- Location
- England
Actually... Does azula know her heritage? Unless I'm recalling Fanon I'm pretty sure Azula and Zuko are of Rokus blood aswell as Sozins...
That could be a fun reveal...
That could be a fun reveal...
Arsonist's Lullaby: An Azula Timeloop Quest
- Thread starter Magery
- Start date
None so far in the animated series. Only Zuko did when talking to Iroh about it. At the flashback episode of Roku and Sozin when they used to be best buddies and the fallout where Sozin left Roku to die by the volcano ashes at the first opportunity.
- Location
- Who knows?
Well I can say for your own writing chops you've done infinitely better than I have at expressing wonder and appreciation for the prose in this!
I've literally only known about this for a week, but I've already reread everything multiple times. Shit sometimes for the new updates, I find myself rereading certain paragraphs marveling at the construction and then find myself having to reread previous stuff to keep the narrative flow straight after spending too long fixating on certain lines.
- Pronouns
- They/Them/She/Her
You know, I probably should have been working on other things, but no, you just had to write something so compelling that I just blazed through all ~36 kilowords of it instead. 
Thanks for writing.
Hm...
[X] A knife. Metaphorical, of course. But you've stumbled enough under Mai's blunt honesty, and Zuko hardly seemed to realise when you were circling around him with truths he was always too naive to understand. So tell him how hard he makes not killing him. Tell him he's unqualified to rule. And tell him—tell him about your mother.
Beating Zuko in a fair Agni Kai, with us of clear mind and no outside interference? Not something I expect we're concerned about not being able to pull off, now or in the future, and now we know a way to set that up. But we've beaten Zuko before, and we've just ended up back at the Boiling Rock; perhaps that wouldn't be the case this time, beating him in this particular way... but let's try something different, while we have the opportunity.
And besides, if this doesn't convince him to stand down, then we can beat him, and either'll it'll work or we'll have more information on him to use next time.
(A performance relies on him being able to put himself in our place well enough, and convincingly enough to us well enough, that we'd believe him when he said he would. Too easy, I think, to dismiss an affirmative answer from him as him just failing to understand our position, and of course he wouldn't do it if our positions were really reversed.)
edit:
Oops. Didn't know the vote'd already closed until I was looking through the threadmarks after posting that; sorry.
...Well, the one I voted for won, at least?
Thanks for writing.
Hm...
[X] A knife. Metaphorical, of course. But you've stumbled enough under Mai's blunt honesty, and Zuko hardly seemed to realise when you were circling around him with truths he was always too naive to understand. So tell him how hard he makes not killing him. Tell him he's unqualified to rule. And tell him—tell him about your mother.
Beating Zuko in a fair Agni Kai, with us of clear mind and no outside interference? Not something I expect we're concerned about not being able to pull off, now or in the future, and now we know a way to set that up. But we've beaten Zuko before, and we've just ended up back at the Boiling Rock; perhaps that wouldn't be the case this time, beating him in this particular way... but let's try something different, while we have the opportunity.
And besides, if this doesn't convince him to stand down, then we can beat him, and either'll it'll work or we'll have more information on him to use next time.
(A performance relies on him being able to put himself in our place well enough, and convincingly enough to us well enough, that we'd believe him when he said he would. Too easy, I think, to dismiss an affirmative answer from him as him just failing to understand our position, and of course he wouldn't do it if our positions were really reversed.)
edit:
Oops. Didn't know the vote'd already closed until I was looking through the threadmarks after posting that; sorry.
...Well, the one I voted for won, at least?
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A performance! Also, this has been a truly excellent fic!
I was rereading the quest and this exchange made me really think about the depth of Ty Lee's last line. Was Ty Lee actually feeling how much truly Azula was lonely and desperate?
On the related note, how much of Ty Lee's spiritual spouting are meaningful? Does she actually possess aura sight, was there any affirmation of it in cannon? And if she does, how did it impact her interactions with Azula here? And could her close spiritual attunement have any lasting (even after looping) effect on her or give her some insight regarding Azula's time looping?
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- Location
- USA
Mmmm, given how Ty Lee is reacting in this quest, I'm not sure she did. Ty Lee is actually fairly socially canny. But IDK, if she knew quite how screwed up Azula was, she might have tried something before now.
Or maybe she did try, realized it wouldn't work, and left for the circus. It's just that Azula now has broken down enough to maybe accept help.
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Ty Lee is a genuine girl, I don't think she has it in her to effectively emotionally manipulate people(even if it is to help them) outside of being casual tease.
I think her regularly complimenting Azula and casual clinginess is Ty's simplistic way of helping her even if it just to elevate Azula's mood. I personally believe she was genuine in her interactions with Azula.
Her runing away from home for circus I always chalked up to her own personal problems with self identity because she was rised in a household with six twins as she stated herself in the Beach episode and having nothing to do with Azula herself.
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AnantaAtman
I wandered, I watched, I judged
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] A lightning bolt. With Mai and Ty Lee there to keep Zuko's second in check, for the first time you may well be able to have a genuine Agni Kai. Just you, and Zuko, and the flame. The way it really was meant to be. And when you win—well, he'll probably have the waterbender there to heal him, and then you can talk, once your claim is so secure even the Avatar can't dislodge it.
- Location
- [REDACTED]
Not to overly repeat what others have already said quite a bit: there's some phenomenal writing in this quest! I look forward to seeing where this goes. No matter how it ends up, I think Azula is going to be in desperate need of a vacation after all this. Who knows, maybe one of our possible Wincons is that she decides that she doesn't actually need to deal with all this and she just fucks off into the wilderness for awhile/the rest of her life. Though that would be quite a departure from where her character is at right now.
part of me really wants her to fuck off to where iroh is and just vibe with him for a couple loops
That would be interesting. I wonder when Iroh gave up on her? He certainly encourages Zuko to take her down instead of try to redeem her. I expect he would find any sudden change of heart from her confusing.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I mean, I do think Iroh sometimes gets too much flak for that. In basically every situation where they confronted Azula, they didn't really have time to talk things through. It doesn't really reflect on what he'd do once there's actually time to talk.
- Location
- USA
My interpretation is that Iroh had to make a choice. He could stay in the capitol and try to help Azula, or go with Zuko and help him. Given that Azula at that point had shown no signs of rebelling against Ozai, while Zuko still had some scruples, his decision made sense.
Now, before that it gets a bit fuzzier. We see that he doesn't know her well, since he sends her a doll. Does he know Zuko well, or did he just get lucky that Zuko liked his gift? I'm sure he tried to spend time with Zuko and Azula, but he was probably off campaigning for a lot of their childhood.
Post-Siege, did he try to talk to her? Maybe, maybe not. But frankly I don't think she could've been swayed back then.
- Location
- Te Ika-a-Māui
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Iroh is actively distrustful of Azula the moment she shows up at the resort at the start of S2. I don't think we can assume that he ever cared about her.
I think Iroh might not be seeing this situation as clear as he does most things. The man has had to deal with Ozai his entire adult life, he might be biased on how likely miniature girl Ozai is to change her ways.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
But, uh... he was 100% right? That was just an accurate assessment of Azula's goals and interests. Like, I can see thinking that he didn't care about her, but that's not evidence either way.
I always thought that it might be seeing a younger him, actually. Azula is the prodigious favored child, like he was.
- Location
- USA
Not trusting her isn't the same as not caring about her.
Nicholas Brooks
Redeemer and Destroyer
- Location
- United States
I understood the doll and the knife as being his way of nudging his niece and nephew towards healthier states of mind. He saw Zuko was good hearted by nature but also a bit of a wimp, so he gave him a knife which was engraved with "never give up without a fight". He saw Azula was far too focused on being the best and always being mature and practical and in control, so her gave her a doll that she could dress up and play with because it wasn't considered a mature or adult thing to do, nor did it serve any purpose except as a source of innocent fun.
Cetashwayo
Lord of Ten Thousand Years
- Location
- Across the Horizon
No, I just don't think he knew Azula well and gave her a doll because young girls play with dolls. He wasn't necessarily being misogynistic but he was distant and we have no evidence he ever put much effort into talking to Azula as a child at all. Ozai probably militated against it.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Yeah, he could have at least given her an action figure. She feels like the kind of person that in a modern setting would be very clear on the difference. 
(This is sorta a joke but sorta not, to be honest.)
(This is sorta a joke but sorta not, to be honest.)
Nicholas Brooks
Redeemer and Destroyer
- Location
- United States
We have no evidence that he put much effort into talking to either of the children. We also have no evidence that he didn't. All of the flashbacks to Zuko's past except the one where he gets scarred don't show Iroh at the palace because he was busy with leading the Fire Nation war effort. I just don't buy that he'd get Zuko a thoughtful and appropriate gift but hand Azula something generically girly without thinking, especially given what I just said above. He gets along with Zuko better, yes, but that's because Zuko is naturally a kinder person than Azula. That's not evidence that Iroh didn't understand Azula.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
The doll is in fact evidence that he didn't understand Azula. If he wanted to get her something for kids that she'd actually maybe pay any attention to, something that'd let her play a game she could pretend was training or something would be more useful? I don't know the specifics, obviously, but the way to go for her would be to find something fun that a sense of Training (TM) can justify as being okay that she's having fun because it's educational or whatever.
Her finding a doll lame and stupid is honestly... like, completely understandable? Note that I'm not saying that dolls are stupid, just that someone finding them dumb or not interesting to play around with isn't some crazy out there opinion.
Nicholas Brooks
Redeemer and Destroyer
- Location
- United States
Azula's problem was that everything that she did was already justified as either being training-like, showing up someone else, or screwing with Zuko. The point was to give her something childish, innocent, and impractical so she doesn't end up being a mini-Ozai who's got nothing going for them except ambition. She rejected it, but that doesn't change that there was good reason to give her something like that.
Of course, if he was present I'm sure he would have done something else like try to teach her to make his famous tea or maybe try to get her into poetry or music, but from a continent's worth of distance his options are limited. Hell, both of the gifts were just shit his men took from Earth Kingdom citizens, with the knife belonging to one of Ba Sing Se's generals that surrendered.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
But the trick to that is, do something that's sorta training but also actually fun, because Ozai sure as hell isn't doing that. You need to smuggle these things in, not try to tempt someone with a doll.
The latter point, that he wasn't exactly spoiled for choices, is a better argument.