I'd Like To Put The Idea Out There That She Was Thinking About This From The Start. When She's First

I'd like to put the idea out there that she was thinking about this from the start. When she's first introduced, she's happily living her life in the circus, doing what she's good at and makes her happy. She even openly denies Azula's initial request to come with her. But she becomes frightened when Azula, her "good friend", says she want to see the show before she leaves. She knows that Azula is going to pull something while she's there.

And then she suddenly abandons everything she loves to go with Azula. Because the universe told her to? I'd say it's more likely to say that she knew Azula wouldn't let her go, and that this was the only way to get her to back down. That was the fastest way to get away from her and get back to her happy life, to make Azula think she was winning, just like she always was as a child. She gets her way, and when she does, she'll ignore the people who are already under her power. And I think Ty Lee understood that the moment Azula even showed up.

people with bad taste are always like "yurr hurr The Beach is about zuko and mai and how they're a great couple" while intellectuals know that Actually The Beach is about mining any and all of the untapped friendship potential of this striking exchange