1. Canon I think points petty strongly to there being a period where Ozai favored both his children, before he decided Azula fit his idea of ideal offspring better than her brother did, but what if that wasn’t the case? What if Zuko were a sickly baby, or otherwise was imperfect in Ozai’s eyes? What if he wanted to rid himself of this flawed child? Ursa is horrified and also terrified for her baby. She goes to Iroh as the first born prince and heir, and he tells her to give the child to him for safe keeping. They smuggle in the stillborn baby of a pauper who couldn’t pay for a funeral, and tell Ozai that the baby died in the night. It’s this child, whose ashes lie in the royal crypt. Iroh intends to take Zuko to an army captain of his who he knows has been trying for a child, but then the army captain dies, and Iroh stumbles across a hidden ancient civilization, and long story short, Zuko ends up with the Sun Warriors.
Two years later, an unattended baby Mai crawls into a life raft while her family is traveling and winds up drifting onto the beach, only to be found, dehydrated and miserable by a Sun Warrior woman collecting shell fish.
2. Mai and Zuko have much much happier childhoods than canon, spending much of their time running around on the beach or in the outer edges of the jungle, climbing trees and cliff-sides, and scaring their parents half to death like many active children. They live just on the other side of the village square from each other, and they and the other Sun Warrior children grow up laughing, playing, and learning how to hunt, tend crops, fish, and weave. It’s just about idyllic, and neither of them know how lucky they are to have it.
3. At thirteen, firebenders among the Sun Warriors go to meet the firebending masters and present to them the sacred eternal flame. Zuko’s little brother has been talking non-stop about how the dragons are going to eat his brother. He’s also actually having nightmares, and he doesn’t want to watch, and Zuko is going to be sooooo glad when this is all over and Seiji can stop worrying. So when he goes with another thirteen year old to present the fire to the masters, he’s a little on edge. And then, something goes wrong. Ran accidentally burns Zuko. Everybody freaks out. Seiji is traumatized for life, Ran freaks out, and poor Zuko, screaming in pain, is picked up by a panicking giant dragon, and hidden away in her nest. He almost dies because she won’t let anybody near him.
After the worst of the fever is over, and she lets him out to shamble back home to the village, the elders put their heads together and decide that the dragons have obviously chosen him, and he’s now going to become their next high priest. Zuko is like, no, come back childhood free of responsibilities and big flying lizards who think they’re his mom, come back!
I should probably note here that dragons are not human intelligence level, they’re more like smart dogs.
4. As if the sudden invasion of a mated pair of dragons into his life, who try to parent him (and Zuko isn’t sure what he thinks about that, given that one of them burned half his face off, and then held him captive, and no seriously, he thought his brother was right, and she was going to eat him) his new teacher is Ham Ghao, and he is a bit of a… Instead of running around outside, he’s stuck tending the sacred fires and sweeping the temple floors, and the only person who keeps him sane is Mai, who shows up to sneak him out. Together, the two of them explore the jungle, gather fruit, and hunt for rabbit-dear and parrot-lizards. And as they get older, they find other things to do away from thr prying eyes of the village and Ham Ghao as well.
5. Izumi is going to be spoiled silly by her dragon grandparents, you have no idea. They’re going to keep bringing her dead animals and trying to teach her to hunt dragon style.
1. Sokka is the oldest child of Chief Hakoda, only boy, and a waterbender. He grows up knowing that it’s his job, no not his job, his purpose in life to protect his family and his village, especially his sister. He also grows up knowing it’s his fault his and Katara’s mother is dead.
2. To say Sokka has mixed feelings about his waterbending is a massive understatement. It lost him his mother, but someday he could use it to help his sister and grandmother. His sister envies him for it, but he can’t do much with it, and this magic water stuff often causes way more trouble than it’s worth.
3. Meanwhile Katara grows up a typical Southern Water Tribe girl, just as in canon, fiercely determined, fiercely loving, mothering her brother, and at times deeply resenting thr amount of housework she does in proportion to her brother. This resentment all comes to a head in a colossal fight after the two of them get boat-wrecked on an iceflow, in which she yells to him about washing his dirty socks, and the way he never does anything, and he yells back about being the only boy and waterbender and how he doesn’t think he can protect everybody, and he’s really scared, and uh oh, he just cracked open an iceberg with an Avatar inside.
4. Katara nearly stays with the Kyoshi Warriors. Sokka is less inclined to learn from them in this universe, because while they beat him handily and he embarrasses himself in front of Suki, they can’t help him learn to control his bending, which is his big preoccupation. He does however make Suki a very nice apology. Katara on the other hand is enthralled. Here are a band of female warriors trusted by the village to protect them. They are respected and powerful, and clearly formidable warriors. She trains with them and is reluctant to leave. But she knows if she stays, Sokka will stay, and he needs to go to the North Pole, so they journey on.
5. Sokka is a boy, which means Pakku has no problem training him. But Katara finds herself quickly demoted, from the Avatar’s companion and a warrior in her own right, to just the sister of the Avatar’s waterbender. This grates. And it grates worse when she is dismissed as a warrior and told to keep the princess company during the seige. However, when she takes on the Prince of the Fire Nation in defense of Princess Yue and the Avatar, and wins, the Northerners start treating her, and her brother very differently. If only there wasn’t that undertone of “southern barbarian freak” to it. And then there’s the problem Sokka has trying to explain that he’s a natural healer.
Yeah well shipping them is definitely out, and Zuko is so much better at repression than he is in canon. Which says a lot really.
1. The thing about all of these “Zuko is someone else’s kid or otherwise ineligible for the Fire Nation throne” AUs is that ultimately what ends up interesting the political science nerd that is yours truly isn’t actually how Zuko is different, or his new family is different, or any of those lovely character things that I’m usually interested in, because I’m too busy working out who gets the throne and how that affects everything. So for this AU, Azula is an only child. I guess that means at the end, Iroh has to take the throne. He has no other choice. This infuriates large segments of the Earth Kingdom, especially the Earth Kingdom military, because to them, he will always be the Dragon of the West and a war criminal. Also, he will need to remarry and make an heir. He’ll have to choose his wife carefully, because at his age, there’s every chance that she will become regent to their child. Unfortunately we don’t know enough about the Fire Nation aristocracy to point to a suitable candidate, but she would have to be at least tacitly anti-imperialist, from an appropriate family, and of childbearing years, and preferably in her thirties, so that she’s both relatively mature and also wouldn’t likely have difficulties conceiving. And then no matter who Iroh chose, the other noble families would be in a snit over it. There are some very tricky politics here that canon Zuko just didn’t have to deal with, not having Iroh’s history, and having a suitable potential spouse in Mai.
2. As I mentioned, Azula is an only child in this verse, and by age eight, she is the undisputed heir to the throne. Her childhood relationship with her father is different than in canon, since there is no unfavored sibling to collect all of Ozai’s scorn, which means that Ozai swung between adoring and praising her, and hating her and blaming her for being less than worthy of being his daughter. Azula in this universe is less outwardly confident in herself, though she puts up a good act in front of other people, and also much more willing to contemplating removing her father from the picture. And because she’s relatively close in age to Zuko, and they already have an in with Mai being her friend/minion, his parents keep throwing him at her as a potential husband. Zuko is terrified of her, and wants nothing to do with her, which, as far as Azula’s concerned, makes him perfect.
3. It’s not just that Zuko would make a compliant consort, there’s something about keeping him under her thumb that Azula enjoys. When he leaves with his family for the newly conquered Omashu, she is severely displeased. When she goes hunting the Avatar and her fugitive uncle after Zhao’s colossal failure, she reclaims him along with his sister. Hoping to convince Mai to follow him, and desperate to get away from Azula, Zuko ditches the group and heads to Ba Sing Se, and runs straight into Azula’s fugitive uncle on the ferry. He stays with him for a while, but when Azula offers him the chance to help take over the city with her, he accepts to protect Mai, and also Tom-Tom.
4. When he runs away to the Avatar’s gaang, it’s an act of total desperation, after Azula gloated to him about how her father had decided to implement her Earth Kingdom genocide plan. The entire time, he is terrified for his sister and baby brother. After Mai turns traitor too, at the Boiling Rock, and he’s unable to rescue her, he assumes his entire family is probably dead in retaliation. When he sees his sister again and finds out they’re okay, it’s the best feeling in the world.
5. After the war, both Mai and Zuko powerfully resent Ozai, for effectively giving them to his daughter as playthings. They don’t have especially warm feelings toward their parents, either, and when
Ukano
tries to rope them into his conspiracy to put Ozai back on the throne, it goes over like a lead balloon, pretty much exactly the way it does with Mai in canon. Mai goes to the flower shop, and Zuko gets a job in a tea shop, and they share a crappy apartment, take care of Tom-Tom, and carefully don’t talk about family. Half the neighborhood thinks he got her knocked up, and they’re shotgun spouses, and Tom-Tom is theirs. Mai finds this hilarious. Zuko just finds it really awkward.
1. Ozai scorns both his children for being weak and pathetic. Much as he does in canon, he projects much of what he hates about himself onto Zuko. He also sees his hated older brother in Sozin’s attempts at cheerfulness and his flirtatiousness. While he does make some cursory attempts to set them against each other, to compete for his affection, these attempts are half-hearted at best, as he considers both his sons to be worthless.
2. Ozai instead focuses his attentions on remarrying and trying to produce an heir that way. The results are less than impressive, leading to a string of miscarriages, murders, and divorces. Yes, he is the Henry VIII of the Avatar world.
3. Meeting Jet is dicey. See Katara might be much more wary of Jet because he and Akanna’s styles of manipulation are fairly similar, or Akanna may have weakened her resistance to such manipulation. Akanna doesn’t trust him, but she also doesn’t care enough about her sister to try to protect her like Sokka does. My guess though is that Jet puts Katara’s guard up and it takes a lot more to persuade her to help. Akanna by the way doesn’t trust Jet, but she likes him, and wonders if she can use him.
4. After the fiasco at the North Pole, and with Ozai making noises about marrying again, Zuko and Sozin slip away to try their hand at capturing the Avatar themselves. They meet up with friends and make it all the way to Ba Sing Se. The four of them disguise themselves as Earth Kingdom country nobility, and run into a refugee street kid named Jet, who tries to pick their pockets. They catch him and have him arrested.
5. Look, all I’m saying is, Sozin and Zuko have a really good time conquering Ba Sing Se together with Mai and Ty Lee. It’s a bonding experience.
There is no meeting at the South Pole is the answer. They don’t attract Fire Nation attention until the Southern Air Temple and the sages alert the Firelord that signs point to the Avatar’s return. They then don’t first encounter Fire Nation troops until the Winter Solstice, at which point Zhao begins his hunt.
1. This is an AU that is fairly difficult to construct. Aside from the fact that they are both strategically minded, Sokka and Azula have very little in common. Changing them around would change the entire dynamic of the Fire Nation Royals, because I just can’t imagine that Sokka, who has a conscience, would attract Ozai’s favor in at all the same way as Azula, who he favored for their similar personalities at least as much for her firebending talent. So here we have Sokka the clownish protege firebender, and Ozai’s second disappointment, and this has to be the fault of Ursa and her weak blood.
2. Meanwhile Katara has an older nonbending sister who likes to torture animals before killing them, and is still really good at convincing Gran Gran that she’s a sweetheart.
3. Zuko is not exiled in this universe, because Ozai doesn’t want him out of the way in favor of Sokka. Instead, both are stuck at court, miserable, treated like crap by their father. When Sokka overheard that Ozai was going to kill Zuko, he talked him into running away together. They hid out in one of the palace tunnels until Ursa found them and told them Azulon was dead and it was safe to go home. Ozai forced her into exile soon after.
4. Mai and Ty Lee are much happier in this universe where they aren’t being abused by Azula. Mai’s parents might still be horrible, and Ty Lee still feels ignored, but at least they have never had to deal with Azula. Because of this, Mai is more open with her emotions, and Ty Lee never runs away to join the circus.
5. Sokka and Ty Lee flirt terribly with each other, constantly.
-Would alternate Azula (Akana?) use a boomerang? -How would growing up with a sister like that affect Katara? -Did Katara’s mother catch onto the fact that something was off about her elder daughter? -Alternately, did growing up in Katara’s family curb Azula’s worst tendencies? -Did alternate Azula blame Katara for their mother’s death, and if so, how did it affect their relationship? -How’s SOZIN for alternate Sokka’s name? XD
Akanna does use a boomerang but she might just go with knives instead of the club for her close up weapon. She’s always about doing the unexpected, and a boomerang is that.
Katara is much more cautious and guarded around her sister, and anyone she thinks might tell her sister anything, than she is in canon, and also more prone to snapping defensively at people. She feels under attack.
Kya did cotton on to Akanna’s nastier side, and while she was alive, she and Hakoda tried to teach her better, but after Kya died, and Hakoda left, Kanna thought they were paranoid and being too harsh with a child. This combined with the trauma caused by the invasion and her mother’s death (which she absolutely blames Katara for) means that Akanna’s cruelty is in full effect by the time canon starts. She is however sneakier about it than canon Azula ever had to be.
Two things, first, Akanna is a nonbender with a powerful bending sister. She doesn’t have the “I am the acknowledged superior and having my brother around highlights this” relationship with Katara that Azula in canon has with Zuko. Her feelings are much less complicated. She loathes her.
Second there are no adolescent boys in the Southern Water Tribe. In canon Sokka was the only one. Akanna does not feel the same need to protect her sister that he had.
1. So first things first. how does Ursa get into a position to become regent? The answer is that Ozai dies. The poisoning does not go to plan. Ozai can’t help but gloat over his father’s intended demise, and with his last breath, Azulon fries his son with lightning. Ursa has to think fast. She claims that the second prince was assassanated, and Firelord Azulon died of the shock of seeing him like that. Frantically she writes to Iroh. but he does not answer. She is forced to consolidate power on her own. She claims to be ruling in his stead until he returns, and indeed she intends to step down. She just neglects to mention he never appointed her.
2. And then Iroh does return home a wreck. He has no interest in the throne she so capably kept warm for him, and sinks deeper and deeper into grief fueled mysticism and attempts to journey to the Spirit World. Ruling on Iroh’s behalf while he is right there in the palace is growing old fast, and Ursa’s position is becoming increasingly tenuous. This is something she tells to Iroh. Rather than pull himself out of his grief. Iroh abdicates in favor of his nephew and appoints Ursa his regent.
3. Ursa is furious. This is not what she wanted, and Ursa sees it as Iroh abdicating not only the throne but his responsibilities, and his duty. This is not something she will forgive easily.
4. This does mean she now has near complete freedom over her children’s education, and that Zuko is suddenly officially Firelord. Azula can stop scheming now. She has no path through the throne that doesn’t go directly through her brother. She doesn’t stop scheming of course, but she adopts the dream of conquering the Earth Kingdom and ruling the colonies as Zuko’s viceroy. This is a dream that Ursa encourages, being an imperialist. Azula’s dreams, motives, and insecurities change under her mother’s careful guidance, as she builds a more resilient sense of self and learns to stop using others for her own gratification.
5. Iroh meanwhile is nursing his newfound anti-imperialism, which given how he decided he would rather dump the responsibility of ruling on somebody else in Ursa’s eyes… She disagrees with him, and she doesn’t see why he should get a say now.
I’m letting Sokka and Katara keep their same names because it appears in the Southern Water Tribe at least, a endings are gender neutral.
1. Sokka is the eldest daughter of a village chief, but she is nothing special. She is one of five other teenage girls, but after her brother, the next oldest boy in the village is six. So she always has it in her mind that someday she will leave the village to find a man. It’s just the way it is. So there’s always that part of her that knows the village won’t be her home forever, but she always thought the South Pole would be. Village life is incredibly stifling for Sokka. After her mother’s death and her father’s going off to war, she has had to shoulder the moose-lion’s share of chores, and while her brother was too young to do it, the hunting as well. It’s exhausting, and neverending, and all anybody tells her is how lucky she is her brother wasn’t old enough to leave yet.
2. Katara meanwhile is the chief’s only son, and the only waterbender in the entire South Pole. He’s a catch. He also witnessed his mother’s murder, all to protect him, and responded to this and the sudden absence of his father by trying to parent his older sister. Sokka jokes that her little brother will make a good wife someday.
3. This is the world into which Aang drops. And it’s into this world that Sokka has to sneak away, because Katara is a boy, and fourteen is old enough really to leave in the eyes of the village, but why is Sokka going with him? But Katara’s glad to have him around.
4. The Kyoshi warriors are a revelation for Sokka. She has always felt miserable that she couldn’t help defend her home, that she couldn’t protect her vulnerable little brother, and here are these nonbending women warriors, who can teach her to fight, and who keep their own homes safe with or without the men. They fascinate her and thrill her, especially their leader, and if she didn’t need to keep her brother safe on the way to the North Pole, she would never leave.
5. In the North, Katara is readily trained by Pakku. It’s Sokka who is forced to come to a reckoning. It’s much easier to recognize what she had felt for Suki now that she’s feeling it for Yue too.
ok so i screenshotted this moment because i thought it was pretty cool
the first time we get to see all four elements working together for a common enemy, blah blah blah, but i started laughing because
sokka’s fucking boomerang. sokka threw a fucking boomerang at princess azula, renowned lightning bender and heir-apparent to the throne of the fire nation.
and sokka threw a boomerang at her.
I said it once and i say it again.
Azula considered Sokka to be the biggest threat in this group and countered him first. What this picture miss is Sokka sanding nearby. All members of this group unleash their attack at same time, but Azula reacts to boomerang first. If you watch this part in slow motion, you could see that Sokka’s boomerang was the first thing that would hit Azula and may even incapacitate her making her unable to continue to fight. So she had to counter in first. She deflected it with well placed shoot.
Then and only then, when there is no immediate threat, she starts to create her blue fire wall to counter other elements.
Lets think about this. How hard should you have to throw something to make it move faster that any elemental attack? Either all elemental attacks are slow or you are pretty strong. That said nonbenders with good aim and strong hands could easily overpower benders if they timed it right.(Aang got captured by Yuan archers who are all nonbenders.) Azula knew of this and acted according to it. She is talented bender and you may think that she should enlist other benders to help her track and capture Zuko, Iroh, and later avatar, but instead she uses her nonbender friend to help her.
Even if you have no bending you can still fight… and win.
Let’s not forget that on the Day of Black Sun, Sokka was the one in charge and Azula was no idiot Azula knew that.
When Aang, Sokka, and Toph all confronted Azula, she proceeded to make them chase her and waste their time. Azula is not only talented, she’s sly and smart as hell. WHO WAS THE ONE WHO SAW THROUGH THAT BS CHASE?
Sokka.
NOT ONLY THAT but after Sokka explains to the Gaang that Azula is just baiting them, Azula actually verbally attacks Sokka. Not through fighting, but through words, knowing not only that an intelligent person like him could only be brought down with emotions BUT that Sokka was the leader and if she could get him the stay, Aang and Toph would follow his lead.
Azula knew Sokka was their strength and took him down. WOULD SHE DO THAT IF HE WASNT A SIGNIFICANT THREAT TO HER!!??!
No. She wouldn’t waste her time and energy on someone she didn’t think was capable of actually getting in her way.
WHEN SHE GETS HER FIREBENDING BACK SHE HAS THE OPTION OF ATTACKING BADASS METAL BENDING TOPH AND THE FUCKING AVATAR
WHO DOES SHE ATTACK?!?!
Azula never underestimated the power of non benders especially an intelligent one like Sokka. Sokka was a huge threat to fucking Azula on multiple occasions.
Remember that.
Look at this spot on fucking discourse. LOOK AT IT.
Just thought I’d drop this
into the debate as well, (instead of actually fighting him she backs off, and who blames her? Sokka’s club looks like it could shatter bones…).
Along with this:
Scenes with Azula confronting Sokka are few and far in between but they paint a pretty interesting picture, don’t they?
I mean, Azula’s friends/most trusted warriors were two non-benders. Mai was an expert with thrown weapons and Tai Lee was the only chi blocker shown in the first series, and she was able to take down half a groups of earth nation soldiers like that. Azula knows that non-benders are dangerous and she sees sokka for the genius he is
She’s knows she can take bending, she can redirect fire and she’s fought Katara a lot- but unlike Zuko she was probably never trained with weapons, she knows she has no defense to a sword or a club, and she knows that one of Ty Lee’s biggest advantage is that people underestimate her
Cheloneuniverse 