Look in all seriousness you can’t redeem a character without showing them being pathetic, deep loser energy. There are no cool redemption arcs. They have to be in the trenches. They have to hate themselves for the mistakes they made. They have to apologize and take whatever is given be it forgiveness or a punch to the jaw. ONLY then will the redemption arc be actually good because it will be cathartic. And then they get to see the good things, they get to be touched gently and held while they sleep.
These things can overlap, even into a circle but without the pathetic loser boy saga your redemption arc will feel hollow.
my sister said to me that she doesn’t think Azula would’ve killed Aang if not to bring Zuko home, and that made me realize something very interesting.
Azula doesn’t have a reason to want to capture Aang.
Not anymore than the rest of the Fire Nation. She wasn’t ordered to, but she was ordered to bring Zuko (and Iroh) home. Which she does, by killing Aang and giving Zuko the credit.
And you know what’s interesting? During the main four interactions Azula has with Aang during the second season, she sends Mai and Ty Lee away. She leaves them to fight Katara and Sokka, she leaves them to chase the bison she knows doesn’t have the Avatar, she fights him solo on the Drill and she leaves them to guard a bear and an empty throne while she takes on the Avatar in the catacombs.
She separates herself from them to fight Aang four different times.
From anyone else, it could be a pride thing. But Azula has shown on multiple occasions that she does not value pride above all else. She is insanely strategic, and she’s fine with making it look like someone else is winning if it means she has the upperhand. She admits when she needs help, hence having Mai and Ty Lee in the first place and Zuko in Ba Sing Se. She even apologizes to Ty Lee that one time. Azula does not value pride over results.
She doesn’t celebrate prematurely, either— during the Drill episode, she’s practically the only one who isn’t celebrating the victory. Azula doesn’t celebrate a victory until it’s final. Whereas Iroh in his flashback, a prideful man, had been boasting about burning Ba Sing Se to the ground.
Pride. It’s the food of the wise man, but the liquor of the fool.
It’s as if Azula is trying to capture/eliminate Aang specifically just to give Zuko the credit. The lack of witnesses, the way she seems to pursue the mission as a personal one. She intends to bring Zuko back to the Fire Nation as Ozai requested, but she intends to bring him back her way and get him unbanished.
there’s a little detail that i didn’t notice about “the blue spirit” when i first watched it. when zuko returns to his ship after his misadventures at ponhuai, avatar-less and honorless and still puzzling over aang’s speech and having made an enemy of zhao and probably severely concussed, iroh is there on deck.
music night happened the previous night. and yet it’s morning when zuko returns, and iroh is still playing the tsungi horn on deck.
iroh waited up all night for zuko to come back.
it’s such a small detail, but speaks volumes about their relationship. iroh not only allows zuko to sneak out in order to free the avatar in order to preserve his chance at regaining his honor, iroh actually subtly encorages zuko to free aang from ponhuai, even though he clearly knows that there’s every possibilty that zuko will be caught by zhao and iroh will not be able to save him.
as the guardian of a teenager, iroh’s influence over zuko is limited. iroh must allow zuko the freedom to chase after the destiny he thinks he wants, iroh cannot always protect zuko or keep him out of danger, iroh cannot even demonstrate affection to zuko in the way he would clearly like to because zuko is too hurt and guarded to be able to accept it from him -
- but iroh can wait up for him.
iroh can sit up all night, just to make sure that zuko gets home safely.
and it is such a striking element of their relationship, because I waited up all night for you becomes the unspoken love language by which they communicate caring and affection for each other.
iroh waits all night for zuko to return safely from ponhuai stronghold. iroh stays up while zuko sleeps on the ferry and waits up for zuko to return home from his date with jin. iroh sits up all night watching over zuko when he is sick and feverish.
and it’s not one-sided, because zuko waits up for iroh.
zuko waits up all night watching over an injured iroh after azula blasts him with blue fire. zuko sits up all night waiting for iroh to wake up when they reunite at the white lotus camp.
and this gesture becomes so important to zuko that it even becomes the way he demonstrates caring and concern for the members of the gaang. zuko waits up all night in appa’s saddle, knowing that sokka is planning a rescue mission. zuko waits up all night for katara to wake, knowing she needs to confront her own deeply-felt anger before she can understand and let go of it.
and this even is the gesture by which aang first demonstrates friendship to zuko. after zuko is knocked out by an arrow to his blue spirit mask, aang sits up with zuko for the rest of the night until zuko wakes up, just to make sure zuko is all right.
and the concept of sitting up all night for you is such a poignant contrast to zuko’s memory of his mother, who vanished out his life in the middle of the night, waking him up for a last goodbye.
it’s pretty clear that iroh sitting up all night with a sick child was far from an unusual occasion. i think it was probably really important for zuko to be shown, again and again and again, that he has someone who will be there when morning comes.
one parent left zuko in the night - but one parent will always wait up for him to come home.
This flashback in ATLA, Azulon becoming enraged with Ozai for disrespecting Iroh and the recently deceased Lu Ten, is usually interpreted as Azulon then ordering Ozai to kill Zuko. I disagree with this for two reasons.
1: We don’t actually hear Azulon say that, it’s only referred to by Azula (who was around seven or eight at the time and might have misunderstood what she heard) and by Ozai, years later, when he is taunting Zuko on the Day of Black Sun. Neither Azula nor Ozai are reliable narrators.
2: Azulon is, at the time of this flashback, the ruler of the Fire Nation who has just lost one of his only two grandsons and heirs. What kind of monarch loses one heir and then turns around and demands the death of another, especially when losing Zuko would hardly bother Ozai?
My interpretation of this situation is Azulon ordered Ozai to give Zuko into Iroh’s care, replacing Lu Ten as Iroh’s heir, neatly removing any argument Ozai had about Iroh’s line having ended. Ozai of course would never accept this. He either lied to Ursa, claiming Azulon wished Zuko dead, or outright told his wife he’d kill Zuko before seeing him get ahead of him in the line of succession, thus manipulating Ursa to help him assassinate Azulon. I think this theory makes far more logical sense than ‘Azulon ordered the murder of his nine-year-old grandson’.
today i’m sad about that one line from the creator’s commetary about how zuko is a tsungi horn prodigy and the little letter zuko, aged 7, sends iroh in “legacy of the fire nation” where he very politely requests that iroh come home and teach him pai sho tricks, because that casts such a different light on their interactions in book one. it was never iroh trying to push his own favorite things - pai sho and music night - on an uninterested zuko, it was iroh desperately trying to reconnect with zuko by recreating the activities he knows zuko used to enjoy. zuko, aged 7, once begged iroh to come home and play board games with him and now zuko wants nothing to do with him and you know that eats iroh up alive
IS THIS YOUR OWN DESTINY??? OR IS IT A DESTINY SOMEONE ELSE HAS TRIED TO FORCE ON YOU????? IROH IS SPEAKING TO HIMSELF!!!!!!!! he met ran and shaw! he met the masters and saw the truth of beauty and life in firebending! BEFORE!!! the siege of ba sing se!!! before zuko was even BORN!!!! and yet he STILL! WAGED! WAR! iroh says it is time to look within yourself and start asking the BIG QUESTIONS! these were questions iroh didn’t encounter until after his son was dead! until he watched teenage zuko desperately reach for anything he could in order to be accepted to a home that doesn’t WANT HIM! iroh failed his entire life! as a man, as a brother, as a father, as a general, as a prince! he failed because the things he wanted were WRONG! and it is not until he witnesses ZUKO DESPERATELY WANTING THE THINGS IROH KNOWS WILL KILL HIM THAT HE REALIZES. THIS IS THE CYCLE THEY’RE ALL STUCK IN. THIS IS THE WAY OF THEIR FAMILY! IT IS ABOUT NATION AND WAR AND INHERITANCE AND NOTHING ELSE!
it has to end and iroh cannot end it because it is too LATE for him. he lived a life entrenched in the sins of his family. and it is THROUGH ZUKO that he begins to think what if i had said no? what if i had had the courage to defy my father, or my son the courage to defy his? why could i not see? and he couldn’t see because the only way you COULD SEE would be if you were HURT BY YOUR FATHER AND BANISHED!!! away from the palace! away from the royal family!
this is why he says to zuko in the end that he won’t become fire lord, zuko has to. he says it’s because history will see it as more senseless violence, a brother killing a brother, but it’s not just that. iroh has had just as much of a hand in this war as his brother. he is the sins of their family, not some sort of quaint spiritual guide for his nephew. and it was only through the lens of seeing zuko crave a life he cannot POSSIBLY EVER go back to that iroh realizes. this is fucked up!
personally i think there should have been at least one episode where sokka collects aang and zuko and is like, “looks like we’re running low on supplies. time for a GUYS-ONLY field trip. three days of hunting and fishing and polishing our swords. y’know, manly warrior stuff. (aang, sotto voce: actually sokka i’m a vegetarian as you know–) you girls have fun sitting around braiding your hair and talking about your crushes” and then the entire episode is just zuko and sokka lying around by a river, plucking blades of grass and staring up at the stars confiding in each other their deepest feelings and most secret insecurities while aang braids flower crowns, and whenever the screen cuts back to katara and toph and suki, they’re fighting and screaming and hacking away at river pirates and evil spirits and legions of assassins and hired mercenaries with swords. you know, as girls do.
and when the boys finally drag themselves back to camp (they stayed up way too late discussing what true leadership really means and whether or not power always corrupts) they find suki and toph and katara lounging around with black eyes and fresh bruises and bloodstained weapons and sokka shrieks, “what were you guys DOING while we were gone???” and karata just shugs innocently and says in her sweetest voice, “oh, you know. just girly things”
