#markhamillz

Examples: The Guru

“It’s a new day. We’ve got a new apartment, new furniture, and today’s the grand opening of your new tea shop. Things are looking up, Uncle.”_____________Iroh: “Who thought when we came to this city as refugees, that I’d end up owning my own tea shop? Follow your passion, Zuko, and life will reward you.”Zuko: “Congratulations, Uncle.”Iroh: “I am very thankful.”Zuko: “You deserve it. The Jasmine Dragon will be the best tea shop in the city.”Iroh: “No. I’m thankful because you decided to share this special day with me. It means more than you know.”Zuko: “Now let’s make these people some tea!” Iroh: “Yes, let’s make some tea!”

Day of Black Sun Part 2.

“No, I’ve learned everything! And I’ve had to learn it on my own! Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow, the War was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don’t see our greatness. They hate us! And we deserve it! We’ve created an era of fear in the world. And if we don’t want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness.” 

Ember Island Players

Toph: “Geez, everyone’s getting so upset about their characters. Even you seem more down than usual, and that’s saying something!”Zuko: “You don’t get it, it’s different for you. You get a muscly version of yourself, taking down ten bad guys at once, and making sassy remarks.”Toph: “Yeah, that’s pretty great!”Zuko: “But for me, it takes all the mistakes I’ve made in my life, and shoves them back in my face. My uncle, he’s always been on my side, even when things were bad. He was there for me, he taught me so much, and how do I repay him? With a knife in his back. It’s my greatest regret, and I may never get to redeem myself.”Toph: “You have redeemed yourself to your uncle. You don’t realize it, but you already have.”Zuko: “How do you know?”Toph: “Because I once had a long conversation with the guy, and all he would talk about was you.”Zuko: “Really?”Toph: “Yeah, and it was kind of annoying.”Zuko: “Oh, sorry.”Toph: “But it was also very sweet. All your uncle wanted was for you to find your own path, and see the light. Now you’re here with us. He’d be proud.”

Sozin’s Comet: The Old Masters

Zuko: “Uncle, I know you must have mixed feelings about seeing me. But I want you to know, I am so, so, sorry, Uncle. I am so sorry and ashamed of what I did. I don’t know how I can ever make it up to you. But I’ll-… How can you forgive me so easily? I thought you would be furious with me.”Iroh: “I was never angry with you. I was sad because I was afraid you lost your way.”Zuko: “I did lose my way.”Iroh: “But you found it again. And you did it by yourself. And I am so happy you found your way here.”

There’s even a hilarious thing going around in a popular post these days, about his “Father Lord” slip of tongue, interpreting that as Zuko being so aware of the fact that it’s his FATHER who has to be defeated/die… while of course, ignoring the rest of the context. Just the kind of posts I love, as you’ll imagine.

Anyways, with these quotes in mind… what is the main takeaway the general public gets? That Zuko learned kindness! That Zuko learned the Fire Nation was wrong! 

And now I ask… if he learned it all, as apparently he did, where’s the proof of it in his actions? When does Zuko show genuine kindness and empathy towards other characters and people, post-redemption?

First of all, the Guru gives us the creepy Zuko who’s happy and chill after getting out of his emo coma. What bothers me about Zuko in these episodes is that his transformation doesn’t feel genuine to me AT ALL. Zuko made the right decision, he let Appa go, after Iroh encouraged him and told him to do that. But reasonably speaking, did he really understand what Iroh was telling him? Iroh scolds him for not thinking things through, and tells him that it’s time for him to think about what he wants, and who he wants to be, basically. Zuko’s answer to that is letting Appa go, and then fainting, and then coming back to life as a happy boy. Which… eh? He should have changed, no doubt, after this experience… but to this extreme? And this fast?

The reason it feels fake is because you can’t really see him pondering Iroh’s words properly. He had a bunch of nightmares and even then we have no idea if he learned anything from them. If there was any reflection on his part over what he was experiencing. Where he SHOULD HAVE asked Iroh for advice, where he should have taken his seat and sipped his tea while asking Iroh about his own experiences, hoping to unravel what his own path should be… Zuko just got happy. That’s that. That’s how he learned kindness and empathy and sympathy and all that. So he becomes a very supportive nephew, but Iroh doesn’t really understand where that came from, and from the looks of it, neither does Zuko because as soon as the stakes are high again, what did he do? Pick his old life over the new. And that, again, reinforces my interpretation that his “change” was him trying to behave the way Iroh would approve of, rather than him actually trying to understand ANYTHING from Iroh’s words in lake Laogai. Rather than him learning a single thing about kindness and peace and good will towards men.

Second, DOBS Part 2. Zuko gives Ozai a funny speech about how they’ve been indoctrinated in the Fire Nation to believe they’re great and spreading greatness through the war. What an amazing lie it was, he says. A lie he believed in and fought for, directly, during at least 3 years. Yet also a lie he set aside for his own benefit, whenever he so wished (see the Blue Spirit, for instance). A lie he apparently stopped believing in when Azula shows up to drag him home as a prisoner. He cuts his hair and discards his ties to his nation…

… And yet still tries to fight Aang in the Chase. Because he’s got to get the Avatar, despite he knows the Fire Nation has listed him as a wanted criminal.

And he still tries to use Appa to bring Aang to him in Lake Laogai, because this way he’s going to get the Avatar for real and still go back to the horrible nation that issued out a wanted poster for him.

When you look back, all the way to episode 3?

“If my father thinks the rest of the world will follow him willingly, then he is a fool!”

Point and case being: Zuko, for one thing, wasn’t as blind to Ozai’s war at every point in the show as most people would have you believe. If he was aware of how Ozai wasn’t going to get the world to follow him, to the point of calling his terrifying father A FOOL??? Then clearly Zuko didn’t buy into the propaganda entirely. His actions during the war are NOT for the Fire Nation’s sake, or for his father’s sake, but for the sake of going home already and putting an end to his banishment once and for all. Nothing in the entire show has ever lead me to think otherwise, and I know for a fact that I’m not the only person who sees it this way. So Zuko didn’t really care about the lies and the greatness: it was NEVER what guided his actions, because what he truly wanted was to stop being banished.

So, now that the whole lie thing is out of the way, he tells Ozai that the rest of the world hates them! And yes, they do! He sees that for himself in Zuko Alone… you know, that episode that comes after he’s been out there, stealing from Earth Kingdom people, OUT OF A SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT. So sorry, I will always bring this up because Zuko NEVER owned up to this and I have no reason to believe he even regretted it. So… ugh. Anyways, point being that Zuko is telling Ozai all about how the Fire Nation deserve the Earth Kingdom’s hatred… which of course, Ozai knows. He’s not THAT stupid, he just doesn’t give a crap about being despised xD But the thing is… Zuko talks about this like he’s seen the world, like he’s watched how Fire Nation people treat Earth Kingdom people horribly, like he’s learned how messed up his own people can be. 

But…  when did we see Zuko standing up to Fire Nation people who were oppressing Earth Kingdom ones?

The answer is a grand total of zero times. Zuko stands up to a group of Earth Kingdom bullies who are harassing other Earth Kingdom people, and then after revealing who he is, he discovers they hate him even more than they hate the bullies. Zuko also helps Jet steal food on their ferry ride to Ba Sing Se, but who’s he stealing it from? Earth Kingdom people who are oppressing Earth Kingdom people. Zuko didn’t actually see how the Earth Kingdom people hated the Fire Nation, he saw how the Earth Kingdom people hated HIM, all through Books 1 and 2. 

Now, why did Zuko help the people he helped? The bullies bothering Lee’s town had bothered Zuko too, the people hoarding food bothered him as well because he was eating crap while the good stuff was kept elsewhere. Zuko NEVER acted the way Aang did, spontaneously deciding to help the oppressed and downtrodden who needed help out of the good will of his heart. Nope, Zuko worked with others when it was convenient, most of all. Lee only gets Zuko to stay after the bully soldiers steal Zuko’s food, convincing him when he offers to feed Zuko’s ostrich horse at his house. Without that offer, Zuko would have just left and done nothing for these people.

In short, Zuko apparently learned that the Fire Nation is despised… when, as I said, going by his experiences, the one he should have learned was despised was HIM. He’s holding the Fire Nation as a whole responsible for his actions, for his wrongdoings, for everything bad he ever did in the Earth Kingdom. I repeat, the only time Zuko saw Earth Kingdom vs. Fire Nation in the flesh was when it was Earth Kingdom people mad at him for whatever he was doing, be it setting their villages on fire, stealing their food or treating them like lesser than him. The only exception I can think of is when the Earth Kingdom soldiers captured Iroh, and what happened there? Zuko and Iroh fought them, didn’t even reflect on how rightful or not these people were to pick a fight with them, and moved on. That simple.

We never get to see Zuko reflecting on how the Fire Nation has harmed these people so badly. We don’t get him reflecting on his own faults and mistakes often, but he certainly never seems to give much thought to how messed up things are and how the Fire Nation has no right to destroy everyone else. His showdown with Ozai, so very awaited by so many people? It, again, feels forced and hard to believe. It comes after we’ve seen Zuko talking to Mai about how he was his father’s perfect son but then he wasn’t HIM… and aside from that? What else did we have throughout the first half of season 3 to show us why Zuko is seeing the world differently than how he saw it before? He heard a story about his ancestors and was told he had good and bad inside him? Well, gee, that didn’t stop him from displaying his entitled side again by boasting to Mai that he can make anything she wants happen because he’s a prince, only a couple of episodes later. It didn’t stop him from wanting to be part of a war meeting desperately, with the attitude of a tantrum-throwing child.

There are SO MANY CHANCES the third season could have taken to portray a Zuko who ponders things, who pays attention to the world around him and realizes that he’s part of the Fire Nation, that he wants to respect everyone different from him too, that he doesn’t care about nation division but about doing what’s right by the world. Instead, he’s out there sending murderous cyborgs to kill the Avatar, he’s yelling at his imprisoned uncle, he goes to the beach and just picks fights both with his friends and with complete strangers, and throws more temper tantrums than anyone ever should.

And that brings up the really essential question: where, in all three seasons, did Zuko learn that peace and kindness were the answer? He says as much to Ozai, no doubt. But HOW is this his conclusion? Why would Zuko think that everyone should be kind and get along when the first person who always jumps into violence/conflict mode is him?

His field trips do nothing to prove he actually changed in this way, if you think about it:

Aang’s field trip: Zuko is aggressive and angry over losing his bending. He’s not very kind and peaceful about it, as far as I can remember. When they reach the Sun Warriors’ place, he’s clever for 10 seconds and stupid right after again, and when told that they have to be deemed worthy by Ran and Shaw? His immediate response to Aang’s doubts and uncertainties is “Well, we’re the Fire Prince and the Avatar. I think we could take these guys in a fight, whoever they are”. Again, responding with violence to a situation that he didn’t even know understand fully. What’s Zuko’s instinctive response to everything? Violence!

Sokka’s field trip: Zuko may know a thing or two about political prisoners, who knows, I certainly don’t know because the show never touched this subject. Tyrants like Ozai can and will imprison people who don’t deserve to be in jail… but as far as we saw? That might not have been the case in the Boiling Rock. We learn no stories of any of the people in this prison. We don’t have any clue about who they are. We don’t know if they deserve to be in there or not. But Zuko not only agrees to help Sokka break out his dad and girlfriend… he also agrees to helping Chit Sang, a complete stranger, who may just be hella dangerous for all they know (the wikia claims he’s been accused for murder and he says it’s not true: if he’s lying that means Zuko helped release a murderer from prison!). While the Boiling Rock is Zuko’s best field trip by far, it still makes you wonder if he gives his actions proper thought. Does he really want to release Fire Nation prisoners without knowing who they are or what they did to end up in there? How does this count as “peace” and “kindness”? Granted, the kind part is letting the guy go, sure, and what about the part where, if he were a murderer indeed, he might just go out there and kill again? How is that still kind, still peaceful?

Katara’s field trip: I barely even need to talk about this because Zuko absolutely condones Katara killing Fire Nation soldiers, who are/were acting UNDER ORDERS OF THEIR SUPERIORS, all because he wants to be her friend. Zuko, Mr. I’m-going-to-be-the-Fire-Lord-of-peace-and-kindness, standing by and even encouraging a girl who’s mad with grief and who wants revenge for her mother’s death, regardless of the cost. Again… is this Zuko’s peaceful doctrine? What sort of kindness do these actions reflect? When Aang says they shouldn’t do this, Zuko SCOFFS, he MOCKS him… and yet six episodes ago he was rambling about peace and kindness to his father, who of course, LAUGHED IN HIS FACE THE SAME WAY ZUKO WAS LAUGHING IN AANG’S FACE NOW…?

My point… Zuko learned some very pretty words that he can’t seem to put into actions. Heck, who knows if he even understands their meaning. But maybe what he meant was that everyone else should be kind and everyone else should be peaceful, and only when they all are nice and peaceful will he become nice and peaceful too. Maybe.

Carrying on after his speech to Ozai, though: as usual, his conversation with Toph only strengthens my belief that his development was about becoming exactly what Iroh wanted him to be rather than growing on his own and genuinely learning to better himself for his own sake. He says that the play rubs his worst mistakes in his face: what did the play show him doing? Yelling at Iroh, sending Iroh away, and I suppose having a weird affair with Katara (is this somehow implying that having a moment with Katara was one of his worst mistakes? Well, okay then, Zuko… x’D)? I can’t remember the play portraying anything else. Oh, well, growing out his hair. I guess he didn’t like his hair much either. Ah, and breaking Aang out of prison, I’m guessing he’s really sorry for that now, for… some reason?

Point is… the play didn’t show a Zuko who was hurting strangers, the way he often did in Book 1. It didn’t show a Zuko who was treating Earth Kingdom people like they owed him stuff just because he was Fire Nation royal, as he did in Book 2. We were shown a Zuko who, above all else, was mean to Iroh: THAT is his biggest mistake. Or so he believes. His remorse, his guilt? It’s all about Iroh. And that he’s acting the way Iroh expects of him is what makes him a worthwhile person now, basically. Instead of Zuko questioning what deserves to be questioned, we get a Zuko who adopts Iroh’s beliefs blindly, and who doesn’t even act on them entirely. He just tries to talk the way Iroh would, but as I said above? His answer to every problem is STILL violence. He STILL doesn’t think things through, he may have set a murderer loose in the Fire Nation on his trip to get out of prison, he thinks murder is fine and dandy in general… but because he will recite Iroh’s creed he’s somehow all good now?

And when Iroh takes him back, everyone’s happy, everyone’s moved, that’s what he deserves! Well, no doubt Iroh was going to accept him as he did, why wouldn’t he? Zuko modeled himself after his uncle, entirely. He wants to be Iroh 2.0, and he’ll do whatever he has to do to earn his approval. 

But being Iroh 2.0 doesn’t mean having mercy for everyone, it doesn’t mean believing in peace and kindness as the answers to every ordeal. No, it means stopping the war, at any cost, and by doing whatever needs to be done. And that would be fine, but it also means that BOTH Iroh and Zuko don’t care, ultimately, if their other relatives live or die. Iroh never suggested Aang could find another way to defeat Ozai other than killing him, meaning he probably didn’t think there was another one and, meaning, he didn’t care that his brother had to die. He must have seen it as a necessity. Likewise, Zuko sees his sister unhinged and broken, and his reaction is simply to take advantage of her loss of sanity, and after her defeat, to stand by watching her writhing on the ground. Iroh has already told him Azula needs to go down, and that he shouldn’t get along with her. So he doesn’t even try. He doesn’t really need to freak out about whatever his sister’s future will be, because as long as she’s not standing between himself and the throne, he can easily just discard her.

I brought up that I found that “Father Lord” interpretation ridiculous to no end, but I’ll expand on why now: Zuko isn’t “painfully aware” of the fact that it’s his father who has to die. He’s not shown hesitating, instead, he’s shown hoping Aang can get it done, basically. Zuko isn’t particularly worried about Ozai’s fate, and it shows not only an episode before, where he’s actively scolding Aang for trying to find a solution other than murder. And it shows, again, in the finale when he confronts Ozai in his prison cell by telling him: 

“You should count yourself lucky that the Avatar spared your life.”

Does this SERIOUSLY sound to anyone like a guy who was conflicted and sad that his father had to die? I can’t see it. I really can’t. If he was worried about Ozai, if he felt bad about his potential death? That feeling was buried SO DEEP that Zuko wasn’t even conscious of it. And as a reminder.. he has accepted Iroh as his actual father. He outright tells Ozai that Iroh is the one who was a real father to him. So… I don’t know if he’s really that conflicted about Ozai dying. Not when the person who’s most eager in the show to get Aang to kill Ozai is Zuko.

… Anyways.

In short, Zuko’s story was not about kindness, despite what the show would want everyone to believe. Zuko has ALWAYS suffered from a severe disconnection between his actions and his words. It’s something many people have criticized about his character before, and this ask really just ended up turning into a criticism about that, too. Zuko can talk about goodness and honor and kindness and peace all he wants, but when he stands watching his broken sister, with a look on his face that suggests Katara is more affected by Azula’s broken display than he is? You get the feeling he’s really just all talk. That a guy who preaches peace and then goes out to help his new best friend on her vengeful killer spree actually doesn’t care about peace or kindness unless it’s convenient to bring it up. Sure, he poured tea for people once in a while. Sure, he has taken up Iroh’s example and he may become an even better person in the future.

But the Zuko we saw in the show? He’s not changed nearly as much as people want to think he has. His redemption was supposed to be about how he learned better, how he became a good person, and how he’s the ideal Fire Lord for a Fire Nation headed for peace: do excuse me for questioning that, considering that the comics got their start with a trilogy where Zuko was charging against the Earth Kingdom all over again, as if his speech to Ozai had been hollow because here we are again, Fire Nation vs. Earth Kingdom. Who learned anything from the 100 Year War? Not Zuko!