Vid: Ursa made Ozai King of Anything

[attackfish]

Disclaimer: The music for this vid is Sara Bareilles's "King of Anything" . The footage in this vid comes from Avatar: the Last Airbender, which belongs to Nickelodeon, as well as to Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.

Summary: It was Ursa who made Ozai Firelord.

Creator Commentary: There is frustratingly little footage of Ursa to work with, and I didn't realize until this vid that there isn't a single scene of Ursa talking with Ozai in the series proper.  This really goes to emphasize her status as a cypher.


Ursa made Ozai King of Anything

Comments

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

Brilliant edit of Ursa's story. I particularly loved the overlap of Lu Ten's face when the lyrics went "who died and made you king," not to mention how the whole thing ended with Ozai defeated and in prison. The whole video was cut to great emotional impact, good job.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

*blush* thank you! It really struck me while I was making this that Ozai didn't become Firelord because of his own schemes. Even if he killed Lu Ten (and we don't know he did or not) he became Firelord because of Ursa. And how does he repay her? He spends his reign abusing her children.

[ljlee.livejournal.com]

amyraine in her interview (http://lalunatique.livejournal.com/15175.html) with me had this to say about Ursa and Ozai:

"I find [Ursa] to have more agency and purpose than Ozai himself, who is supposed to be the big bad. Think about it: who got him the throne? Ursa. Who got him Ba Sing Se? Azula. Who came up with the plan to annihilate the EK? Azula. Other than his one horrific act of abuse toward Zuko, the man did dick squat. I find Ozai to be the most boring villian in the history of boring villains, ever."

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I don't find him boring, because I have known real life Ozais (though thankfully none with control of a country) so he scares me too much for me to really think of him as boring. But it never ceases to amaze me how much that man gloats about things other people have done for him.

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

At first I was a little iffy because of the sheer bouncy pop of the music- and then it sucked me right in. This is so, so it.

I'll admit, I enjoyed the fanon of Ozai and Ursa having an initially decent thing before it all started to fall to wrack and ruin- but given the canon found in The Search, in combination with everything else- this rings out so painfully true. Heck, even if it wasn't canon, this just fits everything.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I was worried about the jaunty tune with the heavy subject matter, but I just couldn't resist those lyrics.

Well, you know it's been my headcanon for a long time that Ozai has been a twisted little narcissist for at least his entire adulthood, so I kind of figured that if Ozai and Ursa were ever happy together, it was never healthy. Abusive relationships in the grooming phase are usually pretty happy. But according to the comics, poor Ursa didn't even get that.

[weirdlet.livejournal.com]

*nod* Just because in said fanon I can see Ozai having a genuine lack of understanding/examples of how love and relationships work, doesn't mean it excuses what he does. It just helps set up the long, nasty fall after the brief bloom of 'want, need- take'.

Lyrics definitely work. And the contrast definitely comes through, the keeping-up-of-face while everything smolders against the supporting structures.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

It just helps set up the long, nasty fall after the brief bloom of 'want, need- take'.

Exactly. A lot of people look at abusive relationships, real or fictional, and assume they must have been obviously abusive all along, which of course has the fridge logic of how does anybody get involved with someone who abuses them right off the bat? Or if they know the relationship was sweet and affectionate at the start and think that somehow mitigates or excuses the abuse, which really bemuses me, because that's how abuse works. *sigh*

I love making the idiomatic literal.