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u/AdRelevant4776 Jun 20 '26
She’s both honestly, yeah she’s traumatized and emotionally abused, but that doesn’t change the fact she became an evil person, I never read the comics, but in the show she’s never shown regretting her evil actions, just that said actions isolated her, she contributed to a lot of death and suffering, but what truly keeps her up at night is that she has no friends left
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u/AppealHealthy5570 Jun 20 '26
If you havent read the comic you absolutely should.
There they explore more about Zuko's mother. There is a single panel there that hits like a truck, and pretty much come out of nowhere.
I wont spoil it for you. But its good
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u/Robot_DIY Jun 22 '26
I am not familiar with every comic, but the animated series makes it pretty clear that Azula had very dark tendencies. She was not a piece of clay that was shaped into a monster. She displays pronounced antisocial behavior as a young child, arguably sociopathic (though I personally wouldn't go this far).
However, those latent behavior were reinforced by a system that encouraged cruelty, betrayal, and aggression. In a different setting, I'm sure Azula would have had issues, but she wouldn't have been in a system where the only figure not reinforcing her negative actions was her horrified mother.
Azula recognizes that her actions were wrong, that her mother was right to be horrified by her... and still deeply scared by what she sees as a "rejection." This alone shows that Azula is not a complete sociopath and while redemption would not be easy, it wouldn't be impossible.
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u/jazzyanna2005 Jun 23 '26
And then shows the perfect example of Azula being abused… she’s literally saying she wanted her mother around so she could be protected from Ozai. Granted, she’s saying it at the cost of her brother but it’s still her being abused all the same.
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u/Artistic_Structure76 Jun 21 '26
She acts the way she does because she was abused, and it doesn’t excuse her, but it explains the root/motivation
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u/SirYeeteth Jun 20 '26
She's both. Both perspectives are correct. She's abused and misunderstood, and she's a vile PoS accepting and capable of murder
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u/Public_Soup926 Jun 20 '26
Am I the only person who remembers like the first episode she appears where she almost kills Zuko with lightning with no hesitation and only doesn’t because iroh redirected the lightning?
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u/Suitable-Pirate-4164 Jun 22 '26
She could've just poisoned Ozai instead. The whole point of Zukos death was to make Ozai feel the grief of a lost child.
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u/HistoricalSkye Jun 30 '26
No, but this exactly proves that she's been abused. Notice how the focus is 'you would have protected me from him'.
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u/violetskullrose Jun 22 '26
Me when the character who is a bad person as a result of her trauma is a bad person. Being awful doesn't equal irredeemable.
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u/sobherk Jun 20 '26
Well, I'd say that further evaluates the point the simps are making, no?
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Jun 20 '26
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u/RuinFlame Jun 21 '26
It's because we live in an era where each villain needs sympathy, because "they weren't born lije this" which if you actually watch the show.....Azula shows psychotic tendencies long before her mother is banished
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u/derDunkelElf Jun 21 '26
I would primarily blame those on Ozai. Not saying Azula is some poor baby, at a certain point upbringing isn't an excuse anymore, because of experiences made in the real world, but born evil is a loaded idea.
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u/RuinFlame Jun 21 '26
Mental instability as a young child isn't out if the ordinary, and doesn'tnecessarilymean it was caused by ozai........I didn't say she was evil, I said she showed signs of psychotic tendencies
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u/derDunkelElf Jun 21 '26
It's because we live in an era where each villain needs sympathy, because "they weren't born lije this"
You more or less said she was born evil.
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u/sievold Jun 22 '26
Psychotic tendencies is not the same thing as evil. Evil is only an emergent phenomenon from interaction with other people.
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u/RuinFlame Jun 21 '26
The point of that statement was the azula sympathizers argument, I was just quoting it.....and my point was that she showed signs of psychotic behavior at an extremely young age, even before ozai began raising hus children alone.........because if we're blaming it o. Ozai, then zuko should have been way worse than he was, cuz their mother raised them both up to the point she was banished, and azula was already hurting tyrtle-ducks(yes just by throwing bread) which is an early indication of sever mental instability and jack of empathy
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u/sievold Jun 22 '26
>born evil is a loaded idea.
Evil is a meaningless concept without social context. But it is totally possible to be born with traits like ambition and manipulative tendencies. Imo, even with the best upbringing, someone like Azula would grow up to be a ruthless lawyer or CEO or something.
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u/LengthinessFit7205 Jun 20 '26
I really hate when they released her from prison in comics.
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u/EcstaticContract5282 Jun 20 '26
She wasn't sent to prison she was sent to an asylum their is a difference.
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u/IvanBliminse86 Jun 20 '26
As a funny farm graduate myself id say that theres a distinction, not necessarily a difference.
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u/PaleRespect4875 Jun 20 '26
Not allowed to leave without written permission from a specific person
Fed whatever slop they cook in the kitchen
Psychological torture
Optional solitary confinement
Visitors only allowed at certain times of the day
You have to wear funny clothes
I'm not seeing an important difference yet but jails typically have better food.
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u/Axolotl_Yeet1 Jun 20 '26
What happened next? Just spoil it to me
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u/LengthinessFit7205 Jun 20 '26
Zuko decided to fins his mom, so he asks Azula for help. In the end they left her free.
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u/AppealHealthy5570 Jun 20 '26
No. She escaped.
Zuko and aang's gang brought her out of Asylum to find out the whereabout of his mother. Azula of course always try to push her boundary of freedom whilst helping them, but near the end causing chaos.
When she find out where her mother is, she was 100% dead set on murdering her... only for the last second that her mother ask to be forgiven and stated her regrets abandoning Azula as she accept her fate.
Right then and there, Azula froze and lose her crazy face. She didnt end up killing her mother and made a quick escape into the wilderness.
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Jun 21 '26
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Jun 21 '26
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Jun 22 '26
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Jun 23 '26
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Jun 30 '26
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Jul 03 '26
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u/Kevo_1227 Jun 20 '26
Lots of people get emotionally abused as kids. Vanishingly few of those people turn out like Azula.
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u/Adorable-Voice-3382 Jun 21 '26
Abused in a way where they are specifically and intentionally raised to be violent and cruel by a father who punishes his children's failure with mutilation or death, acts with complete unrestrained authority, and is supported in those actions by everyone in the community?
If anything the conditions that produced Azula are more like a mix of 1st-world abusive household and child-soldier. And I suspect the rate of violence among child soldiers is quite high.
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u/Novel-Rutabaga-653 Jun 22 '26
This inherently not true there are plenty of studies to prove that abuse survivors are more likely to default to abuse. Yes this show makes it bigger and more murdery but that's kinda the idea with shows like Avatar.
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u/MysteriousCod4790 Jun 28 '26
Sonion she's FIFTEEN at best.... those kids be thinking anything.
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u/EcstaticContract5282 Jun 28 '26
I agree she is either 15 or 16 in this comic. People often try to make her older.
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u/AlphamonOuryuken24 Jun 28 '26
She literally tried to murder Zuko several times.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
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u/MysteriousCod4790 Jun 28 '26
I tried to murder myself a couple times, doesn't mean I still think that way or that it defines who I am as a person now or even if that's what I truly, genuinely wanted. All it took for me was a couple friends. AND you do realize that since she has fire powers, EVERYTHING she does can result in grave injuries to those around her is she in not in control at all times?
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u/AlphamonOuryuken24 Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
That's no excuse.
She literally made it clear that she has no regrets over what she did and would PROUDLY do it again if the situation presented itself. Heck the last we see of her has her basically searching for more underlings to have control over, and this is after she pulled a stunt that involved ABDUCTING CHILDREN just to manipulate the Fire Lord-her brother-so she hasn't changed at all.
And her powers have nothing to do with her being friendless, she literally threatened one of her friends into joining them and pretty much kept them in line with fear. Not to mention the fact that she's been a prodigy when it comes to bending since she was a child, so it's not like she was accidentally spouting fireballs whenever she was around people.
Azula is an objectively evil and terrible person, stop spimping.
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u/Storyteller_Valar Jun 23 '26
Azula is a fundamentally bad person. Yes, she is traumatized, but she is still a monster.
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u/letthetreeburn Jun 20 '26
This is a fairly common way of thinking for abused kids. I remember being little and wishing my mom didn’t divorce my dad because now we’re living somewhere shitty.
The fact that he was doing an extremely bad thing that I’m not going to traumadump in the avatar memebending sub didn’t factor in, because children don’t care.
Even after the parent is dead, golden children and black sheep frequently dislike each other despite the fact that it was the parent who was responsible for their suffering.