Azula

Azula was one of the main antagonists of the series, mostly in the Earth Kingdom Chapter.

Appearance
She was a teenage girl with black hair and a uniform of the Fire Nation.

Personality
Born a princess and hailed as a prodigy, Azula grew up to be narcissistic and confident.

She relentlessly drilled herself toward perfection and settled for nothing less from herself or those who served her.

She believed that power and domination were the defining traits of strength, and as such would only help others if she thought there was some personal gain at stake.

She had absolute confidence in her "divine right to rule", with which she believed she was born.

She harboured neither pity nor mercy for those she marked as treasonous or inferior.

As one who wanted nothing less than absolute control, she likewise had remarkable control of herself, seemingly able to react to any situation at a moment's notice without losing her composure.

Azula was marked by a distinct lack of empathy.

Even as a child, she reacted with hostility when outdone, a trait clearly displayed when she shoved Ty Lee to the ground after the girl bested her at gymnastics.

This behavior would characterize her relationship with her friends for many years.

Although she could show sympathy toward them, she never cared for their feelings and manipulated them as she saw fit, such as when she intimidated Ty Lee into leaving the circus and joining her cause.

She was prone to asserting herself and her authority in a grandiose way, such as when she humiliated Long Feng in front of his former henchmen, or when she threatened the captain of her ship.

She also showed a need for admiration, mostly from her father, whom she emulated to a great degree, and from everyone else around her, though to a lesser extent.

She reacted with despair and rage when she learned her father was going to the Earth Kingdom without her.

However, Azula showed a level of fear of him, as in the novelization Azula notes that not even she could take him in a fight.

It's possible Azula only truly respected him as she could not defeat him, politically or in a fight.

Azula was known to have a cruel personality, showing little to no concern for others besides her father.

From a very young age, Azula demonstrated sadistic aggression and a near total lack of remorse to friends, servants, family, and animals.

Her own mother, Princess Ursa, once remarked, "What is wrong with that child?" after observing her casual cruelties.

Azula's first reaction to hearing of Iroh's son's death was to wonder whether this now made her father the heir to the throne. She later dismissed her uncle as a quitter and a loser when learning he had ended his six hundred day Siege of Ba Sing Se to grieve for Lu Ten.

She eagerly watched Azulon proclaim Ozai's punishment for trying to claim the throne and grinned maliciously when Zuko was burned and scarred by their father.

She also did not seem to care when her mother disappeared or when her grandfather died.

Her cruelty was apparently infamous and extreme; when Iroh accidentally ingested the poisonous white jade flower, both he and Zuko quickly decided that they would rather seek help from the Earth Kingdom at the risk of facing certain death than the possibility of being handed over to Azula by the Fire Nation.

Azula's characteristic blue flames symbolized the power she possessed and constantly sought to increase.

Her lack of compassion also accounted for her ability to create and direct lightning, the "cold-blooded fire".

According to Iroh, the skill required complete control of all emotion, which would not prove difficult for Azula with her one-track mentality.

Because of these skills, she was also an excellent tactician, regularly displaying cunning, perception, and resourcefulness that allowed her to take advantage of almost any situation.

She possessed good self-control, facing down Long Feng and deceiving him when held captive, and could lie with a straight face and no physical reactions.

Ironically, for all her refinement and self-confidence, Azula did retain some insecurity.

As a result of her sequestered life of royalty, she had developed a considerable amount of social ineptitude, particularly in her uncertainty of how to act around boys, and she frequently intimidated them during conversations.

Even when attempting to flirt with Chan, her domineering and megalomaniacal personality manifested in a way that disconcerted him and prompted his recession.

Her overly competitive nature surfaced during a kuai ball game, and she later admitted her jealousy over how much attention Ty Lee received from others.

Azula was never happy with what she had, always striving for more.

When she'd conquered Ba Sing Se she passed it on to a puppet ruler to be used by the Fire Nation.

When it was believed that she'd killed Aang she couldn't believe that he was dead, convinced that her brother knew a way that he could return that she didn't.

She was always trying to get more to try and fill what she lacked, but it was never enough. In a sense, she was a person without a finish line.

Later, Azula began to show signs of a fragile mentality. For all of her self-assurance, she was momentarily driven into rage when Mai betrayed her by helping Zuko to escape and admitted to loving him more than she feared Azula.

As Azula moved to strike her down, she was in turn temporarily paralyzed by Ty Lee. After her friends were apprehended, the enraged princess ordered both of them to be locked away and "left to rot".

While it was apparent that Azula held herself in high regard above her friends, their sudden betrayal drove her to the edge for an instant, hinting at just how unstable she would later prove to be.

This betrayal affected her so much that she lost her normally cool demeanor, as evident when she later attacked Western Air Temple.

She was erratic and maniacal, clearly trying to vent her feelings by trying to kill her brother.

While on Ember Island, Azula revealed her subtle resentment toward being seen as a "monster", particularly by her mother.

Though she admittedly agreed with the viewpoint, the princess stated that it was emotionally painful nonetheless.

Her time on Ember Island was also one of the few times she showed any sign of compassion for Zuko, as she followed him and urged him to return to the group when he was alone and in pain.

After being betrayed by Mai and Ty Lee, Azula's mentality continued to crumble in the final weeks of the war.

When she attacked Zuko and the gang at the Western Air Temple, Azula was evidently losing her sanity, as her attacks became far more vicious and she was seemingly obsessed with killing Zuko.

The tipping point came during her father's coronation as the Phoenix King, where Azula was told she would not assist in the attack on the Earth Kingdom.

Azula seemed distraught at this and took this decision as an offense to her and her honour.

For her, Ozai always represented absolute power and perfection, qualities which she desired to acquire.

His refusal to bring her along on a mission where the two of them would serve essentially as equals made her realize that her lust for power not only frightened her enemies but perhaps her father as well.

Ozai responded by appointing Azula as the new Fire Lord to govern over the Fire Nation in his absence, temporarily satisfying her desire for power.

However, she was unable to cope with the fact that the only human being who may have ever loved her was not only ashamed of her but still possessed power over her.

Her father was the last person Azula thought she could trust, and Ozai's refusal to include her in his final conquest only served to cause Azula more inner pain.

Knowing that her father would neither submit to her will nor love her, Azula's grip on reality began to steadily plummet.

On the day of her coronation, Azula became excessively paranoid and gave into her fear of betrayal and being killed.

She accused her servant of purposely leaving a pit in her cherry so that she would choke and got angry at the Dai Li when they arrived five minutes after they had been summoned, suggesting that their laxness could have allowed an assassin to sneak in, kill her, and "be on his merry way".

Musing over the possibility that the Dai Li could betray and kill her, Mai and Ty Lee's treason still fresh in memory, she banished them.

It also appeared that she was not sleeping well, as she had dark circles under her eyes.

Upon Lo and Li's arrival to counsel her, Azula's fear of disappointing her father was clear.

She became so enraged when her old mentors proposed to postpone her coronation, that she momentarily forgot they were not firebenders and ordered them to fight an Agni Kai with each other.

Ultimately, Azula addressed Li as Lo and banished her, leaving the sisters confused as to which of them had to leave.

Having sent off her staff, she was left alone to style her own hair for the coronation. Frustrated by her inability to tie up her hair bun, she "fixed" the situation by cutting off a part of her hair, leaving it a tattered mess.

Panting in frustration, she saw her mother in her mirror in an apparent hallucination.

Ursa complimented her, saying that she always had such beautiful hair, though Azula dismissed the compliment and asked her mother why she was there.

When Ursa told her that she would not miss her daughter's coronation, Azula told her not to pretend to act proud, stating that she knew her mother thought she was a monster. The hallucination of her mother refuted that, saying she did not think that, that Azula was just confused, and that she loved her.

Azula could not cope with the declaration of love and threw her brush at the mirror, shattering it, before breaking down crying.

This incident exposed a complex facet to Azula's persona. Although outwardly maintaining a cold and dismissive opinion of her mother, Ursa's banishment ultimately had a devastating impact upon Azula's fragile psyche.

As Azula's sanity began slipping away from her, this inability to reconcile her perceived belief that Ursa considered her a monster with the truer (though idealized but still true) maternal feelings of love and support that Ursa demonstrated in the hallucination created an inescapable conflict in Azula's mind that furthered her eventual mental collapse.

Another thread of this argument explored the possibility that although she was fully capable of acting cruelly without showing any outright regret, deep down a part of her could tell what she did was wrong and felt regret over it but it was just her indomitable will and emotional control that prevented her from showing it for many years by her indomitable will.

Nevertheless, despite years of such dark deeds, what remained of her conscience, in the form of her mother Ursa (whose love and guidance she secretly longed for but could never have) could still manifest at this point and reared itself stronger than before.

Ursa's gentle, motherly concerns over Azula's use of fear and cruelty as her only means of maintaining relationships with friends and family alike induced a violent mental breakdown prior to her coronation; after smashing a mirror, Azula collapsed and sobbed deeply before regaining any semblance of control.

Azula showed up at her coronation impatient and with her hair still a mess, though the event was interrupted when Katara and Zuko arrived to challenge her.

She did not hesitate to challenge her brother to an Agni Kai and outright smiled when it happened darkly that easily indicated she was more obsessed with killing Zuko personally than tactically dealing with both Zuko and Katara when she challenged him to a one-on-one fight, considering the fact she could just have what remained of the Fire Nation army attack them.

Her unstable condition shone through visibly, as Zuko could easily pick up on it, and this was shown further as her apparent madness weakened her fighting abilities for Zuko to decisively overpower her eventually.

She also was instantly goaded by Zuko into using lightning despite knowing he could redirect it and only changed her mind in the last moment to avoid what would certainly have been defeat by targeting Katara, leaving Zuko incapacitated, at which point Azula showed an increasing level of mockery towards the duo.

Her arrogance and mental state eventually allowed Katara, despite clearly being far less powerful than Azula due to Sozin's Comet, to defeat and chain her to the ground.

The moment Azula saw Zuko rose, the Fire Nation princess screamed in anger and outrage, while breathing fire uncontrollably and furiously struggling to break herself free, falling into complete insanity, sobbing loudly.

She dragged herself along the ground helplessly, the full extent of her madness causing both Zuko and Katara to watch with clear sadness despite all she had put them through.

This breakdown was the culmination of her failed relationship with her mother and her jealousy toward Zuko for receiving more of their mother's affection, the betrayal she suffered at the hands of Mai and Ty Lee, and finally, her defeat by Zuko and Katara.

This madness earned her Zuko's pity and Azula was spared from prison and instead committed to a mental health facility on a nearby island in the Fire Nation for potential better treatment.

Bending & Abilities
Azula was one of the most skilled and powerful firebenders of her time, recognized as a prodigy by both Ozai and Zuko.

The most notable feature of Azula's bending was her ability to create blue flames, which are much more intense than the red, orange, and yellow flames normally used by firebenders, though she was only known to bend normal coloured fire during her childhood.

Azula also used her flames in inventive ways, such as creating jets of flames, whirling disks, and blades of fire.

She often firebent using only two fingers, rather than with a closed fist or open hand as was commonly used by other firebenders.

Also notable was her ability to produce a greater amount of flames than most firebenders without tiring, and she was able to maintain successive assaults for long durations of time.

Azula was an extremely intelligent and cunning strategist.

Azula's high-level skill in unarmed combat was displayed several times during the series.

She easily avoided Zuko's frenzied knife attacks without the use of firebending, guiding his hands off course.

Later, she proceeded to disarm Suki and knocked her off her feet without bending.

She also had some skill with hidden weaponry, as she intended on using a shuriken knife during the eclipse.

Her acrobatics and use of a hidden shuriken knife were apparently skills she picked up from Ty Lee and Mai, respectively. Azula was very agile as she was able to run up walls and perform mid-air twirls.

She dodged Aang and Toph's bending attacks with little to no effort using high jumps like Ty Lee, ultimately making Aang admit she was too fast to hit.

Her physical strength was also adept as she could perform a planche, supporting her body in a horizontal position just by using her arms, with little effort.

Weapons

 * Knives
 * Shurikens

Family

 * Sozin (Great Grandfather, Deceased)
 * Azulon (Grandather, Deceased)
 * Ozai (Father, Deceased)
 * Ursa (Mother)
 * Zuko (Older Brother)
 * Izumi (Niece)

Voice Actress
Grey DeLisle.