Evaluating Zuko’s Redemption - Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism & Avatar: The Last Airbender

How much explosion will compensate for a movie ending that you don’t understand? Bonus points if you answer in Michael Bays.

I like your analysis of the “cultural uncanny valley” if you watch a few anime shows in a row and then jump to Avatar it’s literally hard to look at

Do a video like this with Star Wars, that has a lot of eastern philosophy in it too

Taoist ending would of been my favorite.

I guess I can't have been a westerner in my previous birth, because not only I would have liked all three potential alternative redemption arcs very much but indeed would have enjoyed each and every one of them more than I did canon.

This is really interesting and discusses things I've thought about but never verbalized. People champion Avatar for its authentic Asian influences but it always been apparent to me that the core values in the show are not surprisingly western oriented. It's part of the reason why I think Korra wasn't as well received, the shroud that hides the western influence is more transparent.

I think the Taoist section misses a big theme of at least the Tao Te Ching. It is in many ways an investigation into how a society should be ruled, which in some ways places Zuko in the perfect position to enact those Taoist principals of leadership.

I loved the original. It’s pretty interesting to learn that the show isn’t as Asian as we thought. It’s a White Americanized view of Asian philosophies. American Southern Black Baptist viewpoint…. the kids were to disrespectful and mouthy and this anime would’ve never cut it in a Black Southern household.

The Confucianism ending is really the only one I like, but honestly I think I like it more than the original ending.

The taoist ending actually sounds pretty cool

Air benders always seemed like Buddhist to me

Confucianism = savage misogyny

As a Christian I can't help but notice that you lack understanding of Christianity but that's OK I don't see Zuko's redemtion as being connected at all to Christianity. Rather it's drawn from a Platonic dualism that underlies a lot of Western thought, especially among those who see themselves as "spiritual but not religious".
As for the three versions of the story that you proposed. I really like the Confusion and Budhist versions but the Taoist version left me a bit disapointed.
If the story had been done from a truely Christian perspective, Zuko should've undergone a religious awakening and conversion experience. He would have to make a confession of his sins and a vow to change himself. And he would have to adopt a religion because in Christianity, humans are totally unable to redeme themselves by their own actions. They must have spiritual help.

I know this is a year old, but I'm going to answer the question of what I think about these proposed alterations anyway. For reference, I'm an American, so like the target audience of Last Airbender as it currently exists.

Confucianism: It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Ozai in the show is kind of a monster, & I think this expectation goes too easy on him because of his privileged position as both the Fire Lord & the patriarch of the family while putting too much responsibility on Zuko to reform someone who did nothing but abuse him. In principle, the idea that Ozai would get a second chance to be a good father with Azula is interesting, but he'd basically be a different character if that actually worked. Which is another problem I have with this: What do you do if the person is not open to being reformed? I do like the idea of sending Ozai to live in a temple. That part I think actually fits better with the Air Nomad idea of justice, & it would still serve as a kind of ironic punishment that I think we tend to look for.

Buddhism: I was skeptical of the idea of Zuko becoming a monk at first, but you got very close to selling me on it with the idea of him being the first New Air Nomad. I can even work with reworking the magic system. It would slightly change the dynamics of Legend of Korra Book 1, but I think you could still have the Equalist Conflict with benders viewing nonbenders as lazy & nonbenders questioning the idea that they have to do a zillion years of martial arts training to be equal in society. But I'm getting sidetracked. Ultimately, the reason I can't fully accept this pitch is that I don't see how this resolves the political situation of the Fire Nation.

Taoism: I don't think I even understood what you said here. At first, it sounded like you were saying he would do nothing, which would seem pretty boring, but then you said he would be more like Iroh, going to live in peace after helping to save the world. The thing is that I think that resolution is more appropriate for Iroh. Again, something has to be done to resolve the situation in the Fire Nation, & it's hard to see Aang imposing change from on outside while people just accept it.

So, I do have to say that I prefer the canon ending. I don't like the Confucian one very much at all. Buddhist & Taoist are alright, but they each feel like something is missing. I don't think the canon is necessarily beyond improvement either, like Legend of Korra goes a step further by addressing that the perpetuation of autocracy itself is the problem, but I do think the Last Airbender ending ties up the important threads to the central conflict.

Personally, I would have preferred an ending with Azula attempting to usurp. She was already on that path. Also, had there been a Zuko v Ozai and Aang v Azula final fight(s), I think it would have been a nicer close to the series. Zuko would reform his family, as stated, but he would also gain respect and redemption. Azula had Aang in many predicaments because she is cunning. She's more of a mastermind than her father and thereby more threatening. I get that he is a kid and mostly doing what the spirts say to do, but he would appear wiser to see that Azula is more dangerous. I also get that to an extent the plot was for zuko to overcome and defeat his evil sister, but he doesn't even beat her, iirc, it was Katara. He could not beat her without help, which isn't a bad thing in itself, but felt underwhelming. He was constantly mocked and taunted by her because he just isn't as innately talented as she is.

I feel like the Confucian and Buddhist endings would have been the best (and I like the idea of changing bending to not be genetic, but rather come down to how hard you worked at it). The Taoist ending, however, would have just felt unfulfilling. Sure, we can smile a bit at Zuko living on his own terms, but to me that's just not as cool as him actively pursuing actions that undo the wrong he's helped spread in the world.

I like the Confucian story, but I don't think both the Fire Lord and Azula actually getting redemption at the end would work. I can see it more likely being that Ozai needs to be locked up (after losing his bending), and we get Zuko slowly leading him to the light of redemption over the course of many years. I like the idea of Azula going patricidal and being the final enemy they need to face, and think that a slow redemption over many years would make sense for her too.

Caveat: I can't speak for any of these perspectives, so whether or not I'd have a different idea is a matter of debate between myself, the perspectives in question, and God the Father (maker of all things). That said, my comments going forward are going to be some weird mix of my opinion and what you describe here.

Confucian: I do enjoy a good, well-told redemption story, so maybe it's possible that one where the entire family gets redeemed, not just Zuko, could have as much appeal as the one we got.

Buddhist: Not really sure I can see how becoming a monk would be a good ending, since it leaves the world with too many unknowns.

Taoist: I can possibly see the appeal to this, but again, it leaves too many unknowns in terms of what happens after.

Glad this showed up on my feed again. I was trying to think if there were any examples of the "cultural uncanny valley" phenomenon you discussed that westerners could relate to. I think I came up with one. The anime Aggretsuko on Netflix. It has many of the trappings of an American cynical adult animated comedy, but Retsuko as a character is very unlike the typical American adult comedy protagonist.

I think one thing almost all comedy protagonists in American have in common is that they're a big presence in the lives of the people around them. As Smithers in The Simpsons once pointed out to Mr. Burns, all the major events of Mr. Burns' lives revolve around Homer in some way. This is true whether they're a chaotic force of nature who does whatever they want, or a more uptight character like Hank Hill. Either way, they have a big impact on the world in everything they do.

Retsuko is not like that at all. She spends much of the show doing what she's supposed to do and going along with other peoples' ideas for her. The fact that Retsuko is someone whose life revolves around other people instead was a bit surprising and confusing to me when I first watched the show. It wasn't how I expected a death metal girl to be at all.

I can only hope a channel like this would exist but for western media and philosophy! It would be grand if someone smarter than me could explain how classic philosophy has shaped western stories and thought, like the works of Boethius, Thomas Aquinas, or even Chaucer.

your good, I am glad Accented cinema directed me here

You also have to take in the psychological aspects of the characters into account with your Confucian retelling, would it work in smoothly enough to not make the overall story of Avatar fall flat. The reason for being is because Azula is already and she herself has admitted to being a monster, she also would never betray her father. When she was little she was highly favored as the prodigal offspring of the Fire Nation by her grandfather Azulon and Ozai. She was gifted, powerful, intelligent, cruel, beautiful, and showed the same tyrannical machiavellian behavior as father. I'm not saying that the Confucian retelling is bad, I'm saying how would it work when the two characters that are trying to reform under that narrative are too far gone?

Anything her father and his predecessors did that were cruel and unjust, Azula saw as righteous and for the betterment for the Fire Nation, anything Ozai did was for his own benefit and absolute world domination by any means necessary.

I do not see how a Confucian retelling would setup nicely since Azula and Ozai are so psychologically warped, and in some Western story telling where a King or Lord is overthrown by their offspring they are sometimes killed, so Ozai being jailed instead of being killed is a much better outcome for him. Also it was smart of Zuko to have the Avatar to deal with Ozai since it is the Avatars sole role to bring peace and balance to the world, Zuko dealing with his father would have been more frowned upon by his people instead.

However even if Zuko did deal with his father or not his ascension to the thrown was met with opposition in the beginning anyway in the comic books.

Great break down. Regarding your question at the end, I'm Jewish and my one nitpick is that like many Jews I really don't like the term 'Judeo-Christian'. It erases the fact that Judaism is very different from Christianity. In fact, the Confusian version you laid out is much closer to a Jewish 'redemption arc' (teshuva) than the Christian version in the original. From the idea that people are inherently good to how Zuko never gave a proper apology. Filial piety really isn't a thing in Judaism, but which is of course a really big difference. In a teshuva story, instead of confronting Ozai, Zuko would go back to places he had harmed people -- not just Aang, but the southern water tribe, earth kingdom villages, etc, and make direct restitution for the harm done. The arc ends when he is given a chance to make the same mistake again -- betray someone who trusts him for personal benefit -- and does the right thing.

A really ambitious take would expand it to a teshuva arc for the fire nation as a whole.

As odd as the filial piety thing is, I think I'd have liked the Confusian version a lot better than the original. The ending of the taoist version resonates with me as well, partly on a personal 'why would he ever want to be fire lord' level. But also that the closest thing Judaism has to filial piety would really require Zuko to go look for his mother and offer her help if she needed it.

I'm a Buddhist living in the West. I'm part of the Vietnamese diaspora. One thing that I've noticed about Western Buddhists (I'm speaking very generally) is that there seems to be a fixation on Buddhism and mindfulness. They really secularize Buddhism removing elements like samsara, moksha, bodhisattva, etc. and focus on the secular benefits of mindfulness meditation for mental health, you can even see this in the show with the episode The Guru. This is a common thing in a lot of modern day shows like with Steven universe, there was an entire episode on mindfulness meditation. This was a really interesting video and I really appreciated how thorough you were with exploring different schools of thought!

The thing between Mencius and Xunzi is that in the end result in both cases people become good. For Mencius because they have always been, for Xunzi because they reflect their evilness and improve themselves. For Yang Xiong the people become what they cultivate: goodness or evilness. It was a big debate in the end about nuances inside Confucianism

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Taoism makes for the most boring plots lol.

MAN this video is so good.

How has no comment mentioned the tale of Vinegar Tasters yet

"You don't go to an icecream shop to get sushi"

You say that, but in my small town, we had 3 (three!) entire ice-cream parlors pivot entirely to asian or asian themed foods. One sells Sushi, one does Hawiian Pokebowls, and a third just does normal ass chinese take out.

And all three of them kept their ice cream themed names lol

This makes me wonder what Hindus think of Aang's ending because it's essentially the opposite of the Bhagavad Gita.

The issues with Zuko being the one to defeat Ozai is that it's not his place. It's Aangs, as the Avatar he's the only one with the literal divine right to stop Ozai. However I do like the idea of Ozai being sent to a temple. Have that be Zukos idea and have Ozai meditate and be philosophically confronted with Aang.

Being a southeast asian, I loved this series and doesn't feel the uncanny valley. Well, that's because this show is not set in southeast asia and there are no Southeast Asian culture really existed here. The world of avatar the last airbender is at best Chinese which is why southeastern and indian may not get the uncanny valley feeling.

I was a kid when i watched this show and loved it, still loved it today (disliked the ending and still do, sorry). Now that i am older, i still loved the series since it was indeed one of the best adventure story out there but now i can feel the uncanny valley you are talking about because i have grown more familiar with Chinese and Japanese culture through entertainment media and literature. I have been reading a lot of Romance of the three kingdom since i am a fan of the game and the TV series and interested in both Chinese and Japanese historical dramas to make sure i can absorb different values and way of thinking so that one day if i decided to become a writer, my stories will not be so linear.

Long story short, I prefer the Confucian retelling but the Taoist ending is good too it is simple and it give Zuko a break after his long and twisted journey.

For Zuko had took an active part in reforming his father was what I was expecting somewhere along the progression of the show but it never came to that.

Despite my previous comment, I'd love to see a comparison of the Matrix to eastern literature and concepts cause it always seemed moer like an eastern film than a western one to me, with 'enlightenment' coming through self-discovery and discovery of the world, albeit with the 'cultivation' part sped up by having kung fu downloaded rather than practiced.

Culture is often over-emphasised as a reason for differences between countries. Airbender's lack of popularity in the East could be due to any number of difficult to observe factors from poor marketing to bad translation, bad dub, smaller population, etc. People love to turn to vague ideas like culture but that doesn't mean it's correct.

Also, Game of Thrones was very popular in the East despite not having these eastern concepts like filial piety or Dao. Indeed, one of the big storylines in that show is the redemption arc of Jamie Lannister (who killed his father to prevent a massacre of civilians).

So, Titus Manlius might have been considered a villain by Confucian standards?

While dualism is not the best way to describe the relation of good and evil in Christianity, as they are not considered equally powerful or important, you make very interesting points in this video. As an European from Croatia, the Confucian way would seem very similar to how people here would want a story to end. Filial piety and family relations in our culture is very respected, but it is equally expected from the father to cherish and take care of his son as it is from the son to respect his father. The political side of it is not as pronounced here, in a neighbouring country of a different type of Christianity some kings even killed their fathers, though they were harshly criticized for it, but respected for other merits they had, but it's too long for one comment. In some way, the firelord being under house arrest would seem like he got off easy for people here, but it would not be too scandalous. The Buddhist way would be strange as monkhood here is considered a vocation and a man becoming a monk is expected to feel called to it, but many in history pursued it to reduce the amount of mouths to feed in a household, which is not ideal, but not strange either. In that way, being told by someone else to become a monk would seem strange, but widows and even retired rulers sometimes went to monasteries, like the emperor Charles V. The Taoist way could seem similar to the way of St Benedict or a homesteader, but the person would not do it for the same reasons. The belief is that doing good in small things is equally important as in large things, and it would reduce temptation of the material world, Zuko doing it would be considered somewhat cowardly here as he has the knowledge and the ability to help, as well as personal relation to the conflict, but it would not be expected of an unrelated person to get involved. While I could write more, this is already a lot of text and I hope I helped explain the basics of how our culture would see it at least.

Popular in Philippines. Guess we are the crossroad of east and west.

I like the original ending but I wouldn't question the Confucius ending due to my Vietnamese background although coloured by my experience of being born in Canada, the Buddhist ending would be surprising since it a American show and I wasn't aware of Buddhist teaching and the Taoist ending would be strange since it doesn't resembling anything I seen as a child and I would be not sure if i liked or dislike the ending of the show.

Wow! Love this video. Always love watching your work man. Keep this up.

I think a mixed ending would have been better. zuko attempts a 2nd redemption arch and looses his claim spends time reconcile his affairs as an exile and iroh+company are panicking trying to consolidate power.

This video contained a wealth of information regarding East Asian cultural values.
I'm from the Philippines, where Confucian/Buddhist values of filial piety, loyalty to government, and societal harmony were brought over by Chinese merchants from Vietnam/Thailand, the Malay archipelago, and southern China (mainly through Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan.) We probably had some form of these values before contact with China, but the Chinese definitely had a big impact on how we normalize these things in the Philippines today.

Also, the Philippines is the largest Christian country in Asia. The ideas of good vs. evil, divine intervention, and respect for the environment as an alternate framework for the image of God are also familiar to us. We live in the cultural uncanny valley, so to speak. 😅

Oooh I love this video. I agree Zuko's arc is fantastically executed but I am weary of people discussing it as the only right way to do a villain to hero or self-improvement arc.

I think anglosphere onscreen storytelling is stuck in a redemption/punishment binary, so I'd like to see more Taoist influenced arcs. I've definitely noticed westerners reacting with confusion to endings in (usually) anime where the antagonist is allowed to retire without making amends or being punished.

I was surprised to learn how similair Confucianism's redemption story beats are to the popular idea of a "proper" redemption arc in western discussions, minus the familial loyalty.

Any of these could have been told well with some tweaks imo. The characters and writers were good enough to make it compelling.

I think it's also important to note the anti-imperialist themes in Avatar. The fire nation is a criticism of America from Americans, granted the themes also apply to imperialist nations gernally. It provides context for good vs evil dynamic, as many times it's also oppressed vs oppressor.

The Daoist catharsis is the one I can most closely adhere to, however I disagree with the fat guy opinion not using his entire life even to save the world. And that's why communism is a superior religion/philosophy to Daoism.

Similarly the Ruist version is completely wasted for not being cultural revolutionary enough, saving evil dads is clearly overrated. In my experience you cannot redeem your parents: age makes them stubborn and arrogant. You may not be able to redeem anyone but it gets much more impossible with old people, as they can't change anymore (and that's why nature kills them, us, because I'm also getting old). Filial piety ruins confucianism, making it too medieval, too patriarchal.

Buddhism? I didn't understand that part nor was able to discern it from Christian.

Have to say this... it's never said or pointed at that the magic system is genetic-based in the series. I personally think it has more to do with the culture in which they were raised. the magic system also isn't really clear if someone can bend more than 1 element (looking at you lava bender), only that the avatar could bend 4 elements due to being reïncarnated every time.

Amazing video. Thanks a looootttt.