ATLA Book Two: Earth
Chapter Seven: Zuko Alone
In Which Zuko fixes a
roof, Ty Lee does a cartwheel, and Lee does a Crocodile Dundee impression.
Having just produced its best episode so far in the form of
“The Blind Bandit”, “The Last Airbender” proceeds to go one better with “Zuko
Alone”.
One of the most prominent ways I have looked at Zuko’s
character arc throughout this project has been through discussing the way his
story is framed within the narrative structure. A crucial part of his character
arc throughout Book One was the way he was framed by the narrative to steadily
position him on a redemption arc in spite of the fact he is clearly an
antagonist throughout that Book. That framing goes through a subtle change as
he shifts to the role of anti-hero in Book Two: his redemption arc is clearly
laid out at this point, and he is a character the audience sympathise with and
root for by now, but he is still struggling to find the right path, and in this
struggle, has been stripped of all his connections to the main plot since “The
Waterbending Master” until “The Blind Bandit”, where he drifted out of the main
story altogether. Now, for one episode only, he stars as the protagonist in
what is functionally his own show, completely separate to the main narrative:
he poses as a nameless the sword fighting refugee travelling the Earth Kingdom,
alone and on the run from the Fire Nation.
With that said, the start of the episode shows Zuko still
floating around the edges main plot, but only in a very loose way. He glimpses
parts of the show that we don’t know will be key to the story yet, such as his
brief sighting of Ying and Tahn, the couple expecting a child who will appear
in “The Serpent’s Pass”. That Zuko can only see, and not interact with, fringe
characters from the show’s future plot, speaks to the fact that he has
distanced himself completely from the main story, but also highlights the
season’s theme of the interconnectedness of all things. Even at his furthest
from the plot, Zuko’s decision not to steal from Ying and Tahn impacts on
Aang’s story. The young couple will give Aang hope again, but only because
Zuko’s battered but still surviving sense of right and wrong stops him from
stealing from them.
Zuko is also connected to the main plot through his flashbacks,
first seen through his brief vision of Ursa (the first time she is seen in the
show). The flashbacks remind us of his links to the Fire Nation’s royal family,
but while he is connected to the past of the main narrative through his
memories, nothing physical or tangible. And connection to the main story in the
present is currently impossible: Zuko is out of sync with the narrative of The
Last Airbender.
Moving on to the main content of the episode, it is worth
commenting on the transitions between the present day scenes and the
flashbacks, as they really get at the heart of what “Zuko Alone” is doing, and
how it is structured as an episode of television. Some transitions,
particularly from past to present, come through hard cut, but most the time the
scenes next to one another are linked by image, dialogue, or theme. Gansu’s
statement that “A man’s past is his business” is followed by Zuko contemplating
his own past in his first flashback. The ensuing present day sequence leads
into the next, brief flashback by theme, with Lee’s family learning about his
brother’s capture being followed by a flashback of Zuko learning about Lu Ten’s
death. Zuko’s past enables him to empathise with another family from the other
side of the war: Lee and Zuko come from nations that are in an ongoing conflict
with one another, are from vastly different backgrounds in terms of privilege
and wealth, and where Lee’s family is caring and supportive, Zuko’s is
fractured and abusive. However, both boys have lost loved peers to the hundred
year war. The losses of Sensu and Lu Ten also lead to parallels and contrasts
between the actions of Gansu and Iroh. Gansu heads to the front to find his
son, just as Iroh goes on a self-imposed exile after Lu Ten’s death: both men
leave their families for an indefinite time due the results of their sons
fighting on the front lines. However, where Gansu’s search for Sensu is his way
of not giving up hope, and clinging to the possiblility his son is still alive
Iroh’s response to Lu Ten’s death is his way desperately searching for meaning
in life, and of reevaluating his position in the war. The next transition comes
through image, from Zuko giving Lee the knife to a flashback of Zuko practising
with the knife, and being taunted by Azula.
After the plot to assassinate Azulon develops in the next
flashback, we get the “Azula always lies” dialogue transition, which marks the
start of the past scenes linking into the present narrative just as the present
narrative has been leading into the flashbacks for the majority of the episode.
We then transition from Zuko’s fight with Gow to Ursa’s flight from home by
image, with the shot of Zuko briefly being knocked unconscious in the fight
directly followed by him waking up in the flashback. The transition out of the
flashback of Ursa’s farewell comes via dialogue, theme and image: Ursa tells
Zuko to remember his identity in the past scene, which is followed by Zuko
awaking in a fiery blaze and revealing himself as a Firebender, before
declaring his name and title. As the episode develops, these transitions
increasingly highlight the way Zuko’s mentality is one that is deeply informed
and shaped by the family he was raised in, both through the love and Kindness
of Ursa and Iroh, the abuse of Ozai, and his sense of inferiority to Azula.
The sense of inferiority is in evidence through the details
of the flashback plot, in particular the early glimpses of the Fire Nation Gang
as children, which set out the way the four fire nation teenagers will interact
throughout the first half of book three. Azula’s manipulative tendencies are
already in evidence through the way she uses her mother’s wish to see her bond
with Zuko to tease him and Mai, a scene that also sets up Mai and Zuko’s
relationship in Book Three. Another telling moment comes when Azula pushes Ty
Lee over when seeing her friend’s superior cartwheels: we see the insecurity
that makes Azula such a fascinating character, but we also see the unhealthy
and cruel way she has learned to respond to that insecurity. These scenes
really set up the tragedy of Azula’s character: although we see the cruel side
of her nature taking shape, she is not yet resorting to the manipulation
through fear that defines the way she uses Mai and Ty Lee in the present. This
hints heavily at what is made more explicit later on: that she was shaped into
the undeniably cruel and villainous person she is now through her response to
the cruel and unforgiving upbringing she lived through as a child.
The nature of Zuko and Azula’s childhood is also seen in the
competition between the two siblings, which is most evident in their firebending
displays before Azulon. Azula’s precision and natural flair contrast with
Zuko’s struggle to improve and grasp basic form, a sequence that highlights the
envy and bitterness in the quest to please and placate an abusive father that
drives the relationship between the two siblings.
Also significant is Iroh’s appearance in the flashback,
which shows us the less than perfect person he was before the war, as he talks
casually about burning Ba Sing Se to the ground. While this appearance draws
attention to a more morally grey side of his character than is usually seen, it
is worth noting that the episode suggests, in Michael Dante Dimartino’s
paraphrased words that the ruthless general was more of a part he played, albeit
one he played very well, and without truly questioning the war his nation was
waging. Even at this point in his life, Azula calls him “his royal tea loving
kookiness”, he has respect for Earth Kingdom culture, and sends Zuko an
encouraging message and gift in the form of the Knife. The Iroh we know in the
show’s present is very much there before his spiritual change, just hidden
beneath the exterior role he has to play as the heir apparent to the Fire
Nation throne. However, we also see another less savoury aspect of his
character in the arguable double standard in the way he treats Azula compared
to Zuko, patronisingly sending her a doll, which she is understandably less
than impressed with. It could be argued that this represents his attempt to
give Azula, who is still less than ten, a normal childhood, but this is the
first instance of a pattern of behaviour that hints at a more ambivalent
attitude towards Azula than the one he has for Zuko. Finally, we get hints of
the way he drifted away and slowly defected from the fire nation after his
son’s death, and the way this was perceived by his family at the time, with it
mostly, with the exception of Zuko and Ursa, being viewing viewed as an
opportunity that Ozai took advantage of, taking the chance to seize the throne.
Most of all, the flashbacks are about Ursa. The initial
scenes establish her bond with Zuko, highlighting the way she was a positive
influence on him as a child that helped him maintain his goodness in spite of
the abusive situation he is being raised in. The scene with the protective
Mother Turtle duck provides some clear foreshadowing for the ultimate point of
the flashback: the reveal of the circumstances behind Zuko’s loss of his
mother. The final flashbacks demonstrate how her disappearance worsened the
situation with his father, as by vanishing to protect, Ursa leaves Zuko without
his one source of comfort and protection in an abusive home.
The present day plot shows the way Zuko has been shaped by
this past, where he is at this point in the narrative, and where he has to go
moving forward. In a way, the plot is Zuko’s solo version of the “Gaang visits
a village” plot. He arrives at an Earth Kingdom village, bonds with members of
that village, and does what he can to solve the village’s problem.
The problem in the village comes in the form of the Earth
Kingdom soldiers who are not really fighting the fire nation, but are in fact
just cruel bullies ruling the village with fear. Zuko has them pegged
perfectly:
“It doesn't matter who
I am. But I know who you are. You're not soldiers; you're bullies. Freeloaders,
abusing your power. Mostly over women and kids. You don't want Lee in your army
– you're sick cowards messing with a family who's already lost one son to the
war.”
That final sentence arguably hints that Zuko suspects the
fate of Sensu is not a happy one: perhaps as the Fire Lord’s son he knows what
will happens to his nation’s prisoners, so he does not share the hope Gansu has
for his son. Zuko’s condemnation of the military’s abuse of the women and
children in the village contrasts tellingly with his refusal to steal from the
pregnant Ying at the start of the episode: at his most desperate, Zuko refuses
to harm the kinds of people the soldiers abuse to make their already
comfortable situation even easier. It’s a contrast that opens up the theme of
military abuse of power, highlighting the way that corruption, brutality and
entitlement almost inevitably manifest themselves in certain parts of military
structures. Even the Earth Kingdom army, which is supposedly on the good side
of the hundred year war, constructs a military culture that enables the abuse
of its most marginalised citizens. Once again, shades of grey are added to the
hundred year war. The Fire Nation military is an oppressive regime threatening
the freedom of the world, but the behaviour of the Earth kingdom soldiers shows
that oppressive behaviour can appear in any military structure, even the
supposedly “good” ones.
The other half of the present day plot comes through Zuko
bonding with Lee and his family. It is a plot revolves around three
particularly noteworthy moments. The first comes Sela gets Zuko to eat with
them by asking him to do work quickly understanding the type of person Zuko is:
he won’t accept help, as his pride probably means he sees it as unearned
charity, arguably feeling that simple kindness is something he doesn’t deserve.
Asking him to do something for them in the form of fixing their roof, even
though he’s unsurprisingly terrible at it, is therefore a perfect way to help
him without undermining his sense of self-worth. The second key moment comes
through Zuko bonding with Lee over the broadswords. Zuko’s sword fighting is a
form of fighting that isn’t linked, as his firebending is, to his rage and
hurt, so he can use it to teach and share a friendship with Lee, which leads to
the third key moment: Zuko giving Lee his knife. It is a moment that Zuko is
capable of small acts of kindness, and can give something that is of
sentimental value to himself, but it also sets up the tragedy of the
resolution, as Lee’s rejection of the gift becomes a symbol of the way the
world has rejected Zuko.
The flashbacks and the two halves of the present day plot
come to their thematic conclusion in Zuko’s fight with the soldiers, a plot
which sees his reclamation of his name go horribly wrong. The moment Zuko
attempts to reclaim his place in the main plot, he goes from being a hero
cheered on against the soldiers by the watching crowd to being a source of fear
and suspicion. He fights against the earthbenders with just his broadswords and
is a hero, but doesn’t have enough power, narratively or literally, to defeat
Gow. Using and revealing his status as a Firebender, and then announcing his
title as crown prince of the Fire nation gives him the strength and narrative
firepower to overcome Gow, but in doing so, he immediately goes from being a
hero in the eyes of the crowd to a villain. It is a moment that highlights the
central tension for his character throughout Book Two: at this point in the
show, Zuko can be a hero, but only when completely separated from the main plot.
A crucial part of his redemption arc will require him to find a better
connection to the narrative, and change the meaning of his name and title.
End of Part Twenty
Five.
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