Netflix's live-action reboot of The Netflix take on Avatar is set to tell its story of the young Avatar Aang (Gordon Cormier) over eight one-hour-long episodes, with Dallas Liu portraying Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation. While Netflix's Avatar offers an excellent opportunity to move the franchise into far better live-action storytelling territory than the dreadful failure of 2010's The Last Airbender, it can also provide a fresh take on some aspects of Nickelodeon's original Avatar animated series itself.
One such area could be via the event that brought about Zuko's downfall and started him on his long path to redemption, the Agni Kai Firebending match with his father, Fire Lord Ozai. In the Avatar animated series, Aang's eventual best friend Zuko objected to a Fire Nation military strategy because of the peril it would put the soldiers in. This led to him being summoned to an Agni Kai, only to unexpectedly discover it was his father would be facing in combat.
The fear-stricken Zuko begged for his father's forgiveness, only for Ozai to cruelly burn his son's face and banish him from the Fire Nation with his Uncle Iroh, only allowing them to return if they capture the Avatar. Netflix's Avatar will surely go into Zuko's motivation to capture Aang to reclaim his honor and return home, but flipping how Zuko responds to the Agni Kai itself could make for an intriguing change. As a poignant contrast, the Netflix reboot of Avatar could instead show Zuko defiantly standing his ground against the merciless Fire Lord Ozai only to be defeated, which could work for the show in a few different ways.
Netflix's Avatar Can Show Zuko's Banishment From A Different Angle
Zuko's terrified reaction to facing Ozai in an Angi Kai is entirely understandable. As Zuko points out, he was simply speaking to protect the Fire Nation's troops, and even more importantly, he was still a teenager wanting and needing his father's love. Even still, Avatar showed Zuko as a very skilled Firebending warrior, and Netflix's reboot could play up this side of him to make his defeat and exile the products of both youthful hubris and adolescent rebellion on his part.
In this particular instance, Zuko's rebellion against his tyrannical father would be completely justified as a stand against Ozai's megalomaniacal corruption of Firebending. On the other side of the coin, Netflix's version of Zuko could show the young Fire Prince as heading into the Agni Kai excessively assured of himself and underestimating his father. With Zuko's banishment from the Fire Nation already being the ultimate humiliation, going this route could compound that with Zuko blaming himself for letting his pride get the best of him.
Zuko's story is indispensable to the essence of Avatar, but while already a powerful redemption arc and hero's journey on the original show, the Netflix reboot could re-imagine elements of Zuko's tale to fit its own tone. In using the idea of Zuko getting ahead of himself and trying to hold his own with his more skilled father before he was ready, Netflix's Avatar: The Last Airbender could flip Zuko's backstory while adding additional nuance to an already beloved Avatar character.