u/SaiyanWithOmnitrix

A common argument made by Azula antis is that “we already have Zuko and redeeming Azula would just be lazy and repetitive”. This is one of those things that a certain type of Avatar fan says because they don’t know a lot about stories besides Disney movies and Nickelodeon cartoons. The idea that a story can have “too many redemption arcs” is laughable, and it requires a complete ignorance of all kinds of stories to believe.

For example, shonen battle mangas like Dragon Ball, Naruto, and One Piece often have multiple redemption stories throughout their run, sometimes reaching into the double digits, and as any fan of those series’ would tell you, it doesn’t get repetitive, nor are the writers lazy. Because surprise surprise, it turns out that there’s more than one way to do a redemption story, just like there’s a variety of different ways to do multiple other tropes.

The most common Azula anti tactic is to simply Azula’s character into being a Joker or Jack Horner clone while denying any complacency the character has. But for those that are willing to acknowledge that Azula is a three dimensional character, they’ll say something like “it’s better for Zuko’s story that Azula doesn’t get redeemed because it provides a contrast between the two”. Now to be fair, this argument is true… for the final Agni Kai. But what about what happens after that, which is what Azula redemption advocates are talking about? Azula being redeemed at a later time wouldn’t change the narrative contrast she and Zuko had during the final Agni Kai, (or do you think Aang and Zuko’s dynamic in book 1 is erased because Zuko got redeemed later?). I’d actually make the argument that an Azula redemption arc would strengthen Zuko’s, since his arc could come full circle with him now acting as the “Iroh” for his sister. Also no, the story was never meant to end at Book 3. Even ignoring how the writers have confirmed that to not be true, if it really was supposed to end at Book 3 we wouldn’t have gotten the “where is my mother” cliffhanger.