I Am Completely Serious

Great post. I agree with the vast majority of it - especially about still being critical of things which are much more awesome than normal. Like you (and most of the other posters here) I find the disparity between male and female mentors fairly troubling - especially re: Kana. I absolutely adore the Puppetmaster episode, and if the rest of the series had been chock-full of mentors there would be no problem at all with her. She's complex, with her own experiences and her own agency. She helps underscore the whole idea that the 'good guys' can do evil things as well as 'the bad guys can be victims' - S3 is pretty good at humanising the Fire Nation in general.

What I find interesting is Azula's case. During the finale we see her start to lose control of herself, but I think we see her become powerless, too. She's made Fire Lord (or is about to be made Fire Lord), but under the ~Phoenix King~ that isn't going to mean much. After that decision (of Ozai's) we see Azula suddenly worrying about assassins and berating her attendants about health and safety. For the first time in the whole series, I think, she implies she wouldn't be able to do something. Does anyone really think Azula couldn't kick an assassin's ass within about three seconds?

Obviously a big part of this is trust, since she's been betrayed by Ty Lee and Mai, but she attacked the Air Temple without any problems, and she was set to go out and be a crazy genocidal badass with her father - until he made her indefinite babysitter of a mostly-obedient population. No more hunting down traitors or commanding commanders with giant drills or staging coups. I think it's powerlessness that drives Azula up the wall. The rug gets pulled out from under her feet entirely.

ANYWAY. This isn't to say that I don't have problems with the writing/plotlines for a lot of the other girls, or the horrible lack of kick-ass women. But one way of looking at Azula's story (and honestly, I hadn't really thought about others until I read the other post last night, so this could all just be MASSIVE PROJECTING) is an interesting deviation from the power-sends-women-mad trope. It's just sad that it still ends up with a kickass woman crying and writhing on the floor.