Avatar: What Happened To Uncle Iroh After The Last Airbender

Uncle Iroh was a much better father figure to Zuko than his real father – but what happened to the wise, tea-loving former general after Avatar: The Last Airbender ended? Surprisingly, Uncle Iroh is one of the characters who returns in the sequel series The Legend of Korra, which reveals that he never exactly died, but instead moved on to a different plane of existence.

The son of the former Fire Lord Azulon, Iroh was set to take the throne after him, leading Fire Nation campaigns as a general during the Hundred Year War. However, any ambitions that Iroh had for power died along with his son, Lu Ten, who was killed on the front lines during Iroh’s six hundred-day siege of the Earth Kingdom city of Ba Sing Se. After Iroh’s brother, Ozai, became Fire Lord and banished his own son from the Fire Nation, Iroh became a surrogate father to Zuko – always trying to calm his impulses towards anger and violence.

Related: Avatar: What Happened To Zuko After The Last Airbender Ended

In the tie-in comics that follow on from the end of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Iroh continues to run a tea shop in Ba Sing Se and even invents the Four Nations’ version of boba tea. Both Zuko and Aang dislike the concoction, and Iroh laments that is “a man ahead of my time.” He also briefly serves as acting Fire Lord while Zuko is away searching for his mother, and Iroh’s version of going mad with power is to declare a National Tea Appreciation Day.

Iroh returns in The Legend of Korra season 2, when Aang’s successor as the Avatar, Korra, gets lost in the spirit world and reverts to the form of a frightened little girl. After Korra accidentally injures a friendly spirit that startles her in a swamp, Iroh approaches her with a lantern and Korra recognizes him from her previous life as Aang. Iroh guides her out of the swamp to a tea party celebrating the marriage of two conjoined frog spirits, and explains how he came to be there:

“I had always enjoyed the company of the spirits. So when my work was done in the material world, I chose to leave my body behind and come to the spirit world.”

With Iroh’s help, Korra learns how to calm angered spirits and is able to make her way out of the spirit world again. After a later visit to the spirit world, when Iroh offers her more counsel, she returns to the mortal world and meets Zuko (now an old man himself). Korra reveals to him that she met his uncle while travelling in the spirit world. Zuko is stunned and moved to learn that his uncle is still around and acting as a guide for lost souls, just like he himself once was.

More: Avatar: Every Last Airbender Character That Returned In The Legend of Korra

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Hannah Shaw-Williams
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