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Deep Red (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

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Firedon said:
Such as that ruler burning and raping them?
I mean, her going through that and deciding for herself that such treatment can't be right doesn't sound too far-fetched to me.
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key word being distant.
Also, you have a poor understanding of the mind. Abuse doesn't lend itself to anger unless the abused had some significant degree of pride and sense of self-importance relative to the abuser before the abuse, and the abuse just started recently. Anger is a kneejerk reaction. Ozai is much more important then a servant. Also being a servant probably doesn't give her much to be self-important about.

Keep in mind that in story thus far, Akane was closer to Ozai then to Ursa, up until recently, and then the sparring incident happened, so she might know she's on thin ice with him and thus not want to risk sneaking out and getting caught.
 
Ursa have a track record of going for short terms gratification instead of looking at long term and kinda blame everything on ozai, which is true in most case but some of it is her own fault. She often choose to spite ozai for the heck it while doesn't care about consequences. In canon, she told ozai that she wish zuko isn't his son which end up with ozai saying that he will then treat zuko as the son of some peasant. Probably already happen in this one too I think. This end up with zuko getting treat even more like shit. This is the same with the letter. We could also say that she is overly eager to regain akane affection and become too obvious in trying to be close with her daughter that it result in ozai making his move. Might have different outcome if she try to do things more slowly.
 
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my read on ursa is that she's a kind woman, but she has an immensely deep well of resentment against ozai and often puts her grudge ahead of the well being of others. She also really does not understand the role of the nobility. She legitimately does not understand why her letter would be hurtful to Akane.
 
Metroidvania said:
I think it's kind of pertinent to note that while yes, Ursa does have a horrendous track record (both here and in canon), she was, you know, forcibly taken from her love interest, sold as chattel into Azulon's family, and expected to produce heirs for the fire nation.

Being a little out of sorts and/or not being the best with her kids (that she didn't necessarily even want, and especially since Ozai is a piece of shit) is, while not necessarily excusable, at least understandable.

Maybe she feels bad for not sleeping with Ozai anymore, so she considers it her responsibility to make up for the hurt he causes?

She says RIGHT IN THE CHAPTER that she was trying to piss Ozai off in a 'needling revenge' type situation, not that she was trying to seriously de-legitimatize Akane's chances at becoming the future ruler.

Whether or not that's true is up for debate (and Ozai certainly used that to his advantage), but while she does want to take her kids and flee (as seen here and in canon), a part of her knows it's not happening.
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Ursa's tragic backstory isn't a rebuttal against her long history of manipulative asshattery. Sure, she was unhappy and suffering. She still became the kind of jackass who uses her friends and family as tools to lash out. Someone who either doesn't comprehend or doesn't care about the consequences of her actions on her 'loved ones' as long as she gets that little sliver of gratification.
 
MinorGryph said:
Ursa doesn't have a good track record with ulterior motivations.

Logically speaking, there is no reason for her to be acting as the servant's personal physician and confidant instead of sending a real doctor or just the medical supplies. But doing so would help endear her to the servant and potentially gain info on Ozai.

Also the way she threw her other peasant "friend" under the bus to smear Akane's legitimacy indicates that Ursa does NOT practice whatever she preached to Chae about equality.
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You are overestimating Ursa way too much, she's an inept peasant girl that was kidnapped from her home and forced into a marriage at gunpoint. Everything we see from canon about her paints her as a well meaning but utterly shitty parent, not the manipulative mastermind figure that's somehow become your image of her.
 
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Yeah. Ursa isn't so much manipulative as much as she is unable to understand the mindset of the upper nobility, especially Ozai's. If I had to take a guess I'd say that she thought that her letter stunt would lead to Ozai angrily confronting her about the issue. Which would prove that he was reading her letters, then the two of them would fight and then ect, ect. Instead he sent a hitman after her friend and took his anger out on both Ursa and Akane.

She genuinely tries to do what she thinks is best, except she doesn't really get both the nobility and Ozai. What with the latter's point of view being rather special even among the former.
 
so, is anyone else thinking akane is going to have massive trust issues? She knows her dad's kind of an asshole, her moms (to her eyes) a manipulative bitch, and both her parents freely use her and her siblings as pawns to hurt the other. The one person she looked up to, her uncle, disappeared. To make matters worse, she loves her siblings but she has to watch as they model themselves off one of her parents.

Mitsuko is at this point, the only person in akanes life who she does not have to put up a front for. She loves zuko and azula but seems to feel like it's her place to try and compensate for them having shitty role models. Poor kid.
 
It would be really unexpected if attempt was successful. Like that servant girl stubbed him. And later mother dearest added some rare poison. 'Accidentally '
I would like to see our perfect Princess as Lord of Fire.
 
so my lore knowledge is sub par, why did ozai marry Ursa? he seems to hate her. was it just that she was super hot or something? she seems to have not been a proponent of it.
 
A combination of that and eugenics. Ursa is the granddaughter of Avatar Roku, and the Fire Sages predicted that any children between her and Ozzie (XD) would be powerful benders. Given the showings of Zuko and Azula in canon, they weren't wrong.....
 
There's some prophecy about the child of the two line combine will be a super strong bender, which azula is I guess, so azulon go eugenic plan and basically force the two to married. Basically, it's all azulon fault. Ozai turn into a shit like this likely stem from how azulon favor iroh and treat ozai like current zuko as well.
 
random_npc said:
my read on ursa is that she's a kind woman, but she has an immensely deep well of resentment against ozai and often puts her grudge ahead of the well being of others. She also really does not understand the role of the nobility. She legitimately does not understand why her letter would be hurtful to Akane.
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One trait that Zuko seems to inherit from his mother is the inability to think things through.
She not just doesn't understand the role of nobility. She didnt even stop to think about the consequence of that letter.
I once read a novel with a
the Empress character accused of adultery.
Despite the Emperor knowing that the Prince is his son, when the information was make public, he still had the child killed. The Emperor will never allow the questionable nature of the child's parentage to harm his ambition.
Ursa's letter could have caused more trouble if others know about it, Azulon or worse like the enemies of the ruling family for example.
 
Yu3kino said:
There's some prophecy about the child of the two line combine will be a super strong bender, which azula is I guess, so azulon go eugenic plan and basically force the two to married. Basically, it's all azulon fault. Ozai turn into a shit like this likely stem from how azulon favor iroh and treat ozai like current zuko as well.
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That seems poorly thought out, I had thought it was for legitimacy and because Roku was considered a friend of Sozin. Why would you give the super bender to the line that wasn't the heir, when you have the tradition of duels being a valid form of challenging for position.

As for the servant I really doubt that this is something about democracy or equal treatment. This isn't about ideals that don't exist until the Legend of Korra created the equalists which were more anti bender then anything. This was a place where she felt safe. In fact it was probably the only place where she felt safe and Urza was the only support that she had and when she lost that support she just snapped and then killed herself trying to take revenge on the person who hurt her.

That was actually a fun update, It was at times heartbreaking but I felt that the whiplash between scenes improved the story but the most important thing is that Mitsuko might not turn into a one sided romance. "Y-yeah," Mitsuko says. She seems to have an issue with stammering sometimes, you're not sure why. It will still end in blood and tears but there is hope for happiness there. ​
 
kitsune9 said:
That seems poorly thought out, I had thought it was for legitimacy and because Roku was considered a friend of Sozin. Why would you give the super bender to the line that wasn't the heir, when you have the tradition of duels being a valid form of challenging for position.

As for the servant I really doubt that this is something about democracy or equal treatment. This isn't about ideals that don't exist until the Legend of Korra created the equalists which were more anti bender then anything. This was a place where she felt safe. In fact it was probably the only place where she felt safe and Urza was the only support that she had and when she lost that support she just snapped and then killed herself trying to take revenge on the person who hurt her.

That was actually a fun update, It was at times heartbreaking but I felt that the whiplash between scenes improved the story but the most important thing is that Mitsuko might not turn into a one sided romance. "Y-yeah," Mitsuko says. She seems to have an issue with stammering sometimes, you're not sure why. It will still end in blood and tears but there is hope for happiness there. ​
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See, like Ursa, I don't think you fully understand the mentality of the royal family: what the fire nation respects above all is loyalty not power. Regardless of bending strength, ozais children would have been subservient to Iroh and Lu ten, and thus would be acting as high powered lords/generals (see Ozai managing the court in Iroh's place while he was on campaign.) from this perspective it is easy to see why them being powerful is good: it strengthens the whole fire nation. To a fire nation royal, it is totally inconceivable that anyone would defy the hierarchy of the fire court and thus without the idea that anyone could rebel no measures are taken. It actually kinda funny that, despite overshadowing the whole fire nation in the show, it is Ozai who is twisted as he values personal power over familial and national service as his duty by scheming to take the throne. Once he was in power though, the system worked for him as nobody wanted to be disloyal.
 
Just want to chip in and say I've been following Deep Red for the last several months. Its my favourite quest on Anonkun and probably in my top ten quests of all time browsing the net. I usually don't catch live due to timezones but I read everything after its finished. Your writing is fantastic Kosm.

One thing thats not shown in the last part is that the disobey/obey Father vote went down to the wire. The disobey Father option only won by one vote, which I liked since it set the scene for a very emotional confrontation with Ursa.
 
Supermushu said:
See, like Ursa, I don't think you fully understand the mentality of the royal family: what the fire nation respects above all is loyalty not power. Regardless of bending strength, ozais children would have been subservient to Iroh and Lu ten, and thus would be acting as high powered lords/generals (see Ozai managing the court in Iroh's place while he was on campaign.) from this perspective it is easy to see why them being powerful is good: it strengthens the whole fire nation. To a fire nation royal, it is totally inconceivable that anyone would defy the hierarchy of the fire court and thus without the idea that anyone could rebel no measures are taken. It actually kinda funny that, despite overshadowing the whole fire nation in the show, it is Ozai who is twisted as he values personal power over familial and national service as his duty by scheming to take the throne. Once he was in power though, the system worked for him as nobody wanted to be disloyal.
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Given every fire lord named was involved in treachery of some kind I can only assume that they would know that yes it was possible for the stronger brother not in the inheritance to get jealous and make a play for the throne. Still that sounds like what they would tell the masses at any rate.
 
What treachery? Sozin betrayed Roku, but in his eyes it was a necessary measure to ensure Fire nation supremacy and thus a part of his duty as fire lord (and he never even THOUGHT of harming any branch of his family). By all accounts Azulon was the "standard" fire lord as a great general and statesman- at least in his younger years and was never involved in any conspiracies.worst case scenario he played favourites but never formally acted against Ozai until he started scheming to have Iroh deposed as Crown Prince, then he was FURIOUS that Ozai valued his personal power over his duty to support the grieving Iroh. Iroh never challenged Ozai despite his near parity in raw strength and arguably better skill (and lightning redirection is a trump card that makes Ozais best skill useless- Aang could have one shot him with it if he wasnt a pacifist). Beyond this, note that there were many, MANY fire lords before Sozin and that there are no records of succession by combat in any canon material except for Zuko vs Azula, and even then it was a formal challenge issued honourably. Tl;dr Only Ozai was ever involved in treachery of any sort.
 
Most people count leaving your friend to die specifically so he can't stop you from conquering the world to be treachery.
 
Tiroth said:
Most people count leaving your friend to die specifically so he can't stop you from conquering the world to be treachery.
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Depends on who you're loyal to first. I think we can all agree that Sozin was a bastard, but it would have been extremely easy to twist the story to make it look that Roku betrayed the Fire Nation first, and that Sozin did the right thing by killing him. The fact that Roku was Sozin's friend would even make it look better with Sozin claiming he did the right thing for the Fire Nation as a whole.
 
Poliamida said:
Depends on who you're loyal to first. I think we can all agree that Sozin was a bastard, but it would have been extremely easy to twist the story to make it look that Roku betrayed the Fire Nation first, and that Sozin did the right thing by killing him. The fact that Roku was Sozin's friend would even make it look better with Sozin claiming he did the right thing for the Fire Nation as a whole.
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That's nice. Spinning the story for political gain makes it not count as treachery...how, exactly?
 
Tiroth said:
That's nice. Spinning the story for political gain makes it not count as treachery...how, exactly?
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The argument was that people would see Sozin abandoning Roku as treachery, Sozin would claim that he did the right thing for the Fire Nation, that he was loyal to the Fire Nation first, and to his friends second.
 
Poliamida said:
The argument was that people would see Sozin abandoning Roku as treachery, Sozin would claim that he did the right thing for the Fire Nation, that he was loyal to the Fire Nation first, and to his friends second.
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If you'rd referring to in-thread...then no, that is not how the conversation went. If you mean in-universe, see the post you were replying to.
 
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