Analyzing Evil: Azula From Avatar: The Last Airbender

Welcome everyone and welcome to the fifty-eighth episode of Analyzing Evil! Our feature villain for this video is Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for watching. If you have any feedback or questions feel free to let me know below!

Music provided by CO.AG

#Azula #Avatar #Avatarthelastairbender

[TheVileEye]

GASP! TWO ANIMATED CHARACTERS IN A ROW?! Purely coincidence everyone. Planned on covering Griffith at the end of November, and the patrons chose Azula for December. Your regular human programming shall resume next week.

[victorconway]

I think Ozai's favoritism for Azula is also rooted in personal spite. He always felt like he was playing second fiddle to his older brother, Iroh, just because he was second born. He detested the idea that someone was entitled to the throne just because they were born first. So his hatred for Zuko and making Azula his _de facto_ heir is just his one last jab at his own brother and parents. Also doesn't help either that Zuko's conscience was reminiscent of Iroh from a very young age while Azula was the mirror image of Ozai's personality.

[Dissection]

I love perfectionist villains. Azula is an exceptional girl that is fascinating due to her unstable, yet unparalleled skills in practically everything, with the exception of being social and her being absolutely insane. She did what an entire army could not do and conquered the impregnable Bae Sin Sae. She is top tier, and she did it before adulthood. There needs to be more villains like this animated character.

[GUMMRUCHK]

Worst thing about Azula is that she is in fact brilliant she could have very easily been a Fire Lord of unequaled talent. With a sane Azula at it's head I think the Fire Nation might have finally won the war or if she was inclined towards peace ended the war.

[Reyma]

When I was younger I never realized how well written Avatar:The Last Airbender was. As a teen, I never realized how Azula’s own actions and defeats gestated her schizophrenia.

[mitchellsullivan]

I definitely think you missed azulas obsession with perfection. She is always referred to as a prodigy, and always gets her way. Even in a small training exercise using lightning, she is one hair out of place and reacts savagely. When she cant control everything in her life and she sees everyone around her betraying her, she breaks down

[jagrant]

The Most Chilling Scene in TLA is when in Sozin’s Comet Azula has a mental breakdown after she lost and starts crying. I can’t help but get teary everytime I watch it.

[kristofgriffin]

Next to Iroh, Azula has got to be my favorite character from Avatar. Her mentality is frighteningly perverse, a child warped into a monster by the need to feel loved. A child who morphs into a demon because jealousy and a lack of love compel her to seek admiration through the only means she has ever known, fear.

[我主也]

Azula is an excellent character which foils Zuko's story, showing how the outcast child and the favourite child in fact BOTH suffer under a narcissistic parent. Azula was fully indoctrinated in Fire Nation supremacy and supremacist ideology becomes self-defeating, as one of its strongest assets and actors cannot bear the cognitive dissonance it creates with reality. Azula had the immense drive and willpower necessary to be the flawless princess, and it was her very nature which combined with nurture to set her up for her personal tragedy. It is stirring and her descent gets me every time!

[davidgeorge]

A personal highlight of Azula for me was the Day of Black Sun, where a total solar eclipse disabled all firebending for eight minutes, and Team Avatar fully intended to capitalize on that moment of vulnerability. However, thanks to her coup in Ba Sing Se, she learned of this invasion months in advance, allowing the Fire Nation to prepare against it. She served as a decoy for her father, set a couple of Dai Li agents to fend off Aang, Toph, and Sokka, who were unaffected by the eclipse, being that they were earthbenders. She also proved herself to be immune (or at least resistant) to Toph's lie detecting ability by telling an outlandish falsehood that even Toph could see as a lie, and she's blind! She also managed to stall for long enough by attempting to evade capture, and even when she was caught, she managed to manipulate them long enough for the Fire to turn back on.

[NotWorthBeans]

As much as I knew Azula had to be stopped that scene where Katara manages to chain her up makes me cry. Seeing Azula lash out in fear, confusion, and rage always gets me. She was so broken her whole life because of her father's control. She felt she had to have everything in control and perfect in order to be loved and when that was finally taken from her she had nothing.

[rhymenoceros]

Omg yes Azula is easily one of top 10 animated villains of all time. She’s intimidating, smart powerful and has a lot of tragic depth to her. It’s hard to believe at times she’s only 14 during the events of the story. She is a brilliantly written character that you love to hate yet manage to pity in the end.

[DefinitelyNotEmma]

I always found Azula to be a very compelling Antagonist for Zuko in particular, as a symbol of what the Fire Nation was for him to overcome to become Fire Lord himself

[lunsen]

should also be mentioned i think that the marrige between ozai and his Urza was coerced, and while such things can´t be shown in a TV show and comic for the whole family, but it wouldn´t be that far of a stretch to belive that the two children of this marrige was boorn from things that rhyme with grape. In any case a marrige born from coercion isn´t a good enviroment for children. honestly its a miracle zoku turned out as well as he did

[stonefree]

Azula is easily one of my favorite villains ever, behind the villains of Hunter x Hunter and Gargoyles. She has undeniable power and an extreme sense of tragedy. Loved her dynamic with Zuko and the threat she posed to most of the characters.

[seanmcinerney]

Azula is such a well written character and may actually be one of my favorite characters in avatar. I appreciate how you mention just how much Azulas upbringing affected her.. a toxic abusive cruel household that encourages brutality is no proper upbringing and in a way it’s sad how Azula was groomed into believing this was the superior way of thought. Now I’m not saying Azula was a good person she’s so clearly not but you can’t help but wonder if it was ever possible to harness her in like Zuko. At the end of the day while she’s not a good person she’s clearly a mentally ill psychologically abused young woman, it’s sad really.

[facundogonzalez]

I think you missed, slightly, Azula's obssesive personality or maybe lack of individuality? Not sure how to call it. She needs to focus in someone, at least by her later portrayals. First her father, then her mother and finally Zuko. Azula cannot be an independent person, she needs to latch to someone.

[petermj]

Azula’s manipulation of Ty Lee and Mai are specifically important to her decent into madnesses and loneliness.
Azula intimidated Ty Lee to fight for her by making her do dangerous stunts in the circus and Azula intimidated Mai to not to trade the Earth king for her infant brother. Both Ty Lee and Mai knew what she did was wrong but did it out of fear of her. Mai eventually confronts Azula saying “I love Zuko more than I fear you”- which perfect tells Azula’s “friendship” with Ty Lee and Mai only lasted because of intimidation by Azula.
Ty Lee and Mai are closer to her than her mother and Azula realized it when she first hallucinated her mother.

[Stormkrow]

Through both Azula and Zuko we can see just how horrible a father Ozai was. Azula was also a victim, but in the opposite way, where all Zuko received from his father was scorn, Azula was held to high expectations, pushing herself to meet those expectations because she didn’t want to be treated like Zuko.

Off topic but I read something rather horrifying: I don’t remember the episode but Azula taunts Zuko by holding her hand up in front of her face, obviously to mimic Zuko’s scar, but one theory said there was something else to it. If we look through the series we see that firebenders are notoriously hard to burn, often shrugging off blasts with little to no damage, even from point blank range, so how did Zuko get his scar? The theory suggests that Ozai concentrated heat into the palm of his hand and pressed it into zukos face, searing the skin and flesh permanently.

[jy]

Azula absolutely earns her spot among the ranks of Walter White, Darth Vader, and Jaws. Anyone at any age can love the ATLA story.