| “ | Today, this war is finally over! I promised my uncle that I would restore the honor of the Fire Nation. And I will. The road ahead of us is challenging, a hundred years of fighting has left the world scarred and divided. But with the Avatar's help, we can get it back on the right path, and begin a new era of love and peace. | „ |
| ~ Zuko's coronation speech to the other heroes and nations following the end of the Hundred Year War. |
Lord Zuko, formerly known as Prince Zuko and Fire Lord Zuko, is one of the two deuteragonists (alongside Katara) of the 2005-2008 animated fantasy action television series Avatar: The Last Airbender, one of the main characters of its sequel comic book series of the same name, and a supporting character in its 2012-2014 sequel television series The Legend of Korra.
He is the son of Fire Lord Ozai and older brother of Princess Azula and prince of the Fire Nation, obsessed with capturing Avatar Aang to restore his honor and return from his banishment, serving as the central villain for the majority of the series before his complete redemption in the final season. He is the former archenemy turned close friend of Team Avatar.
He is voiced by Dante Basco in Avatar: The Last Airbender and by Bruce Davison in The Legend of Korra.
His Good Ranking[]
What Makes Him Admirable?[]
In General[]
- While he used to be a villain in the majority of the first two seasons, it's because he wanted to restore his honor and gained his father's love by capturing Aang, so his motive is clearly understandable. However, by the middle of the third season, Zuko fully redeems himself after standing up to his father, realizing restoring the Fire Nation's honor was the right way to restore his own and that his father was incapable of love, joining Team Avatar, permanently shedding his villainous side as result.
- Even as a villain, he's never actually evil as he's incredibly honorable and had numerous redeeming/heroic traits and moments while having his own set of morals that he abided by, such as not harming innocent bystanders. He also did love his uncle Iroh despite his disrespectful and short-tempered attitude towards him for most of the series.
Background[]
- When Uncle Iroh sent him a gift, he was grateful for it, unlike his sister.
- He admonished Azula for speaking callously about Uncle Iroh's loss of his only son and asked her to put herself in his shoes.
- He was the only person in the Fire Nation war room to speak out against General Bujing's plan to sacrifice a whole division of rookie recruits as a diversion and refused to fight his father Ozai to avoid hurting him when he was challenged to an Agni Kai which resulted in the left side of his face being permanently burned and scarred by Ozai. This in turn lead to the start of his whole quest to find the Avatar and restore his honor.
- Unlike his father, sister, and grandfather who used the propaganda to maintain their family's power, he genuinely believed the war was the Fire Nation’s way of sharing its greatness with the world (as his great-grandfather intended) until he found out about its true purposes and saw that the world only feared and hated the Fire Nation.
Book One: Water[]
- He honored his promise to leave the Southern Water Tribe alone when Aang gave himself up even when Katara and Sokka broke the deal and rescued Aang.
- When some of his men ended up frozen after their battle with the Avatar, Zuko allowed them to take the time to thaw out their fellow crewmates instead of immediately chasing Aang.
- He spared Zhao in their Agni Kai duel despite how much Zhao disrespected him.
- He chose to rescue Iroh from the Earth Kingdom soldiers instead of going to capture Aang.
- He decided to protect his crew from the storm and told them to let Aang go rather than risk their safety.
- As the Blue Spirit, he rescued Aang from Zhao and, despite rejecting Aang’s friendship, let him go afterwards.
- Before he went off to infiltrate Agna Qel'a to capture the Avatar, he express his sympathy towards Iroh over the loss of his son Lu Ten and bids him farewell by telling him that they'll meet again.
- He offered his hand to save Zhao's life from Tui even after everything Zhao did to him, which Zhao rejected, leading to his well-deserved death (and spending eternity trapped in the Fog of Lost Souls, a fate worse than death) that evidently shocked Zuko.
Book Two: Earth[]
- He refused to rob a pregnant couple even though he was starving and severely malnourished
- He saved an Earth Kingdom village from thuggish soldiers and agreed to leave the village peacefully even though they were ungrateful and lashed out at him for being a firebender.
- He takes care of Iroh after he was injured by Azula and gave him some tea he made in the hopes he'd enjoy it despite being inexperienced at making it.
- He and Jet snuck into the kitchen of the ship heading to Ba Sing Se to give the food to the passengers.
- He freed Appa from Long Feng so Appa could reunite with Team Avatar instead of using Appa to his advantage, giving up his identity as the Blue Spirit in the process due to Iroh's encouragement.
- He felt sympathy for Katara when she talked about losing her mother and simply ignores rather than argue with her when she calls him out for what his people did to the Water Tribe.
Book Three: Fire[]
- Despite selfishly betraying Aang and Katara on Azula's behalf which indirectly caused Ba Sing Se to be taken over, he immediately felt remorseful over his actions and became conflicted over who he is, so he decided to visit Iroh at his cell for his guidance.
- With Iroh's guidance and upon learning that Ozai planned to wipe out the entire Earth Kingdom, Zuko redeemed himself before confronting and standing up to Ozai on the Day of the Black Sun, calling out Ozai and the Fire Nation for their horrific actions against him and the entire world before revealing his new mission of freeing Iroh and helping the Avatar defeat him to save the world and restore the Fire Nation's honor. He also refused to kill Ozai in cold blood when Ozai tried to goad him into doing it. He also redirected the lightning shot towards him AWAY from Ozai instead of AT him.
- He went to Team Avatar and earnestly offered to teach Aang firebending and join their quest to defeat Ozai and the Fire Nation, apologizing for the things he did in the past and offering himself up as a prisoner when Team Avatar rebuffed him and acted very harshly towards him. He didn't get angry with Team Avatar when they attacked him and forced him to leave, only blaming himself and completely understood why they wouldn't trust him.
- Though he accidentally revealed himself to be the one who sent Combustion Man to hunt down Team Avatar, it was still out of honesty.
- When Appa affectionately licking him in gratitude when he visited Team Avatar, he wasn't annoyed or disgusted by it.
- Although he burned Toph's feet, it was an accident as Toph snuck up on him at night and he didn't know who was there and once he realized what he did, he immediately and repeatedly apologized to Toph and tried to help her. Even though Toph roughly pushes him away with her Earthbending, he doesn't get mad at her and continues to blame himself, even though it was an accident.
- He saved Team Avatar from being assassinated by Combustion Man, ordering Combustion Man to stop hunting the Avatar and offering to pay him double before risking his life to try and stop him. This makes him succeed in convincing Aang to accept him as a member of their group and his firebending teacher later on.
- After helping them defeat Combustion Man, he went back to talk to Aang and the others, this time successfully convincing them to let him join the group and teach Aang fire bending, apologizing to Toph once again for hurting her and enthusiastically thanking Team Avatar for letting him join, promising not to let them down, smiling at Sokka when he showed him his room and being happy when Katara went to talk to him, only to be sad (but not angry) when Katara infamously threatens to kill him if he betrays them again.
- Accompanied by Aang, he led a mission to the ruins of the ancient Sun Warrior civilization to learn the source of fire bending after he lost his firebending due to no longer relying on hate and anger anymore.
- Once it turned out the Sun Warriors were still alive, he apologized for how his nation distorted the ways of fire bending and convinced them to let him and Aang learn the true meaning of firebending from Masters Ran and Shao.
- Stopped Aang from giving up out of fear and performed a firebending form called the Dancing Dragon to convince Ran and Shao (who turned out to be the last surviving dragons as dragons were the source of fire bending that the Sun Warriors learned from) to give them the true meaning of firebending, which allowed him to firebend once more and properly begin Aang's training.
- He reluctantly told Sokka when he asked that Sokka's father and the adults of the failed Invasion of the Fire Nation were probably taken to the infamous Boiling Rock prison and convinced Sokka to let him go with him to rescue his dad. He also sympathized with Sokka about Sokka's first girlfriend Princess Yue sacrificing herself to become the new Moon Spirit.
- He went to go help a random Fire Nation prisoner called Chit Sang before reluctantly agreeing with Sokka that they couldn't blow their cover as disguised Fire Nation guards. He later figured out by asking around that there were no Water Tribe prisoners in the prison and Sokka's dad wasn't there before helping Sokka try to free Suki instead when they saw her.
- He blew his cover and attacked a Fire Nation guard to save Sokka and Suki and apologized to Suki for previously burning down Kyoshi Island.
- He orchestrated a fake argument with Chit Sang so he could go into the cooler and unbolt it for him Sokka, Suki, and Sang to escape in. However, once he and Sokka heard that new prisoners were arriving and Sokka's dad could be one of them, Zuko encouraged Sokka to stay on the chance his father was coming and not give up out of fear, sacrificing their potential only means of escape to remain with Sokka and Suki while Chit Sang tried and failed to escape.
- He remorsefully told Mai how he didn't mean to hurt her when he left to join Team Avatar to help save the world, only reluctantly defeating her to rejoin with Sokka and the others. He forced the guards on the gondola to stop attacking them as they had the warden as a hostage and activated the gondola to let the others escape before destroying the switch and jumping to join up with them.
- He dueled Azula with Sokka, and after Mai redeemed herself out of love for Zuko to let them escape, he led the group to Azula's airship to steal so they could all escape.
- He saved Katara's life from falling rubble when Azula attacked the Western Air Temple where Team Avatar was staying despite knowing how much she hated him at the time.
- He risked himself by confronting Azula, hoping to buy the rest of Team Avatar and their allies time to escape from the Northern Air Temple, and after being rescued by the team, he thanked them while they raised a toast in his honor for being their hero.
- Once he found out how Katara and Sokka's mom died, he wanted to make it up to her after realizing how much his betrayal hurt her, so he came to Katara and offered to help her find her mother's killer as he knew who it was, despite Katara being a jerk to him before. He helped her infiltrate the Southern Raiders ship to find the captain who supposedly killed her mother and once they realized it wasn't him, he got the captain to reveal the true killer, Yon Rha, and his location. This led Katara decide to let go of her grudge against Zuko and genuinely forgave him later on.
- After Katara decided not to kill Yon Rha and they returned, he mutually hugged her when she finally forgave him and admitted to Aang that he was right about what Katara needed and that violence and revenge were not the answer.
- He informed the group about Ozai's plan to wipe out the Earth Kingdom and while he was a real jerk about it, he was right and convinced the team that they had to face the Fire Lord before the comet passes.
- He taught Aang how to redirect lightning and stopped Katara from going after Aang when he argued with the team about if he should take Ozai's life, telling Katara that Aang needed some space.
- He led the team while tracking down Aang when he disappeared, enlisting the help of the bounty hunter June to learn that Aang wasn't dead but somehow no longer existed. He then led the team in tracking down Iroh as the only other person who could defeat Ozai, giving June's pet Nyla Iroh's scent to lead them to Iroh.
- Waited for Iroh to wake up from his sleep instead of waking him up himself, showing he's learned patience, humility, and self control.
- He tearfully and repeatedly apologized to Iroh for betraying him and tried to get Iroh to help them stop Ozai, only for Iroh to help him realize that the Avatar had to end the war and upon Iroh's urging, agreed to go take his rightful place on the throne by going to defeat Azula with Katara.
- He confronted and dueled Azula when she challenged him to an Agni Kai, noticing there was something off about her.
- He risked his life without hesitation by taking a lightning bolt to the heart from Azula meant for Katara, saving Katara's life and severely injuring himself. After Katara defeated Azula and healed him, he thanked her with Katara tearfully pointing out that she should be the one thanking him.
- Despite everything Azula did to him and his friends, he still felt pity and sympathy for her when she had a mental breakdown and decided to send her to a mental health asylum instead of prison, unlike Ozai (sympathetic to the fact that Azula was a victim of their father's abuse as much as, if not more than him).
- After the defeat of Ozai and the end of the Hundred Year War, he gave a speech at his coronation, promising all the other heroes and nations that he would work with Aang to rebuild the world and redeem the Fire Nation for their atrocities to begin an era of love and peace as the new Fire Lord.
- Despite Ozai being a horrifically abusive father towards him (and to an extent Azula), he told an imprisoned Ozai that prison time might be able to change him into a better person like Ozai banishing him did for himself.
Sequel comics[]
- He removed Ozai loyalists from the government and evaded multiple assassination attempts on his life by Ozai loyalists, capturing the Fire Nation girl Kori but realizing from her family that there were some legitimate concerns about the Harmony Restoration Movement to decolonize Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom
- He apologized to Aang for making him previously promise to kill him if he started acting like Ozai, relieving Aang of that responsibility as he knew now that it was his responsibility to decide what is right and wrong for himself and deal with his inner turmoil and insecurities.
- He went to visit Azula in the mental health asylum, asking her to help coax info out of Ozai to help find their mother and asked what Azula wanted in return (albeit Azula suspiciously ended up agreeing to help without anything in return).
- In the sequel Search comic trilogy, after a professor lectured about the future of the Fire Nation colonies and the connection between family and ruling the nation, Zuko felt remorse for putting Azula in a mental health facility and Ozai in prison, fearing what it meant about him ruling the Fire Nation. He decided to go bring tea for Ozai and Azula to ease tension as Ozai and Azula hadn't talked to each other ever since Azula was put in the asylum to get the info about their mother out of Ozai, telling an objecting Suki they were still his family. Even after Azula attacked him out of paranoia that he was patronizing her, he tried but failed to convince Ty Lee not to chi block Azula as she was already restrained and helped a now paralyzed Azula back to her chair. He then agreed to leave Azula and Ozai alone to talk when Azula told him to.
- He went to get Azula and talk to her alone, asking her what she and Ozai talked about and being forced to defend himself when Azula freed herself and attacked him. He tried to stop her from burning Ursa's letters when she went to Ozai's secret room and agreed to let her come with him to find their mother since now, he needed her as she read Ursa's letters which were the key to finding her. He enlisted the help of the rest of Team Avatar for their journey and reluctantly convinced them to let Azula come with them, leaving Iroh in charge of the Fire Nation for the duration of their journey.
- He helped restrain Azula during her psychotic episodes during the trip and freed Azula from her restraints so she could save Team Avatar from a swarm of moth swamps.
- After some inspiration from Sokka, he decided to care for Azula more, putting a blanket on an asleep Azula when she was shivering. Also, despite learning that Azula kept one of Ursa's letters which implied that Zuko was the son of her previous lover Ikrem and not Ozai and that therefore Zuko isn't the rightful ruler of the Fire Nation, he decided to let Azula keep the letter and came to somewhat of an understanding with her.
- He saved the Water Tribe siblings Rafa and Misu from Azula when she succumbed to another psychotic episode and gave up his chance to learn his mother's fate from the Mother of Faces so Rafa could get his face back (which was stolen by the Mother of Faces' son Koh the Face Stealer) which Azula ruined to find out from the Mother of Faces that Ursa had given up her identity/memory and was now Noriko, the wife of the film director Noren (really her first lover Ikem) they met back in Hira'a.
- Once he realized his mom (who still wasn't aware of who he was) was happy with her life in Hira'a, he was going to leave before Noren revealed himself as Ikem and convinced Zuko to reveal to Noriko that he was her son and she was Ursa, an ex-princess of the Fire Nation.
- He saved his mom from Azula but tried to stop Azula from leaving. He also told Ursa/Noriko that she did not have to accept the Mother of Face's request to regain her memory as she had a good life in Hira'a and after she regained her memory, he comforted her, telling her she didn't have to apologize for forgetting about him and Azula and that he had a life to be proud of regardless. He also learned that Ursa had lied in that letter and Zuko was still the son of Ozai and hence the rightful ruler of the Fire Nation and asked his mom to learn about her whole life, which she agreed to by starting from the beginning.
- In the sequel Smoke and Shadow trilogy, he spent weeks searching for Azula to no avail and escorted his mom and her family back to the Fire Nation capital from her exile, comforting his mom that Azula was safe albeit she didn't want to come back and vowing to keep everyone safe when they received word of the New Ozai society planning on ambushing him by planning to have a decoy take the main route to the palace while he, Suki, Ursa, and her family would take a hidden route.
- He defeated the New Ozai Society when they ambushed the group on the hidden route but defended one of them, Kei Lo, who defected to help Zuko and Mai.
- He enlisted the help of Aang to help find Mai's brother Tom-Tom who had been kidnapped and led Aang, Mai, and Kei Lo to the High Temples to find out more about the Kemurikage, the spirits that allegedly kidnap children like Tom-Tom but soon found out that Tom-Tom's kidnappers were human imposters and tried to save Kiki from being kidnapped by the imposters known as the Fire Warriors, which turned out to be led by Azula.
- He dueled Azula in the Garden of Tranquil Souls where all the kidnapped children were being held and embraced Kiki after Aang and the others found her, albeit Azula escaped.
- He apologized for his poor conduct and authoritarian actions during the Fire Warrior crisis to the Fire Nation people, asking for their forgiveness and resolving to do better in the future.
- He agreed to fund the Southern Water Tribe Reconstruction project and with the rest of Team Avatar, helped defeat Gilak and his Southern nationalists and rescue Earth King Huei. He correctly figured that Gilak would not honor his agreement to exchange Kuei for Hakoda so that Team Avatar would make a contingency plan. After Gilak's defeat, he cooked extra spicy Fire Nation noodles for the multicultural meal with the rest of Team Avatar, Katara and Sokka's family, and Kuei.
Before The Legend of Korra[]
- As an adult, he founded the United Republic of Nations, formed from the previous Fire Nation colonies, with Aang as a society where benders and nonbenders could live in peace and harmony.
- He adopted and trained a dragon, naming him Druk. This means he may have abolished, if not outlawed, hunting dragons.
- He obviously raised Izumi well, breaking the cycle of bad parenting of his forefathers (and seemingly having lesser flaws as a parent compared to Aang and Toph), leading to her being well-adjusted and wanting to avoid wars with other nations if possible.
- He saved a young Korra, Aang's successor as the Avatar, from being kidnapped by Zaheer and the Red Lotus with the help of Sokka, Aang's son Tenzin, and Korra's father Tonraq. He then led the construction of a top-secret prison in the Northern Water Tribe with permission from Chief Unalaq to hold Zaheer's girlfriend and dangerous combustionbender P'Li. While it was an inhumane place for anyone to be locked up in, it was unavoidable because of P'li's unique skills.
- He became the first Fire Lord in centuries to retire, abdicating the throne to his daughter so he could become an ambassador for world peace and balance.
The Legend of Korra[]
- After Zaheer escaped from prison, he sent a warning to Lin Beifong, who was staying with the New Team Avatar, and together with Tonraq and new Northern Water Tribe chiefs Desna and Eska, dueled the Red Lotus although the Red Lotus ended up escaping with P'Li.
- He flew on Druk with Tonraq in tow to meet up with the New Team Avatar, bowing respectfully before Mako and a starstruck Bolin.
- He gave Korra advice when she asked him what Aang would do after Zaheer took the Air Nation hostage to force Korra to give herself up, telling Korra that Aang would be proud of her for helping to rebuild the Air Nation and might have sacrificed anything, including himself, to protect it.
- He then departed to protect his daughter from Zaheer's plan to assassinate world leaders and throw the world into chaos; given Zaheer showed dislike of the Fire Lords for crusading a century of war, his fears were valid.
- He attended Jinora's airbending master ceremony and King Wu's coronation.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- He infamously sided with Azula and went back to being a villain after briefly redeeming himself at the end of season 2, proving he is not incorruptible as well as making him anti-heroic and morally ambiguous. This caused Team Avatar to almost completely lose their trust in him, though he did redeem himself when he helped save them from the Combustion Man.
- Despite his redemption, he hasn't been shown to feel remorse or make up for a few of his past actions such as stealing Song's ostrich horse even when she had been nothing but kind to him and Iroh, throwing Ruon-Jian across the wall just for talking to Mai out of anger and jealousy, and later joining Azula, Mai and Ty Lee in trashing Chan's place.
- He is way too wrathful and jerkish, as he constantly used to act rude and disrespectful towards his uncle Iroh, though he later regretted his harsh treatment towards him. Even after his redemption, he still lashes out at others for even minor things such as when Aang calling him "Sifu Hotman" before politely asking about what happened to the dragons, Sokka making fun of his and Aang's firebending, his fellow team having fun at the beach, or Toph politely correcting him when he called Ozai Father Lord instead of Fire Lord.
- He occasionally taunts or insults his enemies and is arrogant about his ability to redirect lightning, goading Azula into using lightning during their duel which ended disastrously when she nearly killed Katara and he was forced to risk himself to take the shot.
- He can be unnecessarily violent such as:
- While helping Katara find the killer of her mother, he was supportive of her decision of murdering him as he began to criticize Aang for telling her to forgive him instead of just killing him. He also encouraged her to torture the Southern Raider commander to force him to admit he's the one who murdered her mother and didn't apologize for it, even after it's revealed he wasn't the one.
- Attacking Aang when Team Avatar was taking a break and relaxing on the beach just because he was frustrated that they weren't using all their time to train instead of simply asking, which would have made him learn that they were planning on facing Ozai after the comet. He could have also told Aang about Ozai's plan to wipe out the Earth Kingdom when he saw them relaxing, which is why he knew they couldn't wait until after Sozin's comet.
- He also attacked Mayor Morishita of Yun Dao just because Morishita called him a coward for supporting the Harmony Restoration movement even though Morishita didn't attack him or fight back (plus he did have a legitimate point even if he was a jerk about it) with Zuko never apologizing for these moments.
- Although he ended up being the more correct party in the decolonization conflict between him and Earth King Kuei, he still made very questionable and downright reckless decisions such as:
- Abruptly withdrawing his support for the Harmony Restoration movement without even consulting with the rest of Team Avatar or Kuei about his concerns. The whole conflict over Yun Dao could have been avoided if Zuko had just met with Kuei first but since he withdrew his support and broke his promise, Kuei (understandably) felt that he couldn't trust Zuko who lied to him and decided to take Yun Dao by force.
- Restraining Katara and blaming her and Aang for attacking his guards even though they attacked first while Aang and Katara just wanted to talk, which he refused to acknowledge.
- Sending spies on Kuei.
- Repeatedly breaking his promise to not keep secrets from Mai.
- Taking advice from Ozai of all people.
- Zuko became outright tyrannical during the wake of the Kemurikage attacks and kidnappings of multiple Fire Nation children, which people have called him out for being questionable while Azula (who was behind these Kemurikage attacks) was glad she forced Zuko into taking the other hand.
External Links[]
- Zuko on the Heroes Wiki
- Zuko on the Villains Wiki
- Zuko on the Villainous Benchmark Wiki
- Zuko on the Avatar Wiki
[]
 Inconsistently Admirable
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Avatar: The Last Airbender The Legend of Korra See Also | ||