Fanfic / Deadshots

Deadshots is a What If? fic in which Mai sneaks Zuko out of the fire nation after the Agni Kai and they join the Yuyan archers.

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The story has the following examples of...

• Abusive Parents:
  • With Zuko seemingly dead, the full brunt of Ozai's terrible parenting falls on Azula much earlier. At one point, she drags in a man who snuck into her room in the middle of the night in order to complain about her guards being lazy. Ozai explains he downgraded her guards on purpose. The worst part is that he's not trying to get her raped; he genuinely thinks that fighting off advances from boorish nobles who think they can rape their way into a marriage is great training, and the fact that she keeps killing her assailants is proof that he's right. Ty Lee and Iroh quickly realize that Azula is getting worn to the bone and intervene to keep her from either killing herself or going insane.
  • Mai's parents both use her as a tool for advancement, but her father is especially ruthless, showing zero pity for his daughter's (supposed) suicide.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Mai and Zuko immediately run away from the Fire Nation and thus don't become enemies of the Avatar.
  • Azula, after having to face the brunt of Ozai's bad parenting and getting genuine help and support from Ty lee and Iroh is a much better person.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • June in canon is a mostly amoral Punch-Clock Villain who later joins the heroes. Here, while she's still a bounty hunter, she shows far more standards and morals and takes it upon herself to help young Zuko and Mai escape from the caprices of the Fire Lord.
  • Ozai's court is depicted as having somewhat more noble factions than in canon, with some who are very much opposed to Ozai's more brutal actions.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Mai fakes Zuko's death (and soon after, her own suicide) following the disastrous Agni Kai. This changes quite a few relationships.
  • Obviously, Mai and Zuko are much closer much earlier, since they're on the run together. They end up joining with June, who in canon was just a random mercenary Zuko hired and who Mai never met. Pretty much everyone lampshades that she's basically adopted them.
  • Without Zuko around (even in exile) to take the full brunt of Ozai's disappointment, Azula has to face his "parenting" much earlier than in canon. Upon naming her his official heir, he promptly relaxes her guards so that she'll be toughened up by all the would-be assassins and rapists who think bagging the princess one way or another is a ticket to power. Azula becomes disillusioned with him very quickly.
  • In canon, Ty Lee ran away to the circus soon after Zuko's exile to get away from her six identical sisters. Here, seeing how close Azula is to breaking, she instead swallows her pride and summons her sisters to the palace to help. The seven of them end up as Azula's handmaidens, guards, assistants, and only friends.
  • Iroh becomes closer to Azula since Zuko isn't around for him to dote on, and he realizes that Azula actually needs protection from Ozai (in canon, he either didn't realize how toxic their relationship was or just felt like he couldn't do anything about it).
• Agony of the Feet: When Zhou is at Pohuai stronghold Zuko sabotages the admeral's boots in a way that will give the man blisters.
• Ambition Is Evil:
  • Mai's parents and their desire to advance the ranks of the Fire Nation led them to use their daughter as a tool for advancement.
  • Ozai's lust for power is so great, he sees his own son's "murder" is an opportunity to secure more power.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: Played for Horror and deconstructed. Ozai's joy at his son and heir's supposed death, to the point of wanting to reward the hypothetical assassin, proves how much of a sick maniac he is. Also, it alienates the factions of the Fire Nation that supported Zuko's ascendancy to the throne who (not unreasonably) suspected Ozai was guilty of knocking off his son.
• Anti-Hero:
  • Mai ultimately has the noble goal of rescuing Zuko from his evil father. But she resorts to shady methods, such as theft and even mutilating a dead body, to protect them.
  • June is a bounty hunter who will ruthlessly pursue her target, but she ultimately spends the story sheltering two kids who ran away from an evil aristocracy.
  • Azula truly wants what she believes is best for the Fire Nation, however she has no problem with lying, cheating and manipulating others to acheve that goal.
• Aristocrats Are Evil:
  • Mai's parents and (especially) Ozai are power-hungry to the point of seeing their children as either tools or obstacles to gaining power.
  • This is downplayed by other political factions of the Fire Nation, who find Ozai's tactics and disregard for his own family repulsive. These factions become even more opposed to Ozai when they suspect he had Zuko assassinated.
• Ascended Extra:
  • June goes from a one-off character to Zuko and Mai's adoptive big sister.
  • Ty Lee's sisters show up to help her with Azula and her problems and become her ladies in waiting.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Ty Lee identifies a disguised Aang as the Avatar, and an Avatar of Air at that, through examining "her" acrobatic style.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Before Zuko’s Agni Kai, Azula had wanted to be the heir to the throne. After Zuko’s presumed death, she realizes it wasn’t worth losing her brother, a reality only made clearer by Ozai’s awful parenting.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Mai and Zuko have been so traumatized by a ruthless upbringing that they expect to be severely punished if they fail June, which horrifies her.
• The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: In-Universe, many people within the Fire Nation disregard the official report that an assassin beheaded Zuko, mainly since it follows Fire Lord Azulon's death, and suspect Ozai had his son killed to remove another contender for the throne.
• Death Faked for You: Mai fakes Zuko's death while he is still incapacitated from his father's brutal attack.
• Dramatic Irony: When Sokka eavesdrops on Azula telling Aang about Ozai's supposed murder of Zuko, he tries to imagine living under the same roof as a monster who would do such a thing, and he imagines how close Zuko and Azula must have been, each trying to ensure the other was as safe and loved as they could be. Much to Azula's regret, that was not what their relationship was like.
• Dream Reality Check: When Katara is sick during the events of the Blue Spirit she believes that Zuko's dragon Druk is a hallucination. Upon sharing her symptoms with Kou, he informs her that the dragon is real.
• Enfant Terrible:
  • As in canon, Azula shows genuinely antisocial tendencies in her youth, from constantly belittling her older brother to burning a servant for not respecting a petty tradition.
  • Downplayed with Mai, who is trying to help Zuko escape from his evil family, but resorts to some pretty ruthless methods, like theft, to keep him safe.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • Many factions suspect Zuko's official death is incorrect, but they speculate that Ozai secretly killed his son after the Agni Kai.
  • Azula and the Ty sisters figure out that Aang is the avatar, but they believe that a whole cycle has passed with the previous Water, Earth, and Fire Avatars were fatalities of the 100 years war before they were discovered. As well as believing that Aang is a decendant of Air nomads that escaped the purges. They also think Aang is a girl due to Katara, Sokka and, Aang pretending to be Kyoshi Warriors.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • June is a bounty hunter, but she tries to avoid hunting down innocent people and even spares Fire Nation deserters who avoid committing severe atrocities. Despite wanting to toughen up her new charges, she's horrified by the abusive manner in which Mai and Zuko were trained.
  • Aang, Sokka, and Katara are horrified when Azula tells them about her brother's fate.
  • Some factions of the Fire Nation's aristocracy are appalled with Ozai's more extreme actions and are horrified by him (potentially) killing off Zuko.
• Even the Girls Want Her: June is so attractive as to attract Jiaying's romantic interest.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
  • Mai's father, who has used his child as a tool for advancement, doesn't understand his daughter's disinterest in climbing the social ladder.
  • Ozai let members of the Fire Nation's nobility watch the Agni Kai between him and Zuko as a show of power to get them on his side. Instead they are horrified that Ozai would do that to his own son with no remorse.
• Faking the Dead: Mai pretends to have committed suicide out of grief over Zuko's demise, even leaving behind a mournful suicide note.
• False Friend: Mai is a sympathetic example: she hates Azula's guts but is forced to be her friend to appease her parents, who want to make good with a potential heir to the Fire Nation.
• Famed In-Story: Ty Lee and her sisters are this. She is one of seven identical septuplets who all survived to be healthy teenagers, and their mother survived giving birth to them. As the author notes, that's happened less than ten times in recorded history in the real world with modern medicine; in the comparatively more primitive Avatar-verse, that's the kind of thing that would be hailed as a miracle.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Zhao is this to the rest of the Fire Nation. No one from his subordinates, his compatrites, his superiors, and even complete strangers actualy like or respect him. The only reason that that anyone listens to him is that Ozai supports him.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: For all they believed in the Fire Lord's evilness, Katara and Sokka still couldn't imagine he wouldn't love his own children, because that's what parents do. And then they learn what happened to Zuko and wind up traumatized.
• I Have No Daughter!: Ozai is planning to disown Azula because he believes she's plotting against him, and only hasn't yet because no preferable heir has presented himself yet. She had been considering it, but hadn’t been willing to commit to it. Finding out about his plans was what pushed her to the point where she was ready to go through with it.
• Little Miss Badass: Mai manages to fool the Fire Nation guards and fake her and Zuko's deaths. And she's not even thirteen.
• Machiavelli Was Wrong:
  • Ozai's brutality has created an oppositional faction within his court, and this faction is only more emboldened when they (wrongly) suspect him of assassinating Zuko.
  • Azula, on the other hand, plays with the trope. Ty Lee is able to get her to understand that while fear can be a useful tool for a ruler, there are times when kindness and benevolence are more appropriate. In a way, a Machiavellian approach to rule is shown to not necessarily be a bad one, if you actually understand Machiavellian philosophy the way Azula does rather than taking Ozai's armchair approach.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: While sick and hallucinating, Sokka begins talking to Appa, Momo, and Druk. His responses and conversations with them are surprisingly accurate. Its not confirmed whether Sokka is just lucky in his crazed ramblings or if there is spiritual shenanigans at play.
• My Greatest Second Chance: After getting an idea of how badly Azula is taking both the supposed deaths of Zuko and Mai and Ozai's terrible parenting, Iroh becomes determined to give her the support she needs, to help her see through Ozai's propaganda, and to protect her the way he was unable to protect Lu Ten and Zuko.
• Nice to the Waiter:
  • Zuko and Lu Ten are gracious, kind, and forgiving to their servants. The former's troubles began because he dared stand up for a division used for Cannon Fodder.
  • Meanwhile, Azula abused a servant over a mistake in etiquette, something that really disgusted Mai.
• Noodle Incident: Why Jiaying has a note saying that the flaming groundhog-squirrels were not her fault is never explained.
• One-Steve Limit: There are two characters named Tung-Mei, one of whom is Zhou's Beleaguered Assistant, and the other is a surviving member of the 41st division. This actualy becomes plot relevant, becouse the have the same rank, when at Pohuai base when Zhou calls for Tung-Mei the wrong one is sent leading to the discovery of Zhou's plan to invade the north pole.
• Papa Wolf:
  • When Zhao tries attacking Azula after their Agni Kai ends, Iroh makes it clear that if he ever tries to harm Azula again, he will die for it.
  • When Pohuai receives word that Azula named Zhao a Man Without Honor, Mai suggests that Zhao might have tried to sexually assault her. Zuko dismisses that theory, saying that regardless of whether Zhao had Ozai's favor, if he had tried anything like that, Iroh would have killed him.
• Poor Communication Kills: A bunch of Fire Nation citizens knows there's children living in the woods near their town and worries for their health and well-being so sends search parties to bring them somewhere safer. The Freedom Fighters keep hiding and evading them because they're seeing people belonging to the Nation that orphaned them seeking for them. Sokka is very much discomfit when he understands what's going on.
• Running Gag: People thinking that June is Zuko and Mai's mother.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After seeing Ozai burn Zuko's face and no one doing anything about it during the Agni Kai, Mai decides that Zuko needs to get out of the Fire Nation, and wanting to escape her own abusive and controlling family, she goes along with him.
• Side Bet: Several Fire Nation soldiers take bets on the outcome of the Agni Kai between Azula and Zhao. None of the soldiers bet against Azula. Instead, they bet on how badly Zhao would lose, with Azula taking inspiration from one soldier who bet that Azula would only need the basic forms to win.
• The Social Expert:
  • June immediately deduces that Zuko and Mai are rich kids running away from home.
  • Downplayed with Azula. She's very good at reading people, to the point that she finds it incredibly easy to tell the difference between the identical Ty sisters even when they're trying to impersonate each other, which even their parents can't do. But she fails to understand how Aang's cultural biases differ from hers, which causes Aang to interpret some of her actions differently than she intended.
• The Sociopath: Ozai's only emotion when he sees his son's (fake) decapitated body is the joy that a useless son/threat to his power has been removed.
• Too Dumb to Live: When Azula (who is a better person than in canon but still a cunning and ruthless Pragmatic Hero) and Commander Zhao visit Kiyoshi Village looking for the Avatar, Zhao tries to destroy their statue of Avatar Kiyoshi, after Azula and Suki had already agreed to Sacred Hospitality. Azula challenges him to an Agni Kai for this insult to their hosts, and she would have killed him if she hadn't realized Aang was in Kiyoshi Village and was uncomfortable with killing (unbeknownst to Zhao, she wanted to recruit the Avatar to help her depose Ozai, not capture him as Zhao intended). When Azula spares him, he tries the same I Surrender, Suckers trick that he tried on Zuko in canon. Azula doesn't kill him then either, but she does declare him a Man Without Honor, which causes him to be as good as banished from the entirety of the Fire Nation and would have ruined his career in the Navy if he hadn't managed to convince Ozai to keep it on track.
• Uriah Gambit: The reason that the 41st is being used as a diversion is revealed to be this. Most of the units officers served under Lu Ten while he was alive and Ozai wants to get rid of anyone Iroh could adopt as an heir, with those officers being the most likely candidates.