The Stars.

Man, The Dragon Prince really is just "Children Experiencing the Horrors of War" the show, huh

"Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he has a lot to learn before he's ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world."

GET TO KNOW ME [1/15] TV SHOWS: Avatar the Last Airbender (2005-2008) tutorial

thinking about what zuko means to azula and weeping. he's a traitor but he's your brother. he held you when you were born. he's banished for being too weak to hurt your father and you learn to hate his goodness. he is somewhere in the world carrying your eyes. he misses your absent mother more than he loves you but that is the price you pay for being the one who stayed. he never grants you this same kindness. you are faster and deadlier and better but it doesn't change the fact that your brave big brother used to tell you stories of dragons every time it stormed because you were so afraid of the thunder. he is the only one who understands what it means to bear the brunt of your bloody inheritance. he crumbled under the weight of it, but you stayed. you always stay. he is half of you. you hate being betrayed.

you don't love him. he's your big brother. who could you possibly love more?

The thing that I find to be so funny and annoying about Azula hate is that people just do not seem to realize that Zuko could have ended up just like her, if it wasn’t for the fact that he had positive influences in his life. One of the many reasons why Azula is the way she is, is because none of the adults thought that she was worth the time and effort. Which Ozai saw and took advantage of. Thanks to his parenting “skills” and other factors, she learned how to play the game very early on in life in order to survive. Zuko, however, never got the memo, therefore he did not know how to play the game. Azula learned how to play the game and Zuko did not. That’s like, one of the many things that sets these two apart from each other, and what ultimately makes Azula’s character so tragic in the end: she thought that learning how to play the game and playing that game well would be what would protect her and keep her safe, but instead it’s what led to her eventual downfall. Meanwhile, Zuko not learning/knowing how to play the game is what initially put him in harm’s way at the palace, but it’s inevitably what saved him and put him on the better path in the end.

I feel one of the scariest things about Ozai is not necessarily the physical abuse he pulls on Zuko or Azula. It's the mental abuse and how under the radar it is.

Yes, it is easy to look at Zuko's scar and be horrified by his abuse. What I feel is more effective was that Ozai made Zuko believe that he deserved it. That he had to go on this three-year odyssey to try and find the Avatar for a chance at gaining his love back. Their reunion isn't about Ozai apologizing. It's Ozai saying how proud he is of Zuko for making up for HIS mistake. He doesn't mention the Agni Kai at all, and when Zuko does turn, he tries to make it sound like some exercise in learning respect.

Same thing with Azula. Ozai puts the mantle of Fire Lord on her shoulders, effectively giving her the responsibility of running a country. He puts on so much pressure to have her to be perfect (pitting her against Zuko, sending her out on missions). The only approval that he gives is for her performance which reflects on him. Basically, he treats her more like an asset more than as a person. And any failing she makes is on her part.

He puts so much responsibility on both Zuko and Azula, but never takes any for himself. So if they displease his high expectations, that's their fault.

And they believe him.

thinking about the agni kai again.

because the thing is, the agni kai was a double bind.  if zuko had stood and fought back against his father, ozai would have had him arrested, and most likely executed, for the crime of committing treason against the fire lord.  because no one in the fire nation is allowed to challenge the fire lord; treason is exactly what it would have been, if zuko had attempted to fight in the agni kai.  and when zuko kneeled at ozai’s feet and begged for forgiveness, he was still punished--condemed for his cowardice and exiled from his home.  

there was literally no way for zuko to come out of this situation unharmed.  no matter what he chose to do, it was going to be the wrong choice.  and that’s ozai’s pai sho-winning masterstroke, isn’t it?  zuko was never going to win, because ozai planned for him to lose all along.  

zuko was set up to fail. and I don't think it's a coincidence that the word "agni" sounds so much like "agony."

and what strikes me is that this isn’t the first time we see the fire nation royal family set up a situation where there is no way to win.  azulon set up a double bind of his own when he ordered ozai to kill zuko as a punishment for asking for iroh’s throne.  the choice azulon gave ozai was to either kill his own son, or to refuse a direct order from the fire lord.  

if ozai had killed zuko as azulon demanded, would he have recieved the throne he longed for?  azulon might have been similarily setting ozai up to fail. if ozai had indeed murdered zuko, azulon could have had the power to arrest--and execute-ozai for the cold-blooded murder of a member of the royal family.  and if ozai had instead refused to kill zuko, azulon would have been able to arrest him for refusing to follow a direct order from the fire lord.

if ozai had killed zuko as ordered, would azulon have actually given him iroh’s throne?  while azulon may have favored iroh, it does not seem to me that he actually loved either of his children.  but azulon’s demand for ozai to kill zuko could possibly have not been a punishment, but rather, a test--a challenge to see just how far ozai was willing to go to get the throne.  

what kinf of price would ozai have paid, to secure the throne? what terrible deeds could ozai bring himself to commit, in order to get what he wanted?

the fire nation throne can only be bought with blood, azulon could be insinuating; iroh has paid that blood-price by offering up lu ten as a willing sacrifice to the war; now ozai must pay a blood-price of his own son, if he intends to rule.

and that blood-price will be paid, one way or another. ozai, with ursa’s help, figured out a way past the double bind: they chose to kill azulon instead, and in doing so won on both accounts--ozai didn’t have to kill zuko, and he still got the throne.

a fire lord must be willing to do the unthinkable in order to sit on the throne: he must be willing to kill even his own bloodline.  perhaps that's why ozai so harshly condems zuko for his cowardice in refusing to fight the agni kai: a heir apparent to the fire lord must be willing to do whatever it takes to win the throne--and ozai's son surrendered without a moment's hesitation.

there’s something very biblical about about this kind of power struggle--ozai and iroh are jacob and esau, one using his cunning to steal the elder’s birthright and father’s blessing, and the other suffering from his brother’s deviousness; the same situation is repeated when zuko and azula are pitted against each other.

azulon’s order is the same kind of double bind as the agni kai: an agonizing choice, with no right answer, and no way for ozai to win.  either way, azulon extracts a bloody punishment for ozai’s impertinence--just as ozai later does to zuko.

Do you ever think about how 1 of the 1st waterbending moves that Katara learns, that she doesn’t come up with herself, is the water whip that she learns from that waterbending scroll, which also happens to be 1 of the final moves that she uses against Azula, using that move to manoeuvre Azula into a place more favourable for Katara??

Do you ever think about how in that same episode that Katara learns that, Sokka tries to steer a boat, and laments how he doesn’t know how, because that boat wasn’t made by The Southern Water Tribe, and then, later, steers an entire Fire Nation war balloon with precision and intent, and knows how to destroy them effectively and efficiently, while also being a co-inventor of the inspiration invention of those Fire Nation war balloons??

Do you ever think about how, when face-to-face with The Avatar in the Avatar State, after repeatedly threatening to imminently kill that Avatar like the other Air Nomads, Ozai’s 1st move is to firebend directly towards Aang’s left side of his face, the exact same spot that Zuko has his scar on??

Do you ever think about how Zuko was challenged to his 1st Angi Kai due to his desire to protect people being unnecessarily put in harms way, and his final Angi Kai was ended due to the same reason??

So I've started rewatching ATLA to cleanse my palette, and I only now noticed this foreshadowing from the very first episode, the second scene with Zuko in the entire series.

The show introduces the idea that Zuko's firebending isn't sustainable and is fueled by rage right at the beginning, which of course comes back in The Firebending Masters, where he can't firebend anymore because he doesn't have that rage. Basically that Zuko is cutting corners in his firebending through brute force and anger (a la "you will teach me the advanced set!"), and Iroh knows, or hopes, there will come a time that Zuko can't firebend like this.

Just, so cool that I can always notice new things and nuances in this show no matter how many times I watch it.

god i love fallible characters, but specifically zuko in the catacombs. choosing his sister over his uncle just to get to sleep in his childhood bed again. earning katara's kindness and empathy and stripping it all away in minutes because he ached for the familiar. fighting on the wrong side of history just to see his father smile with pride. knowing he could have done the right thing, but what is being good when you could be terrible but loved.

as a lifelong ATLA fan who narrowly had ATLA dethroned as my top show by The Dragon Prince steadily over the past 5 years, the similarities between the two have very little to do with the surface level parallels that get regularly drawn between them.

Like ATLA, TDP has Books for seasons and chapters for episodes, but unlike ATLA, which only touched on storytelling sparingly as a theme, TDP is obsessed with interrogating storytelling and history and the presence of unreliable, biased narrators throughout many of its episodes (most notably 2x05, 2x06, 3x06, 4x04, and 4x07 among them). Half of what you learn in the 1x01 intro ends up being a lie once you reach S3, with more being steadily deciphered.

Yes, TDP has different magics with people living under those umbrella terms... for the elves. Humans are coming culturally at things from a completely different angle, and the elves' connection to their primal sources are discussed philosophically in detail, informing their practices and their culture first hand, including the way they chafe against humans, who are arcanum-less. Many animals in the world are also connected to magic, which influences both their design and which ones get hunted for humans' more 'clever' solution in dark magic, including each other.

The core issue of the Puppetmaster, down to being a coercive magic formed by someone deeply resentful of their imprisonment? Said puppetmaster is the main endgame antagonist of the entire show with all of S4 onwards being exploring the ethics of controlling people against their will in various methods, and the entire show itself being a thematic battleground of fate (imprisonment) vs free will for virtually every single character.

Where ATLA mostly concerns itself timeline wise with ending the war, very little thought is shown by any of the characters as to what they'll do after the war. This isn't a problem (as it reflects the sheer domineering scope of the conflict) but even Zuko being firelord is only ever really addressed with 2.5 episodes left till the finale. TDP, meanwhile, ends its 'war' in s3 and s4 opens up with dealing with the old wounds festering between people with centuries of history, the struggles that come when people aren't able to let go and believe they're safe or mourn in a healthy manner, and the religious/cultural clashes that may occur when trying to integrate different groups of people.

TDP also has an evil father with a devoted daughter and a brother who eventually defects, but it explores the reality of an abusive parent who loves/will sacrifice for you and your right to leave regardless, even if that means leaving the sibling you truly deeply love and who loves you in turn. Which means that when you and your sibling are on opposite sides of a deep ideological conflict, it actually really fucking hurts bc we've seen first hand just how much they love each other and also how and why everything fell apart not in spite of that love necessarily, but also because of it.