#putting this under a readmore even tho it’s only 10 paragraphs….. for shame

[comradekatara]

What do you think of Ozai as a villain? 👀 i'm seeing people saying the live action Ozai is better and i'm like "nah". They missed the point of the character

i mean i think a lot of people misunderstand ozai because people want a compelling character (especially a compelling villain) to be “layered and complex” in a very specifically emotional sense. but i do think ozai is layered and complex, simply in a different way that people expect. azula, for example, is a great villain because she is psychologically complex, and every action and motivated is entrenched in layers of nuance. but ozai is thematically complex, functionally layered. his underlying emotional motivations, however, are beside the point.

ozai’s narrative function is primarily to be metonymically figured as the embodiment of patriarchal and imperialist violence. ozai performs this function through interconnecting the domestic (his abuse of his wife and children) with the national (his role as sovereign of an empire). zuko’s disavowal of ozai in “the day of black sun” very explicitly ties his personal abuse to the logic of imperialism, and zuko denounces both logical tracks through acknowledging their interrelation. it’s hardly an uncommon character construction either: the domestic (specifically, the patriarchal nuclear family model) as microcosmic of the societal (specifically, patriarchal societies that are otherwise organized along unjust hierarchies) is prevalent across plenty of narratives, from the house of atreus to king lear to succession.

my personal favorite example of this trope as it is employed is in palace walk by naguib mahfouz, because al-sayyid does function as sovereign of his house, but he is also grappling with the consequences of being a colonized subject, and that colonial shame and humiliation both complicates his relationship to power but also reifies his patriarchal role within his family, his very real pain and disempowerment leading him to exacerbate his domestic abuse and tighten his control over his wife and children. al-sayyid is also, notably, not strict and controlling beyond the purview of his family, but within his own house, he very deliberately positions himself as an inviolable patriarchal authority.

however, unlike al-sayyid, ozai is a sovereign in every sense of the world, and even positions himself as akin to a god. but, as we can infer from “zuko alone,” ozai is not impervious to patriarchal abuse (or he wasn’t before ascending the throne), and thus has suffered his own shame and humiliation fostering his god complex due to compensation (and through the internalization of the logic of patriarchal abuse). ozai perpetuates the cycle of abuse as he, too, once suffered it (much like logan roy, to name another excellent example of this archetype). so while ozai is no longer a victim in any sense of the term, it is important to understand the psychology underlying his belief that he is ontologically deserving of the undivided respect and submission of the entire world due to his position of power.

ozai genuinely believes that he was teaching zuko respect, because respecting his authority is one of the values ozai holds most dear. because, of course, to speak out against ozai as an individual is to speak treasonously of the fire nation, and vice versa. and he expects his children to display their unquestioning loyalty to the Father(land) above all. the second they question him or confuse that priority in any way, they have irrevocably forsaken him and thus must be discarded. that is the logic of (to quote utena) a man who has made himself “end of the world.”

moreover, the other most crucial aspect of ozai’s character is how he is framed. until book 3, we never actually see his entire face. he is always a goatee, a spaulder, a disembodied smirk, a voice echoing through the flames, a crown. ozai as metonym goes both ways. and it serves to emphasize his ominous nature, as someone who is so powerful that we cannot truly view him head on. he’s framed in an almost godlike way.

and then, in “the awakening,” we see him without reservation. he is a tall, imposing man, but he is also, fundamentally, just a man. in “the headband” we see his face through a fire nation propaganda poster, as if to imply that his face is not more sacred than any other face. his poster is immediately followed up with aang’s recreation of his portrait with noodles. before book 3, holding ozai’s gaze is impossible, as he is merely a looming spectre. but book 3 immediately and ruthlessly undermines the notion they have been building up for two seasons, and through comedy, no less. ozai may be uniquely powerful and uniquely evil, but he is still just a man, and by the time he crowns himself phoenix king, destroyer of worlds, we are well-aware that he is not innately, divinely superior in any way, and his fascistic performance simply looks ridiculous.

unlike azula’s claim that “the divine right to rule is something you’re born with,” there is nothing unique or ontological about the role of the emperor. there is nothing ontologically superior about the colonizer’s relationship to the colonized besides the material dynamics of power informing their relationship. the father as head of his family is not ontologically necessitated any more than the structure of the nuclear family is predicated on innate anthropological roles rather than being socially constructed and maintained through systemic violence. ozai is not ontologically special, and his claim that he is seems even sillier as he goes up against the avatar, who actually truly is.

when ozai faces aang in the final battle, it is a significant fight because it represents the culmination of all the ideals aang has constantly fought for and asserted within ozai’s imperialist paradigm. and by refusing to submit to ozai’s logic of domination, aang disempowers ozai wholly. not because lack of firebending makes one totally powerless, but because lack of bending makes one powerless within ozai’s logic. aang renders ozai victim to his own ideology, playing his own imperialist dogma against him. instead of killing ozai in combat, as ozai expects, aang humiliates him by asserting his cultural values and their continued relevance over ozai’s values. the culminating battle against ozai, with the spiritual light that threatens to overtake aang, is a battle of one ideology winning out over another. it is the culmination of a century of genocide and colonialism by an imperialist power. it is the undermining of ozai’s entire worldview.

ultimately, we don’t need to see a lot of ozai to understand him. we can understand ozai perfectly through zuko and azula, because he positioned them as extensions of himself and thus their respective embodiments are simply their ways of performing him (azula is obviously a better actor). his complex psychology is beside the point, because his narrative function is to represent the imperialist forces that aang must battle. and they do this by establishing him as an ominous and terrible deified man, and then undermining him as little kore than a human being with an incorrect worldview. so he is interesting, not because he’s “complicated,” but because he reflects the central tension of the show in a satisfying way, and that’s what matters.

#lilith-91 #asks #analysis #ozai #synthesis #azula&ozai #ozai&zuko #azula #zuko #putting this under a readmore even tho it’s only 10 paragraphs….. for shame #im on mobile rn but if u go thru my ozai tag you’ll also find a lot of other posts and more in depth analyses of the things i cover here #im sick of linking to other posts tho #at this point everyone should just be wholly familiar with my oeuvre #(im lazy)