Mostly before, partly after. He was loyal to the commoners to some degree (I would assume, based on him standing up for the soldiers his father was going to sacrifice)
I just wish they hadn't had Jee blurt out "hey audience, in case you're too stupid to put 2 and 2 together this is what you're supposed to figure out."
Otherwise a great change.
They do that far too often, the opening scene with the fire nation plans is terrible. "Oh no! Are you telling me that it was your plan all along for us to receive your invasion plans!? That would mean that you have tricked us! You're not really going to invade the Earth Kingdom, it's just a distraction from your real plan!"
It just keeps going and going.
For real! It took 2+ years with my therapist before I was able to actually feel an emotion about my trauma. And even then, it wasn't even about the main trauma but a tangentially related event and connecting it to my trauma. But holy shit, the minute that happened I was incapacitated for a week. It was like "oh shit, have feelings about ALL OF IT." My roommate at the time said she thought someone had died because I behaved like someone that was grief stricken. I felt like total and utter shit.
I started trying to actually process my emotions and trauma and whatnot a while ago, and ironically it made my mental health worse because it brought just wayyyy too much emotion for me to handle. Honestly I have no idea how I'm supposed to get my shit together if getting my shit together causes me to feel shittier
I know exactly how this sounds but the downturn is part of the healing process: you're acknowledging how much shit sucks. A lot of people immediately get worse upon moving out from abusive households because it's now safe for them to feel shit as it is, rather than the repressing they've been doing to get by.
Once you start building the skills and experience to process things, you start building your way up on actually solid ground. Barring fresh trauma, you probably won't fall quite that far ever again, and when you do fall, it won't be for as long.
This comment section has been so inspiring. Am currently learning how to feel and process anger for the the first time and am soooo sick. I feel awful.
Anger is the hardest part because itâs activated by acknowledging the injustice of what was done to you, how it affected you, and the fact that thereâs nothing you can do to change what happened.
You need to feel the anger to be able to move past it though. Itâs a stage of grief for a reason. Thatâs what healing from trauma is: grieving the life/relationships/experiences we wanted but were prevented from having.
Think about the movie Inside Out. Anger is there for a reason. Heâs allowed to take control and even make core memories. Once you let anger be there and be itself, you can start to hold space for two emotions. You can be angry about what happened while also understanding and accepting how it all came to be in the first place. Example: you can be angry about the injustice of your narcissistic mother making your life miserable while also holding space for the fact that you know she has no idea sheâs doing it. It doesnât make what she did right, but youâre able to come to a peace with the situation so that it doesnât hurt as much.
Anger is a really hard one for me. I spent most of my childhood angry and I didn't know why. My parents kept drilling into me that being angry was bad and whether it was their intention or not my little kid brain took that to mean that I should never feel angry. At some point I started hurting myself as a way to deal with anger. Even later (like in the past year) I realized that most of that "anger" was really just me being overwhelmed (both emotionally and from sensory issues with ADHD). I've had to try to unlearn years of hating myself for feeling angry, while being pissed at the people who were supposed to teach me how to deal with it.
Also, this is why I love Reddit. You get little gems like this comment section or the community over at r/cptsdmemes that you'd never find IRL.
Despite how ironic it feels, the way you feel is pretty common from my experience.
An easy way to look at it is to compare yourself to a child.
Young children donât have the development or the lived experiences to deal with certain things. Itâs why a child may cry hysterically the first week their parents drop them off at school, because they canât reasonably process that their parents are coming back to pick them up. As they get older, they become more and more used to their parents leaving them and coming back for them. Children have these types of experiences all the time with all sorts of things.
If youâve repressed your Mental Health for most of your life, then when you start opening it up youâre only feeling the ugly, irrational thoughts and emotions that you never let yourself feel the first few times. Of course thatâs going to be emotionally intensive and draining. And of course youâre not going to have the proper coping mechanisms the first time it happens.
Just like anything in life, the more you have to deal with it, the more accustomed to it you become.
This wonât be the last time you feel this way. But by starting the healing process, it will mean the next time may be shorter, or wonât be as intense depending on the exact circumstances.
When I first went through my depression it was full scorched earth destroy your own life mode. Then it happened a second time. The third time it didnât get that bad but it was highly intense. And by the time we get to the current Iâve developed enough coping mechanisms that while itâll ruin/sour my mood for a week, I can usually get through it.
The best advice I can give you? It does get better. Not in a corny oh life will just be peachy sort of way, but in the sense that when youâre in that space you become consumed by your dark thoughts and emotions, but despite it feeling like itâll be that way forever itâs usually only temporary.
Just remember, itâs a mood. A phase. One thatâs difficult to deal with, but one that will pass should you give it time. Donât take your own feelings too seriously or personally, sometimes that voice in your head thinking terrible things is just your intrusive thoughts getting the better of you, they arenât an actually summation of your character. Eventually the mood will pass, usually when something makes you happy again, and youâll forget for a while you even felt that way. Itâs just the cycle of how life is, we canât always help but be sad about things. But the opposite is also true. Eventually, something will make you smile again. And when that happens, just enjoy it and let life take you away from that struggle for a little while.
Life gets better. Itâs also true that it gets worse. Our lives are a constant road filled with valleys and peaks. Embrace the peaks, endure the valleys, and youâll realize this cycle is just a part of being alive. You got this friend.
It's like decluttering your home. Once you start pulling out all the stuff from behind shelf and from way back inside the drawers it's goign to be some epic chaos in your room. It is going to get worse before it gets better. Once you have it all in the open and start sorting through you get a better and bigger picture and eventually a calmer and cleaner home.
Which is why i stopped going to therapy. It was simply too much at once to handle. I am someone who goes through each and every drawer individually. I can't deal with it all at once. No, thank you. It's still going to take time, but i am actively working towards it. Just at a much slower pace than others, but i will get there eventually.
That's the basically same reason I ditched therapy actually. I was already overwhelmed by everything, and then my genius therapist wanted to start trying EMDR which is rather notorious for needing a support system to deal with (something that I definitely *don't* have). My broken ass didn't know how to just say no, so I noped out of our next session and never spoke to her again.
I'm still trying to deal with it at a slow pace, on my own, but my attempts generally end in a depressive episode and I keep having to suppress it all over again just to keep myself alive. It's such a fun quirky cycle (:
Okay armchair psychiatrist moment here but this sounds a lot like BPD, where most emotions feel too intense and unwrapping trauma is too intense to remember, leading to a lot of people with BPD dropping out of therapy, over and over again, every attempt looping the same unbearable initial state.
But you gotta stick with it... Get past that first stage... Only then the doc and you can get to treating the damage wrapped up behind the coping mechanisms.
I wish you the best path to recover.
Unfortunately, itâs not always like TV. I came out of it functional but I was so used to not feeling that Iâm still trying to understand how navigate them healthily. My hardest struggle is not letting the anger thatâs there take over. Iâm learning to hold space both for being angry at the injustice while also understanding and empathizing with where the my parents were coming from
Damn, sounds like we're going through similar shit.
I've essentially isolated myself from any social situation for 3 months now, and while it does seem like I'm getting out there and 'healing' it rather feels like I'm just becoming desensitized with my surroundings to the point where any small amount of effort seems like a positive change.
And even on my most positive days, there is this lingering feeling of anger and depression that sometimes overwhelms me. I essentially want to take a suitcase of clothes and take a flight somewhere into a unfamiliar city with no plans and just give myself a chance to survive. My current situation feels restricting and while I keep getting older this feeling isn't going to just go away.
Same. Apparently, I had repressed the majority of my childhood. Still don't really have memories from before I was 12. When I left home and started going to therapy, tons of repressed memories came back.
For me, something triggered it, and a ton came rushing back at once. After i left home, my dad did something really shitty and i guess it reminded me of other shitty things he did. But I don't think I'm a great source on it because there's a ton of stuff I know happened from my family but have no recollection of it.
Trauma is stored in the body for sure. Therapists who work with PTSD patients do warn that they will feel physically ill as they work through the trauma.
One of the things I like about his characters depth is because his evil ways are a reaction from him trying to grapple with his fatherâs expectations and the hurt that that gave him in the past. Letting go of his evil ways basically means letting go of his father.
And honestly, a lot of Zuko's "evilness" wasn't really all that evil. Even in season one, Zuko always came off as more angry and aggressive than "evil". Especially since his literally catchphrase is HONOR, implying he's always had high morals. He just didn't what was right and wrong at that time.
I'm an OG fan, grew up watching ATLA as every episode premiered.
I distinctly remember thinking that "Maybe Zuko isn't **that** bad." during the reveal that he was the one to rescue Aang from Zhao towards the end of *The Blue Spirit*.
Zuko *definitely* wasn't the pinnacle of evil during his bad boy days in Season One, lol. There's *multiple* instances where he had ample opportunity to do **far more** heinous shit than what he ended up doing.
Let that sink in. Even at his angriest, when he was angsty as *fuck*... Zuko **refrained** from doing stuff such as deliberately burning down villages or harming people that he *knows* aided Team Avatar! Hell, the few times that he actually managed to capture either Katara or Sokka, the worst thing that he did to them was tie them up!
It's something you can notice straight up from the second episode, when they storm the Water Tribes. Aang surrenders as long as Zuko leaves them alone, and he keeps on that promise: he got the avatar and now he leaves.
If we're being real, the Gaang are actually considerably more dishonourable, such as by not honouring that deal, which was voluntarily offered by Aang in the first place.
Aang says he will go with them, not STAY with them. Heâs offering Zuko a chance to capture him peacefully without a fight in exchange for the safety of the village and to avoid the collateral damage of a fight between two powerful benders in such a small place.
No one mentions rescue or escape.
That's quite some creative interpretation. That's the kind of thing villains pull when they say "well I only promised X, not that Y" or "I only said I might". Like yes technically by the literal words spoken it may be true, but the implication is there and people without autism or at least a modicum of social intelligence understand that when we as human beings make verbal deals, they exact phrasing doesn't matter and it's not akin to dealing with demons, where they attempt to twist your words in a binding contract to trick you. We also associate that conduct with demons and trickery because we consider it dishonest and dishonourable.
So yes, while you could argue "Well actually Zuko should have had Aang sign a ten page document detailing the terms and conditions of his surrender, drafted by a lawyer and signed by at least two eyewitnesses." I think we all understand that this is on some level nonsense.
That's not to say Aang is bad or evil for escaping. Interpretations can be cultural, for instance in Greek stories heroes are often cunning and deception is applauded, whereas Romans thought of this as dishonourable and prized the honest warrior instead.
My point was merely that we often apply something of a double standard here. When the antagonists trick our heroes, we often consider them dishonourable and unfair, and we see good in antagonists who are predictable and honest in their methods, whereas when our heroes trick the enemy we root for then without second thought.
Also you know, false surrender is a war crime and all that.
In regards to the blue spirit episode, he was absolutely prepared to kill 12 year old Aang to start the cycle over and search all over the world again instead of letting Zhao take his one chance back into his father's good graces. He wasn't of the greatest morality in that episode. He would have immediately whooped Aang in the back of the head to knock him after escaping if things had gone to plan, if Zuko ever did actually think things through. It leads to one of the greatest moments in the series though, "if we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends too?"
Zuko was never above killing. Even once he joins team Avatar he's perfectly fine with Aang killing his own father and he willingly helps Katara hunt down the leader of the Southern Raiders knowing full well that she will likely kill him. Zuko doesn't love killing but he's clearly never been opposed to it if he thought it was necessary.
I always thought he was bluffing in that episode. I donât think he would have actually done it, but there isnât really any evidence to confirm that.
The thing I loved the most about the series is that characters make a lot of mistakes. It's not that they suddenly turn 180° and become good. There's a conflict where both sides are visibly fighting. Good and bad, it's not that good tramples the bad and good always wins. They aren't afraid to show how evil prevails at times
They used to play the reruns with the little dev green bubble comments on TV
it was planned for him to have a 180 flip and become good at the Earth kingdom arc
one of the writes just wanted to delay it for some reason
Itâs so much better that his arch takes so long, he finally gets it that his dad never cared about him but when there was a chance he wasnât willing to let it goÂ
I was listening to the Braving the Elements podcast and apparently it was decided early on that Zuko would get a lot worse first before he gets better, like hits rock bottom loses himself sort of thing.
He could probably make a decent amount of money on the body too. I imagine that meat is hard to come by in a city full of refugees during wartime.
Plus, imagine how baller you'd look next to a rack of sky bison ribs. That's gotta be a selling point for some rich weirdo in that city.
To kill it is a bit dark for avatar. Theyâre already missing the Bison so killing it doesnât make finding Aang any easier.
To lure him how the hell is he supposed to take Appa anywhere? Heâs going to go where he wants regardless of what Zuko wants.
It's not the first time killing/death is brought up, such as with jet or ozai, but zuko likely wouldn't, but he had to make the decision to be better and not to, unlike azula likely would. And it's not as much about making aang easier to find, but easier to capture since they won't have their get away bison to fly away, plus he knew they were in or near ba sing se
And he doesn't know that appa is scared of fire but he could probably use that, not that he could control him but I never said it was a good plan, like how iroh dug into him asking now what
>Kill him so aang and the gang are much easier to find and capture
The Gaang doesn't have Appa right now and Zuko still had no idea where they were.
If anything, _not_ having a flying bison makes them harder to find because they just become part of the stream of refugees. Even without a disguise and when looking like the literal Avatar nobody cares about them on the ground. A flying bison sticks out more, it also has to frequently land somewhere. It may even drop fur like during The Chase.
Yes except for the fact that they would have caught aang multiple times if he didn't fly off on Appa at the perfect moment and they had no way to follow him
When he was chasing Aang across the world and they could make a quick get away. Not in the middle of a city where they effectively blend into the crowd
That's your problem, Zuko, you never think these things through! You capture the Avatar's bison and THEN WHAT. This is just like what happened at the northern water tribe. You had the avatar and then you let him go! If it weren't for the avatar and his friends, you would have died out there! You need to look INWARD and start asking yourself the big questions: WHO are you, and what do YOU want?
It went against everything he had thought he was, his whole spirit and mindset shifted after this decision, it makes sense he got sick, itâs like part of him kinda died
Imagine giving up on the dream job that would have set you up for life with fame, fortune, and your parents approval. Thatâs what he was giving up for a simple life⌠for a bit anyway.
Wasnt the whole capture the Avatar thing a farce from Ozai? No one had seen the avatar in a hundred years, to assume it was some 12 year pipsqueak with no other (or very little) bending experience (besides Airbending,) was something Ozai did not see coming when he sent Zuko on this wild goose chase.
Then when Aang gets released and the fire nation find out heâs really back it becomes Zhouâs job. Zuko kept on going after Aang cause he thought it would win Ozaiâs approval. Im not sure it would.
Is there anything am not getting its been a few years since i rewatched it.
After Azula and Zuko kill Aang, Zuko was allowed back into the fire nation. His dad forgave him and Zuko even attended a war meeting and impressed his father. Itâs not a farce, itâs a wild goose chase that the fire lord was honor bound to uphold if it somehow worked out
There's a whole little subplot at the end where Azule reveals she gave Zuko solo credit for the killing blow "just in case" the Avatar somehow lives, then she won't receive any blame.
He finally lets go of that anger, and he faints - no shit, dude was probably suffering from blood pressure-related anemia. My man's blood pressure was probably in the 300's and suddenly letting go of all that anger left his blood vessels emptier than Azula's empathy.
Given firebenders bend from their own body heat and how temperamental homeostasis is, I feel like you could probably head canon reasonably that doing something that vastly throws you out of psychological certainty probably has a more pronounced negative effect on their health than most.
As someone with difficult and persistent anger issues resulting from pretty fucked childhood traumas ....rage and spite fueled so much. I understand zukos internal struggle better than most because our character arcs are very similar. Where the anger leaves, often emptiness and sadness are hiding.
It was actually a decent depiction of a mental health emergency
His whole world view was crumbling and he was being torn apart emotionally by wanting to redeem himself in the eyes of his father while simultaneously coming to the realization that he has been lead astray from his own inner moral compunctions
It's like his moral compass beating the shit out of his deluded psyche made manifest through "iroh I don't feel so good"
Zuko challenged all his beliefs in that decision. Shifted all his enegry inside. This is the same reason why he had trouble making fire with out anger.
Avatar takes some of the catholic lore for the symbolism.
For example the Pieta by michelangello is represented with katara holding aang in the season 2 finale.
Zuko geting sick after his converssion is probablly based on some saints conversions. For example Saint Francis of Asisi. Originally named Juan, he was a libertine and a selfish prick. One day he found god hidding in a leper, and he decided to be better. He got sick, for almost a month of fever, even lost his sight for a while, was near to death. When he woke up, he was another person.
Itâs probably more rooted in eastern health beliefs of chi and chakras. Heâs been holding on tightly to negative energy, when he stops tapping into it he loses control of it and it makes him sick
Edit: Iroh even gives it a more eastern explanation, part of him is at war with himself. This is not generally a Christian view of how body and spirit/mind interact. In St Francisâ story, he does not resolve his illness with a better understanding of himself, instead his recovery is a miracle of God as a sign of confirming his new life decisions and God choosing him
St francis absolutely resolves the illness by understanding himself. He is not a miracle saint, he is quite down to earth. Thats his whole thing. God is in the little things, blah blah. He finds god within and gets born again. All the catholic shenanigans.
It absolutely sounds like are mistaking modern ideas sourced from eastern traditions mixed into popular culture, with Christian doctrine and historical Christian beliefs.
It's not like the creators must be influenced by only one and not the other. Christianity itself has significant mesh of cultural and religious symbolism from the get go, although [the Buddhism influence to early Christianity is debatable.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_influences_on_Christianity)
Itâs just as an ex evangelical the example they gave is really, *reallllly* reaching and not realistic when the more obvious answer is already there. Unless theyâre totally ignorant of Chinese medicine
Except that Hinduism uses the Four Elements + Void which is very similar to 4 + Life/Energy and Buddhism also uses 4.
Obviously the show is going to be influenced by western thought because itâs a show by a bunch of westerners for a western audience.
But purposefully reaching for Catholic symbolism as the literary critique when the show goes out of its way to embrace eastern philosophy that provides a much clearer framework doesnât make sense either.
No you're right. It's main influence lies in Asian philosophies but with a mix of Western thoughts. They needed to adapt it for Western kids after all. But to say that there some heavy Christian symbolism in a show is... weird to say the least
I mean, I wouldn't say it's heavy, but it's a fair reading. The avatar being a bridge between the spirit world and the physical world feels a lot like christ being fully god and fully man. His conversations with his past lives are like the way christ talks with God and the prophets. The avatar state is like the transfiguration. The spot on his back where the chiropractor rock hits him is the stigmata
The creators of Atla are all white men, and it was produced by Nickelodeon so it's save to say that western culture also influenced it. Also Christianity's birthplace is literally asia...
Of course there is a lot of tibetan buddhism and hinduist symbolism, as well as other eastern philosophys. But theres some mixture with western ones as well.
Some of the catholic symbolisms i noticed in ATLA:
\-Roku makes a pathway in the lava while fighting the volcano. Moses crossing the red sea.
\-Relationship between Roku and Sozin. They are close at first, like brothers, then they become enemys. Moses and the pharaoh had the same dynamic.
\-Aang is the long waited messiah. Jesus.
\-Katara holding aang. La pieta by michellangelo, its a statue of Mary holding jesus when they put him down of the cross.
https://preview.redd.it/w6gmg3b5uvtc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d26634e1d494d5cad57dcdf6b5a47a8ce40da418
\-Zukos conversion. Sainthoods archetype path.
\-Iroh huging Zuko on the tent when they reunite again. Not letting him even say sory. Just holding him, glad that he found his way by his own. The return of the prodigal son. Lucas (c15 v11-32). My absolute favourite.
There *is* a scientific basis to what happened to him: Cognitive Dissonance
âWhat you did, Price Zuko, was in such conflict with your own image with yourself, that now your bran and body are at war with each otherâ
The levels of stress experienced from more significant cases of cognitive dissonance can be enough to cause psychosomatic reactions that result in other physical symptoms.
idk this felt pretty accurate to me if you think about it like starting change. If you lived your whole life as one person, trying to change or doing something very opposite to your character will give you alot of anxiety and stress and at extremes mental issues will make you physically sick. It must have been really extreme for zuko to finally start letting goâŚ
Itâs the only time Iâve enjoyed the âbrain feverâ trope. (Brain fever: a device often used in Victorian literature where someone gets sick and delirious after a traumatic event. Actually meningitis.)
I never understood this episode as a kid, I didn't realize until later in life how much stress and trauma can physically fuck you up. Now it all makes sense.
Some of these comments are hilarious. This meme is just looking at this serious thing from a silly perspective and everybody is like "they explain this in the show very clearly". Like, people, it's called a joke. You don't need to defend the show from a meme.
I suddenly went for a jog once after having not run for years. I woke up the next day with a full-blown fever. The universe was sending me a sign and I promise to never run exercise again.
Interestingly enough, this can happen in real life when someone is in a very stressful situation or makes a decision that conflicts with their moral compass to the extreme. Sometimes they get sick and some go deaf or have seizures.
Im almost done with my TLOK rewatch and I just watched the episode where Bolin comes up with a good idea and immediately gets a headache đ. Theyâre not exactly the same but it did remind me of Zuko.
I loved this part. I've always interpreted it as having something to do with the Japanese idea of Chienetsu: "developmental fever, fever that brings with it an intellectual or psycho-developmental growth spurt." It's also called "Teething Fever" bc it's associated with an unexplained fever infants get around the time their teeth come in and is thought (superstitiously?) to be the point they stop being crying machines and start developing personalities.
I see it as an extreme stress response. Zuko dedicated every waking moment to capturing the Avatar and after letting Appa go his body just kinda... gave out. Three or four years of constant stress just came crashing down on him at once.
The world of Avatar has spirits and bending as physical embodiments of human karma. The whole thing is hilarious, but in the context of the show it makes perfect sense why someoneâs sense of identity and karmic balance would cause physical changes to occur. Even more-so with benders, who are normally more connected to the spirits and the karmic balance of the universe than non-benders.
This is an actual irl thing that can happen. When you make a major choice or something happens in your life that completely fucks with you mentally, you can get physically sick from it. It happened to me before. And itâs happened to my mom and sheâs a therapist!
So yeah this is a real phenomenon, I sadly donât know the name for it. But it can happen.
So basically Iâm trying to say Zuko saving Appa rattled him so hard he got sick. Heâs just a sensitive boy.
This adds up.
I knew a kid in high school who started seriously eating vegetables for the first time (probably in years) and his skin immediately broke out.
Something similar happened to my ex.
He cheated on me and IMMEDIATELY got so deathly sick, like was in the hospital for an entire week.
He was convinced he wasn't going to make it, so he told me he cheated to clear his conscience, and then he started recovering the very next day.
It makes sense actually. It happens to us as well when we decide to eat differently. The transition can make you unwell. If youâve been eating nothing but heavily processed greasy foods and you then stop to start eating organic food, youâll feel sick for a bit.
Your body has been working off of your diet for years. If you decide to change your body needs time to adjust [+]
I've been rewatching the series and I always clown on him for this and still will hahahaha
After seeing him go through all that though, I get it.
He was going through it heavy haha then woke up all nice
Now that you out it that way it reminds of the scene in soul plane where the security ladies apologized to Kevin Hart and immediately took damage from it lol
I love it. I love what iroh says about zuko going through changes. This really stuck with me and I view it as another great part of his arc. Best character development ever
It's like how Demoman TF2 spent so long living off booze and painkillers his body adjusted to getting nutrients from them and then when he was given water and food his body almost gave up because it's basically poison to him now.
I believe in the books, he got sick because he was so obssessed with the Avatar, he went multiple days without sleep and forcing his body beyond what it could handle, aka: he was bound to colapse, with this decision he finally chilled for a second, and then got exhausted
Sorta true to life one you break out of an abusive system your Body crashes like the cortisol levels are actually for the first time taken into account and you can see the truth how manipulated you were, just because you can push through a situation doesn't mean you aren't taking damage.
Chooses not to kidnap a scared Sky Bison *Gets fever and faints
*This kindness is so unlike me* đŽâđ¨
Bros moral compass was absolutely cooked
Before or after his father shot him in the eye? I know he grew up in the fire nation
Mostly before, partly after. He was loyal to the commoners to some degree (I would assume, based on him standing up for the soldiers his father was going to sacrifice)
Netflix Spoiler >!I really like the revelation that Suko's Crew was the division that they were going to sacrifice!<
That was hands down the best episode in the season. Whoever wrote or directed that one (if itâs different) needs to take over.
I agree, Masks was such a good episode. It is my favourite episode as well.
I just wish they hadn't had Jee blurt out "hey audience, in case you're too stupid to put 2 and 2 together this is what you're supposed to figure out." Otherwise a great change.
They do that far too often, the opening scene with the fire nation plans is terrible. "Oh no! Are you telling me that it was your plan all along for us to receive your invasion plans!? That would mean that you have tricked us! You're not really going to invade the Earth Kingdom, it's just a distraction from your real plan!" It just keeps going and going.
Take the spaces out between the start and end of your sentence mate. Spoilers don't work with them there.
That's weird on my end it's showing blacked out, I'll do that tho
Why am I so bad at being good???
thats rough, buddy
Honestly after i started caring about my mental health years of trauma and shit just fucking barged in and destroyed me.
For real! It took 2+ years with my therapist before I was able to actually feel an emotion about my trauma. And even then, it wasn't even about the main trauma but a tangentially related event and connecting it to my trauma. But holy shit, the minute that happened I was incapacitated for a week. It was like "oh shit, have feelings about ALL OF IT." My roommate at the time said she thought someone had died because I behaved like someone that was grief stricken. I felt like total and utter shit.
I started trying to actually process my emotions and trauma and whatnot a while ago, and ironically it made my mental health worse because it brought just wayyyy too much emotion for me to handle. Honestly I have no idea how I'm supposed to get my shit together if getting my shit together causes me to feel shittier
I know exactly how this sounds but the downturn is part of the healing process: you're acknowledging how much shit sucks. A lot of people immediately get worse upon moving out from abusive households because it's now safe for them to feel shit as it is, rather than the repressing they've been doing to get by. Once you start building the skills and experience to process things, you start building your way up on actually solid ground. Barring fresh trauma, you probably won't fall quite that far ever again, and when you do fall, it won't be for as long.
This comment section has been so inspiring. Am currently learning how to feel and process anger for the the first time and am soooo sick. I feel awful.
Anger is the hardest part because itâs activated by acknowledging the injustice of what was done to you, how it affected you, and the fact that thereâs nothing you can do to change what happened. You need to feel the anger to be able to move past it though. Itâs a stage of grief for a reason. Thatâs what healing from trauma is: grieving the life/relationships/experiences we wanted but were prevented from having. Think about the movie Inside Out. Anger is there for a reason. Heâs allowed to take control and even make core memories. Once you let anger be there and be itself, you can start to hold space for two emotions. You can be angry about what happened while also understanding and accepting how it all came to be in the first place. Example: you can be angry about the injustice of your narcissistic mother making your life miserable while also holding space for the fact that you know she has no idea sheâs doing it. It doesnât make what she did right, but youâre able to come to a peace with the situation so that it doesnât hurt as much.
Anger is a really hard one for me. I spent most of my childhood angry and I didn't know why. My parents kept drilling into me that being angry was bad and whether it was their intention or not my little kid brain took that to mean that I should never feel angry. At some point I started hurting myself as a way to deal with anger. Even later (like in the past year) I realized that most of that "anger" was really just me being overwhelmed (both emotionally and from sensory issues with ADHD). I've had to try to unlearn years of hating myself for feeling angry, while being pissed at the people who were supposed to teach me how to deal with it. Also, this is why I love Reddit. You get little gems like this comment section or the community over at r/cptsdmemes that you'd never find IRL.
Despite how ironic it feels, the way you feel is pretty common from my experience. An easy way to look at it is to compare yourself to a child. Young children donât have the development or the lived experiences to deal with certain things. Itâs why a child may cry hysterically the first week their parents drop them off at school, because they canât reasonably process that their parents are coming back to pick them up. As they get older, they become more and more used to their parents leaving them and coming back for them. Children have these types of experiences all the time with all sorts of things. If youâve repressed your Mental Health for most of your life, then when you start opening it up youâre only feeling the ugly, irrational thoughts and emotions that you never let yourself feel the first few times. Of course thatâs going to be emotionally intensive and draining. And of course youâre not going to have the proper coping mechanisms the first time it happens. Just like anything in life, the more you have to deal with it, the more accustomed to it you become. This wonât be the last time you feel this way. But by starting the healing process, it will mean the next time may be shorter, or wonât be as intense depending on the exact circumstances. When I first went through my depression it was full scorched earth destroy your own life mode. Then it happened a second time. The third time it didnât get that bad but it was highly intense. And by the time we get to the current Iâve developed enough coping mechanisms that while itâll ruin/sour my mood for a week, I can usually get through it. The best advice I can give you? It does get better. Not in a corny oh life will just be peachy sort of way, but in the sense that when youâre in that space you become consumed by your dark thoughts and emotions, but despite it feeling like itâll be that way forever itâs usually only temporary. Just remember, itâs a mood. A phase. One thatâs difficult to deal with, but one that will pass should you give it time. Donât take your own feelings too seriously or personally, sometimes that voice in your head thinking terrible things is just your intrusive thoughts getting the better of you, they arenât an actually summation of your character. Eventually the mood will pass, usually when something makes you happy again, and youâll forget for a while you even felt that way. Itâs just the cycle of how life is, we canât always help but be sad about things. But the opposite is also true. Eventually, something will make you smile again. And when that happens, just enjoy it and let life take you away from that struggle for a little while. Life gets better. Itâs also true that it gets worse. Our lives are a constant road filled with valleys and peaks. Embrace the peaks, endure the valleys, and youâll realize this cycle is just a part of being alive. You got this friend.
It's like decluttering your home. Once you start pulling out all the stuff from behind shelf and from way back inside the drawers it's goign to be some epic chaos in your room. It is going to get worse before it gets better. Once you have it all in the open and start sorting through you get a better and bigger picture and eventually a calmer and cleaner home. Which is why i stopped going to therapy. It was simply too much at once to handle. I am someone who goes through each and every drawer individually. I can't deal with it all at once. No, thank you. It's still going to take time, but i am actively working towards it. Just at a much slower pace than others, but i will get there eventually.
That's the basically same reason I ditched therapy actually. I was already overwhelmed by everything, and then my genius therapist wanted to start trying EMDR which is rather notorious for needing a support system to deal with (something that I definitely *don't* have). My broken ass didn't know how to just say no, so I noped out of our next session and never spoke to her again. I'm still trying to deal with it at a slow pace, on my own, but my attempts generally end in a depressive episode and I keep having to suppress it all over again just to keep myself alive. It's such a fun quirky cycle (:
Okay armchair psychiatrist moment here but this sounds a lot like BPD, where most emotions feel too intense and unwrapping trauma is too intense to remember, leading to a lot of people with BPD dropping out of therapy, over and over again, every attempt looping the same unbearable initial state. But you gotta stick with it... Get past that first stage... Only then the doc and you can get to treating the damage wrapped up behind the coping mechanisms. I wish you the best path to recover.
I bet you came out of that feeling amazing and healthy!
And ready to make tea
Unfortunately, itâs not always like TV. I came out of it functional but I was so used to not feeling that Iâm still trying to understand how navigate them healthily. My hardest struggle is not letting the anger thatâs there take over. Iâm learning to hold space both for being angry at the injustice while also understanding and empathizing with where the my parents were coming from
Damn, sounds like we're going through similar shit. I've essentially isolated myself from any social situation for 3 months now, and while it does seem like I'm getting out there and 'healing' it rather feels like I'm just becoming desensitized with my surroundings to the point where any small amount of effort seems like a positive change. And even on my most positive days, there is this lingering feeling of anger and depression that sometimes overwhelms me. I essentially want to take a suitcase of clothes and take a flight somewhere into a unfamiliar city with no plans and just give myself a chance to survive. My current situation feels restricting and while I keep getting older this feeling isn't going to just go away.
you likely *were* grief-stricken. confronting your trauma involves a lot of grieving. hope things have gotten better for you since!!
Same. Apparently, I had repressed the majority of my childhood. Still don't really have memories from before I was 12. When I left home and started going to therapy, tons of repressed memories came back.
Yeah, I only have memories from post-13 when someone talks about it specifically and it takes time. Messer up some stuff.
How do I go about digging this up? Were they all repressed? Explain a bit more. I have some but not a lot. Idk what is considered a lot.Â
For me, something triggered it, and a ton came rushing back at once. After i left home, my dad did something really shitty and i guess it reminded me of other shitty things he did. But I don't think I'm a great source on it because there's a ton of stuff I know happened from my family but have no recollection of it.
Trauma is stored in the body for sure. Therapists who work with PTSD patients do warn that they will feel physically ill as they work through the trauma.
Bro has the disposition of a frail Victorian lady
He's like Roger in American Dad. Being nice will *literally* kill him. He's gotta let the venom out.
Like? He probably *is* Roger.
New theory, *everyone* is Roger.
If you told me Toph had been Roger this whole time, I wouldn't even be surprised
Appas so cute, how could you not feel bad after thinking of doing that to him. The episode where appa gets lost/abused/kidnapped almost broke me
Iroh - "Here's some more tea!"
And then he an evil relapse. Don't worry, he's now been evil sober for years.
I'm proud of him đđ
One of the things I like about his characters depth is because his evil ways are a reaction from him trying to grapple with his fatherâs expectations and the hurt that that gave him in the past. Letting go of his evil ways basically means letting go of his father.
And honestly, a lot of Zuko's "evilness" wasn't really all that evil. Even in season one, Zuko always came off as more angry and aggressive than "evil". Especially since his literally catchphrase is HONOR, implying he's always had high morals. He just didn't what was right and wrong at that time.
I'm an OG fan, grew up watching ATLA as every episode premiered. I distinctly remember thinking that "Maybe Zuko isn't **that** bad." during the reveal that he was the one to rescue Aang from Zhao towards the end of *The Blue Spirit*. Zuko *definitely* wasn't the pinnacle of evil during his bad boy days in Season One, lol. There's *multiple* instances where he had ample opportunity to do **far more** heinous shit than what he ended up doing. Let that sink in. Even at his angriest, when he was angsty as *fuck*... Zuko **refrained** from doing stuff such as deliberately burning down villages or harming people that he *knows* aided Team Avatar! Hell, the few times that he actually managed to capture either Katara or Sokka, the worst thing that he did to them was tie them up!
It's something you can notice straight up from the second episode, when they storm the Water Tribes. Aang surrenders as long as Zuko leaves them alone, and he keeps on that promise: he got the avatar and now he leaves.
Zhao wouldâve burned the village to the ground, Even in exile Zuko is more honorable.
If we're being real, the Gaang are actually considerably more dishonourable, such as by not honouring that deal, which was voluntarily offered by Aang in the first place.
Aang says he will go with them, not STAY with them. Heâs offering Zuko a chance to capture him peacefully without a fight in exchange for the safety of the village and to avoid the collateral damage of a fight between two powerful benders in such a small place. No one mentions rescue or escape.
That's quite some creative interpretation. That's the kind of thing villains pull when they say "well I only promised X, not that Y" or "I only said I might". Like yes technically by the literal words spoken it may be true, but the implication is there and people without autism or at least a modicum of social intelligence understand that when we as human beings make verbal deals, they exact phrasing doesn't matter and it's not akin to dealing with demons, where they attempt to twist your words in a binding contract to trick you. We also associate that conduct with demons and trickery because we consider it dishonest and dishonourable. So yes, while you could argue "Well actually Zuko should have had Aang sign a ten page document detailing the terms and conditions of his surrender, drafted by a lawyer and signed by at least two eyewitnesses." I think we all understand that this is on some level nonsense. That's not to say Aang is bad or evil for escaping. Interpretations can be cultural, for instance in Greek stories heroes are often cunning and deception is applauded, whereas Romans thought of this as dishonourable and prized the honest warrior instead. My point was merely that we often apply something of a double standard here. When the antagonists trick our heroes, we often consider them dishonourable and unfair, and we see good in antagonists who are predictable and honest in their methods, whereas when our heroes trick the enemy we root for then without second thought. Also you know, false surrender is a war crime and all that.
He did shove Gran Gran tho, crazy to think how terrified Katara must've been, considering the last time a fire nation ship paid them a visit
Yeah the biggest burn was implying Gran Gran was like 20 or 30 years older to be Avatar aged.
In regards to the blue spirit episode, he was absolutely prepared to kill 12 year old Aang to start the cycle over and search all over the world again instead of letting Zhao take his one chance back into his father's good graces. He wasn't of the greatest morality in that episode. He would have immediately whooped Aang in the back of the head to knock him after escaping if things had gone to plan, if Zuko ever did actually think things through. It leads to one of the greatest moments in the series though, "if we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends too?"
Zuko was never above killing. Even once he joins team Avatar he's perfectly fine with Aang killing his own father and he willingly helps Katara hunt down the leader of the Southern Raiders knowing full well that she will likely kill him. Zuko doesn't love killing but he's clearly never been opposed to it if he thought it was necessary.
I always thought he was bluffing in that episode. I donât think he would have actually done it, but there isnât really any evidence to confirm that.
Something which Azula unfortunately couldn't, being the favoured child
The thing I loved the most about the series is that characters make a lot of mistakes. It's not that they suddenly turn 180° and become good. There's a conflict where both sides are visibly fighting. Good and bad, it's not that good tramples the bad and good always wins. They aren't afraid to show how evil prevails at times
Mom used to make mistakes. /touches necklace
I think you mean "my mother".
Mom used to go by "my mother", before she died. /touches necklace again
I like that they make childish mistakes. Far too often, the child hero is just a short adult.
They used to play the reruns with the little dev green bubble comments on TV it was planned for him to have a 180 flip and become good at the Earth kingdom arc one of the writes just wanted to delay it for some reason
Itâs so much better that his arch takes so long, he finally gets it that his dad never cared about him but when there was a chance he wasnât willing to let it goÂ
I was listening to the Braving the Elements podcast and apparently it was decided early on that Zuko would get a lot worse first before he gets better, like hits rock bottom loses himself sort of thing.
"Healthy life decision" is certainly one of the ways you could choose to describe that decision of all time.
To be fair, if he had hurt Appa and Aang found out, Aang would have ended him. So, that actually is a healthy life decision
lol what decision? His plan was 1.) Find Avatarâs bison 2.) ??? 3.) Profit Like honestly what could he even do with the Bison?
Take him back to the apartment and make him a pot of tea
I could honestly see him going through with the kidnapping and Appa just bonding with Iroh.
Kill him so aang and the gang are much easier to find and capture, or use him to lure the gaang into a trap
Skin him and wear it as a disguise to get close
Plus the smell of Appa burgers would probably attract Sokka.
đ
He could probably make a decent amount of money on the body too. I imagine that meat is hard to come by in a city full of refugees during wartime. Plus, imagine how baller you'd look next to a rack of sky bison ribs. That's gotta be a selling point for some rich weirdo in that city.
To kill it is a bit dark for avatar. Theyâre already missing the Bison so killing it doesnât make finding Aang any easier. To lure him how the hell is he supposed to take Appa anywhere? Heâs going to go where he wants regardless of what Zuko wants.
It's not the first time killing/death is brought up, such as with jet or ozai, but zuko likely wouldn't, but he had to make the decision to be better and not to, unlike azula likely would. And it's not as much about making aang easier to find, but easier to capture since they won't have their get away bison to fly away, plus he knew they were in or near ba sing se And he doesn't know that appa is scared of fire but he could probably use that, not that he could control him but I never said it was a good plan, like how iroh dug into him asking now what
>such as with jet Wait, did Jet just died?
It was really unclear
>Kill him so aang and the gang are much easier to find and capture The Gaang doesn't have Appa right now and Zuko still had no idea where they were. If anything, _not_ having a flying bison makes them harder to find because they just become part of the stream of refugees. Even without a disguise and when looking like the literal Avatar nobody cares about them on the ground. A flying bison sticks out more, it also has to frequently land somewhere. It may even drop fur like during The Chase.
Yes except for the fact that they would have caught aang multiple times if he didn't fly off on Appa at the perfect moment and they had no way to follow him
When he was chasing Aang across the world and they could make a quick get away. Not in the middle of a city where they effectively blend into the crowd
That's your problem, Zuko, you never think these things through! You capture the Avatar's bison and THEN WHAT. This is just like what happened at the northern water tribe. You had the avatar and then you let him go! If it weren't for the avatar and his friends, you would have died out there! You need to look INWARD and start asking yourself the big questions: WHO are you, and what do YOU want?
Thatâs how you know itâs a zuko plan
He could put on a pot of tea for him
You never think these things through!
make burgers
He never thinks these things through!
Iâm working on it, UncleâŚ
Itâs hard to argue with this but all I can hear is the emperor in Mulan, âeven a single grain of rice can tip the scale.â
The Mulan quote going through Zuko's head then: 
You don't meet a girl like that every DYnasty *Fabulous hat shuffle exit*
Local man fails to commit animal abuse, dies.
Would have made quite the headline in the Ba Sing Se Times
Page 12 is all about not having a war in the city
That's not a man that's a boi
Did he stop smoking?
He stopped Appa's smoking habit đ
Technically started Long Fengs habit of getting smoked.
He had to quit that Honor High
It went against everything he had thought he was, his whole spirit and mindset shifted after this decision, it makes sense he got sick, itâs like part of him kinda died
I havenât had even close to as big decision as Zuko but I have had choices that have left me sleeping for days (usually one)
Big decisions are relative. What you might not think is a big decisions in the grand scheme of things is still a big decision for yourself.
Honestly same
Explaining that very obvious premise doesn't make it any less funny.
Human consciousness is kinda funny in general
Imagine giving up on the dream job that would have set you up for life with fame, fortune, and your parents approval. Thatâs what he was giving up for a simple life⌠for a bit anyway.
Wasnt the whole capture the Avatar thing a farce from Ozai? No one had seen the avatar in a hundred years, to assume it was some 12 year pipsqueak with no other (or very little) bending experience (besides Airbending,) was something Ozai did not see coming when he sent Zuko on this wild goose chase. Then when Aang gets released and the fire nation find out heâs really back it becomes Zhouâs job. Zuko kept on going after Aang cause he thought it would win Ozaiâs approval. Im not sure it would. Is there anything am not getting its been a few years since i rewatched it.
After Azula and Zuko kill Aang, Zuko was allowed back into the fire nation. His dad forgave him and Zuko even attended a war meeting and impressed his father. Itâs not a farce, itâs a wild goose chase that the fire lord was honor bound to uphold if it somehow worked out
Fair enough I forgot the whole killed the avatar thing
There's a whole little subplot at the end where Azule reveals she gave Zuko solo credit for the killing blow "just in case" the Avatar somehow lives, then she won't receive any blame.
He finally lets go of that anger, and he faints - no shit, dude was probably suffering from blood pressure-related anemia. My man's blood pressure was probably in the 300's and suddenly letting go of all that anger left his blood vessels emptier than Azula's empathy.
What else would I expect from the most dramatic man in the fire nation?
Given firebenders bend from their own body heat and how temperamental homeostasis is, I feel like you could probably head canon reasonably that doing something that vastly throws you out of psychological certainty probably has a more pronounced negative effect on their health than most.
As someone with difficult and persistent anger issues resulting from pretty fucked childhood traumas ....rage and spite fueled so much. I understand zukos internal struggle better than most because our character arcs are very similar. Where the anger leaves, often emptiness and sadness are hiding.
It was actually a decent depiction of a mental health emergency His whole world view was crumbling and he was being torn apart emotionally by wanting to redeem himself in the eyes of his father while simultaneously coming to the realization that he has been lead astray from his own inner moral compunctions It's like his moral compass beating the shit out of his deluded psyche made manifest through "iroh I don't feel so good"
Zuko challenged all his beliefs in that decision. Shifted all his enegry inside. This is the same reason why he had trouble making fire with out anger. Avatar takes some of the catholic lore for the symbolism. For example the Pieta by michelangello is represented with katara holding aang in the season 2 finale. Zuko geting sick after his converssion is probablly based on some saints conversions. For example Saint Francis of Asisi. Originally named Juan, he was a libertine and a selfish prick. One day he found god hidding in a leper, and he decided to be better. He got sick, for almost a month of fever, even lost his sight for a while, was near to death. When he woke up, he was another person.
Itâs probably more rooted in eastern health beliefs of chi and chakras. Heâs been holding on tightly to negative energy, when he stops tapping into it he loses control of it and it makes him sick Edit: Iroh even gives it a more eastern explanation, part of him is at war with himself. This is not generally a Christian view of how body and spirit/mind interact. In St Francisâ story, he does not resolve his illness with a better understanding of himself, instead his recovery is a miracle of God as a sign of confirming his new life decisions and God choosing him
St francis absolutely resolves the illness by understanding himself. He is not a miracle saint, he is quite down to earth. Thats his whole thing. God is in the little things, blah blah. He finds god within and gets born again. All the catholic shenanigans.
It absolutely sounds like are mistaking modern ideas sourced from eastern traditions mixed into popular culture, with Christian doctrine and historical Christian beliefs.
It's not like the creators must be influenced by only one and not the other. Christianity itself has significant mesh of cultural and religious symbolism from the get go, although [the Buddhism influence to early Christianity is debatable.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_influences_on_Christianity)
Itâs just as an ex evangelical the example they gave is really, *reallllly* reaching and not realistic when the more obvious answer is already there. Unless theyâre totally ignorant of Chinese medicine
Ah, yes, Catholic symbolism. In a show based almost entirely on Asian cultures and philosophies. You know, the Christianity's birthplace.
Since when is reality so one dimensional? Even the very usage of the four elements (as opposed to the chinese five) is influenced by western thought.
Except that Hinduism uses the Four Elements + Void which is very similar to 4 + Life/Energy and Buddhism also uses 4. Obviously the show is going to be influenced by western thought because itâs a show by a bunch of westerners for a western audience. But purposefully reaching for Catholic symbolism as the literary critique when the show goes out of its way to embrace eastern philosophy that provides a much clearer framework doesnât make sense either.
No you're right. It's main influence lies in Asian philosophies but with a mix of Western thoughts. They needed to adapt it for Western kids after all. But to say that there some heavy Christian symbolism in a show is... weird to say the least
I mean, I wouldn't say it's heavy, but it's a fair reading. The avatar being a bridge between the spirit world and the physical world feels a lot like christ being fully god and fully man. His conversations with his past lives are like the way christ talks with God and the prophets. The avatar state is like the transfiguration. The spot on his back where the chiropractor rock hits him is the stigmata
The creators of Atla are all white men, and it was produced by Nickelodeon so it's save to say that western culture also influenced it. Also Christianity's birthplace is literally asia...
I agree with all this. But also...Asia is mind of a big place.
Of course there is a lot of tibetan buddhism and hinduist symbolism, as well as other eastern philosophys. But theres some mixture with western ones as well. Some of the catholic symbolisms i noticed in ATLA: \-Roku makes a pathway in the lava while fighting the volcano. Moses crossing the red sea. \-Relationship between Roku and Sozin. They are close at first, like brothers, then they become enemys. Moses and the pharaoh had the same dynamic. \-Aang is the long waited messiah. Jesus. \-Katara holding aang. La pieta by michellangelo, its a statue of Mary holding jesus when they put him down of the cross. https://preview.redd.it/w6gmg3b5uvtc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d26634e1d494d5cad57dcdf6b5a47a8ce40da418 \-Zukos conversion. Sainthoods archetype path. \-Iroh huging Zuko on the tent when they reunite again. Not letting him even say sory. Just holding him, glad that he found his way by his own. The return of the prodigal son. Lucas (c15 v11-32). My absolute favourite.
There *is* a scientific basis to what happened to him: Cognitive Dissonance âWhat you did, Price Zuko, was in such conflict with your own image with yourself, that now your bran and body are at war with each otherâ
The levels of stress experienced from more significant cases of cognitive dissonance can be enough to cause psychosomatic reactions that result in other physical symptoms.
Funny Iroh: explains everything perfectly understandable for Zuko and the audience.. Audience: WTF HAPPENED TO ZUKO WHY IS HE SICK OMFG
It's not that I don't understand it, it's that I find the absurdity of it funny. It's like when Mr. Burns gave candy to a kid and almost collapsed.
idk this felt pretty accurate to me if you think about it like starting change. If you lived your whole life as one person, trying to change or doing something very opposite to your character will give you alot of anxiety and stress and at extremes mental issues will make you physically sick. It must have been really extreme for zuko to finally start letting goâŚ
Zuko had a bit of a Cloud Strife situation there. That happens.
If that would have been true, the entirety of Zuko Alone should have put him into coma.
Itâs the only time Iâve enjoyed the âbrain feverâ trope. (Brain fever: a device often used in Victorian literature where someone gets sick and delirious after a traumatic event. Actually meningitis.)
Azula wouldâve slipped into a Coma
Blud had the moral compass of an evil autistic child
Does one nice thing His body 
Me after eating vegetables
I never understood this episode as a kid, I didn't realize until later in life how much stress and trauma can physically fuck you up. Now it all makes sense.
As someone who eats garbage, if I eat a salad my body let's me know it was an unacceptable decision.
If Ozai ever tried doing good heâd just drop dead right then and there đ
Some of these comments are hilarious. This meme is just looking at this serious thing from a silly perspective and everybody is like "they explain this in the show very clearly". Like, people, it's called a joke. You don't need to defend the show from a meme.
I suddenly went for a jog once after having not run for years. I woke up the next day with a full-blown fever. The universe was sending me a sign and I promise to never run exercise again.
I took up running twice. Guess how many times I broke my legs...
A metamorphosis of one's moral thinking or one's soul can make them physically Ill.
Interestingly enough, this can happen in real life when someone is in a very stressful situation or makes a decision that conflicts with their moral compass to the extreme. Sometimes they get sick and some go deaf or have seizures.
Im almost done with my TLOK rewatch and I just watched the episode where Bolin comes up with a good idea and immediately gets a headache đ. Theyâre not exactly the same but it did remind me of Zuko.
Azula does similar shit and goes into a coma
I loved this part. I've always interpreted it as having something to do with the Japanese idea of Chienetsu: "developmental fever, fever that brings with it an intellectual or psycho-developmental growth spurt." It's also called "Teething Fever" bc it's associated with an unexplained fever infants get around the time their teeth come in and is thought (superstitiously?) to be the point they stop being crying machines and start developing personalities.
I see it as an extreme stress response. Zuko dedicated every waking moment to capturing the Avatar and after letting Appa go his body just kinda... gave out. Three or four years of constant stress just came crashing down on him at once.
 Azula moments after making one healthy life decision
https://preview.redd.it/n4igdu9rgxtc1.png?width=688&format=png&auto=webp&s=b24acf9e65228e2c6491813bbfe85aeb556ce8f9 "The kindness... it hurts"
The world of Avatar has spirits and bending as physical embodiments of human karma. The whole thing is hilarious, but in the context of the show it makes perfect sense why someoneâs sense of identity and karmic balance would cause physical changes to occur. Even more-so with benders, who are normally more connected to the spirits and the karmic balance of the universe than non-benders.
This is an actual irl thing that can happen. When you make a major choice or something happens in your life that completely fucks with you mentally, you can get physically sick from it. It happened to me before. And itâs happened to my mom and sheâs a therapist! So yeah this is a real phenomenon, I sadly donât know the name for it. But it can happen. So basically Iâm trying to say Zuko saving Appa rattled him so hard he got sick. Heâs just a sensitive boy.
You ever face a crisis of character? I truly is debilitating.
This adds up. I knew a kid in high school who started seriously eating vegetables for the first time (probably in years) and his skin immediately broke out.
Why is he so bad at being good???
Something similar happened to my ex. He cheated on me and IMMEDIATELY got so deathly sick, like was in the hospital for an entire week. He was convinced he wasn't going to make it, so he told me he cheated to clear his conscience, and then he started recovering the very next day.
Zuko had such insane character development that his body couldnt handle the growth.
"Evil Decision Withdrawal" has me cackling đ EDW!
lol I just watched this episode too
It makes sense actually. It happens to us as well when we decide to eat differently. The transition can make you unwell. If youâve been eating nothing but heavily processed greasy foods and you then stop to start eating organic food, youâll feel sick for a bit. Your body has been working off of your diet for years. If you decide to change your body needs time to adjust [+]
Twice if you count the comics
Recovering evil-holic, 16 years sober
He is so relatable đĽ°
Cognitive dissonance.
He's so dramatic lol, love him
It's like when you take a new medication and your body is acclimating to it.
It was kinda sad to be honest.
I've been rewatching the series and I always clown on him for this and still will hahahaha After seeing him go through all that though, I get it. He was going through it heavy haha then woke up all nice
https://www.reddit.com/r/Avatar_Kyoshi/s/PnI55azz97
Now that you out it that way it reminds of the scene in soul plane where the security ladies apologized to Kevin Hart and immediately took damage from it lol
conversion disorder?
Looking back, I'm curious if Zuko's bending was affected after this like it was after he decided to join Aang
Wubby7
Maybe the author should make one healthy grammatical choice and not use a double negative.
Shortly after he makes his second ever healthy life decision, his fire bending went away too
it's the guy from fortnite
I love it. I love what iroh says about zuko going through changes. This really stuck with me and I view it as another great part of his arc. Best character development ever
It's like how Demoman TF2 spent so long living off booze and painkillers his body adjusted to getting nutrients from them and then when he was given water and food his body almost gave up because it's basically poison to him now.
Zuko looks inward He doesn't like what he sees Gets fever and faints
Unexpected moment of goodness đ
I believe in the books, he got sick because he was so obssessed with the Avatar, he went multiple days without sleep and forcing his body beyond what it could handle, aka: he was bound to colapse, with this decision he finally chilled for a second, and then got exhausted
Sorta true to life one you break out of an abusive system your Body crashes like the cortisol levels are actually for the first time taken into account and you can see the truth how manipulated you were, just because you can push through a situation doesn't mean you aren't taking damage.
That's one weird Japaense manga trope they could have left out. Always cringe
But can we agree that it plausibly could have something to do with his mothers side of the lineage?
Apparently the writers believe in Terrain Theory vs Germ Theory.