#bc unlike azula he hasn't been raised to believe that the right thing to say is whatever makes dad proud of you

[evilkitten3]

What would you think, if, after getting advice from Iroh, Zuko and the gang travel to the spirit world in order to find Aang’s people so that Aang can teach the air acolytes more about the air nomads? But Zuko gets attacked by a poisonous spirit and reverts back to pre Season 2 Zuko after losing some of his memories due to the poison fogging his mind. Zuko is confused and doesn’t know why he’s firelord. The gang try to explain things to him, but it only causes him to become even more confused. Aang and the gang then leave Zuko behind to spend more time with the air acolytes. While they’re gone, Zuko is very uncertain about what to do, but soon corrupt advisors convince him to restart the war. Zuko doesn’t remember his friendship with Aang, but he hears that he once joined Aang, so Zuko assumes that Aang once brainwashed him into joining team Avatar and turning against his Father. Zuko intends to be a much greater firelord than his father, and he and his army raid the air acolyte settlement in their airships in order to hunt down Aang once again, and end up burning down the settlement. Aang and the gang wonder why Zuko chose to hunt them down again. Aang eventually comes to the conclusion that Zuko backslid due to bad advice from his advisors and because he lost some of his memories. Aang then travels the nations looking for a cure to help restore Zuko’s memories.  

Azula escapes from the mental institute and Zuko sends bounty hunters after her to capture her. Soon, Azula gets bitten by a snake, so she finds help in the village of Jang Hui where she is healed by two waterbenders, who are taking refuge there. Jang Hui is the village Katara helped in The Painted Lady. And the villagers aren’t on good terms with the firelord. The villagers accept her and assume that she’s on their side because she’s made an enemy of the Firelord. The villagers teach Azula how to heal people using firebending techniques inspired by water bending, and she ends up becoming a fisherwoman because it’s a fishing town. She starts to warm up to the town, but one day she overhears the waterbenders talking about sneaking out to sabotage the smelting factory(which is currently undergoing reconstruction) in order to help the villagers. Azula offers to join their mission, and the three sneak out to destroy the factory, but she betrays the waterbenders over to the fire nation in hopes that she might bring glory to the fire nation. But now that the waterbenders are captured and eliminated, the town is defenseless. Zuko’s army burns the town down leaving few survivors. Zuko didn’t exactly authorize the attack, but he did give his generals permission to do whatever it takes to stop the villagers from trying to halt the rebuilding of the factory used for the war effort. A few survive and declare revenge on Azula for what she did.  

Azula starts to feel terrible about betraying the people who saved her life and indirectly causing the village to be destroyed, since she didn’t know it would be destroyed. And she holds Zuko partially responsible for destroying the village. After wandering around, Azula looks through a telescope and sees Aang try to save a fire nation village from a volcano, and she also sees Zuko. Zuko does nothing after his corrupt advisors tell him to leave the village, saying that Aang will probably die, so Zuko runs away. But Aang manages to save the village from the erupting volcano. Azula gets accepted into the gang when she uses her new healing abilities to heal Aang, who is wounded by the volcano. They reluctantly team up to stop Zuko.

After wandering around the Earth Kingdom to look for a cure for Zuko's memory loss, the gang sees a massive stream of fire pour down from a few fire nation airships hovering above a village. The stream of fire burns the village to the ground, leaving few survivors. It turns out that fire nation scientists developed a highly addictive serum that can increase the fire power of any fire Bender. The downside is that prolonged use of the serum results in loss of the senses, and eventually death. Senses such as taste, smell, sight, touch, and hearing. Zuko intends take the serum and lead a fleet of airships to finish what his Dad started by burning the Earth Kingdom to the ground. After learning what Zuko intends to do, even Aang feels tempted to give up on him.

it's an interesting concept, but i have a few critiques.

first, if the gaang knows zuko lost his memory, why would they leave him in the first place? and even if they did that, surely there'd be somebody in the palace who could say "hey firelord zuko maybe don't restart the war dude wtf" or at least alert the gaang or something.

second, i've seen a lot of people try to have azula's redemption involve learning some kind of healing, and i gotta say, it very very rarely does anything for me. for starters, it (probably unintentionally) reinforces the northern water tribe's ideology that healing is inherently for women (the show admittedly also did this bc the only named male waterbender who uses any kind of healing in any canon that i'm aware of is unalaq). moreover, it's not something i think azula would be particularly good at or have much interest in.

also, why are there waterbenders in jang hui? it's a fire nation village. you said they were taking refuge, but from what, and why there? on top of that, azula knows zuko is firelord and doesn't know he's lost his memories, so why would she assume betraying the waterbenders to the fire nation would bring it glory? if she just broke out of the asylum, then the last time she saw zuko was when he and katara fought her during the agni kai.

third, if zuko lost his memory to a "poisonous" (???) spirit in the spirit world, why are they searching the earth kingdom for a cure? shouldn't they be looking in the spirit world? aang's the avatar, and iroh's gotten in before, so it shouldn't be the hardest thing in the world.

fourth, if zuko lost all his memories of books 2 and 3, he shouldn't know about ozai's plan to burn everything to the ground, since that wasn't established until after he returned to the fire nation with azula, mai, and ty lee.

finally, even before book 1 began, zuko was deeply loyal to his people, balking at the mere idea of sacrificing newbie soldiers for the sake of a win, so i can't fathom a world where zuko is ok with burning down jang hui (a fire nation village) just cuz.

i'm not trying to say there's no potential here, you have some very interesting ideas, but there's a lot that doesn't really work for me.

(to be fair tho i'm not a huge fan of anything involving much of the air acolytes bc i frankly could not give less of a fuck about them. i don't hate them or anything they just don't mean anything to me)

#atla #it's an interesting concept #but honestly as described here it's more confusing than anything else #also the whole premise relies on the idea that zuko blindly listens to what people tell him to do #which is something he's never once managed ever in his life #also the whole ''let's burn everything to the ground'' was something zuko wasn't remotely ok with #bc unlike azula he hasn't been raised to believe that the right thing to say is whatever makes dad proud of you #he HAS been raised to believe that paternal love has to be earned through blood sweat and tears #but if he knew ozai was in prison then obviously the best way to get his favor would be to let him out and reinstate him as firelord #which would be. very confusing to ozai #imagine just sitting in prison and then your son storms in and tells you he's freed himself of brainwashing and you can be in charge again #then imagine having to explain that the avatar can take away bending now but you'd be happy to help him rule from the shadows #since clearly your daughter wasn't of any use #...actually i think you have the start of a really good toxic father-son bonding experience that absolutely nobody wanted #having said that my biggest piece of advice is to cut the serum idea entirely #it makes no sense in the established atla world #they haven't even got antibiotics over there yet #it'll be awhile before they're inventing super soldier serums to create captain fire nation or whatever #also i'm curious what advice iroh gave that prompted all of this #aang doesn't need to go into the spirit world he has all the previous air avatars on psychic speed dial #oh and why would jang hui hate zuko? #katara definitely would've pushed him to send them help #also they apparently became famous for their seafood after the war #so zuko would probably be pretty well liked by them #again it isn't a bad idea it just needs a lot of workshopping #bc right now it raises way more questions than it seems intent on answering