Zuko vs Azula: Breaking Down the REAL Best Fight Of Your Childhood

91 days ago from the time of writing this script I posted a video analyzing what I considered the

best

fight

of my

childhood

, Aang versus Ozai. I expected the video to do well, but I seemed to underestimate the continued popularity and recent resurgence of Avatar because that video got almost 300,000 views because of the way I earned and made a pretty penny off that video because they claimed the copyright from me anyway. I'm glad many of you found my analysis of In vs. Ozai so nice, but there was a feeling shared with me over and over again by many different people who believed it was a climactic

fight

.

Anger says Ozai doesn't compare to Zuko versus Azula. Believe it or not. I always wanted to make a video watching the final Agni Kai and it got to the point where I literally didn't know if it would be wise to do so. I spent about 20 hours working on the Aang Purses Ozai video, but I ended up making a whopping $0.00, meaning it became a lot harder for me to pay my bills that month looking ahead. Making a Zuko vs. Azula video seemed like something I just couldn't afford to do, but then again, my job isn't to make responsible financial decisions or worry about my retirement plans.

I make YouTube videos on how to write and that's what I'm going to do. I

real

ize that by watching this final Agni Kai video I'm probably not going to make any money off of it because it will get a copyright claim, but a lot of you wanted it. that I am here to deliver the only thing I would ask of you is that if you want to continue watching content like this and you are feeling generous the

best

thing you can do to ensure you continue receiving videos from me is to support the channel on patreon even Just giving two dollars is at least a Income, I know, is guaranteed every month and, hey, you could also get cool perks, like first conversations with me about videos or even discounts on editing.

It may seem like a small and inconsequential thing to promise two dollars a month, but it is enough. the people who do it actually add up to the 118 thousand people subscribed to me approximately 2,000 six percent support on patreon and if we could shoot that number up to zero zero six percent that would actually literally guarantee me being able to do anything which me and you want, regardless of D monetization, but enough begging for pocket change, you didn't come here for that, you came here to get a breakdown of the best

real

fight scene from

your

childhood

, just you and me , brother, the showdown that was always meant for Sea Agni Kai, so let's start from the beginning with some interesting edits.

The final Agni Kai on paper doesn't work. The fight on its own merits has no reason to be as good as it really is and it is phenomenal. Zuko versus Azula bucks almost every writing prompt that goes into creating a polished climactic battle. Arguably, Zuko, the protagonist of the entire scene, never personally gets over Azula, the inconsistent main antagonist of his journey. A female character takes on the role of a damsel who needs to be saved by a selfless male leader. The antagonist refuses to finish off a fallen main character before moving on to the next opponent.

One character defeats the antagonist with a skill never seen before, and to top it all off, this climactic story that defines the conflict lasts only four minutes. Ozai, which is almost three times as long, with all these tropes, clichés, and narrative transgressions thrown into the fight, why is it still so good? Because while the fight may not work on paper, it totally works in practice and I think that's true. One of the most difficult aspects of not only writing fight scenes but writing in general is that you can have something that makes perfect sense on a structural level but fails in execution, conversely, you can have a plot that seems completely absurd. but it turns out beautiful.

FMA Brotherhood, but since This video is about a fight scene. Let's continue to understand the fights and how this Agni Kai fails on paper, but works wonderfully in practice. It all comes down to the difference between storing fight scenes versus character-driven fight scenes and how they are used now. For full disclosure, these are not terms that you will find written in any book, at least not as far as I know, these are categorical guidelines that I have in Korea throughout my years of professional editing and they helped me conceptualize scenes of conflict, so let's get started.

Understanding the differences between these types of fights, story-based fights are conflict scenes where the main interest of the fight comes from its implications for the overall narrative. I know it may seem confusing right now, but I hope I can spend the next minute.

breaking

it down Story-based fights are largely empowered by themes and ideals that fight against each other. Characters involved in story-based fights represent opposing philosophical perspectives or moral positions, and the audience's engagement with the fight comes from seeing which of these perspectives will prevail. narrative dominance sometimes these perspectives are as simple as one side is good and the other is bad, character-driven fights, on the other hand, are conflict scenes where the main interest in the fight comes from the characters' relationship involved in the conflict.

The more deeply the characters are emotionally invested in each other and the more deeply the audience understands that investment, the more powerful a different character fight becomes and yes, this will also be broken down into simpler terms. One important thing to note is that all fights are character driven. We fit under the umbrella of story-driven fights, we as an audience still care about the implications of the fights to the overall narrative, but we as an audience also have a deeper second layer of interest in the fight. due to the relationship between the characters in which a story-driven fight takes place. can succeed on one level, a character driven fight can succeed on another important thing to note is that these two types of fights exist on a spectrum, of course it's easier to categorize fights as they get closer to either extreme, but some fights are harder to pin down with these tags like all my vs. all for one, for example, although we now recognize these two categories of fight scenes, we must understand what they mean in execution by looking at character-driven fights, since the audience is interested in both the relationship between the characters and the As a result of the fight, the audience is encouraged to pay attention to the entire scene.

Interest in the battle itself is fueled either by the audience's emotional investment or by the emotional understanding of the characters. All interest in the conclusion of the fight is fueled. battle for the desire to know the impact on the narrative, this is not the case, although with story-based fights, by definition, a story-based fight is not given power by the relationship between the competing characters. Another way of saying this is that the audience is not interested in the relationship between the characters in the fight, the only innate appeal of a story-driven fight is its outcome, that is, its impact on the story, so What we can understand here is that the actual fight has no built-in incentive for the audience to care about it now.

Two writing techniques are generally used to compensate for this deficit, and some scenes use both. The first technique is to make a story-based action conflict scene visually spectacular to inspire the audience to watch it. This is why you will notice that movies that have an underdeveloped antagonist or a bad interaction with the antagonist. They have over-the-top climactic battles. The DC movies are a great example of this, as the main characters do not have well-established relationships with the antagonist. The fuel for the scene must be a visual spectacle. but this doesn't mean that just because a piece of fiction has a visually spectacular climactic battle that it is poorly written or even story-based, as these two types of fights are on a spectrum, many of their qualities are interchangeable.

Naruto vs Sasuke is a character. fight driven with spectacular images the same goes for obi-wan versus Anakin Rock Lee vs. kimimaro is a story based fight with spectacular visuals Rock Lee and kimimaro don't have an established relationship, but the way they fight looks really cool, so the fight is fun. The second most difficult method of keeping the audience interested in storing Riven's fight scenes is to build up the shocking themes of the fight beforehand. What does this mean in simple terms? It means that the conflict and tension of the narrative must be directly related to what happens in the fight.

Let's use an example to make things even clearer. We all know the climactic fight that happens at the end of Incredibles 1. Obviously, the family He has no personal relationship with the death robot they are fighting, so this would be a story-based fight. scene and we can see that it is visually spectacular, but more than that, what also makes the fight so interesting is its relationship to the story. The theme of The Incredibles is that the characters gain their own identity by being unified and cooperative as a family. their fight throughout the entire movie, so during this final fight, when all the family members work together as heroes to defeat the antagonist, if we work together, the fight naturally feels like a completion and a validation of

your

story, a story driven fight must directly relate to the previous story, this is the most difficult route because it requires proper story construction and not just flashy visuals, so turning Avatar Aang against the eye of Bo is a story-driven fight with spectacular visuals that tie directly into the previous story, Aang and OHS.

I don't have an established relationship that gives power to the fight, but the conflict is so surprising and the weight of the narrative is so enormous that we remain interested and yes, I already hear people say that anga knows that I do have a relationship established by everything that has happened. happened before again because this is all based on a spectrum, such matters are open to argument, the important thing is simply to understand these our perspectives to better understand the narrative purposes and needs of a fight scene, so now that I have dedicated 1800 words to explain the categorization of fights let's go back to the fight you came here for the finale in Makai makes great use of both types of fight scenes the battle between Zuko and Azula is character driven while the battle between Katara and Azula is character driven by the story again, this leads directly To why the fight fails on paper but works in practice, many of the quote-unquote writing errors from the ending of Agni Kai are justified when put into context with the overall story, So to properly understand how this relates to Zuko Azula and Katara on a critical level, I have to look back at another fight involving these characters and the narrative pieces the show spent years setting up to produce such a climactic battle. great This is when we can move on to the season 2 finale, the crossroads of destiny, today you restored yours. honor Zuko and Azula are attacking Aang and Katara, all things considered pretty standard business in Avatar.

It's concerning, but there are some things to pay attention to while Aang is fighting. Zuko Katara confronts Azula and as the battle continues, he realizes that things are not looking good, Aang finally makes the painful decision to let Katara go and turn his back on her even in her time of need for the betterment of the world and his journey as an avatar, of course, we all know what happens next. Aang has a lot of fun. of lightning and Katara has to take him to safety with the help of Iroh. Everything that happened here is important when considering what worked in the final Agni Kai, but a scene right before it deserves just as much attention.

There, Katara and Zuko are confined together, allowing seeds of relationships between important characters to be planted. Zuko hears for the first time how the war has affected Katara personally. You have no idea what this war has done to me personally. The Fire Nation took my mother from me and Katara can hear that. Zuko understands his pain. Sorry, that's something we have in common. This scene continues to establish a moment of genuine bonding between the two characters where Katara offers to cure Zuko and Zuko tells Katara that he now has the ability to choose his own destiny.

Of course, not long after Azula seemed to tempt Zuko, she finally managed to convince him to ally with her in the Fire Nation once again, so when Zuko actually joins the team's avatar, it's Katara specifically the most skeptical and distrustful. of him, give me a reason to think. you could hurt Aang and you wouldn't have to worry about your fate anymore. NoIt wasn't until Zuko helped Katara find the Southern Raiders that Zuko saw firsthand the damage and trauma the Fire Nation had caused, the seeds of these two characters' relationship. Blossom and all these little pieces that seemed so inconspicuous at the time actually become pivotal in the final Chi performance.

The actual fight between Zuko and Azula, while a visual spectacle, is a character-driven fight scene, and lucky for me this show performed so excellently. work creating a nuanced three-dimensional relationship between these two I feel like I don't even have to explain why the emotions are so high here all that needs to be said is that the roughly 100 seconds of conflict between Zuko and Azula are intensely interesting for the audience because We are interested in the relationship between both characters and one thing that all writers should keep in mind is the difference in how these types of fight scenes should be choreographed and handled most of the time.

It's best for you to keep it as simple as possible in the character-driven fight scenes. Look at how close we are: Zuko and Azula, how rooted we are, and how personal this battle is framed. Now look at the story-driven battle difference between A and O's AI. Much more secluded, much grander in scope, and much less personal. Check out this character-driven fight scene from Civil War or this character-driven fight scene in Harry Potter or this different character fight scene from Star Wars in moments where the two people involved give weight to the fight, it's best to keep it close, simple and personal, Zuko and Azula don't.

Flying around the city or shooting each other through buildings The character-driven fight works because the focus is on the characters and their relationship This fight is the culmination of the animosity that has existed between them for years It's an investigation into who Either The Redeemed Prince or the Corrupted Prodigy will prevail and this allows a simple 120 second fight to have more emotional impact for some than the 10 minute fight between the avatar in the Phoenix cave, but we haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet, everything , from Rayo. This is where the previously established narrative foundation comes into play, remember how he isolated himself from Katara in her moment of danger and then was struck by Azula's lightning bolt, well the opposite happens here.

Zuko, without hesitation, completely ignores his own personal safety and his fight for the throne to protect Katara, is hit and knocked down by the lightning that protects her and this is the last time Zuko actually participates in the fight and where in the paper one could watch this and complain that Zuko didn't beat his antagonist in practice, something even better happened, Zuko. He began this program by antagonizing and threatening the Southern Water Tribe, all he could focus on or his own personal goals, regardless of how it affected others. Now, in the climax, Zuko is willing to sacrifice everything, his chance at the crown, even his own life, to protect someone. the Southern Water Tribe we are the great moment of Aang's character comes when he turns his back on Katara Zucco is based on rushing to protect her and what is best is protecting Katara from Azula the person who previously convinced him to stay away from Katara and how the scene continues because Katara and Azula do not have a personal relationship, their conflict becomes a story-based fight scene and if you notice that the framing of the fight changes in the type where before we stayed close to the characters highlighting their relationship, now we focus back on the show most of the time you can't even see Azula, but what really draws the audience's interest in the fight is its relevance to what happened earlier in the story.

Katara's entire history within the show has been framed by the damage the Fire Nation has done. They came to her house and took her mother, forced her father to go to war, hunted down her friends and started a global conflict. Katara's entire journey so far has been about gaining power to protect her loved ones and take on the Fire Nation, so to reach the climax, what better way would it be for her beats to be a full journey of guitars and characters? than having her travel to the heart of the Fire Nation like they did with her people and defeat the de facto Fire Lord, literally surpassing the person who represents the Fire Nation, where she retreated from Azula earlier to save Aang. , now Katara faces off against Azula to save Zuko, and to top it all off, her relationship with Zuko also comes full circle where it was interrupted earlier when she was trying to heal him with water after their close bond. moment when she is able to literally save his life by doing so now in his moment of greatest sacrifice and need and really the icing on the cake is the resolution or Azula has a complete mental breakdown while Ulla avoided her friends and allies to prevail and gain. power, she eventually lost everything because ooh ko had his own allies who could save him when it mattered.

Everything Azula stood for in the show was unambiguously defeated in this moment and it completely validated Zuko's fight against her and really symbolized him surpassing her. Final Acne Chi works so well in practice because the character-driven battle is so personal and has the emotional payoff of years of preparation that keeps us on the edge of our seats. Likewise, the story-driven battle was not only a visual spectacle but was masterfully placed. was set up to foster interest in the audience beyond its conclusion and it did all of that at a good pace for minutes anyway. I hope you found this video helpful in understanding biting scenes and maybe even in your own fight scene writing.

I love Avatar and I make avatar videos, so I hope there are more in the future, but again, a lot of that depends on the support I get from all of you, so if you could head over to Patreon and donate a couple of dollars, it would be immensely appreciated. . You were interested in my more personal affairs and reviews. Try checking out my second channel link in the description. Ok, I had a great time making this video, as always, it was a pleasure and I'll talk to you all soon.