Chapter Text
Afterword
Now, dear reader, you might be asking: “Zuyen! Whatever happened to Fire Lord Zuko’s supposed last term? Didn’t you say he had a 67 year long reign?”
And to that I say—have you been near a Fire Nation history book? Or law text? Or the land itself?
If your answer is a thrice resounding no, then here is what happened.
Every term was intended to be Fire Lord Zuko’s final time being elected—something declared by none other than the Fire Lord himself. He announced, repeatedly and frequently, season after season, that he would not be running for re-election. And then he would be nominated. Or someone far, far worse would gain traction, and Fire Lord Zuko would reluctantly step up to be the face of the quiet opposition. Or no one else would even run.
As a result, Fire Lord Zuko was elected for nine consecutive terms. What was an unlucky series of events for Fire Lord Zuko also led to decades of political, cultural, and economic improvement for the Fire Nation, alongside an increased interconnectivity and cultural exchange between all elemental nations.
In the first half of his reign, Fire Lord Zuko championed for term limits with a solemn severity and seriousness. Yet, the council-elects would refuse to pass his proposed bill, not wanting to be known as the people who took away their nation’s leader and become wildly unpopular as a result.
Thus, in the latter half of his reign, there is a notable loosening up of Fire Lord Zuko’s proposals. Records show that he would—with much pomp and flair—place his first bill of the new term (can you guess what it was about?) onto the council's long table and announce: “I want to quit. Please let me quit.”
The response? A resounding not yet.
But, finally, it was time for Fire Lord Zuko to be done. The first day of his ninth term, Fire Lord Zuko took to the stage with the following words:
Fire Nation people, my country, my friends. Do you see how old I am? The youth know me only as the leader who stays. The Fire Lord who runs elections in name only. Those as old as I am might recall a time when this was not the case, but that faith is no longer enough. There needs to be a change in hands. I must pass on this title, this weight, that I have safeguarded for far too long.
We must prove that a peaceful transference of power, from one Fire Lord to the next, is within our capacity as a nation. Please, hear my words: I will pass a bill that enforces term limits. In six years I will hold the ceremony I have long yearned for—the one where I bow to the new leader of our nation with pride and assurance. I will wish my nation the best and trust in her decisions. And, at last, I will no longer be the Fire Lord.
So, hear me when I say what I will not do. I will not, ever again, give another first-of-the-term speech. Fire Nation, now is the time to prepare. Gather in your community. Decide on the future you wish for. Upraise the voices you believe can accomplish that dream. Come six years, one of you will give this speech, will stand in front of this honorable nation, and I will step aside. Forever.
☲
I know my choice to have Princess Azula, rather than Former Princess Azula, on the cover will be controversial. As will my practice of addressing her as such. Critics have already called me deliberately provocative; well-meaning colleagues have asked if my head is screwed on correctly; friends have expressed their concern. Their collective view of the situation is ruled by Princess Azula, the traitor, and not as I have grown to see her, which is Princess Azula, the person. Princess Azula, the advisor. Princess Azula, the sister.
But I would not say that to their faces. After all, if these letters could not convince them to change their perspective, then I believe nothing will. Instead, my argument against their scrutiny has been thus: calling her Princess Azula is what Fire Lord Zuko would have wanted. If any of my critics made it this far into the book, if they have read each and every letter it contains, if they have examined every word, then at least on that front we must all agree.
I mentioned in the Forward that Fire Lord Zuko was reported to have never seen a need to continue communications with his estranged family members. My initial response, before reading their letters, could have been boiled down to: “Well, duh?”
Keen minds, however, will recall that I said my thoughts on the matter were now quite different.
What Fire Lord Zuko actually said, when asked about potential correspondences with those related to the disgraced Fire Lord Ozai’s reign, was that: “A true leader has no need for snakes and scoundrels. Dragons are far superior.” Dragons over snakes. A deceptively simple stance—the raising of a new reign above the old—and one that began as such.
Then, there were the letters, and the situation, as this book has shown, changed. Fire Lord Zuko wrote fondly and productively with Princess Azula for decades. And yet, even until his death, Fire Lord Zuko would maintain the same answer he always had. Dragons over snakes.
I am a historian. A scholar. A teacher, though not a good one. What I am not is a philosopher. But while writing this book I kept asking myself one thing: not why Fire Lord Zuko would lie about his letters with Princess Azula, but why he would continue to sprout the same rhetoric which hurt his dear sister so? In fact, Fire Lord Zuko even said otherwise himself: “You [Azula] are. The dragon, that is” (Chapter 20, Letter 6).
And so, why let the world believe he thought his sister to be a snake?
Consider this. If you were to trace the genealogy of dragons and snakes back—and we can, and some have, now that dragons reside among the living once more (and for that, who do we have to thank?)—you would find that dragons and snakes are, in the beginning, not so different. Their origins are far more intertwined than one might wish to believe.
And so yes, it is true Fire Lord Zuko promoted ‘dragons over snakes’ for the entirety of his life. But so, too, did he promote being a good person, making ethical decisions, and honor—true honor—above all else. So, too, did Fire Lord Zuko himself desert one side of the Hundred Years War for the other. So, too, did he once sit complicit in a family of snakes—something he plainly admitted to on several occasions.
Thus, consider the idea that it is choosing to be a dragon—making the conscious decision to step away from the path of the snake—that Fire Lord Zuko deems so superior. Consider that a person is not born as one or the other. It is not decided at birth which path one will walk for the rest of their lives. Instead, it is choosing to be a dragon, choosing to leave behind the path of the snake, that separates the true leaders from the rest.
A leader such as, I dare say—and believe Fire Lord Zuko dared to say too, though no one yet knew it—Princess Azula.
☲
I will leave you, dear readers, with one final letter, and the deepest level of gratitude contained in my heart. Thank you for picking this book, of all other books, to spend your time with. Thank you for making it to the end. And I hope I can also thank you for reading with an open mind. Continue to do so now, then close the cover and make your decision—ask yourself what you believe in now, versus what you thought you knew. And visit the Ember Island Museum, perhaps, to read more of the letters between Fire Lord Zuko and Princess Azula, all carefully archived and organized by yours truly. Once again, many thanks to the Fire Nation Royal Archives for allowing me the deep privilage of peeling back our nation's history and allowing me to exist for three years in letter-filled solitude. I hope these letters changed you, as they have me, in some way or another.
Dear Reader,
If you have found this, then we are dead and gone. Thank Agni! Like many things in my life—politics, growth, grief, growing, learning to step stepping away—it took far too long. Mai left this life one long month ago, which kickstarted this strange urge of mine. She was happy, do not worry. I held her hand. I miss her so much.
But we are dead now, too, so I am with her once more, which is good.
I like to imagine that when we passed, we were in the sun, and we took twin last breaths. I hope beyond hope this is true, though I cannot see the future, seeing as I would like to keep one last promise more than life itself, what with the way I am straining another.
Azula does not wish for me to do this. She thinks it foolish and reckless for me to compile our histories so plainly; to risk tainting my reputation so deeply; to throw away so much for so little. But I believe our history—mine, Azula’s, our nation’s—is hardly little. No, it is not little at all. And these letters play such a large part. So I promised I would not be reckless in life; that I just wanted to put them together, forever hidden and saved for Izumi; but made sure to say nothing about what might occur in death.
I wonder how long it has been. A month? A year? Ten? Twenty? Fifty? Never? Izumi will turn over the Ember Island property when she, too, feels comfortable with the risk, so perhaps it will indeed be never.
Ah, but if it is never, then you shall never read this! And it would be embarrassing to write to no one, though Lala will probably be relieved. So I hope someone reads this and I hope her ashes turn over and she scolds me in the next life, for then we will be siblings once more.
Whoever you are, dear reader, do what you will with these. We are gone anyway. Hate me if you please, distrust me if you must. But promise to look upon the strength of our nation, first, and see if our combined vision has not brought us somewhere beautiful. If I am wrong, then by all means, spit on my name and our nation. But if I am right, then spit on my name and leave our country alone.
From the afterlife, and with affection,
Zuko