| “ | My name is Zuko, son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai, prince of the Fire Nation, and heir to the throne. | „ |
| ~ Zuko announcing his identity to the Earth Kingdom village. |
| “ | I finally have you, but I can't get you home because of this blizzard. There's always something. Not that you would understand. You're like my sister. Everything always came easy to her. She's a Firebending prodigy, and everyone adores her. My father says she was born lucky. He says I was lucky to be born. I don't need luck, though. I don't want it. I've always had to struggle and fight and that's made me strong. It's made me who I am. | „ |
| ~ Zuko to an unconscious Aang. |
Zuko, also formely known as Fire Lord Zuko and currently as Lord Zuko, is one of the two deuteragonists (along with Katara) of Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender, being one of the two main antagonists of Book One: Water (along with Zhao), the villainous deuteragonist of Book Two: Earth, and one of the deuteragonists of Book Three: Fire.
He was the prince of the Fire Nation banished by his father, Fire Lord Ozai, and sought to capture Avatar Aang to redeem himself. He gradually became good and eventually joined Aang and his companions. He became Fire Lord after he defeated his sister Azula, with the help of Katara, on the day that would have marked the coronation of her as Fire Lord.
He was voiced by Dante Basco and Elijah Runcorn (as a child) in the original series, Bruce Davison in The Legend of Korra, and Stephen Fu in Smite.
His Evil Ranking[]
His Villainous Deeds[]
- Spent an entire season chasing Aang and his team around so he could capture him and regain his honor.
- Attacked the Southern Water Tribe and threatened them to give him the Avatar.
- Burned down Kyoshi Island to capture Aang, endangering multiple innocent people such as the Kyoshi Warriors and the people living there despite them not even being threats to his plans.
- Stole Katara's necklace, which was a keepsake from her mother and thus highly important to her.
- Showed little empathy for his crew in his early appearances, and was a generally bad boss, acting mean and disrespectful of them.
- He was also rather consistently disrespectful to Iroh, his kindly uncle who wants nothing but the best for him.
- Stole Song's Ostrich Horse even when she had been nothing but kind to him and Iroh.
- Stole from families to survive.
- Almost stole Appa at the end of Book 2, only to be stopped by Iroh.
- Subverts his initial attempt at redemption thanks to Azula's manipulations, and betrays Team Avatar, fighting alongside his sister, which leads to Aang temporarily dying and the entire Ba Sing Se is conquered.
- Sent Combustion Man, an assassin, after Team Avatar in Book 3.
- Threw a guy across the wall just for talking to Mai.
- Insults Mai by calling her boring at Chan's party.
- Joins Azula, Mai and Ty lee in trashing Chan's place after Chan kicked them out.
- Even after redeeming himself:
- 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.
- Still has had issues such as being outright tyrannical during the wake of Kemurikage attacks and kidnappings of multiple Fire Nation children, which people have called him out for being questionable and Azula (who was behind these Kemurikage attacks) was glad she forced Zuko into taking the other hand.
- Much like Ozai, he's taken seriously and he hardly has comedic moments and the ones he has aren't enough to make him Laughably Evil.
Why Doesn't He Stand Out?[]
- Despite passing the baseline by burning down Kyoshi Island (which has numerous lasting effects on Suki in later seasons) and while he can't be compared to Unalaq or Vaatu, he still massively fails the heinous standard to Jet, Xu Ping An, and Koh the Face Stealer, who all do way worse with less resources.
- He is way too tragic to be NPE. He was abused by his father, who told him that while Azula was born lucky, he was lucky to be born. Said father also burnt a quarter of his face off just because Zuko spoke out against an immoral plan of his just before exiling him, these events happening at the age of thirteen. Ozai also fully intended on killing Zuko even earlier than that, due to Fire Lord Azulon ordering it.
- The reason why he wanted to capture Avatar Aang was because he wanted to restore his own honor and gained his father's love and appreciation, showing that he's pretty insecure.
- Despite his rudeness towards him, Zuko genuinely cared about Iroh even before his redemption, and seemed to care about Azula to some extent as well.
- He was genuinely in love with Mai.
- He has completely redeemed himself, joining Team Avatar for good in Book 3 and helping them take down the Fire Nation, and in the sequel, he remained Aang's friend until the latter's death, providing useful assistance to the new Avatar, Korra.
- Even when he was a villain, he displayed standards and a rigid code of honor on numerous occasions:
- Kept his promise to leave the Southern Water Tribe alone if Aang surrendered himself.
- After defeating Zhao in an Agni Kai he refused to kill or disfigure him. He also tried to save Zhao after Tui caught him.
- Despite his harsh leadership to his crew, he does look out for them when it comes down to it. Whenever he’s had a choice to either pursue the Avatar, or look after his crew, he chose his crew’s safety.
- When he burned down Kyoshi Island, he swore he would leave if Aang did, too, and he kept this promise.
- He spoke out against his father's plan to send inexperienced troops out to die so they could be worn down.
- Has a soft spot for children, as shown best in "Zuko Alone".
- In that same episode, he liberated a village from their tyrannical soldiers.
- While he has no problem with stealing to get what he wants, he won't take from the genuinely weak and defenseless.
- Felt genuine remorse for betraying Team Avatar and disrespecting Iroh.
- 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, like with Ozai (sympathetic to the fact that Azula was a victim to their father's abuse as much as, if not worse than, him).
- Despite Ozai being a horrifically abusive father towards him (and to a lesser extent Azula), he told an imprisoned Ozai that prison might be able to change him into a better person like Ozai banishing him did for himself.
- After the defeat of Ozai and the end of the Hundred Year War, he gave a speech at his coronation, telling all the other heroes and nations, promising 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.
- 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.
External Links[]
- Zuko on the Avatar Wiki
- Zuko on the Villains Wiki
- Zuko on the Heroes Wiki
- Zuko on the Inconsistently Admirable Wiki
- Zuko on the Shonen Rivals Wiki
[]
 Villainous Benchmarks
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Fire Nation Equalists Red Lotus Others Fanon See Also | ||