Why Is Azula’s Fireplace Blue In Avatar: The Final Airbender?

The place does Azula’s title come from? Oh positive, in-universe she’s named after her grandfather, Fireplace Lord Azulon. However what about from a artistic standpoint? The basis of her title is “azul” — the Spanish phrase for “blue.” (One shade of blue is called azure in English, and it shares frequent etymology with azul.)

Commercial

It is a becoming title as a result of the colour blue displays Azula in some ways. Blue hearth is one thing of a contradiction in folks’s eyes. We settle for blue as a cool shade and crimson/orange as heat ones, although the truth of fireplace is the other; blue, the cool shade by cultural definition, burns the most well liked. This contradiction displays the important elements of Azula. She’s highly effective however would not conduct herself in a means you’d anticipate from a Firebender. 

Fireplace is the factor that symbolizes lack of restraint. (Fiery is an adjective usually coupled with “ardour” or “rage.”) When Aang first tries to bend hearth within the season 1 episode “The Deserter,” he loses management, the flames burst out, they usually burn his pal/crush Katara (Mae Whitman). “Uncontrolled” does not describe Azula.

Commercial

Azula is chilly, calculating, manipulative, and completely in management. She’s acquired rage, positive, however it’s centered. Regardless of her mastery over the factor hearth, she’s not that fiery of an individual on the floor. She’s cool and chilly in her cruelty — as cool as blue. That is a complete distinction from her hothead brother. Zuko’s flames are red-orange, which are colours we thought of to be “sizzling” as a result of red-orange hearth is extra frequent than blue hearth. Azula thinks together with her head, Zuko thinks together with his coronary heart. 

The defining distinction between the siblings is within the season 2 episode “The Chase,” the place they’re each chasing after Aang. Azula pursues Aang into an deserted constructing the place the higher flooring has caved in. She virtually falls in however appears earlier than she leaps and catches herself. Zuko, not bothering to look, races in behind Azula after which falls on his face. 

One other artistic choice for Azula’s blue flames was a technical one. In “Avatar: The Final Airbender (The Artwork of the Animated Collection),” DiMartino added that, “Virtually, the blue hearth additionally helped distinguish [Azula’s] assaults from Zuko’s crimson firebending throughout their epic battles.” When Zuko and Azula have their final Agni Kai in “Sozin’s Comet,” you may inform which flame comes from which Firebender by its shade.

Commercial

So, it is fairly clear that the “Avatar” group did not have worldbuilding on its thoughts after they painted Azula’s flames blue. However “Avatar: The Final Airbender” did not want to elucidate Azula’s blue hearth; it was a sensible sufficient present to belief its viewers to glean the meanings themselves. These meanings lie in symbolism and characterization, not lore.