And Likes To Be In Control To An Unhealthy Degree - Tumblr Posts
Why do you think Azula asked Zuko to join her in Ba Sing Se in the first place? We know she gave him credit for killing the Avatar at least in part because she wanted to avoid any blame, but before that, did she on some level love him enough to want him to come back if it was possible without incurring Ozai’s anger?
Azula tells Zuko why she wanted him to join her in Ba Sing Se.
I need you, Zuko. I've plotted every move of this day, this glorious day in Fire Nation history, and the only way we win is together. At the end of this day, you will have your honor back. You will have Father's love. You will have everything you want.
Of course, she couches it in language that will appeal specifically to Zuko, but the audience can sus out her real intent. She isn't lying when she says she needs Zuko, and indeed, Zuko was instrumental in winning the fight against Katara and Aang.
In the fight in the catacombs, Azula was losing against Katara before Zuko intervened. Before that, she was facing both Aang and Katara against her at the same time before it was made clear which side Zuko would fall on. And she had already lost before when the gaang plus Iroh and Zuko teamed up on her in "The Chase," and had to resort to feigning surrender and taking a cheap shot at Iroh to escape. Her strategy in "Crossroads of Destiny" is divide and conquer, and she's also not lying when she tells Zuko that she's planned out every step of the day.
Azula is a brilliant strategist, but she has a few disadvantages. First, that she doesn't have as much experience fighting the gaang, while Zuko has a lot of experience. Specifically, when it comes to the fight against Katara and Aang, it was two against one in a scenario she's been in before. Remember that moment in "The Chase" when Azula almost had Aang cornered, but Katara stopped her with a water whip? The same thing almost happens in the catacombs fight, and it's Zuko who is able to free Azula from Katara's grasp.
Azula's second disadvantage is Iroh. Iroh foiled her attempt to capture them in "The Avatar State," and escaped earlier in "The Crossroads of Destiny." While Azula has Zuko captured, she knows that Iroh is going to come back to try and break him out, and is going to be a problem when he does. It's likely she was able to guess after capturing Sokka and Toph that she would find Iroh and Aang in the catacombs trying to rescue Zuko and Katara, which is why she's able to arrive at the exact moment she needs to.
She'd probably already planned what she would do to get Zuko on her side, and in order to do that, she needs to make sure she separates Zuko from Iroh, which is what she does first. She creates a physical barrier between Zuko and Iroh before she even says anything, and traps Iroh so that his words to Zuko fall on deaf ears because even if Iroh could get through to Zuko, he himself is imprisoned and can't do anything to help Zuko.
Even so, there's still a chance that Zuko could side against Azula and try to free Iroh, and then Azula would have to fight both Zuko and Iroh and Katara and Aang. So Azula knows that while Iroh is helpless, she has to convince Zuko to join her. And she knows just what to say not just to make Zuko side with her, but also to make Zuko turn against Iroh, which ensures that Zuko doesn't get any ideas about helping dear old uncle.
Like I said, Azula isn't lying about needing Zuko, but she also knows this is what Zuko wants to hear, what he's been longing to hear for so long. Not just the promise of his restored honor and their father's love, but the idea of being needed, of being wanted, of in fact being so wanted that the only way we win is together. It's exactly what Zuko has been starved for his whole life, especially since his mother left. That he is wanted, that he isn't a failure, that his skills are valuable, that she can't do it without him.
What makes me doubt that her needing him was actually out of love or respect for him - aside from the fact that she told him before that their father would never want him back except to lock him up because he's an embarrassment - is that she still makes it about herself, even when she's saying the right words to get Zuko to think what she wants him to think. I need you because I've plotted everything out, which also includes the speech she's giving right now to her brother and her anticipation of what his reactions might be. Azula sees people as tools, and a few scenes before we saw her own Long Feng and then tell him he wasn't even a player in the game, he was a pawn. Zuko is also her pawn here who thinks he's a player, and she knows exactly what to say to him to make him do what she wants him to do.
She also appeals to and feeds Zuko's doubt of Iroh, which she knows already exists because of how she's observed them before and the way Iroh tried to convince Zuko not to go with Azula before. Lines like "I expected this kind of treachery from uncle, but not from you," and "you're not a traitor, are you?" feed Zuko's insecurity and plant doubt in his mind about Iroh. Therefore the choice in Zuko's mind becomes the choice between loyalty and love and glory and defeat and capture, dishonor and treachery. It's also worth noting that the idea that Iroh is a traitor comes from his actions at the North Pole, and Zuko was unconscious when that happened, so he doesn't have enough context to understand, which makes it easier for Azula to get Zuko to agree with her.
Azula also needs to have control over other people and manipulating Zuko into joining her is much more satisfying than dragging him back as a prisoner. While imprisoning someone and taking away everything they have is certainly a way to exert control, the ultimate way to control someone is to make them want to do what you want them to do. I'm not saying that Azula is consciously like, sitting there thinking about how she can force Zuko to bend to her will like a mustache-twirling evil supervillain, but it feeds the idea that she is superior to Zuko if Zuko wants to follow her. Think about what she does to Long Feng and how she doesn't just defeat him, she makes him think that they're on the same side and then turns his men against him and forces him to admit that she, Azula, is the winner of the game and acknowledge her as superior.
The other thing that makes me doubt that she wanted to bring Zuko back out of love (aside from mocking and belittling and repeatedly trying to harm him) is what you mention about incurring Ozai's anger. She's not at all worried about that. Zuko is terrified that despite the victory at Ba Sing Se, Ozai will still be angry at him and won't restore his honor. Azula assures Zuko that it'll be fine and says that he'll have their father's love and tells him that he "restored his own honor" when he expresses his fears to her, but she doesn't really have anything to base that on nor does Zuko feel reassured by her words. She is totally self-assured and pretty dismissive of Zuko's fears. I don't think she ever feared that Ozai's wrath might fall on her for bringing back her unwanted brother as an ally rather than a prisoner, as he ordered, and I don't think she ever cared that Zuko might face Ozai's wrath.
Nor did she really care about what Zuko felt that whole time he was agonizing about what would happen when he got back to the palace, This goes back to the lie she tells about Zuko killing the Avatar. If the lie was actually to help Zuko or if she cared about Zuko's safety or happiness, then she would tell Zuko, before they got to the palace, that that was her plan. She could even do it while still keeping her usual aloof mean sister attitude. Something like this:
"Look, Zuzu, since you're so worried about what dad will think of you, when we get home I'm going to tell him that it was you who killed the Avatar. And you'd better play along so he doesn't get suspicious, dum-dum."
Instead, she lets him stew in his anxiety and lies to Ozai behind Zuko's back so that Zuko is not only still terrified, but he's completely caught off guard by what Ozai says and is then forced to maintain Azula's lie while trying to parse an extremely dangerous situation with his abuser where he has to figure out what Ozai's intentions are, what Azula's intentions are, and what Ozai actually knows about what happened. Notice how, when Ozai says this, Zuko chooses his words very carefully and asks Ozai what he heard, because he has no idea why Ozai is saying this. For all Zuko knows, Azula told Ozai the whole story, including that she found Zuko playing tea server for the Earth King and how close he was to being a traitor himself, and Ozai is only pretending to give Zuko the credit for killing the Avatar to see if his treacherous son will try to take all the glory away from his sister so that Ozai can then catch him in a lie and punish him.
Then when Zuko confronts Azula on her lie, she dismisses his fears while also making it clear that she knows Zuko is likely to take all the blame if Aang were to turn out to actually be alive.
Please Zuko, what ulterior motive could I have? What could I possibly gain by letting you get all the glory for defeating the Avatar? Unless, somehow, the Avatar was actually alive. All that glory would suddenly turn to shame and foolishness. But you said it yourself, that was impossible. Sleep well, Zuzu.
Azula knows exactly what she is doing here and she absolutely is not thinking about Zuko's safety or well-being. In fact, she benefits from Zuko staying afraid and unsure because scared and confused people are easier to control and manipulate, and Azula knows all of her brother's buttons to push.
I mean, it's possible that on some level she still loves him and is able to convince herself that bringing him back to an abuser who has severely injured him in the past under these circumstances and manipulating him in a way that is actively harming him emotionally is still for his own good - because in her world Zuko is dumb and doesn't know what's good for him anyway, and deserves to be hurt, and her father is good and right - but there are already plenty of other explanations for why she wanted him to join her in Ba Sing Se and why she lied about him killing the Avatar that can be inferred based on specific text evidence, and when Azula tells Zuko that she has no motive for these things, so clearly they were just for his benefit, we are supposed to recognize that she's a lying liar who lies.
I've also said before that it's possible that she'd rather have Zuko back as her brother instead of a prisoner because it helps her rationalize her father's abuse. Zuko, like a lot of abused kids, blames himself for being sent away, and a big reason why he wants to get back to Ozai so badly is because it means that he is not at fault and his family isn't dysfunctional. I think Azula also blames Zuko for the same reason, which is why she tells him in "The Avatar State" that the only reason Ozai would want him back is to lock him up. She would much rather blame Zuko for being a failure that Ozai rightly cast out than acknowledge that her father is abusive, because it means he's abusive not just to Zuko but to her as well, and her home is not a safe place. Conversely, if Zuko did return as a prisoner and was locked up, it is evidence of the family's dysfunction. If the family is all together, it means that she can pretend that everything is fine. If Zuko gains his honor back, it means he really was at fault for being dishonorable in the first place, not that Ozai cruelly burned his son for no justifiable reason, and thus it could also happen to her.
Interestingly, though, her lying about Zuko killing the Avatar does show on some level that she's aware that the bit about Zuko needing to regain his honor is BS. She can still rationalize Zuko being treated badly though, because she believes that he's inherently lesser than her and thus deserves it.
There's one other thing which might be why her attitude shifted from the beginning of season two to the end of it, from "why would he want you back" to convincing him to come back with her. And that's that at the beginning of book two, Zuko desperately wanted to come back home. He was at his lowest point, with no ship or crew or any of even the small comforts he had previously had in his banishment, and severely depressed. He still wants to come back home at the end of book two, but it takes a little more convincing from Azula, and remember that before she had captured Zuko, she had seen him happy with Iroh. She had seen him build a life for himself as a tea server in Ba Sing Se. And this, this is quite possibly the biggest threat to her worldview. If Zuko is happy in a life outside the Fire Nation, if Zuko doesn't want to come back, then it shatters the idea that Zuko is lesser than Azula and Azula is the perfect princess and Ozai is a wonderful father. It shakes it to its core. Azula gets joy out of telling Zuko that their father would never want him back because of course Zuko would want to come back. Who wouldn't? The Fire Nation is the best nation in the world and Ozai is the Fire Lord and the father Azula worships, that she needs to worship for her own happiness because she has no identity outside of Ozai, and that's the way it should be.
But if Zuko, the brother Ozai has conditioned her to believe is worthless and deserving only of misery, is happy, or even not happy but content living a humble life in Ba Sing Se serving tea, then perhaps...perhaps that's just not true.