Arsonist's Lullaby: An Azula Timeloop Quest

[X] The past. It's what has driven you here. It's what you're trapped in. It's what you want to break out of. But it's Zuko's past, too. You've spent the whole of your lives chasing each other's shadows—on your whole family's encouragement. Has he ever realised? Does he even care? And why does it seem so impossible to escape?

[X] The present. Here you stand, before your brother. Here doubt has driven you. Does Zuko doubt, too? Is he still angry at himself? If you were him, you would be. But maybe that's his secret. Maybe he's always angry. Maybe you're angry too. The world isn't what you thought it was—and you think Zuko can relate. What will happen if you let him?

I think this is the most approiate for Azulas state of mind right now, also just want to say props to the author I have just found this quest and have gotten sucked right in

[X] The present. Here you stand, before your brother. Here doubt has driven you. Does Zuko doubt, too? Is he still angry at himself? If you were him, you would be. But maybe that's his secret. Maybe he's always angry. Maybe you're angry too. The world isn't what you thought it was—and you think Zuko can relate. What will happen if you let him?

It will be funny to see them try to talk without a plan, without any one thing they need to say and are forced to talk around. Just a game of feelings chicken to see who blinks first and opens up about something.

No idea if it's intentional on your part, Magery, but I've been thinking a lot about what a compelling vision of Hell this story is. Like, exactly how I imagine it.

[X] The present. Here you stand, before your brother. Here doubt has driven you. Does Zuko doubt, too? Is he still angry at himself? If you were him, you would be. But maybe that's his secret. Maybe he's always angry. Maybe you're angry too. The world isn't what you thought it was—and you think Zuko can relate. What will happen if you let him?

You know, I assume Azula has learned by now when Zuko is at the Western Air Temple and when he isn't.

Which is too bad, because it would be really funny if he was off with Katara looking for her mother's killer when Azula arrives.

And it would be really funny if Mai convinced Sokka (who did, after all, see Mai save him and Zuko) that Azula really was visiting just to talk, and so when Zuko and Katara get back the whole gaang is just sitting around the fire with Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee hanging out too.

Anyway,

[X] The present.

Maping said:

Now, is that a sign that Azula is an abuser, or that she's a child with a toxic mentality on how to maintain friendships? You decide!

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They're not mutually exclusive.

I think I'm gonna have to give this a re-read tomorrow. It's some heavy stuff and I am not equipped to parse it right now. I suppose that's a compliment in its own right, of a sort.

[X] The present. Here you stand, before your brother. Here doubt has driven you. Does Zuko doubt, too? Is he still angry at himself? If you were him, you would be. But maybe that's his secret. Maybe he's always angry. Maybe you're angry too. The world isn't what you thought it was—and you think Zuko can relate. What will happen if you let him?

[X] The present. Here you stand, before your brother. Here doubt has driven you. Does Zuko doubt, too? Is he still angry at himself? If you were him, you would be. But maybe that's his secret. Maybe he's always angry. Maybe you're angry too. The world isn't what you thought it was—and you think Zuko can relate. What will happen if you let him?

[X] The present. Here you stand, before your brother. Here doubt has driven you. Does Zuko doubt, too? Is he still angry at himself? If you were him, you would be. But maybe that's his secret. Maybe he's always angry. Maybe you're angry too. The world isn't what you thought it was—and you think Zuko can relate. What will happen if you let him?

*Sigh* O Azula, you are one ball of repressed psychological problems, aren't you?

[X] The present. Here you stand, before your brother. Here doubt has driven you. Does Zuko doubt, too? Is he still angry at himself? If you were him, you would be. But maybe that's his secret. Maybe he's always angry. Maybe you're angry too. The world isn't what you thought it was—and you think Zuko can relate. What will happen if you let him?

A_Somebody said:

I agree with both points, and it's ultimately why I'm not sure how productive these "what are you actually gonna do as fire lord eh Zuko?" options will be.

Like sure he doesn't know about what a good tarrif or sales tax rate is[1] or how to wrangle the egos/material conxerns of the various FN power brokers, but it's like who cares the Fire Nation needs to be stopped before they cause another charnel house. All of these other concerns can very firmly be shoved into the "problem for tomorrow" category when today you have to stop Sozin's Genocide mkii

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The thing is, though, Zuko isn't doing that, if he's in Caldera challenging Azula; that's what Aang and the people with him at the time are doing. If the team trying to take out Ozai fail to do so, Zuko beating Azula doesn't matter, and if they succeed, that's Sozin's Genocide II stopped whether or not Zuko beats Azula; unless I'm badly mistaken about how long the comet's effect lasts, by the time the new Fire Lord Zuko could get the orders to stop to the front lines -- those areas Aang and company weren't already taking care of -- the opportunity would have passed anyway. Of course, the Fire Nation could still continue its slow conquest and genocidal actions associated with that -- but stopping that isn't a case of winning a single battle against the Head Bad Guy whoever is the Head Bad Guy of the moment, it's a matter of convincing the soldiers to stop and/or fighting a campaign to go around individually defeating the ones who refuse. And who refuses to stop, and the manner of their refusal, does depend on the perceived legitimacy of the Fire Lord giving the order.

In canon, Ozai was dead, Azula was clearly incapable, and Iroh was supporting Zuko, leaving Zuko the clear leading candidate; any who disobeyed could expect to face the bulk of the Fire Nation declaring them traitors and fighting them, and that even if there were enough who disobeyed to prevent that, it would instead result in a chaotic, multi-faction civil war as various distant-second or no-connection-seeking-to-found-a-whole-new-dynasty candidates fought amongst each other -- a fight which at most one faction would eventually win, and that if the Fire Nation's enemies didn't take advantage of the situation and destroy it. Result: it didn't matter how good a Fire Lord people thought Zuko would be or how much of a plan he had, because any alternative was clearly much worse that following him.

Here, however, we have Azula. I highly doubt the goal of the quest is to get Azula killed and staying dead, so she's going to be alive. Likewise, she's going to be sane and capable. And if there are two, and only two, viable candidates for the throne, that means that large, reasonably unified factions can fairly easily coalesce behind one or the other. That means that the differences in perceived legitimacy between Azula and Zuko matter quite a bit, because they'd be very important for predicting who'd win the ensuing civil war, and thus whether one side gives in before there's a civil war.

Now, more likely, the actual way a civil war's avoided here will be Azula, Zuko, and Iroh all agreeing on which of the three to support as Fire Lord. However, the perceived legitimacy, what each thinks of their own, what each thinks of each of the other two's, and what each thinks the people and particularly the military will think, is still vitally important for that. None of them want a Fire Nation civil war, but all of them want to do what they see as the right thing regarding the Fire Nation and are willing to fight for that. Any of the three has to believe that they're the best for the job and convince the other two to agree (And I do think it's all three; right now, Iroh's supporting Zuko over Azula and seems highly unlikely to support Azula over Zuko (and we also seem pretty unlikely to see Azula supporting Iroh on the condition Iroh stops supporting Zuko), but I could see him deciding that a Zuko supporting Azula has been tricked and that, for the good of everyone involved, Iroh himself has to make his own claim).

DracoDracul said:

Because it's increasingly clear that she doesn't real want to be Firelord and if Lu Ten was alive she'd be like 4th or 5th in line for the throne.

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...But, yeah, it also kind of looks like there's a nonzero chance we end up with a situation where none of the three actually want to be Fire Lord, and have maybe even managed to each convince both of the other two that's true, and then have to figure out who has to take the crown anyway.

somewhatLazy said:

Oh Azula

That's not the sort of pillow Lu Ten is reading about

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IIRC that's the sort of assumption I made at the time too (if I am correctly understanding your implication), but further up the thread Zomfgmikeftw posted this:

Zomfgmikeftw said:

The Pillow Book - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I see Lu Ten is a man of culture; Azula could learn much from such a writing.

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My understanding from reading some of the linked page is that the name actually derives from the book having originally been intended only for the author's own use but having been accidentally left on a pillow and found by a guest.

[X] The past. It's what has driven you here. It's what you're trapped in. It's what you want to break out of. But it's Zuko's past, too. You've spent the whole of your lives chasing each other's shadows—on your whole family's encouragement. Has he ever realised? Does he even care? And why does it seem so impossible to escape?

LightLost20 said:

[X_] The past. It's what has driven you here. It's what you're trapped in. It's what you want to break out of. But it's Zuko's past, too. You've spent the whole of your lives chasing each other's shadows—on your whole family's encouragement. Has he ever realised? Does he even care? And why does it seem so impossible to escape?

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Your vote has an extra space in the important brackets, which I'm pretty sure is going to mean the tally won't count it.

Reese said:

IIRC that's the sort of assumption I made at the time too (if I am correctly understanding your implication), but further up the thread Zomfgmikeftw posted this:

My understanding from reading some of the linked page is that the name actually derives from the book having originally been intended only for the author's own use but having been accidentally left on a pillow and found by a guest.

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The Pillow Book: Arthur Waley translation said:

"It is very tiresome when a lover who is leaving one at dawn says that he must look for a fan or pocket-book that he left somewhere about the room last night. As it is still too dark to see anything, he goes fumbling about all over the place, knocking into everything and muttering to himself, "How very odd!" When at last he finds the pocket-book he crams it into his dress with a great rustling of the pages; or if it is a fan he has lost, he swishes it open and begins flapping it about, so that when he finally takes his departure, instead of experiencing the feelings of regret proper to such an occasion, one merely feels irritated at his clumsiness....

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It's still a very useful book to a young man of a certain age, just more in a "how not to look like a bumbling idiot to the ladies" kind of way. (Or at least look like a bumbling idiot by Sei Shonagon's standards, and to be fair she saw a whole lot of people as bumbling idiots.)

Ivan Morris's translation speculates in the introduction that "The title, Makura no Soshi ("notes of the pillow"), whether or not Shonagon actually used it herself, was probably a generic term to describe a type of informal book of notes which men and women composed when they retired to their rooms in the evening and which they kept near their sleeping place, possibly in the drawers of their wooden pillows, so that they might record stray impressions" but isn't definite, so it looks like there's no one accepted explanation. Probably a few other apocryphal versions out there as well. For what it's worth I remember hearing the version Morris gives in a literature class. The generic term explanation would explain how it exists in the Avatar world, though it's funnier to believe Actual Sei Shonagon happens to exist in another world.

[X] The present. Here you stand, before your brother. Here doubt has driven you. Does Zuko doubt, too? Is he still angry at himself? If you were him, you would be. But maybe that's his secret. Maybe he's always angry. Maybe you're angry too. The world isn't what you thought it was—and you think Zuko can relate. What will happen if you let him?

Reese said:

...But, yeah, it also kind of looks like there's a nonzero chance we end up with a situation where none of the three actually want to be Fire Lord, and have maybe even managed to each convince both of the other two that's true, and then have to figure out who has to take the crown anyway.

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Well, you know what they say; the best kind of politician is the one who really, really doesn't want to be a politician.

[X] The future. The one place you cannot seem to reach, throne or no throne. Has Zuko ever wondered what it'll be like? No, not whether the mantle is heavy enough to cramp the shoulders, or what his first command as Fire Lord could be—just about the shape of the Sun's path through the sky, the day after Sozin's Comet, and what the world will have become in the face of that light. What does he see? What do you?

as poggers as usual

[X] The present. Here you stand, before your brother. Here doubt has driven you. Does Zuko doubt, too? Is he still angry at himself? If you were him, you would be. But maybe that's his secret. Maybe he's always angry. Maybe you're angry too. The world isn't what you thought it was—and you think Zuko can relate. What will happen if you let him?

[X] The past. It's what has driven you here. It's what you're trapped in. It's what you want to break out of. But it's Zuko's past, too. You've spent the whole of your lives chasing each other's shadows—on your whole family's encouragement. Has he ever realised? Does he even care? And why does it seem so impossible to escape?

[X] The present. Here you stand, before your brother. Here doubt has driven you. Does Zuko doubt, too? Is he still angry at himself? If you were him, you would be. But maybe that's his secret. Maybe he's always angry. Maybe you're angry too. The world isn't what you thought it was—and you think Zuko can relate. What will happen if you let him?

[X] The present. Here you stand, before your brother. Here doubt has driven you. Does Zuko doubt, too? Is he still angry at himself? If you were him, you would be. But maybe that's his secret. Maybe he's always angry. Maybe you're angry too. The world isn't what you thought it was—and you think Zuko can relate. What will happen if you let him?

CeBrudras said:

Sometimes I imagine some fool with the world's widest screen knocking themselves out from reading this formatting.

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Hi.

[X] The present. Here you stand, before your brother. Here doubt has driven you. Does Zuko doubt, too? Is he still angry at himself? If you were him, you would be. But maybe that's his secret. Maybe he's always angry. Maybe you're angry too. The world isn't what you thought it was—and you think Zuko can relate. What will happen if you let him?

[X] The present. Here you stand, before your brother. Here doubt has driven you. Does Zuko doubt, too? Is he still angry at himself? If you were him, you would be. But maybe that's his secret. Maybe he's always angry. Maybe you're angry too. The world isn't what you thought it was—and you think Zuko can relate. What will happen if you let him?

The past is a huge minefield she's not ready to deal with yet, and talking about the future won't serve much in a timeloop scenario. Besides, as others have noted, talking about the present, and about Zuko's anger, might unlock the path to discover true firebending, and I'm all for getting Azula's love of the flame to discover it (as well as interacting with dragons).

Maping said:

Now, is that a sign that Azula is an abuser, or that she's a child with a toxic mentality on how to maintain friendships? You decide!

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I would say it's both: from what we saw, Azula has always been a problem child, but her environment (especially Ozai) fueled her worst traits instead of helping her deal with it in a healthier way, but the scene of her breakdown with her saying that "fear is the only way" to the hallucination of her mother (which remember, was pretty much her own subconscious talking to her) showing that deep down, she knows that her attitude and worldview is fucked up, but she felt that she had come to far to back down.

Reese said:

The thing is, though, Zuko isn't doing that, if he's in Caldera challenging Azula; that's what Aang and the people with him at the time are doing. If the team trying to take out Ozai fail to do so, Zuko beating Azula doesn't matter, and if they succeed, that's Sozin's Genocide II stopped whether or not Zuko beats Azula; unless I'm badly mistaken about how long the comet's effect lasts, by the time the new Fire Lord Zuko could get the orders to stop to the front lines -- those areas Aang and company weren't already taking care of -- the opportunity would have passed anyway. Of course, the Fire Nation could still continue its slow conquest and genocidal actions associated with that -- but stopping that isn't a case of winning a single battle against the Head Bad Guy whoever is the Head Bad Guy of the moment, it's a matter of convincing the soldiers to stop and/or fighting a campaign to go around individually defeating the ones who refuse. And who refuses to stop, and the manner of their refusal, does depend on the perceived legitimacy of the Fire Lord giving the order.

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The Watsonian answer is that the show wanted to show the two big final fights of Aang vs Ozai and Zuko vs Azula, the Doylist answer is that Aang would face Ozai anyway, to solve the immediate problem of half the planet about to be torched down, so Zuko could go and take the opportunity of Azula's impending coronation to take the throne from her, takling the more long-term problem that the Fire Nation still kinda won the war at this point (there's still the Northern Water Tribe who's free, but there's little it can do alone) and occupy all of the Earth Kingdom, something that Zuko can deal with if he manager to become Fire Lord.