Zuko

Zuko is a fictional character in Nickelodeon's animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender. Created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, the character is voiced by Dante Basco and is portrayed by Dev Patel in M. Night Shyamalan's 2010 film The Last Airbender.

Zuko is the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, and an incredibly strong and powerful Firebender, meaning he has the elemental ability to create, control, and manipulate fire, flame, heat and to redirect lightning through martial arts. He is the eldest child of Fire Lord Ozai and Princess Ursa, and older brother of Princess Azula. Before the events of the series, Zuko is exiled from the Fire Nation by his father and told to capture the Avatar&mdash;then thought to be an impossible task because the Avatar had not been seen in over 100 years&mdash;in order to restore his honor and right to the throne. Zuko is accompanied and advised in his search by his uncle, Iroh. Over time, Zuko's loyalties and moralities shift as he grows to sympathize with the people that the Fire Nation has terrorized. Ultimately, he joins the Avatar to help end the Fire Nation's tyranny and restore balance to the world. Zuko has two well known great-grandfathers: on his father's side, Fire Lord Sozin, who started the hundred-year-war, and on his mother's side Avatar Roku, the Avatar preceding Aang.

In "The Deserter", Zuko's name was listed on a Fire Nation wanted poster as "祖寇" (zǔ kòu). In "Tales of Ba Sing Se", his name was written as "蘇科" (sū kè) on his segment's title card.

Early life
A few years before the events of the series, Crown Prince Zuko attended a Fire Nation military meeting and voiced opposition to a general's suggestion that the Fire Nation soldiers be sacrificed as pawns in their nation's battle with the Earth Kingdom. As Zuko publicly denounced the plan before the War Council (and thereby insulted the person who formed the plan), his father ordered him to fight in an Agni Kai. Zuko accepted the challenge believing that he would fight the general who proposed the plan. However, he later learns that his father, Fire Lord Ozai, proposed the plan; the general only presented it before the Council. When Zuko refused to fight his father, the Fire Lord punished him by burning him over his left eye and sending him into exile. The only hope Zuko had of restoring his birthright and his honor was by capturing the Avatar. This was almost certainly an impossible task as the Avatar had not been seen for over 100 years, and was thought to have possibly disappeared from the world entirely.

Book One: Water
At the beginning of the series, Zuko is introduced as an antagonist and chased after Aang in hopes of reclaiming his honor. Even after multiple encounters, success eludes Zuko, who soon gains some competition from Zhao, an ambitious Fire Nation admiral. Zuko took lengths to ensure only he can capture Aang when he took on the alias of the masked Blue Spirit to rescue Aang from a Fire Nation base where Zhao had imprisoned the Avatar. When Zhao realized it, Zuko faked his death in the admiral's attempt on his life to stow away on Zhao's ship to reach the Northern Water Tribe. During the invasion of the Northern Water Tribe, Zuko infiltrates the Spirit Oasis where Aang has entered Spirit World and left his body vulnerable. Zuko captures Aang, but nearly got them both killed as he attempted to escape through the tundra. Out of mercy, Aang then saves Zuko from dying in the cold. But Zuko's actions during the end of the Fire Nation's invasion reached Ozai as he assigned Azula to bring him and Iroh to justice.

Book Two: Earth
Finding them now on the run from Azula as enemies of their own country, Zuko and Iroh travel the Earth Kingdom as poor refugees. Though his uncle confronted him of secretly stealing money and goods from people, Zuko decides to go on his own though Iroh followed his nephew from afar. Zuko reunites with his uncle during a battle where they worked with Aang's group against Azula, tending to his uncle's injury while learning a fighting move to counter his sister's lightning. Soon after, Zuko and Iroh resolve to head to Ba Sing Se for safety, meeting Jet, the former leader of a Freedom Fighters group who wanted to make a new start. However, though Jet did get along with him, Zuko became an enemy the moment he learned he and his uncle were Fire Nation. Despite Jet's actions against them, Iroh tries to make a new lifestyle for Zuko by having themselves work in a tea shop in the city's slums.

Zuko sinks into life in the Impenetrable City for a month—his uncle even sets him up with a date—until he learns of Aang's presence in Ba Sing Se and attempts to steal Appa from underneath Lake Laogai. But his uncle shows up and convinces him not to steal him, but to set the flying bison free instead. This caused Zuko to later fall ill due to an internal conflict, making a recovery and his personality changed to that of one without a care in the world as his uncle's new tea shop in the upper class opened. However, infiltrating the city and recruiting the Dai Li to stage a coup, Azula learned of Zuko's presence in the city and arranged a trap for him and their uncle. Captured and placed in Crystal Catacombs, Zuko encountered Katara as the two came to be bit of an understanding as both lost their mothers before Iroh and the Avatar show up to rescue them. However, Azula manages to convince Zuko to help her with the prospect of redemption to their father. This led to Aang mortally wounded by Azula and Iroh arrested, with Zuko having mixed feelings of his action.

Book Three: Fire
Returning to his country a hero, Zuko learns that Azula spitefully transferred the glory of killing the Avatar to him so he hires an assassin to ensure Aang's death. Zuko visits his imprisoned uncle prior to learning that he is maternally a descendent of Avatar Roku, Aang's previous life, and told that it is his responsibility to help stop the war. Prior to the Day of Black Sun, Zuko realizes this when he inadvertently catalyzes his father's plan to execute the genocide of the Earth Kingdom with Sozin's Comet. Confronting Ozai during the eclipse, seeing now that Ozai is pure evil, Zuko states his intention to help Aang defeat his father while learning that his mother Ursa is alive somewhere and that Iroh escaped from prison during the chaos. Although they initially reject him, especially when they learn he was the one who send the assassin they christened "Combustion Man", Aang and his companions eventually accept Zuko as a firebending teacher for Aang after the two of them find the last dragons in the world to rediscover the long-forgotten, and original, source of firebending.

After helping Sokka free his girlfriend Suki and father Hakoda from the Boiling Rock prison, with his former girlfriend Mai helping him at the cost of her freedom, Zuko manages to make amends with Katara by helping her find her mother's killer. When Aang mysteriously disappears shortly before Sozin's Comet, Zuko is made temporary leader to find him. But when Aang could not be found, Zuko instead finds Iroh (who the group thinks is the only other person capable to end the war peacefully) to ask for both forgiveness and to fight Ozai in the Avatar's place. Though Iroh forgives his mistakes, Zuko learns that only the Avatar can truly end the war and that he must be Fire Lord if his father dies in battle to ensure it. Arriving to the Fire Nation capital with Katara, Zuko confronts Azula and, due to her unhinged state of mind, believed he could defeat her in an Agni Kai, a firebender duel, for the throne. When Azula faces defeat she surprisingly attacks Katara instead, forcing Zuko to save Katara by absorbing the lightning attack, which leaves him lethally wounded and immobile. Katara then manages to defeat Azula and heals Zuko. After Aang wins the war, Zuko reunites with Mai and becomes the new Fire Lord, promising to the other Nations to restore his country's honor and usher in a new era of peace among all nations.

Avatar: The Promise
After the Hundred Year War has ended and Zuko has been crowned Fire Lord Zuko, he visits his father and demands for the whereabouts of his mother, Ursa, but instead of the answer the conversation takes a different path where Zuko must figure out how to make the Fire Nation colony of Yu Dao equal, being put between the desires of his people and the demands of many who believe peace and balance is only attainable if fire nation citizens return to their country. Zuko deploys his own forces in defense of the colonies, leading to an explosive showdown between the recently belligerent sides and threatening to reignite the fires of war. In the end the Harmony Restoration Movement is what cools down tension between both sides.

Avatar: The Search
In the sequel to the first comic book adaptation of the cartoon series, The Search, Zuko realizes that he must have knowledge of where his mother is first before he may rule his nation with dignity. So, he sits his sister Azula, who was recently put in an Institute for the Insane, down with his father, Ozai to discuss matters that may lead to them being able to find Zuko's mother. It is later revealed that Azula has access to letters written by Ursa to Ikem (which suggest that Ikem is Zuko's father) hidden away by Ozai, that may lead to finding their mother. It is also revealed that Azula wants to find her mother just as much as Zuko does, but the reason for her wanting to find her mother is different because she just wants to find her to kill her hoping that would clear her of the thoughts she has been receiving. Zuko and the gang later fly over to Hira'a (Ursa's hometown), with Azula being a real pain on the way, and find a large blue wolf spirit. Later on Zuko finds a note Azula concealed in her boot, that says that Ursa wanted to return to her hometown, but couldn't because she didn't want anything to happen to Zuko.

The Legend of Korra
In the sequel series The Legend of Korra, it is revealed that Fire Lord Zuko aided Avatar Aang in the creation of the "United Republic of Nations" after the Hundred Year War. It is also revealed (by the creators) that he eventually stepped down as Fire Lord and allowed his daughter to take the throne while he travels the world as an ambassador for peace, one of the remaining members of Aang's group. He is memorialized with a statue of himself built in front of Republic City's Central City Station. His grandson Iroh II (a general of the United Forces) resembles a somewhat older version of Zuko (without the scar) in his youth.

Firebending
Despite his youth, Zuko is highly skilled in Firebending, and has shown great agility and strength. His chief education in this is derived from his uncle Iroh; but Zuko shifts from pupil to master by teaching Aang. He is twice shown the equal of his sister Azula, and is depicted throughout the series as both powerful and skillful in both martial and aesthetic applications of fire bending.

Other skills
Zuko has also shown himself skilled in the use of the double broadswords, as in the episode "The Blue Spirit" wherein he withstands a large number of adversaries therewith. In "Avatar: The Lost Adventures", it was revealed that he studied sometime in his youth under Master Piandao and learned to use his double broadswords. Zuko has also demonstrated an ability in stealth and unarmed combat, as when able to infiltrate a Fire Nation fortress, the Northern Water Tribe's city, and the Dai Li's base in the Earth Kingdom without detection. His proficiency at stealth was also utilized during the episode "The Southern Raiders" in which he and Katara stalked and cornered the former commander of the eponymous Raiders in his home village without revealing themselves. Avatar Extras revealed he has abnormal hearing and that he is also naturally gifted at playing the Tsungi horn (though he is never heard playing).

Appearance
Thoughtout Book One, Zuko was seen with a ponytail. In Book Two, Zuko cut his ponytail off in the season premiere and allowed his hair to eventually grow out during his time in the Earth Kingdom. In Book Three, Zuko obtained a topknot after returning to the Fire Nation although he is also seen without it several times as well.