Zuko is not gay
angelnumeric asked: i always imagined the flame nation's attitude towards homosexuality to be similar to the roman empire's, especially in military settings, and if anything i figured the water tribes, with very rigid gender roles, would be the prejudiced ones. that being said, you think maybe some of ozai's abuse towards zuko, his 'soft, weak' son, might be based in homophobia? that he's not living up to gender roles?
Yes, I agree. Before I’ve heard about that LoK comics, I kind of mind the FN didn’t really care about who people had sex with as long as they did their patriotic duty and produced new, little fire-burping babies to feed the Empire military machine.
As for Ozai’s abuse - I know that many people read Zuko’s arc as an allegory for a coming-out story, and I think that’s a totally valid interpretation of his story, and I have absolutely no difficulty seeing Zuko being gay.
Now looking strictly at canon, Ozai’s expectations don’t seem to be gender-based at all. He expects the same efficient hostility, calculating, fear-based rule, blind loyalty from both of his children, regardless of gender. Zuko and Azula as f
Zuko: Gay? Italian homophobes believed so.
Hello guys/girls/variants 🤗
As the title explains I wanted to provide you a little both funny and sad fleeting story about some dumb Italians. When the first season (book) of Avatar:The Last Airbender was first aired in Italy in 2008, there was a big fuss about Zuko. Especially about his sexual orientation. It was such a scandal that some Christian organisations started petitions to stop the transmission of the series. And I know what youre thinking:
"BUT HE'S NOT GAY; WHY DID THEY TOUGHT THAT?"
Well, they said that:
A. he was exiled by his father because he "was a shame to his family" and "wasn't man enough" B. Iroh, his uncle, spent half of the season telling him that he shouldn't feel ashamed of what he is and what he feels and that he should "embrace his real self"
C. He was a drama queen, wich was a thing often associated with gay stereotypes
D. They knew that in the second season he refused to have effusions with two different girls
E. He rapresented "gay traits" like effeminated body features and that silly ponytail.
F. He was kinda obsessed with Aang
(And yes, they know that he did have Mai, but he left her to follo
mostly i think zuko’s hang out with jin informed the outside view that we have on zuko creature gay rather than it being a clue to zuko himself on how he’s gay. iroh pushes zuko to attend this date with jin because he’s mostly well meaningly trying to get zuko to do normal teenage boy stuff, go on dates and have pleasurable. as iroh is a heterosexual man, he fails to see zuko is a solid kinsey 6. or maybe he didn’t fail to see it at all and this date was his “this one can surely change him back” homophobic moment, who’s to say. however that is zuko behaves like a total asshole in front of this girl which has more to do with the fire nation’s misogyny & strict gender norms and zuko’s background both as a privileged prince and teenage boy survivor of abuse and with an attitude problem than with the fact that he’s gay. that entire cupon scene did actually occur bc he was queer tho, and that he didn’t show any intimate interest in jin but rather he’s kind in other ways, litting up the lanterns for her and all (that’s literally all i remember zuko did on that meet that was remotely friendly i hate him so much god bless).
i
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mudbend-deactivated20210716 asked:
I’m just really confused as to where this plan that Zuko is gaycoded came from. Like people are allowed to hold that headcanon but I don’t grasp where people are coming from when they try and claim that he was undisputedly gaycoded and trying to deny it is homophobic when he’s only ever shown romantic interest in women.
I made a pretty drawn-out post on the topic a while back, but the ultimate gist of it is this: there are a lot of elements of Zuko's status as an exploitation victim and trauma survivor that resonate with queer folks. This is understandable and completely fine! However, there are some parts of the fandom who have taken that to the other extreme and will now insist that those elements are uniquely queer, and that they can only be read as some sort of veiled gay/coming out narrative, even though that doesn't make much perception since there is no part of Zuko's narrative which is unique to any sort of queer experience.
I believe the problem really does stem from two things creature conflated--Zuko's history of abuse and trauma, and trauma&abuse organism something a lot of queer people have exper
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headcanons:
- I realize that there’s comic stuff about Sozin being homophobic, but I am within my rights to neglect it. If people can move rocks with their mind and if dragons can exist, there can be normalized gay people damn it.
- So it’s not really a big deal to question your sexuality or to be gay/bi, but within the Passion Nation upper class you don’t really talk about it. There’s a heteronormativity problem, but not offensive homophobia.
- When he’s younger, Zuko doesn’t really think about anyone like that. He’s got firebending training, sword training, and then he’s crowned prince all of a sudden, so he’s kind of got other stuff going on.
- Mai has a crush on him when she’s 12 and he’s 13 and he starts to develop some puppy-crush feelings from her.
- They do a cute pre-teen date where they perform with knives outside the palace and climb on roofs (Maiko does parkour on their dates, I don’t make the rules)
- Mai’s really the only person he’s had feelings for by this point (again, he’s 13 and he’s been pretty busy existence a prince and all to think about that sort of thing)
- Then the whole banishment thing happens and he real