>>718260125
>so, did she actually love her brother in a sadistic tsundere way or no?
Yes, she's a pretty complex character and a lot of people miss many of the details but basically Zuko is the only person she is legitimately close with. She seems to want to have close family and friends but her childhood fucked her up and by point of the anime her morals and logic are so twisted that she doesn't know how to interact with anyone sincerely.
>>718261406
Azula and Zuko are both victims of their fucked up parents. Azula did not initially want to be close only with Ozai, she really isn't even close to him since she knows he will throw her away like Zuko if she fails which is where her obsession with perfection comes from. Basically their mother hated and feared firebenders due to Ozai, and since Azula was a firebending prodigy her mother projected this fear and hate onto her daughter subconsciously and avoided her which made Azula pivot to Ozai (who at least pretended to like her) and also become jealous of Zuko.
Due to her parents she has a complex about being abandoned which peaks toward the end of the anime where her friends betray her and she goes insane.
Most of her other negative traits stem from that and she basically wants people to be too afraid and powerless to betray her.
>>718262659
Everybody other than Zuko is too terrified to get close to her which makes it difficult.
If anybody has an interest in the original series they should read the comic which continues after the anime and has an arc focusing on Azula. She travels with the avatar team for a while and it sort of seems like she's on the threshold of a redemption but it never quite gets there. Would have made a much better anime than Korra.
I doubt the writers will do anything else with her since she'd be considered a problematic character today.
