Started Out Researching What Being Raised In A Cult Is Like Then Came Across Stuff About Narcissistic

Started out researching what being raised in a cult is like then came across stuff about narcissistic parents, and I was blown away by how that fits the Fire Nation royal family dynamics (talk about intergenerational trauma!). To what degree do you think that Ozai is a narcissistic parent, and how would that impact the maladaptive traits both Azula and Zuko develop?

I would say he shows signs of that, yeah. I’ve drawn the comparison before when talking about the golden child and scapegoat dynamic, which is commonly seen with narcissistic parents. Ozai himself is actually incredibly hard to analyze though, because he’s less a character and more an archetype (and an excuse for mark hamill to be…mark hamill.) But let’s try a little haha.

The defining trait of a narcissistic parent, in my view, is that they see the child not as an independent, autonomous person, but as an extension of themselves. The child exists to serve whatever needs the parent has, and deviations from this are not tolerated. The narcissistic parent can be manipulative, lack empathy for their child, and controlling. They may be possessive of their child or even obsessed with whatever it is they want their child to be for them. They can be self-absorbed and grandiose, as is the telltale sign of narcissism. This is going to vary by each individual, but there examples of this kind of parent all over fiction. Shadow Weaver from She Ra, Cora Mills from OUAT (when her heart’s removed, anyways), Mama Rose from Gypsy, Mother Gothel in Tangled (and if you’re noticing a trend, yep, the Evil Mom trope is usually a narcissistic parent…)

Children of narcissists, as I think I’ve mentioned before when talking about complex trauma, don’t develop a fully authentic sense of self. Instead they form what can be called a “false self”, which is a more defensive persona. They learn that manipulation is way to get your needs met. They conflate aggression with love and may become aggressive themselves, if that’s the narcissistic parent’s style. They likely aren’t able to develop healthy or appropriate boundaries as they’ve never had that modeled for them. Healthy relationships may feel threatening or even empty, because that’s not what love looks like to these children. They may also go the opposite way, and become sensitive, guilt-ridden, full of shame. They become prone to future victimization.

As for Ozai, I think he ticks most of the boxes for the narcissistic parent type. He clearly sees his children as extensions of himself and of the Fire Nation more broadly. Azula is his weapon to mold and shape into the perfect tool of war. Zuko is his heir whom he feels he should be able to break and bend however he wants in order to make him the kind of Fire Lord that Ozai wants him to be (this of course is unsuccessful). He is of course possessive of them in his own way, not because his children are fulfilling some attachment role for him but because he needs them to become a specific thing for him to use in order to win the war, and if they can’t, he tosses them aside. Even Azula, his golden child, he’s perfectly willing to throw away when she’s worn out her usefulness to him. He certainly lacks empathy and is highly controlling, though to be honest I’m not sure how manipulative I’d call Ozai. He’s pretty straightforward with his threats and with his desires- and those who don’t bend to his will get burned. But he’s definitely grandiose, Mr. “I am the Phoenix King.” You don’t have to psychoanalyze him too deeply to see he shows plenty of narcissistic traits. 

I’m guessing your sources mentioned the intergenerational nature of narcissism, because it’s true that narcissistic parents tend to produce children that grow up to be narcissistic parents. It’s not predetermined, and oftentimes I think the child that is favored is more likely to emulate the narcissistic parent and in terms become more like them. There are so many real life examples of this, but the Fire Nation Royals seem to fit the bill too. I think we can infer that Azulon may have treated Iroh and Ozai similarly to how Ozai treats Zuko and Azula. He seems to favor Iroh, though it’s not totally clear, but he definitely dismisses Ozai’s desire to become Fire Lord after Lu Ten dies and has no difficulty ordering Ozai to kill Zuko. As fucked up as it is that Ozai was willing to do it, it’s equally if not more fucked up that Azulon even demanded it in the first place. We don’t get much characterization from him besides this one scene in the show, but it’s…pretty damning. So you can probably connect the dots and trace the trauma.

Which leads us back to Sozin, who is a real mystery. We never see nor hear any inkling of who mothered Azulon. In the entire flashback episode we never see Sozin marry or have a wife. We never see a child Azulon, which means either he was born after the war began, at which point Sozin was hella old and already obsessed with imperialist expansion, or he was born before and would have seen his father change over time. 

I’m actually inclined to believe it’s the former, as Sozin seems to be the rare person who grows into a more narcissistic personality. Sozin starts off all right, essentially decent, but becomes more power hungry over time, more obsessed with colonizing and “sharing his prosperity with the world”, and escalates it to the point of outright leaving his best friend to die and committing genocide in order to eliminate the one enemy that could stop him. It makes more sense to me that Azulon would have grown up in that atmosphere in order to become the kind of person who would expand the war effort and order his son to kill his son.

And the thing with this kind of trauma is that it literally changes our genetic coding. It is literally inherited.

So this is what Azula and Zuko are born into. They’re the third generation, not counting Sozin, to inherit this trauma. And because I think Azula personally bore the brunt of it, as she was the child into which Ozai injects all of his narcissistic ideals, all his father’s ideals, all his grandfather’s ideals- she’s the one who snaps. Zuko was lucky enough to get away (though not to minimize the cruelty and abuse he was subjected to), but Azula didn’t. And she and Zuko both show signs of being children who grew up in the home of a narcissist- and frankly, they both grow into bullies for a while. Zuko was just as angry and aggressive as Azula for a time, and likely would have stayed that way without Iroh’s (or someone else’s) positive influence.