#zuko has the best written character arc in tv history

[miss-nerd-alert]

Why Does Zuko’s Character Arc Work So Well?

I’ve recently been getting my Dad to watch Avatar: the Last Airbender with me, and I’ve really been focusing on Zuko this time around. The quality of Avatar’s writing is legendary by now, but so many characters in other works are getting redemption arcs-successfully done or otherwise-and I think I’ve finally gotten a solid answer as to why they all pale in comparison to Zuko’s: they laid the foundations for his path from antagonist to hero right from the start, and they built on those foundations throughout the series. Just focusing on Season 1 here, Season 2 will probably get it’s own post.

Right off the bat, Zuko is clearly established as an antagonist; we’ve just gotten past Katara’s opening exposition, and Zuko is very clearly Fire Nation. As the audience has just been told, Fire Nation = Bad Guys. Zuko is Fire Nation, therefore Zuko = Bad Guy. However, also from the get go, it’s established that Zuko’s motives are entirely personal. “Their honor didn’t hinge on the Avatar’s capture; mine does.”

This immediately tells the audience that Zuko personally will suffer consequences if he fails. We don’t know what those consequences are, and Zuko’s backstory hasn’t been established yet, but it’s made clear that something happened to this character to make him hunt the Avatar so zealously, and something worse will happen if he fails. Continuing in Episode 2, the audience is told that Zuko is in fact still a minor.

Zuko has just mentioned that he’s spent years training for this moment, which informs the audience that Zuko has likely had his views on the Avatar drilled into him by others, rather than coming to such a conclusion on his own. Aang’s response builds on that by informing us that Zuko may be older than the trio, but he is still just as much a child as Aang, Katara, and Sokka. This small exchange tells viewers that Zuko has been trained to hate and fight since he was a small child, and that his views have been shaped by those with power over him.

Episode 3 is when the audience is convinced to root for Zuko, at least in his own storyline. We get to see how he interacts with others in the Fire Nation, and how unwelcome he is among his own people. Sure he’s banished, but Zuko and Iroh are still members of the Royal Family, that should earn them some kind of respect, right? Wrong.

From the moment he’s introduced, Zhao is set up as both the season’s main villain and a rival for Zuko. He goes behind Zuko’s back to get information (which Zuko’s own men willingly give, which denotes their lack of respect for him), and as soon as he learns about Aang, Zhao decides to capture him himself. Immediately, many viewers come to the decision that if anyone is going to capture Aang, they DON’T want it to be this guy. The audience is HAPPY for Zuko when he beats Zhao in their agni kai, and pleased when Iroh chides Zhao for lashing out after he loses.

From then on, Zuko becomes a secondary antagonist. Sure, he still causes trouble for the Gaang more often, but Zhao is clearly painted as the bigger threat. Zuko continues to win people over in Episode 7, when he puts tracking Aang on hold to find and rescue his uncle Iroh, who has up to this point been the only person from the Fire Nation that seems nice. Their interactions this episode show that Zuko does reciprocate Iroh’s genuine affection for him (which on its own makes the audience think “the nice old man like this kid, so there must be something good about him”).

Episode 8 ramps up the rivalry between Zuko and Zhao again, with Zhao deciding to capture Zuko, his own countryman, as well as Aang. We also learn that Zuko isn’t even allowed in Fire Nation waters, which reminds the audience that this is a young man who isn’t allowed to go home.

It isn’t until Episode 12 that we get Zuko’s backstory, but it retroactively explains his behavior up to this point. A 13 year old boy-shown to actually care about the wellbeing of his country and its people-is brutalized and exiled by his own father (who we earlier learned was the series main villain) for speaking out against a plan to pointlessly sacrifice their own men.

Furthermore, the only person who seems distressed by this is Iroh, while everyone else seems to relish the sight of a child being abused by their parent. Immediately, we can deduce that Zuko was raised in a highly toxic environment, with only his uncle as an example of a positive role model. We also get a glimpse of not only the kind of person Zuko used to be, but who he could be again, as the episode ends with him unlearning some of what Ozai’s abuse taught him as he saves a crewman from death and lets Aang go for the sake of protecting his men.

Episode 13 introduces the Blue Spirit, and shows that not only will Zuko go against his own countrymen to get to Aang first, but also how good of a team they would actually make if they fought together. Zuko is shown to be a bigger threat to Aang’s enemies than to Aang himself, because if the Avatar dies, they’ll just be reincarnated and he’d have to start his search all over again.

This episode is also the first time the writers blatantly signal that Zuko could become a good guy. When Aang offers his friendship, it means he’s actually thinking about befriending an enemy; that he hasn’t bought into the ‘Fire Nation bad’ idea that nearly everyone else in the world has, that Zuko could actually become a hero. And even though Zuko rejects it for now, that idea has already taken root in the minds of viewers.

By Episode 16, Iroh and Jeong Jeong are the only real “good guy” firebenders we see; Zuko’s edging towards it, but he’s not there yet. As a character, Jeong Jeong actually serves a lot of purposes. He’s a foil for his former student Zhao, he and Iroh are the only firebenders we’ve seen who have become disillusioned by the war, and he also reminds viewers that Aang will have to learn how to firebend. His very existence points out that Aang will have to find a firebender who will agree to help him take down the Fire Lord.

Jeong Jeong also serves as a glimpse into Zuko’s future (even if the audience doesn’t realize that yet) as both a Fire Nation citizen who knows their war is wrong, and as Aang’s firebending teacher. Some people watching for the first time might realize this, but many didn’t.

When Zhao hires the pirates to kill Zuko later, we actually worry about him, and are glad to see him alive on Zhao’s ship. When Iroh worries over Zuko going off alone to sneak into the Water Tribe, we’re delighted to see that at least one person actually cares about Zuko and his wellbeing.

We continue to develop sympathy for him during the Siege of the Northern Water Tribe, when Zuko talks to an unconscious Aang about his father’s abusive treatment and blatant favoritism for Zuko’s sister. When the Ocean Spirit grabs Zhao to punish him for killing the Moon Spirit, Zuko actually pulls a hero move by attempting to save his rival, who had long since passed from Total Dick to Irredeemable Asshole.

By the end of Season 1, Zuko and Iroh are on their own, with few supplies, no real plan besides ‘leave enemy territory’, and with an unknown threat about to be unleashed on them, as viewers watch Ozai call Iroh a traitor and Zuko a failure to the newly established villain of Season 2: Zuko’s sister Azula. All of this clues the audience in to the reality that while Zuko was undoubtedly a villain for this season, that may well change in the next one.

[gins-potter]

Just curious, why don’t you like enemies to lovers? Not even if it’s written well, with a satisfying redemption arc and character development?

Okay, I wouldn’t say I don’t like enemies to lovers all the time, just that 90% of the time it’s not for me.  Bear with me because I’m pretty sure this is going to get long because I have lots of thoughts on the topic.

If it’s like you said, well written with a satisfying redemption arc and character development I very well may like it.  I just happen to find that redemption arcs that are satisfying for me personally don’t happen very often.  Obviously this is a subjective topic, but personally what makes a redemption arc satisfying is not the villain or enemy having a single moment of repentance 5 minutes before the ending of the novel/movie/tv show.  For me to be satisfied it actually has to be an arc and one that exists away from a relationship.  Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender jumps to mind.  If memory serves, Zuko’s redemption arcs starts at the beginning of season 2 which means that arc is developed across two whole freaking seasons and that commitment to redeeming him is why it’s often characterised as one of the best fictional redemption arcs.  And also why I’m much more open to shipping Katara/Zuko or Zuko/Sokka (I much prefer the latter just because I’m a Kataang girl).

But going back to enemies to lovers specifically, I also find that a lot of the time the “enemy” goes too far to be redeemed.  If you look at the actual definition, an enemy is “a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.  a thing that harms or weakens something else.”  When you have two people on different sides on a (usually moral) conflict who are actively trying to defeat, kill, or harm the other, for me I’m not comfortable with shipping them even if the enemy or villain has been redeemed.  And that’s no shade to people who are!  It’s just part of how I interact with fiction, my favourite characters tend to be the good guys, imperfect and flawed sure but relatively good people who are trying to do good.  And that translates to shipping as well.  

Take Sp*rxshipping or D*rklina for example (just to use two ships I’m relatively familiar with).  With Sp*rxshipping, V*ltor is directly responsible (in part anyway) for the destruction of Bloom’s home-world and the imprisonment of her parents for nearly two decades and then spends a whole season trying to destroy the universe more or less.  For D*rklina he manipulates Alina and tries to take her power to use for his own goals (to sum it up very quickly).  Neither villain have much of a redemption arc imo (the Darkling’s backstory and motives are explained and arguably sympathetic but for me personally don’t justify his actions) but even if they did, how do you redeem an enemy like that in a way where the hero would conceivably forgive them and want to be in a relationship with them?  And again this is just something that I personally need to enjoy a ship like this, some people don’t, some will be satisfied with a redemption arc no matter what’s happened between the villain and hero, some don’t need the redemption arc at all.  And all are valid!  This is fiction, and (generally) liking what you like doesn’t hurt anyone, it’s just that personally for me I don’t find those kind of dynamics enjoyable and why enemies to lovers in the truest sense of the trope isn’t one I typically enjoy.

Now, if you consider other kinds of enemies to lovers ships, because enemies to lovers is a broad category and encompasses a lot of different dynamics (insert rant here about how enemies to lovers should be broken down into more specific categories) I’m much more open to those ships.  Take the category of ships I would call adversaries to lovers for instance.  An adversary is “one's opponent in a contest, conflict, or dispute”, a definition that isn’t all that unlike the definition of “enemy” technically but the cultural implications of the two words create a difference.  To me adversaries might be in conflict or dispute like the definition says but to a lesser extent than enemies might.  

Nessian jumps to mind.  They start out as very opposed to one another and constantly in disagreement despite the fact that they are on the same side of the larger dispute in the series (Prythian vs Hybern).  And then we get that really nice redemption arc for Nesta in ACOSF (I call it a redemption arc for the sake of this post even though I wouldn’t necessarily characterise it as such as it’s more an arc explaining her history and why she is the way she is) where she really grows as a person, in conjunction with Cassian but also on her own.  I never thought I’d ship Nessian and without that arc in ACOSF I probably wouldn’t but it’s because of that arc, and the fact they were never truly enemies just adversaries that I found myself loving them in SF.  Previously they’d hurt each other’s feelings sure, they’d been nasty to each other, but never to the extent of true enemies.  And as I’ve said a couple times now, if they had gotten to that “enemy status” as it were I personally probably wouldn’t be comfortable shipping them even with Nesta’s “redemption” arc in SF.

I’ll finally talk on rivals to lovers the last category of enemies to lovers ships and probably the funnest one imo and the one I ship the most.  Rivals, defined as “a person or thing competing with another for the same objective or for superiority in the same field of activity.” are two people not diametrically opposed but nevertheless in competition with one another because of a similar goal or desired objective.  Perhaps the softest of the enemies to lovers ships, this category tends to bring out a lot of fun tropes like stupid over the top competitions.  And with this one a redemption arc isn’t really needed at all because neither side really ever crosses a line so much that one would be needed, the two sides just happen to be in competition until they realise “eugh I actually really like them” and have to deal with that which is always fun.  The Hating Game by Sally Thorne comes to mind for this one, and while I didn’t love that book as much as everyone else seemed to, it wasn’t because of the ship.

So I guess the whole point of this was to A). finally have my “enemies to lovers is too broad a category and should be broken down into sub categories” rant and B). show that when I say “I don’t like enemies to lovers ships” I mean enemies in the truest sense of the word.  And that liking enemies to lovers is totally valid!  They’re just something that I personally don’t enjoy a lot of the time.