No.3515
one of the fun facts about Avatar TLA is that Azula is actually like fucking 13 in the show, which is funny because I think most of the other people who watched the show thought that she was Zuko's older sister. I am p sure that was kinda deliberate, coupled with Azula's personality disorders and the like she has been groomed to really try and break herself down and build herself up into whatever position needs filling in the royal family, and in Zuko's absence she became the heir apparent to the fire lord's throne and tries to be fairly adult even though she is still a child, and fairly obviously one at that when you realize a lot of her immaturity. hell, her intro is literally her telling her crew under her command to ignore the tides despite the fact it poses a very direct danger to her as much as her own men, something that she doesn't really register, saying instead that her crew should "fear me more than the tides", but does she think the fucking tides fear her??? She also demonstrates hilarious impatience, even at minor imperfection, and generally lacks emotional stability, though she knowingly compensates this by trying to emotionally manipulate others. Though you can argue these things can be as much personality disorders as they can be from being an unexperienced child, in reality I think a big message the show is giving off is that even though Azula was the homeborn prodigy, gifted at birth and schooled within the institutions of the fire nation to produce a wholly insular view of perfection, Zuko in contrast learns from the land and the different people and cultures he meets, creating a more wholistic and complete understanding of the world, and in turn firebending's place within it, and in turn elevates himself from a naturally lackluster firebender into one that can demonstrably defeat Azula.
Its showing that Zuko's emotional maturity and experience is what allowed him to elevate his own powers, that understanding of the world gave him the depth of experience that allowed for him to improve his own skills, rather than azula who spent her time only honing the skills she already mastered, and in turn really never improving much beyond her natural talents. Immaturity - the rejection of outside lessons and ideas in favor of insular and self-centered understanding of the world, was what made her stagnate while her lame duck brother rose above her, and she could never really accept that fact - she had always prided herself on that natural talent, cherished it like it was a birthrite and mandate, and saw it as the means and really an ends to building her own power. But, that immaturity was not something that would outwardly help her, so she did a lot to cover it up, makeup and big worded speeches and acting authoritatively even in conditions she didn't really understand, like when she commanded her fucking boat to go against the tides, which is of course a child's approximation of what maturity was.
But Azula wasn't like, totally without redeeming moments. Though she is a frigid fucking bitch, I think at the end of the day she still had a lot of value built up in Zuko, in the same capacity as Zuko was a way for her to build up her self-esteem for her natural talents, but also that Zuko was the only real link between her and her mother (mind, Azula thought her mother hated her because she tried to emulate her father more, and he was a cruel asshole that her mom was always disapproving of, but she was especially disapproving when Azula tried to copy him), Zuko was a kind of surrogate maternal care to her since Zuko did take more from her mom in being compassionate and caring for the people around and under him (even going out of his way and nearly risking his own life to save one of his crewmen even if it meant the Avatar escaping), which would extent to Azula, while not being as immensely disapproving of Azula's actions as her own mother was (Zuko even tries to emulate Azula a little bit sometimes).
This is why I like that specific scene from the show - its like the literal only time I think Azula is ever seen without her makeup. It was a scene where Azula, normally a fucking frigid bag of dicks, talks to Zuko about the political danger of meeting with Iroh in jail - something that, if she instead exposed to everyone else, would gain her much in the way of power since it would delegitimize Zuko - but instead she warns him, without any makeup, any façade of being an adult. I think to Azula, Zuko was pretty much the only person she could be comfortable with being around without having the big show of being the adult woman preparing to be the queen, though by this point she probably has a case of wearing the mask so much that it was becoming her face, and that the facade was slowly poisoning her own personality. But, still, its like the only real moment where there is a willing vulnerability shown by Azula.
And like, you have to really think about the dynamic of the moment, the actions of Azula relative to what she usually says and does and appears, how her family live would relate to her personal growth, and a bunch of other stuff to kinda realize it. Its a subtle way to convey a lot of depth about an entirely fictional character that shows a lot of implied character development without needing to cut away to a flashback - and its not actually even in service to the story or anything, its all just a really neat background detail you can pick out if you make those connections.