Azula
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| Avatar: The Last Airbender character | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Azula | |
| Nationality | Fire Nation |
| Gender | Female |
| Hair color | Dark Brown |
| Age | 14 [1] |
| First appearance | "The Storm" (Cameo) "The Siege of the North" |
| Voiced by | Grey DeLisle |
Princess Azula is a fictional character in Nickelodeon's animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender. The character, created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, is voiced by Grey DeLisle.
In the show, Azula is a gifted Firebending master and highly favored princess of the Fire Nation, a race of people with the ability to create and manipulate fire.[2] She is initially depicted as bent on retrieving her exiled brother, Prince Zuko, and delivering him to their father, Fire Lord Ozai while accompanied by her childhood friends, Mai and Ty Lee. Eventually her focus becomes more directed toward capturing the Avatar and aiding in the war to help secure her nation's victory.
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[edit] Plot overview
Azula first appears in a flashback, specifically Iroh's story about the Agni Kai in which Prince Zuko receives his facial scar and sentence of banishment.[3] Fans immediately began speculating upon who the girl standing next to Iroh might have been. Azula is not shown again until the end of the season, after the siege of the Northern Water Tribe, when Ozai orders Azula to arrest Zuko and Iroh for failure to capture the Avatar and betrayal against the Fire Nation, respectively.[4]
Although Azula's age is never stated in the series itself, the Avatar website gives her age at the time of her first appearance as fourteen. She is the great-granddaughter of both Fire Lord Sozin, through Ozai, and Avatar Roku, through Ursa.[5]
In another flashback, it is revealed that she is named after her grandfather, Ozai's father Azulon and that she and Azulon are both firebending prodigies.[6] Even when she was a child, Azula demonstrated her natural talents early in life, along with her tendency for malice and perfectionism. Her sharp wit and the skill she displayed towards Firebending gained her much attention and acclaim, and her father showed her obvious favoritism, often at Zuko's expense.
Azula is depicted as interested in power from a very young age. She is shown destroying a doll that her uncle had sent her and young Zuko mentions that she throws rocks at the tame turtle-ducks that live in their garden pond. Young Azula suggests that her father would make a far better Fire Lord than the heir apparent, her uncle, Iroh, whom she also dubbed "a quitter and a loser" for abandoning his siege at Ba Sing Se after the death of his son and only child, Lu Ten.[6] Years later, when her brother is burned by their father during an Agni Kai duel, she is shown watching with a savage triumph.[3]
Azula first encounters the Avatar in Omashu during the second season, where she and Aang battle. Soon after, she names the Avatar as a personal target in addition to her brother and enlists the help of her friends Ty Lee and Mai.[7] Azula continues to pursue the Avatar for the rest of the season, becoming the main antagonist like Zuko had been during the previous season. While in Ba Sing Se, she arranges a clever plot to have sent to the leader of the Dai Li, using Mai and Ty Lee as pawns in her elaborate plot, knowing that the Dai Li were keeping a watchfull eye and would be reporting any suspious action the plan turned out to be a success. She was kidnapped in the night and taken to Long Feng, he wanted the Earth King overthrown and in return, the Avatar would be captured and handed over to her. Although, Azula is sidetracked by her conquest of the city. Eventually, she is able to convince her brother to help her secure Ba Sing Se and take down the Avatar. This is achieved when he tries to resist her and fails and is aresseted by the Dai Li. During their showdown in the catacombs, Azula appears to have mortally wounded Aang while he is in the Avatar State with a lighting bolt. It is assumed that the Avatar State has now become broken, and Aang is later shown explaining that his seventh chakra is now "locked." However, Azula suspects that Aang survived. She eventually blames this on her brother.[8]
Upon returning home in the third season, it is revealed that Azula has not taken credit for the murder of the Avatar. She gave the credit to Zuko, claiming that she wanted to make him feel better as he faces their father and repay him for his aid in the siege of Ba Sing Se, knowing that her position in her father's eyes could survive without the additional glory to her name. After Zuko connotes that she's lying, Azula reveals that should the Avatar turn up still alive, all of Zuko's glory would turn to shame. This could lead many fans to believe that Azula planned to steal the throne from Zuko all along, as hinted at during a prophetic dream that Zuko has in Ba Sing Se, where Azula was depicted as a blue dragon. [9]
During "The Day of Black Sun," Azula serves as a distraction to keep Aang, Sokka, and Toph from finding Fire Lord Ozai, assisted by Dai Li agents. She learned of this invasion when she infitrated the Earth Kingdom as a Kyoshi Warrior. [10] Later, Azula accompanies Mai and Ty Lee to the Boiling Rock, where Zuko has been captured, but Zuko, Sokka, Suki, and Hakoda escape. During the escape, Mai attacks the guards allowing them to escape. Azula's calm breaks, and in a fury, she attempts to attack Mai, but is stopped by Ty Lee. After having Mai and Ty Lee locked away, a crazed Azula leads a platoon to the Western Air Temple. There she duels with Zuko until they are both thrown from the airship. She survives by propelling herself to safety. This could arguably signify the beginning of her descent into madness.
In the finale, Ozai, after declaring himself the Phoenix King, names Azula as the new Fire Lord, but says that she must remain in the Fire Nation to lead the people while he is gone. Azula's tolerance begins to deteriorate, which leads her to banishing nearly all of her servants, including the Dai Li and Lo and Li in suspicion that they would betray her just as Mai and Ty Lee did. She even imagines her mother coming to her coronation on the day of Sozin's Comet after she cuts off some of her hair in frustration. When she is about to be crowned, Katara and Zuko arrive and she then challenges Zuko to an Agni Kai knowing that she couldn't defeat both of them. Zuko accepts the offer due to his recent mastery over firebending and sensing her unstable character. Zuko has the upper hand throughout the duel, and in order for her to defeat Zuko, she directs lightning toward Katara. Zuko however is able to get in front of the blast, saving Katara, and is able to redirect most of it, but is severely burned. Azula then zones in on Katara, but Katara eventually ends up freezing her and chaining her to the floor. When Katara goes to heal Zuko, Azula breaks down completely and begins crying and screaming. It was later confirmed on Nick.com that Azula is currently incarcerated in an Asylum where she is constantly supervised.
[edit] Personality
Azula is a complex young woman. Ever since she was born, she was raised by her father to be a cruel, ruthless firebender and to manipulate people by controlling them through fear. She is a dedicated nationalist, relentlessly drilling herself towards perfection and will settle for nothing less.[11] Even as a child she was seen to react with hostility when outdone. In a flashback, a young Azula is shown pushing Ty Lee over after Ty Lee beats her at cartwheeling.[6] She is rather vain and believes that power and domination are what makes a person strong.[12] She is known for being one of the cruelest characters in the series. From a young age, Azula demonstrated sadistic aggression and lack of remorse.[6] She lacks empathy, treats people as objects and seems unable to view them as living beings with feelings and emotions. Her cruelty and seemingly total lack of compassion extends to many born into her family.[6] Her amorality also accounts for her ability to create and direct lightning, as the skill requires peace of mind[13]. It's this peace of mind that enables her to be such an excellent tactician, regularly displaying a perception and resourcefulness that allows her to take advantage of almost any situation as well as predict a person's actions and thoughts with confidence that she's right, referring to herself as a "people person".
Ironically, for all her refinement and self-confidence, Azula does retain some insecurities. Although she is shown as a good strategist and capable of predicting what her enemies will do, she has a disadvantage in ordinary social situations. In particular, she does not know how to act around teenage boys, whom she tends to intimidate. Her over-competitive nature surfaces during a Kuai ball game, where, despite it being a friendly game, she turns an opponent's slight lameness against her and overly crushes her, comparing the game to an act of war. She later admits her jealousy over how much attention Ty Lee receives from boys after making her cry and giving a quick apology; the only act of genuine kindness that she gives throughout her appearances. [14] It later becomes apparent that her bullying and abusive treatment of people, even "friends" such as Mai and Ty Lee, stems not only from her cruel nature but a deep-rooted fear and inability to trust others. From a young age, she believed her mother favored Zuko and didn't love her, seeing her as a monster; while Ozai obviously favored her over Zuko, it is clear that Ozai is incapable of true, unconditional love and dispensed affection and favor to shape his two children as tools that would respond to his will. This shaped Azula's fears that she couldn't count on love or affection from anyone, no matter how close they seemed. Unable to trust others, she instead tries to dominate them through fear - a paranoia that ultimately drives her insane following the betrayal of her closest friends. Most of Azula's strain, though, is from her father. Possibly the only person to whom she feels accountable, Azula is anxious to please him so that he won't think of her as a failure. Azula won't settle for the slightest infraction in anything and always plans 5 steps ahead to avoid anything that could mess up her perfect image with Ozai.
[edit] Abilities
Azula is a very difficult person to defeat in a one-on-one battle. Her excellent firebending abilities, hand-to-hand combat skills, quickness, and intelligence makes her a formidable foe for just about anyone.
Azula is proficient in the difficult technique of using lightning, a pure form of Firebending. The only other known firebenders who are capable of lightning are Iroh and Ozai. Iroh, Aang and Zuko have been shown to redirect lightning by Iroh's technique, though Aang and Zuko have never been seen creating lightning.[11] Even while breaking down into paranoia and insanity, Azula was still able to create lightning. The second most noticeable feature of Princess Azula's bending is her ability to create blue flames, a feat that not even the Avatar, Ozai or Iroh can perform. Azula has been seen using flames in previously unseen ways, such as jets of flames and whirling disks. Notably, Azula often firebends using only two fingers, rather than a closed fist or open hand.[7] Azula can fight for long periods of time without tiring. (This discipline seems to deteriorate with her sanity; in her final battle with Zuko, she strikes with careless attacks and giant, wasteful bursts of flame, explaining why she tires so quickly and easily in that fight. Her reckless unpredictability in that battle, however, makes her all the more dangerous, especially since Sozin's comet was present at the time). She is also able to generate powerful shields of swirling flames, which she once used to withstand the simultaneous combined attacks of Aang, Zuko, Katara and Toph.[15] She is even able to charge up her fire before releasing it, as was seen during one fight with Aang.[16] She is able to propel herself, using her flames, in a manner similar to a rocket. This ability has also been extended as a means to fly for short periods of time as seen in the Boiling Rock.[12]. Azula is also a skilled melee fighter; in the "The Avatar State," she easily blocked or parried all of Zuko's attacks without the use of Firebending, and in "The Eclipse," avoided the combined forces of Aang, Toph, and Sokka for several minutes, without her bending to aid her. In "Appa's Lost Days", when Suki did a stab attack at Azula with her sword, Azula jumped horizontally and knocked Suki's sword out of her hand and onto a tree. She is an extremely skilled liar, as even Toph was unable to detect her lying.[10] This ability to lie without altering her heart rate and breathing patterns may stem from her discipline, or from the detached aspect of her personality that allows her to inflict savage cruelty without any hint of hesitation or remorse. She is also an accomplished tactician, as she was able to conquer Ba Sing Se, a city thought to be impenetrable, while usurping the entire Government and hierarchy of the Earth Kingdom capital. (www.wikipedia.org)
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