After 16 years, Avatar has become one of the most iconic movies in history. Its themes, characters, and world have become something of a cultural touchstone. Its reputation is so secure that it can still take us by surprise. When Zuko, the titular character, makes his appearance, we’re surprised to find that he’s still so compelling.
The new Avatar movie destroyed box office records over the weekend, proving that if you can make a movie that will make up for sixteen years, you can make a movie that will make up for sixteen years. This is the first time since Avatar that I can say that this is true of anything, especially of a feature film. Avatar is still a masterwork of character writing, and this time around, the characters are on the screen for the bulk of the film, offering up not just Zuko’s inner turmoil, but Aang’s as well. It’s a masterclass in dramatic storytelling, offering up big themes that linger long after the movie has ended.
For those who don’t remember, Avatar: The Last Airbender was an animated series that ran for one full season on Nickelodeon in 2008, and subsequent seasons on Netflix. The show centered on the adventures of Aang, an airbender who developed the ability to manipulate the natural elements of water, earth, and fire (earthbending, firebending, and airbending, respectively). Although the story was heavily influenced by the original Avatar comic book, the show was pitched as an animated retelling of the first book in the series, The Promise of Fire , and largely focused on the World War II era of the first book (but with an American twist).
It’s an understatement to say Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation is a complex guy.
When I first saw Zuko on TV in 2010, he didn’t create the greatest first impression, unlike his sister Azula, who looked cooler, wiser, and overall better than him. Zuko was simply an unhappy adolescent guy who was stressed about not being as gifted as his sister to a younger me.
It turns out that he, too, viewed himself in that light at the time. Shocker. Worse, everyone else in his environment thought the same thing about him. It’s not as cool. Less astute. Less gifted. A shoddier backup successor (in case Azula died) and one that his own father wouldn’t want on the throne to begin with. In a better-written show, he was basically Tyrion Lannister.
Prince Zuko altered, changed, matured, and grew over the story. The brash and immature prince introduced in the opening episode of the show’s first season, “The Boy in the Iceberg,” began to deviate from the ideals instilled in him as a kid, ultimately developing into his own person. Someone who understood what honor meant to him.
Avatar’s various faces and stages are as follows: Prince Zuko, and subsequently Firelord, of the Fire Nation in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Zuko: My name is Zuko, and I’m a prince.
Zuko as the Prince of the Fire Nation is the first Zuko we meet. He is characterized in this position by his relationship to his family. The explanation for this is self-evident. After all, if he wasn’t the son of a king or, in this instance, a Fire Lord, he wouldn’t be a prince.
But it’s more than simply his status as a member of the Fire Nation’s royal family. His whole identity, including how others see him and how he perceives himself, is formed completely by how others perceive him. Fire Lord Ozai, his father, believes he’s useless. An arrogant brat with little respect for others.
His younger sister, Princess Azula, on the other hand, regards him as her stupid brother and the family’s black sheep. They play a never-ending game of comparison with one other. Because he isn’t as well-liked as Azula, Zuko is Zuko. Because her father does not treat her like Zuko, Azula is Azula. Ozai’s treatment of them defines them, and how they perceive each other is shaped by this.
He began to think of himself negatively as a result of the continuous humiliating treatment he gets from individuals he should be able to trust, considering that they are family.
There’s a moment in Season 1, Episode 20: “The Siege of the North: Part 2” when Zuko is hiding in a cave with an unconscious Aang. He gets up after starting a fire and screams about how Aang won’t understand his hardships since he, like Azula, was born as a chosen one.
“Everything was always simple for her.” With a combination of rage and envy in his voice, Prince Zuko informs Aang, “[My father] thinks she was born fortunate, and I was born lucky.”
We get the impression that he’s always wanted to be like Azula because of her innate skill and fire bending, which has earned her what both Zuko and Azula believe a father’s love is like, despite the fact that Ozai abuses Azula.
Prince Zuko and Princess Azula are becoming more apart as a result of their shared delusion of being adored. Azula keeps herself on her toes by constantly wanting to please and show herself valuable to her father, ensuring that she never loses her position as the golden child. Zuko, on the other hand, is led down a dark road of thinking that the most important thing to him is honor.
Zuko is an outcast.
What is the meaning of honor?
On YouTube, there’s a video where Zuko repeats the word “honor” for three minutes. He’s obviously concerned with honor, as shown by the fact that he won’t stop talking about it to the point that it’s become a meme among ATLA fans.
What happened to Prince Zuko’s honor? By being a decent person.
The burn scar that spans almost half of Zuko’s face is his most conspicuous physical characteristic. Iroh explains that the scar was misdiagnosed as a training injury, and that although it wasn’t, it was meant to teach him a lesson.
One of Ozai’s officials suggested that Fire Nation troops be sacrificed to ensure victory, but Zuko, understanding that this would entail putting loyal citizens under the bus, attempts to defend them to the rest of the council, pointing out that they were murdering their own people.
Ozai viewed it as a challenge to his authority, something any other normal father would have been proud of. The official was his subordinate, and Zuko had insulted the Fire Lord himself by speaking out of turn.
When Ozai challenges Zuko to an Agni Kai, a traditional Fire Nation battle in which the objective is to burn the opposing combatant, Zuko does the honorable thing and refuses to fight his own father, saying that he never disrespected him before and would not dishonor him again by fighting him.
Ozai, on the other hand, burns him before dispatching him to find the Avatar. At this point in the narrative, no one had seen Aang in 100 years, implying that Ozai had no intention of Zuko recovering his dignity.
Zuko learned one thing from this terrible experience: honor meant strength, and power meant control over others.
When Zuko claims he wants to capture the Avatar to reclaim his dignity, he means he wants to impose control over the Aang in the same manner his father did to him, since domination equals strength.
Ozai values in himself and his children a type of strength that replaces character strength with the ability to use violence. Azula’s violent power is what makes her valuable to Ozai, and it’s why he pays attention to her when he doesn’t pay attention to Prince Zuko. Zuko misinterprets Ozai’s attentiveness as a sign that he cares more about Azula than he does, leading him to imitate his father and sister’s aggressive conduct.
When Zuko claims he wants to reclaim his dignity, he actually means he wants to be loved.
Zuko: The Youngster
Uncle Iroh, thankfully, sees straight through him.
Throughout the episode, Iroh is the only one that treats Zuko like a kid. Iroh recognizes Zuko’s need for nurturing, guidance, and, most importantly, unconditional love.
Iroh’s patience with him, despite his furious outbursts, ultimately wins Zuko over, persuading him to grow out of his emotional callousness and need for external affirmation.
Iroh’s compassion for Prince Zuko helps him remember who he is: the little kid who spoke up for innocent lives in his own father’s war council. In the episode “Zuko Alone,” it also keeps Zuko emotionally open enough to comprehend the villagers’ responses.
In “Zuko Alone,” Zuko comes upon an Earth Kingdom hamlet whose inhabitants are being extorted by Fire Nation troops. He might easily claim his title as their prince and join them in plundering the peasants’ riches. Instead, Zuko chases them away, and the people are terrified. To them, he was no longer a weird but respected traveler. He was a member of the Fire Nation.
While he might easily lash out and burn them all as he departs the town, he treats them with the same compassion and understanding that Iroh has given him. He knows that they are likewise frightened, that their rage is a result of pain caused by war’s devastation.
When dealing with the members of Team Avatar, particularly Katara, who has been emotionally traumatized by her mother’s murder at the hands of Fire Nation troops, he displays the same degree of control and tolerance.
Despite Katara’s anger in this moment, Zuko does not retaliate in the same manner he did previously in the series. Instead, he seeks out her brother, Sokka, to see why she appears to despise him.
Okay, Katara explains why she despises him.
Zuko’s redemption arch falters in “The Crossroads of Destiny.” Despite having earned Katara’s confidence, Zuko betrays his uncle and new friend to assist Azula in her invasion of Ba Sing Se for one last chance at restoring his dignity. This might have been a cheap method to maintain Zuko as a villain, but Zuko is undecided about his choice.
Back at the palace, Zuko ponders why he abandoned his uncle, which causes him to consider if unconditional love and true respect from friends are worth whatever honor his father may bestow on him.
It also demonstrates that, whether you’re a fictitious character or a real person, personal growth isn’t always linear. You don’t simply become a better person by waking up every day. Zuko falters on his journey to become his real self in the face of years of parental abuse and suffering, which makes his development all the more genuine and fascinating. The emotional reward for viewers is immensely gratifying when he finally finds the answers he’s been searching for.
Zuko: At long last, he’s here.
Zuko’s encounter with Iroh in “Lake Laogai” is no likely haunting him as he attempts to figure out his own morals and identity in the Fire Nation Royal Palace.
Zuko had tracked down Aang’s flying bison, Appa, and planned to use the animal as leverage to force Aang to join him in the Fire Nation. Zuko is found while disguised as the Blue Spirit, a warrior with a blue oni mask, by Uncle Iroh, who confronts him with the realities he refuses to acknowledge to himself.
Iroh reminds out that Zuko’s preoccupation with capturing the Avatar almost killed him in the previous cave scene due to cold.
“Are you in charge of your own fate? Or is it a fate that has been imposed on you by someone else?”
Zuko is forced to choose between who he is as Zuko and who he is as Prince Zuko, the son of Fire Lord Ozai.
“It’s time to confront yourself with the major issues. “How do I know who you are?” “And what do you want?” Iroh says, pointing a finger in his way.
Prince Zuko does not seem as pleased as he anticipated when he is reintroduced to the Fire Nation troops by Lo and Li after three years of banishment. In fact, he behaves as if it isn’t so much a homecoming as it is his own burial.
It is, in some ways. He had let go of the Zuko he had met on his travels when he returned as Prince Zuko.
Later in “The Day of the Black Sun, Part 2: The Eclipse,” Zuko musters the strength to face his father and finally voice his mind.
Zuko tells Ozai that he didn’t murder the Avatar and that Aang is still alive, without guilt or fear. When Ozai yells at him to leave the room, Zuko firmly holds his ground, letting him know that he was no longer obeying his instructions. He’s made the decision to break free from Ozai and become his true self. When Ozai attempts to frighten him, Zuko responds with a straightforward statement:
“I’m going to say what I’m thinking, and you’re going to listen.” As he pulls his swords, he informs Ozai.
To his credit, the Fire Lord let him to speak, and Zuko tells him what he had only just realized: all he wanted was Ozai to love him as his son.
He also doesn’t allow Ozai deceive him by telling him that the Agni Kai was only a ruse to teach him respect.
“It was brutal and inhumane.” He responds.
When Ozai implies that Iroh indoctrinated Zuko into becoming a peace-loving hippy like himself, Zuko proudly acknowledges that his Uncle Iroh did get to him, smiling, “Yes, he finally did.”
The Agni Kai between him and Azula is widely regarded as Zuko’s crowning achievement, but it is really this scene that marks the end of Zuko’s transformation from Prince Zuko to finally being himself, free of his father’s expectations and the pain he had given him.
Avatar: The Last Airbender devotes so much time and effort to fleshing out its characters that it’s fair to argue that it’s one of the reasons for the show’s longevity. It’s difficult to choose a favorite character arc from the Avatar cast, but if you ask me, my favorite is Azula’s.
Which character arc, storyline, or worldbuilding element from the program is your favorite? Please provide your views in the comments section.
Avatar: The Last Airbender was a hugely successful Nickelodeon show that ran for four seasons, followed by an epilogue film called The Legend of Korra. The series was filled to the brim with characters you could fall for, and it wasn’t hard to see why: the series was an ensemble piece filled with people who could easily become your friends. But one character stood out among the crowd: Prince Zuko, the leader of the Fire Nation, which was filled with characters you could easily hate.. Read more about zuko and mai and let us know what you think.
Zuko became a master in the Avatar universe."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Why was Prince Zuko banned?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"
Prince Zuko was banned because he was too powerful and had no weaknesses."}}]}
Frequently Asked Questions
What type of character is Prince Zuko?
Zuko is a firebender, and hes the prince of the Fire Nation.
Did Zuko become a master?
Zuko became a master in the Avatar universe.
Why was Prince Zuko banned?
Prince Zuko was banned because he was too powerful and had no weaknesses.
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