Figured I'd Bring Back Some Nice Zuko Thoughts Too - Tumblr Posts

Does the internet need more Season 1 Zuko meta? Yes? No? Doesn't matter, the internet is getting it anyway! Specifically, meta about Zuko's portrayal in The Storm - the first time we really get to dig into Zuko's backstory and start to see his potential to be more than just an antagonist. (Put under a read more to make it easier to skip for people who don't care/dislike Zuko/just don't want to read meta about him at the moment!)

Obviously, Zuko starts off The Storm looking like a selfish asshole who prioritizes his personal mission over the lives and safety of his crew. However, as the episode progresses we learn why he acts that way, and we see a glimpse by the end of the more compassionate person he still wants to be underneath his trauma.

There's a lot of obvious discussion already out there about how The Storm provides us with Zuko's tragic backstory and thus sets him up as a sympathetic villain. What I feel like I haven't seen a lot of is a discussion of just how directly relevant the story of Zuko's burning and banishment is to his behavior at the start of The Storm, and just how meaningful it is that Zuko chooses to turn back for the sake of his crew rather than continuing to pursue the Avatar in that moment by the end of The Storm.

We learn from Iroh that, at 13, Zuko wanted to be let into a War Meeting he wasn't supposed to be at, promised Iroh that he would be silent, and then broke that promise because a general suggested a plan to sacrifice a bunch of young and inexperienced soldiers for the sake of advancing the Fire Nation's war efforts in the Earth Kingdom. Zuko yells at the general for suggesting this plan to sacrifice loyal soldiers, and in the midst of his anger he characterizes the plan as a betrayal of those soldiers' loyalty. In response, his dad who is also the Fire Lord demands that he defend his honor in an Agni Kai.

Of course, we all know how that went for Zuko. He was effectively tricked into an Agni Kai with his father (he initially thought the Agni Kai would be against the general, not Ozai, and doesn't learn that his opponent is Ozai until he turns around in the arena), he was horrifically burned by his dad while crying and kneeling on the floor because he refused to fight, and then he was banished and tasked by the Fire Lord with capturing the Avatar as the only way to restore his honor.

So now, at the start of The Storm, we have a Zuko who is trying desperately to prove that he has learned the lesson that was literally branded onto his face - the lesson that the lives of individual soldiers matters less than successfully advancing the Fire Nation cause in the war. Zuko once tried to argue that the lives of individual soldiers should matter, and for that he got half his face seared off and was barred from returning home until he completed a quest that was at the time largely assumed to be impossible.

Yet here he is, the object of his supposedly impossible quest alive and potentially within his grasp against all reasonable expectation, and what is he told by the people around him? That he should prioritize the lives and safety of his crew over completing the task he was given by the Fire Lord - a task that moreover would significantly improve the Fire Nation's odds in the war. The crew are essentially repeating Zuko's 13-year-old self's priorities at him and telling him those priorities are right, while all Zuko has to do is look in a mirror to remind himself of what the Fire Lord, the Fire Nation's highest authority, would prioritize.

So Zuko, who is still clinging desperately to the idea that he can both do the right thing/be a good person and please his dad/"earn" his dad's love at the same time, stomps and shouts and demands that his crew sail into the oncoming storm against all reasonable safety advice.

And then, in spite of how desperately Zuko wants to be the man his father wants him to be, in spite of how desperately he wants to be capable of "earning" his father's love and going home, we see that Zuko hasn't managed to fully crush the compassion and care for his people that got him into this position in the first place. He risks his own life to save the life of a crew member who's safety harness breaks, even though that crew member probably doesn't much like or respect Zuko as a leader and even though Zuko gets injured in the process. Then he finally agrees to turn back - to prioritize the safety of his ship and his crew instead of the mission he was given by the Fire Lord - even after seeing the Avatar flying away as they pass through a temporary break in the clouds.

Ozai literally tried to burn Zuko's compassion for other people out of him when Zuko was 13, and he failed. When Zuko tries to be the man his father supposedly wants, he is a furious, stompy, raging disaster. Because underneath all the pain and rage grown from the traumas of his past, what Zuko really wants is just to be allowed to care about his people and to be loved by his family at the same time.

Deep down - very deep down, still, in Season 1 - Zuko knows that Ozai was wrong and he was right that day, when he prioritized compassion and lives over military conquest.