#this is a mess but i do love zuko sm. idiot son

[sokkagatekeeper]

Do you think Zuko is stupid? It's just something I've seen a lot and always wondered if people truly believe he is or whether they were just making fun and myself being horrible with social cues just truly misunderstanding what they are saying.

ok i’m actually glad we’re talking about this bc i’ve been struggling to express my thots in this matter. when we (or i, for one and at the very least) say that zuko is stupid we are mostly referring to the fact that zuko is throughoutly socially incompetent in part due to his poor socialization, yes, but in part because he’s just a teenage boy. in essence, zuko is no more stupid than aang or sokka are.

the problem is that zuko faces ableism since he’s a child. he obviously has some brand of learning disability, and he struggles with reading people/putting his readings in actual words. zuko is often rash and impulsive, because he’s been pushed to the limit his entire life where he had to run for it to survive. this drives him to desperation to actually reach the level people expect from him, often contradicting himself, failing to make himself understood, or failing to understand others, being literal to a fault. another problem is that zuko needs plain explanations, and iroh, whom zuko spends most of his time with and relies on constantly, speaks almost entirely in riddles and proverbs. zuko’s “stupidity” comes mostly from his nurture, his circumstances, and the ableism he faced as a child.

but zuko is not stupid, rather his environment was not suited for the type of intelligence zuko presents. zuko understands how azula works perfectly fine. he does say, plainly, “azula always lies” even when this isn’t true, because azula manipulates the information she has in order to achieve her goals, which sometimes involves lying but not always. as zuko cannot put these thoughts in words, he settles for azula being a liar even though he knows it goes deeper than that (the mantra is also a reminder for himself and the preservation of his self-worth, since shown during “zuko alone” he associates azula’s lies with her telling him ozai was going to kill him, but that’s for another day.) zuko is actually very intelligent, creative, perceptive, and clever. he has the mind of an artist, he’s a quick-thinker, practical, he pays attention to the details of the smaller picture that other people often miss.

a clear example of this is zuko’s firebending. throughout the show zuko struggles with his firebending in the militaristic and industrial manner he was taught he should firebend. azula is excellent at this type of firebending, and she’s considered a prodigy because of this, while zuko is clearly the underdog in this situation and a big part of the reason we can safely assume zuko struggles with learning disabilities. but the thing with kids that have learning disabilities is that in most cases what they need is but a different approach to the subject. upon meeting the firebending masters, zuko learns a different, more spiritual, more artistic and fluid discipline of firebending. his technique and strength improve significantly after he and aang meet the dragons, so much that in fact he’s almost equal on foot with azula, which he had never been before.

zuko is stupid in the way teenage boys and gay people are stupid. he’d go on a suicide-prison break for a cute boy, he doesn’t know how to talk to people his age, his attention span and his patience are significantly limited, he contradicts himself quite a lot, he’s impulsive and he follows his heart more often than not. but that zuko is kinda dumb doesn’t erase the fact that he’s also... really smart

#this is a mess but i do love zuko sm. idiot son #zuko #analysis #asks #anon #n