Okay, so I said I watched Sozin’s Comet yesterday. This clip, I think exemplifies one of the things I loved about this show: it does not glorify violence, and it is aware of the cost of war. Azula vs Zuko is the last Agni Kai. Everything about this fight feels sad and wrong, from the dialogue to the staging (that empty ground is an image I often revisit in the drabbles because it’s so evocative of where Azula is at- she has no-one at her coronation, because she sent everyone away. Contrast Zuko, who is crowned in front of a crowd from all nations, or Ozai, who is crowned with all the pomp and circumstance he can muster). Brother and sister shouldn’t have to fight each other. That they do is yet more condemnation to be heaped on the father that brought them to this. When Azula is defeated, and we see her thrashing around on the floor and sobbing like a child (for the very first time, like the child she is), it isn’t a victory.

(a sidenote: even in the middle of a full-on mental breakdown, Azula can lightningbend. That’s damned impressive)

In a way, it mirrors Aang’s final conflict: this war has finally begun to threaten the very core of who he is, that ‘unbendable’ spirit that tells him that killing is wrong. His defeat of Ozai is, in essence, a defeat on Aang’s own terms. He doesn’t do it in the Avatar State, either, which I feel is important. He does not defeat Ozai as the Avatar- he does it as Aang.

It’s rare we find such a nuanced exploration of the terms of victory in anything, let alone a children’s cartoon.