Im rewatching ATLA and I love Azula鈥檚 character so much because she is a bad person.
Is she a bad person because of a generational cycle of trauma? Absolutely yes.
But does that excuse all of her actions? Absolutely not.
Azula is aware that she is a terrible person! She has to be aware so that she can use it to her advantage. She thinks the way she does because that part of her has been nurtured. She is Ozai鈥檚 prodigy. He taught her to think the way she does. He gave her chances to grow and advance beyond Zuko because he saw the potential in her. Ursa鈥檚 kindness had already been put into Zuko鈥檚 character. Azula was a perfect template for the cruelty that his father has taught him.
Zuko had run away from the meeting between Azulon and Ozai but Azula stayed and watched. And smiled at what is essentially an abusive scene. She was raised to thrive on the torment of others which is why she loves torturing Zuko so much. It鈥檚 like enrichment to her. And she knows it too. And she just鈥oesn鈥檛 care.
She knows she鈥檚 being cruel which is why she goes out of her way to be that. Her ending in the series just finally shows what happens to her when she runs out of people to torture. She has isolated herself at that point and the only person she had left to torture was herself. The mirror scene is what that is. Ursa was the person who told her to leave Zuko alone, to not act the way she did. And naturally Azula translated that to her mother not loving her. And I think Ursa鈥檚 neglect comes from a place of seeing Ozai in her daughter.
So when she is finally chained up and completely out of control, she snaps. She鈥檚 out of people to hurt and that was what she was raised to do. Her crying and screaming and sobbing shows that she realizes she has nothing left. She knows that if her father hears about her defeat he will not love her anymore. So she just cries because that鈥檚 all she can do anymore.
isn't it so funny there's such a thing as "customer service voice"? Like I have to speak to you like a child or you'll rip my face off like a wild chimp
In the future, medical science has advanced to the point where people are functionally immortal. However, the Grim Reaper likes to visit people on the day they would have died of natural causes for a talk.
In modern au Kaz Brekker, Bastard of the Barrel, would listen to white noise. No actual music. Just pure TV static. He鈥檒l indulge in some classical music but after that? Nothing. It drives the others up a fucking wall