I do have to say that I loved the way in which Azula was finally defeated. It was the ultimate irony; ever since we first saw her she has been defeating opponents stronger than herself through trickery (think Iroh, Aang...), indeed, that was exactly what she did to Zuko - it is a measure of her sheer awesomeness that even when she had completely lost it she still figured out how to outsmart her opponent. Then, when she faced Katara, and for the first time in ages was up against a foe far weaker than her, she was herself defeated through trickery. If ever a villain was ever defeated through sheer irony, I think it is definitely Azula.

Have you ever had the experience of falling in love with a character of a story? I don't know how it happened, but somehow, it happened to me with Azula. I did not become an Avatar fanatic the first time I saw the show, in fact I had seen several episodes before I fell in love with it. Why did I fall in love with it? Because I saw an episode with Azula in it. To be precise, it was 208, 'The Chase'. Up until that point, I had only seen a couple of episodes from Book 1, and the first ten minutes of "The Blind Bandit", and so when Azula first appeared during this episode I had no idea who she was, how she could shoot lightning, or how the heck anyone, no matter how awesome their character could be capable of easily beating the good guys, actually hurting one of them, on what I had previously taken to be just another Nickelodeon cartoon. I was fascinated, and it was this fascination that drove me to keep watching Avatar, ultimately becoming hopelessly addicted. Azula remained my favorite character (although Aang soon became a close second), and throughout book two, whenever she appeared in a fight, I found myself subconsciously cheering for her. I don't know what it was about her character that appealed to me at this point. Perhaps it was her sheer defiant will, her iron spirit, her refusal to submit. Perhaps it was her cunning, the cold calculation that made her such a good villain. Perhaps it was that she appeared to be an avid student of history (I love history, and am always willing to give anyone who takes an interest in it a chance). Perhaps it was the fact that she kicked butt. Perhaps it was simply the fact that she was hot (you can't deny it!). Either way, she continued to hold my interest.

I approached the finale of book two therefore, with a great sense of trepidation. I was certain that Azula was heading towards a similar fate to Zhao, and while I knew that I would always remain loyal to Avatar, I had a gut feeling that I simply would never enjoy it the same way. But I was in for a big surprise. As the credits flashed across the screen (I was watching it on DVD) I simply sat on the couch, frozen, with so many different emotions racing through me that I think it was some time before I actually got up. As much as I had wanted Aang to win, I found myself glad that Azula had survived.

Season three began to air not long afterwards, and before long the first four episodes had come and gone, and "The Beach" was on. And it was in this episode that for the first time we began to get the vague hints that Azula was something more than a cold-blooded villain.

I think that Azula's chief problem is the fact that in addition to believing that her mother hated her, and thought that she was a monster, she also knew that her mother was right - she was a monster, in many senses of the word. And she believed that she could never be anything else. This soon lead to her belief that if her mother didn't love her, then nobody else could ever love her either. Her solution to the problem was to effectively cut herself off from all such emotions as love, friendship, etc. Ultimately, she came to live in a world of cold logic and ruthlessness, and she believed that everyone else thought the same way as she did. For all her brilliance at reading and manipulating people and their emotions she had no concept of other people's feelings. Her one saving grace was her friendship with Mai and Ty Lee. For all Azula's manipulations and domination of her friends, I feel that there was a friendship there, at some level, perhaps with the part of Azula that had originally been devastated by her mother's rejection. It was in the beach that we saw the this side of Azula for perhaps the only time, when she made a genuine effort to apologize to and comfort Ty Lee. It didn't last long, and it never showed itself again, but it was definitely there.

It was Azula's insensitivity to other's feelings, as well as her natural assumption that everyone thought the way she did, that lead to her "miscalculation" at the Boiling Rock. Had she been in Mai's position, Azula would have forgotten all about Zuko, and done the "smart thing", AKA "You should have feared me more!". She had no idea that anyone was capable of loving someone else to the extent of dieing for them.

When Mai, and soon after, Ty Lee, betrayed her, Azula was most likely devastated. Her friends had most likely been the only people other than her mother who she had ever felt close to, or wanted to feel close to. her immediate reaction was to go straight after the person she perceived as having been the cause of her friends betrayal - Zuko, but he evaded her.

Azula was left alone with the realization that her close friends had betrayed her. And with this came the realization that if she could not control her friends (as she had believed was perfectly natural to do), she couldn't control anyone else either. We got the first hint of her new vulnerability in "The Phoenix King", during her conversation with Ozai. As soon as she heard that Ozai intended to leave her behind, Azula immediately jumped to the conclusion that her father was also turning on her - "You can't treat me like Zuko!". She was soon reassured by his decision to make her firelord, but the damage was done. Azula was left twitchy, jumpy, and constantly analyzing everyone and everything around her for the tiniest little sign that betrayal was coming. Soon, her paranoia had grown to such a level that she ordered everyone to depart believing that the only person she could count on was herself. As it turned out, she could no longer even trust herself, and the final straw was when she found even her hair betraying her.

Up until this point, Azula had lead a rigidly controlled life, controlled by herself. Everything about her being was carefully maintained in a state of perfection. When she finally realized that she could no longer even control her hair, let alone the people around her, she recognized at some level that she had lost control of her own life. And with the careful, perfect, artificial being that she had fashioned herself into gone, the tiny remaining need for companionship, love, that remained in her came out in the form of Ursa, the person whose apparent rejection had originally decided Azula in what she would make of her life. What Azula never allowed herself to admit before was that her mother may have thought her a monster, but still loved her, still had hope for her. Azula could never allow herself to admit this, because the moment she did so, she admitted that she had been wrong, that she might have taken a different path in life to the one she had taken. It was with this realization that Azula finally gave in and admitted to herself that she had been wrong, that if she had realized earlier that her mother had actually loved her, then she could have lead an incredibly different life to the one she had. The revelation was too much for her, and she attempt to banish it, shattering the mirror. But it was too late. All of her concepts of life had been shattered. All she could think of to do was to go through with what she had originally intended to do, and be crowned firelord.

But as the coronation was taking place, she had an apparent stroke of luck, in the form of the arrival of Zuko. Here at last for Azula was something she could fight, something she could blame all of her problems on. It had been Zuko who been the center of their mother's love. It had been Zuko who had caused Mai and Ty lee to betray her. It had been Zuko who had exposed her for lying to Ozai, potentially lessening his favor of her. In short, Zuko was someone she could take out all her anger on.

The type of firebending Azula and Ozai favored was fueled by anger, rage, etc, etc, and Azula had plenty of that to call upon. Zuko's original firebending would have been stronger, but Azula's intensified blue fire was its match, and even though she might be tottering on the brink of utter insanity, Azula's prodigal mental abilities, her cunning and tactical genius, were intact. After a hard fought battle, Azula had defeated her brother once again. At last, it seemed that she had a chance of getting her life back together, having everything she ever dreamed of. But there was one small problem. Some pesky water tribe peasant girl was attempting to get to Zuko, heal him, bring him back to ruin Azula's life again. This could not be allowed. The waterbender was obviously inferior power-wise, so Azula most likely wasn't even thinking as she blindly barged after her, looking for the person who was trying to ruin things just as they seemed to be getting better, so she could burn her alive. The next thing Azula knew, she had been frozen in a block of ice, her hands had been chained, and moments later she saw Zuko, alive, and looking like he was going to live, and take everything she had had left. For Azula, it was the end.

That is my interpretation of what went wrong with Azula. My only authority is as a person who has been fascinated with Azula for about a year and a half, and who continues to be fascinated by her, and what will happen to her now. Something that keeps coming up is; what will happen to Azula now?

I say that she will heal. Everything about her life has changed, and I think that she has come to some fairly major revelations about that life. I personally think Azula will be the one (in the imaginary future of Avatar) who finds Ursa. What happens to Azula and where Ursa is are the two major gaps at the end of the story, and as such, I believe that they are related somehow. Whether Azula would be capable of the same type of redemption as her brother is very questionable, but it should be remembered that what originally shaped Azula's belief that she was always going to be a "monster", was her belief that her mother thought her so. If Ursa were to reassure Azula that she had hope, that would be a huge step in a possible redemption similar to the one Iroh guided Zuko along, possibly right down to the sickness and nightmares.

I think that leaving these substantial holes at the end of their story may well be Bryke's final and greatest stroke of genius. Stories that tie up all the loose ends are the ones that lose all interst once they are finished. But the ones that leave dark corners unexplored, wide open futures, these are the stories that inspire fans to stay with them for years, attempting to explore those dark corners, those unspoken futures.

Although the magnificent tale of the last airbender may be over, his world is not finished yet. But that will have to wait for another day.

I do have to say that I loved the way in which Azula was finally defeated. It was the ultimate irony; ever since we first saw her she has been defeating opponents stronger than herself through trickery (think Iroh, Aang...), indeed, that was exactly what she did to Zuko - it is a measure of her sheer awesomeness that even when she had completely lost it she still figured out how to outsmart her opponent. Then, when she faced Katara, and for the first time in ages was up against a foe far weaker than her, she was herself defeated through trickery. If ever a villain was ever defeated through sheer irony, I think it is definitely Azula.

Have you ever had the experience of falling in love with a character of a story? I don't know how it happened, but somehow, it happened to me with Azula. I did not become an Avatar fanatic the first time I saw the show, in fact I had seen several episodes before I fell in love with it. Why did I fall in love with it? Because I saw an episode with Azula in it. To be precise, it was 208, 'The Chase'. Up until that point, I had only seen a couple of episodes from Book 1, and the first ten minutes of "The Blind Bandit", and so when Azula first appeared during this episode I had no idea who she was, how she could shoot lightning, or how the heck anyone, no matter how awesome their character could be capable of easily beating the good guys, actually hurting one of them, on what I had previously taken to be just another Nickelodeon cartoon. I was fascinated, and it was this fascination that drove me to keep watching Avatar, ultimately becoming hopelessly addicted. Azula remained my favorite character (although Aang soon became a close second), and throughout book two, whenever she appeared in a fight, I found myself subconsciously cheering for her. I don't know what it was about her character that appealed to me at this point. Perhaps it was her sheer defiant will, her iron spirit, her refusal to submit. Perhaps it was her cunning, the cold calculation that made her such a good villain. Perhaps it was that she appeared to be an avid student of history (I love history, and am always willing to give anyone who takes an interest in it a chance). Perhaps it was the fact that she kicked butt. Perhaps it was simply the fact that she was hot (you can't deny it!). Either way, she continued to hold my interest.

I approached the finale of book two therefore, with a great sense of trepidation. I was certain that Azula was heading towards a similar fate to Zhao, and while I knew that I would always remain loyal to Avatar, I had a gut feeling that I simply would never enjoy it the same way. But I was in for a big surprise. As the credits flashed across the screen (I was watching it on DVD) I simply sat on the couch, frozen, with so many different emotions racing through me that I think it was some time before I actually got up. As much as I had wanted Aang to win, I found myself glad that Azula had survived.

Season three began to air not long afterwards, and before long the first four episodes had come and gone, and "The Beach" was on. And it was in this episode that for the first time we began to get the vague hints that Azula was something more than a cold-blooded villain.

I think that Azula's chief problem is the fact that in addition to believing that her mother hated her, and thought that she was a monster, she also knew that her mother was right - she was a monster, in many senses of the word. And she believed that she could never be anything else. This soon lead to her belief that if her mother didn't love her, then nobody else could ever love her either. Her solution to the problem was to effectively cut herself off from all such emotions as love, friendship, etc. Ultimately, she came to live in a world of cold logic and ruthlessness, and she believed that everyone else thought the same way as she did. For all her brilliance at reading and manipulating people and their emotions she had no concept of other people's feelings. Her one saving grace was her friendship with Mai and Ty Lee. For all Azula's manipulations and domination of her friends, I feel that there was a friendship there, at some level, perhaps with the part of Azula that had originally been devastated by her mother's rejection. It was in the beach that we saw the this side of Azula for perhaps the only time, when she made a genuine effort to apologize to and comfort Ty Lee. It didn't last long, and it never showed itself again, but it was definitely there.

It was Azula's insensitivity to other's feelings, as well as her natural assumption that everyone thought the way she did, that lead to her "miscalculation" at the Boiling Rock. Had she been in Mai's position, Azula would have forgotten all about Zuko, and done the "smart thing", AKA "You should have feared me more!". She had no idea that anyone was capable of loving someone else to the extent of dieing for them.

When Mai, and soon after, Ty Lee, betrayed her, Azula was most likely devastated. Her friends had most likely been the only people other than her mother who she had ever felt close to, or wanted to feel close to. her immediate reaction was to go straight after the person she perceived as having been the cause of her friends betrayal - Zuko, but he evaded her.

Azula was left alone with the realization that her close friends had betrayed her. And with this came the realization that if she could not control her friends (as she had believed was perfectly natural to do), she couldn't control anyone else either. We got the first hint of her new vulnerability in "The Phoenix King", during her conversation with Ozai. As soon as she heard that Ozai intended to leave her behind, Azula immediately jumped to the conclusion that her father was also turning on her - "You can't treat me like Zuko!". She was soon reassured by his decision to make her firelord, but the damage was done. Azula was left twitchy, jumpy, and constantly analyzing everyone and everything around her for the tiniest little sign that betrayal was coming. Soon, her paranoia had grown to such a level that she ordered everyone to depart believing that the only person she could count on was herself. As it turned out, she could no longer even trust herself, and the final straw was when she found even her hair betraying her.

Up until this point, Azula had lead a rigidly controlled life, controlled by herself. Everything about her being was carefully maintained in a state of perfection. When she finally realized that she could no longer even control her hair, let alone the people around her, she recognized at some level that she had lost control of her own life. And with the careful, perfect, artificial being that she had fashioned herself into gone, the tiny remaining need for companionship, love, that remained in her came out in the form of Ursa, the person whose apparent rejection had originally decided Azula in what she would make of her life. What Azula never allowed herself to admit before was that her mother may have thought her a monster, but still loved her, still had hope for her. Azula could never allow herself to admit this, because the moment she did so, she admitted that she had been wrong, that she might have taken a different path in life to the one she had taken. It was with this realization that Azula finally gave in and admitted to herself that she had been wrong, that if she had realized earlier that her mother had actually loved her, then she could have lead an incredibly different life to the one she had. The revelation was too much for her, and she attempt to banish it, shattering the mirror. But it was too late. All of her concepts of life had been shattered. All she could think of to do was to go through with what she had originally intended to do, and be crowned firelord.

But as the coronation was taking place, she had an apparent stroke of luck, in the form of the arrival of Zuko. Here at last for Azula was something she could fight, something she could blame all of her problems on. It had been Zuko who been the center of their mother's love. It had been Zuko who had caused Mai and Ty lee to betray her. It had been Zuko who had exposed her for lying to Ozai, potentially lessening his favor of her. In short, Zuko was someone she could take out all her anger on.

The type of firebending Azula and Ozai favored was fueled by anger, rage, etc, etc, and Azula had plenty of that to call upon. Zuko's original firebending would have been stronger, but Azula's intensified blue fire was its match, and even though she might be tottering on the brink of utter insanity, Azula's prodigal mental abilities, her cunning and tactical genius, were intact. After a hard fought battle, Azula had defeated her brother once again. At last, it seemed that she had a chance of getting her life back together, having everything she ever dreamed of. But there was one small problem. Some pesky water tribe peasant girl was attempting to get to Zuko, heal him, bring him back to ruin Azula's life again. This could not be allowed. The waterbender was obviously inferior power-wise, so Azula most likely wasn't even thinking as she blindly barged after her, looking for the person who was trying to ruin things just as they seemed to be getting better, so she could burn her alive. The next thing Azula knew, she had been frozen in a block of ice, her hands had been chained, and moments later she saw Zuko, alive, and looking like he was going to live, and take everything she had had left. For Azula, it was the end.

That is my interpretation of what went wrong with Azula. My only authority is as a person who has been fascinated with Azula for about a year and a half, and who continues to be fascinated by her, and what will happen to her now. Something that keeps coming up is; what will happen to Azula now?

I say that she will heal. Everything about her life has changed, and I think that she has come to some fairly major revelations about that life. I personally think Azula will be the one (in the imaginary future of Avatar) who finds Ursa. What happens to Azula and where Ursa is are the two major gaps at the end of the story, and as such, I believe that they are related somehow. Whether Azula would be capable of the same type of redemption as her brother is very questionable, but it should be remembered that what originally shaped Azula's belief that she was always going to be a "monster", was her belief that her mother thought her so. If Ursa were to reassure Azula that she had hope, that would be a huge step in a possible redemption similar to the one Iroh guided Zuko along, possibly right down to the sickness and nightmares.

I think that leaving these substantial holes at the end of their story may well be Bryke's final and greatest stroke of genius. Stories that tie up all the loose ends are the ones that lose all interst once they are finished. But the ones that leave dark corners unexplored, wide open futures, these are the stories that inspire fans to stay with them for years, attempting to explore those dark corners, those unspoken futures.

Although the magnificent tale of the last airbender may be over, his world is not finished yet. But that will have to wait for another day.