Psycho Princess Killer Queen

One of the primary villains in the TV Series Avatar: The Last Airbender, Azula is a member of the royal family of the Fire Nation – one of the four nations that are at war in the fictional world. She is the daughter of the Fire Lord, and has a brother, Zuko, who eventually runs away from the imperialistic Fire Nation and joins the Avatar's effort to end the war peacefully.

From a psychological perspective, Azula appears to exhibit psychopathic traits as early as in her childhood years. In congruence with Randall T. Salekin’s 2017 research review article on psychopathic traits in children, we will connect Azula’s traits and behaviors as seen in the Avatar series to the analysis of traits observed in children across over 160 references in the review article. Newer studies tend to examine psychopathy through 3 dimensions: grandiose-manipulative (GM), callous-unemotional (CU), and daring-impulsive (DI), as well as a separate characteristic that is antisocial conduct (CD). Where possible, we will connect Azula’s actions and behaviors to the specific dimensions, however, the end result will be a single coherent analysis of how Azula’s behaviors compare to the general understanding of psychopathy today.

Throughout the series, one of the traits that are more often emphasized in the character of Azula is her ability to manipulate those around her. This skill is often attributed to perspective-taking: an individual’s ability to “read others well” and to “operate in a variety of social environments ‘conning friends and foe alike’” (1182). Out of 7 studies examined, 3 found significant positive correlation between psychopathic traits and perspective-taking, while others showed no significant evidence to the contrary. Moreover, one of these studies, which focused on the specific dimensions of psychopathy, found that grandiose-manipulative traits were significantly positively associated with better perspective-taking, while callous-unemotional traits were significantly negatively correlated with perspective-taking. Since a large component of manipulation is the ability to understand the victim's thoughts, emotions, and desires, the findings from the study seem to be consistent with the way in which manipulative behavior comes about. Furthermore, this data falls in line with the representation of Azula in the series – not only is she portrayed as a skillful manipulator, but she also appears to have no trouble understanding others’ emotions, which presents a strong case for her to not exhibit strong CU traits. For example, after Azula's father, Fire Lord Ozai, sends her on a mission to retrieve her deserter brother and uncle, Azula decides to recruit her friends to help her. In the third episode of the second season of the series, Azula meets with her friend Ty Lee, who is a skilled gymnast performer for a circus. Sensing that Ty Lee is happy with her current state of affairs and does not want to help her, Azula devises a plan to manipulate Ty Lee into wanting to join her on the mission: during the performance, Azula uses her privilege as the princess of the Fire Nation in order to convince the organizer of the circus to make Ty Lee's job more difficult, dangerous, and unpleasant. Furthermore, Azula makes her own cause seem to be more appealing by telling Ty Lee "I wouldn't want you to give up the life you love just to please me" ("Return to Omashu" 7:21), which is clearly a lie, given that the goal of Azula's actions is to do precisely what she said she didn't want. Azula succeeds in this act of manipulation with ease, supporting the idea that she is adept at using deceitful tactics in order to influence others. It should be noted that callous-unemotional traits do not refer so much to the individual’s conscious behavior or how they present themselves, but rather to their actual ability to feel and understand emotions. While Azula may appear callous in the series, presenting herself as someone who is unbothered, she is adept at identifying the emotions of other characters, which explains her ability to manipulate them as easily as she does.

Azula’s behavior can also be attributed to her relationship with her parents and sibling. Azula exhibits traits that stem from sibling rivalry and overall parental favoritism. While she fights to maintain the favor of her father, she also competes to earn the attention of her mother, who favors Zuko, but after realizing she cannot, she instead chooses to reject her mother’s ideals and in turn, Zuko. 

Ursa favors Zuko for his compassion and softness that Azula lacks. While she cares for Azula as her child, even she fears Azula’s potential, going so far as to call her a “monster” (DiMartino).  

From a young age, Azula promotes competition and seeks to push her brother down. In front of Ursa, who favors Zuko, she makes efforts to embarrass him. In one instance when they were children, Azula forces Zuko to participate in a game which embarrasses him in front of his crush. She does this to show both Zuko and their mother that she is the superior child, worthy of attention. She feels she in in constant competition with Zuko to be the favorite, better child. Additionally, as the older child, her feeling of rivalry is most likely more intense as she was alive for a time without Zuko, therefore maintaining attention from both parents (Leung, Lane 315) While she is superior to Zuko in firebending and competence of ruling, her father’s metrics for perfection, she does not know how to please her mother. Rather than attempt to imitate Zuko, she instead tries to make him and others seem inferior in order to gain her mother’s favor. In a flashback scene, Azula becomes extremely insecure when Ty Lee is better than her at a gymnastics move, one of Ty Lee’s talents. Despite the fact that Ty Lee is more skilled in this area, Azula cannot stand to see someone better than her, as though she is reminded of her rejection by her mother. She seeks perfection not only to please her father, but to remedy the pain of her mother’s rejection of her. She wants to be perfect because she believes people will like her because of it, as the only affection she knows is her father’s praise when she does as he asks. Azula’s relationship with her father causes her to develop tendencies that seem normal to her but psychopathic to anyone else. 

In response to her rejection by her mother and her consequent jealousy of Zuko, Azula chooses to idolize her father. She becomes what her father wants her to be: an heir worthy to succeed him as Fire Lord. In pursuit of her father’s approval she excels at firebending, history, and even general ability to manipulate others becoming obsessed with the throne and the Fire Nation’s conquest, embodying the beliefs of the Fire Nation and Ozai. She goes so far as to hunt down and attempt to kill Zuko and Iroh, members of her own family, simply because Ozai tells her to and because they are not as perfect as she believes she is. Azula grades other people’s self worth on their own perfection as that is how Ozai views her. She is blinded by her quest to please her father, the only love she thinks she knows.