Zuko X Katara: Explaining Avatar's Most... PASSIONATE Ship

[Music] hey T is but a scratch a scratch your arms off no it isn't the devil works hard but zutara fans work harder they are built different if reality kicked them in the teeth they'd ask for seconds and still deny it the war ended but they never left the trenches qara kissed another man didn't matter she had his kids Child's Play zaran didn't hear no Bell and now the other man was dead and even if the party was now lemon party the party don't stop till this shit set sail the zutara fandom suffers from a level delusion that you just have to respect as at this point they've manifested it so much that Netflix like it has a better chance of being better than the original than them not milking the shit out of this zutara phenomena Zuko X guitar is one of those things that just keeps people up at night a call of what could have should have been and one of the most memed things in the fandom as well it was always kind of a obvious that this was never going to happen like we had a few brief glittering okay maybe like one moment and then that didn't happen and they've never let it go however for all the hype all the controversy was zutara really worth it as yet something being popular doesn't mean that it's good I should know it's just a nice coincidence when it is but my questions still stand was zutara really worth the hype or was it just a case of the right tropes for the right demographic was zutara really just all potential and no execution that people saw it for what they wanted not what it actually was and does that even matter or is this just a more basic story about pretty privilege and how the most traditionally attractive main characters would of course be Shi together there is a lot to unpack with this ship The Good the Bad and just trying to figure out how a fan pairing got so popular that even now the show is referencing it well I'm sarcastic course this is somehow how my job so let's break down zutara and decide once and for all who qatar's endgame should have been it should have been me not him so I guess I got to start this video by just putting all my biases on the table I'm not the biggest zutara shipper in the world I thought it was hot as a kid because I'm not blind the last air bender though had me brainwash into craving the release from the long waiting game that was qara xang I won't lie there are moments in the show that just had me hooked on the idea of zutara those special kinds of scenes where logic and context just leave your brain as just the idea of the show maybe actually going through with it just trumps everything the Fire Nation took my mother away from me oh my God okay it's happening everybody stay calm everyone this one moment the whole world sat on a knife's edge and no one knew where it was going to fall and I do think this one scene is kind of just the peak and just the main glue that holds this ship mostly together as more than just a ship getting out to sea question of what zuka would choose to be good or evil just the possibility they would create for this ship just captivated me as for this moment anything seemed possible I never felt this ship in my bones but I always thought it had the potential to be interesting something that was made all the Easier by katang being the Slow Burn tease that it was I can see why people would crave something with a little bit more spice for this ship though I was never in the trenches but also would be happy if like you guys won as the complications to make it happen would be worth watching as that would just be a game changer for the Dynamics of the team as it would be less reshuffling the deck and flipping the table and making it everyone else's problem which is just a level of mess that fits me to a te but for as much as I like the idea I saw the writing on the wall so I knew not to get my hopes up I talked my shit and rolled my eyes and people said oh yeah it had to happen but there was ever a ship that I could respect the drive for it was utara this is where I'm coming from now let's talk about the ship and how it actually kind of starts and it starts the way most fan favorites do with war crimes now just a little bit of context for who the people in this ship actually are Gara is the last water bender of the South Pole her people the water tribe have suffered systematic and horrific violence at the hands of the Fire Nation lacking the military might of the northern water tribe nor the sheer size of the Earth Kingdom the southern water tribe was pretty much easy pickings for the worst of the fire nation's atrocities it can't be understand just how badly the Fire Nation messed them up and doing so for pretty much no solid tactical reason the southern water trib seems to have always been one of the smaller Nations they are far away from most of the main conflict and have little known natural resources at this point they discover oil later in the comics it's a whole thing in spite of that the Fire Nation pretty much made crippling the southern water tribe their favorite hobby raiding the small isolated villages on a semi-regular basis kidnapping or killing all the Benders they could get get their hands on with this process being so thorough that the current generation of the water tribe has never seen a water bender Mak guitar situation in odity rather than the norm the Fire Nation may not have wiped them out like they did with the air Nomads but they pretty much decimated the culture and customs of the South Pole they were bombed into basically subsistence levels with it taking decades to bounce back from this and only doing so with the help of the northern water tribe and oil they discover fucking oil and that's why they have money in Kora this is the environment that Katara was raised in her mom was killed by the fire her dad left to find the war with all the other men leaving her alone with the women and the children to hold down the fort despite the death of her mom still being very fresh guara has been put through the ringer with her gifts of water bang not really bringing her much comfort since she's untrained and getting dismissed by her snarky ass brother there's being dealt a bad hand and then there's having the few good cars you have being ripped away from you with things only looking like they'll get worse as guitar was just trapped mothering Saga till the plot steps in and decides yeah this is De pressing enough to finally start the story guara finds a the Avatar World's Last Hope trapped in a popsicle but her getting in also ends up playing into guitar's own lived experience of having the Fire Nation try and take things from her as now they're trying to kill SLK kidnap a so the plot of the show is pretty much built around a very painful core memory for her in the person taking the place of her mom's killer is [Music] Zuko now Zuko can be best described as hold on I have something for this sorry I can't talk right now I'm thinking about my past Zuko is the edgiest boy Spirits bless his Arc about becoming a better person but the dark troubled bad boy angle is just so strong and so undeniable here characters have fans but then they have whatever the fuck Zuko has I didn't think it was possible to stalk a cartoon character but I'm sure someone found a way with Zuko though I can kind of get why Zuko from jump is immediately the most interesting character in the room he seems set up at first just to be the standard antagonist for the series even as early as episode 3 we were getting hands that yeah he's going to be more than just a villain his goal to start of the series is pretty simple get Avatar get honor then maybe daddy will love me Zuko is the most active threat in the first season constantly trying to capture a for his own ends but for as much as people hype up zutara and how all consuming it was for the fandom the actual momentes that started the fire that refused to go out took a while to actually happen yes the actual urge to pair them together romantically started way earlier than you'd think primarily because Zuko can get it and he's got a tragic back story but in his eyes you are a failure and a disgrace to the Fire Nation that's not true you have the scar to prove it that was a particularly harrowing memory now something I always like to see in stories is just the difference between what the characters know versus what we the audience know team Avatar isn't watching the show with us they don't know dick about what Zuko is doing in his free time time as far as they know he's basically just sitting alone in a room contemplating new ways of being a hater which kind of true but really Zuko is a way more nuanced character than that as after his big raid the village threaten the old and kidnap a tiff and the pilot our very next scene with Zuko the supposed main villain of the story is him getting bullied by a grown ass man you're just a banished Prince no home no allies your own father doesn't even want you episode 3 is where we get the hints of what Zuko's Arc is going to actually be as Zuko and his warship go from this massive imposing presence to a tiny fish in a much bigger Pond he has pretty much the biggest little ship in the fleet wuko's status as an exile being made very clear as pretty much nobody respects him they won't shoot him on site but despite being the Crown Prince he's pretty much just tolerated by the people his uncle is most likely paying and getting actively mocked by others like Xiao who calls Zuko an unloved embarrassment to his face or what's left of it a fact he cruy alludes to and something that I also kind of miss about this early season that I've noticed but isn't really replicated later on I forget how short Zuko is like look at this Man compared to his soldiers he's not big like he's bigger than the kids but he's clearly smaller than the adults I feel like as the series goes on you kind of stopped comparing him against actual grown ass people so you kind of let yourself foret like okay no Zuko really is this young I do think I kind of missed that and it really justes help just crystallize just how young and immature Zuko actually is like when he's compared against Xiao you can see okay he is Young and he is being disrespected at every single turn we constantly hear Zuko talk about getting his honor back about getting his father's approval by capturing the Avatar but in just episode three we see just how screwed he actually is Zuko isn't just some villain Zuko is the underdog of his own story he's trying to beat the entire Fire Nation to be the one to capture a with this episode going even further to allude just how broke broken his home life actually was as iryo is a treat he's a snack but while they don't say that his dad oai was one who burned his face just the fact that Xiao is allowed to talk to Zuko so disrespectfully or how Xiao for what a massive dick he's being was in fact dead on the money when he said that if his dad wanted him back he would have recalled him after 2 years of a pointless search especially since this Quest was believed to be a wild goose chase as the Avatar hadn't been seen in a hundred years while we don't see the full dep of how bad Zuko has got it the implications are all there and we said Zuko probably isn't chasing the approval of something that is worthy of him this back story recolors a lot of Zuko's interactions in the pilot where yes he did in fact invade qatar's Village a village full of women and children which is a bad thing but for as bad as this could have been we actually see him be semi restrained when it comes to intimidating the women and children he knocked Saka on his ass does it again while systematically breaking his Spear and poking him into the ground Zuko could could have made Saka his twin right here but instead he just disarmed him and proved how at match Saka actually was zuku was showing that yes I am not to be fucked with but I'm also not trying to MIM or torture anybody it's not great and he snaps after losing his temper after getting hit in the head by a boomerang but for all the manhandling grandma he's not threatening to kill her Zuko for all of his baggage could have done a lot worse with us the audience seeing the reasons for why he's like this and how it is an uncle shaped miracle that he's not worse yet team Avatar does doesn't know any of this which creates that knowledge gap between us and the characters we as the audience get to know Zuko's tragic past we find all about how his father maimed him for speaking out against throwing away young recruits we see his internal conflict between what he wants and the Loyalty he feels to his family AKA his uncle and sometimes even his crew but allara is really getting from him is I need to capture the Avatar now this is quite the distance and it's not a bad thing the tragedy that is Zuko's life pretty much sets us up to expect some kind of twist or change in Zuko later down the road the difference between his more noble nature versus the other members of the Fire Nation or just his struggles between doing what's right and doing what he wants all this builds create a character that the fans will obsess over as we are all just waiting with baited breath to see what he'll choose to do so while qara doesn't know his backstory on a certain level we're desperately waiting for team Avatar to find out DAV Zuko tell them so they can finally see Zuko for who he truly is and not just his worst moments becauseas yeah they can fix them and by them I mean qara you're wondering why let's talk I will never ever turn my back on people who need me qara is the heart of the team which to me has always been the most brutal role to be trapped in riding wise as yeah Heroes get the whole story to be basically about him the comedic relief can fuck around only for their sad moments to hit way harder than they have any right to be bruisers like top just need to be fun and badass but the heartt is pretty much the least glamorous yet hyper criticized position on the team essentially guitar is meant to be the voice of Hope and morality when others want to burn down the world she's the one trying to convince them hey maybe there's a better way if somebody is at their lows it's her job to pick them back up this isn't just qara being preachy she's the person the story has designated as being the most grounded in nurturing of the group being the most moral being the one who is willing to talk and get people to talk about the things that are clearly eating them up inside it's not glamorous but it's a vital necessity to the story but the one people tend to hold to a very difficult double standard because being the caregiver is a huge responsibility always being one to say let's not fight is exhausting it can get annoying and cause us to think the character is as well and while she has most things on lock the small difficulties of being in this Ro has guar wanting to just go ape ship with a few times that she does do something outside of her usual Paragon alignment it feels just a lot more egregious with audiences reating to it a bit more aggressively than if and I'm serious anyone else in the story decided to do it people are still bitching about guitar stealing the scroll and lashing out a when her insecurities of him being better than her makes her say some stupid shit which she immediately apologizes for and in contrast Zuko nearly burnt Koshi Island to the ground and nobody says dick jet nearly drowns a village full of civilians and he's still coasting off his bad boy cred to this day mokar is mean for 10 seconds and people to this day still hold it against her and like I'll never forget this one tweet I once saw couldn't find it but it was basically something complaining about how the modern internet in Ed this hate Dum against qara when no sorry you poor Sweet summers's Child no fuck no people have been giving her the short in the stick since season 1 first aired I know this as I was actually alive to witness it it's sad but it's true being the heart of the friend group is the worst fucking job on the team there's no breaks you're held to a weird double standard trying to be the person who was sincere and pushing for actually well helping people can come off as preachy to an audience already overp Poisoned With cynicism so guitar's actions always end up great on a different standard than pretty much everyone else's she's traditionally feminine unlike Toof who just leans into badass snark all this results inara catching Strays from pretty much every direction the role she has on the team is underappreciated she get grilled the wors for making selfish decisions with nobody being around to give her the same comfort as she's the one who's usually doing that job so in conclusion her job sucks there's no breaks and the perks are basically non-existent except for one every time he does the sad stuff you get oh you know it's just I feel like I can fix them yeah if you're the heart you're getting shit with the bad boy as the fans want someone to fix this poor lost soul and help bring them back to light and yet they're also too cowardly to ship themselves or make an OC so naturally the only real option people had in the first season wasara we haven't even gotten past episode 4 yet but based on just the Aesthetics and archetypes of their character you can see why zutara was immediately the most shippable couple in the show people love Zuko they want him guitara is the caretaker of the group so if you're looking for somebody to fix him she's who you're going to go with as you really can't discount the power of a self-insert ship as that is just so many ships in fiction like we can pretend to love the chemistry of certain characters together yes yet to be honest sometimes you just want them for yourself so you'll use the character that's most like you and just keepy working from there but even then with the easy excuse of wanting Zuko on the team for wanting someone to see him as more than just a villain fusing the fan desire of wanting him to be better with the bad boy appeal even then zutara is still pretty much in all you can eat shipping buffet and most of it's just opposites ATT trct the writers pretty much gift red the fire and water thing the mood boards basically make themselves a rich prince raised in luxury and abuse then you have guara who grew up with nothing except a loving family that his country ripped away from her you have bad boy good girl she can fix him he can make her worse you have the angle of zuka realizing that his country was wrong and having him learn that through the land of guara there's so many easy ways you can rewrite their rejected Arc and reenter it just be all about them if you want zgo to be a better man the problem solver is right here you want the guitar to have some Edge just put her in the same room as Zuko if you want her D an asshole well yeah it's him let's be honest Zuko was a bratty jackass in the first season there are times where you want to shit because of complimentary reasons but other are times you just love it how different they are as that difference creates contrast they can create chaotic and exciting new possibilities to explore it would be messy but it would also be fun this contrast is to me the core reason that zutara had such a Chokehold on its fandom as they are the most traditionally good-looking characters in the series or at least zuka will be once he loses the ball book their aesthetic and backgrounds are exact opposites so it creates tons of fun ways to rewrite and explore the idea of them possibly being together more so than gang which isn't objectively bad even with the writing he doesn't have the same kicker spice that will really hook fans the same way that zutara does it doesn't get fans really think about how this ship will work Kang falls in love cool that's kind of it zutara meanwhile it's a more active process where you're creating and theorizing how a couple will end up together and how that would actually work and like for example if zuka were to Mary Katara it's then creates a situation like okay how is a fire nation going to react to having a waterbending Queen there's a difference of cultures there's a different of beliefs and philosophies and there's so much extra baggage that could go along with these two being together me with Ang it's kind of just like he's a last of his kind they will roll with anything there's no extra societal baggage that would really like okay how else can we add to this or like complicate things no the real issue is like he's the Avatar and he's going to be busy zutara while not canon feels like it has way more Intrigue and stuff to chew on than its counterpart and I feel like that goes to a long way to explain why the Phantom loves them so much as there is this phenomena that happens in Phantoms where certain characters or pairings will get like the most fan attention they're not the actual couple with the most amount of fans to just use a video game example in my personal favorite dating Sim balder's gate the online fandom for this show would deepthoat a cactus if a Stan would call them a good boy in spite of having the most fanfiction probably the most fan art he isn't anywhere close to being the top three most picked a love interest that would be Shadow heart HS you didn't pick that by hand did you they're deadly poisonous joking they're safe I love her too but you can't conv convinc me she is the most eye-catching or has the best ritten love story no the real answer is just a lot more basic Alders Gates player base tends to skew more male she's the most conventionally attractive woman in your party she's the first one you meet so people just through pure numbers will follow inertia instead of picking carac like any true fan of culture AAR is a character fans most like to talk about but he's not the most popular or has the most fans this though illustrates that there is a difference between fandoms and the actual total audience most people people who watch Avatar will probably be fine with who qara ended up with they won't question the fact that the final shot of the series after all this talk about Community coming together all of us uniting as one it ends with the couple kissing because this is their moment fuck everyone else but if you're in this fan space talking about the show then what grabs you will tend to be something just a bit more meteor with more room to discuss and let's be honest fight about hence why zutara being as popular as it is never surprised me it just triggers that dramatic fanfic part of our brain in a way that pretty much no other ship in the show traditionally can it's basically a freebie for you the viewer to theorize and write your own versions of This Love Story even if that's not actually what's happening on [Music] screen so that's been a I'll talk about fandom phenomena and just the angles people typically run with this ship but outside of Optics what is this show actually giving us to indicate that this ship is possible or what are people really buying into as it first started well I think the answer to that is well it's kind of giving unintentional horny I'll save you from the Pirates oh yeah it's all coming together say what you about sag and suuki in the nastiness they're getting up to behind the scene early zutara is basically the one chip in the season who is basically ripped right out of a ya novel we have the dark brooding villain the young heroin who's fighting against the empire it's and I say this with all love very smutty like it's only semi intentional but from Zuko finding guitar's necklace after she loses it capturing her when she's trying to run away from the Pirates she stole from saying I'll protect you when he is clearly worse than the interrogation scene where we get fucking Zuko going on a charm offensive playing at being sympathetic like hey I have my reasons and I have a reason for you to help me boom necklace the actual context of what happening is bad he's holding this girl hostage yet it triggers that smut part of your brain where you don't say stop you lean into it I know this show is else they wouldn't have Zuko Whispering this entire sequence also for those of you who are just grabbing the horny stick yes this is a rough situation for a guar she's being held against her will it's the whole shebang the fact though that Avatar has been made with kids in mind that lets the audience feel safe and experience what would otherwise be a very tense and difficult situation we know that shit can't go into PG-13 L PE turned the potential danger into excitement and Trigger the worst case of it should have been me not him like this is still one of the worst cases of this I've seen a fandom in a while they have not been topped the anomy was very close Zuko Sims were ready for something like this they got it it was a whole Awakening but also speaks to attention that surrounds so much of zukin guitar's actual relationship in the show zigang yeah they have an interesting Dynamic but it's built around Obsession and avoid Zuko wants to capture the Avatar but Ang never gets a chance to really build any intense hatred or fear of Zuko he's kind of just avoiding the guy he's a problem but he's not that much of a problem Ang once wonders hey could we have been friends in a different set of circumstances Zuko attacks him then Ang just goes back to avoiding the guy the next day there's something kind of interesting here but it's one sideway that doesn't really lend itself to a conversation or conflict A's just existence highlights everything wrong with Zuko's life a doesn't get a big emotion link to really tie him down to Zuko they have lots of parallels but their relationship isn't like locked in it's not the thing that really attracts you you love to see them interact it is more just the symbolism and just how they parallel each other they're complimentary but it's missing that big emotional conflict that really makes their scenes together pop instead guar is the one who gets that honorar is the caregiver of the group she wants to protect Ang and has a history of losing people to the Fire Nation she's the Avatar's number one Defender while Zuko is his biggest hater as the idea is that this is is more about the Avatar than it is about their actual beef between each other this creates this weird space where it feels like they could actually learn and grow to like kind of just well talk to each other learn about each other and kind of find room to grow beyond that as a problem isn't actually in the room so zuku can't just throw fire at it so maybe just maybe he can actually learn and explain himself and we see just a little bit of that when Zuko kidnaps her as in his attempt to manipulate her Zuko volunteers info about his tragic backstory now this is a quest of Honor for him guitars refusal to give in and the Intrigue around the necklace it holds both of their attention as a question of how is she going to get it back it enters the chat wuko and a the fight is on site with Zuko and guar you're able to have moments where the hero and villain side of the story can come together not try and kill each other even if just for a little while Saga is too goofy tof doesn't exist yet soar is put in this place of hating Zuko more than pretty much anyone else on the team could also be the bridge where you see some of his non-edge behavior slip through even if again yes he is 100% being a villain on here this is why when zutara never forget moment happens later it is between Zuko and qara as a divide between them feels so strong that it does feel more meaningful if it starts here versus elsewhere Zuko yeah it would be easier for him to like befriend Ang than is qara but because of his issues he can't really start there so if it had to begin somewhere at this point it would be qara and that would be his stepping stone to joining the good guys so in conclusion Angy villain who isn't as bad as he seems heroin who can kick his ass and fix it plus the fact that Kara actually hates Zuko equals a relationship that always has tension but always feels like it could be the start of something else hence why people have always had a stronger attachment to zutara versus some of the other canonical examples we've seen as people value excitement over Common Sense what happened your girlfriend run off on you also the whole finding a girls momento thing is a Trope As Old As Time Zuko has her necklace which will there turn out to be an engagement necklace like this is the fanfic equivalent of a layup not to mention June is calling qara Zuko's girlfriend all the easy things of spark shipping are all right here one of the easiest of easy things after giving them the red and blue fire and water contrasting Motif you have them find the finale of season 1 guitara proving just how good she's gotten after traying in the North Pole she wins till the sun rises and we get this Gem of a line you rise with the moon I Rise with the sun I'm talking about God away every easy Motif is given to these two then we get Peak when round two happens and Atara one shot zuka the whole debate of should we leave him to die or bring with us is kind of not a thing to her as she stays quiet through all of it the fact that she says quiet does imply she doesn't really care one way or the other there is this idea of zuka and guitar being Conant competition throughout the first season both their characters sent around a but the moments we see of them together feed into the idea of some kind of bond could be formed between them create personal conflict and relationship that could potentially help the both of them from Guitar recognizing the humanity of the Fire Nation even its supposed upper echelons to zuka realizing that the Fire Nation is wrong that he is its victim in embracing the nobility that has always been inside of him even though right now it's all being trained on the Avatar in a misguided quest for Redemption that he doesn't actually need plus helping all this is the fact that of course qara famously has a thing for bad boys so of course this works okay this is going to be a whole entire tangent people have been meing the hell of guara having a thing for bad boes since jet it has been used as the basis for so much of her supposed attraction to zuka the show's extras even refer to it as a thing but she's notara doesn't have a thing for bad boys we just have gas lit ourselves in thinking that that's what happened like honestly it's never been a thing like yes jet was a bad boy who was willing to flood a town full of civilians to kill some fire people but when qara was crushing she didn't know that the second she finds out she Nails him to a tree for it now what made qara Swoon was the confidence the cool Factor the fact that he seemed to have it all together he was leading his own little Rebellion the kid was the king of his friend group he came out of the woods looking like a folk hero and compared to her dorky brother and the goofy friend she's been traveling with jet was a whole new experience especially when he's rocking guitar's actual weakness dead parents Fire Nation killed my parents I was only 8 years old that day changed me forever the only way I can feel close to my father now is when I practiced my bending he taught me everything I know I really am the last air bender qara has never met an orphan she wouldn't bear her soul to she's already the most empathetic member of the team but if the Fire Nation has put a family member of yours in the ground or behind bars guitar will drop everything just ask if you're doing okay she lost her mom to the Fire Nation so she knows what it's like it's the source of her pain and it is the origin story for everything that she is right now so she's always willing to show empathy to people have lost parents to the Fire Nation even when it's her greatest enemy the Fire Nation took my mother away from me that's something we have in common now before we get to Zara's 911 # never forget we do need to talk about the journey that brought them to this point and by them I do mean Zuko so after getting his ass beat Zuko snuck op toight Xiao who was fresh off his I can't win so fuck the world tantrum he killed the moon Spirit then ran away only for Zuko to catch him they fight and in spite of the fact that Xiao tried to kill him earlier Zuko tried to save the other man's life when the ocean Spirit caught him then after nothing went his way with no Avatar no ship and no money Zuko finally allows himself to take a nap after an entire season of refusing to sit down Hugh season 2 where the real fatherson RNR session gets interrupted by aula Zuko's sister look I know most of you know that but for those that don't aula is Zuko's sister there now you know aula spins a lie about how oai wuko back in his life which the attention scarred puppy just immediately Falls for refer to all be a trap shocker I know but now Zuko and his uncle are both fugitives not Exiles from the Fire Nation with Zuko and iro decided that they'd rather risk certain death hiding in the earth Kingdom than risk capture by aula which fair so it's here where Zuko is so disconnected from his obsession with finding the Avatar that Zuko is finally left to face his true worst enemy Hing his life choices but to avoid that he starts stealing the fun his current lifestyle and then immediately disches his uncle the second have a disagreement Zuko is having a rough one he is doing everything and anything not to make his life better but in spite of all that he is forced to accept the help of Earth Kingdom citizens to see the firsthand destruction his people have caused and the scars is left on its victims me a woman named song who fed him out of the goodness of her heart only for him to turn around and Rob her Zuko is on the long slow journey of being forced to recognize the humanity of his supposed enemies and grapple at the idea that the Fire Nation is well away the back Zuko on his own meets a kid who reminds him of himself risking his life to save him from some thugs in the process outing himself as a fire bender which is not a good thing then he straight up just makes it worse by announcing his identity my name is Zuko son of Ursa and Fire Lord oai Prince of the Fire Nation and heir to the throne bro please stop talking they might have accepted you but no you had to announce your entire bloodline well naturally despite saving them knowing whose son he is get Zuko run out of town the real me of this episode though is just going back into the past look at Zuko's relationship with his mother who was actually nurturing and not a face burning sociopath unfortunately one day his mother disappeared with the implication and the comics confirming that Ursa killed Zuko's grandfather after the old prick ordered Zuko's death to punish oai for having the audacity to suggest that he should be named air after iro lost his son robbing Zuko of his mother and leaving him to be raised solely by his dad who hates him Zuko though after this is in his Redemption Arc era he's experiencing all the things everyone loves it the internet puts Zuko on a pedestal for all the reasons yeah I think people tend to use him too much as an example of redemption arcs in media every villain that gets redeemed is inev compared to Zuko even when the comparison just often doesn't fully work and Zuko is never a fullblown villain an antagonist yes did he do horrible things of course but when you boil down Zuko to who he is you realize that he's never been full evil the issue Zuko has is one of maturity of learning to think about what he actually wants versus doing just what he's told Zuko Ark is less about becoming good or regaining his honor and more about realizing that his family and Country have none that they have Dishonored him in the world through their actions and no amount of his father's approval will make him happy Zuko is starting to learn that the Fire Nation needs to be stopped and Zuko needs to choose for himself what he wants to do not what he was raised to believe this is why his experience in in the earth king as a refugee is such a huge thing and builds to his eventual turn into empathy but in other words he spends the entire series trying to get on katara's level Zuko I can help but he's not there yet so Zuko sabatical abroad sends him crashing back into ula's path she shoots iro to distract everyone and dip from a fight that she was definitely going to lose qara offers to heal iro only to get firmly rejected by the raw nerve but it reunites the best duo luko after three issues finally starting to listen to io's advice and if you're a hardcore shipper you'll also remember this episode as that one time qar defended Zuko's ponytail what's wrong with ponytails ponytail e your own but this is the last time zutara will interact till the finale so to summarize zuku and IO go to bossing say uncle I kills at his job so that somebody gives him a fancy restaurant in the nicest part of town but before that Zuko runs into jet who then runs into the police leaving Zuko to go on a date with an earth Kingdom girl named JY and weirdly this is adorable my biggest shipping hotake Zuko has more chemistry with jyn and song than he ever does with Mai who mind you broke up with him in the comics and as of 2024 they still haven't gotten back together which sorry sorry hope you all get your shit back in the movie but it will never not be funny to me just how dirty the comics did this couple and how they just refuse to let you all be happy but Zuko is settling into his new life and bossing say he is improving himself he is learning to well not adapt to what he's in but to tolerate it but then he finds out the Avatar is also here and then he tries to go and throw all of that away interrogating cops breaking into a secret underground facility all to steal an elephant-sized flying animal that he can't house can't feed or even remotely control this is all brought up by iro who after 3 years of playing passenger to zugo driving his life into a ditch then complaining about it finally puts his foot down and calls zuku on his inability to think things through letting oai control his life even when he's not in it asking Zuko to finally look Inward and ask himself what does he actually want and to the shock of nobody but himself Zuko chooses good only for said healthy decision to put him in a 3-day coma cuz he's dramatic like that he has Visions but awakens an optimist actually happy to be alive proud of his uncle and of course this is when it all goes to shit it's tea timear spots of supposed bad guys in the tea shop tries to tell the government about except this time the government has been infiltrated by aulan or Lackey resulting inara getting imprisoned and Zuko gets thrown in well soon afterwards as he was so high on life Zuko thought that he could take his sister and the police he couldn't but here we get the scene the moment that made this ship a household name and broke the hearts of a million shippers and sparked a million more to actually want the damn thing as just for the briefest of moments for a hot second zutara look like it might actually have a chance so let's talk about it so Zuko and qara are trapped in a cave together naturally they can't escape they also won't try and kill each other since the Avatar isn't in the room but he's there in spirit asqar is grilling Zuko over this being a supposed trick to get angang that to her this is all part of some elaborate plan to capture the Avatar which is honestly Fair guar hasn't seen Zuko in months last time she saw him he chucked fire out of her face for trying to help with every incident before that involving him trying to capture her best friend and Future Baby Daddy Zuko has had a huge transformative Journey but qara hasn't seen any of it so her assuming the horse about him is pretty fair All Things Considered wuka just taking most of it as he knows she hasn't told a single lie about how old him would have acted that was the man who ran into a blizzard and swam through Arctic Waters to get a 12-year-old insane plans like getting captured by your sister wouldn't be that far out of the question but then qara goes too far by assuming that him being evil is hereditary spreading war and violence and hatred is in your blood this is the one thing to get under Zuko's skin as yeah he just decided to be a better person he's trying to be better than what his father said he was and break the cycle so being reduced to just ozai's son would be triggering not to mention why I think is another underlying thing for Zuko how he believes himself to be more than just ozai's son he is also his mother's when Zuko announces his family treat to the Village he starts by calling himself the son of Ursa then oai Zuko for as much as he's been defined by his obsession with winning back his honor and his father's approval he has never stopped loving his mother never stopped seeing her as this loving figure that was ripped away from him when he was too young oai may be evil incarnate but ursa's blood is just as much in his veins as ozai's so he Treasures that connection he Treasures the fact that maybe not all of him is evil though the whole evil good bloodline is given a little bit of credence by the fact that he's also descended from Roku soar may not have been that far off but the idea that he is solely defined by ozai is a thing that really gets under his skin so he tells qara that she doesn't know what she's talking about triggering her whole speech about how the Fire Nation has personally ruined her life she does know what she's talking about the problem is that they're having two different conversations she's going on about the Fire Nation he's talking about who he is guitar though does bring up how the Fire Nation took her mom away from her which prompts Zuko to say the magic words to Kara's heart that's something we have in common he's got serious mommy issues like we cut away from this we don't know what they said if they said anything at all but by the time we get back back all the hostility is just gone guar is apologizing to him for getting heated the 180 is just crazy here is that's really all zuku need to say I also lost my mom because of the Fire Nation and she was just okay let's talk yeah basically right here we get an early preview to was basically the culmination of both of their arcsar is talking about how everything the Fire Nation has took from her that she on a certain level has Associated every bad thing the Fire Nation has done with Zuko his is the face that she sees when she imagines that the Fire Nation is doing bad things that he as this recurring antagonist became less than a person and more representation of all the bad that was done to her showing how even the most caring member of the team has issues that she really needs to work through and this also ties into the greater theme of the show of recognizing Humanity of all people mostly there's an obviously right and wrong side to this conflict but the fact that both our people is something that Avatar really likes to hammer home so for even Qatar to Harbor this intense hatred it just goes to show how even the best of us have struggles to overcome in process mean Zuko is finally realizing that he doesn't have to be this Avatar Hunter and it was at this point that the fandom was losing their godamn minds it been pretty much just given that Zuko was going to join the team at some point that he would be the one to teach a how to fire bend that he would join team Avatar to stop his father all the buildup of Zuko learning to let go of his anger and to think for himself it all seemed to be building to this moment where not only does he choose to get better but the heroes recognize it as well opening the door for him to join which builds to the single craziest move this series could have pulled forar offers to remove Zuko's scar yeah his signature look the thing that has defined him for his entire life the last 2 years in the con reminder of his father and his own perceived dishonor qara offered to remove it no questions asked despite all the nastiness Zuko has thrown her way at a seeing him regret his actions and want to be better is enough for her to volunteer her magic spear water on who she just thought not 5 minutes ago was her greatest enemy shippers were losing their fucking minds over this this was basically the dream scenario zuk andara were forced to together by circumstance they seem to hate each other but then they talked they talked about the moms and suddenly qara is ready to just do this massive favor to him Zuko was about to have his figurative baptism into the light his physical scars are being removed his emotional ones were being healed Gara was the one who was doing it with whatever happening afterwards just not mattering as this act of kind spy guara even if he didn't fall in love with her you knew he would be in her debt for the rest of his life this is the true love moment that so many people wanted to see and it was coming all the pieces were there and if the show had gone with it yeah the story would have almost had to have them hook up because this is just too insane not to pay off later in some way but it didn't boiling you're boiling everything yeah they got interrupted and things only got worse from here in Guitar Le though they give one last glance at each other iro got the Avatar to help him with his uncle finally wanted to send his nephew down and tell him they're going to be full good guys only for isula and the Earth bi to show up and force Zuko to make a choice to decide between siding with the Avatar and betraying his father in country or siding with a Zula Conquering the Earth Kingdom together and getting everything he ever thought he wanted which after all of Zuko's growth all the lessons he's learned all the kindness these people his uncle and qara have shown him Zuko ends up picking [Music] wrong yep Zuko backslides and after that betrayal everything just goes wrong for the good guys a gets shot qara only escapes because iro bought her time with her eating to use the magic water to heal a this was Avatar's Empire Strikes Back and nothing was ever going to be the same again and after this I knew zutara was never going to happen so I've had a lot of things that could be construed as praise or support for zutara well I do get all the reason that this ship could be something great the incredible amount of angles you could take zuku and qatar's relationship like the concepts are fire that however is the key the concepts in the actual show while edging territory that could be easily tolded to be romantic Avatar never properly leans into the idea for zutara like we have Kang being the slow build that I personally couldn't stand the times when Zar actually interacted while easily some of their best scenes for their respective Seasons I never got the vibe that the show is actually going to pull the trigger and make them a couple later on their scenes were too few the Romantic tension people like to imagine it's not actually there though the tropes would make you think okay this could easily be that and the closest we get is the cave scene but before that they basically don't talk for the entire season but brief moment we do think okay something might happen but then it doesn't anduku commits a top 10 anime betrayals for a team he wasn't even on so I think this is the idea that cemented the idea of zutara the spice the Intrigue the oh my God it could actually happen but for me this is the moment where the ship kind of died I still like the idea but actually seeing it happen in the show no it's gone not happening I knew zuka was going to join the good guys but I also figured that after this level of personal betrayal the fall out of Ang nearly dying the fall of the earth Kingdom all of it creates a situation where while still technically possible last airer would have had to jump through an insane number of emotional Hoops to getar to forgive Zuko then have them date this is why zitar fans got Flack back in the day for wanting it to still happen as on top of fighting katang fans kind of rightfully so you pretty much have to just y a lot of emotional growth that the show probably would never have the time for forgiving Zuko's previous behavior is one thing but season 2's finale pretty much put Zuko in a lucky if you end up just being friends Camp I still like the idea of zutara but there is a point where supporting a ship does hit just full Fannon it's not going to happen but while fun and mostly should be harmless you just kind of have to take the L after a point in the cave zutara is 911 never forget yeah this kind of killed it and if that betrayal didn't do it fully then in the premiere of season 3 they made it really clear where they were going stop worrying he he says he's not dead yes he is I'm not he isn't well he will be soon he's very ill I'm getting better no you're not you'll be stoned dead in a moment yep zukon May hooked up between Seasons miok Kang finally started having romantic tension that didn't feel like cringe show pretty much looked us dead in the eye and said this is what we're doing get over it fair various people who have worked on the show say in earlier drafts of season 2 Zuko was going to join the team but W AAS don't really mean anything in my book unless I wrote it myself I will say though I've always just thought it was a little weird that zuku and may just start this season together they'll get their own video but to summarize here this ship while not out of nowhere we have a whole two instances to indicate that may has a thing for Zuko or did in the past however for right here here after what happened it feels a wee bit out of place a he apparently was only in a coma for a few weeks so that's our timeline for when this had to happen Zuko has never been indicated to have any feelings towards May or Le that we see and they also don't ever interact in the second season but the bigger character Conflict for me is that Zuko fresh off of betraying his uncle feels like and has always been shown to be the type person to dwell on his mistakes so I don't really see s where he's not an Angy mess over what he did therefore he wouldn't be in like really the head space to start dating his little sister 's best friend I think these two are decent as a couple and weirdly May gets way more out of this is way more interesting because of this relationship than Zuko ever is but this relationship has always felt like it was just done to get people to stop shipping zutara and to give Zuko somebody to talk to that isn't his immediate family when he's on the bad gu side as he really needs it as he's home for like a day and it m starts panicking at the idea that the Avatar might be alive because of Gara so he does a reasonable thing no he doesn't tell his that Ang might be alive and that his sister's a liar no he hires an assassin as you do this followed up by him realized that he's got everything he's ever wanted and he's still not happy he keeps being miserable more miserable one really cool moment at the beach finds out about his family tree and then realizes oh shit I've made a terrible mistake suzuko finally turns against his father and tries to join team Avatar after their Invasion plan failed only for the team to react exactly how you think they will you can't possibly think that any of us would trust you can you I mean how stupid do you think we are oh yeah Katara hates his ass everyone else in the room has their misgivings about why they shouldn't let zuka on the team but Katara is arguing that they shouldn't be letting him breathe so qara knows all to a huko can teeter totter between trying to be good and stabbing you in the back which is fair yet for all this hatred all this newfound rage and resentment it does highlight again why people love zutara so much I can see the argument that Zuko has more chemistry with Saka because everyone does but Zuko and qatar's relationship is easily the most interesting one at this point in the story even if you don't ship them qar is 100% right to be suspicious and feel resentment towards Zuko in qar the caregiver is just so aggro around Zuko it it's kind of a breath of fresh air versus her usual I'm Trapp being the heart or wishing I was fun stick mizuko knowing all too well that he screwed her over personally and struggling to justify his own existence and how him being here it just isn't a trap we get to see qar talk about how what she thought Zuko was doing during the cave how she thought he seemed confused how he lost his mother how she felt genuinely bad for him even if she doesn't fully know what he said was a lie when it came down to the wire he chose evil and a nearly died for it so keeping zuk arms length is a very natural response zuku does eventually convinced the gang to let him stay they don't trust him but he nearly died to save them from the Bounty hter he sent so that it kind of has to count for something Gara getting her coldest moment as she threatens to kill Zuko if he ever even seems to consider betraying them again Zuko may be on the team but she still doesn't trust him and spends the rest of the season toasting him for it being the only one to laugh at him when he loses his fire bending she spends most of the time Zuko's handing out field trips mocking him and honestly I'm living for it Petty guitar is so much fun mainly because we see so little of her but then it comes time for their own little detour Zuko and Saka broke her dad out of prison mean that Zuko helped restore the family that his keeps nearly tearing apart but even then it's still not enough you can get off me now dude tried to save her life and she's still not giving him credit she pays it back later but but on her good side he is not and Zuko is at a point where he's allowed to make jokes about how shitty he used to be so now qara far from just being the one who gets to laugh at him with the rest of the group qara is now the lone hater and she is fuming over his Newfound acceptance so now she feels crazy watching him just be accepted by everyone when she was the first one to ever trust him and he stabbed her in the back so naturally this means it's time for a field trip but this time for revenge like essentially zuka realizes the root of qatar's be with him is the loss of her mother so zuka decides he wants to show her he cares and can be trusted theci he wants to help guar gain closure by bringing her to her mother's killer a tells him maybe let's not kill anyone he's ignored qara has this notorious line then you didn't love her the way I did which is very harsh very mean but also like she's not wrong I'm not sure I can remember what my mother looked like and now when I try to remember my mom qara is the only face I can pick picture terrible thing to say but Saka is not haunted by her mother's death like qara is when they're in the time swamp qara sees her mom while Saka just sees his moonx all of her kids have been grieving for her but clearly ka's death is a guitar the hardest as she was forced into her mother's role hence why she has such a visceral reaction at the idea of finally confronting the man that took her I do think it's a little bit fucked up that Mr I'm a better person now Zuko Mr giving up on your obsession Zuko is dangling the possibility of and using another person as an outlet for your own internal struggles toara like he would be the one to suggest this but also feels like maybe he wouldn't do it luckily though it doesn't really matter because upon finding the guy qara can't bring herself to kill him so she goes home where she proceeds to tell Ang to shut the fuck up about the idea that she forgave her mother's murderer she didn't she's moving on with her life but she is ready to forgive Zuko giving him a hug that would cover a million message boards well also reminding us that yeah it wasn't happening we could talk up all the little moments that happen after this guitar consoling Zuko before he faces his uncle the two of them facing aula together and saving each other's lives Zuko finally taking the lightning bolt he should have taken in season 2's finale but the ship it's dead it's sunk It's Gone you can see why people are so attracted to it they just have one of the most interesting Dynamics on this show and the idea of what could be done with them is so captivating people are just drawn to it zutara felt like it was going to happen for a hot second but everything else was just mostly wish fulfillment and honestly that's fine we could talk all we about how it wasn't going to happen how everything about this was so aggressive how no side the shipping debates were chilled because the people who were having them were chill D the appeal of zutara to me is for PE to find their own ways to interpret or explain away this couple to take the most interesting character in the series and the girl with the worst job but the most romantic potential and just slap them together and just see and imagine what you want zutara as a concept I like even if I never loved it nor really thought okay this is going to happen but it's in an area of Fanon where everyone's exact take is different which is why I think it works But to answer the question of whoar should have ended up with well I guess I have to answer that even though I do think that the answer is [Music] obvious let me explain I'm just fucking with you yeah Zuko takes this sorry gang shippers how the show hooks him up rubs me the wrong way if I'm having to pick out of the viable options yeah I think we have to go suo by default the relationship is smutty and full of potential cliches but it's a fun read so I can't help it it's a difference between cringe coma and a fanfiction I basically have to write myself I will take my own bullshit over borom any day of the week again romance's avatars Achilles heal they have never been good at this the only couples that they can make work are the ones that they locked into and you can count all of them on one hand with pretty much all of them including Saka the guitar honestly doesn't have many great romantic options Haru is an extra after his first appearance Jets a corpse she doesn't need a single water tribe boy her age to round out this Herm so if you're going to force me to pick a partner like she can't be single then I guess I have to pick zutara based purely on the tags some zutara fans are overzealous every ship has them Kang don't laugh y'all can be just as bad too but of the things that get popular in fan spaces I can see why zutara with all of its spice potential would be the one people would gravitate towards Ang and to our children Saka is Goofy and doing his own thing so all that puberty energy of its audience has to be hyperfocused into one thing and of course it was going to be zutara and after going back through the series yeah I can see why also I swear if Ang guitar's kids weren't such huge characters in Kora I will put money on the Netflix adaptation making zutara Canon but that's the last word for me tell me what other Avatar ships you want me to talk about like share and subscribe to be kept to date on all my nonsense peace out love you all have a good one

Channel: Sarcastic Chorus

Views: 219,312

Keywords: avatar, lastairbender, zutara

Id: Pp6oIjG4uRY

Length: 53min 54sec (3234 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 03 2024