What Happened To Azula After Avatar: The Last Airbender?

If there's a television canon, then "Avatar: The Last Airbender" is definitely in it. Since its debut on Nickelodeon in 2005, the animated fantasy show has remained beloved by its oldest fans and won the hearts of countless new ones. Personally, "Avatar: The Last Airbender" has one of my favorite character ensembles in all of TV. Its leads were young enough for the target audience to relate to, yet complex enough for adults to be just as rewarded watching them.

Take Zuko (Dante Basco), the scarred prince of the Fire Nation who goes from villain to hero. Best redemption arc ever? It's up there. But standing next to Zuko as one of the show's most complex characters is his sister, Princess Azula (the queen of voice acting, Grey DeLisle). While her brother was always torn between good and evil, Azula relishes the latter. She seems like the "perfect" Princess: powerful, ruthless, and favored by her father Fire Lord Ozai (Mark Hamill). But Azula's confidence is more fragile than it seems; she's never felt loved, and her self-worth is dependent on being successful and feared.

When Azula quickly loses all of that in "Avatar" season 3's final stretch, she deteriorates mentally, haunted by visions of her mother Ursa (Jen Cohn). In the 2008 series finale "Sozin's Comet," Azula fights Zuko in "the showdown that was always meant to be" for the Fire Nation's throne. She loses, so she cheats by attacking Zuko's friend Katara (Mae Whitman). Azula's sadism gives way to mania, and yet even with her power, she's still ultimately outsmarted, defeated, and chained by Katara. She's last seen writhing on the ground and sobbing; in her final moments on screen, Azula is finally as vulnerable as the 14-year-old girl she really is.

What happens next? Azula obviously doesn't get to partake in Team Avatar's happy ending, but she's not explicitly shown in prison like her father is. It can feel like her breakdown was the tragic culmination of the story, so there was no need to show more. However, "Avatar" head writer Aaron Ehasz (who wrote most of the Fire Nation Royal Family episodes) has maintained Azula's story was not over after "Sozin's Comet."

So, where has that story taken Azula in subsequent "Avatar: The Last Airbender" sequels?

In "Sozin's Comet," Zuko becomes Fire Lord. His goal is to reform the Fire Nation into a more peaceful place that will help rebuild the world from the damage it caused. Having learned a lot about redemption, Zuko doesn't give up hope that his nation — or family — can grow to be better.

In the penultimate scene of "Sozin's Comet," Zuko visits his father in prison. Zuko tells Ozai that he hopes his humbling at Avatar Aang's (Zach Tyler Eisen) hands, along with the time he spends in prison, might help him change. Azula is absent, but her brother has the same hopes for her. If Zuko can still believe in his father, the man who scarred his face, then of course he can believe in Azula.

But unlike Ozai, Azula is not sentenced to isolation in a dark, damp, and grimy prison cell. For one, she still has her firebending. The show never suggests that Aang considered removing Azula's bending, but if you consider this an oversight, remember: Zuko wants to heal Azula, not punish her more than necessary. After "Sozin's Comet," Azula's bending is all she has left. Take that away from her and she'd probably break beyond fixing.

Azula's bending also means she's a much bigger threat than Ozai. Second, she needs help. Anyone watching her breakdown (Zuko included) can tell that. So, instead of prison, Zuko sentences Azula to a mental asylum — one with much nicer furnishings and scenery than her father's prison –  where she is consistently kept under close supervision and care.

Azula returns at the very end of the 2012 sequel comic, "Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Promise" (by Gene Luen Yang and artist duo Gurihiru), which is set a year after "Sozin's Comet." With Zuko having been unable to get his mother's location out of Ozai, he visits Azula in the hopes she might have it. When Azula reappears, she's bound in a full-body straitjacket and moved around via a wheelchair. Her year in the asylum has not improved her mental illness but instead let it fester. She even has the exact same twisted grin as she had during her duel with Zuko. 

Notably, Azula's perfectionism is often symbolized by her hair; for most of "Avatar: The Last Airbender," she kept it in a tight warrior's bun. When she started losing it in the finale, she cut her bangs unevenly. Thus, in "The Promise," her hair is a long and flowing mess, and she's still haunted by the hallucination of her mother.

"The Promise" was followed in 2013 by "The Search" (also by Yang and Gurihiru), where Zuko and Azula seek out their mother. Zuko wants to reunite with her, while Azula wants revenge and to silence the voices in her head.

The biggest hanging thread from "Avatar: The Last Airbender" was what exactly happened to Ursa. She first appeared in the season 2 episode "Zuko Alone," when Zuko is remembering his early childhood. She's last seen visiting Zuko in the middle of the night, telling him not to forget who he is.

The truth of what happened to Ursa is slowly pieced together throughout "Zuko Alone," the season 3 episode "Day of the Black Sun," and, finally, "The Search."

Zuko's loving uncle, Iroh (Mako, later Greg Baldwin), once led a siege of the Earth Kingdom nation-state Ba Sing Se. Then, Iroh's own son and heir Lu-Ten was killed in battle. Ozai petitioned his father, Fire Lord Azulon, to be moved up in the line of succession because he had a living son. Azulon, enraged at the disrespect Ozai showed to his brother, commanded Ozai kill Zuko to learn what losing a son is like. To save Zuko, Ursa conspired with Ozai to poison Azulon, but accepted banishment instead. (Ozai didn't want any poison making its way into his tea.)

The "Avatar" team considered putting a scene of Zuko and Ursa reuniting in the finale. However, it only made it to storyboarding before co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino vetoed it. The finale instead only featured Zuko asking Ozai where Ursa is.

Both he and "Avatar" fans had to wait a while to figure that out. "The Search" reveals that Ursa (a descendant of Avatar Roku) was forced to marry Ozai. After her banishment, she returned to her home village of Hira'a and married her true love, a kind man named Ikem. She then visited a spirit called "The Mother of Faces." To soothe her heartbreak from being separated from her children and dodge Ozai's assassins, she asked for a new identity. Thus, Ursa became "Noriko."

At the end of "The Search," the Mother of Faces restores Ursa to her old self, who remembers and loves both her children — yes, Azula too. Even if Ursa found it easier to love Zuko, and was upset by Azula's violent tendencies (the ones Ozai encouraged), she never hated her daughter. Azula can't bear the contradictions of what her mind tells her and runs off.

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Azula returned in the 2015-2016 comic "Smoke and Shadow." She'd gotten better ... loosely, in that she was more stable and back to her old, cunning self, having recruited several "friends" she'd made in the asylum as "Fire Warriors." Azula's acolytes operated like terrorists, dressing up as feared spirits called the Kemurikage and kidnapping children to inspire fear throughout the Fire Nation. She wasn't trying to undermine Zuko, though, not exactly. Rather, she'd decided to make him into the "strong" (read: tyrannical) Fire Lord he "needed" to be by acting as the bad guy.

"Smoke and Shadow" ended with Azula still at-large, and that was where Yang & Guruhiru left her. It wasn't until the 2023 one-shot "Azula in the Spirit Temple" (by Faith Erin Hicks and Peter Wartman) that the "Avatar" comics returned to her.

In this comic, Azula's followers get sick of and abandon her, repeating the pattern of "betrayal" by her old friends Mai and Ty Lee. While searching them out, Azula stumbles on a temple and is beset by visions of her friends and family. In taking Azula on a journey through her memories and desires, the comic arrives at this thesis: Azula thinks everyone close to her hurt and betrayed her, and she wants them to beg her forgiveness so she can soothe her self-hatred. But she refuses to see that she is the one who should be seeking others' forgiveness. The spirit tells Azula she is at a crossroads, echoing the "Avatar" season 2 finale, "The Crossroads of Destiny," where Zuko chooses not to change. Like her brother did, Azula falls back into her old ways.

But Zuko's journey didn't end with him making that wrong decision, and the comic suggests neither will Azula's. After her spiritual quest, she finds the Fire Warriors. But seeing they're happy without her, she decides to leave them be, telling herself she'll find new followers instead. For now, that's the latest we've seen of Azula.

Hicks has said that Azula is one of her favorite characters, but also one she was hesitant to write because she has such impassioned fans. You can see that in "Azula in the Spirit Temple," because it doesn't move Azula's character in one direction or another much.

"Avatar" fans continue to debate to this day whether Azula should be redeemed. The conversation takes two forms: whether Azula deserves it, and whether it's the most interesting path her character can take.

If you're searching for answers to those questions, you won't find them in the "Last Airbender" sequel series, "The Legend of Korra." Set 70 years after "Sozin's Comet," the animated show follows the next Avatar after Aang, Korra (Janet Varney).

Most of the major "Avatar" characters return for cameos in "Korra," but Azula is a no-show. Zuko (Bruce Davison) has a small part in "Korra" season 3, but he never mentions his sister. Is Azula even still alive when the series takes place? Your guess is as good as mine.

Now, in "Korra" season 2, our heroine visits the priestly Fire Sages. Some have speculated their leader is an elderly Azula due to her hairstyle. Maybe (a lot can change in 70 years), but if that was Azula, the show probably would've come out and said so. My vote is no.

"The Legend of Korra" is focused mostly on the present, not the past. Bringing in Azula just for the sake of having her wouldn't be the show's style. Plus, remember, "Korra" ran from 2012 to 2014, i.e. when the "Avatar" comics were just starting. If "Korra" included Azula, that would've constrained the comics too much. Depict Azula as redeemed and that means the comics have to build to that. Likewise, if she's still evil into her 80s, then the comics can never do a redemption arc for her.

For what it's worth, Ehasz has maintained that Azula's journey is one of redemption. He even plotted out the beats for how it would have happened if "The Last Airbender" had continued for a fourth season. This arc would have also brought Zuko's journey full-circle, as he would've helped Azula the way Iroh helped him:

"[Azula's redemption would be] longer and far more complicated than Zuko's. She had not bottomed in the end of season 3, she had further to go. At the deepest moment in her own abyss she would have found: Zuko. Despite it all, her brother Zuko would be there for her. Believing in her, sticking by her, doing his best to understand and help her hold her pain that she can no longer hold alone. Zuko — patient, forgiving, and unconditionally loving — all strengths he gained from Uncle Iroh."

As for the endpoint of Azula's journey, this is what Ehasz pictured:

"And I always imagined that after coming out the other side, she would be one of those people who hilariously over-shares her own feelings all the time, and that she would be a bit over-apologetic. Like a Canadian version of Azula."

Ehasz is not currently involved with the "Avatar" franchise (he didn't write for "The Legend of Korra"), and of course his story doesn't line up exactly with how Azula has progressed in the comics. But Azula's complete life story is still yet to be written. It hasn't been confirmed if Azula will be appearing in the forthcoming "Aang: The Last Airbender" animated film, but I wouldn't be surprised if she does. If Azula is to be redeemed, that's a story worthy of animation.