Our Impavid Heroine

On the surface that seems a weird take to have, seeing as OG Zuko's path to redemption is a see-saw full of regression. One step forward and two steps back. Like, this kid fucking goes through it and his path to redemption is never once in a straight line.

BUT.

I don't think my take was ever that Zuko was a good guy deep down despite what he may or may not have done; I mean you could say that about anybody, really. All of us were innocent babies at one time, including serial killers. My take on OG Zuko in Season One was that he was a kid who was hurt and betrayed and that Iroh wasn't doing much of anything to mitigate that for either Zuko or others.

This is not slander on Iroh, by the way. (Iroh is my favorite character in ATLA, in fact, with Zuko running a very hot second.) Season One Iroh is also deeply, deeply traumatized - this is a man who not only lost his beloved only child but also gave up his crown, who went from embracing war to becoming a pacifist (which is one fuck of a turnaround in a pretty short time). But also, in his mind? By losing his son and giving up his crown he also gave up on the Fire Nation itself, a nation he had once had a chance to help redeem through his own leadership and the eventual leadership of his son.

Pre-show Iroh lets his brother burn his thirteen-year-old nephew while his nephew begs and does nothing but sit and watch. Season 3 Iroh would have never allowed it. He might not have been able to stop it - no guarantee of that - but he wouldn't have been sitting back and doing nothing, and fuck Fire Nation law and culture.

In Season One Iroh is so gentle and loath to do anything to haul Zuko back into line - and possibly lose him, as well - that he lets Zuko get away with a lot. Too much. And everyone pays the price for that.

(I personally have never found much meta/fanwank over Iroh and how his loss and grief impacts himself, Zuko, and the fate of the Fire Nation, but I think that's mostly because the show was watched by kids who were focusing on the kids in the show, and that just continued as the those self-same kids grew up. As someone who first watched the show as an adult with kids, I absolutely took note of how shattered and broken Iroh is in Season One. Iroh's redemption is not all accomplished offscreen. Him lying about the extinction of the dragons and joining the White Lotus is pre-show and offscreen, yes. He's not finished growing, however. His is also a redemption story. It's just a more subtle, adult one.)

I think the real issue with NATLA Zuko is that by condensing the first and second seasons into 15 episodes from the original 40, there's simply no way to keep Zuko's redemption story anything close to what it was in the original. There's no time. The writers of ATLA took their time with Zuko, and they had plenty of time to do it. This is why his redemption is so seemingly out of touch and inconsistent in NATLA. It's not just a matter of comparing minutes of actual running time; it's also how ATLA allowed each new episode (with a few two-parter exceptions) to...well, be something new. We were able to be shown the growth, instead of being told it happened.

ATLA's episode Zuko Alone is such a turning point for Zuko, but also for Iroh. After the two of them reunite (and Iroh is injured) and start to head to Ba Sing Se Iroh takes a much more active role to step up and actually act like Zuko's father instead of his caretaker. It's a marked difference, and it is certainly written that way. Iroh having Zuko serve people tea in Ba Sing Se is ABSOLUTELY meant to teach Zuko what it is to be a leader who serves his people. (And something, might I add, that you probably wouldn't learn cleaning stables by yourself. Just thought I'd point that out.) Iroh knows what he's doing. He's parenting. He's teaching by example. He's showing this boy how much he loves him, even when that boy is being difficult to love. (Note when Iroh stops calling him Prince Zuko and starts calling him Zuko, instead. That's a very deliberately written change.)

Iroh's growth in Season Two and how that impacts Zuko sets up Zuko's self-redemption in Season Three, when Iroh is gone and Zuko has to redeem himself. Iroh telling Zuko that he was never angry, he was just afraid Zuko had lost his way, is not a throwaway line. Iroh has been sitting in that jail cell desperately hoping that he did enough for Zuko, that he didn't let down his son and the Fire Nation yet once again.

Did we get any of that in NATLA? Ah...nope. The writers chose to focus on other things than character development. They were so busy trying to condense the show that they dropped the plot when it came to character development, which is why all of the kid characters have become so one-note. It's not just a Zuko thing. It's all of the main characters, and I do include Iroh in that.

What the writers in NATLA have done is write the show in shorthand. Character development has clearly been left behind, with the assumption that the viewers will fill in the blanks with their own knowledge from the original.

Which is not working out for them as well as they had hoped, I'm guessing.

People being pissed off at Zuko's character development (or lack thereof) in NATLA are also pissed at Iroh's lack of character development. They probably just don't realize it.