Azula

Azula is the secondary antagonist of before returning as the main antagonist of its midquel/sequel comic series.
She is the highly strategic and ruthlessly obsessed daughter of Ozai, serving as his best general and strategist during the 100 Year War and mimic his behavior to earn her love. Upon being discarded as a pawn by Ozai and driven to insanity, Azula returns upon allying with Zuko to find their lost mother before becoming the leader of the Kemurikage.
She was voiced by .
== Her Greatness and Evil Rankings ==
=== What Makes Her Great? ===
=== In General ===
* She has an incredibly sympathetic background. She was born to a family in which she was unable to experience love due to her abusive father. Seeing how badly he treats her older brother, Zuko, Azula strove to be a perfectionist to gain the love of her father, however in doing so, she ends up being neglected by her mother, who was tending Zuko after his harsh treatment of Ozai, which took a great strain on her, and is just a sad product of how terrible of a parent Ozai is.
* She loves her mother and even sheds tears when the amnesiac Ursa apologizes if she never loved her enough. When talking to an hallucination of her in a spirit temple, she tells her "mother" that she wanted her to have allowed Ozai to kill Zuko and stopped him from turning her into a monster.
* She has some twisted care for Zuko, restoring his honor for helping her conquer Ba Sing Se, setting him and Mai up, and warning him out of genuine concern of being mistaken for a traitor for speaking with Iroh, who is considered one by the Fire Nation. At Ember Island, she genuinely sympathized with Zuko as he became conflicted over who he is. In fact, most of the time she does try killing Zuko is mostly due to her growing insanity, and when managing to regain it in the Smokes and Shadows comic trilogy, she came to accept Zuko's destiny as the Fire Lord and tried molding him into a better Fire Lord (on her twisted point of view) through the chaos she instilled.
* She also has a genuine friendship with Mai and Ty Lee despite some twisted moments with Ty Lee that nearly endangered her life. Her slow sanity slippage started out of being hurt by Mai and Ty Lee turning against her. She even apologizes to Ty Lee for bitterly insulting her at Chan's party.
* She has an incredibly snarky and sarcastic attitude to her that makes her a joy to watch, providing some very savage yet entertaining insults.
* She is a masterfully skilled firebender, having been a prodigy from such a young age and it shows as she is a very precise fighter and hard to defeat.
=== Season 2 ===
* Using fear and intimidation, she rallies up soldiers to follow her command and support from her 2 only friends, Mai and Ty Lee for her mission.
* She tricked both Zuko and Iroh into thinking that Ozai wants them to return to the Fire Nation and lied to them that he did this because "family is important" to have them both imprisoned under Ozai's orders. Unlike Zuko who believed her lies, Iroh is the one who's aware of her deception but still goes along with him. Even after her deception was revealed, she proceed to take extreme measures like attacking them.
* She ucovers Aang's deception to lead them off course and has everyone split up to cover more ground.
* She surrenders to stage her escape.
* She does what the entire Fire Nation tried to for the past century even despite using armies, advanced weaponry, and drills, infiltrating Ba Sing Se by disguising herself, Mai, and Ty Lee as Kyoshi Warriors, deceiving the entire Team Avatar and Earth King Kuei.
* She reveals her nature to the Dai Li to strike a deal with them to conquer Ba Sing Se, and through sheer charisma, she ends up usurping control over the Dai Li from Long Feng and thwarts his entire attempt to backstab her completely, forcing him to bow down in front of Azula and accept his defeat.
** Just from his eyes, Azula deduces his entire background too.
* She ends the entire second season having used the Dai Li to overthrow the Earth King and conquering Ba Sing Se, having even come close to killing Avatar Aang in his Avatar State and ending the Avatar Cycle.
* She manipulates Zuko to her side and helps her defeat the Avatar.
=== Season 3 ===
* She lied to Ozai that Zuko's the one who took down the Avatar in order to restore his honor, which led him to believed her and congratulate Zuko for this. After Zuko reveals the truth of the Avatar's fate, her blame would fall onto him instead.
* She deduces Zuko's visits to Iroh, warning him out of genuine concern to be careful as he could be suspected of treachery since Iroh is considered a traitor to the Fire Nation.
* She thwarts the entire invasion during the information, having prepared for this encounter by moving Ozai to another room as she fights the Avatar to distract him till the Eclipse ends, foiling the resistance's entire attempt to end the war.
* To get to the gondola where Sokka, Zuko, Suki, Hadoka and Chit Sang are, she uses the handcuff and puts in on the cable while uses firebending to get to them.
* Seeing the guards are cutting down the gondola cable under the Warden's orders, she became aware that Sokka, Zuko, Suki, Hadoka and Chit Sang are going to fall onto the boiling lake to death and decides to leave them to their near demise.
* She managed to track down Sokka, Zuko, Suki, Hadoka and Chit Sang to the Western Air Temple to attack the Team Avatar.
* Even when becoming more paranoid and suffering a breakdown, she is still an extremely tough opponent to beat.
=== Sequel comics ===
* In her return in The Search trilogy, she allies with Zuko to find her mother for her own goals, extracting information from Ozai on where to find her. She even saves the heroes from their enemies sometimes.
* She burns many of her mother's letters as a distraction to hide one away, which contains info on Zuko not really being Ozai's son in a plot to usurp him. Using the burnt letters, she gives away the information she read to join the search unbounded.
* She deduces who her mother's new identity is, Noriko.
* She spares her mother out of her care for Zuko, escaping.
* Her own destiny in question was to make Zuko a ruthless Fire Lord no different from Ozai and her that rules through fear, and with this, she uses Ukano and his desire to restore Ozai to the throne to initiate attacks on him, orchestrating the kidnappings of multiple children and starts a riot to force Zuko into taking the other hand and taking extreme measures to quell the chaos, effectively winning.
** In order to do this, she disguises herself as the Kemurikage and breaks out some acquaintances from the mental institution to form her strike team, rallying them to her command and leaving any trace on them all being actually humans.
** She also knows when not to release the children when everyone is turning against Zuko, as their release would then end up leading everyone to her lair.
* She lulls Zuko into redirecting lightning at her so that she could learn the technique, and by their second encounter, redirects lightning back at him, showing Zuko the trick won't work against her anymore.
* At the end of the story, she either sarcastically or genuinely compliments her brother's apology speech to the Fire Nation before getting away scot-free from her crimes.
* While initially a pawn for Ozai, upon being disposed of by becoming the Fire Lord, Azula becomes an independent threat from him, having even used a secret society wanting Ozai back on the throne in which their goals weren't even part of the picture.
=== What Makes Her Heinous? ===
*Even as a child, she was already cruel and manipulative, desiring power.
*She always bullied and mistreated Zuko throughout their childhood to the point that Zuko keeps repeating to himself "Azula always lies" whenever Azula cruelly taunts him.
*She set Master Kunyo's pants on fire just because he wanted Azula to do a firebending technique a certain way, which resulted Ozai in banishing him to the colonies.
*She had a smirk on her face when she heard her father tell Zuko about how she was born lucky while Zuko was lucky to be born.
*She threw large loaves of bread at turtleducks for her own amusement.
*She was hopeful that her uncle Iroh would get killed in war so that her father could be Fire Lord.
*She burned the doll that Iroh got for her as a present, showing how ungrateful she was unlike her brother Zuko.
*After Iroh failed his siege at Ba Sing Se due to the death of his son, Azula mocked him by calling him a loser and a quitter, showing no sympathy for his loss.
*She made fun of Zuko over the fact that their father was planning to kill him under the order of their grandfather, and tauntingly suggested Zuko to find an Earth Kingdom family to adopt him.
*When her mother Ursa asked Azula about what she heard, Azula's feigned concern for Zuko when telling her what Ozai planned to do and then walked away with an evil smirk on her face.
*She taunted Zuko about their mother's banishment.
*She had a sinister smile at her grandfather's funeral, which deeply disturbed Zuko when he saw it, showing how little she cared for her grandfather.
*She showed sadistic joy while Ozai was burning Zuko's face, leaving a big scar on its left side.
*When the ship’s captain told her the tides wouldn’t allow them to bring in the ship to port before nightfall, Azula threatened to throw him overboard if he disobeyed her.
*She lied to Zuko about his father wanting him back in her attempt to take them back as prisoners. She proceeded to mock him over his failures as they fought.
*When choosing between being turned over to Azula or getting killed by the Earth King, Zuko and Iroh were quick to choose the latter option, showing how cruel Azula is.
*She forced Ty Lee into joining her team and quitting her job at the circus by interfering with the show, burning the safety net, and releasing all of the animals, endangering her life and making her join out of fear.
*She took over Omashu and captured its leader, King Bumi.
*She tried to capture the Avatar several times, one time keeping the team up all night by tracking them down through Appa’s trail of fur.
*When surrounded by Team Avatar, Iroh and Zuko, she launches a surprise attack on Iroh, seriously injuring her uncle.
*She used a giant drill to destroy the walls of Ba Sing Se in order to conquer it.
*She attacked the Kyoshi Warriors and Appa when they are on journey to bring him back to Team Avatar. After Suki convinced Appa to run away and find Aang and his friends, Azula and her friends managed to capture the Kyoshi Warriors and steal their outfits to disguise themselves so they could infiltrate Ba Sing Se. She also sent the Kyoshi Warriors to be imprisoned at the Boiling Rock.
*During the Coup of Ba Sing Se, she managed to influence Zuko to act against his better judgment in regard to his lost honor, despite his awareness of Azula's compulsive dishonesty and manipulative nature, and have him turned against Katara, shattering her whole trust on Zuko as result.
*She temporarily killed Aang in the Avatar state, which nearly resulted in the end of the Avatar cycle had Katara not revived him with the spirit water.
*She and Zuko finally captured their uncle Iroh after he risked himself to allowed both Katara to escape with nearly dying Aang. While Zuko showed his remorse for betraying Iroh, she didn't as she assured him that he's the one who betrayed him.
*She lied to Ozai that Zuko had killed the Avatar to ensure that if he somehow did survive, the blame would fall on him instead of her.
*She destroyed the sand castle made by children to scare them for her own amusement.
*She laughs at Ty Lee when Zuko mocks her and calling her a "circus freak".
*She joins Zuko, Mai and Ty Lee in trashing Chan's place just because he didn't want to date her.
*She personally gives Ozai the very idea to burn down the entire Earth kingdom, which is not only an act of genocide, but nigh-omnicide as well since the Earth Kingdom landmass makes up most of the landmass and houses most of the planet that doing so will result in the destruction of most of the planet and life in it. When Ozai incorporates her idea to his evil plan (albeit taking all the credit), Azula attempted to join Ozai as his chief lieutenant, burning down most of the world by his side.
*While fighting Aang, Sokka and Toph, she manipulates Sokka into attacking her by taunting him over Suki's (his love interest) imprisonment in order to make them waste more time dealing with her, ruining the resistance's attempt to end the Hundred Year War as the eclipse ended.
*She attempted to leave Sokka, Zuko, Suki, Hakoda and Chit Sang fall onto the boiling lake to death, but only to be stopped by Mai. She doesn't even cared if the Warden's with them.
*After Mai and Ty Lee betrayed her, she spitefully ordered for them to get sent to prison so they could rot.
*She attacked Team Avatar and their allies at the Western Air Temple and intended to kill Zuko so she could celebrate to become an only child, which led the Team Avatar and their allies are separated on their ways following the temple's destruction.
*She banished all of her servants while she was the Fire Lord out of sheer paranoia.
*When Azula and Zuko face off at an Agni Kai, Azula attempted to blast lightning at Katara, a non-combatant, that lead to Zuko nearly dying defending her.
*She attempted to kill Katara after Zuko was unable to get back up.
*Upon learning that her mother, Ursa, became Noriko, Azula blasts through her house in an attempt to kill her.
*She orchestrates the kidnapping of multiple children to cause chaos all across the Fire Nation capital to corrupt Zuko into becoming a ruthless tyrant to solve these issues.
*She and the Kemurikage burned a granary in an attempt to destroy the food supply of Zuko's forces.
*She coldy left one of her teammates, Chiyou, behind when she was captured by Ty Lee and other Fire Nation guards, and when she was called out on it by Zirin, another member, she told her crew that they belonged to her and that they should be grateful she freed them from their mental facility. This lead to her teammates leaving her to rescue Chiyou.
*When finding out she was trapped in a temple, Azula threw the spirit of the temple out of the way, even though from her prespective it was just an old woman who was trying to protect her.
*When it seemed she encountered Ty Lee, she tried to kill her for asking if she could read its aura, and hit her when she told Azula that she needed help in getting through her obsessions.
*She rejects the temple spirit's offers to redeem herself, with her saying that it was for the weak. Even when the spirit called her out for refusing the second chances that it gave her and corrupting it through her twisted nature, Azula was unrepentant and boasted about her ambition to become the rightful Fire Lord.
*After escaping the temple and finding her teammates who had rescued Chiyou, she left them while saying that they aren't worth her leadership.
== Trivia ==
*Given she is Inconsistently Heinous, she serves a foil to her brother Zuko, who is Inconsistently Admirable. She shows what Zuko would be if he had everything he thought he wanted and never realized how the Fire Nation's global war had actually damaged the world.
*It's currently unknown if her live-action counterpart from the upcoming Netflix live-action adaptation will be a Great Baddie or not.
==External Links==
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