I’ve had this ask in my inbox for months because I honestly forgot about it, but I have some time to reply properly.

GET READY FOR THE ESSAY NOBODY ASKED FOR

Aang is a wonderful character that is generous and loving and protective and basically the moral compass for the show for at least the first two seasons, and that’s good. I like Aang as a character, but he just doesn’t develop past square one. I  think it was a huge mistake to write him the way Bryke did throughout all of season three. They missed just a huge opportunity to develop him into a complex character who has dealt with loss and genocide and a huge, impossible burden, but instead they made him out into the nice guy.

You are, however, grossly underselling Zuko as the guy who spent the show hunting Aang. They started out even in their journeys, both young boys who had a complicated and tragic past coupled with an epic journey. But somewhere along the way, they went in different directions. 

The fact is, it’s unrealistic and unfair to expect Aang to not change throughout his journey. He can’t end the series as the same person he was in the beginning, because there is no way that an actual person wouldn’t change after going through everything that Aang did. The funny thing is, every single time Aang had a chance for growth, Bryke stunted it by placing a Katara-esque band-aid on the wound.

Aang never learns to really control the Avatar state. Every time he freaks out and loses control, Bryke throws Katara at him as a solution. Aang should have dealt with the fact that he massacred the Fire Nation at the North Pole. He should have dealt with how violent he was when Appa was stolen. He should have dealt with his defeat at Ba Sing Se. He should have dealt with the failed invasion on the Day of Black Sun. He should have dealt with the fact that he can’t kill Ozai.

But he doesn’t.

Aang’s MO is unfair for his character, but it repeats itself throughout the entire show. Obstacle, tantrum, solution. Obstacle, tantrum, solution. He lashes out at people when they try to help him, like a child, and usually does whatever he wants anyway. Look at how he responds to Katara when they’re stuck in the desert by the Library. Look at how he ignores her and Sokka when they try to regroup after the invasion. He’s acting like a child when, as unfair as it sounds, he needs to grow up.

If you apply that same standard to Zuko, you get completely different reactions.

I won’t say that one of them has more tragedy in their past than the other, because I think they have suffered in vastly different yet somewhat equal ways. Aang has never had to deal with being rejected or unloved. Zuko has grown up being belittled, abused, and kicked down. He’s been indoctrinated with very violent and harmful views, brutalized for resisting them, and then sent from home at like, FOURTEEN.

It’s hard for Zuko to change and he throws the same tantrums that Aang does, but then he grows up.

I’d put his growth starting point somewhere between his battle with Zhao and the attempted murder by the pirates. 

You see Zuko change. He abandons everything he’s ever known and is left with nothing, physically and metaphorically. He has to rebuild his identity from the ground up, and he makes mistakes along the way. He steals. He lies. He resents the loss of his luxury. 

But he’s also kind and selfless.

There’s a running joke that “No one had a crush on Book One Zuko” 

That should give you an idea of how drastic his character development is compared to Aang’s, even within the span of one season. Zuko ends the series a completely different person, having made amends with those that were initially his enemies, and taking on the responsibility of rebuilding the country that once shunned him. It’s a beautiful redemption arc the likes of which I don’t think I’ve ever seen. 

You mention that Aang sticks up for his beliefs, and I’ll agree that that is good. However, Aang never challenges himself. He never has a moral quandary. He never stops and wonders if what he believes is actually the best option. He just keeps doing it anyway. 

Something that has always bothered me is that he never tells the Gaang that he has failed to control the avatar state (before the  battle in the crystal catacombs). He picks up Sokka and lies about something that affects all of them. He lies time and time again to the people that have given up their lives to help him accomplish his goal. He patronizes Katara countless times when all she’s trying to do is keep them going. 

And that will be my final point as to why I value Zuko as a character more than Aang. Their treatment of Katara.

Shipping aside, Aang never once treats Katara like his equal, in a romantic sense. He applies the same childish hard headedness to their “relationship” as he does to his problem-solving. It’s very one sided, and it’s very selfish. When he first kisses her, it’s out of the blue. I personally consider it to verge on an unwanted advance, but I realize it could be just an innocent gesture. 

But the fact remains that after he kisses her, Katara doesn’t ever talk about it. She never confronts him or approaches him to tell him she feels the same way. Instead, when he gets jealous over a play, she tells him that she’s confused. He says he thought they were going to be together forever. After ONE kiss. THEN, after she’s said she’s confused, that they’re fighting a war, that she can’t think about anything like that right now, he kisses her. Again.

This time, it’s very clearly portrayed as unwanted. Katara storms off and Aang is left to throw a tantrum one last time.

The next time they have some actual alone time is after the battle, if I’m not mistaken. And I’m supposed to believe that she’s overcome whatever confusion she had and throws herself at Aang? #trophy

Then you get Zuko, who from day one has treated Katara as an equal. By day one, I mean the first time he ever really sees her. Not “I’ll save you from the pirates” not the shirshiu chase, but the battle on the North Pole. 

He fights her like an equal, and every encounter since has them evenly matched. 

I could say a million things about their dynamic, but I’ll narrow it down to The Southern Raiders, because I think that episode does a wonderful job at contrasting the differences between the way she relates to Aang and Zuko.

When Katara confronts Aang with the idea of going after the man that killed her mother, she doesn’t get a friend, she doesn’t get a lover, she gets a lecturer. Aang is so detached from the situation that he can’t understand how Katara feels. He is, first and foremost, a pacifist monk. That doesn’t mean he’s a bad person, but it does mean he’s bad at relating to people. He can’t understand why “letting go” isn’t an option for Katara because he can’t understand Katara. He knows what he thinks she should do, so he tells her that. He judges her for wanting revenge. He lets her go with a patronizing farewell. He’s been traveling with this girl for almost three years and he can’t figure her out.

Zuko gets her almost instantly. He sees through her anger at him and you know what he does? He tries to find out how to help. When did you EVER see Aang trying to find out more about Katara and Sokka’s mom? When did he EVER try to get to know Katara’s pain? How SICK is it that we went two and a half seasons with NO ONE asking these two kids how their mother died. But Zuko does. And once he finds out, he tries to help her get closure.

Even better, Zuko trusts her to make her own journey because he KNOWS WHAT IT’S LIKE TO STUMBLE ON THE WAY TO THE RIGHT CHOICE. Aang expects Katara to automatically choose peace and forgiveness. Zuko understands that, in reality, that doesn’t happen. He respects Katara enough to let her have her own path to closure. 

He lets her stumble. He lets her bloodbend and intimidate and get so close to ending the man’s life, but she doesn’t. And I think if she had, Zuko would’ve helped her with the body and never said anything to a living soul ever.

The people who come at my bb Katara going off about how awful it was for Zuko to let her or encourage her to bloodbend or seek revenge are just being dicks. Either you’ve never lost a parent or you just don’t understand that particular journey, but it comes down to the same thing Aang couldn’t do:

It’s not your journey, so you don’t decide how she takes it.

Katara is a master at this point. She has grown up more than the majority of the gaang (with the exception of Zuko probably), and she has a right to her own agency in her story.

Tl;dr: 

Zuko grows up into an understanding human being and Aang remains a petulant child.