History of Azula (85 AG - 100 AG)

Azula was born into the Fire Nation Royal Family, being the second child of Prince Ozai and Princess Ursa. Recognized as a firebending prodigy, she became Ozai's favorite child, resulting in a rift between her, her mother, and her older brother Zuko. Ozai's growing influence greatly impacted Azula's personality and her world view, resulting in her regarding fear and power as the only reliable ways to keep others close. Accordingly, she began to bully Zuko and manipulate her friends Mai and Ty Lee.
When Azula was ten years old, her father became Fire Lord and Ursa disappeared. Though she had resented that her mother had seemingly favored Zuko, Ursa had also shielded Azula from Ozai's worst manipulation. With her mother gone, Azula thus became obsessed with pleasing her father and always achieving perfection. Two years later, Zuko was also banished, making Azula the de facto heir to the Fire Lord, a position she still held when setting out to capture her brother and the Avatar in 100 AG.The Earth Kingdom Chronicles: The Tale of Azula, Chapter 1.
== Early childhood ==
Azula was born to Ozai and Ursa in 85 AG and was named after her paternal grandfather, Fire Lord Azulon. Azula grew up with all the riches, splendor, and privileges of royalty in the Fire Nation. In the first years of her life, cohesion and peace were still strong among her family. Azula and her family often made vacations at Ember Island. At the time, Azula also had a good relationship with Zuko; for example, the two would often reenact the final duel of Love amongst the Dragons after watching the play during their frequent vacations at Ember Island. Both siblings happily recalled these memories many years later.
However, Ozai soon began to favor Azula over Zuko, disdaining the latter's perceived weakness. In contrast to her brother, Azula began to consciously firebend at an early age. When she first unleashed her power, she burned a wooden turtle duck toy. When Ursa discovered this, she was sad instead of happy, well aware of how Azula's destructive potential would be used by others. In contrast, Ozai was overjoyed, hugging Azula and giving her compliments. This contrast was one of many incidents which shaped Azula's later belief that her mother had always considered her a monster. In general, her sharp wits and the fact that she was a firebending prodigy gained her great attention and acclaim, which further cemented her belief that only strength and control yielded support.
Her father began raising her as his true heir from an early stage, taking her into his confidence and educating her in politics. Azula later attended the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, where she met and befriended Mai and Ty Lee, two daughters of Fire Nation noblemen. One of the reasons the princess chose them as friends was because the two girls possessed skills that she did not, and so she spent part of her adolescence learning these abilities from them.DiMartino, Michael Dante & Konietzko, Bryan (May 6, 2008). "The Day of Black Sun, Part 2: The Eclipse" commentary. Book 3: Fire, Volume 3 DVD.
Azula frequently invited Mai and Ty Lee to play in the Fire Nation Royal Palace. They often played hide-and-go-seek, with Azula always winning by cheating, as she knew the palace's secret pathways. Ultimately, Mai and Ty Lee discovered Azula's secret. In another instance, Azula visited Mai's family alongside Ty Lee; at the time, Mai's mother had prepared mochi for her grandmother's birthday. Azula subsequently manipulated her friends into stealing the mochi despite their misgivings. She was also completely unfazed when both Ty Lee and Mai refused to eat any stolen mochi, opting to eat all of it herself. When they later went to sleep, Mai experienced nightmares and talked about the Kemurikage in her sleep; Azula overheard this, but merely considered it interesting instead of feeling any empathy.
== Deteriorating relationship with Zuko and Ursa ==
Though Azula was clearly favored by Ozai, she felt that her mother loved Zuko much more than her, creating a rift of jealousy between her and Ursa and Zuko. Confronted daily with her brother's close relationship with their mother and Azula's comparatively distant one, Azula often attempted to gain Ursa's attention in some way. However, these attempts usually resulted in family quarrels. Around 94 AG, Azula walked together with her mother and brother in the royal garden. Feeling neglected and bored, as Ursa only talked with Zuko, Azula ignited a flower, prompting Zuko to tell on her to Ursa. Ursa scolded Azula for disrespecting the royal garden, but the princess just said that the flower "deserved it", as it had not grown to her liking. In retaliation for telling on her, Azula burned Zuko's bottom, calling him a tattletale. Seeing this, Ursa promptly sent her to her room. Scowling over this treatment, Azula stormed off. Scenes like this became regular occurrences, and as a result, Azula developed an increasingly hostile attitude toward Zuko and Ursa.
Months later, Azula and her family ate together at the palace dining hall. The princess, dissatisfied with the conservative training techniques of her firebending teacher, happily told her father that she set his britches on fire after being lectured by him. Ozai agreed that the teacher sounded like a fool for insisting on specified forms and declared that he would send him to the colonies as punishment. Full of spiteful joy at her father's agreement, Azula said that it "serve[d] him right" and called him a "dummy". When Zuko attempted to defend the tutor, he was promptly silenced by his father, who reprimanded him for his poor firebending skills and compared him with Azula and her natural talent for the bending art. Ozai revealed that he nearly discarded Zuko at birth, believing the prince to be a nonbender. He stated that Azula was "born lucky", and Zuko was "lucky to be born", causing Azula to smile triumphantly at her shocked brother.
Azula often displayed her natural talents, along with her tendency for malice and perfection, but these traits were especially clear when the princess played with her friends in the royal garden in 95 AG. When Ty Lee successfully performed a cartwheel after Azula's failed attempt, she shoved her friend to the ground out of jealousy while laughing gleefully. When she saw ten-year-old Mai attempting to hide her crush on her brother Zuko, Azula used her acting and cunning to convince her mother to make Zuko play with them. During their game, she placed an apple on Mai's head and set it on fire, forcing Zuko to tackle Mai into a fountain to put out the fire. She found great pleasure in embarrassing the two of them.
== Ursa's banishment ==
A true tactician, Azula desired power from a young age, suggesting that her father would make a better Fire Lord than the heir apparent, her uncle Iroh. She torched a doll that her uncle had sent her as a gift from the Earth Kingdom, preferring the weapon Zuko had gotten over a simple doll. Not long after this, her cousin Lu Ten was killed in battle, prompting Iroh to abandon his legendary six-hundred-day siege of Ba Sing Se, which in turn prompted Azula to call him "a quitter and a loser". She also showed some slight disrespect to her grandfather, as when she was told to call him "Fire Lord Azulon", she responded with, "Can't we just call him grandfather? He's not exactly the powerful Fire Lord he used to be".
Shortly after receiving this news, Azula and the rest of her family went before Fire Lord Azulon, and she put on a spectacular display of her firebending prowess. After her routine, she watched smugly as Zuko tried to copy her performance but failed. When Azulon ordered everyone except Ozai out of the room, Azula grabbed her brother and hid behind the curtains. From there, she and Zuko watched their father request that he be made Fire Lord instead of Iroh. When Zuko fled in fear of the Fire Lord's anger, Azula stayed behind to watch with amusement. She later met her brother back in his room, claiming gleefully that she heard her grandfather sentence him to death. She taunted him about it until their mother angrily pulled her away for a private talk. Under pressure from Ursa, Azula confessed what she overheard and was told by her mother to go to her room, which she did with a devious smile. A short time later, Azula played with the knife that Zuko had received from Iroh and coolly announced to him that no one knew where their mother was and their grandfather had passed away during the night. Soon after that, she watched her father's coronation with glee. No amicable feelings developed between her and Zuko throughout the next few years, as Ozai apparently began to favor her more and more over her brother during this period.The Earth Kingdom Chronicles: The Tale of Azula, Chapter 1.
== De facto Crown Princess ==
In 97 AG, Azula, alongside Iroh and Zhao, watched Zuko's Agni Kai with his father. When Ozai burned her brother's face, she smiled smugly in triumph, along with Zhao. When Zuko was banished from the Fire Nation, Azula became Ozai's de facto heir; however, much to her frustration, he did not fully confirm her position as crown princess, meaning that Zuko was still a possible contender for the throne.The Earth Kingdom Chronicles: The Tale of Azula, Chapter 5. For the next three years, she would continue her relentless training in firebending, strategy, and combat until she refined herself enough to serve her father. At one point in her childhood, Lo and Li were appointed as Azula's teachers and advisors. She came to value their advice in various matters, including her firebending training as well as strategy.DiMartino, Michael Dante; Hamilton, Joshua & Volpe, Giancarlo (April 10, 2007). "The Chase" commentary. Book 2: Earth, Volume 2 DVD.The Earth Kingdom Chronicles: The Tale of Azula, Chapter 2.
Eventually, her firebending advanced to the level where her fire was blue, and she could create lightning, thus increasing her overall bending power and intensity, making her a formidable opponent. However, this period was also marked by Ozai's emotional manipulation of Azula to the extent that, year later, she expressed her wish that her mother would have been there to protect her from Ozai's influence.
Shortly after Zhao's failed Siege of the North, Azula was summoned by her father to his throne room. As she knelt before Fire Lord Ozai, he commented that Zuko was a failure and Iroh was a traitor. He charged her with a mission: to find and capture her uncle and brother. By spring 100 AG, Azula had mobilized a force and set out to do exactly that.
== Trivia ==
* Some additional information on this period of Azula's life is provided by . However, Zuko's Story is of dubious canonicity, as it was written for the 2010 live-action film timeline.
== References ==
== See also ==
* Azula
* History of Azula (Spring 100 AG)
* History of Azula (Summer 100 AG)
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Category:Azula
Category:Character histories