Azula

Azula was a princess of the Fire Nation, daughter of Fire Lord Ozai and Ursa, younger sister of Zuko, and older half-sister of Kiyi. She was a key adversary of Team Avatar, chasing Avatar Aang and her banished brother far across the Earth Kingdom accompanied by her then two best friends, Mai and Ty Lee. A firebending prodigy, Azula was manipulative and obsessed with power. She was a skilled strategist who orchestrated the coup of the Earth Kingdom capital, Ba Sing Se, and halted the invasion on the Day of Black Sun. Azula harbored deep mental instabilities, believing her mother loved Zuko more than her. Raised by her father in an environment without a mother-figure, Azula had to be nothing less than perfect in her father's eyes in order to gain affection and attention from him. After the betrayal of her two closest friends Mai and Ty Lee, these instabilities were brought up to the surface. Upon the arrival of Sozin's Comet, Azula was soon to be crowned Fire Lord; however, her defeat at the hands of her brother Zuko and Katara caused her to suffer a complete mental breakdown. Following her emotional breakdown, Azula was put in a mental health facility to recover, though she eventually joined Team Avatar on their search for Ursa, as part of her secret agenda to betray them and usurp the throne from Zuko. At this quest's completion, however, Azula escaped the team's supervision. Sometime after her exile, Azula returned to the Fire Nation Capital in secret. Having finally accepted that she would never be Fire Lord, Azula resorted to manipulating Zuko so that she could rule through him. Gathering a group of female supporters, she took on the guise of the mythical Kemurikage to intimidate Ukano into threatening Zuko. When that failed, Azula and her followers resorted to kidnapping children in the capital, setting the city into civil unrest. Though Zuko and his allies were able to rescue the children, Azula and her followers escaped. Born a princess and hailed as a prodigy, Azula grew up to be narcissistic and confident. She relentlessly drilled herself toward perfection and settled for nothing less from herself or those who served her. She believed that power and domination were the defining traits of strength, and as such, would only help others if she thought there was some personal gain at stake. She had absolute confidence in her "divine right to rule", with which she believed she was born. She harbored neither pity nor mercy for those she marked as treasonous or inferior. As one who wanted nothing less than absolute control, she likewise had remarkable control of herself, seemingly able to react to any situation at a moment's notice without losing her composure. Azula was marked by a distinct lack of empathy. Even as a child, she reacted with hostility when outdone, a trait clearly displayed when she shoved Ty Lee to the ground after the girl bested her at gymnastics. This behavior would characterize her relationship with her friends for many years. Rather than care or love, her relationships with her friends were often based in manipulation, such as when she intimidated Ty Lee into leaving the circus and joining her cause. She was prone to asserting herself and her authority in a grandiose way, such as when she humiliated Long Feng in front of his former henchmen or when she threatened the captain of her ship. She also showed a need for admiration, mostly from her father, whom she emulated to a great degree, and from everyone else around her, though to a lesser extent. She reacted with despair and rage when she learned her father was going to the Earth Kingdom without her. However, Azula showed a level of fear of him, as in the novelization, Azula notes that not even she could take him in a fight. Azula was known to have a cruel personality, showing little to no concern for others besides her father. From a very young age, Azula demonstrated sadistic aggression and a near-total lack of remorse to friends, servants, family, and animals. Her own mother, Ursa, once remarked, "What is wrong with that child?" after observing her casual cruelties. Azula's first reaction to hearing of Iroh's son's death was to wonder whether this now made her father the heir to the throne. She later dismissed her uncle as a quitter and a loser when learning he had ended his six hundred day Siege of Ba Sing Se to grieve for Lu Ten. She eagerly watched Azulon proclaim Ozai's punishment for trying to claim the throne and grinned maliciously when Zuko was burned and scarred by their father. She also did not seem to care when her mother disappeared or when her grandfather died. Her cruelty was apparently infamous and extreme; when Iroh accidentally ingested the poisonous white jade flower, both he and Zuko quickly decided that they would rather seek help from the Earth Kingdom at the risk of facing certain death than the possibility of being handed over to Azula by the Fire Nation. Azula's characteristic blue flames symbolized the power she possessed and constantly sought to increase. Her lack of compassion also accounted for her ability to create and direct lightning, the "cold-blooded fire". According to Iroh, the skill required complete control of all emotion, which would not prove difficult for Azula with her one-track mentality. Because of these skills, she was also an excellent tactician, regularly displaying cunning, perception, and resourcefulness that allowed her to take advantage of almost any situation. She possessed good self-control, facing down Long Feng and deceiving him when held captive, and could lie with a straight face and no physical reactions. Ironically, for all her refinement and self-confidence, Azula did retain some insecurity. As a result of her sequestered life of royalty, she had developed a considerable amount of social ineptitude, particularly in her uncertainty of how to act around boys, and she frequently intimidated them during conversations. Even when attempting to flirt with Chan, her domineering and megalomaniacal personality manifested in a way that disconcerted him and prompted his recession. Her overly competitive nature surfaced during a kuai ball game, and she later admitted her jealousy over how much attention Ty Lee received from others. Though she seemingly looked down on Zuko all throughout their entire relationship, thinking of him as a weak and whiny boy who never stood up for himself or to her especially, there were moments when her opinion of him seemed to rise briefly. During her coup at the climax of Ba Sing Se's fall, she was truly pleased by Zuko's choice to aid her, musing that Zuko had always meant to be a Prince of the Fire Nation fighting by her side. Almost immediately after, however, his hesitation to fight Katara caused her disdain to surface, thinking of him as poor and weak for letting himself be goaded so easily. Nevertheless, when Zuko showed doubts about his actions in helping take Ba Sing Se but betraying Iroh, she truly did feel that he had accomplished his ultimate achievement, while at the same time feeling pity for the fact that he could not understand the significance of what his actions entailed. Azula was never happy with what she had, always striving for more. After conquering Ba Sing Se, she passed it on to a puppet ruler to be used by the Fire Nation. When she was doubtful that she had really managed to kill the Avatar, she let her brother take the credit for the perceived kill, convinced he knew a way that Aang could survive that she did not. She was always trying to get more to try and fill what she lacked, but it was never enough. In a sense, she was a person without a finish line. Later, Azula began to show signs of a fragile mentality. For all of her self-assurance, she was momentarily driven into a rage when Mai betrayed her by helping Zuko to escape and admitted to loving him more than she feared Azula. As Azula moved to strike her down, she was, in turn, temporarily paralyzed by Ty Lee. After her friends were apprehended, the enraged princess ordered both of them to be locked away and "left to rot". While it was apparent that Azula held herself in high regard above her friends, their sudden betrayal drove her to the edge for an instant, hinting at just how unstable she would later prove to be. This betrayal affected her so much that she lost her normally cool demeanor, as evident when she later attacked the Western Air Temple. She was erratic and maniacal, clearly trying to vent her feelings by trying to kill her brother. While on Ember Island, Azula revealed her subtle resentment toward being seen as a "monster", particularly by her mother. Though she admittedly agreed with the viewpoint, the princess stated that it was emotionally painful nonetheless. Her time on Ember Island was also one of the few times she showed any sign of compassion for Zuko, as she followed him and urged him to return to the group when he was alone and in pain. 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 tipping point came 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 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 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, Mai and Ty Lee's treason 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. Ultimately, Azula addressed Li as Lo and banished her, leaving the sisters confused as to which of them had to leave. 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 the declaration of love and threw her brush at the mirror, shattering 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 but still true) 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 although she was fully capable of acting cruelly without showing any outright regret, deep down, a part of her could tell what she did was wrong and felt regret over it, but it was just her indomitable will and emotional control that prevented her from showing it for many years. Nevertheless, despite years of such dark deeds, what remained of her conscience, in the form of her mother Ursa (whose love and guidance she secretly longed for but could never have), could still manifest at this point and 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 breaking the 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 the event was interrupted when Katara and Zuko arrived to challenge her. She did not hesitate to challenge her brother to an Agni Kai and darkly smiled when it happened that outright indicated she was more obsessed with killing Zuko personally than tactically dealing with both Zuko and Katara when she challenged him to a one-on-one fight, considering the fact she could just have what remained of the Fire Nation army attack them. Her unstable condition shone through visibly, as Zuko could easily pick up on it, and this was shown further as her apparent madness weakened her fighting abilities for Zuko to decisively overpower her eventually. She also was instantly goaded by Zuko into using lightning despite knowing he could redirect it and only changed her mind in the last moment to avoid what would certainly have been defeat by targeting Katara, leaving Zuko incapacitated, at which point Azula showed an increasing level of mockery toward the duo. Her arrogance and mental state eventually allowed Katara, despite clearly being far less powerful than Azula due to Sozin's Comet, to defeat and chain her to the ground. The moment Azula saw Zuko rose, 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, the full extent of her madness causing both Zuko and Katara to watch with clear sadness despite all she had put them through. 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, her defeat by Zuko and Katara and finally her failure to be crowned Fire Lord. This madness earned her Zuko's pity, and Azula was spared from prison and instead committed to a mental health facility on a nearby island in the Fire Nation for potential better treatment. 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. Azula subsequently experienced a phase which she later described as finding her "destiny". Discarding many of her old desires, including the quest for total power, she overcame several of her insecurities. Although still somewhat unhinged and obsessed with ruling by instilling fear, Azula realized that she could rule through Zuko and thereby share the burden of being Fire Lord; this resulted in her feeling freer than ever before. In addition, she allowed herself to open up more to others than ever before, describing her new comrades as "sisters" and openly telling Zuko of her schemes. By extension, her opinion of Zuko had improved greatly: Although still cruel and scathing, she insisted that he had the abilities to be "strong" like herself. Observing Zuko's public apology to the citizenry, Azula remained smug, confident that he would come around to her way of thinking in time.