#Zuko Discourse

[count-horror-xx]

I actually like zutara as a concept, it's a ship I'll casually read fics about them sometimes.

it's just zutara fans are fucking delusional. Stop treating their Canon partners as abusive when it's the complete opposite. Especially Mai.

Aang isn't a misogynistic monk that forces katara to be his house wife. If he did katara would leave him in a millisecond. He actually cares so much about her. It's actually Canon HE cooks and accommodates his cultural food with kataras.

And Mai was literally ready to die for zuko. Even when they just broke up, she was ready to get electrocuted by azula if it wasn't for ty lee chi blocking azula.

I'm aware it seems like she doesn't care about him the way she's quiet and aloof but I understand where she was coming as someone who somewhat has similar tendencies of being a little awkward when trying to show emotions and it coming off as being uncaring or rude. But at the end of the day she really shows she loves him, so people saying she's abusive is completely inaccurate to her character.

Her bottling up her emotions was taught by her parents as she explains in the beach episode somewhat where she had to worry about her father's reputation all the the time, forcing her to be quiet as a form of behaving.

Personally I think her quiet personality fits with Zukos loud ass, especially giving him a reality check during the beach episode calling him out for being angry all the time and how he needs to keep it in check.

Zutara is a nice ship I agree but you can ship it without mischaracterizing tf out of thier Canon partners.

[broadwaybalogna]

This is so interesting to me because it’s technically canon that Katara was reduced to being “the avatars wife”. Like, A@ng was always the breadwinner while Katara just watched from the sidelines.

Also, Zutarians will more commonly say that Katara being fire lady gives her the same kind of political power as Zuko, or he would give her such. So it would be a relationship where both are important figures and neither are living in the others shadow.

[quillthrillswriting]

i'm sorry, but the atla fandom is the only place where i've ever seen people unironically use a 12 year old telling his friend that killing someone out of grief is maybe a rash decision and not healthy to argue that that same 12 year old is being controlling and is an unhealthy partner

you guys know that murder is like....a bad thing....right? especially for a 14 year old? you guys know that revenge murder isn't a healthy strategy? you guys know that anyone who would encourage that is probably actually the unhealthy one in that scenario...right??

[blluespirit]

back on my 'zuko is aroace' agenda. if i have to see one more post arguing about shipping i am going to start biting people. he's actually a single dad and never marries thanks bye.

[azulaaaaaaah]

rating every zuko ship (cause that mf is shipped with everyone)

CLICKBAIT!!! this isn’t every zuko ship just the main ones i immediately lied lol. idk if any of these are hot takes or not but please don’t crucify me (might do a part 2 where it’s azula ships)

Jinko - Zuko/Jin

6/10

awwww it’s cute (for what it is)

and what it is was one singular date that was never really mentioned again

i really appreciate how jin is so unperturbed by zuko’s awkward angst and just genuinely likes him

howevvver she’s kinda one dimensional (as she’s only in like an episode) and i just don’t see this going anywhere longterm

less a ship, more a vehicle for zuko’s character development lol

Jetko- Zuko/Jet

3/10

jet being zuko’s first gay encounter is canon in my eyes

don’t ship them however cause i hate jet with the fire of a thousands suns

similar issues to jin as well where their interactions are extremely limited so personally have no clue how this could be a long term thing

Maiko- Zuko/Mai

5/10

i am so impartial on this ship it’s not even funny.

i get that it’s canon. i get that izumi looks suspiciously like mai so it’s endgame. i just don’t see HOW?? it feels as if the writers realised zutara was becoming popular and were like ‘OH SHIT WE GOTTA DEFUSE THIS SITUATION SOMEHOW’

their relationship is basically just mai being a cold asshole and zuko being an angry asshole and there’s no change or development between EITHER OF THEM

however when they’re cute they’re cute !!!!

‘i love zuko more than i fear you’ COLDEST LINE EVER

however again it’s like - you had a crush on him as a kid. he was BANISHED. you dated for like a month as teens. you argued the whole time. he left again- and shortly after you saved him from prison, but then you were imprisoned partly due to his actions. you get back together again, he becomes the ruler of a country, and then you’re surprised it’s isolating him/making him even more of an asshole???

on the other hand we as a society need to admit that zuko is weirdly possessive of her (ig that’s a positive if ur a booktok romance girlie but im not). like if i was mai i wouldn’t put up with that toxic shit either

at the end of the day, i honestly don’t care that they’re canon lol- but i think they’d probably best as a bitchy best friend duo

Zukaang - Zuko/Aang

1/10

not round here partner. not round here

my first issue is the age gap is objectively extremely weird if examined in canon. leaving it at that

i get that this is grumpy x sunshine in a way the other ships aren’t to me- but we’ve only ever seen these two characters interact with each other when there’s (again) A WEIRD AGE GAP

they are bros in the least homosexual way possible

the cherry on top of this situation is: isn’t aang the reincarnation of his great grandpa? isn’t that giving slight, uh, inc*st vibes??? imagine if people shipped korra and jinora isn’t that just WEIRD???

Zuki - Zuko/Suki

8/10

is this my most controversial take ???

i am a sucker for bodyguard x royal family dynamics guys

and the fact that this is girlboss x malewife is even BETTER

suki seems the most competent at handling his pissy ass in a way the other people on this list aren’t

like she’s real. she’s not sugarcoating his situation, BUT SHES COMPASSIONATE !!

i don’t like throuples typically but suzukki is even eliter than this, which removes the whole ‘going against the bro code’ element that arises from them being together

also i feel like if you haven’t read the comics this doesnt make sense At All so please do

-2 points for the lack of tangible reason to ship them lol

Zutara - Zuko/Katara

7.5/10

okay this one makes the most logistical sense to me within canon (solely examined as a zuko ship not overall)

it really seems as if they were gonna make this canon and swerved circa book 2

LIKE CMONNNN OG ENEMIES TO LOVERS WHERE THE GUY ACTUALLY HAS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND ISN’T JUST EVIL? FIRE X WATER? ITS INTRIGUING

something about this makes me uncomfortable though. (despite the age gap which again a little weird)

something about katara potentially becoming the fire lady is so… icky. she’s a waterbender. the fire nation tried to systematically erase her kind. her mother is killed by the fire nation because they think she’s a waterbender. and katara…. what, becomes part of the royal family? it just seems wrong, and like something she wouldn’t be into

also i feel like their arguments would be a little too NUCLEAR. there’s like, a 50% chance of divorce

she deserves a better ending than that is all i’m saying

to paraphrase the hunger games: katara has plenty of fire herself. SHE NEEDS THAT DANDELION IN THE SPRING MAN

(i’m a kataang truther)

Zukka - Zuko/Sokka

9/10

my zuko related otp!!!

bros to lovers guys, where zuko falls first but sokka falls HARDER !!!

ik this will never be canon and im happy with that. i know there’s not even a whisper of romance between them in the show, but i just think it’s c u t e .

sokka (like suki) is very likely to call zuko out on his shit, but less likely to lose his own shit (like katara)

this in my heart of hearts is 10/10 however is still problematic in a similar way to zutara

his mother is killed by the fire nation and he (presumably) becomes consort ?

however though, i would still say it’s not as ruhroh as zutara bc firstly, sokka isn’t a waterbender, and secondly, ‘consort’ is a lot more open to interpretation than i think fire lady is. in my opinion a consort ≠ a fire lady, just like irl a consort ≠ a queen. it kinda means he can still be ambassador to the southern water tribe/a leader of his own people, while just so happening to be married to the fire lord.

overall i can’t help but stan a friends to lover ship cmOn now

[maikingsenseofit]

I think almost all of the anti Mai discourse from namely Zutara shippers boils down to this.

You can try and deliberately misconstrue the writing to say Zuko forgot Mai, was never happy around her, never loved her, etc etc

But not once can you say Zuko ever looked at Katara, Jin, or any other female character you ship him with the same way he looks at Mai in these four panels.

What I love about the art of animation is it conveys so much when words can’t.

The eyes, Chico. They never lie.

This single scene conveys so much love, adoration, and the happiness of finally reuniting with your soulmate. And no amount of dissertations on how a fanon ship would’ve made a children’s tv show more enjoyable to you will never change that.

The curse of canon weighs on Maiko and Kataang shippers, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

[ecoterrorist-katara]

“It’s gross if Katara marries Zuko since he’s her colonizer” she overthrew the last Fire Lord to put Zuko on the throne. If anything the Fire Nation would be worried that he’s Katara’s puppet

[theweeklydiscourse]

No, actually. It is not “shaming Katara’s femininity” or her “maternal traits” to critique the ways in which her character was relegated to a the passive role of the Avatar’s grieving widow and largely ignored by the narrative post-ATLA. Oh my god, we are not “degrading” Katara by pointing out the sexist implications of how her character was handled and to suggest such a thing is just so…infuriating and very revealing of the underlying sexism in the fandom.

No thoughts, just people endlessly glorifying Katara’s maternal tendencies without bothering to question or investigate the adverse effects of her parentification. Apparently anyone who criticizes the writing of Katara’s character is just denigrating “traditional femininity” and THEY are the true misogynists! Not the male writers or viewers who consistently minimize Katara’s significance to the narrative and mock fans who ship her with anyone other than Aang.

Not at all, really we should just accept the conditions of the narrative uncritically and never question the biases of the creators. How dare we criticize them and point out the underlying sexism in their writing?

[sokkastyles]

The thing about Fire Lady Katara, for example, is that one common criticism is that Katara is "abandoning her culture," but that's a statement you can't definitively make by just reading someone's headcanon or fic.

What you can say is "there should be more works where Katara interacts with her own culture," and I agree, and I do try to be conscious of that when I write Katara, especially if she is also Fire Lady or living in the Fire Nation.

But just because a fic doesn't include Katara interacting with her culture doesn't necessarily mean she has "abandoned" it. You cannot tell what the writer's intentions, ethnicity, or political beliefs are just by reading that fic. You cannot.

And if you think you can, you are wrong.

Especially since canon itself doesn't give us a whole lot to go on in terms of Water Tribe culture. Fandom is a hobby, and not everyone who engages in it is or has to be an academic-level researcher or writer. And it's ridiculous to demand that of people for the sake of inclusivity, and even more ridiculous to think you can make assumptions about someone's intentions or identity because of how they interact with fandom.

[whendeeplybored]

I just wanted to share some thoughts and have a pleasant conversation about Fire Lady Katara.

I am a zutara shipper but my idea of them is more like they get together in their 20s and have the most passionate romance and then break up because of their duties (Katara goes back to the South pole becomes chief/ Zuko stays as fire lord in the Fire Nation). Then, when old, they both step down and get back together and maybe brew some tea at iroh's old tea shop in Ba Sing Se until they die at the same time peacefully or something like this. So, obviously, Fire Lady Katara isn't my favourite trope, but I am not necessarily against it. It's cute.

Still, I always see people being so violently against that trope and even going as far as calling it racist and reductive and I didn't really get where they got these ideas from until I saw the reasonings.

The main one is "the fire nation killed her people". And, fair enough, I see where people are coming from with that but, at the same time, this is very surface level criticism and above all she would never be the Fire Lady to that Fire Nation but to a reformed one anyway. Zuko worked hard his entire life to decolonise and right the wrongs of the Fire Nation. History should never be forgotten, of course, but it also should not shape how one feels about a place forever. Places, countries, are always changing, developing and evolving. People having their mindset on Fire Nation = wrong is just .... A flawed way of understanding the show/ season 3 imo. Especially when the fire nation changed drastically under Zuko's reign. So Katara would never have to be the queen of a racist and genocidal regime because the fn left all that behind. She would be the fl of a fire nation working on moving past that and improving themselves. And the main perpetrator of all the reforms pushing these changes forward would be her husband. Therefore I genuinely can't see how this came to mind to some people it's not like she's marrying ozai during the war.

I've also seen people say that it is not a real role and Katara would end up with no political influence and just being a pretty girl in Zuko's arms and to this I have to say...Do you understand Katara as a character ? She could be a cabbage marchant and start a revolution in two days! I mean even if the court wanted her to shut up and be Zuko's pretty doll.. she never would !? And nobody would be able to stop her!!! She would probably invite herself to meetings, have Zuko vouch for her anytime she spoke and have the time of her life insulting old men, debating with them and countering their stupid ideas with the tact she always had. She actually would be perfect at this and probably would be promoted to Fire Lord within two weeks of being Fire Lady let's be real.

I hope this made sense haha. If you see this tell me what you think! Let's have a civilised conversation.

[iamnotdirtylaundry]

sapphic zukka doodle im not finishing :P

[sulkybender]

Zuko is smart.

Sometimes I see joking in the fandom about Zuko being dumb, or a himbo. And part of the reason it makes me uncomfortable is because we know that was how he was treated growing up—Azula is always calling him Dum-Dum. It's the narrative told in his family about who he is, by the people in his life who treated him poorly.

And, some joking aside—famously that moment with Aang on their field-trip—the Gaang doesn't call him dumb or think of him that way, because he isn't. He's ridiculously resourceful, thoughtful when his emotions don't push him to do something rash, and perceptive. If he can be a little literal-minded at times, that seems to come from lack of exposure to the world—to friends, honestly.

Personally I just remember the moment when I understood the narrative my family told about me wasn't true, once I stepped outside my house—that I wasn't a dull, depressing person who annoyed everyone; that I was, in fact, very loving and curious and funny—and what I love about ATLA (among so many things!) is that we get to see Zuko experience that too, when he joins the Gaang. Unlearning the ways in which his family never valued him; learning how to be with people in the world, what friendship means.

Zuko isn't dumb. He's learning.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

you know what made zuko work as a sympathetic and redeemable antagonist? the fact that he actually faced a moral dilemma and didn't want to do half of the things he did. the fact that he sometimes did the right thing even when he was actively an antagonist.

i feel like spop writers tried to replicate this but forgot to make catra act redeemable. she was just having the time of her life torturing people and there's a mini-breakdown every now and then where she acts like everyone is against her, and we're supposed to feel sorry for her.

[kathrahender]

Some people always get angry when a villain is redeemed. They say things like "Stop redeeming the villain" "Villain redemption is such a terrible trope" "Not all villains deserve redemption" "Villains redemption are ruining media" "You are afraid of villanous characters because you can't bear people making mistakes" "Villain redemption is toxic/unhealthy" "You shouldn't try to fix someone!" and- Well- I have to talk about this because I seriously don't understand why people don't want to accept villains redemption.

"Villain redemption is such a terrible trope" "Villains redemption are ruining media". No, it's not a bad trope. Is not ruining media. It's an awesome trope, a wholesome trope, and I'm gonna say why. A villain redemption means nothing more than a person realizing they did bad things. It means a villain becoming a better person, a villain leaving the Dark Side because humanity and honor were more important than evilness and cruelty for them. And that's a beautiful concept. A villain becoming good? A villain who stops being bad because after all, they have a good side, because they are human? Where's the bad thing there? Where's the bad thing in realizing how much pain you've caused, and changing your morals for good? Seriously, people who hate villains redemption, where's the problem in this trope?

"Not all villains deserve redemption". Again with this tiring argument. When will you understand it? A villain redemption is not based on if they deserve it or not. It's based on the villain himself. It's based on their thoughts, on their morals. It's based on them changing from "I want to hurt/kill everyone who is against me" to "Oh God I'm a monster, what have I done?". Villains don't "deserve" redemption. They just redeem, or they don't, and it has nothing to do with "deserving" it. Some of you could think "Not all villains should be redeemed then!". I will talk about that argument in the last paragraph.

"You are afraid of villanous characters because you can't bear people making mistakes". That's definitely not true. That's bullshit. We're not afraid of people making mistakes. If that was true, we would be afraid of a hero making mistakes. And we aren't afraid of heroes who make mistakes. Because making mistakes makes you human. But- realizing you made a mistake also makes you human. That's what we like about this trope. A bad person, a villain or an anti-villain being actually human deep down.

"Villain redemption is toxic/unhealthy!" Actually- you know what's actually toxic? Hate. Hate is actually toxic. Hating someone is unhealthy. Of all the things you can do in your life, hating someone is the worst thing you can do. Why losing time hating when you can do better things for your heart and for your soul? Because the only thing you will get with hate is your heart/soul corrupted. A villain redeemed is not toxic nor unhealthy. Why a person changing for the better would be toxic or unhealthy?

"You shouldn't try to fix someone". Why? Why shouldn't I try to fix someone? Why shouldn't I want a bad person to turn good? Why shouldn't I want a villain becoming a hero? Why should I want the hate in this world to grow? Why should I want evilness to win? What you're saying doesn't make any sense. I want to fix villains because I believe in goodness! Because I want the good side to win! I want people having a happy ending, and the only way a villain can get a happy ending is being redeemed. And I want the villains to have a happy ending too because dying or getting tortured/being imprisioned after being suffering in your past is horrible. Yeah, I know villains hurt people, but some of them also were hurt, and although I don't justify them, I still want their pain to end and I want them to live, not just survive. I want them to change for the good, why is that so bad?

And even if they were "born evil" (what I doubt because for me villains are made not born) and "didn't suffered"- I want them to have a happy ending after redeeming because I want to believe in their goodness, in their humanity, and I don't want them to die because I think they also deserve a second chance in life and a chance to be happy (because if you can't be happy in this life, what's even the point?).

"But why would you want a villain having a happy ending after all they did????" Because I don't want them to suffer. "They made other people suffer, why would you want them to have a happy ending?" Because I believe no one deserves to have a bad ending in life. "So you defend the monsters in real life??? You support the real killers?? You are a murder apologist!!" Now hold on a fucking second. There's a fucking difference between liking a villain in fiction and want them to have a happy ending and want the real life villains to have a happy ending. Fiction is not fucking reality and you should know that. I want villains in fiction to redeem because I want to believe in their goodness, because I want to believe everyone is capable of being good, because I want to believe love and goodness can conquer all. Because I want to believe that no matter what, the good side will always win. Besides, most of the villains live in magic worlds, where sometimes death is not permanent, where you can see your loved ones even if it's not for a long time. And in fiction time-travel also exist. None of these things happen in reality. There's no magic, there's no time turner who can help you travel back in time to erase the villain's actions, there aren't Force Ghosts of your family or friends. Real life villains' actions are irrevocable and unforgivable. You can't bring back the dead because in this world once a person dies, that's the end of the line. But that doesn't happen in fiction. So stop comparing a real life villain actions with a fictional villain actions. They're not the same.

To end this post I want to say that the ones who like villains redemption (I'm a part of those people, of course) don't want all villains to be redeemed. There are villains we hate with all our heart, villains who are pure evil who doesn't deserve anything good. Villains like Gerard Argent, Dolores Umbridge, Sheev Palpatine, Captain Turner, Sebastian Shaw and Azulon. And more villains like those. So yeah, we do not want to see every villain redeemed.

[wileycap]

[spoilers for atla]

I don't like (and at the same time I like it very much) how fandom makes Zuko into a Soft Widdle Ducky.

Like, yeah, he's awkward and traumatized. But he is very much a warrior prince at the same time. Look at his confrontation with Ozai: "you're going to listen, or I'm going to cut you in two with my swords".

During the series, Zuko almost never struggles with immediate action and decisions - but he's really terrible at measured, considered action and decisions.

I want to see that side of Zuko in fic. Like, a former war minister gets out of line? "Right. Let's take this outside. Do you want fire or steel." Sure, by the end of the series he's much more mature, grounded and peaceful, but so many fics I read, he just kind of folds when people get aggressive with him, when his more canonically true self would likely just go "yup, that's a threat, first you're going to get your ass beat and then I'm throwing you in jail, I don't really care how influential you are." And I want to see him deal with that.

That being said, I still enjoy all those fics where Zuko's personality is basically 🥺🔥

[sad-endings-suck]

“We need more reception arcs like Zuko’s!”

Baby girl, you couldn’t even handle Taigen.

A huge reason why Zuko has been immortalized so fervently is because ATLA came out in the mid 2000s, nearing two decades ago. With the state of basic reading comprehension, much less media literacy, social awareness, and chronically online behaviour that exists nowadays in a way it did not exist fifteen years ago, I would be surprised if the live action ATLA tv adaptation didn’t make Zuko a bit more likeable right off the bat. I’m not saying I agree with it, but if the show-runners are concerned about audiences reactions to Sokka’s (wrong, but relatively mild) sexism that exists in only the first few episodes of the show, then the idea of redeeming Zuko has got to be terrifying them. Tbh I don’t entirely blame them, even though I’m not certain it’s a good idea for the story as an adaptation.