Azula in the Spirit Temple is a standalone graphic novel set in the Avatar Franchise, following Azula. The graphic novel will be written by Faith Erin Hicks, with art by Peter Wartman. It was originally planned to be released on September 26, but it was later delayed multiple times to November 1, 2023. Eight preview pages were released on September 15.
Picking up sometime after the end of Avatar: The Last Airbender - Smoke and Shadow, the story begins when an attempted insurrection campaign of the Fire Warriors goes south and lands one of their own captured, creating dissent in the ranks and causing them to seemingly abandon Azula. Left to fend for herself, she eventually makes her way to a remote temple to find shelter for the night, only to be subsequently plagued by visions confronting her with her inner desires, past, and shortcomings.
Azula in the Spirit Temple provides examples of:
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: One of Azula's visions has Iroh, Zuko, and Ursa praising her for conquering Ba Sing Se, killing the Avatar and thereby ending the war, and becoming Fire Lord, respectively. And then there is Ruon-Jian, Chan's friend from the Beach Episode, praising her for smelling nice and having great hair.
- Bad Boss: Azula is one to her Fire Warriors, completely ignoring how upset they are one of their own got captured. Unlike with Mai and Ty Lee, however, it bites her in the ass a lot faster since she no longer has any actual legal or royal authority to enforce her will, and the Fire Warriors promptly abandon her the following night.
- Big "SHUT UP!": One of Azula's more idyllic visions is interrupted by Mai and Ty Lee, who call her out on how unrealistic the whole vision is and how her mother could actually never love her since she, by her own admission, was a monster. Azula reacts about as well as you'd expect.
- Big "NO!": When the spirit, in the form of Zuko, confronts Azula with how her loneliness is really just her own fault and implores her to seek forgiveness instead, she responds with this- and a blast of Lightning for good measure.
- Butt-Monkey: Put bluntly, nothing goes Azula's way in the first part of the book. She falls for a trap set up by Ty Lee, nearly gets captured and loses one of her henchmen, and when she decides to leave said henchgirl behind the rest of her servants abandon her. When she decides to hunt them down, she fails to track them down all day, falls face-first into the mud as it starts raining, and gets very hungry. Then she finds the Spirit Temple, and her actual troubles begin.
- Continuity Nod: Ty Lee is seen wearing her Kyoshi Warrior uniform without her makeup, as she decided to at the end of "Sisters" to distinguish herself from the other warriors.
- Creepy Good: The Spirit in the temple is a mashup of a Spiders and Creepy Centipedes but genuinely wants to help those who it meets. When they realize that Azula hadn't found peace in her dream, they force her out of the temple for her own safety. Granted it only takes this form to mirror Azula, however there appears a minature version of it making it ambigious to whether it always looked like that and just changed size.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: After the spirit turns into a giant monstrosity, Azula states she doesn't take kindly to "meddling spirits" and fires a lightning bolt at it.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Apparently the other Fire Warriors weren't even real criminals before joining Azula nor were they actually insane; The reason they lived in the institution was that they were rebellious teens that didn't want to be pushed into the role their parents- the most influential and conservative people in the Fire Nation- had planned for them, and those parents responded by sending them there for discipline.
- Eldritch Location: Overlapping with Eldritch Abomination, both the temple and the spirit that inhabit it magically vanish after Azula attacks the beast. While Azula dismisses it as a spirit trick, a lingering shot proves the beast was Real After All.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: During her second conversation with the manifestation of Ty Lee, Azula acts like she did the other girl a favor by intimidating her into leaving the circus she performed at and joining her hunt for Aang, claiming she was giving her a chance to do something important. The fact that Ty Lee was perfectly happy at the circus and never felt the need to have an impact on the world doesn't occur to the former princess.Azula: You were a nobody circus freak when I found you! Both you and Mai, complete losers.
Ty Lee: Happy losers, though. I loved that circus. - Fatal Flaw: The story posits that pride is this for Azula, in that she still pursues power and control as well as vengeance on those who defy her because deep down she knows that it's wrong but she is desperate to avoid confronting this fact because she's internalized that it's "weakness" to do so.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: The dream spirit tears down Azula's Freudian Excuse to shreds by pointing out that Azula was given a chance for redemption and forgiveness here, but she chose to reject it despite Ozai being imprisoned and no longer a part of her life. It then spells out how every awful and cruel action she committed was her own choice and how her refusal to take responsibility for those actions is why she is still the monster she resents being.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: At the end of the story, Azula has rejected a chance at redemption but also is shown willing to let her henchwomen go without taking vengeance on them or forcing them back into servitude, insisting to herself she'll find some other place and people to rule. Where she goes from here is unknown.
- Kick the Dog: Azula refusing to go back to save Chiyou and then telling Zirin to obey her is what gets the rest of the Fire Warriors to ditch her.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: Played With. The spirit that inhabits the temple tries to appease Azula with visions that give her what she wants, but unlike most instances of this trope it doesn't automatically have a solid grasp on what exactly Azula truly desires, resulting in visions that take turns visibly appeasing her and calling her out using her own buried self-resentment. Case in point the first of these visions shows her an ideal life where her entire family is together and happy on Ember Island, with all of the adult figures in her life openly praising her and Zuko being unscarred. It's quickly turned on its head when the vision!versions of Mai and Ty Lee call Azula out for lying to herself and reminding her she's a monster.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: The true form of the spirit has a spider's chelicerae and legs, the long body and forcipules of a centipede, but having skin rather than exoskeleton. The small version of it has a three part body plan like an insect rather than the snakelike body it had in it's larger form.
- Motive Rant: Azula calls out a vison of her mother, stating that if she had just let Ozai kill Zuko and protected her from Ozai instead she wouldn't be who she is today.Azula: You ruined me.spirit!Ursa: How so, daughter?Azula: You chose Zuko over me. You saved him by helping poison Grandfather Azulon...and then you left. You abandoned me. You weren't there to protect me from dad, so I became what he wanted—his deadly Firebending weapon. I didn't have a choice.
- Never My Fault: Azula wants to be loved by her family- but she also believes they are the ones who should apologize for hurting and betraying her. The spirit visions also call her out on this and point out how much she has hurt those that cared for her, which Azula defiantly refutes - even though it visibly gets under her skin. By the end of the story, she still has too much pride to admit to any wrongdoing, but her actions imply she understands it on a subconscious level.
- No One Gets Left Behind: Defied by Azula in the opening act, as she leaves one of her Fire Warriors to be taken captive by the Kyoshi Warriors when their assault goes awry. The other Fire Warriors are visibly displeased by this, but Azula casually rebuffs them by saying that in war casualties are inevitable. Played Straight by the other Fire Warriors themselves, as they abandon Azula to free their comrade instead.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When she springs her trap for Azula at the start of the book, Ty Lee is determined and dead-serious about capturing her. By comparison, the version of Ty Lee Azula meets in her visions behaves a lot more traditionally bubbly.
- Pet the Dog:
- The first of Azula's visions shows her what she believes to be a "perfect" version of her family. Not only does it include Iroh, whom Azula has had next to no positive interactions with so far, but it also shows an unscarred Zuko, suggesting that Azula at least subconsciously has grown fond enough of him to recognize how messed up his abuse really was. It's especially notable since during the Agni Kai where he actually got his scar Azula had a front-row seat and was enjoying it.
- Subverted when Ozai hugs and praises Azula in a flashback after she first firebends, as it's framed as yet another example of Ozai only valuing Azula for her power.
- When reflecting on her mother's seeming disappointment when she first discovered firebending, Azula by the present at least understands that Ursa was scared for her as much as she was scared of her.
- When Ty Lee seemingly tracks Azula down to the temple and is dispatched in a fight, Azula simply ties her up and is openly surprised when the spirit wonders if she is going to kill her- apparently actually killing Ty Lee never even occurred to her.
- At the end of the story, Azula -if snidely- decides to let go of her desire for revenge against the "traitorous" Fire Warriors and let them be happy without her, showing she subconsciously is aware her behavior toward Mai and Ty Lee was wrong and she doesn't wish to repeat it. This also means she is willing to risk more time being alone, which according to the spirit is her greatest fear as she is scared of dwelling on her wrongful actions and owning up to them.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: Azula seemingly rejects the concept of redemption in the most explicit possible terms- but at the same time also decides to let go of the desire for revenge and control the spirit called her out on, leaving her future exploits up in the air.
- Additionally, the spirit ended up transformed into a gigantic monstrous form that reflected Azula's inner self. When Azula is freed from the temple, the spirit is seen slinking off still in that form...but it's smaller now, suggesting that while still a monster, Azula is now much less of one than she was before going through this.
- Redemption Rejection: Subverted. The spirit temple, as revealed by the beast inside, is supposed to invoke a Heel Realization and offer second chances to those who have made the wrong choices in life, but Azula believes apologies and redemption to be for the weak. The subversion comes when, at the end of the story, Azula seems to make a small change for the better anyway and lets go of her desire for revenge against the Fire Warriors because she sees them happy without her.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- Zirin calls out Azula for treating their little skirmish as a war and her attempts to sabotage Zuko as pathetic.
Zirin: This isn't a war! Attacking warehouses and sabotaging food supplies to undermine Fire Lord Zuko is pathetic! You promised we'd be doing work to help the Fire Nation's downtrodden, not skulking around in the dark like criminals. This isn't what we signed up for, Azula. We're not pawns to be thrown away in this fight against your brother. We're putting ourselves in danger because of what you want, not what we all agreed to. We want to — we need to move on from undermining Fire Lord Zuko. We need to focus on other things.- The spirit visions basically take turns trying to please Azula and calling her out on her many faults, presumably because Azula herself is aware of but can't accept her own mistakes. After it becomes clear that she won't budge, the spirit takes turns in the forms of Mai, Ty Lee, Zuko, and finally its true form to verbally tear into her. Ty Lee brings up how Azula was a terrible friend, Mai calls Azula out on thinking of herself as a victim, and Zuko bluntly tells her that she manipulates and harms those around her because she can't stand the thought of being alone and actually facing up to her actions.
Spirit: My manifestations did not lie: this is a sacred place of peace and rest, should you wish for those things. This temple is a crossroads for those who have followed the wrong path. It offers a second chance — to choose for the better. You, little Fire Lord, were offered redemption and forgiveness, but you rejected what we had to give you. I take many forms, and it is your cruelty and desire for vengeance that has shaped me into this: a mirror of your own inner self. A Monster. - Sanity Slippage: The spirit of the temple clearly has never dealt with someone as mentally troubled as Azula, and the more it digs into her mind to try and fail to reach her, the more unstable it becomes in turn.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Azula's issues are too much for the dream spirit to handle. At first it just tries to kick Azula out of the temple, but when Azula returns it causes the spirit to turn into a grotesque abomination as a mirror of what Azula is on the inside.
- We Have Reserves: Apparently, Azula hasn’t let go of this mindset even after losing the war since she doesn’t have a large army to rely on anymore to throw at her enemies.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Her visions show that Azula is still this at heart, as Ozai flat-out calls her his favorite child while Ursa says she is proud of Azula and hugs her. Her instant reaction to this is pure confusion, before said hug being interrupted. A spirit-induced flashback shows Ozai openly hugging and praising Azula for unlocking her Firebending at a very young age- only for Azula to mostly remember that her mother was scared rather than proud in that moment. By the present day Azula openly denounces Ozai as nothing more than a hollow shell of his former self, however, and in her Motive Rant even resents him for turning her into what she is.
- Whole-Plot Reference: The whole story is one for Zuko Alone; One of the Fire Nation Royal Siblings gets seperated from their group, gets taken in by a stranger in their moment of need, and has a series of flashbacks/visions before seemingly doubling down on their principles at the end (complete with a dramatic proclamation of their name, lineage and perceived birthright), seemingly having failed to learn anything of note but also clearly feeling an impact deep down.
- Villain Protagonist: Azula, the main protagonist of this story even though she is still seeking to make Zuko see "reason" and continue the Fire Nation's old authoritarian ways.
