So Maybe This Was Obvious, But It Only Occurred To Me Today That There's A Really Nice Parallel Structure

So maybe this was obvious, but it only occurred to me today that there's a really nice parallel structure to Zuko's arc in Zuko Alone vs. his Crossroads of Destiny arc.

In Zuko Alone, he starts off at one of his lowest points: he's completely alone and starving as a fugitive hiding in a foreign land; he decides to stop stealing to feed himself when he rejects the idea of attacking a pregnant couple he encounters on the road, but this means he has to start taking on odd jobs for strangers whom he would have looked down on for their poverty and "small" lives not so long ago.

Over the course of the episode, he starts to remember the kind of person he wants to be - the kind of person his mother thought he could be. By the end of the episode he is able to choose compassion for a town and kid he had bonded with over his own self-interests, when he returns to the town to fight of bullies who used their military strength to oppress the townspeople. He triumphantly casts off the lies he'd been hiding under, declares his true name and title to the whole village, and defeats the bullies as himself.

After owning the truth of who he is, Zuko is summarily rejected for this truth by the whole town.

In contrast, Zuko starts off the Crossroads of Destiny arc in a pretty good place. He and Iroh have been reasonably safe in Ba Sing Se for a while now, Iroh has just opened a fancy new tea shop, and Zuko is finally started the process of learning how to be happy with this smaller but perfectly good and reasonable life. Then their cover is blown when Katara recognizes them, Azula sets up a trap to con them out of hiding, and Zuko gets captured and thrown into a dungeon alone with Katara.

At first, Katara hates him because she knows exactly who he is - the firebender who has been chasing her and her friends across the world, the prince of the nation that killed her mother, the descendant of the men who have been destroying the world for the past 100 years. They argue at first, but Katara begins to accept Zuko after learning about their shared trauma over the loss of their mothers. Their moment of understanding is broken first with the arrival of Aang and Iroh, and then further upset with Azula's arrival.

It's an inverted mirror to his arc in Zuko Alone: Zuko starts off being rejected for his identity as a Prince of the Fire Nation and the harm he personally has caused in the past, he is offered sympathy and understanding by a former enemy after they both open up about a similar past trauma, and then he is presented with a choice between aiding Azula and the Dai Li (the bullies who use military might to get and maintain control over others), or aiding Katara and Aang (the people who threaten the strength/control of those at the top).

In both arcs, Zuko seeks acceptance based on who he is and the skills he brings in to help the ones he chose to side with.

In Zuko Alone, he makes the right choice to help the townspeople against the militarized bullies using their strength to put others down. He owns the truth of his identity, and he gets rejected for it.

He does the right thing, he tells the truth, and he winds up once more alone and hiding.

In the Crossroads of Destiny, he makes the wrong choice to side with the militarized bullies against the people they're trying to oppress and destroy in service to their own power. He thinks that he is owning the truth of who he is, that he is seeking acceptance based not on sympathy for his past but on the merits of his own strength. And as we learn at the start of S3, he is accepted back home not based on the truth, but based on Azula's lie.

He does the wrong thing, he is ostensibly accepted back into his home and his family, and he learns that the acceptance is based on a lie.

At the end of both arcs, Zuko winds up back in hiding, maintaining a lie about who he is or what he's done, to keep himself safe.