Ozai (Avatar)

Force Ursa to create a poison to give to his father, and also leave the Fire Nation.
Punish and exile Zuko for the "shame" he brought on him (all succeeded).
Wipe out all of the other nations.
Become the supreme ruler of the world and have its people live by his rules.
Kill Aang and his friends.
Kill the rulers of the other nations and absorb more power.
Manipulate Zuko into becoming a ruthless tyrant like himself (all failed).

### Moral Event Horizon

Murdering and overthrowing his own father.
Scarring and banishing his own son Zuko.
Attempting to destroy the Earth Kingdom and its inhabitants, which makes up about 85% of the world and consists of at least 4,000,000,000 people.

### Kill Count

Thousands to Millions
Billions (attempted)

### Crimes

Mass murder
Attempted genocide
Abuse of power
Domestic abuse
War crimes
Vandalism
Mutilation
Hate crimes
Conspiracy
Pollution
Usurpation
Patricide
Regicide
Mass destruction
Treason
Abuse of power
Corruption
Unlawful imprisonment
Terrorism
Torture
Animal cruelty
Brainwashing
Kidnapping
Blackmail
Propaganda
Systematic starvation
World domination
Child endangerment
Unlawful banishment
Mass arson
Attempted filicide

### Type of Villain

Genocidal Tyrant

**Ozai**, formerly known as **Fire Lord Ozai** and **the Phoenix King**, is one of the main antagonists of the *Avatar* franchise.

He serves as the main antagonist of the animated series *Avatar: The Last Airbender*, serving as the overarching antagonist of the first two seasons *Book One:* *Water* and *Book Two:* *Earth*, and the main antagonist of the third and final season *Book Three:* *Fire*. He also serves as the main antagonist of the midquel and sequel comics, appearing as the unseen overarching antagonist of *The Lost Adventures* and *Team Avatar Tales* anthologies, the main antagonist of *The Promise* and *The Search* trilogies, the overarching antagonist of the *Smoke and Shadow* trilogy, and the unseen overarching antagonist of the other three trilogies. He is also a mentioned antagonist in the sequel TV series *The Legend of Korra.*

He is the tyrannical Fire Lord of the Fire Nation who wishes to destroy the other three elemental nations and bring the world under his control. He is also the second son of Azulon and Ilah, the younger brother of Iroh, the father of Zuko and Azula, the ex-husband of Ursa, the uncle of Lu Ten and the grandson of Sozin. He is also Avatar Aang's archenemy.

He was voiced by Mark Hamill.

## What Makes Him Pure Evil?

### In General

* Though it is implied that there was a time where Ozai was a better father and husband to his family and held more care for them, he is far past that and no longer holds that affection for any of his family members.
* Although Aang has several dreams about him in a considerably comedic context, it has nothing to do with his character, and Ozai still maintains his stern and serious nature.
* While he is not as heinous as Vaatu and Unalaq on scale, whose plans of plunging the world into darkness and suffering would've lead to the destruction of the entire world, despite being the ruler of an entire empire with firebending, Ozai is still immensely less powerful than either of them considering Vaatu is the all powerful spirit of darkness and Unalaq becomes a god-like being/Dark Avatar after merging with Vaatu. Even barring that, Ozai's crimes still have come incredibly close in scale to them as his actions would have lead to the destruction of most of the world and also has personally vile crimes to still easily stand out from them.
* There is also no indication he believes in the Fire Nation propaganda of his grandfather Sozin or is delusional about his intentions like Sozin was. (Neither did Azulon, yet his genuine care for Iroh at least disqualifies him being PE). In fact, everything indicates he is only keeping the propaganda going to maintain power over the Fire Nation, in addition to him knowing he's on the evil side and choosing to remain evil, and planning to burn his own citizens down to win the Hundred Years War. He even tells Zuko in the comics that good and evil is decided by the Fire Lord, demonstrating his belief in the Fire Nation is nothing more than an excuse that just proves his selfishness.
* He treats allies like pawns and doesn't care if they are defeated, killed or captured, including his own daughter, Azula.

### Background

* He attempted to have his wife's previous lover killed out of jealousy of their relationship and took sadistic glee in his supposed death.
* He began psychologically abusing his son, Zuko, purely out of spite for the fact that Ursa wished Zuko was the son of her true love.
* Ozai also encouraged Azula to become violent and cruel, only to spite Ursa and to have a useful pawn in his future plans, leaving Azula with a basic lack of societal manners.
* Although his children stated Ozai was initially a good father in their early childhood, such as saving Zuko from drowning during a family vacation, Ozai would shed these redeeming qualities in their later years by becoming manipulative and abusive.
* He took advantage of Iroh's sorrow over the loss of his son by demanding to be given a higher authority and power than him, which outraged his father to the point of sacrificing his son Zuko as a punishment for his selfish intent. However, Ursa wanted Zuko to be spared, so he took advantage of this by forcing her to conspire with him to kill his father Azulon instead so he could take over his position as the new Fire Lord, then promptly banished her, and showed no remorse for any of it. He hypocritically called Ursa a traitor and forced her into banishment even though he agreed to this plan and was thus a traitor as well.
	+ Ozai will later reveal to Zuko he was fully planning to kill him that day, not out of his father's orders but more to get rid of a weakling in his eyes with justification.
* He forced his own son to fight him in an Agni Kai simply for speaking out of turn (against a plan to use newly-recruited Fire Nation soldiers as an expendable distraction), then burned/disfigured half of Zuko's face for refusing to fight him, something which Zuko would have for the rest of his life.
* He banished Zuko from the Fire Nation for refusing to fight and only allowed him to return if he captured the Avatar. Since the Avatar had not been seen for nearly a century at that time, Ozai was essentially putting Zuko on a fool's errand to prevent him from ever returning to the Fire Nation.

### *Book One: Water*

* He sent Azula to capture Iroh due to being a traitor (despite him only acting so to stop Zhao from destroying the world's balance) and Zuko due to being a failure.

### *Book Three: Fire*

* He threatened to kill Zuko after he revealed that the Avatar was still alive simply out of anger for this sudden revelation, then almost killed him with his lightning once he regained his fire bending without any hint of remorse.
* He neglected his daughter Azula despite her being his favorite child and praised her for being a fire bending prodigy, viewing her as a tool for his own power and dominance. This was proven when he chose to lead the fleet of airships to Ba Sing Se alone instead of taking Azula with him like initially planned and showed that he did not love his daughter or view her as an equal in spite of everything she had done for him, rewarding her efforts by giving her the meaningless position of Fire Lord since he would become Phoenix King. This would serve as the final straw for Azula that caused her to have a complete mental breakdown and descend into insanity, as her father was the one person she thought she could trust and rely on.
* He nearly committed genocide by incinerating thousands of civilians in the Earth Kingdom. While Azula did suggest it, she did it to prove herself to and help him, and the fact remains that she only suggested it to him, which Ozai accepted, rather than ordered him to do it, so the blame for the near genocide of the Earth Kingdom would still primarily be on his hands. Ozai was also very much willing to burn down his own soldiers and colonists in the attempt to destroy Earth Kingdom, thus his posturing for the greatness of the Fire Nation is revealed to be a lie in this case.
* When Aang gave Ozai the chance to end things peacefully, Ozai refused the offer and chose to fight.
* During his fight with Aang, he tortured Aang both physically and psychologically, attempting to burn him alive while mocking his weakness and the genocide of his people.
* After having been spared by Aang, Ozai mocked him for his weakness and attempted to attack him from behind.

### Sequel Comics

* Though being stripped of his firebending and title coupled with his subsequent imprisonment caused him to become calmer and more logical, he still retained his domineering personality, mocking his son for his insecurity when he visited him and later with his former wife, Ursa, he smiled and screamed that he will do something worse than killing her loved ones like he promised so she would fear him again, but she just pointed out his very small heart that has room for one, including himself. Instead of realizing and accepting her words, he just furiously yelled to kneel to him as she walks away. Furthermore, he showed no signs of remorse or reflection for any of his actions.
* He tried to manipulate Zuko into becoming a tyrant like him, thus attempting to subvert all of Zuko's efforts to redeem himself and showing he will never change.