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terajk[Vague Avatar: The Last Airbender spoilers are vague, but possibly not vague enough]
My love of women with disabilities being awesome and interdependent together is officially out of the realm of all that is good and holy. Because, Internet, I have seen Avatar: The Last Airbender, and I want the impossible: something post-canon in which Toph and Azula have a scam-tastic
After 24 hours of thinking, I could see this working if and only if all these conditions (and those I haven't thought of) are met:
1) They're both under MAJOR threat from (probably) the same ableist asshat(s)--like someone/a group of someones who will bring them back to where they can be looked after 24/7. Which would mean that Zuko is a jerkass and the fangirls will cry Toph's parents have learned nothing. They're clueless, but not that clueless.
2) Azula doesn't/can't just fix #1 by killing it (and Toph) with fire.
3) Each of them has skills the other doesn't, which are necessary for dealing with #1.
4) Each of them realizes (and admits) the other has skills that she doesn't and that those skills are necessary for dealing with #1 in a "Without them I am screwed" sort of way.
5) Both of them can put aside their do-it-myselfness long enough to do #4 at all, let alone think of team-uppery. (Toph has a hard enough time doing that with people who haven't tried to kill her for two seasons).
6) They would need to see each other as equals. And Azula...well, no.
7) Before 3-6 can happen, they would need lots of time to ignore each other/do horrible things to each other/ try to sell each other out to #1.
8) It doesn't end up looking like a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
9) It has a plot.
Which is, of course, beyond ridiculous. (Doing blasphemous things to canon? I've never done that.) And yet, I will probably definitely keep thinking about this because I want it WITH ALL MY HEART. Sigh.
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Date: 2010-10-05 10:16 pm (UTC)This'll seem really odd, getting all analytical about something I wrote. But as I was feeling that scene out, I tried things that Just Did Not Work, and your comment hits on several of them. Also, there are things I totally didn't pick up on at the time...like that Toph's first thought is of Appa, who makes her feel vulnerable (because he flies), but whom she loves and was unable to save. (How did I not know this when I was writing it?) Your comment hits on some of those, too :D.
I love the way they bleed in and out of each other
I struggled with how to do that--I kept thinking Toph had to go back and refer to stuff that had already happened (choking, for instance), but it wrecked the flow. At that point there's a weird enmeshment between them, both of them know it's there (although Toph understands the threat of it better--she's experienced enmeshment before), and they're both trying to get out of it and can't.
And the enmeshment is basically...Azula's fault? Because I can see her executing this totally awesome escape, planned and set up over a period of years (including fake escapes), with details combed over obsessively (she knows she miscalculates, but doesn't quite know in what way, or it could just be a form her perfectionism has taken). She pulls it off, but totally forgot to plan what to do after that...or even to think of what she wants to do now that she's out.
Maybe she entertains a plan that's basically "bust into the palace and kill Zuko and be Fire Lord." Then she remembers that both her "kill Zuko" plans have failed, especially when there was a woman with him. And she cannot jeopardize this escape.
But all these details are flooding in. She used to be able to prioritize them (see the plan for winning the volleyball game at the beach), but that cognitive filter is gone. So all these details are Important and thus, Dangerous. Which is nothing new, but she has no direction now.
Here comes somebody she knows--somebody who is weak and has never beaten her at anything, ever. This person makes her feel 14 again, and powerful. So she decides to track her, and Toph quickly becomes the filter. (She is very good at responding to threats, after all).
And Azula will screw up royally here, because she'll think of Toph as a tool instead of a person. While an assistive device can only break or get lost, an assistant person holds power over you, even when they don't realize it. They can choose not to assist you, or they can not be where you expect them since they are out drinking because you are following them everywhere. And then your assistant is drunk.
(And the poor drunk assistant, expecting death or a fight at least, gets a "Do you know how long it took you to get here?" lecture. She won't remember the lecture later, but she will remember the string between you, and be terrified).
At this point, Toph Can Never Leave. (But the fandom will, I'm sure). Which gets rid of a lot of problems for me. They can even have different threats, especially if Azula's is a return to 24-hr supervision. Awesome.
I think also because it reads, a little bit, like not just a rejection of her parents' cosseting but also of the old-man politicking of the Order of the White Lotus - and perhaps even of Aang, a tiny bit, given the significance of the lotus in Buddhist iconography (not, obviously, that Aang is anything other than a fantasy!Buddhist): Toph is just the very very opposite of detached.
When I wrote the "supported lotus" line, I was aware that Toph was rejecting her parents and also thinking of her very identity. It's unclear in this little bit, but all Toph's roles are screwed up right now: the only person with her is her enemy, whom she sort of wants to help (!!!), and who makes her feel like she's with her parents one moment and that she IS her parents the next (!!!).
But you're right--she totally is rejecting Aang here. For one thing, he can be her student or Katara's husband or the Avatar, but if he is Aang the Air Nomad then he brings back a TON of vulnerability. (He took her belt at the wrestling match, and literally did bring her back to her parents). She may also be continuing subconsciously in the "What would Katara do?" vein--thinking of parental or helpful people she knows to try to model them. In which case, the line is also a rejection of Iroh specifically: his way would require her to SAY something (!!!) And yes, it is a rejection of detachment, too, I think--not least of all because of the enmeshment that Toph can't detach from, no matter how much she wants to.
I also wonder how much of the strength of Toph's voice comes from her upside-down power--or at least, her ability to take her power back. Would Azula be able to take the mike back as well as Toph can, at least early on? (Of course, it could just be that I write Toph better). I'll have to think about it and play with it some more.
And you have Azula laugh!
The funny thing is, I'm not sure what Azula's laugh would sound like. She points and laughs when she pushes Ty Lee down in Zuko's memory, but you don't hear it. And one of the few times she genuinely laughs--when Zuko calls Ty Lee a circus freak--it sounds like her fake laugh with Chan. I wonder if she tells jokes about as well as she flirts, which would be part of this emotional stuff that she doesn't get. Because in "Appa'a Lost Days," she says that the Kyoshi Warriors are "the Avatar's fan girls," which is terrible. What makes it even more out of place is that Ty Lee steps in and says: "Oh, good one, Azula!" even though if it really was good, she would have laughed. So maybe Ty Lee does this social coaching thing fairly regularly?
And Azula seems to understand Zuko especially well? Not only does she laugh at something he says, but I think her most successful attempt at a joke is at his expense (when she puts her hand over her left eye and asks Aang if he sees the family resemblance), and she does, as you said at your place, know where to find him when he leaves the party. Which is not as strange as it seems, since he is pretty close to her in age and rank and she has power over him.
So many things to think about!