KataraLover I've always thought of Azula as a victim of abuse just like Zuko. However, while both suffered from similar abuse from Ozai (though he was worse with Zuko), Azula also suffered emotional abuse from her mother, which Zuko did not. I'm kind of surprised that Azula wasn't punished for lying to Ozai and failing to kill Aang. I guess she was just so flawlessly gorgeous that the creators just couldn't bring themselves to put a scar on her. However, you could argue that denying her coming with him to conquer the Earth Kingdom was her punishment. Everything you said was true. However, I do like to think that Azula was also kind of hopeful that the Avatar was dead and was trying to help Zuko not be so worried about what their father thought of him by giving him the credit. However, I don't deny that it would be like Azula to save her own skin. I think she probably had more than just one motive in mind. Very well thought-out article that just shows how complex, tragic, sympathetic, and fascinating Azula is as a character.

zanhar1 Yeah see that's another thing; Azula also seemed to have her mother's scorn. I'm not gonna say that Ursa hated her or abused her but I do think she was negligent. Whereas Zuko had at least one genuinely loving parent. I feel like her punishment for that was more verbal or perhaps a slap or something of that nature. Or maybe he did just let it go...but that doesn't seem Ozai like. I also do believe that a part of her did in fact think Aang was dead and truly wanted to help Zuko but at the same time cover herself. So it was a win win so to speak; if she was wrong Zuko'd be happy if she was right than she'd be safe from the scorn. Thank you. Everything shows how deep and complexly she was written lol.

KataraLover For some reason lately, I've been imagining Azula as a really young child (younger than in Zuko Alone) where her powers are getting out of control because she's so powerful they're developing more than she can control. Basically a whole Elsa and Frozen scenario. That freaking movie has me thinking a similar situation with a much more complex and well-written character than the story that the movie intended it for. But in this case, Ursa and Iroh are trying to conceal Azula's powers because she'll eventually develop the blue flame, which only the dragons and one of the Fire Nation born Avatar's have ever been able to do. Many think of it as dangerous and something that no one should have that kind of power because it's hotter and more dangerous and that kind or crap. But Ozai wants her to advance her powers and become a weapon for him. She's conflicted but eventually goes with Ozai intentions because it makes her feel more like she can express who she is and not conceal who she was, which caused her to become who she was, especially a scene I made up where Iroh says Azula is becoming crazy and Ursa says she's turning into a monster. I don't know why I just shared that for no apparent reason. I must be really bored and on some Azula kick.

zanhar1 I can see that happening. I think I actually saw a fanart like that somewhere. I also think that'd be a good concept for a fanfic. It's always a good time for random Azula headcanons.

KataraLover If someone wrote a fanfic about that, I would definitely read it. I don't suppose you know where that fanart is at because I tried to look for it on Google and I just saw Azula as Anna doing the Do You Wanna Build A Snow Man thing and another one of Ursa saying "Oh Azula, if only there were someone who loved you."

zanhar1 I could probably write a little something like that but I'd have to do it a bit later because my winter break is almost over and I'm only gonna have time for one shots. I don't know if I can find it anymore; last I saw it was last year so it's buried under all of my other tumblr reblogs. I can try to google it and see what comes up for me.

KataraLover Cool! Also, I hate to leave a super long comment but you've done it before, so I don't feel too bad about it lol. I was looking at the Avatar Wikia website and saw two things about Azula that shows how interesting her mind is. [b][u]Deteriorating relationship with Zuko and Ursa[/b][/u] [i]"When Azula and Zuko were little, cohesion and peace were still strong among the young family. Zuko and Azula often reenacted the final duel of Love amongst the Dragons after watching the play during their frequent vacations at Ember Island. Both siblings happily recalled these memories many years later. However, as they grew older, the siblings eventually grew apart. One reason for this development was jealousy, because while Azula was clearly favored by Ozai, she felt that her mother loved Zuko much more than her. Confronted daily with this mother/son bonding, Azula often attempted to gain Ursa's attention in some way. However, these attempts usually resulted in family quarrels. Around 94 AG, Azula walked together with her mother and brother in the royal garden. Feeling neglected and bored as Ursa only talked with Zuko, Azula ignited a flower, prompting Zuko to tell on her to Ursa. Ursa scolded Azula for disrespecting the royal garden, but the princess just said that the flower "deserved it", as it had not grown to her liking. In retaliation for telling on her, the Fire Nation princess burned Zuko's bottom, calling him a tattletale. However, Ursa promptly sent her to her room. Scowling about this treatment, Azula stormed off. These kinds of scenes happened on regular basis, and due to this, the Fire Princess began to feel increasing hostility toward Zuko and Ursa. Months later, Azula and her family ate together at the palace dining hall. The princess, unsatisfied with the conservative training techniques of her firebending teacher, happily told her father that she set his britches on fire after being lectured by him. Ozai agreed that the teacher sounded like a fool for insisting on specified forms and declared that he would send him to the colonies as punishment. Full of spiteful joy, Azula said that it "serve[d] him right" and called him a "dummy". However, Zuko attempted to defend the tutor, but was promptly silenced by his father. Ozai continued to reprimand his son for his poor firebending skills, comparing him with Azula and her natural talent for the bending art. Revealing that he would have almost discarded Zuko because he thought that he was a nonbender when the prince was born, Azula triumphantly smiled at her shocked brother. Even though Azula often displayed her natural talents, along with her tendency for malice and perfection, they were especially clear when the princess played with her friends in the royal garden in 95 AG. When Ty Lee succeeded in performing a cartwheel after Azula had failed while attempting to do her own, Azula responded by shoving her friend to the ground, out of jealousy, and laughing gleefully. When she saw ten-year-old Mai attempting to hide her crush on her brother Zuko, Azula used her acting and cunning to convince her mother to make Zuko play with them. During their game, she proceeded to place an apple on Mai's head and set it on fire, forcing Zuko to tackle Mai into a fountain to put out the fire. She found great pleasure in embarrassing the two of them."[/i] [b][u]Psychosis[/b][/u] [i]"After being betrayed by Mai and Ty Lee, Azula's mentality continued to crumble in the final weeks of the war. When she attacked Zuko and the gang at the Western Air Temple, Azula was evidently losing her sanity, as her attacks became far more vicious and she was seemingly obsessed with killing Zuko. The obvious tipping point occurred during her father's coronation as the Phoenix King, where Azula was told she would not assist in the attack on the Earth Kingdom. Azula seemed distraught at this and took this decision as an offense to her and her honor. For her, Ozai always represented absolute power and perfection, qualities which she desired to acquire. His refusal to bring her along on a mission where the two of them would serve essentially as equals made her realize that her lust for power not only frightened her enemies, but perhaps her father as well. Ozai responded by appointing Azula as the new Fire Lord to govern over the Fire Nation in his absence, temporarily satisfying her desire for power. However, she was unable to cope with the fact that the only human being who may have ever loved her was not only ashamed of her, but also still possessed power over her. Her father was the last person Azula thought she could trust, and Ozai's refusal to include her in his final conquest only served to cause Azula even more inner pain. Knowing that her father would neither submit to her will nor love her, Azula's grip on reality began to steadily plummet. On the day of her coronation, Azula became excessively paranoid and gave into her fear of betrayal and being killed. She accused her servant of purposely leaving a pit in her cherry so that she would choke and got angry at the Dai Li when they arrived five minutes after they had been summoned, suggesting that their laxness could have allowed an assassin to sneak in, kill her, and "be on his merry way". Musing over the possibility that the Dai Li could betray and kill her, the betrayal of Mai and Ty Lee still fresh in memory, she banished them. It also appeared that she was not sleeping well, as she had dark circles under her eyes. Upon Lo and Li's arrival to counsel her, Azula's fear of disappointing her father was clear. She became so enraged when her old mentors proposed to postpone her coronation, that she momentarily forgot they were not firebenders and ordered them to fight an Agni Kai with each other. Having sent off her staff, she was left alone to style her own hair for the coronation. Frustrated by her inability to tie up her hair bun, she "fixed" the situation by cutting off a part of her hair, leaving it a tattered mess. Panting in frustration, she saw her mother in her mirror in an apparent hallucination. Ursa complimented her, saying that she always had such beautiful hair, though Azula dismissed the compliment and asked her mother why she was there. When Ursa told her that she would not miss her daughter's coronation, Azula told her not to pretend to act proud, stating that she knew her mother thought she was a monster. The hallucination of her mother refuted that, saying she did not think that, that Azula was just confused, and that she loved her. Azula could not cope with that declaration of love and went deeper into insanity, throwing her brush at the mirror, breaking it, before breaking down crying. This incident exposed a complex facet to Azula's persona. Although outwardly maintaining a cold and dismissive opinion of her mother, Ursa's banishment ultimately had a devastating impact upon Azula's fragile psyche. As Azula's sanity began slipping away from her, this inability to reconcile her perceived belief that Ursa considered her a monster with the truer (though idealized) maternal feelings of love and support that Ursa demonstrated in the hallucination created an inescapable conflict in Azula's mind that furthered her eventual mental collapse. Another thread of this argument explored the possibility that Azula may have harbored a guilt-ridden conscience, long suppressed or held at bay for many years by her indomitable will. Her conscience, in the form of her mother Ursa (whose love and guidance she secretly longed for but could never have) reared itself stronger than before. Ursa's gentle, motherly concerns over Azula's use of fear and cruelty as her only means of maintaining relationships with friends and family alike induced a violent mental breakdown prior to her coronation; after smashing a mirror, Azula collapsed and sobbed deeply before regaining any semblance of control. Azula showed up at her coronation impatient and with her hair still a mess, though it was interrupted when Katara and Zuko arrived to challenge her. She did not hesitate to challenge her brother to an Agni Kai, though her unstable condition shone through visibly, as Zuko could easily pick up on it. During the battle, Azula constantly provoked and otherwise offended the duo, though her apparent madness interfered with her fighting abilities and Zuko was able to keep even ground and even the upper hand. Azula was eventually defeated and chained to the ground by Katara. The Fire Nation princess screamed in anger and outrage, while breathing fire uncontrollably and furiously struggling to break herself free, falling into complete insanity, sobbing loudly. She dragged herself along the ground helplessly, as Zuko and Katara looked on in pity and horror. This breakdown was the culmination of her failed relationship with her mother and her jealousy toward Zuko for receiving more of their mother's affection, the betrayal she suffered at the hands of Mai and Ty Lee, and finally, her defeat by Zuko and Katara. Azula was admitted into a mental health facility on a nearby island in the Fire Nation, where she was closely monitored and observed. A year later, a clearly mentally unstable Azula accepted the task of coaxing Ursa's whereabouts out of Ozai from Zuko, stating that not one day had gone by where she had not wondered what became of their mother. In return, she requested permission to join her brother on his quest and to be allowed to travel unbound and with dignity. The Fire Lord accepted and Azula was released. While she had regained much of her previous demeanor, as she haughtily commanded people to cater to her needs and forcefully reacted to irritating situations, though from time to time, she still suffered from psychotic episodes, thinking that everyone around her was conspiring with her mother in order to bring her down. However, she intended to find and kill Ursa in order to stop her from interfering with her plans to take the throne from Zuko. In the end, however, she abandoned both of these goals once Zuko revealed that he would care for her unconditionally no matter what. Leaving Ursa alive and giving Zuko back the letter that could potentially oust him from the throne, Azula ran off from the remainder of the group."[/i] However, two things that the Wikia article got wrong in her Psychosis is that the events of The Search didn't take place a year after the show. In the show she was 14 and in The Search she was 16-17. Another thing is about the whole Zuko and Katara defeating her in the Agni Kai. Azula defeated Zuko and it was Katara that defeated Azula. Although if we wanna be technical, an Agni Kai can only be done between two firebenders, so Azula technically won the Agni Kai and Katara just won a regular fight against Azula.

zanhar1 I think I remember reading that a while back. God, I was so obsessed with Azula back in '08 that I probably read her wiki page twice over. But that's pretty much exactly it, by all means Azula [i]did[/i] win the Agni Kai. Katara [i]did[/i] just win a regular fight...I don't even think it's a technically thing. I also still cling firm to the notion that if Azula was in a sound and ordinary Azula state of mind she would have had both fights done before they really had a chance to kick into gear.

324anna Great article! I completely agree with you and KataraLover.

zanhar1 Thank you.