zuko’s collapse after returning from lake laogai is such an interesting point in his character development, and you can look at it from so many ways. from a storytelling perspective, zuko is approaching his descent into the underworld as part of his hero’s journey. from a psychoanalyst perspective, zuko’s id is being superseded by his superego. from an in-universe perspective, zuko goes through a spiritual awakening. but I think it’s especially significant if you look at it from a trauma perspective.
because I think the significance of this moment that often gets missed is that zuko doesn’t just make one (1) good decision and then immediately fall into a morality coma. by choosing to free appa and give up his hunt for the avatar, zuko is making a conscious choice to disobey his father, and as a result, falls into a catatonic state due to overwhelming feelings of fear that his body literally can’t handle.
zuko vacillates through all five fear responses over the course of the show. he defaults most often to fight, but he also displays the freeze response during the second war meeting he attends after returning to the fire nation (he can’t speak up; he is frozen in place and unable to act), and he often responds to conflict with his uncle with the flight response (he runs away during when iroh objects to him stealing rather than stay and confront the issue; he runs away from iroh to find appa during “lake laogai”).
the fifth trauma response, and the most debilitating one, is sometimes referred to as “flop,” a state of catalonia characterized by fainting and unresponsiveness, the instinctive reaction of an animal in the jaws of a predator. and from that perspective, the context of this moment is that zuko is literally so overwhelmed by the consequences of the choice he has made that his body goes through an involuntary shutdown.
after he awakens from his catatonia, zuko smiles and acts in a submissive, non-threatening manner toward his uncle, whom he’s displeased and disobeyed. this isn’t the norm for zuko–but it is characteristic of the fawn response. from a trauma perspective, zuko’s newfound pleasantness is an unconscious attempt to ingratiate himself back into iroh’s good graces, because he has learned that disobeying a parental figure leads is not safe.
and it makes you wonder if zuko’s choice to side with azula in “crossroads of destiny” was because he had experienced a frightening and disorienting trauma response the last time he directly disobeyed his father’s orders. zuko probably never wanted to experience that state of vulnerability again, and siding with azula may have instinctively felt like a way to protect himself. zuko isn’t just trying to get what he wants, he’s making what feels like the safest choice possible available to him in that moment.
tl;dr, from a trauma perspective, zuko isn’t just collapsing because he’s a perpetual drama llama–his body is going through a fear response that he has no control over.
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