating her mother and denying that she cares about her loss is another example of that, while upholding the imperial system that took mothers away from their children and destroyed cultures. Trying to blame Ursa for how Azula turned out completely ignores all of that subtext.

Why the Live Action Netflix ATLA shouldn’t had Zuko fight back in the Agni Kai duel!

Apparently, the Live Action Netflix Adaptation had decided to have Zuko accept and fight back during the Agni duel between father and son. This I believe was a major narrative mistake that shouldn’t have been changed from the original animated version.

Ozai became infuriated that Zuko was a “coward” that would not defend his honor and pride in front of his father and the entire royal court. Which is why Ozai demanded Zuko to get up and fight him or he would be “taught” respect. This is also connected to other “macho” bushido beliefs and attitudes that firebending men and boys are encouraged and expected to fulfill in the Fire Nation’s violent, authoritarian, fascistic militarized society and culture corrupted by Sozin’s militarism and imperialistic ideology. We see this with Zhao when he insults Zuko for sparing his life and calling him a coward. “ Your father raised a coward!” Commander Zhao B1 E3 The Southern Air Temple.

Zhao would rather get burned, scarred, deformed and possibly killed than have his face and possibly life be spared by Zuko’s compassionate actions. Both Ozai and Zhao were disgusted and disappointed by Zuko’s belief and attitudes toward empathy, mercy, and surrendering. This also explains why Zhao refused Zuko’s help during the fight with Tui and La Avatar State empowered Aang! Fighting a glorious battle to the death even when outmatched and showing no mercy but ruthless is honored and praised in Elite Fire Nation society and culture.

The point that I’m trying to get at is! Zuko not agreeing to the Agni Kai and kneeling infuriated Ozai which led to Zuko’s scarring and banishment because of Ozai’s dissatisfaction, disappointment, and disgust in Zuko’s fear, terror, and unwillingness to duel his father aka a member of his family. Zuko’s terror and desire to not fight his father also conflicted him in the Agni Kai causing him not to act against Ozai. This is the main reason Zuko’s fight with Azula was so impactful. Zuko didn’t want to fight his family yet had no choice regarding his father and sister.

I glad that despite Zuko fighting back in the Agni Kai in Episode 6: Mask of NATLA. That the showrunners stayed true to the characters: Ozai and Zuko along with the themes of the Agni Kai. I’m also glad that they didn't make Ozai have a favored child. Ozai wants Zuko and Azula to both prove themselves. Ozai doesn't favor Zuko or Azula. It is about which child will succeed Sozin, Azulon, and his legacy as future Fire Lord. In fact, Ozai doesn't want Zuko or Azula to think that they are the “favorite” child. He wants Azula and Zuko to improve through competition. Because of “steel sharpen steel” mentality. Ozai has the mentality of an imperialist warlord. I think Ozai, Zuko, Iroh and Azula’s characterization were well done and faithful! Iroh being confronted over Ba Sing Se was amazing as well and tied to his grief of Lu Ten’s death.

i’ve sometimes seen the idea that azula cheating in the agni kai by aiming at katara is supposed to show how far she’s fallen and how lost she is because she wouldn’t have cheated before, but that just… does not ring true to me.

i think this idea comes from her characterization of trying to live up to perfection, but i think it’s important to remember she’s functioning under ozai’s definition of perfection, a guy who infamously colluded with his wife to kill his father so that he could be firelord. i don’t get the particular sense he cares how, exactly, azula carries out the goals he’s set for her, as long as she accomplishes them.

and a lot of really prominent azula scenes turn on the axis of her being exactly this underhanded. in the avatar state, she tries to manipulate iroh and zuko into coming home under false pretenses, when she really means to arrest them. in bitter work, seeing she’s outnumbered, she makes a false surrender so that her opponents will hesitate/back down and then attacks iroh when they do. in the crossroads of destiny, she strikes aang with lightning from behind while he’s in the avatar state. in the awakening, she lies that zuko killed aang because she wants an insurance policy she won’t be blamed on a hunch he might be alive.

whether or not these break official rules of combat or acceptable legal/social behavior in-universe, i think it’s hard to deny that these actions form a pattern that showcases azula as someone not concerned with integrity or ideological fairness in such situations.

azula is a fascinating character, and her breakdown in sozin’s comet is tragic. but it’s not because she’s acting out of character; if anything, it’s because she’s falling back on old patterns despite her hallucination of her mother (and therefore her own subconscious) trying to warn her that using fear to control people isn’t truly viable. but that means her entire concept of the world is wrong, so she doubles down and shoots for katara, a noncombatant in this fight, having seen zuko agree to an agni kai in the hopes she wouldn’t get hurt and thus understanding he fears that and will make sure the lightning never reaches her. azula doesn’t care how she wins because it’s never mattered how she wins, as long as she does. but with katara defeating her and ozai’s impending downfall, it’s about to matter a lot more.

Okay so we all (hopefully) know by now that in the fire nation during an Agni Kai both opponent’s have a piece of seemingly random fabric tied around their arm. Case in point

Which if you read the official a:tla lore it explains that the piece of fabric is typically torn from the mothers dress and SHE ties it to her son before the Agni Kai begins.

All I’m saying is in the final Agni Kai Zuko doesn’t have this nor does he have any arm band to symbolize where it should have been

We know that Sokka wraps his wrists and forearms for protection during battle

So ALL IM SAYING is that if Sokka had been the one there with Zuko for the final Agni Kai and if he had KNOWN about the fire nation tradition there is NO WAY he wouldn’t have seen it as a reflection of his own traditions and subsequently banded Zuko with his wrap(s) one way or another.

Because we know that as far as battle goes- Sokkas traditions are more important to him than anything.

(See: him being the only one to consistently put warriors paint on and is never seen without his forearms wrapped unless he well and truly knows they’re not in danger i.e. the end of the final episode)

Should I draw fanart of this yes or no

Update: you can find art of this scene here

Zuko: There's something off about her, I can’t explain it but she's slipping.

When Zuko says he can’t explain it, he doesn’t mean he can’t explain how he knows she’s slipping. He can see that she’s messed up her hair that she always took such care over, that her fine control over her posture and facial expressions has fallen completely apart, that the quick wit and clever words that used to cut to the bone have deteriorated into vague insults.

What Zuko can’t explain is why she’s slipping. She has everything she wants, hasn’t she? She had the palace to herself, their father to herself. Zuko is firmly a traitor and out the line of succession. She’s about to be crowned Fire Lord. Isn’t that what she wanted? Why would she be losing herself now?

I don’t think it’s until after that battle is over, after Azula has screamed and sobbed herself out in chains, and Katara has healed the lightning wound she gave him, that Zuko actually starts to think about how much emotional pain Azula must be in. And it's only after he talks things over with Lo and Li, and they tell him what happened to her, that he starts to realise how much pressure she was under, and starts to realise that Ozai destroyed her life, too.

One of the many tragedies of the Fire Siblings is that each of them thought they knew what the other wanted – and they were both wrong.

I wonder about the final Agni Kai in this swap verse. (Take as much time as you need to post, I don't want you to hurt your wrist)

I felt the final Agni Kai deserved some fully rendered drawings, it’s my personal favourite scene in the entire show and it’s just so beautifully animated and composed. A sketch wouldn’t do it justice. (Also I really love drawing fire lol)

I will admit I did a lil bit of tracing for the first two pieces to get certain proportions right (I prefer this over my horrible attempt at foreshortening) and changed it up a bit since they have different body types n stuff. Other than that I’ve mostly just referenced it.

Also ty for being considerate with my wrist :) luckily it’s doing better now and not hurting anymore, so I managed to finish this relatively quick.

he's not my weakness; he's my universe

Haaaaaaaaappy Zutara Month!!! 💜

I have no idea if I’ll be able to do something for every day for @zutaramonth, but I’ll try.

In the meantime, enjoy Day 1’s prompt - Agni Kai.

Why is the only thing I'm proud of is the clouds 😭

“no one else has to get hurt” EXCEPT AZULA! 😭

I don’t think Zuko ever thought ahead to what it would truly feel like if he killed Azula. I don’t think he was ever prepared for that possibility in a meaningful way. He thought he was eager for it - to win over his favored little sister who he was always jealous of - but can you imagine if he actually burned her to death? Yeah, I’m sure he’d walk away from that fight feeling GREAT 100% no qualms it’s all good she’s crazy & needed to go down.

Ugh I will always love the concept of Katara using blood bending to revive Zuko after the last agni kai, mostly because it makes no sense to me that Zuko was able to bounce back so easily after being struck by lightning, but also because the way the show treats bloodbending is just odd to me. It was a defense mechanism created by a traumatized victim of some of the most devastating parts of colonization, and although I understand that Hama was supposed to symbolize the "bad parts" of waterbending and was important for Katara's growth in realizing that the world isn't entirely black and white, its still disappointing to me that the show never explored the gray areas of blood bending, especially since that episode was, as I stated above, about understanding the gray areas of the war. Katara using blood bending to revive Zuko would add so much to the last agni kai in demonstrating that she has truly realized that "good" and "evil" are relative concepts, and Zuko being saved by both a defense mechanism of a survivor of colonialism and a type of bending used to terrorize his people would have even added to his arc, as the narrative required him to save and subsequently be saved by the physical embodiment of everything his family sought to annihilate.

7 mirmirs (based off a scene from one piece)

Hi there, here’s a dumb take of the day I’d like to hear your thoughts on:

“Zuko is an asshole for fighting a 14 year old girl who was having a mental breakdown by the end of the finale. It was messed up of him and what makes his arc fall flat at the end. He has to prove himself more than ending the war so he goes for a vulnerable 14 year old!”

My mutual was sending me bad takes in DMs and I found this. ☠️ Thoughts on it?

Thank you for reading, have a great day.

People like this always twist the actual narrative to make Azula look like the victim and it's honestly hilarious.

The person who actually is trying to prove themselves by fighting is Azula:

Zuko isn't picking a fight with her. She is participating in a genocide and needs to be stopped. She responds to this by challenging her brother one on one and gleefully talking about how their fight was "meant to be."

She's also not vulnerable and just because she is having a mental breakdown doesn't mean she isn't capable of causing serious harm and doesn't need to be stopped. If anything, it increases the need for her to be stopped while she's in such a destructive frame of mind.

She also almost kills him and laughs about it so it's ridiculous to act like he somehow took advantage of her.

The thing that really puts the lie to the idea that Zuko just wanted to prove himself by picking on someone vulnerable is that Zuko sacrifices everything to save Katara. He throws himself in front of Azula's lighting and completely risks not only losing the battle and his title as firelord, but his life.

And he's able to do that because he no longer has a need to "prove himself." He does it to save a life and completely humbles himself in the process.

Azula, meanwhile, is so desperate to win that she DOES attack someone vulnerable, she cheats and aims her lightning at Katara. Azula challenges her brother to a duel and then when she realizes she can't win the fight she started, cheats. She is not a victim here.

i know people are (generally) joking when they say it but i do kind of hate the whole “katara could have just moved out of the way when azula shot lightning at her in the final agni kai” argument because it, whether intentionally or not, dismisses the emotional weight of the scene?

like, in case people have forgotten: lightning is fast. the scene dwindles into slow motion for dramatic effect, but that doesn’t mean that’s how it’s actually happening. the emphasis is on zuko realizing what azula is doing JUST in the nick of time (something all characters struggle to do, but he, in particular, has struggled not to fall for azula’s past manipulations) and moving more quickly than lightning to take the hit instead of katara. the emphasis is on the fact that despite zuko, in the past, struggling to figure out what was right or wrong, here he didn’t hesitate for one second. there was no chance of that lightning ever reaching katara as soon as zuko understood what was happening and that matters!!

(i also hate it because in the slightly less-jokey crowd, it seems like a tacit implication that katara and/or zuko is stupid for not realizing she could just move out of the way when that’s not the point!)

“Do you know the day Azula lost?”

You mean the Final Agni Kai-

No,no

The day Mai and Ty Lee betrayed her

was the day she started slipping

ppl who don’t like azula bc “she’s mean >:(“ baffle me so much. my love for mean women developed at a very early age. as a child, azula would come onscreen, say something cunty, and i’d just black out. that imperious shakespeare villain of an eighth grade bully made me go “AWOOOGA” hearts in my eyes, steam coming outta my ears, drooling a lil, like some kind of misogynist wolf in an MGM cartoon. and don’t even get me started on whenever she fought katara, the OTHER bitch of my dreams!!! it was only a few years later that i was like “oh she’s actually quite tragic…. oh she’s just a scared kid who only wants love….” but there is truly no understating how crucial azula spewing her divine right of kings imperialist bullshit was to my developing sexuality as a child. oh, you don’t appreciate mean women? okay, that’s fine, it just means more for us, the connoisseurs of the world.