I love this blue dude

Actually, I can - because unlike you, I base my opinion of the characters on the actual stuff that happened in the story, not the bad faith takes dumb people on the internet come up with.

Zuko literally only survived past book 1 because Aang was the ONLY person amongst the heroes that gave a single fuck about his well-being. Aang offered to be FRIENDS with him as early as episode 13, even though this dude is trying to kidnap him.

In the first damn episode we see him realize and try to remedy Katara's struggle with no longer being able to act like a kid and have fun. He wants to travel with her so SHE gets to learn waterbending. He willingly lets Zuko take him into his ship because he understood that a conflict could lead to the people of the water tribe getting hurt or killed.

In Warriors of Kyoshi he apologizes to Katara for letting all the praise and admiration go to this head. He makes sure to put out the fires Zuko and his crew started in Suki's village.

He tries to help remedy the Hei-Bai situation, even though he is unsure of himself and even scared, because he knows he is the only one that has any chance of helping - and the thing that allows him to connect with Hei-Bai is the fact that he is ALSO upset about the destruction the Fire Nation has caused AND hopeful that the world would eventually heal.

He thinks Jet is awesome because he wants to help people that are being oppressed by the Fire Nation - and then is horrified when he finds out his intension is to "free" them by killing everyone

He wants to help the two rival groups not only safely cross the Great Divide, but also stop hating each other.

He confesses that he hid the map to Hakoda because Bato, Katara and Sokka are showing how much they appreciate and trust him and he feels unworthy of it after what he did because he knows it'd hurt him if the roles were reversed.

He is so devastated by the fact that he ACCIDENTALLY hurt Katara that he swears to never firebend again. He is also able to recognize the same principle behind his mistake in Zhao's fighting style, allowing him to win the battle against the bastard.

He accepts the fact that the Northern Air Temple is now occupied by people who not only don't belong to his culture but also don't understand it and unknowingly destroyed something sacred to him (and that one of them had been forced to make weapons for the Fire Nation) because these people have nowhere else to go and he doesn't want them to suffer.

He is furious at Pakku for refusing to teach Katara waterbending, because he knows how much it'd mean to her and how unfair it is that she can't learn it just because of her gender.

He is so devastated by the death of the Moon Spirit that the Ocean Spirit latches onto him to avenge it and save the day - and the leve of destruction it causes haunts Aang, even though the violence was against his enemies. And still, he tries to go into the Avatar state again because people are dying and he can't accept that.

After the fall of Omashu, he wants to rescue Bumi, not because he needs a teacher, but because they're friends.

He felt empathy for Toph when she was explaining to her parents how lonely and unappriacted their over-protection made her feel.

He and Katara both feel bad for snapping at Toph during "The Chase" and wanted to apologize for not understanding that being part of a group was a radical change to her, even though she had refused to even try. He also didn't have a problem with fighting alongside Zuko and Iroh against Azula, AND he looked concerned when Iroh was injured.

After Katara comments on the fact he called Toph Sifu but not her, he calls her Sifu while bowing, to show that he respects her both as his master and friend.

The hopelessness and downright depression he was feeling after Appa was stolen only starts healing because he saw a couple being happy with their newborn baby - the same couple he decided to help cross the Serpent's Pass, even though he and his friends had just been allowed to take a much safer route to Ba Sing Se.

His understanding and sympathy towards Jet, even after everything the guy did, was so strong that it freed him from literal brainwashing.

He doesn't want to push his love for Katara aside to gain power because he cares about her too much - and then does it anyway because, even though not making her his main focus 24/7 offers the risk of her being hurt, him neglecting his mission guarantees she'll get hurt.

He is devastated to learn that the world thinks he is dead because he knows he was everyone's last hope - and yet in the end he still accepts the burden of failure because he understood that, at that moment, everyone would be safer if no one else knew he was still alive.

He goes to a Fire Nation school and bonds with the kids, wanting to give them a taste of freedom and joy, as well as trying to understand what the war is like from their perspective. The same episode also has him pull Katara for a dance because he noticed she was feeling left out.

The boy felt empathy for, and understood the mistakes of, both Ruko and Sozin. SOZIN. Aang could see the humanity in the monster that is responsible for him losing his entire culture and everyone he loved.

When Zuko spoke about wanting to control his impulses so he wouldn't accidentally hurt anyone, Aang explicitly connected with that struggle and saw them being teacher and student as fate, and Zuko agreed because that's how deep their connection was.

Aang is not happy about Katara wanting to murder a man, but he still lets her take Appa on her mission and is not disapproving when she ultimately spares the guy but does not forgive him and makes it clear she never will.

He feels empathy for freaking Ozai, to the point that refuses to kill the guy - even as he has the balls to say that Aang's family, his people, deserved to die. He spared that guy - but only after he had a way to do that without it meaning the death of more innocents. Aang, the pacifist, was going to turn his back on everything he believed in just to avoid more human suffering.

https://www.tumblr.com/scamthescalpel/817966808654053377/ok-fine-lets-talk-about-it-first-to-define-a?source=share

*rolls eyes so hard I see my brain* I wish I could straight up forbid this fandom, and people in general, from using pop psychology terms they CLEARLY don't actually understand.

1 - Zuko loved his mom, but like I've explained in this absurdly long post, the parent he is weird about is OZAI, not Ursa. Zuko appreciating the fact that his mother was a kind, loving parent, and admiring her for it, is not the same as any kind of unhealthy attachment or worship or seeing as The Ultimate Woman. Ozai is the parent Zuko bases everything in his life around - and Ozai's attrocious parenting is the reason his relationship with Azula is terrible (both in the sense of "Zuko is violently jealous of her" and "Azula often crosses the line into bullying/abusing him").

2 - Azula IS manipulative, dangerous, cunning, likes to fuck with Zuko, almost caused him to end up as a prisoner, and acted suspiciously happy when Ursa was gone (WE know she was bluffing, Zuko is in the dark and thus understanbly could wonder if Azula either played a part in their mom disappearing, or at least knows something she's not sharing just because it's amusing to her). Again, consequence of Ozai's shitty parenting, plus indoctrination.

Zuko picking up on all that is not projection, and thus the constant "BOY, ARE YOU STUPID? DON'T BE LOOKING AT A DANGEROUS FOE WITH HEART EYES!" from his brain whenever he experiences some kind of inappropriate attraction towards Azula is not about "women who want sex are evil, Azula is evil, therefore Azula MUST be a whore" but rather "sleeping with AZULA is a terrible, dangerous idea because she's AZULA" (on top of the obvious "Incest is taboo, of course his brain is going to scream DANGER! BACK OFF! at the thought of it" factor)

3 - Zuko is implied to have had sex with Mai, yet not once does he seem to think less of her for not being "pure." Same for BRAGGING to guards that she can handle herself and doesn't need anyone to save her. He also didn't think less of Suki for clearly wanting sex with her boyfriend, and the only time he said something negative (or anything AT ALL) about Ty Lee, a notorious flirt, was about how weird it was for her to walk on her hands and to have left with the circus, no shaming her for being a "tease" (unlike AZULA, who very much did slut-shame her).

Zuko is a teenage boy that puts his foot in his mouth every now and then, but he's no raging "Red Pilled" incel. Hell, HE IGNORED AZULA'S BEHAVIOR IN THE BEDROOM SCENE COMPLETELY! He doesn't bat an eye at a girl wanting sex, not even when said girl is his sister and seemingly making moves on him. This boy interrupted his own first kiss to hand his date a cupon, sex/romance is just not that big a deal to him, it's just a part of life.

4 - There ARE questionable moments between Zuko and Azula, but they are largely a consequence of Grey shipping zucest and thus dialing up the seductress voice in key scenes, like Zuko's dream... or the scene in Azula's bedroom. Aka yet ANOTHER thing that he didn't imagine.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not implying Azula was trying to seduce her brother at any point before them being reunited in book 2, they were literally kids. I am simply clarifying that teenage Zuko's dream was him combining what he knew of teenage Azula's personality and of the way she usually messed with him to guess what she'd behave IF she shared his taboo attraction, or at least saw it as another weakness of his that she could exploit (without necessarily sleeping with him, might I add).

The Bedroom Scene (and Azula's attempts of flirting on The Beach sounding deranged/threatening) is confirmation that Zuko guessed correctly. Again, he's not projecting some twisted understanding of sexuality or of women in general onto her, he just knows that Azula's Gonna Azula, even when it comes to flirting.

5 - There is literally not a single scene in which Zuko expresses any intense reaction (positive or negative) towards a woman being "unfeminine" (which doesn't fit the definition of a girly girl like his sister), NOTHING suggests he sees desiring sex as an inherently "male" trait or something that only women that are somehow "broken" or "lesser" experience (see number 3 again), and the only times he ever makes any sexist comments are towards female warriors are when said warriors are not on his side (again, see him thinking it's awesome that Mai is a badass).

6 - Zuko not realizing how Azula's been abused has nothing to do with attraction, or any Madonna-Whore complex, it's about her being the Golden Child while he's the Scapegoat. He was taught to envy her position, she was taught to fear ending up in his.

7 - Azula is another asian girl in the middle of an ALL-ASIAN CAST, was originally going to be Zuko's bully OLDER BROTHER, canonically can't flirt in a way guys actually find appealing, and dragons are an important Fire Nation thing (not to mention animal guides being a thing), hence Zuko also imagining IROH as one, because it is a symbol of POWER. I'm not saying there's absolutely no "Dragon Lady" subtext there, but acting like that's all that's going in that scene/show is ridiculous, especially since, again, the incest/seduction subtext was almost exclusively coming from the voice actress at that point.

"Femme Fatale Azula" is a fanon thing, none of the writers of the actual show or even the comics ever went there, not even the ones who clearly don't like/don't get Azula's character (due to ABLEISM, not sexism or anti-asian racism - again, all asian show and Azula was going to be a villain even when she was a man), they all lean pretty strongly towards the "Accidentally scares the shit out of any boy she likes" characterization for her.

8 - Once again, Zuko envies Azula. He doesn't despise her, he wants to BE her. And he sees only two ways to do that - either defeating her in battle to prove he's better than her, or joining forces with her so they're at least equals. Both open the door for Freudian bullshit because being the object of her desire counts as having power over her AND having her pursue him means he's important because, and this is the key factor here, ZUKO KNOWS AZULA DOESN'T JUST ACT THAT WAY TOWARDS ANY RANDOM GUY!

She's too smart, competent and powerful (both in the royalty way and in the bender way) to need to just spread her legs to get what she wants, and she'd be proud to do it even if she did need it. Zuko knows his sister. He doesn't always like her, but....

9 - ZUKO KNOWS HOW ROYALTY BEHAVES! He's been both at the top and at the bottom of the food chain in this absolute monarchy, of course he imagines the crowned princess making moves on him, or on anybody, through an unballanced, borderline predatory dynamic. He knows you don't say "no" to royalty - if you do, you might get your house trashed like Chan did, or rotting in prison like Iroh, or being disfigured and banished, or even having lightning shot at your chest.

Zuko is not seeing the possibility of any inappropriate relationship with his sister as dangerous out of projection - he just knows that shit can't end well for him.

It's taboo, it's a political headache, it's too risky, IT'S AZULA. Reducing it to "He thinks sex/power taints women" is to ignore all the layers of this messy subtext.

Would’ve killed him too if not for fact he knew the world needed the Avatar to fight the battle.

As an expert in Official Freudian Bullshit and someone who prioritizes fairness/accuracy over dunking on zutarians, I say we just cannot take this specific shitty anti-aang/anti-kataang argument and go "NO U" at zutara fans because it'd make as much sense as "Kataang is Oedipus Complex" aka no sense at all.

There is a BIG difference between an OBJECTIVE "My mom is great to me, my dad thinks I'm a living punching bag and is abusive to mom too, so I don't want him anywhere near us" and Oedipus Complex.

Oedipus bullshit requires actual enmeshment/emotional incest (aka a dysnfunctional dynamic that is not necessarily sexual, but can turn into that) between the son and mother, which then either fully creates or merely worsens tensions with the father, who can be anything from just an innocent person caught in a mess to a vile monster that actively contribuites to the mess by being abusive, and thus making the son more codependent with the mother by validating the "Us VS The World" mentality she's teaching him (out of deliberate malice or just poor parenting, doesn't matter).

What Zuko had towards Ursa was a very understandable "you're the parent that is not abusive to me, so I feel safer around you and don't get scared to show/ask for affection that my father denies me and mocks me for wanting" type of closeness. The more "saintly" image he has of her comes from the fact that HE THINKS SHE'S DEAD. He has fond memories of her, but she comes up in 4 episodes out of 61, and only influences his decision making in three scenes. She's not haunting his every thought and choice.

There's a reason why, when confronting Ozai, Zuko lists all the way he sucked as a parent and ruler - but not as a husband, because URSA HAD NOTHING TO DO WHY ZUKO GREW TO DISLIKE HIS DAD!

And lets not act like Zuko hated Ozai from day one. He loved the fucker so much he came back to be his right hand despite believing not only that Ursa was likely murdered, but that Ozai had something to do with it, or at least with the cover up of it. He genuinely believed "my father had every right to disfigure and banish me" for the longest time. He was constantly mad at Azula for being better than him, but not once got mad at Ozai for making this kids compete against each other. He became verbally abusive to Iroh for daring to say "Your father wouldn't change his mind and say he was sorry, he doesn't care about you."

Ozai was, objectively, the villain of Zuko's story, but Zuko was in denial about it. His complex towards Ozai puts the bastard up in a PEDESTAL, not in the role of antagonist he needs to defeat. Zuko loved his mom, but the parent he WORSHIPED, struggled to form a separate identity from, and had a completely unhealthy attachment to was his father - which is why Zuko temporary turns into a clone of Iroh in the Ba Sing Se arc when he thinks there's genuinely no way back to Ozai. He projected all those complexes onto the availiable PATERNAL, not just parental, figure.

Boy is WAAAAAAY more of an Electra (dad is the center of my world) than Oedipus (mom is the center of my world), let's be fucking real - and again, it's not one-to-one because he doesn't hate his mother at all and his father manipulates him through LACK of closeness. Keeping his kids at arm's length, and using the hurt this distance causes to his advantage, is Ozai's whole deal.

Also Zuko is Fire Lord, he has full legal authority to execute Ozai whenever he wants, Aang's opinion, or anyone's opinion really, be damned now that it is purely "Fire Nation business" not "Avatar business". He didn't do it because he came to genuinely accept/believe Aang was right to spare his father - if he didn't, he'd have just demanded to know where Ursa was when speaking to Ozai and said nothing else.

There is no universe in which Zuko EVER tells ANYONE , especially his abuser that he was now aware was indeed abusive, "I believe you can still change and become a better person" if he didn't mean it. That's just not how Zuko works.

Zuko doesn't want Ozai in his life anymore. He also has zero intention of killing him, or doing anything to hurt/control him, that is not 100% necessary. He's a victim drawing a boundary with his abuser to protect himself (and others), not a son with an irrational, potentially undeserved hatred towards his father, rooted in "You were the villain between me and mom/the villain I had to save mom from."