#oh also one more thing is that stay soft is abt how zuko is gay. in my head that's what it's abt -s

[sokkagatekeeper]

mx sokkagatekeeper i need your help

my best friends doesn’t really see zuko gay and i don’t know how to analyse this to her (we often analyse text and share opinions) because i’m not good with words. i know his homosexuality is in the text and i’ve always seen him as gay so to me it’s actually canon

i don’t want to impose my opinion but i don’t seem to explain it like the topic deserves.

pls help me

i apologize for the delay on answering this ask!! i wanted to gather the most analysis i could in one post (and also had to eventually come to terms with the fact that i can’t gather literally all the evidence in one post; there is simply too much) since ppl are always like “where’s the essay?” well here. here is the essay, and you (your friend?) gave me the perfect excuse to do so without seeming more obnoxious than usual. so! i wrote a little thing that didn’t go as in-depth as it could go but is clear enough here, and i also dance a little around the subject of zuko and his problem with gender expectations here. i will probably copy-paste the entire paragraph that’s relevant to this analysis later so you don’t have to read it but. it’s a good post imo. anyway!!

before i begin i just want to say that (despite my url) this is not to #gatekeep or whatever. but tumblr does love to talk about how no atla character's sexuality is confirmed, and how claiming that zuko is bisexual or any other variation is not homophobic, and how zuko was written as being attracted to women on-screen. and they are right, in a way; reading zuko as bisexual is not homophobic... but merely, in my opinion, incorrect. and, on the flip side, making an analysis on why zuko is gay is also not inherently biphobic. and one can assume that i'm unlikely to make a biphobic analysis since i am. a bisexual person.

another note: i don’t think anybody who reads zuko as gay is delusional enough to genuinely believe the creators intended to code him as queer, when the author’s interpretation contradicts and/or takes away from the quality of the text, authorial intent is not that relevant to the best possible reading of it. in my opinion of course!

now. to make a queer reading of a character (and i mean reading of the text, which is not the same as a headcanon) one may take into account: what the themes the character portrays are; what their character arc is about; allegories; character development; struggles; stakes and expectations from the society they live in; as well as other pieces of dialogue or details and allegories that are reminiscent of the queer experience. in this post, i will try to gather a bunch of all these aspects of the narratives, themes, etc etc in an attempt to open the anon's friend's eyes to the revelation that is the gay zuko agenda.

also, like with all interpretations, this is not exactly me trying to “prove” that zuko is gay. he isn't gay; he's fictional. rather, i am explaining why i find this interpretation of his sexuality to be far more compelling than any other.

zuko’s coming out arc.

zuko’s arc has several layers. the two main that i can pinpoint are him unlearning the fire nation's imperialist values, and learning that the abuse he suffered was just that, abuse. that it was wrong. but as is often seen in the themes atla presents, what often presents to be two different things have an aspect of unity, that they depend on each other in order to exist. these two aspects of zuko’s redemption accompany each other throughout. the reason why zuko (and azula) was abused in the first place is because of the fire nation’s imperialism; the degree of the abuse zuko suffered and the things he was punished for are a direct effect of the fire nation’s patriarchal society and its constrictions regarding gender. ozai wasn't just any evil father, he was the embodiment of the entire fire nation and its fucked-up values.

zuko is kicked out of his home, mostly for being compassionate, and for letting his compassion take charge of him rather than respecting the piece of etiquette that he was not allowed to speak in the war room. the fire nation is known to be against what it deems as weak, which happens to be anything that has to do with empathy and compassion, sensitivity and gentleness—anything that fits their idea of femininity. zuko is known to present these qualities the fire nation perceives as feminine and weak (especially in comparison to azula), and his father has little trouble sending him away in order to favor his stronger, smarter, ruthless, masculine, “flawless” daughter. zuko is taken by his uncle whom his father is ashamed of, spending years chasing the unattainable idea of finding the avatar and regaining his honor, while he develops a tendency to overperform aggressiveness (zuko’s trauma in itself makes him defensive, not inherently aggressive), and trying to suppress every possible weakness he may have to the rest of the world and himself.

so, in that sense, zuko's redemption arc is not just about him going from bad to good, but it is also about overcoming, unlearning, and un-internalizing homophobia (& misogyny) and all the expectations and constraints that surround masculinity. it's about achieving liberation from his homophobic abusive homelife and finding acceptance in a group of people who accept him for what he is (with his compassion and kindness and emotional expressiveness... and also for being gay). it's about achieving also self-realization and forgiveness. all of this reads as a coming-out narrative thru unintentional allegories all around. zuko's character arc is not explicitly about being gay, but its themes make it so that it can be read as a queer story, and in my opinion, it achieves a greater emotional impact if it is read as such.

zuko’s gender problems. (may or may not copied this from one of the posts i’ve made before lol i just wanted to have it all in one place <3 ok keep reading now)

despite all the suffering and abuse he endured, zuko grew up shaped by the privileges surrounding royalty and the upper class in general. his arc is about humbling him and understand the value in the lives of the poor and marginalized as much as it is about his very own self-realization and asserting he was wronged and treated unfairly by his family over and over. zuko comes from a place of privilege, but he is still highly empathetic and has a certain ease at unlearning his privilege (more ease than azula at least) once he is exposed to the world in its entirety rather than the blatant lies that were presented to him by the fire nation that he had no way of disproving. zuko is compassionate and empathetic despite being stubborn as hell because while growing up in privilege he still experienced certain marginalizations because of his blatant learning disabilities, and his gender presentation.

the fire nation’s society is ruled by militarism, imperialism, and patriarchy. it values what are considered masculine traits and qualities (leadership, cold-thinking, self-control yet ruthlessness, strategy, emotional suppressing) above humanity, identity, personhood and femininity. the fact that the actual societies in real life that inspired the fire nation may not hold the same values is very likely, since this is a very western perspective, but this is what appears in the text, and the way it’s meant to be read.

so shown as a child and heavily hinted at throughout the show, zuko is deeply, loudly feminine in a way that other people can blatantly see and judge him based on it. his self-realization involves breaking free of this pressure he has on his back to be “more of a man” than his personality allows him to. he overperforms a lot of his aggressiveness – the part of it that isn’t born out of his rage, that is – and he lets his anger flow. he is certainly masculine in a fair amount of aspects, but many of his core traits are (in western society, yes, and within the show) associated with femininity, such as emotional expressiveness, empathy and compassion, gentleness, and kindness. femininity is perceived as weak, and zuko is therefore perceived as weak for displaying these traits from an early age and especially in contrast to azula, who by contrast displays many of the “masculine” traits mentioned above (albeit the feminine qualities she chooses to display is what makes her perfectionism — she can be feminine, but in a masculine way, it’s messy and it leads her to a mental breakdown we all know this part).

zuko doesn’t fit at all into the ideal of cold, detached version of masculinity that the fire nation preaches, which is what deteriorated his self-esteem and drove him to overperform his traditionally masculine traits out of desperation such as his commanding stance or getting really good at fighting people, or even as small as being stiff as hell when he wants to show vulnerability or show affection even towards his uncle. he did all of this in order to try and fit better into the mold of the man people told him he should be. but no matter how hard zuko worked to repress that core, fundamental part of himself over the course of the series, he was never able to stick to a cold, ruthless, detached mindset, or stick to the constrictions of masculinity like he is expected to as a prince and as a man. he’s always intentionally and unintentionally working towards being better, and struggles to suppress the softer parts of him constantly.

zuko’s relationship with mai (also known as ‘mai is a lesbian’).

it is no secret that zuko and mai’s relationship is a dysfunctional one. on the surface this is because of zuko’s inability (or lack of will, who’s to say) to understand mai as a person with feelings and thoughts and a life rather than a girlfriend. and while this is true, it is also true that mai was not able to be the person zuko needed at that particular moment in his life, as a girlfriend, friend or otherwise. they both feel trapped, restricted, and misunderstood by the respective expectations placed on them, by their families and the structure of the systematic power they later choose to go against, and the threats that will follow through if they don’t fulfill these expectations. they also project the worst parts of their respective struggles with the power structure of society on each other. their relationship throughout book three rings very true and up until they get back together for some reason.

regarding zuko’s character specifically, his inability to see mai as anything other than “girlfriend” rather than a person comes from the prospect of the term “girlfriend” is part of the oppression he faces back at the fire nation, rather than mai being a constricting and oppressive person herself (which she is not). their relationship to me reads very much like a lavender marriage, as this post very well puts it.

other miscellaneous gay shit <3

there are a lot of little gay moments that zuko has throughout the show. for example, he never cares when pretty girls are attracted to him or flirting with him, including jin and ty lee. his reaction to learning that sokka has a girlfriend is also. interesting. and of course, his reaction to being set up with mai when they were children is to scream “girls are crazy!”. hmm

the blue spirit is a gay thing like, thematically.

so uh. qed. zuko gay!

my (nour) personal favorite Zuko Moment is in the firebending masters when he stands and watches the rainbow fire surround him and he says, very softly and with feeling, ‘i understand’ which is where our beloved i understand tag comes from. as this post very well explains its significance, “(...) zuko has lived his whole life associating firebending with rage and power and violence, so when he lets go of rage and power and violence, he loses his ability to firebend. and this cannot be separated from the fire nation's (and therefore zuko's) views on masculinity; in the fire nation, fire bending is masculinity is aggression, and part of why zuko cared so much about being a powerful firebender is to prove that he was enough of a man. so, learning the sun warriors' form of firebending, which is based in warmth and love, also allows zuko (who is NOT STRAIGHT) to redefine his masculinity. (plus...... yknow.... the fire is rainbow..........)”