The 'No-Killing' Rule?

Can I say that this is something I've found exceedingly weird in Western animation?

With regard to this fight, specifically, it was Zuko's to win or lose. From the looks of it, he'd have worn down Azula and killed her eventually as she got crazier and crazier - He's completely immune to lightning, her trump card, and she was absolutely going to pieces while he wore her out.

But then Katara gets targeted, Zuko gets zapped protecting her, and she ends up being the one who resolves the fight. Does that feel thematically weird to anyone? I mean, it was the climax of his dramatic arc, and his battle to win or lose.

What's the strange taboo against killing? Kamen Rider, for instance, regularly kills the enemy at the end of each episode with comparatively little angst. (Gaim, which features an exceptionally idealistic hero, ends in a straight-up no frills battle to the death.)

Don't get me started on what happened with the Fire Lord and the magic rock. I mean, the thing about Japanese animation is that, usually, the fight itself matters as the method of resolution.

Were you that girl who started the thread with Roy Mustang?

I posted in that thread, but I didn't start it. I only mention it because a lot of people are supposed to have died in Avatar (Like the entire Air Nomad tribe) but, you know, we don't really see any death onscreen even when someone really, really deserves it.

Other people don't share your morals.

Also, Ozai's death would've made him a martyr, they needed him to be disgraced in the eyes of his own people in order to achieve peace.

Yeah, but even if he was metaphysically castrated, he was still whole of body and dangerous. And I'll say that if someone shows up with the body of your previous King and goes "He's dead as hell. Long live the new King!" things will just crumble.

I mean, despite the symbolic value, the man himself is dead. The people fighting on in his name are doomed to be forgotten. It's sort of like how no-one takes the Nazis seriously any longer now Hitler is gone, and Osama's death was a crushing blow rather than a rallying call.

>Also, Ozai's death would've made him a martyr
No it wouldn't.

There are a couple factors:

>Most western animation is primarily targeted toward kids, and there are limits to what you can show.
>A lot of western animation is funded by toy companies, and they want recurring characters who stick around to sell as toys.
>The notion of heroes deciding who lives and dies has always been looked down upon in the US. Look at something like 3:10 To Yuma, which is basically the story of a bunch of people giving their life so a criminal can be promptly tried and hung.
>People see animation that was influenced by the above, see it as the standard, and make more of it themselves, even when they aren't making stuff for kids, toy companies, or Americans.

>Does that feel thematically weird to anyone? I mean, it was the climax of his dramatic arc, and his battle to win or lose.

You missed the point of Zuko's arc, faggot. "Beating" Azula is a childish way to see it.

Also, rarely you will find an anime with as much of a kill count by episode as Regular Show :^)

Yeah, but it was completely out his hands. He didn't even go "Katara, I need your moral and emotional support." He was like "I'll handle this myself."

In fact, without Katara there, he would've been invincible. Like, what's Azula going to do? She was losing the fire-battle, and she could only shoot him with lightning...which he can redirect. He even outright taunts her about it, which is a pretty stupid thing to do.

He'd have outlasted her.

>Katara, I need your moral and emotional support.

It also wasn't the point.

The point was that he was willing to give his life to save the people who he used to persecute,it was meant to show his fucking honour, even if he is giving away the opportunitty to win the agni kai. THIS IS the point.

Everyone knows that he would have won Azula, but this doesn't matter to the narrative.

But it makes him completely useless. I mean, arguably he could've just beaten her in single combat. But instead, he had to job at the climax of his character arc for no real reason.

You don't have any idea on what his character arc was, and think that beating Azula would be the climax of it. The problem is with you.

So why was Katara there at all?

muh chilluns
that's it, there's literally no other motivating reason.

To help him take any other resistence that they might face.

The fact that she almost killed Azula alone on their previous fight (if Zuko hadn't saved her) on s2 might also help.

This specific instance is a call back to something that Iroh said when someone asked if he could just beat Ozai and become Fire Lord since he's technically the next in line.

>Uncle Iroh: Even if I did defeat Ozai, and I don't know that I could, it would be the wrong way to end the war. History would see it as just more senseless violence, a brother killing a brother to grab power. The only way for this was to end peacefully is for the Avatar to defeat the Fire Lord.

When Zuko and Azula square off, it is literally that fight of sibling versus sibling. Zuko was going to win. He choose the path of the Avatar by saving Katara, breaking the cycle of lust for power that had tempted his entire family line for generations. It was a beautiful, purposeful moment of character development, not a lazy storytelling trope.

Are you really reading all this into a stereotypical taking-the-bullet moment?

It was the typical writing trick to have the battle end in a "clean" way, like when the Disney villain does something stupid that makes them fall in a pit. It also served to show that Azula is an asshole who fights dirty, which big shock, everybody knew.

The way that fight was played, it made it seem more like he won because Azula was so unhinged, not because of his own skill. He was struggling to beat her even before Katara stepped in. They even had him say something like "Something's wrong with her, I don't know what it is, but I think I can beat her this time."

>But then Katara gets targeted, Zuko gets zapped protecting her, and she ends up being the one who resolves the fight. Does that feel thematically weird to anyone?

This has literally nothing to do with him not killing Azula, if anything that's why it didn't happen. he didn't kill her because he didn't beat her, and then in the end she was helpless and mentally broken, should he have melted her face off then?

The complaint against Ozai also makes little sense, since Aang is a Dalai Lama Buddhist type. It's against his religious(?) beliefs, and personal convictions to kill someone, in a more important way than say Batman.

Aang was reasoning emotionally and I don't think the show ever pretended he wasn't.

>TL;DR All your examples are terrible, but in some cases a No-Killing Rule is stupid, especially if the characters motivation for it is "logical" not emotional

I plain think it was dumb to have Katara/Azula be the sub-final fight.
If anything, it should have culminated in Azula attempting Lightning-Bending supercharged by Sozin's Comet and being unable to control it as evident by every siren blaring that one needs to have control of their emotions in order to successfully Lightningbend.
She starts electrocuting herself in a rage trying to hit Zuko, placing her in a position of slowly killing herself via her actions.
At which, Zuko would make a progressive step by metaphorically talking her down from the ledge by holding her down until she can't bend via a hug.

Fuck off Scrapper, your waifu is a psychotic whore