sholio | 'nother Avatar ficlet for BringTheHappy

The really alarming thing is that his melodrama levels have actually dropped distinctly by this point in canon. So the mind boggles at what his internal monologue must have been like before *g*.

*laughs* And the really funny thing about this particular story is that I didn't start out to write, well, what it turned into. I was just writing a basic little Zuko character piece about how he was adjusting to the changes in the latter part of the series. And it got angstier, and broodier, and more emo, until at some point I realized that this is what his internal monologues probably sound like. And decided to run with it. :D

That's what makes the story work so well, I think. It just sort of ... escalates. It's not that Zuko doesn't have real things to angst about; it's just that they get processed with a particular kind of absolutist ANGST and WOE and GUILT and DESTINY and TOTAL LACK OF PERSPECTIVE. 16-year-old brain at work *g*.

I've been thinking that it's something the show handles very skillfully -- it manages to give due weight to his (real and horrific) traumas, while at the same time mocking him relentlessly.

I've been thinking that it's something the show handles very skillfully -- it manages to give due weight to his (real and horrific) traumas, while at the same time mocking him relentlessly.

Yes! I think that's absolutely what makes him work as a character, because he's such a realistic teenager, with, like you said, the lack of perspective about his own emo that teenagers tend to have. And the show is self-aware about it, without trying to pass off Zuko's lack of perspective as the actual, objective reality (which is a trap that a lot of YA falls into). But at the same time, he was legitimately abused as well, and it's sympathetic to that; he's not just the butt of the joke.

They walk that line pretty well with a lot of the characters -- I'm also pretty impressed with how they manage to keep Aang from being too saccharine by having him throw temper tantrums and sulk and keep things from his friends. Basically, their kids act like kids; they're good at channeling what it's like to be a kid in a way that's sympathetic to kids' problems while still maintaining an adult sense of perspective about it, which is rare. And kids of different ages and temperaments, as well.

One thing I keep meaning to make a post about, which this ties into a little bit, is the use of unreliable narrators in Avatar, because I'm pretty sure that at some points in the series they are deliberately filtering events through the characters' perspective -- not the events they actually show, I mean, but the way the characters talk about it later, or anticipate it beforehand. You get a lot of talk about fate and destiny and good and evil on kids' shows, and in fantasy in general, and on another, less subtle show, I'd think that they actually mean it, that they want you to take it literally. But on this show, I really get the impression that the characters are speaking from their own cultural or personal beliefs, and the narrative is kind of ambiguous (in a respectful sort of way, actually) about whether there's actual destiny/fate at work, or whether the characters just think there is.

But at the same time, he was legitimately abused as well, and it's sympathetic to that; he's not just the butt of the joke.

Yep. And similarly, they balance his woobie-ness with never letting him off the hook for his own actions. There are reasons why he acts the way he does, but it never gets into "But it wasn't his faaaaauuuult!!!" (though I'm sure some of the fandom did).

He really did do some awful things (most notably betraying Iroh), and he really has to suck it up and take responsibility for them, and that's a integral part of growing up into a decent human being.

Yes, *exactly*. And you're right that fandom (unsurprisingly) has a tendency to want to pet him and feed him tea without acknowledging that he did things which were very legitimately bad -- betraying Iroh and hiring a virtually unstoppable assassin to kill the kids are pretty much his lowest point as a character, I think, but not by any means the only low point. But what makes him grow as a character is that he recognizes this and doesn't just feel bad about it, but actively tries to atone for it.

It's not so much an 'but at the same time' as the two issues being interwoven.

Zuko's grown up in a propaganda-ridden culture where his grandfather and later father are framed as the most important person anywhere in any nation at that moment. The worth of Fire Nation citizens is framed relative to the war effort and to the royal family.

Check out that loyalty oath in The Headband again. It has to be rewritten for each successive Fire Lord's reign. Fire Nation kids aren't swearing themselves to the throne in that scene, but to the specific individual sitting on it, by name.

When he's banished, he's being rejected by the person he's been taught is the absolute most important individual in the world. The 'My father abused me and it was wrong' realization has to break past a teenage lifetime of 'Fire Lords must be followed and obeyed, and are always right' training (and in a system where the crown prince can be banished for the simple act of opening his mouth, even as a royal he probably had that training).

This also means that Zuko's ego and his emotional state are the second most important in the entire world according to what's being taught in every Fire Nation school. And since Ozai is too old and has too much secure power for it, that makes Zuko's personal emo the Most Important Emo In The World according to his entire nation's propaganda.

Zuko's lack of perspective is actually in part a sign of just how broken the world is, of just how deep the emotional abuse of he and his country go.

Oh, hmm! These are really good points -- I hadn't really thought about the fact that Zuko not only has to, basically, get over himself, but he's having to contend with a lifetime's conditioning in the cult of personality surrounding his father (and himself). The Most Important Emo in the World ... hee! But ... also true! And this:

The 'My father abused me and it was wrong' realization has to break past a teenage lifetime of 'Fire Lords must be followed and obeyed, and are always right' training (and in a system where the crown prince can be banished for the simple act of opening his mouth, even as a royal he probably had that training).

... breaks my heart a little, because, yeah -- no wonder it took him so long to figure out that his father burning half his face off for a minor infraction was wrong, and not his fault.

no wonder it took him so long to figure out that his father burning half his face off for a minor infraction was wrong, and not his fault.

I think there's also some classic abused-child logic going on there: if what happened was your fault, if it happened because you were bad/not good enough, then you can fix it -- be good enough (capture the Avatar), and Everything Will Be Okay Again.

(And the thing about Zuko's approach to anything in life is that he tries and tries and tries and tries. He's used to failing and trying harder.)

Acknowledging that it wasn't your fault means acknowledging that your parent is an abusive sociopath, and that means things can never be fixed and you're never going to get that parental love. And that's a hard thing to have to recognize.

I absolutely bought Zuko's decision at the end of season 2, because yeah, he's been getting all these little subversions of his beliefs (connecting with various Earth Kingdom people as human beings, for example), he's been spending as much time fighting Azula as chasing Aang -- but that basic drive is still there.

So all Azula has to do is dangle the possibility that he can prove himself and come home and his father will love him, and he jumps.

He has to go home and get all the trappings of his life back, and realize that his father will never love him, only the obedient dutiful "perfect prince", and feel guilt about what his choice has cost Iroh (among others), before it all crystallizes into his heel face turn.

'nother Avatar ficlet for BringTheHappy

Totally not brooding

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