“Hello, Zuko here.”
Alright, look, everyone knows that Zuko has one of the best redemption arcs ever.
I don’t think I have to convince anyone of that.
At this point, he’s basically the blueprint for a good redemption arc.
So today, all I want to do is go through the three reasons I think that Zuko’s redemption
arc succeeds where others fail.
There is a whole lot of stuff that makes his story so interesting, and I could go on and
on about it forever, but instead of doing that, I’ve done my best to boil it down
to just three key reasons that I think his arc works so well.
Number one: His redemption is not linear.
What I mean by that is that Zuko’s path doesn’t just go straight from bad to good.
His path in book 2 leads you to believe that that’s what could be happening.
When he goes to Ba Sing Se with his uncle to be safe from the Fire Nation, he’s largely
given up on hunting the avatar, so it seems like he’s improving.
But, when it turns out that the avatar is in Ba Sing Se, he’s right back on his avatar-hunting,
since he clearly never got over it.
But, when his uncle confronts him when he’s trying to steal Appa, he does end up doing
the right thing and setting Appa free.
So even though there was a little hiccup on his journey to becoming good, he does seem
to be on a good path now.
He goes through some physical symptoms, essentially sweating out his badness, but then wakes up
happy and ready to live a chill life with his uncle at a tea shop.
At this point, it seems like Zuko has changed for good.
He’s much different than the person he started out as, and the show leads you to believe he’s good now.
But, when Azula presents him with the opportunity to throw it all away and instead return to
the Fire Nation and get everything he used to want, he ends up going back on his progress and joins Azula.
I think when I first watched the show a bunch of years ago, I was genuinely very shocked
by the moment when Zuko chooses to join Azula.
You know it’s a good scene because of its emotional impact, because of how it leads
you one way but then jerks you another way.
It gets you to root for Zuko, to really want something better for Zuko, and then nope,
it takes it all away.
I think for the viewer, that makes for a very emotional and memorable moment, which is great
storytelling on its own, but what makes it even better is how it really does make sense for Zuko.
For years, he’s been searching for the Avatar.
For years he’s wanted nothing more than to go back to the Fire Nation, be forgiven
by his father, and get his honor back.
Releasing Appa was a good step, working at the tea shop with his uncle was a good step,
but it wasn’t enough to undo what was a very deeply ingrained idea in Zuko’s head,
that maybe he could go back home and things could go back to normal.
If he had decided to join Aang at this moment, I don’t think his redemption arc would be
nearly as loved as it is today.
It would’ve felt just, pretty easy.
Like all he needed was a little encouragement and he changed his entire worldview.
The fact that he betrays his uncle and goes back on the progress he made was necessary
for him to really earn his redemption.
And, it’s realistic.
For most people, growth is not linear.
In any aspect of your life, you’ll probably mess up before you get it right.
You’ll probably slip up even when you want to do better.
Not only is Zuko’s arc compelling, but it’s relatable too.
And it’s Zuko’s betrayal at Ba Sing Se that leads me into my next point.
Number two: Zuko’s story comes full circle.
After Ba Sing Se, Zuko returns to the Fire Nation and gets everything he ever wanted.
He has his honor back.
He sits in on war meetings.
He has a girlfriend.
Everything he was fighting for for years is suddenly real.
That is absolutely critical to his development, because if he never went back to the Fire
Nation, there would always be those unresolved questions in the back of his mind.
What if he could go back?
What if things could return to normal?
What if his father could love him?
Zuko needed to return to be able to get a definitive answer to those things.
He needed to see that the life he was yearning for was not one that he actually wanted.
He was chasing after a dream of the past, of an idea of what he hypothetically thought could exist.
But in reality, the “normal” that he could return to was not what he imagined it to be.
The thing he had been chasing did not exist.
And so that leads to a lot of internal anguish for him.
When he’s back in the Fire Nation, we see him being unhappy, and we even get a whole
episode of him working through his emotions with Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee, where he realizes
that despite having everything he ever wanted, he’s angrier than ever.
Confusion about who he is and what he really wants has always been a core part of his character,
so of course he’s not able to easily sift through his emotions and see what he wants.
But over time, he gets there.
And the last straw seems to be the fact that he finally comes full circle to the moment
that got him banished in the first place.
Years ago, he sat in on a war meeting, but when he heard about a plan to knowingly sacrifice
Fire Nation troops, he spoke out against it.
That’s what led to his father challenging him to an Agni Kai, giving him his scar, and banishing him.
So this time, he’s invited to a war meeting, something horrible is proposed -- this time, it’s
his father saying he’s going to wipe out the Earth Kingdom -- but, unlike last time,
Zuko says nothing.
He’s the perfect prince.
He’s had the chance to come back and do it all again the way he thought he should have before.
And that, finally, is what gives him clarity.
He knows that using Sozin’s Comet to wipe out everyone is wrong.
He knows that speaking out against that plan is the right thing to do, which means that
maybe he was never meant to be the perfect prince.
Maybe he should have spoken out before.
Maybe he wasn’t in the wrong, but in fact, his father was in the wrong for attacking him.
It’s a pivotal moment that creates a domino effect in Zuko’s mind, allowing him to see
how awful Ozai has been, both in his mistreatment of Zuko and in his quest for world domination.
I think there’s something very poetic about the series coming full circle with Zuko in
the war meeting, but it also just makes so much sense for his character.
Of course the only thing that could fully turn him against his dad is him getting another
chance to be the perfect prince and realizing that that isn’t who he is.
At the same time, even back in the Fire Nation, he continues to be manipulated by Azula when
she tells Ozai that Zuko is the one who killed Aang, even though Zuko knows Aang is still alive.
That puts even more pressure on him to think about who he is and what he wants.
Because he could stay and fight and blame Azula and accept any punishment from his father.
Season 1 Zuko might have thought that that would be the honorable thing to do.
But he sees now that the honorable thing is for him to be true to himself, and to leave
so that he can help Aang defeat the Fire Lord.
Even at home, Zuko is manipulated and in danger, and that’s not the life he wants for himself.
He wants to live a life where he does what is right, and not just what his father wants of him.
That’s the best possible way for Zuko to have to come to that realization, and it leads
to a heart-wrenching confrontation with his father when he leaves and is finally able to tell him off.
I love that scene so much and I love that you can hear the emotion in Zuko’s voice
when he’s finally able to say the things he’s been too afraid to admit.
"How can you possibly justify a duel with a child?
It was cruel, and it was wrong.”
But after that, after Zuko has come to this realization and decided what side he wants
to be on, that’s what brings us to the next part of his redemption arc.
Number three: He knows that people will hate him, and he accepts that without getting defensive.
When Zuko tells off his dad, he’s talking about the people outside of the Fire Nation,
and he says, “They hate us, and we deserve it!”
That “we deserve it part” is very important.
Zuko’s not here to say Not All Fire Nation People.
He realizes how horrible the Fire Nation has been and he rightfully believes that the hatred
of them, including him, is justified.
He could’ve taken a different approach to this.
He could’ve said, “They hate you, the Fire Lord, because they don’t know the real Fire Nation.”
He could’ve shifted the responsibility off of himself and tried to defend aspects of
the Fire Nation while still admitting that what the Fire Nation was currently doing was wrong.
People do this all the time when they don’t want to accept responsibility for the harm
they’ve done, or the harm they’ve been complicit in.
It’s vital to Zuko’s redemption arc that he accepts that the hatred of the Fire Nation is justified.
That’s him accepting responsibility for his role in the war rather than him trying
to say, “Well, I’m good now, so they have no reason to hate me.”
He knows that he can’t erase his past and that people are going to hate him, and he accepts that.
We see this more in-depth once he goes to join Aang and the others.
He admits that he’s done horrible things and apologizes, but obviously, they still don’t trust him.
Aang straight up says, “We’ll never let you join us!”
This would make it really easy for Zuko to hate them.
He could easily get defensive and think something along the lines of, “Well I’m good now,
and I said I’m sorry, and they still won’t trust me, so they don’t deserve my help.”
I’ve seen this reaction from people a lot.
They do or say something really bad, are rightfully hated for it, but then they give a single
apology and expect all to be forgiven.
So when they’re still hated, they dig their heels in even further to the bad thing that they said or did.
They go, “Well, I tried to be good, but you all were mean to me!
So now I’m bad again!
You did this, not me!”
When in reality, people should want to do good just because it’s the right thing to
do, not because people will be nice to them or praise them for it.
If you really do want to be good, you’ll continue to be good even when people are mean
to you, or hate you, or spray you with water and refuse to even take you prisoner.
So the fact that Zuko doesn’t get defensive, that he sticks around and tries to help them
anyway, that shows the viewer that he really has changed.
On the flip side, the writers could’ve had Aang accept Zuko right away.
After all, Aang’s whole thing is being a pacifist and wanting to find the good in people,
so it would be in character for him to want to accept Zuko.
Plus, since Appa likes Zuko, and Aang trusts Appa so much, it really would just make sense
if Aang was like, “Okay Zuko, come join our group, thanks for being good now.”
But, Aang had to say no at first because Zuko needed some pushback to really challenge his
dedication to being good.
And writing-wise, it’s believable that Aang would listen to Katara and Sokka’s concerns
and side with them because he wants to trust their instincts.
And then, of course, Zuko digs himself into an even deeper hole by accidentally burning
Toph, which is a heartbreaking scene, because you know that Zuko didn’t intentionally
hurt Toph, but you can also see why Toph wouldn’t trust him after that.
The key thing here, though, is that even after that, Zuko never gets mad at Toph for sneaking
up on him, or for hating him.
He only gets mad at himself for hurting her.
This was, again, another chance for Zuko to shift the responsibility for his actions elsewhere.
He could’ve blamed Toph.
He could’ve gotten mad at all of them and stormed off.
But he doesn’t.
He sits with his mistakes and tries to do better.
And in a really clever way, that incident ends up being the thing that convinces Aang
that Zuko should be his firebending teacher, because Zuko admits that he needs to learn
to control his firebending better so that he doesn’t hurt people, which is exactly
what Aang has been worried about since he first tried firebending.
On top of all of that, after Zuko joins their group, he continues to put in the work to
get the others to trust him, first by going on a mission with Aang to discover the original
source of firebending, then by helping Sokka free his dad from prison, then by helping
Katara confront her mother’s killer.
He really puts in the work to get them to trust him, rather than just expecting them
to trust him solely because he says he’s good now.
Zuko’s redemption arc feels so satisfying because he has to earn it.
He’s not easily accepted by the Gaang, and he never gets defensive about that.
He does the work to be accepted, and never gets mad at them for hating him, because he
knows that based on his past actions, he deserves it.
It’s both a well-written story, and a blueprint for how anyone can try to be good once they
realize that they’re on the wrong side.
There’s a whole lot of other stuff that goes into Zuko’s redemption arc, but I think
those are the main three things: his redemption isn’t linear, he gets everything he wanted
when he comes full circle, and he accepts that people will hate him without getting defensive.
This isn’t the only way to write a redemption arc, but it is definitely a very good way.
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*weak puff of smoke, Aang clapping*