Avatar: The Real Reason Fire Lord Ozai Treated Zuko So Cruelly

Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s tortured Prince Zuko blamed his own weakness for his father’s harsh treatment of him, but the Nickeloden show’s sequel comics revealed the real reason why Fire Lord Ozai was so cruel to his only son. First introduced as the main antagonist of the series – an exiled young royal from the conquering Fire Nation, sworn to hunt down the Avatar – Zuko went through a fascinating redemption arc that ultimately led to him joining Aang in stopping Fire Lord Ozai and ending the Hundred Year War.

The story behind Zuko’s exile, as well as the terrible burn scar over his eye, was told by Uncle Iroh in the Avatar: The Last Airbender season 1 episode “The Storm.” A few years before the series begins, an enthusiastic young Zuko asked Iroh if he could join in on a war council meeting, and Iroh took his nephew in with him with instructions to remain silent. Failing to heed this warning, Zuko protested when a general proposed strategically sacrificing a unit of Fire Nation soldiers. Fire Lord Ozai punished his son by demanding that he take part in an Agni Kai, a firebending trial by combat. Zuko agreed, but when the trial began and he realized his opponent was his father, he dropped to his knees and begged forgiveness. As punishment for this moment of weakness, Ozai burned Zuko’s face and exiled him from the Fire Nation.

While the Agni Kai may have been the catalyst for Zuko’s exile, the real reason for the Fire Lord treating his son (but not his daughter, Azula) so horribly wasn’t Zuko’s fault at all. In the Avatar: The Last Airbender comic The Search, Zuko’s quest to find his missing mother, Ursa, reveals some dark truths about why his father seems to hate him so much.

Fire Lord Ozai Punished Zuko To Hurt His Mother

At the end of the first issue of The Search, Zuko makes a shocking discovery: a letter in which Ursa states that Ozai is not his real father, and that Zuko is actually the son of her true love, a man called Ikem. If true, this piece of information would mean that Zuko isn’t the heir to the throne of the Fire Nation – Azula is. The contents of the letter hang over Zuko as he searches for Ursa to ask her the truth, but in the final issue it’s revealed that Ozai really is Zuko’s father.

Fire Lord Ozai knew that Ikem couldn’t possibly be Zuko’s real father, since he’d had spies following his wife ever since they got married. In a flashback, Ozai confronts Ursa and demands to know why she lied. She tells him that it was a test to see if he was intercepting her letters, but also that she fervently wishes what she’d written was true: that Zuko was Ikem’s son instead of Ozai’s, so that there would be no chance of Zuko becoming like Ozai.

Instead of punishing Ursa directly, Ozai did something far worse. He made her wish come true by treating Zuko like an illegitimate child, and told Ursa that every harsh word and injury inflicted on Zuko would therefore be her own fault. Though the Agni Kai offered a convenient excuse, this was the real reason why Zuko was exiled at the age of 13. Not only had Ozai come to regard Zuko as a symbol of his wife’s defiance, he knew that by publicly mutilating his son and casting him out, word of what had happened to Zuko would find Ursa no matter where she had gone after fleeing the Fire Nation Palace. Even years after his wife left, Ozai never stopped punishing Zuko in order to hurt her.

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Hannah Shaw-Williams
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Hannah has been with Screen Rant since 2013, covering news, features, movie premieres, Comic-Con and more! You can follow her on Twitter @HSW3K

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