Azula

Since she is the shadowed firebender in the series' opening sequence (though she is depicted bending red fire instead of her signature blue), Azula appears at the beginning of every episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender. In the first season, she makes her first appearance in a flashback during 13-year-old Zuko's Agni Kai (firebending duel) against their father, Fire Lord Ozai. Azula smirks as Zuko's face is burned after he refuses to fight Ozai, who takes this as a sign of weakness and disrespect. The Fire Lord then banishes the permanently scarred Zuko and tasks him with finding the long-lost avatar.[4] Azula makes a second brief appearance at the end of the first season when Ozai tasks her with repatriating Zuko and Iroh, who accompanied his nephew into exile and briefly cooperated with the series' protagonists.[5]

After her first attempt to capture Zuko and Iroh is accidentally thwarted by her ship's captain, Azula enlists the help of her childhood friends, Mai and Ty Lee.[6] She eventually encounters the Avatar in Omashu and continues to pursue him, Zuko, and Iroh for the rest of the season. Following her initial failure to enter the Earth Kingdom capital Ba Sing Se using a giant drill to breach the city's strong outer wall, Azula comes in contact with the Kyoshi Warriors, esteemed fighters who, despite their lack of ability to bend any element, dress as and utilize the fighting style of Kyoshi, a past Avatar.[7] Azula, Mai and Ty Lee then proceed to defeat and impersonate them.[8]

Posing as Kyoshi Warriors, Azula and her friends infiltrate Ba Sing Se and befriend Earth King Kuei, who tells them about the planned invasion of the Fire Nation during an upcoming solar eclipse. Azula also comes to understand that the secret police and intelligence agency known as the Dai Li is the key to power in the capital. She is discovered as an infiltrator by Dai Li agents and brought before their imprisoned leader, Long Feng. Having in fact intentionally exposed herself, Azula lulls him into a false sense of control and accepts his offer to help stage a coup d'état against the Earth King and the loyalist Council of Five.[9] Immediately after her seizure of power, Azula betrays Long Feng and assumes permanent leadership of the Dai Li. She also encounters Zuko in the city and convinces him to join her in order to redeem himself. During their showdown, Azula strikes Aang with a bolt of lightning while he is in the Avatar State, though he is later revived by Katara. Azula then orders the Dai Li to tear down the walls of Ba Sing Se, exposing the city to an invasion and occupation by the Fire Nation.[10]

In the early episodes of this season, Azula bonds with her brother and friends after their victorious return to the Fire Nation with Iroh as a prisoner. However, Azula lies to Ozai by claiming that Zuko killed Aang, as she has a hunch that Aang survived and knows that all the blame would now fall on Zuko if this were true. During the two-part episode "The Day of Black Sun," Aang assembles an elite invasion force and attacks the capital, taking advantage of a solar eclipse that renders the firebenders powerless. Having been warned by Azula, Ozai is evacuated to an underground bunker prior to the invasion. Azula and her Dai Li agents stall Aang and his friends Sokka and Toph from finding Ozai before the eclipse, which lasts only eight minutes, allowing the firebenders to retaliate with full force once they regain their bending, causing the invasion to fail. However, Zuko defects to Team Avatar after confronting Ozai during the eclipse.[11]

Later, Azula, accompanied by Mai and Ty Lee, visits The Boiling Rock, the top security Fire Nation prison where Zuko has been captured in an attempt to infiltrate the prison and rescue the captured forces of the failed invasion. However, Zuko, Sokka, Suki (leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, who had been captured in the aftermath of their battle with Azula) and Sokka's father Hakoda manage to escape. Mai betrays Azula by aiding the group's escape, proclaiming that she is doing so out of her love for Zuko. Enraged, Azula attempts to attack Mai but is stopped by Ty Lee, who renders her incapable of bending by blocking her chi (the energy within one which one would use for bending). After having Mai and Ty Lee imprisoned for betraying her,[12] Azula follows Zuko and Sokka's group to the Western Air Temple, where she attempts to kill them. The fight ends in a draw, with Azula narrowly escaping death after falling from one of the airships while the protagonists manage to flee.[13]

In the finale, Ozai leaves Azula behind in the Fire Nation as he sets out to conquer the world, naming her as his successor to the Fire Lord position. Distraught by Mai and Ty Lee's betrayal and confused by the former's defiance of her position, Azula sinks into psychosis, hallucinates about her long-lost mother, and deposes nearly all of her servants and advisers in fear of similar betrayal. Before she is crowned as Fire Lord, Zuko and Katara interrupt the ceremony, whereupon Azula challenges Zuko to single combat in an Agni Kai. However, Azula's attacks, while powerful, are wild and emotional while Zuko's are calm and disciplined; and when his attacks begin to overpower her, she sends a bolt of lightning toward Katara, but ends up striking down Zuko, who attempts to redirect it.[14] She is ultimately defeated by Katara who takes her captive via waterbending, causing Azula to have a complete nervous breakdown.[15]

Following the end of the war, Azula is admitted to a psychiatric institution, where she is closely monitored.[16] One year after the war's end, Zuko visits Azula to request her assistance in gaining information from Ozai on the whereabouts of their long-lost mother Ursa, and Azula accepts without asking for anything in return.[17]

When Azula visits Ozai in his prison, they are watched by Fire Lord Zuko before she asks him to leave when their father remains silent in her presence. Azula, having learned of the letters Ursa sent which falsely claims that Fire Lord Zuko is not Ozai's biological son, dodges her brother's questions while distracting him with her bending long enough to access the letters and burn them. She uses this as leverage as she convinces Zuko to allow her to join his quest to find Ursa in return for the letters' information, though she intends to use the letters' content to dethrone her brother while also murdering their mother.[18] Her request is granted, and she becomes a protagonist by joining Team Avatar.[19] The team eventually finds that Ursa lost her memory and assumed the identity of Noriko, starting a new family in her home village. Although Azula nearly kills Ursa, she becomes emotionally confused after her mother apologizes for not showing her enough motherly love and even more after Fire Lord Zuko reveals that he still loves his sister, despite their strained relationship. This results in a confused Azula running off into the wilderness. For several weeks, Zuko searches for Azula but fails to find her.[20]

After several weeks, Azula helps her followers from the mental institution she was held in escape. They resurface under the guise of kemurikage (dark spirits).[21] The "kemurikage" kidnap many children.[22] After Zuko frees the children, Azula tells him that her motivation is to make him more like their father by relying on fear to maintain control. Azula then escapes and is last seen observing Zuko apologizing to his people for his recent actions before leaving. As Azula directly tells Zuko about her supposed intentions and seems to take his speech seriously, she is possibly acting as a stealth mentor by using reverse psychology on Zuko.[21]

Princess Azula appears in the video games Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Burning Earth[23] and Avatar: The Last Airbender – Into the Inferno[24] again voiced by Grey DeLisle. Summer Bishil makes a cameo appearance as Azula at the end of live-action adaptation The Last Airbender, when Fire Lord Ozai orders her to defeat the Avatar. Writer and director M. Night Shyamalan envisioned Azula as the primary antagonist of the unmade sequel to the film.[25] Azula also appears as a playable character in the crossover fighting game Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2.[26]

Azula is voiced by Grey DeLisle. DeLisle recounts that she had studied her "whole life" for well-written characters like Azula who were hard to come by.[29] Overall, DeLisle felt her life had changed positively from the role, and association with the series, relaying this to Janet Varney who would voice Korra in the sequel series.[30]

Azula is highly skilled in firebending, which utilizes Chinese martial arts techniques of Changquan, Shaolinquan, Lóng Xíng Mó Qiáo and Xing Yi Quan.[6][33][34][35] The series' creators consulted a professional martial artist in the design of the show's fighting style.[36] Azula is one of the most skilled firebenders in the show and is a very difficult person to defeat in single combat. Her excellent firebending abilities, hand-to-hand combat skills, intelligence, agility and charisma make her a formidable opponent.

Azula and her characteristic blue flames.

Azula is the only firebender who can produce blue flames, which are hotter and contain more energy (according to Planck's law) than those of other firebenders who bend normal orange flames. Her name is derived from azul, the Spanish, Galician and Portuguese word for blue. However, Azula could not produce blue fire as a young child, as shown in flashbacks. Similarly, her grandfather Azulon was never shown to wield blue flames despite his namesake implying otherwise. Azula can also use her firebending in previously unseen ways, such as jets of flames and whirling disks. She often firebends using only two fingers, rather than a closed fist or open hand common to other firebenders.[6] Azula can fight for long periods of time without tiring. She is also able to generate powerful shields of swirling flames, which she uses to withstand the simultaneous combined attacks of Aang, Katara, Zuko and Toph.[37] She is even able to charge up her fire before releasing it, as was seen during one fight with Aang.[38]

Azula is able to propel herself, using her flames, in a manner similar to a rocket. This ability has also been extended as a means to fly for short periods of time as seen in the Boiling Rock.[39] She can also breathe fire, as shown when she is defeated by Katara and Zuko.

"Lightning is a pure expression of firebending without aggression. It is not fueled by rage or emotion the way other firebending is. Some call lightning the cold-blooded fire. It is precise and deadly like Azula. To perform the technique requires peace of mind."

— General Iroh (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Azula is capable of lightning generation, one of the rarest types of firebending; Iroh notes that it isn't really possible to teach lightning generation, it's just something particularly powerful firebenders are capable of.[40]

Azula is a skilled unarmed fighter and acrobat. In "The Avatar State," she bests Zuko in combat without resorting to firebending, and in "The Day of Black Sun," she avoids the combined forces of Aang, Toph, and Sokka for several minutes without her bending to aid her. In "Appa's Lost Days," when Suki makes a stab attack at Azula with her fan, Azula jumps horizontally and knocks Suki's sword out of her hand and onto a tree.[11] In "The Boiling Rock," Azula is able to fall and land on her hands, holding her body up horizontally, with ease.

Azula is an expert in persuasion. She is capable of using psychological warfare, intimidation, and mistruths to con other people into obeying her. She also has the ability to lie easily without causing any change in her breathing and heart rate, making it nearly impossible to detect if she's lying, which she demonstrates in "The Day of Black Sun." She is also an accomplished strategist, as she is able to conquer Ba Sing Se, a city thought to be impenetrable while usurping the Earth King and hierarchy of the Earth Kingdom capital all in one swift move.[39][41]