Zuko and Mai are the avatar version of Anakin and Padmè.
Before we begin, I think it’s important to unpack what this comparison really means and who is actually being compared. No one is saying that Padmé, a woman of high ideals and deep convictions, who believes in the power of ideas, words, and compromise and who holds democracy as sacred, is very much like the taciturn, cynical henchwoman to a despot, whose entire life has been shaped by the power she is all too aware does not have. And no one is comparing emotionally tortured, perpetually uncertain Zuko to Padmé either. Nor is anybody comparing carefully controlled and seemingly unemotional Mai to Anakin Skywalker (though I will get back to this one later). No, the two characters actually being compared are Anakin and Zuko. As for why comparing Anakin to Zuko is painfully inaccurate, buckle up folks, I have visual aids.
All screenshots used for this post come from Piandao.org and Starwarsscreencaps.com.
First off, why does this comparison pop up? More than anything I think is that it’s really popular right now to compare any even remotely sympathetic villain to Zuko. Because of the quality of Zuko’s own redemption and recovery arc, this is often a way for a person to argue that said sympathetic villain is redeemable or should get a redemption arc in the narrative. This association is not terribly surprising, especially since Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader got, if not a redemption arc, at least a redemption moment of his own.
Zuko and Anakin also share certain tropes, and aesthetics. Zuko and Anakin are superficially similar, being angry young men with who lost their mothers young and are torn between two mentor/father figures, and they are both hopeless dweebs who flirt very badly using fruit. They also have yellow eyes (at least post fall to the dark side) roguishly tousled shaggy hair, a facial scar, and a fondness for hoods.
[Two images, one of Zuko in “The Avatar and the Firelord”, and one of the newly minted Darth Vader on Mustafar. Both are wearing hoods]
However, and this is where it gets really really interesting for me, other than these surface traits Zuko and Anakin are exact reverses of each other. The prequel trilogy is the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker, showcasing the flaws that lead to his fall to the Dark Side, while Zuko’s story in Avatar: the Last Airbender is about how he rises above his own fears and failings, and comes to channel his struggles into making a better world. At every turn, their story arcs mirror and reverse each other.
When we first meet Anakin Skywalker in the prequel trilogy, he is a young boy, full of hope, being offered a chance at freedom. He is a slave, born into some of the worst circumstances possible in the entire galaxy, and he is offered this shot at freedom because of his extraordinary gift with the Force. When we first meet Zuko, he is the exact opposite, a prince and the oldest son of the Firelord, he has been cast out for lacking the extraordinary firebending talents of his sister, or perhaps for lacking her ruthless cruelty. He is filled with desperation, clinging to the belief that his father really actually loves him, and the nearly impossible hope that he will find the Avatar. They do have one thing in common at this point in their lives. They both carry with them a terrible fear, and it’s their responses to this fear that will mark each of them out, one for a fall, and the other for a rise.
[Two images, one of a distance shot of a child Anakin Skywalker, with Watto in the foreground, and one of a sixteen year old Zuko with a shaved head and ponytail, glaring]
Anakin’s fear is pointed out explicitly when he is examined and rejected by the Jedi council because of it. Now, I could write an essay or twelve about why it’s only to be expected that Anakin would be afraid, and why the proper thing to do would be almost anything other than what the Jedi council does, but what is significant for this essay is that creator intent here is probably to bring to our attention the flaw that will bring Anakin down, after all fear leads to anger, anger to hate, etc. At roughly the same point in Zuko’s arc, Iroh tells his crew, and the audience about Zuko’s own rejection in front of a council, about how Zuko stood up to a general in order to protect Fire Nation soldiers from being sent to certain death. Zuko is banished for standing up to the Fire Nation war machine, and for showing moral courage. Zuko, who for the most part has been pretty reprehensible so far, is shown to have the kind of moral core that will eventually lead to his rejecting the Fire Nation.
[Two images, one of Anakin standing before the Jedi council, and one of a young Zuko, insisting before his father’s generals that they can’t send troops out just to be killed as bait]
At the end of Episode I, Anakin blasts apart the droid control station, achieving victory, and because of Qui-Gon’s last wishes, he becomes a Jedi padawan in spite of the Jedi council’s misgivings (dare I call them fears?) and this causes newly elected Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, Darth Sidious, to take notice of him. Book One ends with Zuko’s own ship blown to pieces, and his repeated failure to capture the Avatar have also drawn the attention of his dark father figure, his actual father, who has decided that banishment is not enough, even banished Zuko is too much of an embarrassment, and he needs to be locked away.
[Two images, one of Palpatine clasping a young Anakin Skywalker on the shoulder, the other of Azula kneeling on the floor of the throne room as Ozai orders her to retrieve her brother]
In spite of his father’s further rejection, Zuko does not give up. He nurtures his desperate desire to go home and earn his father’s love even as he travels the Earth Kingdom, learning, however unwillingly, about its people and learning to respect and empathize with them.
[Two images, one of Zuko kneeling before Lee, as his mother shields him from Zuko with her body, and the other of Zuko riding away from Lee’s village into the sunset]
It’s this desire to return home, this twisted hope, that drives him to side with his sister in Ba Sing Se, and it’s this choice that Azula will ultimately use to try to control her brother. She tells their father that Zuko killed the Avatar, knowing that she can reveal the truth, that she was the one who killed Aang, any time it becomes advantageous to her.
[Three images, the first of Zuko and Azula fighting side by side in the Crystal Catacombs, the second of Azula’s eye reflecting the right of Aang being struck by lightning, and the last of Azula in her night clothes whispering in her brother’s ear]
It’s during the second leg of Anakin’s journey that he too will find the secrets that will shape his destiny hanging over his head. It’s at this point that he commits a mass murder as revenge for his mother’s death and takes a secret wife.
[Image of Anakin and Padmé’s wedding]
It’s these secrets and the way Anakin and Zuko resolve them, and with them their fears, that most fundamentally spell their difference. Interestingly, Zuko’s secret is based around a “noble deed” he did not commit, and is thrust upon him without his consent by his sister, while Anakin’s involve a crime he wishes to cover up, and a violation of his community’s rules, and are entirely a secret of his own devising. He is overwhelmed with guilt for the murders, and ends up confessing them to two people, his new wife, and Palpatine. This puts Palpatine in the same position Azula is in, that of potential blackmailer. It’s also a reflection of just how badly Palpatine has already manipulated Anakin that Anakin would pick him as his confessor for such a secret.
In the third leg of both Anakin and Zuko’s stories, a reckoning must be made. Both are put in a position where their secrets catch up to them. Zuko is faced with the prospect that his father will learn that the Avatar is alive, and Anakin is faced with the possibility of Padmé’s death giving birth to their shared child. The pregnancy represents not only Padmé’s potential death, but the discovery of their marriage, which would probably see him expelled from the Jedi order, or at the very least force him to choose between his place in the order and his marriage.
In the face of potential discovery, Anakin clings to his secrets. He tries to have it all. He ambitiously seeks the title of Master, as much for the belonging it represents in the face of the Jedi council’s perpetual suspicion of him as for the status, he seeks to save Padmé’s life without revealing himself, and he confides further in Palpatine, becoming ever more emotionally reliant on him. And it’s this frantic clinging to his secrets and the inability to face a loss of status and community that clinging speaks to, as well as his fear of the loss of Padmé, that leaves Anakin vulnerable to the blandishments of a Sith lord.
[Image of Anakin holding the recently confessed Sith lord Darth Sidious at lightsaber point]
Zuko on the other hand comes clean. In the face of the loss of his home, the loss of his father’s esteem, the loss of his status, in the face of the loss of everything he has worked so hard to gain, Zuko comes clean. In order to do the right thing, Zuko cuts the Gordian knot his sister tied for him by revealing the truth to his father and leaving it all behind.
[Image of Zuko confronting Ozai on the Day of Black Sun, dao swords drawn]
Both Anakin and Zuko at different points in their story kneel before their dark father figures. For Anakin, it’s the final moment of surrender. He is defeated and crying, and accepting his place as Palpatine’s slave if it means keeping Padmé alive. For Zuko, it’s the moment he first begins to see the costs of his father’s approval.
[Two images, and one of Anakin, broken, kneeling before Palpatine, and of Zuko kneeling as his father walks behind him. Zuko is wearing an an expression of surprise, anxiety, and hesitation]
At different points, Anakin and Zuko are each given the choice to participate in a genocide. Anakin does, while Zuko leaves behind everything in order to stop it.
[Three images, the first two of the newborn Darth Vader marching on the Jedi temple, the last of Zuko, watching his father announce his plans to burn the Earth Kingdom to ash]
It’s Anakin’s choice, to serve Sidious in the name of trying to have it all, that ultimately leads to him losing everything. And it’s Zuko’s choice, to let go, to give up the things he had once been willing to do anything for that ultimately leads to him coming home with honor, claiming his throne, and finding the love of a father.
[Zuko and Iroh on their knees embracing each other in Iroh’s tent just before Sozin’s Comet is due to arrive]
If the characters involved in these respective ships share few similarities, what about the dynamics of the ship itself? Unsurprisingly, given how little the characters involved resemble each other, the dynamics of Mai/Zuko and Anakin/Padmé are radically different. Both pairs met as children, and both pairs had a long period of separation before reuniting and kindling a romance. However, Zuko’s memories tell us that from the very start, his and Mai’s relationship was fraught with a tension Anakin and Padmé’s puppy love lacked, as Azula forced them each to be aware of the ways their feelings for each other could be used against them.
[Image of a flashback from “Zuko Alone “, with a much younger Azula and Ty Lee in the foreground with their backs to the camera, watching Mai standing in the fountain, glaring at them furiously as Zuko storms off.]
In fact, I suspect one of the reasons both Anakin and Padmé were so attached to this relationship in the latter days was because it allowed them to recapture a simpler time when victory had felt clean and achievable.
[Two images, one of a newly minted Padawan Anakin Skywalker, and one of an ornately dressed Queen Amidala. They are looking at each other and smiling.]
It’s this refusal to let go of their relationship that marks Anakin and Padmé. And its their willingness to let go that marks Zuko and Mai. And this is not solely on Anakin. Padmé clings just as desperately and nearly as destructively. Almost as soon as Padmé reunited with Anakin, she was willing to cover up mass murder for him, and at the very end, after he had slaughtered the Jedi, including the children, all she wanted was for him to come away with her.
[Two images, one of Padmé consoling a weeping Anakin, hunched over and sitting on the floor as he confesses to the slauter of the Tusken village, the other of Padmé pleading with Vader on Mustafar]
Mai has no such compunction about sacrificing her and Zuko’s relationship if it’s better for her and Zuko as individuals. When Zuko flies into a jealous rage and throws another boy across the room for talking to Mai, she breaks up with him. She pushes back, asserts her individual rights, and will not put up with or aid in Zuko’s self destruction, even if that means walking away. She loves Zuko, and for her, that means refusing to let him hurt them both.
[Image of Mai breaking up with Zuko at the beach party. Her hand is pressing into his shoulder, pushing him away.]
And Mai has no problem following through and asserting new boundaries.
[Image of Mai on the beach smacking Zuko’s hand away.]
They do get back together, after Zuko acknowledges his anger and who he’s actually angry at, and shows a willingness to work on this. It’s Mai’s refusal to allow Zuko the easy way out, and her willingness to leave for both their sakes that helps Zuko continue down the hard path of self reflection that will lead to his realization that he must leave the Fire Nation. And when he does leave, he leaves Mai behind, with only a note, and no expectation on his part that he will ever see her again. In spite of his love for her, he too is willing to relinquish their relationship in the name of doing the right thing.
[Two images, one of Zuko looking at a portrait of Zuko and Mai, and one of Zuko leaving a letter on Mai’s pillow, both on the Day of Black Sun]
It’s this willingness to let go when they need to that makes Mai and Zuko’s relationship as different from Anakin and Padmé’s as night and day.
Before I finish, I mentioned that I wanted to get back to the idea of comparing Mai to Anakin Skywalker. There is actually one very strong parallel between them, or at least between Mai and Darth Vader.
At the Boiling Rock prison, Mai has the chance to confront Zuko, and vent her anger at him, for committing treason, for breaking up with her by letter instead of in person. By doing so, she gives Zuko a chance to make his own explanation to her, about why he chose to do what he did. And they have a moment of reconnection.
[Image of an interrogation cell at the Boiling Rock prison, with Zuko on the floor in the midground, next to a wooden interrogation chair, his head turned away from the camera, towards Mai. Mai stands behind him, against the wall, arms folded. A guard is visible standing outside the cell’s open door.]
Later, as Zuko is making his escape, and as he and his companions hang helpless and trapped in the gondola above the boiling lake, Mai makes a fateful choice.
[Image of Mai kicking away the jam, allowing the gondola to continue over the boiling lake to safety]
She fights off the guards sawing through the gondola ropes, saving “the jerk who dumped [her],” and his companions from death. Then, she kicks away the jam, freeing thr gondola and allowing them to escape.
Ever since she was a child, Mai has been under Azula’s thumb, forced to do her bidding and put up with her emotional and psychological abuse. Azula has spun a web of fear, pain, manipulation, and control around her, and for years, she has been unable to break free. But Azula in a profound miscalculation, forgets why Mai serves her. Mai serves her out of fear. And she has been unable to overcome her fear for herself, but she can do it for Zuko. Nothing Azula can do to her compares to Zuko’s death.
In choosing to turn against Azula to save Zuko’s life, Mai has signed her own death warrant. She knows the price Azula will exact. But she chooses Zuko’s life anyway, and as she fights for him, and defies Azula, she is in that moment, completely free.
[Image of Mai with her knives, facing down the prison guards, smiling]
In saving Zuko, she has freed herself. Azula can no longer control her. Having begun her defiance, Mai summons up the courage to face up to Azula in person, and declare her independence.
[Image of Mai confronting Azula]
To no one’s surprise, least of all Mai’s, Azula responds to Mai’s open defiance, and the prospect of losing control of Mai with lethal force. It’s only Ty Lee’s intervention that prevents Azula from murdering Mai where she stands with her lightning.
[Image of Azula preparing to shoot lightning at Mai]
This mirrors Vader’s return from the Dark Side at the end of Return of the Jedi. When Luke surrenders to Vader on Endor he tells him that the Dark Side has not consumed him fully, while Vader asserts that it’s too late for him. In Vader’s words, we can hear the hopelessness and pain that speaks to the lies Palpatine has told him and the lies he has told himself.
[Image of Luke and Vader side by side as Vader takes Luke to meet the emperor. Luke is giving his father a sideways glance.]
Vader brings Luke before his master, and Palpatine, just like Azula did, in the face of Luke’s refusal to become his, forgets why Vader serves him. He strikes at Luke, forcing Vader to choose between clinging to what is left of his life, and saving the life of his son.
[Two images, one of Vader picking up the emperor, who is still shooting lightning at Luke from his fingers, and one of the emperor falling down the shaft after Vader has thrown him to his death.]
Palpatine miscalculated. Vader loves Luke more than he fears his former master. And just like Mai, in saving Luke, Vader has freed himself.
Mai’s crimes are incomparable to Vader’s. They are many orders of magnitude less severe than his. But the story of how they both break free of their respective abusers, not for their own sake, but for the sake of someone they love, is the same.
