#soooo many DOBS asks

[seyaryminamoto]

What do you think would happen if Zuko killed Ozai with the redirected lightning bolt in the Day of Black Sun?

... Hehe. You know, it��s weird but I was thinking about this not that long ago?

In my opinion, Zuko should have wanted to kill Ozai in DOBS. I know he says it’s Aang’s destiny to kill Ozai and all, but in many ways that reasoning strikes me as odd for his character, since Zuko isn’t all that spiritual and at this point he hasn’t been shown genuinely accepting “destiny” as a reason to do or not do something or another. It’s not that it’s wrong for him to choose not to kill Ozai here... but the thing is, he’s adamant that Ozai has to die in the finale. He’s basically shown forcing his new friend to accept that he MUST kill Zuko’s dad. Then when Ozai doesn’t die, Zuko tells his dad that he should be “grateful” that the Avatar spared him... despite Zuko knows, since the start of that debate, that Aang has no intentions of killing Ozai if he can find another way to stop him.

Ergo, to me, it’s a weird situation where Zuko pretty much seems to elect destiny as something to abide by at this stage conveniently because, if he doesn’t, the story would’ve ended too quickly. Maybe it wasn’t about destiny at all, and maybe he’s just afraid of fighting Ozai. Maybe he’s not afraid at all, but rather, he still has some lingering affection towards his father even if he knows he shouldn’t, and can’t bring himself to kill him. Whatever the reason, I’d honestly have written him willing to kill Ozai, probably with a fierce fight where we could’ve seen more of Ozai’s talent as a fighter before the firebending comes back, and then how scary a firebender he is once it does. Let Zuko fight him some more once the firebending returns, show Zuko has changed from the boy who wouldn’t dare stand up to his father at full strength... would’ve been a nice message to put forward, you can absolutely become strong enough, on every level, to confront someone who hurt you as much as Ozai hurt Zuko. Would it have been violent? Yes, but it would’ve felt a little more satisfactory for me, tbh. Maybe they could’ve had Zuko running away when he hears Ozai’s backup is arriving and he knows he has to scram or else he’s going to get screwed over...

Aaaanyways, beyond my personal take on how that scene could’ve gone down, I don’t partiiicularly like bringing up this other fandom or this topic, I know it’s super controversial and I’m basically inviting a thousand people to come pelt me with stones by saying this... but if Zuko had killed Ozai? Whether willingly, deliberately or accidentally...?

... We’d actually be in a situation similar to Kylo Ren’s in The Last Jedi.

That movie is a dangerous thing to mention for enough reasons, but the one writing element I kind of liked was for Kylo Ren to actually take action when he did, murdering Snoke and becoming the actual leader of the First Order. I liked it because it meant he was the one in charge now, he’s no longer hiding behind another big scary figure, he’s The Big Bad to defeat, and it was a good choice because he’s the villainous character we’d seen throughout the movies so far. Snoke... he was pretty much a nobody, a nothing. If Kylo Ren took over instead, we’d actually get to see who he was, deep down...! And we saw indeed that the guy was still spewing some very harmful ideologies and vitriol when he had killed the guy who apparently had kept him brainwashed since his teenage years. So, indoctrination or not, Kylo Ren wasn’t simply given a clean slate once Snoke is dead, and is shown to have some pretty violent ideas going forward as leader of the First Order. I of course had common sense and never watched The Rise of Skywalker, but finding out that Palpatine was resurrected to lower Kylo’s standing, YET AGAIN, rather than actually exploring Kylo as the ultimate bad guy, felt like a very very boring cop-out to me. Extra reason not to watch that movie.

Obviously, Zuko’s development was much longer than Kylo’s, at this stage. Zuko has had a lot more growth, many more situations where he confronted his own choices and decisions, and more than that, Zuko has Iroh guiding him on a different, hopefully better path. Therefore, I don’t expect that Zuko would’ve taken over and become Ozai 2.0, if he’d killed Ozai, the way Kylo was Snoke 2.0, more or less. But I’ll say... I do think he would’ve become Fire Lord at this point, after killing Ozai.

And man, what a mess of a character he’d be by then. It’s entirely possible this highly indoctrinated nation would either want him dead for killing Ozai... or they’d outright celebrate him for killing Ozai, since that’s a major display of strength and violence and they think that’s neat :’D and it would be hilarious and amazing because Zuko has NO IDEA what to do as Fire Lord. He’d have a thousand sudden responsibilities and no clue how to take them on, he’d have a whole army under his command, and he’d probably want to end the war but if he does, they’re gonna turn on HIM! So... it’s honestly pretty intriguing to ponder what would happen to a Zuko who pulls a page out of Ozai’s book and kills daddy dearest xD Whether you want to see Zuko going off the deep end of villainy, Kylo Ren style, or a Zuko genuinely struggling with how to reel the Fire Nation back into control after a hundred years of indoctrination, it’d be one hell of a story to explore. I’m certainly not the right person to explore it, I’m sooooo not cut out for Zuko-centric content, but it’d be pretty amazing to ponder how things would turn out with Zuko in power well before the show reached its ending and Sozin’s Comet arrived. Would we have a Zuko vs. Aang showdown that ends with the power of friendship winning the day? xD would have probably been a little weird, but who’s to say it would’ve sucked? 

Anyway, it’s a complicated topic and I guess there’s a million different directions worth exploring with this premise, so I’d say a writer should just pick one such direction and go from there? Like I said, I’m not likely to explore this, but it’s an interesting premise nonetheless.