Ozai

"fire"

- You're weak, just like the rest of your people! They did not deserve to exist in this world — in my world! Prepare to join them. Prepare to die!

Fire Lord Ozai was the tyrannical ruler of the Fire Nation for five years, and the second son of Azulon and Ilah, the brother of Iroh, and, through his wife, Princess Ursa, the father of Prince Zuko and Princess Azula, Like every Fire Lord, Ozai was a firebending master, and prior to the ending of the Hundred Year War, he was believed to have been one of the most powerful firebenders in the World of Avatar.

After Iroh's only son, Lu Ten, died, Ozai usurped his brother's birthright to the throne, in a scheme which resulted in his father's death and Ursa's banishment.</re

Ozai seemed to show little (if any) love or care for his own people.fukc birochdw kr krw k' The day Zuko was banished, Ozai seemed to support the idea of sacrificing new recruits to defeat a powerful Earth Kingdom battalion so he could get closer to controlling Ba Sing Se. When Ozai decided that he would use the power of Sozin's Comet to destroy the Earth Kingdom, he showed no realization or care that a great number of his people lived in the Fire Nation colonies in the west where the attack would begin. Apparently Ozai viewed the deaths of his own people as minor sacrifices to become King of the World. However, he later told Zuko that a Fire Lord's duty was to protect his people, not out of any love or loyalty to them but because they were extensions of his divine will as Fire Lord. By attacking them, an opponent attacked him. In short, Ozai would defend his people from outside attack only because he viewed them as extensions of himself, and would casually discard them or destroy them himself if that served his purpose.

Ozai was mentally and sometimes even physically abusive to his children. He may have tried to be a good husband and father at one point, as implied by Zuko's flashbacks to family vacations on Ember Island. Ozai also mentioned that when Zuko was only three years old and was swept away by the ocean, he dove in and saved him. However, his anger and lust for power degraded his relationship with his family. He believed skill and accomplishment determine worth. This allowed the naturally cunning and talented Azula to rise to the position of his favorite child. He expected nothing less than the best from her, thinking her a firebending prodigy. This expectation put a great amount of stress on Azula, forcing her to become a perfectionist. Ultimately it was the environment in which Ozai raised Azula, without a mother-figure and where fear, power, and perfection were the only reliable truths, that set the groundwork for her total mental collapse.



After being stripped of both his bending and his throne, Ozai apparently still retained his domineering personality, as he casually lectured Fire Lord Zuko when he came to visit Ozai in jail. However, he would develop a calmer, more logical attitude toward life as he thought that Aang's belief of maintaining the four separate nations would only halt progress. This is apparently true as Yu Dao, a city that combines the effort from citizens of both the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom, grew from a small village to a very developed area. As Zuko sought out Ozai for advice, through their discussions, it was revealed that Ozai believed that good and evil, and even strength and weakness, were meaningless concepts. He believed that the only right and wrong were what he, or more accurately, the Fire Lord decided, due to his divine right to rule. Any choice he made was the right one, simply by virtue of it being his choice, and that indecision and attempting to guide oneself by moral principles were signs of weakness of character, traits he despised in Zuko.

Firebending


Fire Lord Ozai was an unbelievably powerful and skilled firebender. His fighting style was extremely liberal and stressed overbearing, infernal force. It was clearly fueled by anger, hatred, and rage. The scope of his firebending remained unrivaled by any character except possibly Iroh, his older brother.

Despite his immense power, Ozai's firebending was rarely seen. His first real-time act was seen when he ferociously attacked his son with a two-handed lightning strike, which he performed with great speed and ease while the sun had not yet risen fully from the eclipse, being at its lowest point. This was the only observed firebending of Ozai's which was not enhanced by Sozin's Comet. In his final battle with the Avatar, the Fire Lord revealed the extent of his powers, creating some of the largest plumes of fire ever seen. During this battle he also assaulted Aang with lightning storms and demonstrated mastery over firebending as well as propulsion through the air. The only way Aang was able to defeat Ozai without killing him by redirecting lightning was through the Avatar State, and through removing his bending powers forever.

Appearances
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The Promise trilogy
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 * The Promise Part 1
 * The Promise Part 2
 * The Promise Part 3 (dream)

Trivia



 * Ozai's face was not clearly shown for most of the series, until it was finally revealed in "The Awakening". However, the Fire Lord's whole face (or a speculative mock-up of it) was shown in puppet-form at the Fire Nation Fire Days cultural festival that the Avatar gang attended. Ozai's face was, however, seen in the movie version, The Last Airbender.
 * Ozai was seen out of his trademark shadow for the very first time during a flashback. Every portion of his body was illuminated except the area around his eyes.
 * Ozai's chop, seen on various documents and wanted posters, is written in Seal Script, an archaic form formerly used for government seals and carved inscriptions and rarely used in China today. The modern way to write down the official red seal is, which translates as "Fire Lord Ozai's official seal". Ozai is written as , which translates as "proudly carry".
 * Some fans have speculated that Ozai's name might be a reference to the poem "Ozymandias" by P. Shelley. Appropriately so, since in the poem, a line describes the type of person Ozymandias is: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Ozai also had a bloated ego and a fiery temper, with his self-image and need of a bigger and golden zeppelin than the others during the finale.
 * Ozai was voiced by Mark Hamill, who is most famous for portraying Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars Trilogy, and has, ironically, since made a highly successful career out of voicing villainous characters, such as The Joker in Batman: The Animated Series and various other DC Comics media, Malefor in The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, Colonel Muska in Disney's dub of Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Niju from Balto 2: Wolf Quest, and one of the Haydonites in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. Another ironic point in Hamill's voicing of Ozai is that Ozai is renowned for his ability to generate lightning, a trait also present in Emperor Palpatine, the antagonist of the Star Wars films. Dante Basco, who voiced Zuko, has said working next to Hamill was a surreal experience. Dante Basco and Mark Hamill worked together again in Generator Rex, where both characters share an antagonistic relationship with one another, similar to their respective characters in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
 * In Ozai's official portrait, the flames over his hands were black. The cogs and pipes in the portrait also signified the mass buildup of industry and the technological advancements under his rule
 * Ozai ruled as Fire Lord for the shortest period of time of any of the known Fire Lords; only five years. Technically, he would be the second-shortest, as he named Azula to the position of Fire Lord before promoting himself to the position of Phoenix King. Azula reigned for less than 48 hours, but was never crowned.
 * Despite his short reign, Ozai was the mightiest known ruler in the Avatar world and certainly one of the mightiest persons of history. At the climax of his power in late spring 100 ASC he ruled over the Fire Nation, almost the complete north, west and east of the Earth Kingdom including Ba Sing Se, many islands in the Southern Sea and several cities, harbors and Fire Nation fortresses in the southern Earth Kingdom. Since the Air Nomad territories were once conquered by the Fire Nation and partially still functioned as Fire Nation bases (e.g. Whaletail Island), these islands also can be attributed to his rule. Overall, Ozai shortly ruled around eight tenths of the world, making him, in fact, a world ruler.
 * Ozai was almost killed twice by his own lightning but spared: Once when he fired at Zuko during the invasion and Zuko managed to redirect it and missed on purpose, second when he was fighting Aang and fired lightning at him as well. Aang used the same redirection technique and redirected the lightning but also spared Ozai's life.




 * Ozai usurped Iroh's throne much like Prince John usurped King Richard the Lionhearted's throne, Richard was taking part of the Third Crusade and besieging Jerusalem, as Iroh was besieging Ba Sing Se.
 * Ozai met every member of Team Avatar at some point in time except Katara.
 * Ozai is chronologically the second person shown to be able to use firebending to propel themselves into the air, but was only seen doing so under the power of Sozin's Comet.
 * Despite being feared for his firebending prowess, Ozai lost all duels he participated in that were fully conducted on camera. The first duel he lost to his son, Zuko, after Zuko redirected the lightening Ozai shot at him. The second duel he participated in was won by his adversary, Avatar Aang.
 * Ozai was the only known Fire Lord not to have been the Crown Prince before his reign.
 * During the days leading up to the Invasion of the Fire Nation, Aang had numerous nightmares focusing on Fire Lord Ozai. He saw his greatest enemy as a grape-eating, math-loving, two-ton giant in his nightmares. Of course, none of these characteristics were shared by the real Ozai.