#zuko plots

Zuko has a massive crush on Sokka, but he isn't the best at making his intentions known. Any time he tries to use words he messes it up and just ends with both of them confused.

Since his words aren't working, he tries to express himself through other means. And what does Sokka like most? Food!

Zuko learns to cook from Uncle who (not knowing Sokka is the recipient) insists that the spice of a meal is an expression of the spice of your love! (Being metaphorical about putting your heart in a meal to make it taste better) Zuko takes it literally and every time he makes food for Sokka he adds more spice because Sokka just doesn't seem to be getting the point.

Aang, Katara and Toph all figured out what was going on before Zuko started cooking for Sokka, but have a bet going for how long it'll take Sokka to figure it out.

Sokka also has a crush on Zuko, but thinks the other is too cool and important to bother with it. He was super excited Zuko started cooking for him but with each progressive meal it's harder to eat without combusting.

Sokka tries to fake eat the food but Zuko insists on WATCHING HIM EAT IT and he looks so cute and hopeful Sokka cant just say no! So he forces the food down and as soon as Zuko looks away he tries to drown the spices with water, his eyes and nose running like hay fever.

Then one day, Zuko brings a meal so spicy even HE can't eat it. Surly THIS will get the point across right!?

Sokka's mouth literally catches fire and he explodes, thinking Zuko must hate him because he keeps trying to kill him with spices. Zuko gets upset and shouts back that he was trying to show Sokka his feelings!

"What, that you want me dead!?"

"No, that I like you!"

Sokka gobsmacked "How the hell does spicy death food show THAT!?"

"Well… Uncle said spicy food meant love or… something? I don't know proverbs, but I made it spicy!"

"And you couldn't just TELL me?"

"I TRIED! You never listened!"

Sokka thinks back to the weird interactions Zuko had done before trying to spice him to death. Oh his beautiful stupid loving idiotic awkward stupid Fire Lord…

Katara wins the bet.

Zuko Plot 132: Jin's Misunderstanding

Jin notices a guy following her on her way to the tea shop one day and it freaks her out because he's a scary looking guy with swords. So as soon as she spots Lee she runs to him and pretends they're dating hoping lee's scary face will make the guy go away. Instead he comes right up to her!

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah, you could let go of my boyfriend."

Turns out scary guy was Jet and Zuko was too confused to understand wtf was happening. Jin is mortified about the mix-up and Jet reassures her for being smart about it.

Maybe eventual Zuko/Jet/Jin

Zuko Plot 235: Bad First Impression

When Sokka is 12, he convinces Hakoda and Bato to take him out on an extended fishing trip. Sokka is practically vibrating with excitement, but both men are quite stern with him about the dangers of this trip. For the areas with the best fish, were also the areas that bred Sirens.

Sokka is instructed to ignore anything human looking he may see in the water, and to fill his ears with wax during the trip. All communication would be done with hand signals.

Fishing goes as planned for the start of the trip, but midway through, Sokka starts noticing something at the side of his eye. It always darts back under the water.

Sokka finally catches sight of another young boy looking at him from the water curiously. Taking a second to make sure his dad and Bato aren't looking, Sokka pulls some of the wax out of an ear to talk to the other boy. He looked nice! And not big and scary like Dad and Bato said Sirens were supposed to.

Zuko is startled when the other boy starts talking to him, and he sneaks closer keeping a side eye on the adults, but this boy seemed nice and not at all aggressive like he was warned humans were supposed to.

Little Siren Zuko tries to convince Sokka off the fishing boat to play with him (not realizing Sokka would probably drown playing Zuko's idea of games), but the warriors think he wants to eat Sokka, so Hakoda spears him in the face.

Zuko screams and flees and Sokka is traumatized that the friend he was making was just attacked by his dad, so he internalizes the explanation Hakoda gives him that Zuko was going to eat him because it's the only way he can accept his father attacking another child.

Years later, Sokka accidentally nets an older Zuko with a grotesque scar over his face and eye. Zuko remembers him, and what happened the last time he tried to talk to Sokka. How could he ever forget?

Zuko Plot 070: Airbender Zuko

Feeling trapped with his banishment and his mission, and everything he'd done all his life to get his father to care about him, young Zuko longs for freedom.

Fortunately (or not) the Western Air Temple isn't as empty as it seemed. Spirits of the slain air nomads still reside there due to the lack of funeral rites performed for their souls. Luckily, they have remained true to their teachings even in death. Instead of killing these firebenders who once again invade their home, their attention is drawn to the young boy who feels so trapped by his life and fear of his own element. They gift him Freedom.

Zuko falls sicker after the trip and Iroh thinks it's because he pushed himself too hard with his recent injury. Its actually because his inner fire is dying. Snuffed out with a massive gust of air that takes its place.

Zuko panics and freaks out and decides to hide this change as long as possible.

Skip to canon, Zuko never uses bending against the Gaang and it takes them a while to realize this. He's learned to fake firebending when he needs to, at least. Using air to move, stoke or snuff existing flames. This doesn't stop him from using air as the blue spirit. After all! There ARE no more airbenders! Obviously this will make him appear more spirity right?

Aang finds out after Pohuai, and starts chasing Zuko instead.

Zuko Plot 156: Forsaken and Found

After the Agni Kai, Zuko is so afraid of his own inner fire that Agni forsakes him and he looses his bending.

Realizing the loss of his inner fire, Zuko runs away in shame at the first stop the ship makes. Which just so happens to be the western air temple. Feeling pity for the lost boy, the spirit of the air lures him deep into the temple through secret passages to a hidden garden where he finds none other than a small family of living sky bison!

Zuko stays with the Bison for a year and ends up inexplicably learning airbending from them. Once he has, the Bison encourage him onward to the stables he'd discovered during his stay and have him saddle one of them. Then they take him away from the temple. For the next two years Zuko travels with one of the bison he named Dragon, and while wearing the blue spirit mask he vigilantes around the world.

Thus when the Avatar appears riding a sky bison, everyone assumes he's the blue spirit without a mask which muddles Zuko's true identity further. After all, everyone knows the blue spirit is an air bender!

Aang is determined to find this guy as soon as possible! So desperate to find the last air bender other than himself, Aang puts the team into more danger than needed, only for the Blue Spirit to find and rescue him instead before flying off on his own bison. Oh Monkeyfeathers! He didn't even get to talk to the guy! Maybe next time…

Zuko Plot 202: Not All Bad

What if Katara tells Zuko about her mother's death when he has her tied to a tree.

Zuko is stunned and takes a second glance at the necklace in his hand. The pirates get pissy about the necklace nonsense and Zuko growls and throws the scroll at them. "Take it and leave, I have what I need."

The pirates leave and his crew question him and he orders them into the woods to look for the avatar, "Uncle too!" Once out of sight he sighs.

"I won't let you go. I need the Avatar…" holds up the necklace, "but I guess this is something we have in common…" and then he ties the necklace around Katara's neck.

Katara is shocked he just gave it back like that, and confused by what he said. The fire nation killed his mother too? But wasn't he the prince???

Aang and Sokka show up to rescue her after that, but now she's confused how to feel about Zuko. Maybe he wasn't all bad?

They don't see him again until the north pole, and instead of attacking him first, she keeps her guard up and talks to him. They end up having a heart to heart and Zuko doesn't get a chance to kidnap Aang before he's waking up and freaking out about fish of all things.

Enter Zhao. Zuko and Iroh escape the North together. Katara wonders if she might have made a friend? What a weird thing to happen.

Zuko doesn't stop Katara from helping heal Iroh in the abandoned town. They bond some more behind closed doors before the Gaang leave.

Katara ends up being actual friends with Zuko. He and her actually make plans to try and free the Earth King while under Ba Sing Se. But due to Uncle holding him back for a talk, He isn't there to get the memo that it's unneeded. Zuko pretends to fight with Azula only to be told to abort the mission far to late. Aang is still shot with lightning, but Zuko jumps in to distract Azula instead of Iroh so Katara can get Aang out of there.

Zuko spends book 3 in prison only being broken out by Iroh on the day of black sun.

When Zuko comes to join the group, Katara slaps him, then hugs him. Everyone else is baffled why.

Zuko Plot 136: Forgiveness is Key

The Gaang doesn't allow Zuko to join them at the Western Air Temple. Because he's not there to make them face the Fire lord on time, they don't fight Ozai, and the world Burns. Aang is the only one left alive, having had to see all his friends and even Zuko perish thanks to his unreadiness. Zuko had known it was going to happen! If they had only let Zuko join them, forgiven him like Aang had always been taught to forgive by the monks, maybe all his friends would still be alive.

Not knowing what else to do, Aang pleads to the spirits for a sign, a message, guidance, something. They direct him on a lighted path and when he steps through a bright entry way, his eyes open to see Katara over him looking curious and far more innocent and naive than he last saw her.

Aang is sent back in time and this time he knows he has to get Zuko on their side because otherwise he wouldn't ever learn firebending AND Ozai would burn the world down because Zuko wasn't given the chance to tell them what was going to happen aaaugh! But also now Aang had to redo EVERYTHING! He waterbends in frustration, then pauses, realizing he COULD Waterbend. Well maybe they DIDN'T have to do everything again. Maybe he could change things and be way more prepared than before!

For starters, he could teach Katara waterbending instead of waiting for Master Poophead to come around, and for seconds he was totally going to kidnap the blue spirit. Zuko wouldn't be able to chase them if he was already on their team right? And doing it while Zuko was disguised was the perfect excuse to keep him from flinging fire at them all until he was tamed like a feral catowl kitten.

Zuko Plot 205: Spirit Zuko

Zuko was killed in the Agni Kai but his soul remains behind as a vengeful spirit. He spends his time antagonizing the Fire nation and thwarting their plans and plots.

He has accepted this as his new way of life until the day the Avatar arrives and can actually touch him!? He'd not felt touch in literal years because as a spirit he is beyond mortal interactions, and he...missed contact with people and oh no, run away! Feelings! Emotions! Abort abort! Zuko will definitely cry the first time Aang hugs him.

Aang follows him and convinces Zuko, who had been called the Blue Spirit by the Fire Nation, to come with them and help stop the Fire Nation once and for all. Zuko joins the gaang early, but he can't interact with any of them verbally aside from Aang. The best he can do is throw things at them or make them feel warm when he's near.

When the time comes to face Ozai, Aang and Zuko face him together and Aang won't kill him, but Zuko doesn't have that mindset, and as a spirit who was MURDERED by this guy it's his right to take his life! So he drags Ozai's spirit to the spirit world and fades away because he completed his last objective, stopping his father once and for all.

But the Spirits are forgiving and when Aang goes back to the fire nation WITHOUT his close Spirit Friend, everybody is sad Zuko is gone now... and then he ISN'T because the Spirits brought him back!

Maybe his body was only MOSTLY dead and kept imprisoned in caldera.

What if Ozai is superstitious and fears the retribution of fully killing his own son when there's some spiritual interference on him completing the job. Maybe Agni wont let the fire burn him whole, only where Ozai's hand touched.

So there are sages keeping the body locked away where it's protected by the spirits in a stasis like Aang was during the 100 years? Otherwise his body would've grown up without him

And that's why his spirit is free to roam the world because he's being KEPT there and not allowed to pass on.

After everything, the Fire Nation needs a leader that will keep it on the right path. Iroh obviously takes over at first because Zuko is THIRTEEN, and Aang and Zuko have life changing field trips across the world for the next few years bonding.