Like Dolores, Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender isn’t the main villain of her story, but is the villain people remember. From her first appearance, she’s calm, composed, and knows exactly how to use the power she holds as a Fire Nation princess.
Azula initially comes across as a Solutionary. She’s cunning and often outsmarts those around her. However, there are times we see she is truly a Driver. In one of her first episodes, she threatens a captain of a ship. The way it’s done–cold, calculating–screams Solutionary, but she intimidates him into doing what she wants.
What does Azula want?
She wants to be the best.
And for most of the story, she is. She’s a child prodigy, heir to the throne after her brother’s banishment, her father’s favorite, and the one who was told, “You were born lucky.”
What makes her this way isn’t chance. It’s her Driver motivator. Her desires are tied to movement, progress, and results, even if it means intimidating and steamrolling everyone around her. She doesn’t just want to succeed, she wants to do it faster and better than anyone else.
Driver in the Negative
As we’ve established, Azula is a Driver in the negative. She doesn’t slow down, doesn’t second-guess, and doesn’t care who gets crushed as long as her goal is met. When Drivers fall into the negative, they steamroll and intimidate. Azula does both like it’s second nature.
Steamrolling:
- She forces Mai and Ty Lee to join her on her mission. Ty Lee initially resists, having built a life she enjoys in the circus. Azula makes her act increasingly dangerous, leaving her no choice but to join.
- She takes over the Dai Li by outmaneuvering Long Feng. When he tells her she’s beaten him at his own game, she responds coldly: “Don’t flatter yourself. You were never even a player.”
Intimidating:
- When Mai betrays her for Zuko, Azula screams “You should’ve feared me more!” Her first reaction isn’t grief, but rage. Her intimidation didn’t work well enough.
- At the end of her Agni Kai, Zuko taunts her. Instead of aiming at him, she turns her lightning on Katara, someone who wasn’t even in the fight.
What Writers Can Learn
Azula is not only a great example of what happens when a Driver villain goes unchecked, but what happens when they’re encouraged. She’s efficient, calculated, and unstoppable, but she’s also a child whose father has given her too much power. She doesn’t fall because a hero outsmarts her. She fell because she couldn’t handle the weight of what she thought she wanted.
If you’re writing a Driver villain, don’t make them fast or forceful and call them good. Show how their obsession with progress cuts off relational connection with others, creates problems rather than fix problems, or clouds their sense of right and wrong.
If you’re looking for more practical tools to build compelling characters, be sure to join the newsletter. As a bonus, you’ll get a free short story set in a fantasy world, exclusively available only to subscribers.
📩 [Subscribe Here]
If you want to understand what motivates your characters—and yourself—start by taking the free Human NEXUS profile test:
🔗 Learn Your Profile
💬 Use code ROlson10off for a discount on the full version
Find us on these platforms
🌍 Website: RebekahOlsonVentures.com
📘 Facebook: AuthorRebekahOlson
🐦 X (Twitter): @Author_R_Olson
🕊 Truth Social:@RebekahOlson