The thing about people saying that they "love Zuko but are ready to whack him" is that this is a child who has come from abuse, whose narrative is largely about realizing that people who want to hurt you do not love you in the way that you deserve to be loved. It's alarming that people would talk about this character that way given that context, but I've seen it a lot, too.
And it is motivated by sour grapes because Zuko is one of the most beloved characters, and I do think that's true, but people who say things like that seem to think that they're evening the playing field, when all they are doing is spreading around hate. And they are doing it in a way that does give some unfortunate implications.
And I do feel like people think they are given permission to say this about Zuko BECAUSE we have seen him be abused in the narrative. I think people also feel like they can say it about a character who is/was a villain, and I also think Zuko's narrative does fit an unfortunate pattern in media of depicting a character be abused and that being seen as more acceptable because he's a villain.
I think it goes the other way, too, in that narratives will portray a villainous character as being the way they are because of abuse, the "Freudian excuse" narrative, and that also is a problem when the narrative presents it as an excuse that gets a lot more discussion than the other way around, but it's also true that we see villainous characters be violently abused because there's an unspoken narrative that they deserve it. Zuko gets smacked around A LOT in the first season by the heroes, and we're supposed to laugh at it, because he does deserve it. But that also primes us to be more accepting when we see him be disfigured by his father.
And I don't mean that we aren't supposed to be shocked or feel sorry for him, because we definitely are. But it's just that little bit more acceptable to us as viewers because we have already been given this perception that Zuko deserves it, we've already seen him be hurt as a joke. His body is now more violable to us. And since it's a flashback, we already know it's going to happen, which also primes us to accept it happening.
I've seen people say that this makes us feel worse for Zuko when we see his father burn him, because we've been laughing at seeing this same character be hurt for so long and then the narrative hits us with this and says "are you laughing now?"
But imagine if it had happened to Aang.
Sweet, innocent, young. The hero. Who the narrative would never dream of telling us deserves to be hurt in any capacity.
What functions as a plot twist to flip our perspective on a villain, would in that scenario be viewed as a very dark turn of events that radically changes the show and our expectations for it, where even an innocent, good character can be brutally burned by an adult taking advantage of him.
We might have turned off the TV then and there.
There's a similar thing that happens to Toph, the other abuse narrative atla presents us with. Toph is one of the good guys. But she's also rude, crude, and antagonistic when we first meet her. When we see the way her parents treat her, that narrative is flipped on its head, but it works because we're first introduced to Toph as a character who is oppositional to what the heroes want, because she provides an obstacle to their goal in this episode, which is getting her to join them.
The abuse is framed as something that needs to happen so that Toph can realize that what she really needs to do is join the heroes so that the plot can move forward.
I think that that implication can also be read into Zuko's narrative, and I've seen people voice that, too. That Zuko needed to be abused in order to realize that his way of thinking was wrong. And I also think that's why that idea persists even after Zuko's redemption. Because if it worked once, maybe it will work again, amirite? Maybe Katara should smack Zuko around some to get him to do what she wants him to.
Which is unfortunate because one of the things I love about Zuko's abuse narrative is that it does draw a hard line between things that Zuko deserves to atone for and abuse. Yes, Zuko was wrong to pursue Aang and his friends, and yes, it is true that not everyone has to forgive him, but that doesn't mean he has to put up with Katara making mean jokes at his expense while he's trying to help. It doesn't mean that Zuko should just go along with what Aang says even if he strongly disagrees with it.
One of the things that I love the most about Zuko's narrative is that despite everything he's done and what has been done to him, he is still a child and deserves to get to be one. Iroh saying that Zuko is an idealist with a pure heart and his reaction being one of shock and immediate denial is one of the most heartbreaking scenes to me, because Zuko has so rarely been allowed to feel like he is good, he is a child, and that he deserves to feel like one. That his innocence and his idealism and his heart are something precious and worth protecting.
And while I also think that there is this perception that Zuko has grown up faster than the other kids because of his abuse, which is true to an extent, it is also true that children who have experienced abuse are in many ways cognitively younger than their counterparts. And you see that with Zuko when he becomes anxious about how other people see him, when he cries in his confrontation with Iroh. Zuko is still very much a child. He was not "written to be bullied in a loving way." He was written as a child who did not get the love that he deserved to get. A child who craves love and wants people to see him as good.
That's also why I cannot stand people who ship him with Mai in a "she puts up with all his crap" way. It's a reason I don't like that relationship to begin with, because again I feel like there's this perception that Mai gives Zuko what he deserves, but then, the only reason Zuko was in that relationship to begin with is because of his family's abuse. It's how they got together, it's why she doesn't understand his perspective when they are together, and it's why he leaves her, and it's the reason she's able to confront him in an interrogation room because she's mad he broke up with her. The idea that Mai needs to keep Zuko in line is directly related to us seeing him be abused onscreen. It happens concurrently. The show doesn't outright say that this is what Zuko deserves, but the implication is there.
And I think Zuko's relationship with Mai is put into contrast by his relationship with the gaang and with Katara, specifically, where Zuko is allowed to express himself and allowed to be forgiven and given the chance to be seen as good and worthy of care without being told that he deserves to be mistreated "but it's only out of love, promise." And as you say, that's not Zuko's canon dynamic with Katara anyway, and Katara would not be in a relationship like that and I would not want that for her, either, because it's just another unequal relationship that she has to manage. But that's getting too much into my individual shipping preferences.
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