How Avatar the Last Airbender succeeded where Game of Thrones failed to portray a character’s slow descent into madness
*Warning contains spoilers for Game of Thrones and Avatar the Last Airbender*
Disclaimer before I waste what I’m going to be around five minutes of your valuable time, I’ve not watched every season of Game Of Thrones, in fact I’ve only watched the first season.
It was always one of those shows I said, ‘Maybe I’ll watch it one day,’ and then that quickly turned into ‘Maybe I’ll watch it when it’s all finished.’
And then the ending came and boy, did people not enjoy it.
Now I am not approaching this from a completely uninformed standpoint, I have in fact read all of the books (well the ones that have been released since George R.R. Martin makes my level of procrastination seem efficient in comparison), so I understand ‘the lore’.
By the time the series diverted away from the books, I was so well integrated into the general discussion that people just assumed I knew what was happening so blurted out spoilers without a care, but at that point, it was clear something was ‘wrong’ from an outsider looking in’s perspective.
Something a Song of Ice and Fire in book form does really well is the pacing, it withholds and divulges information when it sees fit to serve the narrative, it never seems rushed.
But it was clear with one season left of the show, some serious jumps would have to be made to wrap up the story and jumps they did make.
Now I can go on about how the Night King is a severely under-utilised character or how every single character seems to betray the ideals they held for the show to just end neatly, but I thought I’d focus on one thing in particular.
And that’s the descent of Daenerys Targaryen (yes I had to google the spelling so we’re going to put Dany from now on) into madness.
Now to say the ‘heel turn’ of Dany is sudden is an understatement, one minute she’s a slightly cold-hearted but overall practical queen and the next, she’s setting fire to women and children.
The explanation I expect the show-runners were hoping that they could hinge on is ‘Well the Targaryen’s are just a bit mad, you remember what we said about the Mad King Aerys and how he just decides to start lighting servants on fire.’
When you’re describing a character that the audience has no prior investment in nor expectations of, you can do this. Jaime Lannister can just go ‘Oh he went a bit mad and so a light stabbing had to occur’ and you accept it.
But when you’ve spent countless seasons following the story of a character and watching them grow and react to situations, the writers can’t just suddenly decide that they’ll go against everything they stand for because viewers will struggle to accept it.
It’s a betrayal of her arc and story, and not only does it lead to an unsatisfying conclusion, it makes you question whether the time you invested following the rest of the story was worth it.
And that is where we come to our second show, Avatar the Last Airbender and the character arc of Azula.
Now I could wax lyrical about ATLA all day, I think it’s an exceptional show to say it was aimed at kids and it’s writing truly surpasses it’s target audience.
But I feel like with the story of Aang and the redemption arc of Prince Zuko; Azula’s descent into madness goes under the radar.
Compared to Dany, Azula has a bit of a head-start because she is to put it lightly, a bad person, but her actions initially reflect her own goals and interests, she’s cold and calculating and she thinks carefully about how she acts.
Most falls into madness in literature and media usually have a catalyst, for Dany it’s wanting to make everything extra crispy but for Azula it’s her father.
Now I know people will say ‘It was Dany’s quest for the throne, that’s her motivation,’ or the fact her dragon died and they were like her kids and I accept both are fair motivations, but the show spends no time dwelling on these things.
And because it spends no time reacting to these motivations, the show never really truly sells them to the audience and so the emotional response of the character falls flat.
In ATLA, there’s a lot of duality(because everyone loves a good duality) and where Zuko has Uncle Iroh, who is one of the best characters in any TV show ever and I will have no debate on that, who seeks to lift him into the light, Firelord Ozai only wants to see his daughter fall further into darkness.
He fosters his daughter’s sense of entitlement and also instills in her a sense of paranoia which he also has himself.
This comes to a head when she is betrayed by her friends as she tries to kill her brother, an obvious sign of a healthy family, and it furthers her belief that she can’t trust anyone.
Of course, her friends are trying to stop her because in her quest to outdo her brother (who she fears could take away her position as her father’s favourite) and is acting irrationally, but in Azula’s mind she is making what she believes to be the only choice.
Then in the lead up to the climax of her story, the different factors that have affected her throughout the show, her friends betrayal, her mothers disappearance and her father’s expectations begin to take their toll.
She dismisses all close to her and her mental state fractures.
It’s so superbly done, and to be honest, one of my only issues with the whole show is how in the final Agni Kai (big fight, lots of fire) the writers felt that they needed to spell out to the audience through Zuko, that the woman screaming about wanting to be the Fire Lord and was willing to kill her own brother, had gone a bits nuts.
Because it wasn’t needed, they had shown the steps throughout the show that led Azula down this path and the result was obvious for all to see.
But that’s how you do it, it’s about subtlety and progression, the fulfilment of an arc, not a heel turn for shock value that even the actress who played the character seemed embarassed to promote.
Game of Thrones had the world in the palm of their hand and could have easily gone down as one of the greatest shows of all time.
Maybe the writers fumbled under the weight of expectations, maybe no ending would have satisfied the rampant fanbase who had spent the past decade theorising and discussing the fate of Westeros.
But what they ended up with was an ending that was universally panned, which by all means is an impressive feat, if for all the wrong reasons and I think the most telling result is how quickly the series has gone out of the minds of the public except for the odd, ‘Wow can’t believe its been ‘x length of time’ since Game of Thrones ended, what a disappointment.’
