Zuko: Well, that sweet little kid grew up to be a monster, and the worst father in the history of fathers.

Aang: But, He’s still a human being.

I’m not trying to defend Ozai or anything (And he’s the flattest character in Avatar, so it would be useless to draw a comparison I think. That, and he’s barely redeemable, no matter what Zuko told him in in his cell at the end of the series.), but I was just thinking about this moment, and it hit me: Zuko doesn’t realize how easily that line could be applied to himself—his past self anyway. Zuko knows he had a sense of humanity, that’s what got him banished in the first place. But, he forgets what happened when he revealed his identity in “Zuko Alone,” and Katara’s chastising him in “The Crossroads of Destiny.”

They didn’t see a youth with a complex history. They saw a scarred monster filled with rage, and anger, bent on causing more pain and destruction. They saw the continuation of a lineage that has caused nothing but pain, and suffering for the last hundred years.

Yet, despite Zuko chasing him across the world, Aang saved him not one, but twice. The first time being in “The Blue Spiri”t (saving Zuko so he didn’t get captured by Zhao), and the second time being in “The Siege of of the North Part 2″ (bringing Zuko back to the Water Tribe so he didn’t freeze to death).



Why?

Because Aang understood the truth…he was still a human being.