Woman of the Month: Princess Azula

Princess Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender

Looking back, it’s amazing to think that aside from two brief, silent cameos, Princess Azula of the Fire Nation did not appear at all throughout season one of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Amazing because she is one of the most memorable parts of the show in its entirety, and an iconic villain in her own right.

Her first true appearance is one for the annals of best Character Establishing Moments, in which she’s depicted onboard a seafaring vessel, directing its captain to pull into shore despite the tide preventing them from doing so safely. The following conversation commences:

Captain: Princess, I’m afraid the tides will not allow us to bring the ship into port before nightfall.

Azula: I’m sorry captain, but I do not know much about the tides. Can you explain something to me?

Captain: Of course, your highness.

Azula: Do the tides command this ship?

Captain: Ah, I’m afraid I don’t understand.

Azula: You said the tides would not allow us to bring the ship in. Do the tides command this ship?

Captain: No, Princess.

Azula: And if I was to have you thrown overboard, would the tides think twice about smashing you against the rocky shore?

Captain: No. Princess.

Azula: Well then, maybe you should worry less about the tides, you have already made up their mind about killing you, and worry more about me, who’s still mulling it over.

Captain: I’ll pull us in.

It conveys so much of her psyche: her cruelty, her insouciance, her power games, and ultimately, her madness. The captain knows it’s not sensible to pull into shore at that time, but it’s unclear whether Azula does. All she cares about is getting what she wants, at the precise moment she wants it – common sense be damned. And anyone trying to thwart her is in for some public humiliation.

This need for control ends up being her undoing. Generally I’m not a fan of stories in which female villains are defeated after losing their minds, but in this case it was all painstakingly seeded across the course of Azula’s arc, from her emphasis on never having one hair out of place, to the flashbacks that depict her as a prodigy, to her intense sibling rivalry with Zuko. She has to be the best; there is no room for imperfection.

The writers pulled off a massively impressive feat when it came to her as the show’s central antagonist (yes, Fire Lord Ozai is the Big Bad, but Azula is the true face of the narrative’s villainy). She’s loathsome, awe-inspiring, terrifying, ruthless... but ultimately pitiable. That she’s drawn from the narcissist’s playbook is undeniable, ticking every box on the checklist: a sense of self-importance, a preoccupation with power and success, entitlement issues, arrogance, interpersonally exploitative/manipulative for her own gain, a lack of empathy, a need for admiration and praise, and a deep-seated sense of insecurity despite her supposed confidence.

Of course, living in a fantasy world where people can command the elements, Azula can back up her sense of superiority with very-real power: not only the honour and privileges that come with being a princess, but the fact that she can shoot fire from her hands. Blue fire in fact, which burns hotter than red, orange or white flames, demonstrating her absolute mastery over the art of fire-bending.

For most of the show’s duration, she’s always one step ahead, always in complete control, always maintaining the upper hand... which means the only person who could ultimately defeat her was Azula herself. Several crucial missteps put her off her game: she underestimates Mai’s loyalty to Zuko, grows increasingly threatened by her father’s dismissive behaviour, and experiences several visions of her lost mother.

The last we see of her on the show is confronting: she’s been laid low by Katara, a mere “peasant,” whose water-bending prowess exceeds her own. Rendered powerless after being chained to an iron gate, Azula’s mind breaks, and all she can do is scream and sob over the fact her entire worldview has crumbled. Wringing a sense of pity from the audience was a masterful final move on the behalf of the writers, reminding us that this was ultimately a fourteen-year-old girl raised in a way that gave her very little recourse to be anything else than what she became.

Her story continues a little into the graphic novels, but I’m not entirely sure whether they’re meant to be considered canon, and I’m ambivalent over the prospect of whether or not she should be redeemed (however you want to define that). How she’ll be handled in the upcoming animated films is another mystery – if she’s even featured at all.

Personally, I think her story is perfect just the way it is, and Azula is truly one of the most remarkable antagonists in all of fiction. Not just in the category of “female villains” or “animated villains” – but ALL villains.

Recommendations: The Best of 2024

My annual list of recommendations! These are the films, shows and books I most enjoyed reading or watching across the course of the last twelve months, though I have to admit this was something of a fallow year for me. Nothing truly grabbed me by the throat, and a lot of what I ended up liking was material that I was revisiting after a long hiatus.

A lot of that had to do with the fact I deliberately avoided new releases and big franchise stuff in 2024, partly out of a lack of interest and partly because I’m just fed up of getting invested in stories only for them to be prematurely cancelled. Fool me twice, and all that.

In any case, here are my personal picks of 2024...

Woman of the Month: Maleficent

Maleficent from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty

I’m doing something very different this year for my Woman of the Month posts: for the first time I’ll be showcasing twelve female villains throughout 2025. And how could I start with anyone other than Maleficent, the Mistress of All Evil, and without a doubt the most effective and terrifying villain of the Disney Animated Canon?

If you look at her involvement in various retellings of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale across the centuries, you’ll note she’s had a rather illustrious career. The name Maleficent (a mash-up of “malevolence” and “magnificence”) was invented for the Disney movie, but older versions of the tale refer to her as the Fairy of Red or Carabosse. More modern adaptations have also called her Makemnoit, Arachne, Pernicia or Odelia.

And yet if you go even further back, does the story of a powerful goddess who gatecrashes a party to wreak havoc because she wasn’t invited sound familiar? A possible genesis to this wicked fairy is Eris, the Goddess of Strife. In her case, events led to the Golden Apple of Discord and the Trojan War, but here things remain on a slightly smaller scale: a deadly curse placed upon an infant girl.

And that’s precisely part of what makes Maleficent so memorable. It’s not just Eleanor Audrey’s cold, sharp voice, or the staggering levels of power she wields, or the aesthetic formidableness of her cloak and staff, her mountainous castle, her army of hobgoblins – to me, it’s also the striking blend of petty vindictiveness and terrifying allegiance to nothing less than Hell itself (I’m not exaggerating, she declares at the film’s climax: “you must contend with me and all the forces of Hell!”)

All this drama is because she wasn’t invited to a Christening, which escalates into a deadly curse, a sixteen-year reign of terror, the attempted murder of a teenage girl, the kidnapping of a prince, and turning herself into a dragon to thwart her enemies. Has any other villain put this much effort into just messing with a single royal family? She has no motivation beyond For The Evulz, and that’s what makes her so scary.

Contrary to popular assumptions, Maleficent isn’t a witch or a sorceress – she’s an evil fairy, and so in a way it’s unusual that she’s leaden with so much demonic symbolism. There’s her horned headpiece, the green hellfire, the terrifying dragon she transforms into... Based on some of her dialogue, you’re left wondering if her power derives from Satan himself. At some point of her career, did she enter into a Deal with the Devil? Was she once a good fairy before she got corrupted? Is she really an emissary of Hell, as she claims?

Then there’s her style. You cannot deny that Maleficent knows how to make an entrance: the eerie green light, the flowing cloak, the echoing clang of her staff on the flagstones, and especially her sinister, teasing motif. Apparently this music is even diegetic, as the strains of it tips off Maleficent’s presence to the good fairies later in the film.

She’s also the instigator of the most frightening sequence in all of Disney animation: the luring of Princess Aurora from her room and up the spiral steps to the tower where the spindle awaits her. The music, the suspense, the panic of the other fairies, the excruciatingly slow walk of Aurora – it’s matched only by the scene of abject cruelty in which Maleficent taunts Philip with the promise of setting him free... in a hundred years’ time when he’s too old to do anything.

And obviously her transformation into the terrible dragon. My favourite detail is that even as she’s dying, she takes one last snap at Philip before she goes over the cliff.

That she has no decent motivation beyond petty offense, her malevolent blend of small-minded spite and demonic power, her gloriously evil aesthetic... all of it comes together into one unforgettable figure of evil. I remember the derision when the Game of Thrones script for the final episode described Daenerys as “her Satanic Magnificence,” a descriptor which far better fits Maleficent, the self-described Mistress of All Evil. I couldn’t start this Year of the Villainess with any other character. She sets the tone for what’s to come, and in a world that’s filled with so many real-life jerks, it’s a balm to remind oneself that none of them would be able to handle any of the forthcoming women.