I actually feel like ‘Canadian’ Azula would make a lot of sense and would be hella cute. For those of you who aren’t caught up with that; Aaron Ehasz made his redemption arc tweet (see the images below) and said that he was thinking of redeemed Azula being overly apologetic and overshare a lot. He joked that it’d be a Canadian version of Azula.
At first I was kind of iffy about this but after really thinking about it; I feel like it would make sense. Azula is a person who has bottled things up, kept a wicked pokerface, built up so many walls, and hid so many truths. And she has done so for her entire life. She was raised to not show emotion & weakness and was raised to lie and manipulate.
Come a time where she gets the help that she needs, a time where she learns that it is okay to express feelings I feel like she wouldn’t exactly know how to go about that. Because of that, I feel like she would swing from one extreme to the other.
Starting with oversharing, I feel like since she used to be so tight lipped in the past that when she finally learns to open up, she wouldn’t have a gauge so to speak. As seen in The Beach; Azula demonstrates having difficulty in mundane social situations. She has trouble assessing and gauging emotions when not on the political or battle front. She’s a people person in the war setting but actually kinda clueless in an every day conversation. Between this and being unused to sharing things about herself, I feel like she wouldn’t really have an understanding of when enough is enough. She doesn’t really know where the boundary is yet nor when something is becoming tmi. Which would probably lead to a lot of awkward situations.
Awkward situations that would probably lead to her getting more character development. In other words, I think that oversharing Azula would work very well as a plot-device. I would like to argue that awkward moments (right after crying) is one of the most humanizing things in the world. I can see how having Azula overshare thing would work as a means to help her achieve her redemption arc; it would be a way for the other character to start to realize that she was just a kid like them and that she was just another victim of the war, propaganda, and abuse.
I also think that excessively sharing things about herself would end up taking a lot of pressure and weight off of her. I think that eventually it would feel good to finally share things and so she’d often go over the top to relieve some mental tension. She always kept things inside so when she finally gets to a place where she can share things, she shares everything.
So what about over-apologizing? I can see why people would say that this is OOC, because Azula is, in canon a very remorseful person. But again, I think that this is the product of mental abuse and manipulation on Ozai’s part. I think that with the right help–after being show some sympathy and empathy–that she could build up a bigger threshold for empathy and sympathy of her own. By extension I don’t think that it’s impossible that she’d start to think about things that she has done in the past and start to feel guilty over it.
I think that it would be hard for her at first, but after the first apology it, like sharing things, would be a release. It would start to take some more weight from her. And, like oversharing,
I also feel like exessive apologizing would be another thing where she just doesn’t know when to stop. It’s not something she’s used to doing so she doesn’t really know when too much is too much.
One more aspect I think should be factored in is relationships. Say, for example, she patches things up with Mai and TyLee; it’s canon that she doesn’t like to be alone and that their betrayal hurt her. I feel like she’d be afraid to lose them again. Because of that she’d apologize for stupid things. I feel like Azula would feel like she is on thin ice/her relationships are in a fragile state. Because of that, I feel like she would apologize too much because she doesn’t want to be alone again.
All of this said, I think that Canadian Azula would just be one part of her redemption and that it wouldn’t last. I think that eventually things would level out. Bottom line I think that Azula would overshare and over apologize because she hasn’t found the balance between too much and too little; she hasn’t found that happy medium. But, eventually, with time and patience, once Azula has been better socialized and becomes more comfortable that the oversharing and apologizing would begin to taper off. Eventually she’d start to gauge when her sharing is starting to get weird and uncomfortable and she’d start to be able to gauge when she doesn’t have to apologize. And with that things will go smoother for her.
TL;DR: I think that Canadian Azula makes sense but it wouldn’t be permanent. It’s simply a bridge between antagonist Azula and redeemed Azula. Canadian Azula, is an Azula who is still learning how to talk to people and learning about herself and her own boundaries.
