>It suits him. It's a shame that Uncle Iroh, somewhere in his unending
>stream of wisdom, never thought to mention to him that his best course
>of action going forward would probably be to pause and calculate the
>geometric opposite of his first impulse, then go with that. Iroh's a
>great fella and a fountain of useful knowledge,

It's worth noting that a close watching of the series suggests a slightly less than flattering interpretation of Iroh; that while he is both wise and good now, less than ten years ago he was still hurling tens of thousands of men at Ba Sing Se in the service of Azulon (who I think we can all agree is pretty... special) and that as of ATLA he is still kind of figuring out how to be a good person without also being a loyal Fire Nation imperialist. A lot of his advice to Zuko was maybe him totally winging it and hoping, desperately, that maybe his nephew would turn out better than he and Ozai did.

>but what Zuko actually
>needed as a spirit guide was probably something more like Foghorn
>Leghorn. "Look at me when Ah'm talkin' ta you, boah. You gotta, Ah
>say, you gotta pay attention to these things. (He's a
>nice kid, but he's about as sharp as a sack'a wet mice.)"

Pretty sure Toph spent a lot of time treating him like that, albeit off-screen. :)

>As for his sister, well... Phil disagrees with me (and insists that we
>must Wait for the Official Word on such matters anyway),

Phil and I have gone round-and-round on Azula more than once. She is far and away my favorite character in ATLA and in my top five best villains ever; I love her to death. (This is different from her being a person I find likable, which... no. Just no. Sociopathy isn't chic even on a Princess, dear.) But it can be hard to justify that love in the face of, you know, the war crimes.

>but I think
>what that girl really needs is a nice tall glass of cold cactus juice
>and a diligent seeing-to, in that order.

Uh. Wow. You, uh, may want to flip the order on that. I'm pretty sure after a tall glass of cactus juice you'd be incapable of giving meaningful consent to choice of pizza toppings, to say nothing of a, er, seeing-to.

Also, if it were that easy you'd think all that goth sex Zuko was having would have unwound him a little bit.

(Seriously, we all know what he and Mai were getting up to. "I want a big fancy fruit tart. With rose petals on top!" I don't know what kind of filthy Fire Nation sex act that's a euphemism for, but it sounds pretty kinky.)

>(And no, I'm not volunteering. I don't get hazard pay. Azalynn's up
>for it, though, she loves a project.)

Given that Azula is fourteen, Azalynn may want to farm that one out to someone less... statutory.

Ty Lee is probably up for the challenge, tho, and could definitely benefit from Azalynn's advice. Among other things, she needs to be informed that the direct approach ("But you're the most beautiful, smartest, perfect girl in the world!") sometimes needs to be slightly LESS direct. You don't wanna overshoot.

-Merc
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