#this is about zuko and katara and aang

[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??

[candyskiez]

Y'all have gotta get more insane about platonic relationships like you are about romantic relationships. We need to get more annoying about them NOW. I need to see more meta and losing our minds over them. Get more annoying NOW. More than that. More than that also.

[bakedbeanchan]

Drawing from a mini comic where the timeline is reset but Zuko still has all his memories

Minicomic here

[demaparbat-hp]

What am I doing with my life.

Based on this post by @fattuccini-afraido

[emkini]

Currently thinking about 18/19 year old Toph getting thrown in some random podunk fire nation town’s one-cell jail and being like “hey I’m broke as hell but I’ve got a friend who can bail me out can I make a call” and then 2 hours later Fire Lord Zuko himself slams open the door yelling “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO THIS TIME YOU SHIT” 

[bernard-the-rabbit]

friendship bracelets for the gaang <3

[ID found by clicking alt on the piece]

[queen-morgana91]

"you miscalculated—i love Zuko more than i fear you” 🤝 "give me one reason to think you might hurt Aang, and you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore. Because I'll make sure your destiny ends, right then and there. Permanently."

[comradekarin]

toph would have sided with and supported katara and zuko during the southern raiders episode, and i’m tired of pretending she wouldn’t have. there’s a reason she wasn’t there! tsr would have started off so differently had she been there. I stand by that!!

[diornies]

zutara modern au 💭

the next song he sang was mr. brightside

[fanfic-gremlin-ft-trauma]

Some sketches that I actually got around to finishing :)

(ID’s in alt text)

[bblackthing]

This kids deserve some sleep after all

I forgot Katara's hand's thing >:(

[jellystreet]

zutara week 2024 | #3 echoes

echoes of the past are slow to fade

[navajja]

My first attempt at drawing alta characters

[demaparbat-hp]

Izumi (steambaby) sketches.

[katerina-q]

Sorry but I can't take seriously Zuko/Zutara stans complaining about "Zuko the colonizer" posts when many of you are literally calling a 12 year old Aang ( a pacifist monk and a genocide survivor) rapist, incel, abuser, selfish and misogynist.

There is a whole anti aang tag here on tumblr of Zutara shippers saying the most horrible shit about him, all because your ship is not canon (yes that's the real and only reason)

You have no fucking right to talk.

[wilcze-kudly]

Something I've always loved about atla is how it handled scars, particularly Zuko's facial scar and Aang's lightning scar.

I've probably spoken before about how, as a burn victim with a ton of skin grafts on my legs, torso and hand, Zuko really was the first character "like me" that I saw on TV. It was, as you can guess, quite a momentous moment for kid me. Which is probably why I'm so disheartened on the live action show shrinking and toning down Zuko's scar significantly.

Too often scars, especially burn scars are seen as gore or body horror and too graphic to be seen on TV that isn't horror or related genres. And often scars, especially facial scars are reserved purely for villains and are used as a signifier for 'evil'. A trope that you'll find is still alive and kicking even today even in big franchises.

And while Zuko does reinforce this trope to some extent, I think it was subverted enough for it to have irs own merit. Atla also steers away from the scars=evil narrative, by having a lot of "good" characters have scars too like Bato and Song. This helps destigmatise scars as a whole, making Zuko's 'scarred villany' seem like a more individual case.

In Atla, scars are more the trademark of victims rather than villains and this rings true for Zuko too.

Zuko is a victim of the Fire Nation in the sense that the Fire Nation's values of war, strength and honour facilitated Ozai's abuse of him, particularly the scarring.

Zuko's scarring does follow a very established trope of a son being scarred by a father, which is surprisingly prevalent, especially with burn victims. Seriously I collect these men like pokemon. This tropiness isn't a bad thing, since I think it leads to us very quickly sympathising with him. I certainly did, since his experience mirrors my own.

The scene of Zuko's scarring is also particularly special, due to it being rather unique, because it isn't quick or an action scene, nor is it shown as an overly gory horror scene, despite it being, well, horrific.

It's... tasteful. Or at least, as tasteful as the scene of a child getting scarred by their father can be, I suppose. It doesn't linger on the violence, but also doesn't sugarcoat it. The scene of Zuko's scarring, and the events leading up to it also give us a good exposition to his better qualities, like his compassion, and a good explanation for why these qualities stay buried.

I can understand why some people in the fandom believe that Zuko's scar symbolises his 'worse side', but I actually believe its the opposite. Very often, when a character has a 'split down the middle' type of scar, their scarred side represents their worse half, like with Two Face from DC.

Because Zuko's scar doesn't symbolise his allegiance to the Fire Nation, it symbolises the fact that he failed to live up to the Fire Nation's standards. It's a physical reminder of the time Zuko actively defied the Fire Nation's standards and mindset.

We get a lot of nods to Zuko's scar aymbolising disgrace and failure to uphold ehat the Fire Nation expected of him. It's literally a physical blemish upon his 'honour'.

This is especially noticeable when Zuko's appearance is contrasted with Ozai, who exists as sort of the human stand in for the Fire Nation's imperialism. For most of the show, we are not shown any of Ozai's features, his face being obscured by shadow or out of frame.

We finally see Ozai's face, it's when Zuko is seeing hik for the first time in years. And Ozai looks so similar to Zuko. An unblemished, perfect, complete Zuko, so to speak. In Zuko's fever dream, where we see an unscarred Fire Lord version of Zuko, he looks exactly how I imagine a younger Ozai would look. I also love that Zuko's adult design seems to lean into this similarity.

Furthermore, Zuko's scar is used time and time again as a way he connects with victims of the Fire Nation. People who don't know him, like Song and Jet, assume him to be another victim of the Fire Nation, citing his scar as the reason why. Which is half true, Zuko is a victim of the Fire Nation, just not in the way they think.

Jet: I think Lee would make a good Freedom Fighter. He's just trying to find his way in the world, like us. Smellerbee: You don't know anything about him, Jet. Jet: I know he didn't get that scar from a waterbender.

One person who doesn't connect to Zuko over his burn scar is Katara. I love the scene of Katara and Zuko in the crystal catacombs. It's a profound scene and one that always makes me a bit emotional, especially in the wider context of atla, a subject I've touched on in this post.

However, the handling of Zuko's scar in this scene is especially dear to my heart. I strongly remember that, when Katara offered to heal Zuko's scar, I actually got scared and upset. I was terrified of Zuko's scar being erased, of the connection I felt to him snuffed out and one of the best parts of his characterisation being erased.

But that's not what happened, and the scene is amazing on that front and all others.

We learn that Katara asscociates Zuko's face with the Fire Nation, which makes sense, since he's been kinda clingy for the entire 1st season. Katara denies it having to do with anything with Zuko's scar.

Katara: It's just that for so long now, whenever I would imagine the face of the enemy, it was your face. Zuko: My face? I see. [He touches his scar.] Katara: No, no, that's-that's not what I mean.

The Katara lover in me believes her. As a a member of the Sothern Water Tribe, she probably has seen many burn victims. And her pursuing healing would also probably lead her down the route of normalising and understanding burn scars.

However, I would not be surprised or disconcerted if the scar did have something with Katara perceiving him as a villain. After all, to a lot of people, scars and "ugliness" denote moral ugliness. The very obvious fire asscociation probably doesn't help someone traumatised by the Fire Nation too. It is a sad fact of life that even those who know better subconsciously react to people with scars and other "deformities" with disgust and distrust.

We also see Zuko explicitly give us the rundown of his previously unspoken struggle with feeling like his scar is defining him as a person.

Zuko: It's okay. I used to think this scar marked me. The mark of the banished prince, cursed to chase the Avatar forever. But lately, I've realized I'm free to determine my own destiny, even if I'll never be free of my mark.

This is something I can relate to as someone with prominent scarring and I'm sure we all sometimes feel defined by things outside of our control. Sometimes It's hard to seperate your identity from your appearance. And it's even harder to seperate yourself from events that influenced you so harshly.

As I previously highlighted, Zuko's scar relates strongly to his failure to adhere to the Fire Nation's ideals and conventions, his failure to be the perfect prince of the nation. And while to us, that is a good thing, to Zuko, at least at first, that is a very, very bad thing.

To Zuko, the scar is a symbol of his flaws, and a just, if not harsh punishment for his percieved transgression. He sees it as a brand, denoting his mistake and shame. He sees it as the physical manifestation of what his banishment and scorn from Ozai means.

It's only when he begins growing as a person away from the Fire Nation's influnece, that he starts to realise that the scar is just a scar. It holds no power over him. And while he relapses for a moment, "demystifying" his scar allows him to do the same to the event of his scarring. It allows him to look back at that moment and not see righteous discipline, but rather see it for what it was and go "hey wait a minute that was actually fucked up.". Which allows him to look at The Fire Nation's conquest of the world and go "hey this is also fucked up.", when the lessons he's learnt in the Earth kingdom finally click.

I believe this is why we see Zuko almost purely from the side of his scar in the scene where he confronts Ozai, especially when it's contrasted with Ozai's unscarred eyes.

Zuko's scar, like many scars in fiction, symbolises imperfection. But rather than an "objective" imperfection, as most fictional scars do, Zuko's scar symbolises his imperfection through the skewed and biased eyes of the Fire Nation. It's a nice subversion of the trope that usually encourages us to equate beauty with goodness and ugliness with evil.

Side note, I know I've been using the terms "ugly" and "ugliness" to talk about scars. I just wanted to note that I don't think scars automatically mean someone isn't attractive/scarred people are ugly. But in a lot of media, scars are seen as gross and ugly, which is why I've been using these terms.

I like that Zuko defies this trope by being drawn as very attractive with his scar, and even being seen as desireable in canon.

Even though it does loop back to the 'attractive=good' symbolism, I don't think it totally invalidates the story Zuko's scar is telling. Plus it WAS an ego boost to child year old me who thought no one whould ever love me bcs I looked like a burnt chicken nugget. So I'll let it slide.

I love Zuko's scar, and I love how it seamlessly fit into the story, while also subverting tropes and invalidating stigmas towards scarred people. It's probably one of my favourite, if not very personal aspects of the character.

I do however, also want to analyse and go over Aang's scar from Azula's lightning and I plan to go over it at a later date, since this post is getting a bit long and overwhelming.

Toodles!