I Keep Struggling To Write Up Zuko Meta Around The Crossroads Of Destiny And After, Mainly Because I

I keep struggling to write up Zuko meta around the Crossroads of Destiny and after, mainly because I don't want to start up a bunch of arguments about Katara vs. Zuko and who was more wrong. And I still very much don't want that. (I love a good faith debate about fictional stories, but those good faith and fictional stories bits are key.)

There is one piece I need to toss out into the void to get it out of my head, though, because I see it all the time and disagree with it so completely.

Zuko didn't betray Katara in Ba Sing Se.

Betrayal is a violation of someone's trust, and yes Katara had started to trust Zuko. However! Zuko never promised Katara anything. Her tentative trust was based on her own lack of understanding of Zuko's situation.

Katara yells at Zuko and accuses him of working with Azula. She tells him that he's the Fire Lord's son, so "spreading violence and hatred is in [his] blood." Zuko tells her that she doesn't know what she's talking about, to which she responds by telling him that the Fire Nation had taken her mother. Zuko reaches out to Katara and shares how he lost his mother, too.

Katara apologizes to him for yelling, and then talks about how she used to picture his face as the face of the enemy. Zuko assumes that she's talking about his scar, to which she clarifies that's not what she meant. Even so, Zuko shares with her that for a long time he viewed his scar as, "the mark of the banished prince, cursed to chase the Avatar forever. But lately, I've realized I'm free to determine my own destiny, even if I'll never be free of my mark."

Some important things here, from Zuko's side. This is Zuko saying that he's growing to accept his scar, and to accept that it doesn't control him. He has not said that he's chosen a new side in the war, or even that he knows what destiny he will choose now that he feels free to choose.

At this point, Katara still doesn't know the whole story of Zuko's scar. What she does know, is that he saw it as the mark that cursed him to chase Aang forever. Zuko is already realizing that his scar doesn't have to control him, but it does still weigh on him. So Katara offers to heal it, thus "freeing" him of the destiny of chasing Aang.

And Zuko doesn't take her up on it immediately. He is clearly considering it, but he hasn't agreed or promised Katara anything when they are interrupted by Aang and Iroh's arrival. When Aang shows up, the moment between Katara and Zuko is shattered and Katara runs over to hug Aang in relief, while Aang glares at Zuko in distrust over her shoulder.

Katara may have thought that she was, "giving Zuko a chance," and that he betrayed her trust, but Zuko has already lampshaded the truth for us with his first line to Katara - she doesn't know him, she doesn't know the full context of his situation or motivations, and she doesn't get to tell him who he is or how he feels about the world. She has made a lot of assumptions, some kind and some less so, but the first genuine question she asks is what Zuko would do if she healed his scar. That is a question Zuko never gets to answer before they're interrupted, and thus Katara only had her assumption of what his answer would have been and what it would have meant.

(Which is in character for Katara! She's a young girl who has very strong opinions and morals and is willing to stand up for what she believes is right, but who is still in many ways lacking experience with the wider world (yes, she's traveled a lot with Aang, now, but S3 shows us that she still has things to learn, especially about the Fire Nation, and about herself and the kind of person she wants to be when she has the power to choose). She is also very compassionate, and she clearly wants people she feels any kind of sympathy for to be on her side. The flip side of those things is that she also tends to assume things about other people without confirming the truth, and then act as though her assumptions are facts.)

Katara's assumptions being wrong, however, does not constitute a betrayal on Zuko's part.

schrodinger's checkov's occam's death of the author. There have been so many clues that if it isn't foreshadowing at this point, then it's the author who is wrong.

schrodinger's chekhov's gun. a detail in a story that looks like it should have some big payoff but it's too early to tell if that's relevant or if the author just has a passion for lovingly describing guns.

As much as I love ‘I would kill for you’, it kinda really loses its impact if the person saying it is a villain who already kills at the slightest provocation

’I would refrain from killing for you, I would spare them all if you asked me’ is a very sexy alternative, and a much more powerful declaration of love coming from a character prone to violence

Absolutely it was not wrong for Katara to feel betrayed by Zuko's actions! My main quibble is with the idea that valid feelings must be based on accurate logic.

As another example - Zuko felt betrayed by his crew when Zhao commandeered them for his attack on the North Pole in Season 1, and they all left. I wrote in another meta about why Zuko's feeling of betrayal is valid, from his point of view.

However, I would not actually say that the crew betrayed him in that episode. The crew was following a more highly ranked naval officer who had the right, according to Fire Nation law, to overrule Zuko's command and order them elsewhere. It also doesn't seem like Zuko had made many attempts to integrate into his crew during his banishment (quite the opposite, though who deserves blame for that would be a different post that isn't the subject of this meta). He had stopped putting them directly in danger during his attempts to capture Aang after The Storm, but even that hadn't necessarily been made clear to the crew and wouldn't have obligated their loyalty beyond what was demanded of them by Fire Nation law anyway.

While the situation between Katara and Zuko in CoD is different in most details, there is a similarity in that Katara's feelings of betrayal were based on her own assumptions and the hurt she felt over having tried to do right by someone she did have to help, only to see him not choose her when it came down to a question of picking sides. (Likely, those feelings of betrayal were heavily exacerbated by Aang's near-death at Azula's hand, too.)

Just like I would not say that Zuko's crew actually betrayed him when they were commandeered by Zhao, though, I would also not say that Zuko betrayed Katara in CoD.

Feelings can be valid, even when the logic behind them is flawed.

I do wish the show had allowed Zuko to engage in mutual conversations with the Gaang in Season 3, including with Katara. Relevant to this meta, Katara (and the intended audience of kids, who often benefit from more blunt/straightforward messaging in their media) could have benefited from a conversation with Zuko, post Southern Raiders, about misplaced anger. There are a lot of parallels between her anger with Zuko in S3, and Zuko's behavior in S1.

In S1 (and S2/first half of S3 to a lesser extent), Zuko is angry because he knows at some level that the way his father burned and banished him was cruel and unjust. However, he directs his anger at Iroh, his crew, and later at the Gaang, because he does not feel like he is allowed to be angry at his father, especially when his father is also the Fire Lord. S3 Katara does a similar thing with her anger over her mother's death. Katara has held onto that anger for years, but she directs it at more convenient targets, such as Zuko or the Fire Nation at large, because she doesn't have access to the person who actually killed her mother.

Thus, while Katara has many valid reasons to be angry with and suspicious of Zuko when he finally switches sides, the anger she is really holding onto and the excuse she gives Zuko for it, that she was the first person to give him a chance (also not true, that was Aang in S1, arguably twice if we're going to count "showing him compassion" as "giving him a chance") and that he betrayed her under Ba Sing Se, is actually misdirected anger over her mother's death - an event that Zuko had nothing to do with.

Zuko didn't actually betray Katara, but it's easier for her to hold onto that excuse and that anger, especially when Zuko's choice to side with Azula in CoD helped her almost kill Aang, because the narrative she has built up about Zuko's betrayal gives Katara a sense of control and agency that she lacks in the memories of her mother's death.

I think you brought up some great points in your last paragraph, though! I've already rambled on a lot and don't have much to add there, but I like that perspective!

I keep struggling to write up Zuko meta around the Crossroads of Destiny and after, mainly because I don't want to start up a bunch of arguments about Katara vs. Zuko and who was more wrong. And I still very much don't want that. (I love a good faith debate about fictional stories, but those good faith and fictional stories bits are key.)

There is one piece I need to toss out into the void to get it out of my head, though, because I see it all the time and disagree with it so completely.

Zuko didn't betray Katara in Ba Sing Se.

Betrayal is a violation of someone's trust, and yes Katara had started to trust Zuko. However! Zuko never promised Katara anything. Her tentative trust was based on her own lack of understanding of Zuko's situation.

Katara yells at Zuko and accuses him of working with Azula. She tells him that he's the Fire Lord's son, so "spreading violence and hatred is in [his] blood." Zuko tells her that she doesn't know what she's talking about, to which she responds by telling him that the Fire Nation had taken her mother. Zuko reaches out to Katara and shares how he lost his mother, too.

Katara apologizes to him for yelling, and then talks about how she used to picture his face as the face of the enemy. Zuko assumes that she's talking about his scar, to which she clarifies that's not what she meant. Even so, Zuko shares with her that for a long time he viewed his scar as, "the mark of the banished prince, cursed to chase the Avatar forever. But lately, I've realized I'm free to determine my own destiny, even if I'll never be free of my mark."

Some important things here, from Zuko's side. This is Zuko saying that he's growing to accept his scar, and to accept that it doesn't control him. He has not said that he's chosen a new side in the war, or even that he knows what destiny he will choose now that he feels free to choose.

At this point, Katara still doesn't know the whole story of Zuko's scar. What she does know, is that he saw it as the mark that cursed him to chase Aang forever. Zuko is already realizing that his scar doesn't have to control him, but it does still weigh on him. So Katara offers to heal it, thus "freeing" him of the destiny of chasing Aang.

And Zuko doesn't take her up on it immediately. He is clearly considering it, but he hasn't agreed or promised Katara anything when they are interrupted by Aang and Iroh's arrival. When Aang shows up, the moment between Katara and Zuko is shattered and Katara runs over to hug Aang in relief, while Aang glares at Zuko in distrust over her shoulder.

Katara may have thought that she was, "giving Zuko a chance," and that he betrayed her trust, but Zuko has already lampshaded the truth for us with his first line to Katara - she doesn't know him, she doesn't know the full context of his situation or motivations, and she doesn't get to tell him who he is or how he feels about the world. She has made a lot of assumptions, some kind and some less so, but the first genuine question she asks is what Zuko would do if she healed his scar. That is a question Zuko never gets to answer before they're interrupted, and thus Katara only had her assumption of what his answer would have been and what it would have meant.

(Which is in character for Katara! She's a young girl who has very strong opinions and morals and is willing to stand up for what she believes is right, but who is still in many ways lacking experience with the wider world (yes, she's traveled a lot with Aang, now, but S3 shows us that she still has things to learn, especially about the Fire Nation, and about herself and the kind of person she wants to be when she has the power to choose). She is also very compassionate, and she clearly wants people she feels any kind of sympathy for to be on her side. The flip side of those things is that she also tends to assume things about other people without confirming the truth, and then act as though her assumptions are facts.)

Katara's assumptions being wrong, however, does not constitute a betrayal on Zuko's part.

Zuko POV - Of Tea and Turtle Ducks (and the Turtle Duck Guy)

Should I be working? Yes! Did I instead write two Zuko POV scenes from Of Tea and Turtle Ducks (and the Turtle Duck Guy) in response to @spacecasehobbit wanting to give Zuko a hug but tragically not being a fictional character? Yes!

Guess what, you're a fictional character now!

Zuko isn’t even bothering to pretend anymore that the anxious laps he’s pacing around the barely-dawn courtyard are a cool down from his run, or a shortcut—kind of—back toward the apartment above the Jasmine Dragon, or anything other than him stressing. It’s been nearly a week since the ducklings have hatched and Zuko is pretty sure he through any pretense of chill out the window long before then.

He thinks about texting Sokka again, thinks about how he’s almost positive that Sokka would answer, and almost positive that he would come running. That his hair would still be messy, his normally animated face slow with sleep, that he’d come with a bag full of snacks and juggling tea and spilling out determination to fix something, anything, and Zuko doesn’t know if he could bear right now being the thing Sokka tries to fix, because Zuko’s been that before and just—

No. There’s no reason to text, not really. And Zuko’s already bothering him too much, anyway.

Still, he’s anxious and jittery watching Mochi sleep, seeing him even at rest so much smaller than Pocky and Cupcake. Anxious and jittery and full of a need that’s clawing and urgent and desperate, that seeps into all the little corners of him the way his anger and helpless fury used to.

Zuko isn’t an idiot. He’s gone to therapy. He knows he’s overly invested in the ducklings. He knows he’s projecting. He knows he’s taking an impersonal thing personally, he knows. It just—is matters.

It matters a lot to him, right now.  

It’s early, so early dawn is just creeping over the turtle’s grassy back, so Zuko doesn’t expect anyone else to be in the courtyard, not when no one ever is.

So he isn’t exactly prepared for human interaction when someone walks out of the SLAW toward him, isn’t prepared to stop the instinctive bolt of wariness and suspicion that blooms in his chest from showing on his face, and he can feel it turning into a glare as they set a case onto the ground, opening it to reveal some kind of contraption, looking at the ducks like they’re going to use it on—

“Have you seen the ducks get fed yet?” They ask, words mild, casual, and Zuko forces himself to take a step back and give space and dial back whatever is happening on his face. “Usually the engineering department handles it, the post docs love it. But today’s helper caught a cold, and when in doubt apparently a doctorate in theoretical astrophysicist can be trusted with the task, too.”

Zuko blinks, and forces himself to process all the information he was just given. The machine that’s supposed to be here—Sokka did mention something in one of his rambles about drones, but Zuko had lost the thread by that point, wasn’t entirely sure if he was still talking about the ducks—and the person who is supposed to be here too.

“You’re a professor?” Zuko finally asks, trying to bite back the suspicion still lingering in his voice and reminding himself that learned reactions don’t have to dictate his behavior.

“I am,” they say, lifting the machine—the drone, Zuko supposes—out of its box and beginning to fiddle with a control panel. “Though usually not of anything quite like this,” they add, lips quirking, inviting Zuko into the joke.

Zuko is pretty sure he manages to muster a grimace back.

“Does it scare them?” he asks, nodding toward the drone as the professor flips a switch and it powers to life, quite and whirring.

“We took that into account,” they say, smiling. “Or rather, the engineering department did. A cohort of very dedicated students conducted extensive research on shapes, frequencies, approach angles—that’s why we come in like this instead of just dropping down, see?”

Zuko nods, watching the drone glide in a gentle, slow arc down, something in his chest easing at the reassurance. Because that’s what it was, a reassurance, and Zuko normally doesn’t like it when strangers try to offer him pity or when their voices go all gentle and sad the minute they see his scar. But this person hasn’t given him scar a second glance, and, well—Zuko knows he isn’t exactly being subtle over here about his anxiety.

“Do you want to try?” they ask, offering over the remote control. “It’s just like a video game, very intuitive.”

Zuko shakes his head, resisting the urge to hide his hands behind his back, compromising by curling them into fists in the fabric of his gym shorts instead. He can feel his adrenaline all over the place, he knows from years of competitive martial arts that his hands wouldn’t be still like he would need them to be right now.

The professor accepts that without question—something unwinds in him even more, which just leaves the trench of anxiety and frustration and pent up something that he’s been trying to sort out ever since he got that letter months ago—and quietly goes about feeding the ducks.

They stand with Zuko after it’s done, watching the ducklings eat in silence. Their presence is a quiet one, at-ease, and Zuko wants to soak that in the way he soaks in Uncle’s calm when he’s feeling off balance, but fuck, Mochi keeps getting bumped away and pushed out and—

“Want a hug?”

Zuko startles so hard he nearly drops his phone.

“It seems like you might be having a tough time about something,” they continue, eyes still on the ducks, which might be all that keeps Zuko from giving in to the urge to sidle away. “You don’t have to tell me about it,” they add, and something about the way they say it makes Zuko think it’s actually true. “But I’ve learned over years of office hours that a lot of things can be helped by feeling like you’ve got someone there for you.” Zuko’s thoughts flick to cups of tea and neat packets of duck facts and a voice worn hoarse from talking. “Usually I talk things out with my students, help them see things a different way. But I am never opposed to offering hugs to those who need them.”

Zuko hesitates, eyeing them. He doesn’t get weird vibes, but he doesn’t think he’s in a place right now where he can accept calm, either. He isn’t ready to be soothed off the intensity of his emotions. So he shakes his head, and eventually leaves to shower before his morning shift. And later, he asks Sokka if he knows the astro professor who sometimes helps with the drone, and watches the way Sokka perks  up and gushes about their glass, and their office hours specifically.

And later, when Mochi is gone but safe, and Zuko is trying to breathe through the dual grief of loss and relief that Michi is in a better place, a safer place—a familiar thing to breathe through, too familiar, fuck. Is it even projecting, when it all lines up so well?—while watching dawn creep across the turtle’s grassy back—he remembers how it felt under his feet, how the grass felt prickling at his skin. He remembers the weight of barely-there bodies pattering over him as his already-overwhelmed brain finally processed that Sokka and the flirty guy were exes, and what something like ‘activity’ could mean—the professor comes back with the drone again.

And this time, Zuko does accept that hug.

--

Zuko nearly bowls the astro professor over as he swings down an aisle of stacks, skidding and tripping to keep both of them upright and the tea in his hands unspilled, aware that he can’t blame a single bit of his clumsiness on the cold still lingering on his cheeks.

“Sorry!” Zuko exclaims, even as he starts edging toward the reason for his clumsiness. “Sorry, I didn’t see—I was just—no one’s usually back here—”

The professor follows Zuko’s attention to the little corner table where Sokka hasn’t moved since Zuko set him up there except to somehow transfer snacks from their bag into his mouth without pausing in his typing. He’s been wholly focused on his essay since he managed to start writing it again, and the tea at his elbow is nearly empty, and Zuko had to go to three campus cages before he found the one with the brand Sokka usually drinks, and—

“Ah,” the professor says, lips quirking. “Finals approaching.” They eye Zuko a moment, eyes amused, before adding, “This is usually when my students most frequently find themselves needing a hug.”

“Oh,” Zuko blinks, pausing, words tumbling out automatic. “Oh, I—thanks, but I’m good.” And he thinks of Sokka following where Zuko led even though Sokka didn’t know where they were going, of Sokka giving Zuko so much and letting Zuko give him something back. Of a haiku written on a cup on his bedside table. Of being bold, and stepping into the wide unknown, and not being alone doing it. “I’m good,” Zuko repeats, realizing that he means it.

The professor smiles, eyes crinkling. “Good.”