Jak from Jak and Daxter has a similar problem, but Zuko will have it simultaneously better and worse. Better, because his position is very official and he has people paid to deal with him, as well as being an aristocrat and very distanced from the people he hurt. Worse, because it's not at all obvious (to anyone not there at the Western Air Temple) that Zuko ever turned good at all, and because his political ambitions rely on people dealing with him in good faith and assuming that he's doing the same.
Personally, I find Zuko's awkwardness adorkable. When he was talking about being bad at being good, I wanted to point out that he'd made a comically terrible villain.
His heart is sometimes in the right place. However, deciding that he shouldn't allow genocide because it interfered with his self-actualization doesn't erase theft (of more than an ostrich-horse), attempted kidnapping, carelessly endangering children and thinking he has a right to take whatever he wants from the world. This ties into the first point, kind of, in that Zuko was a villain. But it's more than that, and at the same time, it's less. Zuko was, and may still be, a person who believed that he was entitled to anything. An ostrich-horse, a crown, a fancy tea set... are only specific examples of an underlying pattern. While Zuko at least endorses the idea that there is right and wrong, and that he is constrained by it (and I do give him credit for that), he seems to have absorbed a bit of his father's ideas about deciding whom to support for arbitrary reasons.
Now, none of this is to say that Zuko hasn't tried to break this pattern. His actions during that storm, as well as his (attempted) humility when he went looking for Aang, speak well of him, but trying to break a pattern doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I do also acknowledge that Zuko seems to have a moral sense in the abstract, when he isn't directly party to the issues at hand (for instance, worrying about the turtle-crab and hawk), but he seems vulnerable to anger and entitlement clouding his judgment at the times when it matters most.
I also think that Zuko conceptualizes his world and the war in terms of rigid rules. He endorses revenge and killing people like his father because they're bad. When he spoke out against being callous toward Fire Nation troops, he argued that they were Fire Nation, not that they were people. Finally, he didn't kill Ozai himself (even though he had the chance) because he perceived himself as having a highly-specific, circumscribed role which did not involve killing Ozai, even though the reason why his role was good was because it would help make Ozai dead. It seems that Zuko sees the war as having two sides, Good (the Gaang) and Bad (the Fire Nation except himself, Iroh and Mai), and helping the Good side is good and helping the Bad side is bad. Zuko usually does things because he thinks he should do them, not because he thinks they should be done regardless of who does them. It's a subtle difference, but it leads to things like leaving Ozai alive. There are a few exceptions, like saving the Earth Kingdom boy, but for the most part, this holds true for his major goals.
Because of this, I find myself skeptical that Zuko takes actions to protect Fire Nation citizens because he wants them protected; there may be an aspect of that, but I think part of it is that he believes that Fire Nation royalty should care about the citizens, in the same way that they should wear crowns and top-knots, albeit to a greater degree. I also think that he supported Aang because Aang was the Avatar and the Avatar is Good (as well as being his best alternative to a father who hindered his self-actualization... coincidentally by planning a genocide), not because supporting Aang furthered the goal of improving the world or having fewer people die.
(On the other hand, Zuko-- like Azula-- is younger than he seems. Remembering that he's only... seventeen? makes me much more inclined to interpret his actions charitably.)
And finally, your last point: yes. Some people have disabilities that make them behave in ways that make them seem like assholes. Some people are assholes. Some people are both. Like Azula, apparently.
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branchandroot
Re: Zuko!
Date: 2012-12-09 06:12 am (UTC)Jak from Jak and Daxter has a similar problem, but Zuko will have it simultaneously better and worse. Better, because his position is very official and he has people paid to deal with him, as well as being an aristocrat and very distanced from the people he hurt. Worse, because it's not at all obvious (to anyone not there at the Western Air Temple) that Zuko ever turned good at all, and because his political ambitions rely on people dealing with him in good faith and assuming that he's doing the same.
Personally, I find Zuko's awkwardness adorkable. When he was talking about being bad at being good, I wanted to point out that he'd made a comically terrible villain.
His heart is sometimes in the right place. However, deciding that he shouldn't allow genocide because it interfered with his self-actualization doesn't erase theft (of more than an ostrich-horse), attempted kidnapping, carelessly endangering children and thinking he has a right to take whatever he wants from the world. This ties into the first point, kind of, in that Zuko was a villain. But it's more than that, and at the same time, it's less. Zuko was, and may still be, a person who believed that he was entitled to anything. An ostrich-horse, a crown, a fancy tea set... are only specific examples of an underlying pattern. While Zuko at least endorses the idea that there is right and wrong, and that he is constrained by it (and I do give him credit for that), he seems to have absorbed a bit of his father's ideas about deciding whom to support for arbitrary reasons.
Now, none of this is to say that Zuko hasn't tried to break this pattern. His actions during that storm, as well as his (attempted) humility when he went looking for Aang, speak well of him, but trying to break a pattern doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I do also acknowledge that Zuko seems to have a moral sense in the abstract, when he isn't directly party to the issues at hand (for instance, worrying about the turtle-crab and hawk), but he seems vulnerable to anger and entitlement clouding his judgment at the times when it matters most.
I also think that Zuko conceptualizes his world and the war in terms of rigid rules. He endorses revenge and killing people like his father because they're bad. When he spoke out against being callous toward Fire Nation troops, he argued that they were Fire Nation, not that they were people. Finally, he didn't kill Ozai himself (even though he had the chance) because he perceived himself as having a highly-specific, circumscribed role which did not involve killing Ozai, even though the reason why his role was good was because it would help make Ozai dead. It seems that Zuko sees the war as having two sides, Good (the Gaang) and Bad (the Fire Nation except himself, Iroh and Mai), and helping the Good side is good and helping the Bad side is bad. Zuko usually does things because he thinks he should do them, not because he thinks they should be done regardless of who does them. It's a subtle difference, but it leads to things like leaving Ozai alive. There are a few exceptions, like saving the Earth Kingdom boy, but for the most part, this holds true for his major goals.
Because of this, I find myself skeptical that Zuko takes actions to protect Fire Nation citizens because he wants them protected; there may be an aspect of that, but I think part of it is that he believes that Fire Nation royalty should care about the citizens, in the same way that they should wear crowns and top-knots, albeit to a greater degree. I also think that he supported Aang because Aang was the Avatar and the Avatar is Good (as well as being his best alternative to a father who hindered his self-actualization... coincidentally by planning a genocide), not because supporting Aang furthered the goal of improving the world or having fewer people die.
(On the other hand, Zuko-- like Azula-- is younger than he seems. Remembering that he's only... seventeen? makes me much more inclined to interpret his actions charitably.)
And finally, your last point: yes. Some people have disabilities that make them behave in ways that make them seem like assholes. Some people are assholes. Some people are both. Like Azula, apparently.