Title: Object Lesson
Author: Second Harrier
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure/General
Words: 67,185
Pairing: None
Fandom: Avatar: Last Airbender
Status: Abandoned
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3573698/1/Object-Lesson
Summary: From an unlikely teacher, a hard lesson, and what follows from it. Now ongoing


I think this was recommended a few times in different threads, but it's still not in the Library.

In short, this is a story where Azula joins the Gaang after the fall of Ba Sing Se. One of her secret political ploys was exposed, so she was forced to flee from the Fire Nation.

The story loosely follows canon. Gaang decides to hide in the Fire Nation untill the Day of the Black Sun, Sokka gets Space Sword, Aang reenacts Footlose et cetera, et cetera, but those things are usually in the background. This fic is more about day-to-day happenings beetween canon events, and how Azula would fit in all that.

Azula's characterization and her interaction with the others is what really bought me. She doesn't suddenly have a change of personality, and besides Aang, the others don't really like her much. It's a mutually beneficial relationship. She teaches Aang firebending, they help her get her revenge. She's still the same manipulative, back-stabbing, sociopathic bitch from the canon. In time, of course, we see some gradual changes about her and her relationship with the others. Her's and Toph's comradeship really made me lol more than once, and bonding with the others is just as good.

The first chapter was originally meant to be a one-shot, so the story has a strong starting point. I usually wouldn't recommend an abandoned story, but it's over 67k words long, it doesn't really leave you with a cliffhanger, and the accent was never on a general plot. Personaly, my favorite Avatar fic.

Oh, and Toph swears a lot, which actually isn't all that surprising considering the crowd she was hanging with before joining the Gaang.

 

I liked it. The writing's solid and Azula is well characterized. However, I don't like Katara's portrayal. She seems a bit more immature than she is in canon, too soft. At that point in the story she would not be even remotely okay with Azula. She'd be far more hostile and passive aggressive, just as she was with Zuko. She would not try to conceive Sokka to lay off her. It took confronting her mother's murderer to make her trust Zuko. Also, while time jumps are good in theory, the disorder of their placement makes the story feel disjointed. Normally I'd take a full point off for that, but it's forgivable because it began as a oneshot. And because it's good otherwise.

- 0.5 for the characterization of Katara.
- 0.5 for the sense of disjointment.
= 4/5