Azula is the Victim | Diagnosing The Characters 

Parenting Advice: -Do not abandon your children. -Do not abuse your children. -Do not betray your children. -Do not embarrass your children. -Do not exploit your children. -Do not ignore your children. -Do not spoil your children. Make sure you raise your children both your daughters and your sons with compassion, discipline, & responsibility period.

What I find interesting about Zuko's betrayal is that it makes more sense the more you analyse it. For one, Zuko was FORCED to accept his new modest lifestyle, which is extra screwed because Iroh had transitioned from a mostly apathetic dude that allowed Zuko to do whatever he wanted to now his second dad that controls him and yet acts like he gave Zuko a choice. While Iroh had good intentions, he forgot the fact that while Zuko obviously loved Iroh, he still loved Ozai and wanted to confront him to determine if his father truly loved him or not. Also, Zuko was being pressured into becoming Iroh's ideal son , which causes Zuko to have a breakdown and start acting like non-Zuko. That's bad enough, but what makes it worse is that Iroh didn't recognise how UNHEALTHY that was, which would bite his and the Gaangs ass later. So Iroh gives Zuko the talk about "what do you want," yet the truth is that by the time Iroh and Zuko got to Ba Sing Se, Iroh was FORCING Zuko to become the "idealised son" that he believed Zuko to be deep down. This is why Azula succeeding at convincing Zuko to switch sides, makes more sense because Iroh, in fact, didn't want to believe/didn't know who Zuko really is: a proud prince of royalty and his nation that had strong emotional ties and fears with his family who couldn't sit with a modest lifestyle for the rest of his life and never be able to confront his emotional fears about his father and whatever ties they still had. Azula understood that perfectly. Ironically, Azula is the only one who ACTUALLY asks Zuko what he really wants and doesn't ignore/does understand Zuko's dark side.

I will never understand why people say she chose to be this way or like this other comment here just called her pure evil. Azula is still in denyal that her mother loves her and that has been made clear a couple of times. Jesus, she even has mental breakdowns over her hallucinations telling her that her mom loves her 🤦‍♀️ Ursa went and changed her whole identity and erased all memory of her children and when Azula had her up against the wall this (technically) RANDOM woman apologized for not loving her enough and that one sentence had her crying again 🤦‍♀️ Evil? Or just confused about what actual love would feel like? Because Ozai surely didn't love her and it completely threw her off once she became aware of it. I hope her new comics do her justice. I don't even want her to turn "good" all of a sudden but at least give her a peace of mind and the realization of the abuse that she went through...

I honestly blame Sozin for starting this entire insanity and suffering in the first place which later corrupted his descendants all the way till Azula. The very first Firelord was an amazing heroic noble man that brought the clans together which later became the Fire Nation and he defended his nation until his death. From the first Firelord till Sozin’s father, the Fire Nation were living in peace until his son Sozin ruin everything and started the 100 year war which lead to some parts of the Earth Kingdom being colonized & enslaved, it lead to the Air Nomad genocide, it lead to the waterbenders of the Southern Water Tribe being taken as prisoners, & what is even more shocking it lead to the dragon genocide, absolutely disgusting, mind-blowing, & pure evil.

In her last moments in the final episode, azula doesn't think about Ozai at all. The person she thought about most was the person who hurt her the most. I don't think Ozai is entirely to blame for how azula turned out. Ursa played a huge part in damaging her daughters psychy too.

People who say that Azula is irredeemable but still like Zuko and Iroh are the worst kind of hypocrites. Zuko in particular was given multiple chances and a long time to change his perspective and even chose wrong at the end of S2, then sent a hitman to kill Aang before eventually coming to terms. Azula was given precisely ZERO chances yet people still write her off.

Abusive Childhood (Bad Parenting) 3 Deadly Consequences: -(Least Worst Outcome): They would suffer from post traumatic stress disorder for the rest of their life to the time they die because of their childhood abuse, even when they grow up to be healthy normal adults. -(Second Worst Outcome): They are most likely to commit suicide because it is literally hard for them to accept their childhood abuse. -(Worst Outcome): They are mostly like to transform into monsters and commit violent crimes by harming innocent people & spending the rest of their life in prison until they die. (Parents both fathers and mothers must raise their children both their daughters & their sons with compassion, discipline, & responsibility for the safety of our society period.)

You did a fantastic job and you explained everything extremely well.

In my honest opinion, Azula is a pawn of a toxic environment because of her imperialist native nation and her 3 toxic royal family members like her paternal great grandfather Sozin who started the Hundred Years’ War plus he is the one that brought disgrace, embarrassment, & shame to his royal family plus the Fire Nation in the first place, her paternal grandfather Azulon who continued the war, & especially her father Ozai who also continued the war plus he manipulated her as a weapon so he could selfishly rule the world as the Phoenix King. Despite all the indoctrination, lack of compassion, pain, and suffering Azula went through, I cannot trust her because she is so dangerous & so ruthless because of her constant manipulative character plus her narcissistic attitude. If her Uncle Iroh can change and her brother Zuko can change, why can’t she change. I always wondered if Azula was raised in a empathetic normal family and if she grew up in a healthy positive environment, she will definitely grow up to be a decent human being period.

Not even the power of friendship could save Azula in the end 😢

Well no shite, she's 14 and clearly brainwashed by fire nation propaganda and her own upbringin where she spent her whole childhood tryin to impress her father The key diff between her and Zuko is that Zuko is 2 yrs older and has a mentor who actually loves and cares about him and wants to do whatevs he can to help Zuko heal from the same traumatic upbringing. That and Zuko is four yrs into his journey when the story begins, meanin that was four yrs of bein away from his abuser and four yrs of bein able to start to see things thru his own perspective and not a warped one instilled in him by propaganda and the fatherlords lies Ofc Zuko is gonna be way further along in his healin journey, unlike his little sister

Good to see you make another Video!, Cant wait to watch your Diagnosis on Azula!

she is A victim. not THE victim.

Subbed, brilliant analysis, I loved hearing your point of view, Azula is such an amazing character, she's so well written. 💯😃

So, I'm not convinced shes solely the victim. Yes, shes a victim in some capacity. It's true that shes been the golden child but I feel like the conversations around Azula are very black or white. She's either a toxic pos not deserving of any sympathy or she's a total victim and therefore bares no responsibility for her actions (worse yet when people blame iroh or her mom for the way she is lmao). In my opinion, the truth lies in the middle. It's more than possible to have been abused and also to be abusive. It's totally possible she's a victim of narcissistic abuse and a narcissist herself. I find it striking that there is no mention of Ty Lee and Mai's betrayal in this. The whole reason she started to spiral was because she was betrayed by her supposed best friends. It took something happening to her personally for her to breakdown about it. How is that not a telltale sign that shes an incredibly selfish person at heart? She clearly has emotions and feelings but only when she has to personally reap the consequences of her actions. I also don't agree that Ozai was trying to toss her aside when he told her to be firelord. I have no reason to believe he was lying when he said she's the only one he could trust so she should be the new fire lord, he groomed her for the position. The thing is her father promoting her to a high position doesn't even matter anymore for her. Shes the golden child, she should be ecstatic at Ozai putting that much trust in her. Instead she cannot get out of her own head about Mai and Ty Lee. Because her ego has been majorly damaged. The two main people providing her her own constant narc supply have been removed. And Ozai alone can no longer fill that void due to how her ego now stretches outside of the realm of golden child. Ursa saying 'theres something wrong with that child' wasn't written to show that Ursa was mean and insulting Azula for no reason or really didn't love her enough (she told zuko to go play with her earlier even though zuko clearly didnt want to and she knows how mean azula can be). It's there to tell us there is something in the very Nature of Azula that is off. I interpret her mother showing up in the mirror as her subconscious correcting her false beliefs about her mother. She knows deep down that Ursa didn't think she was a monster and that Ursa loved her or at least tried her best to. But Azula is processing these situations incorrectly because shes incapable of seeing how her own actions showed a lack of empathy/humanity 'If you loved me then why did you leave' 'if you loved me then why would you protect someone like Zuko' Azula interpreted Ursa giving Zuko extra mom-son time to offset Ozai's black-sheeping meant her mother didn't love her. "Why isn't mom as proud of me like dad when I achieve great things, why does mom get angry with me when I say exactly how I feel. Why is being exactly who I am not good enough for mother but dad accepts me?" Azula shows a major lack of capacity to understand why her poor actions toward others would be off-putting, and Ozai just fuelled this more. I know it was mentioned that maybe her narcissism was learned, but the narrative doesn't really present Azula that way unless you bend over backwards to describe Ursa as a neglectful parent and Iroh as a shitty uncle. They presented it with Zuko, but Azula was consistently deemed as 'she is the way she is' which just screams shes written to be psychologically unchanging. Her fathers daughter in more ways than one. Do I think she would be more chill away from Ozai? yeah, less sadistic seeming for sure and well as some of her other more anti-social traits. But I think she would still be semi-toxic, like a mean girl, if all of the environmental factors were stripped away. Funny meta side note, apparently people have been afraid write for Azula (official comics wise) because many fans want to see her have a redemption due to this narrative of her being more a victim than a villian. Meaning there must be disagreement with what some fans want for her story and how the creators want her story to go. Someone who defends Azula a loooot on the internet who I came across once, I eventually found out and verified she knows Aaron Ehasz personally and really dislikes Bryke and its part of the reason she staunchly defends Azula. Apparently Aarons vision for Azula was closer to what you describe (a victim) but Bryke wanted Azula to remain less sympathetic (a villian). So the story could be taken both ways except for the fact that Aaron no longer gets a say due to Bryke and Aaron splitting over the creative differences at the end of ATLA. So those comic writers are afraid to piss off fans with more evil azula narrative, I suspect. This is also why I feel Azulas situation is a bit of both victim and villian rather than totally one or the other.

In my country, we have literal children - 10 to 16 year olds, running their stolen cars into Vape stores/malls... to steal. Do you know why? Then you find out the children were doomed from the start. No good role models - raised in traumatic gang influenced households, and kids in and out of juvi/youth detention or bouncing in/out of foster care. A lot were conditioned to feel accepted and be "part of the family". Azula was doomed from the start. She has no good role models whereas Zuko did. She is living in a time of war - that is generational trauma right there. Mum left/neglected Azula. Dad conditoned Azula to be a tool. No real friends as they were tied to her only by fear. The grandmas were YES men. Hence why Azula perfected her skills to receive validation from her dad - in the end, to him she was just a tool. I guess the show explains to us what positive and negative influences can have on us as children when it comes to our own trauma. This was pretty much all Azula knew, and i feel for her.

While Azula is a victim, it doesn't excuse her actions whatsoever. So many other psychopaths, sociopaths, and serial killers were also victims. It doesn't and shouldn't excuse her actions.

I specifically searched for this video and I found everything I wanted to hear, completely agree👍 I hope they wouldn't betray her image in sequels and give her redemption arch bcs irl such people unfortunately have just about 0 chance of getting on track

I love these kinds of breakdowns. I would also say that Azula also seems to fit the bill for someone who has a sort of Machiavellian personality disorder.

If she's a victim; she's a victim of her dad's morally bad example, simple as that... he taught her morally bad examples and portrayed them *as* good; including encouraging her to bully her brother and turn their homelife into *literal* Hell.

Really interesting.

it's never too late to talk about Avatar

I know ATLA isn't a anime but Azula's arc reminds me of Asuka Langley Soryu from NGE but more complicated because she's a princess

This video is a banger!

Next you should analyze tetsuo from the Akira manga please

I found it really hard to listen to this video because the music was too loud compared to the voice. I really encourage you to play around with sound settings, as they prevented me (I guess not only me) from properly enjoying the content. Overall, I love the idea of such character explorations, keep it going!

Can you do the same thing with Dabi from my hero academia?

Amazing video

I am unsure if you have seen She-ra (the latest one). I always think Zuko is catra who was able to get away from the Horde (fire nation) vs. Azula who is more like Adora who stayed with the Horde (fire nation). In this case Ozai is Shadow-weaver.

are you able to do subtitles on your videos or did they actually remove the custom ccs finally

so from what im gathering so far <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="215">3:35</a> that you don't think zuko was mentally abused as well. edit: finished the video, and i don't fully agree with you; but you made good points/arguements. i'm new to the channel, but i hope to see more videos!!

Hey what’s the song called at the end it’s a sick beat

Have to say if $#3 is then who isn't?

Plllls do Sanzu from Tokyo Revengers next!

Music a little too loud btw, it’s not horrible but it is taking up little too much space

Pls diagnose Zuko

Being a victim doesn't justify her actions. Azula was a villain more than she was a victim. And heck, if we go by the villainous victims in the series, then we can count Ozai too. He was also unfavored by his father, in fact, Azulon was very cold and cruel to him. Yet, it doesn't change the fact that Ozai is still a villain. And if we ever got to see Azula as an adult, she'd be exactly like her father.

Just like Zuko.

good job on the vbideo

Azula is mine by the way ❤❤❤❤❤

Nah she's just evil (I love her because of it)

Imagine having no mom XD

She is a victim in a small degree. She at the end of the day chose her actions and even as a child showed her dark nature. Her mother did try to help her but due to her father forcing her to leave or risk the life of zuko. She was a 1st class naracisst and she was a sociopath. Her father was incredibly toxic but mainly to zuko. At the end of the day she is a villian and she chose her actions. She liked the praise she got from her father, the abiltiy to boss others around and torture her brother. She might of had some issues but she was a monster of a person that was a fantastic villian.

Tbh. Azula is just plain evil. We are a partially a product of our environment but we do have a choice. We all can choose. Wisdom of Iroh was for Azula as well. She CHOOSE to discredit him whereas Zuko didn't. We all have choice and Azula just choose to be evil.

I'm not a fan of this style. I'm also aware you have a small channel, so I'm not trying to pick on you. Rather give you some feedback with constructive criticism in mind. You explained at the beginning of the video that you have no expertise in psychology, so as viewers we should take anything you say around the topic with a grain of salt. Then you proceed to focus entirely on your psychological interpretation of the characters you talk about.This wasn't very informative or entertaining for me. Granted, I don't delve into psychology for fun. So maybe your content is just not for me. Nonetheless, there are aspects of your style which I did appreciate. I would encourage you to aim for more of a video essay vibe in your videos. This presupposes that the focus of your work is to put your opinion across/say what you want to say about the topic you're covering. Rendering an initial disclaimer unnecessary. It would also entail you're covering something more than an amateur psychological diagnosis of a fictional character. In the case of Azula you might include the character's story arc, her role and impact in the greater story, the writing behind the scenes and your interpretation of its virtues and shortcomings; whatever you can creatively contrive. What your video hinges on is the thesis that Azula is a victim. I am not saying that is inaccurate. Rather it is merely a detail about a much more well-rounded character than the one you described. Azula is a victim. She is also one of the most powerful individuals in the world of ATLA. She's a precocious badass with a penchant for grandiosity which she usually backs up. Intelligent, resourceful af, skilled to the point of mastery at age 14. I could go on. But I feel you didn't cover those other aspects of her character much at all. Choosing to focus mostly on her victimhood, what caused it, followed by your psychological justification. If I hadn't seen ATLA and watched your video, I'm not sure I would understand whether you thought the show was good or worth watching. This leads me to contend that your choice of subject matter and video title is clickbait. And while I think it's fair enough for creators to use that tool to enable channel growth. You kind of want to back up your choice of a fantastic subject with a fascinating take of your own. I watched the entire video and I didn't feel your achieved that because of your focus on psychology. Again, I'm not trying to hate on you nor discourage you. Honestly I'm just giving you my suggestions. On the other hand, I am just a viewer giving his opinion and don't have to actually make the videos. This is your channel and you can choose to grow and improve it however you like. So good luck with that :)

Responsability for her own choices... How about that?

Azula in my opinion didn't deserve to be forgiven but people are still forgetting the fact that she was laughing when her own brother got burned and wanted to kill him in season 3. She was raised this way but if she got proper therapy she would be a little better. Azula is a kid but she is a bit messed up.

A very powerful, toxic, destructive, evil, hateful victim who is willing to murder her own friends. Sometimes a bad guy is just that - bad. People are accountable for their own actions. A sad back story doesn't justify heinous violent acts of evil. That's a fantasy....🧚‍♀ "I'm about to be an ONLY CHILD 😈"

Lmao No she was a psychopath with very advanced inter social skills. She was born that way, her mother tried her best to keep her from that but recognized her daughter was who she was.

I am a victim of this abuse. I am in Zukos position but with no family at all. This is video is right but I think Azula is a socio/psychopath, but I don't have siblings.

Azula chose to be a victim.

Yeah, Azula is the victim as everyone that is bad in the series, but that is just a detail, right? In the cartoon as in real life, people are mostly the product of their environment, but surely we needed special care for the "bad woman" because she is a woman. Let me guess, the person doing the video is AFAB. Oh, wow, look, I would have never guessed that.

Azula is NOT a victim. Azula is malicious. Azula is sadistic. Azula is immoral. Azula is a narcissist. Azula kills with hesitation or regret. Azula is her father's daughter. The Avatar should have taken her bending, locked her up in a deep dark hole, then buried the hole. .