Reflection and Analysis

Azulon (9/25/21)

What kind of character is Azulon?

This particular reflection arises because of reader leaving comments on To Lose or To Gain: Iroh's Child over on Ao3 and an anonymous reviewer over on ffnet of which I ended up freezing the comment thread and not letting the anonymous review through. It is quite possible the two are the same person, but I can't say that for sure.

Reviewer: Azulon literally tells Ozai to kill Zuko.
Me: He literally does not, but the actual word he literally uses is the word sacrifice.

So, effectively, the reviewer showed up and effectively thought it okay to mock writers and readers with an alternative interpretation of the canon material—one that is actually quite valid despite the fact this reviewer insists it's invalid, but there is another point the reviewer brought up.

Reviewer: Azulon didn't care about his family.
Me: Canon clearly shows he did in the very least care about Iroh and Lu Ten, but it can also be inferred that—contrary to what Ozai says—that he did care about Ozai as well.

One of the important things to remember is this.

Azula always lies.

I think, though, we can extend this to Ozai who claims that Azulon didn't care about him, but we should realize that his logic as to why Azulon supposedly didn't care about him is because Azulon didn't treat Ozai like the heir. Sure, there have historically been issues to not being the heir, but this idea that the parents of such children were abusive because only one child was allowed to inherit is faulty logic.

More importantly, we learn about what Azulon says because Azula claims he said such a thing, and she is a notorious liar, which already brings us to the first problem regarding what Azulon intended with his words—he might not have even said what Azula claimed he said, but it shouldn't be put past Ozai to also lie to Ursa about what Azulon said if it could get him what he wanted.

Of course, I don't think Azula lied, but more of she told a half life.

Because truthfully, I do think Azulon said something about sacrificing Zuko, but that doesn't mean he told Ozai to kill Zuko.

It comes down to the fact there are two meanings to the word sacrifice, one meaning "to kill" and the other meaning "to give", and yes—Azula implies that Azulon meant the first rather than the latter, yet if you think about it, the latter makes more sense simply because Zuko dying means yet another member of the royal blood line is gone, but it would in turn leave the insane members of the family, yet Azulon would be all to aware of the fact Ozai and Azula shouldn't inherit the throne.

Yet, if what Azula wants us to believe is correct, Azulon is having Ozai kill Zuko which in turn would allow her to inherit. You know, the one Ozai obviously wants to inherit from him, which would have been bloody obvious to Azulon. He would have known forcing Ozai to kill Zuko wouldn't make him feel what Iroh did, for Azulon is not some old fool.

And that's the biggest issue with this idea regarding what Azulon supposidly wanted, particularly since he's unable to defend himself from such accusaitons. In fact, we never hear Iroh speak ill of his father specifically beyond the fact their line has caused great harm in general and Zuko can change that, but he does speak ill of his brother, who burned Zuko's face.

And—I think the real reason for protesting Azulon getting favorable treatment is because it means that he's seen as not being as horrible as Ozai. It's not because the narrator—in this case me—is attempting to apologize for the Fire Nation behavior. I mean, said reviewer was like--

Reviewer: This man is guilty of attempted genocide so he must not care about his family.

Me: Someone can be guilty of attempted genocide and care about his family, but me thinks this person doesn't watch shows like Criminal Minds.

True, while the story takes place with only views from the Fire Nation it can be mistaken that the writer is attempting to apologize for the Fire Nation behavior, but in reality it is because the story is being told from the view point of individuals who haven't had the propaganda of the Fire Nation challenged, but readers shouldn't expect a challenge to said view point until something occurs to—well, challenge the established morality view point of the characters.

I mean, we writers aren't supposed to go into grave detail about how wrong the behavior of the Fire Nation as the readers already know this, but part of the narrative is that the characters from the Fire Nation, as the story progresses, learn that what they've learned all their lives are wrong. It's very different from a story which focuses on characters outside of the Fire Nation.

But yeah.

Azulon not wanting Zuko dead is a valid interpretation of the canon material.