Avatar: The Last Airbender might be widely regarded as one of the greatest television shows to ever be produced, but it didn’t get that status overnight. The episodes at the beginning of the series were nothing compared to the colossal, high-stakes events that occurred during the series finale, and fans couldn’t have loved it more.
One of the best aspects of the show was the attention to character development, and one character from the series who is in the conversation for the best fictional story-arc in history is the Fire Nation prince, Zuko. However, Zuko took his time becoming a fan-favorite, and he had a long road getting there. That in mind, here’s our list of the top 10 times we felt bad for Zuko.
Update May 15th, 2020 by Louis Kemner: The Netflix re-release of Avatar is here, and fans can watch their favorite animated show all over again. What’s most compelling about this story, aside from its cool magic system and its stylish Asian setting, is the incredible characters, from the burdened but optimistic Aang to the conflicted prince Zuko and everyone in between. Zuko has gone through a lot, transforming from a cheap villain to a deep and conflicted boy who struggles to figure out his destiny. Now, it’s time to review five more times the audiences felt bad for him, or at least when he faced hardship that wasn’t of his own doing.
The Avatar State (Season 2, Episode 1)
Azula has now joined the hunt for the avatar, but she has no interest in working side by side with her brother right now. In fact, she lured Zuko and Iroh toward her waiting ship, and told them that they were being welcomed back to Ozai’s court.
This was a ruse, and Zuko and Iroh were nearly captured. After all they had gone through, they now had to contend with the Fire Nation on top of everything else, and they realized that they had no allies but each other.
Empty Royal Power (Season 3)
That may not be the name of an episode, but then again, this problem of Zuko’s isn’t contained in just one particular episode. In season 3, Zuko is a part of the Fire Nation palace once again, and he’s welcome by his father’s side for real this time.
The problem is that despite his royal status and opulent surroundings, Zuko feels empty. Nothing here is earned, and he is just a prince. He confides these troubled feelings to Mai, but she has no real solutions to offer.
The Crossroads Of Destiny (Season 2, Episode 20)
Zuko faced an impossible choice in the caverns of the old Ba Sing Se, and he made the wrong decision when he took Azula’s side. He was utterly torn between the allure of his father’s approval, and his loyalty to uncle Iroh.
This was indeed a crossroads of destiny, and no one would envy Zuko’s position. No matter what he did, he’d betray someone, and it was heartbreaking to see Zuko reluctantly part ways with Iroh.
The Day of Black Sun, Part 2 (Season 3, Episode 11)
This scene is more dramatic than tragic, but then again, no one would want to be Zuko in a situation like this, either. At last, Zuko has the courage to face his father without fear, and he confirms the worst: Ozai is beyond saving.
Zuko makes his best overtures for peace and reparations with the world, and Ozai scoffs at everything he says. Poor Zuko has lost his last hope to get through to Ozai, and worse yet, he is tormented once again by wondering what came of his mother, Ursa.
The Promise, Volume 1
Here again, the fans feel bad for Zuko not because of some pratfall or someone bullying him, but because he ends up in a serious dilemma. In this case, the newly-minted Fire Lord has to consider the consequences of his rule.
Zuko realizes that the reality of leadership may change him for the worse, and he has to ask his new friend, the almighty avatar, to end his life if he goes bad. It’s heart-wrenching to see Zuko think like this. It seems he can’t have one solid week of happy, carefree days.
The Chase/Bitter Work (Season 2, Episodes 8 and 9)
This entry is two-fold because neither of these episodes, as a whole, were especially bad for Zuko, but they did both end on particularly sad notes. At the end of “The Chase” Azula is cornered by Team Avatar, along with Zuko and Iroh, and seems to surrender, only before firing a cheap-shot at Iroh and hitting him in the chest. At the time of the strike, audiences didn’t know if Iroh was going to make it. In the following episode, Iroh taught Zuko to deflect lightning but refused to shoot it himself. When Zuko went looking for his own lightning in the middle of a thunderstorm but failed, he finally broke down in the pouring rain.
The Earth King (Season 2, Episode 18)
Zuko had been facing a bunch of moral dilemmas throughout the entirety of season 2 as he struggled to figure out who he was outside of being the Fire Nation prince. When he came upon the opportunity to steal the Avatar’s sky-bison and instead chose to set him free, it sent Zuko’s psyche spiraling into a mental-sickness, since the move was so outside his norm. The disease quickly spread through Zuko’s mind and even made him have a nightmare where he looked in a mirror and resembled Aang. Sleep it off, Zuko.
The Tales of Ba Sing Se (Season 2, Episode 15)
We can feel bad for Zuko while simultaneously being incredibly happy for him - that’s the genius of his character and it was encapsulated perfectly in his story from “The Tales of Ba Sing Se”.
Zuko and Iroh had been living and working at their tea shop for quite some time when a lovely lady decided to ask Zuko out on a date. Iroh gladly accepted on his behalf (much to Zuko’s displeasure) and audiences got to see a little slice of what a romantic the Fire Nation prince could truly be. The part that made us feel bad was when Zuko rushed home after abandoning the girl, yet revealed that he actually had a good time (which made the audience realize Zuko wanted love, he just didn’t know if he could give it back).
Lake Laogai (Season 2, Episode 17)
Season 2 Zuko had a really rough go of things, and it all eventually boiled down to one moment - a moment that is still remembered by all Avatar fans as one of the most important scenes of the series. Zuko had all but given up at trying to capture the Avatar and regain the honor he had lost when he found a flyer with Appa on it in Ba Sing Se. He immediately realized that he could capture the Avatar’s bison and then come up with a plan to use him as bait to get to Aang, but Iroh intercepted his nephew and begged him to finally look inward and start asking himself the big questions.
The Siege of the North (Season 1, Episode 19 and 20)
The first episode on our list that doesn’t come from season 2 is still remembered as one of the best episodes of the series (it was also an hour-long, so that’s a bit of an advantage). “The Siege of the North” was an epic battle that had been built up after an entire season. However, the battle itself wasn’t the only thing going on, as Zuko cleverly used it as a diversion in order to finally capture the Avatar. He nearly succeeded, only being stopped by a scolding blizzard, but once the day was over and he still didn’t have the Avatar, he finally admitted that he was tired and needed some rest.
The Beach (Season 3, Episode 5)
There weren’t many people who were still feeling bad for Zuko at the beginning of season 3 - he had betrayed Katara and Aang at Ba Sing Se, thus allowing the Fire Nation to take control of the Earth Kingdom, and then spent the first couple of episodes trying to get his uncle to forgive him for the horrible betrayal. The prince even went so far as to hire an assassin to make sure that the Avatar would be killed, making audiences hate him more than ever. Then came “The Beach” episode where Zuko finally admitted that nothing about the life of a Fire Nation prince made him happy, he hated the person he had become, and he couldn’t take pretending to be that person anymore.
Avatar Day (Season 2, Episode 5)
One of Zuko’s most impressive aspects in the early episodes was how much his honor meant to him. Granted, it was shrouded in a cloak of anger, hatred, and fire from his maniacal father, but it was still admirable how proud Zuko truly was at being the Fire Nation prince.
That being said, this season 2 episode was especially sad since Zuko finally reached a point where his honor no longer meant anything to him. He and his uncle had been scrounging for scraps for weeks, and Zuko hit his lowest point and started thieving just to get by. Not only that, he was so lost in his own mind that he abandoned Iroh without having anywhere else to go.
The Western Air Temple (Season 3, Episode 12)
After the Day of Black Sun, Zuko finally came to his senses and realized that it was his destiny to help Aang overthrow the Fire Lord. However, Team Avatar wasn’t exactly thrilled to see the guy who had been trying to kill them for multiple seasons, and didn’t take too kindly to his offer to teach Aang fire bending. The episode gave Zuko several chances to prove himself and he blew nearly all of them, but he ultimately saved the group from an assassin (that he hired) and was able to make the gang see he was on their side. Katara’s speech to him at the end was spine-tingling, though.
Zuko Alone (Season 2, Episode 7)
When the episode itself is entitled “Zuko Alone” it’s a safe bet that Zuko isn’t going to be having such a great time. This episode was the only one in the entire series that didn’t feature any other main characters - just the Fire Nation prince as he set out on his own in the middle of the Earth Kingdom. There isn’t much that needs to be said about the depressive nature of this episode - Zuko left Iroh and realized that life on his own and without royal resources wasn’t exactly a picnic. Even after Zuko used his fire bending to rid a village of corrupt soldiers, the villagers cast him out thanks to his flaming capabilities.
The Storm (Season 1, Episode 12)
Season 2 may have been Zuko’s roughest, but this flashback story from season 1 was all any fan had to see in order to understand why Zuko was so determined to capture the Avatar. From the first very first episode, it was noticeable that Prince Zuko had a nasty scar that covered the entire right side of his face. Fans assumed that Zuko had been injured in a training accident, but it was revealed in the third episode that he had lost a duel to a master. Nine episodes later, audiences found out that the master was none other than Zuko’s father, and that he had burned his own son after he refused to fight him.
