Zuko
from Avatar: The Last Airbender
created by Bryan Konietzko & Michael Dante DiMartino
Prince Zuko is hands-down my favorite character in Avatar: The Last Airbender, but it didn't occur to me until recently to ask myself, why? When I try to describe the development of his character, he comes across sounding like a totally generic Underdog Hero. The defining trait of his personality is that he never gives up. He is in many ways less talented and less clever than the other main characters, and he loses badly, over and over again, but he keeps fighting no matter what. Of course, you admire him for that--but hasn't that story already been done to death? How many movies can you think of where you're meant to root for the underdog as they fight their way to the top through blood, sweat, and tears? Million Dollar Baby, Rudy, Sea Biscuit, Rocky, Hidalgo, Slum-Dog Millionaire, the Star Wars trilogy...even a movie like Legally Blonde fits the underdog story trajectory. Pretty much any sports movie, a lot of martial arts movies, and any movie where the nerdy, unpopular kid becomes a hero and gets the girl falls into this category.
Now don't get me wrong, plenty of these movies are good, and there's a reason why the underdog trope shows up so often; it's exciting and we love it. But very often when I recognize this trope, I still enjoy the story, but I'm not completely on the edge of my seat because I know how it's going to end. With Zuko, I was more than on the edge of my seat--I was practically jumping out of my chair at times. I felt Zuko's losses and triumphs more acutely than those of any other character in the show.
So what makes Zuko's story different?
In most stories, the underdog starts with nothing--usually poor, with no connections, few or no friends, and sub-par skills, or at least a sub-par reputation--and then, because he bravely (or foolishly) refuses to give up in the face of impossible odds, he eventually fights his way to the top and wins the love and admiration of the audience and the recognition and respect of the other characters. To some extent, Zuko is like this. At the beginning of Avatar, Zuko appears as the banished prince of the Fire Nation, mutilated and disowned by his father, cared for only by his uncle Iroh and the crew of his ship; and his fire-bending skills, though good, never measure up to the extraordinary bending talents of all the other characters around him.
However, what makes Zuko's situation different, and more tragic, is that he didn't come from nothing. He was born with everything: the son and heir of the most powerful king in the world. His banishment happened at the age of 13, when he was more than old enough to remember the life he had before, and old enough to feel some of his responsibilities as an adult, but not mature enough to deal with...anything, really. His father also gave him (what was clearly intended to be) false hope, by telling Zuko that he could regain his honor and return home if he captured the Avatar--who at that time had not been seen for 100 years. Zuko, being 13, was naive enough to believe that he could do this, and he spent the next few years of his life sailing around the world on this impossible mission.
Another thing that makes Zuko's story more complex, and more unusual, is that it's not just the story of an underdog. It's also the story of a character who struggles with his own inner demons and eventually transitions from being a villain to being a good guy. Granted, even at the beginning, you know that Zuko is not the most evil of evil characters--he doesn't kill or hurt anyone without cause, for instance--but he is one of the main villains of season 1, and the protagonists spend much of their time either fighting him or fleeing from him.
Zuko can be pretty scary when he wants to be.
Interestingly, the other main villain of season 1 is the Fire Nation Commander Zhao, who serves as an excellent foil for Zuko. Both he and Zuko are in a race to capture to the Avatar, but their morals are clearly quite different. For example, in episode 3, Zuko challenges Zhao to a duel and beats him, fair and square, but chooses to spare Zhao's life. Zhao responds by attacking Zuko as soon as the prince turns his back. Uncle Iroh intervenes, subdues Zhao, and then calmly walks away, leaving Zhao with the scathing observation that, "Even in exile, my nephew has more honor than you."
Although Zuko clearly has redeeming qualities from the very beginning, his transformation from evil to good is very slow. Zuko is not a very wise person, even for his age; he's impetuous, highly emotional, and tends to see everything in black and white. Above all, he's been so obsessed for so long with restoring his birth-right and winning his father's love that he finds it hard to look at the world through any other lens. Zuko gets smacked in the face with hard life lessons over and over again, and his uncle's constant benign influence and good advice seem to mostly bounce off him with no effect. This can be very frustrating to watch. But, that being said, changing yourself is hard--and I love that the creators of Avatar took the time to show this in all its anti-glory.
When your most fundamental beliefs are being challenged by everything you see around you, you can't accept it so easily. There is a cost to letting go of the ideas you were raised with. You can't simply change sides, at the drop of a hat, in a war that you've always believed was just. You can't simply abandon your family, whom you've always wanted to love and be loved by in return, even when their inherent evil is so obvious to everyone else. We see Zuko, scarred and humiliated, pay the price for changing himself, his worldview, and his values. He moves--three steps forward, two steps back--towards becoming "the beautiful prince" that he has the potential to be.
One of the most brilliant master-strokes of the entire show is in season 3, when Zuko finally has everything he wanted: his father accepted him back, his honor is restored, and he's being hailed as a hero throughout the Fire Nation--but then he chooses to give it all up. This is the most difficult and the most intriguing part of Zuko's journey, because now the conflict is purely internal. All external enemies and obstacles have been removed, everything he wanted is his, and yet he still feels this deep contradiction, this wrongness within himself. He has nowhere else to turn, no one else at whom he can direct his rage; the only thing he can do to cure himself is turn inward and truly confront his own demons.
And he does.
That's what makes Zuko amazing. Most people in that situation would bury themselves in pleasures and power, and drown out those nettling barbs of conscience with thoughts of self-righteousness, egoism, and desperate self-justification. Not Zuko.
He takes his final step to self-determination when he confronts his father in a scene that is both touching and powerful. Zuko finally becomes his own person, free of the negative influences and lies that he was raised with. And he got there precisely because of his relentless refusal to give up the things he held most dear. He's an underdog who got to the top, and then had the strength to give it all up for something lonelier and riskier, something purer and infinitely more precious: a chance to destroy the influences that had so corrupted him, and replace them with something better. He chose to risk everything to try and create a better world, rather than reign over the tortured remains of the world corrupted by his forefathers.
Zuko's journey is profound, poignant, painful, and awe-inspiring: the prince who became a outcast, the outcast who became a false hero, the false hero who became a revolutionary. His inner strength is unparalleled, not just because he refused to give up in the face of impossible odds, but because, at the moment of his greatest success, he had the courage to look his darkest self in the face and triumph over him. For that, Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, I applaud you!
No comments:
Post a Comment