OOC - Profile Meme
[Character Name] Zuko
[Canon] Avatar the Last Airbender
[Point Taken from Canon] Just after Aang and Zuko visit the Sun Warriors
[Age] 17
[Gender] Male
[Sexual Orientation] Hetero
[Eye Color] Gold
[Hair Color] Brownish (officially, it’s supposed to be black, but his hair looks brown more often in the third season.)
[Height]5’8
[Other] He has a huge burn scar over his left eye.
[Clothing]
[Background]
Many people in the world believe that all of the people from the Fire Nation are evil, which is understandable, because the Fire Nation has been waging war on the rest of the world for over one hundred years. Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation wouldn’t deny that, for a while, he tried to fit that stereotype quite well. When he was a young child, he was a nice young boy. He was heavily influenced by his sister Azula, who was very sadistic, and a by his great desire to please his father, Ozai. Azula was commonly seen as a Firebending prodigy, and compared to her, Zuko seemed like a failure. However, his mother, Ursa, supported and cared for him the way he deserved. She was very kind and protective, and she was helping him become a good person. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to continue helping him forever.
When Zuko was young, the Fire Lord became angry with Ozai for sugguesting that he succeed the throne instead of his older brother, Iroh. Iroh had gone into a grief period after loosing his son, and Fire Lord Azulon knew just how wrong it was for Ozai to feel that Iroh was weak for mourning, because his sorrow caused him to loose a major battle in the Earth Kingdom capital. Ozai was ordered to kill his son in repentance. Ozai was actually going to do it, but Ursa managed to stop him. It is not actually known what she really did, but somehow, by the next morning, the Fire Lord was dead, and Ozai was named as successor. Ursa managed to say one last goodbye to a sleepy Zuko, telling him to never forget who he was. For the longest time, Zuko assumed that his mother was dead.
Zuko was left alone with the pressures of both his sister, and his father. He still had his uncle, who thankfully treated him like a second son. When he was younger, he appreciated this. Unfortunately, Iroh’s caring for him would eventually lead to an event that would change Zukos life forever. While all of the Fire Lord’s generals were meeting, Iroh allowed a thirteen-year-old Zuko to attend as well, because he seemed entheusiastic about learning as much as he could for when he would be Fire Lord in the future. During this meeting, a general sugguested that a platoon of new recruits be sent to the front lines as bait. Zuko immediately protested, saying that was a betrayal. Of course, this was seen as extremely disrespectful. Zuko was challenged to an Agni Kai, a fire duel, to defend his honor. When he actually showed up for the duel, it turned out that the one he was going to fight was none other then his father, Fire Lord Ozai. Zuko refused to fight him, and Ozai saw this as weak. Zuko begged him not to make him fight, but Ozai didn’t listen, and gave Zuko the scar over the left side of his face that would so define him later on. He then banished Zuko and his Uncle Iroh, saying that the only way that they could return, would be if Zuko captured the Avatar.
The Avatar is the only person in the world with such a connection to the spiritual realm, that they can control all four of the elements. There is one Avatar every generation, and the Avatar is locked in a constant cycle of death and rebirth. Every time the Avatar is reborn, he or she is born into the next element in the cycle. The last known Av`atar was supposed to be an Airbender, and so, all of the Airbenders were wiped out, but some believe that the Avatar is still alive. The Avatar is believed to be the only person who could stop the war. Zuko has no choice but to hold on to the belief that he is alive as well, because if he is gone, there would be no hope for his lost honor to be returned.
Zuko’s personality greatly changes because of his scarring and banishment. First of all, he shaves off most of his hair, and just keeps his ponytail to represent his loyalty to the Fire Nation. He becomes increasingly bitter and hostile. In spite of all of the terrible things he’s done, Zuko’s greatest drive is his desire to please his father. He looses almost all of his patience, and works the crew on his ship to the bone in searching. He even mistreats his uncle, probably because of his laid back wise attitude.
Two and a half years after his banishment, Zuko finally found who he was looking for. The Avatar had been frozen in an iceburg in the south pole for a hundred years, and he finally came back. Zuko tracked him down to the Southern Water Tribe, where the Avatar, Aang, had settled for the moment after being found by Katara, the last waterbender of the tribe, and her skeptical brother, Sokka. Aang allows himself to be captured for the sake of protecting the tribe. Of course, Aang later manages to escape.
Zuko continues to chase Aang all around the world with his crew, and he is egged on even more by the competition of Commander, and soon to be Admiral, Zhao. Zhao wants to capture the Avatar to take the glory for himself. At one point, the two have an Agni Kai, and Zuko wins, and spares Zhao any harm, proving that he is the better man, even if Zhao will never admit it.
Their rivalry goes to new heights when Zhao actually manages to capture Aang himself. Instead of allowing Zhao to win, Zuko commits what could be considered treason. He disguised himself as “The Blue Spirit,” demonstrating his stealth and sword skills for the first time. He snuck into Zhao’s fort and rescued Aang. Of course, he tried to capture him afterwards, but it still helped Aang to realize that Zuko was a better person then he usually let on. After he saved Aang, Zuko continues to follow him, and goes to far as to kidnap his friends in order to get to him.
Even though Zuko tries to act tough and uncaring and cruel, it’s obvious that he really cares about his crew and his uncle. Not only does he give up an opportunity to persue the Avatar for the safety of his crew during a storm, but he also gives up another opportunity when he discovers that Iroh was captured, and he goes to save him instead.
Finally, Zhao’s rivalry with Zuko reaches a peak when he learns that Zuko is the blue spirit, and blows up Zuko’s ship, presumably killing him. Zuko manages to survive, though he’s injured. He still goes to extreme lengths to capture Aang by infiltrating the Northern Water Tribe. When he finally had Aang, he carried him out into a blizzard, and ended up having to stop. As Iroh points out later, if Katara and Sokka hadn’t found them, he would have frozen to death. This is where his complete lack of planning can be seen quite clearly. He rarely thinks things through.
At the end of Zhao’s siege of the Northern Water Tribe, Zuko wins a second duel against him, and tries to save him when he faces the wrath of a vengeful spirit of the ocean, but Zhao is too proud to accept his help. Zuko an Iroh end up floating on a driftwood raft for three weeks until they reached land, in order to escape the Water Tribe, and they land in a Fire Nation colony in the Earth Kingdom.
Now alone, Zuko and Iroh are confronted by Zuko’s sister, Azula. Of course, Azula makes Zuko a deal, and tries to convince him that his father would welcome him home. He believes her, and gets really exited about the prospect, even though Iroh warns him that something is wrong. Zuko just lashes out at him, calling him lazy and selfish. Zuko himself used to have a mantra as a child, “Azula always lies.”
Of course, Azula was lying. One of Azula’s captains makes a Freudian slip and calls Zuko and Iroh “the prisoners”. They manage to fight their way out of Azula’s custody, and they cut off their topknots, cutting off ties to the fire nation, supposedly.
Zuko and Iroh wander through the Earth Kingdom for a while, and Zuko makes a habit of stealing so that they can survive When Iroh starts to talk to him about keeping his honor, he splits off from him for a short while. During this time, he gets an important look at the way that Earth Kingdom villagers live, and sees just what his country has done to them. Soon, when he finally tracks down both Azula and Aang, he is helped by Iroh, who had tracked him. Iroh is terribly hurt by Azula, and Zuko, grief stricken, refuses any help from the Avatar and his friends.
Iroh ended up living of course, since Zuko tried to nurse him back to health. Iroh attempts to help Zuko learn how to control lightning, like his sister and father, so that he can finally beat his sister. Of course, creating lightning requires calm and peace, and Zuko’s inner turmoil made it completely impossible for him. Instead, Iroh teaches him how to redirect lightning. When Zuko asks if he can try it out with real lightning, Iroh refuses, hoping Zuko would never have to use the technique. Frustrated, Zuko went out into a lightning storm, trying to find some lightning to redirect, but when none actually strikes at him, it just enrages him more, and he finally completely breaks down.
Zuko and Iroh manage to find passage into the Earth Kingdom capital, Bah Sing Sei, and they get jobs at a tea shop. Zuko hates the job of course. The only person to ever notice that they were Firebenders was Jet, but Jet didn’t get to convince anyone else. In his time working there, one of the most exciting things that happened was, Zuko was asked on a date, which Iroh pushed him into. He was shockingly awkward and shy, and found it hard to maintain his personality as “Lee,” a normal Earth Kingdom peasant, and not Zuko, the prince of the Fire Nation. Still, he managed to get through it, and actually got a kiss out of it. However, he quickly ran away from the girl. Obviously uncomfortable with hiding who he was.
Soon after, Iroh is offered his own Tea Shop, and Zuko sees a flyer which was a lost ad for Appa, Aang’s flying bison. Realizing that the Avatar was in the city, Zuko became the Blue Spirit again to try to steal Appa. When he finally reached him, Iroh had followed him. He knew that Zuko was the Blue Spirit. Zuko is still intent on using Appa, and Iroh finally yells at him for being so rash. He reminds Zuko that he can make his own destiny, and honor, and that he needs to do what he wants and not what would make his father happy. Zuko is actually convinced, and frees Appa instead and throws away his Blue Spirit mask.
This was a good idea in the long run, but the sudden change of heart had immediate effects. The moment Iroh and Zuko returned to their apartment, Zuko collapsed from a fever. Iroh compares what is happening to Zuko to a war going on within his own mind and body. What Zuko did to help the Avatar was so against his image of himself that he threw off the balance inside of him. When he came out of the fever, he was supposed to emerge as his true self. While he’s sick, Zuko has many hallucinations, including a dream of two dragons, one red, and one blue, with Iroh and Azula’s voices respectively, along with images of his mother. He also dreams of himself as the Avatar. He’d only find out their meanings later on. When he awakes from these dreams, his hand goes up to his scar, and he finds comfort in the fact that it was still there, showing how much it has become a part of how he saw himself.
It does seem like Zuko’s changed a lot when he gets better. He is much more optimistic. His bitterness has almost completely disappeared, and finally, he seems to enjoy life. He’s grateful and kind to his uncle, even going so far as to hug him a few times, and helping out enthusiastically with his shop.
Maybe if Azula hadn’t tricked the both of them into coming to the palace, with an “invitation from the Earth King,” Zuko may have continued to seem that way. Even though Iroh buys them a way to escape, Zuko had to challenge Azula, and he gets captured and thrown into the Crystal Catacombs beneath Bah Sing Sei. Shockingly though, Katara is there as well!
While Katara initially rages on him, believing his imprisonment to be a trap, and that he was a horrible person for being in the Fire Nation, Zuko and Katara find common ground. Both of them lost their mothers. For a while, Katara starts to forgive him, even admitting that he was usually the face of the enemy to her. She offers to heal his scar, removing his last mark from the fire nation, but of course they are interrupted by Aang and Iroh. Even there, Aang and Zuko almost start fighting, but Iroh keeps him back. While Aang and Katara leave to find their friends, Azula shows up, restrains Iroh, and once again tries to convince Zuko that, if he assisted her in capturing the Avatar, he would be welcomed back by his father.
In spite of his apparent metamorphasis, Zuko joins with Azula. Not only did he help Azula almost kill Aang, but he also completely betrayed his uncle. He shows a little remorse for this, but Azula tries to assure him, telling him that he did the right thing.
Zuko was initially reluctant to return to the Fire Nation. His father had banished him, and technically he didn’t capture the Avatar. He also worries about how much the Fire Nation, and he himself, had changed. Mei, a girl who had a crush on Zuko when they were kids, reassures him, and he is given a grand welcome home, but he’s still terrified of seeing his father again. However, when he finally sees him… Ozai is under the impression that Zuko killed the Avatar.
Zuko immedietly goes to his sister and asks her why she gave him credit. She tells him that it’s so he could be welcomed home, but Zuko knows that she has an ulterior motive. He knows that the Avatar probably is still alive, and if that was discovered, he would be completely screwed.
He secretly visits his Uncle in prison many times, but Iroh refuses to talk to him, especially when he starts asking him for advice about the Avatar. Zuko gets frustrated, and calls him crazy before leaving. To make sure that the Avatar is never found alive, he hires an assassin to kill him.
So now that he has everything he ever wanted, his father’s love, his rightful position as heir, and his honor, he should be happy, right? Wrong. Zuko finds that he’s angrier then ever and he has no idea why, or he just doesn’t want to admit it. Finally, after being pressured by Azula and her friends, he admits that he’s angry at himself for not knowing the difference between right and wrong anymore.
Of course, Zuko was about to learn the reason for those feelings. One night, a letter is left outside of his door, advising him to seek out information about his Great Grandfather’s death. His Great Grandfather was Fire Lord Sozin. Sozin was the person who began the war, and he left written memoirs with the Fire Sages. The memoirs account his friendship with Avatar Roku, Aang’s predecessor. After reading about Roku’s death, Zuko is perplexed to find that Sozin is still alive at the end of the story. Zuko immediately goes to Iroh, knowing that he was the one who left the letter, and Iroh reveals to him that he actually did read about his Great Grandfather’s death after all. His mother’s grandfather was Avatar Roku. The struggle between right and wrong was literally in his blood.
After a few more weeks of thoroughly enjoying his life as a prince, and finally letting his relationship with Mei blossom, Zuko is invited, with honor, to a war meeting by his father. Reluctantly, Zuko attends, and is relieved to hear that his father literally refused to begin the meeting without him. Zuko finally hears all about his father’s plans to use Sozin’s Comet to crush the Earth Kingdom. Afterward, Mei is delighted to hear that Zuko was accepted as Ozai’s son… But he knew that he wasn’t being himself at all. It was this that finally made Zuko realize that he had to do what he thought was right.
On The Day of Black Sun, a solar eclipse where all Firebenders would lose their ability to use fire, Zuko finally makes his move, confronting his father. Since the Fire Lord is powerless, he has no choice but to listen. Zuko admits that the Avatar’s alive, and completely lets loose everything he feels to him. He knows that the world doesn’t want the greatness of the Fire Nation, everyone hates them. He wants there to be peace. He also finally tells Ozai how cruel he was for challenging a thirteen year old boy to a duel, and admits that Iroh is more like his real father. Lastly, he tells him that he is going to actually JOIN with the Avatar to assure peace in the world. In return, though he is actually trying to keep Zuko in the room until the sun comes back out, Ozai tells Zuko that his mother is still alive. He suddenly shoots lightning at Zuko, but Zuko gets to use his re-direction technique that he learned from Iroh at last, and escapes.
The first thing Zuko does is he attempts to free his Uncle, but it turns out that Iroh had already escaped on his own. He then takes a Fire Nation war balloon and follows after the Avatar and his friends as they escape from their failed invasion attempt. They don’t notice him, and they get all the way to the abandoned Western Air Temple.
Zuko sets up camp in the woods, and starts to muse about how to approach them, even going so far as to take on Iroh and Azula’s voices to try to see what they would do. Again, we get a glimpse of Zuko’s surprising awkwardness. He approaches the group with a prepares speech, and when that fails terribly, he starts apologizing for everything he did to them. He knows that it’s going to be hard for them to trust him after all of that. Unfortunately, he slips and accidentally mentions that he hired an assassin on them, and they chase him off. Back at his campsite, he berates himself, but his situation is made worse again when Toph surprises him and he accidentally burns her feet. Then he’s even more frustrated with himself, “Why am I so bad at being GOOD?!”
Eventually, he redeems himself by trying to stop his assassin when he finally comes to try to kill Aang. He almost gets knocked off of the balcony in the Western Air Temple while trying. Finally, the group hears him out, and he asks Aang if he can teach him how to Firebend. Aang agrees, because Zuko seems to understand the dangers of controlling fire, and he sincerely apologized to Toph for burning her. After asking all of his friends if they were ok with Zuko joining, Zuko is officially welcomed.
Of course, he’s not warmly welcomed. He still had a lot of things that he had to make up for, especially to Katara who felt completely betrayed by what he did in Bah Sing Sei. He is up to the task though.
The first person who he really gains a trusting relation ship with is actually Aang. Zuko finds out that he suddenly can’t use Firebending anymore. In order to find a way to bring it back, Toph originally recommends that they go to find the original source of Firebending. Unfortunately, Sozin had made sure all of the Dragons were hunted down, and Iroh was the last to hunt a dragon. Zuko and Aang go to the ruins of an old civilization known as the Sun Warriors. Through a series of events, mostly mistakes, Zuko and Aang discover that the civilization still exists, and they still hold the secrets of true Firebending.
They go through the Sun Warrior’s ritual, even after being told that they could be killed if they were not worthy of true Firebending. Zuko reassures Aang at many points that he can Firebend, and that he doesn’t need to be so worried. Of course, it turns out that the masters who were meant to judge them were two dragons. Coincendentaly, they look exactly like the two dragons from Zuko’s fever dreams in Bah Sing Sei. They show Zuko and Aang the secret, that firebending comes from harmony and life. The current Firebenders mostly took their strength from emotions and anger, and that’s what Zuko did. For the longest time, hunting Aang was his only drive, so when he finally lost that goal, he lost his anger. Now that he truly understood the meaning of Firebending, Zuko could use his powers again.
[Personality]
Zuko almost literally lives to feel conflicted. As Iroh told him, there is a constant battle going on inside of him between good and bad because of his heritage as the grandson of both Firelord Sozin, and Avatar Roku. He may desperately want to do the right thing, but he has a very hard time in discovering what the “right” thing is. This is best seen during “The Crossroads of Destiny,” where, instead of helping the Avatar escape from Azula, Zuko helps Azula capture him. Afterward, he honestly didn’t know if it was the right thing to do or not. He constantly struggled with discovering who he really was, because even though he finally had everything he had wanted, he didn’t feel like himself. By now, Zuko knows he made the wrong choice, and he’s trying to make the right one by joining with the Avatar instead, becoming the person he’s truly meant to be. It looks like he is finally able to make better choices, but he still feels terrible about the wrong choices he’s made in the past.
Still, Zuko has the ability to realize that some of the choices he’s made are not easily forgiven, and that he will have to work hard to make up for them. This is probably because he puts a huge emphasis on the idea that, to be strong, you have to struggle for everything. Sometimes, when he’s mulling over the right thing to do, it can be pretty funny. While trying to find the best way to approach the Avatar about joining him, he literally practices a speech to a frog, and then tries to take on his Uncle and Sister’s voices to see what the best way to approach the situation was.
Even though it should have been hard to leave his life behind, Zuko doesn’t really regret it, because he knew that it was the right thing to do. The only thing he regrets is that he left behind his girlfriend, Mei, who was also the only person he said goodbye to in the Fire Nation.
Even though Zuko is fully aware that he has a tendency to refrain from thinking things through, he still makes huge mistakes because he didn’t think about the consequences of his actions. For example, while in the Sun Warrior temple, he picks up a golden egg before really thinking about it, and he sets off a trap that could have ended up killing him and Aang if the Sun Warriors hadn’t found them. He’s trying to think things through more and more, but he still messes up.
He’s still quick to anger, but he’s a lot more patient now then he was at the beginning of the series. Still, he yells a lot, he just lashes out less. If someone starts to tease him, he doesn’t take it very well, but he’s becoming more accustomed to it because of Sokka and Katara’s jabs. He also can get extremely frustrated at himself if he thinks he’s not doing something right.
Zuko’s also still pretty pessimistic, but he has slowly been growing more and more optimism. Usually, if he’s encouraged, or if the other people with him are feeling pessimistic, he will try to become more positive and encouraging, and most likely, he’ll fail at it, but at least he tries. He also is very aware that luck usually isn’t on his side.
When Zuko is motivated to do something, nothing will stop him. He wouldn’t even give up searching for the Avatar, in spite of the unbelievable odds against him. Not only did most of the world believe that the Avatar was dead for over 100 years, but the Avatar was obviously going to be way to powerful for him to contain if he did face him one on one. Even so, that didn’t stop Zuko from searching him out. For a more recent example, Zuko also willingly subjected himself to the abuse of the Avatar’s friends in order to prove that he honestly wanted to change, even offering himself up as a prisoner at one point.
Though he’s gotten over his desire to please his father, he still desperately feels that he needs his family, and in this case, his family is his Uncle. He constantly feels guilty about what he did to Iroh, and wants to make it up to him, but he hasn’t gotten the chance. He’s also terrified that his Uncle wont accept him anymore. His mother is also on his mind a lot, especially now that he knows that she is still alive somewhere. His personality changes were partially inspired by both Iroh and Ursa.
All in all, Zuko has always been a good person, he just hasn’t known how to express it well. He still has some anger issues, and can be a real hot-head sometimes. Even so, he’s gradually becoming more and more friendly after renouncing the Fire Nation, and since he’s learning that Firebending comes from harmony, and not anger, his drive for succeeding is completely changing. He’s becoming a much happier person, and just wants to do the right things for the world, while being able to be himself.
[Specialties/Abilities]
Zuko is a Firebender, which does exactly what it sounds like. He can control fire at will. Since he controls fire, and fire is closely linked to the sun, his Firebending is weaker at night, and stronger during the day. It is also fueled by Zuko’s own internal body heat, and is greatly effected by the user’s breath control. In areas of extreme cold, Firebending is much weaker. In order to use his Bending, one has to learn the motions that go along with it. For Firebending, the motions are all based on Northern Shaolin kung fu. This style is mostly focused on offense, and it sacrifices defense for a greater offensive power.
He can’t create lightning, like his sister and his father, but Zuko can redirect it as a result of his Uncle’s training. He has only had one opportunity to practice that skill before, and he would prefer to avoid situations where he ever would have to use it again. He understands why Iroh had cautioned him so heavily about the skill, because if he messes it up, the lightning could end up channeling through his heart and causing irreversible damage.
Even if Zuko can’t use his Firebending, for any reason whatsoever, he still is very skilled in martial arts, and he’s adept at using his duel Dao blades. He is extremely fast, and this helps him in stealth situations. He gained some skills in thievery and spying when he disguised himself as the Blue Spirit, but he doesn’t have any reason to steal anything.
Though this is mostly a theory, it is also said that he’s very good at playing the Tsungi Horn. Also, from his practice while working in his Uncle’s tea shop, Zuko has learned how to make tea really well.
[Affection] Zuko did have a girlfriend, so he probably would be pretty reluctant to enter any other kind of relationship at first, but he probably would warm up to the idea if he knew the person well enough. He’s probably going to be very awkward when he realizes that someone likes him too, because underneath his tough emo exterior, he is pretty clueless when it comes to girls.
[Fighting]
If Zuko gets annoyed enough, he may start challenging people to duels, though that would take a lot. He can, and will fight if he has to. His anger problems will make him much more likely to be violent, but he knows how to put a lid on it. Sometimes, he’s going to know how to pick his battles, but others he’d just run into it.
[Other Facts]
Nothing for now~