I think I know why Azula has blue flames [long rant about what caused her breakdown]
I’ve got some theories about Azula that might be interesting. On my first watch I thought ‘oh, they had to make her go insane after being betrayed towards the end of book 3, because otherwise she wouldn’t be beatable at all’ which made sense to me. I thought it was sort of a cop out so that Zuko could win. But the thing is, Azula wasn’t physically weaker, she could still bend lighting and fire perfectly and got the comet boost.
I feel there’s actually more to it, and with that context I feel her character becomes more interesting. I know some of these are hot takes and you might not agree which is fine not looking to argue.
Based on some of her dialogue, actions, and behaviour here’s some stuff I noticed.
Theory 1: ozai was the first major step in her breakdown, not mai and ty lee.
On the day of black sun Zuko tells ozai the truth. Azula has been lying to him, and the truth of what she was hiding was enough to convince ozai to try and murder Zuko on the spot the minute the sun came out. Ozai now knows Azula was openly lying to cover herself because she couldn’t prove Aang was dead.
Later, after Zuko defected and Aang is revealed to be alive, we see that Azula is sent to hunt them down. She had a hunch Aang was alive before but didn’t act on it? This is pure conjecture, but I think Ozai ordered Azula to kill them both without formally banishing her, in the hopes that she’d end up either redeeming herself of getting killed. Azula was put into a similar position as zuko was and she starts to slip.
Theory 2: Azula might have cared about Zuko in a surprising way. She did have an ideal life in her head beyond the war.
Azula is a cold blooded strategist, but she’s actually quite the patriot. She doesn’t want the cities named after herself, she gives them to the fire lord. She believes everything sozin and Azulon wrote, doesn’t question it, and goes after enemies without mercy or question, so I think she is the culmination of the imperialist ideology sozin created.
I think her ‘dream’ is to end the war as swiftly as possible to make up for iroh’s failure to conquer ba sing se, which is why she hates him so deeply. She’s also very clearly scared of ozai and the one time we see her challenge him she flinches. She knows her boundaries and respects her nation.
When Zuko comes back to the fire nation, IDK if it’s stated explicitly but I think Zuko once again becomes the next in line to succeed ozai. She’s surprised when ozai declares her fire lord (it was a very sudden announcement, but I suppose she was already thinking it).
Azula doesn’t seem to mind letting Zuko be next in line because it’s fire nation custom (she even boosts his reputation with the people by saying he killed Aang and tells him it’s not too soon to start with the court painter). Obviously I know she was being strategic with Aang’s potential survival but if Aang was that big a threat, wouldn’t she have gone looking for him after conquering ba sing se rather than come home right away? She just went home despite suspecting the threat to the fire nation was alive. Either she thought he was sufficiently weakened or set Zuko up for a reason that could get them both killed.
She warns Zuko not to hang out with Iroh but never tells ozai about that and even goes on beach trips with him. I think she genuinely was expecting Zuko to become the next fire lord and was trying to prepare him for what that would mean. My theory is that she was showing love to Zuko in her twisted strategic way or wanted to use him as a puppet to extend her own rule. This ultimately contributed to her mental decline, knowing even her brother who she tried to show some form of love and culture towards ultimately ended up rejecting or failing her like Iroh and Ursa.
Theory 3: Zuko’s inner turmoil might be genetic.
Zuko goes through physical illness because of his inner turmoil. I think it’s because the blue spirit inside him (Roku Aang and his perspective of the world) is clashing with the red spirit (sozin Azula and ozai) as we see in ba sing se.
However because both Azula and Zuko are roku’s descendants, I think they both experience this but to different extents.
My last theory is that Azula gets her blue fire bending because she has the avatar’s bloodline inside of her as well as royalty. Ozai doesn’t have blue fire and that is precisely why he married ursa, to improve the power of his next of kin.
She’s followed her red spirit and her connection to Roku and the world is completely severed. She’s left a power obsessed husk who had all the good in her brushed out by her father. She’s going through the same thing as Zuko in season 2 in the finale because she also travelled through the entire earth kingdom and never once stopped to think like Zuko did, about the fire nation’s true role in hurting the world.
That’s why Azula can’t connect with her own citizens at all after the connections are severed. The people of the fire nation were once peaceful industrial and cultural people, not warmongers. She goes insane when Zuko ozai mai and ty lee leave her on an empty throne because she doesn’t even understand herself at this point.
So tldr: Azula’s blue fire is because she was the product of Roku and sozin’s bloodlines to create a perfect firebender, while zuko ended up inheriting the avatar’s will and integrated that into his bending which was how he overpowered her in the end.
Her breakdown isn’t just from ursa mai and ty lee, it’s because Zuko left her too, because ozai stopped trusting her as much, and because a genetic element may play into it too.