History of Zuko (83 AG – 99 AG)

Zuko was born into a life of privilege as part of the Fire Nation Royal Family, though he faced the disdain of his father Ozai from the start. After a period of relative harmony in his family, Zuko gradually became the target of emotional abuse at the hands of Ozai and younger sister Azula. In contrast, his mother Ursa and uncle Iroh remained a positive influence.
In 95 AG, Zuko's cousin Lu Ten was killed in combat, his mother disappeared, and his father ascended to the throne of the Fire Nation. This unexpected development made Zuko the new Crown Prince.The Earth Kingdom Chronicles: The Tale of Zuko, Chapter 1. Regardless, his father continued to treat him poorly. At thirteen, Ozai challenged a young Zuko to an Agni Kai for speaking out of turn at a meeting where the young prince would receive a permanent scar on his left eye. For refusing to even fight during the duel, Zuko was exiled by his father. The only way he could return was if he captured the Avatar, which became one of his top priorities. Accompanied by Iroh and a small crew, he began his journey across the world.
== Early years ==
Born in 83 AG, Zuko was the firstborn child of Prince Ozai and Princess Ursa. From a young age, he was disdained by his father, an animosity that began shortly after the prince's birth. As the infant seemed to lack the "spark in [his] eyes" that is typical for most firebenders, the royal family was unsure if Zuko was a bender at all. Ozai, viewing a nonbender as firstborn as "shame", planned to cast his son over the palace walls. Only when Ursa and the Fire Sages intervened did the Fire Prince give his newborn son a chance. Later on, it turned out that Zuko was a firebender, and peace returned to the young family.
Zuko's family made frequent vacations to Ember Island in the following years, and Zuko would later consider this time the only one when his family was "actually happy". When he was three, Zuko saw an eagle hawk attacking a turtle crab while playing at the beach. The little prince immediately rushed to rescue the crab, feeling the urge to help the weak. However, when he had the animal safely in his arms, Zuko realized that the hawk would die of hunger without its prey. Unsure which side he should take, the prince was eventually surprised by a wave and carried out into the ocean. Zuko almost drowned before he was saved by his father. The little prince spent the remainder of the day in the care of his mother, recovering from the experience while vomiting sea-water. Zuko and his family also often watched the play Love amongst the Dragons at the Ember Island Theater. Afterward, the prince and Azula usually reenacted the final duel of the play at the beach. To his frustration, Zuko normally had to take the role of the Dark Water Spirit, the evil antagonist. Nevertheless, Zuko happily recalled these memories many years later.
In contrast to his dysfunctional relationship to his father, Zuko developed a close relationship with his uncle Iroh. When the prince was still very young, Iroh entertained him with his firebending abilities.Avatar: The Last Airbender: Legacy of the Fire Nation, page 4. Later, whenever he returned from the frontlines and visited the palace, Iroh taught the boy Pai Sho tricks, went with him to celebrations like the Fire Festival,Avatar: The Last Airbender: Legacy of the Fire Nation, Letter: "To: Uncle Iroh; From: Zuko, age seven" and the two would sometimes sneak into the royal kitchen to steal snacks. In this regard, their favorite dish was roasted komodo chicken.Avatar: The Last Airbender Cookbook: Official Recipes from the Four Nations, p. 113.
In his early youth, he was schooled by Piandao in the art of fighting with dual broadswords.
== Deteriorating relationship with Ozai and Azula ==
However, as they got older, Zuko and Azula eventually grew apart, and he became the object of his sister Azula's manipulation, ridicule, and deception.Avatar: The Last Airbender: Legacy of the Fire Nation, page 29. Zuko felt that his sister began to show "everyone that she's better than me—better at firebending, and at gaining our father's affection". Meanwhile, Ozai began to openly scorn his son; this behavior was attributed to Zuko's morality and alleged lack of talent as well as a conflict between Ozai and Ursa. Zuko later stated that his father had been "cold and cruel" during his childhood.I Am Zuko, page 4.
In contrast to their father, Zuko and Azula were both loved by Ursa, but their mother favored him over his sister, especially when Azula let her brother feel her increasing animosity, as apparent when Ursa, Zuko, and Azula would walk in the royal garden around 94 AG. Zuko happily talked with his mother until the prince saw his sister burning a flower in the garden. He promptly told on her to their mother, as he thought that Azula's action was wrong. When Ursa scolded the princess due to this, Azula burned Zuko's bottom in retaliation. After sending Azula to her room, Zuko was consoled by his mother. Zuko tearfully lamented that he did not understand why Azula had "to be so mean", as he had just done what he thought was the right thing to do.
Later, Zuko and Ursa were once again walking from the royal garden when the prince decided to show his mother "how Azula feeds turtle ducks". He then threw bread at a baby turtle duck, causing the animal's mother to bite Zuko in retaliation. Ursa quickly helped her son before explaining that, just as any mother, the turtle duck had defended her baby. Soon after, Azula approached and manipulated Ursa into letting Zuko play with her. The princess promptly created a game in which she knowingly set an apple on fire as it was stitting on her friend Mai's head. In panic, Zuko tried to help, causing him and Mai to fall into the nearby fountain, to the amusement of Azula and Ty Lee. Just as Zuko was about to storm off in annoyance, Ursa returned with a letter by Iroh who was leading the Siege of Ba Sing Se, the Earth Kingdom's capital city, at the time.
Ursa subsequently read the letter to Zuko and Azula. Much to the prince's delight, his uncle had sent him a unique dagger as a gift. Azula was much less pleased at her gift, causing her to muse about how it would be for Iroh to die in combat. Furious, Zuko asked his sister how she would like if "cousin Lu Ten wanted Dad to die?", but Azula remained unfazed.
A few months later, Zuko and his family were eating together at the palace dining hall, when Azula soon began to brag about opposing their firebending teacher, Kunyo, calling his techniques "the dumb way" to firebend. After hearing this, Ozai agreed with Azula that the teacher seemed to be incapable and declared to send him to the colonies as punishment. When the princess expressed her satisfaction at his dismissal, Zuko objected, stating that Kunyo was not "a dummy" and merely believed that good firebending began with proper forms. However, he was promptly silenced by his father, who was outraged by his son's behavior and scolded Zuko for daring to lecture his sister on firebending. When his father angrily asked Zuko how many more firebending forms his sister had already mastered than him, the intimidated prince meekly answered that his sister had mastered fourteen more forms. Ozai continued to recount how he would have almost discarded Zuko because he thought that he was a nonbender when the prince was born. Finally, Ozai told Zuko that Azula had been born lucky, while he had been lucky to be born, leaving his son completely devastated.
== Ursa's disappearance ==
When Zuko was eleven years old, his cousin, Lu Ten, died in combat at Ba Sing Se. General Iroh, devastated by the loss of his only child, abandoned his 600-day siege of the Earth Kingdom capital. During an audience with Fire Lord Azulon, Ozai showed off Azula's prodigious firebending skill and knowledge of military strategy, both exceeding Zuko's. Azulon, however, was unimpressed by these exercises, and he demanded Ursa and her children leave and that Ozai be frank about his reasons for wanting the audience.
Azula and Zuko eavesdropped on their conversation as Ozai voiced his desire to be made heir in Iroh's place, justifying this course of action by pointing out that Iroh's overwhelming grief and subsequent erratic behavior made the date of his return from war uncertain, and that he now had no remaining heirs to carry on his line. Azulon, however, was outraged and declared angrily that Iroh had suffered enough, but Ozai's suffering had just begun.
Frightened, Zuko ran away while Azula stayed to watch. Later, he was in his room trying to sleep when Azula came in and mockingly told him that Azulon's punishment for Ozai is that Ozai must kill Zuko, as he wanted him to know what it felt like to lose a first-born child. Ursa, hearing the commotion, came in and took Azula away, declaring it was time that they talked. Zuko left behind, chanted quietly to himself, "Azula always lies." Later, he was awakened again, but this time by his mother. She told her sleepy son that everything she had done, she had done to protect him, and instructed him not to forget who he was no matter how much things may change. The next morning, he immediately remembered what transpired the night before and ran frantically through the halls, searching for his mother. He found Azula, who blithely told him that Azulon died the previous night and their mother was missing. As she played with his pearl dagger (a gift from his Uncle Iroh), she mocked him and noted their mother was not there to make her give it back. Eventually, he found Ozai in the gardens of the palace and demanded to know where his mother was. Ozai did not answer, and he hung his head in sorrow. At Azulon's funeral, the Fire Sage conducting the ceremony named Ozai the new Fire Lord upon Azulon's apparent dying request.
== Banishment ==
Two years later, General Iroh allowed a persistent, thirteen-year-old Zuko into a war council with Ozai and some of his generals. The young prince was instructed by his uncle not to speak during the meeting. However, when General Bujing outlined a plan to sacrifice an entire division of new recruits in a diversionary maneuver, Zuko fiercely spoke out against the general's suggestion, seeing it as a betrayal of the recruits' patriotism. The insubordinate outburst was seen as a grave insult, and Ozai demanded the prince participate in an Agni Kai.
He agreed, unaware that it was not the general whom he had insulted, but his father. Zuko was confident in his firebending abilities to face the insulted general but was surprised to discover his father was his opponent. He immediately became penitent and fell to his knees, refusing to fight, and tearfully begged for his father's forgiveness. Ozai declared his refusal a sign of cowardice and another display of disrespect, affirming that "[he] will learn respect, and suffering will be [his] teacher."
Ozai burned Zuko by permanently scarring the left side of his face, stripped him of his birthright, and exiled him from his beloved homeland, declaring that he could return only after having found and captured the Avatar, who had disappeared nearly one hundred years prior. It was a fool's errand by all accounts, but one to which Zuko clung desperately as his only hope of regaining his honor and everything he had lost. At this point, Zuko still believed that, as Ozai's eldest child, it was his duty and destiny to ultimately become Fire Lord.
Zuko spent the next two years at sea, fruitlessly and desperately searching for the Avatar. He searched the four air temples, beginning with the Western Air Temple, and scoured the world, searching even the most remote locations for his prize. Iroh accompanied Zuko during his exile, and the pair spent more than two years at sea with a small ship and crew. They were not royal guards or special forces and may well have been banished themselves or were foolishly intent on serving under the popular General Iroh. They were often unhappy under Zuko but obeyed his orders. Iroh often acted as if he considered the search an extended vacation, much to Zuko's annoyance. In reality, Iroh tried to guide him and make his nephew's journey one of self-discovery.Avatar: The Last Airbender: Legacy of the Fire Nation, page 34.
Everything would change, however, when Zuko actually discovered the Avatar in late 99 AG.
== Trivia ==
* The period of time detailed in this article is the focus of Zuko's Story which provides a lot more information on his banishment period. However, Zuko's Story is of dubious canonicity, as it was written for the 2010 The Last Airbender live-action film timeline.
== References ==
== See also ==
* History of Zuko (99 AG - 100 AG)
* History of Zuko (Spring 100 AG)
* History of Zuko (Summer 100 AG)
Category:A to Z
Category:Character histories