When Zuko’s little sister Azula inherits his beloved Caldera City Gym, he knows he has to defeat the Avatar League and reclaim his honour. After winning the Freedom Badge from Jet and the Glider Badge from Teo, Zuko heads to South Pole Capital City to challenge Gym Leader Katara for an Aurora Badge.
Katara’s out of town for the week - but a practice match against her brother, the adorkable Professor Sokka, could dramatically change the course of Zuko’s journey to be the very best (like no one ever was).
i could say something about how, oh, language changes quickly & aang previously innocent slang would probably have shifted in meaning, but really…. i have no explanation for this and thats OKAY
[image id: three panels of fan art of avatar. panel 1: katara says “okay. which one of you taught toph the c word? it was the only cuss she didn’t know IDIOTS!” panel 2: sokka, zuko & aang are sitting. sokka snorts & says “yeah aang who did?” zuko says “c’mon tell katara who did.” katara is not in this panel but an angry speach bubble from the side says “AANG?” panel 3: sokka, aang and zuko are still sitting. toph enters and says “WHATS UP CUN” (the implied “T” is cut off by zuko’s head.) Toph’s body can be seen but her head is cut off by the top of the panel. Aang says “look…um…it meant soemthing different 100 yrs ago?” looking innocent. sokka and zuko look amused. end id]
The Ocean? The Moon? Both sapphics & they’re married, your honor…
[ID: Two digital paintings of Yue and La from Avatar: The Last Airbender. The first image has three depictions of La. She has deep purple hair and eyes, deep brown skin, and wears all purple clothing. On the left there is a full body portrait in which she is wearing traditional water tribe clothing, but instead of blue lined with white fur hers is a deep purple that matches her hair, lined with lavender fur. She wears a helmet similar to the wolf helmet Sokka and Hakoda wear, but hers’ covers the first half of her face and is the face of a Koi fish. She holds a spear with a deep purple blade tied to it with lavender cloth. Next to the full body portrait is a bust portrait of La. She wears an off the shoulder deep purple top, her hair down and with two pieces in the front separated similar to Katara’s “hair loopies”. She wears a deep purple betrothal necklace with the charm being the white half of the yin and yang symbol. Under the bust portrait is a drawing of a deep purple koi fish with slim lavender oval on the center of it face and lavender eyes. The background is white.
The second painting is of Yue and La. They are drawn with their hair and clothes extended, so they make up the two halves of the yin and yang symbol, with Yue at the bottom and La at the top. Yue is shown as she is in the show, however she is wearing a white betrothal necklace with the black half of the yin and yang symbol as the charm. She looks lovingly at La. La is wearing the same outfit as in her full body portrait, but now she is holding her helmet in one hand and reaching out to Yue with the other. She looks into Yue’s eyes with determination. There is a soft halo of light around the circle they make up, and the background is a warm lavender. End ID]
I finally found out what rubs me the wrong way about so many takes that claim that Azula would not or could not change for the better: they lack moral imagination.
“We’re all human beings. You always have to be optimistic that people can change, and that you can change, and that one act of kindness may make all the difference in the world.”
Rabbi Telushkin follows up:
“People are different when they are vulnerable. She [Chisholm] understood that.”
This sounds familiar. Where have we heard it before?
“When we reach our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change.” —Avatar Aang, Avatar: Legend of Korra
And yet, fandom often has such a paucity of moral imagination that they can’t even entertain the idea that Azula, a fourteen-year-old child, can change for the better without someone coercing her into it. They can’t imagine that kindness and empathy could transform Azula in ways that fear and manipulation cannot.
This is why I firmly believe that Aang and/or Katara, not Zuko, would be the most likely to get through to her. They are the most compassionate characters on the show. Simple acts of kindness or understanding from these people whom she’s been taught to view as mortal enemies would completely shatter her paradigm of fear and control. Threatening to take away her life, her freedom, or her bending is just more of the same. Calling her sick or evil, or treating her like a monster or rabid animal, is just more of the same. Treating her with kindness and compassion, not because she’s “earned” it, but simply because she’s a human being? She has zero frame of reference for that.
Now that I think about it, fandom’s lack of moral imagination when it comes to Azula is really odd considering that Aang himself is fantastic at this. Dude was dead serious about using baby pictures to try to make Ozai good again. It was played as a joke, but think about what this says about Aang. He has such unshakable faith in the ability of people to change for the better that he didn’t question that even Fire Lord Ozai had some kernel of goodness that could be brought out if only he could figure out how.
And Katara’s best moment on the show wasn’t defeating Azula. It was, “I will never turn my back on people who need me!” And she’d been consistent about this long before she uttered those words. A woman goes into labor near the Serpent’s Pass, and she rolls up her sleeves and delivers that baby. Jet needed her help to unblock memories of Lake Laogai, and she helped him despite how pissed she was at him. She plays the role of the Painted Lady to help a small village in the Fire Nation that has zero strategic importance to the bigger mission. She doesn’t do it out of wide-eyed idealism but because she understands people’s suffering and resolves to do something about it.
Both of these characters have incredible moral imagination. Whether consciously or not, they’re not fighting to just destroy evil, but to preserve and nurture good. The secret dance party in “The Headband” probably did more to transform Fire Nation society than defeating Fire Lord Ozai. Ozai had to go, but he’s just one man. That dance party planted seeds for the Fire Nation’s future.
That’s why the absence of moral imagination in ATLA fandom is such a glaring lack. It’s not like the show doesn’t repeatedly offer examples of moral imagination that lead to positive, even lasting, results. It’s just that, for some reason, fandom doesn’t pick up on it. I wish I knew why.
“I know sometimes it hurts more to hope and it hurts more to care. But you have to promise me that you won’t stop caring” ✨ Hope you enjoy my animation!
sorry for being a day late. uhm… i kept adding… and adding ;;; (i am sorry for squeezing katara in. but i am no good in just drawing one person without making it look akward) *edit: i made… a smal mistake while saving ;;; oh well…
