They are not the same. Zuko is a prince of a empire. By refusing to fight that was weakness and if became fire lord they would overthrow him because he would be weak. Also be a prince he represents his father by default, so he cant be expect by shawn they wont be consistencies. Futhermore he said his is his loyal son, he said to rise and fight so the generals and all the elite of the empire see he is not a weakling because he is a prince. How empires have made in history you think?
The worst thing about Zuko's exile is that his dear old dad clearly intended for it to be a permanent one. Remember, it was explained back in the first episode that previous generations of Zuko's family tried and failed to locate the Avatar..... so how great were Zuko's own chances of succeeding in comparison? No, he was pretty much condemned to an eternal wild goose chase, had Aang not awakened from that iceberg......
Interesting parallel I just noticed. In Aangs backstory, he runs from his responsibility; he just wants to be a normal kid. Zuki, on the other hand, chases it. He wants to be in the war-room, to be part of the talks. He wants the responsibility and weight of his title, the "prince." Both scenarios end in shame/bitterness for each character.
11:33 absolute masterpiece of a scene. Zuko's face from being full of live transformed to an angry one full of rage and hatred, with a scar from his father
The weight of the world is placed on the back of these two young men. One makes the right the decision and gets punished. One makes the wrong decision and gets punished. Yet, no matter what they do the weight of the world is still there.
In a lot of ways, this is where the series begins. I was fully bought in with The Winter Solstice Part 1, but for many first time viewers this is the episode that got them truly invested. We get a lot more key information about our tragic characters, and particularly Zuko development.
The Airbender tattoos are a better argument for Aang being more skilled than the others. He already had them when he found out he was the avatar, meaning he had gotten them before getting the extra training the avatar is expected to get.
It's crazy how much of book 1 and 2 I watched on repeat on Nickelodeon and this might be the most important episode of the show for making it feel so serious and mature in comparison to other animated shows.
Interesting detail, thay may not be necessarily true, but I always just thought about it watching this episode. So Aang in the past and Aang now basically ended up in the same situation, but the result was different.100 years ago he froze himself, and I think it's something, that his Avatar state did on purpose, bc he wanted to escape responsibility so much, that even his defense mechanism just decided to let him escape for a long time. And in the present he saved his friends bc that was his wish. I just think it's an interesting detail, that Avatar state can kind of change behavior based on what Aang want, it really adds the feeling that its his past lives doing, helping him out the best way they can think of
