The Azula Storyline The Writers Had To Scrap From The Last Airbender
Nickelodeon certainly knew what it was doing when it created the best animated show ever, "Avatar: The Last Airbender," in 2005. The action-packed series sees goofy kid Aang (Zach Tyler Eisen), an airbender tasked with mastering all four elements as the Avatar, and his Southern Water Tribe pals, siblings Sokka (Jack De Sena) and Katara (Mae Whitman), as they try to restore balance in the world against the corrupt Fire Nation. In just 61 episodes, "The Last Airbender" tells an incredibly complex story with themes of imperialism, friendship, and redemption, complete with a stunning animation style and nuanced characters.
Despite its more than lackluster live-action film from M. Night Shyamalan in 2010, the "Avatar" hype stays strong. The year 2012 saw the return of the "Avatar" world with a brand-new set of characters in "The Legend of Korra." And more recently, there's news of a revival with a live-action "Avatar: The Last Airbender" series in the works, in addition to the creation of Avatar Studios with the original show's creators, Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, at the helm.
However, "The Last Airbender" didn't come right out of the gate as a masterpiece. In fact, plenty of changes were made during development that would have rendered the series fans love completely different. One of these scrapped ideas involves a certain Fire Nation princess and definitely would have changed how you see her.
Azula was supposed to have an arranged marriage
"The Last Airbender" fans know Azula (Grey Griffin) as the power-hungry, sadistic little sister of Zuko (Dante Basco) and daughter of the Fire Lord (Mark Hamill). Azula didn't exactly have a good childhood, and she always believed her mother loved Zuko more than her. But thanks to her cunning and incredible firebending, she quickly became the favorite in the Fire Lord's eyes.
With someone as cruel as Azula, it's hard to imagine her in a relationship, but that's almost what happened in Book 3. In an interview with defunct fansite AvatarSpirit.net, "The Last Airbender" creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko said that arranged marriages were still practiced in the Fire Nation and they had originally thought Azula should enter into one such forced engagement in the third season (via CBR). Given just how power hungry she is, it would have been interesting to see the kind of man she ended up with, and knowing her father is the Fire Lord, he couldn't have been anything less than worthy.
The idea was scrapped in the end, but interestingly enough, we do see Azula dabble in romance in Season 3, Episode 5, "The Beach." She and her friends attend a local teen party, and she even kisses someone at the end of the episode. But it doesn't take long before she returns to her cruel self. However, with a live-action remake of "The Last Airbender" on the way, who's to say this scrapped storyline won't be revisited?