Courage
By: Daphne
I started watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on a whim. I managed to get a hold of all three seasons sometime during the summer of 2009 when TV slows to a halt. I'd been hearing some good press and word of mouth about it and decided to give it a chance. I immediately gravitated towards the plot, characters, humour and surprising maturity of the show.
One thing I didn't gravitate to was Zuko. As someone who generally prefers protagonists of the story, I found season one Zuko brash, petty, immature and weak. I actually couldn't fathom why everyone loved the mostly bald exiled Prince whose goal in life was to make Aang, Katara and Sokka's life a nightmare. In fact, I think I pretty much disliked him completely up until the Tales of Ba Sing Se. This development during season two showed a softer, more vulnerable side to Zuko and I started thinking of him as a human instead of just petty. Still, he still acted very immaturely during the course of it and made some terrible choices.
I was glad to be assigned season three for this project because that is when I truly liked Zuko. Sure, I fell for the 'hotter' character design, but I also appreciated the full extent of his character development. His relationships with pretty much everyone in the series was changed drastically and so were his motives and priorities. He became a kinder, gentler Zuko. I'll always fondly remember that his conversation with a frog is probably the exact moment when I realised how much the petty young prince has become one of my favourite characters of all time.
