I think it has less to do with masculinity and more to do with militarism. She, like Zuko, wears a modified military uniform until she gets home, where she wears what looks like a traditional robe for an heir to me. It's the same one her brother wears, and looks like a less impressive version of their father's clothes. Other than that, we see her in Kyoshi dress, modified Dai Li dress, a dressing gown, and her beachwear. I think she goes for armor for the same reason Zuko does. It emphasizes her rank, and subconsciously, what her father did to her brother makes her feel just as insecure in that rank as her brother does. That's just my read on it, though. You're interpretation is just as valid as mine.
It's always hard for me to talk about how fandom treats Azula, even harder for me to talk about her in canon, because intellectually, I can talk about how she's a complex and frightening female villain, but emotionally, she's all bound up for me in my feelings about my first stalker. There are a lot of objective similarities, some of which I talk about here: http://attackfish.livejournal.com/104944.html?thread=1211888#t1211888 (second part) and other victims of hers actually warned me not to see A:tLA because she reminded them so much of the same person. This is also why I can't read Ty Zula. Every time I look at Ty Lee, and the way Azula covertly threatened her into joining her, I see me at say, thirteen, terrified, and trapped, and always smiling.
Honestly, the idea that Ozai turned Azula evil bothers me, but not as much as the idea that Ursa did, which I also see a lot of. The logic usually goes "She thought there was something wrong with Azula, so she didn't love her, so she favored Zuko and abused Azula" which as I wrote about in the above link, makes me want to throw up. Then there are the people who say that Ozai must have sexually abused her, which along with saying sexual abuse makes someone evil, we have no evidence for it. Sexually abused girls usually aren't almost completely unaware of themselves as sexual beings as she is in canon. This ties into the Azula/Zhao thing, and how strange that seems to me too. Well, there is the way she almost seems to be trying to seduce her brother at points, but that just points to more unawareness on her part.
Anyway, we know Ozai gave her plenty of warped ideas, and shaped the form her evil would take, and given what Bryke have said about choice, and everybody being capable of good and evil, I think we're supposed to read it as non-inevitable, that Ozai's warped raising and favoritism made her evil, but I believe in inborn sociopathy (my first stalker started young. I now a victim of hers from when she was five.) and Azula, with the way she lies, and her shallow affect, and lack of affective empathy, combined with keen cognitive empathy (she knows what others are feeling, with often piercing insight, she just doesn't care) and the way she uses her "friends" and brother all say sociopathy to me.
The idea of Azula as harmless is maddening. She is easily the most effective villain in the series. I don't even... What? Seriously? People actually try to say that?
Honestly, I can't see her ever being interested in Zhao, and certainly not as a child, mostly because he's not nearly as smart as she is. She would have him as a minion, or not at all. He is a Long Feng to her. And for God's sake, she has clearly never had a relationship before, as seen in The Beach. Azula might be hot and evil, but she is not some kind of femme-fatal.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2012-09-04 04:18 am (UTC)It's always hard for me to talk about how fandom treats Azula, even harder for me to talk about her in canon, because intellectually, I can talk about how she's a complex and frightening female villain, but emotionally, she's all bound up for me in my feelings about my first stalker. There are a lot of objective similarities, some of which I talk about here: http://attackfish.livejournal.com/104944.html?thread=1211888#t1211888 (second part) and other victims of hers actually warned me not to see A:tLA because she reminded them so much of the same person. This is also why I can't read Ty Zula. Every time I look at Ty Lee, and the way Azula covertly threatened her into joining her, I see me at say, thirteen, terrified, and trapped, and always smiling.
Honestly, the idea that Ozai turned Azula evil bothers me, but not as much as the idea that Ursa did, which I also see a lot of. The logic usually goes "She thought there was something wrong with Azula, so she didn't love her, so she favored Zuko and abused Azula" which as I wrote about in the above link, makes me want to throw up. Then there are the people who say that Ozai must have sexually abused her, which along with saying sexual abuse makes someone evil, we have no evidence for it. Sexually abused girls usually aren't almost completely unaware of themselves as sexual beings as she is in canon. This ties into the Azula/Zhao thing, and how strange that seems to me too. Well, there is the way she almost seems to be trying to seduce her brother at points, but that just points to more unawareness on her part.
Anyway, we know Ozai gave her plenty of warped ideas, and shaped the form her evil would take, and given what Bryke have said about choice, and everybody being capable of good and evil, I think we're supposed to read it as non-inevitable, that Ozai's warped raising and favoritism made her evil, but I believe in inborn sociopathy (my first stalker started young. I now a victim of hers from when she was five.) and Azula, with the way she lies, and her shallow affect, and lack of affective empathy, combined with keen cognitive empathy (she knows what others are feeling, with often piercing insight, she just doesn't care) and the way she uses her "friends" and brother all say sociopathy to me.
The idea of Azula as harmless is maddening. She is easily the most effective villain in the series. I don't even... What? Seriously? People actually try to say that?
Honestly, I can't see her ever being interested in Zhao, and certainly not as a child, mostly because he's not nearly as smart as she is. She would have him as a minion, or not at all. He is a Long Feng to her. And for God's sake, she has clearly never had a relationship before, as seen in The Beach. Azula might be hot and evil, but she is not some kind of femme-fatal.
*makes note to check out Mark Smylie*