Summary: Just some drabbles on the gender roles in "Avatar: the Last Airbender," because the cartoon is a surprising mix of modern technology and ancient tradition, but they never mention social/cultural biases towards gender. So, this is my interpretation of the gender roles in "Avatar: the Last Airbender." As always, if anyone wants me to expand on a certain drabble, PM/review and let me know!
Feminine
Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee are the most dangerous females in the fire nation.
Seriously, Azula shot her instructor full of lightning after three months of training. (It was an accident, but her father assigned her to Lo and Li because he thought she had the guts to take out anyone who couldn't see her talent so she never lets anyone know. She doesn't know whether to laugh or cry when the rumors grow until everyone think that the fire nation's princess is so ruthless that she was able to paralyze her teacher just because he couldn't teach her anymore.)
The nine-year old Azula learns to use that fear early.
Mai took up knives as a hobby at three years old, when she saw her mother raped and her father murdered. When her uncle took her in and asked if she needed anything, she promptly pointed at the warrior geishas on the tapestries that covered her room. She obeys him because he gave her lessons with the best, respects him because he defied court gossip to let her continue training after childhood, and loves him because while her aunt clucks and treats her like an anomaly, her uncle takes her to the Boiling Rock and puts her to work. She's not sure when the rumors get started, but by the time she goes back to court and meets Azula, she has a reputation as an unnatural, unfeeling master of steel.
The nine-year old Mai learns not to let others see she cares.
Ty Lee has never wanted anything more than attention. Yumi is the psychic one, Yora, the brains, Yoma is the beauty, Yorraine, the artist, Yima and Yuma the courtesan twins—and then there's Ty Lee, the one that was born too late to a set of parents who were bled dry from court and their already-too-big family. Their family is new to court and Ty Lee learns early that her sisters are too busily competing for the royal family's favor to even consider helping their youngest sister and that any advice they give is to "trust nobody, not even us, because when it comes to politics you can only look out for yourself." Ty Lee watches as Yima and Yuma spread rumors about Yoma's fidelity to her fiancé, sees the way Yora cheats Yorraine when she sells her paintings for her, and runs away to join the circus. By the time she returns, she's the immoral wild-child who smiles and flirts while slowly paralyzing a man five times her size.
The nine-year old Ty Lee learns that attention comes with a price.
And the most beautiful.
Besides being the only princess of the fire nation and a talented fire-bender, Azula is considered the quintessence of fire-nation beauty. Her face is sharply defined in all the right ways, her body is muscled yet fully-developed, and there's an air of confident power around her that makes her attractive. Men start looking at her when she turns twelve and has her first courses, and Azula learns early that to blush is to show weakness and that weakness in the court is deadly. When a noble high-up enough to consider himself safe from the Fire-Lord's wrath traps her in a room and tries to kiss her, she twists away and kills him with a single shot of lightning. Men stop pursuing her after that.
When Mai turns twelve, she's considered a homely child, with her angular features and pale skin, and yet men seem drawn to her condescending, apathetic attitude towards life. She's so uncaring of what other people think that girls admire her and boys try to win over what they soon come to call the "ice queen." She crushes every one of them, faking disinterest and superiority—until she develops a crush on a handsome servant. He flatters her, calls her beautiful and then gropes her through her thin nightgown when she stumbles into him in the hallway. When he doesn't stop after she threatens to get him fired, she flicks out a knife and pushes it deep into his stomach. The next morning, she has him castrated and thrown out. Boys stop bothering her after that.
Ty Lee kisses her first man at eleven, lets other touch her blossoming breasts at twelve—but never lets any man go all the way. She learns to tease until her various playthings are mad with desire, but she never lets any of them get farther than she permits. The bedroom is her arena, after all, because when its just skin on skin and two bodies on a bed, she has the power to kill or paralyze with a single shift of her delicate fingers, and her various paramours never forget it. So she lets this nobleman run his fingers down her stomach and that nobleman trace the inside of her thighs, but then one bores her or goes to far and she leaves him naked and unable to move on the bed for the servants to find. Suitors start fearing her after that.
Together, they are symbols, icons of pure female power…
Azula knows she is admired, and she knows she is powerful, and it is never a struggle for her to combine both and become the Princess both envied and admired by the other nobility. She wears robes that draw male eyes and then casually sets a clumsy servant's headband afire to remind them that she's off limits. Women admire her commanding control over the court and hate her at the same time, because they fear the sixteen-year old girl who's beauty burns like the fire she wields.
Mai knows she is untouchable, and she knows she is desirable, and she knows that if one stops being true the other will crumble to dust as well. She's filled out, and though her lanky body is still pale and sharp, her smoky eyes and small bones makes her seem both dangerous and delicate at the same time. Women are jealous of her poised elegance and hate her because the sixteen-year old dismisses them all as dirt with every monosyllabic comment and refusal to engage in any form of communication.
Ty Lee knows she is lusted over, and she knows she is looked down upon as a loose woman, and she finds both reputations surprisingly satisfying. Attention is attention, after all, and if she catches hers with her youthful curves and bedroom experience, she doesn't care that her sisters publicly denounce her in court. And even though women envy her body and hate that she has all of the men they desire, they never say a word to her face because even when they gossip about the sixteen-year old in private, they look over their shoulders to make sure they won't be the next ones to be found paralyzed naked in the public baths.
…which is why they don't understand why Katara mystifies them so much.
Before they turn against the fire nation and join the Avatar, the three girls are Firelord Ozai's most volatile assassin team and the ones assigned the task of bringing in Aang and his friends. His tracks are easy to follow and they find the group in a clearing, settling down for the night. Azula motions them to wait and she sends one blast of lightning into the air to signal Zuko, (because even though he was a big enough idiot to talk back to father and get himself banished, he was still her older brother and she wanted him home), before she and the others attack.
Azula heads straight for the arrowed-tattooed boy, who yelps and redirects her flames with a few quick hand-movements. He pushes air towards her and Azula fall back, throwing herself behind a tree and grabbing onto it to anchor herself. As soon as she spots an opening she leaps, two fingers poised and ready to strike—and then a slim brown hand knocks the hand away and Azula finds herself frozen to a tree. She stares as the girl, (who can't be any older than she is and is probably younger), adds another coat of ice before turning and jumping back into the battle. And all Azula can think about is the passionate power behind the strike.
Mai finds quickly that her knives are useless against pure rock, and that if she's going to dismember the stocky blind girl with the power to shift earth she's going to have to move fast. She vaults over the next missile and in that instant Toph cannot pinpoint her location and Mai readies herself to strike. The knives hit the other girl squarely in the shoulder, and would have entered her throat if some instinct hadn't forced the girl to twist at the last second. Still, she falls, holding her arm in pain and Mai steps forward to finish the job. The water whip comes out of nowhere and Mai is knocked onto her stomach. She pulls herself to her feet and launches two daggers, but her hands are suddenly encased in water and she can't jerk them free. Katara slams her into a tree and then runs to heal Toph, and Mai sees the gentleness with which the girl tends to the injured earthbender.
Ty Lee can't help but toy with the water-tribe boy a little. He's cute with his sputtering and attempts to fight her off, but he's obviously unused to hand-to-hand and she gets close easily, letting their bodies touch teasingly before dropping him with two blows. She spots Azula break free from her icy prison and reengage the Avatar, and Mai encased in a pure rock, and spies the waterbender running towards her with fury in her eyes. "Get away form my brother," the girl shouts, and Ty Lee wonders how someone can look so graceful and yet so natural at the same time—and then she has to cartwheel out of the way of a blast of water.
"Katara, don't let her get close enough to touch you," the brother warns, and Ty Lee is momentarily distracted by the genuine concern in his voice. The moment is enough, and suddenly Ty Lee finds her hands behind her back and Katara shouts the name of the earthbender and she's stuck in rock. Out of the corner of her eye she spots Azula being similarly trapped and then the group flees, just as Zuko rushes in. The Avatar is gone by then—the earthbender and water tribe boy both safely on the bison, but Katara is still on the ground and he separates her from the others with a wall of fire.
"Go!" Katara yells to her friends and then she turns to face the prince and Ty Lee sees with surprise that rather than obey the blind girl lobs a rock at Zuko's head, Aang separates the wall of fire and the girl's brother hoists her onto the bison. They're gone by the time Zuko dodges, spins, and shoots another blast of fire.
They don't talk about it, but none of the girls forget the water-tribe peasant who's just as powerful, just as graceful, just as beautiful as they are—and yet she still retains compassion, gentleness, and emotions.