Azula Has Possible NON-EXISTENT Kill Count in the Entire Series
One of the worst misinterpretations of Azula’s character is that people portray her as a “murderous”. I’ve seen this a lot, all of this comes down to:
“Azula’s a murderer, she kills lots of people.”
CANONICALLY, this is FALSE af. But people seem to enjoy mistaking fanfiction with canon and forgetting what actually happened in the show. I will prove this point false based on solid evidences from canon itself.
• In Book 2, Episode 1, Azula tells Zuko he can go home and it is a lie. When she makes to attack him with lightning, Iroh redirects the blast and she doesn’t get to fire it: nevertheless, the impression is made on Zuko. What lingers on his mind about that encounter is how much his sister progressed in terms of bending compared to him. He gets excited when Iroh offers to teach him something Azula doesn’t know because he has been under her shadow all his life.
Azula’s lightning couldn’t have been meant to kill Zuko instead of scaring him because of several reasons, one of them thatZuko is the means to take Iroh home.She was supposed to bring them both back, but her offer to go home is only extended to Zuko because she knows Iroh will follow Zuko for sure. Strategically speaking, her uncle probably would have escaped if she killed her brother, and capturing him after that would be far too difficult. Killing Zuko, therefore, would have been so counterproductive that it’s unlikely Azula even considered doing it.
Secondly, Azula is aware of Zuko’s sense of inferiority around her. She is trying to show him how much she has progressed in the last three years to get a rise out of him and to break whatever confidence he still had left. There is no wayof knowing where exactly she would have aimed the lightning if she had fired it, but it’s doubtful she would want to kill her brother at this point in time. It seems more likely that she would only want to rub his shortcomings in his face. Plus, the fired lightning would’ve cause the ship severe damaged, which further the nail this was show of superiority not meant for killing.
Azula has had plenty of opportunities to kill Zuko as well and hasn’t. She could have accepted his Agni Kai challenge in Crossroads of Destiny and smoked him good, but she didn’t. She could have killed him in The Chase, and didn’t. Either of those occasions would have been perfectly honorable fratricides, but she even could have hidden the fact that she had done it, if she had wanted to.
• In Book 2, Episode 3, Azula recruits Ty Lee and Mai for her team: why does Azula threaten Ty Lee that way?Because Ty Lee made it clear she wouldn’t join her in any other circ*mstances.What Azula did to threaten her isn’t right by any means, and it was very cruel since Ty Lee said the circus made her happy, but Azula didn’t do it because she enjoys tormenting others unnecessarily:she did it with the purpose of making Ty Lee join her. Killing Ty Lee would be counterproductive, since the entire point of what she’s doing is to scare and threaten Ty Lee into joining her team.
Azula treats her friends the way she does because of learned behavior, likely from Ozai: “Well what choice do I have? Trust is for fools! Fear is the only reliable way!“ Her cruelty is something Ozai approves of, and the show makes a point of proving it. While Ursa offered Zuko love, Ozai taught Azula to control people through fear, just as he does. This is why she acts like this with Mai and Ty Lee.
•One of the biggest examples set clearly to us is that Azula conquered a big city, Ba Sing Se. The government, the Fire Nation army, the Dai Li and people were basically under her feet. Did she commit a massacre? No, she spared all lives in the city, returned homenever killing a single citizen nor General.Generals were put in jail and guarded by the Dai Li. She kept the cityunder controland left home. Never killing anyone. She’s not a bloody conqueror.She just gets the job done.She didn’t even kill Long Feng himself, who could have undid her progress. Because she didn’t need to. Azula does no more than what is needed to get what she needs to get done.
These are her prisoners:
Nobody is hurt and nobody is tortured.
Before someone jumps in to completely brush off thebloodlesscoup fact by saying, “but she killed Aang”. Dear, killing Aang was theonly thingshecoulddoatthat momentif she wanted to win. He was an immediate threat, needing decisive action. One enemy life against the continued existence and the success of the Fire Nation campaign on Ba Sing Se? That would be no choice at all for the Fire Nation Princess.
On top of that, in all fairness, he was going into the Avatar State in a confined space when she shot him. The last time he decimated the Fire Nation Northern Fleet when he was in the Avatar state, so she had cause to believe he could destroy everyone in the cavern. Bringing down Aang wasn’t evil- it wasnecessaryin order to achieve her goals and possibly save herself, Zuko, and people.And even so, in the end, Aang didn’t die anyways. He came back.Moreover, uncle Iroh was sent to prison, she never ordered the Dai Li to execute him for his betrayal (something that by Fire Nation standards probably would have been reasonable).So basically Azula never killed anyone that day.
She did not declare the victory to herself either while she was SITTING ON THE THRONE. It was all for the Fire Nation.“We’ve done it Zuko. It’s taken one hundred years, but thanks to us,theFire Nation has conquered Ba Sing Se.”Therefore it can be concluded that Azula doesn’t really even have selfish interests either. It has always been about the Fire Nation and what her father taugh her is best for it, rather than what’s best for Azula herself.
• Azula also had the Kyoshi warriors as prisoners, it’s understood she questioned them and took their Kyoshi uniforms to use for the plans, but nothing else happened.They were sent safe and whole to the Boiling Rock, and they never were mistreated in the prison at all.Suki was fine and in high spirits in the Boiling Rock episodes, these are not signs of someone being tortured or mistreated. Other than maybe boredom, the prisoners seemed to be fine unless they stepped out of line, however this can be placed more on the warden than on Azula.
The others Kyoshi warriors weren’t mistreated either, Ty lee has even enough time to chat and befriend them in the prison.
The statement she told to Sokka in the Day of Black Sun was manipulating attempt to win time. It was a lie, (just like how Ozai distracted Zuko from leaving by his mother’s whereabouts).
Originally posted by avatarsymbolism
If something of that sort had happened, Suki would’ve told Sokka what Azula did to them, the writers would have highlighted her villainous ways as they always do.
It’s also not a complete lie, since Suki was waiting for Sokka to save her too.
•When the prisoners escaped on the gondola, herfirst instinctwas tocapturethem by jumping on it and try to defeat them. She could have easily ordered the guards to just cut off the lines from the beginning instead from attempting to capture them. And that would have been the easiest method for her. It would have saved her a lot of trouble. But she choose to fight them instead.
It’s the Warden who breaks out of his captors, and shout to the guards to, “cut the lines”. He clearly was ready to sacrifice himself if that means that will prevent the prisoners from escape the Boiling Rock, not caring if he would kill the only heirs to the Fire Nation throne just to protect his reputation. But cutting the lines is his idea, not Azula’s.
Why would her first priority be to simplycapturethe fugitive prisoners if she’s as murderous as so many people say she is?
• Another thing that people like to claim is that she wanted to kill Mai. It can be argued thatshe was in fact,notabout to do so. God, this scene is always misinterpreted, when she saw Mai breaking away from her control,Azula wanted to pin her under her control again.At her moment she was full of rage, it was obvious Mai’s gonna get hurt and that’s why Ty lee intervened. If she had any real intention to kill Mai from the start, she would’ve ordered the guards to do so after Ty lee blocked her. Does this mean that she was in the right? No. However, it still doesn’t make her a killer.
Another point that nobody brings up: if we think Azula was going to"kill" Mai, why doesn’t anyone question whether or not Mai was just as ready to kill Azula? After all, she was just as ready to fight as Azula was.
The first part of the intense interaction, Azula remains calm and asks Mai“why”. She wanted tounderstandMai’s motives before acting, she didnotlash out at her directly. Mai’s answer -for a complex reason that stems from her mother issues- pushes her overboard. Azula become angry and lost control over herself.
When Ty lee blocked her, Azula didn’t do any physical harm to them, she only said she didn’t want to see their faces again. Interestingly Azula’s response to her betrayal by Ty Lee and Mai is to have them taken out of her sight. In fact, she outright says, “Put them somewhere I’ll never have to see their faces again, and let them rot!” Where do they go? Into the regular ol’ prison where the rest of the Kyoshi warriors were. There’s no signs of mistreatment whatsoever (Ty Lee even has bonding time), and Azula very notably does not do anything personally vindictive to them. Instead, their betrayal is a large part of the reason she “slips” (as Zuko puts it), she was genuinely hurt She thought that if it weren’t for Zuko, this wouldn’t have happened and directed her anger toward him.
Ty lee and Mai spent few weeks in the prison unharmed with the Kyoshi warriors, until Zuko broke them out.
Azula’s expression here conveys not only that she’s angry, but that she’s hurt by what has happened. The creases between her eyebrows are meant to give that effect. Her friendship with Mai and Ty lee may be unhealthy but on the other hand, it was not fake by any means.
After this, she felt that she’s losing control, and feel an urgent need to complete the task (the Fire Lord ordered her). She engage in compulsive, misdirected activities and rushing toward the Gaang and have one-on-one fight with Zuko. She feels a growing sense of failure, and a rising sense of anger and frustration. If Azula is in a state of chronic stress, she may fall into the grip of the part of she hates most about herself– her emotions. When this happens she may become uncharacteristically emotional and furious and withdraw from others to prevent anyone seeing her lack of emotional stability. She in fact began to crack by this point.
• What’s even more impressive is that, even when her breakdown happens and she haspolitical powerin her hands, she didn’t go on a civilian killing spree. She just banished people. She never thought or wanted to kill people, she thought “PEOPLE want to kill ME!” And even then she wasn’t killing those who she thought wanted to kill her as she very well could have.
It can be argued that killing didn’t even cross her mind until Zuko shows up and she had strong reason push herself to that limit. You can find proof of that in the mini book adaption of Sozin’s Comet. She first thought of send the supposed-traitors to prison. Then desided to banish them. She specifically claims that“banishing people is a Fire Lordly thing to do.” And therefore she was going to do it.
Azula hadplenty of chancesto kill if she wanted to, but she didnot kill anyone,because she doesn’t kill if there’sno pointin that.Kill or use violence wasalwaysthe"last choice" from her perspective, and she’s always ready to listen. That means Azula isNOTinstinctively murderous.She’s instinctively authoritarian, but her constant death threats along the series are just that: threats, that she would likely never follow up with. She simply likes to be intimidating. Azula doesn’tneedto ever resort to violence when people fear what shecould dofar more than what she actually does. With Sokka she just decided toimplyshe did something to Suki to f*ck with him and throw him off his game. She has always had a much bigger bark than bite. Mind games are much more her style than physical violence. She is always shown sending people to prison or banishing them, and those who are imprisoned don’t get any mistreatment.So sadism can be ruled out, if she wanted to hurt people for pleasure she has had plenty of opportunities and taken none of them.
This is basic math, these are not opinions or headcanons, this is canon. Azula is neither bloody nor brutal, she’s elegant and intelligent. The main source of why her behaviour tend to be extreme is: she is under the impression that fear is the surest promise of loyalty. Its mostly intentional that she comes across this way, and projects this aura onto people, “afraid soldiers are obedient soldiers” databook, Azula’s Tale.
The point I am trying to make here is that sometimes there are evil characters in fiction who are feared because they’re bloody and brutal.
Azula is NOT one of these characters.
Her uniquely comes from her duality and/or complexity. From being forceful, but not brutal, from being intimidating but not bloody. From her arrogance, her escapism, her vulnerability and coldness, to be swayed by her affections and uncertainties. The fact that all these aspects of her can coexist without eclipsing the other.
The thing is: there’s no solid point in the whole show back up that Azula kills people out of whim or because she felt like it. [And yes, since it’s kids show they didn’t creat “super evil” characters bagan with and I depunk both off-screen and “IF it wasn’t kids’ show, they WOULD…” headcanons or arguments later on in this essay]
Also can I say how hilarious people are honestly trying to paint Azula as murderous when her possibly non-existent kill count issignificantly lowerthan the heroes. Remember Koizilla? How‘bout that time Sokka won a battle by blowing up half a mountain? Please. [“x” courierhawk]
[read under the cut for more comprehensive picture]
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